SPEAKOUT

TO THE SENIOR citizen who says that they don't actively participate in the programs at the nutrition center, let me say don't deprive your relations or friends or your children who will some day be eligible for these services because you don't want to spend $5 or less a year so that their life can be made more enjoyable. This is not an expense to many poor families. Until you lose your mate and have to eat alone, don't talk about the pleasures that are provided. What entertainment there is doesn't cost anything; the blood-pressure checks don't cost you anything; the great informative programs pertaining to better health and legal matters don't cost you anything. There is no matchmaking program as such. I did, however, meet my wife there, as some others have done, and I am very grateful and thank God for the nutrition center. Don't criticize something you know very little about.

BUTLER, REYNOLDS and Ste. Genevieve counties in Southeast Missouri have passed the senior citizens service tax. Surely Cape Girardeau County has a heart as big. Vote "yes" on April 2.

MY WIFE AND I deliver meals to senior citizens who are unable to get out and about, people whose eyesight and limbs are failing them. Many are left by themselves and look forward to a good, nutritious meal, and even the sight of someone to cheer them with a kind word. Some, no doubt, need to be in a nursing home but cannot afford such a luxury. You should see their response to seeing someone once a day and a hot meal. We try to raise their hopes for today and for tomorrow. My question is: How will this proposed tax money help senior-citizen shut-ins for meal deliveries in smaller towns and communities in Cape County? The answer is that it will afford the extra cash for food, transportation and many other services of assistance to disabled elderly persons. Remember: none of the tax money (5 cents on each $100 assessed valuation on real estate and personal property) goes back for salaries or back to the county or state. The person whose diction begins with WOW, panhandlers et cetera, really doesn't fully know the rest of the story. Oh, yes, how will the tax help that person 74 years old who planned his or her future so well that he depends on no one but his savings to buy his or her way through the rest of life? Come to any nutritional center, spend a few minutes of congeniality with good food at mealtime, then vote "yes" for that 5-cents-per-$100 tax levy, and you will have joined a good, local option to living.

THIS IS TO Rodney Miller and the county commissioners. Now that the minimum wage is going to $4.25, I'm asking that the pay to the election judges be raised to that amount. We work a long, tiring day on election day, and I think our judges should be paid more. I am one of them. Thank you.

A spokesperson for the Cape County clerk's office said election judges and supervisors generally agreed that they not be paid more than $50 by a local government for working at the polls during any one quarter of the year. They reached the agreement because Social Security taxes must be withheld on pay exceeding $50 a quarter by a single governmental entity, and they did not want it withheld, she said. Election supervisors get $49 a day and judges $46.

HERE ARE SOME facts: Money from the senior citizens service tax cannot be used for building purposes. Neither can it be used for entertainment at the nutrition center. If the tax passes it will be used for services to disabled persons 60 years old or older, just as Missouri House bill 351 states. Some of these services are home-delivered meals to shut-ins, respite personal care and home work-services. Transportation and adult care would also be provided. Thank you.

I'VE READ SO much about the senior citizens tax that is proposed. Do you all know that the food delivered to shut-ins is just in town? So the country senior citizens are without. Also, Cape had a nice nutrition center out in the park. Well, they wanted to move into Cape, and they did. Now that's not good enough for them either. They can't be like other nutrition centers; they have to be the best. And, yes, I know what I'm talking about. Thank you very much.

The caller is correct in that the nutrition center here currently is delivering meals only to shut-ins in Cape Girardeau. Expansion of the program to the outcounty would be a possibility providing a seven-member board, which would be established to decide how the money is spent, would decide to fund the home-delivered-meals program. The board would decide which programs of 20 agencies that provide services to elderly people would be funded. None of the money that would be raised by the 5-cent-per-$100-assessed-valuation tax levy could be spent on buildings.

I'M CALLING IN regards to an article in the Southeast Missourian Plus March 27 regarding AA asking the courts to review required attendance. The impression given by the article is that, if the courts don't require people to go to closed AA meetings there is no alternative. There are alternatives. AA has a committee that will bring a meeting to those people. These are separate meetings from the others. There are also open meetings that anyone may attend. So there are alternatives. I don't want this article to imply, or the public to get the impression, that there are no alternatives to what AA is asking of the general public.

I WOULD LIKE to comment on the article saying that the chance of police brutality occurring in Cape Girardeau is quite slim. I beg to differ. We're a No. 1 target for it to happen. I lived in L.A. for 17 years and very few people pass the written and physical examinations to become police officers there. Then, when it comes to the interview, they get dropped, and after they attend the academy, most of them get dropped. Apparently that didn't alter any of their activities. It's been going on for years in L.A., but the public decided to turn everything over to the police officers. They couldn't really see the forest for the trees.

