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I haven't believed what's on TV since I saw that blind girl on Little House flinch one time Mr. Edwards grinned at her, but we seem to have entered a different dimension of unreality and TV with our local take on CSI.
On CSI they can get DNA out of a person's aura with some fancy gadgetry and have the case to trial before the next commercial break. Even faster if somebody says the words "fast track it."
The SLO Police recently arrested a guy--a local, an ex-Marine--on suspicion of the murder of Sharon Ostman, the homeless woman whose body was found in the creek smack dab in the middle of paradise more than two years ago.
The evidence, police said, was gathered on the day of the murder, but sat in a backlog at a state testing lab for six months.
This, Shredderistas, requires an explanation. There's a half-year backlog on evidence in a murder investigation? Did somebody forget to mutter the words "fast track it?" Did we just now get to the next commercial break?
It apparently took about another two years for local police to gather the rest of their case. I'm a curious bird, and I think readers are too. Care to write in and explain the delay, Chief Deb Linden? And I'll give the chief a dollar if
she can work the words "respect SLO, bro," into her column. Missed that reference? Check out the SLOPD website. DARE ya.
It turns out the man they think is the killer was living just outside the city, spending some of his time working as a cook at the Sunny Acres rehab facility and the rest of the time in jail for a series of parole violations. He has a record as a sex offender.
Police said they weren't worried because, even once they suspected him, they knew where he was or could track him with an ankle bracelet.
The local racists, by the way, have had a day of this one, smearing local blogs with their dim wits because the suspect is a black man. Thanks for classing up the joint.
For the record, it apparently wasn't Sunny D or Kenny G or whoever it was New Times reported as being the man a fearful homeless community was suspicious of a year and a half ago. Sorry about that, Sunny or Eddie or Whitey or whoever. I'll buy you a 40 sometime.
But in this issue, we're not fingering any criminals. Instead, in honor of Valentine's Day, we're talking to them about their love lives--or lack thereof. If you can read Kai Beech's story of love behind bars without getting a teardrop tattooed under your eye, then you, my friend, are in the wrong prison gang.
Bill Rabenaldt is also being a good sport about the censure he received from his fellow Pismo Beach councilites. If you can read the e-mail exchange between Rabenaldt, planning commissioners, and city staffers and figure out what exactly he said that was out of bounds, please let me know, preferably in a confusing e-mail exchange of our own. But for the love of Dionysus' lamp, make your e-mail a lot racier than the ones Rabenaldt got in trouble for. Don't dash-dash-dash out the sketchy parts. I'm no good with hangman. I still can't figure out what co_ksu__er means. Cooksuper? Conksummer? Corksuaver? Ah, forget it.
We've also got another story about some company that apparently did seniors and the North County Humane Society wrong, but I can't say I under-stood the complexities of it. Home financing has always been as Greek as Latin to me. I can't tell a mortgage from a loan someone uses to buy a house or property and has to pay back with specified interest.
I was, however, surprised to learn that the Humane Society has been taking the dollars intended for spay and neuter campaigns and gambling them in risky real estate investments. Be a shame to have to put down a good dog because somebody bet on the wrong horse. I already regret writing that. I'll buy you a 40 sometime to make up for it.
I'm sure our stellar reporting team would have written something about the Board of Supervisors meeting this week, too, except the supervisors didn't have one. The whole county government was closed Tuesday in honor of the Day-After-Lincoln's-Birthday. Someone might be inclined to mock the fact that our local county government needs to take the day after a sporadically celebrated, double-dipping presidential holiday off, but not me. I'm all for more days off, especially if there's something funny or pithy to be said about it. But maybe there isn't.
Ah well. I suppose that even county supervisors need time off. Come to think of it, I'd like a break, too. And I'll take one by giving them one--for this week anyway. But as soon as they're back on schedule, after the Day-After-Washington's Birthday and the Day-After-President's Day and whatever other holidays they scrape up for February, I'll be back too. In the meantime, I'll be checking out the SLOPD website for more information about how to live in harmony next to noisy college students. Bro.