SPEAKOUT

Kicking the habit

DRUM ROLL, please! And the 1995 award for the understatement of the year goes to Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau. Kinder recently wrote a column in which he made reference to "a few (emphasis added) folks who've overdosed on (his) anti-OBE columns." The hundreds, perhaps thousands, or even millions who religiously read and have overdosed on his anti-OBE (Outcomes Based Education) columns do not constitute a mere "few." I might add that it is a very difficult addiction to overcome. As a current resident of a rehab clinic designed to help me overcome my addiction to Kinder's OBE-bashing columns, I continue to find ways to subvert the system and, by one method or another, have them surreptitiously sneaked into my room. I am one of the fortunate ones. I have not yet overdosed on them. Those who have and who have survived are placed on the cold-turkey floor where, because of the tight security, there is no way they can get their hands on Kinder anti-OBE columns. Word has it that when they awaken in the morning, they have little if any incentive to gnaw through the leather straps. They're a tough breed, though. One male patient was overheard to have replied that, even though a Dr. Bartman said he would be cured forever with a surgical procedure, he would rather have "a Kinder column in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy."

Bootheel buddies

AFTER reading about the vote on the health-care issue, I think it's time that the Southeast Missouri people say goodbye to Bill Emerson. I think there are enough elderly people to override the farmers' votes to let Mr. Emerson look for something else to do. He does not have the concern of the elderly people in mind. He is thinking about his big-buddy farmers in the Bootheel.

Bright lights

I THINK we should take people's license plate numbers and turn them into the police when they come up behind us while driving with their lights on bright. I'm tired of it. I can't see where I'm going.

Plain American

I'M A German-Irish American and my wife is German-Native American-American. Does that make my son a German-German-Irish-Native American-American or just a plain American? I think we're all just plain Americans, and maybe we should start looking forward and quit looking backwards and all move as one people into the future.

Jamie Hall's column

I THINK it's great that you have someone like Jamie Hall writing a new column in your Sports section. You've got the local fans' interest stirred up. I like to see the Tennessee fans all riled up, but Jamie Hall's got one thing right: Tennessee ain't never won nothing.

Medicare ideas

TO ALL you young people out there, I would be very angry with the AARP crowd if I was working and paying 16 percent-plus in tax for Medicare and Social Security. That is your part and the part your employer pays. That should be yours. You should start up a group for working people and start with getting Dick Gephardt out of Congress. To you older people, Medicare is a bargain at any new price. If you don't think so, just look at what your co-payment costs. I am 70 years old. I'm not a fat cat, and AARP does not speak for me and a lot of other people I know.

Oops on taxes

I REMEMBER when the Democrats tricked George Bush into signing that tax bill after George Bush said "Read my lips, no new taxes." So I guess Bill Clinton's deal now is, "Read my lips, yeah, I did raise your taxes too much." I hope the Republicans use this in a campaign commercial, and I hope they run it all the time.

Yes to English

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with the editors of the Missourian. Our language should be English, and it should be enforced in all the schools and with public documents. Why not make it the law?

Waiting for payoff

WE'LL BE glad whenever Boyd Gaming gets in over there and the city gets all this extra money. Then we won't have to worry about taxes on the city, or the school bond issue or anything else because there will be so much floating around they'll be throwing it out in the street.

Back to Democrats

I SEE that on Saturday you printed nothing but Republican call-ins regarding Medicare. What I'd really like to do is reply to the person who wants the Republicans to take this country back to World War II days when it was really something significant then. If my memory serves me right, Franklin Roosevelt was president. He was a Democrat, and he had a Democratic Congress. So I say, yes, let's go back to those days.

Against hatred

ALL PEOPLE, no matter what race we are. Let's fight to overcome this hatred that is among us, or our black children and our white children will fight and kill one another. All the blood that will be shed will be red.

Welfare colors

ARE PEOPLE so naive and racist to think that only blacks are on welfare? I can't believe it.

Bad old days

I SURELY hope that the young people and all voters will take a good look at the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. It would be a disaster to vote a Republican president in 1996. I've lived here a long time, and I've voted a long time. I know what the Republicans do for people when they are in power. If they think they can cut out Medicare and Medicaid, your nursing homes will have to close. I know what happened in the Hoover days. The county set up an old folks home out here where the county farm is now. Old folks lived in poverty and died in poverty. I was around here then. This is not hearsay.

Insurance payments

JAY EASTLICK'S Oct. 21 column was quite good. I agree with him. It is true that working people are paying on Medicare. It is also true that everyone who buys anything at all or uses any service is helping to pay the insurance of working people who have that as one of their benefits from their employment. I've never had that employment. I've always paid for my health insurance. I appreciate you paying for part of my insurance now. I hope you appreciate me helping to pay for yours.

Not a marcher

I'M CALLING about the Million Man March. I really don't care if it was a million men or 100,000. I'm a black male and I've worked in Cape at the same job for 32 years. I do not get food stamps. I never got any unemployment. I didn't go to the march. I stayed home and worked. As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't care if it was 10 million white men marching. It wouldn't concern me at all. I think anyone who wanted to march had a right to march. I'm still going to stay home and work. I'm not going to out and throw rocks at them, go complain about the or even go look at them. I can find other things to do, go wash my car, go to work or mow my yard.