Tuesday, October 4, 2005

Oh, it was a big ol’ Crimefest tonight.  So much so that I could barely keep up, meaning that if you’re interested in the details of some of these stories, you’re going to have to do some looking around.  Hey, I’m just here to make fun of KPTV…I mean, encourage them to do better journalism.  Yeah, that’s what I meant.  Really.

Top Story.  The cops in Troutdale say that 3 teens were responsible for some racial graffiti on the walls of Reynolds High and some nearby homes.  Jamie Wilson was On The Scene for the story.  The graffiti that cracked me up was “ICP Rules.”  I didn’t think kids were still into the Insane Clown Posse.  We got a “You don’t expect that at this high school” type comment.  That was the first incident of any version of the durable “You don’t expect that in this neighborhood” we’ve had in a long time.  The classics never go out of style.

Fox 12’s Most Wanted

• The cops are looking for a man who raped a 13-year-old girl while she was sleeping.

• Joe Johansen is your suspect in the theft of those mail box keys.  Remember those?

KPTV’s next story was designed to scare residents of small towns in the Portland area.  According to it, towns like Stayton, Sublimity and Aumsville are the new residences of choice for sex offenders.  Kevin Coari, Embedded Reporter, told us that those three towns are home to at least 30 sex offenders.  That may be true, but I’m not convinced that the reason is, as a local woman opined on camera, that sex offenders know that small towns have smaller police forces and are therefore less risky for them to live in.  I suspect there may be more mundane reasons for this growth, if in fact it’s true.

Debra Gil was allowed into the studio for the next story about the fire at the recreation of Fort Clapsop, where Lewis and Clark holed up when they finally got to the Coast.  It may have been caused by arson, although no one is sure yet.  There’s no question that this sucks, but the fort was only a recreation; it would have sucked a whole lot more if it was the real thing.  It still sucks, though.  The officials brought in some dogs to sniff for flammable material which may have been used to start the fire.  They’re looking for a full-sized Chevy pickup which the arsonist may have been driving.

Next up was a story about the reaction to the fire.  Drew Carney was actually at Fort Clapsop to show us a park ranger who cried as he talked about the site and his crew’s devotion to telling the story of Lewis and Clark.  I know you think I’m a sarcastic prick, but I found it touching to see that there are still civil servants devoted to serving the public.  Then we heard about a tour group from Missouri that has been following L & C’s path, only to arrive at Fort Clapsop a few hours after the fire which destroyed it.

Then we heard from an old guy who was a member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce back in 1953 when the J.C. of C. raised money to build the replica fort.  

Break.

Jim Hyde was in a Salem neighborhood where frequent car thefts have forced one family to move out and where several other families are considering relocation.  Then we were told that Salem is on track to have 350 fewer car thefts than in 2004.  Hmm, I could swear that KPTV recently told us that it was going to be a record-breaking year for car theft in Salem.  Both of these statistics can’t be true.

Meth Watch

• A DUII traffic stop turned into a drug bust when the cops went to the home of the couple in the car.  Why they went there, we weren’t told.  Anyway, the house had a bunch of drug stuff, so the couple went bye-bye.

• A pot bust in Silverton netted 104 plants and some other marijuana-related stuff.

• 4 people in Salem were busted for drugs.  

A man was Caught on Camera as he left a 24 Hour Fitness Center.  He’s suspected of stealing a member’s truck and dog.  That sounds like a good idea for a country song: “I don’t have no luck.  Some sum’bitch stole my dog and truck”

Evergreen High and 2 other schools in Vancouver will soon be getting drug-sniffing dogs to patrol their halls.  David Wilson was On The Scene.  The cops will be using a total of 8 dogs for random searches of lockers.  We heard from a cop who said that the dogs aren’t intended to help the cops make arrests.  Uh huh.  So, the cops won’t arrest anyone who has something that the dogs flag?  Is that what you’re telling us, Johnny Law?  I don’t drink or use drugs; in fact, despite growing up in the Bronx among many friends who abused drugs at a great rate, I’ve never been high or drunk in my life.  I obviously do not advocate the use of intoxicants.  However, I think this approach to the problem of drugs is precisely the wrong way to go about things.  Criminalizing something does not automatically make it go away—I refer you to a little thing called Prohibition—it just makes it illegal.  There’s obviously a deep-seated problem in American society.  Maybe it’s time we stopped patting ourselves on the back for being the “greatest country in the world” and took a good, hard look at the possible reasons for why people turn to intoxicants.  Or I should just shut up and stop being a party pooper.  One or the other.

