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.
Making DST permanent
Oregon passed a law in 2019 to make Daylight Saving Time (DST)
permanent if Washington and California also approved the change, and
Federal law allowed the change. Federal law does not currently allow
full-time DST.
In the last four years, 18 states have enacted legislation or passed
resolutions to provide for year-round daylight saving time, including
Washington and California.
None of that matters if Congress doesn’t act.
On Tuesday, the U.S.
Senate took a surprise unanimous vote to make DST permanent by
passing the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021.
The federal proposal
would supersede any state laws. If it passes, all of Oregon, including
Malheur County, would be permanently on daylight time. The Oregon
State law alone excludes Malheur County, the only Oregon county that
observes Mountain Time.
Daylight saving time has long been a topic of discussion in Congress on
the potential benefits and the costs of daylight saving time since it was
first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
The proposal will now go
to the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee had a
hearing to discuss possible legislation last week. The chair,
Representative Frank Pallone Jr., agreed it was time to quit changing
clocks, but was uncertain whether it should be daylight savings time or
standard time.
Perhaps the U.S. Senate made that decision for him.
--Donna Bleiler| Post Date: 2022-03-19 17:12:19 | Last Update: 2022-03-20 19:59:31 |
