OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2015
Restoring memoriam to Memorial Day
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Salmon’s fan club
should stay intact
By CHARLES M. BLOW
New York Times News Service
T
his Memorial Day, as we
headed to the lake and the
beach, grilled and drank, shopped
and saved,
laid out in the
sun or sought
shady places,
we hopeful-
ly remained
cognizant that
the holiday
didn’t begin
Charles
as a day of
Blow
celebration or
commerce but one of solemnity
and, indeed, memoriam.
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
The Washington Monument is reflected in part of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in Washington, D.C.
As David W. Blight, a profes- increasingly, limb for this country,
and that must be saluted.
sor of history and the director of
Some of our wars are those of di-
the Gilder Lehrman Center for the sastrous execution, others of decep-
Study of Slavery, Resistance and tive inception, some a bit of both, but
hen Gov. John Kitzhaber abruptly resigned in January, Abolition at Yale wrote in The New they are all ours.
Yet we are drifting away from this
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lower Columbia River. Kitzhaber had alluded to the need for year of the Civil War, a racetrack public in general and the elected of-
was converted to
¿FLDOVZKRKDYHVDQF-
adaptive management of his gillnet plan.
an outdoor prison
tioned and sustained
6HLQH¿VKLQJDSSHDUHGQRWWR Brown did not waver in her sup- for Union captives;
We are
our wars, sometimes
be working as planned. And the port for Buckmaster. State Sen. “at least 257 died
over substantial pub-
drifting
lic objection, have a
coastal seat on the state Fish and Betsy Johnson also deserves of disease and were
diminishing personal
Wildlife Commission had been credit for giving credibility to hastily buried in a
away
stake on the battle-
vacant for two years.
the nomination.
mass grave behind
¿HOGV ² IHZ RI WKHLU
from
this
The new governor, Kate
At the end of the day, the grandstand.”
own lives and the
tradition
of
Blight
wrote:
lives of their children,
%URZQ QDPHG $VWRULD ¿VK- Buckmaster will be a valu-
“After
the
Confed-
siblings and spouses.
erman Bruce Buckmaster to able contributor to the Fish
honoring
erate evacuation of
President Barack
the commission. Because of and Wildlife Commission. He Charleston,
black
Obama
isn’t a mili-
sacrifice.
Buckmaster’s involvement with NQRZVLWVWHUUDLQRI¿VKLQJDQG workmen went to
tary veteran, nor are
many of the presi-
Salmon for All and his perceived hunting well. He knows the the site, reburied
the Union dead properly, and built dential hopefuls who have declared
closeness to the commercial FRPSOH[LW\ RI WKH ¿VK UHVRXUFH a high fence around the cemetery” or might declare a run for the White
¿VKLQJ LQGXVWU\ KH QRPLQDWLRQ on the Columbia River.
and the freed people, “in cooperation House in 2016.
Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Mal-
GUHZ ¿UH IURP WKH VSRUW¿VKLQJ
Most of all, Buckmaster with white missionaries and teach-
ers,
staged
a
parade
of
10,000
on
the
ley
and Bernie Sanders have never
industry.
NQRZV WKDW ¿VK PLWLJDWLRQ HQ-
track.”
served. Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand
Over a matter of weeks, hancement and allocation on the
He continued: “After the dedi- Paul, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker,
Buckmaster was vetted in inter- Columbia River involve a web cation, the crowd dispersed into the Chris Christie, Ben Carson, Mike
views with an array of interest of agreements among stakehold- LQ¿HOG DQG GLG ZKDW PDQ\ RI XV GR Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Carly Fio-
groups ranging from agricul- ers over decades. The nature of on Memorial Day: enjoyed picnics, rina and Bobby Jindal have not either.
listened to speeches and watched sol- Only Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham
WXUH WR KXQWHUV WR VSRUW¿VKHUV those compromises, arrange- diers drill.”
and Jim Webb have.
Beneath and above that level ments, federal court rulings and
Blight concluded: “The war was
As USA Today reported in 2012:
“In 2013, just 19 percent of the 535
RI VFUXWLQ\ WKH VSRUW¿VKLQJ LQ- congressional acts have created over, and Memorial Day had been
founded by African-Americans in a combined members in the U.S. House
dustry’s negative campaigning a vast fan base for salmon. Thus, ritual of remembrance and consecra- and Senate will have active-duty mil-
went forward, culminating in it is a misbegotten enterprise to tion. The war, they had boldly an- itary service on their résumé, down
rally on the steps of the Capitol. select one stakeholder group for nounced, had been about the triumph from a peak in 1977 when 80 percent
of their emancipation over a slave- of lawmakers boasted military ser-
Through all of this, Gov. demonization.
holders’ republic. They were them- vice.”
selves the true patriots.”
