PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JULY 29, 2016
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
There are no small parts
By LYNDON ZAITZ
In my mind, all the
world’s my stage; I perform
on it every day. But some-
times I have a need to ap-
pear on an actual theatrical
stage. Keizer Homegrown
Theatre’s (KHT) annual
Shakespeare in the Park fi ts
the bill.
Earlier this month, I performed in
my fi fth consecutive production on
the Keizer Rotary Amphitheatre stage
at Keizer Rapids Park. This year the
show was Twelfth Night, or What You
Will and the experience was no less
exciting and rewarding than any of the
previous four shows.
Linda Baker, founder of Keizer
Homegrown Theatre, and director of
this year’s show has a great nose for
talent and, year after year, is able to put
together a cast of committed people
who give up their time for weeks to
tread the boards. She recruits former
students from her drama teacher days
at McNary High School; she recruits
from other theatre companies. You
know you are under good direction
when the right people are cast in the
right roles. Actors clamor to return to
act with Shakespeare in the Park. And
why not?
For those of us who didn’t pay
as close attention as we should have
when studying Shakespeare in high
school attain a new level of reverence
and understanding of the greatest
English language playwright. The way
the Bard’s plays are edited and staged
make it accessible to audiences of all
ages—especially the comedies such as
Twelfth Night and last year’s A Midsum-
mer Night’s Dream.
The cast and crew meet
new people that become
friends and have a bond-
ing experience that only
comes from performing
with and off each other.
The audiences get free en-
tertainment that is anything
but run-of-the-mill and is performed
outside in the fresh air.
Over the past fi ve summers, I have
had the privilege of acting in parts
both big and small. It is a big responsi-
bility regardless of the size of the role.
Fellow actors rely on you knowing
your lines and your staging. In com-
munity theatre one fi nds every level
of ability—some have acted for years,
others are newbies who bring an in-
nocence to the acting company.
The cast and crew of each pro-
duction spends a lot of time together,
either preparing sets or in rehearsals.
There is a lot of down time which
means we all get to know each oth-
er well over a few intense weeks of
preparation.
We get together to put on a show
in the summer. It’s fun, it’s creative and
it fosters camraderie between people
that don’t run in the same circles out-
side the show. Opening night jitters
become second and third night confi -
dence and ends with a melancholy on
closing night. Our mid-summer ad-
venture is coming to an end and then
we all return our day-to-day lives. But
the excitement returns when we think
of what we get to do with Shakespeare
next summer.
on
my
mind
Korean War:
63 years later
(Lyndon Zaitz is publisher of the
Keizertimes.)
Mexico, deporting all
Muslims, taking away the
rights of women to decide
their own health concerns,
taking away rights of the
LGBT community and the
list goes on. While you and
others may see nothing but
doom and gloom for our
country, I see a chance for us to con-
tinue a path of success that Obama has
created and Clinton will build upon.
You can’t and will not see racial ten-
sions improve under a Trump admin-
istration.
Kris Adams
Keizer
letters
To the Editor:
July 27, 2016 marks the
63rd anniversary of the
ceasefi re of the Korean
War (the “Forgotten War”
that is technically still go-
ing on).
To date, no peace treaty has been
signed. A ceasefi re went into effect at
10 p.m. July 27, 1953, which required
all troops to begin dismantling and va-
cating their combat positions the fol-
lowing day.
Peace talks had been in progress
for many months before agreeing on
the ceasefi re. A truce happened and
an armistice was agreed to but still,
no offi cial peace treaty. There were
in excess of 37,000 Americans killed
in combat during the 37 months from
June, 1950 to July, 1953. Equate this
to the population of Keizer.
Bob Wickman
Keizer
Reply to Don Vowell
To the Editor:
I might agree with a few statements
from Don Vowell’s column (Stuck be-
tween two extremes, July 22) but not in
whole.
I don’t agree that Hillary Clinton is
extreme. She offers up mostly middle
of the road stands on issues and in
some cases very progressive stances.
That is not a bad thing. It takes the
ability to understand our changing so-
ciety and what it takes to get things
done. Clinton offers experience and
the tough attitude to get things ac-
complished. And to blame Obama for
the removal of troops (from Iraq) is
inaccurate. He was working on agree-
ments made under the Bush admin-
istration.
I, for one, feel very well represented
by Hillary Clinton. I may not agree
with everything, but tell me anyone
that you would agree with 100 per-
cent. Unlike the Democratic candi-
date, the other side offers up nothing
but racism, bigotry and downright
hatred for those unlike themselves.
Building a wall between the US and
Mayor is correct
To the Editor:
Mayor Cathy Clark recently
brought up the subject of taxes and
asked questions about what the city
can currently afford and what the fu-
ture demands may be for additional
tax revenue.
A mayor and city governments
must ask these questions to be re-
sponsible and effective with their
leadership. Especially with a growing
community with limited resources
and a tight tax base.
Since when is raising questions
and items for discussion bad govern-
ment? I have learned from 25 years in
state law enforcement, state manage-
ment and private business ownership
that the best decisions come from ac-
tive discussions and debate. The more
determined and varied views the
better. The fi nal decision in this case
will be debated and decided by the
voters. Perfect.
