One could make a good case, and many have, that history w ill call our time the Age of idiocy Given a dark sense of humor and an even superficial grasp of the past, it s possible to muster from this distinction a perverse sort of pride During the long run of humanity's slapstick lit t le comedy on the planet, com petition between truly stupid episodes has been nothing if not keen The Children s Crusade comes to mind And Manifest Destiny And the notion that witches, when hogt led and pitched into a pond, would float Forrest Gump was not the firs t to point out that stupid is as stupid does But the stupid is not always idiotic To qualify as an idiot act, being dim w itted isn t enough ignorance, if not bliss, can at least be charming idiocy is another m atter For an act to be idiotic, those performing it must know better and go ahead anyway Idiocy is the sum of stupidity, indifference, and blind contempt In fu ll flower, it's an impressive force As you may or may not have heard, the United States Navy recently agreed to halt bombing exercises in and around a marine sanctuary off the Olympic Peninsula The ceasefire w ill give them tim e to consult federal "fish experts" about the possible negative effects involved in pattern bombing salmon runs Sure, it sounds farfetched, but you just never know A spokeshuman for the National Marine Fisheries 5ervice acknowledged that "a potential to damage Chinook salmon and other protected species migrating to the Snake River" might follow from dropping SOO lb cluster bombs on their migratory route Hi, we re from the government and we re here to annihilate you Fish huggers. small surprise, see At the risk of beating a dead horse, we can t help seeing a lit t le irony in the tim ing In June of 1982. while one branch of the government was unleashing hiqh- tech mayhem and destruction upon the region's totem fish, several other branches were arresting River People for catching a few of the shell shocked survivors It s hard to imagine a Big Picture in which this makes sense Lest we forget, the late David Sohappy, a Yakama priest, did hard time in the federal slammer In a just and less idiotic world, hed be followed by scores of pilots, an admiral or two, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of S taff Shall we all, once again, hold our breath? strafing endangered species as an act of umblemished insanity Everyone has an opinion To the m ilita ry mind, air strikes might be just what s needed to toughen up the salmon for the real challenge leaping forty storey dams Looking for a few good fish, that sort of thing Anyway, idiotic as it might sound in the face of vanishing salmon runs, attack aircraft from Whidbey island Naval Air Station have been blowing up the ocean off Gray s Harbor for at least fifte e n years Fortunately, no damage was done "At this point," a government spokeshuman was quick to calm concern for the nearly extinct, "the Navy has reported no evidence whatsoever of fish k ill ’ Talk about luck c o r a m l c s c u lp t u r e • c e r a m i c g a r d e n a r t EAT M ORE C O O KIES ) C in n am o n RoMe P izza by the Suca Muttma FspreMM) and C ookies 239 N HEM LO CK P h. 4 3 4 2 8 3 2 by Northwest Gallery 2 3 » N o r t h H o m lo c k P O C a n n o n B o o th 5 0 9 /4 3 6 0 7 4 1 O regon M lA R U P itE What would you have done?" That was the question he asked after hed told me the story didr11 really have an answer He s a farmer, 63 years old In 1983, after 30 years, he paid off the mortgage on his farm He and his w ife are completely dependent on income from the fru it, berries and livestock they produce a while back he read an article in the newspaper Sunday supplement about a rare, perhaps endangered plant found along the Oregon coast Darlingtoma Jacobs Pulpit, sometimes called the "Cobra Plant" because of its shape it looked fam iliar to him That afternoon he walked to a small low spot in the middle of his cherry orchard Less than an acre, it is always damp from a s**ep in the hillside He was right The damp ground supported dozens of Darlingtoma He thought about a report he d seen on television about this rancher in the southwest It had been discovered that this rancher had an endangered snail living in a pond on his land Eventually, in order to use any of the land around the pond, he had to fence it off at his own expense He was also forbidden to use any pesticides w ith in a half m ile of the area The cherry orchard earnings are the largest part of my friend's income He walked back to the barn He ftile d a spraycan w ith herbicide He went back and kille d every Darlingtoma He s checked since to see that none have survived "if they were declared endangered." he said, they might have done me like they did that fellow w ith the snails "What if they wouldri t let me spray my cherries? The cherry processors have a zero tolerance policy on worms One worm in one cherry and they refuse the whole crop That's one, one single worm "That isn t a l l I d have s t ill had to pay property tax on the land I couldn t use They won t let you set it off into a separate tax lot, so if you don't pay taxes on it the county takes your whole farm I m sixty three I just couldn t take the chance What would you have done?" I ih io k the one lesson I have le a rn e d is th a t th e re is no s u b s tilu U f a r p a y in g a tte n tio n Diane S a v y e r B o« 1021 » 7 1 1 0 __________J O Y C E L I N C O L N , D i r e c t o r /'u< i/ic North A rtl Contem/turury Art