The newspaper explained:
This is the history from which this
“The transition from the draft to
KROLGD\ VSULQJV KRQRULQJ VDFUL¿FH an all-volunteer military in 1973 is a
$QG KRQRULQJ VDFUL¿FHV FDQ H[LVW driving force of the decline, but veter-
apart from endorsing missions. Many ans and their advocates say they face
of our veterans have given life, and PRUH FKDOOHQJHV UXQQLQJ IRU RI¿FH
In face of relentless opposition,
Gov. Brown stuck by her nomination
W
No snow makes it
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‘We’re borrowing from the future’
ach spring much excitement
naturally centers on return-
ing salmon runs, but this also is
a key time for outward-bound
young salmon headed toward the
VDOWZDWHURIWKH3DFL¿F2FHDQ
This year offers a taste of
what climate researchers tell us
will become routine as the cen-
tury moves forward: In-stream
ÀRZVWKDWDUHPXFKDIIHFWHGE\
lack of snowpack in the moun-
tains surrounding the Columbia-
Snake watershed.
“Managers are running out of
ways to add water to the river
system in order to move the last
of the juvenile salmon through
the dams,” Columbia Basin
Bulletin reported last Friday.
There is no way to sugarcoat
it: water storage in the form of
snow is beginning to be an unde-
SHQGDEOHZD\RIPRYLQJ¿VKXS
and down the river.
Last Friday, river manag-
ers began a 10-day drawdown
of Grand Coulee Dam waters
LQ RUGHU WR ERRVW ULYHU ÀRZV DW
McNary Dam. This is a cause
for concern considering our
low-snow winter and uncertain
spring precipitation. If rainfall
and runoff aren’t adequate, the
Grand Coulee drawdown won’t
leave water managers with much
margin for error. “Yes, we know
we’re borrowing from the fu-
ture,” a National Oceanic and
Atmospheric
Administration
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This spring’s maneuvering is
an interesting look behind the
scenes at how system operators
budget waters between differ-
ent reservoirs and needs. In es-
sence, stored water represents a
saving account that can be spent
to produce electricity, transport
salmon, irrigate crops and other
purposes.
When it comes to moving
young salmon toward the ocean,
logistics are complicated by dif-
fering time and requirements
for salmon runs. With the juve-
nile run winding down in the
Snake River and without more
water available from a reser-
voir on the Lower Snake, the
Bulletin reported the Technical
Management Team that juggles
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ation is now concentrating on
passing juveniles through the
Lower Columbia River dams by
calling on Grand Coulee water.
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Northwest will become much
more familiar with all these issues
in coming decades. We will have
to become increasingly adept at
choreographing water releas-
es, transporting young salmon
around danger spots, and using
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to have enough for everything. It
will also be necessary to alter the
West’s water laws: A proposal in
Washington state would allow
the state Department of Ecology
to lease water from private land-
owners who control it, in order to
temporarily shift it to other pri-
orities.
A long-term change to this
year’s conditions isn’t expected
until mid-century. But it is none
too soon to start getting ready.
in the modern era of political cam-
paigns.”
As for the current Congress, as
the PBS NewsHour noted in Novem-
ber: “In all, 97 members of the next
session of Congress will have served
in the U.S. military. That means less
than 18 percent of the new congres-
sional delegation served in the armed
forces. (Note: This number includes
one nonvoting delegate from the
Northern Marianas.)”
And, as FiveThirtyEight pointed
out in March:
“As of Jan. 31, there were close to
1.4 million people serving in the U.S.
armed forces, according to the latest
numbers from the Defense Manpow-
er Data Center, a body of the Depart-
ment of Defense. That means that 0.4
percent of the American population is
active military personnel.”
Furthermore, we are moving to-
ward a society in which the rich and
powerful avoid service while those of
fewer means sometimes see it as one
of only a few options.
As Karl W. Eikenberry and David
M. Kennedy wrote in The Times in
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and daughters serving that they speak,
with pride and anxiety, about war
as a ‘family business.’” The authors
continued: “Here are the makings
of a self-perpetuating military caste,
sharply segregated from the larger
society and with its enlisted ranks
disproportionately recruited from the
disadvantaged. History suggests that
such scenarios don’t end well.”
In a way, Memorial Day may be a
time for us to consider the evolution
of this day: a day established by a dis-
advantaged population to honor war
heroes who now belong to a military
whose members are increasingly be-
ing drawn from a disadvantaged pop-
ulation.
Next year, think about that be-
tween the barbecue and beers.
