The daily Astorian., November 25, 2015, Image 6

23,1,21
6A
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
10 years ago this week — 2005
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light for the “Safeway intersection” at 33rd Street and Lief Erikson Drive.
The light would cost just over $200,000, with the city paying $53,000, Safe-
way $50,000 and the Oregon Department of Transportation $90,000.
The light was to be in operation within six months.
Twelve months later, there’s still no light.
And the Astoria City Council learned Monday night that the contractor,
Civil-Works NW, is asking for a $79,000 change order that would balloon
the cost of the problem-plagued project to $306,000. That was too much for
the three council members who attended Monday’s meeting, who declined
to approve the change order and asked staff to go back to ODOT to increase
its share.
Work on the light, which was to have resumed on Dec. 5 and been com-
pleted by Jan. 20, is now on hold.
The “Curse of Fort Clatsop” lives on.
The latest archaeological dig in search of signs of Lewis and
Clark’s winter encampment once again revealed some tantaliz-
ing signs in the soil that on further investigation turned out to be
false leads.
The Fort Clatsop dig wraps up this week with researchers
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the explorer’s famous winter home.
The Dungeness crab ¿shing seasons in Oregon, Washington and North-
ern California have been delayed by at least two weeks after tests indicated
the crustaceans will not be ready to harvest.
“We just don’t want to bring crabs to market that are not ready,” said
Mitch 9ance, shell¿sh project leader for the Oregon Department of )ish and
Wildlife. “It’s best just to wait.”
50 years ago
— 1965
City Council Mon-
day night voted formal-
ly to send an invitation
to Burgermeister and
Mrs. Wilhelm Willinger
of Walldorf, W. Germa-
ny, to attend the Regatta
next summer.
Two years ago Wall-
dorf, Astoria’s sister
city, invited Mayor and
Mrs Harry Steinbock,
Councilman and Mrs.
Frank Thorsness to attend the 200th anniversary celebration of
the birth of John Jacob Astor, where the mayor said hospitality
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The U.S. Coast Guard Thursday canceled plans to turn off the light in the
109-year-old Cape Disappointment light house.
The Columbia River Bar Pilots had protested the plan because they use
the light as a range marker and depend heavily upon it when moving ships
in and out of the river.
Asked if the bar pilots had other reasons for protesting discontinuance of
the light, Quinn said “Let’s put it this way. The Cape Disappointment light
is a very useful and important navigational aid and we de¿nitely need it.”
A second radiotelephone channel is now available for ship-to-
shore radio telephone users in the Astoria area, R.E. Jensen, local
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Channel 2 has been added to provide relief for KFX Channel
1, previously Astoria’s only coastal harbor radiotelephone chan-
nel.
75 years ago — 1940
)urther expansion and rehabilitation of the harbor defenses of the
Columbia has just been authorized by the army, according to word just
received by military authorities at )ort Stevens.
Increase in personnel, construction of new barracks, and rehabilita-
tion of abandoned )orts Canby and Columbia across the Columbia River
are on the program to be undertaken in the immediate future, according
to Col. +.C. Davis, commanding of¿cer of the harbor defenses of the
Columbia.
Collecting bogus money has become a hobby with Mrs.
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responsibility of counting each day’s take from the parking
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metal ranging from washers, tax tokens, slugs, defaced coins,
foreign money and skill tokens to chips good for one ride on
such and such a bus in some town.
These attempts to cheat the meters are not the only con-
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man came in and asked if she had noticed any Indian head
pennies in the day’s take. Mrs. Judd replied that she counts
the pennies and nickels so fast that it is impossible to pick out
certain types.
The distraught man informed Mrs. Judd that his wife had
unwittingly taken his collection of Indian head pennies and fed
it to the meters. Asking Mrs. Judd to withhold action for a few
minutes, the man left only to return in a short time and trade
rolls of pennies amounting to $10 with those that the city had
taken in during the previous day in which the man hoped to
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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015
My aunt’s
tenacity
amazed me
M
Y )IRST ENCOUNTER
with a visionary was prob-
ably my aunt, Amy Bedford. As
a kid, I watched many times as
Amy showed newcomers plans
for a Pendleton river parkway.
