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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 2016)
OPINION 4A Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2016 Test your savvy about 2016 with a quick quiz BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager A glance back, a wish forward New library, crisis respite center, Port progress in view O n this fourth day of 2016, here are our ambitions for the year and our gratitude for accomplishments of 2015. 1. Contrary to some futuristic talk, libraries are not dead in the era of digitized information. In places like Seattle and Seaside, they are thriving as community centers in contempo- rary settings. We could have that here. The prospect of a new or refurbished Astoria library has been studied and discussed at some length. It is time for the Astoria City Council to agree upon an option and move forward. 2. We are grateful for creation of the Astoria Warming Center. City Councilor Drew Herzig deserves credit for giving visibility to this need. Two institutions — Grace Epis- Mayor Arline LaMear copal Church and First United Meth- odist Church — have been essential to the warming center. 9. On our wish list for 2014 3. Like the homeless, the mentally was, “An immigration bill, please.” ill seldom rank high on a communi- Knowing that U.S. House Republi- ty’s priorities. That’s why the crisis cans don’t see this as essential busi- respite center, planned for construc- ness, especially for their friends in tion in Warrenton, is a major step agriculture, we realize it is a pipe forward for our region. Instead of dream to expect an immigration solu- housing mentally ill persons in jail, tion in 2016. But the deeper fear is this center will be an option. Clatsop that with congressional Republicans, County Sheriff Tom Bergin com- it will never be time for progress on mendably made this concept a prior- immigration. ity. 10. The U.S. Coast Guard’s deci- 4. Driving by the Chinook School sion to base Sector Columbia River and seeing its great paint job is a at the river’s mouth has been a ring- pleasure. Going inside the restored ing success for an agency vital to gymnasium for an event is hearten- our safety and economic well-being. ing — especially when actors from We continue to hope for a favorable the Oregon Shakespeare Festival decision to base two new 154-foot make an appearance. Work remains Sentinel-class fast response cutters to be done on the school. If history is here. Astoria, Warrenton and Ilwaco any guide, the organizers of the resto- are Coast Guard towns. Let’s keep it that way. ration campaign will get it done. 5. The Port of Astoria has trained 11. A regionwide shortage of af- us over many years to expect travail, fordable housing — keynoted by controversy and failure. But in 2015 historically low rental vacancy rates there was progress. The Port ¿nally — is harming the ¿nances of fami- pulled the plug on one of its most di- lies and has the potential of hobbling sastrous decisions — to install Brad our economic prospects. We need Smithart at the decrepit former Red effective collaboration between de- Lion property. After months of foren- velopers, lenders and agencies to add sic accounting, the Port has ¿nancial new single-family and multiple-fam- numbers it can rely upon. It is also ily dwellings in ways that respond to clearing up its list of lawsuits. Ex- needs without violating the still-im- ecutive Director Jim Knight has dis- portant goals of growth management. played a competence and steadiness Accommodating more residents not seen in his immediate predeces- without sprawling over important sors. He has withstood the pull of the farmland, forests and open spaces predictable periodic pointless out- will be one of the Paci¿c Northwest’s bursts of some Port commissioners. biggest challenges in the 21st centu- Our wish for 2016: more progress, ry. 12. It is time for Oregon and please. Washington state 6. Succession ¿sheries managers is everything. At to acknowledge the beginning of that commercial 2015 we celebrat- gillnetting on the ed the enormous Columbia River accomplishments is an environmen- of Willis Van Du- tally responsible sen’s more than way to provide 20 years of civic consumers with leadership. Then local salmon. the new council, Hypothetical al- led by Mayor Ar- ternatives like line LaMear took seine nets have of¿ce. One of its not been shown to early acts was to lower wild salm- end the fractious on mortality, nor debate over the have off-channel jurisdiction of Jim Knight net-pen ¿sher- drunken-driving ies proven up to cases, sending all the job of replacing gillnet drifts on the city’s cases to Circuit Court. 7. One of 2015’s most heartening the main river. The gillnet ban was developments in Astoria was Greg an impulsive decision by a distract- Newenhof’s acquisition of the dilapi- ed and now-disgraced governor. It dated Flavel home at 15th Street and should be abandoned. 