TRIB TALK

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Jim Robertson, managing editor

"In Sunday’s paper, Rus Baer mentioned that Rock Bridge and Hickman have gotten their money’s worth out of their new field turf. That’s an understatement. Hickman hasn’t even paid for the field turf. It basically got what amounted to a $300,000 interest-free loan for theirs because the booster paid for Rock Bridge’s up front and Hickman is still yet to be paid for."

"John McCormick’s op-ed piece concerning how poorly our public school system acted when determining the location of the new high school was right on the mark."

"I was listening on the news the other day, and it said there’s upwards of 70,000 online sexual predators in the United States alone. It makes me wonder whether our forces would be losing if there were that many insurgents in Iraq. I’m thinking maybe our police department has got a tremendous job they have to go up against to bring all these people down. When you measure terrorism these days, I think you should measure it through the eyes of a child. There are a whole lot of them out there, and I’d like to see the world put the hammer down on them."

"I’m just calling to thank the officers and the Columbia Police Department. My purse was stolen out of my car this morning while I was out walking my dog. Within two hours, they found it. And even though the cash was missing, everything else was there, thank goodness. I really want to thank the police officers who helped me and also the citizens who were around and helped me look."

"I have a question for the Tribune readers who have called or written protesting the recent cartoon regarding our president’s colonoscopy: Just where do you think his head is?"

"I’d like to say that I am absolutely outraged that on the public schools redistricting committee eight of the 10 community members on the task force live in the Rock Bridge area. I cannot believe they did this. It should be an equal number of people from the Hickman area and Douglass area, as well as the ones from Rock Bridge. … I think it’s bad that they’re building another high school south of town. People in the northern part of the town need to start speaking up and getting a little bit better representation."

"I watched the YouTube Democratic debates last night, and two things come to mind: One is that not one candidate had the guts to respond to the question about Social Security tax applying to all income levels no matter how much it currently stops at 70-some-thousand dollars. And it should apply to your income no matter what it is. … The second point was John Edwards was really the only candidate that had the guts to say that we’ve got to literally fight and take on the insurance and health-care lobby. You can’t negotiate with them. They’re in control, they’re in the pockets of the candidates, they’re controlling government and they’re getting their way."

"This is in regard to Rep. Ed Robb and his comment, ‘Take the gifted program: Those students are geniuses. Chances are they’re smarter than the teacher.’ How can he possibly think he’s going to win the support of the teacher community by telling us we are not any smarter than our students? Goodness sakes, he ought to be ashamed of himself."

"I used to diligently save soup labels and various box tops and take to the schools even though I don’t have any children in school. But if they’re going to waste their money and not account for what they do and use credit cards to make purchases they shouldn’t make, I don’t think I’ll do that anymore. Why should I spend my time trying to help them when they’re wasting my taxpayers’ money?"

"I’m calling about the grass roof that they’re thinking about putting on the building in downtown Columbia. I agree with Hank on putting goats up there to keep it trimmed. And also I’d like to point out something that this really would be a good place to put the BS that originates in the building. They could use it for fertilizer up there and save a lot of money."

"Well, I’m sure you won’t print this, but I have an idea of what to do with those obnoxious stickers you have on the front of your Tribune every day. I think all your readers should rally together and collect those stickers and send them back to you with their bill."

"I’ve got a great solution for the pot smokers for medical reasons: Go back to the state you came from that legalized it, or find one that has and leave our state."

"In the July 25 paper, you say motorists die in a collision and call it an accident. If the article is read carefully, it will be seen it wasn’t an accident; it was carelessness, as most so-called accidents are. I think it’s time that you quit using the word ‘accident’ when the situation definitely indicates that someone was careless."

"I’m just calling to say how much I enjoyed Hank Waters’ article on Boone County hams. The only ham he forgot to mention in Boone County was himself, and he can’t be cured."

"Has our city council and mayor gone completely off their rocker talking about a grass roof and roundabouts on Broadway? My, my, my. And the second comment I want to make is our school board is becoming very, very secretive in what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. Whenever they receive an audit and then don’t even make it public for over six months, and the only reason it got public then was because the newspaper happened to get hold of it, something is wrong somewhere, because that’s being way, way too secretive."

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