And a friendly Wednesday hello to you, on this 20th day of November, 2019! Sunny, mid 50s, windy near the Gorge, and widespread frost tonight, is how the weather elves see it; on my deck we have a cool 43 degrees at 0400, several dark hours away from sunrise at 7:16 AM and sunset 4:35 PM.
Who saw Cher last night? Share!
Portland hotel magnate Gordon Sondland, surprised as anyone to find himself bubbling in the impeachment stew, takes his turn before the House Intelligence Committee today. His has been a tale of two stories, quid pro versus no quid pro, and he’ll need to settle on one. Protesters marched between Sondland’s downtown hotels yesterday demanding that he “tell the truth” to Congress…which is good legal advice. Just look at where Roger Stone is. The hearing starts at 6 AM Pacific, though preliminary gabble by partisan combatants will delay that for a few, or more, minutes.
I have personally investigated this, and can verify that Joe Biden was born on this date in 1942.
The next Democratic presidential debate is tonight at 6 on MSNBC and the Washington Post’s web site.
A news release from the Port of Portland, a seaport that fumbled away its entire container service four years ago, jumped up and said, Hello! Check it out: “The Port of Portland announced today that South Korea-based container carrier SM Line will be bringing weekly container shipping service back to Portland….This service will help reduce the number of trucks on the road and decrease regional environmental impacts of freight movement…The first journey is expected to arrive in Portland in January 2020.” This is good news indeed. And as the Port’s press release points out, “The announcement follows Governor Kate Brown’s recent trade mission trip to South Korea, where the Governor and Port representatives met with SM Line executives.” That’s what a Governor’s supposed to do.
Portland cops swarmed like bees to the area around 1st and Morrison downtown, on a report of a woman with a handgun who might be an active shooter. Several square blocks were cordoned off, strangling traffic and transit, and she was safely taken into custody.
Portland has been ordered by a Multnomah County judge to quit charging ridiculous fees for routine searches to fulfill public records requests. The city charged one activist over $200 to perform a document search that an analyst knocked out for $12.
OK, that inflatable eyesore is gone from Portland’s Living Room, but now there’s a new scatological calamity: a fire in a boiler has paralyzed the laundry at Tidee Didee diaper service on SE Foster. The family-owned company services the output of at least 500 local babies, plus local Montessori and other private preschools, supplying clean fresh cloth dipes whilst collecting the dirties, which are piling up by the hour….and the geschtunkenness is on its way watering eyes for blocks around. Meantime, hundreds of formerly cloth-bottomed babies are being Pampered until further notice.
Folks tooling around the valley are posting photos of helicopters swooping in to collect Christmas trees. But with Oregon’s harvest well underway, some growers are having trouble meeting the demand, in part because the hot summers of 2017 and 2018 killed off many young trees. Growers say they have to find ways to adapt to a changing climate by mulching and shading–and by planting different species of trees that are resistant to the heat.
A Portland man has reunited with his cat Sasha, who mysteriously vanished five years ago and recently turned up alive and overfed in Santa Fe, New Mexico. How Sasha vanished isn’t known and she’s not talking; his owner assumed a coyote had made a meal of his purry friend. but thanks to a microchip, Sasha was ID’d and sent home for good.
Happy birthday to Portland musician, pop star, educator, and Dripster Valerie Day! Following her arena-packing days with NuShooz in the 80s, she’s performed and recorded across a variety of genres, taught vocalists as an adjunct faculty member at PSU, shared her expertise in an insightful and practical blog for vocal performers–and lent her caress to the logo for Hot Lips Pizza!
With Damian Lillard out with a back spasm and Carmelo Anthony in, the Blazers lost to the New Orleans Pelicans 115-104 last night. Anthony, who scored 10 points but had some turnovers, too, in 24 minutes of play, is wearing #00, which the late friendly giant Kevin Duckworth wore back in the Clyde-and-Terry days. Carmelo is totally welcome here, but that’s Duck’s number, no? (OK, Enes Kanter wore that too last season. Still).
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Good news links, including some that might make you go….what?
–“Police officer adopts dog he found abandoned in stolen car”
–“School Turns Leftover Cafeteria Food Into Frozen, Take-Home Meals To Give To Students In Need”
–“Super Dog Helps Firefighters Rescue Injured & Orphaned Koalas During Australian Bushfires”
–“Art Therapist Collects 14,000 Keys From Wildfire Victims and Transforms Them into Powerful Metal Phoenix Sculpture”
–“Mama went out and my baby refused to take it in bottle”, says DAD OF THE YEAR!! (Reddit video link)
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Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Portland's Daily Drip 