SPEAKOUT

Bring back the pets

WE ARE fifth grade students in Mr. Frazier's class at Nell Holcomb School in Cape Girardeau. We read the Southeast Missourian daily. We are writing to you because we took a survey regarding the new Weather Art in place of the Weather Pet. The results were that 100 percent of our class prefer the Weather Pet over the Weather Art. We think that you should put the Weather Pet back in. Maybe you could put the Weather Pet one day and the Weather Art the next day. Please consider putting the Weather Pet back in the newspaper. We really miss it!

REPLY: Thanks for taking enough interest in the newspaper to conduct your survey and let us know about its findings. The plain fact is that after several months of the Weather Pet, readers stopped sending us photos. Several readers suggested we use pictures drawn by students for the daily weather forecast. So we will present the weather art for a while. Keep you your good work, and please keep reading the newspaper.

Try watchdogs

KEEP THREE or four watchdogs at the old Lorimier Cemetery. Turn them lose at nights within the cemetery limits. Post a warning. A caretaker could easily take of these dogs. This would save the city a lot of money which is now spent towards the repair of the ruins of our history. When the vandals are caught, make sure they are punished more than just a tap on the wrist. This is no child's prank.

Highest gas prices

I JUST returned from a long trip. I was in Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and Illinois over the past several days and made a log of all the gas prices in all these states. And believe it or not, Cape Girardeau has the highest gas price of all of these states.

Smarter than George

I THINK Congress should read George Washington's farewell address to Congress when he left office. He warned this country about getting into Europe's centuries old conflicts. But I guess our current commander-in-chief is smarter than George Washington.

Proper training

I'VE SERVED in two branches of the military as a sailor and airman, but I've always been interested in ground tactics and strategy including armored warfare. The Bosnian deployment fiasco has already drawn hot protest and criticism so I'll leave that along for now. But I want to ask a question that hopefully some Army tankers out there can answer for me. It appears to me that our clueless commander-in-chief who has proven his disdain to the military is bent on deploying a heavy armored division to a country which is unsuitable for armored operations. They'll be bogged down, sitting ducks. Although they've already been wastefully used in Haiti, wouldn't the elite 10th Mountain Division be a more practical choice for operations in Bosnia? Then they could be backed by heavy artillery and air support. How about it, tanker vets, anyone out there want to field this question?

You ran the ad

I GIVE the Missourian credit. I didn't think it would print an advertisement for the new book "The Way Things Aren't, Rush Limbaugh's reign of error." I commend them on a fair and wise decision.

Pro-Democrat

IN READING today's Opinion page, I think you guys messed up. You let an article get in here written by W.R. Woods from Bertrand that's pro-Democrat and probably 300 words long. You guys messed up, because normally nothing pro-Democrat ever hits Speak Out or any of the other things to amount to anything unless somebody just slips up. It's not a bipartisan paper like you guys claim it is. But this article right here makes more sense than anything I've ever seen in the Missourian paper, and that is a fact.

REPLY: It is always amusing to get comments of this kind, particularly on the heels of examples of like this. The Southeast Missourian is always pleased to publish opposing views, and Speak Out fairly represents the calls that are pro-Democrat.

Footing the bill

I JUST want to remind all my good Democratic friends out there that Bill Clinton has asked for billions of dollars to fund the Bosnian thing. We sure could put that money to good use right here in the United States for a lot of things, like taking care of some of the Medicare and Medicaid problems and other problems. It wasn't long ago his wife went to India and gave away $500 million. I don't know how many billions were spent in Haiti, and there are still problem there. I will say one thing for Bush. When he went into Desert Storm, he was smart enough to get all the Arabs to foot 90 percent of the bill.

Real poverty war

WE IN the United States in the 21st century, can recover from our recent problems since we know a great deal from our own experiences about how to fight poverty. We had successful anti-poverty programs a century ago. Successful because they embodied personal, material or spiritual involvement and challenge. This vital story has generally been ignored by liberal historians, but the documented history goes like this. During the 19th century, a successful war on poverty was waged by tens of thousands of local, private, profitable agencies and religious organizations around the country. Thousands of eyewitness accounts and assessments show that poverty fighters of the 19th century did not abolish poverty, but they enabled millions of people to escape. Most significantly, our predecessors made moral demands on recipients of aid. They saw family, work, freedom and faith essential to our being, not as lifestyle options. This is just exactly the opposite of what they're doing today, but we can go back to the old days and correct it in the next century if we work at it.

Control speed limits

HALLELUJAH, RAISE the speed limits on the roads. Sell more handguns to felons and teen-agers and expect our policemen and law officers and highway patrol to catch up with these casualties. Anyone with one ounce of a brain knows if you raise the speed limit up to 70, it will go to 75 or more. It sure will be nice if we had some commonsense people out there to look out for what's best for all the people. If you want to stop crime, quit putting the tools in their hands.

Flying rhetoric

ONE BIG advantage to having the FAA close the tower is that when these politicians who want our money and our vote have to come seek it, they won't be able to land here. We will be spared their hypocritical rhetoric. We sent you to Washington. You ought to be able to help us. Why, Mr. Senator and Mr. Congressman, is a pilot's life in Cape Girardeau worth less than Kirksville, or Joplin or Carbondale?

REPLY: Closing the tower isn't likely to stop the fly-in visits by politicians. The airport would still be fully functional, but pilots wouldn't have the advantages that air traffic controllers provide.

Conspired with enemy

TO ALL you yellow Democrats who think Mr. Slick Willie is such a fine president and who are saying even though he didn't serve in the military he makes a good commander-in-chief: Not only did the man not serve in the military, he collaborated with a North Vietnamese enemy while boys were dying in Vietnam. I know. I was there, and I saw it in Stars and Stripes, the military paper, while serving in Vietnam where he and Jane Fonda were talking to the North Vietnamese. The man is a traitor to the country, and how he ever got to be president shows America is not what it used to be. The America we used to know is long gone. It's not worth fighting for anymore under the present administration.

Call the congressman

I HOPE that the concerned citizens who take the time to call Speak Out to complain about the current political system also take time to call or write to their congressman. Maybe his views aren't your own, but he is a representative. He should vote your conscience and not his. At least that's the way it should go.

Keep speed limits

I THINK that the speed limits in Missouri should stay at 65 miles an hour on four-lane highways. They tell you that they want you to wear seat belts to save lives. The reason that they said this is because they wanted more money. If they catch you without wearing your seat belt, they'll fine you, and they'll make money. And now they want to raise the speed limit. This will kill more people.

Parental responsibility

I'M CALLING in with a comment on the candy concerns at the Christmas parade. I think this is a all a bunch of nonsense. I think it's the parents' responsibility to teach children not to run in the street and control them at parades. If the parents would act more like parents, the children would not be receiving the blame that they do at some times. Maybe at the parade, from now on, you can hand out the candy to the parents and let the kids run wild.

Working together

I READ an article that the Blue Dog Republicans are organizing. And our own Rep. Bill Emerson is one of the many people doing this. He is quoted as saying, "We need more reaching out and listening to each other and trying to find a common ground" and "our goal is to build more bipartisanship, to break gridlock and deadlocks and to be of assistance in reaching across the aisle whenever possible to provide solutions for the nation's problems." It sounds like if the Republicans and Democrats would work together instead of against each other, it would be a whole lot better nicer and better world for our country and everybody as a whole. And hopefully Mr. Emerson's going to get something done.