SpeakOut 10/14

Monday, October 14, 2002

Call 471-6636

I would like to SpeakOut about the cigarette tax they're going to put on the Nov. 5 ballot in Missouri. Neither my wife nor I smoke nor drink. Neither do my children and grandchildren. There should be a watchdog committee in Jefferson City to tell the voters in Missouri how that money will be used. Put it on television or in the newspapers and make sure they use that money right. So many times they get carried away up there in Jefferson City. They put something like this before the voters and then they mishandle that money. I'm not happy with this situation and I hope it's defeated in November. You young people who are 18 and over, get registered to vote.

I have been a subscriber of the Sikeston paper for many, many years. My sisters say I read everything in the paper, including all words. Tonight I read everything, including the date, and I could not believe that on pages 5 and 7 it said Monday, Oct. 2, 2002. So I guess I do read everything in your good paper.

We apologize for this oversight. The daily pages are set up and ready to go for the next day's news to be added. We apparently hit the wrong key for those two pages and didn't catch it until it was too late.

I would like to thank the customer at Orscheln who found my purse and the lady who kept it behind the counter for me.

I'm sure that Jim Talent won't see this, but he keeps coming on TV telling what he did for senior citizens for prescriptions when he was in Congress. I'm a senior citizen and bought three prescriptions the other day, a 30-day supply for each one. One was generic and I had to pay $340 for the three. If he helped the senior citizens, I would sure appreciate knowing who they were.

I saw in the Oct. 1 paper where a lady from New Madrid has been appointed to serve on the Delta Regional Authority. She says one of the most important things needed in the Bootheel is transportation. Lady, you are so wrong. It should be jobs and employment. Ronald Reagan told one of the biggest lies when he was president that was ever told. He said the North American Free Trade Agreement was needed. NAFTA just took jobs out of this country and the Bootheel. You're on the committee and that's one of the things you can do to help the Bootheel. I am retired but I want to see more jobs in this area and all over the four-state area. You have your work cut out for you. What you put in Monday's paper won't make dent if you don't get some action behind it. I want to see you get some action behind these jobs and transportation. I'm not going to get too excited until I see some jobs come into Morehouse, Sikeston, all over the Bootheel, so get to work. Words don't count much with you politicians.

I was in an unusual situation. A skunk died in my yard. I found out that the city doesn't pick those up and no one else does. I guess I'll have to put it out in the middle of the street so someone will pick it up. I am a disabled person with breathing problems and it is decaying in my yard. What can I do to get rid of this problem?

On Sept. 28 I borrowed a big American flag and it was lost on or near Kathleen Street during the Cotton Carnival Parade. If someone has found it, I would appreciate a call at 472-0022 or 481-9122.

Someone referred to Mr. Talent as a wimp, instead of name calling the honorable widow Mrs. Carnahan. Yes, Mike Jensen and his propaganda machine refused to print this. What is the story here? Do I need to call the Democrat a nasty name before I get my comments printed in your propaganda newspaper?

The following SpeakOut was published on Oct. 3. "Where is the pro-life crowd? George Bush is marching toward a war in which many innocent lives born and unborn will be lost. Where are your tears, your prayers, your signs and your gun-toting radicals? Are you justifying the taking of human life? Does your silence indicate that it's OK to kill in certain circumstances? And who decides what those circumstances are?" In response to this comment, if President Bush marches on an enemy, the innocents killed will be secondary casualties, not our intended targets. And yes - you infer correctly that our culture does indeed believe it is justifiable to take human life under certain circumstances. Your language seems to indicate, however, that you are attempting to justify abortion by comparing it to war, so the more pertinent questions are: Who are you waging war on when the unborn are the "primary" targets? And why?