SPEAKOUT

Out of control

IN THE most recent issue of Ollie North's Frontlines publication, the following paragraph appears: "Ironically, even as the Clinton administration chooses to endanger funding for the military with a veto of the defense authorization bill, because the bill contains a missile defense system, Secretary of Defense William Perry offered to have the U.S. co-produce a ballistic missile defense system for Israel while he travelled there. So we are willing to build one for Israel, but not for the U.S." Also in the Feb. 11 Southeast Missourian the first paragraph of an article out of Washington stated this: "The Clinton administration has decided to continue $13 million in aid to Haiti, even though the country has failed to qualify for it under constrictions Congress set in response to political violence there." He has absolutely gone stark raving mad. He's a one-world-concept person who seems to be nothing more than a socialist with vain ideas, good for everybody but destroying us. These two things are indications that he's wild. He has no restraint or control or anything. These two items alone make indication that people should back Pat Buchanan for president because he is diametrically opposed to these kind of things.

Cut the salaries

I HAVE a great suggestion on how to balance the budget. Since the congressmen only work 88 days a year, their salaries should be cut about 20 percent a year, including all the old retired ones. That would make a big cut on our budget, probably in less than the seven-year time limit.

REPLY: While many Americans would welcome pay cuts in Congress as an example of federal frugality, the fact is it would only be symbolic. The cost of Congress, including salaries, is a minuscule part of the U.S. budget. The question is whether enough cuts can be made throughout the federal government to make a real dent. That is what the budget negotiations have been about. It is easy to focus on something like congressional salaries and overlook the real budgetary problems such as runaway entitlements.

Neighborhood poll

OUT OF 11 homes in my neighborhood, one said use the 400 block of Broadway, another didn't care where and the remaining nine picked the old St. Francis hospital property for Cape to have the new federal building built.

Tax squabble

MY FRIENDS and their friends are plenty tired of seeing and hearing and reading of the rich people squabbling over the taxpayers' money over the next four years.

Gambling benefits

I COULD never believe that anyone who lives and pays taxes in Cape Girardeau would not want a gambling casino boat in the Cape. You have bingo and lotto. That, I guess, is not gambling in your opinion. You must not want the benefits Boyd Gaming Corp. could bring in here. Some people worked very hard to see the election was won last time. You don't need the damage to the city of Cape.

Getting the shaft

TWO OUT of the three city projects are new projects, and only one is an old project. The older part of the town with the greatest number are getting the shaft again. If you can't keep up the property you have, don't expand.

Keep Atchley

I THINK that it's a great idea of keeping Bill Atchley as the president of the college. I don't think you can do any better. He has past experience at major universities, and he is here, and he is a hometown person. I think he knows the problems in our area and will do an exceptionally good job. So let's approach it that way. Why don't we talk to the regents about him. Thank you.

Try this slate

WOULDN'T IT be something if Pat Buchanan would be our next president, and Pat Robertson could be vice president, and Jerry Falwell could be the secretary of state? How about that!

Building site

TO SAVE the taxpayers money, the federal building to be built in Cape should be built on the old St. Francis hospital grounds. This would greatly help a lot of Cape citizens in more ways than one. They need to get ahead, and this project would advance Cape to future growth.

Micromanagement

IF THE Missouri Legislature is successful in forcing insurance companies to pay for immunization, I'll make two predictions: the insurance companies will raise their health-care rates, and the amount of taxes we pay to the county health services to provide immunizations will stay the same or go up. I wonder if next they'll try to get a brake job on my car with my auto insurance. Micromanagement by the government is not a good thing whether it's from the federal government or the state government.

Impeachment ahead

I HEAR how people talking about how Clinton's going to be running for president and how he's going to win again and all that. Let me tell you something, good folks. The Republicans hold the House and they hold the Senate. If charges are filed and they find out it was Clinton or Hillary who did it, the House will have to vote out an impeachment charge, and the Senate will try Clinton. I've got news for you, the Republicans control the Senate and the House. How do you think the vote would go if it was the opposite? If the Democrats controlled it, how do you think the votes would go: for or against impeachment? How did it go for Richard Nixon? You folks that think that Clinton's going to be president again, you're living in some kind of dream world. I mean, the man's going to be impeached. It's going to happen, the votes are there.

State control

Welfare will be not run as well with the state handling it, as with the federal government handling it. When the lottery was rammed down the people's throats, it was with the idea that most of the profits would go to education. In a few years, it was all put in the general fund, and the state legislators voted themselves raises and large pensions, and the schools get nothing. That's the way it will be if the federal government money goes to the states to handle.

