Monday, June 3, 2019

“It was the third of June,” the mysterious Bobby Gentry song begins, and so it is! Monday, June 3, 2019, a day and a week promising maximum temperatures in the steady 70s, with no mention of precip until the latter part of the week–when occasional showers will greet the fleet and rain on the parade–but only a little. Sunrise 5:24 AM, sunset 8:53 PM, and as we approach the Solstice our total daylight is 15:29:22, up 1:19 from yesterday.

We’re coming off a weekend of festivities both in the sun and after sundown, and now it’s a full week of frivolity and Portland tradition mixed in with meaningful and poignant memories. This week we remember how the Allies overwhelmed the forces of fascism in Europe, and we mark the anniversary of the kidnapping of a little boy from a Portland school. But we also welcome the Rose Festival Navy Fleet in the most spectacular way ever, with jets roaring overhead, then we crown a Queen and fill our broad streets with a graceful parade. Thank you to the very many friends of our radio programme as well as the Daily Drip community who took time to see hello during the Starlight Parade!

There might be a festive ending after all to the frustration of the Canby High School Marching Band, which was packed up, uniformed, and ready to roll downtown for the Starlight Parade…when no school buses came and they were stranded in the school parking lot. The band had to be scratched from the lineup. But there’s word now that the Rose Festival Foundation is inviting Canby to march in Saturday’s Grand Floral Parade…and everyone hopes that can happen.

Man, was MAX packed on Saturday night! I headed home on the Orange Line with my face against the door, pressed there by dozens of quiet Timbers fans; the little talk I overheard was complimentary of the new stadium and unsurprised by the loss to the top team in the MLS. And there was a bearded bro with a Homer Simpson skateboard in one hand and a Voodoo Donuts pink box of goodness in the other, handling the crowd just fine. When he left the train, I saw what else he was handling—five or six 10-year old boys, each with a scooter or a board, and obediently exiting the train in a line. They were like a Portland-style Cub Scout den. He brought them all downtown and back! respect! Canby should hire this guy.

The Portland Thorns, by the way, attracted a record home-opener crowd of 19,461 supporters to Providence Park this afternoon. The Thorns beat Chicago 3-0!

It’s the 3rd anniversary of the 2016 oil train derailment in the Columbia Gorge town of Mosier, Oregon, when sixteen cars of a 96-unit Union Pacific freight hauling three million gallons of oil derailed, dumping 42,000 gallons of Bakken crude, which ignited and ejected a plume of smoke that towered over the magnificent countryside. Despite an outcry from the local fire chief and the state’s Senate delegation, oil trains resumed two weeks later.

President Trump has begun a 3-day visit to London by labeling as a “stone cold loser” Mayor Sadiq Khan, who authored an acid denunciation in the Sunday Observer. The mayor called Trump “one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat….whose divisive behavior flies in the face of the ideals America was founded upon — equality, liberty and religious freedom.” Trump and the First Lady were welcomed to Buckingham Palace by the Queen, who’s greeted every president since Eisenhower.

ABC News has two developments on the USS John McCain fiasco: First, the network reports that the Pentagon has now “told the White House to stop politicizing the military.” And second, chief of staff Mick Mulvaney offered this perspective of the Trump administration order to have the McCain hidden from view during Trump’s visit to Japan:
“The fact that some 23- or 24-year-old person on the advance team went to that site and said ‘Oh my goodness, there’s the John McCain, we all know how the president feels about the former senator, maybe that’s not the best backdrop, can somebody look into moving it?’ That’s not an unreasonable thing to ask.”

Golden State tied the NBA Finals at 1-1 with a 109-104 win at Toronto, but the Warriors’ Klay Thompson (Mychal’s Portland-raised son) suffered a hamstring injury. Former President Obama was at the game…and the crowd began chanting, “MVP!”

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TMSG!

–“A brave Texas teacher races a tornado to warn parents waiting in a carpool line for their children to take cover Immediately”

–“Atlanta Girl, 10, Called a Hero After Saving 3-Year-Old Sister from Drowning in a Pool”

–“An entire school started learning sign language to welcome a deaf kindergartener”

–“Tigers Are Orange Because They Prey on Animals Who See Them as Green, Study Shows”

–“Solo Pacific Ocean journey in Portland-built boat nears its end”

Links right here. 
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Let’s charge into a Monday and make it our own!