Sunday, July 31 2005

Hilary Hutcheson's hair still looks lovely...AND she wasn't pulling it back so tightly tonight, making her eyes not so squinty. Do I even need to bother with this whole "news analysis" thing now? I do? Oh, OK. *sigh*

Top Story: A "meth-fueled" fugitive was arrested near Milwaukie. Debra Gil was On The Scene in Oregon City to tell us the sordid story of Frank Benner. Frank went a bit nutso, it appears and ended up ramming his Ford Explorer (the best-selling SUV in America, I believe) into a cop car. The cop had the presence of mind to cover his head when he saw Crash Benner coming at him and avoided getting safety glass all over his face as a result. A woman with perhaps the greatest name in the history of people who found themselves in the middle of a story, Helen Whitebuffalo, owns the front yard that Benner's Ford ended up in.

A teenage boy has been arrested in the attack on the guy who lost his eye the other day after engaging a group of disaffected youths. In less lofty language, he told them to cut their shit out and they stabbed him in the eye with a sharp stick.

A fatal accident about 5:30 in Vancouver left a 72 year-old man dead. Yeah, I guess that's what fatal accidents do.

A head-on accident in Troutdale resulted in injuries to an elderly couple. Were alcohol or drugs involved? America wants to know.

Sun glare is blamed by a driver who hit two girls crossing the road in Gresham. One of them is 5 years old.

Remember that wacky Road Rage story from the other night? The one where the guys in the car pointed a .50 caliber firearm at a woman in another car? Yeah, that one. 2 men are under arrest in the case now.

A bicyclist was hit by a car in Portland. The driver of the car was DUII.

An accident near Tillamook has left a man dead. I happened to be at the shore this weekend and man, it was CR-A-A-A-ZY over there. Tillamook County isn't exactly over-policed and the cops and rescue people were running all over the place. Was it Nickel Beer Weekend in Rockaway or something? America wants to know. (America sure is nosey, isn't it?)

A couple accused of scamming an elderly couple is now behind bars. There's a special circle of Hell for those who take advantage of old people--at least I hope there is.

Fire Season 2005

*The fire at Double Mountain which closed Highway 20 is now 75% contained.

*The fire near Dayville which has consumed 300 acres so far is now 10% contained.

*The fire near Klamath Falls is now 20% contained.

*The Wasson fire is now out. It burned 1500 acres before being extinguished.

Northwest Tonight

I never knew there was a North Bend in Washington state, too, but apparently there is. "KPTV's Lowell Deo," of whom we haven't seen much lately, was there to tell us about a guy who managed to get himself stuck in the cold water of whatever river is in the North Bend area. They had to pull the guy up to Terra Firma with a cable and I guess he was kind of embarassed about having been stuck because he wasn't too chit-chatty for the camera. He graciously thanked the rescue people, though.

Meth Watch: We learned a new slang term tonight, courtesy of Meth Watch: "smurfers." It refers to adults who use kids to buy cold meds with pseudoephedrine for them. I guess the kids are the "Smurfs"." Current Oregon law says you can only buy 3 boxes of pseudoephedrine-containing meds at a time. That's per person per store, of course. A cop-type guy told us stories about people who had big garbage bags full of cold med boxes. Maybe they just had a really bad case of the sniffles.

America Tonight

*Ahem. Who told you about the 13 year-old boy who disappeared from Yankee Stadium yesterday? Oh, that would be ME! Anyway, we got the story about the little weasel tonight on KPTV. As I told you yesterday, the little dickens, who has been described as having no mental or emotional problems and showing no signs of wanting to run away, was a runaway. The cops found him in a building in Queens (Yankee Stadium is in the Bronx).

Here's the part of this story that cracked me up: the cops were quoted as saying that they couldn't figure out how the boy got to Queens. Um, immediately behind the bleachers of Yankee Stadium are two subway lines, one above ground, one below. Either of them will take you downtown where you can easily change for a train to Queens. Trust me, it ain't all that hard to get to Queens. If it was even slightly difficult, I'm not sure anyone would ever go there.