Mayor Clark can’t sit on her hands
and let the city grow, let infrastructure
and service become overwhelmed
until it all begins to fail. These issues
have to be addressed in the present
to prepare for the future. She is ex-
actly right to be raising issues for the
future of Keizer including taxes and
revenue—that is part of the equation
which drives everything else a city
government can or cannot do.
John P. Rizzo
Keizer
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Clinton’s Philly vs. Trump’s Cleveland
By E.J. DIONNE JR.
After a raucous Republican con-
vention nominated the very con-
servative Barry Goldwater in 1964,
President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign
ran an advertisement quoting William
Scranton, Pennsylvania’s moderate
governor, describing “Goldwaterism”
as a “crazy-quilt collection of absurd
and dangerous positions.”
This is the week in which Clinton
tried to nail down the support of the
nation’s Latino and African-Ameri-
can voters while sowing deep doubts
about Trump among what is likely
to be the election’s key target group:
college-educated white voters.
She reinforced her appeal to them
by picking Tim Kaine as her running
mate. He’s thoughtful, experienced
and respected, broadly progressive
yet with a moderate, conciliatory de-
meanor.
But Clinton has real work to do
on her own behalf, which is why the
Democrats’ conclave will be far more
positive and upbeat than the GOP’s
gloomy attack-fest. One objective will
be to boost Clinton’s favorable ratings
after a rocky period during which FBI
Director James Comey’s verbal exco-
riation of her use of a private email
server set her up for a polling tumble.
Democrats will be battling what
they see as a false equivalency in the
media that casts both major party can-
didates in the same light because of
surveys giving each of them histori-
cally high negative scores. Clinton’s
campaign wants Democrats (who will
form a large part of the television au-
dience) to come away with new en-
thusiasm for their candidate, and swing
voters to see Clinton as far more ready
than Trump, by experience and tem-
perament, to be
president.
Accentuat-
ing the positive
will also be im-
portant because
Trump has bet
his candidacy
on his ability to
persuade a suffi cient share of the elec-
torate that the nation really is in the
midst of a catastrophic crisis.
Here is where the minority of
Americans who pay close attention
to both conventions will suffer from
an acute case of whiplash: Democrats
will not only be arguing that Clinton
offers a better future; they will be vig-
orously defending President Obama’s
legacy.
Republicans may thus come to re-
gret their decision to harness Clinton
and Obama together as twin authors
of national apocalypse. At a time when
the president’s approval ratings have
been healthy, the GOP helped lock in
Obama’s strongest supporters behind
the woman who had once been his
political adversary.
The ferocity of Trump’s attacks on
Obama paradoxically make it easier
for Clinton to advance the dual-track
case she needs to make: that she will
build on rather than demolish the
president’s achievements while also
tending to long-standing problems
that predated the Obama years. The
GOP’s picture of Obama is a wildly
distorted parody, and parodies are
more vulnerable to the facts than are
honest descriptions of reality.
And this convention will also be an
opportunity to offer a gentle remind-
er that the last time someone named
Clinton was president, the nation
guest
column
enjoyed a run of peace and prosper-
ity. During the GOP gathering, Sen.
Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., declared that in-
comes had not recovered since their
high in 1999. Trump made the same
point using the year 2000. Neither
mentioned who was president back
then.
But the Philadelphia Democrats
also have a moral obligation: They
cannot concede the white working-
class to Donald Trump.
Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s prima-
ry rival, will play a vital role in see-
ing that they don’t, and shrewd vote
counters know that surrendering this
constituency could endanger Clinton
in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio
and Michigan. But more than calcula-
tion is involved. Democrats have a re-
sponsibility to unite a fractured nation.
The pain faced by those who work for
wages transcends the lines of race and
ethnicity.
There are also the party’s oldest
commitments to defend. When the
Democrats last met in Philadelphia in
1948, President Harry Truman insist-
ed it was their party that had served as
“the haven of the ordinary people of
this land and not of the favored classes
or the powerful few.” It was here 12
years earlier that Franklin Roosevelt
declared: “Liberty requires opportu-
nity to make a living —a living decent
according to the standard of the time,
a living which gives man not only
enough to live by, but something to
live for.”
Clinton has to cut through the stat-
ic surrounding her to persuade those
whom Trump is wooing with the pol-
itics of fear that she and her party still
offer a credible politics of hope.
(Washington Post Writers Group)
Astoria Column is a summer must-see
Thoughts about my home town
were inspired a few days ago by way of
a short article in The Oregonian about
one of Astoria’s landmarks. The As-
toria Column’s offi cial dedication oc-
curred 90 years ago on July 22, 1926.
