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Monday, November 23, 2009

News Stranded MAX Boy Media Blitz Comes to a Close

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 4:17 PM

Maybe you guys missed the cable news dust-up last week about the 3-year-old left stranded on a MAX platform as the train bearing his dad left the station. The poor kid accidentally pressed a button that closed the door behind him as he left the train, separating him from his dad. As the train pulled out of the station, the dad pressed the train's emergency call button repeatedly, but there was no response from the driver.

Hero of the day is 22-year-old Portland State student Orianne Greene. When Greene saw the boy separated from his dad, she rushed to comfort the kid and stayed with him for the seven minutes it took his dad to catch a train back to the fateful station. News of this incident went national over the weekend, climaxing in Bill O'Reilly calling Green a "patriot".

I'm not exactly sure how helping a crying kid on a MAX platform has anything to do with loving or defending America, but kudos all the same to Greene for being a good and decent human.

Not to be a Grinch about this, but I think the avalanche of coverage of the small incident kinda outweighs its importance. Google News lists 116 articles about the story. The Oregonian described the incident as the "drama that has captured the nation's hearts and TV news shows", a welcome positive news story to run alongside stories of a "tanking economy" and "two unsuccessful wars".

After all the publicity and an investigation that showed the train driver had not responded to a fully-functioning emergency call button system, TriMet today announced it had placed the driver on paid administrative leave pending a disciplinary hearing. They also gave the father and kid annual TriMet passes... but no word yet on whether there'll be a "reward" larger than becoming an O'Reilly-christened patriot for Greene.

 

Comments (11) RSS

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1
Actually, the story went national late last week. It was on the "Today Show" on Thursday.

And, I do find your Grinchiness ironic considering the amount of coverage given to the bike incidents, or say, a news truck blocking a bike path. People like feel-good stories and kudos to shining a light on something that ended positively thanks to Ms. Greene opting to stay with the wee one.

And last, but not least, for God's sake, the period goes inside the quote at the end of the sentence.
Posted by A. L. Venable on November 23, 2009 at 5:24 PM · Report
2
I suspect that a person's response to this news story has a lot to do with whether they have ever been a parent to a three-year-old child.
Posted by Satchel on November 23, 2009 at 5:33 PM · Report
3
"And, I do find your Grinchiness ironic considering the amount of coverage given to the bike incidents, or say, a news truck blocking a bike path."

What, news trucks in bike paths have been getting saturated national attention? This is just a local alternative newspaper blog, after all.

"And last, but not least, for God's sake, the period goes inside the quote at the end of the sentence."

Clearly, the contemporary British style is being used here, which places the punctuation outside of the closing quotation mark, unless the punctuation is in fact part of the original quoted material.

I much prefer this British style, and I'm glad to see it being informally adopted gradually throughout America. It has bugged me since childhood, and perhaps has something to do with my regular work with developing computer software, where the nesting of concepts within clearly delineated blocks of code using various kinds of punctuation is vitally important.

But that's just my preference. If you don't want to see this particular quoting style updated for better consistency and clarity, and would rather stick to a relic orthodoxy that even the British don't use anymore, by all means continue to kvetch.
Posted by Bob R. on November 23, 2009 at 5:34 PM · Report
4
Actually, American English follows some pretty stupid logic on the question of the period always going inside the quote mark. Maybe it's Matt forcing British English rules on Sarah, but way to be a rebel and do what makes sense.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/mar…
Posted by Paul Cone on November 23, 2009 at 5:37 PM · Report
5
FYI Orianne is a huge supporter of single payer health care and calls herself a "socialist". I suspect Bill's head and those of his viewers would explode if he knew that. Signed - Orianne's mom.
Posted by IreneFrost on November 23, 2009 at 6:14 PM · Report
6
@ Bob R. "This is just a local alternative newspaper blog, after all."

Well, considering the amount of stories and links the Mercury picks up from Gawker and other national/international news sites, this blog may be locally-based, but it isn't 100% locally-focused.
Posted by A. L. Venable on November 23, 2009 at 7:07 PM · Report
7
A. L. Venable, also look into the meaning of "ironic" .
Posted by NIG GER on November 23, 2009 at 7:22 PM · Report
8
Remember when you were a little kid and you got separated from your mom at the store, and you started to panic, and then someone who works at the store calmed you down and paged her for you? Remember that? Okay, now do you remember the flood of news stories that resulted from this incident? No? That's because there WEREN'T ANY!!! The only thing that's any different about this is the admittedly kind of scary factor of trains whizzing by the disoriented and freaked out three year old, but other than that, it's the same damn thing as when you got separated from your mom at the store...
Posted by Tommy on November 24, 2009 at 7:28 AM · Report
9
Is it "Green" or "Greene"?

All I know is that this story isn't nearly as important as getting to the bottom of "why people of color don't seem to jump on Portland's biking bandwagon."
Posted by CH on November 24, 2009 at 9:45 AM · Report
10
Bob R, you crack me up!
So what got the media to love this story?
A LITTLE KID GOT LOST AND THEN FOUND, People love that shit ya know.
Really no news here at all but then again, anything that gets people to watch or read is all the media is interested in, doesn't matter if its nothing but hype,
'
A little kid got lost and a nice young lady (fairy princess) came to the rescue of the little "prince" , then the media said, "we need to get the evil monster now", (Trimet), and so it all has a happy ending and Americans love it!

Now all we need is a puppy to be run over by either a bus or the Max and then we can finish off the "evil monster"
Posted by Al M on November 24, 2009 at 3:37 PM · Report
11
I think it is interesting: A MAX train driver separates from a 3 year old for 7 minutes and the driver is suspended while the investigation goes on. A police officer shoots and arrests a 12 year old girl for riding on a MAX train and gets suspended while the investigation goes on, and suddenly porn-stash guy is demanding that city commissioners get reassigned.

The obvious lesson here: Don't get a porn-stash, it seems to infect your brain.
Posted by Matthew D on November 25, 2009 at 12:32 AM · Report

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