13. Thanks to a provocative sto- Franklin Avenue. As co-proprietor of City Lumber, Newenhof is the perfect ry in The New Yorker, 2015 was the person for this immense challenge. year the general public learned about He has the tools and he knows how the Cascadia Subduction Zone and to access all of the expertise in town. understood its potential to generate 8. Conversely, it is disappointing massive earthquakes and tsunamis. that the Flavel property on Commer- In our area, Cannon Beach has long cial Street has not found a buyer. As been a leader in preparing for this di- we reported last Thursday, the recent saster, practicing evacuation routes, auction did not yield an adequate bid. caching supplies on high ground and We hope this will not deter the con- generally planning how to survive. servator and the city from ¿nding a All coastal and estuary communities solution to a rundown block in the should follow Cannon Beach’s exam- ple in 2016. heart of downtown. announced the formation of a Na- whose time had passed. C. Became the ¿rst woman tional Truth and Reconciliation Commission. elected president. 8. Chinese-U.S. relations ... 4. In Russia, President Vladimir hose of us engaged in A. Were set back after a naval columny usually settle for Putin ended 2016 ... A. By appearing in a television clash in the South China Sea near writing about what has already documentary riding bare-chested the Spratly Islands. happened. But today, let’s not across Siberia on a dragon bor- B. Deteriorated because of Pres- rowed from “Game of Thrones.” ident Xi Jinping’s nationalist pol- follow the easy course. B. By dispatching provocateurs icies in the South China Sea and Instead, take my quiz of what’s to instigate unrest in Es- oppressive human rights policies at to come in the year tonia, then dispatching home. ahead and see if we troops “to protect Russian C. Improved because undetect- think alike. lives” there. NATO re- ed Chinese government hackers sponded by holding meet- wrote glowingly about China in the 1. At the end of 2016, ings. President’s Daily Brief. Donald Trump caused a C. By crushing grow- stir by ... 9. The technological break- ing anti-government through of 2016 was ... A. Preparing for his demonstrations across presidential inauguration A. The Amazon-Uber joint ven- Russia. by renaming the White ture to send a drone to pick you up 5. President Barack and carry you to your destination. House “Trump Palace.” Obama’s 2016 Syria strat- B. Raising funds to B. The spread of bloodstream Nicholas egy consisted of ... bots that roam your arteries and renovate the Statue of Kristof A. Persuading Sunni veins, looking for cancer cells to Liberty so that its arms Arab countries to battle the Islamic destroy. move, waving immigrants away. C. Actually, no stir at all. After State in conjunction with Kurdish C. The formation of a company being crushed in the presidential forces. to operate self-driving taxis. B. Reluctantly dis- race, he has been quietly trying to 10. The refugee crisis repair business relations with Mex- patching 10,000 ground ... icans, Muslims, women — well, troops into northern A. Ameliorated as Eu- We’ll Syria to destroy the with everybody. rope guarded its borders see in more tightly. 2. In the Republican presidential Islamic State capital, Raqqa. race ... B. Deteriorated but a year received C. Really? You think A. Ted Cruz built on his Iowa less attention as caucuses victory to make further he has a Syria strategy? Europe bribed Turkey to how 6. Regarding gains on Super Tuesday and win curb the passage of refu- Obamacare, in 2016 ... the nomination. we all gees to Greece and make A. Republicans vot- B. The failure of any candidate the problem less visible. did. to win enough delegates led the ed 23 more times to re- C. Worsened as hun- convention to draft House Speaker peal Obamacare, mak- dreds of thousands of ing it a major theme of Paul D. Ryan. Iranians, Nigerians, Ethi- C. Marco Rubio overcame his the 2016 campaign. opians, Afghans and others left for B. The unpopularity of ¿nes for Germany. failure to win either Iowa or New Hampshire to narrowly win the lack of insurance made it a growing 11. Democracy ... embarrassment to the Democratic nomination. A. Was the title of a smash Party. 3. Hillary Clinton ... Broadway show about early Amer- C. Amid evidence of its success, ica by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who A. Dropped out of the race after a series of scandals, and a last-ditch Republican candidates dropped the also created “Hamilton.” effort to draft Joe Biden came too subject. B. Retreated in central Africa, 7. In response to the Black Lives as leaders of Burundi, Rwanda and late. Bernie Sanders won the Dem- ocratic nomination and became Matter movement ... Congo all tried to cling to power. A. Princeton University an- America’s ¿rst democratic socialist C. Came to Belarus, often de- president after Ted Cruz split GOP nounced that it would rename the scribed as the last dictatorship in votes with the independent candi- Woodrow Wilson School and invit- Europe. ed bids for naming rights. Donald dacy of Donald Trump. ANSWERS: We’ll see in a year B. Easily won the Democratic Trump bought them. how we all did. My choice for the B. Not much happened: Atten- ¿rst six is C for the remainder it’s nomination but then lost in No- vember as Sen. Marco Rubio and tion switched to the presidential B. May our hopes be realized and his running mate, John