Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Whee doggies! Now that we've quoted Jeb Clampett, let's dig in...

Top Story. "Adrian," a young Albany woman was raped back in July. Her attacker had his way with her for two and a half hours in the Phoenix Inn in Albany. Jamie Wilson was On The Scene of the attack. Obviously, the rapist is being sought by the cops.

Josiah Richards is accused of causing the death of Jadyn, the daughter of his girlfriend. Jadyn was two and a half years old. The death happened last Friday in Gresham.

Meth Watch

• The suspect in a home burglary (gee, not a "home invasion"?) in July is sought by the police. Nifty police sketch on him, by the way.
• Derrick Kirk, who tried--well, succeeded actually--running from the cops the other day has been caught and arrested.

A mom and her boyfriend/husband/baby daddy/whatever are accused of child neglect in Beaverton. They allegedly locked the boy out of their house for 8 hours the other day. Neighbors who witnessed the boy on the lawn, crying, were all "Oh yeah, they're bad parents" and all that but they didn't call the cops. Well, one guy did, but the rest of them didn't want to get involved apparently, even though they say they suspect that drugs were being dealt out of the house. Oh, the boyfriend blames his girlfriend/wife/baby momma/whatever, saying she's a bad parent. You might as well just reserve a juvy cell for this kid to use in a few years; he's on the short track to detention.

A local civil rights activist has been arrested for an alleged attempted murder in The Dalles, the windiest city in the Gorge. And, I believe, the furthest east town in Oregon to have a Burgerville, USA.

Your tax dollars at work: The FBI raided 10 second-hand stores in the Portland area. The feds say that the stores knowingly bought stolen stuff and resold it. 27 suspects were taken into custody. I LOVE it when a neighbor says, on camera, that they DID expect that sort of activity in that neighborhood and we got one of those quotes in this piece. Thanks ever so much, David Wilson!

3 women got E. coli after visiting the petting zoo at the Clark County Fair. Doesn't everyone know by now that you are supposed to wash your hands after fondling the little goats and before eating? And we call ourselves a First World country!

Break.

Fire Season 2005

• Highway 99 in the Oregon City area was shut down for a bit on Wednesday because of a fire.
• Yay! The Blossom fire is now 100% contained.

Remember that story from the other night about the Marion County school that had a fire and how the school board said the school wouldn't be open in time for the new school year? Well, they managed to scrounge up five classrooms elsewhere for the kids to be bored in.

Washington County has taken a giant step forward into the Brave New World by starting to put GPS tracking devices on low-risk inmates. Tell the taxpayers it will save them money (even though, in the long run, it never does) and you can justify anything at all. "Execute jaywalkers? Gee, I don't know. That seems a bit extreme. Oh, it will save me tax money? Can I pull the lever?"

4 teens went a bit crazy nutso in Battle Ground, using a Bobcat and other industrial equipment to cause $30,000 in damage to local businesses. Using the logic that says that playing violent video games causes kids to kill people, though, naming your town Battle Ground might induce kids to act like this. Just saying.

Spencer Kost, the guy with all the pipe bombs from the other day, had his first day in court. OK, this guy had explosives in his car and like two dozen pipe bombs in his home; explain to me why he hasn't been referred to as a "possible terror suspect" on the news. Is it unfair to think that perhaps it's because he's a white guy? Seriously, do you think for a moment that if he looked ever remotely Arabic, he wouldn't be portrayed as a terrorist out to kill all of us and put an end to democracy? Isn't it just possible that, despite his lack of melanine, that's exactly what this douchebag wanted to do?

Kyla Fields and Tyler Edmonds are charged with giving that little girl currently in the Salem hospital the meth that was found in her system. Hold your calls, we have two winners in the Parents of the Year contest!

Mary Louise Cervantes has been charged with "delivering" meth to her unborn child through her umbilical cord. O-kay. I don't think I have a problem with charging her with something, but "delivering" a drug through a body organ seems like a stretch, doesn't it?

