Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Morning has broken! But we’ll try to fix it, on this Tuesday, February 6, 2018, beginning with one word about the weather: spring fever! The sun will part the clouds and shoo away any showers that dare arise, and Portland will see a high of 57. As of today we have ten hours of daylight, more than we’ve seen since the beginning of November, and growing at nearly three minutes a day. Time for our inner bear to un-hibernate.

Sunrise 7:25 AM, sunset 5:24 PM.

Nobody knows if it’s a sharp little blip or the start of something big and bad, but the stock market has been slaloming downward for days, now, and the last two have been special: the Dow bellyflopped over a thousand points yesterday, on top of Friday’s beastly loss of 666, utterly wiping out the year’s gains.  There are so many factors behind this, but I think a lot of people have been secretly expecting it. We have not yet heard the president taking ownership of the market’s descent, as he did its ascent. (Radio Daddio’s approach: don’t panic, play the long game, keep your powder dry and grab some bargains when your gut says the time is right).

Even as yesterday’s hideous stock numbers were scrolling at the bottom of the TV screen, President Trump gave a speech at an Ohio factory where he said it was “un-American” and “treasonous” not to applaud him during the State of the Union. (Which brings to mind a passage from the Gulag Archipelago by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, for those who’ve read that chilling history). The White House this morning said Trump was speaking with “tongue in cheek.”

Governor Kate Brown’s State of the State address focused on plugging a hole in Oregon’s preparation of young people for jobs in the modern economy. Businesses have to reach out of state to fill one of every four jobs in the tech sector, and it’s almost as bad in manufacturing. The jobs are there, but enough candidates aren’t, and to remedy that, Brown proposes a 300 million dollar program of hands-on career education titled “Future Ready Oregon.” Some lawmakers I’ve heard interviewed were concerned that she didn’t seem to get behind a carbon tax on big polluters, or make a priority of fixing the overburdened and underperforming foster care system.

Hood River County is considering a 2% sales tax to cover a budget shortfall.

Two women were swept away by strong waves while digging for clams, miles apart, on the south Washington coast.

Olympic hopeful Jackie Wiles has flown back to Portland after a leg injury in a crash ended her chances of participating in this year’s Winter Games.

Good work by an inmate work crew, which cleared two tons of trash from a homeless camp near Sunnybrook Road in Clackamas County. The before-and-after photos are quite stunning.

Teachers and students showed up at Westview High School Monday morning to find that somebody broke into several portable classrooms and stole almost 40 iPads and a couple of projectors. The joke is on the thief: the iPads had security software, and have been remotely disabled.

I see on Flickr that they’ve done the first major concrete pour for the new gym at Grant High School.

It was during NBA all-star weekend 30 years ago today that Michael Jordan leaped from the foul line, 15 feet from the basket, and seemed to float through the air as he slammed in the dunk that gave rise to the nickname “Air Jordan.”

The news broke during yesterday’s morning show that Paul Simon is doing one last tour and then hanging it up, except for an occasional appearance to benefit the environment. His “Homeward Bound-the Farewell Tour” will bring him to Portland on May 19.

It was on this day in 1996 that an atmospheric river from tropical headwaters began dumping humongous amounts of rain on the Northwest–on top of the saturated soil. Worse, the warm precipitation caused an unusually deep low-elevation mountain snowpack to melt and fill the rivers. Flood warnings were issued. There was much more to come in the days ahead.

Actor John Mahoney has passed away. He was the kindly-faced, kind of cranky retired smart-alec cop father on “Frazier.”

It’s the birthday of Babe Ruth, Bob Marley…and Ronald Reagan, who once said these words: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

Lovely Beaverton is celebrating is 125th birthday this week. They’ll have cake at the city council meeting today, so let’s all come for a slice! Actual birthday is Saturday. Its native name, Chakeipi, meant Place of the Beavers in the language of the Atfalati band of the Kalapuya Indians, who settled there 10,000 years ago, and immediately noticed that 217 isn’t wide enough.

It was on this day in 1971 that Alan Shepard became the first man to hit a golf ball on the airless, low-gravity Moon. Physicists estimate that it traveled 2.5 miles, and stayed in the air for 70 seconds.

H(4A)2H!

–“In-N-Out is scouting locations in Salem”

–“A 13-year-old boy with cancer donates the money supplied to him from the Make-a-Wish foundation to children in Haiti”

–“Animals are using Colorado’s wildlife crossings, reducing collisions”

–“Puerto Rican couple gifted new car after relocating to Wichita”

–“West Virginia basketball fans step up and finish the National Anthem when the singer’s mic fails”

–“Republican And Democratic Legislators Team Up For Net Neutrality In Washington State”

–“Children patients drive in mini Teslas to operating room. This reduces stress and might improve recovery. Hospital is expanding to twelve mini cars”

–“Man in wheelchair on journey to shake hands with someone in every state”

–“The Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe.”

The day is young, but that’s what’s up so far. Thank you for reading, and for feeding the Facebook algorithms with likes (or frownies. It’s OK). ! We’ll tame this beast yet!