OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2015
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
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
Ben Margot/AP Photo
This file photo shows the climbing face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
C
alifornia is not that far away, but
it is a different dimension.
When we drive north, into Wash-
ington, the sales tax is the only glar-
ing distinction. But California really
is a different state of mind.
California also represents a driv-
ing challenge of a different magni-
tude. On our drive from Yosemite
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day, our daughter navigated several
freeway exchanges. These were typi-
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their lives to drive time.
10 years ago this week — 2005
Two vessels ran aground Saturday because their helmsmen fell asleep,
said Bob Coster, civilian search and rescue controller at U.S. Coast Guard
Group Astoria, today.
The 67-foot Royal Quarry, owned by Warrenton businessman Dennis
Sturgell, ran aground at 2:56 a.m. Saturday at the south jetty entrance of the
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The 38-foot sailing vessel Gatane, from San Diego, Calif., ran aground
Saturday on the north side of the entrance to Willapa Bay while its sole crew
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Could anything be more trendy than living if a converted loft
above a warehouse in an industrial area?
Think Portland’s Pearl District, for example, but with a river
view.
That’s the kind of upscale housing coming to Astoria’s river-
front.
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project on 4.5 acres at the 39th Street business park on the east
side of town.
The trawler Snoopy dragged up a torpedo with its net off the Virginia
capes and was blown to bits when the thing exploded. Eight of its crew of
12 perished.
This naturally reminds us here in Astoria that a local drag boat brought
up a mine off the ocean bottom just the other day. The mine fortunately was
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onator could have possibly still been dangerous.
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death.
It was forecast here today that Safeway Stores will erect a
super market with a large parking area on the west half of the
vacant property between Eleventh and Twelfth and Duane and
Exchange. This property, described as lots 1, 2, 13 and 14, Mc-
Clure’s Astoria, were purchased by Safeway Stores for $8300 at a
county tax sale Monday.
Expansion of the Oregon National Guard military facilities at Camp
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tillery pieces, it was announced today by Colonel Raymond Olson, quarter-
master, in charge of emergency conditioning of the camp for the training of
the 249th coast artillery regiment.
VANCOUVER, B.C. — E.C. Thrupp, retired civil engineer,
today refused to hedge on his prediction that “the most disas-
trous earthquake of the century” will hit Japan or California by
August 5.
Thrupp, who claims a long record of successful forecasts for
his “interplanetary gravitational force” theory, is standing pat on
this prediction:
“The period of July 20 to August 5, 1940, will bring the
most destructive earthquake of this century, probably in
those countries where they have occurred before. The main
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Time.
“It will probably center in Japan,” he said, “but California
had better watch out too.”
olumne River. Yosemite is so vast
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meadows and on streams. We played
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fore having our al fresco lunch.
Voice of America hired Conover to
create radio shows about the most
American art form. They were
beamed by shortwave into Soviet
bloc countries. As a consequence,
he became a music teacher and
English instructor to generations
of Europeans, and that built the
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eral festivals were built.
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Street Journal 'RXJ 5DPVH\ ¿OOHG
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governing board will be considering
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I love how Conover described the
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more about America than any Amer-
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music with its own discipline, but not
an imposed, inhibiting discipline.”
Ramsey notes that Conover per-
suaded the Nixon White House to
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Ellington, at which Richard Nix-
on played the piano for a singing of
“Happy Birthday.” The musicians
who showed up for the East Room
event were a pantheon of that era.
— S.A.F.
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proval today to President Johnson’s $6.5 billion Medicare bill,
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Astoria is shown, through
vital statistics recently com-
pleted by the census bureau, to
be a healthier, faster-growing
community than most in the
state. The data is contained
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country covering 1938 and
show that 160 are born in As-
toria a year for every 100 who
die.
Courtesy Clatsop County Historical Society
The birth-death ratio for
the rest of Oregon was 138 The Astoria Column during con-
struction in 1925.
to 100.
of Cabbages and Kings
NEAR THE EAST BOUND-
ary of Yosemite is an area called June
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%(,1*$7<26(0,7(,6/,.( Eagle Resort, which has a spa. After
being inside one of those
enjoying lunch on the
giant landscape paintings
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of the 19th century by
Once daughter and I played
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gin, with our daughter
his brethren. The granite we saw winning most of them. At
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a number
Secret mid-afternoon
drop.
of women suddenly ar-
The place is a global
Tables and chairs
Service rived.
draw. The second voice
were moved to create
, KHDUG LQ WKH SDUN ZDV agents, a conversation area for
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about 10. The voices we
it was heard were Texan.
countered a larger Ger-
man party on a trail.
the women
clear rose When
The scale of Yosem-
to move to a differ-
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part of the spa, my
Laura ent
to grasp. Our son, who
wife said that one of them
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Bush UHVHPEOHG /DXUD %XVK
ogist, posed a question.
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was
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enough, two men sitting
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sitting EHKLQGXVTXLFNO\URVHWR
Yosemite had last year?
accompany the women.
