Wednesday, August 10, 2005

I forgot to mention this in last night's report because it was during the Sports segment, which I don't usually bother with. Some nitwit jumped from the top deck of Yankee Stadium onto the net behind home plate. Not a great idea as the net is only intended to keep foul balls from hitting someone in the noggin. Anyway, if this had happened back in the Olden Days, I would have been one of the security guards who would have had to deal with Stupid Boy. I spent most of the 90's working next to the home plate end of the Yankee dugout. Buy me a hamburger at Burgerville, USA some time and I'll regale you with endless stories of my wasted youth with the Bronx Bombers. But I digress...

Top Story: Child Porn may not be KPTV's favorite crime du jour (I'd say that's ID theft) but it's certainly in the Top Five. Registered sex offender Bill Marchman is charged with 18 counts of being a friggin' perv. He lives in Newport, as Deb Gil told us and apparently his taste in entertainment doesn't include the Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe It Or Not or Underwater Garden which can be found there.. The cops say, according to Deb, that they found 18 kiddie porn web sites on his computer. Uh, what does THAT mean? Web sites aren't "on" your computer, besides which, is it illegal to visit a web site now?

I'm not defending child pornography by any means, but I don't believe that simply visiting a web site is a crime. Anyway, KPTV stirred the pot by raising the unsupported question of whether Marchman has done anything untoward with the neighbor kids he was friendly with.

Fox 12's Most Wanted.

*James Anderson has escaped from the jail in The Dalles.

*Conan Lapping, winner of tonight's Best Name Award, has allegedly been a bad boy. The police say he had some meth and 9 guns.

Marc Caven was a snitch, a big ol' snitch for the Yamhill County cops. Some of the people Caven snitched on say he set them up. "Joe" is one of them. "Joe" is a teenaged boy who claims that Caven offered him a job, then asked him if he knew where to get some pot. "Joe" apparently did know, 'cause he got himself in mucho trouble (felony drug charges). "Joe"'s mom says her boy was set up and she's pissed. We saw her in silhouette. Jamie Wilson was On The Scene.

The Only Crime Victim With Her Own Theme Music, Brooke Wilberger, was up next. Some time back, in Albuquerque, Joel Courtney (Brooke's alleged murderer)'s 12 year-old son called 911, saying that Daddy Dearest was slapping Mom around. Mom didn't press charges, though. Brooke's fellow resident of Missing White Woman Land, Natalee Holloway, seems to have fallen off KPTV's Real-Time Radar of late, by the way.

Registered sex offender, Ken Bowling, the guy who was on the "news" the other night for allegedly assaulting 2 6-year-old girls, has a court date set. Hardly a surprise.

An 11 year-old black boy was assaulted in a Gresham park Monday by 5 teen boys who had a camera and told him they were taping a segment for the MTV show, Punk'd. OK, I can see MTV firing Ashton Kutcher and hiring 5 teenage boys 'cause they work cheaper, but taping in GRESHAM? I think not. Anyway, the vic's mom is P.O.'d and one of the little weasels has been arrested.

Water damage flooded an apartment in Tualatin after the fire sprinker went off and no one knew how to turn it off. The mother and child who lived in the apartment are going to have to relocate. Mom lost some valuable paperwork and gave the producers at KPTV something to high-five about when she cried on camera. The landlords tell Mom that they aren't responsible financially for her ruined stuff, which I suspect her lawyer will contest. Kevin Coari, our Man On The Scene, was told that he was trespassing by the management of the apartment complex.

By the way, I've figured out what bothers me about Kev's eyebrows: they look like the ones that ventriloquist dummies have, the ones that move up and down vertically. He's probably a wonderful human being who personally supports an entire village of starving Ethiopians, but his eyebrows creep me out.

Break.

Meth Watch.

*We got a recap of the story from the other night about the Keizer couple who had their kids taken away from them because the cops found them high on meth while the kids were sitting there.

*Remember the woman who lead the police on a chase in a stolen street sweeper? She was supposed to show up in court on Wednesday but she was a no-show. She would have been there but her street sweeper ran out of gas! Sheesh, give a girl a break.

