I just wanted to voice my opinion on the new medical facility that has everyone so upset because they used an outside contractor to build it. So what! Sure, it would be nice if everyone in this town used local businesses. Be it, contractors, lawyers, doctors, whatever. But it doesn’t happen. How many of you can honestly say you have never spent outside your town?

I’m thankful these doctors reside in Madera, and could care less who built their facilities as long as we have top-of-the-line medical care available inside your own town.

My father died of cancer in 1993 in a hospital in Fresno. He spent thousands and thousands of his dollars in treatments and hospital stays, and, yes, the treatments and hospitals were in Fresno. Why? Because there were no oncologists or treatment facilities in Madera. Do I need to apologize on his behalf for not spending that money in our community and depriving the residents? Ridiculous, right? Just like saying these doctors have deprived local residents because they spent their money outside our city.

I’m a resident who doesn’t feel deprived, but one who feels privileged to have this new facility come so close to home. And so what if that contractor has a big smile on his face, are we going to deny him or his family if they need medical attention because he was the one who got the job?

What are you going to do if you don’t use these doctors anymore? Are you going to get a new one? Maybe one in Fresno or Clovis?
Let’s not forget to point and blame these doctors for the unemployment rates because they used outside businesses.
It’s all ridiculous.

Let’s make this about what it should be, and that’s medical care for everyone.

I have been a patient of Dr. Javaid since he started his practice in Madera. I can’t thank him and his staff enough for the care and kindness they have shown me and my family through the years. If he moved his office to Fresno tomorrow I would still be a patient.

Dr. Javaid lives in Madera, pays taxes in Madera, practices in Madera, and has employees who live in Madera.

He has inspired my daughter to pursue a career in medicine, and was one of her contributors to The Boston Medical Forum in Boston, Mass., over the summer of 2009. I have never heard Dr. Javaid say anything negative about anyone or anything. He takes pride in his practice and his staff. I’m sure he doesn’t want to see people unemployed nor do any of us but its not fair to make him feel like the blame should fall on him and the other physicians.

If you want to condemn him for an outside contractor that’s your loss. But remember he will always be there if you or your family are in need of medical attention, no questions asked.

Donna Eddings,
Madera

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

There’s a lot of contentment in our house this week. “Dancing With the Stars” has begun its new season, and one of the stars is Jake Pavleka, who was this season’s “Bachelor,” and another is Evan Lysacek, the gold medal figure skater from last month’s Winter Olympics. For Mrs. Doud, that is the trifecta of joy.

The program isn’t about dancing so much as it is about the stories that revolve around the performers, and about who will be cut.

One of the dancers is Buzz Aldrin, the former astronaut who was the second person to set foot on the moon. He could walk on the moon, but at 80, can he moon walk, or even cha-cha-cha?

Fred Astaire could dance when he was in his advanced years, but that was because he was the greatest dancer who ever lived who was not in ballet.

He was beyond great He was to dancing what Usain Boldt is to running. He made dancing look effortless. With all due respect to those who work so hard on “Dancing with the Stars,” if they were seen dancing beside Fred Astair they would remind one of out-of-training acrobats. For example, they pant when their dances are over. Fred Astaire never panted.

I know all about panting. Whenever I dance, when it’s over, I pant like the Little Engine That Barely Could. Mrs. Doud has to help me back to the table, help me sit down and give me a glass of water.

If somebody from “Dancing With the Stars” called me up and wanted to know whether I wanted to be on the show, I’d have to say no. It would be easier for me, just like it was for Buzz, to fly to the moon.

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

When all is said and done, it may be that the key feature of the health-insurance reform bill passed yesterday by the Democrats is that most Americans will be required to purchase health insurance. It doesn’t seem right at first glance to force anyone to buy anything, but we do have similar requirements when it comes to vehicle insurance. You have to buy it — or otherwise demonstrate financial responsibility — or you can lose your car or truck.

The reasons we have that requirement are many, but the most important is to keep people who want to be financially responsible from being victimized by those who don’t.

Yes, most of us carry “uninsured motorist” riders on our policies — indemnifying us from loss if our vehicles are damaged by a motorist who carries no insurance and who has nothing to grab in a lawsuit. That helps keep our vehicle insurance rates down by forcing the insurance pool to be larger. It also keeps us safer by helping keep at least some insured drivers off the road.

Those Americans who don’t have health insurance, but receive treatment anyway, are a bit like the uninsured drivers. They want health care, but they don’t want to pay for it. This health-insurance reform bill will require most of the uninsured to buy insurance — even if the taxpayers have to foot most of the bill, which they are doing anyway by paying higher rates to cover what doctors and hospitals spend treating the uninsured.

It also will enlarge the health-insurance pools, which to some extent should keep rates lower.

Of course, it will not be free. Expect tax increases to pay for all that new coverage. Regardless of what the Congressional Budget Office says (that the bill will save money over the long run), forget it. Hold on to your checkbook; it’s about to get a good workout.

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano has decided to delay installation of the virtual fence between Mexico and the United States, and you can’t blame her. Apparently the virtual fence is an idea not quite ready for prime time.

