SPEAKOUT

Thanks to shuttle driver

I WOULD like to thank Mary, the lady who drives a shuttle bus for Southeast Missouri State University. She is always very very nice to all the students. She's always cheerful, and she always tells us to have a good day. It's just nice to be around someone so upbeat and friendly.

They had affairs too

HOW NARROW-minded is that individual is who is giving the Southeast Missourian editors such nonsense as only the Republican officeholders are adulterers. Has he forgotten that Clinton and many other Democratic lawmakers have done many times worse than the Republicans? I could name at least a dozen. So please, talk about the Democrats' adulterous affairs too.

Thanks for commandments

WE WERE asked to give thanks in Speak Out. Well, I give thanks for the Harrisburg, Ill., schools. I mean, they're pretty close to us, and they have the guts to put up the Ten Commandments and the Magna Carta in their offices. That makes sense. I'm thankful.

Looking in the mirror

I READ with interest the caller's comments that voters are tired of compassionate conservatism. I'm certain that the American people are also tired of having a real moral compass like Bill Clinton around. In fact, three of the past four Democratic presidents have been proven adulterers. At least no one accused President Nixon, Reagan or Bush of being adulterers. In addition, at least Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Livingston had the dignity to resign when their transgressions were exposed. President Clinton did not. Repent, ye sinners. Try looking in the mirror next time.

Need student info

IT'S APPARENT that Jesse Jackson cares nothing about education. As usual, he's just trying to get his face in the newspaper, asking $5 million for each student. Schools can barely operate as it is. It's ridiculous that he would even try to score through our school system. I believe when kids get themselves in trouble and it becomes a national news story, the media should publish the kids' records and attendance. How else can we judge this case? We're on the outside looking in, trying to make our schools better and safer. If Jesse Jackson can't be held to his agreement to one year of alternative school then back in regular school, then perhaps he shouldn't be bargaining. Apparently he's not a man of his word.

Plenty of competition

BEFORE BASIC Fuel entered the scene, motorists were at the mercy of local gas stations. Remember all of the Speak Out comments complaining that local gas prices were much higher than in other parts of the state? The bottom line to this frivolous suit is that the plaintiffs finally face some competition and apparently don't know how to compete. Perhaps they should consider selling their establishments to people with more business acumen. And the rest of us should consider giving the owner of Basic Fuel a certificate of appreciation.

A business question

PRAY TELL, if Basic Fuel has been selling gasoline below cost, how have they managed to stay in business.

A deer hunter's tale

AT A local restaurant, I overheard a hunter telling how beautiful the deer was, standing in the sunset with his large rack of antlers. He said he almost didn't kill it because it was so magnificent. Then he told of shooting it, gutting it, cutting its head off to be mounted on his wall. His friend said it would have been great if he'd had a camera instead of a gun. A picture would have saved the moment more than a head sticking out of a wall. The hunter said, "You must be nuts! Someone else would have killed it."Health care is a right

I AM responding to the caller whose point was that he has no obligation to pay for anybody else's health care. We are the richest country on the face of the earth, and we're the only developed country that does not provide any basic health care to its citizens. The biggest misconception on why health care is so expensive is because 90 percent of the money spent in the typical person's lifetime is spent in the last six months of their life. Seventy-five percent of the total spent in a person's lifetime is spent in the last three weeks of their life. The only people who have access to health care in this country are those who are provided or who can afford health insurance. Basic health care is a basic right, and we should all insist on it.

Farmers take other jobs

I WOULD be all for the farmers getting government aid if it was like it used to be in the 1930s and 1940s. Grandma, Grandpa, the kids and the grandkids all pitched in and helped do the work. But now, Mom and Pop both have outside jobs. If they would farm all year long, and not take jobs away from someone else, they would deserve the aid. I say let them stay on the farm and do the work.

Farmers need our help

TO THE pompous person who said farmers can set their prices: In no way can the farmer set his own price. The caller compared farmers with the other businesses that can't set their prices. That is not true. Each market sets different prices. Hey, friend, something's wrong when pork chops are over $3 a pound, an all-time high price, but the farmer is going broke. Who's making the money? For the caller who mentioned the bailout of Lockheed Martin: We can do without airplanes a lot longer than we can do without food. Without the farmer, we cannot survive. The farmer needs our help. The farmer has helped us out through the years and through three different wars. We couldn't even go to war without the farmer. The farmer is in trouble and needs our help.

Responsibility to care

WE ARE one country. We do owe it to each other to help each other when we're in trouble. If people are without health care because they can't afford insurance, or their employer does not furnish it, we're all part of one country. I feel obligated to help those without. I'm willing to pay a little more taxes to help out. I'm not so judgmental as to question whether the welfare recipients need it or not. We do owe it to each other.

