New Year, New Season

Happy New Year y'all. Amarillo National Bank has agreed once again to underwrite the 2010 season of Face to Face.Thank goodness for the Ware family!

We're mixing things up a little this coming year. We'll still be producing episodes of Face to Face, one-on-one interviews, just like we've been doing for the past seven years; but in addition, we'll also be producing shows with more guests when the subject warrants it. These shows will be called "community conversations." In this way, we can tackle more subjects and invite more people to our studio to talk about what's really important to Panhandle viewers.

We hope you'll watch this coming year and join in on the conversation right here on our blog. If you have any subject you think should be addressed, let us know right here. We'd love to hear from you...so come on, blog...blog...blog.

And here's hoping 2010 is a great one!

ellen

Our next guest?

We've wrapped up the spring season of Face to Face and are looking toward next fall when we'll interview six more people. I'd like to talk with Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry....we'll see if we can grab them during a Panhandle visit. Who would you like to see interviewed? We'd love to hear....write back, let us know.

Melissa Dailey

I'm interested to know what you all think of the creation of Downtown Amarillo, Inc....its status as a 501C3 (non profit), its funding source (City of Amarillo/ $240,000 this year), its place as a partner with Center City and the Tax Reinvestment Zone in the revitalization of downtown and its new CEO, Melissa Dailey. Watch the show, join the blog....tell us what you think.

Marjorie Jenkins

If you haven't watched the Face to Face with Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, you should. It is really great, straight-forward medical advice for women... free and without taking your clothes off. Additionally, Marjorie's personal story is interesting. She is from a large, lower socio-economic level family in the Appalachian Mountains. Marjorie's mother and father died relatively young and Marjorie, along with many others in her family, battle weight gain.

I know there are so many medical questions viewers might be interested in asking Marjorie. Watch the show. If I missed something, let me know....I'll see if I can get an answer for our blog...

Sharon Ellzey

As you probably know, we tape most of the Face to Face episodes instead of broadcasting them live as we have the discussion. However, we never, never edit the shows....so what you see is really what happened during that 30-minute conversation. In fact, I have many examples of times we did not edit even when it meant showing an uncomfortable moment or two. For instance, Don Powell, who was at the time FDIC Chair, nearly knocked the table over....I grabbed it as we continued talking!

I say all that to say I sometimes watch the shows as they are broadcast and get a new perspective...one I did not have as we taped the show originally.

So here is my new perspective on the Sharon Ellzey interview: I might have been a little patronizing when I was asking about the size of Perryton and its isolation to the rest of the world.

Does anyone from Perryton want to give me a hard time about that? I deserve it....bring it on!

Janet Realini, MD

At the time I talked with Dr. Realini about her abstinence plus program, I had heard speculation that there would be less federal funding, or perhaps no federal funding, for abstinence only programs -- which would be a big change from the Bush administration.

Dr. Realini wasn't sure about the status of that funding; however, after the television program, I received information about a bill passed by the U.S. Senate on March 10, 2009.

The scoop is this: the Senate passed the FY 2009 Omnibus Spending bill with a $7.5 million increase for Title X and a provision that reverses a provision in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act that limited access to affordable contraceptives for many safety-net providers and college and university health centers.

Congress also cut $14 million in funds for Community Based Abstinence Education Program.

What a difference an election can make, huh?

George Schwarz

Journalists are, by training and probably nature, observers and researchers. We might not have the answers but boy do we have great questions! Prior to taping an episode of Face to Face, I rarely give the interviewee much of a heads up on what I want to talk about....the spontaneity makes good television. The only thing I told George (at least the only thing I remember telling George) was that I wanted him to talk about his favorite and/or most interesting stories. After the show (on the way to the door) George had a lot more to say about local stories he's covered in the last year or so. I asked him to write them down for the purpose of this blog. Trust me guys, you'll want to read this:

The following is an email from George Schwarz (after the show):

I think for the story with the biggest implications would have to be the antitrust investigation by the state attorney general. However, the story really isn't that big until the attorney general makes a finding. Furthermore, I don't know what penalties or changes would result from such a finding.

The lawsuit that involved the doctors who were part of the Quail Creek Surgical Hospital got no further than a preliminary hearing that won the physicians, Dr. Barnhill and Higgins, a Temporary Restraining Order and preliminary injunction stopping BSA from cutting them out of the insurance money. The issue was never fully resolved at trial but the finding by Judge John Board certainly telegraphed the possibility of an antitrust ruling at the end of the day.
I know one other entity in Amarillo contemplated a lawsuit against BSA on antitrust grounds, but backed away from.

Personally, I think such a retreat is a long-term mistake. I don't think the current management or the management that will be in place in the future will ever back off from trying to monopolize the entire medical system. I think the only way to have stemmed that tide would have been a lawsuit.

And even more important issue for the community with respect to BSA would have to be its nonprofit status. I believe an in-depth investigation of the entire BSA system could reasonably find things that would result in the loss of nonprofit status. In some respects, that would put BSA on an even playing field with Northwest. Further, it would help by adding to the taxable property for Potter County, AC, and possibly Amarillo Independent School District.I think the most interesting story I have done lately is the one on Potter County Precinct 3 Commissioner Joe Kirkwood. That story, published on Oct. 30, 2008, focused on a complaint by a young woman who had sought help from Kirkwood is Cornerstone Outreach Center. His un-chaperoned physical examination for drug use was, in fact, molestation. Taking the entire interview with this young woman, looking at the record of the Amarillo Police Department investigation and the behavior of the city attorney and Police Department by not passing this to the district attorney can only lead to the conclusion that someone was protecting Kirkwood.

Of course, the implication of a prominent citizen being protected by law-enforcement authorities a staggering, although I suspect that happens in many communities, including Amarillo. But, that's the real question, isn't it? How many prominent people get protection for acts that could be felonies?