My educated guess is that out of the 100 or so regular readers the Weekend Reader attracts, every single one of them is registered to vote. Nice work, readers!

But if you’re an outlier here, you have until April 30 to register or to change your party affiliation before the May 21 primary. The Oregon Capital Chronicle had this recent update about how to register, and added a welcome reminder about how secure Oregon’s vote-by-mail system is. With so much nonsense already being floated nationwide about election fraud, it’s always good to have the facts close at hand. (But I do have reservations about this character Blobby, who’s featured in a series of animated spots from the secretary of state’s office about how good it feels to vote in Oregon.)

In Benton County, the Democratic primary for Position 2 on the county Board of Commissioners between Liz Irish and Gabe Shepherd will almost certainly determine the winner of that race, because no Republican candidate has surfaced. Similarly, the Democratic primary for House District 16 in Corvallis — the seat Dan Rayfield is leaving to run for attorney general — will decide who represents Corvallis in the Legislature. Sami Al-Abdrabbuh and Sarah Finger McDonald are facing off in that primary, with no Republican opponent awaiting in November.

As I might have mentioned before, I am proudly registered as a nonaffiliated voter, which means I’m used to relatively boring primary ballots that generally feature only unopposed nonpartisan races, such as every single one of the eight statewide judicial races — and the race to succeed Benton County Attorney John Haroldson, who’s retiring after a distinguished career. “Race” is probably the wrong word here, since the only candidate is Ryan Joslin, the chief deputy district attorney for Benton County. Haroldson has endorsed Joslin.

Speaking of Haroldson, here’s hoping that he enjoys a delightful retirement, although my guess is he won’t maintain a low profile. He also is one of only two public officials I have encountered in my career who speak in complete sentences, a gift I very much envy. (The other is former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a throwback to days when Montana politicians didn’t physically attack pesky reporters.)

Moving away from politics: As we race into the heart of wildfire season — which, actually, is pretty much year-round these days — experts say the risk of wildfire is not abnormally high this year. But, they say, there’s still plenty of work to be done to get ready. Alex Baumhardt of the Oregon Capital Chronicle covered a seminar on the topic this week.

If you were thinking while you were watching the NFL Draft, “Why am I watching the NFL Draft?” you probably weren’t alone. But those of us who were watching the draft — I couldn’t help myself — probably noticed that players from the soon-to-be downsized Pac-12 Conference fared very well. With eight picks in the first round, the Pac-12 trailed only the SEC, which had 11 picks in the first round. Special congratulations to Oregon State University offensive tackle Taliese Fuaga, who was picked 14th overall by the New Orleans Saints. The Oregonian’s Nick Daschel connected with Fuaga on Friday, the day after his selection, for this story.

On Saturday, the third day of the draft, Beaver wide receiver and punt returner Anthony Gould became the second OSU player chosen. He was picked in the fifth round by the Indianapolis Colts and was the 142nd overall selection. And later on Saturday, OSU safety Kitan Oladapo was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the fifth round; he was the 169th overall selection. Oregon State’s three draft selections thus far this year are the most since 2020.

Here’s this week’s long read: In this new piece from The New Yorker, writer Manvir Singh argues that we might be looking at misinformation the wrong way.

OK, here’s another long read: Here’s Benjamin Mullin and Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times on the big challenges facing NPR. Here’s one of them — the number of people who listen at least once a week to NPR has dropped by some 18 million since 2020.

And speaking of reading, my hunch is that many Weekend Reader readers enjoy to read. (I confess that I just wanted to see how many times I could use “read” or a variation in one single sentence.) Here’s a story from Alexandra Moe at The Atlantic about the benefits of reading aloud — even if you’re just reading aloud to yourself. You could read the Weekend Reader aloud, but I bet you can find better candidates around the house.

That’s it for this week. When we gather next weekend, it will be too late to register to vote in the May 21 primary and chances are ballots will be in your mailboxes. Good luck!