The column was built at the insti-
gation of the president of the Great
Northern Railway, Ralph Budd, who
held a high opinion of America’s
west coast pioneers and heartily felt
they deserved a monument equal to
their intrepid efforts to spread the
U.S. to the Pacifi c Ocean. Interest-
ingly, Astoria Column is 125 feet
high and exactly equal in height to
Emperor Trajan’s column in Rome
after which its design was duplicat-
ed. Rome’s version continues stand-
ing though it is well over 2,000 years
old: It commemorates Trajan’s two
military campaigns in Dacia—mod-
ern day Romania.
Trajan’s column is covered with
fi gures carved in low relief on 19
drums of Italian marble that provide
a narrative of 155 key scenes from the
Roman campaign in Dacia. Astoria
Column presents a painted pictorial
frieze on the exterior in mural form
that spirals along for 525 feet from
bottom to top, displaying signifi cant
events in the early history of Oregon
with representations, among others, of
Native Ameri-
can tribes that
lived in the area,
the exploration
of the Colum-
bia River by
Captain Rob-
ert Gray, Lewis
and Clark’s ex-
pedition, the founding of Fort Astoria
in 1811, and the ship Tonquin’s jour-
ney from New York to Astoria.
Electus D. Litchfi eld and Attilio
Pusteria painted the exterior mu-
ral on the column in Astoria which
is built of concrete on a foundation
12 feet deep and found atop the
city’s highest point, Coxcomb Hill,
at a cost of $27,133.96 or $363,000
in today’s dollars. Due to coastal
weather conditions, the Column’s
mural has been re-fi nished a few
times since 1926. Astoria Column
can be climbed by a spiral staircase of
164 steps for a glorious view of the
city and its surroundings with Tilla-
mook Head to the south, the state of
Washington to the north, the Colum-
bia River bar to the Pacifi c Ocean to
the west and the Columbia River and
forested areas to the east.
What’s much more interesting
than the column itself and the years it
has stood is what it stands for in terms
gene h.
mcintyre
of the men and women who risked
and sometimes gave their lives for the
establishment of the United States
further west than its boundaries in
the early 1800s. The German-Amer-
ican who invested in the outfi ttings,
ships and land-based structures, John
Jacob Astor, never visited his invest-
ment. The Oregon Territory waxed
and waned between British and U.S.
claims until a treaty in 1846 between
the United States and Great Britain
that established the U.S boundary at
the 49th parallel, our northern border
with British Columbia.
A trip by car to Astoria from Keiz-
er requires about three hours travel
time so, visiting that famous column
and the many other sites of historical
signifi cance in Clatsop County like
Fort Stevens, plus a recommended
side trip over the no-toll Astoria-
Megler Bridge to the North Head
Lighthouse and Washington’s famous
rebuilt-to-authentic-original
Fort
Columbia, are best enjoyed by at
least one night overnight. For those
persons who prefer knowing some-
thing about what they’re seeing on
such a trip, Peter Stark’s book, Astoria,
and Stephen E. Ambrose’s Undaunted
Courage, are recommended reading.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)
I got to go to the Disneyland of politics
I thought this month I would give
to you my thoughts on my experi-
ences as a delegate to the Republican
National Convention in Cleveland.
I was honored to be elected as an
“at large” delegate, one of only 10
from Oregon. I attended the 2012
convention in Tampa as a media per-
son so I had some experience in a
convention but nothing like being a
delegate on the fl oor of the conven-
tion. It was exciting and exhilarating.
Being a long-time political junkie
(well let’s be honest, a “geek”), it was
like going to political Disneyland for
me. I was thrilled to meet some of
my personal political “stars” like Sen.
Orrin Hatch of Utah, Phyllis Schlafl y
of National Right to Life, Col. Allen
West, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point
USA, Gov. Haley Barbour and so
many more. As a delegate, you have
a “free pass” to roam the fl oor when
not voting and the fl oor is where all
of the action is for a photo or auto-
graph seeker.
The real work, though, was the
forming of and completion of the
party platform and I am so proud of
our Oregon delegation’s heavy in-
volvement in forming one of the most
conservative and complete platforms
in Republican history. Later, as the
evenings went on, we heard from all
kinds of people from all walks of life
who spoke from the stage. I was fasci-
nated by their speeches. From combat
veterans to mothers to long time pol-
iticians to sons and daughters. All of
them had a story to tell of the great-
ness of American and the freedom
and liberty that this nation affords us.
from the
capitol
Rep.
BILL POST
I was proud to stand and pledge alle-
giance and sing the National Anthem
every night. I was proud of the prom-
inence of the American fl ag through-
out the building. Most of all, I was so
proud of the men and women who
wear the “blue” who worked so hard
to keep us safe just as they do every
day of their lives from all over the na-
tion. People ask me “What was the
highlight of the convention?” I can’t
point to any one thing, I just know
that it is an experience I will never
forget. I was a part of the process of
nominating and perhaps electing the
president of the United States. That
is very humbling. I am also so very
much honored and humbled to rep-
resent you, the great people of Keizer
as state representative. You are the
best people I know and I hope you
know that no matter what your po-
litical party might be, I am here for
you. I honor you and I serve you.
(Bill Post represents House Dis-
trict 25. He can be reached at 503-
986-1425 or via email at rep.bill-
post@state.or.us.)