Thursday, September 29, 2005

Some nights, what KPTV doesn’t do a story about is more interesting than what they do.

Top Story.  Oooh, KPTV done found themselves a crime wave.  6 cars have been stolen in the last 48 hours in the Wood Village-Fairview area.  Lock your Subarus in the closet, suburbanites!  Is meth to blame?  Who knows, but KPTV would like you to suspect as much.  David Frietas/Freitas was outside a Wal-Mart holding one of those Club anti-theft thingies.  

So, a man gets assaulted by 2 guys in Boring after offering to give them a ride home.  Covered in blood, he runs to a nearby house and bangs on the door, yelling that he needs help.  The people inside the house open the door, let him in and call 911, right?  Well, no, except for the “call 911” part.  The man of the house concluded that the guy was trying to rob him or something so he shot the guy through the door.  Nice.  I guess that whole “covered in blood” thing was just part of a clever disguise.  One of the 2 men who attacked the guy turned himself in to the cops; the other one is still on the loose.  While I can’t specifically blame KPTV for it, I honestly do think its brand of “be afraid of everything” scarenalism contributes to the paranoia exhibited by the people who shot the guy.  As I’ve mentioned before, overall crime rates are down all across America but you’d never know that if your only (or main) source of news information is KPTV.  They’d have you think that axe-wielding meth addicts are rampaging through the streets, swinging aborted fetuses over their heads by the umbilical cord with their free hands as they abduct our teenage daughters to take them to their underground lairs.  They aren’t “journalists” so much as haunted house actors; they’re paid to scare you.  May they all rot in Hell.

OK, back to the jokes!  2 19-year-olds in Gresham thought it would be funny to call 911 and say that 1 of them was going to stab his girlfriend.  Oddly enough, the police didn’t share their amusement in the wacky prank.  

So there was this carjacking in Southeast Portland months ago.  The cops have found what they believe is the carjacker’s DNA on the ski mask he wore during the crime.  D’oh!

Remember when the local Post Office announced that the master keys for a lot of the mail boxes in the Portland area had been stolen?  Well, they’ve got the locks changed on all the mail boxes outside post offices and they say they’ll have the locks on the rest of the local boxes changed soon.  Um, wouldn’t it have been more logical to change the locks on the boxes NOT in front of post offices first, since a crook would be more likely to rob one of them?  Just asking.

The police cars in Tigard are getting those nifty dash cameras, the better to document the broken tail light you get pulled over for.  We saw some video from this Tuesday when one of the camera-equipped cop cars chased Ryan Perkins.  “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, you know you shouldn’t have meth in your car.  Your mother and I have talked to you about this several times!”  Oh, this was rich: when he got out of the car, he took a nosedive onto the pavement.  For his trouble, Ryan got himself convicted.  Already?  Damn, that’s fast.  The cameras are gonna cost $100,000 with a Federal grant.

Oregon Responds (to what?  They aren’t making this segment follow Katrina’s Destruction anymore?)

• Some more Oregon National Guard soldiers are coming home.

• An Albany company is donating some of the water they “manufacture” to people in the hurricane-affected area.

• Some volunteers from Hillsboro are in Nagadotches, Texas, helping the people down there.  Awww, that’s nice.

• A charity concert called “Pink for Katrina” was held in Portland.  Would they have called it that if they knew what “showing pink” means in porn-speak?  Anyway, it’s sort of a sequel to the recent “Blues for Katrina” concert.  Unless that involved Smurfs, I’m going to assume it featured blues music.

Break.

Darrell Paris was acquitted of the murder of his son.  He claimed to have found and unsuccessfully tried to revive the 14-month-old in his home.  His lawyer said the jury was “brave” to return the Not Guilty verdict.

Man, that didn’t take long.  That Oregon girl who allegedly was working as an underage hooker in Phoenix and whose Mom brought her home, has run off again.  The story is that she wants to go back to her pimp.  I just had a thought: you know those legal whorehouses in Nevada?  One of them should install something like a small roller coaster with booths instead of the cars on it that you could go into with your hooker and have sex as you ride.  Yeah, you laugh now, but wait about six months when you see a story about something like this on the Final Cut.

Speaking of bad parenting, some local woman allegedly kidnapped her children and took them to Tijuana (“The Happiest Place On Earth” according to The Simpsons).  She got caught when she tried to bring them back across the border into the U.S.  I gotta tell you, no matter what you may think of America, crossing the border from San Ysidro, California to Tijuana is HUGE culture shock!  Instant Third World: just add drinkable water.

If, for some reason, you feel you need to push a wheelchair across the MAX tracks, make sure a train isn’t coming.  A local woman failed to heed this simple rule with disastrous results.  You know the expression, “You’re all up in my grill”?  That’s what that MAX train was saying.

Washington County’s Valley Theater got the go-ahead to serve alcohol with meals during their movie presentations.  Assuming that they check ID’s (and I’m sure they do), this just shouldn’t be a big deal.  I’ve mentioned before that I went to a theater like that in Chevy Chase, Maryland once and, even though I don’t drink alcohol, it was a very pleasant way to enjoy a movie.

The other day we talked about the story concerning the restaurant “near a school” that wanted a liquor license.  Well, the knee-jerk assholes of the world can chalk up another victory: the request has been denied.  

Northwest Tonight

• According to “KPTV’s Lowell Deo,” a 12-year-old student at Washington’s McKnight Middle School is dead after playing a choking game involving a noose she made out of a belt.  I don’t even want to make a joke about this; it’s just sad.

• 2 men were caught in a Big! Meth! Bust! in Medford.  The cops found 6 pounds of the stuff and $6,000.  

• OK, all local Catholics who weren’t molested by a priest when they were a kid have until this coming Monday to get their names off the class-action suit filed against the Portland diocese.  If these cases included those who were mind-fucked by Catholic school, I would so be a plaintiff, dude!

Break.

Fire Season 2005

• “KPTV’s Casey Wyan” [spelling?] told us that Southern California is fucked!  Well, he didn’t say it quite that way, but that was the message in this story about wildfires in the L.A. area.  Soooo, how do you rich people who live in the nice neighborhoods in the Hills feel about cutting government services—like oh, say, firefighting--now?  

Break.

If you’re an individual on food stamps (they still have those?), the minimum you can get is going up by a whopping $3.  Families will grab a HUGE $7. increase.  Whoo, the generic ginger ale will flow like water in the projects, Baby!

If you live in West Linn or Oregon City, the bad news is that there’s too much lead in your drinking water.  The good news is that it makes it harder for Superman to see through you.

Dirty Dining

• Keri Tomlinson was “live” (maybe) in News Control for this weekly exercise in emetics.  Three restaurants in the Ceder Hills Crossing mall in Beaverton (hey, that’s how they spelled it on the Chyron) share a single kitchen.  Not, perhaps, a good idea, given that the conditions there seem to have been less than spotless.  The sanitizer was too weak and frozen chicken was left out on the counter to thaw.  Tsk tsk.  The joints got a collective score of 70.  Upon return, the health inspector gave them an 84.  See what happens when you apply yourself?  

Am I to understand that this “Civil War” thing is some sort of popular game, of the football variety perhaps?  The people in charge of that sort of thing are considering moving it to the Friday after Thanksgiving, but they haven’t decided for sure yet.

Weather.  Break.

Final Cut

Katrina’s Devastation

• Business owners are being allowed to return to New Orleans.  Your basic residents will be let back in soon.  Um, who is going to shop at the stores if residents aren’t there?  People on a Toxic Waste Site Tour?  Just asking.

America Tonight

• It sounds like a Weekly World News headline: “Baby Ate Coke.”  Nope, it’s apparently true.  The little girl was in daycare when it was discovered that she ate some cocaine contained in a Zip-Loc bag that was on her.  Hey, the seal helps keep the nose candy fresh!  Anyway, the kid’s gonna be OK.  Sure, she’ll have to go through rehab and some of her sandbox friends will write the inevitable tell-all books, but she’ll come through it.

• In tonight’s installment of Appalachian Emergency Room, some yahoo in Kentucky shot up an E.R.  He hit a TV but there were no injuries.  He’s being charged with attempted murder.  

• A gun was found in a man’s pants in a Sarasota, Florida courthouse.  Sheesh, pants come with guns in the South!  

• A train derailment in Mississippi injured 20 people.  If the Republicans can’t defund Amtrack, they’re just going to kill everyone who rides it!

• An SUV hit by a car went into a canal in Florida.  My notes say “W.B. OK” but I have no idea what the hell I meant by that.  Can anyone decode?

• A 27-year-old immigrant man used fake ID to pretend to be a teenager so he could attend high school and get a diploma.  I’d make a joke about him getting caught when he brought his wife and kids to meet his teacher but I think about half the high school students in America could do that.

• New road signs in New York City say “Leaving Brooklyn.  Oy Vey.”  The borough president of Brooklyn spent a considerable amount of his taxpayer-funded time to convince the Roads Department that this was a good idea.  Gevult!

A high school in Beaverton put on an elaborate little Grand Guignol for the kids to show them the horror of drunk driving.  Oh, it was a lovely little Passion Play, complete with “passengers” covered in “blood,” real firefighters extricating people from the “crashed” car and a voice-over via the PA system featuring the “dead” girl talking to her parents from the Beyond.  I spent $100 for tickets to Cats on Broadway and didn’t get this much of a show.  It was sponsored by S.K.I.D., Stopping Kids’ Intoxicated Driving because every good cause in America has to be accompanied by an acronym.

