Howdy, Y’all! It’s Wednesday, March 13, 2019. Following yesterday’s spitfire of hail and technicolor rainbows, Portland’s in the path of some leftover rain cells; but we’ll dry out and moderate under the mid-March sun to a high around 50. We’re still on track for Dave Salesky’s 65-degree IPA threshold on Sunday! Sunrise 7:27 AM, and sunset 7:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time.
Spring begins one week from today!
Airplane news: A Horizon flight encountered engine trouble shortly after takeoff from PDX, and made a safe and uneventful return to the airport. A passenger shot video of the ominously-still left engine, which looks disturbing, but the plane is built to fly just fine on one engine, and it did.
Concern over the flightworthiness of Boeing’s newest plane, the 737 Max 8, has led to its grounding almost everywhere but the US and Canada. The FAA stands by its insistence that the “aggregate safety performance from operators and pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX . . . shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft.” I’ve read posts from U.S. pilots who like the plane, but think it’s a matter of training in how to interface with what amounts to a robot, controlling the very important nose up vs nose down thing. President Trump has been on the phone with the CEO of Boeing, with whom he has a relationship and who donated to his inaugural, and who wants the planes kept in the sky. But I’ve seen no suggestion of influence on the FAA’s decision.
(I’m a user of the Flightradar24 app, which allows you to search flights by aircraft type, and this morning there are flocks of Max 8’s flying up and down the eastern seaboard, and only one over Europe, where none are allowed–a flight from Vilnius to Prague).
In what some see as an overdue sign that local prosecutors are treating white supremacist violence as the crime that is is, a 23-year old Vancouver man who belongs to the “Proud Boys” will be arraigned this morning in the unprovoked beating of a man at NE 12th and Broadway…way last June.
Oregon’s Senate has unanimously passed a bill requiring Holocaust education in schools.
A year and a half after someone’s thoughtless firecracker, nature is still paying the price. From the NWS yesterday afternoon: “A Flash Flood Watch has been issued for the Eagle Creek Burn Area due to a report of heavy rain. Rainfall amounts may be high enough to cause rockfall and debris flow in and near the Eagle Creek Burn Area.”
That college admissions bribery scandal, in which dozens of moneyed people including “Desperate Housewives” actress Felicity Huffman are accused of bribing their kids’ ways into elite colleges, is burning the tailfeathers of hardworking students and their parents all across the country. The notion that privilege and cash outrank intelligence and effort lends bitter support to the worst suspicions that people hold of the way things really work. But it’s satisfying to see it exposed, and more arrests may come. Among the busted is the new California owner of Oregon’s Benton-Lane winery, who stands accused of paying fifty grand to have his daughter take the SAT with help during the exam– after which it was allegedly “corrected”..and she still got only 1360 out of 1600. I feel a need to counteract this with your real-life stories of how you made it into your life’s work; for me, I scrubbed toilets at a 10,000 watt daytime station in high school and worked fulltime on the air through college, and was ultimately able to pick an awesome station when it came time to raise a family in the place I love. And that’s how I’d do it all again. How about you?
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During a momentary ceasefire in the partisan wars, President Trump signed a public lands bill–vigorously advocated by Oregon’s Ron Wyden– that will, among other things, save for future generations the Devil’s Staircase Wilderness, one of the last old growth forests in southern Oregon’s coastal mountains.
The activist podcast “Pod Save the People” originates from Portland tonight at Revolution Hall. Featured guest is City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty.
CJ McCollum had a blistering 23-point 4th quarter as the Blazers put away the LA Clippers 125-104.
The Oregon State Beavers took the nation’s No. 1 ranking into last night’s non-conference Civil War baseball game with Oregon….and beat the Ducks 7-6.
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The best part of waking up is something tasty in the Coffee Cup!
–“Man Narrowly Missed Ethiopian Airlines Flight That Crashed After Takeoff”
–“Late-blooming exercisers may get the same benefits as lifelong gym rats”
–“How a Detroit Tigers pitcher is saving 36 girls in Uganda”
–“Metalheads with kazoos drown out Westboro Baptist Church at Capitol”
–“He couldn’t hack it as a drug-sniffing dog. Now he’s conservation’s best friend”
Have you checked out the Coffee Cup lately? There’s good stuff there.
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That’s this morning’s report so far…your turn to comment on things…tune in 103.3 FM at 6:20 and see what shows up on the air!
Portland's Daily Drip 