I Like TV

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Make sure you catch Entertainment Tonight tonight. Sneak peak at Public Enemies.


Here is last nights little piece.


Watchman - Always been a fan of the comic book and this movie is really getting a lot of press which is good for PE.

Actually Watchman reminds me of "24" except Jack does not wear Lycra (which is good). Watchman are aging costumed super heroes in a time when the public think they are vigilantes. It's a fine line, just like Jack in "24". Where is the line between saving thousands of people and a torture here an there. There are these rules that sometimes need to be crossed. I've never been big on rules as they are so black and white in a multicolored world.

All I know is Jacks day just went for bad to real bad.

There is a new show coming soon. Anybody watch Deadwood? What I consider to be the best show of all time.

IS this something Al Swearengen would say?

"Speak in riddles, Reverend, you’re liable never to get your point across,"

Actually it's Silas. played by Ian McShane in the new show called "Kings". Kings is actually a classic story of David and Saul from the Holy Bible I Samuel 18 which reads:

"After David killed Goliath, Abner took him to King Saul. David was holding Goliath's head in his hand for he had cut it off after he killed him. As David stood there, Saul said to him, "Whose son art thou, thou young man?" And David answered, "I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite."

Now while David was speaking to King Saul, King Saul's son, Jonathan, was listening. By the time David finished talking, Jonathan loved David just like he loved his own soul. David was brave and courageous and he believed in God. Saul took David that day and would not let him go home to his father's house. David's new home would be with King Saul and Jonathan.

David and Jonathan made a covenant with each other because Jonathan loved David like he loved his own soul. Jonathan gave David many gifts--his robe, clothing, his sword, and his girdle.

Because of David's wisdom and bravery, King Saul entrusted him to do many things for him. David went wherever Saul sent him and he was in charge of the army. David behaved himself wisely and all the people and Saul's servants accepted him even though he was so young. "

Ian McShane plays the King and David is played by Christopher Egan. Everything I have read says this show is amazing, risky and confusing. Not unlike LOST I suppose. As one reviewer puts it. "I'm confused but can't stop watching".

If Ian McShane is anything like Al Swearengen and the show has decent writers I'll be hooked.
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Wednesday will be Kurth night - 1st Wednesday of the month.
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I have a dentist appointment today. Pray for me. I don't think there will be any major drilling of excavation but you never know with dentists. I will not use pain killer though. I'm going to be a man about it. I once took out my own appendix with no pain killer and then 3 weeks later put it back in (just for practice) so I think I can handle it. I should really do my own dentistry.

WHOA - man, I just gotta huge paper cut - WOW that hurts!! ZING!!!! Oh man! no no here comes the tears!!!
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One of my goals this year is going to be getting the downtown district looking presentable. I feel this is the most important summer ever in Columbus history and the historical area needs to be beautified.

With the movie coming out we are going to get a lot of curious people wandering around and some of them might have a buisness looking to relocate. Only takes one you know. I know some people are tired of the Deer in Headlights attitude of the City Council but I am going to remind them that this is not a time to sit on their hands. I mean good God people spent their personal money on the train station - what did the city provide??? Why should I spend $60 on the train station when the City does squat.

I even heard that some are against planting trees because trees are sticks for 5 months a year??? I believe they are just afraid of being strung up! Who made this decision?

I said this last year and I meant it when I said I will NOT let this happen again. Because they could not get off their ass's and spend money this is what prospective business's saw when they entered Columbus. The new Mayor is concerned with pot holes but there are bigger problems here and I will point them out to larger newspapers then the Columbus Journal if I have too.

And it's not just flags that are the problem. Sure there are 6 dive bars but there is nothing we can do about that and once the smoking ban happens they will be less dive-like. But there seems to be a lack of ambition when it comes to making the downtown beautiful.

I'll have to take some photos of what SOMEBODY thinks is beauty but I call it a waste of money.

There is a video called The tragedy of suburbia which is below - it's about 19 minutes long but is pretty interesting and entertaining. It talks about trees and buildings and strip malls and is very relevant to Columbus and the backward direction we're moving.

I urge anyone who is interested in helping the town to watch this. I believe the City Council all refused to view it.
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OK - I must leave and go to the tooth of doom.

Rod Out

Columbus Abstract

SCAM ALERT - I got a coupon from Havill Spoerl Fort Atkinson from FreeBeeGas. Test drive a car and get a special deal. Send in $100 in gas receipts and get a $25 coupon for gas for 12 months. Costs a one time deal of $5.

