Wasn’t it just last weekend that we were all bellyaching about the cool, wet spring? And today, we’re all complaining about the heat advisory? Well, to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, a foolish consistency about our weather complaints is the hobgoblin of little minds. Which makes me think this: “Hobgoblin” is a great word that you never see used any more outside of comic books. Vow to try to use it at least once in the coming week.

But I already digress. I started with the weather because I wanted to call your attention to a terrific story by Kale Williams in The Oregonian/OregonLive about last year’s lethal “heat dome” event in the Pacific Northwest. It’s been just about a year exactly since we roasted under some of the hottest conditions ever recorded in the region — in fact, the temperature posted at Hyslop Farm on Sunday, June 28 was 110 (or maybe 109), possibly the hottest day on record in the Corvallis area.

Williams’ story recalls the report that came out shortly after the heat dome event, which killed hundreds throughout the Northwest. That report, by a group of climate scientists, concluded that the event was extremely rare and that it would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.” And that’s likely true. But Williams talks to a leading climate scientist, Michael Wehner of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who has identified some of the other extremely rare weather factors that combined last June to push temperatures well above 100 degrees. The upshot is that while a similar heat dome event is extremely unlikely, climate change means that 105-degree days during the summer will become increasingly frequent. Williams’ story is a subscriber exclusive, but that’s an investment you should make if you can.

As you may have heard, it was a busy week at the U.S. Supreme Court, what with overturning Roe v. Wade and striking down New York state’s 100-year-old law restricting the carrying of guns in public. Here are some of the pieces I noticed this past week that offered context:

• First, here is a very useful annotated version of the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, with analysis by New York Times reporters.
• If you’ve wondered, as I have, where the court’s new conservative majority leaves Chief Justice John Roberts, who has long pushed the court toward judicial restraint, the Times’ Adam Liptak has the answer: He’s essentially powerless, a stunning turn to Roberts’ 17-year tenure on the court.
• Both the majority opinion and the dissent in Dobbs left the door seemingly open for reconsideration of other personal rights that had been granted in previous court cases, such as same-sex marriage and contraception. The Times’ Charlie Savage took a deeper look at that issue.
• I’ve long joked that Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” wasn’t really a work of fiction but was, rather, a documentary from the future. Now, as Atwood reminds us in this May piece from The Atlantic, that doesn’t seem very funny anymore. (Speaking of documentaries from the future, has anyone taken a look at Mike Judge’s 2006 “Idiocracy” lately?)
• Here’s Julia Shumway and Lynne Terry of the Oregon Capital Chronicle outlining how the Dobbs ruling could impact Oregon, where the right to abortion is included in the constitution. The main takeaway is that the state should be prepared for an influx of people living in states where abortions now are essentially illegal, or will be soon. (Idaho’s law making abortion a felony becomes effective in 30 days.)
• If you’re thinking that there’s an inherent contradiction between the court’s ruling in the New York gun case and the Dobbs ruling — the court saying that states should be able to regulate abortion but striking down a state law on guns — you’re not alone. But some legal scholars say there is consistency between the rulings. Other scholars disagree. Here’s an interesting Associated Press story on the question.
• And, as you know, President Joe Biden today signed the bipartisan gun control bill that Congress passed earlier this week. Here’s a quick look at what the bill does.

Moving back to Oregon: You might not have known that Willamette Falls, between Oregon City and Portland, is the largest waterfall in the West (and second-largest in the nation, behind only Niagara). There’s no public access to the falls, however, which have been blocked off for a century by a cluster of industrial facilities. An effort is underway to reclaim the falls and restore public access, but it’s been hamstrung by bureaucratic gridlock and disagreements among Native tribes — not to mention more than a century of painful Native history. Brian Oaster of High Country News has a thoroughly reported story about the falls.

The current edition of High Country News features another story from Oregon: A wood-treatment plant in West Eugene closed its doors in January, leaving behind a legacy of pollution — and a mess that needs to be cleaned up. The company says it can’t afford the cleanup bill. Neighbors are left holding the bag — not to mention the fact that they’re dealing with health problems that have been associated with pollution from the property. This story, by Kylie Mohr, also is about how relatively low-income neighborhoods like West Eugene take the brunt of pollution woes: West Eugene (near where my daughter lived during the years she attended the University of Oregon) is home to 32 of the 33 manufacturers that handle hazardous substances in Eugene.

Here’s a piece from Sara Fischer, the ace media trends reporter for Avios: A new report says that U.S. newspaper revenue from digital advertising will surpass print newspaper advertising by 2026. As the charts that go with the story make clear, however, it’s not so much that digital ad revenue is exploding at newspapers: It’s more that print ad revenue will continue to decline, although not at the steep pace of the recent years. Sometime this year, newspaper revenue from circulation is expected to surpass advertising revenue.

This edition of Your Weekend Reader seems to need a bit of cheering up. So I call to your attention this story by Tom Hallman Jr., that ace writer for The Oregonian/OregonLive, who starts this story with a lede (in journalism, the word we use for the beginning of a story) that caught my attention: “More than 40 years in the writing business and I’ve never stumbled across a story as crazy as the one I’m about to tell you. It has a bit of everything: A parrot, crows, a cat and a dog.”

It also has — spoiler alert! — a happy ending. In a column summarizing the week’s news, Therese Bottomly, the editor of The Oregonian, noted that some readers thought the story was too light to appear on the paper’s front page. This is nonsense; any editor — and Bottomly is among the best — would never have thought twice about running this story on A1. You’ll agree with me (and Bottomly) after you click here to read the story.

Remember what the Weather Service says about the weather this weekend: Wear light clothing. Seek out cool, air-conditioned spaces. Hydrate. Beware those inviting — but still dangerous — rivers. I’ll see you next weekend.