Wednesday, September 7, 2005

The KPTV "news" show tonight was Katrinalicious. Grab a spoon and dig in.

Top Story. Katrina's Devastation.

• The mayor of New Orleans has ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. Some people are reluctant to leave their homes, even though the water all around them is really, really filthy and unhealthful. Oh, this is gonna be UGLY. And as if to prove that, we got some video of the cops forcibly removing a 57-year-old woman from her house. It wasn't a real good idea for her to be holding a gun (even though we could see on camera that the revolver's bullet chamber or whatever they call that round part you spin when you play Russian Roulette) wasn't closed. They slammed her to the wall and off she went! Oh, just to make things even more complicated than they already were, the governor of Louisiana says she isn't sure the mandatory evacuation is necessary. Anyhoo, "KPTV's Doug Luzader" was the news weenie for this piece.
• The Oregon National Guard is now in New Orleans. So is Kevin Coari and his weird eyebrows; we saw him walking in deep water in his waders. Remember those people who don't want to evacuate their homes I was talking about in the preceding paragraph? Nelson Alexis is one of them which is why we got video of him.
• OK, so the Portland area might not be getting 1000 evacuees from the gulf states after all. We're ready for them if they show up, though. I've got a slogan for them to consider: "Portland: Come for the dry land, stay for the meth." What do you think?
• A pair of grandparents and their 4 grandkids took the Big Drive from Slidell, Louisiana (a suburb of Nawlins) to Clatskanie, Oregon. One of the Grampies needs insulin and the other needs dialysis. Isn't there an O. Henry short story like that?
• A new organization called Katrina Housing Northwest is having a meeting at Emannuel Hospital on Thursday night at 7 PM.
• KPAM (no, not the movie starring Kevin Spacey. That was KPAX) raised $2100 at the Oregon City Shari's restaurant.
• Mark Nelsen dusted off his size 1 suit and wandered into the studio early to tell us about Tropical Storm Ophelia lurking off the east coast of Florida. Its winds are blowing at about 75 MPH currently.

Break.

Fox 12's Most Wanted

• Tobbie Eaton and Kristopher Shaffer are in deep doo-doo. They are accused of being 2 of the 3 men who participated in a stabbing in North Portland. Jim Hyde was on Da Mean Streets of NoPo (the name I just invented for North Portland) for this story. The third guy has been freed by the cops. Oh, it's a scene, man.
• 2 black male suspects are sought in connection with a murder back on July 22nd. Michelle Woods, the victim's mother, told us about her son.

Some cadaverous old guy is sought by the cops. He was seen hanging around a rest area on Hwy. 26. He was taking pictures of cars and people going in and out of the bathrooms. He isn't accused of a crime; the cops just want to know what he was doing. Sheesh, it's simple: he's one of the craparazzi.

A pit bull that attacked a 2-year-old boy and took the pacifier right out of the kid's mouth is missing. Jamie Wilson was On The Case for this story. The owner of the dog says he gave it to "a man in Banks" but he doesn't know the man's name. Well, OK, so long as you have a good explanation. Jamie put on her Investigative Reporter hat and went to the guy's house. Nobody home.

A high school shop teacher in Clatskanie has been discliplined over unspecified complaints. The police are dusting for handprints with three fingers. Not really. I just made that up. I do that.

State Representative Kelley Wirth is in OHSU recuperating from the injuries she suffered when Lisa Temple drove into her, deliberately, according to the police. There are entire state legislatures I've fantasized about running over, but I hear that sort of thing is frowned on.

A Vancouver man who killed a bicyclist when he ran him over on Monday night has been charged with manslaughter.

Stephanie Lehman has plead guilty to giving drugs to her kid. Oh, she's married to a former radio personality who was found guilty of sexually abusing the same child. Those wacky radio DJ's and their nutty stunts! When I was a wacky morning guy, I knew a night jock who got a 13-year-old pregnant. He went cuckoo when, after he offered to pay for her abortion, she said, "I can't get an abortion. I'd have to cut class." There's a happy ending, though. The same guy later decided he was gay and moved to Japan to live with his boyfriend. See, there's always a silver lining!

Some state rep, whose name I didn't catch (sorry, I suck) has admitted to having done something illegal in re 2004 campaign donations. Man, I really couldn't write fast enough to keep up with this one, could I? I almost suck bad enough to be hired as a Chyron operator at KPTV.

Break.

Meth Watch

• Yow, Big Drug Bust. 2 people were arrested, 2 pounds of meth were found (with a street value of a million billion dollars) and a total of 5 were taken into custody.

A worker fell 100 feet into a creek and is still alive. Yay! Do it again, do it again!

There was a deadly crash on Hwy. 18 near McMinnville involving a log truck.

Northwest Tonight

Enough signatures have been collected to force a recall of the mayor in Spokane for November. Remember this scumbag? He's the anti-gay gay guy who gave jobs to the studly young men he met in an online chat room. Not that he's gay, mind you. Just ask him. He has vowed to fight the recall. 'Cause only a faggot wouldn't fight, you know?

Break.