Women have voting power

IN YOUR ballot of the Top 10 stories of the century, you forgot one important story: the women's vote. That amendment affected Missouri. And if women hadn't gotten the vote, Clinton would never have gotten elected.

It's not farm welfare

FARM PRICES and government help. How many people have ever been farmers? Maybe you should trade jobs for about six months. Farmers work a lot of long hours doing hard manual labor. The prices of hogs and cattle have dropped considerably, as well as the grain prices, they're about one-fourth the price that they were two years ago. Feeder pig prices dropped from $1.20 a pound to 20 cents a pound, and sows and boars from 12 cents a pound, and you still have to feed them. Do you still think the farmer doesn't need help? It is not welfare. Evidently, you have never been a farmer. Try going out and buying a new tractor or combine and just see what it costs. If all the farmers go out of business, where do you think the food will come from? A lot of people would starve. Stop and think about what a farmer puts on your table. I think the help the government gives the farmer should be called something besides welfare. Have you ever checked the price that the farmer sells something for, and the price you pay in the grocery store? See who is making the money. It is not the farmer.

Spending at SEMOTHIS IS directed to the SEMO administrators. I really feel they don't know what's important to the SEMO students and their parents. Students don't care about fountains, river campuses, charter schools in St. Louis or special historical roads in Southeast Missouri. SEMO students care about money. Tuition was about $100 per semester, including fees, in 1972. Now tuition with fees is closer to $2,000 per semester. Here are some of the things the students are getting for their money: a teacher routinely telling half the class that they would not be in that class by the end of the semester. An entire department of professors taking a weeklong trip for a conference the week before Thanksgiving. A teacher missing four night classes in one semester. With a 16-week semester, that adds up to be about one-fourth of the semester with the teacher absent. I suppose if I were a SEMO administrator, all this would make perfect sense to me. But since I'm just a parent with three college-age children, I really feel I'm not getting my money's worth.

Storms in January

THE CITY of Cape, Ameren

UE and Southwestern Bell want to lead us to believe that Y2K is no more of an issue than a winter storm. Maybe some of the people in Cape have forgotten that we had a spring storm that caused a lot of us to be out of power for three days. What position would that put us in January.

Highway priorities

I SEE in a recent article in the Southeast Missourian that Missouri Department of Transportation Henry Hungerbeeler was speaking to members of the General Assembly, calling on them to create "new revenue streams." He asked the senators to find new sources of income for the highway department, and he blamed the lack of income for hindering the construction of new roads, bridges and other needed highway items. I want to point out to everyone that when bureaucrats begin speaking about new revenue streams, they always say "revenue." What they're referring to is taxes. They're not asking the members of the General Assembly to go out on the sides of the roads and pick up aluminum cans or to start washing cars and mowing lawns to fatten the coffers of the Legislature. What they're asking them to do is create taxes and toll bridges. I don't think the people in this state have a problem with providing adequate funding for highways. I think they do have a problem with what they view as mismanagement of existing funds. If the straits were so dire for the highway department that they're having to cancel certain highway projects, maybe they should have held off on the construction of the district office at Sikeston. Maybe they could have made do with the building that they had. After all, that's what would happen in private enterprise.

Civil War history

ONE AGAIN Walter Williams shows why he's one of the best and brightest of the columnists. He takes on the Civil War issue in a way that only a black man can. Williams correctly points out that the North did not attack the South in order to stop slavery, as they tell us in the history books. Instead, the South peacefully seceded from the Union because those states wanted lower taxes and free trade with Europe. It was really a trade issue. It was really sort of Republican ideas. The South wanted free trade and lower taxes. The North wanted to keep them in the union.

Guns vs. morality

AS THE deaths by guns drop every year, even with increasing population, Clinton, Gore and the liberals continue to want to disarm decent citizens. They don't care to mention the increase in loss of morals and decency in our country, pushed and accepted by the liberals and their anything-goes values as we saw them rally around a pervert in the White House.

It's about oil rights

CLINTON, WITH his grandiose delusions, is going around the world dictating his foreign policies. War is no way to eliminate terrorists, the Germans said. Do they include the Yugoslavia bombing in that statement? It's all coming out now about the Kosovar War and Yugoslavia. It was really all about the Caspian Sea oil rights. Clinton has signed a deal with Turkey to build a 1,000-mile pipeline to the Mediterranean, also a gas pipeline. This is causing a rift with Russia. So Clinton's invasion in Europe is stirring up the cauldron to the boiling point. Clinton and Gore are against United States offshore oil rig operations, claiming environmental destruction. So they're going to operate in Europe. This bombing, deceitful Clinton is challenging the world for oil rights and will stir up World War III. He's a very dangerous man and should have been forced out of office after impeachment.

