Friday, September 2, 2005

Do I even need to tell you what the Top Story tonight was? What else could it be than Katrina and the aftermath. KPTV even broke out the Brooke Wilberger "dramatic" music for this story, so you know it's an OFFICIAL disaster!

Top Story. Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. It's a bit tricky to summarize all the stories tonight as they tended to be about the hurricane disaster relief and they kind of ran together. "KPTV's Doug Luzader" was at the New Orleans airport and showed us some really horrifying video of sick people being transported on luggage conveyors.

100 Oregon National Guard soldiers are going down to Louisiana to help out. Many of them only recently came home from Iraq. One of them actually said that New Orleans may be more dangerous than Baghdad in that there was plenty of water and food available in Iraq. Jesus!

Governor Kulongoski condemned the violence and looting in New Orleans. Then, as long as he was taking controversial positions like that, he said that he was "very definitely against" people drowning kittens. Well, not really.

Keri Tomlinson was near the KPTV "news" van to tell us about a Vancouver man who has been trying to reach his brother in New Orleans. While we watched, he managed to finally connect with him and the brother said he has heard shots taken at rescue copters and boats.

Next up, David Frietas/Freitas was in News Control to address the touchy subjects of race and poverty in connection with the disaster relief effort. As you may be aware, New Orleans is 70% black. A local black minister pointed out that one-third of the population of N.O. is at or below the poverty line. According to statistics I've seen elsewhere, the average income for white citizens of New Orleans is $30,000; for black citizens it's $11,000. Oh, Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice says that racism is not a factor in the slow response to the disaster. And who'd know better than a high government official who was attending a Broadway show and buying expensive shoes while thousands of people in a major U.S. city were dying in a flood? I guess they're paying the house Negroes a lot better than they used to.

Is more bad weather heading toward the Gulf? Uh, nope. Mark Nelsen was trotted out early to tell us that the next potential hurricane looks like it's heading toward Bermuda, maybe.

Break.

Fox 12's Most Wanted

• Registered sex offender Todd Holden hasn't reported in lately.
• A bank in Vancouver was robbed on Thursday by a man in a ski mask.
• Yay, Tyler Lupoli, former 24 Hour gym employee and alleged sex abuser, is back in jail. Got $750,000 handy for that bail, Tyler?
• Dustin Eamon, this week's Designated Scumbag, was turned in by his parents. Buh-bye, Dusty.

A drug bust in Hillsboro turned up a big ol' bunch of pot and some explosive devices. "Big kaboom at 4:20, Dude."

Car Chase-O-Rama (I made that name up)

• A car chase in North Portland resulted in the would-be escapee getting a skull fracture.
• Clackamas deputies chased a miscreant in car and on foot. Caught!
• In Vancouver, the cops chased a guy in a Toyota at speeds up to 100 MPH. A Toyota can do 100 MPH?? Was the chase off a cliff or something?

Going to the coast for the holiday weekend? Put the malt liquor in the trunk, mi amigos. The police are making extra DUII arrests on Highway 26 near Cannon Beach. It's bad enough the Yuppies have to deal with the common folk sober.

Next was a timewaster about Steve Stokke, alleged ID thefter (?) who jumped into the river when the cops were chasing him and how he's in jail. We kinda knew that, didn't we?

Northwest Tonight

"KPTV's Susan West" (wanna bet me that isn't the name on her birth certificate?) brought us this report about some kids who were in a park in Washington state on a weenie roast (isn't that slang for some kind of gay thing?) who managed to get themselves lost in the woods. They went looking for sticks and ended up THREE MILES from their family. Uh, how hard can it be to find sticks in the WOODS?? Aren't the woods pretty much made out of sticks? Anyway, as we watched, the kids' Dad, who looked like everyone's mental image of a professional wrestler, got word that the kids were found.

Break.

Meth Watch

Back on Wednesday (no rush, KPTV "news"), a local power substation was robbed of copper wire to the tune of $200,000. So, uh, why is this on "Meth Watch?" Well, the cops theorize that the people who stole the wire--who could easily been become toasted junkies, by the way--probably stole it to pay for their meth habit. Given the way the cops wildly overestimate the "street value" of drugs they seize in a bust, that $200k will probably buy them about a day's worth. Or they could just use the money to fill up the rusty van they almost certainly drive.

Boeing's mechanics "overwhelmingly" voted to go on strike. One striker said that they made decent salaries but the issues were pensions and retirement medical benefits.

OK, didn't KPTV tell us several days ago that the turbine that was stuck in the Portland tunnel was finally on its way to somewhere in Washington state? Hmm, not so much, apparently. It's been sitting on the side of the road all this time. NOW it's on its way.

So, besides looking for drunks behind the wheel on Highway 26, the police are also targeting speeding. Couldn't this have been folded into the previous Highway 26 story?

Break.

Pump Patrol

• Gas is running about $2.73/gallon in Portland. According to Wayne Garcia, around the country, "it's averaging up to $3.09." Huh? Either it's averaging that much or it's up to that much, but it can't be both. A station in Albany, Oregon is charging $3/gallon. Speaking of which, Oregon's Attorney General says we should watch out for price gouging. Really? All this time I've been seeking out stations that price-gouge. Boy, do I feel silly now. Seriously, what would we do without our elected officials to give us valuable, incredibly obvious advice like that?