The instruments that are supposed to make it work are faulty, the weather doesn’t cooperate, etc. Instead of catching illegal aliens, the virtual fence is catching swooping birds and bushes being blown around by the wind.

That sort of thing happens more than a person might think.

There are virtual fences that are supposed to keep dogs in their yards, and I believe some of them do work, but that’s because the dogs wear collars that set off the sensors when the animals get near them. The collars then give them a good shock, which makes the dogs decide to stay home. On television, I have seen humans volunteer to try out those shocking collars, and it makes you wonder whether those humans aren’t nuts.

I can’t imagine anybody planning to sneak into the United States from Mexico would voluntarily put on a collar that would shock the stuffing out of him as soon as he got anywhere near his goal, even if they promised to show him writhing on the ground on national television, which would make him a celebrity for about 15 seconds.

Some ideas that look good on paper and sound good when you’re talking about them just don’t work out when you actually try to put them into action. A good example of that was eight-track tapes. I had a few of those, and an eight-track tape player to go with them, but they pretty soon found their way out to the highest shelf in the garage.

If I knew where they were, I would take them to the electronics recycling event today at the fairgrounds, where it could join all those other things that didn’t work out, except for those who got big money for making and selling them.

Who is this Pombo guy?

That’s what I asked myself when I saw the first of his campaign signs. I received a call from his office about my e-mail address so they could send me some info.

I asked, “Who is he?”

“Richard Pombo is running for re- election in the 19th District,” they replied.

I said, “Re-election? I never heard of him.”

Today I was working in Firebaugh and I asked a friend and customer of mine if he ever heard of this Pombo Guy. He said he was a personal friend of his and he came from Tracy, where he had 14 years in office there. Said he was a “Shoot from the hip, coarse kind of guy that will tell you like it is.”

He is hated by the ACLU and the environmentalists. They spent $20 million to campaign against him.
I said, “Why didn’t they spend the 20 million on a new dam, and we could all be happy.”

Anyway, from what I heard so far … he has my support. We need a seasoned conservative now. We don’t have time to train one. I am going to a meeting for him, to find out more about him. But he may be the best choice.

Bill Hoffrage,
Madera

Music Video: “Vampires” by Jordan Johnson
(a parody of “Fireflies” by Owl City)

+ + +

All comments are edited for length and content. Because of content or space limitations, some comments may not be published. More than one comment from the same person during the same week will normally not be published. Please limit calls to two minutes or less.

+ + +

A woman who “just read the front page article on the antique home on north D Street, and has just been sold by the Redevelopment Agency” commented. “They completely remodeled it,” she said. “At one time this was the street to live on in old-time Madera. I knew the lady who lived there many years and I know she would be proud of it today.”

She also mentioned the rundown blue house “on the corner. It is being totally destroyed one board at a time. What a shame.”

A woman who “sat down to the read the Tribune,” was “dismayed that there was not one mention of the Madera Unified School Board meeting. I can’t believe that Madera Unified did not put out a notice to let anyone know. No parent meeting scheduled. No invite to families to come and talk of the shut down of the school (Dixieland).

(Editor’s note: For those who missed it, the Tribune published a front page article on the Madera Unified School District’s budget cuts the day of the meeting, a front page photograph of the meeting the next day and a long meeting story on Page A2 the day after that.)

When it came “to teachers at the high school,” said a lady, “why don’t they let the parents vote on who should stay and who should leave?” She asked “what happened to the teacher that walked out of Madera north (Madera High), and all that was hush hush.”

“I’m a teacher in Madera,” said a woman. “I am one of 114 people that got pink slips from Madera Unified. I am a little upset because of their lack of character and the way they think their offices are directly connected to our classrooms. They want us to go 33 students to 1 teacher. That is ludicrous. Our school board needs to learn some respect and financial responsibility.”

A man called “about the article concerning filling out the census form. I for one will be letting them know my name, my address, and how many are in our family. After that, everything else is needless and worthless. The rest of the questions are not anybody’s business but our own.”

A man called in response to last week’s caller who reported a county vehicle at the post office. “I remember in years past when the road commissioner almost lost his job because he picked up a loaf of bread on the way home,” he said. “Next time … (realize) that somewhere on the rear of the vehicle there’s a number. Then you can know what department it belongs to and what they were doing by calling in that number.”

Another lady responded to the same message “and the county car having a baby seat.” This week’s caller said, last week “they assumed that it was for her own child. Considering that only county employees can drive county vehicles more than likely that was a social worker or CPS (Child Protective Services) whose job it is to transport children places. And that caller has no idea if it’s at a P.O. Box picking up county materials. It was probably a work assignment.”

The Red Line Web site has received several comments about MUSD’s budget cuts, as well as a few comments about illegal immigrants, outside contractors building in Madera, high-speed trains and a local restaurant’s perceived safety. The following quotes are only excerpts.

“Diana Ward” wrote, “How vain and stupid of the High-Speed Rail people? … The train won’t even stop here and to run it right downtown through, on, or over an already problematic rail system is stupid!”