Kasich, race. our fears prove unwarranted. And C. After the election, Obama happy new year to all my readers! portrayed her as a crony capitalist By NICHOLAS KRISTOF New York Times News Service T Privilege, pathology and power By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service W ealth can be bad for your soul. That’s not just a hoary piece of folk wis- dom it’s a conclusion from serious social science, con- ¿rmed by statistical analysis and experiment. The afÀuent are, on average, less likely to exhibit empathy, less likely to respect norms and even laws, more likely to cheat, than those occupying lower rungs on the economic ladder. And it’s obvious, even if we don’t have statistical con¿rmation, that extreme wealth can do extreme spiritual damage. Take someone whose personality might have been merely disagreeable under normal circumstances, and give him the kind of wealth that lets him surround himself with sycophants and usually get whatever he wants. It’s not hard to see how he could become almost pathologically self-regarding and unconcerned with others. So what happens to a nation that gives ever-growing political power to the superrich? Modern America is a society in which a growing share of income and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people, and these people have huge political inÀuence — in the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign, around half the contributions came from fewer than 200 wealthy families. The usual concern about this march toward oligarchy is that the interests and policy preferences of the very rich are quite different from those of the population at large, and that is surely the biggest problem. But it’s also true that those em- powered by money-driven politics include a disproportionate number of spoiled egomaniacs. Which brings me to the current election cycle. The most obvious illustration of the point I’ve been making is the man now leading the Re- publican ¿eld. Donald Trump would proba- bly have been a blowhard and a bully what- ever his social Paul station. But his Krugman billions have insulated him from the external checks that limit most people’s ability to act out their narcissistic tendencies nobody has ever been in a position to tell him, “You’re ¿red!” And the result is the face you keep seeing on your TV. But Trump isn’t the only awe- somely self-centered billionaire playing an outsized role in the 2016 campaign. There have been some interesting news reports lately about Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas gambling magnate. Adelson has been involved in some fairly complex court pro- ceedings, which revolve around claims of misconduct in his opera- tions in Macau, including links to or- ganized crime and prostitution. Giv- en his business, this may not be all that surprising. What was surprising was his behavior in court, where he refused to answer routine questions and argued with the judge, Elizabeth Gonzales. That, as she rightly point- ed out, isn’t something witnesses get to do. Then Adelson bought Nevada’s largest newspaper. As the sale was being ¿nalized, reporters at the pa- per were told to drop everything and start monitoring all activity of three judges, including Gonzales. And while the paper never published any results from that investigation, an attack on Gonzales, with what looks like a ¿ctitious byline, did appear in a small Connecticut newspaper owned by one of Adelson’s associ- ates. OK, but why do we care? Be- cause Adelson’s political spending has made him a huge player in Re- publican politics — so much so that reporters routinely talk about the So what happens to a nation that gives ever- growing political power to the superrich? “Adelson primary,” in which candi- dates trek to Las Vegas to pay obei- sance. Are there other cases? Yes in- deed, even if the egomania doesn’t rise to Adelson levels. I ¿nd myself thinking, for example, of hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer, another big power in the GOP, who published an investor’s letter declaring that inÀation was running rampant — he could tell from the prices of Hamp- tons real estate and high-end art. Economists got some laughs out of the incident, but think of the self-ab- sorption required to write something like that without realizing how it would sound to non-billionaires. Or think of the various billion- aires who, a few years ago, were declaring with straight faces, and no sign of self-awareness, that Pres- ident Barack Obama was holding back the economy by suggesting that some businesspeople had mis- behaved. You see, he was hurting their feelings. Just to be clear, the biggest rea- son to oppose the power of money in politics is the way it lets the wealthy rig the system and distort policy priorities. And the biggest reason billionaires hate Obama is what he did to their taxes, not their feelings. The fact that some of those buying inÀuence are also horrible people is secondary. But it’s not trivial. Oligarchy, rule by the few, also tends to become rule by the monstrously self-centered. Narcisstocracy? Jerkigarchy? Any- way, it’s an ugly spectacle, and it’s probably going to get even uglier over the course of the year ahead.
