OpinionJune 14, 1996
SPEAKOUT
I WAS very disappointed to see that a man from halfway across the country who donated his bone marrow to save the life of an infant girl from Dutchtown got a black-and-white photo and story on Page 10 while a woman who ran over her 4-year-old son with a lawn mower causing the boy to have to undergo multiple surgeries, physical therapy and relearn the basic skill of walking gets a story on Page 1 and Page 6 with more photos. ...
Story didn't belong on Page 1
I WAS very disappointed to see that a man from halfway across the country who donated his bone marrow to save the life of an infant girl from Dutchtown got a black-and-white photo and story on Page 10 while a woman who ran over her 4-year-old son with a lawn mower causing the boy to have to undergo multiple surgeries, physical therapy and relearn the basic skill of walking gets a story on Page 1 and Page 6 with more photos. Yes, I think the story of the little boy's battle to recover from such injuries may be interesting, but considering the circumstances involved I think Page 1 was very inappropriate.
Remembering D-Day
I DON'T believe I saw anything at all in the paper about D-Day. Maybe because it's been 51 years people think we ought to forget it. But let us always remember that so many of them gave up all of their tomorrows so we can have our todays.
The president's memories
I WANT to comment about our illustrious leader, Bill Clinton, and the speech he made to the NAACP in North Carolina. He made the statement that he remembered rashes of burnings of black churches in Hope, Ark., and Arkansas in general when he was a child back in the 1950s. There was never was anything like that. They've checked now, and the chief of police in Hope said there weren't any burnings and there was no burnings in Arkansas. There were burnings in Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama and North Carolina, but no such burnings in Arkansas. It's funny to me he can remember so much stuff but he can't remember anything about these billing records or the work Hillary did for Whitewater. He can't remember anything. But all of a sudden he can remember burnings. And another thing, I wish he'd remember about the middle-class tax cut. He even forgot about that gave us a tax raise. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Old Bubba better start taking Geritol so he can get his mind better arranged. He's going to start remembering how he got a Congressional Medal of Honor at the Battle of the Bulge.
Time to face the issues
COME ON, you Republicans. Let's get with the issues this election. Let's get on Social Security, national health care, jobs, education and the environment. Let's get with the issues at stake, not something the president may have or may have not done 25 years ago or these files the White House got from the FBI. President Clinton apologized for them. What else do you want him to do? Now they want a committee. They're so determined to win one way or the other. It galls them that he won the election. They throw around his war record. They didn't give a hoot about Vietnam. That was a bad war, and they even scorned the men who went there. I know. I was one of them.
Carriers are unsung heroes
I THINK the unsung heroes of the newspaper are the delivery people. They don't get enough credit and they do an outstanding job.
Scott City's appointment
I'M CALLING in reference to the comment about John Rodgers' appointment in Scott City. The problem is that the ordinance states that no two people of the same immediate family shall be employed in a paid city job under the same supervisor. If the caller would have correctly read your newspaper articles or checked the city ordinance, he would have seen that both Mr. Rodgers and his sister would be paid employees under the same supervisor in violation of the oath Mr. Rodgers took to uphold and obey all laws that he and the council enact. There is one exception to the ordinance. A family can work on a voluntary basis, as did my husband and I. I am a paid police dispatcher, whereas my husband used to be a volunteer reserve officer. The other patrolman mentioned in the comment works under the chief of police, and his son answers to the public works director. Therefore they do not violate any city ordinance because they do not work under the same supervisor.
Don't break the ordinances
THIS IS in response to somebody calling in and wondering why everybody's making a fuss about John Rodgers applying for a city job. I happen to know for a fact that other workers' family members have applied for jobs, and they didn't receive them because they had family members also employed with the city. Mr. Rodgers is on the city council. He's supposed to be making these ordinances. If he wants to make that kind of ordinances, he shouldn't be allowed to break them.
Jimmy Carter's unfair treatment
TALKING ABOUT apology to the Republican Party. Did you ever hear anybody apologize to Jimmy Carter for the way they treated him in the Reagan administration over the Iran/Contra affair? And this paper won't print much about that, but every day someone criticizes Bill Clinton in Speak Out. Take a look at yourself and be fair.
Smut and anti-social messages
OUR BOOKS, art, television and music are a unified force of smut and anti-social messages. We burn flags and crosses, we curse and scream in public places. The media makes celebrities of serial murders. Our children are taught about condoms in the third grade. The Boy Scouts are under attack to embrace atheists and embrace homosexuals. The family is being legally undermined. Churches are pressured to rewrite scriptures to accommodate those who are proud of their transgressions. Religious apartheid is officially sanctioned and practiced by the government. And bewildered taxpayers are told that they have no choice but to pay for liberal propaganda on public television, pornographic and blasphemous art and the killing of unborn babies. Our country's in one heck of a shape compared to what it was in the generation that grew up in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. We need to reverse this procedure.