Her blueprints, drawn by an ar-
chitect named Richard Gabriel,
were kept on a high shelf in her
living room. They would come
down at the end of a dinner.
Every incoming Pendleton city
manager would get a visit from
Amy, with blueprints under her
arm.
Pendleton recently celebrated
the River Walk’s 30th anniver-
sary. Like Astoria’s Riverwalk,
Pendleton’s now spans an extensive
stretch of the Umatilla River.
Any sales person must endure
rejection. Amy got her share of that.
Pendleton Mayor Joe McLaughlin
rejected the river parkway concept as
too expensive.
Like other western towns such
as San Antonio, Pendleton decided
to turn its face, instead of its back, to
the river. Portland made a similar de-
cision. Astoria’s Riverwalk has been
a transformational element in the
town’s rebirth.
The gestation of Pendleton’s Riv-
er Walk took so long that — within
that time frame — the Umatilla In-
dian Tribe became instrumental in
restoring ¿sh habitat. Now salmon
swim by the town.
Marking the 30th anniversary, the
East Oregonian wrote: “Remember,
a river running through town is not a
luxury most places have. Name an-
other city where Main Street literally
crosses a stream full of salmon, and
which is walkable almost every day
of the year. It’s a dream for anglers,
Amy Bedford
‘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
Beneath a
charming
exterior, my
aunt was
tough as nails
birdwatchers and joggers alike.”
If I could time travel back to the
1960s and 1970s, I suspect I would
¿nd myself incredulous at my aunt’s
perseverance in the face of so lit-
tle positive feedback. Beneath her
charming exterior, she was tough as
nails.

WATCHING THE MOVIE
“Spotlight” amounts to taking a blow
to your solar plexus. The movie dra-
matizes the Boston Globe’s investiga-
tion into sexual predation by priests
in the Boston Catholic Archdiocese
and Cardinal Bernard Law’s com-
plicity. Unlike “All The President’s
Men,” this movie about journalists
does not possess the star power of big
glamour like Robert Redford, Dustin
Hoffman and Jason Robards. Except
for Michael Keaton, the cast is more
like a BBC roster of good actors who
are believable because they lack ce-
lebrity luster.
“Spotlight” is an excellent reca-
pitulation of the dogged reporting
that developed a story that was espe-
cially explosive in a city where the
Catholic Church is such a dominant
political element.

THE BUSINESS PRESS HAS
been buzzing with news of Macy’s
problems. The Wall Street Journal
recently noted that Macy’s has been
slow to adopt the discount adjunct
store model that Nordstrom’s started
with its Nordstrom Racks in the late
1980s.
It seems to me that if you want
to understand Macy’s problems, you
only have to walk into its downtown
Portland store. As with other cities,
Macy’s bought an established retail-
er (Meier )rank) and proceeded to
dismantle or mask that heritage.
Unlike its warm and friendly pre-
decessor, M), Macy’s virtually
shouts that it is understaffed. Walk
a block, cross Broadway and enter
Nordstrom and you ¿nd a well-staffed
retailer. It is night and day, and that’s
also true of the two companies’ stocks.
In the market, Nordstrom is proving to
be a better longterm performer.
— S.A.F
Obama’s phony war
Meanwhile, Barack
Obama complained of
being criticized for not
Obama, titular head of
being bellicose enough.
the free world, has re-
But the complaint is
sponded to Paris with
not about an absence of
ell me: What’s a suicide weariness and annoy-
bellicosity but about an
ance.
