And now it’s Monday, June 17, 2019, and how was your weekend, hmm? Mine was filled with love and joy and friends, and also a daylong water outage that forced us to rely on our emergency kit. Actually our neighbor picked up a bunch of jugs at Freddy’s. Thank goodness for emergency planning! Today’s weather continues the lovely tune that nature has sung for weeks, with marine stratus clouds in the morning and breezy sunshine in the afternoon. Highs will be around eighty. Portland did 82 yesterday. The June Solstice is Friday at 8:54 AM Pacific, but let’s think of this whole week and the next as our longest days. With sunrise at 5:21 and sunset at 9:02, we’ll gain only a minute of sun between now and the First Day of Summer.
And! We get all the benefits of a Full Moon today, a bit of an unusual moon, in that it’s the lowest moon of the year, only 22 degrees above the horizon at its highest. It’s always that way around the solstice. And because it’s so low, the moonlight goes through more atmospheric particulates to reach us, and you may notice a slight tinge of pink champagne. They call it the Strawberry Moon.
I believe it’s been ten days since we’ve had rain, and things are getting crispy. Clark County is banning outdoor burning effective today because of elevated fire danger.
Forty-five thousand people filled the streets for Portland’s Pride Parade. If you count my spirit, 45,001. The fundamental truth of this country is that we are equal, every one of us. Anyone who doesn’t grasp that doesn’t grasp America.
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Some hard things in the day’s news…
It is profoundly sad to learn that authorities finally found Karissa and Billy Fretwell in a field ten miles west of Yamhill. The child’s support-fighting “father” is jailed for murder.
But it was a good weekend for Polk County Marine Patrol, which credits a couple from their growing camping community along the Willamette for alerting them to the distant cries of a man around 50 whose intertube sprang a leak, and he was hurt and stranded on an island.
Shots were fired in Holladay Park last night, not five days after the community came together to proclaim an initiative to make the territory between Lloyd Center and Max safe for everyone, and held a barbecue to celebrate.
Somebody dealt with their concerns over somebody else’s parking prowess by shooting the windows out of a BMW in Rock Creek.
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You saw the video….here’s a followup…the Phoenix police chief has apologized to an African-American couple after videos went viral showing a cop dropping F-bombs and threatening to shoot a father while others pointed guns at his pregnant partner and their little kids. This happened after their 4-year-old walked out of a Dollar Store with a Barbie.
Iran says it may break the uranium enrichment limit it agreed to under nuclear deal in 10 days, to push back against American sanctions that were reimposed after the US pulled out of the agreement.
Reuters reports that a Vatican document indicates the Catholic Church may consider ordaining older married men as priests in remote areas of the Amazon, and potentially other areas where clergy are scarce. It also calls for a “ministerial role” for women.
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There were sub-ceremonies yesterday, but today is graduation day for everyone at the University of Oregon. About 4,000 undergrads and 1,000 grad students will, all tasseled and gowned, march down Eugene’s 13th Avenue and thence into Matthew Knight Arena, where Governor Kate Brown will deliver the commencement address, and every name will be read, and the band will play the hook from Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp And Circumstance March No. 1 In D until their lips bleed. (That all started at Yale in 1905, when Elgar himself was awarded an honorary doctorate). OSU’s flyaway day was Saturday.
A Portland student is in the mix as the Jeopardy Teen Tournament starts today. Avi Gupta just graduated Saturday from Catlin Gabel. His episode airs on Friday. Does Catlin Gabel play something other than that Elgar dirge when the grads cross the stage? Does anyone?
Rehearsals begin today for “That’s No Lady,” I love that title, since it’s a musical about the life of Portland’s ageless queen, Darcelle. The Triangle Productions show–featuring music by Marv and Rindy Ross, Tom Grant, and Storm Large–opens in September.
O.J. Simpson’s notorious slow-speed chase happened 25 years ago today. People were obsessed with that. Tom Brokaw anchored continuous coverage while the NBA FInals were jammed into a box on the screen. Dominos reports a Superbowl-level of deliveries.
Happy BD to Barry Manilow, Newt Gingrich, and Venus Williams.
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OK, let’s put some positives into the newsosphere!
–“Dad hugs strangers at Pride Parade and brings marchers to tears”
–“Girl with rare disease invents teddy bears that hide IV bags”
–“633 divers set world record cleaning ocean floor”
–“Notre Dame holds first mass since fire, with priests in hard-hats”
–“Man Asks For A Refund On Unopened Dog Food After His Dog Passes Away, Gets An Oil Painting With A Message”
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Monday’s on! I want to thank my family for the Fathers’ Day gathering Sunday. These frequent interactions with close family are a profound blessing to me; rare, in a world where people cast themselves into the wind and build lives a thousand away from their roots as I did. Almost all of my kinfolk are right here: three generations as close as roses on a rose bush. My children and my beloved; their children, their beloved; their children who are my granddaughters and their parents’ and parents’ partners, aunts, uncles, an ex or two, cherished strays, sometimes a stranger, all interesting people, a mutually-respected variety of political stripes; we’re all very close, and that is everything, everything to me!
Portland's Daily Drip 