Slant

• The legislative session is over, but the Oregon Republicans are still mad at Gov. Kate Brown. As first reported by the conservative-leaning newspaper The Washington Times, the Oregon Republican Party announced its intention to launch a recall campaign of Brown. This is the second recall committee organized to unseat Brown. Some representatives from Flush Down Kate Brown, which became an active recall committee July 15, expressed anger on the Oregon Republicans’ Facebook page, claiming the Republicans will complicate the signature-signing process. The road to recalling Brown is long. A recall petition needs 280,050 signatures, and then voters must approve the recall in an election — which, if enough signatures are gathered, would possibly be in November. 

Kudos to Rachael Carnes, a local playwright and a regular writer for EW. Her new play, Partner Of —, is a finalist in the Samuel French 44th Annual Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, which opens Aug. 21 for a week-long run in New York City. The festival picked 30 of more than 900 submissions from around the world to present live to a panel of judges; six of those finalists will be published and licensed for production by French.

Fifty years ago this week began the historic eight-day journey to the Moon, a voyage that capped a momentous decade of space flight for NASA and the United States. The lunar module to Apollo 11, Eagle, touched down and ended a decade-long race with the Soviet Union to put a man on the lunar surface. Neil Armstrong, followed by Buzz Aldrin, became the first humans to walk on Earth’s only permanent satellite. It was the first of six manned Apollo flights that reached the Moon. The Apollo program ended in 1975. The Space Shuttle program started in 1981 and ended in 2011. What’s next? Mars or beyond? The cost is exorbitant, but the science, the theater and the majesty are meaningful.