A cheerful good morning to everyone gathered in this virtual coffee nook called the Daily Drip! We’re sharing a Tuesday, November 12, 2019. Portland’s air is cleaner than it’s been in days, and the weather is more Portlandian too, with light rain and highs of just 50, a steep dropoff from yesterday’s 62. Sunrise 7:05 AM, sunset 4:43 PM. Hanging behind the clouds in the western sky, after looming up beautifully last evening, is the Full Frost Moon.
Jimmy Carter’s in the hospital for emergency surgery to relieve pressure and bleeding in his brain. He’s resting comfortably and doctors say she should be OK…but he is 95.
It’s a good day to remember that Portland’s weather is often the opposite of the rest of the nation’s, because the Jet Stream drapes a movable room divider between east and west, protecting us from polar air while pouring it east of the Rockies. Over 1,100 flights were canceled at Chicago airports because of an early snow, and folks from Nashville to Ann Arbor to Montpelier are plying fires and pulling blankets up to their chins as temperature plunge dangerously to the teens or colder. I know we have readers in those climes, mostly travelers and ex-pat Portlanders, and I hope you feel the warmth emanating your way. We feel the frost on your window-pane!
Seven shootings in Portland in two days, nobody killed or seriously injured…but a bullet ended up in a child’s bed. No arrests.
People will come together this morning at 11 for services to remember two forgotten veterans who died in Portland this fall with no one to claim them. The memorial at the Willamette National Cemetery will honor US Marine Corps veteran Douglas Ray Walls, who died September 30, and US Navy veteran Danny Joe Mendenhall, who passed the next day. Let’s thank Lincoln Memorial Park & Funeral Home for its Dignity Memorial Homeless Veteran Burial Program.
Today’s the day the US Supreme Court hears arguments on President Trump’s attempt to kill DACA, the Obama program that allows 669,000 people who were brought to the US illegally as children to live free from fear of being deported.
Joe Biden is coming to Portland for a fundraising event on Saturday. Time and place unannounced. Last time he was here five years ago, campaigning for Jeff Merkley, he was the sitting VP, and he rolled in to the Salt and Straw on Alberta and nommed on a chocolate cone while wearing sunglasses and peeling off a couple of tens to pay for it.
Employees and customers alike were forced to flee as a two-alarm fire broke out in the dump, I’m sorry, the Metro South Transfer Station in Oregon City, across from Home Depot. The cause isn’t known, but people in that line of work live in fear of folks having a barbecue on a nice day–and dumping the hot coals in the trash.
Anheuser-Busch, the macrobrewer which has acted micro-curiously for years, yesterday bought out Portland’s pioneering Craft Brew Alliance for $220 million. That means Widmer…Omission…Redhook…10 Barrel…and many others are now stablemates of the Clydesdales.
Our regional NFL team looked like it might fumble and foul its way to a loss in the biggest game of the year, but QB Russell Wilson extracted a rabbit from his silver helmet, and the final score in a crazy overtime was Seattle 27, the previously-undefeated San Francisco 49ers 24.
The Blazers are back on the road against Sacramento tonight at 7.
Some people call it paradise, and some are kissing it goodbye: more people are moving out of California than are moving in, and both Oregon and Washington are in the top five destinations for those leaving the Golden State behind. Last year, 55,000 Californians rematerialized in Washington, and 43,000 saddled up and rode the I-5 Trail to Oregon. Of course, we’re all newcomers compared to those whose ancestors trudged across the Bering Land Bridge at the end of the Ice Age.
This was the day in 1970 of the infamous exploding whale incident on the Oregon coast, immortalized in words of broadcast colleague Paul Linnman, then with KATU, who described the outcome of the state’s decision to dynamite the carcass of the beached whale as follows: “the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.” A new car–ironically belonging to the explosives expert who set off the bang– was crushed by a flying chunk.
On that same day, Tonya Harding was born in Portland.
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Something to brighten your Tuesday! Links in the cup!
–“Scientists Create Virus Based On Cowpox That Can Kill Every Type Of Cancer”
–“Veterans Day turns jubilant for 70-year-old Army vet after he wins lottery in NC”
–“Man, 23, Steps in to Donate Life-Saving Kidney to Girlfriend’s Dad”
–“World’s tiniest twin boys defy odds after being born at 23 weeks weighing less than 1lb each”
–“The NASA women who inspired ‘Hidden Figures’ will get Congressional gold medals”
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Our Christmas lights are up! Not actually on, yet…way early for that….but we’re getting ready!
Portland's Daily Drip 