Speakout 3/22

Call 471-6636

I am a lifelong resident of the city of Charleston and I am totally disgusted with the way our city government has allowed our city to become a haven for punks that install devices on their vehicles, such as boom boxes and loud mufflers with the sole purpose of depriving honest hard-working and once-proud Charlestonians of the peaceful enjoyment of their homes. How can city authorities expect people to want to live in a city that allows this to prevail, as this is usually a precursor to other criminal activities? I challenge any Charleston City Council member to respond to this in the Standard Democrat or Enterprise Courier. By the way, I am not associated with the Standard or KFVS-TV, who usually gets blamed for blowing things out of proportion that occur in our city. At least the Sikeston City Council and the Standard Democrat did take a stand on this issue in their city.

I want to comment on the racial issue in this country. Some people actually believe that there is no racial issue, but I beg to differ with anyone who believes such nonsense. Those who speak against the ongoing fight for equality are either cowards or blind to reality. They are cowards who refuse to speak up when someone makes a racial slur against them or when someone discriminates against them at work, the grocery store, a fast-food restaurant, etc. This attitude is not new in the African-American community. When Martin Luther King was marching during the '50s and '60s, some people claimed he was doing the wrong thing. These same people now have children and grandchildren who are benefiting from his sacrifice and the sacrifices of thousands of others who gave their very lives for the cause of equality. They are blind to reality when they accept intolerance instead of fighting against it. It wasn't that long ago that African-Americans couldn't work at those places, go to restaurants and eat inside, stay at hotels, etc. They pretend that everything is all right and people should leave well enough alone. To these people, I say stop promoting racism by silence and get a life. P.S.: Embrace those who are attempting to make a difference instead of criticizing them.

I'm calling about the March 13 SpeakOut concerning cigarette taxes and smoking. That's right. How many times have you been run into by someone who was intoxicated on a cigarette or got in the face or choked somebody because they were bent over on cigarette smoke? When they start sticking 50-cents tax on a bottle of beer, I'm all for the cigarette tax increase. But you're not going to see that because most of your judges, lawmakers, legislators, politicians and attorneys are all alcoholics. They're not going to do that. Why, we don't know. But let's jump on the alcohol tax and see where that goes.

We don't need any more banks. We need factories to support people to work at. We have so many hard working people who are out of jobs, out of luck. Please, let's get some factories in Sikeston for people to work in. Then maybe we'd have money to go into these banks. Sikeston has a bank on every two blocks. Maybe if we had some work, we would need these banks. A lot of people are out of work. Why do we need these banks?

To the New Madrid County School Board, please don't put dollars ahead of the well-being of our small children. You can give all the excuses you can think of for closing our grade schools, but it all gets down to the dollar. Try every other option before you close the schools.

Can you tell me if Riggs is still going to build out there on Murray Lane? If not, they need to take the sign down.

We called Dolph Riggs, president of the company, who said, "We still intend to build on Murray Lane. We have been in Sikeston since the late 1940s and plan to stay in Sikeston. We have just slowed our start date in anticipation of an upturn of the economy. I do appreciate all the inquiries I receive from our customers and we get them quite frequently."