Pump Patrol

• It’s OK to have your air conditioner on in your car; it’s better for your MPG than having your windows open at highway speed.  It’s OK to have your cruise control on, so long as you’re not going uphill.  Dirt on your car hurts your gas mileage.  Oh, in case you’re a complete mental case, putting nitrogen in your car tires will save you a whopping 3% in gas cost.  

Well, no hurry in telling us that we have a new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  I mean, this is clearly not as important as knowing that New York City (my hometown) has new Yiddish road signs.  John Roberts managed to dodge all the softballs lobbed at him by the Senate and will be wearing the Big Black Robe.

Now, this is news!  The Oregon State Supreme Court has ruled that stripping IS protected as free speech!  Damn straight it is.

Pamela Paul is the author of a new book, Pornified.  If I understood this story, the book is about the mainstreaming of porn.  Now, that may well be a good subject to study and debate, but I find it somewhat ironic for a Fox affiliate to try to take the “high road.”  Anyone remember when Fox first started as a network and it was accused of lowering standards with shows like Married With Children?  And how about that American classic, The Littlest Groom?

Hollywood Buzz

• Coked-up clothes hangar Kate Moss is rumored to be in rehab in Arizona.  No thinking human gives a shit.

• Aerosmith has been exumed and is planning a stadium tour.  Jimi Hendrix impersonator Lenny Kravitz will be the opening act.

• A bunch of artsy-fartsy people trying desperately to look as if they weren’t really just trying to pick each other up assembled at the Portland Art Fair.  It was a fundraiser for a local museum; thousands of dollars in I.O.U.’s were collected.

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

Eh, why would a “news” show feel compelled to tell you that Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who went to jail to protect her source in the story about the “outing” of a CIA agent, has been released from her confidentiality promise and is now out of jail?  Kate Moss is going into rehab, for Chrissakes!  Click here

A judge has ruled (again!) that the Pentagon has to release the photos of American soldiers torturing Iraqis.  By the way, when you Click here, take a look at the actual address of the link, particularly the last part.

Endangered Species Act??  What’s that?  After all, it’s not as if we live in an area with a lot of woods and people who like to hunt or anything.  Click here

Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill to allow same-sex marriage in California.  Well, you can’t really blame KPTV here; it’s not as if California is a large state immediately to our south or anything.  Click here

Remember that contract that the striking Boeing machinists were going to vote on?  I guess that whole “follow-up story” thing isn’t on the KPTV menu.  It was approved.  Click here

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Settle back, buckle your seat belt and let’s begin.

Top Story.  A 16-year-old Hispanic boy was stabbed to death last Friday afternoon in Salem.  Kevin Coari, Embedded Reporter, was “embedded” in Salem for this story.  The boy’s family holds nightly vigils and prays for his soul.  Although some are saying that the victim was slain in a gang dispute, his family says he was not a gang banger and was a straight-A student.  

17-year-old Stephanie Crisman shouldn’t have been driving since she had neither a permit nor a license.  She done gone and got herself into a crash, Steph did.  People were hurt.  Steph is in mucho trouble.

Debra Gil was “live” (well, they said she was, but who knows?) in Northeast Portland to tell us about a 14-year-old Benson High student who was robbed at a MAX stop.  The cops are involved, in that way that cops have.

There was a deadly beating outside a local smoke shop.  Was the victim beaten to death with one of those glass pipes “for tobacco use?”  Even though I’m totally against recreational drug use, I have been inside a head shop or two, so I’m kind of like a hip square…or something.

That alleged case of arson in Forest Grove the other day?  Timothy Lane is your alleged perpetrator.  Allegedly.

Oooh, finally, we’re getting to the good (which in KPTV Speak means “creepy”) stuff.  A local woman was missing her daughter (what, no Amber Alert?).  Turns out the 15-year-old was seduced by a pimp and brought to Phoenix to work as an underage hooker.  “Jazzy” spent the last 4 months in Arizona as a skanky little ho.  Now that the girl is home again, she can explain what a Dirty Sanchez and a Rusty Trombone are to her mom.  And when she’s done with that, she can explain them to me.  Hilary Hutcheson, with her new bangs-free hairdo, was at the bottom of a mall parking lot ramp (‘cause the girl was allegedly “recruited” by the pimp while visiting said mall) for this story.  She may even have been there LIVE!  Maybe.

Are sex shows free speech?  How can you even ask that question?  Damn straight, they are.  Well, a Roseburg strip club owner will get to make that case to the state Supreme Court this week.  I’ll repeat my offer of a while back:  If anyone knows the owner of this club, tell him that I have an idea that can make any titty bar the Best Known Strip Club in America virtually overnight.  I’m not kidding.  I’m really brilliant at this kind of thing.  Tell him to contact me, especially if he loses his case.

Hurricane Rita

• FEMA, continuing its string of incredible competence at assisting hurricane victims, had to close a Help Center in Ritaville because so many people showed up for help.  Sheesh, people, it’s not as if they could have realized that victims would show up for help at a Help Center!  

• Finally, bags of ice and meals are arriving in Louisiana and Texas for the victims of Rita.  No hurry.  

Oregon Responds

• Some Vancouver truck drivers have organized “Operation Toy Drop” which is collecting toys to be brought to the children affected by the recent hurricanes.

• The Helvetia Tavern has raised $4000 for the relief effort.

• A local evacuation center has new hours.  No, I couldn’t write fast enough to get them down.  Jesus, if you’re a hurricane victim and you’re coming here for your information, you need more help than anyone can provide to you.

Break.

A local guy called a “schizo” by acquaintances has confessed to the stabbing death of his 8-year-old half-sister.  He should have just gone for it and claimed that the 8-year-old started it.  What do you have to lose when you’re up for murder?  You might as well have fun with your defense.

Darrell Paris is accused of killing his son (or “own son” as Shauna Parsons said) in Oregon City.  He’s on trial.

A female Lewis and Clark college student is accused of manslaughter after an accident she was involved in back in November 2004.  Her blood alcohol level at the time was twice the legal limit.  Oh, those college students and their wacky booze-related antics!

Meth Watch

David Frietas/Freitas was on hand for this cautionary tale of how anyone, yes anyone, can get hooked on Ms. Crystal Meth and her seductive ways.  We were introduced to a local woman, described as a “soccer mom” who admitted that she was a meth addict.  Somebody gave her some of the stuff at a club once a few years back and VOILA! she was addicted.  According to her, she’s a great mom and her kids are the center of her life and all that bumper sticker kind of crap but we were also told that she was arrested 2 years ago, apparently while hopped up on the stuff (and when’s the last time you heard the phrase “hopped up?”) while driving on I-205 with her offspring in the car with her.  Definite Mother of the Year material there, for sure.  She’s much better now, though.

A truck accident, which spilled some sort of large container-looking things all over the place, closed 2 lanes of I-5 early Wednesday.  As you would imagine, the 2-hour long shutdown royally screwed things up.

There was a house fire in the early Wednesday AM in Northeast Portland.  No one was injured.

Cops in Northeast Portland are conducting a “Safety Enforcement Program.”  This, of course, involves writing a lot of tickets for things which normally wouldn’t attract their attention.  No, you cynic, this has nothing to do with it being the end of the month and the police department perhaps wanting to increase revenue.

The management of Albertson’s supermarket chain is a bunch of chickenshits.  It seems that the current Seventeen Magazine has an article entitled “Vagina 101” intended to teach teenage girls about their reproductive organs.  Well, you can’t have teenagers actually knowing how their bodies work, now can you?  So, the pussies (Ha!) at Albertson’s have banned the magazine from their stores.  Listen, you stupid assholes, this isn’t porn, it’s educational material which is sorely needed by America’s poorly-educated kids.  On a possibly related note, Patricia Heaton, the actress from Everyone Loves Raymond, who is featured in Albertson’s TV ads, is the spokeswoman for Feminists For Life.  Make of that what you will.

Break.

The National Response Department, whatever the hell that is, has an office in Castle Rock.  It was vandalized and robbed.  For some reason, the cops believe that certain evidence found at the scene indicates that the perpetrator is at least 5’10”.  Inspector Gadget lives!

Northwest Tonight

• Dateline Roseburg:  Someone has stolen drugs from an old age home.  If there’s a Hell, there must be a special seat right by the furnace for those who fuck with old people.

• Striking Boeing machinists (I’ve seen some of them and they aren’t really all that striking) are going to vote on the proposed new contract this week.  

War On Terror

• Governor Kulongoski has ordered flags in Oregon to be flown at half-staff in honor of 2 local National Guard members who died over the past weekend.

• Speaking of governors, New York governor Pataki has nixed a proposed museum at the Ground Zero site.  It’s a whole big complicated mess with some of the families of 9/11 victims saying the museum would dishonor the memory of their loved ones.  This country is so divided that everything is a “controversy” any more.  Sad.

Break.

Credit card debt in America is at an all-time high with 4.81% of all accounts at least 30 days overdue.  Is that all?  The high price of gasoline is said to be contributing to this problem.  Keri Tomlinson was “live” (hey, I don’t take that at face value anymore) in News Control with a credit card frozen in a block of ice as her prop.  Yes, seriously.  Some “experts” say that freezing a credit card is a good way to keep yourself from using it impulsively.  If you really need it, you can always defrost it.  It occurs to me that it wouldn’t keep you from using the card online, assuming you have uncloudy water through which you can read the card’s numbers.  Always thinking, I am.  

Shauna Parsons had to make a correction on a story previously aired on KPTV about the price of postage stamps.  According to Shauna tonight, they had said that stamps are going up to 39 cents next month when, in fact, they are going to go up next year.  Here’s the funny part: unless I totally misheard them, they originally reported that the price is going up this weekend, which I think I’ve read elsewhere as well.  [OK, I just checked and it seems that the price is going up on January 1st. Click here]  Still, I could swear that their original story said it was this weekend when the new price would go into effect.

