Hiya! it’s Tuesday check-in time from the Daily D on 11-19 of 20-19! It’ll be a sun-showery day, with highs of 55, then a drying trend lasting into the weekend. Sunrise 7:15 AM. Sunset 4:36 PM.
Quick traffic note: a bad wreck on the Banfield has closed the eastbound lanes at 39th avenue. Punch up your favorite morning info source for updates (103.3 will be all over it).
The oft-dashed dream of a 21st-century bridge over the Columbia River is showing signs of a pulse, as Governors Kate Brown and Jay Inslee signed a symbolic memorandum of understanding that buries the ax between the two states, and gets back to the work of correcting instead of neglecting this weakest link in the West Coast’s most important highway.
Oregon climate activists said they wouldn’t give up…and now Governor Brown has committed to bringing back the Clean Energy Jobs bill that died this year under an acrimonious partisan breakdown. It’ll come up anew when the legislature meets for a short session in February, and what’s different is that activists are ready to take the cause to the ballot if the legislature can’t get the job done–and if it goes to the voters, it might be minus all of the nice carveouts for certain favorite industries. (It might end up there anyway, given the initiative rights of Oregon citizens on all sides). The governor’s promise follows yesterday’s delivery to Salem of a letter signed by 11,000 scientists from around the world, and spearheaded by scientists at OSU, making the point that action on the local level–in the face of our federal government’s denial of this crisis.
Impeachment hearings are back on TV this morning at 6, as the House begins Week Two of the probe’s public phase. And about the president’s sudden trip to Walter Reed? His physician issued a statement saying it was pre-planned, part of his annual physical, and that he was not suffering any chest pains.
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Hopefully a big huge scooper will come through Pioneer Courthouse Square before lunchtime today. Good God. Come on, Parks Bureau folks…that’s our living room. Show a sense of taste. You just put a pile of crap in it, to sell a product. The freaking Christmas tree is 30 feet away. And nice precedent. The mind reels about what’s next. Parks Commissioner Amanda Fritz, you cool with this? Plop it down in Terry Schrunk Plaza next time.
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Cher, the one and only, is at the Moda Center tonight. She just finished off a European tour with a concert two weeks ago in Belfast, and tonight she embarks on a chain of US dates that continues practically every other night all the way until May 6–two weeks before her 74th birthday. The lady is a force of nature, a woman who’s prevailed in a male-heavy field for longer than most people have been alive. She has Grammys, Emmys, and an Oscar, and she is the only artist to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in six consecutive decades. Her setlist includes fifteen songs, half a dozen costume changes, and covers everything from her Sonny and Cher ditties to her solo smashes to her Abba covers for “Mama Mia.” Are you going? Love to hear your review! Here’s what Rolling Stone said: “Cher continues to prove that she can wipe the floor with any pop star from any generation before or after her.” Welcome, Cher!
The celebrated SE Portland restaurant called Trifecta is closing its doors at the end of the year.
Our struggling Blazers, who lost to the Houston Rockets 132-108 last night, are at the New Orleans Pelicans today at 5 PM. Will this be the beginning of the Carmelo Anthony era? BTW Zach Collins of the Blazers (and before that, Gonzaga) was born on this day…in 1997.
Happy birthday to world-famous KGW alum Ann Curry (1956), as well as Allison Janney (1959) and Jodie Foster (1962). It’s Larry King’s birthday (1933)…and also Ted Turner’s (1938).
It’s not getting the 50-year celebration that its predecessor did, but this was the date in 1969 when Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad and Alan Bean made humankind’s second landing on the moon.
Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on this day in 1863, expressing the hope that “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Today that’s more than a hope. It’s an imperative.
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Something good! Click on the Coffee Cup for the links.
–“Rescued kangaroo can’t stop hugging the volunteers who saved her life”
–“Act of heroism: Soldier saves life of drowning man”
–“Generous Donors Supply Shelter With Dog Food After Learning They Were Completely Out”
–“5-year-old drumming prodigy lands full band scholarship 13 years before his high school graduation”
–“British “rock royalty” have rallied to help a highly respected American guitarist who is struggling financially after suffering a stroke”
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That’s all folks! Interesting times, these. But much for to thank the Almighty.
Portland's Daily Drip 