Good morning, and welcome to Veterans Day! Sincere thanks, all who have served! It’s Monday, November 11, 2019. Portland’s weather is serving up sunshine and a Gorge wind with highs near 60. We’ll get a squirt and a smizzle tomorrow, and then the high-pressure bloc breaks down later in the week to admit some good old Northwest rain by the weekend. Sunrise 7:04 AM, sunset 4:44 PM.
Veterans Day holiday impacts today include free parking meters, no mail delivery, government offices closed, and a number of events including Portland’s annual Veterans Day Parade, which rolls down Sandy in Hollywood starting at 9:30 AM. And the Willamette Valley city of Albany is rightfully proud of its parade, the largest Veterans Day parade west of the Mississippi, which has filled the streets since 1951 and will do so again today starting at 11 AM.
A blast of winter weather is hitting Chicago and other midwestern locales; I already see one flight from Chicago to PDX is canceled and there will likely be others.
All the major fires in California–including one that spread dangerously close to Hollywood and Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank–are now contained or controlled but it’s still dry and windy.
A joyful end to what must have been terrifying experience in the woods, where a little two-year-old girl named Iris scampered away from her grandma on a trail in the Molalla River Recreation Area. Grandma desperately flagged down strangers, loggers called 911, then a woman named Tammy joined the search on her horse, accompanied by her two dogs. She heard a whimper, told her dog Wilson to “find her,” and there was little Iris, perched on a steep incline. Tammy says, “I just followed Wilson and he was just laying with his little front paws on Iris’ lap. She had her little hand on him and she was crying, just sobbing, and oh God, it was the best moment of my life.”
Bullets flew in Portland during a four-hour period Saturday night, with five shootings between 9 PM and 1 AM–and yet they were all unconnected. And only one person was hurt: he was driving in St. Johns when somebody tried to make him stop. He kept driving and the person shot at his car, injuring him slightly. I don’t see any PPB announcements of arrests in any of the incidents.
If you do your marketing at New Seasons, you should check this: the Portland supermarket chain has issued a recall notice for ground beef …including meatballs and meatloaf…purchased at its stores in late October because it may be contaminated with E. coli. The sell-by dates have passed, but there could be some in your freezer. Info is on the New Seasons web site.
On the eve of tomorrow’s 31st anniversary of the racist murder of Portland college student Mulugeta Sera, a concert in his memory will be performed tonight at The Old Church at 1422 SW 11th Avenue. It’s titled “The F Word: a Memorial to Mulugeta Seraw.” F, here, stands for forgiveness.
The Blazers beat the Atlanta Hawks 124-113 last night, putting the brakes on a four-game losing skid, and scoring to their first home win of what’s been a wobbly start to the season.
The Beavers offense didn’t play well and the Ducks didn’t play at all, but the sports highlight of the weekend–aside from Damian Lillard’s team-record 60 points in a loss to the Nets–was on the basketball court at Matthew Knight Arena, where the University of Oregon women’s basketball team stunned Team USA 93-86. Not since 1999 has the American national team lost to a college squad. But these Ducks are on another planet, and Sabrina Ionescu is a force you must see. Oregon begins its regular season today against Northeastern at 3 PM.
Tonight is the biggest game of the year so far for the 7-2 Seattle Seahawks, as they play their undefeated division rival 49ers in San Francisco on Monday Night Football.
Leonardo DiCaprio is 45 years old today. DiCaprio was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was admiring a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy, when…uff! She felt his first kick.
This morning, astronomers are glued to their sun-filtered telescopes as they witness the tiny speck of Mercury making a rare transit across the center of the enormous solar face. Mercury slides between the sun and Earth only 14 times a century, and the next time is in 2032.
It’s going to be an interesting week around here…with a full moon, wall-to-wall impeachment hearings on TV for those inclined to tune in…and the Christmas Tree arrives in Pioneer Courthouse Square.
One more time–let me say thank you to everyone involved in Dripstock III! I came away just smiling about the community that’s formed here, and excited about the future!
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Good news stories…with a Veterans Day theme:
–“This is Us: How the Portland VA Medical Center honors veterans every day”
–“Two homeless veterans to be buried with full honors Tuesday at Willamette National Cemetery”
–“Correctional center honors incarcerated veterans behind prison walls”
–“K9s on the Front Line pairs veterans with a dog who has their back”
–“A World War II soldier finally gets a Silver Star, decades after dying in the Battle of the Bulge”
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“We feel and express sincere gratitude to the men and women who spent time in the military, but I would add this: we must elect more of them to public office. They’ll bring to our government an integrity and ability to work together that’s currently AWOL. People who’ve served in uniform are trained to get beyond their egos and work cooperatively no matter what tribe they belong to. They know how to act as a team for the common good. They know what the word “enemy” means. They are pragmatic and they are thick-skinned. They ask tough questions about new military involvements because they know that war is literally hell.” –from the Daily Drip, one year ago.
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