Republican Congressman Tom “The Hammer” Delay has been indicted.  A Texas D.A. says he’s guilty of funneling money through his PAC to GOP candidates, which is one of the few things illegal under Texas campaign financing law.  Delay’s response was:

• To admit that he was wrong and beg the American public’s forgiveness.

• To say that he wasn’t sure exactly what happened but promise to get to the bottom of it.

• To say that the indictment was a “witch hunt” started by a partisan D.A.

If you said “witch hunt,” move to the head of the class.

Katrina’s Devastation

• Cops and firefighters have been brought in from all over the U.S. to go door-to-door in New Orleans for search and rescue operations.  “KPTV’s Sumi Das” (a former employee of Tech TV) was wearing a Hazmat suit as she stood in the Big Easy for this story.  We met a New Jersey cop who says he doesn’t tell his family about all the gruesome things he has seen down there.  Of course, saying that on TV isn’t the best way to keep the secret, but I felt sorry for the guy all the same.  So far, he and his coworkers have found more than 100 bodies in the post-Katrina rubble.

Fire Season 2005

• 700 firefighters are dealing with brush fires in Southern California.  Many homes are threatened by the conflagrations.

Weather.  Break.

Final Cut

• A man armed with a knife and hatchet took a woman hostage at a San Diego bus stop.  I’ve lived in America’s Finest City and I know that the buses run a bit slow there, but really…  Anyway, a police negotiating team finally convinced him to let her go.

• A teenage girl thought it was a good idea to climb a radio tower in suburban Miami for some reason.  She stayed up there for 4 hours.  The 20th caller got to shoot her down.

• A warehouse fire in Van Nuys, California injured 2 firefighters.

• A car was stuck on a train track in Connecticut.  Along came a train.  Guess who won that confrontation.  Yup, train wins!  The 2 people in the car no longer need to worry about getting their taxes in on time, if you catch my meaning.

• A male staff member of an Alabama high school walked into a bathroom only to find a student giving birth.  OK, question: this didn’t occur to me until just now, but what was the girl doing in the boys’ bathroom—or why did a male staff member walk into the girls’ bathroom?  Mysteries wrapped inside enigmas, or something like that.  Anyway, he washed off the baby and everyone is OK.  I think this student could have benefited from reading that Vagina 101 thing, oh, say, 9 or 10 months ago.  Are you listening, Albertson’s?

• A 6-year-old boy who showed up at school with a butter knife in his backpack is suspended under one of those stupid “Zero Tolerance” rules.  His mother says his 4-year-old brother put it in the backpack and if anyone is to blame here, it’s her.  

• The railing in front of the grandstands at a Pennsylvania high school broke, sending many kids to the ground in a big ol’ Abu Ghraib-style pile o’ bodies.  The hilarity was Caught On Camera.

• Remember Stephen Ressa, the asshole who drove onto the sidewalk on the Vegas Strip, killing 2 pedestrians, allegedly because he had a “bad day” in drug court?  Add another death to the toll.  A third person died in the hospital from injuries incurred in the incident.

Pump Patrol

• Gas prices are down 3 cents since last week.  Ooh, let’s celebrate!  Locally, gas is going for $2.55 in Milwaukie and $2.95 in Northwest Portland.

• Two teenage girls in Utah are taking their horses to school instead of being driven because of high gas prices.  Am I wacky, or must it take a long time to travel 34 miles by horse?

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• Although other crimes are down, car theft is way up in Salem.  Kevin Coari, Embedded Reporter, was at the KPTV “news” van for this story.  Salem is on track for 1000 car thefts in 2005.

• IPod Nano owners have been bitching about screens that crack easily.  At first, Apple dismissed the issue, claiming that it only affected a very small percentage of the units.  Now they say they will exchange the units for new ones.  In response to complaints that the players scratch easily, though, Apple suggests owners buy a protective cover.  That’s it, Apple, put the onus on the buyer.  

• The USDA which apparently has never heard the maxim “Leave well enough alone” has instituted yet another complicated food pyramid.  This one’s for kids.  It has pretty color striped of different widths and a staircase on the side.  Yes, really, a staircase.  We pay the people who design this nonsense with our tax dollars.

• Some Japanese company has developed a dopey-looking robot which can patrol your house and send a text message to your cell phone if someone breaks into your house and steals your robot, I guess.  It’s also good for killing a few seconds on TV “news” shows.

Hollywood Buzz

• The Blue Man Group is holding auditions in New York City.  Applicants must be men.  And blue.

• Awards were given out to stunt performers, previously the only group of people in show business who didn’t have their own awards show.  

• Lastly, we got some “I have no idea what this is doing on a ‘news’ show” story about one of the stars of Prison Break, a show which airs on—what a coincidence!—KPTV.  The whirring sound you hear faintly is Edward R. Murrow spinning in his grave.

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

• Listen, I don’t know for sure that Global Warming is a real thing, but I do know that the Bush administration wouldn’t accept it as real if fucking Santa Claus came down and testified that his house had melted.  If my choice is to believe either the Bushies or actual scientists, my money is on the guys with the thick glasses and test tubes.  Click here

• Hey, remember that link I gave you to pictures of soldiers standing next to mutilated Iraqis?  Remember how you can clearly see the faces of the soldiers in them?  Well, the Pentagon says it isn’t going to pursue any investigation of the incidents because, get this, they say there’s no way to determine who may have committed the acts or whether the bodies in the pictures are really Iraqis who were tortured.  Nope, there’s no way to figure out who clearly pictured American soldiers are.  None at all.  This is the single most corrupt iteration of the American government I’ve ever seen.  Click here

• Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refused to answer questions about possible drug use.  She will say, however, that she wishes she could see through walls.  It’s getting harder with each passing day to separate the “real” from the “fake.”  Click here

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

I was out of town.  Did you miss me?  By the way, I did see the Debra Gil fiasco on Sunday night where Toto pulled the curtain away just a bit and let us see that behind it Professor Marvel was pulling levers to fake being the Wizard of Oz.  Or something like that.  Actually, we found out that at least some of the “live” stand-ups of KPTV’s reporters are pre-recorded.  So much for that “First.  Live.  Local.” thing.  You don’t get to say, “Sorry, let’s do that over.  3,2,1…” on a live shot.  

Top Story. The feds are looking for Troy Coverstone.  They think he’s the creep who has been calling local female retail workers and telling them he is holding one of their co-worker’s children hostage.  While Coverstone hasn’t been formally charged with this yet, he has a history of this kind of thing and he’s apparently gone missing after stealing his employer’s truck.  The cops won’t confirm that he’s a suspect in all this.  David Frietas/Freitas was holding a cell phone as his prop for this story.

Fox 12’s Most Wanted

• The cops are looking for a Hispanic man in his 30’s with wavy black hair who allegedly raped a 12-year-old girl last November.  She was walking home from McDonalds when the guy jumped her.  She didn’t tell her parents about the incident at the time and has since had the baby.  Great, she and her kid can go to the prom together!

• Funny-speller-of-his-first-name and recent-multiple-appearer-on-KPTV’s-“news”-show Tobbie Eaton has been arrested for probation violation.

• Former radio personality Christopher Lehman will be appearing on K-JAIL soon.  He has been found guilty of abuse of a minor and is awaiting sentencing.  

Hillsboro was the scene of an explosion in an apartment building apparently caused by a propane tank.  For some reason, Kevin Coari, Embedded Reporter, was “embedded” in Beaverton (probably the KPTV parking lot) for this story.  There were actually 3 explosions heard by neighbors at about 2 AM.  A dog was rescued from the home and there were 8 human victims.

There was a Big! Pot! Bust! in Marion County.  The cops found 5 pounds of the stuff along with plants, guns and a couple of thousand dollars.  The owner of the ganja says he applied for a medical marijuana license which hasn’t arrived yet.  It’ll be there at 4:20, Dude!

2 Asian guys, brothers, allegedly attacked a guard in the course of a failed jail break.  An hour later, they were hungry for freedom again.

Hurricane Rita

• President George W. Bush, working tirelessly despite not having taken a vacation in over a month, visited the hurricane-ravaged area yet again.  It would be cruel to suggest that the most dangerous place in America to stand these days is between George Bush and a TV camera, so I won’t.  Some people down there are still waiting for the power to come on and to receive necessary supplies.  Don’t hold your breath, Rita Victims; the former head of FEMA told a Congressional committee on Tuesday that he didn’t feel it was part of his (former) job to provide ice for people “to put their hamburger on.”  Or, say, to use to prevent heat stroke or to put temperature-sensitive medicines on either, I guess.

Oregon Responds

• Oregonians have donated over $118,000 to the Red Cross via KPTV’s fund-raising efforts.  I know I pick on them a lot—and they deserve it—but this is obviously a good thing, so congrats to them.

Break.

OK, so there was a murder in Clark County a few years back.  The Big Eyewitness in the crime was originally deported to Guyana, then brought back to the U.S. to testify.  He decided that he’d really rather not participate in this because he feels threatened, so he told the authorities that he was gonna go bye-bye for a while.  Now they don’t know where he is and they have a warrant out for him.  Debra Gil was in News Control (Live?  Who knows?) for this story.

A former local school bus driver has pleaded guilty to abuse of one of his passengers.  Nice guy.  

Timothy Lane is in trouble for parole violation.  Is he also guilty of arson?  Could be.  One of his neighbors says the guy is schizophrenic.  Hey, some of my best imaginary friends are schizophrenic.

