Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Gas prices suck
WLOSers, who have an endless supply of variations on this theme, brought us a couple more on Thursday.
First, Susan Mundy surmised that gas prices will begin to soar with the price of crude oil reaching a new high yesterday, along with Israel and Lebannon lobbing rockets at each other. She said officials urged people not to freak out about it.
Later, John “Punnyman” Le profiled a husband-and-wife team where the husband likes to drive is 10-mile-per-gallon 1964 Ford Galaxy 500, while the wife just bought a 100-mile-per-gallon scooter. Nice little profiles. But there was no news – it didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.
Then at 11, Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan told us that local businesses are offering customers help with gas prices. The story, which had no broader context or trend information, basically turned into an ad for the Crowne Plaza Resort hotel and Asheville Dodge. The hotel is giving people a $25 gas card to visitors for every night they stay, while the car dealership is giving new car buyers $100 in free gas.
Timeshare scam
In the most intriguing, and most poorly told, story of the day, Michelle Boudin brought us a muddled piece about a time share scam.
People apparently pay $1,500 for a timeshare, but never get it. Woodfin police say they’ve had about 60 complaints, and they think more people are affected. The case came to light when Woodfin police investigated a break-in at Resort Acquisitions and the theft of some $60,000. That somehow led them to Timeshare Liquidators LLC and the scam.
The cops have one person in jail and are looking for a second suspect who they think is hiding out in Florida.
Asheville anthem
We just caught a bit of this story, but it sounded cool. A local musician has written an Ashvegas “anthem.” A song just for Ashvegas. His name is Winston Lacroix, and he’s shooting a video in downtown Ashvegas starting this weekend. We missed the name of the tune…
What?
For their second story at 11, WLOSers had something about the FAA starting an “airspace flow program” that would only ground flights affected by bad weather. And this is a top story why???
Shuler, Newman go on a date
In another head-scratcher, WLOSers told us that Heath Shuler, the Democrat running against U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, went to the movies with Ashvegas City Councilman Brownie Newman. They went to the Fine Arts movie house in downtown Ashvegas see “Inconvenient Truth,” the Al Gore movie about global warming.
So what. Why was this a story? WLOSers, is this your idea of in-depth polticial coverage? The teevee did quote Shuler as saying something like, “The environment is important.” Then they came back and said they couldn’t reach Taylor to get his position on global warming.
Taylor on immigration
In other Taylor news, WLOSers said Taylor has announced that law enforcement agencies will take a regional approach to dealing with illegal immigrants. Eight counties will participate initially in a program to have local law officers work with federal immigration officials to ferret out illegal immigrants. No other details.
Bob’s new twist
Bob Caldwell at noon: it’s not the humidity – it’s the heat. That’s a new one.
In other news…
A Hendersonville man has been charged in the accidental shooting a teen. Somebody was shot through an apartment door… Gov. Easley signed into law a $1 increase in the minimum wage. It’s now $6.15 an hour for all you dishwashers, and people say it still sucks… State lawmakers are going over Hendersonville City Council’s head by trying to get a bill passed to allow city voters to decide whether to allow taller buildings in twon. Just last week, Hooterville approved a move to allow buildings to be 80 feet tall, up from 64 feet. That measure needs a second vote. But state lawmakers may put it to referendum… In Mountains Most Wanted, if you see a redneck chick with a tattoo of Thumper on her right calf, turn her in to police and you might get some reward cash… And did you see Diva Darcel’s sistah moment? She and Larry were telling us about a woman who called 911 somewhere to get introduced to a cute police officer she’d seen. Well, the officer did come to her house, and charged her with making a false 911 call. Back at the anchor desk, Darcel had one hand tucked under her arm, and she was wagging a finger. “O yes he did come back,” she said, all sisterly.
In still other news…
The mayor of Rosman is stepping down… Dillsboro is setting size and material rules for banners in town… Joyce Brooks Russell, the spokeswoman for the local American Red Cross, is leaving to work for another nonprofit, but she won’t say yet what it is… The ninth case of rabies has been discovered this year in Mitchell County. A cat is infected this time… WCQS is raising money to renovate its offices and buy new transmitters and will enventually put a new radio station on air.
You’ve got to realize that the FAA and aviation in general have taken the place of high speed car chases with the California Highway Patrol. Newspeople LOVE aviation issues, because usually it involves a jet circling for a while to burn off fuel (standard procedure) before they make an abnormal landing (following a standard procedure) in which everybody (usually) survives. They can eat up HOURS of screen time just by showing the circling aircraft.
In a day where there are no aviation incidents / accidents to report on, the newsies have taken it upon themselves to find and exploit as much nonsense about it as possible. For example, the local paper here recently printed an AP article about the safety records of cargo hauling operations. It was important to them because, around here, UPS is a MAJOR player, nevermind that the cargo operations in the article are a completely different beast, operating under a different set of regulations with different equipment.
Alas, I digress, as I tend to do when expounding on the truths and fictions regarding aviation.
FYI, in case they got the story wrong, the Airflow Management System, basically, says that any commercial aircraft bound for an airport in the Northeastern U.S. will be delayed on the ground if incliment weather is causing operational delays at the destination.