A local football player entered a plea of Not Guilty in the drinking death of a teenager.  The prosecution is saying that the ballplayer forced the younger kid to drink a whole lot of beer.  

Remember Lisa Temple who (allegedly) drove over a female state legislator outside the Capitol building in Salem?  She was in court on Tuesday and refused to enter a plea.  Uh, that isn’t going to help you, Lisa.

A guy was arrested for allegedly knocking over several local Plaid Pantry stores recently.  Doesn’t everyone know by now that convenience stores only keep a couple of hundred bucks in the cash register at any given time?  Is it worth going to slam-you-in-the-ass jail for $200?

A sewage spill in Northwest Portland poured into a tributary of Fanno Creek, which perhaps should be renamed Shit Creek, seeing as how something very similar happened the other day.

Vancouver is the site of a new state police crime lab.  Wow, with the exception of this sentence, that may have been the most succinctly I’ve ever been able to sum up a “news” story.  That last sentence didn’t help, though.  Nor did this one.  Nor this one.

The city (town?) of Beaverton is in a hassle with Nike.  The city/town has been ordered to turn over internal documents in a disagreement about annexation.  Nike thinks Beaverton is out to prevent it from expanding.  Maybe Nike can pay some of the little kids who get miserable wages to make their shoes to fly in and picket or something.

Break.

Northwest Tonight

• “KPTV’s Lowell Deo” showed up via the miracle of videotape to tell us about a wild chase up in the Seattle area, where Lowell actually works.  Over the course of 20 minutes, the chasee switched cars and allegedly tried to run over a cop, which they frown on.  He was ultimately caught in the driveway of a woman who was watching the chase on her TV.  Whoo, white trash surrealism!

Break.

The Pelican Pub of Pacific City, Oregon has won Brew Pub of the Year and a couple of other awards.  Screw ‘em.  I happened to be in Pacific City over the weekend and saw a sick-looking seal way above the water line on the beach right behind the Pelican Pub.  Since my cell phone has a number from a different area code, I couldn’t call the Tillamook County 911 Center directly.  I went into the Pelican and asked to use their phone so I could make the call.  The girls behind the counter told me that the seal was “obviously there for a reason” and discouraged me from making the call.  May they choke on their award-winning beer.

Keri Tomlinson was in News Control to tell us about ID thieves (tied with meth addicts for KPTV’s Favorite Criminals) targeting military members who are currently serving overseas.  1 crook opened 60 accounts in the name of a single soldier.  Because of this problem, some credit card companies have set up “Active Duty Alerts” which you can activate so that no one can use the card(s) while your family member is away.

President Bush has nominated his long-time personal attorney for the Supreme Court.  No one seems to know much about her (other than that she was the head of the Texas Lottery Commission when Bush was governor.  Oh, that should read “scandal-plagued Texas Lottery Commission.”  Sorry.) although Bush has called Harriet Miers a “pit bull in size 6 shoes.”  Is that a compliment?  The White House is refusing to release internal documents related to Miers’ work at 1600 Pennsylvania.

New York, New York, the town so nice the terrorists attacked it twice, has opened its first solar-powered subway station at Coney Island.  The solar panels will be stolen and sold for scrap by next spring.

“Experts” are saying that natural gas prices will be 71% higher than last winter in California.  Maybe the Governator can go back in time and warn us all about this. Wasn’t that one of his election promises?

Hurricane Stan, currently a Category 1, has hit the Mexican mainland, killing more than 60 people so far.  Hey, how come the Mexicans get the storms with the male names while we get the chick hurricanes??

Weather.  Break.

Final Cut

• The capsizing of the tour boat in Lake George, New York which killed 20 senior citizens is being blamed on too much weight, a shift in the load and the boat hitting another boat’s wake.  Oh, also, the boat didn’t have enough crewmembers on board.  Other than that, everything was fine.

