OPINION
6A
Music festival
ahead of last year
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
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2015
D
ON HASKELL AND I
looked at each other in
amazement. We agreed that the
music coming from the stage of
the Liberty Theater on Saturday
evening was as good as anything
you might hear in New York or
Chicago.
‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things;
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages —and kings —’
Through the Looking-glass
of Cabbages and Kings
On Sunday, Keith Clark ob-
served that there are very few plac-
es in the world where you could
have heard Bach’s “St. John’s
Passion” one night, and the follow-
ing day heard the Beethoven “Triple
Concerto” followed by the second
act of “Fidelio.”
Each audience I’ve observed at the
festival has been larger than what I re-
member from prior years. Carol Shep-
KHUGFRQ¿UPVWKLV6KHVD\VWKHIHVWL-
DAVID LEE MYERS — For The Daily Astorian
YDOLVSURMHFWHGWR¿QLVKVLJQL¿FDQWO\
ahead of the prior year. Shepherd is the The Sibelius Piano Quintet in G Minor was one of the treats at the
Astoria Music Festival. From left to right, Anthea Kreston, violin;
festival’s managing director.
źźź
Courtesy of Clatsop Historical Society
Before the Scandinavian Festival, Astoria held a Scandinavian
Parade. The winning float from 1911 parades past the replica of
Fort Astoria in this photo.
10 years ago this week — 2005
When “The Star-Spangled Banner” is sung, it is common to see people’s lips
moving along with the words, to hear the low tones of people singing along quietly.
To hear this phenomenon with the national anthems of Denmark, Finland, Iceland,
Norway and Sweden is a far rarer occurrence in America, but it’s been happening
once a year for the last 38 years in Astoria, Oregon, at the Scandinavian Midsum-
mer Festival.
Everywhere you turned at the Clatsop County Fairgrounds this weekend, flags
waved merrily in the breeze. The five Scandinavian flags were joined by the Stars
and Stripes on the walkway from the parking lot to the fairgrounds, in front of the
fairgrounds, and on merchandise at vendors’ stalls.
Why did Seaside wait so long?
That was a question being asked today as agencies up and down the
North Coast continued their post-game analysis of last week’s emergency.
The Seaside Police Department received the tsunami warning at
7:58 p.m. June 14, but the sirens were not sounded until 8:50 p.m. The
alert was canceled at 9:18 p.m., county officials said.
City Manager Mark Winstanley said the city used the time to get
fire and police staff into place to coordinate the evacuation, especially
to direct traffic at all intersections.
Seaside — Drew Weil’s comment to his father was succinct and sensational.
“I just got attacked by a mountain lion!” the nine-year-old told his father, Joe Weil.
Drew had been walking around the next-door neighbor’s house at 1565 Wahanna
road when he came face to face with a mountain lion at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
The big cat leapt toward him slobbering on his shorts and grazing his left leg
with two teeth before it ran off.
Drew is sure it was a mountain lion. “I know what mountain lions look like; I
saw them at the zoo,” he said.
50 years ago — 1965
Fist-fights involving not more than 25 trainees took place Monday
evening at Tongue Point Job Corps Center, the Daily Astorian learned
Tuesday.
Groups of instructors and counselors calmed the fighting and late
in the evening the institution was completely quiet, according to people
who were there.
The State Highway commission is expected to approve an estimated $2 million
relocation project for highway 30 from the Burnside area extending east to Knappa
High School at its July 13 meeting in Salem.
The Russian flagship Mikhail Yanko and at least three trawlers
were operating on the fishing grounds 13 miles west of the Columbia
River lightship late Tuesday.
Arthur Anderson, local drag netter, who operates the boat Wash-
ington, returned to port Wednesday morning after having the Rus-
sians under close observation since Sunday.
Anderson even brought his boat alongside the Mikhail Yanko and
attempted to converse with the friendly Russian crewmen.
“Best we could do was talk sign language,” he said.
Gov. Mark Hatfield has now called upon the U.S. government to provide po-
lice protection at Tongue Point Job Corps Center, something which the govern-
ment should have provided right at the beginning.
It has been apparent to local people for some time that there is need for more
control over the activities of the center trainees, both off and on the base. A handful
of guards is not enough. They are too few and they are not trained police officers.