You will never get anything from them. 100% SCAM.
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I'm going to post what WOULD have been in the Columbus Pioneer a few days ago. If you are wondering what happened to the CP go here.

But first a few things.

Bookmarks (3) have been sent to the printers and I'll see a proof in a few days. You should be able to get them where you could get postcards, except Walgreens who sold 300 cards in three weeks and then said they did not want anymore.

So here are the book marks. 72 dpi rather then 300dpi for the real things (meaning they look much better "live"). And they are also laminated.

And on the back of each one.

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Other news - I'm surprised my opinion of Andrew Dice Clay can get even LOWER then it was before last night. For anyone that watches the GOOD reality shows and not the dating/beauty/eating crap reality shows you all know that when you put the word "Celebrity" in front of a show it makes the show pretty unwatchable.

However - Celebrity Apprentice actually makes the show BETTER! Seeing 16 Celeb's, all who are not used to taking orders from anybody butt heads is fun. Watching Hershel Walker get pretty freaking angry Andrew Dice Clay was a joy. You see Mr. Clay just did not want to make cup cakes. Not his thang.

What makes this show interesting is that all these people do not want to only be known for what they are famous for (except Andrew I guess). Check it out on Sunday nights.

I won't mention Amazing Race as many of you have not seen it yet.
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Todd, in the comments yesterday mentioned something about a "start-up". This is still in the fuzzy hazy foggy area yet but let's pretend for a second that we made the TruthinesseInColumbusPolitics into something real. Not attack attack attack but an online "newspaper" that talks about the GOOD things happening with a slant towards talking people into a more historical Main Street style movement (as opposed to strip malls).

Current news when it happens, no bickering, sell ad space on the cheap. Put ad's in the newspaper informing people we're here and so forth.

What we need are writers that are "into" Columbus.

Again - just thinking out loud here.
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OK - Columbus Abstract. This was going to be in the Feb 26th edition of the CP.

I had cancer about 15 years ago. I went in to get a mole looked at and 3 days later I was having MOHS Chemo surgery as I was diagnosed as having a malignant melanoma on my shoulder. They took a silver dollar size chunk of flesh out of my shoulder down to my muscle tissue (sort of cool actually seeing my muscle) and then they looked at every single cell. Then to make sure they got everything they carved out another quarter inch and looked at every single cell. Bingo.
What they did next was interesting. They glopped what looked like tar into the newly formed hole in me, put a bandage over it and off I went. That was about fifteen years ago and you can not even see a scar. It healed from the outside in. The miracle of healing.

I mention this because it was about that time when I decided that since life really is a tenuous commodity why should I spend any time with negative emotions. I should spend more time looking at the positive. Life is too way to short. I won't say it really changed me but I do appreciate life much more.

Now when I first wrote this piece I was angry at a certain website and . . shall I say, I didn't mince words. I was not angry at the content but more at the hypocrisy of the site and blatant dirty politics. I let it sit and stew a couple days and realized that perhaps I was letting my emotions get the best of me. It's not that I did not like the people behind it, I just did not like their actions. I rewrote it and was happy until I slept on it now I am rewriting again.

I'm not going to get into a saber rattling war and I'm not going to bring the subject up again. For one thing it accomplished its goal and I just don’t have the energy and frankly, I would lose. There is a clear advantage to playing dirty politics - good guys do lose, bad news does sell newspapers and people do watch train wrecks, it's a fact of life.

So after reading about all the huge earth shattering problems Columbus must be having I decided to look at how the town really was doing. Being a guy that is in love with spreadsheets and graphs and statistics I looked at 36 other small towns in Wisconsin in the 4000 to 6000 population range so I could accurately compare.

Here are the facts and you tell me if Columbus is heading in the right direction.

NOTE - I wrote this in 2009 - things have sure changed haven't they.  In the past 3 years from 2010 to 2012 the growth rate is 1.1%.  Had a little jump in 2009 but from 2006 to now only 3.0%    4904 to 5055.   

Contrary to what many people believe, Columbus is an inexpensive place to live. When you look at the 2008 Cost of Living Index of my group of 36 small towns, the cost of living in Columbus is below the average of the other towns at an index of 82.6. The US average is 100.

What about city growth. Is Columbus growing? Sure is. The growth rate of Columbus is 10.3% since 2000 which is 33% faster than the average small town and faster than 85% (let me repeat that, 85%) of all the other small communities. This includes the growth rate of Cottage Grove which is 30.5% and sort of skews the numbers.

he average age of your normal Columbus resident is 37.4, slightly older than the average (37.0) and while the average income is on the low side at $48K, the poverty level is in line with other communities.