There's a crackdown against the street gang calling itself MS13 going on in Oregon.

David Wilson was in News Control for this piece of promotional newsertainment about how police departments across America, including some local ones, are using the LoJack system to recover stolen cars. This thing had "provided by the manufacturer" written all over it. LoJack claims a 90% recovery rate, although the point was made that it ain't really for the guy driving the 1979 Ford Crown Victoria with the door that doesn't match the rest of the car, as it sells for about $600.

Hey, speaking of Fords, there's a big ol' recall going on for Ford trucks and SUV's made between 1994 and 2002. A faulty cruise control switch is the reason.

Pump Patrol

Oh, say, here's a helpful hint. To save money on gas, if you own more than one car, try to use the one that is the most fuel-efficient. As if that hadn't occurred to everyone in America about the time the price of gas passed $2.50/gallon!

Some stupid radio station in Chapel Hill, North Carolina did the old "free gas" promotion. They paid for 1300 gallons and went through them by mid-afternoon. Promotions like this suck because simply getting free gas isn't going to make people listen to your station on a regular basis. They take the gas and go right back to listening to noted drug addict Rush Limbaugh.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut/News Across America

A Minnesota cop was killed while putting out a "stop stick" during a car chase.

A subway train derailed in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City. I happened to notice an "S" on the front of the train. I knew that should mean "shuttle" in New York subway parlance, so I checked it out on a map. Ha, I was right! Click here

Washington D.C.'s newest tourist attraction, William Rehnquist's coffin, was closed to public viewing today. He will be buried in Arlington Cemetery, accessible by Metro's Blue Line (speaking of subways).

World Tonight

• The bodies of the people involved in that plane crash in Indonesia the other day are too badly burned to be identified.
• Egypt is having its first presidential election to actually have more than 1 candidate! Yay, freedom's on the march!
• A grade school in Estonia has only 1 student, a little girl who arrived for the first day of class on horseback. I bet she graduates at the top of her class.

Debra Gil told us about a family-owned business in Northeast Portland which got robbed. The crooks took the family's travel trailer which had 4 ATV's inside. They found the trailer nearby but the ATV's are gone.

Katrina's Devastation: The Series

25,000 body bags have been brought in to New Orleans for the start of the recovery process.

The Oregon Humane Society is helping to save pets left behind when people evacuated New Orleans.

The health risk is high in New Orleans. Health officials are telling people not to drink any of the water and not to even let it touch them if possible. Isn't that the plot of the Toxic Avenger movies?

"KPTV's Doug Luzader" was back to tell us about the streets of N.O. starting to dry out and to repeat how the governor of Louisiana is unconvinced that a forced evacuation of the city is necessary. The French Quarter which sits on land higher than most of the rest of the city is largely dry (although empty).

The feds are giving the evacuees debit cards with $2000 on them ("The FEMA Card. Don't leave dome without it.") One per family, although I don't how they can enforce that rule. FEMA (Fuckups Endanger Most Americans) is going to take care of people's need for food, gas, etc. Good luck, evacuees. You're gonna need it.

One Portland woman has taken 53 evacuees into her home. I smell a new reality show in the making!

Some of the first responders from New Orleans are enjoying a much-needed free vacation in Las Vegas. Seriously, I hope they aren't putting them up at the Orleans Hotel-Casino, 'cause that would just be cruel. Click here

Next we got a recap of what we know about the situation in New Orleans. I'll spare you the redundant details.

Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe, which apparently has locations around Portland, is opening a store in Walnut Creek, California. Thank God they had time to cram in that piece of non-news!

Lastly, Apple has announced two new iPods. One of them is also a phone. Now you can lose your MP3 player and your phone at the same time. Progress!

Shauna Parsons wrapped up the Final Cut with 18 seconds left on the Still Unexplained Countdown Clock.

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

Hearings about what went wrong in the Katrina debacle were being planned by Congress, but Tom DeLay decided it wasn't the right time for the "blame game" (the soundbite du jour) so the bastard cancelled them. Click here

Not only is the top guy at FEMA totally unqualified for his job, but so are the two guys directly under him. Click here

The Times-Picauyne newspaper of New Orleans is blaming the feds for the Katrina screw-up. Click here

FEMA is trying to keep news reporters from taking pictures of the dead bodies in New Orleans. No, it's NOT an attempt to keep the American public from seeing the dead and perhaps becoming mad at the Bush administration. How could you even think such a thing? Haven't you heard that now is not the time to play the blame game? Anyway, if you have the guts, here are some of the pictures they don't want you to see. Click here

In non-Katrina related news, a motel in Florida has been fined for discriminating against black people, including pouring chemicals into the pool while black kids were in it to chase them out. Click here

California governor Kindergarten Cop has vowed to veto the legislature's OK of gay marriage. Maybe Arnold would be more understanding of gay people if he had ever worked in an industry that employed large numbers of them. Uh, wait...

Hypocritical much-married junkie Rush Limbaugh is doing a one-night one-man show on Broadway to raise money for the New Orleans relief effort. Oxy-Contin will be accepted in lieu of cash for tickets.