Monday, January 22, 2018

Good morning, friend! It’s Monday, January 22, 2018, and here’s a Daily Drip’s worth of news and information to get you rolling out the door. Today we’ll see a few light showers and highs of 48. Sunrise 7:41 AM, sunset 5:03 PM.

Snow in Portland? Maybe Friday, and no lower than 1000 feet.

Word from the Oregon Coast that the Dungeness crab boats are finally heading out to sea. They normally began in December, but were delayed by a price dispute. Fresh Oregon crab should be in stores, soon! (And good luck to all the people taking part in that dangerous profession).

Somebody stole a cart full of groceries in Vancouver, then rammed a car into an investigating officer’s vehicle…touching off a chase on I-205 that ended 20 miles later in West Linn, where local officers deployed spike strips on the freeway.

A man has died after being shot at SW 4th and Stark in downtown Portland. One man is jailed on a murder charge.

 

Today is the third day of the federal government shutdown, as a mutually belligerent Congress and an impossible-to-pin-down president spent the weekend strutting, tweeting, and blaming the other guys. There’s a vote at 9 AM Pacific to see if anybody has wavered. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed–many of them brought their office plants home on Friday in anticipation–but this’ll have to go on awhile before most folks notice the effects.

Over this weekend of the Trump inauguration anniversary, thousands marched in Portland and had their say with signs (heavy on the “sh*thole” comment) and chants (same). Other signs. “Grab ’em by the Midterms.” “Super Callous Fragile Racist Sexist Lying POTUS.” Held by a child: “Build a wall and my generation will tear it down.” “Without Hermione, Harry Potter would have died in Book One.” I spent the weekend reading that “Fire and Fury” book about the administration’s first months. As the author quotes George W. Bush as saying, right after Trump gave his dark inaugural address, “That’s some weird sh*t, man.” (Using * instead of just saying it. Trying to move the line back a little).

Tomorrow is Election Day in Oregon on one single but critically important measure–a tax on insurers and health providers to pay for Medicaid–and ballot returns are sparser than you’d like to see, in supposedly hyper-involved times like these. Statewide, as of Friday, just one in four of us have gotten our ballots in, with some of the lowest return rates in Multnomah and Washington Counties.

She’s been on the job for months, but Portland’s new police chief Danielle Outlaw will take a ceremonial oath of office today at the Oregon Historical Society. She chose that venue to highlight–and add to–its current exhibit displaying the “courage, struggle, and progress” of civil rights in Oregon.

Happy to say that a 42-year old woman who vanished on a drive from Portland to Boise has been found shivering and chagrinned in a snow bank on a mountain road. Instead of taking I-84 from Pendleton to La Grande, she opted for Forest Service Road 52 between Ukiah and Sumpter. Which hasn’t been plowed. Perhaps she was following the GPS in her Toyota Tundra–but she did tell a friend she’d be taking the scenic route.

A semi hauling Nike gear rolled over on the Water Avenue ramp from the Marquam Bridge yesterday.

Amazon’s techie new convenience store–Amazon Go–is opening in downtown Seattle today. It feels like you’re shoplifting, as you put your goods directly into a bag and walk right out the door without stopping for a checkout. But your Amazon account is charged for every item.

From HuffPost: “Doughnut-eating champ arrested after allegedly breaking into doughnut shop.”

Playing at the Aladdin Theater tonight: Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Grammy-winning male chorus group from South Africa that gained fame by providing the rich vocals on “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” and “Homeless” on Paul Simon’s Graceland album, his greatest work I believe. They continue to tour and record extensively with original members along with sons, cousins, and close friends, and have two pending Emmy nominations this year.

“Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” premiered 50 years ago today. Sock it to me. You bet your bippy. Here come de judge. Moving right along. Verrry interesting, but dumb. True, but it seemed funny at the time, back in those censored, repressed, and plasticine days of TV. Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.

Barry Manilow sang the National Anthem at the Superbowl on this day in ’84. That’s the same Superbowl where the Apple Macintosh was introduced.

The next Superbowl, two weeks from yesterday, will match the inevitable New England Patriots–who pulled out a fourth-quarter comeback against Jacksonville–with Philadelphia Eagles, who beat Minnesota so badly that I went for a walk at halftime and didn’t come back.

Headlines for a happy heart!

–“Two Michigan Labradoodles begged to be let outside at 4:30 AM. They ran out and found a lost woman in her late 80’s in the snow in the yard, saving her from freezing to death”

–“Single father of five who wore an “In Need of Kidney” T-shirt to Disney World over the summer underwent a kidney transplant last week in New York.”

–“A Dutch startup wants to collect cigarette butts by training crows”

–“Scientists Just Got Closer to Speaking Dolphin” (computers and algorithms are decoding their clicks, squeaks, and whistles).

–“A police officer in the U.K. is being praised online for going above the call of duty when he serenaded a 93-year-old man with a private piano recital during a home visit after a burglary.” Cop sat down and played Chopin in the old guy’s living room.

Time to roll out and saddle up. I believe we’re at full strength on the K103 morning show today (assuming West Linn PD picked up all the spike strips on 205!)….