WLOS news for a Friday

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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This is a note to all you Mediacom cable company suckas: come to Ashvegas every day and get your fill of the real WLOS. We’ll tell you what they’re telling us, but we’ll give it to you Ashvegas style. Forget a satellite dish or an antennae. Come here, to the blog, where we’ll tell you what’s going down. And got to ABC.com to watch your stupid shows.

Now the news:

‘Unexpected act of nature’
That’s what Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan, sporting a new lipstick called “Frosted Redneck,” called some wind and rain that hit near a high school way down in Pickens County, S.C. We have no clue why in the hell WLOSers went all the way down there when nobody was hurt and it had absolutely nothing to do with Western North Carolina.

And Ryan didn’t even bring back good video. The best part of the story was that the high winds had tossed about six or seven cars, flipping them and piling them upon one another. But all Ryan got was video of an empty parking lot.

We flipped it over to WYFF and WSPA, and they had killer video of the cars and scared people and even a great hero story – a one-armed redneck was going through the cars right after the event to try and save people.

Now that’s a story. Too bad we didn’t get that from WLOS.

Back at the anchor desk, Larry “Gloryhole” Blunt and Diva Darcel told us that storms pounded Georgia and Alabama before they hit S.C.

Sinclair v. Mediacom
Yeah, we know the deal. Mediacom pays Sinclair to carry the station on its cable system, and the two sides can’t reach agreement. Deadline was midnight Friday for an agreement, or some 28,000 Mediacom subscribers in WNC will lost WLOS and its sister station, WMYA.

Bank robbery
The Bank of America on Smoky Park Highway was robbed Friday, but police used a dog to track the crooks to a house in Candler. Cops arrested two guys and a girl.

Is this weather global warming?
WLOSers ran a dumb story by somebody else looking at all the incredibly warm weather we’ve been having and asking if it could be global warming. The scientists said no, it’s El Nino.

New Ukranian church
The Ukranian community in Ashvegas has just finished building a brand new church off McKinnish Cove Road in west Buncombe County, and Johnn “Punnyman” Le did a nice story on their accomplishment. He talked to people who had spent untold hours of volunteer time constructing the building. He talked to the happy pastor, Leonty Ostovipic or something like that. And he said it will be standing-room-only at the Slavic Revival Fellowship Church on Sunday.

Larry Blunt, a big Christian who wears his religion on his sleeve even though he’s supposed to be an impartial observer, gave a big shout-out and congratulations to the Ukranians after the story.

TV ads target anti-growth forces
WLOSers said some developers in town have gotten together some TV ads that label people who speak out about rampant growth and development as “radical activists.” They pick out gadfly Julie Brandt, who really is a nut, and Elaine Light.

Brandt called the ads a “scare tactic.” Realtor John Carroll said all development is a good thing that provides homes for people and jobs for people, so shut it.

Congressman Heath Shuler
WLOSer Russ “Beefcake” Bowen was in Washington, D.C., all week covering the swearing-in ceremonies of Heath Shuler, the 11th District’s new man after beating Charles Taylor in the November elections.

All the ceremony was done, but on Friday Shuler did give his first speech on the House floor. WLOSers didn’t really cover that – they had Russ talking to U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican. Burr babbled on and on about some “bio-defense pandemic law” that’s supposed to make us safer when terrorists attack us again.

Speaking of Charles Taylor…
WLOSers said that as his last official act, Taylor announced that a building out in Franklin will serve as a Veterans Administration out-patient clinic. The building will be renovated, will serve 3,000 area veterans, and should be open by the end of the year.

Car seats can be dangerous
Terrie “Pasty-face” Foster ripped off a Consumer Reports story about the dangers of some child restraint seats. Terrie said the magazine tested about a dozen, with most of them failing side impact test crashes. She talked to worried mothers and tough troopers, who said they hope the bad news won’t keep people from using child safety seats.

