Tuesday, September 6, 2005

The KPTV "news" team put on their serious faces--you know, the ones they usually reserve for stories about missing upscale blonde white women--for tonight's Katrina-thon.

Top Story: Katrina's Devastation. Get used to that phrase 'cause you're gonna be hearing a lot of it. There's lots of stuff to cover, so let's blow right through it.

• The mayor of New Orleans (you know, the guy all those Bush administration officials who say now is not the time for "playing the blame game" are blaming) ordered a forceful evacuation of the city. In other words, the cops are going to MAKE people evacuate whether they want to or not, using their guns if they have to.
• A Congressional investigation committee is forming. Oh, that will be loads of laughs. Hey, fox! Guard this chicken coop over here, willya?
• The pumps are starting to work and the water level in New Orleans is dropping.
• FEMA is under criticism. Gee, I can't imagine why .
  
• More evacuees are arriving in Houston.
• Oh, this was rich! Now the officials say they don't want to let some of the evacuees live on the Carnival Cruise ships because--get this!--having come out of a flood, they "have an innate fear of water." Yes, seriously. You can't make this stuff up.
• Stats: 32,000 rescues have been performed so far. 182,000 people have evacuated. 43,000 troops are on the ground now. 1 million military meals have been served.
• 1500 Oregon National Guard troops will soon be in New Orleans.

Kevin Coari was heard via phone. He went to New Orleans with the National Guard. He says there's garbage and contaminated water all over the place. Sounds like the State Fair Grounds the day after the Fair ends.

The local Red Cross has set up a place for evacuees in an Oregon City school building, just in case it's needed. People were lined up to volunteer to help and any younger kids brought to live there temporarily will go to school on the premises, according to Jamie Wilson.

Pump Patrol. The average price for a gallon of gas around the U.S. is $3.09. In Oregon, the average is $2.88.

Debra Gil was in Beaverton with a paper grocery bag as her prop to tell us that the price of damn near everything is expected to go up. So, does that throw out that whole, "Well, at least Bush hasn't had any inflation" thing?

Break.

A 63-year-old Keizer man shot his 89-year-old mother, then turned the gun on himself. The mother had cancer and he was worried about her, according to the guy who lived next door, who also called them "quiet neighbors." David Wilson was On The Scene for this story.

Fox 12's Most Wanted

• 3 men were allegedly involved in a stabbing in Clark County. The police would like to have a little chat with them.
• There's a $1000 reward for information about a murder in Portland back on June 27th.

David Frietas/Freitas was dispatched to the Molalla area for a story about a teenaged girl who was killed when she was thrown from the car a friend was driving as it rolled. Davey's prop was a laptop computer with a picture of the victim on it.

It just wouldn't be a KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show if it didn't contain at least one "scarenalism" piece. Keri Tomlinson was in News Control to tell us about the dangers lurking at myspace.com. It's a website for teenagers where they go to make friends. The "danger" here is that they enter personal information about themselves onto the site; some kids put things like "favorite sex position" on there. The mother of a 13-year-old Hillsboro girl found out that her kid was going to this site and freaked out. Kids are supposed to be over 16 to use myspace.com but obviously some kids lie about their age, like Little Miss Hillsboro. Note that no actual evidence of anything bad happening was cited in the story, but, you know, IT COULD HAVE and that's scary, right? For the record, myspace.com says it reviews complaints and deletes the accounts of anyone who breaks their terms of service.

Break.

It just isn't a REAL news story if there isn't a local angle lurking in it somewhere, so KPTV told us about a flood in the Portland area 57 years ago. The 18,000 residents of Vanport were evacuated when a railroad dike broke, flooding the area on Memorial Day 1948. Some old coots reminisced on camera about the event which killed 15 people.

Break.

Meth Watch

• Nothing too exciting tonight. We didn't get to see the mugshots of any Crankenstein meth abusers or anything fun like that. The Molalla Sheriff's Department gave a talk about the horrors of meth abuse to some locals.

Katrina's Destruction Part Deux

• We heard about a family of 18 that tied themselves together and waded out of New Orleans. They are now in Phoenix. No, they didn't walk all the way there, silly.
  
• "KPTV's Becky Diamond" was in Biloxi to tell us that the hurricane survivors still need more help. Then she told us that the sky was blue and that dogs bark.
• More about the inevitable upcoming Congressional review and weenie roast (and yes, I'm using that term in the gay sense).
• FEMA is setting up a temporary morgue. Hopefully, it will be for the career of FEMA management.
• The mayor of New Orleans thinks he sees some light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, it's the headlight of an oncoming train.
• Electricity is back on in Biloxi. For some reason, that reminds of some distant relatives I had who used to stuff paper in the electrical outlets in their house because they thought that if they didn't, the electricity would "spill out." I only wish I was making that up.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut/News Across America

