Opinion

Go figure: A student-soldier is called up to active duty, spends a year serving his or her country, and returns to MU to find the welcome home involves a mess of paperwork and pleas to professors and officials before picking up an education again.

This quote below is from the President Bush’s radio speech on Saturday.

OK, enough is enough. I urge every citizen to contact our Missouri state legislators and the governor and lieutenant governor and demand that state, county and city petroleum taxes be suspended for a period of six calendar months beginning July 1.

Another day. Another wonderful, magical day. I spring out of bed, have my four cups of coffee, joke and pun a little with my wife who is still not ready for it. Then I look around. Sun shining. Warm spring breezes wafting about. No siren screech reaches my ears. The smell of eggs and bacon. What a day!

This column will probably annoy if not enrage some of its readers. It is triggered by a recent effort by a St. Louis alderman to overturn a provision of the state health code which prohibits all animals except service dogs from entering the premises of a restaurant, to include outdoor patios and sidewalk cafes. Stating the obvious “People love their dogs,” Lyda Krewson has introduced a doggie friendly bill.

Before their massacre at Columbine, the young killers spent hours desensitizing themselves from actual human suffering by killing in cyberspace. Now Columbia’s children can too — at the Air Show. While most players never cross that line in reality, the Army learned how to overcome our youths’ moral values and natural inclinations against killing human beings via computer games.

A friend announced at lunch the other day that she had stopped watching television news for the time being. She said she was so disgusted with the way political leaders were ignoring the people’s will that it made her stomach queasy when she got to the dinner table. She said it was understandable why people stopped going to the polls to vote, because the two parties could obviously care less.

It has taken the World Bank and the Bush administration much time to find a way to remove Paul Wolf­o­witz as the bank’s preside.

A couple of weeks ago, an MU law professor published an essay in The New York Times explaining how Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could be impeached.

A story we didn’t publish has been the subject of conversations around the Columbia Missourian for the past week or so. Many people have thrown in their opinions on how to handle the firing of Missouri lacrosse club coach Kyle Hawkins.

Murray the cat jumped on the bed, stretched out and, whatdoyaknow, showed off a fresh sore spot in his gray pelt. Murray seemed completely unconcerned. He sort of let me look at his wound and then bounced off the bed.

We have access 24/7 to view or read about the terrible situations in Iraq. As one ponders the course of this Middle East conflict for nearly five years, is it possible there are roots that can be traced to biblical times? Although people may disagree on whether the Bible is to be taken literally or metaphorically, most would agree that it is a historical account. Are there then similarities between these two particular ancient “news reports” in the book of Genesis and the news reports today?

Disabled voters, who already have more than their share of barriers, would be further burdened by the Missouri voter ID proposal. While most healthy people take their driver’s license for granted, disabled voters very likely do not have one. That is why the proposed Missouri voter ID requirement would place yet another expense and barrier for people with disabilities who already have natural barriers to voting.

Since the unofficial “start” of the 2008 presidential campaign, “they” have spent a lot of time talking about Bill, Elizabeth, Ann, Michele and all of the Giulianis. The media and fundamentalist groups have been telling us how the candidate’s spouse can help or hinder the campaign of each potential 2009 resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Multiple marriages, infidelities, children (good and bad), each holding a value of liability and asset, measurements of American marriage morality. It’s bunk.

In his May 16 column “Photo IDs could end voter fraud,” J. Karl Miller cites as “evidence” of widespread voter fraud in Missouri claims that have been so thoroughly debunked that there is no need to do so here. But one assertion begs rebuttal.

I was speaking at a conference recently in Calgary, Canada, when a student from Montana posed this question to me at the end of my talk: “Dr. Merrill, you referred to ‘foreign students’ in your talk. That seems to me to be a put-down of these students. Shouldn’t you call them ‘international students’?”

Recently a local school boy was awarded a prize for a poem he composed. Joseph Brodsky, Soviet dissident and Nobel Laureate, proposed that all high school freshmen should be presented with the gift of a volume of American verse. What does poetry teach us? Form, structure, discipline, the beauty of our language, imagery and proper usage.

Recent flooding in this state serves as a reminder of the costly effects of flooding on homes and businesses.

The presence of voter fraud, as with beauty, is firmly fixed in the eyes of the beholder.