Monday, January 14, 2019

Morning, you! How are you doing? It’s Monday, January 14, 2019, and thanks for dropping by The Drip for a quick look at news and whatnot. This’ll be a sunny day with highs around 50, and if it’s a little windy where you are, count yourself lucky, because that means the air you breathe is cleaner than, say, Eugene, where the lack of a Gorge breeze is allowing car exhaust and fireplace smoke to remain trapped in the stagnant air of a wintertime inversion. Sunrise 7:47 AM, sunset 4:52 PM.

This is Day 24 of our government’s shutdown. There’s nothing resembling progress toward ending it. A White House economic adviser said that furloughed workers are better off, because they’ll ultimately get back pay for these days off, and don’t have to burn vacation days.

Two surfers who were trapped and cornered up against a cliff a little north of Cannon Beach were rescued by a working-without-pay Coast Guard crew using a helicopter and a 150-foot-long hoist.

Governor Kate Brown’s husband Dan visited the Mt. Hood National Forest Sno-Park, and was appalled at the conditions in the bathrooms during the shutdown. So he cleaned them up, hauled 140 pounds of trash to the Oregon City landfill station, and sent a bill for the $28.00 tipping and transfer fee to President Trump.

Oregon’s lawmakers will take the oath of office this morning, and Governor Brown will be sworn into her new term this afternoon. She will immediately deliver her combined inaugural address and State of the State message. They’ll spend a week getting organized, introducing bills and appointing committees, as the Oregon Legislature begins its 80th session next week.

A pair of first-year nurses in the Providence Portland system, on a road trip to Central Oregon, happened upon an accident on US 97 where a pedestrian was hit. So they hopped out of their Subaru, did CPR on the victim…and saved his life.

A sailboat got stuck under the Interstate Bridge. It was hauled away at low tide.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had an in-person chat with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman over several issues, but we don’t know if this was one: The Oregonian reported Sunday that at least five Saudi citizens attending college in Oregon were arrested for serious crimes–and then vanished before they faced justice. They’re given phony passports and flown home. They include two accused rapists, two hit-and-run drivers (including the one who hit and killed that high school girl on Hawthorne), and a guy with child porn on his computer.

Teachers are on strike in Los Angeles today. The district has hired subs, but they’re no substitute.

California’s PG&E is getting ready to file Chapter 11, as it copes with the fallout from deadly wildfires that may have been caused by power lines.

Washington DC is under almost six inches of snow today.

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NFL’s Final Four are set:

Rams and Saints, Sunday at noon on Fox
Patriots and Chiefs, Sunday 3:40 on CBS

The Blazers came up one long basket short of the Denver Nuggets, losing 116-113.

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Today would have been the 100th birthday of the late Andy Rooney, whose crusty irks and homespun truths were a satisfying chaser to the con artists and opera stars profiled weekly on “60 Minutes.” No story written about him has ever omitted the word “curmudgeon.” Some of my favorite Andy Rooneyisms:

“We didn’t shock them, and we didn’t awe them in Baghdad. The phrase makes us look like foolish braggarts. The president ought to fire whoever wrote that for him.”

“Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.”

“I try to look nice. I comb my hair, I tie my tie, I put on a jacket, but I draw the line when it comes to trimming my eyebrows. You work with what you got.”

“Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.”

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Yesterday was the day of the No Pants Max Ride.

PDX-centric “The Simpsons” premiered on this day in 1990.

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Let’s give our Monday attitudes a little nudge, with stories of kindness and hope and stuff…

–“Canadian air traffic controllers buy pizza for U.S. colleagues hit by shutdown”

–“Wife of furloughed U.S. government worker wins $100K Virginia lottery”

–“Rescuer of 11-year-old found facedown in snow was in the ‘right place at the right time'”

–“Watch Austrian Train Workers Leap to the Rescue of a Snowed-In Goat”

–“Teacher sketches portraits of entire class of 27 pupils”

Details in the Daily Drip coffee cup, below!

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This is the week of the expanding Moon; it’ll be full by Sunday. And that’s not all…there’s a Blood Moon, Super Moon, Wolf Moon, total lunar eclipse this next Sunday evening, perfectly visible from Portland–if clouds don’t get in the way. In fact, the entire eclipse from start to finish will be completely visible in all 48 contiguous states, weather permitting–making this America’s Eclipse! Now, the long-range forecast calls for rain, but I’m betting that there will be breaks in the clouds. Eclipse party, Sunday night! (And I’m taking the next Monday morning away, to sleep off whatever lunacy may evolve).

Have a very fine day!