• 2 people are dead in Chicago because of a car crash following a robbery.
• A 10-year-old girl is dead because of a shooting at a Labor Day block party in the Bronx, New York City, where I grew up. Damn.
• Chief Justice William Rehnquist's rotting corpse is on display in the Grand Hall of the Supreme Court building. Bring the kids! It's a Kodak moment. I have to say that I always liked the stripes on Rehnquist's robe. His fashion inspiration was Corporal Agarn of F Troop. Click here
  
• Bob Denver, TV's Gilligan, is dead at the age of 70 due to cancer. Bad timing. Bush was going to make him the next head of FEMA, since he had that experience with a boat disaster and all.
• Breaking News. State Representative Kelley Wirth is in the hospital after being hit by a car driven by Lisa Temple. The cops say Temple did it on purpose because of a disagreement between the two women.
• It is being reported that Saddam Hussein has confessed to being responsible for the death of Kurds and other crimes. Um, pardon me for thinking this is horseshit. It's clearly in his best interest to totally deny everything he's accused of; I just can't see why he would suddenly confess. Stranger things have happened though, of course.

War On Terror

• The Saudis staged a raid on a militant Moslem stronghold. What was I saying just now about horseshit? Yeah, Saudi Arabia, the home of 15 of the 19 terrorists who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, is VERY concerned about stopping militantism.
• A groundbreaking ceremony was held Tuesday for the new whatever-the-hell-it's-going-to-be that will replace the World Trade Center towers.

Northwest Tonight

• Remember the two registered sex offenders living together near Bellingham, Washington who were killed by the guy who pretended to be an FBI agent? We now have a name for the fake FBI guy: Michael Mullen. The cops think he was upset that registered sex offenders were living in his neighborhood.

Katrina's Devastation, Part Troix (is that how you spell "three" in French?)

• As you may be aware, the cemeteries in New Orleans are above ground to prevent water from seeping into the coffins. We got to see some video of what one of them looks like now. It ain't pretty.
• As if Katrina didn't screw up the lives on the people in the gulf states enough, the stupid new bankruptcy bill which is scheduled to go into effect on October 17th will ruin what's left of their existances. That's assuming that Congress doesn't vote to postpone the start of the damn thing. Question for Congress: What are you planning to do to people who can't pay their bills because they lost everything in the flood if you don't vote to postpone this law?
  
• 500 evacuee kids are starting school in their new home town of Dallas. "Open up your magical textbooks, children. It's time to learn about Intelligent Design." Yup, that'll prepare them for those high-paying jobs in science.
• The Astrodome now has an 11:00 PM curfew. Does it also have "Keep Off The Fake Grass" signs all around?
• "KPTV's Doug Luzader" was in the Big Watery Easy to tell us again about the mayor ordering mandatory evacuation, at gunpoint if needed. Everybody out of the toxic pool! He also talked about the FEMA fuck-up.
• A Virginia woman was offered $500,000 for katrina.com which she owns. She turned it down. I own terrischiavo.net. Did anyone offer ME $500,000 for it. Nope. (and yes, I really do own it)
• Jim Hyde elbowed Keri Tomlinson out of News Control to tell us about a 4-year-old Vancouver girl who, with the help of her Mom, of course, raised money for the Katrina victims. It kind of helped that her Grampa is apparently rich, as he threw in a check for $10,000.
• Oregon State Troopers are taking semis full of needed stuff down to Louisiana to help troopers and their families down there.
• Lastly, school supplies are being collected in local schools to send down to the gulf states.

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

• This is sad. A reporter says that some poor people in New Orleans thought that they would have to buy a ticket to be rescued by a helicopter. Obviously, they didn't get the memo about "compassionate conservatism." Click here
• Reporters covering the looting still going on in New Orleans have been attacked--by the police. Click here
• OK, explain to me again why the head of FEMA shouldn't be chased out of town by a rock-throwing mob. Click here
• This is a fake picture made by someone with good Photoshop skills, but it's funny. Click here
• Wow, some members of the press have reclaimed the balls they stashed in Bush's back pocket for safekeeping. I think I'd rather be in New Orleans right now than be the president's spokesperson. Click here
• The Associated Press on Bush's response to the Katrina nightmare. Click here

And lastly, I couldn't like directly to it, but from Salon.com, here is some information about the "compassionate" Geraldo Rivera of Fox News Channel:

Geraldo Rivera arrives in a Fox News truck. An elderly woman with blond hair grips his elbow. She's wearing thick dark glasses and a pink shirt. He carries her small white dog in his arms. He's wearing thigh-high waders unzipped to below his knees. We shake hands. "Her relative called one of our stations," Geraldo tells me, explaining how that call went to another station, and then another, and finally to him.

The woman had been stranded in her home for six days. Geraldo picked up the woman and her dog and brought them here. The woman looks frail on his arm, though not as bad perhaps as a lady collapsed on a chair nearby, unable to move. Or a woman in a wheelchair being lifted from the truck, carrying her prosthetic leg on her lap.

"That's the second time he brought her here," one of the doctors tells me, nodding toward Geraldo.

"What?"

"They did two takes. Geraldo made that poor woman walk from the Fox News van to the heliport twice. Both times carrying her dog."