Thanks for the help

I WANTED to take this opportunity to thank Pam at the city of Cape office for the great customer service she gave me. She has the greatest phone manners, and she went out of her way to call me back with valuable information that I needed to solve a problem. I wanted to recognize her and thank her again.

Where the food comes from

MY HUSBAND is a farmer and works full-time somewhere else. He row crops corn and beans, and we have cattle. We do not receive government aid, but I don't want the government to tell us what to plant and how to do it. Also, the farmers who receive aid deserve it have to pay it back. No, this is not welfare or unemployment benefits. Most people know they will receive a check monthly, biweekly or weekly. Farmers have to depend on the weather, livestock illness and the government setting prices. They have to pay for fertilizer, veterinary fees, seed prices and stock prices, breakdowns on equipment such as tractors, combines, and forever changing flat tires. So the next person who wants to gripe about farmers when you sit down at your table to eat, remember who provided that food for you.

Look at the problem

WHILE I find it saddening that students were not only injured but killed in the annual bonfire that they have down in Texas concerning a football game, my problem is this: We as adults who are concerned about a few things in this world need to stop and think. We cannot burn our own trash, but they can burn 7,000 logs strictly for a bonfire. I know this is happening in Texas, and Texas does what Texas wants to. But I think as a nation, everybody should look at this in perspective. Console the people, but apply it to the problem.

Thanks for VFW tribute

WE WENT out to Brookside Park on Veterans Day in Jackson to see the flags at the Veterans Memorial. They were just beautiful, blowing in the wind. I would like to thank Charles Schultz and Harland Seibert and all the other VFW men and women who are responsible for taking care of this. They do a great job. Harland Seibert has put in so much of his time since that memorial was started. He uses his own equipment and donates many hours of his own time, and still he brings his own truck to haul the flags up the hill so they don't have to carry them up and down. He deserves a special thank you. VFW men and women, you do a great job.

Hate crimes for all

WHEN THE homosexual boy out in the western state was beaten to death by two supposed heterosexual men, President Clinton made a lot of political hay over it in trying to get hate-crime legislation implemented. Recently, a 13-year-old boy was tortured and beaten to death and sexually molested by two homosexual adult men in Clinton's home state. It made the local newspapers down there. A reporter asked Clinton's spokesman about why Clinton didn't say something about this incident and was told "Oh, he didn't know anything about it. We don't read about that stuff." No media has played this up anywhere. They don't want to air anything that would put a favorite group like the homosexuals in an unfavorable light. The second thing somewhat similar to that is that several black men pulled two white boys off a bicycle in Carolina and beat them to death. Clinton never had anything to say about that. Neither of these merited any comment from Clinton or from the media to be looked at as hate crimes. Homosexuals and blacks are supposed to be the only victims of hate crimes. It's undermining the unity of this country by making certain status groups victims and not consider other incidents to be hate crimes and pay no attention to them. People should think about this. Heterosexual white Christian men can be picked on and mistreated and that's all right, but not homosexuals or blacks.

This is a test ...THE ELECTRICITY was off for an hour in Scott City today. I was just wondering. Did the traffic lights work any better? Was there less congestion when people had to turn it into a four-way stop than with the traffic lights? Maybe this was a sign. Maybe they should change the traffic lights.

It's the water's fault

I JUST heard on the news that last year they couldn't work on the Mississippi River bridge because of high water. Now this year they can't work on the bridge because of low water. I'm wondering if they've come to the same conclusion I have: the problem is the water. If they didn't have the water, they wouldn't be having any problems at all with the bridge. Think about it.

What about Tom Upton.

I WAS wondering, in connection with your piece on the athletes of the 20th century, one that I didn't see was a baseball player from about 1950 named Tom Upton. He was called Tom Upton in St. Louis. I've heard him called Herb Upton. He played for the St. Louis Browns and the Washington Senators. I was wondering if any of your readers know anything about him.

Standing up for Democrats

TO THE Republican making fun of his Democratic friends: I'm a strong Democrat, but I can't say I care for the ACLU. I believe in a woman's right to choose. However, I think in the case of incest and rape it's the woman's business, between herself and her God. Yes, I'm a strong Democrat, but the fact is we may have different views in the Democratic Party. We're all one big united party. We're for increasing the minimum wage when needed. We're for stopping companies firing people at will. We're for union representation for all employees. We're for a strong welfare program where it's needed. Yes, we do believe in national health care. That's the difference between us and the Republicans. Call us socialists if you want, but I think there's decency in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt plan for the Democratic Party.

Survey caused tardiness

I'D LIKE to know who was responsible for the survey that's being done one recent morning on Highway 72 down by King Creek Bridge. It backed up traffic forever. Not only were both of my kids late for school, but I was also late for work, which can cause me to have a check mark. Once I get three of them, I'm out. The survey was not posted or advertised. No one knew or was prepared to leave earlier.