Friday, February 2, 2018

Here we come a-Dripping into a Friday, February 2, 2018! Happy St. Groundhogs’s Day. I’m sure we’ll have the writ from the holy rat by the time you read this, and I’ll post it when I have a moment. Anyway. Portland’s temperatures continue to exceed winter expectations, with highs of at least 50, and we’ll get the occasional light rinsing for the next few days, but hope is springing up for sunny and 60 degree weather by the middle of next week. Sunrise 7:30 AM–our next 7:30 AM sunrise is in October–and sunset’s at 5:19 PM.

It’s Wear Red Day, and we do so in awareness of the health of our hearts. Women, in particular, but really, anyone who has a heart needs to take care of it, so it takes care of you.

So let’s check the news ticker…

…and deal with this first: today may be the day we read the four-page report by staffers of the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee using classified information to accuse the FBI of an anti-Trump bias in the Russia investigation. Ardently-Trumpist talk show hosts are hyping it as worse than Watergate and assert it could send people to jail. The other side says it’s a flagrant attempt to obstruct the Mueller probe as it closes in. The FBI itself, bucking the prez, says the memo leaves out critical information and crucial context, and the intelligence community is outraged by politicians disseminating classified information that will put sources and methods at risk.

All 955 gold miners who were trapped underground for more than a day in South Africa because of a power outage were hoisted to the surface today unharmed.

Portland police officers, many of them assigned to the Gang Enforcement Team, have seized 17 guns in the last two weeks, as part of Operation Safe Winter. Which it hasn’t been; five lives have been lost to gun violence in Portland so far this year.

The shooting of two students by a 12-year old girl at a school in Los Angeles is now said to be accidental. Police believe she brought the weapon to school but it discharged unintentionally when she reached for her backpack. Authorities don’t know how she got the gun or why she brought it to school.

Two toddlers escaped from the Kiddie Academy daycare in Vancouver and were saved from running into a busy street by two separate parents who spotted them in the parking lot.

A bicyclist was hit and killed by a freight train in Canby.

Artist Sarah Farahat has been chosen to create a mural at the Hollywood Transit Center to memorialize the heroes of last year’s white supremacist MAX attack.

Portlanders who live in the high-rise condos on the South Waterfront are being kept awake by a white light beaming brightly from atop the Tilikum Crossing. Turns out that the FAA-required red Aircraft Avoidance Beacon is malfunctioning, and has reverted to a flashing white safety mode. It’ll be repaired as soon as parts arrive, and until they do, TriMet says it’s sorry about that.

The Eagle Creek fire in the Columbia Gorge was started five months ago today.

Katy Perry–one of the top recording artists on the planet–is at the Moda Center tonight. The crowd is in for a night of pyrotechnics, choreography, and radio hit after radio hit. I’ve seen the set list for this tour. She opens with Witness; Dark Horse is third, Teenage Dream is fifth, California Gurls is seventh, Roar doesn’t come until the end, at #18, and then for the encore, it’s Firework. And that will literally be true.

Super Bowl weekend. Kickoff at 3:30 PM Sunday. New England vs. Philadelphia, in case you’ve forgotten. Anybody care enough to pick? Justin Timberlake headlines the halftime show, his third time, more than anyone else. (Katy Perry’s done it once).

Free admission to the Oregon Zoo tomorrow! (The zoo has a pygmy hedgehog to who will be deployed at 10 AM to make his weather prediction today).

Groundhog Day. We’re standing by breathlessly for the update from Punxatawney. The movie, by the way, wasn’t filmed in Punxatawney, PA, a borough of 6,000 an hour’s drive outside Pittsburgh. The town where Bill Murray lived a single day over and over until he got it right is Woodstock, Illinois, near the Wisconsin state line, where there are plaques at all of the key locations, that visitors can see on a walking tour.

HHH etc:

–“Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice – 90 of 90 mice cured of cancers with lymphoma, similar results observed in colon, breast, and melanoma cancers.”

–“Cat-detecting K9 locates passenger’s missing “Mr. Kitty” at Sea-Tac in just five minutes-wedged under a rock in a water feature.”

–“Dispatcher and Police Help NJ Mom After She Calls 911 to Report She Has No Food for Kids.” (The first call-taker said, sorry this is not a 911 problem. But another dispatcher overheard, and took action)

–“Anonymous NFL player donates bone marrow to Kansas City man”

–“Firefighters Save 14 Dogs, Puppies From Burning Detroit Home”

We have a rich and fun weekend planned, dinners out with dear friends on two successive nights; then, we hope, some Super Bowl background entertainment in a house full of people who could not possibly care less who wins. Happy weekend!