SPEAKOUT

Heidi's therapy

IN HER Feb. 25 column, Heidi Nieland wrote in part that her senior year in high school "was the absolute worst." She went on to write that she hated her classes and implied she was disliked by most of her peers. I'm no psychoanalyst, but Heidi was probably suffering from excess repression, reflected in an unwillingness to express what she really felt or thought. As a result, she may have been correct in seeming to assume many perceived her as a reclusive, eccentric, weirdo. Now that she has compensated for these experiences in her "let it all hang out" columns, readers are the beneficiaries of humorous and interesting insights into human nature. Selfishly, I hope her writing-as-therapy-process takes a long time. Her talent is wonderful, and those who may be the target of the sometimes bitter themes of her columns should be tolerant.

Autocratic judges

TAKING AWAY the school lunch program from the federal government and giving it to the states with a block grant sounds terrific. But think what could happen to the vast majority of Missouri kids. Judge Clark with his fondness for Kansas City and other judges for St. Louis will probably take charge of this block grant. So Kansas City children will probably get three free meals a day with a choice of baked turkey or lobster and other gourmet foods. And of course the kids' parents could come to school and eat with them. So with a dictatorial judge like Clark who cares nothing about the vast majority of Missouri's children, the rest of Missouri's kids may get only 2 percent of the block grant and end up with just a cracker and glass of water for breakfast and nothing else the rest of the day. This seems to be the kind of justice our autocratic judges like Judge Clark now force on us with little or no recourse. Gosh, and I'm a Republican.

Get the freeloaders

I'VE BEEN reading about senior citizens meals (which they pay for) and all the Medicare benefits we pay monthly for. And we pay for all our medicine. But what makes it great is when you go to a drugstore and pay $100 or more for a bottle of medicine and some young able-bodied female gets a sock full for $2 or $3 then goes out, climbs into a brand new car and takes off. This happened today at our drugstore. Get real people. Get off our backs. Go after the freeloaders.

Abortion hype

I'M SOMEWHAT bothered, albeit also amused, by all this hype regarding the abortion debate. Now Republicans are being advised not to take a position anywhere close to supporting it. Well, the heck with all the PC and liberal psycho-babbling junk. I have a very simple and cheap bipartisan solution for all this nonsense. Like smoke products and the act of smoking, abortion is perfectly legal, but here's the catch. If a girl doesn't have enough personal self-control to say no to a irresponsible boy, then by all means, get your convenience abortion while it's legal. Don't worry about moral values. That's the liberal thing to do, isn't it? But don't expect the American taxpayer to pay for your mistakes. Pay for it yourself. And if choose to keep the illegitimate child, resolve yourself to raise and pay for it yourself. Is that a simple enough solution for all you fanatics on both sides of the issue?

Clinton's myths

IN LAST SATURDAY'S Southeast Missourian on the editorial page there was a column about President Clinton's myth factor. I think the writers from the Heritage Foundation have taken the speech apart point by point and made an excellent presentation. The last two paragraphs of this deserve wider distribution: "Indeed, the only thing Clinton has going for him is the prospect that Republicans will abandon the aggressive, conservative agenda that gave them total control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. If the GOP neglects to cut taxes, neglects to wipe out entire Cabinet-level agencies, forgets promises to repeal regulations and does not get around to curbing the Gestapo tactics of agencies ranging from the FDA to EPA to the BATF, the American voters would correctly ask whether giving Republicans a majority makes a difference. This however is a story in its own right."

Which countries?

IN SATURDAY'S Missourian, SEMO's President Stroup states that poverty and educational level in the Missouri Bootheel approached that of some third world countries. As a resident of the Bootheel, I am curious to know what countries we are being compared to. At this point, we have residents that have moved here from Haiti, Cuba, and Mexico, but yet none of my neighbors seemed to have moved away.

Limbaugh on TV

I WONDER why our big TV station KFVS must air Rush Limbaugh. I have been listening to him for the last year and half. He sounds like he is anti-American. He doesn't believe in our Constitution. On one of the shows that they broadcast last week, it looks like he has some uniforms that were communist or anti-socialist. Looks to me like he's putting our government down.

Cutting the big shots

I HEAR all the time they're wanting to cut the budget, but do you ever think they need to cut their budget on our representatives and our government, what they make compared to what us few people get. I've seen the times I worked for 25 cents an hour. I've got a nice car today, but I walked three miles to work. Today they don't walk three miles to work. They can't even walk a mile to school, they have to have a car. And then they wonder why us old people have got something, a little bit of a nice car to drive and to look nice. We've done without our whole life to get what we've got and now they're trying to take everything away from us. Now is that right or is that right?

No farm coverage

BOY, AM I ever disappointed in the Southeast Missourian. Opened the Progress Edition. They brag about the 65 biggest businesses and industries, and guess what: According to the Missourian agriculture's not even a business or industry in Southeast Missouri anymore. I venture to bet if you added up employees in farming in Southeast Missouri, we would be bigger than Lee Rowan, P&G and Gilster Mary Lee combined. Seems to me that farming got shorted in your coverage on business and industry. I'd like to see something addressed to this because we are still the backbone of Southeast Missouri, and I think it should be noted in the paper.

The Top 65 businesses in the graphic were the largest manufacturing and industries in Southeast Missouri. There was no slight meant to farmers or other top employers which are not manufacturers.

Parental responsibility

WE HEAR so much about these deadbeat dads and a lot of moms aren't interested in the kids and how well they're taken care of with the child support. They just want their ex-husbands to make a living for them. And the courts just label the dads as no good and get as much money as the law allows for these women and don't expect the women to give any account of how the money is spent. These couples had these babies together. Why don't the courts give them both parental responsibilities beyond money?

Wait a while

PERHAPS THE individual who complained about no 50th anniversary for Vietnam, Korea, Panama, Desert Storm, etc. would be wise to wait until their 50th anniversary to arrive.