We have to give a shout-out to Larry "Old Glory" Blunt for sinking his teeth into a real report about infection rates at hospitals. Old Lar hammered hospital officials hard about why information isn’t readily available to the public. The story was built around a family who lost a child to what they said was an infection caught in a hospital.
We also liked last night’s follow-up by Cherub Charu on a nasty pot hole on I-40 that ruined a bunch of cars. The state DOT claims it didn’t know anything about the hole and wasn’t going to pay to help fix anyone’s car (40 or 50 cars damaged, according to the report) that was damaged. But some local motorists are pretty pissed and insist that DOT must have known about the hole. We like it when WLOSers stick up for the little guy. And the DOT always makes for a nice punching bag.
Did you see the story about the gay couple in Hendersonville that refuses to pay income taxes because same sex marriage partners don’t get the same rights, and tax breaks, as marrieds. This guy is practically begging the IRS to slap him in handcuffs and drag his butt to jail so he can start the legal battle. He said he hasn’t paid up for 2004 and won’t pay up for 2005. The guy claims to be a millionaire, and we have no reason to doubt him. His story is that he married a Johnson & Johnson heir 30 years his senior, she croaked and he inherited a bunch of money. Then he hooked up with a boyfriend and they’ve been living in Henderson County. The Hooterville newspaper first broke this story earlier this week. We’ll be watching to see when the jack-booted IRS agents move in and bust his non-tax-payin’ ass.
What is going on with the story of the Rutherford county death that WLOSers have been riding all week? At first, it was a homicide. Then it might not be. Then it might be a serial killer using a ballpeen hammer on people. Then it might not. The reporting has been all over the place on this.
In the "News from 10 Feet Away" department, Charu updated us on major expansion plans in Biltmore Park. Cherub Charu stood outside her TV studio, also located in Biltmore Park, and told us about plans to add more buildings and housing units and a movie theater.
We didn’t even bother staying up late to watch the Punnyman Thursday night play straight-man to some visiting magician. We can only imagine the "magic" puns he came up with.
Quote of the Week: "I like to live in little imaginary worlds." -Victoria Dunklehead, to Bob Cobweb
2 Comments
Bulldog, honestly, when was the last time Darcel wrote an entire story. And further more, he traveled to Charlotte, cause if you actually watched the story, you would know that a mountain family lost their child at a hospital in CHARLOTTE.
I wasn’t too impressed with Blount’s reporting. It looked like it was adapted from an ABC national report on hospital infections, sort of the way the newspaper throws a few local comments into a wire service story. For example, why did the Blountster have to travel all the way to Raleigh to report on hospital infections? I seem to recall a rather large hospial (advertiser?) here in Asheville. Perhaps a "Medical Minute" sent him scurrying down I-40. Also, at the end of his report, he held up a printout that a viewer had tipped him off to that gives infection rates at all hospitals, available from an internet site. But he didn’t go to the trouble of telling us what Mission Hospital’s infection rate was. Maybe I missed it, but it sure seemed like Mission Hospitals sure turned invisible all week. Finally, why wasn’t this Darcel’s story? Isn’t she the weekly "Medical Minute" expert?