On this day, May 5, 1903, James Beard, US culinary expert, author (Delights & Prejudices), was born in Portland, Ore.
Also on this day, May 5, 1945, A Japanese balloon bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, killing Mrs. Elsie Mitchell, the pregnant wife of a minister, and five children after they attempted to drag it out the woods in Lakeview, Oregon. The balloon was armed, and exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They became the 1st and only known American civilians to be killed in the continental US during World War II.
Also on this day, May 5, 1945, Bly minister Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife Elsie, and five children from Mitchell's Sunday school class were on a Saturday morning picnic. Thirteen miles northeast of Bly, or about sixty miles northeast of Klamath Falls, Mitchell parked the car, and Elsie and the children headed to Leonard Creek. Mitchell later remembered: "As I got out of the car to bring the lunch, the others were not far away and called to me they had found something that looked like a balloon. I heard of Japanese balloons so I shouted a warning not to touch it. But just then there was a big explosion. I ran up there--and they were all dead." It was a Japanese balloon bomb. They were 70 feet tall with a 33-foot diameter paper canopy connected to the main device by shroud lines. Balloons inflated with hydrogen followed the jet stream at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
Polls show that people want to send their kids back
Facing mounting pressure to re-open public schools, in the face of equally strong pressure from teachers' unions to keep them at least partly locked down, on March 12,
Governor Brown issued an executive order requiring that schools "shall be in operation to deliver educational services through either a hybrid instructional model or an on-site instructional model." This mark was required to be achieved by March 29.
A recent poll asked, "Do you agree or disagree with Governor Brown’s order to require public elementary schools to offer hybrid or full-time in-person instruction by March 29?"
| Strongly agree | 26% |
| Somewhat agree | 39% |
| Somewhat disagree | 13% |
| Strongly disagree | 13% |
| Don’t know | 9% |
That's a whopping 65% of respondents who agree, with some level of intensity, to open schools by March 29. Another question asked by the same poll was, "Who do think should have the final say about when and how public schools in your community return to in-person learning?
| The locally elected school district board | 67% |
| The governor of Oregon | 16% |
| Don’t know | 17% |
So, how are schools doing? The
Oregon Health Authority has a graphic scoreboard on school re-opening, which appears to show that schools are not hitting the mark.
--Staff Reports| Post Date: 2021-04-16 08:55:55 | Last Update: 2021-04-15 12:50:09 |
