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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 2016)
OPINION 4A Otter Creek rocks the Liberty Theater 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 T HE FA0ILY OF SINGERS is a staple in the music genres of country western and bluegrass. The iconic family was the Carters — 0other 0aybelle Carter and her daughters who included June Carter Cash. When we lived in Washington, D.C. — at the heart of bluegrass country — we saw the Whites — Buck, Sharon and Cheryl — and the Forester Sisters, all ¿ve of them. DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Water under the bridge The singular aspect of the family singing group is how the vocal timbre of sisters, for instance, meshes in a way that duos or trios of unrelated people do not. Otter Creek — performing last Saturday night at the Liberty Theater — were a mother (0ary), father (Peter) and three daughters. The Danzigs (aka Otter Creek) produced an exquisite vocal sound. Their musi- cianship was some of the best of any genre that I’ve heard in the Liberty’s 10 years of performances. The Astoria contractor Jared Rickenbach brought the Danzigs to the Liberty. He is their cousin. Otter Creek sang staples of the bluegrass repertoire such as “I’ll Fly Away” and “Down in the River to Pray.” People who can pick up multiple instruments are a wonder. Peter played an array of stringed instruments, including a dulcimer. 0ary played a violin and viola. Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers 10 years ago this week — 2006 In the 1940s and ’50s, George apparently was the go-to guy when something needed to get done. “Let George Do It,” a common expression those days, was the title of a 1940 British comedy and an American radio show that aired from 1946 to 1954. :ho that ¿rst George was, whether .ing George, George :ashington or a caveman named George, is shrouded in the mists of time. But the can-do attitude he stood for lives on in this community in the form of the George Award, presented annually by the Astoria-Warrenton area Chamber of Commerce. 6ince its inception in 1969, the award ² for outstanding and selÀess community service, has gone to just one individual each year. On Saturday three people were honored: Wendy Berezay for the Tapiola Playground project; and Donna Holmstedt and Barbara Roberts for the annual Christmas Basket food program and Wishing Tree gift program. After laboring to assemble the new Fort Clatsop, workers are now taking it all apart. Craftsmen from Mount Rainier National Park working at WKH &ODWVRS &RXQW\ )DLUJURXQGV ¿QLVKHG WKH ³HQOLVWHG PHQ¶V quarters” half of the log replica Saturday. They are now tagging the individual logs and disassembling the structure to ready the logs for transport to a lumber yard in Hillsboro, where they will be pressure-treated. The workers, recruited for their experience building log structures, are on schedule to have the new replica in place at Fort Clatsop park by March 23, when the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park will hold a dedication ceremony on the WKDQQLYHUVDU\RIWKHH[SORUHU¶VGHSDUWXUHIURP)RUW&ODWVRS źźź SPEA.ING OF THE LIBERTY, its Readers Theater is back with a production of A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking. If past productions are a predictor, this will be a good show. Susie Brown and Toni Ihander play the white chicks. You have four opportunities to take it in: tonight and Thursday as well as Feb. 3 and 4. 50 years ago — 1966 Astoria, historically a basketball hotbed, has been assigned the Amateur Athletic Union’s major Oregon basketball tournament of 1966, a sport event that will bring eight top independent basketball teams of the northwest to the community. It is a chance to prove once again that Astoria is a top basketball town, capable of entertaining suitably major basketball events, as we have done in the past. Announcement of this event comes at a time when Astoria High’s successful basketball season has brought public interest in the game to a high pitch. The Fishermen, proud possessors of one of the best all-time basketball records in the state, are ¿ghting for the 0etropolitan League title and a chance at the state tournament. Best of luck to Pete Bryant and his boys as they maintain the school’s great basketball reputation! źźź WHEN I VISITED THE Soviet Union in the fall of 1977, I saw Verdi’s opera La Traviata performed in the 0aly .irov of Leningrad. The most striking thing about this small European opera house was its ornamentation. Over the stage proscenium was the hammer and 75 years ago — 1941 “Calling car 1o. ! Of¿cer Hansen! Calling car 1o. ! Of¿cer Hansen! Go to Hellberg drug corner! 