If I’m in the right frame of mind, watching the local news around here is, as they used to say, a laugh riot. Over the past week, I’ve enjoyed a couple of opportunities to sit in my living room with the tiny white lights glimmering behind the matchstick blinds, a steamy bowl of perfectly spiced rice and beans on my lap, and howl at the television. It’s that good.
For those of you who do not live in Portland, here’s some news you can use: last week we got some snow. As if that weren’t enough, the fact that it wasn’t forecasted only heightened the story’s dramatic tension. And to make matters worse, it fell just before rush hour. Interstate 5 came to a complete standstill, as did a highway that goes out the western suburbs, a highway that’s a disaster on the best of days, according to the traffic reports. Bridges were closed, streets remained uncleared. It took some people four hours to get out of downtown. Others sat on the freeways until their cars ran out of gas, at which point they just got out and walked, worsening already impassable conditions. Many of the buses did not have chains on their tires, although across the river in Washington, there are some buses with equipment that can attach chains in seconds, and that was showed and discussed, many times. (It’s cool, but expensive). The city was unprepared, and people were frustrated – and they said so, on the news. There are few things quite as entertaining as listening to people in Portland take the weather as a personal affront. But the mayor, bless him, stayed on top of it with Twitter updates. Last week there were a couple of national security stories I thought were kind of interesting, so imagine my surprise when the national news did not come on at 6:30 because it had been preempted by “continuous coverage” of our surprise snowfall.
The preempting of the news isn’t what amused me. I think it’s disturbing, actually, so I switched to a channel I don’t normally watch, and that’s where I learned that the Oregon Department of Transportation – ODOT – was recommending that people not use their cruise control during the storm and its aftermath. Thankfully I was not gasy at that point, because I laughed pretty hard.
The official snowfall in Portland last week, as measured at the airport: one inch. It was all but gone by late morning the next day. The hilarity, on the other hand, continued.
On Monday night, I learned that a guy – fairly young, attractive, stable looking – has been snipping locks of women’s hair without their knowledge, or permission, on the city buses. I don’t think non-consensual haircuts on the bus are funny – seriously, I don’t – but my God, the amount of time dedicated to this story … Only one of the victims was interviewed, and she was in disguise, but a number of randomly selected women waiting for buses were on, and they had plenty to say. They thought it was “creepy” and “gross” and they think, furthermore – and this is where, for me, it got funny – that there should be a law against it. In a city in love with rules and regulations that could be most politely described as unclear, can you imagine the wording in legislation prohibiting transit trimming? Would the law apply in fareless square? And if so would it fall under the new ruling that in fareless square – which means downtown, more or less – the train and the streetcar remain fareless but the buses, as of Sunday, January 3, do not? Would age restrictions apply? What if the offender were a licensed cosmetologist? What if it was a holiday? In order to be ticketed, would the cops have to initially apprehend a suspected hair snipper for something else? These questions are sort of humorous, and sort of not: when it comes to entrusting the city of Portland with the simplest of undertakings, the one thing you can be certain of is that it someone, at some point, will screw it up royally with a list of exceptions and conditions that render the new rule or regulation pretty much pointless. And, thankfully, comical.
On a much less funny note, I did read a few stories about the hair cutter online, where I learned that he’s also associated with a number of other, more serious incidents, break-ins and robberies and such. If they mentioned that aspect of the story during the “news,” I guess I was so entertained by the rest of it that I failed to grasp it. Sorry about that.
For those of you who do not live in Portland, here’s some news you can use: last week we got some snow. As if that weren’t enough, the fact that it wasn’t forecasted only heightened the story’s dramatic tension. And to make matters worse, it fell just before rush hour. Interstate 5 came to a complete standstill, as did a highway that goes out the western suburbs, a highway that’s a disaster on the best of days, according to the traffic reports. Bridges were closed, streets remained uncleared. It took some people four hours to get out of downtown. Others sat on the freeways until their cars ran out of gas, at which point they just got out and walked, worsening already impassable conditions. Many of the buses did not have chains on their tires, although across the river in Washington, there are some buses with equipment that can attach chains in seconds, and that was showed and discussed, many times. (It’s cool, but expensive). The city was unprepared, and people were frustrated – and they said so, on the news. There are few things quite as entertaining as listening to people in Portland take the weather as a personal affront. But the mayor, bless him, stayed on top of it with Twitter updates. Last week there were a couple of national security stories I thought were kind of interesting, so imagine my surprise when the national news did not come on at 6:30 because it had been preempted by “continuous coverage” of our surprise snowfall.
The preempting of the news isn’t what amused me. I think it’s disturbing, actually, so I switched to a channel I don’t normally watch, and that’s where I learned that the Oregon Department of Transportation – ODOT – was recommending that people not use their cruise control during the storm and its aftermath. Thankfully I was not gasy at that point, because I laughed pretty hard.
The official snowfall in Portland last week, as measured at the airport: one inch. It was all but gone by late morning the next day. The hilarity, on the other hand, continued.
On Monday night, I learned that a guy – fairly young, attractive, stable looking – has been snipping locks of women’s hair without their knowledge, or permission, on the city buses. I don’t think non-consensual haircuts on the bus are funny – seriously, I don’t – but my God, the amount of time dedicated to this story … Only one of the victims was interviewed, and she was in disguise, but a number of randomly selected women waiting for buses were on, and they had plenty to say. They thought it was “creepy” and “gross” and they think, furthermore – and this is where, for me, it got funny – that there should be a law against it. In a city in love with rules and regulations that could be most politely described as unclear, can you imagine the wording in legislation prohibiting transit trimming? Would the law apply in fareless square? And if so would it fall under the new ruling that in fareless square – which means downtown, more or less – the train and the streetcar remain fareless but the buses, as of Sunday, January 3, do not? Would age restrictions apply? What if the offender were a licensed cosmetologist? What if it was a holiday? In order to be ticketed, would the cops have to initially apprehend a suspected hair snipper for something else? These questions are sort of humorous, and sort of not: when it comes to entrusting the city of Portland with the simplest of undertakings, the one thing you can be certain of is that it someone, at some point, will screw it up royally with a list of exceptions and conditions that render the new rule or regulation pretty much pointless. And, thankfully, comical.
On a much less funny note, I did read a few stories about the hair cutter online, where I learned that he’s also associated with a number of other, more serious incidents, break-ins and robberies and such. If they mentioned that aspect of the story during the “news,” I guess I was so entertained by the rest of it that I failed to grasp it. Sorry about that.
