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Newsgrinder Important events as reported by daily newspapers and summarized by Daedalus Howell. Saturday 11.11.00 Joy-rider Tyrone Bradish revealed he ain't as smart as the whip that's now whuppin' his ass after getting popped for stealing a Chrysler PT Cruiser from a Santa Rosa car dealership and trying to return the car when he realized it was running on fumes, reports the local daily. Taxpayers can rest assured they're getting the best police work their money can buy: "We eventually caught him because he ran out of gas," admits Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Tony Wynne. At one point, the 22-year-old Bradish led police on a high-speed chase through downtown Petaluma, where the local fuzz, apparently inspired by the Cannonball Run movies, threw spike strips on the road to pop Bradish's tires. A Santa Rosa police car and three sheriff's cars ran over them instead. Bradish also rammed a police car. So where were the car-lot security guards? Who left the keys in the car? Lot manager Tareq Huq demands answers. "There is somebody who will be in this office on Monday being talked to," he said. "Talked to, if not discharged." Give 'em hell, Huq! Saturday 11.11.00 Mental health and education professionals gathered at the second annual Conference on Boys (hosted by Sonoma State University) to mull over the question: What's on boys' minds? Well, duh. The answer is probably between the pages of those magazines beneath their beds, on those videos in their bottom drawers, and through the keyholes of their sisters' bedroom doors. Discussions at the conference centered on boys and sex, sex and boys, sex, boys, sexy boys, and boyish sex. "This last 30 years of all women's action and women's movement has been powerful for girls, and that's a good thing," conference director Duncan MacInnes said to the local daily. "Now, what I want to do is bring boys to the level of girls." Gender crusader Joe Manthey, please report to the white courtesy telephone. . . . Dr. Lawrence Diller, author of Running on Ritalin, delivered the keynote address (Ritalin is a stimulant used to treat the attention deficit disorders of 3.2 million boys annually--though patients often resell the junk at school for quick cash, I kid you not). "It's not that Ritalin doesn't work," says Diller (cuz oh, baby, it does), "But I don't see it as a moral equivalent to better parents and better schools." Or better speed. Sunday 11.12.00 Apparently someone doth protest too much for two gentlemen of Marin. Former chairman of that county's Republican Party, Ed McGill, gets the blue ribbon for his hateful hyperbolic summation of the League of Women Voters' Campaign Watch committee as "Stalinist strumpets" and "thugs of the Spanish Inquisition." In an unrelated matter, the Marin Independent Journal reports that female Pat Zuch has filed a complaint against Sausalito Vice Mayor J. R. Roberts for spitting on her and cursing her during a confrontation. "I think what Pat Zuch is doing here is trying to make some political hay out of a private dispute," said Arthur Wachtel, Roberts' attorney, who did not comment if his client spat or swallowed in the past. "It is unfortunate that she and her associates have decided to revive this again and to raise it in the media." Hey, that's our bread and lung-butter, pal. Monday 11.13.00 A 12-foot-deep 9,000-ton heap of "biosolids," piled at the site of Santa Rosa's West College Avenue sewage treatment plant since it was dismantled eight years ago, might finally get the heave-ho--that is, if the City Council springs for the nearly $800,000 pooper-scooper fee, reports the local daily. Santa Rosa environmental compliance officer Dean Paige describes the 18 million pounds of sewage pond residue as "former biologically objectionable material" (which translates to "huge pile of shit"). And hey, kids, it's full of lead! Paige is unsure if the lead has seeped into groundwater and contaminated private wells in the area--water supplies that are already contaminated by solvents from a nearby former dry-cleaning business. No word if the city will go through with a proposal to truck in water from local kiddie pools to aid the beleaguered residents. Tuesday 11.14.00 From the people that brought you Banana Republic and the Republic of Tea comes ZoZa--a retail concept made especially for the Republic of Mill Valley. A cheapie redux of ye olde economy brick-and-mortar clothes store with an Internet spin, local founders Mel and Patricia Ziegler have opened what they call a "walk-in website" for their new line of fashions made of washable, high-tech synthetic fabrics. (Dude, if you're going to make a walk-in website, how 'bout one where the clothes are, like, off?) Customers can touch and try on clothing samples at the ZoZa store but make their purchases online, for there are no racks, cash registers, or mannequins. Fitting rooms are portable cardboard cylinders near a mirrored wall. The Zieglers don't want to "throw money away" in rent and advertising. They just want you to throw your money away on fruity space clothes! "We think our customers, particularly in Marin County, are smarter," says Mel Ziegler. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. [ North Bay | MetroActive Central | Archives ]