Katrina's Devastation (cue the sad music)

• Obviously, a lot of schools in the Gulf area aren't going to be ready to open any time soon. The state government of Oregon is collecting school supplies to send down there via the National Guard.
• "KPTV's Impossible to Spell Name" told us how the people in the Houston Astrodome are finally receiving some assistance.
• Northwest medical teams are on their way to New Orleans to help with the horrible illness there.
• Goodwill Industries is sending $50,000 and needed goods to the relief effort.
• AMR paramedics from the Portland area are heading down to the Gulf area to assist.

OK, this next piece was pretty damn amazing, although KPTV didn't show the best part. Fox News Channel reporters Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera totally lost it on the air during Hannity & Colmes tonight. Through plain dumb luck, I happened to catch this when it aired live on FNC. Sean Hannity was in the New York studios, talking to both of them. It was pretty clear that he was trying to lead them into talking about all the "good things" that were happening in the rescue effort in New Orleans and neither of them was having any of it.

Ever the hambone, Geraldo said it looked like "Willowbrook" where he was. That reference was almost certainly lost on any FNC viewers who didn't live in the New York City area in the early 70's when Geraldo was a reporter for WABC TV. Willowbrook was a mental health facility owned by the state. It was in absolutely horrific condition and Rivera exposed it in a series of stories on the air, forcing the state to improve the situation. Despite that reference to his Glory Days and his use of a black infant as a prop, Geraldo seemed honestly disgusted by the situation in the Superdome where he was broadcasting from. He visibly teared up on the air.

Over at the convention center, Smith seemed equally touched by what he was seeing. When Sean Hannity said, "Just to add some perspective..." Smith cut him off and snapped, "This IS perspective!" Smith went on a rant about how the people in the convention center were not being allowed to leave by the authorities. He said that just across a nearby bridge, they would be safer, but they were being held where they were. It was the most riveting thing I've seen on TV in ages. Remember, this was on Fox News Channel, normally pretty friendly (to say the least) to the Bush administration. Smith, in particular, has been a predictable supporter of Bush policies since George has been in office. If they've lost his support, I'd say the wheels really may have come off the Bush wagon. Both Rivera and Smith looked as if they hadn't slept in a few days. Powerful stuff.

The next piece, featuring "KPTV's J.J. Ramberg" in Biloxi was billed as being about Americans being annoyed with the slow pace of the relief effort. There wasn't much of that in the piece, however. We heard about how President Bush "toured" Biloxi, Mobile and New Orleans. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up, the international sign for when a politician wants the public to think he's concerned with their mundane existances.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

The semi-real news was longer than usual tonight, which made for a shortened Final Cut. I'm sure fans of "news" stories about smoking monkeys and cars that crash into buildings were distressed by the absence of this vital information.

A gas station in Staten Island (one of the five boroughs of New York City) caught on fire when a driver hit one of the pumps. The police believe--although we don't know why--that he did it on purpose.

An accumulation of deadly gas killed 3 employees on a cruise ship in the L.A. area. Well, they said it was a "Mystery Cruise." They just didn't say that the "mystery" would be what killed 3 people.

In Today's Sign of the Apolcalypse, there was a huge dust storm in the Phoenix area.

R.L. Burnside, a "blues legend" you've never heard of in your entire life, died. There are lots of things I don't know very well, like algebra, but I'm pretty up on my pop culture. If I've never ever heard of a "blues legend," I'm gonna say he wasn't really that much of a "legend." No offense, R.L.

Katrina's Devastation (yet again, complete with the sad music again)

• A local woman went on Craigslist.com's Portland section and offered a free ticket to Portland to anyone trapped in the New Orleans area. Another woman took her up on it. Hmm, someone just occurred to me. Haven't flights out of the New Orleans airport been suspended? So, how did the woman fly out of there? This story gave us tonight's only sighting of Hilary Hutcheson. Her hair is now parted in the center again. Can't we organize a massive relief effort to get Hilary's hair back the way it was a couple of weekends ago?
• Some local people are offering housing to refugees from the chaos in the Gulf states.
• David Frietas/Freitas was at the van to tell us about some Tigard kids who sold lemonade to raise money for the relief effort. Hey, David, what did you do with Keri Tomlinson? She was at the van earlier in the hour. Can't you share, David?
• The evacuation effort in New Orleans continues. The government has authorized oil to be released from the National Strategic Reserve, which might lower gas prices a little bit.

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

Rapper Kanye West went a wee bit off-script during the telethon the NBC networks aired to raise money for the rescue effort. He was standing next to Mike Myers when he started talking about how Bush "doesn't like black people." Myers looked as if he didn't know whether to shit or go blind, to borrow an expression. Click here. They cut the rant out of the version that ran on the West Coast, in case you're wondering why you didn't see it.

Back in July, the Red Cross of Louisiana notified the poor of New Orleans that they would be on their own in the event of a catastrophic flood. Click here.

CNN.com has an interesting comparison between the official version of things in New Orleans and reality. Click here.

Prepare to be disgusted. According to sploid.com: "The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so."