The Sound of the Beep

You comment about how the mayor's house foreclosure and personal bankruptcy looks to someone who might be considering moving a business to our city. Between the tournaments and other events at the Coliseum, the furniture market, golf tournament and other events in the area, we have hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city every year. How many of them might pick up The Rhino and read all the criticisms of the mayor, the City Council, our daily newspaper, the school board and the county commissioners. What kind of image does The Rhinoceros Times project about our area?

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Editor's Note: Not too many after this week. But the truth is that we frequently received letters from people visiting Greensboro who picked up a Rhino and wrote to say that they wished they had a paper like it in their hometown.

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Well, if you think for two seconds that these are the only people that are interested in blowing us up, you've got it timed about right. The aunt up in Canada or wherever said, show her the evidence. They need to actually show the man setting the bomb down beside that little 8-year-old boy. To quote a lawyer that used to write into the paper all the time from down south of Greensboro, hell is going to be way yonder too cool for them two fellows. And naturally preacher Obama had to get on television just as soon as that was over, because he jumped in front of the camera. If there's one on, he gets in front of it. Anybody that don't believe this, just watch the news.

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I have recently been talking with a Delaware native who now lives here who remembers Vice President Joe "bite me" Biden very well. If the following statement is accurate about Biden, and I hope for his sake it isn't, I believe it would explain volumes about his foot-and-mouth problem. The individual has told me that some time back Biden had several mini strokes or possibly even an aneurysm. If that be the case, obviously, not fatal. He did say that Biden may now have early-stage dementia or Alzheimer's that is being kept hush-hush. If that is so, I do feel sorry for him, politics aside. My mother had a hellish eight-year battle with dementia before dying in 2007. I hope for his sake this is not true and that his foot-in-mouth disease is attributed to a bad case of ultra-liberal …

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From 1978 to 1996 in Australia they had 14 mass shootings over that 18-year period. After the last one in 1996 they had sweeping gun control laws that were enacted and for the last 17 years they have had zero mass shootings. So, don't tell me gun control doesn't work. We have a proven set of circumstances in Australia to show that it does.

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Editor's Note: Are pressure cookers legal in Australia?

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Yes, Steely Dan Fan Man. I'd like to say I agree with the Marine that called in. I was 18 in 1980. And I wasn't allowed into the service, the Army, because I had quote, a troubled background, that is an arrest record. And the economy was too good. But I'd like to say that I was brought up the same way that he was taught in the Marines. And that is, honesty, integrity, hard work. I used to train people in my work. And I wouldn't make them do anything that I wouldn't do first. And I agree wholeheartedly with this man. And I just, kudos to this guy. I agree wholeheartedly. He should be commended. He's a good man. All right, bye.

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I support Robbie Perkins, Mayor Robbie Perkins, as our mayor of Greensboro regardless of his personal problems. He has been a fine mayor. So many people within the city endorsed him and helped set up his platform to run for mayor, encouraged him. At least Mayor Perkins has a college degree. I feel it should be mandatory that anyone that is going to run to be a mayor of one of our cities in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point, any city in the surrounding area, they should all have one thing, and that is at least a bachelor's degree, a four-year college degree of a higher education. That's something Vaughan does not possess. Have a good day.

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Our Greensboro city manager mentioned the city's yearly threat to close a library but this time threw in a rec center for good measure. We don't need less healthy or more illiterate citizens. A really useless facility to close down is the new million-dollar visitor center and bathroom facility at Gateway Gardens. It's on the side of East Lee Street going out of town. The only logical use would be to use the bathrooms before getting on the interstate to leave town. Thank you.

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It's ironic, don't you think, because the word phonic is not spelled with an F?

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Hey, I agree with God. God created marijuana, and he also created the agave plant, which is what tequila is made out of. So, this guy that wants to argue about alcohol and marijuana, you know, you know. Like I said, God created them both. So, I agree with them both. Thank you.

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I had a dream. There was one senator for each state and three representatives. And we was saving billions of dollars a year. And, then, we started doing it in North Carolina. And there was only 15 of them worthless fellows down in Raleigh, and we were saving billions of dollars. But it was only a dream. Only a dream. Dang it.

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I've been driving a bus for a couple of years now, and I have to say that some of the people in this town are the most rude, crude, obnoxious, discourteous, disrespectful drivers I have ever seen. Blowing your horns at the bus just because I'm making a turn. I mean, really? Blow your horns at us when we stop at the railroad tracks. That's a law. OK? Get it through your thick skull. It is a law. We have to stop at all railroad crossing even if it is an old, unused track that's out of service, we have to stop there. Going down the highway, we can only do 45 miles an hour. If you see us on the highway with flashers going, we cannot go over 45. We cannot turn right on red. So, stop blowing your horns and stop trying to get us to turn, because we're not going to do it. We cannot turn right on red. Get it through your thick skulls, people. OK. That's the lesson for today. Thank you.

