Speakout 10/24

The Bush campaign's latest attack ad clearly misrepresents comments made by John Kerry during a recent interview. John Kerry did not say that the war on terror was a nuisance. He, along with anyone who has a brain, knows that what we are involved in is a very real war. The comments he made express the hope that we all share that with hard work and perseverance, the threat of terrorism will be reduced to a level that does not consume our thoughts each and every day. As George Bush said recently, the war on terrorism will never be completely won. It is simply impossible because there will always be extremists in the world willing to kill and be killed to subvert freedom and democracy and advance their own ideology. George Bush and his supporters knew exactly what John Kerry meant. They should be ashamed of themselves of their effort to confuse and mislead the voters in this shabby way.

I thought we were supposed to keep church and politics separate. Well, the last few years, I believe we have had too much church and politics mixed together. Let's keep this separate. I believe this is how it should be. I do believe prayer should be in churches and also to be in school, like it always was, and "In God We Trust" on our money. But mixing politics and religion is just too much.

I enjoyed Mike's column about grant money being taxpayer money and whether it is being spent wisely. I felt that way when Kit Bond brought $250,000 of grant money to the Kansas City area for a study of the Goth culture among teen-agers, you know, the ones who dress all in black. This just seemed so unnecessary and wasteful to me. Grant money is an effective tool for politicians to buy the love of the voters with our own money.

I would like to SpeakOut about the Oct. 14 editorial you had about FEMA. I just spent a month in Ohio as a disaster assistance employee. Your article said that FEMA paid for people who have 10 houses and boats and lost them in Florida. Anyone who goes to the www.fema.gov website will realize that FEMA does not pay to get people back to the way they were before the disaster. They pay to get people back on their feet after the disaster with basic needs like food and housing. A boat is not a necessity and therefore would not be covered by FEMA. I hope that the readership will visit www.fema.gov and realize that this is an excellent program put out there to help people in need and needs to be supported. And I would hope the Standard Democrat would check its facts before printing something like this, even though it did come from another newspaper.

I read the article about where a woman was searched in a store and I wonder if it was the same store where a young man went outside and was in a vehicle and the clerk went outside and made him empty out his pockets because she thought she thought him steal something. I know you can't name the store, but I wouldn't have done it and I would have called the law on her. Another thing, I don't trade at that store but I called the manager and it didn't do any good. So, lady, you're just wasting your time trying to talk to any of the store managers out there.

You can call the store and get the phone number to its corporate offices.

I have seen numerous articles about the outrage of the treatment of Iraqi prisoners. What I do not understand is why is it OK to treat Missouri prisoners that way? I have friends and family in prison at Charleston and have been told that when they are in the "hole," they are lead around on a leash. Why? Is it OK for our people to be treated like this? I do not think so. I have my own opinion as to what should happen to people who commit certain crimes. But since we simply put them in prison, should they not be treated as humans? Should they not be fed edible food? I believe these human rights people should look at how our citizens are treated before they gripe about how Iraqis, who murdered our families, are treated.

"We treat our inmates within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution and state law," said John Fougere, public information officer for the Missouri Department of Corrections. He said the DOC takes allegations of mistreatment very seriously and if the caller knows of a specific case of mistreatment, "we invite them to contact both our staff and any area law enforcement." As for this general allegation of prisoners being led around on a leash, "I've not heard anything about that," Fougere said.