Pump Patrol

• Ooh, it’s time for Show and Tell!  Jamie Wilson was in Beaverton (again, probably the KPTV parking lot) with two glasses half-full of gold liquid.  No, it wasn’t her pregnancy test, silly.  It was gasoline.  Seems some people think there’s bad gas being sold at some stations in the Portland area.  A local woman said her pick-up truck suddenly started losing power when going up hills.  Well, if that doesn’t prove it!  Actually, her suspicions were backed up by a mechanic at a local Goodyear Service Center who says he’s seeing a lot of vehicles with symptoms that suggest exposure to bad petrol.

• Oh, in case you were wondering, a gas station in Beaverton is selling gas for $2.56/gallon, Clackamas has it for $2.71/gallon and filling up will set you back $2.63/gallon in Southeast Portland.

Nothing like a month-old story, huh?  30,000 tax payments sent to the IRS’ office in San Francisco were lost.  KPTV didn’t mention this detail, but if I remember the story I read weeks ago, they were somehow lost in the Bay.

Northwest Tonight

“KPTV’s Darren Dedo” told us that a thief stole a laptop computer with a woman’s cancer research work on it.  Her family was sleeping upstairs when the crook broke into her home.  She is understandably upset about losing the work and she’s offering a $1000 reward for the return of the computer.

Break.

Meth Watch

• OK, I was kind of sleepy from my trip so I didn’t catch all the details of this story—like how it figures into “Meth Watch,” for example.  Apparently, over the weekend, KPTV did a story about a local woman looking for her daughter.  She’s now found her.  Like I said, what was the meth connection here?

War On Terror

• More than 4 years after the terror attacks, some workers at the Ground Zero site in New York City have found some bone fragments.  The longest is about 2 inches and it isn’t yet known for sure if they’re of human origin.  So basically there’s no story here yet.

The safety of tasers is being questioned.  For reasons I didn’t understand fully, the SEC is involved.  The company says it will cooperate and provide internal company documents.  Have I mentioned before that the word “taser” is derived from “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle?”  Yes, seriously.  For the younger reader, Tom Swift was the boy inventor hero of a series of books back in the Olden Days.

Break.

Just to fuck with your mind, the Post Office is raising the price of stamps to 39 cents this Saturday.  OK, wouldn’t it have been easier on everyone if they had made them 40 cents?  Seriously, wouldn’t that have made it easier for people to figure how much a sheet of stamps costs?  Would anyone have had an aneurysm over the extra penny?  And wouldn’t the extra penny have helped the Post Office with their alleged deficit?  

Katrina’s Devastation (still GREAT in concert)

• Michael “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie” Brown, the former head of FEMA, played his version of the Blame Game in front of a Congressional committee on Tuesday.  Apparently, he let that bullshit Bush told him go to his head because, according to his testimony, he’s just about the only person in America who didn’t fuck up the Katrina aftermath.  If you so much as watched the debacle on TV, you’re more responsible for it than he was.  According to Brown, it’s not as if the American people should expect the Federal Emergency Management Agency to, oh, say, manage emergencies.  If there had only been some Arabian horses involved somehow, he would’ve been on that sum’bitch.

• The Chief of Police in New Orleans announced his retirement on Tuesday.  He wouldn’t give a reason for quitting, but an educated guess would say that he isn’t all that proud of the over 200 officers who walked off the job during the Katrina situation.  He asked the press to respect his decision and his privacy.  $5 says Rush Limbaugh ridicules the guy on the air by noon Wednesday.

• This ain’t gonna be good.  6,000 doctors in the Gulf area have no job site to return to, seeing as how most of the hospitals and medical offices in the area have been destroyed.  Even if people start to return to their homes in Louisiana and Texas, hospitals for them aren’t going to be rebuilt overnight.  

• Keri Tomlinson was in the studio with some car keys in her hand (Live?  Maybe.  Who knows?) for a story about how to protect yourself from buying a flood car.  Cars that have been through the floods should be retitled as “salvage” but some unscrupulous sellers and dealers don’t bother with that little detail.  Keri suggested that you thoroughly check out any used car you’re considering buying.  Look for stuff like fish in the trunk, for example.  That’s my tip.  You’re welcome.

Weather.  Break.

Final Cut

• A hotel in Los Angeles was robbed.  The cops think the guys responsible may also be behind 40 other robberies.

• A van carrying some Utah State students flipped over, throwing them all from the van and killing all but 2 of them.  Their fellow students held a vigil in their memory.

• In Florida, 3 boys were arrested for the sexual assault of a girl on their school bus.  Parents are understandably curious about why the driver didn’t see and/or do anything about the assault.  “You kids stop raping that girl right now !  Don’t make me turn this bus around!  Don’t think I won’t.”  Video from the bus’ onboard camera is being examined.

• Hey, remember that inspiring story a while back about the plucky hostage in Atlanta who engaged her captor for hours, keeping him from killing her?  Turns out, it wasn’t her “pluck” that kept him from ventilating her with his gun; it was her meth.  Yup, she has now admitted that she is a meth addict and that she gave him some when he was holding her with the SWAT team outside.  You always hear about the bad things meth does, but does the liberal media tell you how it brings out the best in people?   Nooooooo.

• A Colorado mom who was already in trouble for the wacky drug-filled parties she let her kids engage in is in more trouble now that she has been in a car crash after she let her 14-year-old (unlicensed) daughter drive her car.  

• A Long Island school is using a Breathalyzer to check kids suspected of drinking before school.  If a kid is found to be under the influence or refuses to take the test, he or she is suspended for 5 days.  Yeah, I know I’m a broken record, but is it just possible that a system that makes kids think they have to be drunk to endure high school needs to take a long, hard look at itself?  Just asking.

• The Phoenix cops say they have broken up a prostitution ring involving underage girls.

World Tonight

• This just in!  NASCAR fans may not be the stupidest sports fans in the world!  2 people were injured during a Running Of The Bulls deal in Mexico.  Yes, by all means, let’s provoke very large, very strong animals and then release them into a crowd packed into narrow streets!  Then we can stick our hands in fans!

• 300,000 people have evacuated parts of Vietnam thanks to a deadly typhoon.  Upon hearing about this, former FEMA director Michael Brown immediately blamed the Democrats.

Breaking News

KPTV managed to get Fire Lieutenant Oswalt (who they even had a photo of) on the phone to tell us about a fire at Burnside and 18th.  Firefighters seemed to have it under control as he spoke and it had caused no injuries.

• The Ghost of Debra Gil was at the KPTV “news” van for this story about bedbugs being found in a dorm at Linfield College in McMinnville.  40 students were affected and their bedding was changed by the college.  Yes, we got to hear people make reference to “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”  

• Umm, don’t you just love that new car smell?  Well, it’s cancerous.  Yup, it’s caused mostly by plastics and it’s bad for you in some way or other.  Another of the little joys of life ruined.  I’m going to tie some heavy rocks to my legs and throw myself into the Willamette!

• Next, “KPTV’s Jim Armstrong” walked us through the Wacky World of Podcasting.  Sometimes, I get the feeling that anything invented after the light bulb is a revelation and a miracle to a lot of KPTV’s viewers.  Golly, did you know that you don’t actually need an iPod to listen to a podcast?  Yes, actually, I fucking well did know that!  

• No KPTV “news” cast is complete without a gratuitious reference to American Idol, so here goes:  Randy Jackson was the judge or something for a contest to write a new jingle for Oreos.  So, no one thought that it might be a bad idea to have a black person be involved with Oreos?  Do I have to explain the slang meaning of “Oreo?”

Hollywood Buzz

• Anna Nicole Smith will be before the Supreme Court this term.  No, she doesn’t have a case; Clarence Thomas just wants to look at her ass up close.  Actually, apparently having dealt with all the other problems in American society, like abortion and prayer in school, the Court is going to tackle whether Anna Nicole gets half her late, 900-year-old husband’s fortune.  I say, if she had sex even once with that fossil, she earned that money.

• Donald Trump’s wife is pregnant with the fifth of The Donald’s Hellspawn.  It isn’t known yet whether the cloven-hooved little bastard is male or female.

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

• Wanna know Who’s Who in the fight over the proposed Gorge casino?  Click here

• Bill Frist desperately tries to convince someone, anyone, that’s there’s no way he could have known his “blind trust” contained shares of the hospital management company his family founded.  Click here

• Don’t click here if you can’t handle photos of dead, tortured Iraqis.  Seriously.

• Who are the biggest crooks in Congress?  Click here

• So Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA screwed up and resigned, right?  Well, kind of.  Click here

• Remember Lynndie England, the soldier in the photos of the piles of Iraqis with the cigarette hanging out of her mouth as she smiled and pointed at them?  She got 3 years in jail and a dishonorable discharge.  Click here

Saturday, September 24, 2005

I had to do some "real world" work tonight, so even though I watched the show, there'll be no big honkin' Report today. For information on the antiwar protests, Click here

Friday, September 23, 2005

Rita-rama!

Top Story.

• Rita, what else? As the show started, Rita was 55 miles south of the Texas-Louisiana border and heading north. Wind speed was 120 MPH. Fires in Galveston were hard to extinguish because of the high winds. "KPTV's Caroline Shivley" was in Beaumont, Texas standing in the wind like a regular Kevin Coari-type embedded reporter or something. Rita is expected to make landfall sometime Saturday morning. George Bush is staring at monitors at the Northern Command Center in Colorado.
• A Salem women is a teacher in the Houston area. David Frietas/Freitas talked to her parents who managed to get her on the speakerphone. There was too much traffic on the roads out of Houston for her to evacuate so she's going to just hunker down and hope for the best.
• Air travel in and out of Houston is cancelled for the foreseeable future.
• Task Force Rita, containing some Oregon-based National Guard troops, is in the hurricane area.
• Substitute Weather Weasel Drew Jackson told us what we already knew: Rita is heading for the Texas/Louisiana border; it was about 2 hours from landfall and there was a lot of rain in the area.