*Some wacko went wacko in a church in Georgia. He tried to take a cop's gun. Bad idea. Bye-bye wacko. He wasn't a member of the congregation, leading to questions as to why he was there. Lemme guess: God told him to go there. Ever notice that you've never heard about an atheist going on a shooting spree?

*A helicopter crashed in New Jersey, leading to minor injuries for the passengers.

*A car crashed into a store in Belen, New Mexico.

*A couple fell 92 feet down a waterfall in Maine. The male half of the couple is now no longer with us.

*The search for Natalee Holloway continues in Aruba. I don't think KPTV mentioned this detail tonight, but her mother has gone home to America after two months in Aruba. She needs a break, according to friends, which I can well imagine.

*To round up a large bunch of bees, a guy in Houston used a stuffed animal. For unexplained reasons, the bees were attracted to the little stuffie, allowing them to be collected easily. Who knew?

War On Terror/London Terror

*Seriously, what do the Brits know about rounding up terror suspects that we don't know? *cough* binLaden *cough* They've made 8 new arrests in the London bombing case, one of whom is a female.

Fight For Iraq

*Gunmen ambushed a convoy from Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi's political party, killing one security guard and wounding three, an aide to Chalabi said. Ever seen that episode of the original Star Trek show where Kirk and Spock land on a planet whose entire society emulates 1930's Chicago and the guy who later played Mel on the sit-com Alice is a gang leader who wants to "put a hit" on his enemies? That's what Iraq reminds me of. Maybe we just need to beam the Sunni and Shi'ite leaders up to the Enterprise to talk sense to them. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

*The U.S. has spent $3 million so far to use cartoons to teach literacy skills to kids in Iraq. I can think of worse ways to spend 3 million bucks.

World Tonight

*There was a riot at a Czech rave festival. Were the 5000 people in attendance all on Czechstasy, I wonder.

*Women in traditional garb engage in Lucha Libre-style wrestling in Bolivia. Lucha Libre is a form of professional wrestling that started in Mexico and is extremely popular there. If you're capable of putting aside your elitist notions about wrestling but think that the WWE is pretty hokey, you might actually enjoy Lucha Libre. The Mexican version of it is available for viewing on Telemundo, the Spanish language cable station. Don't worry if you don't speak Spanish; you'll figure out the plot pretty easily.

Break.

President Bush had his yearly check-up this weekend (Saturday, not Sunday as KPTV incorrectly said). His doctor told him he has two months to live and should put his affairs in order. No, silly, he's in excellent health. Maybe that has something to do with the 50 (!) vacations he's taken in his five years in office?

The astronauts in the Space Shuttle are deciding on what fixes to make to the tiles on the exterior of the rust bucket. Maybe it's just me, but I think THEY SHOULD HAVE GLUED THE DAMN THINGS ON BETTER BEFORE THEY LET IT GO INTO OUTER FRIGGIN' SPACE! They're a LONG way from the nearest Flying J truck stop! We got a shot of one of the astronauts slapping some glue onto the outside of the Shuttle, which science reporter Miles O'Brian said looked like "the Michelin Man patching holes in drywall." Nice simile there, Miles!

Break.

Volcano Warning. Xenu is angry at us for not shedding our Thetans (check out xenu.net if you don't understand that joke). Part of the lava dome at Mt. St. Helens fell in, causing a 3.3 on the Richter scale.

I saw the next story on "Mondo Croquet" and I still don't know what the hell it was about exactly. Near as I can figure, some guy named Mike Shkolnick has invented a game called Mondo Croquet which is like regular croquet only...mondo. I got the impression that a bunch of self-consciously "eccentric" people play the game to mess with the straights. Eh, no harm, no foul, I say. "Do what thou wilt..." and all that. NOTE: The mention of a (portion of a) Wiccan precept in the pursuit of humor in no way constitutes an endorsement of Wicca by this blog or its creator.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

*Inhalant Abuse. "KPTV's Tony Martinez" who was actually in Portland according to him, brought us this story about kids "huffing" various substances to get high. Tony alleged that kids as young as 6 are doing this, resulting in a 44% increase in huffing. Exactly how something like that is measured since most instances are certainly not reported, I'm not sure, but, hey, statistics sure are impressive, aren't they? The story was highly produced, in any case, with some pretty exotic "wipes" between shots.

