Rick Bentley Broke My Heart

So Rick Bentley had a piece on one of my favorites, Anthony Head. Normally I like Bentley's pieces but this time he really let me down. But he obviously doesn't understand Buffy nor Buffy fans. To start with he said that Giles was a slayer. Slayers are always chicks. Giles was a watcher. Then he seems to not understand the breadth of Buffy fandom. Even if I wasn't a sucker for an Authurian piece (which I am) I would totally tune in to see the beloved Giles.

My last bone of contention is in the list of thing Anthony Head has done. Part of the reason this is so dissapointing is that it prove that we don't watch the same tv. Head didn't star in Doctor Who but guested in the show. And MI-5, which was a great show, was on Head's resume for multiple episodes.

Rant over.

McCain Came to Fresno

So what happened? Well, unfortunately I couldn't go but John Ellis over at the Fresno Bee did some live updating. So go check it out!

Retirees Have to Pay Back Money

In Thursday Fresno Bee there was an article about the past overpayment to some Fresno County retirees. Apparently Retirement officials have over paid some retirees for about 20 years and now they want some of their money back. FCERA has agreed to make retirees return the overpayment for the last 3 years in a addition to 3% interest. This just doesn't seem right. There wasn't any mention of fraud on behalf of the retirees. It appears that the system just messed up.

Now I understand that this is all probably legal due to contracts that are probably in their retirement deals. I mean it just doesn't SEEM right. 1 person owes $20,000. While I understand they received it so they had it, I don't know if it works that way. They are also collecting from estates for people who have passed away but were effected. The system wants the money that they should have but do they have a reasonable right to demand it back? Should any attention be paid to the chaos this will cause?

A very frustrating situation.

McEwen Calls Calhoun on the Rug

Let me start this off with, Bill McEwen is why I started reading the Fresno Bee again. I love how it tells it like it is and holds everyone to the same rules. So Sunday he held Brian Calhoun to the rules. You may remember that Calhoun is trying to get panhandling on the median outlawed. Separately, have you seen the signs (at least Willow and Herndon) about coffee and Calhoun. Well, McEwen did a little investigating and found out that Calhoun is doing all that without County approval. To take it a step farther, the County has called Calhoun's office and told him to stop. It sucks when you aren't above the laws everyone else has to follow, eh?

Technorati Tags: Fresno, Bill McEwen, Brian Calhoun

Better Than I Thought

So last Tuesday on my main blog, Nerd Family Blog, I wrote about older kids moving back in with their parents and the parents bailing them out of their financial desperation. It was based on AP article that Dr. Helen had read. Well, that article was in the Fresno Bee yesterday (Sunday). Either I am really good or.... You draw your own conclusions.

Valley Children's VS State Blue Cross Program

So there was an article in the Fresno Bee yesterday on the canceled contract between the Blue Cross Healthy Families program and Valley Children's Hospital. I had a huge issue with the fact that the article was more than half way through before they mentioned that Blue Cross only canceled the Healthy Families and Medi-Cal programs, not the private insurance contracts.

The real crux of the issue is that everyone seems to feel that Valley Children's has done something wrong. This article (and other things I have seen) points out the fact that kids will have to get care from a lesser provider now. How is that Valley Children's fault? If they are so much better than any other provider perhaps they deserve compensation? Maybe all the fault lies with Blue Cross? They are other Healthy Family/Medi-Cal companies that Valley Children's does accept. Maybe the other companies realize the value of a hospital of Valley Children's stature.

I also look at this as a community issue. I value Valley Children's. I like knowing that a hospital with this expertise is available to my kids. It won't be if we demand they take substandard compensation. If they don't make enough money to stay open they will close or worse charge the rest of us twice as much. So maybe we should back the hospital in this case? And maybe The Bee and other media outlets should put out such biased reports. This is still a free market society, lets act like it.

Technorati Tags: Valley Children's Hospital, Healthy Families, Blue Cross, Fresno Bee

More Fresno in the Fresno Bee

In starting this blog, I have started reading the Fresno Bee again and I have to say that I am disappointed. When reading the Front Page and Local Page I notice a drastic lack of Fresno authors. I understand that there are issues all over the world but still I want to see local authors on everything, not just the most local issues. If I am just reading syndicated columns why don't I just get a national paper? So in an effort to promote the local writers and weed through all the AP junk, I am going to start a couple times a week posting links to the articles by locals in the paper (but probably not the sports section;).