Henderson County officials go for a visit
The local leaders are looking for someone to build them two new elementary schools for something less than the $13 million estimate they received recently. So the Henderson County peeps went to Statesville to look at a school there.

In Buncombe County school news…
The school board approved the school calendar for the 2007-08 year. It’s the same as this year. School starts on Aug. 16 and is scheduled to end on May 30. That’s not counting any snow days.

K. Ray Bailey to step down
WLOSer Pat “Simple” Simon sat down with K. Ray Bailey, the president of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College on Friday, the day after Bailey announced he was retiring.

Bailey’s worked at the school for 40 years, including 16 as president. He’s only the third president of the college. Everybody in town knows him. He’s touched many, many lives. Bailey said his health his fine, but he had a heart problem a couple of months ago and had a pacemaker installed. That made the 65-year-old decide it might be time to quit.

Simon’s story barely scratched the surface of K. Ray’s accomplishments. Bailey will retire in August.

Diet pills are bad
WLOSer Kassandra “Special K” Pride told us that there’s no magic pill for weight loss. Really??? Special K was playing off an announcement by the Federal Trade Commission on Friday that it was fining the marketers of several diet pills $25 million for making false claims. She ended her story by saying, “It’s back to blood, sweat and tears” in the gym. Really??? Then she said, “Back to you, Larry. I mean Pat, Tammy,” as Pat and Tammy waited for her to get it right.

Building height referendum no good
A judge said a referendum in Henderson County this past November asking people about building heights was unconstitutional. The referendum wasn’t constitutional because it excepted schools and hospitals and a couple of other types of buildings, WLOSers said.

Henderson County developer Ed Hernando, who is building the Carolina Grand condos, sued and won the court victory. Hooterville’s city council initially agreed to change its height limitation rules, but residents got pissed and got state lawmakers to intervene with a referendum. Residents voted in favor of the height restrictions.

Now we wait to see if there’s an appeal. WLOSers said Hernando could continue with his construction, but if he loses, he’d have to tear down anything that didn’t meet the rules.

In other news…
Somebody stole $1,000 in quarters from a truck parked outside Nolan’s Car Wash and Lube. They got it on video… And the new sheriff in Rutherford County is cracking down on illegal video poker machines.

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

5 Comments

  1. Catnap January 7, 2007

    the global warming story is interesting. ABC national news ran it two different stories two days in a row, with much of the same footage, the first day it seem to say that El nino was the problem the second day, it led the news and leaned towards global warming. Both stories sucked for detail and depth

    Reply
  2. John January 7, 2007

    Ash, I think you answered your own question! WLOS went down to SC cause it was quite a story. Too bad they got on scene a little late.

    Reply
  3. Ron from H'ville January 7, 2007

    I like Pubcrawler’s idea but I don’t think it’s likely. ABC would likely have to approve such a move, either explicitly or implicitly, and they would risk being sued by Sinclair or drawn into any litigation between Sinclair and Mediacom as a third-party defendant. And Mediacom has to do business with ABC in many other markets.

    Actually, you know, down here in Hooterville, er Hendersonville, it’s kind of nice to NOT have to watch the clown-like visages of WLOS News. The Wife, however, will be hard to handle if Housewifes isn’t where it’s supposed to be on Sunday night.

    Reply
  4. Edgy January 6, 2007

    Frosted Redneck? I think I wore that one in high school down in Georgaw.

    Reply
  5. Asheville Pubcrawler January 6, 2007

    I’m getting tired of the Sinclair/Mediacom bruhaha. If Sinclair doesn’t care about having its signal sent to Mediacom subscribers then why doesn’t Mediacom just bring in another ABC affiliate from Charlotte or Atlanta so that their viewers will still receive ABC programming? I just got back from Boone where the local cable has two NBC stations, one from Charlotte and another from Tennessee, I think. It’s not as if losing the local "news" will be any inconvenience.

    Reply

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