Secretary kudos

I'VE GOT a pretty good job. I do all my own paper work, all my own typing, and I want to tell you, you guys who have secretaries, if you're not paying them a good salary, if you haven't given something for Valentine's Day, you guys are the scum of the earth. Let me tell you, secretaries earn their money and they're underpaid. You guys should be shot at dawn with toner.

Fire the attacker

I'M STILL carping about this unfair deal that the Republicans are pulling on Mrs. Clinton. They just keep on whining and howling. They're not going to be happy unless this thing drags on till after the election. When Mr. Nixon was up before the special prosecutor, he used executive power to fire the prosecutor who was empowered to question him and was stepping on Nixon's toes too hard. Let me ask you Republicans this: How would you like to see Mr. Clinton exercise the same power and fire D'Amato and get him off the committee and get somebody else in? Boy, this thing would only last another three days.

REPLY: Since Sen. Alphonse D'Amato is elected, the president can't fire him. Only the voters in his state can do that.

Fast streets

IT ABSOLUTELY infuriates me how some of you people drive in residential neighborhoods. I'm a concerned citizen living in Northfield Subdivision on Lexington, and it's nothing uncommon to see up to 10 cars speed through this neighborhood on Yorktown and other streets at speeds well over 50 to 60 miles an hour. What's it going to take to get a Cape police officer out here and start issuing summonses? It's probably going to take a child getting killed or a bad accident, unfortunately.

Dole's wealth

IT'S MY understanding that presidential hopeful Bob Dole is a millionaire or close to it. My question is, how did he get to be a millionaire? By being a prosecuting attorney? Does it pay that much? I doubt it. Does he get it off that pension check for being wounded in the war? He was a hero, no doubt, and I praise him for that. Or does he get it from favors in the U.S. Senate from lobbyists groups? I know if it was Clinton, this good old heartland would be screaming bloody murder and wanting him investigated and wanting to put his head on the block. So let's be fair. If Bob wants to be president, how did he get all that money? Harry Truman said anytime a political figure gets money, he's taking it illegally. There's no way to make that much being a public servant. Thomas Eagleton said he lost a lot of money being in the U.S. Senate. He was eager to return to private life. Stuart Symington said the same thing. There's no way to get rich by being a senator or congressman. But how did Bob Dole get so rich, if he is? If I'm wrong, God forgive me, he was a WWII hero, no doubt about it, but that does not make him above reproach. I think if Bill Clinton had been in service and had been a hero, the good old heartland would still find fault with him.

Improve Cape Rock Park

I'M A concerned citizen of Cape Girardeau, calling about our city officials helping the Colonial Cape Foundation pay for this seminary property. Let them pay for it and develop it as they please. The park area will give you a good view of the bridge piers for the years to come plus the sound of busy bridge traffic. Spend money for other parks elsewhere. Cape Rock Park is a park that needs to be developed. It consists of at least 16 acres and has a long frontage on the river. The area near the water plant could provide a park with a beautiful vista of the river and a view of the downtown waterfront. This could be developed into a park that would be a tremendous asset for the city of Cape Girardeau, and not the area at the bridge.

Love details

I JUST read "True Love -- It's all there in the fine print" in Wednesday's Missourian, and I think: what great interest this is to the general public. I'm sure everyone is interested in knowing how many times a week they have sex. All on the front page! It's just really super. You need more articles like this.

Prenuptial baloney

I CAN'T believe the Missourian hasn't got anything better to do than talk to this silly couple about their prenuptial agreement. I want to hear from them a year from now and see if it still works. That was the most ignorant prenuptial agreement I have ever heard.

World's cop

PEACEKEEPING IS one of the most costly of all liberal feel-good exercises. I just don't think they have a good sense that they're asking our servicemen and women to risk their lives, or at least a sense of what that means. I don't suppose Clinton remembers that one of the fathers of a soldier killed in Somalia would not shake his hand because that father didn't know why his son was there or what he had to die for. He did not know that the decision not to provide tanks to the soldiers was not a military decision made in the field but a political one made by Clinton's secretary of defense in conference with him in the Pentagon. And now they're talking about sending our people not only to Bosnia but to Golan Heights and back probably into Lebanon and all over the Mideast as well as Korea, Germany, everywhere in the world. We just can't do it.

Moving to Mexico?

