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.
Spoiler alert: You need a mask or proof of vaccinations
Driven by the CDC announcement that its guidance would be that masks need not be worn, Oregon Governor Kate Brown has
struggled to produce a response with the major point being whether businesses will be required to ask customers to prove or demonstrate that they have been vaccinated,
new mask guidelines have been produced by OSHA today. These guidelines are strangely silent on any requirement that businesses check vaccination status.
If your hopes were raised, they should now be dashed as a press conference with the Oregon Health Authority has made it clear that businesses
are required to check vaccination status.
If a business, employer or faith institution chooses to no longer require masks and physical distancing, the business, employer or faith institution must require visitors to show proof of vaccination and review the proof of vaccination. In that case, a business would need to have a policy for checking the vaccination status of customers and employees if they are not wearing masks. Fully vaccinated individuals would need to provide proof they’d been vaccinated if they want to remove face coverings and not observe physical distancing guidelines.
These policies are echoed in a
one-page explanatory document issued by the Oregon Health Authority.
The guidance seems to indicate that businesses are to develop their own policy for checking "proof" of vaccination and doesn't describe that process. The guidance doesn't take up such issues as people who cannot be vaccinated and people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past and may have natural immunity.
Several businesses have opened to maskless shopping. We'll see if Governor Brown has enough clout to turn that around.
--Staff Reports| Post Date: 2021-05-18 12:27:38 | Last Update: 2021-05-18 16:04:31 |