IT'S FINALLY HAPPENED: fiscal idiocy has spread its insidious roots into heretofore responsible Republican politics. George Bush, in another magnanimous gesture, has forgiven 70 percent of Poland's U.S. debt a total of $2.8 billion. This expression of big-heartedness follows his forgiving of $7 billion dollars of debt owed to us by Egypt. It is surprising that one politician has the power to further plunge this country into irretrievable bankruptcy. Only yesterday the U.S. Senate approved $42.5 billion for the gulf war outlay. This included $6.5 billion in war damages for Israel. Has Bush and Congress lost all sense of fiscal responsibility? I for one vehemently protest such utter financial idiocy where they give away tax dollars I have yet to pay. I know that Congress does not need authority to funnel billions of non-existent dollars overseas; they create the power when they write the appropriation bills. Pray tell me how George Bush is entitled to play international Santa Claus. People, this has to stop they are giving away the store!

HOW CAN THE U.S. continue to wipe off debts that these foreign countries owe this United States? I simply cannot understand the way our government works. They're more concerned with foreign countries than they are with the American interests here at home. I read in the paper today that they were gong to allow Turkey to import more textiles into this country. And we know what that means: that means more jobs lost. When are these people going to start doing the job that they were elected to do, and look out for the American people and the Americans' jobs? Letting more imports come into this country is certainly not going to help our recession or our economy. Unless this is straightened up in the next few years, everyone in Washington, D.C., should be replaced with someone who cares about the American people. I'm tired of seeing my tax dollars go to foreign countries. I supported the U.S. in the gulf war. What do I get out of it? Thank you.

I JUST GOT good a good idea: When they put the fires out in Kuwait, they should take Saddam along with them. That way they will know where the land mines are.

SOMEONE MADE THE remark that Jesus is a conservative Republican. Well, praise God I belong to the right party. Thank you.

I'M SORT OF disgusted at Andy Rooney's performance on "60 Minutes." He was really attacking Sen. Simpson of Wyoming, a conservative Republican. Seems like he's got the guts to do that, but he was too ashamed to stand behind the comments he made about the homosexuals. I think that's pretty bad when you have the courage to stand up for your convictions in one area but not in another. It shows that he knows what side his bread's buttered on, and that's the extent of it.

WELL, I SEE in the news where some school systems are teaching our second-graders Japanese, which I guess is appropriate. The way this whole country's headed, some day Japan is going to own us if we don't quit selling out to them. Think about it.

IN REGARDS TO the person who would like the Cape Girardeau Public Library to be open on Sundays: What about all the young people who work at the library, and Sundays are the only days they have to visit their families? Thank you.

TO ED, JILL, Alisha, Chris and the Otahkian basketball girls: I want to say thanks for letting me watch basketball at its best. I was one of the few who saw all of your games. It has just been during the central regional quarterfinals and now the finals that the basketball fans are finally waking up to see what they have been missing. Maybe next year they won't wait until the end of the season to support such wonderful people. God bless all and good luck in the future. Thanks.

WELL, HERE WE go again. Our ambassador to Iran testified that Saddam promised her that he would not use force in Kuwait; but she did not, and no one asked her what she told Hussein that Bush was not going to get involved in their dispute with Kuwait. No one asked what she told Hussein concerning that. That's the way to get the truth, don't ask the question.

HOW CAN THE U.S. government continue to forgive these foreign countries of their debts to the United States? We hear on TV where President Bush wishes to forgive half of what Poland owes the United States, which is $3 billion, and they're willing to forgive $1.5 billion of this country's debts. The United States is running on empty and they seem to be more concerned about the foreign countries than they are the United States. When and where are these politicians going to start taking care of the people that they were elected to do so? I just simply cannot understand the way that our government works in giving this money away. This makes me not want to pay my taxes. Thank you very much.

I DO NOT BELIEVE that the police anywhere in this country are brutal. When one is arrested by the police, the police usually give that person orders to lie still, sit still, or to stay put. If that person does not obey those orders, it's a sure sign that he intends to fight back or to retaliate in some way, usually with violence. More often than not the police have to use force to keep from being hurt and possibly killed themselves by the one they have arrested. It is a case of using force or be killed. Thank you.