75 years ago — 1940
Structural steel for Uncle Sam’s naval plane hangar at Tongue Point to-
day was hoisted in position by a special crane as more than 100 skilled work-
men labored on industrial and personnel buildings at the naval air station.
R.R. Bartlett, manager of the Port of Astoria, told the port commission last night
he had written a strong note to U.S. Senator Rufus Holman, urging him to press the
bill to establish a Coast Guard air base at the port’s Clatsop airport, notwithstanding
the adverse recommendation of the acting secretary of treasury.
There is reason to hope that Astoria will be the principal tuna port
in the northwest when the 1940 season opens.
The unusual conditions which resulted in diversion of large quan-
tities of the fish from this port last year may no longer exercise such a
strong influence on the movement of the deep sea fleet.
In 1939 most of the tuna purchased by California firms was deliv-
ered in Westport, Newport, Aberdeen and Seattle, rather than Astoria.
Nelly Kovalev, violin; James VanValkenburg, viola; Jason Duckles,
cello; and Sergey Antonov, cello.
A FEW OF US REMINISCED ÀHZRYHUWKHNH\ERDUG
DERXW WKH YHU\ ¿UVW $VWRULD 0XVLF
My favorite of the weekend was
Festival. Gin Laughery had a wom- the concert version of the second act
en’s wear store in those days, called of Beethoven’s opera “Fidelio.” The
Amaryllis. Gin had stocked quite topic of Beethoven’s only opera is
a number of fabulous scarves and human freedom. The act’s ending was
despaired that she might not move especially powerful, with all princi-
them. Along came the music festival, pals and chorus in full throat
and women wanted something new to
ZHDUHDFKQLJKW7KHVFDUYHVÀHZRII
źźź
the shelves.
It is great to have a festival that
“MY PEOPLE ARE HERE,”
features a silent movie with organ ac- said my wife as we walked into
companiment as well
Safeco Field. She
as major orchestral
had spotted light blue
Kansas
works. Last Thurs-
shirts and hats bear-
day night’s showing
the Kansas City
City Royals ing
of the silent “Wings”
Royals logo. At the
drew a larger crowd
invitation of her cous-
fans
than last year’s show-
in, we had taken the
ing of Buster Keaton proliferated train to Seattle to see
in “The General.” As
the Royals challenge
at Safeco the Mariners.
I watched the depic-
tion of a World War I
Sitting near the
Field
aerial battle, I had one
Royals dugout on
question: “How did
the third base line,
WKH\¿OPWKDW"´
we had a vantage point on the North-
The piano artistry during Satur- west-Midwest rivalry among specta-
day afternoon’s chamber concert was tors. An especially loud Mariner fan (I
EUHDWKWDNLQJ,O\D.D]DQWVHY¶V¿QJHUV didn’t know they made them) was be-
hind me and another was to my right.
At times it seemed as though there
were as many Royals fans as Mariners
zealots.
It’s hard being a Mariners fan. I
tried it for years. Of course, it’s been
even harder to be a Royals fan. My
ZLIHZDWFKHG\HDUVRIODVWSODFH¿Q-
ishes in the American League Central
Division. That ended last year with the
5R\DOV¶VWURQJ¿QLVKDJDLQVWWKH6DQ
Francisco Giants in the World Series.
Our Monday night game moved
at a fast clip, with the Royals hitting
Mariners ace Felix Hernandez early.
7KHJDPH¿QLVKHGDWDUHODWLYHO\HDUO\
9:20 pm with a 4-1 K.C. win.
“So where did all of these Royals
IDQVFRPHIURP"´,DVNHG/RRNLQJDW
her cousin with a knowing smile, my
wife said: “They are the ones who left
(the Midwest).”
— S.A.F.
Fracking and the Franciscans
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
P
ope Francis is one of the world’s
most inspiring figures. There are
passages in his new encyclical on the
environment that beautifully place
human beings within the seamless
garment of life. And yet overall the
encyclical is surprisingly disappoint-
ing.
Legitimate warnings about the
perils of global warming morph into
1970s-style doom-mongering about
technological civilization. There are too
many overdrawn statements like “The
earth, our home, is beginning to look
more and more like an immense pile of
filth.”