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Continuing. That also goes for all school buses, be it the short, special-needs school buses, regular school buses, what have you, it doesn't matter. It goes for all school buses. So, just keep blowing your horns if you like, but you might as well be blowing your noses, because you're going to get far better results. Thank you.

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Yeah, I just wanted to say I enjoy reading Under the Hammer, and I hope John Hammer just keeps hammering the liberal Democrats and all about what all they try to get from mother government.

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When they get to talking about Section 8, there's a house up in front of me that is rented under Section 8. The grass is knee high. There's five barrels of garbage sitting up there stinking. They moved out. The yard is plumb full of junk. And I'm going to tell you, that's a sight for sore eyes. That's what our taxpayers is paying for. I say do away with Section 8. Make these people straighten up. They get married, have a baby, move their boyfriend in, and then the state and taxpayers picks them all up. Somebody ain't doing their job.

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Yeah, with unemployment at 8 to 9 percent or higher here in North Carolina, maybe y'all can get the information and tell me how many cases of voter fraud there were in North Carolina say in this past presidential election. And let's get those percentages, and then we can try to figure out why we're passing a voter ID bill for something that is almost nonexistent and doing nothing about a jobs bill for something that is very much existent. Why don't y'all see if you can get that information for me? I'd appreciate it.

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Well, it looks like a nasty underbelly story is about to break again, which involves the public defender's office and the now practicing privately former prosecuting attorney and how they have been in cahoots in the past and withholding evidence so that they can plea bargain deals out, especially when they just simply don't want to bother with trying a case. And they actually have evidence to show it's going to take a case to settle it. In other words, late '80s Hispanics were not given an opportunity to …

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Continuing. I assume it involved English as a second language speakers who came along when the district attorney's office and public defenders were not equipped to deal with people who did not speak English well. They intimidated them into accepting a plea deal, strong armed them without telling them that they would be under a retainer for deportation. You know, we just read about the guy being released from prison and the former DA, duh, I didn't know about that. But the facts show that they obviously did. And how many more prisoners are needing to be released or not ever even put into prison because of such shenanigans by these officials?

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Hello. I'm calling on behalf of the article that was written in The Rhino Times on April 4. It mentions there that Wellspring retirement residents were doing marijuana with their grandmas and grandpas in their rooms. I was a bartender there for nine years and two months. I very much respect the residents at Wellspring, and I want to do grins and gripes, and I want to make my own column to let people know what this is really about. I believe that this young man has gone far and beyond the truth of what marijuana truly is.

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Why does John Hammer think that a food should not be considered Southern unless he has eaten it recently? Shame on the News & Record for printing a picture of grits without first checking with Hammer to see how long it has been since he has eaten some.

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Could you find out if Mr. Alston is going to take his apartment complex that he's managing private after he gets all of the federal, state and local money to build it like he did the civil rights museum, and what his percentage is going to be as a coordinator of it? And ask him, or find out how you could have used all the tax money and federal grants and so forth with the civil rights and, then, once it got going take it private and put his self in with Earl Jones as the directors at a salary that will not be disclosed. Thank you for your time.

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I've know the Perkins family for quite a while, and there's some comments by some who don't understand the importance of keeping the youngest child in Greensboro Day School. Mayor Perkins sent his two sons to Greensboro Day and on to Duke University. His two oldest daughters graduated from Greensboro Day and went on to college. Why should the youngest child not have the same good education that Greensboro Day where she's been since the first grade? Mr. Perkins, pay the school bill for your little girl.

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Hi, this is Otis, my man. I just wanted to tell you I wish y'all would quit picking on Robbie. I grew up with him. He's a pretty good old boy. I thought who the heck could possibly pay $13,000 a month when you're in bankruptcy. But I said, let's go to Skip Alston. I said if you want to pick on somebody, pick on him. But let's call it what it is. I mean it's a black and white thing with him. I mean I'm so sick and tired of hearing about Skip Alston I could scream. He has absolutely destroyed this town. And he absolutely made a fortune off of it. Well, I doubt if it will ever get – it's a black and white thing. You know? When things don't go his way, he uses race.

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Yeah, the North Carolina individual income tax has a new starting point for 2012. It starts the computation from your taxable income. It changed from that to your federal gross adjusted income. Well, that just means that there is more money or more income that they are going to be taxing you on now when you do your state return. Basically, for me it works out to about a 50 percent increase by just that one change in the amount of taxable income that I have to pay on this year. Sounds like somebody has been doing their homework and knows how to rip people off.

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Could you, please, explain to the people that call in and write in that if the Keystone pipeline is approved, it's not going to make the price of gas go down for you and me? Price of gas is determined on the stock market. They're not in the business of selling their stockholders short. They are in the business of making as much money as they can for their stockholders. So, they are going to charge as much as they can for gas.

It's not going to be any cheaper because they are getting a new supply. So, explain that to some of your callers and people that write in so that they will know and believe it because it's coming from you.