SPEAKOUT

NOTICE: Beginning Sunday and for all of the followin gweek, Speak Out will be devoted entirely to calls in the spirit of Random Acts of Kindness Week. Only calls that are in the spirit of acts of kindness will be transcribed starting with today's calls and continuing through next Thursday, May 15. Thank you for your participation.

Irresponsible actions

THIS IS a message for those who invade others' privacy with their boom boxes and who flip their cigarettes in others' yards. And who's fault it is? Parents who don't teach manners and ethics, public schools that don't teach basic relationship skills and college professors who daren't be too hard on irresponsible students because they're customers whose parents pay their salaries.

Auction items needed

SEMO ALLIANCE is in need of donations of small household furniture or small saleable items to use for their annual auction, the proceeds of which go to Project Access. This helps with home modifications for our area people with disabilities. Anything you may have been saving for a garage sale would be a wonderful Random Act of Kindness for people with disabilities in our community. Please call 651-6464 for further information.

Radical fringe group

THE ACLU has done more than any other single organization to drive our nation into the chaos and crime of this modern age, yet it has the gall to stand up for criminals' rights in court. It calls itself mainstream, but the ACLU is a radial fringe group pressing the immoral, anti-Christian laws and values of the Far Left in our country today.

Response to comments

I'D LIKE to respond to a few of the recent comments. First of all, I'd like to respond to the vet of two wars. President Clinton will be remembered as the president who realized that there are many proud Americans, both gays and women, who have much to contribute to our nation's defense and/or its implementation of its foreign policies. As a gay Persian Gulf veteran, both decorated and Gulf-syndrome disabled, I would know this interpretation of the Bible. How can the love of God be misinterpreted? Are we not taught to love our neighbor? He created us all, and he loves us, imperfect as we all are. And regarding the boycotting of "Ellen," the only say I have to say to that person, "Buy a vowel, get a clue." And I'd like to thank you all for offering Cape Girardeau and beyond the opportunity to voice our opinions so that the minorities like gays and lesbians can be heard.

Leadership at issue

I READ in the paper about the debate by the Jackson School Board over whether to pay $10,000 for a 1991 service truck or $14,000 for a new one. What a no-brainer of a decision. Where's the leadership by the chair of that board? Let's get on with the important issues of supporting education and instruction.

No more scare tactics

I WAS reading the Southeast Missourian. The article on county planning and zoning caught my attention. I am so tired of the members of the county planning and zoning committee trying to scare everyone by saying without planning and zoning regulation, anyone can open a landfill or hog farm. The EPA regulates these things. So please, no more scare tactics. We voters are not as stupid as you may think.

Let's have a tour too

I WOULD like to comment on the beautiful azalea and dogwood tour down in Charleston. It was just beautiful. We have gone down two years. This year we enjoyed it more because they didn't have as many of the streets blocked off. You could see more. I wish Cape would start something like this. We have lots of natural white and pink dogwood trees in town and quite a few azaleas. I think the city could promote planting them, maybe in parks, and we could start something like this and have something that would be beautiful and worthwhile.

Judge says judge was right

I'M CALLING from out of town, but I was in Cape Girardeau and read about a gentleman who had been picked up and arrested for failure to appear in court. I am an attorney, a former judge in Missouri, and I am very proud of Judge Calvin for holding the law to everyone. Just because apparently this gentleman was a past board president of Southeast Missouri State University and apparently has a little money doesn't give him the right to be better than everyone else. I praise Judge Calvin.