SPEAKOUT

Washington vs. Clinton

GEORGE WASHINGTON was known as the man who could not tell a lie. Bill Clinton is known as the man who cannot tell the truth.

I HAVE several cans of hazardous waste materials, thinner, paint, varnish and spray paint and I'm wondering if the Southeast Missourian can tell me or find out where I can take those and how to dispose of them. I do not want to put them in a solid waste situation because I'm 100 percent concerned about recycling.

Skip auto insurance?

SINCE ENFORCEMENT of the state's financial responsibility law is being ignored, does that mean we who purchase car insurance can now quit buying it like all those deadbeat car owners do?

REPLY: There are penalties for not having the insurance if you are ever in a situation where proof of insurance is required. More importantly, it seems like law-abiding citizens would want to do what the law requires, which is have the appropriate auto insurance.

Speeders are a gold mine

I SEE the police department and the newspaper have discovered the Lexington Raceway. If they will look closer, they will also see the Drag Strip of Perryville Road. There's a gold mine of traffic violations not being enforced out here. If the city fathers are looking for funds for that raise the city employees want and need, then they don't have to look any further. The fines imposed on violators would be more than enough to give all city employees a good raise. If the police department has a traffic division, then turn them loose to do their job. If they don't have a traffic division, then it's time to create one.

Speeders on Belleridge Pike

IF YOU think there are speeders on Lexington, just come to the 2000 block of Belleridge Pike. I fear for my children's lives just playing in our yard. I'm afraid some crazy, speeding driver is going to lose control speeding around one of the many curves or up one of the many hills. Of course, I can't let my children ride their bicycles in the street. I've actually turned into a crazy, screaming woman many times trying to get people to slow down, and I'll continue to do that. Something's got to be done. In the meantime, I'll be taking license numbers down.

Language tic, you know?

WHEN I was growing up, many younger people would pause while speaking and say "uh." You don't hear many doing this now, but you can hear so many young and adult people pause in the middle and the end of a sentence and say "you know." If this part of our language usage, then it sure is dumbing us down. You know?

Troubles at MU

I WOULD like to make a couple comments about Chancellor Charles Kiesler at the University of Missouri-Columbia. One point: There were 11 administrators when he came on board in 1992, and there are 17 now. He's trying to hire the 18th. It would be interesting to know how many additional administrators have been hired at Southeast Missouri State University in the last five or eight years. I think we're top heavy there also. The other point: It seems the governors who appoint the curators think that no one but a lawyer can serve as a curator, because seven out of nine members of the board of curators are lawyers. No wonder they're in trouble.

Take a tour of streets

I WOULD like to invite our city manager and the city councilmen to take a tour from Main Street and Mill Street and take a look at this street and see if they can think up something to do with it. Something needs to be done. And while they're in this neglected section of Cape, I'd also invite them to inspect the concrete street that runs over the dirt levee on Big Bend Road. A few weeks ago, they said they made a tour of the city, but these are two sections of street that I think they overlooked. We taxpayers in this northeast section of Cape deserve just as much as anybody does on the west side of Cape.

Too easy to get welfare

IF EVERYBODY wants to know how easy it is to draw welfare, my boyfriend of five years has always paid his child support. They both agreed on a certain amount. She started drawing welfare because she could get more that way. She never has the kids more than two weekends a year. They spend it at my house or my boyfriend's mother's. When we went back to court, they doubled the amount plus insurance. Now this woman didn't work then, and she doesn't work now. Both children are in school, one's going in the fifth grade and one's in the eighth grade. She has lived with two different men the whole time. Welfare doesn't even check up or force her to work or go back to school to get her GED. They just sit around and collect it, and we pay.

Pedestrians and bikers

YOUR ARTICLE on the Lexington raceway is right on, but we need to extend this discussion to include the whole issue. I travel daily from Kingshighway to Perryville Road, and there are numerous people who are jogging, riding bikes and walking on that street. The lack of sidewalks or bike path on any of the new roadways all across Cape Girardeau is a major problem, and I think it's very shortsighted not to include sidewalks or bike paths along all the new highways or some of the old major streets in the city.

Carrying loaded weapons

I HAVE a statement to make before I ask my question. I think our Cape Girardeau Police Department for the most part does a very fine job, but they cannot be in all places at all times. And with the increased strong-arm robberies that have taken place in the city, I would like to know if the chief of police or the prosecuting attorney can give an answer to my question about the carrying of a pistol in your automobile if it's in plain sight. I know the police chief has voiced his opinion that he is in favor of the concealed-weapons bill. This seems to be have been defeated many times, and I was wondering what the ramifications might be if someone did this for their protection, as I have to move a great deal at night, sometimes late.

REPLY: The reason many Missourians favor a concealed-weapons law is because it is illegal to carry a loaded weapon, even in plain sight in your car, unless you are among those who can obtain a license to do so. The Missouri General Assembly didn't not pass a concealed-weapons bill this year, nor did legislators vote to put the issue on a referendum ballot.

Too many school administrators

IT'S TIME we in the school district at Jackson let our school board know that more administration like they just hired doesn't improve our schools. It just gives us larger salaries to pay, taking away from the students all the money that could be used for them. No bond issue will get my approval until they cut the fat out of the running of school. I'm tired of new taxes. I'm tired of a school board that thinks the only way to do things is their way. Vote no on the bond issue.