Classrooms in Crisis

Some guy who got fired by a local school board got a $620,000 judgment. Wrongful firing, said the court. The guy said his reputation had been besmirched, although I don't think he used the word "besmirched." Who's the guy? Dunno. Which school district? Dunno. Can't write fast enough at times. I suck.

Golly, the people on the Oregon coast just might survive the next tsunami after all. The state is trying out a "reverse 911" system which would automatically call locals to alert them in the event of a tsunami warning. It is going to be tested in Newport, which, you'll remember, didn't do well the last time there was a real tsunami warning, back in June.

A local woman who wished to remain anonymous told KPTV that she has a "miraculous" picture of Jesus on her window. Even though she helpfully pointed out the points of interest in the stain on her window (which she says appeared about a year ago), I couldn't see a damn thing. If she's reading this, I would suggest she look up the word "pareidolia." Actually, that goes for anyone who sees Jesus' face in their cheese sandwich or whatever. She says that she's not even a Christian but the face is a "sign of peace," whatever the hell that means. Question: Why did she wait a year to tell anyone about this? Question Two (now that I think about it): Why did she tell the news about it if she wants to remain anonymous?

Break.

Northwest Tonight

We got to see video of a violent beating of some recent returnees from Iraq which took place in Seattle on July 31.

Vancouver, Washington will be hosting a Tribute to World War II in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Big War, starting Friday morning. Do we really want to celebrate a war? Guess so.

As part of the inexplicable closing of military bases during a time of war, 2 local facilities are getting the axe. One of 'em is the Naval Reserve Station and the other is in Umatilla. Call me a cockeyed pessimist but I'm betting that this is a backdoor way of getting more troops to send to Iraq.

Break.

Look everyone, it's one of those "pull a story out of your ass" stories. Podnography. Yes, you read that right, podnography. See, there's some X-rated audio stuff available on the Internets that you could theoretically download to your iPod. Of course, you could just as easily (actually, given the fact that iPods only play Apple's proprietary audio format, more easily) download any MP3 material to your computer or a non-iPod player. If they mentioned that, though, they couldn't have used the catchy neologism "podnography." And isn't catchy phrasing what "journalism" is really all about? You know, if you listen very closely while watching KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show, you can actually hear the sound of your brain dying.

Google has announced a new, free, chat and Internet phone service. KPTV didn't give the address, so I will: http://www.google.com/talk/ Enjoy!

U.S. Airways is changing the colors of their planes. And this is news how, exactly?

Tropical Storm Katrina is moving very slowly toward Florida and/or the Gulf Coast, causing some meterologists to think that it's slowly heading toward tropical depression status. It still has the possibility of causing as much as 20 inches of rain to fall in a single day. Know what they call a day like that on the Oregon coast? Tuesday. (Yeah, I know I used that same joke the other day.)

Weather. Break.

Final Cut/News Across America

• Police in Texas were involved in a deadly shootout following a chase. After they killed the guy, they found scads of ammunition in his car. I think ammo a factory-installed option for cars purchased in Texas.
• The guy who shot some people outside a Wal-Mart this week has been arrested. There's some indication that he's mental. Gee, you think?
• A car chase in Cincinnati ended up in front of the local police station. This was promo'd as "You won't believe where the chase ended." Uh, it ain't all that amazing.
• A bus driver lost control and ran over a young girl in Culpeper, Virginia. I've actually been to Culpeper, Virginia a few times. There used to be a KFC with an all-you-can-eat buffet there. But I digress. I was there to drop off a resume at the local radio station but I couldn't find anyone in town who knew where the radio station was--including a sheriff's deputy. When I was growing up in New York City, I thought that, in a small town, everyone would just know where everything was. My experience with small towns has been the exact opposite; no one ever knows where anything is.
• A 14-year-old driver in Texas crashed into a daycare center. No juice box for you, Missy!
• Cops found the elements of a meth lab in the basement of a church in Indiana. The janitor is being blamed. The fact that it was the Church of the Holy Buzz should have been their first clue.
• A Massachusetts crypt was burglarized and body parts were stolen, although some have been recovered. My wife's joke: They've been decrypted. I've heard worse.
• First, Pat Robertson said that Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, should be assassinated. Then, when the shit hit the inevitable fan, he said he didn't say it, claiming to have been "misinterpreted," even though his meaning was crystal clear. Then he apologized for saying the thing he previously said he didn't say. He's a special kind of crazy, isn't he?