20 master keys to local mail boxes have been stolen. David Wilson was in downtown Portland standing next to a mail box for this story. The interesting part of this story is that the keys were stolen from the car of a postal employee back in April and the Post Office claims to have only found out about it Friday morning. Good security there! Marcia Natale sent a check to pay a bill and found out that it had been stolen and the personal information on it was used to steal her identity. 2 women have been arrested in connection with this and there's also a male suspect not caught yet. So, the moral here is, if you have to mail something, walk into the post office and hand it to the friendly employee behind the counter with the automatic weapon and the psychotic glint in the eye.

A 17-year-old high school exchange student staying in Portland was threatened by a guy with a knife. She called her "Host Mother" (a term I was not familiar with) when the attack happened. Her real parents, who live God Only Knows Where, are upset and considering having her move back to God Only Knows Whereistan. The knife-wielder is a 50-ish white guy.

Break.

Next we got more about the flaming douchebag who gets his jollies by calling women working at local businesses and telling them he plans on abducting and hurting the daughters of their co-workers. Jamie Wilson (a member of the family vaudeville act, The Aristocrats) was out at the Frito-Lay factory in Gresham 'cause some employees there have gotten calls from this wacko (and because she finds the burnt Cheetos her alien species lives on in the dumpster behind the plant).

A stabbing which was possibly gang-related killed a teenage boy about 4:30 PM in Salem.

The defense rested in the case of Chris Lehman, the former radio personality charged with sex abuse of a child. If I was on the jury, all the D.A. would have to say is, "Hey, the guy was a fucking DISC JOCKEY!" I'd vote to convict on the spot, based on what I know of people in the radio business. I'd volunteer to throw the switch on the electric chair and I don't even believe in the death penalty.

Meth Watch

• In North Bend, a former deputy entered a plea of guilty to possession of meth. Better glue your ass cheeks together before you get to jail, Mr. Probably-arrested-half-the-guys-in-there.
• Congress is working on a bill designed to target meth dealers and stop the importation of the materials needed to make the stuff. Based on the track record of the current Congress, I expect them to totally fuck this up somehow.

A Big! Pot! Bust! nabbed a man and a woman in a Gresham apartment.

Some pot plants were seized near Carlton, Oregon.

A motorcyclist died after crashing into a car on Northeast Portland Highway.

According to the cops, vandalism in Battleground is attributable to some boys, ages 12-14 who like to pretend that they belong to a gang. It's good to see that kids still have dreams, isn't it?

Hey, remember that cougar sighting from last night? Funny story, the "cougar" turns out to have been a large cat. You know, a CAT, like we see every damn day if we leave our homes, look out our windows or watch TV for more than five minutes. I know, I know, I'm like Chicken Little, interpreting every story to mean that our civilization is screwed, but Jesus, if we panic when we see a CAT, we truly are too scared to live.

Break.

Northwest Tonight

A Spokane boy burned on 55% of his body when he was playing with gasoline (and exactly how do they make those precise measurements?) went home on Friday from the hospital. Shauna and Wayne signed when he looked at the camera and said something cute like, "I'm going to sue the bastard who left the gas in the bottle." Actually, he said (paraphrasing), "They fix me up so I go home." It was like one of those novelty statues with the outstretched arms that say "I wuv you THIS much!"

Oregon and New York states signed some unholy pact that allows wine makers in each state to send their life- and marriage-destroying product to residents of the other. Skoal!

Stupidity Uber Alles! The Snohomish City Council or whatever they call the local hegemony is harassing the owners of a local BBQ restaurant because they have cartoony pictures of dancing naked pigs on the side of their building. It's good to see that every other problem has been solved in Snohomish; if it hadn't, they wouldn't have time for bullshit like this. Wait 'til these people find the Cartoon Network. Their heads are gonna explode; there's naked 'toon animals EVERYWHERE!

Break.

Mountain On The Move

• Whoa, dude! Time-lapse footage of the lava dome in Mt. St. Helens. Totally Koyaanisqatsi, man!

I-Team 12

• Keri Tomlinson, Commander in Chief of the I-Team, was in her bunker, News Control, to tell us that some scumbags are going around, pretending to be collecting money for Food Bank. Turns out that the real Food Bank never raises money that way. In a related story, there is no such thing as the Salvation Navy.

Pump Patrol

• Gas is running about $2.71/gallon in Portland. Around America, it's averaging $2.78/gallon. Prepare for prices to rise thanks to the hurricanes.
• Then we got a montage of some really unattractive TV reporters from Fox stations around the country doing their version of the "local gas prices have gone up" story. That's right, me, a fat guy with multiple chins, just made fun of the way some TV reporters look. At least I don't force my big fat head into your living room in the guise of "journalism."

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

That guy who allegedly deliberately drove onto the sidewalk on the Vegas strip after having a "bad day" at drug court? The cops say he did it because the people on the sidewalk were "staring at him like demons." Well, if he had a good reason...

There was a riot at a prison in Chino, California. Isn't that the plot of a show on Fox?

10 Cubans floating in the ocean, trying to get to America, got into a hassle with the Coast Guard. Some of them refused life preservers thrown to them by the Guardsmen. Doesn't matter. All 10 of them are going to be sent back to Cuba. I guess I don't understand our country's Cuban policy; we spend millions of dollars every year to broadcast radio and TV propaganda to Cuba which is jammed by Castro but we send back people who are trying to escape from his dictatorship? Consistency, who needs it?

A small plane crashed in Arkansas, killing the pilot.

Indiana is trying to close down an exotic animal preserve, where the state says the animals are in bad shape. The owner has obtained a restraining order, though, keeping the place open for the time being.

A boy in Cape Girardeau, Missouri found a two-headed snake. He's named it Rush Limbaugh. That joke is funnier if you know that Rush is from Cape Girardeau.

People in Southern California who thought they were seeing a UFO were the victims of an unintentional prank played by the Air Force. It was really a rocket called "Streak," which probably stands for something, in that way that the military has.

Fox 12's Most Wanted (making a rare appearance in the Final Cut)

• William Martin, a registered sex offender, is missing. For some reason, Jamie Wilson felt the need to stand next to the KPTV "news" van to impart this information to us.

Katrina's Devastation

• Sheesh, Katrina is so Early September. Local high school students held a Debateathon to raise money for the victims of the last hurricane. My favorite part of this story was the very Asian-looking student whose name, according to the Chyron, was Melissa Cohen. American is a melting pot, indeed.
• Then Shauna Parsons tried to go to a story by "KPTV's Chris Wolfe." The tape didn't work or something, though, and Shauna looked thrown-off and a wee bit pissed. She awkwardly handed things off to Wayne Garcia.
• Wayne then gave us a story about a guy who sells that stuff that they put in disposable diapers that absorbs the pee. He's proposing dropping it on growing hurricanes to absorb the water and diminsh the storm. He claims to have tested it and says he's close to perfecting the technique. Interesting. I actually knew a guy who sold bags of that stuff for various water-absorbing purposes.
• Back to Shauna, who managed to go to Chris Wolfe this time. Wolfe was in Baytown, Texas to tell us about how things are going just peachy in the Gulf area. Fires are out of control in Galveston, a levee broke again in New Orleans' 9th Ward, reflooding the area, 20 old people died when their bus exploded as they tried to escape the area. Oh, the governor of Texas is now saying that anyone who hasn't yet escaped the hurricane target area should just stay put and hunker down.

Hollywood Buzz

Stevie Wonder recorded a song, the proceeds of which he is going to donate to hurricane relief efforts. At least that's what they told him he was doing.

If the idea of seeing a movie about rollerdancing in the 1970's wasn't enough to entice you to go to the multiplex this weekend, Fox Searchlight says they are going to donate 10% of the profits from the opening weekend of Roll Bounce to hurricane relief.

Britney Spears has announced that her baby will be named Sean Preston Federline. Damn, I was betting on Doublewide or NASCAR Federline.

J-Lo unveiled her new "Sweetface" line of clothing in Chicago, for some reason. A fat Hispanic gay guy said that this showed that Jen "loves Chicago." I figured it meant that the restraining order wasn't in effect in Illinois.

Martha Stewart did a commercial for PETA after she found out how fur coats are made. I'm certainly not in favor of animal cruelty, but doesn't it seem as if celebrities are the only people so sheltered that they can be "horrified" to find out that animals are killed to make fur?

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

I don't even remember what this story is about anymore. Just click here and see.

Here's a direct link to those pictures of dead Iraqis that American soldiers traded for porn. Click here

So, you thought that all that wacky torturing of Iraqi prisoners was over, huh? Turns out, not so much. Click here

Want another source for that? Click here

You have a volunteer military, you get superstitious assholes. Click here

Here's a story from a CBS station about the same nonsense. This is the single worst piece of "journalism" I have ever seen. What a crock of shit! This isn't a news story; it's like one of those emails I get from my cousin Mary Beth about how gang members are shooting people who flash their headlights. Anyone associated with this should be fired immediately. Click here

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Rita is the new Katrina.

Top Story

• "KPTV's Chris Wolfe" was in Houston where the poop is hitting the air circulator. There's gridlock on the highways leading out of town; the airport is no bargain either as millions try to get the hell out of Dodge A/K/A Houston.
• Drew Jackson wandered into the studio to tell us that Rita's track has moved to the East over the last 24 hours. It's at Category 4 currently.
• The Oregon Mercy Corps, a bunch of bleeding heart hurricane victim savers, has sent 3 more people down to the Gulf area, for a total of 14. Northwest Medical teams are heading down that way as well.
• Some people who apparently had no TV or radio service during Katrina are planning on staying in the Texas coast area. God speed, you magnificant bastards! KPTV got John Mundhenk on the phone; he ain't going nowhere.