His
news
con-
bomber doing with a
absence of passion, of
ference in Turkey was
passport? He’s not going any- marked by a stunning
urgency and of commit-
where. And, though I’m not a tone of passivity, detach-
ment to the fight. The
air campaign over Syria
religious scholar, I doubt that ment and lassitude, com-
averages seven strikes a
pounded
by
impatience
Charles
a passport is required in para-
day. Seven. In Operation
and irritability at the very
dise for a martyr to access his suggestion that his Syria Krauthammer Desert Storm, we flew
1,100 sorties a day. Even in the
72 black-eyed virgins.
strategy might be failing.
The only time he showed any Kosovo campaign, we averaged
A Syrian passport was found
near the body of one of the terrorists. passion was in denouncing Repub- 138. Obama is doing just enough
licans for hardheartedness toward in Syria to give the appearance of
Why was it there? Undoubtedly, to Muslim refugees. One hundred and motion, yet not nearly enough to
back up the Islamic State boast that twenty-nine innocents lie dead but have any chance of success.
it is in¿ltrating operatives amid it takes the GOP to kindle Obama’s
Obama’s priorities lie else-
where. )or example, climate
the refugees Àooding Europe. The ire.
The rest was mere petulance, change, which he considers the
passport may have been fake, but
dismissing
criti- greatest “threat to our future.”
the terrorist’s ¿n-
cisms of his Syria And, of course, closing Guantána-
gerprints were not.
policy as popping mo. Obama actually released five
Obama is
They match those
off. Inconveniently detainees on the day after the Paris
doing just
of a man who just
for Obama, one of massacre. He is passionate about
those popper-offers Guantánamo. It’s a great terrorist
a month earlier
enough in
is Dianne )ein- recruiting tool, he repeatedly ex-
had come through
stein, the leading plains. Obama still seems to be-
Syria
to
Greece on his way
Democrat on the lieve that — even as the Islamic
to kill )renchmen
Senate Intelligence State has produced an astonishing
give the
in Paris.
Committee.
She wave of terrorist recruitment with
If the other goal appearance
directly contradict- a campaign of brutality, butchery
of the Paris massa-
ed Obama’s blithe and enslavement filmed in living
of motion,
cre was to frighten
assertion, offered color. Who can still believe that
)rance out of the air
the day before the young Muslims are leaving Europe
yet not
campaign in Syria
Paris attack, that to join the Islamic State because of
— the way Spain
the Islamic State Guantánamo?
nearly
Obama’s other passion is pro-
withdrew from the
(aka ISIL) was con-
enough to
Iraq War after the
tained and not gain- tecting Islam from any possible
terror attack on
ing strength. “I have association with “violent extrem-
have any
its trains in 2004
never been more ism.” The Islamic State is nothing
— they picked the
concerned,” said but “killers with fantasies of glory.”
chance of
wrong
country.
)einstein. “ISIL is Obama can never bring himself to
)rance is a serious
success.
not contained. ISIL acknowledge why these people kill
and willingly die: to advance a rad-
post-colonial pow-
is expanding.”
er, as demonstrated in Ivory Coast,
Obama defended his policy by ical Islamist millenarianism that is
the Central African Republic and listing its multifaceted elements. purposeful, indeed eschatological
Mali, which )rance saved from an Such as, “I hosted at the United — and appealing enough to have
Islamist takeover in 2013.
Nations an entire discussion of created the largest, most dangerous
Indeed, socialist President )ran- counterterrorism strategies and terrorist movement on earth.
Hollande is trying to gather a
cois Hollande has responded furi- curbing the flow of foreign fight-
ously to his country’s 9/11 with an ers.” An “entire” discussion, mind real coalition to destroy the Islam-
intensified air campaign, hundreds you. Not a partial one. They trem- ic State, even as Obama touts his
phony 65. )or 11 post-World War II
of raids on suspected domestic ter- ble in Raqqa.
rorists, a state of emergency and
And “We have mobilized 65 presidencies, coalition leading has
proposed changes in the constitu- countries to go after ISIL.” Yes, been the role of the United States.
tion to make )rance less hospitable and what would we do without Where is America today? Awaiting
a president. The next president.
to jihad.
Luxembourg?
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
T