Ignoring Sunday football, I was hunkered down at my computer, email in one window, researching Amazon on another, trying to figure why Clovis Assembly Member Mike Villines had handed Gov. Schwarzenegger a book titled, ''The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes will Doom the Economy -- If We let It Happen.'' Suddenly, shrieking in the ...

I should've picked up Ray Steele's hints a couple of weeks ago. ''I thought you'd been retired by now,'' he said to me as a group of Clovis citizens met with him to discuss the demise of the Clovis Independent newspaper. ''How come you're not retired?'' I parried, in style characteristic of my 30 years in the news biz. Steele shrugged his ...

Never know what you'll find when you go mall crawling on a Sunday morning. A new Asian goods store (new to me, anyway) has sprung up at Sierra Vista Mall in Clovis. And it's devoted a whole window to a couple hundred dollar coat of mail. Looks like we're all going to need body armor to survive the economic siege that's ravaging health ...

Readers of my last blog emailed me their wish/needs lists toward infusing personality into downtown Fresno. From Jim Cole: A pro sports team. There are many smaller cities with pro teams. Take Green Bay (pop.100,353). Please. An airport. (FAT does not count.) A theater district. (In fact, I am willing to accept anything of a cultural nature ...

Respect and ridicule are never dispensed equally. Just ask ''The Big Five'' who are trying to hash out an already-overdue California budget that has a $15.2 billion hole, and growing. The Sacramento Bee threw some pretty sharp elbows in its July 1 coverage of the budget huddlers and the potentially disastrous impact they might wreak on state ...

It starts at 5 a.m., waiting for the thunk, thunk, thunk outside the door -- the Fresno Bee, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. It ends about 17 hours later with a final check of emails on my Treo. In between, a lot of what happens falls under the label of ''public affairs.'' It's what I do. Here is snapshot of what any given day might ...

I'm usually pretty selective about when I become a bonehead -- rabidly rooting for the Yankees, for example. But I felt reasonable intelligent the other day on a visit to my orthopod -- sorry, orthopedic surgeon -- to get an MRI interpreted on my banged-up knee (see my August 21 posting, ''Of golf, kneecaps and a trip to the Clovis ED'').  I ...