Is the tech revolution overhyped?
it effectively aren’t the
selves. Nothing like that is
same thing. Give it time,
happening now.
said economic historians,
Another possibility is
that new technologies are
emember
Douglas and computers will even-
more fun than fundamen-
Adams’ 1979 novel The tually deliver the goods
(and services).
tal. Peter Thiel, one of
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
the founders of PayPal,
This optimism seemed
Galaxy?
famously remarked that
vindicated when produc-
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It began with some technology WLYLW\ JURZWK ¿QDOO\ WRRN
got 140 characters instead.
off
circa
1995.
Progress
snark, dismissing Earth as a planet
And he’s not alone in sug-
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Paul
whose life-forms “are so amazingly
gesting that information
America, which seemed
Krugman
primitive that they still think digital to be at the cutting edge of
technology that excites
watches are a pretty neat idea.”
the Twittering classes may not be a
the revolution.
But that was then, in the early
But a funny thing happened on big deal for the economy as a whole.
stages of the information technology the way to the techno-revolution. We
So what do I think is going on
revolution.
did not, it turned out, get a sustained with technology? The answer is that
Since then we’ve moved on to return to rapid economic progress. , GRQ¶W NQRZ ² EXW QHLWKHU GRHV
PXFK PRUH VLJQL¿FDQW WKLQJV VR Instead, it was more of a one-time anyone else. Maybe my friends at
much so that the big technology idea spurt, which sputtered out around a Google are right, and Big Data will
of 2015, so far, is a digital watch. decade ago. Since then, we’ve been soon transform everything. Maybe
But this one tells you to stand up if living in an era of iPhones and iPads 3-D printing will bring the infor-
you’ve been sitting too long!
and iDontKnows, but even if you ad- mation revolution into the material
OK, I’m snarking, too. But there MXVWIRUWKHHIIHFWVRI¿QDQFLDOFULVLV world. Or maybe we’re on track for
is a real question here. Everyone growth and trends in income have re- another big meh.
What I’m pretty sure about, how-
knows that we live in an era of in- verted to the sluggishness that char-
ever, is that we ought to scale back
credibly rapid technological change, acterized the 1970s and 1980s.
which is changing everything. But
In other words, at this point, the the hype.
You see, writing and talking
what if what everyone knows is whole digital era, spanning more
wrong? And I’m
than four decades, breathlessly about how technolo-
not being wildly
is looking like a dis- gy changes everything might seem
We’ve been appointment. New harmless, but, in practice, it acts as
contrarian here. A
growing number of
technologies have a distraction from more mundane is-
living in
economists, look-
yielded great head- VXHV ² DQG DQ H[FXVH IRU KDQGOLQJ
ing at the data on
lines, but modest those issues badly. If you go back
an era of
productivity and in-
economic results. WR WKH V \RX ¿QG PDQ\ LQÀX-
ential people saying the same kinds
comes, are wonder- iPhones and
Why?
ing if the technolog-
One possibility of things such people say nowadays:
iPads and
ical revolution has
is that the numbers This isn’t really about the business
been greatly over-
are missing the re- cycle, never mind debates about
K\SHG ² DQG VRPH iDontKnows.
ality,
especially macroeconomic policy; it’s about
technologists share
WKH EHQH¿WV RI QHZ radical technological change and a
their concern.
products and services. I get a lot of workforce that lacks the skills to deal
We’ve been here before. The pleasure from technology that lets with the new era.
And then, thanks to World War II,
Hitchhiker’s Guide was published me watch streamed performances
during the era of the “productivity by my favorite musicians, but that ZH¿QDOO\JRWWKHGHPDQGERRVWZH
paradox,” a two-decade-long period doesn’t get counted in GDP. Still, needed, and all those supposedly un-
during which technology seemed to new technology is supposed to serve TXDOL¿HGZRUNHUV²QRWWRPHQWLRQ
EH DGYDQFLQJ UDSLGO\ ² SHUVRQDO businesses as well as consumers, and 5RVLHWKH5LYHWHU²WXUQHGRXWWREH
computing, cellphones, local area should be boosting the production of quite useful in the modern economy,
networks and the early stages of the traditional as well as new goods. The if given a chance.
Of course, there I go, invoking
,QWHUQHW ² \HW HFRQRPLF JURZWK big productivity gains of the period
was sluggish and incomes stagnant. from 1995 to 2005 came largely in history. Don’t I understand that
Many hypotheses were advanced to things like inventory control, and everything is different now? Well,
explain that paradox, with the most showed up as much or more in non- I understand why people like to
popular probably being that invent- technology businesses like retail as say that. But that doesn’t make it
ing a technology and learning to use in high-technology industries them- true.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
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