The Coast News (Page 1)

JAN. 30, 2009
by CHUCK
ODD
SHEPHERD
FILES
LEAD STORY
Saudi Arabia is host to several
camel beauty pageants
each year (condemned as religiously
fatuous by Muslim clerics),
but the country’s first goat
beauty pageant was held in
September in Riyadh, with the
distinctive Najdi breed, featuring
high nose bridges and silky,
shaggy hair, taking top prizes. In
fact, most of the goats in the
competition had the same
father, Burgan, whose progeny
typically fetch the equivalent of
$25,000 and up. Still, prize-winning
show camels can bring 10
times that amount for the
greater status they convey to
their owners. Burgan himself
did not appear at the pageant,
according to a Reuters dispatch,
because his owner feared that a
jealous competitor would have
an “evil eye” cast upon him.
Cultural Diversity
— The Rental Society:
Among the services available
by the clock in Japan (according
to a January BBC dispatch) are
(1) quality time with a pet
(about $10 an hour at the Ja La
La Cafe in Toyko, usually with
dogs or cats but with rabbits,
ferrets and beetles available);
(2) no-sex quality time with a
college coed (flattering conversation
by the hour at the
Campus Cafe, less expensive
than the geisha-type houses);
(3) and actors from the I Want
To Cheer Up agency in Tokyo, to
portray “relatives” for weddings
and funerals when actual family
members cannot attend, or to
portray fathers to help single
women with their parenting
duties,or to portray husbands to
help women practice for the
routine of married life (except
for sex).
— In January, a federal
judge dismissed the last lawsuit
standing in the way of a new
Indian casino for California’s
Amador County, where the federally
recognized Me-Wuk tribe
of the Buena Vista Rancheria
has its 67-acre reservation. The
tribe consists of Rhonda
Morningstar Pope and her five
children, none of whom lives on
the tribal land.
— Parental Responsibility:
(1) A father took his 20-year-old
son to an Islamic court in
Bauchi, Nigeria, in October,
demanding that he be jailed for
idleness, which he said has
shamed the family. (The court
immediately sentenced the son
to 30 lashes and six months in
prison.) (2) In December, a
court in Seoul, South Korea,
fined the parents of a teenage
rapist the equivalent of about
$60,000 for their negligence in
raising the boy badly. (The 18year-old
himself is serving a 10year
sentence for the crime.)
— Twenty million Chinese
have their residences in caves,
but that is often not a bad deal,
according to a December
McClatchy Newspapers dispatch
from Miaogou Village. In
addition to the obvious advantages
(e.g., no mortgage), some
caves have been in the family
for generations and have electrical
wiring, plumbing and
cable television, and some are
part of communities of connected
caves. Researchers said that
earthen insulation keeps the
inside temperature from dropping
below about 55 degrees
Fahrenheit even in the dead of
winter.
By Wehtahnah Tucker
ENCINITAS — An official
with San Diego Gas & Electric
gave a presentation to City
Council Jan. 21 outlining new
technology available to homeowners
and businesses that may
conserve electricity and save
money.
Claudia Carrillo, a public
affairs manager with the power
company, said smart meters are
digital meters with two-way communication
that send energy use
information to SDG&E. Unlike
existing meters, smart meters
have a computer chip that
records energy usage. In the
future, energy use information
will be recorded every hour at
your home and every 15 minutes
at a business.
SDG&E will replace all electric
meters and upgrade all gas
meters with smart meters over
the next three years. Carrillo
THE COAST NEWS A3
Carlsbad mourns two community figures
By Jeannie Sprague-Bentley
CARLSBAD — Carlsbad
recently lost two of the original
members of the Carlsbad
Volunteer Fire Department,
notable community leaders who
helped shape the city into what
it is today.
Huston Tucker, 87, died Jan.
15, two weeks after suffering a
stroke. Johnny McKaig, 83, died
Jan. 17, and had recently been
in declining health.
Tucker, born in Bethel,
Okla., had been a resident since
1947 and was actively involved
in the community from the
beginning. Just last year, he
enjoyed celebrating the 50-year
anniversary of the first Boy
Scout troop in Carlsbad, which
he was instrumental in organizing.
Tucker is also credited with
starting the volunteer fire
department after answering an
ad and then recruiting others,
organizing them into a nonprofit
corporation and helping the
department get its first truck.
One of the first volunteers
to join him was Johnny McKaig.
McKaig moved to Vista after
World War II and took a job at a
local barber shop. A few years
later he moved to Carlsbad and
eventually set up shop on State
Street, where he became known
as “Johnny the Barber.” Giving
TURN TO COMMUNITY FIGURES ON A17
By Randy Kalp
ESCONDIDO — An elderly
man accused of gunning down
his two roommates, killing one
of them, may have been delusional
and suffering from paranoia
during the April 2007 shootings,
a neuropyschologist testified
Jan. 23.