0an there arguing with bronze doughboy about pass word! Investigate! 0ay be something he ate! That is all!” And so it might go far into the night with Astoria’s brand new three-way police radio system. Actually, it doesn’t, of course. It’s a serious business Chief John Acton and his boys conduct in protecting the citizens of Astoria and their property and the new radio transmission system is no plaything. It’s the last word in equipment of its kind. Until its installation in December, Astoria was the only major town in the state of Oregon without at least a one-way radio system. Aviation committee of the Chamber of Commerce is undertaking a campaign to obtain civilian pilot training for the Clatsop airport and wants names of 200 interested and HOLJLEOHSHUVRQVLPPHGLDWHO\1HLO0RU¿WWFRPPLWWHHFKDLUPDQ announced Saturday. 0HQRUZRPHQDJHGWRVLQJOHRUPDUULHGSK\VLFDOO\¿W citizens and residents of Oregon, are urged to contact the airport RUFKDPEHURI¿FHDWRQFHLILQWHUHVWHGLQWDNLQJVXFKZRUN 0RU¿WW VDLG WKH ¿UVW XQLW WR EH IRUPHG LI WKH SURJUDP LV obtained would include 49 persons who would take two months of ground school work at a cost of $200 to the government. Through the Looking-glass of Cabbages and Kings Otter Creek’s musicianship was among the best a Liberty Theater audience has seen. Courtesy of Otter Creek Otter Creek’s Peter and Mary Danzig with their instruments. cycle, looking like it had been there from the beginning. In the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, those communist symbols had supplanted the double eagle of the czarist, Romanov autocracy. One despotism had replaced another, but the transition of icons was seamless. The Soviets were masters at putting graphic artistry in service of propaganda and state legitimacy. Ed Rothstein, arts critic of The Wall Street Journal last Friday explained why the arts are so essential to totali- tarian regimes. “As the Soviet Union recedes further into the past, it is worth recalling one of the great lessons it imposed on the 20th century: Culture matters, and culture in the face of tyranny matters even more. It matters because art affects how we think and feel, altering our ideas and convictions. That is why, under tyranny, it is so closely controlled.” that cultural control worked in Stalinist Russia. The author, Simon 0orrison describes how Stalin would suddenly appear in an empty box in a 0oscow concert hall. The dictator would be watched intently by the audience. If Stalin did not return after the inter- mission, a chill would fall on the composer and his wife. Weeks later, a dismissive review would appear in a small Russian arts periodical, and everyone would know who wrote it. Rothstein of the WSJ refers to this as “the executioner-style vetting of the Stalin era.” In commentary that accompanies a recording of Proko¿ev’s panoramic opera War and Peace, it is noted that following its 1943 premiere the work received a lukewarm .remlin response. I had the good fortune to see Proko¿ev’s massive work in a beautiful production at the Bolshoi Opera House. The tepid reception the 0oscow audience gave the work that night puzzled me. Now I understand. Three decades on, Stalin’s iron hand chilled the opera house. — S.A.F. źźź THE PEOPLE’S ARTIST: 3URNR¿HY¶V 6RYLHW <HDUV (2008) contains a graphic description of how It’s easy to come up with American politics of exactly the same attitudes examples. .ansas, which that led to London’s Great made headlines with its failed strategy of cutting n the 1850s, London, the Stink more than a century taxes in the expectation of world’s largest city, still and a half ago. Let’s back up a bit, an economic miracle, has didn’t have a sewer system. and talk about the role tried to close the resulting Waste simply Àowed into the of government in an budget gap largely with Thames, which was as disgusting as advanced society. cuts in education. North In the modern world, Carolina has also imposed you might imagine. much government drastic cuts on schools. Paul And in New Jersey, But conservatives, including the spending goes to social Krugman Chris Christie famously magazine The Economist and the insurance programs — prime minister, opposed any effort to things like Social Security, 0edicare canceled a desperately needed rail remedy the situation. After all, such and so on, that are supposed to tunnel under the Hudson. an effort would involve increased protect citizens from the misfortunes Nor are we talking only about a government spending and, they of life. Such spending is the subject handful of cases. Public construc- insisted, infringe on personal liberty of ¿erce political debate, and under- tion spending as a share of national standably so. Liberals want to help income has fallen sharply in recent and local control. It took the Great Stink of 1858, the poor and unlucky, conserva- years, reÀecting cutbacks by state when the stench made the Houses tives want to let people keep their and local governments that are of Parliament unusable, to produce hard-earned income, and there’s no ever less interested in providing right answer to this debate, because public goods for the future. And this action. But that’s all ancient history. it’s a question of values. includes sharp cuts in spending on There should, water supply. 