Hardest to accept, though, is the moral
premise implied throughout the encyclical:
that the only legitimate human relation-
ships are based on compassion, harmony
and love, and that arrangements based on
self-interest and competition are inherently
destructive.
The pope has a section on work in the
encyclical. The section’s heroes are St.
Francis of Assisi and monks — emblems
of selfless love who seek to return, the pope
says, to a state of “original innocence.”
He is relentlessly negative, on the oth-
er hand, when describing institutions in
which people compete for political power
or economic gain. At one point he links
self-interest with violence. He comes out
against technological advances that will
improve productivity by replacing human
work. He specifically condemns mar-
ket-based mechanisms to solve environ-
mental problems, even though these cap-
and-trade programs are up and running in
places like California.
Moral realists, including Catholic ones,
should be able to worship and emulate a
God of perfect love and still appreciate sys-
tems, like democracy and capitalism, that
harness self-interest. But Francis doesn’t
seem to have practical strategies for a fall-
en world. He neglects the obvious truth that
the qualities that do harm can often, when
carefully directed, do enormous good.
Within marriage, lust can lead to child-
bearing. Within a regulated market, greed
can lead to entrepreneurship and economic
innovation. Within a consti-
economic and environmental
gains. I’m talking of course
tution, the desire for fame can
about fracking.
lead to political greatness.
There was recently a vogue
You would never know
for polemical antifracking doc-
from the encyclical that we
umentaries like “Gasland” that
are living through the greatest
purport to show that fracking is
reduction in poverty in human
causing flammable tap water
history. A raw and rugged cap-
and other horrors.
italism in Asia has led, ironical-
But a recent Environmen-
ly, to a great expansion of the
tal Protection Agency study
middle class and great gains in
David
found that there was no evi-
human dignity.
Brooks
dence that fracking was caus-
You would never know
that in many parts of the world, like the ing widespread harm to the nation’s water
United States, the rivers and skies are get- supply. On the contrary, there’s some evi-
ting cleaner. The race for riches, ironically, dence that fracking is a net environmental
produces the wealth that can be used to plus.
That’s because cheap natural gas
clean the environment.
from fracking displaces coal. A study
by the Breakthrough Institute found
Moral realists,
coal-powered electricity declined to 37
percent from 50 percent of the genera-
including
tion mix between 2007 and 2012. Be-
cause natural gas has just half as much
Catholic ones,
global-warming potential as coal, en-
should be able ergy-related carbon emissions have de-
clined more in the U.S. than in any other
to worship
country over that time.
Fracking has also been an enormous
and emulate a
boon to the nation’s wealth and the
God of perfect well-being of its people. In a new report
called “America’s Unconventional En-
love and still
ergy Opportunity,” Michael E. Porter,
David S. Gee and Gregory J. Pope con-
appreciate
clude that gas and oil resources extract-
ed through fracking have already added
systems, like
more than $430 billion to annual gross
democracy
domestic product and supported more
than 2.7 million jobs that pay, on average,
and
twice the median U.S. salary.
Pope Francis is a wonderful example
capitalism,
of how to be a truly good person. But if
we had followed his line of analysis, nei-
that harness
ther the Asian economic miracle nor the
self-interest.
technology-based American energy revo-
lution would have happened. There’d be
A few years ago, a team of researchers no awareness that though industrializa-
led by Daniel Esty of Yale looked at the tion can lead to catastrophic pollution in
environmental health of 150 countries. The the short term (China), over the long haul
nations with higher income per capita had both people and nature are better off with
better environmental ratings. As countries technological progress, growth and regu-
get richer they invest to tackle environmen- ODWHGDIÀXHQFH
The innocence of the dove has to
tal problems that directly kill human beings
(though they don’t necessarily tackle prob- be accompanied by the wisdom of the
serpent — the awareness that programs
lems that despoil the natural commons).
You would never suspect, from this EDVHGRQWKHSXULW\RIWKHKHDUWEDFN¿UH
encyclical, that over the last decade, one of the irony that the best social programs
the most castigated industries has, ironical- harvest the low but steady motivations of
ly, produced some of the most important people as they actually are.