WELL, AT LAST Saddam Hussein has been replaced by public enemy No. 1: the oil companies in America. Notice Saddam went to war, took Kuwait because he wanted $20-a-barrel oil. We've got $20-a-barrel oil, but the only trouble is the oil companies jack it up faster than you can imagine; an 11-cent jump at one time, first crack out of the barrel. Not bad, especially when you consider that when the oil was a glut, which it still is, they dropped it by a penny here, two cents there. It took them months to get it down. But it didn't take them very long to go up, and we're right back where we started. Thank you.

HOW CHRISTIAN-LIKE of producers and record people to give criminals a chance to be stars in show business while straight, trustworthy, talented people are left unnoticed. All of this is just to get publicity and to make a buck. Thank you.

ABOUT THESE BEATINGS in California: That's a terrible thing, but I noticed the Rev. Jesse Jackson called for the resignation of the white police chief right away. And, at the same time, the black mayor, Bradley, hasn't said a thing about it. The mayor is supposed to be the head of the city. This isn't racially motivated, is it? I'm just wondering. Thank you.

THEY JUST ANNOUNCED on the evening news that the Bush administration scrapped plans with the IRS to audit and go after the small people, the low-income people, for their income taxes. If this is true, why has my daughter, who just has a part-time job and is disabled, been audited the last two years? Thank you.

I HAVE SOME things I would like to voice my opinion on. First of all, I agree with the person that wrote in and said that they thought the library ought to be open on Sunday. For a long time I've always thought the library should be open on Sunday, especially for the kids who have to work on Saturday. It should be open on Sunday afternoon for a while. I don't think, though, that the Cape bunch will ever do it. Secondly, I read in the paper where they're looking for maybe another anchor store out at the mall. Why not Montgomery Ward? I always enjoyed Montgomery Ward when it was here in town before, and they have good, quality merchandise. I'd like to see Montgomery Ward and I would also like to see another discount store, maybe Target, or Grandpa Pigeons. Thank you.

HOW WONDERFUL ABOUT the school board voting for the fancy scoreboard. Our academic programs are in distress and we wonder why. Although sports are part of school life, they are being given undo importance. Now we'll have this scoreboard as glaring evidence as one more reason why our schools are failing. I'm positive the money spent on the scoreboard could have been put to better use serving our students in a more responsible way. How can we expect our students to revere their academic education when the adults guiding them prove they don't?

TO THE MAN who called Speak Out saying that he found Peter Kinder's column referring to gays and lesbians pretty much on the mark, I have this to say: First of all, it is invalid and irrational to generalize an entire population of people from the behavior of so few; i.e. so-called gay men engaging in sexual activity at public parks. Second, if sexual promiscuity is one of your concerns, then perhaps you should consider gender issues rather than sexual ones, for it is the males of our society who are socialized to be promiscuous, not the females. So leave lesbians out of it and refrain from commenting on what you obviously know nothing about. Finally, to address your concern of child molestation, it is not only males who molest children, but heterosexual males who do so. Check your statistics. How about that? It is heterosexual men who commit the large majority of rapes, homicides, child molestations, and so on. That makes you, dear sir, if you are indeed a heterosexual male, the more likely criminal. It is you who are rightly suspect in many people's eyes, not millions of innocent gays and lesbian people. Thank you.

I WAS WONDERING where Don Pritchard's column is. I've missed it lately. Thank you.

Pritchard has moved from Cape Girardeau to Ste. Genevieve and no longer writes the advertorial in the Southeast Missourian.

I WOULD LIKE to reply to the person who thought that Peter Kinder made the war a Democrat-versus-Republican issue. I have some advice for that caller: Don't read Peter Kinder. Everything in that man's life is Republican versus Democrat. I'll bet that he even thinks God and Santa Claus are far to the right.

HATS OFF TO the girls in the SEMO athletic office for doing such a fine job with the basketball tickets. Thank you.

I SAW JACKSON First Baptist's production of "The Redeemer." It was wonderful. I was moved to tears several times throughout the production. Everyone performed an outstanding job. The instruments, the choir, and the lead singers were exquisite. Congratulations, First Baptist, on sharing such a beautiful Easter pageant with the community.

ON THE WAY to work around 8 Thursday morning one of the disc jockeys on KTXI read an article from that day's Speak Out column which concluded with the statement that Jesus is a conservative Republican. The disc jockey then commented that unless the person was being sarcastic, he was insane. It was obvious the disc jockey thought the Speak Out caller was serious. Having now read the entire article, it is readily apparent that the caller was being sarcastic because of the comments he made on Jesus' teachings. I urge the disc jockey to read the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible, and to fall in love with Jesus. His teachings are still as radical, right, and socially relevant today as they were 2,000 years ago.