Last week, there was a deadly stabbing and 2 Hispanic men were sought in connection with it. KPTV made a big fuss about how one of them had called the station and said that he and his friend had only been defending themselves and were going to turn themselves in. KPTV had a camera at the courthouse but the guys didn't show up. How embarassing. Well, they finally made good on their promise tonight and handed themselves over to the authorities. Only KPTV had a camera there when it happened. David Wilson was near, not in, the KPTV "news" van for this story.

Until a couple of days ago, the "reporters" would be right next to the side doors of the van, allowing obsessive-compulsives like me to notice that the monitors inside it were usually tuned to another station. Suddenly, the talking heads are several yards away from the van, with it in the background of the shot. What's that all about?

A couple of special mountain bikes were stolen from the Gresham Super 8 motel. The bikes are worth $12,000! Damn.

Never say that the McMinnville police aren't on the job. They caught 2 alleged graffitists literally red-handed just a few blocks from the scene of their unauthorized art.

The mom and her three kids who are missing from Keizer made a return to the KPTV "news" show tonight. Not only was there nothing new to report but this story left out the information about the woman's "inconsistent mental disposition" (my characterization) that causes her to hear voices in her head. Kinda relevant--and interesting--don't you think?

Multnomah County looked under the couch cushions and found $2 million which they will spend on 114 new jail beds.

A horse in Baker City has been found to be positive for West Nile Virus.

Northwest Tonight

*The guy charged with the kidnapping of two Idaho children and the murder of one of them and several members of their family is now suspected of having murdered other people as well.

*Klamath Falls is now charging prisoners in their jail for things like toothpaste and meals. Do they take plastic?

*An illegal "pot grow" has been found in Clear Creek. The police say it has a street value of $2 million. In the entire history of drug busts, have the police ever found a stash they said had a "street value" of less than seven figures? On Planet Cop, joints apparently sell for $100,000 each.

Fire Season 2005. The School fire is still going strong. It has now consumed 41,000 acres and is 35% contained.

For those of you who wish to pedal across the Providence Bridge on a Sunday morning, the Providence Bridge Pedal is this Sunday morning. Happy pedaling.

Break.

The astronauts got a Welcome Home Wednesday in Houston. This should have been called "NASA Employees Thank The Shuttle Astronauts For Not Getting Blown Up and Thereby Saving Our Jobs."

President Bush staged a photo op and signed a new highway bill which will spend $286 billion on fixing the rapidly-crumbling highways of America. Pork Ahoy!

Fight For Iraq

*Some Oregon National Guardsmen and Guardswomen from Salem are going to Iraq soon.

*4 more soldiers died in a fire fight in Iraq and a car bomb killed another 5.

Break.

War On Terror

*A self-described terrorist with an Australian accent turned up on Arabic TV. The Blunder from Down Under said in his 2-hour monologue that there will be more terror attacks against the U.S. and U.K. soon.

*Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has put up new posters asking riders to keep an eye out for suspicious packages. Feel safer yet?

*The Metro system (subway) in D.C. staged a mock terror drill. I used to ride that system back when I lived in the D.C. area and I can tell you, every day is a mock terror drill on the Metro.

*American police forces are urged to adopt a shoot-to-kill policy to deal with suicide bombers. The top cop in Washington, D.C. says he expects more terror attacks. Oh yeah, I feel much safer now.

$410,000 is being spent on a big net to put over the arrival/departure area at PDX to prevent pigeons from doing what pigeons do to statues.

I was semi-confused by the next story. It was about blood donor dogs. Although you and I may realize that dogs can't donate blood to humans, that point wasn't made clear in the story. Are there a lot of hemophiliac dogs running around?

The 2005 Bite of Oregon is on this weekend in Tom McCall Waterfront Park. So, bite an Oregonian this weekend.

Weather. Break.

Oh, speaking of the weather segment, they've fixed a problem I noticed with the lettering of the town names being hard to read against the weather map. They've now put a black background behind the letters, making them much more legible. Yeah, it's small but I'm glad someone realized the problem and fixed it.

Final Cut/News Across America

*The escaped convict and his wife who shot the prison guard to help him escape Tuesday were caught in a cheap motel in Ohio on Wednesday. All that fuss and you get caught 24 hours later?

*A robber with a shotgun was Caught On Tape in Utah. Man, if it wasn't for security cameras, the KPTV "news" show would be about 10 minutes long.

