THE TRIBUNE'S VIEW
Wal-Mart health coverage
By HENRY J. WATERS III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune
Of all the foolishness associated with health-care policy in America, the recent flap over Wal-Mart subsidies is close to the top.

JOHN DARKOW CARTOON

OPEN COLUMN
Nurses’ pay, benefits should be equitable to teachers’
Editor, the Tribune: Teachers’ salaries seem to monopolize the news media, and it wears me out.

OPEN COLUMN
Smoking ban in businesses a constitutional necessity
Editor, the Tribune: Inspired by Kevin Welch’s diatribe against the proposed limitation of smoking in businesses within the city, I must argue the relationship of the ban to the intentional order of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

OPEN COLUMN
Columbia should appreciate Cedar Lake II dance troupe
Editor, the Tribune: Since moving to Columbia this year, I have been amazed at the strength of community support for our various athletic teams. 

Legislation could put health care out of reach
By KERRI McBEE
Anyone who has diabetes will tell you failure to properly manage the disease can lead to the onset of costly and potentially life-threatening complications.

Workers deserve privacy
By RANDY COHEN
I am an administrative assistant who is required to open and log all incoming mail except that marked "confidential." But some mail not so-marked is clearly personal, and I feel guilty reading it. My boss shrugs off my discontent. Is it ethical to read other people’s mail just because it arrives at a place of business?

Biden’s plan for Iraq makes sense
By DAVID S. BRODER
Last week, to mark the third anniversary of President George W. Bush’s famous appearance on the USS Lincoln to announce that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a news release in which Bush’s text was counterposed with barbed reminders of everything that has gone wrong in Iraq since that boast.

High oil prices should prompt change
By CHARLEY REESE
High gasoline prices, in the long run, are a good thing. We should worry less about oil-company profits and more about our profligate and unsustainable use of oil-based energy.

Voters will seek vengeance if GOP enacts plum.
By MARK WEISBROT
‘Money to get power, and power to guard the money," was the motto of the powerful Medici family in 16th-century Florence. It is getting to be a successful modern political strategy for some of America’s wealthiest families.

Immigrants need society to take stand
By TUYET LE
Just before May 1, 1975, my family and I left Vietnam for the United States. So the immigrant rights rallies on May 1 had special meaning for me.

Death and taxes
By JAMES L. MARTIN
In the interest of fairness, we must cut beloved Founding Father and statesman Benjamin Franklin some serious slack; it was he who proclaimed more than 200 years ago that "nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

STAY IN TOUCH
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