+ + +

Thank you for your comments. Remember, the Red Line is open for your messages 24 hours a day by calling 674-4478 or by visiting the Red Line online at www.maderatribuneredline.com.

+ + +

Music Video: “Swim Until You Can’t See Land” by Frightened Rabbit

This letter has been written with the hope it will prompt a very honest woman to come forward.

Last Friday morning, Feb. 26, before going to work in Fresno, I absent mindedly left a bank pouch containing several hundred dollars in a shopping cart in Walmart’s parking lot. When I reached my destination in Fresno and discovered that I had “lost” my money pouch, I made several phone calls. The first was to Walmart to alert them to be on the watch.

Next, I phoned Robert Poythress at Citizens Business Bank in Madera to report the loss and to put a hold on my savings account there, for your see, my lost money pouch contained my bank passbook.

Finally, I called my wife.

Within an hour of these calls, I received another one on my cell phone. It was from the bank informing me that “someone named Linda had found my money bag and had turned it in to the bank.” I was told that the pouch appeared to have a considerable amount of cash.

I phoned my wife and asked her to go to the bank to retrieve my lost moneybag. When I got home that afternoon, I gratefully counted the money and found that not one dollar was missing!
Linda, obviously I don’t know who you are. You didn’t leave your name at the bank. Right now you are the only one who knows the identity of my benefactor, but I am hoping that will change. I would be very much obliged if you would call me at 706-5297 so that I could express my gratitude.

If you are inclined to maintain your anonymity, please make one more visit to the Citizens’ Business Bank in Madera and ask to see Robert Poythress. He will express my thanks in the only way I know.

Also, please know that everyone who reads this will know that there are indeed angels among us.

Bill Coate,
Madera

Madera High School was one of the hosts of a tennis  division tournament held March 5th and 6th. I don’t know how many high school teams were involved but as the day was winding down Saturday it became apparent that Madera was in the mix to win the championship.

To me, tennis is not usually that exciting but since my wife and I have two grandsons playing, we watch. The last doubles match of the day found team members from both Frontier and Madera cheering on their teammates as the match was coming to a close but as happened several times that day it had to be decided by a tiebreaker.

Madera pulled it out and after the math was done Madera had won more games than any other school, and thus was awarded the tournament championship. All of this was after defeating Vacaville Thursday. A tennis championship of any kind doesn’t happen often at Madera, so congratulations to  the Madera High tennis team.

Frank Bradford,
Madera

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

After watching a little television Thursday night, I said a little prayer for the health and long life of President Obama.

The program I watched had a few minutes of video of Vice President Joe Biden speaking to the annual dinner of the White House press corps, and one could see why he never made it to first base in his run for president. His attempts to be funny were sad, sad because he was trying to be clever and self-effacing, but he wasn’t getting it.

He had just come from Israel, where he insulted our allies by taking umbrage at the fact that the Israelis were going to build 1,600 new housing units in north Jerusalem. Why that should upset him, or even President Obama, is a real head-scratcher.

Here is a little something Biden should know: Israel is building the housing development on undisputed land, within its own borders. The Palestinians, who have never kept a peace treaty with Israel under any circumstances, made an objection, and Biden saw that as an embarrassment to him. Where did that come from? Israel is encircled by 21 countries who have sworn themselves as enemies of Israel, and these countries build new housing developments all the time.

Meanwhile, Hamas lobs a missile into Israel from Gaza, hits a greenhouse, and kills a worker. Was Biden upset about that? If he was, he kept it to himself.

Each of the countries of the Middle East, Israel included, has the right to build housing within its own borders. None of them has a right to lob missiles at the other unless attacked first.

According to Harvard Prof. Ruth R. Wisse, writing in The Wall Street Journal, the Arab countries have at least 800 times more land than the Israelis, and they build new housing, whole new towns, all the time. But does any of them put in even a duplex for Palestinians? What do you suppose Biden thinks about that? Let’s hope he doesn’t take over.

I am writing this in hopes that you will share this plea for assistance with the larger Madera community.  The United States Airpower Museum Foundation and the Veterans of Prisoner of War Association in conjunction with the Veterans Administration Hospital in Fresno, have been working on a project for the last two years (Wall of Honor) to recognize and honor many veterans who were imprisoned in the worst possible conditions, under constant threat of execution, for months and years.

Many of the members of the Veterans of Prisoner of War Association are in their 80’s. They have fallen short about $10,000 to complete a wall memorial, which is meant to be installed at the front of the VA Hospital on April 10, 2010 (National Ex-POW Day). 

These veterans would appreciate support in completing this monument.

Donations in any amount, no matter how small, can be sent to the Office of the Director, VA Hospital, 2615 E. Clinton Ave., Fresno, CA 93703 (Attn: Delores McIntyre) or mailed to: United States Airpower Museum, 4877 E. Norwich Ave., Fresno, CA 93726. Delores McIntyre can be reached at 228-5337.

Rose Aguayo
U. S. Army (Retired)