Morning, Daily Drip crew! Here’s a new day, named Thursday, April 12, 2018! it’s a little showery, a tad windy, a bit bouncy for folks in the air, and highs of 50. Maybe a little more sun than yesterday. But it’s cold! All of 42 degrees on the deck here at Drip Central. The winter weather advisory continues in the Cascades until 7 tonight, with the snow level a Januaryish 2000 feet. Sunrise 6:30 AM, sunset 7:53 PM.
Let’s lead off with the Portland Trail Blazers! They beat the Utah Jazz last night, won the NW Division title, and begin the playoffs against the New Orleans Pelicans Saturday night at 7:30 at the Moda Center. Playoff time–especially when the team goes deep–is when Portland really gets into the Blazers. Rip City, baby!
It’s time for justice to be served on a Portland guy who pulled up alongside a traditionally-dressed Muslim couple, ordered them back to their f-ing country, called them terrorists, then mimicked shooting them three times. He pleaded no contest to second-degree intimidation and will be sentenced next month. This happened just two days after that white supremacist (you know what) killed two men who stood up to defend two Muslim women on a Max train. This guy was very apologetic, and blamed it on the political toxins he absorbed from Facebook.***
Tweet-of-the-day (so far) from President Trump: “Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our “Thank you America?””
They’re searching the powerful Eel River, but California authorities have not found the car that may have been carrying a family of four along the Redwood Highway on a homeward-bound road trip from Portland last Friday. The Eel is an incredibly dynamic 200-mile river–low in the fall but raging in the spring–and it’s a tough river to search: it carries the highest load of suspended sediment of any river in the United States because of landslides in the Northern California coastal mountains. Plus it’s in the direct path of powerful Pineapple Express storms, like the one that came pounding in off the ocean over the weekend.
Today the Multnomah County Commission decides whether to proceed with the sale of the outrageously never-used Wapato Jail to a developer for a fifth of the $58 million it cost taxpayers to build. There are alternative proposals to convert it to a facility for homeless people.
The climbing community in Bend is mourning the death of 20-year old Alexander Reed, who fell 200 feet at Smith Rock State Park in Central Oregon. A friend remembers him on Facebook for “his open mind, purely kind heart, dorky jokes, fierce determination to crush his dreams….We love you Alex, hope they have your favorite Meatloaf albums up there.”
A newcomer is unpacking his trunk at the Oregon Zoo: it’s Samson, a 19-year old Asian elephant, who’s here to perhaps do the baby elephant dance with currently single Rose-Tu.
Distracted Driving Awareness Week continues with an event today at Portland International Raceway, where several distracted driving race courses are set up for reporters to embarrass themselves on-camera. I’ve seen some pretty terrible road behavior lately, and not just by drivers. One guy literally ran two stop signs, and when I pulled up next to him at a light, he was staring intently at his phone. Downtown yesterday (for Komen’s annual luncheon), I waited patiently at a green as the following pedestrians moseyed across against the light: one PSU student, three chattering millennials, and four Portland firefighters.
Oregon author Beverly Cleary, whose character statues still grace her old neighborhood’s Grant Park, is 102 years old today. She lives in a retirement home in the Carmel Valley. (Though Ms. Cleary is an Oregonian by birth and upbringing–on NE Hancock in Portland, not Klickitat, where some of her stories are set–she and her husband eloped to California after her Presbyterian parents disapproved of her Catholic fiance).
An abandoned newborn girl is doing fine after being found, umbilical cord attached, in a baby dropoff box in Indiana, where a Safe Haven Law allows babies under a month old to be left at any police department, firehouse or hospital without any criminal charges. The box has a heated mattress and a silent alarm that immediately alerts first responders, and a firefighter found the newborn one minute after she was dropped off. Oregon has the same law; Washington has just a 3-day window.
Australian singer and actor Rick Springfield plays at the Schnitz tonight. His website says “This is a special Rick Springfield show featuring Rick’s FULL BAND performing with the Oregon Symphony.” Sounds cool! I think we’ve given away some tickets on K103. “Jessie’s Girl,” the #1 song in the summer of ’81, was a true story. But the friend whose sweetie he was lusting after was named Gary, and he never knew the girl’s name. They were all in a stained glass class together. I hear that Springfield, heartthrob that he is, has a special move in which he is given a bouquet of red roses—and strums his guitar with it, sending pedals flying everywhere as the music plays.
Now the part that some people scroll right to–it’s been suggested that I shrink the rest of the DD and do only this***–it’s Headlines for a Happy Heart!
–“Albuquerque, N.M., government drives van to popular panhandling locations twice a week with offers to pay for work on beautification projects in the city.”
–“58-year old lady uses ladder, saves 20 workers trapped in fire.”
–“Homeless Woman Flags Man Down To Help Save Woman From Train Tracks.”
–“Alzheimer’s Disease Damage Completely Erased in Human Cells by Changing Structure of One Protein.”
–“3-year-old thriving after becoming first to get world’s smallest mechanical heart valve during medical trial.”
***This, and other DD thoughts, are a topic we’ll talk about during Dripstock II..which is…gasp…tomorrow! If it occurs to you, and you have time, make yourself a name tag, so people will know you’re no stranger. That worked extremely well last year.
As Charlie Osgood used to say, see you on the radio!
Portland's Daily Drip 