SPEAKOUT

Ministers with other jobs

IT'S VERY disheartening to me to see how many church pastors and their wives are involved in private businesses. Our churches need full time spiritual leaders ministering to the congregation and the community. When these folks accepted their positions, some in very large churches, did they plan to be in direct competition with members of their church? I understand that some smaller churches cannot support their pastors. Maybe some of them need to focus more on ministry and less on just getting rich.

Where's the service?

I WENT to the IRS office to pick up tax forms I needed to comply with our current tax law. What I found was that unless you go to the IRS office on Monday or Tuesday, you cannot even ask a person a question. No taxpayer assistance is provided on any other day except Monday or Tuesday. What I want for my tax dollars is what the name falsely implies. And that is s-e-r-v-i-c-e.

Canada cozy with Cuba

WHEN CANADA'S top official gets together with Fidel Castro in Cuba, we'd better sit up and take notice or maybe even shake in our shoes. There's something wrong here.

Children in beauty pageants

MY DAUGHTER was in beauty pageants from the time she was 12 years old until she was 18. Then she was in talent contests. During all of those years, I and her older sister traveled with her to every beauty pageant in this entire country, and I've got all the trophies in the basement to prove that she was a winner. But while we were traveling around, I saw with my own eyes some mothers hit little bitty children, 4 and 6 years old, with curling irons or with irons if they didn't perform exactly right. I do believe that this Mrs. Ramsey, having been in a beauty pageant herself, might have been punishing that child for possibly not having made the right turn or the right move at the right time in the beauty pageant because I've seen it with my own eyes how some of these mothers abuse these children in these beauty pageants.

Ebonics not a language

EBONICS IS not a language. It's not even a part of a language. It's a word somebody made up. They took it from the word "ebony" which means black. There is no such thing. No such language as ebonics.

Kinder and the EPA

IT IS disheartening to me that Peter Kinder doesn't understand why the EPA finds it necessary to have strict air quality standards. Peter, people are smarter than you think.

A case of extortion

YOU CAN say what YOU want about Dennis Rodman, but in the heat of the game when he kicked that cameraman, one could see the word lawsuit written all over the injured party's face. To me, what he did was hardly different than the Cosby case of extortion. Basically, the cameraman for wounded pride extorted $200,000 from Dennis Rodman. Doesn't that figure?

The hillbilly language

IT'S VERY hard for me to understand ebonics. But even harder is to understand the stupidity of some hillbilly dee-jay on the radio talking like some barnyard buffoon.

City should run water plant

THE CITY of Cape Girardeau should operate its water plant. If the city keeps on hiring or bidding out the operation of the plant, it will never get out debt. Plus added taxes to taxpayers to run the plant. Very poor business is what they're doing right now.

Repairs a return on taxes

GLAD TO see that there should be some repairs to Cape's street gutters and curbs plus some sidewalks. It took a long time to finally get something done to help the taxpayers to see a return on paid taxes.

Thanks for plowing snow

THERE'S A certain man outside the town of Pocahontas by the name of Alan. We'd just like to say thank you. He comes into town and plows out the driveways, and I just want to say a special thank you and God bless you.

Columns has good suggestion

SAM BLACKWELL'S column: Thank you, Sam. We so need a change in the politicians way. Wouldn't a reform in his suggested manner be helpful?

Deal with troublemakers

THIS IS to the congratulate to the Scott City Schools. They made a comment about the kids need to get more involved with the school activities. Well, sports isn't everything. Church, family time and listening to your children mean a lot, and this is what makes the growth of the family and love. The hallways aren't safe at our school anymore. There are too many fights, and the troublemakers just get slapped on the hands and expelled and they come back and they do the same thing to the same kids over and over just to harass them and to get them aroused to try to get them to fight. So why not do something about this? Help the kids who don't start the trouble, who stay out of trouble. They're starting to feel like no one cares and nobody wants them there or they're just there to be fought with by the troublemakers. So why not do something, school? Get the other families involved.