Thursday, March 8, 2017

Good morning! It’s time to depart dreamland, and enter the mystic realm of reality, on this Thursday, March 8, 2018. Portland’s weather is rainy and breezy with 55 degree ambitions. A high wind warning is posted at the coast for gusts of 60 MPH, mainly from Manzanita southward. And Mt. St. Helens can expect two feet of fresh snow, which we’ll take over ash and lava any day. Sunrise 6:36 AM, sunset 6:07 PM.

It’s bizarre to think of a world without the internet, but that’s what the entire Portland Public School District and an unknown number of businesses and people endured yesterday when a cut to a Comcast fiber optic cable snuffed out service at 11:30 AM. Comcast expected to have it restored by midnight. So let me know if you can’t read this.

Making vacation plans? If you have kids, check their school calendar, as pre-Labor Day startups are spreading. Beaverton parents got a reminder yesterday that school begins on August 27, and though it was actually announced two years ago, parents are like, Whoa!!

Portland’s city council voted unanimously to make permanent a requirement that landlords pay moving expenses for renters who are evicted without cause, or are forced to move because of a rent hike of 10 percent or more. Included for the first time are landlords who rent out just one property, although there are exemptions that you can find if you try. It takes effect immediately.

Pearl District neighbors appear to have won their battle against a 17-story condo proposed for the Willamette River waterfront. It would have blocked their views and created a pinch point for bikes and pedestrians on the Willamette River Greenway, but City Council tentatively overruled the project’s design commission approval. Final vote later in the month.

This is not the Portland way of doing things: those crows that literally fell out of the sky in January were, according to state veterinarians, intentionally poisoned with a neurotoxin. That’s a violation of federal law. The city’s been experimenting this winter with a better solution: deploying hawks to drive the cackling and feculent crows away.

It’s International Women’s Day! In fact Mayor Ted Wheeler yesterday declared March to be Women’s History Month in Portland, in a proclamation that includes these words: “Women’s History Month is a time for all Portlanders to celebrate the paid and unpaid hard work of women who improve the livability of the City, working both inside and outside of the home. During Women’s History Month all people are encouraged to reflect on past victories and struggles of all women to create a society where the next generation’s success is based on the content of their character, not determined by their culture or gender.” The 2018 National Women’s History Month theme is “Nevertheless She Persisted,” a phrased coined by noted social critic Mitch McConnell.

President Trump hopes to make a proclamation today setting his steel and aluminum trade tariffs in motion, as White House staff has finally caught up from the bombshell he dropped unexpectedly last week–without talking points, a supporting statement from the press office, diplomatic messaging to allies, national security analysis, or similar steps used by Presidents Obama, Bush II, and Reagan when they announced tariffs.

A pair of stories in the Post and the Times say Trump ignored his lawyers’ advice and quizzed at least two witnesses after they’d been questioned in the Mueller probe. The NYT says Trump asked his former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, how his interview had gone with the investigators and whether they had been “nice.”

The Boston/NY/Philly corridor is shoveling out from the second ‘Noreaster in a week. Eighteen inches in sports. Thousands of flight scrubbed. A teacher on bus duty in New Jersey was holding an umbrella–that was hit by lightning. She’s OK but her arm is tingling.

A young Portlander named Jack Rice won $26,500 on Jeopardy on Tuesday night, then flamed out last night.

Former Blazer Clifford Robinson tweets that he had a tumor removed from his jaw last week–on top of a stroke that he suffered last year. Best wishes to Uncle Cliffy!

Tell me something good, please?

–“Cat Brings Her Kittens to Man Who Helped Her and Gave Her Food – She Won’t Let Him Go.”

–“NFL player on Colorado hike sees 72-year-old man’s devastating fall—and springs into action” (That’s Carolina Panther Christian McCaffrey, who played college football at Stanford).

–“Michelle Obama Had a Dance Party With the Little Girl Who Went Viral For Admiring Her Portrait”

–“Restaurant owner gives disabled teen surprise custom car”

–“McDonalds, recognizing International Women’s Day, is flipping its arches upside-down on all of its digital channels today…turning the M’s into W’s for women. In a related development, all M&M’s will be upside down today for the same reason. Buy a pack and check it out!”

That’s what I’ve rounded up thus far. Time to bounce into the radio shop for today’s merriment on 103.3. Happy Thursday!