• A Florida driver who swerved to avoid hitting a cat, hit a 17-year-old boy instead.  The driver isn’t being charged because the boy was standing on his skateboard partially in the road.

• In San Diego, “America’s Finest City,” a woman drove her Pace Arrow RV into the front of a store, not once, but three times!  She told the cops that her husband was chasing her, but they couldn’t find any evidence of that.  Dude, I’m sitting in a Pace Arrow RV as I type this!  Whoa, this can’t be a coincidence!  

• One old Jewish man shot another old Jewish man in a synagogue in Boca Raton, Florida; it’s Rosh Hashana.  Wait!  Old Jewish people in Florida???  Who knew?

• 14 men, ranging in age from 18-56, have been arrested in the rape of an 18-year-old girl.  14 people involved in 1 rape?  What was this, a union job?

• A tanker truck caught on fire on a highway in my ancestral home of The Bronx, New York.  It shut down the highway for hours.  KPTV didn’t tell you but the highway in question was the Bruckner Expressway, which you’ve been on if you’ve ever driven across the George Washington Bridge heading for New England.  

• An 8-year-old boy fell into a 30-foot septic hole in California.  He was freed from the poopy-filled water after about a half-hour.

Katrina’s Devastation

• Because of a lack of revenue, the mayor of New Orleans says he will have to lay off about 3000 workers, about half the city’s workforce.  

• Speaking of New Orleans, some “experts” say there may be more flooding in some parts of the city.  In anticipation of that, they have closed 2 canals.  Let the recriminations begin!

• “KPTV’s Jason Carroll” [spelling?] told us that some people don’t like the fact that FEMA is building trailer park towns near their homes.  FEMA has bought thousands of fifth-wheel trailers into which to temporarily place people who have lost their homes in the recent hurricanes.  Some locals think that all the refugees are criminals, which at least one hurricane survivor said she resented.  

Hillsboro police say the public should be on the lookout for Eddie Hair, a sex offender they say may be tooling around in a Titan motor home.  David Wilson was at the KPTV “news” van (not live, I don’t think) for this story.

Since Hollywood Buzz was next, I don’t know why they didn’t put this story there, but anyway, Michael Jackson is preemptively suing a concert promoter who says Jacko bugged out of a show several years ago, leaving him high and dry.  I think the promoter should settle out of court for 2 10-year-olds and a baby to be named later.

Hollywood Buzz

• Lindsay Lohan drove into a van.  She says she was being chased by paparazzi.  Why didn’t she just turn sideways and vanish from their point of view?

• Ellen DeGeneres and her girlfriend are considering buying the house being sold by Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt.  It’s nice to see that the home will stay in the hands of a lesbian couple.

• TV Guide is going to change to a full-size full-color glossy magazine soon.  I’m okay with that, so long as they don’t get rid of Cheers and Jeers.  ‘Cause I live by that, you know.

• American Idol winner Fantasia says in her new autobiography that she’s illiterate, meaning that she’s an “author” who has never read her own book.  If I was her, I wouldn’t try to learn to read as illiteracy may end up being the excuse she can use to get out of her indentured slavery deal with Simon Cowell’s management company (all American Idol winners have to sign with it).

Lastly, if you want an Apple iPod Nano, you’ll probably have to get on a waiting list.  What is this obsession with the tiniest possible music players?  Personally, I don’t want something that can blow away in the wind like a sheet of newspaper.  Gimme a brick with batteries!

Shauna Parsons wrapped up the Final Cut with six seconds left on the Countdown Clock (still inscrutable).

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

• What Einstein came up with this?  The people who make helicopters for the military ran a print ad with American troops rappelling out of a chopper onto a mosque!  Way to make friends in the Moslem world!  Click here

• KPTV may have mentioned this on Monday night’s show, I don’t know, but anyway, Tom DeLay has been indicted.  Again.  Click here

• Car sales were way down last month.  Way, way down.  Click here

• The Pentagon is still not reimbursing families for buying body armor for their sons and daughters who are in the military even though it was ordered to about a year ago.  Click here

• Hey, wannna see who Republican uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave tickets for a WWE wrestling show to?  Click here

• An Army Of One Retard?  Click here