Oh, lest you think that, living way up here in the Northwest, you have nothing to worry about, let me say HA! The price of heating your house is up about $10/month currently in Oregon. It's expected to go higher as the winter approaches, although since, as we were told, our heating oil comes from Alaska and points north rather than from the Gulf, that seems to be a little questionable. Not that anyone in, oh say, the GOVERNMENT, will investigate a possible mega-rip-off of the public like that.

Breaking News (which probably means that Channel 8's 10 o'clock news just reported this same story and KPTV happened to catch it on the air):

• There's been a stabbing at the Gresham MAX stop. 1 man has been taken to the hospital and 3 others are being questioned.
  

Fox 12's Most Wanted

• A Hispanic man broke into an apartment in Beaverton and raped a 13-year-old girl on Thursday morning. Hilary Hutcheson was On The Scene.
• Someone robbed the GNC store in Wilsonville shortly after it opened on Thursday.

Cancel the Amber Alert in Salem. In some unspecified way, the local cops have determined that the Mom in question didn't abduct her 2 kids. As my wife pointed out (she has a really good memory), when the Amber Alert system was introduced, the authorities promised that it wouldn't be used in cases where the parent who didn't get custody took the kids. That promise seems to have gone out the window of late. Not that anyone in the new Law Enforcement-happy America appears to have noticed. Maybe we can install KPTV's new heartthrob, the LoJack system, on all our kids. Hey, Keri Tomlinson, whip up an I-Team story about THAT, why don't you?

Break.

The cops are allegedly "closing in on" some jerkoff who has made at least 2 dozen threatening phone calls to local women. A woman from Lewis and Clark College sent an email to KPTV, outlining her experience with the tele-perv. The po po have a suspect who is a sex offender on parole.

Hey, remember former radio personality and sex offender, Chris Lehman? Well, his trial is finally about to start. The sixth caller wins a chance to testify against him.

David Frietas/Freitas was in Longview for this next story. Seems someone has gotten their dirty little hands on a computer disk or the like filled with personal info about former employees of the Reynolds Aluminum plant in Longview. Identity Theft Ahoy!

Hey, speaking of Longview, someone has been defacing Sacagawea Park with graffiti. You know how a lot of love songs have a girl's name in the title and lyrics? Someone needs to write one with "Sacagawea" in it. I wanna hear it.

Speaking of graffiti, Canby is plagued with it, apparently thanks to members of a couple of California gangs. Given that Canby has been the scene of 2 drive-by shootings in the last 18 months, perhaps the town should consider making itself into a violence theme park. As dangerous as this story made the place sound, according to David Wilson, there are only about 12-24 actual gang members in Canby.

Speaking of dangerous, there was a cougar sighting in Beaverton. Actually this is only about a 2 out of 10 on the KPTV Danger Scale. To be a 10, the cougar would have to have been arrested for running a meth lab near a school which was on fire. Then we would have been treated to a neighbor Caught On Tape saying, "You don't expect that in this neighborhood," by God.

Break.

The human remains found in McMinnville were those of a man who has been missing in the area for some time now.

That runaway girl from last night who's had a kidney transplant and is mental or something? Found.

A "routine" traffic stop near Wilsonville on Wednesday netted 2.5 pounds of heroin. That's a lotta horse.

Tri-Met plans on new rules outlawing smoking at their stations. They haven't decided what the fine for breaking the rule will be yet.

Break.

Northwest Tonight

The headstone of a girl who died in 1894 turned up in Snohomish, Washington. So, put it back, for Chrissakes! What's the problem here?

Remember those firefighters who were on their way back from dealing with some Idaho wildfires back in August 2003 who died when the van they were in was involved in a crash? Well, the inevitable lawsuits are about to begin. Their survivors are suing First Strike Environmental for a collective $25 million. Turns out the driver was Caught On Camera in a convenience store, buying some alcohol. Boy is his face red--or would be if he hadn't died in the crash, that is.

So, would you put up with tolls for special speedy lanes to zip around traffic on Highway 217? That's one of the proposals on the table at the moment. The truckers KPTV showed us said they wouldn't pay for them.

Australia doesn't have an I-Tunes online store so the Australian music industry says everyone Down Under who owns an Ipod is a music thief. Way to alienate your customers, music industry! No lawsuits have been filed yet, though.

Dirty Dining

Keri Tomlinson was in News Control for her weekly piece about how you shouldn't have had lunch where you did today. This week's piece of too-little too-late scarenalism was about Best Buffet on 82nd. Some time back, Best Buffet got a score of 72, just three points above failing, thanks to employees not washing their hands, mold and mouse shit being cited by the health inspector. The owner didn't duck Keri, as so many other restauranteurs have done in the past, though; he actually gave her the nickel tour of the joint and explained that the problems have been fixed, which a more recent health inspection confirmed. So the General Tso's Chicken with Fecal Matter is off the menu, I guess.

Break.

Final Cut

Earthquakes, registering 4.0 and 4.9, hit Southern California on Thursday.

That douchebag who drove onto the sidewalk in Vegas, killing 2 and injuring 12, was under the influence of meth. Not that KPTV told you this, but he "had a bad day in drug court" as one cop put it before he apparently deliberately drove onto the sidewalk.

The feds say there will be no charges filed in Wednesday's Jet Blue emergency landing in L.A. Uh, how about their maintenance crew?

A 13-year-old Cincinnati boy died and 3 others have been hospitalized, apparently after playing the "choking game." Local school officials are taking steps to explain to the rest of their students how dangerous the "game" can be. I actually remember playing this when I was a kid. You take a deep breath and another kid squeezes you around the chest as hard as he can. You pass out momentarily. When I came to, I was convinced that I had been on the other side of the street when I was squeezed and I wondered how the other kids had dragged me across the street so quickly. They hadn't, of course.

A substitute teacher in Kansas is in trouble for making the kids scoop up some feces after one of the little charmers in her class defecated in the corner of the classroom. The perp wouldn't confess so she had all the kids help with the clean up. I dunno, is that really wrong for her to have done?

A woman who wasn't taking fertility drugs gave birth to quadruplets, two of which are identical twins. Maybe I'm just stupid or something, but how can you tell when newborns are identical twins? Don't all newborns look pretty much like Winston Churchill?

Hey, the "Breaking News" is back again. Unfortunately, there's nothing new to tell us. Well, the guy who was stabbed and was in the hospital is in surgery; maybe that's new. Jamie Wilson is still On The Scene in case someone from Channel 8 wanders by and can fill her in.

"KPTV's Caroline Shivley" was in Port Arthur, Texas, "Ground Zero" for Hurricane Rita. 2 million people have been advised to evaculate the area. For those who don't want to leave, the governor of Texas has decided to go with the classic Scare The Shit Out Of Them strategy, saying they should write their Social Security numbers on their arms so their bodies can be easily identified by the authorities when the hurricane passes.

Ah, a stunt story! Drew Jackson was out in the KPTV parking lot (A/K/A "Beaverton") with a wind machine, to demonstrate for us what wind looks like. Trouper that he is, Jackson took 100 MPH right in the kisser. Shouldn't "embedded reporter" Kevin Coari, with his darn-near-combat experience, have handled this one?

Hollywood Buzz

OK, someone explain to me how Detachable Penis-owner John Wayne Bobbett fits into "Hollywood Buzz." Yeah, as they informed us, he once "starred" in a porno movie, but isn't this stretching the concept of "Hollywood" just a wee bit? Anyway, Frankendick is in trouble for allegedly assaulting his current wife.

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

Sarcasm Alert: No, there's no similarity at all between Iraq and Vietnam. None at all, you Commie. Click here

You know those pictures of dead Iraqis that the government doesn't want you to see? Well, you can trade them for porn! Click here

You gotta hand it to the Republicans! You might think that all the bad things happening at the moment spell trouble for their agenda. You glass-is-half-full pessimist, you! Click here

Good thing the Supreme Court doesn't have any influence on our lives, 'cause if it did, the omission of any mention by KPTV of the Senate Judiciary Committe approving the nomination of Judge John Roberts as the next Chief Justice might be sort of un-journalistic.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Oh, KPTV, you fickle bitch! No sooner do you break up with Katrina then you're making time with Rita. You're all, like, "Rita this" and "Rita that."

Top Story. What else but Rita? "KPTV's Chris Huntington" was in New Orleans, telling us about Rita and her 175+ MPH sustained winds. People are either heading out of southern Texas or hunkering down. Is there a third option? The Feds have declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana and Texas until Rita blows over, so to speak. FEMA has sent support teams into the area, the better to screw up the coming relief effort. The levees in New Orleans are worrisome as they may collapse.

Oh, just in case you don't know the differences among the five categories of hurricanes, allow me to clear them up for you:

• Category 1: President Bush goes on vacation far from the affected area.
• Category 2: President Bush, if already on vacation, stays on vacation, makes no statement about the impending problem, visits Republican fund-raiser.
• Category 3: President Bush rolls up his shirt sleeves to prepare for important photo-op to be held at scene of hurricane after it has passed.
• Category 4: Press suddenly realizes that Vice-president Cheney hasn't been seen in public for weeks. President Bush praises the work of whoever is the current FEMA director, despite universal derision of FEMA's inept response to the crisis.
• Category 5: President Bush declares a National Day of Prayer for the thousands of people killed in the storm.