I WANT to comment on the factories closing here. We've had Tri-Con plus Thorngate down in Chaffee, I wonder how many more are going to close and move to Mexico? This is the NAFTA treaty that Clinton signed for us. I know people who work at Tri-Con and Thorngate both who voted for Clinton, and now they're getting a little taste of what they voted for. It's ironic to see people get it, but I guess you get what you want. I just wonder how many more plants we're going to lose that will move down to Mexico on account of the NAFTA and GATT treaties that Clinton's pushed through with his new world order. Now I see that this year's the worst in 15 years for stagnant wages. Let's hear more about how the 1980s weren't any good. Right now, wages are stagnant and taxes are high. Our country is in a mess, and we need a new leader that can lead us. I'll be glad when Clinton is impeached and we can get a new president.

Used to the smell

IF ANYBODY, especially people in the media, tells us long enough that it's OK for men to marry men and women to marry women, we'll get used to it eventually accept it. It's just like living in a pig sty. You soon get used to the smell. Then, after a while, there's no smell at all.

Clinton will win

I HAVE a news tip for you: Bill Clinton's going to be re-elected Nov. 5, 1996. What I called about was someone's Speak Out comment. A couple of weeks ago someone called in and said Bill Clinton was trying to take credit for the Berlin Wall being torn down and our relationship with Russia right now. As far as I'm concerned, Ronald Reagan didn't have anything to do with the Berlin Wall. He just happened to luck out with this one Russian whom people could deal with. Can you imagine that smart-aleck cowboy Reagan trying to deal with someone like Khruschev back in the late 1950s early 1960s, like Eisenhower and Kennedy had to do, with Castro right in the middle of it, and everything else taking place at the same time? He would have had us in the biggest nuclear war -- there probably wouldn't be anyone left in the world. Ronald Reagan was without a doubt the dumbest president we've ever had besides Bush, especially when it came to foreign affairs.

Is it needed?

I WAS just wondering why Cape Girardeau needs a federal building when they have so many shutdowns and layoffs. I don't see how they can afford to build a federal building with so many layoffs and shutdowns.

That's not love

THANK YOU for Speak Out. The front page article and picture on Feb. 14 chosen from the Associated Press don't represent love to me. Someone married three times and his wife on her second marriage is disgusting to me.

He's dead

I JUST wanted to comment on Marc Powers' article "Hats Off" in the Arts & Leisure page Feb. 15. It would be a lot easier to wrestle Andre the Giant than a 700-pound beast considering Andre the Giant's dead.

Site participation

I THINK there are a number of taxpayers who are interested in where the new federal building might go, either the 400 block of Broadway, the old shoe factory, or the old St. Francis hospital grounds. What is the chamber of commerce doing, and the businessmen of these two districts, and the city hall? They should help make the choice.

New slogan

I HAVE a new city slogan. I agree with "The City of Roses," but I think the slogan should be: "Beware! This is the city of drivers who don't use turn signals."

Trim the trees

TO GET rid of the birds in the city of Cape Girardeau, trim the trees. The city's gas gun sounds like people like shooting from their cars passing by -- not a good idea at all. Trimming the trees is the best solution.

Hogging the ball

THIS IS a particular pet peeve of mine, essentially because, as the parent of a basketball player, it has been my misfortune to observe these disgusting situations. The only player on the basketball team who seems to rate any recognition these days by coaches, the media and the fans, are the high point men. Unfortunately, for that player to score with any degree of repetition other players must be feeding him the ball. Where is the recognition in the paper or at athletic banquets for players who are strong defensive players, have good floor games, gains because they are constantly moving the ball, getting the ball to another player who is in a better position to score instead of selfishly making the shot themselves and probably losing the ball and points because they were in a poor position to attempt to score. Unfortunately for my son, he plays on a team with immature selfish players who hog the ball. The concept referred to as "team play" is totally foreign to them, and it is the main reason they had a losing season and will continue to lose as long as these boys play ball as they currently are. My son has played basketball since grade school. He loves the game and would practice every day. But he has lost his enthusiasm and does not enjoy playing anymore. I don't believe in quitting, but I'm ready to tell him to quit and to forget about the athletic banquet because, as politics goes, there is nothing more political than an athletic banquet. I am also ready to tell him that if he literally has to take the ball away from the Michael Jordan-wannabes on his team, that he should do it. If a teammate tries to play every position on the floor including his, he should consider that teammate the opposition and start swinging elbows.

REPLY: The parent's frustration is certainly understandable, but it doesn't seem right to suggest unsportsmanlike conduct -- even against a player's own teammates -- as a reprisal.