Friday, June 22, 2018

The words seem redundant…but Happy Friday! Here’s the Daily Drip for June 22, 2018, pecked away on ancient PC that’s so old we it bought at Circuit City with a check. Hang on while I boot up the 3600 baud modem. Portland’s rollicking weather looks like it’s settled down…though I wrote the same at this time yesterday, and whoops, a rogue thunderstorm volunteered to go mavericking across the Metro. The most we expect today is morning drizzle from the marine clouds (you missed Fleet Week, Marines!) which will gradually clear up, with a happy-hour high of 74. Sunrise 5:22 AM sunset 9:03 PM.

We’ll have **one second** less daylight than yesterday.

On this fifth day of the tent city protest outside ICE HQ on Macadam, an Antifa activist mined LinkedIn to find the home addresses and personal phone numbers of ICE employees–and posted them online. Reporters tried to call some of those employees for comment, but their mailboxes were already jammed.

Add Alaska Airlines to the list of carriers declining to fly children who have been separated from their parents.

The Pentagon has been ordered to supply 20,000 beds at old military bases for migrant children.

Melania Trump made a visit to children confined near the border in Texas, but it’s her curious wardrobe selection that’s getting attention. Inscribed in large words on the back of her coat were the words, “I really don’t care. Do U?” Her husband tweeted that it’s a reference, somehow, to “the fake news media,” but Melania’s office says, no, there’s no message at all. A BBC commentator offered, “It stretches credulity that the first lady would make the effort to fly down to Texas, visit children, talk to staff and engage in this heartbreaking story only to deliberately undermine it with a callous choice of clothing. I give her the benefit of the doubt on compassion – but if she chose to wear this without thinking, it was pretty tone deaf.”

ODOT has placed “on leave” the Oregon DMV worker who opined about immigrant families that “I personally think they should shoot them all at the border and call it good. It’ll save us hard working AMERICAN’S billions of dollars on our taxes!! 😉” Meantime a member of the Oregon Army National Guard will be “disciplined” for posting on Facebook that “they’re lucky we aren’t executing them.”

The House passed a farm bill that would tighten food stamp eligibility, cutting some 400,000 households from benefits, and bumping thousands of kids from free and reduced-charge school lunches. It goes to the Senate.

The administration is now requiring US Geological Survey scientists to get approval before giving interviews. Usually when I’ve talked with them, it’s when a certain volcano is erupting ash all over us. Not a good time to be jumping through hoops.

A woman who was ripped on meth led cops on an I-5 chase that began in Cowlitz County, and ended when they blocked her from going the wrong way onto SR 14.

A five-week closure of the Portland Aerial Tram begins tomorrow, so crews can tune up the rope track and do whatever will make Jean and Walt happy (those are the names of the pods). Shuttle buses will carry most folks up and down the hill–it’s a half-hour drive. Or you can walk it in the same amount of time.

Oregonian columnist Steve Duin tweets that he was driving home from playing tennis when a car started following him, laying on its horn. Steve’s known for taking a controversial stand or two, so he kept driving, but the honking continued, so finally at NE Sandy and Glisan he pulled over. That’s when a family returned to him the wallet that he’d left on top of his Subaru.

Pulitzer-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer, described by NPR as “a principled conservative beacon,” has died. George Carlin passed ten years ago today.

The Blazers, already a young team, drafted 19-year old guard Anfernee Simons, and made a second round trade for Duke’s Gary Trent, Jr, whose Dad played with the Blazers in the 1990’s.

From the fun-stuff calendar…and please add what I’m missing…The Decemberists are at Edgefield tonight and tomorrow night, Indigo Girls are at the Zoo Saturday night. It’s the weekend of the Tigard Festival of Balloons. Portland’s famous World Naked Bike Ride is tomorrow night. And get the grill ready…summer chinook salmon season opens on the Columbia from Bonneville Dam clear down to the Astoria-Megler Bridge.

On the birthday list: Meryl Streep, Cyndi Lauper, Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner, who attended David Douglas High School, and Kris Kristofferson. Funny story about Kris. After college at Oxford he was an Army helicopter pilot, then got a job flying crews to oil and gas rigs on the Louisiana coast–while also working a weekend side-hustle sweeping floors at Columbia Records in Nashville so he could make connections in the music world. He met June Carter, and asked her to give a tape of his songs to Johnny Cash. She did, but he ignored them. So what did Kris do? He landed a helicopter on Johnny Cash’s lawn. It wasn’t long before Cash had a number one hit with Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”

On this day in 1940, Hitler took over France.

All right! Headlines that might bring an accidental smile..

–“Vaccine can reverse Type 1 diabetes to almost undetectable levels, eight-year study shows”

–“Actors portraying super heroes pose as window washers at Akron Children’s Hospital”

–“High school students surprise World War II veteran with diploma 73 years later

–“A woman who was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer aged 14 has tracked down the nurse whose games and jokes helped her get through her treatment, 30 years later”

–“High school students surprise World War II veteran with diploma 73 years later”

Friday! Time to dash. Cheers! What are you up to?