Drew Jackson, fill-in weather weasel, showed up on the set to give us the Official Explanation of the five hurricane categories (which, oddly, differs from the one I just gave you). A Category 5 hurricane has sustained winds of over 156 MPH.

A local medical team in the Gulf area to help with the Katrina mess has evacuated from Lake Charles, Louisiana to Shreveport. There's a hurricane a comin', you see.

There have been 17 named storms so far this hurricane season. The Official Namers of Hurricanes only use 21 of the 24 letters of the alphabet for some reason. If we run out of letters, they'll go to the Greek alphabet. Yes, seriously. After that, they'll go to the names of fraternities; prepare for Hurricane Tappa Kegga Brew. No, not seriously.

Pump Patrol

• Thanks to Rita, the price of gas, which has gone down infinitesmally in the past couple of weeks, may soar to over $3/gallon. Currently, gas is going for about $2.75 in Portland and $2.73 around Oregon.
• Debra Gil was in Northwest Portland to tell us that, as an amoeba could predict, gas theft is on the increase. Wait! You mean to tell me that when the price of a commodity that people can't live without goes up, the theft of it increases? Wow, knock me over with a feather!

Women working in some businesses in Portland and Gresham have been getting harassing phone calls from a friggin' weirdo. A woman in the Fashion Bug store in Gresham got a call from this loony tune telling her that he had abducted the daughter of one of her co-workers, which wasn't true.

Fox 12's Most Wanted

• Mohamed Jabbie was killed in Clackamas County about a year ago. The cops would like any assistance you can provide in solving the crime.

A baby boy died mysteriously yesterday in Portland. The cops don't think the death is suspicious, though.

The cops would also like help finding the asshole who jumped out of the bushes and scared a girl in Milwaukie on Tuesday. Remember that story?

A Portland teenage girl who has had a kidney transplant and has a history of mental problems is missing.

I think this was where the first commercial break was. I forgot to make a note of it. *sob*

Vancouver, Washington was the scene of a home intrusion. Wait, not a "home INVASION?" Is there a technical difference between a home intrusion and a home invasion? Anyway, The lady of the house saw the 16- or 17-year-old white boy who broke in. She didn't realize for a few days that the little scumbag stole her credit card. He used it at a local gas station, running up a $500 bill. What the hell can you buy at a GAS STATION that costs $500? Oh, a tank of gas, right.

The local cops are reviewing why it took them from Sunday to Monday to issue the Amber Alert about the woman who is missing along with her 2 sons. Maybe they should call it an "Amber Eventually."

Louis "Chip" Deloretto WAS a Stayton High teacher. Not no mo' though; he's been found guilty of improper touching of a 17-year-old female student. The turning point seems to have been when other students testified that he had touched them in that "bad way" as well. Turns out that this sicko has a history of this sort of thing and lost his teaching license for a while seveal years back.

8 men were caught in a Big! Pot! Bust! which netted 450 pounds of weed.

Meth Watch

• Hey, speaking of Big! Drug! Busts!, a routine traffic stop turned into one when the cop found 1 oz of crystal meth in the car of the stopee.
• That proposed "meth tax" in Cowlitz County is still failing by a 51%-49% margin. Don't those hicks watch KPTV's "news" show??? Don't they know that even the cows are tweakers??

A 2-alarm fire at a metal fabrication shop was apparently caused by some papers that were too close to a heater which went on automatically when the temperature dropped Tuesday night, causing $50,000 worth of damage.

"Co-eds in Aisle Three!" Opponents of a proposed new Wal-Mart store are encouraging 3 local colleges to buy the land the store would be built on.

In the Portland area, some people are opposed to the construction of a new restaurant near a school because it would have a liquor license. OK, can anyone please explain to me what SPECIFIC bad things they think would happen if this restaurant were to open? A guy opposed to the restaurant getting the liquor license mumbled something like, "Well, there's a school and they'd have a liquor license and it would draw that type of person and something else and mumble mumble and incomprehensible something and what about the children?" A lot of this kind of thing is just knee-jerk reaction, I think.

Break.

Remember that plane crash near Tillamook last October? Me neither. Anyway, it has been determined that it wasn't caused by mechanical problems or drugs or alcohol use on the part of the pilot. Maybe the vapors from the cheese factory overcame the pilot. Hey, it's possible!

Northwest Tonight

• A stranger grabbed a woman in a Tacoma park and made her drive a few blocks where he raped her. Obviously, the police would like to have a chat with this gentleman.

Break.

Half of some of Ford's lines of cars will be hybrids by 2010, just in time for us all to have to wear flotation devices all the time because of rising water caused by melting icebergs.

The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending that states pass laws prohibiting teenage drivers from talking on cell phones while driving. Keri Tomlinson was in "Beaverton" A/K/A the KPTV parking lot (I could tell by the giant satellite dishes in the background of the shot) for this story, inexplicably.

The newest Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Magic Zits of Puberty," has sold 11 million copies in America alone. The 7th and last book in the series, "Hogwarts Is Just Another Name For Herpes Sores," will be out whenever author J.K. Rowling gets tired of being only a half-billionaire.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

• A stolen car went out of control on the Vegas strip, onto the sidewalk, killing 1 and injuring several pedestrians. "KPTV's Les Corvatin" (spelling?) was the talking head on this piece.
• A Jet Blue plane made a landing on its belly when its nose gear was stuck sideways. The plane went out over the Pacific to dump fuel before making the emergency landing at LAX.
• The van belonging to the psycho who went on the killing spree in the Gary, Indiana area has been found.
• There was a hostage standoff in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. The hostages were being held in the basement of a jewelry store until the cops talked the crook into releasing them.
• A female suspect was taken down by beanbag rounds after a chase by the cops in California.
• Someone thought it would be a good idea to try to run from the cops in a meat van in Michigan. 1 man was arrested and 2 are still on the loose.
• There was a deadly house fire in Gary, Indiana.
• ICK ALERT: An Arkansas woman pulled a Lorena Bobbitt and cut off her hubby's tallywacker with a pair or shears. She bought the shears over the weekend after finding out that the Mister was having an affair. OK, you can't really justify her actions, but the guy SLEPT WITH HER AFTER TELLING HER HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR??? Draw a dotted line and write "Cut here" on it, why don't you?
• Yes, He works in mysterious ways, all righty. Someone is selling a go-cart tire with the alleged face of Jesus on it on eBay. The bidding is up to $100. So, the Son of God allowed Himself to be nailed to a piece of wood in the hot sun so that He could return in the form of an ambiguous skid mark? Proof enough for me.
• Next we got a recap of the Hurricane Rita situation. It ain't good.
• Then we got to see how some Fox station in Texas is covering the Rita thing. About you would expect, actually. I mean, what can they do that would really surprise you here? It's not like they're going to do the weather in clay animation or something.
• Hey look, everyone! It's Hilary Hutcheson! And she don't look all that great, in the Control Center, with her hair pulled back and wearing some weird white sweater thing. Despite her own Fashion Crisis, Hilary soldiered on to tell us about a medical team from the Northwest evacuating Houston. Um, didn't we get this story already?
• It's History Time! Did You Know...Galveston is on an island about 9 feet above sea level and that it was pretty much destroyed in 1900 by another hurricane? It's A Fact. Oh, about 7000 people died in that storm.
• Cheer up, Gloomy Gus, it isn't all bad news, not since Levi's has announced that their stores will all soon feature the Intellifit body scan machine. With Intellifit, you'll never have to ask, "Does my ass look fat in these jeans?" because you just stand inside a booth and magical computeristic things scan you and tell you what size jeans to wear. Or something like that.

Hollywood Buzz

Kirstie Alley thinks that her recent 50 pound weight loss is the reason her show, Fat Actress, was cancelled. Yup, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that no one was watching the thing. I see a lot of auditing in Kirstie's future. (She's a Scientologist, you see and "auditing" is the stupid, phony pseudo-scientific quasi-confession technique that Scientology uses to make members give the "church" their money. In my opinion.)

Wayne Garcia is losing his touch. He ended the Final Cut 6 seconds early.

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

George Bush is drinking again! What, you think the National Enquirer isn't a "realiable source?" They got the Gary Hart and Bill Clinton things right, didn't they? Click here

OK, read this story, then tell me why the mainstream "liberal" media is ignoring it. Click here

It's clearly just a coincidence that Bill Frist sold all his shares in his family's hospital company just two weeks before the company tanked. What other reason could there be? Click here

Fucking Nazis are everywhere! The European Union wants to log all phone calls and Internet use conducted within its borders. To anyone who says, "It's a different time. We have to monitor people," I would humble submit that you are saying that freedom is a failed system. After all, an umbrella that only works on sunny days is worthless. (I sure am smart for a fat college dropout, aren't I?) Click here

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Once again, a fat guy, armed only with his computer, sitting before it in his underwear, takes on the primetime "news" show of a major market network TV affiliate.

Top Story. A 14-year-old girl, on her way to her school in Milwaukie, was attacked by a man who jumped out of the hedges. The girl's leg was injured in the attack. David Frietas/Freitas was On The Scene.

2 men carried off a carjacking at a Goodwill in Portland. A knife was used. Be on the lookout for a '93 Chevy Corsica.

A man walking down the street with his wife and kids in Vancouver was hit by a car which went out of control. The 41-year-old victim suffered minor injuries. The van's driver was alone when he hit the guy.

There's an Amber Alert because a bipolar mom is missing from a Salem park and she "kidnapped" her kids. OK, question: Do I or do I not remember that when the Amber Alert law was passed we were told it would never be used to go after biological parents who took their own children? Wasn't it ONLY for stranger abduction and didn't they promise they'd never get involved in custody disputes?