We all guessed low. The
wore the telltale ear
nearby. They
answer is 175,000, the
piece that denotes a Se-
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cret Service agent.
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Our son lives in a canvas-roofed
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Saturday our family and his girlfriend during the Cold War era, you might
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50 years ago — 1965
75 years ago — 1940
Through the Looking-glass
Good things are worth waiting for. It is excellent news that Washington
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house was discovered during an archaeological dig.
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Church will now proceed. While negotiations continued, new ideas were
developed for the eventual interpretive center, so it will be much richer.
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center.
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‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things;
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages —and kings —’
The structure of gratitude
mainstream threads of our culture.
We live in a capitalist meritocracy.
This meritocracy encourages people to be
¶PVRPHWLPHVJUXPSLHUZKHQ,VWD\DW self-sufficient — masters of their own fate.
a nice hotel. I have certain expectations But people with dispositional gratitude are
DERXWWKHVHUYLFHWKDW¶VJRLQJWREHSURYLGHG hyperaware of their continual dependence
I get impatient if I have to crawl
on others. They treasure the
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way they have been fashioned
outlet, if the shower controls
by parents, friends and ances-
are unfathomable, if the place
tors who were in some ways
considers itself too fancy to put
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a coffee machine in each room.
ideal of individual autonomy is
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an illusion because if they were
budget motel, where my expec-
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tations are lower, and where a
much worse off.
functioning iron is a bonus and
The basic logic of the cap-
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italist meritocracy is that you
fast area is a treat.
get what you pay for, that you
David
This little phenomenon
earn what you deserve. But
Brooks
shows how powerfully expec-
people with dispositional grat-
tations structure our moods and emotions, LWXGHDUHFRQWLQXDOO\VWUXFNE\WKHIDFWWKDW
none more so than the beautiful emotion of they are given far more than they pay for
gratitude.
— and are much richer than they deserve.
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ness exceeds expectations, when it is unde- SXWIDUPRUHLQWRWKHPWKDQWKH\JLYHEDFN
served. Gratitude is a sort of laughter of the 7KHUH¶VDORWRIVXUSOXVJRRGQHVVLQGDLO\
heart that comes about after some surpris- OLIHWKDWFDQ¶WEHH[SODLQHGE\WKHORJLFRI
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equal exchange.
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Capitalism encourages us to see human
time - after someone saves you from a mis- EHLQJV DV VHOILQWHUHVWHG XWLOLW\PD[LPL]-
WDNHRUEULQJV\RXIRRGGXULQJDQLOOQHVV ing creatures. But people with grateful dis-
But some people seem grateful disposi- positions are attuned to the gift economy
WLRQDOO\7KH\VHHPWKDQNIXOSUDFWLFDOO\DOO where people are motivated by sympathy
of the time.
as well as self-interest. In the gift economy
These people may have big ambitions, LQWHQWLRQPDWWHUV:H¶UHJUDWHIXOWRSHRSOH
but they have preserved small anticipa- who tried to do us favors even when those
tions. As most people get on in life and earn IDYRUVGLGQ¶WZRUNRXW,QWKHJLIWHFRQR-
more status, they often get used to more P\ LPDJLQDWLYH HPSDWK\ PDWWHUV :H¶UH
respect and nicer treatment. But people grateful because some people showed they
ZLWK GLVSRVLWLRQDO JUDWLWXGH WDNH QRWKLQJ care about us more than we thought they
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DZRUGRISUDLVHDWDQRWKHU¶VJRRGSHUIRU- imaginative leap and put themselves in our
mance or at each sunny day. These people mind, even with no benefit to themselves.
are present-minded and hyperresponsive.
Gratitude is also a form of social glue. In
7KLVNLQGRIGLVSRVLWLRQDOJUDWLWXGHLV the capitalist economy, debt is to be repaid to
worth dissecting because it induces a men- the lender. But a debt of gratitude is repaid
tality that stands in counterbalance to the IRUZDUGWRDQRWKHUSHUVRQZKRDOVRGRHVQ¶W
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
I
People with
grateful
dispositions
see their
efforts grandly
but not
themselves.
deserve it. In this way each gift ripples out-
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a contract based on mutual benefit, but an or-
ganic connection based on natural sympathy
- connections that are nurtured not by self-in-
terest but by loyalty and service.
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and powerful, then you go around frustrat-
ed because the perfect society has not yet
been achieved. But if you go through life
believing that our reason is not that great,
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and our goodness is severely mottled, then
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the Constitution and our customs, which
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be. Appreciation becomes the first political
virtue and the need to perfect the gifts of
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We live in a capitalist meritocracy that
encourages individualism and utilitarian-
ism, ambition and pride. But this society
would fall apart if not for another economy,
one in which gifts surpass expectations, in
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dependence celebrated.
Gratitude is the ability to see and appre-
ciate this other almost magical economy.
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highest form of thought, and that gratitude
is happiness doubled by wonder.”
People with grateful dispositions see
their efforts grandly but not themselves.
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nicely surpasses their expectations.
