SPEAKOUT

Parenthood and the justice system

I'M CALLING in response to divorced fathers and their rights as being a parent. I think it's a travesty of justice that a person's ability as a parent should be judged solely in his or her gender, and I find that to be truly evident in our present justice system. I think it's a disservice to the children to give them to an inferior parent based on gender per se. The better parent may very well be the father who happens to be male, or the better parent may be female. However, I don't think a judge or any system of any sort should be based solely on gender. I think that's unethical. I think that's unjust, and I would hope that our system of justice would come up with a new standard of total equality. And I would hope any judge in deciding any custody issue whatsoever would look at the parent's ability to be a parent, because we really wouldn't want our children with the inferior parent if the superior parent would happen to be male.

Workers affected by part-time labor

I'D LIKE to say that I've been reading in the paper about Fru-Con losing its contract with P&G to Manpower Temporary Services. I think it's really a shame. I'm a big follower of Rush Limbaugh and a conservative Republican, but I think American business has way too much power right now, and I really hope the union makes a resurgence to protect the workers. A lot of the workers are really suffering because of the part-time workers and workers who have no benefits. I work in health care, and the situation there for the worker is not very good at all.

Car phones are unsafe on the road

WHO ARE you safer with on the road: a drunk driver or a person who's jabbering on a car phone?

Give City Hall back to the school district

I HAVE heard that the city of Cape Girardeau is going to purchase the bank building at Main and Broadway. If that is true, the city could move out of the Lorimier School building at 401 Independence so it could be used as a school building instead of building a new school building. It was built as a school building originally. If the city of Cape has any idea to save Cape taxpayers any money, they should return the Lorimier building to Cape's school system instead of building a new school building and save the taxpayers the cost.

Election campaigns and starving children

I WOULD like to make a comment on Glenn Poshard's position. He claims he wants a clean election and everything. Why is it when the Democrats want to have a clean election they don't mention anything about the starving children, but when the Republicans run in an election, they condemn them and say they're going to starve the children. It's the Democrats who run a dirty election.

Put a four-way stop at Bertling and Sprigg

I SURE wish they would put a four-way stop at Bertling and Sprigg before someone gets killed.

I'VE READ so much about the floodwall at Cape Girardeau and about the pictures on it. I'd like to bring it to the people's attention that the taxpayers paid to have the wall put in. I believe it should be put in front of the voters whose pictures go up on the floodwall, and that would stop all this. We're not in Russia, and the way they're putting everybody's pictures up there sounds like we're living in Russia. And if the voters don't want it up there, I don't think it should go up there. Let's be fair to the people who paid for the floodwall.