Speakout 2-19

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

I thought we had an atomic bomb program here in the United States. What are we afraid of? In Iraq, Saddam Hussein doesn't care how many inspectors gets into his country or how many U-2 planes we send over there. He has all his stored underground. We better wake up.

This is in response to the Feb. 10 "Charity begins at home" comment. You're being selfish and very inconsiderate. There are people all over the world who need some kind of help. There are people all over America who need help with all sorts of things. But if the President's heart is to go help people in Africa who have AIDS, I say, let him. He's doing the right thing. Besides, I don't see how anyone could be homeless or hungry with all the job opportunities and shelters we have. I am a single, 33-year-old mother with five children. I work to keep food on our table, a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. It's hard, but I do it. So I say, help those who need it worse than I do.

Our national and state indebtedness gets more scary each day. Our great-grandchildren of today will probably see their great-grandchildren struggling to balance the budget. We seem to have fewer friends and allies every day. It's time to stop big-dogging it, take a look at our homeland and consider what could happen here and how Bush could prevent it. I don't believe in hiring more chiefs when the Indians we have can get the job done. On the state level, Governor Holden has an empty barrel to work with and little support from the Legislature. It seems all the big guns want to do is play politics. They aren't representing the people of our state; they are working for the next election. When it does come, we should sweep them all out. Ladies are better in the kitchen anyway. They want the home taken care of. Give them a good look at the next election.

I read about the so-called discrimination in the East Prairie schools in your Feb. 11 SpeakOut column. I always thought that for any club activity, it was a decision on their own and not from the school since it's not school-sponsored.


To the caller of "Dig for story," why don't you and your fellow parents and the coach of the girls programs get as involved as the boys' coach and parents are? It has nothing to do with the school system, but has all to do with the coach and parents. The parents feed the boys and help out. You could do the same for the girls.

I had some plumbing work done in the fall and have also had work done to fix my heating. I thought these places were honest, but they charged me big-time, and overcharged on some things. I am thinking of turning them in to the Better Business Bureau. Some people think they can take advantage of me just because I'm a senior citizen and a woman.

I live at Wendell Apartments. There are about 37 parking places which are posted with signs that say, "Wendell Residents Only." We have a lot of trouble with the public trying to take our parking places. They'll pull in out there and then get mad if someone puts a sticker on their car telling them not to park there. They say they don't want to park in the back because it's dangerous. But they want us old people (some of whom are disabled) to park in the back so they can have our parking places to visit people who live in the apartment building. If we followed them home and parked in their yard so they couldn't get into their homes, they wouldn't like that, now would they? They get mad and curse out the janitor who tells them they can't park there. These people are totally in the wrong.