Speakout 5/1

Sunday, May 1, 2005

Please, please Tell these people in Sikeston that the lane with the yellow turn signs are not for them to pull into traffic. They are to make turns from traffic. Day after day I see some idiot pull out trying to get on to Main or Malone

by using the turn lane. Write these idiots tickets so this stupidity will stop.

I have a question about the local drop box in front of the Sikeston Post Office. It is gone! Now there are only two boxes to drop your mail in and you go by there at 5 o'clock every day and it is full. So here they take a box away and the situation is even worse. How about a little public outcry about this? Please.

First of all I would like to start out by thanking the Department of Public Safety officials for keeping our streets safe. I do appreciate everything they do and what they do but here lately I have seen far too many young officers speeding on all of our streets. Just a few minutes ago I saw one take off around Dorothy Street, tires squealing and everything. There is no need for that and if there is a need for that shouldn't they have their lights on and/or their siren? I think they could be a lot safer if they would used those precautions.

I would like to respond to a letter to the editor from Scott Coatney in the Thursday, April 21, Standard Democrat. I don't usually respond to Letters to the Editor in Speakout but what I have to say won't take very long. In Mr. Coatney's letter he takes Judge Grear from Florida in the Terri Schiavo case to task for not honoring a Congressional subpoena. He said Judge Grear showed judicial arrogance and it was not up to Judge Grear to decide whether or not Congress should get involved. I would just like to tell Mr. Coatney, when Congress became involved with this what they did was to put the Schiavo case into federal courts. Judge Grear was a state court judge. What Mr. Coatney is saying about Judge Grear is incorrect. Judge Grear was done with the case when Congress became involved and tried to send the matter to a federal court. Again, Judge Grear was a Florida state court judge and his response to the Congressional subpoena was perfectly valid because the Congressional actions had nothing to do with him. This matter is fairly typical of everything that was done and said about the Schiavo case. First of all it was wrong, including Congress, to get involved. Mr. Coatney needs to go back and check his facts a little closer before he goes and comes down on Judge Grear unfairly.

This is in regard to the price of Girl Scout cookies. This is not just in Sikeston, this is through the whole Cotton Boll Council. Cape is a different Council. Different councils set the price of their cookies by what they need the money for. The bigger the council, the more the cookies cost. There are two different bakers so it depends on which baker they use, too. You know Girl Scout cookies used to cost 50 cents a box, so quit complaining.

Court

I live on Williams Street and I was just calling to say that I think it is baloney that you can not play basketball on your own property. You know the property right in front of the road.\ How come the police always have to come on Williams Street and tell you that you cannot play basketball on Williams Street? They don't go on Ruth street and the don't go down on Delmar and they sure don't go out into the richy-looking neighborhoods and tell them not to play basketball. I see basketballs down there all the time and they are playing but the police never say nothing. Besides kids on Williams Street and right down on Scott Street, I think something needs to be done.