The "44% increase" in huffing may or may not be accurate, but huffing is certainly not a new phenomenon. I remember a summer afternoon in the early 70's in the Bronx when I witnessed a roomful of my friends inhaling Carbona soaked in a rag inside a paper bag. (Carbona was the trade name for carbontetrachloride, AKA cleaning fluid, used in the commercial dry cleaning process before it was taken off the market as a dangerous substance.) No one had a camcorder back then, but I sure wish I had some video of the results of my friends' little hobby as it would have made an excellent anti-drug tape. Not pretty.

See http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/ramones/carbonanotglue.html for the lyrics to a Ramones song about this dangerous practice.

*If you don't think that watching pre-teen kids stumbling around while wearing "beer goggles" designed to simulate the disorientation caused by alcohol is high comedy, I don't think we can ever be friends. The West Side Police Athletic League runs a camp for kids which has an anti-substance abuse program and they use the goggles to teach the kids what booze does to you.

*President Bush finally showed up at that Boy Scout Jamboree that has racked up 4 deaths and hundreds of cases of heat stroke. He told the crowd that he had been a Scout as a boy. Hey George, remember this?:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

You might want to concentrate on the last four words.

*The Portland Police Bureau has increased their presence in downtown Portland. Debra Gil was in the KPTV "news" van (which, I notice, now has KPTV on its monitors. I score again!). She showed us some Yuppies who don't seem to mind living in a society creeping ever closer to Police State status so long as they can still get their half-caf venti lattes the way they like them: with foam on top. Promise not to shoot me if I'm not using this correctly, OK? but I'm put in mind of the phrase "The soft bigotry of lowered expectations." No arrests have been made yet as a result of the increased police presence.

*The staff of a hospital in Sacramento, California gets to use a gee-whiz piece of technology, wireless communicators they wear on lanyards around their necks. According to the story, the devices utilize voice recognition to, among other things, put a staffer in contact with the nearest cardiologist.

*Scientists at the University of Texas, Dallas have invented a robotic head, a precursor to a full-bodied robot that will someday help people clean their homes. (I, for one, welcome our robotic overlords.) No sooner had I written the words "creepy head" in my notebook than Hilary Hutcheson, of the spiffy new hairdo, said the head was "creepy." This may explain why people find realistic simulacra creepy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley

*Speaking of creepy simulacra, a bunch of tattoo enthusiasts gathered in Philadelphia for a convention. Oooh baby, is there anything hotter than a well-past-her-sale date, slightly chunky former diner waitress missing a few teeth with a snake tattoo on her abdomen? Did I say that out loud? "KPTV's Gerald Kolpan," who, I suspect, may share that fetish, was the "reporter" on this story.

*There are times when I fear for the continued existance of my species. This is one of those times. Someone paid $300,000 at an auction for the lightsabers used by Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in the original Star Wars movies. Did anyone explain to the high bidder that they are only props and don't really make that cool "whoosh" sound?

*American Idol fascist Simon Cowell and Fantasia What's Her Name picked the winners of a songwriting contest. Will the winners now become Cowell's indentured servants for life like the "Idol" winners do? I'm only semi-kidding about that.

*Speaking of non-news cross-promotions, the last story was about the televised crap fest known as Hell's Kitchen which will apparently air a 2-hour season finale on Monday night. What did I say about fearing for the continued existance of my species?

Hilary ended the Final Cut just about in sync with the Countdown Clock. I think that new haircut has made her not only sassier, but more confident. There is, I suppose, the outside possibility that I am reading too much into things, though.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*According to polls, President Bush's popularity is at an all-time low. Only 44% of American say they approve of the job he is doing as president.

*"I am the previously-undiscovered tenth planet of your solar system. What must I do to get the attention of the hu-mans at KPTV? Why do you ignore my presence?"

*CAFTA! CAFTA! CAFTA!

*Minnesota has now dropped its DWI limit to .08, meaning that the law is now the same in all 50 states.

*Atkins Nutritionals, the company that promoted low-carbohydrate eating into a national diet craze, filed for bankruptcy-court protection yesterday, a company spokesman said. I guess they've slimmed down! Ha! I kill me.