Saturday, September 3, 2005

Hardly a surprise that the show was Katrina-centric again tonight. Not even KPTV could feel OK about doing smoking monkey stories while thousands are lying dead in New Orleans.

Top Story. Well, I've already let the cat out of the bag.

Oops, wait, Breaking News!

• Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist is dead. Great, this will give the clearly extremely competant George W. Bush the chance to put another fanatic on the Court. Maybe the nuts are right and Armageddon is coming!

Back to the Top Story. "KPTV's Caroline Shivley" told us that President Bush said he wanted to "put things into perspective." I'm thinking that "perspective" is the Republican National Committee Buzz Word of the Day (see last night's posting about Sean Hannity trying to use it only to be cut off by his colleague Shepard Smith). 7000 more troops are being sent to New Orleans and the president will pay another visit to the city on Monday. I'm sure you haven't read this in any American press outlet, but some European TV networks said that his last appearance there was a photo-op. They showed the "set" being torn down immediately after he finished speaking.

Katrina's Destruction

• According to David Frietas/Freitas, in the next 24 hours, Washington High School will be the new temporary home for 1000 evacuees from New Orleans. Fire fighters checked out the joint to make sure it's safe for occupation. The Red Cross will be providing needed items to the people staying there; they ask that people do NOT drop things off as that will create confusion.
• The Columbia clothing company is making a large donation of clothing for the evacuees.
• 10's of thousands of the evacuees are going to be living in Texas for the time being.
• 50 Oregon National Guard soldiers will soon be making their way to New Orleans to help out.
• Local fire fighters are on their way to N.O. as well.
• 4 Clackamas fire fighters are taking some needed goods down to the affected area.
• The Oregon State Police are sending 4 semis filled with food and water to New Orleans.
• Intel is donating 1500 laptop computers and "high-tech" radios to the relief effort.
• You can make a donation to the Red Cross at any Shari's restaurant of Les Schwab tire store.

Break.

Breaking News

• There was a "home invasion" (no, it's not the same as a burglary, you cynic!) on X Street in Vancouver. In the course of the "invasion," one of the residents of the home suffered a head wound.

Ever notice that you never see a Martin Luther King Boulevard in a rich neighborhood? And why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway? But I digress. There was a hit and run accident about 2 AM on MLK in Portland, leaving a bicyclist dead.

An Albany baby is dead. There's some suggestion it was hit by its aunt. Man, they ain't making aunts like they used to.

A body has been found in an OSU dorm room. Alcohol is suspected. Substance abuse on a college campus! I, for one, am shocked, shocked, I tell you.

The Beaverton cops are spending their Labor Day weekend on Highway 26, screwing with speeders.

More than 900 Boeing machinists are still on strike. No matter what you think about Boeing, there is no dispute that they are the only defense contractor with a Jerry Lewis comedy named after them. Click here

Jim Hyde phoned in this story (so to speak; he was heard via voice-over) about a 16-year-old boy who started a fire in a field in Salem by launching his model rocket. It was an obvious screw-up, as opposed to deliberate arson, so he wasn't arraigned, but he was ordered to interview the people who live around the field and do a report on how the fire impacted them. Yes, really. Apparently the courts are now in the homework business.

Northwest Tonight

• The death of a woman found on a trail in the Klamath Falls area has been ruled a suicide.

America Tonight

• I thought I heard the name in this story as "Julie Frankovich," but I've only found references to "Julie Popovich." I'm assuming the latter is correct, especially as Julie Popovich is a missing woman we have mentioned before. Her body was found over the weekend.
• French president Jacques Chirac is in the hospital with somewhat vaguely-described eye problems. My theory: he got poked in the peeper with a baguette.

Break.

Katrina's Devastation: The Revenge (I made up everything from the colon on)

• Some reporters in the hurricane-ravaged area have dropped their "objectivity" (sorry, I was laughing there for a moment) and helped out by dropping food to starving people from a helicopter. Since when does the concept of "objectivity" mean that you shouldn't help a desperate person? Some of these "journalists" need to go back to J-school and freshen up on the meaning of this stuff.
• The Manning brothers, as in Payton and his brother, have collected 30,000 pounds of food to be delivered to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf coast.
• This next story was the kind of clusterfuck you can catch on KPTV if you actually watch what they show while listening to the audio. The copy was about the USS Comfort, a medical ship going to the New Orleans area (no hurry, it's not as if thousands of people are hurting or anything) to assist with the sick and injured. The video, however, showed one of the Carnival cruise ships. The screw-up probably owes to the fact (NOT reported by KPTV) that the Carnival company has finally made up its mind about loaning some of their ships to the relief effort. They're going to do it. Click here
• The local Humane Society is going to try to help the animals displaced by the hurricane.

Break.

The annual Jerry Lewis Telethon, starting on Sunday, is going to raise money for the hurricane relief effort, as part of their usual crippled kids beg-a-thon.

"KPTV's Chris Wolfe" was on hand in Biloxi, Mississippi for the next piece. This was the inevitable "not everything is bleak" whitewashing of the incredible screw-up by the Feds. Sure, people are still being asked not to flush their toilets and to crap into plastic bags and sure, they desperately need gas for their generators and chain saws (to cut up fallen branches and trees) but hey, director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff (whose name means "of the devil" in German, I'm told), says the government did the best they could. I think Chertoff's last job was rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. This hack couldn't organize a two-car funeral if you spotted him the hearse.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