0odern politicians, no however, be much less matter how conserva- So are we just talking about the What we debate about spending effects of ideology? Didn’t Flint ¿nd tive, understand that on what Econ 101 calls itself in the cross hairs of austerity public health is an see is public goods — things because it’s a poor, mostly Afri- essential government bene¿t everyone and can-American city? Yes, that’s role. Right? No, wrong extreme that can’t be provided by the de¿nitely part of what happened — it — as illustrated by private sector. Yes, we would be hard to imagine something the disaster in Flint, penny can differ over exactly similar happening to Grosse Pointe. 0ichigan. pinching how big a military we But these really aren’t separate What we know need or how dense and stories. What we see in Flint is an so far is that in 2014 the all too typically American situation the city’s emergency on public well-maintained road network should be, of (literally) poisonous interaction manager — appointed goods. but you wouldn’t expect between ideology and race, in by Rick Snyder, the controversy about which small-government extremists state’s Republican governor — decided to switch to spending enough to provide key are empowered by the sense of too an unsafe water source, with lead public goods like basic education or many voters that good government is contamination and more, in order safe drinking water. simply a giveaway to Those People. Yet a funny thing has happened as to save money. And it’s becoming Now what? Snyder has ¿nally increasingly clear that state of¿cials hard-line conservatives have taken expressed some contrition, although knew that they were damaging public over many U.S. state governments. he’s still withholding much of health, putting children in particular Or actually, it’s not funny at all. the information we need to fully at risk, even as they stonewalled Not surprisingly, they have sought understand what happened. And to cut social insurance spending meanwhile we are, inevitably, being both residents and health experts. This story — America in the 21st on the poor. In fact, many state told that we shouldn’t make the century, and you can trust neither the governments dislike spending on the poisoning of Flint a partisan issue. water nor what of¿cials say about poor so much that they are rejecting But you can’t understand what it — would be a horrifying outrage a 0edicaid expansion that wouldn’t happened in Flint, and what will even if it were an accident or an cost them anything, because it’s happen in many other places if isolated instance of bad policy. But it federally ¿nanced. But what we also current trends continue, without isn’t. On the contrary, the nightmare see is extreme penny pinching on understanding the ideology that in Flint reÀects the resurgence in public goods. made the disaster possible. I Light sleepers had their troubles all over town, except the south side, Tuesday night. The Astoria bridge foghorn, which went under control of a switch devised by the telephone company last weekend, was back on full-time operation Tuesday night. There was trouble in the wiring circuits. Linemen Wednesday restored the circuits so it was again under control of the switch. But meanwhile from the Alderbrook district came a few complaints that there was a clattering and clanking all night long, out on the river. Sources of the noise was the dredge McCurdy, which has gone to work pumping material out of the ship channel and pumping it through a pipeline into the lagoons behind the railway line in east Astoria. ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things; Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax — Of cabbages —and kings —’ 0LFKLJDQ¶VJUHDWVWLQNLV$PHULFD¶V By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service Laying of concrete deck on north spans of the Astoria bridge continued this week. THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
