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Satisfied Radio Listeners Say So Long, And Others Say 'Good Riddance'

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Daniel Ruth

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 1, 2008

It was a regular schadenfreude fest for some of you satisfied customers who read with such great delight a column on the end of my WFLA, 970 AM radio show.

"Glad to see the Trib publishing some good news instead of just doom and gloom," wrote alneri. "Hopefully the buyouts at the Trib will soon end the print portion of your act."

And God bless you too, sir.

While many readers were kind enough to pass along supportive notes, there were those who regarded the cancellation of the radio show as a combination of V-E Day and New Year's in Times Square, including one listener last week, who said on the air that he wished that I would die.

This was not exactly a National Public Radio moment.

"Good riddance," wrote Joe Key, ever the soul of brevity.

"You no longer have the power or the authority to interrogate me. It's over," sniffed Ron Schott.

Uh, Bubela? It was merely a radio show. I never had subpoena power.

Attaboy, Brownie

A number of readers responded to an observation I had made that listeners who delighted in accusing me of being some kind of "liberal" invariably could never define exactly what they meant by the term.

That promoted keylargo52 to note: "As far as a definition of 'liberal' goes, you don't have to be liberal or conservative to realize that torture, wiretapping Americans without a warrant, cronyism (good job, Brownie), holding people for years without due process, lying about weapons of mass destruction and generally treating the Constitution like a piece of Charmin has nothing to do with liberal or conservative."

Works for me, my friend.
Honorable Man
Apparently pacfandave was miffed after reading last week's letters column, which took him to task - much like this week's letters column will take him to task in a moment - for pointing out that his wealth has been more than redistributed by the oil companies, in case he hadn't noticed.

"Of course, I've been to a gas station lately," pacfandave huffed and puffed. "But I have yet to wait in a blocks-long line at the gas pump caused by an artificial shortage of crude. Remember Jimmy Carter? No of course you don't. Because if you did, you'd run screaming from the second coming of George McGovern and embrace whomever the Republicans put up."

Memo to pacfandave: I most certainly remember Jimmy Carter. You, obviously, have allowed Gerald Ford to slip away from your historical memory.

There were two major gas crises in the 1970s.

The first occurred in 1974 as Richard Nixon was skulking out of the White House and Ford was moving in. The 1974 gas crunch was largely brought about by a supply disruption following the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The 1979-80 gas kerfuffle under Carter occurred mostly because of a supply disruption caused by the Iraq-Iran War. Hardly an "artificial" shortage.

As for McGovern - liberal, sure, but he was 100 times a more decent and honorable man than the creep who beat him in the 1972 election.

'Whine Like A 3-Year-Old'

Lastly, a number of you had your ire raised over a column on the now infamous Bollea Tapes, in which jailed bubblehead Nick Bollea plots with is father, make-believe He-Man Hulk Hogan, to create a reality show about his incarceration and faux redemption.

The younger Bollea is doing an eight-month stretch in the Pinellas County Jail after pleading no contest to a reckless driving charge, which led to a crash and horrific head injuries suffered by Marine and Iraq war veteran John Graziano.

"Does no one in this family have a sense of compassion?" wondered nurspri. "Talks about profiting from a tragedy with ANOTHER STUPID reality show is unethical and shameless."

Regarding your question, it's just a guess, but I suspect the answer is no.

"Listening to the tapes between Nick and his parents makes my stomach sick," wrote Spinner. "Nick has destroyed a life and the lives of others and all he can do is whine like a 3-year-old and think about making money."

What did you expect from a family who makes roving Gypsy roofing contractors look like IBM?

Keyword: Book of Ruth, to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

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