From the Mason City Glob-Gazette:
Six days a week, Don Sells heads to work from his home in Clarksville to Meskwaki Bingo Casino Hotel in Tama, where he works as a parking valet for $7.68 an hour.
The daily round trip of 152 miles costs between $15-20 per day due to the escalating costs at the gas pump, said his wife, Patty. She works two jobs at Waverly, 13 miles away.
Between rent, food, utilities, a child support payment, child care and a car loan, “there isn’t much left” of their paychecks each month.
Newspapers always find the dumbest people to profile for their "sad sack" stories, don't they?
Look at this map. Notice any large cities or towns between Clarksville and Tama?
Well, there's Waverly, which is a 25 mile round trip.
Even driving to Cedar Falls/Waterloo would be about a 55 mile round trip.
This guy can't find a job for $7.68 an hour in Waverly, Cedar Falls, or Waterloo? Unemployment rates in Bremer and Black Hawk counties are in the 3% to 3.5% range (source).
As this blog always does, I turn to publicly available databases to find out "the rest of the story" about the people that newspapers profile.
An Iowa Court Search/Trial Court case search for Don Edward Sells (dob 3/19/72) reveals that Mr Sells has a thing for driving very very fast (Case: 01071 STP932MS2, Case: 02091DESTNO001101, Case: 02091WASTWG138311, Case: 02091WASTWG769890, Case: 05771DMSTDM276284). Apparently he has a lot of money for speeding tickets.
Whatever money he's paying for speeding tickets doesn't go towards carrying automobile insurance (Case: 02091 STWG769812 and Case: 06861TOSTTO020743)
And Mr Sells had to be forced into mandatory child support by the mother of his children (Case: 02091 DRCV002765 and Case: 05771 DRCV029603, Case: 06571 DRCV049891).
How do newspaper reporters find these people? Don't they go searching publicly available database just to make sure that the people they profile aren't a bunch of deadbeat losers? I don't think they do. They certainly haven't in the past.
Too true on the scumbag sob stories. I recall an article in the business section of the DMR which told a tale of woe of a young black single mother of two who just could not manage to get hired anywhere. The article cried racism, but failed to mention the mom's 2 theft convictions. Hence, I always run background checks on the Register's "the man be keepin' me down" stories before I waste a tear.
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