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Good Morning, Portland! The weather looks reasonable this weekend. I just bought a 12-pack of sugar free Red Bull, and I'm ready to rage.

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Do you remember, in 2018, when e-scooter companies started cropping up around Portland, and we all totally hated it? Then we got real problems and forgot our ire towards the zippy little monstrosities? WELL, this week the Portland Bureau of Transportation announced a permanent e-scooter program, awarding Lime and Lyft long-term permits to operate in the city. Those companies have easily some of the worst, most-broken bad bois on the streets (Pro tip: When your Lime scooter inevitably has bad brakes, you can step on the back wheel to slow down.) The new annoying thing to accompany this change is that PBOT now requires "users to lock their e-scooter to a public bike rack or to a city signpost if no bike racks are available." Sigh. Who even asked for this?

• If you read our Instagram comments you may already know this, but hot on the heels of Taylor Griggs' expose of Trimet board member ridership (summation: appears to be infrequent), the local transit org clarified that conclusions can't be drawn from the data collected by the board member Hop passes. Turns out the board members who appeared to ride frequently had actually donated their cards to local nonprofits, so the numbers attributed to them were inaccurate. 

• Some people in Southeast told KATU they're freaked out by a man who appears to live out of his car and who walks around their neighborhood with "a knife and nunchucks"and "a three-foot sword." KATU asked the man about his weapons, and he replied that he was worried about his own safety. confirmed he had nunchucks and a knife, but denied having sword.

• Pickathon 2024 maintained its solid music core and sent all our music writers home with new favorite bands—we were surprised to find how many were from Portland! Please join us in the recap.

• From my inbox: Fans of the Christmas Ships may be interested to hear there's a new boat parade planned to utilize "Portland’s newest destination, the 'North Waterfront.'" On August 24, a Smiling Boat Parade will toot toot its way through the south channel of the Columbia River, out of the prying eyes of those fakers on the Vancouver, WA waterfront. But why is this boat parade smile-themed? Was it planned by dentists? Unclear. But the route apparently follows "a smiling curved path through the picturesque Columbia River south channel."

• Prayers up for your gut because this August will be the biggest Portland Burger Week ever.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• The Democratic party this week:

• Kamala Harris' tax plans aren't yet clear but the New York Times thinks Trump's could add trillions to the national debt.

• On Wednesday, a woman in Cornwall set a bold new world record for sheep-shearing. Fueling her endeavor with "overnight oats and rice puddings" 51-year-old professional shearer Una Cameron cropped a remarkable 517 sheep in nine hours, The Guardian reports.

• In book news: Nancy Pelosi named her memoir “The Art of Power, My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House,” which feels like the infamous Nancy Pelosi clap, but in book form.

• Also in books, Simon & Schuster will soon publish a memior by Anna Marie Tendler, a visual artist and poet who was once married to comedian John Mulaney. According to the New York Times, the book, titled Men Have Called Her Crazy, doesn't have much in the way of Mulaney dirt, but for the Tendler-obsessed / those who see her as "a kind of mascot for the betrayed," the book "tells the story of a woman no longer able to contain her fury toward the opposite sex."

• Most times, things go through the meme lens and it's meh. This time it's perfect.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Jacob Sutherland (@jacobsutherlandmusic)