Good morning to you! It’s Wednesday, February 7, 2018, and here’s your informational eyeopener ambiguously called the Daily Drip. Portland will see a dripless day, in theory, with sunpops and highs of 55. It’s looking now like we’ll get rain tomorrow night, followed by a harmless freeze on Saturday night, then on with the countdown to Spring! Sunrise 7:23 AM, sunset 5:26 PM.
The heat is on state Sen. Jeff Kruse to resign following an independent investigator’s report that he’s been sexually harassing women state senators and others for years. Kruse told the investigator that he has “no recollection” of the behavior. Both the Governor and the Speaker of the House are calling for Kruse’s departure.
OHSU has “terminated” what it admits is an “archaic transplant policy” that prevented undocumented immigrants from receiving organ transplants. The change came after the ACLU of Oregon revealed that a 46-year-old mother of four was denied a desperately-needed liver transplant. OHSU says it “deeply regrets the pain this has caused the family.” This clears the way, legally, for her to be put on the waiting list, but to my knowledge she has not had the transplant.
Wishing to one-up the French troops tromping down the Champs-Elysees while F16 fighter jets roared overhead last Bastille Day, President Trump has ordered the US military to conduct a grand military parade in Washington, D.C. later this year. Date, cost, all those things…unknown. It might even rival the old Soviet May Day parades, which kept that populace in line for decades.
Didja see the majestic Falcon Heavy launch? Seemed like good old American times! The world’s biggest rocket, built by Space-X, carried a gleaming-red Tesla roadster with a mannequin behind the wheel toward an elliptical orbit between the sun and Mars. And it gracefully and spectacularly landed two rockets that will be reused. There was one failure: its third rocket splashed into the Atlantic at 300 miles per hour.
Rescue workers in Taiwan are racing to save people trapped in collapsed buildings after a mag 6.4 earthquake.
The Dow begins the day at 24,912, after the newly-volatile pendulum swung 500 points in the positive direction yesterday.
A team from the Interior Department had the unenviable assignment of coming to Salem to try to explain the Trump order to drill for oil off the West Coast. A man from Interior said, “we’re here to hear about the environment to make sure we understand areas off the coast that might be impacted.” But, unhelpfully, no public testimony was permitted. So opponents from many walks of Oregon life were left to demonstrate on the Capitol steps with signs that read, “No Drill, No Spill,” “The Oceans are Rising and So are We,” and “Offshore Drilling is Whaley Bad.”
The City of Portland has now begun installed those 20 MPH speed limit signs on neighborhood streets. They’re starting on the eastern city limit (which jags around generally between 175th and 162nd), then working westward.
Saw a bumper sticker while idling on I-5…”You are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.”
We don’t know who did it or why, but a man was stabbed on the westbound MAX platform at SW 17th and Morrison outside Providence Park. He’s expected to survive.
New Seasons is doing OK in the Northwest, but the healthy food chain’s aggressive expansion in California isn’t working out as planned. One store there is closing, others on the drawing board are being scrapped, and the CEO is leaving for new pastures.
With Paul Simon tickets now on Amex pre-sale, here’s something new for our rich concert schedule: fresh off its Grammy win, Portland-based Portugal. The Man (that’s the group’s name and punctuation) has scheduled two late-August concerts at McMenamin’s Edgefield. (I’m hoping to hear the Maryhill summer lineup soon. We love that place).
If you’re vacationing in Hawaii, here’s a way you can make the trip home less regretful…Alaska Airlines has put out a call for volunteers flying to Portland or other West Coast cities on non-stop flights from Kauai (of which PDX has four per week), where the local Humane Society takes in too many animals to re-home in the Islands. So they send dogs to mainland shelters. The cost of the flight for each dog flying alone is $400, but if accompanied by a passenger, then the dog’s flight is free. If you’d like a wet-nosed hitchhiker, let Alaska know.
A daycare in the Tri-Cities is accused of waxing the eyebrows of two little kids who had unibrows, prized in many cultures.
The Pacific Northwest Sportsmen’s Show opens today at the Portland Expo Center.
“H/4/H/H (A spoonful of journalistic sugar, to help us stomach everything else):
–“Former Marine saves mother, dog after all 3 fall into freezing pond
–“Sneaky dad leaves money at his daughter’s house every time he visits but he never tells her that he’s done it.”
–“Downtown LA meters will accept donations for the homeless”
–“Blind man who’s scared of dogs is getting a guide horse instead”
–“Game Of Thrones’ Creators Will Write And Produce A New Series Of Star Wars Films”
–“Minister blesses medical center on the spot where she was abandoned as a baby”
–“Man transforms his home into a sanctuary for 300 cats”
–“Fourteenth time the charm? Mother of 13 sons expecting another child”
We’re into a Wednesday. Thank you for reading, and letting Facebook’s algorithms know that this is not a bot. Enjoy our Spring preview. Some people report seeing bees visiting crocuses. I’ll be happy when I see pitchers and catchers–in one week!
Portland's Daily Drip 