Speakout 6/8

James Smith's letter in the May 30 paper is just another smear campaign aimed at John Kerry. Mr. Smith insults all Vietnam veterans who died or were wounded with less than four months in Vietnam. John Kerry spent a tour in Vietnam on the USS Gridley and then volunteered to serve his country again in a combat role. Mr. Kerry was awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. All the lies and smears in the world will not change that fact. James Smith does not speak for true patriots or veterans when he spreads these lies. You are either ignorant of the facts or jealous. Quit insulting Vietnam veterans with your rhetoric. John Kerry's military record is stellar and Mr. Bush has a spotty record at best.

I am a citizen of Sikeston, 70 years old and have had two heart operations and medical problems and I was at Benton this past week and saw people with disabled plates on their vehicles at the courthouse, walking up three flights of stairs and they were just fat, overweight people. Then they come back to Sikeston and you see them sitting in a restaurant eating with their disabled plates on. That is a disgrace. What this country needs is not to fight the Democrats and not to fight the Republicans but to take care of the people who are spongers off the system. I know several fat guys in their late 40s to early 50s and all they do is eat and gob and draw disability checks and run around, we see the plates on their cars and they park in front of grocery stores, pile their carts up and I wish you would please print this. You people who are fat with disabled plates don't need to park in areas where people have a medical problem or can't walk or need a wheel chair. You need to keep your butt out of there and go back to work.

As a taxpayer and concerned citizen, I am wondering what can I do about all the people drawing disability checks when there's nothing wrong with them. If you have a bonafide terminal or physical disorder, of course these people are deserving. I hope I could get help if I needed it. But because a person is obese, alcoholic, a drug addict, depressed or some other pathetic reason, I don't believe taxpayers' money should go to them. It seems to me doctors, lawyers and case workers would want to stop this nonsense. It's money out of their pockets, too. It makes me sick, knowing my tax money goes to people who claim to be crazy but work 40 hours a week for cash. These same people go to the doctor for free, get free meds, Section 8 housing and the list goes on. I hear about how much the war in Iraq is costing. That's nickels and dimes compared to how much the government pays to fraudulent disability claims each month. There is one positive side to this. I would say 80 percent of the people give the money back to the community by playing bingo five nights a week.

I have children and was very disappointed Saturday night when at 6:15 p.m. it started to rain very heavily. When I went by the fair, the fair continued to go. The bumper cars and other things that are very electric kept going and nobody stopped the fair. Parents continued to put their children on these rides. All it would take is one child to be electrocuted for people to wake up and stop the fair when a big rain storm hit our city. Whose responsibility is it? Parents ought to stop and think. If the child cries, offer the child something different to do. Or is it the city's responsibility to make it official that when a rain storm comes to stop the fair? How many volts of electricity goes through that fair? I'd really be curious to know where the responsibility lies.

I read in SpeakOut where someone was ready to even the score by actually breaking the law. I noticed that the Standard Democrat, the responsible newspaper that it is, actually printed it. I used to live in Sikeston and I come back and read SpeakOut and am just impressed. I think you should publish the "Best of SpeakOut" because it has some of the dumbest entries and the paper actually prints it. It is no wonder this is a redneck town that I left.