Morning, l’il buddies! Your radio daddio here, tapping out the Daily Drip for Tuesday, August 7, 2018. Portland’s weather is brutally hot for the next three days, with highs of 95 today and 98 the following two, and all that’s keeping us below 100 is that smudgy haze in the heavens. Sunrise 6:01 AM…sunset 8:30 PM.
The haze above the Northwest is flowing from multiple wildfires to the south, including the 441-square-mile Mendocino Complex blaze, now officially the largest in California history. Other fires continue spreading outside Grants Pass in Oregon. Air quality there is unhealthy, but it’s currently good in Portland and the Willamette Valley.
Crazy scene in the afternoon rush hour yesterday as a guy with a knife carjacked an SUV in the Pearl, hit a pedestrian, then crashed on I-5 at Capitol Highway, where he stole another car with a woman inside and crashed that one too in Multnomah Village while under pursuit by police. Everyone involved will live, with the suspect currently locked up.
An internal review is underway, but both Mayor Ted Wheeler and Police Chief Danielle Outlaw are pleased with how the force handled the right-left faceoff on Saturday. Their bottom line is that two sides were kept separated and the worst was avoided. Counterprotesters say that cops protected the alt-right side while brutalizing members of the left, leaving at least one man with a head injury from a flash-bang cartridge, and a woman with serious burns.
A Gresham man has been ordered to pay $1600 and meet personally with leaders of the Muslim community to make amends after he pulled up next to a couple at a stoplight and shouted at a pregnant woman, “take the (deleted) burka off” while mimicking shooting them with his index finger.
Nighttime security is now on the prowl after somebody sprayed “Yuppies Out” and “Yuppies Death” on new homes under construction in the 600 block of NE Going.
Today is primary election day in Washington, and the state is paying for stamps, so no excuses! Senator Maria Cantwell has 28 people vying for her seat, and it’s likely she’ll face longtime TV anchor and former GOP chair Susan Hutchison in the fall. It’s election day for an open seat in Congress in Ohio, long held by Republicans, but Democrats hope to flip it; polls say it’ll be tight.
Today is Military Appreciation Day at the Clark County Fair. Bull riding and “Mutton Busting” finals are at 7 tonight.
This was the date in 1964 when Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving LBJ the power to wage war in Vietnam. Oregon’s maverick Wayne Morse was one of only two “no” votes, and I dug out the transcript. He said on the Senate floor, “I don’t know why we think, just because we’re mighty, that we have the right to try to substitute might for right. It’s just as unsound when we do it as when Russia does it.”
Happy birthday to the transistor radio! The first was sold in Japan on this date in 1955. When I was 8 and living in Libertyville, Illinois, I curled up each night with the transistor under my pillow and heard people having good times on WGN (Cubs!) and WLS (Rock and roll! Dick Biondi!) and dreamed, “Someday. But someplace nicer than Chicago.” Every bit came true!
Beaverton High graduate (and Pink Martini guest vocalist) Ari Shapiro is celebrating his third anniversary as host of “All Things Considered.”
****
Today is Garrison Keillor’s 76th birthday. Apart from the conduct which exiled him from the garden of public radio, words flow like midwestern honey from this crusty Minnesotan, so we’ll look to the scribe of Lake Wobegon for today’s Daily Drip QOTD. (By the way, Keillor lost the handwritten manuscript of his first novel at Portland’s Union Station in the 60s. Let me know if you find it!)
“Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.”
“When you wage war on the public schools, you’re attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You’re not a conservative, you’re a vandal.”
“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.”
“Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.”
****
Pour a little sugar on me, baby!
–“Police officer jumps off overpass to save boy’s life in daring New York rescue”
–“This teen was auctioning his pig to fight cancer. Four bidders in a row donated it right back…quadrupling what he raised.”
–“Elderly men escape nursing home to go to heavy metal festival”
–“Viral Louisiana supermarket employee who let autistic customer stock shelves gets $100G for college.”
Coming soon to the DD…a really easy way to link to these stories!
-30-
Portland's Daily Drip 