Thursday, May 17, 2018

Time to wake up, fellow sleepy folks, for the early (and only) edition of the Daily Drip for Thursday, May 17, 2018. Portland’s weather is thus: Cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers in the morning, then partly sunny in the afternoon. Highs around 70. Light wind. Slight chance of showers creeping into the weekend by Sunday. But look up in the night sky, if the clouds fall apart, and you might see gigantic Jupiter at its brightest of the year, while Mars is coming on strong. It’ll be a Mars-watching summer. Sunrise 5:37 AM, sunset 8:37 PM.

Some major unfinished business today: the teen who started the fire that blackened the Gorge and did $40 million damage goes back to court in Hood River for a hearing to determine the amount of restitution he owes. The court has been collecting input from people and businesses who lost money, and lawyers predict the kid will be symbolically socked with the full amount–but with a vastly reduced payment plan to be worked out. His parents may be on the hook as well.

A 16-year old boy ignored his friends’ warnings and tried to crawl under a slow-moving freight train in Washougal last night. He’ll survive, but without his right foot.

Portland may be about to rename a 13-block downtown stretch of Stark St. in honor of Harvey Milk, the assassinated San Francisco city supervisor and early LGBTQ icon. Plenty of signatures have been turned in, many (like Mother’s Bistro) but not all businesses on the street support it, and there’ll be a hearing and City Council vote on June 14.

An OSP trooper rescued 10 puppies that were locked in a hot trunk without any water during a traffic stop on I-5 south of Medford. The car was on a trip from Southern California to Seattle. The puppies–a Husky/German Shepherd mix–were taken to the local animal shelter, and the driver was charged with animal neglect.

People who think the Internet should be equally accessible for everybody got a bit of cheer Wednesday as the Senate voted to roll back the FCC’s repeal of Obama-age net neutrality rules. This doesn’t stand a chance in the House, but it’ll be front and center during the election this fall.

Numbers for election geeks to think over: Clackamas County had the lowest turnout in Tuesday’s voting, with just 28.1% percent bothering to fill out the ballot and mail it in. Multnomah County had 30.7 while Washington County hit 30.8. Highest turnouts were in rural counties, led by Grant County, with 65.8%. Democrats turned out 43.2% of their voters, while Republicans topped them with 46.6%.

For folks who want to keep up on current affairs…some of our state’s gentlemen’s clubs will host performances by Stormy Daniels starting tonight. She’ll be at the Starz Cabaret in Bend this evening, then the Salem Starz tomorrow, and the Bridgeport Starz (actually tucked away along the other side of I-5 from Bridgeport) (not that I’ve ever been there) on Saturday night. Guaranteed, they’ll be packed houses…including people of both genders who are there to cheer on her cause. At least that’s what’s happened on her tour so far.

Hey this is kind of cool…Portland was visited this past weekend by a Houston author named Cindy Wang, whose fun habit is to come to a city, dive deeply into its many delights, and plant little crocheted critters around town with her contact info. Then she posts a detailed critique of the city on social media. Every one of them scattered around Portland was found. A sampling of her comments about Portland: “Every person I met was warm and friendly and didn’t mind me bombarding them with questions..y’all are so damn polite on the roads too!”…She went to the Gorge and says “there’s no scary wildlife to worry about on the trails?? It was all birds and butterflies. It was like being in a (insert adjective) Disney movie, it was amazing”…”Your tap water just tastes better…Things close surprisingly early!…every single person who had moved here from somewhere else loves it and doesn’t plan on leaving, and I can see why.”

I have some snowbird neighbors who drove home this week by way of Tonopah, Nevada…and say that town is seriously and disturbingly haunting. They were shaken. And pale…and they’ve been in Arizona!

Forty years ago on this very day, “Saturday Night Fever” was the first–and still only–soundtrack to have four #1 hits: “Night Fever,” “Stayin Alive,” “How Deep is Your Love,” and “If I Can’t Have You.”

Some other actual headlines, to offset the bad stuff…for details, just paste the headline in a Google search window, and the story’ll pop up….

–“Program donates graduation caps and gowns to ensure students don’t have to skip ceremonies”

–“Teacher to Donate Kidney to 10-year old Student She Doesn’t Know”

–“7-year-old gets Good Deed award for helping homeless”

–“Once Written Off for Dead, the Aral Sea Is Now Full of Life”

–“Painting Newly Attributed to Rembrandt On Show in Amsterdam”

So let’s go! Better yet, stay here, where it’s all birds and butterflies, like being in a (insert adjective) Disney movie. Have a great Thursday, and keep up the Dripster comments! I’m poaching more and more of them for use on K103!