Roses and junk cars
I SAW going north into Cape on Highway 61 a sign that said "Cape Girardeau, City of Roses." Directly behind the sign are 20 or so junk cars but no roses. Is this the look we want for the city?
Don't change the name
I DON'T really think they should change the name of the ball diamond at Capaha Park.
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Respect for the president
PLEASE respect our president, and then maybe our children will grow up with more respect for everyone. You can sure tell you are a Republican paper. I'm tired of reading all the stuff you put in there.
Pretty flowers at library
THE FRESHLY planted flowers at the library grounds are so pretty. Please don't let the wild vines take over and kill them on the east side.
Yallaly Field: great idea
MY GRANDSON and I think naming the Capaha Park field after Doc Yallaly is a great idea.
Straight facts, not complaints
SO THERE is a subscriber to the newspaper who is not satisfied because of the so-called Clinton bashing. He'd better face it. Clinton made his own bed and has to sleep in it. His troubles are of his own making. If you can't figure out what this president has done and is doing to the people of this country, then that is your problem. Also, somebody tried to compare Travelgate and the dismissal of Don Regan as equal. The travel office employees are part of the nonpartisan staff, not appointees. Don Regan was an adviser to President Reagan and could be dismissed at any time by the president. Also, Medicare is going broke, and the facts show the Republicans are trying to save it while the Democrats are trying to use it as a political football to scare us all old folks. I suggest you get the facts straight instead of complaining.
Others are deserving too
I WANT to call in reference to them renaming the ballpark at Capaha Park, which is Capaha Ballfield, to Yallaly Ballfield. We feel like there are an awful lot of baseball people in this town who have dedicated almost as much time and effort into this also, and we feel like it should remain Capaha Field. There are people in this town who have put in a lot of time at the ballfield. How do we recognize that one person should be named above someone else?
Disturbing abortion stories
ABOUT A week and a half ago on "60 Minutes" they had a program on partial-birth abortion, and it's been bothering me ever since. On that program they had two women who had found out that their babies had serious birth defects, so they had partial-birth abortions. I always thought that a mother's love should be unconditional, but these women chose to end their pregnancies at a time when their children were about to be born in one of the cruelest way possible by stabbing a pair of scissors in the back of their head and inserting a catheter and sucking out the brains. This seems pretty convenient for the doctor, since by destroying the brain there's way to prove if there was or wasn't a birth defect. And even if there was, isn't there a less cruel way of getting rid of these children. Why hasn't anyone asked the doctors where the brain tissue from these babies go? Somehow I bet there's money involved. Next, you know, it won't just be animal byproducts in our cosmetics, will it?
Don't fall for the bait
THIS IS for the caller who falsely accused Dole and Gingrich of wanting to cut Medicare. If government isn't brought under control, Medicare cuts will be the least of your worries. Clinton and the Democrats have suckered people like you into believing that the government can keep on spending and spending without any adverse effects. If Clinton is re-elected and the Democrats regain control of Congress, who are you going to blame when Medicare goes broke? Or how about this: What if Clinton and a Democrat-controlled Congress continue to pour money into Medicare and other entitlements, and 80 percent of your paycheck suddenly goes to pay for these programs? Who are you going to blame then? It appears you have taken the bait, and Slick Willie is reeling you in.
Use tax a bad idea
REGARDING THE use tax: Who thought this up? The $2,000 purchase limit (before the tax kicks in) is fairly arbitrary, but the assumption most voters won't pay a significant amount is vicious. Maybe most won't, but I will. For example, if I wanted to buy a new suite of furniture I could reach that limit quite easily at certain stores across the river. In a free-market economy, why should I be penalized if I don't like what the local stores offer? The use tax is unenforceable. Are you going to set up customs agents at all points of entry into Cape Girardeau County? Are they going to keep database files on what people purchase from out of state through catalogs and other ways? Do you expect people are going to keep receipts for everything they buy out of state and calculate 1.75 cents per dollar if the total goes over $2,000? Nice try, but no thanks. If the county wants the money, they can do the accounting and the enforcing.
We're all Americans
BEWARE OF anyone who holds a public office or who aspires to be in public office and refers to the rest of us as the American people. What is that person, some kind of a foreigner or alien? Any person who refers to everybody else as something else and does not include himself as part of us, you'd better be leery of.
Fathers, dogs both lovable
THIS IS to the person who was complaining about the Father's Day TBY. I see nothing wrong with that. I mean, after all, dogs are lovable as well as fathers are. So what's the big deal?
Accurate abortion description
KINDER is right on abortions. The reason the term "partial-birth abortion" is not in the dictionaries is because it has only recently been reported and has not yet had time to be included in dictionaries. An abortion doctor invented this procedure to get rid of babies in late-term pregnancies. The description is accurate. No one debates this. Congress passed a law to outlaw partial-birth abortions. The president disagreed.
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