UCLA

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Blue Deal

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times yesterday:===Nonprofit insurer Blue Shield of California said it resolved a lengthy contract dispute with UCLA and other UC system hospitals over reimbursements for patient care. Effective Sept. 1, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital will be back in the Blue Shield network. The San Francisco health insurer said this new contract with all UC providers statewide runs through June 30, 2015… Full story at http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-ucla-blue-shield-20120810,0,3160712.story Fact of the matter is that although we have these disputes from time to time, big insurers don’t want to cut UC medical centers out of their…

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Click me not!

Byuclafaculty

At least their grammar is better than on Wednesday, although not perfect.  Their spelling still needs work.  See our Wednesday post on what not to click on.  Anyway, the spam artists are still targeting UCLA. Don’t respond!========= Dear Bruin OnLine (UCLA) Member Our Client Service System has detected an unusual malware activities on your email account causing poor services. Rencently your email was confirmed accessible from other ISP as a result of our remote host failure in recongnising valid and invalid accounts. Please click on the following link [phony link shown] to reconfirm the validity of your email account still in use for us to return all…

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It ain’t the King’s English and since it ain’t, don’t respond.

Byuclafaculty

The latest UCLA spam artists may use British spelling but their grammar and punctuation ain’t so good: This Email is from Ucla.edu admin We are under going maintenance by our engineers we will be shutting down account that is not verified to enable us create more space for our new account users you are to verify your account by filling the outlined Information below or your account will be terminated within 24 hours. ….Username: ….Password: ….City/State: ….Date Of Birth: We value your business and thank you for using Ucla.edu Service and we hope to serve you more better. Ucla.edu Admin…

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It used to be tough to be a tenant but now it may be tough for UCLA to be a landlord

Byuclafaculty

From the Daily Bruin: On April 26, Chick-fil-A – an Atlanta-based company at the center of a controversy because of its president’s recent expression of his views on same-sex marriage – signed a lease to move into the space where Burger King is currently located, said Steve Ritea, a UCLA spokesman. The restaurant is projected to open at 900 Westwood Blvd. next March. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the previous owners of the Westwood Plaza building where Burger King is currently housed, signed the lease with Chick-fil-A. In June, UCLA completed the purchase of the 10-story office building for $72 million and inherited the lease,…

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UCLA Cleans Up in the Olympics

Byuclafaculty

No, not with athletes.  But in case you missed it, here is an excerpt from a story in UCLA Today: Highly regarded lab ensures that Olympic athletes are ‘clean’ Anthony Butch is not an athlete or coach, but he and his team had to undergo their own kind of Olympic time trials before the Games opened in London.  Just a few weeks ago, Butch and his staff at UCLA’s Olympic Analytical Laboratory were working furiously to process hundreds of urine samples from members of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team. The testing had to be done quickly, since a positive result…

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Not clear this will go with the typical UCLA student budget

Byuclafaculty

From the Westwood-Century City Patch: Westwood’s Avco Center movie theater, which has been advertising a “new and exciting movie going experience” since it closed in December, will become a luxury six-screen movie theater with a full service restaurant and bar by early 2013. …iPic Theaters, based in Florida, announced a signed lease on Avco Center (10840 Wilshire Boulevard). …From their plush reclining seats, guests can summon “ninja-like servers” who deliver cocktails and meals during the movie. The theater will also have a full-service Italian restaurant called Tanzy, led by chef Andre Lane; cured meats, breads and mozzarellas at Parma Bar;…

More Empowering

Byuclafaculty

We’ve been following UCLA Extension’s venture with Steve Poizner, the fellow who ran against Meg Whitman (and lost) in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary.  Up to now, there has been YouTube video PR for the program.  See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/07/empowered-to-people-poizner-ucla.html.  As that post noted, we are talking about a rather expensive program, although you get a “free” iPad if you enroll. Apparently, the empowered.com [http://www.empowered.com/] joint venture is now going to TV advertising, according to Poizner’s emailing service (although the sample TV ad is also on YouTube): [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGan8561x4w?feature=player_detailpage] Some long time followers of this blog will remember our Extension posts from…

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Back Home in Indiana (Where the Campus Hotel Pays Taxes)

Byuclafaculty

We have noted in past blog posts on the UCLA proposed hotel/conference center that the business plan assumes that the hotel is tax exempt (because it is – and has to be – non-commercial).  One of the anecdotes cited at the July Regents meeting session that approved the hotel financing plan was a campus hotel at Indiana Uuiversity.  (Listen to the link below.)  Above is a screenshot of the webpage for that hotel.  If you go on that webpage and book a room, you will find that the room cost includes TAX. This is the problem.  Many of the uses…

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More Email Fraud: Don’t Answer

Byuclafaculty

More email fraud/spam you should not answer that may have appeared in your e-mailbox.  If you did reply, you might have noticed that the reply address is not at UCLA.  Change your password immediately if you did reply: This Email is from UCLA Communications. We have been monitoring this account through our server’s log file and have noticed that this account is been accessed from different distinct location simultaneously as against webmail policy, for security purpose we will be shutting down this Account unless you verify this account by filling out the outlined Information below or your account will be…

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Advice from the Beatles on the Japanese Garden

Byuclafaculty

In earlier posts, we have noted advice from Fredric March and Winston Churchill to UCLA on the sale of the Japanese Garden – now halted by court order.  The local newspaper for the Japanese-American community in LA, Rafu Shimpo, has a lengthy article today on the sale and the court decision which also suggests the sensitivity of this matter to the Japanese-American community.  Example: …One garden supporter commented that choosing Aug. 15 — V-J (Victory over Japan) Day — as the day to open the bids “tells us how they are culturally senseless as a world-class educational institution.”… Full article…