Good morning, survivors of the deluge! It’s Thursday, September 19, 2019. Lots of 9s! 9-19-19, right? Anyway, we’re charting out a day unlike any other this week: no downpours, no thunderblasts, just filtered Northwest sun following a sleepy morning fog, then highs of 70. Sounds quite wonderful! Sunrise 6:53 AM, sunset 7:14 PM. We’re losing daylight at a rate of over three minutes a day, but it’s still light enough to sacrifice a wild IPA to the gods before sundown. We’ll be switching to mead by candlelight before long.
The rain has a reputation for washing us clean, but that’s not always deserved. Manhole covers popped off the sewer line on NW Westover, with indelicate results, and the health department has posted touch-not-the-water at Hubbard Creek Beach in Curry County, Sunset Bay State Park Beach in Coos County, and Nye Beach in Lincoln County, on top of earlier warnings for Rockaway Beach in Tillamook County and D River Beach in Lincoln County that are now 9 days old. That number again.
Hundreds of people were evacuated when a fire sprinkler pipe burst at McMenamin’s Edgefield in Troutdale last night. Flooding caused extensive damage to the historic building
So glad that no shoppers or employees were hurt during a police shooting at a Goodwill in West Salem, where a suspect was shot and killed after running inside trying to escape a drug investigation.
The Oregon Environmental Council is blasting President Trump for revoking California’s ability to set its own auto emission standards–to which Oregon and Washington have long opted-in. The Oregon environmental group says that because of the tougher standards, “our cars are cheaper to drive, our air is cleaner, and our tailpipes are emitting fewer greenhouse gases.” Trump tweeted that he took the action “in order to produce far less expensive cars for the consumer, while at the same time making the cars substantially SAFER.” But the OEC says, “we can only hope the slow gears of federal bureaucracy and legislation will work in our favor as the clock runs out on this anti-environment administration.” (BTW the auto industry spent billions researching and retooling to meet those standards; there’s a market for clean vehicles, and I don’t see the industry clamoring to turn its back on it).
Tomorrow’s the day of the U.S. Climate Strike, and students all over are participating…let’s see: Portland, for sure, at 10:30 at City Hall (PPS middle and HS students will be excused if they ask the teacher); Beaverton 8:30 AM at City Hall by the MAX stop; Rex Putnam HS 8:45 in the school courtyard; Gladstone/Milwaukie/OC at the 205/99E interchange by the Oregon City Shopping Center; Hillsboro 10 AM, downtown on Main Street; Forest Grove 11:30 AM at Pacific U; Salem 1 PM on the Capitol steps. As 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg told a Congressional committee yesterday, ‘If you did your job, we’d be in school.”
I want to lift up the fact that the Sunshine Division, which exists to help people who’d be otherwise up one of those creeks listed in paragraph 2, will benefit from an Act Against Hunger telethon today on KATU. Plus, if you go to Fred Meyer today, the checkers will invite you to round up to the nearest dollar at the register, and all donations will be matched up to a total of $20,000. The Sunshine Division has been getting people out of bare-cupboards pinch for almost 100 years, and you can be somebody’s hero.
Canadian rock star Bryan Adams–born in ’59, age 59, and singing about the Summer of 69, plays tonight in the Moda Center’s Theater of the Clouds. And what time? 8.
My sister Jan says the whales are busy spouting at Depoe Bay and they’re “pretty awesome to watch.”
Oh–let’s check. The Portland Timbers? Did they win? …No. Scoring drought continues. NY 2, Portland nil.
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Good news time….OK, 3 out of 5 links today are good, two are not. So I’ll post this…and try to fix later. Gr.
–“Boy, 11, sells vegetables every day before school to pay for his sick brother’s medical bills after donating bone marrow to save his life”
–“Human chain helps ‘lost’ dolphins escape from St. Pete canal” (bad link)
–“Bridal party delivers aid to Hurricane Dorian-hit Bahamas” (bad link)
–“Pigeon poops on head of lawmaker discussing pigeon poop problem”
–“Amish buggy with stereo system, 12-pack on roof pulled over by cops”
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Friends, I’m going to take a personal day tomorrow. But I’ll post something resembling a DD as usual, because I don’t want to waste the prep I’ve already done for it. Thanks to KEX’s Brad Ford for filling in for me on K103.
Happy Thursday!
Portland's Daily Drip 