SPEAKOUT

Call 471-6636

I was reading today where President George W. Bush went to a school today in Washington, D.C., and asked the students to start a pen pal program with children in the Mid East. Is this the same President that has asked that no Mexican trucks come across our border? Come on, folks. Even Republicans are saying something's wrong with this guy.

This is about our local store that is open 24 hours a day and is so convenient. About 50 percent of their checkers very obviously lack the proper training to perform their jobs at the check-out stands. The customers know more about the advertised sales prices than the employees. It gets very frustrating to get in a refund line every time you go there because you were charged the wrong price. One of the store managers I spoke with blames it on the main store for the errors. So who is right or who needs the training?

Lord, I have a landlord who says she is a Christian. And yes, Lord, she has the Ten Commandments in her front yard. Yes, Lord, No. 1 says "Thou shalt not lie." So, Lord, open my eyes and ears that I might see and understand why she isn't being the Christian you want her to be. And please help me understand why she doesn't fix my wet floor and we get sick. Lord, just let me forgive her because she knows not what she's doing. And if she was a Christian, Lord, you would not do a brother or sister in Christ this way. I think my landlord needs to get on her knees. What about you, Lord.

I would like to make a complaint but I don't know if it will do any good. In the South Point Shopping Center, there are two vehicles of people who work there who take a total of eight spaces between them. Who can I call, the landlord or the police department, to see about making them park differently? It really creates a problem when you want to park out there because if you park one way, you could get hit by one car and if you park another way, you could get hit by somebody else.

We have no idea who would be the best person for you to call. If you know who the owners of the vehicles in question work for, you could contact that business in the center and speak with the manager.

I'm calling about the issue concerning the Harry Potter books. First, I would like to say that I am a Christian and I have read the Harry Potter books. I find them very enjoyable, nor do I have a problem with my children reading them. They are fiction the same as some of the books and movies we read or saw while growing up, like Dracula, Frankenstein, even Star Trek are fiction, yet you don't complain about these. I suggest you read the books before you trash them. You might find that you would see Harry Potter as a good person, striving to what is right when faced with bad or evil things.

This is to the lady who favors banning the Harry Potter books. If your children are not intelligent enough to separate fantasy from reality, they're more than likely too dumb to read, as you probably are. What's more, you're probably aghast at what the people of the Taliban does to the people of Afghanistan. Well, what you want to do is exactly the same thing - take away our freedom. I consider myself a true, saved Christian and one of my favorite books, if not my favorite book of all time, is the "Lord of the Rings Trilogy." All the witchcraft and fantasy in there hasn't hurt at all. By the way, I'd like to know when the Nazi book-burning is going to be. While we're at it, let's throw T .S. Elliott and Mark Twain in there also.