Tuesday’s greetings! You’ve found the Daily Drip–Facebook willing—for October 22, 2019. We’re in the path of a batch of rain, falling sometimes heavily in the 5-to-9 AM window–followed by what the NWS promises will be “an amazingly quick end to rain chances for most of the area Tuesday afternoon.” Highs 60-65. Sunrise 7:36 AM, sunset 6:13 PM.
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Owen Klinger’s family extends its thanks to everyone who helped in the search, and they ask now for privacy. Let’s respect that by not speculating. We’ll pass along developments.
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Facebook is making all kinds of changes aimed at thwarting foreign interference in our election; they’ve already disabled dozens of accounts and shut down four “platforms” originating in Syria and Russia. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said they are also “very focused on preventing voter suppression on our platform,” which was a key part of Russia’s successful involvement in 2016. It’ll be interesting to see how this affects locally-based community efforts including the Daily Drip; if it doesn’t appear in your feed, just search under my name, and it should be there!
The cease-fire negotiated by the U.S. ends in Syria today. Russia’s Vladimir Putin meets with Turkey’s President Erdogan for a summit on filling the power void in the wake of America’s abrupt pullout.
Justin Trudeau has won a second term as prime minister of Canada.
The Portland area is at peak fall foliage. Maybe just past it. People seem to agree that this has been the most vivid, the most varied, and the most photogenic autumn they can remember around here. The Japanese Garden is a masterpiece. The reasons, according to folks who know, are that we haven’t had any widespread frost, which tends to dull the colors, nor have we had a major windstorm, which blows the leaves away. The news sites I paw through in preparing the Daily Drip are dominated by photographs, instead of the macro-and micro-crises that usually comprise the news. We’ve loved seeing the photos posted by folks on the Drip!
Those thousands of scooters, welcome as skeeters, that go zipping around often illegally on sidewalks, can be truly annoying–but imagine what it’s like for folks in wheelchairs, or tapping along with a white cane. So the group Disability Rights Oregon, together with PBOT and the Lime scooter company teamed up Monday to shoot a video of the more egregious violations of Portland scooter law, and it’ll be on the air and all over social media before you know it.
We count five earthquakes off the Oregon coast in October. None has been over mag-5.
A baby girl was born by candlelight in a laundry room during Texas tornado.
If somebody in the family’s been hearing you say “get a job!”–here’s a lead: FedEx is hiring a thousand seasonal workers for the holidays in the Portland area, and a lot of those gigs turn into permanent fulltime employment.
Next time you have an event at the Oregon Convention Center…take a look at the ceiling. It’s bumpy. It has protuberances. What’s the deal? “What you’re looking at is a topographic map of the Cascade mountain range flipped over and protruding down from the ceiling,” says Convention Center Executive Director Craig Stroud, giving a tour of the building, which has just unveiled a yearlong renovation. There’s a lot more to it. I wonder if they still have the waterfall artwork at the standing locations in the men’s’ room, or the spiders in the tile floor in the ladies’…
We like to celebrate anniversaries, right? Well, today is the 25th anniversary of The Pick! That’s when the #9 Washington Huskies were deep in the Oregon red zone, about to beat the unranked Ducks as usual, when U of O freshman cornerback Kenny Wheaton confidently stepped in front of a pass, picked it out of the air…and thundered down the sideline for a win-clinching touchdown that people remember as the turning point in Oregon football history. The video is played on the big DuckVision screen at Autzen Stadium before each and every game, and you can watch it in the Good News links in the Coffee Cup below.
World Series tonight! Houston vs. DC. Best starting pitchers in the AL vs. best starting pitchers in the NL. This should be good. My son’s high school varsity baseball coach Dave Gasser–a legend–taught us that good pitching beats good hitting. It follows that good pitching requires good hitting. I love both. This’ll be a fun series. Astros in 6, I think, but who knows?
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So, what’s the good word? Links here.
–“Nearly 6,000 Chicagoans to get letters this holiday season saying their unpaid medical debt is forgiven”
–“Homeless Couple Ties the Knot at Laundromat in Sweet Ceremony”
–“Little Girl Survives Devastating Fire Thanks to Teacher’s Lesson Just 2 Weeks Earlier”
–“Football player gives his beloved stepdad the surprise of a lifetime”
–“The Pick! Twenty-Five years ago today…famous play that made Oregonians realize the Ducks were bound for big things”
–“And a bonus…The Oregonian’s John Canzano, with an interesting followup on The Pick”
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