SpeakOut 9/6

Friday, September 6, 2002

Call 471-6636

Mike, that was a good editorial you wrote in the Aug. 27 paper about those thugs up in St. Louis. I appreciate you writing about it. Everything that needs to be said, you said it.

I am a senior at Sikeston High School. When some of the girls get to school, they are so drunk they can barely sit up. it is so ridiculous. I can't even dance with my boyfriend without some 11th or 12th grade girl so drunk and sloppy she cannot even stand. It is ridiculous! Their parents may not know what they're doing but they need to make sure their kids are not drunk because they will be the next kid getting hurt or killed in a car accident because they're drinking and driving. This is totally ridiculous and sad.

Some people who call SpeakOut make me wonder - two cases in point recently. People not knowing why the trash pickup people are coming so early in the morning, duh, it's cooler then. Also, the person who left a tool by a bike fence, unless their fingerprints are on file with the local police or FBI, how are they going to get the bike back using the fingerprints from the tool the thief left? I just wondered. There are many, many cases like this. I guess people just don't have enough to do. Normally I love reading SpeakOut.

I wish somebody would answer a question for me. The mosquitoes get the West Nile virus from birds and transmit it to people. Where do the birds get it?

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), West Nile virus has been commonly found in humans and birds and other vertebrates in Africa, Eastern Europe, West Asia and the Middle East, but until 1999 had not previously been documented in the Western Hemisphere. It is not known from where the U.S. virus originated, but it is most closely related genetically to strains found in the Middle East. CDC scientists believe the virus has probably been in the eastern U.S. since the early summer of 1999, possibly longer. For more information, visit the CDC Website at www.cdc.gov

In regards to the people who wrote in about the stoplight in Charleston on Marshall Street, this is rural America and you can be fined. After sitting there at the light for 15 minutes and finally realize that it's not working, so you look real good in all directions and then go through. So then the cop sitting there catches you to write you a ticket. I know, because I went there to a doctor last week. I also stopped and waited and waited at the light. As I was will and was going to the doctor, I also checked the traffic and went through. Lucky for me, the cop wasn't sitting there, but if he had been, I certainly would have contested my ticket.

I'm calling about the billboard on Main Street, near Sonic and Rodchester's, in support of breast-feeding mothers. What is that all about? That's a total waste of money. Bottle feeding or breast-feeding is a personal choice. What are people supposed to do to support breast-feeding mothers? That's very strange. I think the money, tax dollars, could be spent in a much better way.