Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Good morning friends! Daily Drip here, with drippy tidings for Tuesday, June 25, 2019. I’ll let the meteorologist on duty at the National Weather Service sum it up: “SYNOPSIS…After a beautiful Monday, an upper level low-pressure system will slowly meander towards and then over the region this week bringing cooler temperatures and rain chances each day.” Our high in the Portland area will be in the seventies, and we’ll see sunbreaks trading off with clouds and showers. A little rain will be nice, no? And it’s over after Friday. Sunrise 5:23 AM, sunset 9:03 PM.
Next stop for the American Women? Friday, noon PDT, quarterfinals of the World Cup–against the home team, France!
On Day Six of the Republican strike in the Oregon Senate, an editorial in this morning’s Oregonian opines as follows: “Ditch the theatrics, Senate Republicans, and return to the business of legislating… the protest comes across as a temper tantrum that has spun out of control and ratcheted up tensions in an already toxic political climate….It’s an unfortunate decision by Senate Republicans, who should recognize that there’s nothing but downside for a party that has been seen as increasingly irrelevant due to extreme views on social issues and shunned as a result of Donald Trump’s presidency…Oregon needs state Republicans to be a reliable, credible counterbalance to Democrats.” (That last sentence makes a profoundly important point. Oregon and the nation need the influence of both traditional conservative and progressive thinkers into order to maintain balance. And right now that balance is pretty wobbly).
Oregon has eleven Republican State Senators, all of whom are currently engaged in a job action, but today’s the day a 12th Senator will be named, as a joint meeting of the Polk and Marion County Commissioners will select a successor to the late Jackie Winters. They’ll interview and then choose between Becky Mitts, the chief of staff for a Republican representative; Polk County GOP chair Kevin Chambers; and Denyc Boles, a current Oregon House member. And who knows what their first act will be after taking the oath of office–going to work at Capitol, or boarding a Horizon flight to Boise?
Breaking news on the humanitarian front from Clint, Texas…hundreds of migrant children were transferred out of a squalid Border Patrol station where they had no access to soap, clean clothes or adequate food. Some of these kids, separated from parents, had been there for a month. This follows weekend reports of filthy and medically perilous conditions that one local doctor described as “torture.” Oregon Senator Ron Wyden tweeted, “The most terrifying thing about this is that the Trump administration isn’t sorry they held kids in prison camps, they’re sorry they got caught.”
Oregonian writer Steve Duin and New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, who lives in Portland, are collaborating on a graphic novel version of the Mueller report. A news release from the publisher reads, “Shannon and Steve have done an incredible job taking the rotten ingredients catalogued by Robert Mueller and turning them into a delicious satirical feast,” says the book’s editor, Justin Eisinger. “It’s funny. It’s maddening. But it’s a great resource for anyone that wants to be informed about the findings of the most important law enforcement document created in our lifetime.” It’s out next April.
Today doesn’t look like an ideal day to peel off and hit the swimming hole, but Clark County Public Health has issued advisories for Lacamas Lake and Round Lake in Camas due to the presence of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae. Their advice is to stay out of the bloomin’ water.
The folks at TriMet–wisely paying no heed to suggestions here that we might not hit 90 again this summer–released what they label “Cool News: MAX Yellow Line can now safely run at normal speeds until temps reach 100 degrees. Before, trains slowed when the thermostat hit 90. We recently made similar improvements on MAX Blue and Red lines. Green Line will be next.” Thermostat? You mean we can control this? Cool! Hey Alexa, gimme sunny and 75!
It’s all over the media that the Portland Trail Blazers are trading Evan Turner to Atlanta for Kent Bazemore. By the way, after the Blazers’ 19-year-old draft pick Nassir Little’s news conference yesterday, the dean of Oregon sports journalists, Dwight Jaynes, reported that the two Blazer players there, Zach Collins and Gary Trent Jr. “went directly to his mom and sister and introduced themselves. Class move. Typical of this team, too.” This Little guy will have some big brothers keeping watch as he moves from college kid to NBA millionaire.
Such a talent, such a messed-up individual, such a loss: Michael Jackson died ten years ago today from an overdose of the powerful anesthetic propofol.
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Some good news for your surfing pleasure:
–“18-Year-old Genealogy Wiz Reunites Hundreds of Long-Lost Family Members in His Spare Time”
–“Kitty rescue!”
–“Japanese zoo staff chase furry fake lion in escape drill”
–“Why This Mexican Village Celebrates Juneteenth” (great read–hat tip to Lew Frederick)
–“Swingle Singers in an underground tube subway” (an oldie but a goodie!)

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Early programming note…I am taking all of next week off, and won’t necessarily surface here. OK, probably I will, just to start interactions between people for whom this is a common thread. It was fun hearing about Dripsters bumping into each other on a cruise ship in Europe yesterday. Have a very fine Tuesday, friends!