SPEAKOUT

Now that's hot!

I JUST want the cable company to know that we appreciate the sense of humor. At 10 p.m. on Wednesday the temperature in Cape Girardeau, according to the Weather Channel, was 172 degrees.

Local for less

I READ in the Missourian that the city manager's salary might have to be increased, and I've been reading what a good job Mr. Fischer has done for considerably less of money. That proves my point. We've got local people here who do good work like Mr. Fischer for less salary. I'm anxious to see when it comes to a pay raise for the city employees what excuses they are going to have.

Kinder needs experience

TO THE caller who said Peter Kinder should run for governor: Peter Kinder does not have the experience to do that right now. Maybe in a few years, after he gets a little more experience under his belt, he might make a good governor.

Need fresh blood

I'M CALLING in response to the Aug. 2 editorial about whether an outside consultant is needed to help find a new university president and to a response in Speak Out that said we had qualified people here in Cape Girardeau. One of the things I've found since I moved to Cape Girardeau is it can be very supportive as a community. I like the community. However, the attitude of just bringing in people within can be extremely incestuous. That's the reason we need people from outside. You get people that just look from within, and you will never really know what you need to stay on top of it and grow.

Still a Democrat

TO THE whining ex-Democrat and gun owner: He ought to get real. He knows the Democratic Party had control of the Congress for 40 years. That must say something. They had to do a good job. And for him to change over because of his toy gun, well, I feel sorry for him. He ought to really get real and think long and hard. The Brady bill was needed. I'm a gun owner and a hunter myself, but that doesn't mean I want nuts going around with assault weapons.

Future worries

AS I reflect on the state of our nation, I wonder if we're truly a nation in crisis, or have we become a country of paranoid individuals imagining worst-case scenarios and feeding on one another's fears? And as we enter the future together, will we have to give up our cherished freedoms in the hope of gaining protection against forces of darkness which seem increasingly out of control, such as the status of our current federal government for the last several years? We no longer seem to be the country in which I grew up.

Susan Smith's sentence

I AGREE with Mona Charen's commentary about the Susan Smith verdict. I understand that she might have been mostly upset and she might have wanted to attempt suicide that night, and I can go along with being stressed. But what mother, after nine days, could eat or sleep knowing that her babies which she brought into this world were at the bottom of a lake? To me the worst part of the tragedy is just sitting everyday and saying that something was wrong know that those babies were dead. She could have come forward long before nine days. I agree that she should have got the death penalty, and she was just very lucky that someone like me wasn't on the jury.

Who are they kidding?

IF THE Waco raid had gone off 100 percent perfect with no loss of life, I suspect the Republican Congress would be holding hearings if they thought they could slam the Clinton administration, all at the taxpayers expense while pretending to be hell-bent on down sizing the cost of government. Who do they think they're kidding?

Turn the tables

DO YOU think if the Japanese military had possessed the atomic bomb in 1945 they would have used in on Americans and American cities?

GOP and the Pentagon

ARE THE Republicans serious about the national debt? I think not. Last month, the Pentagon was awarded $7 billion more than it had even requested. How about that, Rush?

More grass in streets

WHY ARE so many people leaving grass clippings in the streets this summer, especially in the northwest section of town? The clippings are unsightly, they clog the sewers when it rains and there is a city ordinance against it. It only takes a very few minutes to use your mower to blow the clippings back onto your lawn.

They are just lying

I GET so tired of these lying Republicans calling in on Speak Out and claiming to be 30-year Democrats and all of a sudden they're changing parties because Clinton passed this anti-gun law, the Brady law, especially the one about the anti-assault weapons. Why do we need people who want to harbor man-killing weapons? I hope I live to see the day that the police can legally go in and search homes of people who have these guns that shoot 60 rounds per minute. If somebody uses that excuse to change from one party to another, he's just lying.

REPLY: Whoa! You really want to abandon the Constitution? Wouldn't this allow the police to come into your home and search for anything they want? That's not what Americans want. If you don't like assault weapons, there are other ways to deal with that issue besides taking away constitutional rights.

Street cost confusion

AFTER READING today's paper, I believe there's still a lot confusion about the sales tax. The residents who live on Dixie, I believe, are confused in saying that their cost on that street would be $10 a foot. If you look at the article from Mr. Eftink, he clearly states that the drainage problems and stuff on these streets is going to be added expense on these projects. Somewhere there's confusion that these streets listed are going to cost $10 a foot. Quite frankly, I don't believe that the city will put them in for that. I believe the city needs to address this problem on the difference on the cost.

REPLY: A good question. While some street projects indeed may cost more than $10 a foot, the city has pledged to cap the expense to residential property owners at $10. This at least gives taxpayers a safety net against a huge bill for needed street improvements.