I bring this up because it points to the bigger problem of guns and violence and the vicious cycle that still permeates some parts of our society. We've talked to parents this week who are frustrated, fed up and flummoxed about how to deal with their kids who, they know or believe, have weapons stashed in their rooms. Oh would there be a magic wand we could wave to solve the problems -- the deep problems -- that plague families and communities where violence, and the fear of violence, is a daily reality.
There isn't of course.
Gun control advocates insist getting guns off the streets is one way. Gun rights advocates just as adamantly insist that doesn't work. No one knows for sure what will work. What we do know is that what we have, doesn't.
We'll have the latest on the search for the shooter in Harlem, tonight at 11.
And what drama in Israel - political drama, as the fallout continues over corruption allegations against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Former P.M. and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak is now calling on Olmert to resign or "suspend himself" (isn't that painful?), "as soon as possible in the national interest."
Under the Parliamentary kind of government in Israel, such talk isn't just rhetoric. Barak's Labor Party could walk out of the coalition government, and that would force early elections. A businessman from Long Island, Morris Talansky, is linked to the corruption allegations, which include Olmert's attraction to expensive cigars and first class plane tickets, which were paid for by Mr. Talansky.
Talansky is described by Haaretz.Com as a "mogul" and financier who "is suspected of bribing ... Olmert. Although he is a known fundraiser for and contributor to Jewish causes in the United States and Israel, nobody seems to know how he made his money."
We'll have the latest on the political tumult in Israel, tonight at 11.
And speaking of tumult --former White House Press Secretary Scott McClennan is causing no small amount of it with his memoir. We're following reaction to the new disclosures. The ones that intrigue me the most: His allegations that the Bush Administration misled the American people in the run up to the Iraq War.
And finally, a friend of mine died today. I worked with him - he used to call me Tex. But he was thought of as a friend to so many people who watched him on television every day.
Bob Dale was an institution on San Diego TV. He was a weatherman by trade, and a wonderful man by nature. With his constant smile and bow tie, Bob started in TV back in the days when TV was getting its start-- 1947..
He moved to San Diego in the 1950s -- doing the weather and hosting those daytime movie shows that dominated the local markets back then.
I met him when I started in TV in 1987; he was the weatherman at the NBC station I worked at. There was no one who didn't love Bob -- and he'd snap at me if he knew I used a double negative like that -- and there was no one Bob didn't love, or so it seemed.
He died Monday night, after a lengthy decline. I'm told that, right when he died on that Memorial Day evening, by chance, fireworks lit up the San Diego sky as part of the holiday celebration. A fitting end for Bob Dale, going out with a bang.
We'll also have any breaking news of the night, plus Lee Goldberg's AccuWeather forecast, and Scott Clark with the night's sports. I hope you can join Liz Cho and me, tonight at 11.
BILL RITTER