*A suspect rammed a patrol car in Utah. What is this, Mormons Gone Wild or something?

*In Costa Mesa, California, a woman apparently threw herself out of a limo. She was hit by several cars. The police think it was a suicide. What KPTV didn't mention is that it was a Hummer limo. No kidding.

*A cheerleader attending a camp died when she attemped a special flip and landed face down.

*God hates Scouts! A New Jersey Girl Scout died when a tree fell on her at a Scout camp.

*A McFetus was found in a fast food restaurant in Houston. It was 4-5 months old.

*Flash floods have caused mudslides in "America's Finest City," San Diego (that's their official slogan).

*A flood in Arizona swept a girl away. Her body was found later downstream.

*Didn't we have a story last night about a chemical explosion in Detroit? We got another one tonight but I was unsure whether it was the same chemical explosion or a new one. Are they regularly-scheduled events in Motown now?

*A tractor-trailer hit the base of a highway sign. Then, just to make this more messy, the sign promptly fell on the truck.

*A commissioned statue of a mermaid in Florida is being criticized because some folks think the breasts of the mermaid are too large. While that's pretty dim-witted, the artist didn't help his cause when he said that to criticize the statue's boobage is like criticizing a woman's bust size and that's unfair. Yes, he said that. He didn't use the word "boobage," though.

*Kevin Coari of the creepy eyebrows was near the KPTV "news" van for this piece of Fear-O-Vision about teens and alcohol. This story claimed that 1 in 4 teens say they get booze from their parents. That seems a wee bit high to me. The piece also claimed that it's easier for girls to get alcohol than it is for boys. Gee, would that have anything to do with the generally-accepted notion that getting a girl intoxicated makes for easier access to intercourse?

*"Could you be going on a trip around the moon soon?" was the tease for the next story. Uh, not very likely, unless you have a spare $100 million handy. That's how much the entrepreneur who is working on putting the space trips together says they will cost.

*Simon Cowell of American Idol fame is being sued along with ABC over an upcoming show called "Million Dollar Idea." Someone claims to have presented an idea for a show with the exact same premise and name to Cowell a while back. Hey, Simon, first rule of plagiarism: Change the name of the idea you steal!

*Little-known up and coming rocker Bruce Springsteen appeared in Portland on Wednesday. I think this guy has a real future in the music business.

Hollywood Buzz

*Barbara BelGeddes, the actress who played Miss Ellie on Dallas, has died of lung cancer at age 82.

*The composers of the music for the movie Mona Lisa Smile are suing, claiming that the women were paid less than the men. Don't feel bad, I don't understand this story either.

*Courtney Love, who recently claimed to have been drug-free for a year, failed a drug test. The judge in her previous case has told her lawyer to get his client under control or Courtney will be thrown in the Hole. Nyuk nyuk.

*Since American Idol isn't on the air at the moment, the KPTV cross-promotional juggernaut has moved on to So You Think You Can Dance. "KPTV's Anita Vogel" gave us the absoulutely vital information that the show has whittled its cast of over-confident contestants down to 16. OK, if you win American Idol I can see how you could have a nice career as a pop singer, but where exactly do you earn a living as a dancer these days?

Finally, we got a story about the increasing popularity of "alcopops," stuff like Mike's Hard Lemonade and the like. As a non-drinker, maybe I just don't understand, but it seems to me that shit-faced is shit-faced.

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

*From sploid.com: The four-star Army general relieved of command this week is alleged to have had an extramarital affair with a civilian who does not work for the military or the federal government … Army officials said they could find no record of another four-star general being relieved of command for disciplinary reasons in modern history."

*Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, is keeping a vigil in Crawford, Texas, hoping to meet with President Bush. This story has been covered by other TV "news" shows in Portland.

*Hey, KPTV "news" weasels, you're slipping! You missed this one: A tractor-trailer carrying 35,500 pounds of explosives overturned and exploded Wednesday, injuring several people and leaving a huge crater on U.S. 6 in Spanish Fork Canyon in Utah.

*You missed this one, too: A school bus, day-care van and a tow truck collided in Orlando Wednesday, injuring three children and three adults. Sheesh, that's perfect Final Cut material.