I don't have the strength to summarize this next story. Click here

Meth Watch

• So, there's a thingie on the Washington ballet about a new tax to help fight the scourge of meth. Given the way that KPTV tries to make it look as if every third person is on the stuff, you'd figure that people would be willing to open their wallets a little bit to halt the menace, right? Well, maybe. Currently, 51% of voters are saying "No" to the new tax.

Katrina's Devastation, the miniseries

• Hurricane Rita is heading for the Gulf Coast. "KPTV's Chris Huntington" was in New Orleans to tell us what we already knew: the city is still a mess, filthy water is everywhere, etc. Oh, President Bush paid yet another visit to the Big Easy in a desperate attempt to make us forget that he stayed on vacation when Katrina hit. Rita may be a Category 4 hurricane by the time it makes landfall on Wednesday. Oh, this was priceless: Chris Huntington, who you'd think would know Wayne Garcia's name, seeing as how he works for KPTV and all, said, "Back to you, Max," when his standup was done. Maybe Max is his inside joke nickname for Wayne. Yeah, that's gotta be it, seeing as how they work together in Beaverton so he would HAVE to know Wayne's name. Yup, that's gotta be it.
• Next, the Fill-in Weather Weasel showed us the track Rita is expected to take. OK, in all sincerity, I hope it doesn't destroy any property or kill anyone, but I have to admit that I really want to hear Pat Robertson's rationalization if Rita hits Corpus Christi, Texas, seeing as "Corpus Christi" means "Body of Christ" in Latin. (yeah, those 12 years of Catholic school pay off at times)

Oregon Responds

• 200 Oregon troops have returned home from duty in the Gulf area. All Oregon troops are expected to be home from down there by the end of October. Some local medical types are going back down to New Orleans to help with the sick and injured.
• Local restaurants will be participating in "Dime For America Day." The proceeds go to the Red Cross.

Break.

Fox 12's Most Wanted

• 2 Hispanic teens committed armed robbery on a Salem convenience store. They stole some beer using a gun, which is the hard way. What, fake ID's are too good for kids today? KPTV felt the need to use a fake "hidden camera" technique to illustrate this story for some reason.
• The cops are looking for a white guy in his 30's who robbed a Salem bank. No fake hidden camera deal on this piece.

Parents of students at the Hosford School in Southeast Portland are concerned about guys peeing in the bushes and doing drugs near the school. Call it Current Events and give the kids credit for watching, I say. Debra Gil drew the short straw and had to cover this story.

Katherine Erickson, the Tigard High coach who allegedly abused a student was in court on Tuesday. Did it not get reported or did the detail that the student in question is a 15-year-old girl just get past me somehow? Will this be carried on Court TV or Skinemax?

A local business found that its phone wires had been stolen. The proprietor replaced the wires only to have them stolen again. Copper can be sold for cash which can then be used to purchase drugs, you see. And so the Circle of Life is completed. Hakuna matata.

Keri Tomlinson was in the newsroom to tell us about how you can automatically report obscene phone calls by hitting *57 as soon as you hang up. That creates a report at the phone company of what number called you. It'll cost you $1-$2 a shot. When I was a wacky morning drive radio DJ, I would get the occasional harassing call at 2 AM; the local newspaper had the nasty habit of printing my real name when they'd run a story about me and I was listed in the phone book, silly me. There was a similar service back in New Jersey where I was living and I used it a few times. It only cost something like .75, if I remember, though.

Break.

Northwest Tonight

• Proof that the Redneck Lifestyle can kill: A Prineville teenage boy was killed when a gun fell (off the rack?) in his vehicle and went off. If only he had his can of chaw in his shirt pocket, it might have deflected the bullet and then we would have had a story about a "miracle."
• According to the cops, 28-year-old Justin Fossa raped an elderly woman at her foster care home in Canby. He allegedly met her over the Internet. Hey, give him some credit. At least he wasn't downloading porn!
• A Wallowa boy has been charged with murder.

The governor is pressing the president on gas prices. Ooh, yeah, a Blue State governor asking George W. Bush to lower gas prices! That's gonna work. Hey, Kulongoski, maybe you could threaten to tickle him until he takes action.

Break.

A boat capsized off the Southern Oregon coast. 2 people were rescued, 2 bodies were found and 1 is still missing.

War On Terror

• The government wants airlines to put cameras on planes and give the stewardesses--oops, flight attendants--wireless devices to signal the pilot if there's a problem in the passenger cabin. Yup, cameras everywhere you go is obviously the answer to safety in a free society.

War On Terror/London Terror

• New video of the suspects in the London bombings has surfaced. It's from a week before the explosions and the cops think it's of them doing a dry run.
• A landfill in West Yorkshire is being excavated in a search for bomb material believed to have been used in the London terror attacks.

A memorial service was held for ABC anchorman Peter Jennings at Carnegie Hall. Did he have to practice to get there? Nyuk nyuk. Anyway, I was surprised to find this story about how Jennings would often feed homeless people after he finished the evening news. Click here

"All the layoffs that are fit to commit." The New York Times announced that it is going to lay off about 500 people, 250 of them at the Times itself, 160 at the Boston Globe (which is owned by the Times) and the rest in other divisions of the company. My friend, the media hoaxer Alan Abel, once got his obituary printed in the Times, even though he is still very much alive. I was at the press conference where he announced his continued viability. Damn, that was a funny scene. Click here

The St. Helens Fire Department is putting out a calendar to raise funds. So, semi-porn is OK if it raises money for essential services which should be, but aren't, funded by taxes? Help me out here, I don't know what the rules of society are anymore.

Some school somewhere in the Portland area is going to auction off the crappy art produced by some of its lower grade students. Since when are painting with "suns" consisting of large yellow circles with wavy lines coming off them and "moms" with triangular bodies, round heads and stick arms and legs actually worth anything to anyone other than the parents of the "artists?" Shauna Parsons was apparently forced to go to the school and feign interest in the "art." The auction, if you care and can figure out which school it will be at, is coming up on the 29th.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

• A car chase ended on the runway at the Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix. Exciting? Yup. Timely? Not so much. The chase took place on June 30.
• The search is on for a man involved in a killing spree in Indiana. He's driving a silver Ford minivan.
• A dad shot his two kids in Indiana. The son is dead, the daughter is injured. Oh, you know the rest: the neighbors are shocked, he didn't seem like that kind of guy, etc.
• The BTK killer's house was sold at auction in Wichita. The auction started at $90,000 but had to drop by half before finding a buyer. It might have something to do with the basement in which BTK ("Bind, torture, kill") took bondage photos of his victims. That or the lack of the fashionable island kitchen design.
• A bridge was imploded on purpose in Clearwater, Florida. There is going to be 3 more implosions to finish the job. Maybe, if they have any explosives left over, they can blow up the headquarters of Scientology, also located in Clearwater.
• There was a re-enactment on Tuesday of that fatal train crash in Chicago over the weekend. It was said that it may take as long as two years to determine the cause of the crash. Huh? How about that whole of going 69 mph in a 10 mph zone? There you go. Send me the check.
  
• A mistrial was declared in the John Gotti, Jr. case. The jury was deadlocked. There is absolutely no connection between the deadlock and the new cars, fur coats and diamond-studded iPods some jurors will soon purchase. Gotti is accused of putting out a hit on talk show host Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels.
• Again with the friggin "peer court?" Didn't we have a story about this a few months ago? Maybe Jim Hyde, who brought us this piece about the teen court in Vancouver, has Alzheimer's and just forgot about the previous story. Peer Court has been in existance for 10 years, yadda yadda yadda, it's all about teens holding their peers responsible for their misdeeds, yadda yadda yadda. Hey, at least Jim, or, more likely, the tech people in the KPTV "news" van where Jimbo was hanging out, remembered to turn the van's monitors to KPTV for a change.
• 2 Lake Oswego women have invented "A Day of Pink," to give women diagnosed with cancer a day of pampering. They get facials, manicures, pedicures and a goody bag filled with stuff from local businesses. Damn, that's nearly as good as winning an Emmy and you don't have to do any of that difficult "acting" thing. You just have to have cancer.
  
• A new "high tech" pill bottle will automatically send a message to your cell phone if you forget to take your daily dose of whatever nostrum you're putting your faith in. This e-nuisance costs about $150.
• It just wouldn't be a KPTV "news" show without strapping on the old knee pads and giving American Idol a big, sloppy blow job, would it? This piece was a total waste of airtime; it was a few seconds of tape of the Idol "judges" talking about the contestants being brave enough to submit themselves to the scrutiny of hasbeens and neverwases (?) like the Idol triumvirate. Hey, here's an idea for an I-Team exclusive: try to find out who Ryan Seacrest has photos of having sex with a donkey. There can be no other reason for this guy to have a career.

Hollywood Buzz

• John "Don't call me Cougar" Mellencamp, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Blondie are among the potential inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame or retirement home? You decide.
• Naked gay guy from the first season of Survivor, Richard Hatch, is accused of tax evasion by the IRS. Rich didn't send them their cut from the million bucks he won. He says he thought CBS was supposed to pay it. He could--but won't--get 75! years in jail if convicted.

Wayne Garcia ended the Final Cut with 6 seconds left on the Still Inexplicable Countdown Clock.

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

FEMA is a bigger horror show than you ever imagined. Click here

Ever wondered how much people who work at the White House make a year? Click here

Damn liberal media! They never tell you the good news about the war in Iraq. For instance, did you know we're WINNING that war? Click here

With everything going on in the world right now, it must be difficult for the Justice Department to decide on a Top Priority. Well, when in doubt, go with porn! Click here

"Anyone see my mandate? It's around here somewhere." President Bush falls even lower in popularity polls. Click here