Kevin Allman

INSANE criminals: the WORST kind!

There's some evidence that the Portland media are losing it a bit as 2007 nears its end -- but this story from KGW.com (Where The News Comes First) trumps them all:

Oh, NO! First marauding zoo tigers, and now...not just criminals, but INSANE criminals! What can we DO?

And now I have visions of the insane criminals breaking into the KGW newsroom, Night of the Living Dead-style, and ripping the innards out of the reporter before he could finish his story and tell us how we can survive The Night of the Insane Criminals.

(Hat tip to T.B. for the item.)

Heywood Jablome and Amanda Huggenkiss were unavailable for comment

In The Times-Picayune's coverage of yesterday's protests outside New Orleans City Hall came this item:

"It all boils down to oppression," said Nat Turner, who gave his age only as "30-ish." "They are denying taxpayers access to a building we paid for."

Turner stood stoic in the downpour. His black T-shirt read: "Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution."

Nat Turner? That's either a hell of a coincidence, or the reporter isn't up on his black history. Or his William Styron novels.

Brilliant Portland journalism

Just under the wire comes one of the best pieces of investigative-feature journalism I've read all year: Nancy Rommelmann's dissection in Willamette Week of the strange death of a Vancouver, Wa. mother and her chronically ill 14-year-old daughter.

This case got huge media attention in Portland when it happened -- the Oregonian reported that detectives suspected murder-suicide; the Tribune elided the issue with a story headlined "Mom, daughter lose lives," and all the local TV stations ran pieces on the tragedy. Rommelmann smelled fish, and the results of her investigation should win her some national awards:

The Oregonian story about the murder-suicide was headlined “Vancouver mom spent her life trying to get best for daughter” and included a photo of Rebecca singing with Yarrow [Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary, who held a fundraiser for the family right before the deaths], noting that the girl “had cerebral palsy and dyslexia.” The story mentioned how Laurie, a single mother, “couldn’t hold a job given the time needed to care for Rebecca” and due to her own pain from fibromyalgia.

In the coming weeks, there would be memorials. At Clark County Chabad, Rabbi Shmulik Greenberg spoke of Rebecca’s piety, her enthusiasm. After services, attendees shook their heads. Laurie had fought tenaciously, they said, for the child born prematurely and burdened with a nearly unfathomable number of illnesses and disabilities. This little girl and her mother had survived so much, and for this to happen, none of it made any sense.

What no one knew was that Rebecca’s mom had made much of it up.

This case of apparent Munchausen's syndrome by proxy is absolutely chilling, and it says as much about the gullible local media climate as it does the family in this case. Why Nancy Rommelmann is a freelancer and not a staff investigative reporter in Portland is, in one sense, a complete mystery -- and, in a larger sense, not a mystery at all.

Profile of a Santa: some seriously good newspaper writing

Dan Barry profiles a shopping-mall Santa in The New York Times. This is the sort of holiday staple-story that could be moldy or phoned-in, but Barry turns it into a perfect slice of life, right from the very beginning:

Working the Santa Shift (And Hiding the Tattoo)

Two o’clock; lunch break is over for Santa A. Claus and his wife, Dolores. They take their seats beside an artificial fireplace and pretend once again to nestle in their cozy living room, somewhere between a Foot Locker and a Kay Jewelers.

Their first visitor, 9 weeks old and the size of a fruitcake, is carefully placed on Mr. Claus’s considerable lap. The baby greets him with a display of spittle. A helper working behind the camera shakes a jingling Elmo doll to draw her gaze, but the baby is being a baby about it. Click.

I loved this detail in particular:

Mrs. Claus is pushing him to eat his slice of pizza and drink his Diet Coke. People are beginning to gather on the other side of the ropes, including a woman and a child now peering into his living room.

Santa calls out to them, sweetly but firmly, “We’re closed until 6.”

What's taste got to do (got to do) with it?

The New York Post reports on Ike Turner's death:

There goes any hope of a Tina Turner interview, probably ever...

(Thanks to Matt Davis at the Portland Mercury.)

Hey, mom, I'm on the front page!

On Thursday, the Lewiston (Id.) Tribune * ran two front-page stories with photos. One was a human-interest pic of a guy painting holiday messages on a store window, the other a surveillance-cam image of a fellow who lifted a wallet from the counter at a minimart (click the front page to see it full-sized):

As the Associated Press reports:

Some sharp-eyed copy editors at the newspaper first noticed the matching photos as they were laying out the newspaper Wednesday night and wondered if they showed the same man, managing editor Paul Emerson said Thursday.

"They were pointing it out and laughing about it," Emerson said.

A newspaper employee called the nearby Clarkston, Wash., police department early the next morning to report their suspicions.

Their suspicions were right; the window-painter confessed.

* I'd link directly to the Lewiston Tribune's website, but I can't get in there; it's for dead-tree subscribers only. Sort of dumb on the day when people around the world are trying to read the story that the paper broke. Nevertheless -- good on you, Tribune copy editors.

T is for Trespass

I have a review of Sue Grafton's latest, T is for Trespass, in the Style section of today's Washington Post.

Corrections of the year

Regret the Error has published its list of the best corrections of 2007. My favorites:

Following the portrait of Tony and Cherie Blair published on 21 April in the Independent Saturday magazine, Ms Blair’s representatives have told us that she was friendly with but never had a relationship with Carole Caplin of the type suggested in the article. They want to make it clear, which we are happy to do, that Ms Blair “has never shared a shower with Ms Caplin, was not introduced to spirit guides or primal wrestling by Ms Caplin (or anyone else), and did not have her diary masterminded by Ms Caplin.”

and:

In an article in Monday’s newspaper, there may have been a misperception about why a Woodstock man is going to Afghanistan on a voluntary mission. Kevin DeClark is going to Afghanistan to gain life experience to become a police officer when he returns, not to shoot guns and blow things up. The Sentinel-Review apologizes for any embarrassment this may have caused.

Quote unquote

On the 2007 Grammy awards nominations:

"Some artists had little to say about their nods, namely because they were posthumous."

Edible Portland and the income gap

I've got a long feature in the Winter 2008 issue of Edible Portland -- all about the growing availability of organic/sustainable foods, and the flip side of the equation: At a time when more people are depending on food banks and government assistance, what does it mean when even Wal-Mart is carrying healthier foods, but fewer people are able to afford them?

It's a pretty good issue overall, with a quirky piece on the history of "invalid cookery" and a Heidi Yorkshire essay about a recipe file serving as a memory book, a sort of Remembrance of Things Past that begins with Proust reading a madeleine recipe instead of eating the cookie. If you're in the Portland area, pick up a copy of the issue.