Largely due to two strokes,
Octavian Crishan, 70, has a “fist
size” area of damage to the right
hemisphere of his brain, testified
Dr. Erin Bigler, director of
neuropsychology at Brigham
Young University. The damage
to Crishan’s brain is “severe”
and “extensive,” he said.
Because the brain damage is
concentrated in the right hemisphere,
his speech and movements
wouldn’t give any indication
to the internal difficulties
— perception, time and motor
skills — Crishan may be suffering
from, Bigler said.
Bigler’s testimony was followed
by surviving victim
Matthew Vivian’s account of the
VOLUNTEER PIONEER Huston Tucker (on the top rear and middle) is pictured above on the Department of Forestry’s truck,
before the first volunteer fire department got their own. Courtesy photo
Doctor: ‘Man may have been delusional during shootings’
shooting and the atmosphere
in their Escondido home. Due
to availability issues, Vista
Superior Court Judge Joel
Pressman granted defense attorney
John Cotsirilos’ request to
put Bigler on the stand during
the prosecution’s case.
Crishan, a former Las Vegas
concert violinist, is charged with
the murder of his longtime
friend Herman Wiesemeyer, 67,
and the attempted murder of
another friend, Vivian, in
Wiesemeyer’s Escondido home
in the 2100 block of Parktree
Lane on April 18, 2007. Both
Vivian and Crishan rented
rooms from Wiesemeyer.
Vivian, a resident nurse in
his late 40s, testified he returned
home from work around 8 a.m.
April 18, which coincidentally is
his birthday. When he entered
the house, he noticed a body
lying in the breakfast nook, but
because the house was dark he
couldn’t distinguish which of his
roommates it was. He said as he
SDG&E introduces new conservation technology to public
said 1.4 million electric meters
and 900,000 gas meters will be
replaced at a cost of $572 million.
“North county is the first
area slated for replacement,”
Carrillo told the council.
Residences and small businesses
will be first to receive the new
meter.
“This (device) will help customers
budget their energy use
better,” Carrillo said. Despite
energy conservation measures
put in place over the years, the
number of days when a power
shortage could occur has been
increasing, according to Carrillo.
Councilwoman Teresa Barth
said the information was valuable
not only from an individual
perspective but also looking at
the foreseeable impacts of using
less electricity in the county. “I
think if people in Encinitas knew
that lessening their energy con-
went to investigate further,
Crishan came out of the shadows
of the den and shot him point
blank with a Berretta semi-automatic
pistol.
As Vivian laid on the ground
choking on his blood, he testified
Crishan told him, “Shut up
or I’ll give you another one.” It
was at that point that Vivian said
he feigned his death and then
surprised Crishan by jumping
up and wrestling him for the
gun. Just before Vivian got a grip
on the pistol, he said Crishan
pointed the gun at him and
pulled the trigger four times
only to have the weapon misfire.
Eventually, Vivian said he
was able to pin Crishan down
and call 911. When police
arrived around 8:45 a.m., Vivian
exited the house and turned the
pistol over to authorities, he
said. Crishan came out three
hours later, rambling and pleading
to be shot, according to court
documents. Police used seven
bean bag rounds and a police
sumption could reduce the need
for new power plants then I think
this meter would be useful in
tracking their consumption,” she
said after the meeting.
Besides providing customers
with more knowledge about
their energy consumption, the
technology has other benefits as
well according to the representative.
“Smart meters will help
SDG&E find outages quickly so
we can identify and fix the problem
faster,” she said. “Right now,
when there is a major outage we
know about it but the smaller
ones take longer to recognize.”
Like existing meters, the
cost of the new meter is part of
the regular energy bill. The cost
is approximately $2.50 per
month.
Carrillo said that an additional
benefit to the new meters
is privacy. Because smart meters
send information electronically
dog to subdue him.
As a result of the shooting,
Vivian said he suffered a shattered
jaw, as well as spinal complications,
which required multiple
surgeries.
Vivian, who had lived at the
residence for more than a
decade, said he first met Crishan
when the elderly man moved
into Wiesemeyer’s residence in
2006 from a Las Vegas assistedcare
facility where he had been
following a debilitating car accident.
“We were all friends,”
Vivian said when asked about
the atmosphere in the house.
He said Crishan and
Wiesemeyer both had a propensity
for alcohol and arguing for
the sake of arguing.
However, Crishan’s attorney
painted a more hostile scenario
for the jury in his opening statement.
Cotsirilos said both men
were verbally and physically
TURN TO DELUSIONAL ON A17
to SDG&E daily, meter readers
will no longer have to enter a
property.
With the information it provides,
smart meters can help
save energy which saves natural
resources and reduces the need
to build new power plants or
other equipment. “This is a step
toward conservation and greening
the grid,” Carrillo said.
“It’s great that SDG&E is
using the technology that’s available
for residents to better monitor
their energy use,” Harold
Jenkins said. The Encinitas resident
said the community is
becoming more aware of the
importance of conserving energy.
“This is California,” he said.
“We know about rolling blackouts
and when to use our dishwashers
and to unplug unused
appliances. Now the trick is getting
the rest of the country on
board.”