Wednesday, September 14, 2005

I am SO pissed-off right now! I was writing my nightly report on the KPTV "news" show. I was an hour and a half into it, in fact (yeah, I write slow). I was listening to a CD as I worked and I made the fatal error of thinking I could actually change the disc without causing a problem. Wrong. The computer crashed, trashing everything I had written up to that point. No, I hadn't saved my work as a draft. Duh. It was good stuff, too; lots of jokes and everything. I just don't have the time right now to redo the whole thing. I'm going to start again from where I left off. I apologize to you and I'm not kidding when I say that it was good stuff. If it's any consolation to you, you can picture me sobbing softly as I type the remainder.

Final Cut

An 18-year-old woman in West New York, New Jersey (Yes, that's a real place. It's across the Hudson River from New York City) gave birth, then promptly threw her newborn out the window of her apartment. The baby survived but the cops have found the tiny remains of another baby in the alley below. They're currently trying to figure out if that, too, was her child.

A Wisconsin man was electrocuted when he stepped on a downed power line in his backyard. Didn't see the large wire with the sparks flying off it, Einstein?

A trench collapse trapped 2 workers in Minnesota. Oxygen was sent down to them while they were being freed.

A truck overturned, spilling $800.000 in new Kansas quarters. The story said they were all collected, which seems statistically dubious.

Oh, the irony. A student driver hit the gas instead of the brake pedal and crashed into the rear wall of a DMB office in Tennessee.

Dennis Rodman is in trouble because he pulled a no-show for tickets he owes in Colorado.

World Tonight

• Kofi Annan wants to overhaul the U.N. to make it respectable again.
• Those pro-democracy protests continue in Katmandu, Nepal.

Katrina's Devastation

The feds say the air quality in New Orleans is acceptable. Um, at the risk of sounding skeptical, didn't they say the same thing about the air at Ground Zero which later turned out to have been toxic?

People will be returning to parts of New Orleans soon. This came up earlier in the show and I had some funny stuff to say about it. I'm too disgusted with things right now to recapitulate the jokes. I think I'll walk out into the field and punch a cow.

The death toll from Katrina is up to 710 and it is expected to go higher.

Here's what I wrote for the next story: "2 evacs stabbed at B.C. by group of men." OK, I know that "evacs" stands for "evacuees" but what the hell did I mean by "B.C."?

A temporary radio station has been licensed to operate from a trailer outside the Houston Astrodome to give information to the people housed there. It's a whopping 7 watts.

President Bush will address the nation on TV at 6 PM Pacific Time on Thursday night. The big question is, will he go off the Tele-Prompt-Ter and say, "I don't care about black people"? Not likely, but you gotta admit it would be funny.

Oregon Responds (to Katrina)

Shauna Parsons "threw" it to Kevin Coari who she said was in News Control. Nope, it was actually a tape of Kev in Northeast Portland, standing in front of some military transport planes. Kev--who was "embedded" with troops in New Orleans, just like a real war correspondent, you know--told us that some people in the Big Easy don't want to evacuate, despite the military's urging, even though they don't have electricity or water service. We saw the same video of a very white trash-looking woman smoking while holding a baby on a bus that we saw the other night. Kevin also says garbage is piled up all over New Orleans. Ewwwwww.

David Wilson was in Beaverton (in the KPTV parking lot perhaps?) to tell us how sales of locking gas caps are up thanks to people siphoning the liquid gold.

A federal judge has slapped a restraining order on public schools forcing kids to say the Pledge of Allegiance since it contains the "under God" line. OK, question: Why does a Pledge of Allegiance even exist in a free country? There are some religious demoninations which forbid pledging allegiance to anything other than their conception of God. Does that make them commies or something?

Hollywood Buzz

Britney Spears gave birth to a redneck. The baby boy emerged from her birth canal clutching a Jeff Foxworthy CD.

Sara Jean, a student at OSU, is the current Playboy covergirl. This appeared to be seen as a good thing. Funny, 'cause the rest of the time, pornography is presented as the scourge of humanity. If KPTV was consistant, they would have treated Ms. Jean as the Whore of Babylon. I say all right-thinking citizens of Oregon should petition to have her zoned out of the area lest she pollute the minds of our children.

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

Eh, why should a "news" show tell you that your country is changing its policy against pre-emptive nuclear strikes? Click here

In case you can't read the writing in this picture, it says "I think I need a bathroom break..." Click here

Some people who answered an ad seeking workers to help fix the hurricane-ravaged area were treated like slaves once they got there. Click here

A rap concert to raise money for the victims of Katrina was broken up by the Los Angeles police department under mysterious circumstances. Click here

Hmm, why it's almost as if Senate Republicans think they have something to hide. Click here

Oh, I just remembered with "B.C." means: Boston College. The two assaultees just transferred there.

This just in: Cows found lying on ground; appear to have been punched in the head.