World Tonight

• A plane crashed in Peru, landing in foot-deep mud.
• A cruise ship caught fire off the coast of Greece. None of the 2000 people on board was injured.

A local stadium has upgraded its facilities. Now it wants to test the plumbing, so they're looking for 350 people to flush all the toilets simultaneously. Confession: Several years ago, a friend of mine was a morning drive DJ on a station in the South. The local arena in his area had just upgraded its bathrooms so he called me to pretend to be the onsite plumber. I was actually in my own home, but I pretended to be in a men's room at the arena and flushed my toilet for the amusement of his audience. I'm so ashamed. Now that I've confessed, can I go to Heaven when I die?

Pump Patrol

• A professor at Oklahoma State University has developed a way to turn grass clippings into something resembling gasoline. He says he can produce the stuff for about $1/gallon. I was absolutely certain that someone would use the word "grassoline" but I was disappointed.
• Old mechanical gas pumps can't handle prices over $3/gallon, meaning that the stations that still use them will have to close if the price goes that high. Um, I remember a similar problem back in the 70's when gas prices went over a dollar a gallon for the first time. Pump attendants used calculators to figure out the difference. Why couldn't they just do something similar now?

Arbor Homes in Sherwood are installing sprinklers in their newly-constructed houses. And this is a story how, exactly? How much influence does the sales department have over the news content at KPTV? Just asking.

I-Team 12

• I don't know where Keri Tomlinson was hiding, but Hilary Hutcheson, complete with her new/old hairdo, was in the I-Team saddle tonight. This was twaddle about how some restaurants automatically put a 20% tip on your check, but they remove it after 3 days or when your charge clears the bank, whichever comes first. Unless you use your debit card, which works differently somehow. Beats me.

Next was some pointless stuff about weight loss for teens. You can have a "lapband" surgically put around the top of your stomach. The only thing was, although it was billed as being about weight loss for TEENS, the story actually said that it isn't recommended for anyone under 18. Not mentioned was the fact that few health insurance policies are going to pay for this, so it's essentially impossible to obtain for most families. Eh, details, details.

The American Idol tour hit the Rose Garden Wednesday night. What's the slogan for this tour? "You saw these third-rate talents for free on TV. Now you can pay good money to see them."

Hollywood Buzz

In a marvelous piece of cross-promotion for a Fox show, we heard about a new line of clothing for women based on what characters on The O.C. wear. I think Cops should put out a line of pants that hang off your ass and wife-beater shirts.

Keanu Reeves is dating Diane Keaton. I would like to propose a double remake: Bill and Annie Hall's Excellent Adventure.

Lastly, Scarlett Johansson was being chased on the L.A. area freeways by 4 SUV's filled with paparazzi. She turned into the Disneyland parking lot, thinking that that would somehow help her alude them. She managed to crash into a car containing a woman and her Disney-starved kids. She called 911 to report the accident. I loved it when she explained that she was being pursued by paparazzi and the 911 operator asked "Why?" Not an unreasonable question. No injuries.

Hey, where was the Countdown Clock tonight? I feel cheated.

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

Oil hit an all-time record high price of $67.40 a barrel. Better replace those mechanical gas pumps!

From sploid.com: "The Utah County Sheriff’s Department is facing heavy criticism, even possible lawsuits the way it broke up a party over the weekend … Rave party guests from around the world claim the sheriff used excessive force to break up the party … and they may seek redress in federal court."

Say, remember that guy who was shot in the London tube station by cops who said that he was wearing a long coat in July and jumped over a turnstile, causing them to think that he was a terrorist? Funny thing about that. Turns out that he wasn't wearing a long coat and only ran after the cops started chasing him. Oh, the cops originally said that there was no surveillance video of him being shot. Now it turns out that there is video of the killing. This story is a big deal in England; the American media carried the initial version of it but has pretty much totally dropped the ball on the follow-up. Try this: click here.