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.