InkBlots

An attorney for Tri-Lakes Medical Center has objected to a request from The Panolian for release of a hospital audit report.

The newspaper is seeking an audit report prepared by Joseph Decosimo and Company, an accounting firm hired by Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Group, doing business as Tri-Lakes Medical Center. The audit was ordered by Judge David Houston of the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for Mississippi’s Northern District. Tri-Lakes filed for chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy on August 23, 2007.

House Bill 474, which clarifies law enforcement incident reports as open records, passed the Senate Wednesday without a dissenting vote.

Clarion-Ledger Perspective Editor Sid Salter reflects on the 1997 tobacco settlement and a joint appearance of attorney Dickie Scruggs, then-Attorney General Mike Moore and then-lobbyist Haley Barbour at Ole Miss: “(Former Gov. Kirk) Fordice died. Barbour’s now governor. Moore’s defending Scruggs’ son, Zach, on the same charges to which his father pleaded guilty - and the same questions linger today that lingered in 1997 at the Ole Miss Law School about Mississippi’s tobacco litigation…”

Gale Denley’s column from Bruce has taken the leap on to the WWW, to the satisfaction of longtime readers.

Northside Sun publisher Wyatt Emmerich ponders the nature of fate, faith and inevitability: Deep down, we know this. We fear that phone call in the middle of the night. It is one of two things: a wrong number from a drunk or tragedy. The phone rings. Our heart skips a beat. Drunk or tragedy. Which will it be?

Carver Rayburn, most recently publisher of the Clarke County Tribune in Quitman, has been named associate editor and publisher of the Neshoba Democrat…Jessica Alderman has been named advertising director of the Philadelphia weekly. She follows Annette Watkins, who is becoming marketing director for the local hospital.