Good morning! We’re blinking into a Wednesday, October 3, 2018, and it looks like we’ll squeeze in another dry day or two, with highs in the mid 60’s, before Friday–when this run of sparkling fall weather comes to a full sop. Sunrise 7:11 AM, sunset 6:46 PM.
Bombshell testimony in a college basketball corruption trial implicates the University of Oregon in a bidding war for the talents of a highly-pursued recruit. Lawyers for an Addidas executive accused of paying players said in court that “Oregon, a Nike school, offered Brian Bowen an astronomical amount of money if he’d go to Oregon.” U of O says it takes the claim seriously and will monitor the trial for further developments.
Based on “a massive trove of confidential documents,” the New York Times has produced an 8-page, 14,000-word financial investigation which concludes that thanks to his parents, Donald Trump was pulling in $200,000 a year when he was 3 years old, and a millionaire by age 8; hundreds of millions would follow from his father through “dubious tax schemes and outright fraud.” While the New York Taxing Authority says it is vigorously pursuing the reports, a Trump lawyer says “The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.”
News today is full of sound bites of Trump mocking and imitating Dr. Christine Blasey Ford while the crowd cheered during a rally in Mississippi. The FBI inquiry into the case could wrap up today.
Credit the era we live in for this: the discussion of sexual assault in high school is front-and-center among kids of that age now. Students at Portland’s Madison High staged a walkout over the administration’s handling of an off-campus assault on a female student-athlete. The details are in dispute, but what’s clear is that young women are more emboldened to speak up, and they are.
You know the wildly unpopular “leaf fee” that City Hall’s been charging residents ($15 annually) and businesses ($65) in Portland’s nice tree-canopied neighborhoods? It’s gone. Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, newly in charge of the Bureau of Transportation, took the rare step of eliminating the fee, and says leaf removal will go on as scheduled starting November 9, with the cost coming out of the snowplow and pothole budget.
Mayor Ted Wheeler today will proclaim next Monday to be Indigenous Peoples Day, Portland’s annual cultural retort to the federal holiday of Columbus Day.
The late Les Schwab was born 101 years ago today. He built a hell of a business and earned a happy re-tire-ment.
Lindsey Buckingham turns 69 today. The guy who played lead on most every major Fleetwood Mac hit is out of the band now, but does a solo show at Revolution Hall in Portland on Sunday night.
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Did you experience an internet outage? The Portland Public Schools’ web site crashed late yesterday, and when it returned, they tweeted that it was part of “an external issue affecting areas up and down the West Coast.” Which reminds me: today’s the day of the nationwide emergency alert test. If it works, we’ll all be blasted out of our socks at 11:18, for a rehearsal of a system that someday may give us a very short warning before a very big earthquake. That leads me to ask: if you had 10 seconds before the ground cracks beneath you, what would you do?
My old hometown Chicago Cubs missed opportunity after opportunity, and finally gave up a game-winning single to a .170-hitting backup catcher in the 13th inning, as the Colorado Rockies took the NL wild-card game and move on in the playoffs. The Yankees play the (I wish) future Portland Athletics in the AL wild-card game tonight at 5 on ESPN.
The Winterhawks are on the road against Kamloops tonight at 7. The puck drops on the NHL season tonight.
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Good stuff, coming right up!
–“Paris to build memorial for WWI animal heroes”
–“Toys R Us revival in the works??”
–“General Mills Brings Back Iconic Fruity-Shaped Trix Cereal”
–“Surgeon operates on boy, then sews up his teddy bear”
–“Self-proclaimed ‘Old Coots’ offer life advice at farmers market. Their slogan: ‘It’s Probably Bad Advice, But It’s Free.’”
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On this day in the year 1226, St. Francis of Assisi–the Patron Saint of Ecology–died at age 44 while singing the 142nd Psalm. His most famous words:
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.”
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All I’ve got. Early forecast is that next week may be Dripless…I have vacation days to burn. Think I just might visit Portland!
Portland's Daily Drip 