Katrina's Devastation--3-D

• Back on the East Coast (Southern part, anyway) there were hours-long gas lines in some places.
• Speaking of that: Pump Patrol Time. The low price locally was $2.59/gallon in Cornelius and the high price was $3.00/gallon in Scappoose.
• Don't think the increasing price of gas is hurting anything? The parking lot for the boat ramp on Marine Drive was empty. The people put on camera blamed the price of gas, saying that they were starting to be unable to afford their hobby.
• Go figure, scooter sales are up. The video for this looked to me as if it might have been supplied by the Vespa company, which makes scooters, of course. Damn, I wish I still had the cute little 49cc Honda scooter I had back in the 80's. Of course, I wish I weighed the same as I did back then, too.
• Gun sales are up in Louisiana and Mississippi, as frightened citizens are arming themselves to protect against looting, etc. I suspect that most, if not all, of the looting has passed, but it was inevitable that people would buy them some hardware, especially in the South. May I humble suggest to our Southern brethren that their greatest threat isn't some desperate junkie but the Federal government. No, I am NOT saying that anyone should shoot any government agent; that would be stupid and illegal. Alls I'm saying is (as they say in the Bronx) the government can and will do more long-term damage to you than someone stealing your plasma TV.
• "KPTV's Todd Connor" told us that stars are making personal donations to the relief effort. He also said that NBC would be airing a fund-raising telethon on Friday night. Yes, you read that right--KPTV aired a story on SATURDAY night about a show that aired the night before! Eh, details, details. What, you want someone to actually watch this stuff before they slap it on the air to prevent things like that from happening? But, but, that would require them to pay someone to work on the weekends! It's cheaper to simply ignore it when they air outdated material and hope the audience doesn't notice.
• Hey, it's "KPTV's Caroline Shivley" again. Now she's at the airport in Kenner, Louisiana, which has been turned into a temporary triage area for the sick and wounded from the New Orleans area. Jesus, this is sad to watch.
• The last people have finally been taken out of the Superdome. Got a question for anyone who still wants to defend the slow reaction of the federal government to this crisis: If, as George W. Bush says, we have the extraordinary ability and resources to rebuild New Orleans, why didn't we use them to try to protect the city better in the first place?
• The governor of Texas is worried about how many evacuees from the hurricane area his state can absorb. Gee, if only we could think of someone who had some land. Perhaps a "ranch" which raises no crops and has no cattle on it. Maybe we could set up temporary housing for some of the evacuees there. Nah, there couldn't be anyone like that in Texas, right? 'Cause that would make them a fake "cowboy."
• President Bush is going back to Louisiana on Monday. I guess he's making up for the 72 hours after the hurricane hit when he--oh I don't know--perhaps didn't seem all that concerned about the situation.

Finally, in one of those nice "train wreck" segues KPTV specializes in, we were told yet again about classes that promise to make anyone "seem like a wine snob in 2 hours." God knows that's what I aspire to! I really need to know what wine goes best with Chicken McNuggets. The class we saw had what appeared to be an all-female audience. Hey Yuppie ladies, maybe you can call Condoleezza Rice to hook up with her for her next thousand-dollar-a-pair shoe shopping trip. I have to admit that Erin Marie, the lecturer, seemed like an entertaining speaker. This story just seemed wildly out of place, following as it did a string of hurricane relief stories. Hey, at least it wasn't about a smoking monkey!

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

• Out of the kindness of their black hearts, some banks are allowing 90-day "reprieves" on mortgages to people victimized by Hurricane Katrina. Let's see a show of hands: who thinks these people will have any money in 90 days, given that their jobs are gone? Click here
• Say, here's a story that you'd think that any competant "news" organization might report on: Over 200 New Orleans police officers resigned on the spot, unable to deal with the situation after the hurricane struck. Click here
• National Guardsmen were seen playing cards as the crisis in New Orleans accelerated, not having been given orders to intervene. Click here
• According to the New York Times, President Bush is trying to deal with the political ramifications of the public outcry over his slow response to the hurricane's aftermath. Well, sure, the political stuff is the most important, after all. Click here
• And, lastly, almost as if in answer to my joke about which wine to drink with Chicken McNuggets: Click here

SPECIAL ADDED ATTRACTION:

Because you've been such loyal readers, here is a little (short) essay I wrote today about my feelings about the current situation in America.

I used to live in a country that worked. It was called America. Now I live in a country where excuses are the norm, where incompetence is excused or awarded. It is also called America but it is an impostor.

The Can Do spirit has been replaced by a What Do You Want Me To Do About This? Attitude. Rolling up one’s sleeves has been replaced by covering one’s ass.

While there were many reasons to disagree with Bill Clinton, the fact is that no one doubted the man’s intelligence. The impostor America has replaced a Rhodes scholar president with a C student.

The Real America that used to exist may have stumbled and fallen on the road to equality among its citizens, but the pretender that has taken its place doesn’t even pretend to value equality. “Every man for himself” has replaced “We’re all in this together”. The law of the jungle has replaced the law of the land. The looting we saw in New Orleans (other than for the means of survival) was wrong, but not hard to understand when our current government has made it clear that social Darwinism is the order of the day.

There have always been people in America who believe that we should only take care of Americans and not worry about foreigners in distress. What no one disputed, however, was that America had the ability to do both if it wanted to. In today’s imitation America, many question whether we can even assist our own citizens in times of need.

The government of the impostor America, through its indifference and incompetence, has managed to do what no terrorist group could ever do: cause millions of American citizens to lose faith that our country can live up to its reputation. The attacks of 9/11 caused Americans, rightly or wrongly, to rally behind their government. The callous indifference of our “leaders” to the suffering of those in the Gulf states, exemplified by a Secretary of State who saw nothing wrong with shopping for designer shoes while thousands of Americans were dying in a flood, has opened the eyes of millions of citizens to the vacuum in our “leadership.”

You ask me if I love my country and I’ll look you in the eye and answer: I love the America I was brought up to believe in, an America that cared about its people and thought it could achieve great things. I do not, cannot, and will not love the sick, sad impostor that has taken her place.