SpeakOut 9-25

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Poo poopty doo

I recently read a comment about no candy being given at the Cotton Carnival Parade because of potential liability for the city. Would not the horse poo be a hazard too, as raw sewage in the streets and a slip hazard for the marching bands? Or the Clydesdales - wonderful horses, but makers of huge amounts of poo and a tendency for flatulence, a greenhouse gas that is flammable - egads! Call the EPA we're going to be gassed and pooed on and a runaway horse might bite someone. But for God's sake don't pass out wrapped candy for the kids, they might like it. And keep the Cotton Carnival away from downtown - the merchants may have too many customers and actually make some extra money.

To repeat, candy will be given at the parade - it just cannot be thrown. As long as they don't throw it, I think the horse poo will be allowed.

Wind, bombs and gas

Yeah Mike, I just wanted to make a statement here - two statements or maybe three. Due to our recent windstorm we had, maybe our city needs to curb its spending on our Public Safety Department on cameras and probably a quarter-million dollar command center, bomb squad and all their hi-tech gear that looks good sitting around - I'm sure we have to have that in time of attack when somebody does something crazy, but we made it a lot of years before we had bomb scares and all that mobile command center. What we had was working for us. Use that money to correct our utility problems, such as the windstorm when we lost power for several hours. Use it to do a lot of tree refurbishing and stuff like that. The people in our community that have a complaint with the fuel prices really need to call their representatives. Crude oil is now down to under $93 a barrel. We should be down to $2 a gallon on fuel. Everybody needs to get together and not drive to work, not drive to the grocery store, don't do nothing. Take this matter into our own hands. We've already lost a lot of state jobs and projects for people in our community due to people cutting back on driving. We quit driving for a couple of days, and that'll make a big impact. We led the United States in fuel conservation not too long ago, and we can do it again.

Still has a toothache

I have a handicapped daughter that needs dental work. Her teeth are really bothering her. She's got a Medicaid card, but they don't have the funds or whatever. I've even went down there to the sliding scale place where they're supposed to work with you and help you and they won't do it. They want $65 up front, that ain't counting x-rays and everything else and we just don't have that kind of money. If they would just let me pay them $50 or $100 a month I'd do that to take care of her pain. She's very sick with her teeth - getting ill with it. If anybody can help me, please put it in SpeakOut who could help her. She's precious to me and she's a precious person. She needs help. I just can't keep her on antibiotics and pain pills all the time. Please tell me what to do.

Quality not quantity

I read the write-up entitled Caught in the web in the SpeakOut Monday, Sept. 8 paper. I would just like to comment on a few things. Right off the bat I would like to say this is not intended for people that truly and honestly need the help and is intended for mature audience, viewer discretion is advised. First thing, about the people getting in trouble and wearing baggy pants because there's nothing to do in Sikeston. I have lived in Sikeston all of my life. When I have nothing to do, I clean up my lawn, service my vehicles, I may even watch TV. And not one time has my pants jumped two sizes too big while I was doing it. Mental note: next time steal the right size pants. I've got another idea for these slackers. While you are running back and forth to the mailbox for all the free goodies, pull your baggy pants up and put one foot on each side of the sidewalk. Around the 3rd, it will look like you weed-eated your sidewalk. If you ever feel out an application, you can say you are a multi-tasker. Get-r-done. Second thing, about our schools sucking. Any place that you put people that were raised with bad parenting skills with people trying to do their work will suck. Just put an alligator in your bathroom to prove my point. And last but not least, the comment about Sikeston's finest patrolling the shindig on the west end entitled Return-2-Sunset. This is a get together that is intended to bring good people and good things back to Sunset - a good community coming together to enjoy each other's company and to see some old friends. The Return-2-Sunset always starts out with the very best of intentions by people that truly care about this community. It would be a wonderful thing if it wasn't for the slackers causing trouble fighting, parking their cars in the middle of the road, getting drunk and causing trouble. The good people that live there are afraid to come out of their house. Now compare this with the other side of town, namely Complex Park, where thousands of people get together on any given night - in competition I might add - and there's nowhere near the trouble. And this goes on all summer long, night after night. It's not the crowd - it's the quality of people in the crowd. One more thing, I still say that the misuse of Section 8 is really hurting this town.

Lay off

I just heard where another factory is laying off again. Well, that's the good old USA. People in Washington and Jeff City don't care whether people work or not. They want to put us all on welfare. That's the way it's going to go if they keep on.

Christian philosophy

It's interesting that, while political "conservatives" often preempt the term Christian for themselves, the Democratic philosophy comes closer to Biblical advice on how we should conduct our lives.

Street walkers

Everyday at 3:30 p.m. I line up on Davis Boulevard to pick up my child from Lee Hunter Elementary. And everyday, I see the same kids walking home in the middle of the road! Davis is a divided street, with a grassy median between it, but for whatever reason, these kids refuse to move from the street. There are around 30 or so cars lined up along the street everyday, and people that are not getting in line, cannot even drive down the street because of these kids. Yesterday, I saw two girls, around 13 or so, walking like every other day, and they turned around, looked at the car approaching behind them, and just kept walking! These children have a complete lack of respect and a sense of entitlement that just infuriates me.

That's a wrapper

This is in response to "Takes the cake, but not the candy". Since I was a child, I have always looked forward to the Cotton Carnival parade, and now that I have children of my own, I enjoy it even more. In recent years however, the scene AFTER the parade, saddens me. Although I don't quite understand the "safety issue" of the candy being thrown, the trash left is enough to ban the candy. One person mentioned that as taxpayers, we should have a say in what goes on in our town, and I agree. As a taxpayer, I do not want to have to pay the city to clean up the mess left behind from candy wrappers, soda cups or cigarette butts. As citizens of Sikeston, we should take a little more pride in our city and clean up after ourselves. As parents, we should be more concerned with teaching our children to respect our city, than whether or not they are getting candy.

Sweet tooth

For you people that are so upset about not getting candy at the parade - if you would have read the article properly you would see that you are still going to get candy. It is just not going to be thrown to you, it will be handed to you. There will still be candy. And if you need it that badly, you can buy a bag of Tootsie Rolls or gum for about $3 at Wal-Mart.