February 4, 2005
 
THUMBS X: Will Viagra Bankrupt Medicare? Maybe Ford Could Use Some Design Viagra; Fixing Sewer Billing System That Wasn’t Broken; Firefighters Turned Arsonists; Iraqis Who Voted Are Real Heroes
 
by David M. Kinchen
Editor, Bluefield News Network
 
Hinton (BNN) — This is the tenth installment of an occasional series expressing approval or disapproval of recent news events. Thumbs Up for approval; Thumbs Down for disapproval. I welcome contributions, which will be credited in the item. Contact me at davidkinchen@hotmail.com.
 
THUMBS DOWN — To the federal government for including erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra in the new Medicare prescription plan slated to begin next Jan. 1. Conservative groups and watchdog groups alike have blasted this decision, which is expected to cost more than $500 billion over the next decade. Yep, that’s on top of the humongous budget and trade deficits.
 
“The law says if it’s an FDA-approved drug and is medically necessary, it has to be covered,” according to Gary Kerr, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the health insurance program for older and poor Americans, respectively. The unlikely coalition of watchdog and conservative groups say the decision could bankrupt the program.
 
THUMBS DOWN — To the Ford Motor Co. for its boring new cars, like the Ford Five Hundred, which could use a little Viagra to put some edginess in the design process. According to a story in the New York Times, datelined Detroit, Ford’s sales fell 4.9 percent in January 2005, compared with January 2004. Reporter Danny Hakim quotes analysts who say “Ford’s retail share losses are alarming...down 11 of the last 12 quarters.”
 
General Motors, despite some sharp designs from its rejuvenated Cadillac division, is also losing market share to Asian imports. One bright spot is the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler, “which has been bolstered by a rejuvenated sedan and minivan lineup. In January, sales at DaimlerChrysler, which includes Mercedes-Benz, were up 7 percent from a year earlier,” Hakim reports. GM reported sales up 1.1 percent in January, but the buzz is that some new GM cars, like the Pontiac G6 of Oprah fame and the Buick LaCrosse, are selling below expectations.
 
Sales at Nissan rose 15 percent, Toyota sales rose 6.2 percent and Honda sales fell 2.1 percent, Hakim reports.
 
The Ford Five Hundred, its Mercury Montego twin and the Ford Freestyle crossover wagon — built in a Chicago plant — are selling slowly, with fewer sales in January for all three models combined than the aging Taurus, the darling of rental and corporate fleets. Some auto critics have called the new Ford products boring — especially compared with hot sellers like the Chrysler 300 and the Dodge Magnum.
 
THUMBS DOWN — To the city of Hinton, for rushing to change its Sanitary Board’s billing procedures, apparently trying to fix something that wasn’t even broken. In the first month of a quickly adopted plan to have West Virginia American Water Co. collect the waste water charge on its monthly water bills, the water company screwed up the sewer bills, overcharging most of the system’s 1,330 customers $11 each. I wonder how many people paid the bill, without questioning the overcharge? I’m one who questioned the bill, which led to me writing about it on BNN. The water company mailed me — and all the other customers — a letter dated Jan. 28, 2005 saying new, corrected bills will be issued. The Hinton Sanitary Board took a billing system that was running smoothly, thanks to an efficient employee who is no longer with the city, and turned it over to a giant utility that immediately messed up.
 
THUMBS DOWN — To volunteer firefighters — most of them still in their teens — in eastern Kanawha County who deliberately set fires in order to put them out. Their motto, according to State Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis, was “We light ‘em, we fight ‘em.” Eleven fires, mostly in abandoned houses or condemned structures, were set by four volunteer firefighters from the Cabin Creek Volunteer department and one from the East Bank volunteer department. When I worked at the Los Angeles Times, this phenomenon came to the fore in several wildfires which were set by firefighters. One in particular inspired L.A.P.D. cop turned author Joseph Wambaugh to write "The Fire Lover: A True Story." In it, Wambaugh, author of “The Onion Field” and “The New Centurions,” tells the story of Glendale, Calif. Fire Captain John Orr, currently imprisoned for life. One of his fires caused the deaths of four people. An HBO movie called “Point of Origin, starring John Leguizamo and Ray Liotta, was based in part on an unpublished novel by Orr. It’s true that everybody in Southern California is a screenwriter at heart! A Google search will quickly turn up many cases of firefighters who turn to arson, including more than a few fighting forest fires or wildfires.
 
THUMBS UP — Two big thumbs up, with blue ink on both of them, for all the Iraqis who voted in the Sunday, Jan. 30, 2004 election. The millions of people in that country showed outstanding courage in the face of threats and murders by thugs — many of them imported from despotic Arab countries that don’t want people voting in free elections. In addition to the valiant voters in the country itself, thousands of Iraqis living in the U.S., Australia and other countries voted. I know, I know: Voting by itself doesn’t automatically make a country into a democracy, but it’s a great first start in this formerly totalitarian dictatorship. This line of reasoning won’t convince our own far-left hate-America-Firsters, but most reasonable people in red and blue states alike applaud the Iraqi voting.
 
Thumbs Archives:
10/16/04 — Part I
11/10/04 — Part II
11/26/04 — Part III
12/15/04 — Part IV
12/24/04 — Part V
12/31/04 — Part VI
01/08/05 — Part VII
01/14/05 — Part VIII
01/21/05 — Part IX
02/04/05 — Part X
02/11/05 — Part XI
02/18/05 — Part XII
02/25/05 — Part XIII
02/28/05 — Part XIV
03/06/05 — Part XV
03/10/05 — Part XVI
03/18/05 — Part XVII
03/26/05 — Part XVIII
03/30/05 — Part XIX
04/09/05 — Part XX