Wise County on the Web

A tongue in cheek review of the news published this week regarding Wise County.
Normally posted every Sunday around 10:00 p.m.
(Note: To make sure you are receiving the most recent update, hold down the "Shift" key while you click on reload/refresh).
For the week ending 08/10/02:

The Story	Thirty-one neglected horses will be the subject of a suit by the State of Texas to seize the animals from Dr. Elizabeth Rohr. A couple of years ago, the doctor had "26 horses taken from her . . . by Southlake authorities."
News worthiness (on a scale of 0 to 5)	*******
The Spin	*The normally liberal Spin* thinks something needs to be done to stop this neglect.**

The Story	*The Messenger* does a feature on Mai Kishimoto, a foreign exchange student from Japan. "She copies the way I say 'wazzup' and she loves saying 'dude'", said her teenage house mate.**
News worthiness	*
The Spin	Citing the need to maintain cultural integrity, Japan immediately took steps to bar her from re-entering the country.

The Story	*The Messenger* runs an op-ed piece criticizing the proposed courthouse security plan that would cost $80,000 a year without including equipment (metal detector, etc).**
News worthiness	**
The Spin	A full time cop at FM 1810 and US 287 would save more lives.

The Story	"The Aurora Encounter" opens up in, well, Aurora in an attempt to profit off the alleged spaceship crash on April. 17, 1987.
News worthiness	*
The Spin	Finally, someone is using their noodle. People eat up this type of stuff. The web site is here.

The Story	The average Decatur ISD school tax bill will rise $90.00. The real shocker was buried in the story: "Due to increased homestead values, loss of exemptions and increasing tax rates, the percent change in taxes from 1997 to 2001 is 243.6 percent . . . . In 1997 the average taxpayer paid $439.14 in school taxes, whereas the average taxpayer paid $1,069.76 in 2001."
News worthiness	**
The Spin	Any bets that H.D. Boswell will get fired up about this?

**Special Highly Technical Research Project to be Conducted Throughout 2002:**
	New This Week	Year To Date
Number of new births announced in the Wise County Messenger	15	332
Number of new births announced by parents with different surnames (or no father identified):	4 (27%)	105 (31%)

See something in the local papers that struck you funny? Then suggest a topic for The Spin.

View Last week's issue.