Crime? Not even close. Columbus is a very very safe place to live and much safer than the average small town. The US crime index is 320, the average small town in Wisconsin has a crime index of 143 and Columbus is at 114. I used a 6 year average for those numbers. Plus the crime index has been sinking for the last 4 years. Our Police Department has been doing a fine job and thank you.

Unemployment in Columbus is low also. 3.3% are unemployed compared to 3.7% for other small towns.

I can not really compare tax rates because you never know what is included. Some towns have lower taxes but they also do not have garbage pick-up or recycling and so forth while Columbus has a magnificent Fire Department. I'm particular to Fire Departments as I wanted to be a Fire Truck when I was very young (yes, I did say truck - I was confused as a child). You just can not compare tax rates. With that said if you must compare, Columbus is slightly higher than average and I'm sure it was mentioned on that certain website. It could be due to some of the blunders I hear about from past administrations. They all add up over time.

A couple of interesting tidbits. Columbus is 47.6% Male and 52.4% Female. The median house value in 2000 was $114,000 and in 2007 that value (before the assessments) is $174,000.

So with that said, things are not as bad as you might be lead to believe. All is well in Columbus except for some typical bickering that happens everywhere. If you think Columbus is bad you should see Madison. It's just that Madison does not have a website whose soul purpose is to anger it's citizens.
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The last of my moms, Sugerfoot poems.

Sugarfoot #6

She wrapped the small furred body in a blanket
as if to keep it warm, though it was cold
already. Clenching jaws against the grief,
she laid it in the earth where he had dug
a grave (so small) beside the greening poppies.
Together then, in silence, they returned
The disturbed earth, each gripping back the tears
(as best they could) to keep from further wounding
The other. Over it he placed a rock.
"in case the dogs should dig…." he turned away.

"I'd better go to work," her face was stiff,
"The day's half over. They'll be needing me."
"Me too." They went each to their separate ways.
She spent the day…the week…the month…not crying.

E.V.Melotte
From her book
Snapshots Along the Way: A Lifetime of Poetry

now ranked in the top 7 million of all books sold!
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If you are half way interested in the website I spoke of above give me a yell.

Rod

Columbus Pioneer News

Dear Readers,

I regretfully announce here that our Columbus Pioneer operation will cease to print from here on out due in part for lack of advertising sales and subscription purchases. Over the course of six issues and the past two months we have sought out subscriptions and advertisements, and issue number 5, we mailed out directly to all boxholders with a Columbus or Fall River address in the hopes that this would drive extra advertisements and additional subscriptions. We had a goal to maintain at least a fair portion of the advertisers we gained for the one time run of the Feb. 12 mailed out issue. Unfortunately, a much smaller percentage of those advertisers remained than anticipated. Another goal we had from the mailing was to gain subscriptions. In order to do a bulk subscription mailing each week we would have to reach a total of 200. Prior to the mailing we were at approximately 45 subscribers. Most of those 45 subscribers were achieved following a door to door campaign of about 900 homes. We assumed a 4% return on the Door-to-Door campaign. We figured it was safe to assume we would achieve at least a 3% return when we did the boxholder mailing to 4700 homes. This 3% return would have got us very close to the 200 minimum. At this time we have 103 subscribers. We only received a 1% return or about 55 additional subscribers as a result of the bulk mailing. Of course, if given more time this number would probably continue to slowly rise as would the advertising income.

When our feasibility study was done before we began operations, we had assumed a much faster return on subscribers and advertisers. We had hired a professional salesperson at the beginning of our operation, but she was offered a much better job in Madison after our first printing on January 15. After we lost her, we went two weeks before we were able to find another salesperson to replace her. This lack of a sales campaign definitely hurt the progress and time frame that we were under to make this successful. We decided to do the boxholder mailing in an attempt to make up for that lost time and test whether this operation would actually be feasible.

Over the past two months we’ve received enormous support from the community in the form of numerous letters of encouragement on our web site and through the mail. Newsstand sales have been very positive. Although we really appreciate all of your support, we also needed support from the business community and in this tough economic time, we failed to get that.

We are looking at other options to continue the publication, such as, converting to an advertiser and mailing directly to all addresses. If we do this option, we will continue to print news stories and cover city council meetings. We had tremendous success with the first mailing so this option seems possible.

In the meantime, we will cease to print. All 103 subscribers will be refunded their money in the next couple of weeks. Once again, I apologize for any inconveniences and hopefully, we’ll find a viable option. If you have any ideas for us, please feel free to contact us through the web site or via the mail at PO Box 281, Columbus, WI 53925.

Joe Morey, Publisher and Editor