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YOU CAN’T GET THERE
FROM HERE.
And that means you can’t get here from there.
The rivers run through us.
Yes, the times are tough on the Coast this winter,
and they aren’t any better in the valley. We are, for
the most part, very proud of the behavior of
Oregonians in the recent disasters. We worried
about our friends and subscribers, in Nehalem,
Tillamook, especially Vernonia. The Ragsdale
family, who are up for sainthood in the Rastified
Church of the Cowboy Buddha, survived with minor
physical damage, but spent a painful time helping
clean up the High School their son attends. When
one of the students was asked, “What did you lose in
the flood?”, she replied, “ My homework. Really!”
In Portland, Brother Del worked 18 hours on the
Willamette Wall. But he’s always like that.
We in Cannon Beach were pretty much untouched
in our homes. Ecola Park suffered slides that closed
the roads and the trails. We couldn’t get to Indian
Beach. We saw logging, including several very
large and very' healthy trees, near the toll gate.
Somehow, we don’t think cutting down trees is a
solution.
One thing that worries us is that we are down
stream from everyone. The barrels they didn’t catch
on Sauvies Island, the Round-Up© and anti-freeze
stored in garages and bams that has washed down­
stream along with countless gallons of raw sewage;
all this is bound to show up sooner or later. So,
along with the free lumber and beach firewood,
there’s a lot of nasty stuff out there. Be careful if
you find some, and let folks know.
We here at the Edge are very concerned about our
advertisers, their winter was going bad enough
without being washed out and cut off. Especially the
folks in Nehalem, Manzanita, Tillamook, Lincoln
City,. . . well, it’s a long list. So, if you get a
chance, drop in and say hello; and if they don’t need
a hand, they are the kind of folks who can tell you
who does.
At this point, things do not simply
become ugly; they become stupid.
Theodore Roszak
IT’S PAT
By Watt Childress
Modem political genders are increasingly
ambiguous. Words like “liberal”, “conservative”,
“right”, “left”, “ moderate”, “radical”,
“revolutionary”, and “mainstream” have been played
so heavily in Washington that their emotional
definition is starting to self-deconstruct. As these
terms lose their lock on the American mind, strange
new fusions of popular thought are being set free to
rise up in front of us.
Pat Buchanan is riding roughshod upon this
liberated upsurge. This seasoned commentator has
long observed how to engender the public’s ire with
the right mix of words. His early v ictories in the
primaries show he can use this skill to become a hot
political contender; but his profile is upsetting the
stomachs of Party Brahmins. A v ocal defender of
the unborn, he’s forged a hefty alliance with
religious groups. Yet he is equally defining his
appeal to working-class activists by challenging
NAFTA and GATT. Coupled with his
denouncement of abortion, Pat’s upbraiding of
current transnational trade policies is confounding the
regularity of the establishment. H e’s flustering the
digestion of those gatekeepers who control the
financial flow between Wall Street and Washington -
- that cabal of investors who have profited from
corporate lay-offs and who lobbied the transfer of
economic power to the World Trade Organization.
Bored silly and fed up with most pro politicos, I
say go ahead Pat. I loathed you back in ‘92, when
the media magnified your racist views, and your
positions on personal privacy enclosed our bedrooms
with glass. Back then, Jerry Brown got my
insurgent vote. Like you, he displayed a unique
blend of political androgyny - combining his repute
as a Mother Teresa-esque leftist with an advocacy for
the flat tax. Jerry’s gone now, bless his heart. Now
you, Brother Buchanan, appear to be the only
candidate w ho’s willing to rant against the executives
of Mammon. I’m primed to vote for East Tennesee's
homeboy; but, much to my chagrin, a small part of
me is starting to root for you.
Of course, there are oodles of unknowns left in the
race, and thousands of miles to go between New
Hampshire and California. The allure of corporate
power will be poised at every Interstate Exit, ready to
co-opt and skew your platform as it does with every
viable candidate. Unlike Steve Forbes, you don’t
have an Olympic-sized pool of cash to pump into
political ads. Standard Party logic says you’ll need a
lot more dough, and in order to get it, you may well
decide to moderate your “fair trade -vs- free trade"
message. Unless. . .
Ross Perot is still galliv anting around out there, a
Napoleonic dude who’s equally famed for fighting
the New World Order’s trafficking. Is there even an
outside chance, Brother Buchanan, that Perot and his
supporters might tithe to your candidacy? And
though it bucks the status quo, it is not unthinkable
that a candidate could win a major chunk of votes
without the blessing of the big banks. This
possibility feeds the fervor of populism, and far be it
for me to slight such chances. I ’m an idealist.
Yet regardless of what happens to your campaign
coffers, it takes acute smarts and soul for any
insurgent to survive. Strong channels of
communication must be opened that will draw united
support from diverse camps. The wild frontier of
“new ideas” must be truly explored. For example,
how about broadening your coalition of Christians to
include the growing movement of evangelicals who
promote environmental stewardship. Or be a real
wild-man: hold a religious summit with Pat
Robertson and Jesse Jackson. You could emerge
from hours of negotiations to publicly announce a
fresh take on moral education and school prayer (“I
pledge allegiance to the Golden Rule, and will serve
God, not Mammon”).
If you are unable to bridge divergent factions, then
a campaign like yours can arise from the
disenfranchised fringes and cave in to the central
establishment overnight. Using the bulwark of the
mainstream media, the gatekeepers will seek to scare
Republicans away from you with a blitzkrieg of
phrases like “isolationism”, “anti-growth”, and
“class-warfare”. To threaten Democrats, they’ll keep
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BASEBALL
The Cubs begin the season on April Fool’s
Day. This could be a good sign. Ken
Griffey Jr. is running for President with
the Mariner Moose — write him in in the
Primary, and maybe we could talk him into
chosing a Rhino for the number two spot.
The Baby Bruins from Chicago will be
hosting Catholic Priests from San Diego for
the opener. And both cities will host a
National Political Convention this year.
This could be a bad sign. Play Ball!
Jessie & Ja m e s G e a ry , P roprietors
4792 S.E. Hwy 101
Lincoln City. OR 97367
hitting the airwaves with monikers like “bigot",
“chauvinist”, and “gay-basher”. If we hear these
words often enough, independents like me w ill
surely steer dow n the middle of the road, looking lor
a safe place to buy an emotional laxative. Depending
on our political orientation, w e’ll snatch from the
shelves a brandnamed Party product like Bill Clinton
or Lamar Alexander. Once again we’ll make the
choice between Coke and Pepsi, even thought w e’re
tired of drinking either one.
In the mass media market of modem politics,
company labels can still sound as smooth and soft-
spun as Charmin. But it’s good to be reminded:
when the mainstream plumbing gets chronically
clogged, we might just thumb our nose at
convention. Out of sheer frustration, we could
always make use of the ol ’ outhouse and a crude
hybrid com cob.
(Brother Watt is our regular commentator from the land of
Gore and Honey -e d )
UPPER. LEfT EÙGE MARCH -PH 6
1