Helen Thomas, The Ending

My impression of the Helen Thomas story?

She came to be a reporter in 1943. Her glory days? From the early 1950s to the late 1970s. I recall at some point in the Reagan era.....reading several of her columns over a one-month period. They were all judgmental in nature....take two facts....and somehow fitting three hundred words around them to fill up the column. It was all anti-Reagan. After about a dozen of these columns....I came to the conclusion of avoiding them.

I suspect that she basically peaked out in the mid-1980s. She was coasting along....without much in terms of four-star reporting left in her.

She should have retired in the early 1990s. She didn't.

For the past twenty years....she's been hanging on and writing columns that a 20-year old kid could write. The AP? I suspect that they were paying her in the range of $100k a year. Call it a working pension or just a "gift".....but she just lingered on.

She could have moved to Florida and enjoyed retirement....writing a book every two years. She could have the simple act of retiring at her peak back in the 1990s. But she didn't.

Her comments on the Jews? It was stupid and judgmental. It's funny....she hasn't changed since the Regan era. A reporter can't really say things like this and expect to keep their respect.

Today, she's finished. She resigned and can finally act retired. Those who defend her? Go for it. Show your judgmental side. Helen became an accomplished wannabe journalist....by going beyond the facts, and then acting judgmental. Maybe you can show your wannabe talents as well.

Chrysler & Toyota Comparison

If you didn't notice today....without much mention on the Today Show, MSNBC, or New York Times.....Chrysler is recalling 600,000 vehicles (brake failure and accelerator sticking).

Hmmm....sounds familiar?

Covers Jeep Wranger, Town & Country, and Grand Caravan.

Strange how Toyota gets mentioned....but Chrysler has accelerator sticking and nobody says anything on the Today Show?

John Mark Karr

The weird guy from Bama....John Mark Karr....who at one point was accused of being the Jon Benot Ramsey kidnapper....came up in the news in the past week.

If you don't remember the entire story.....this guy is a weird kinky guy of guy.....who came to be suspected in the kidnapping and murder case. Cops in Thailand ended up arresting him and US cops brought him back to the US. He wouldn't ever deny anything....but they eventually realized that he wasn't the guilty party.

Well....he kinda disappeared for a while. Then it came up that he had some relationship with a 15-year old girl. Things went downhill, and then he kinda disappeared again.

This past week, some woman at the Paris airport....came to realize the woman in the bathroom with her....was really a guy....and a conversation started up. You'd think that a guy in the women's bathroom would worry most women.....but this is Paris, and folks don't worry (don't ask).

So she asked stupid questions and learned that this was John Mark Karr. He'd had some hormone-like stuff done and he looked kinda on the female side. Well....as much as a guy from Bama can look female, you know.

She took a picture. Then upon arriving in the US.....she looked up some Gosssip folks, and got onto some entertainment update piece. The cops came to be interested. John Mark Karr had visited his folks for a couple of days.....and then disappeared after the cops arrived.

I sat and thought over this story for a while.

I'm a traveler.....and I use a passport when traveling.....you have to if you want to travel overseas.

Some parts of this story don't work. He had to enter the US with a passport.....and the TSA folks didn't spot this guy or notice the passport? Is he traveling via a fake passport? Does he have citizenship via another country? Is he living in France?

No, this story just doesn't make sense to me. But you know.....I really don't care. This Karr guy is weird...for even Bama standards.

My View (Humbly)

So Friday, this seven-year old kid from Skyline Elementary School, about fifty miles west of Portland....came to disappear. It's an interesting case.

The kid, Kyron Horman, came to school with his step-mom....attended a science fair at the elementary school, and then Mom saw him leave and start walking toward his classroom at 0845 roughly. The kid never made it home on the bus, and the parents came to call the school. The cops then got called. And the kid has been missing since Friday morning.

I pulled up this episode, and started looking at the map, the story, and the few facts.

This school is a five-classroom basic school, with a small gym. There's a parking lot toward the rear. The place is fairly isolated and in a farming district. There's open fields on all four corners. About half-a-mile away is a corner grocery and gas station. It's in the rural region.

The school says no one saw the kid after the science fair.....so he never made it to his classroom.

For him to walk and disappear....he'd have to walk five hundred feet out the backdoor and then venture into a pine forest (take a look at the image). I spent a fair amount of time looking at this image today....it's a tiny school. For a kid to walk out....he'd have to walk along the highway, and someone would have noticed him.

Frankly, I've come to a point.....I don't believe the step-mom in this case. I think that she escorted the kid quietly out a side door to the vehicle and left with him. It's a small school and small parking lot. The odds are that you could easily walk him to the vehicle and leave with him. I think the step-mom took him and an accident (or whatever), then occurred.

Evidence? No....none. But after you gaze at the overhead imagery and look at options for some kid to walk away or be noticed leaving....it doesn't exist. Strangers in the area? They'd be noticed.

It would be curious what kind of vehicle Mom drove to school, and if it's been checked for blood stains. I'm guessing they haven't gotten to the point of doubting her....yet. Maybe I'm wrong....but the more I stare at the overhead shot and the small school in question.....I just don't believe Mom's story.