143RD YEAR, NO. 162
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2016
ASTORIA FALLS;
GULLS TAKE TITLE
SPORTS • 8A
ONE DOLLAR
THE STORY OF
OUR PUBLIC LANDS
FRIDAY EXTRA • 1C
Wages
get a
THE bump
VALUE OF
SACRED
STORIES
Nehalem author examines our de¿ ning myths
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
S
acred stories guide people’s
lives and shape their characters;
they make the world compre-
hensible and imbue it with meaning.
Though everyone has his or her own sacred
stories, not everyone can name them. For such
stories are often buried so deeply within peo-
ple’s worldviews that they go unnoticed, and
unquestioned.
Tricia Gates Brown, a Nehalem author, calls
these stories “myths” — not in the sense denoting
legends or other fantastical fabrications but nar-
ratives that help people make sense of the world
and their place within it.
“Even if you don’t know what a myth is,
you have one. In fact, you have several personal
myths because we all do,” she told an audience
at the Columbia Forum Thursday evening at the
Columbia Memorial Hospital Community Cen-
ter. “And most of us are not conscious of our per-
sonal myths.”
In her talk, “Understanding the value of
sacred stories,” Brown argued that, because
people often fail to recognize their own operat-
ing myths, they can’t know if theirs are healthy
or unhealthy.
Brown knows from personal experience that,
without conscious, healthy myths, people starved
for sacred stories will adopt the prominent myths
in their culture. Some myths may do active harm,
leading folks quietly but inexorably away from
happiness.
“When we aren’t conscious of our myths,
and we don’t choose them carefully, we some-
times adopt the loudest myths around us,” she
said. “And there are no myths more compelling
than those that prey on, and offer solutions to, our
fears.”
Romantic comedies, for example — seem-
ingly the most benign form of entertainment —
Three-tiered minimum
wage passes House
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — A three-tiered minimum wage
plan cleared its last hurdle Thursday when the
state House of Representatives approved the
measure 32 to 26.
Gov. Kate Brown said she plans to sign the
bill. The Senate approved the bill last week.
“Today’s action advances one of my pri-
orities for 2016: raise the minimum wage,”
Brown said in a statement Thursday.
The plan increases wages to $14.75 in
the Portland metro area, $12.50 in rural and
coastal areas with struggling economies and
$13.50 in the rest of the state — including
Clatsop County — by 2022.
The ¿ rst pay bump starts in July, from
$9.25 to $9.75 statewide.
“Thousands of working families are in
poverty,” state Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene.
“They can’t make ends meet. We have the
opportunity to address this issue, which hasn’t
been addressed in 25 years.
See MINIMUM WAGE, Page 9A
Paris Achen/ Capital Bureau
Photos by Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
ABOVE: People listen as Tricia Gates Brown speaks during her talk “Understanding the
value of sacred stories of mythologies” at the Columbia Forum Thursday. TOP: Tricia Gates
Brown smiles as she shares stories from different religions during her talk “Understand-
ing the value of sacred stories of mythologies.” After telling each story, Brown asked if
preconceived notions about each religion impacted the way the story was received.
contain an unhealthy underlying myth: “For all
of us, there is a special someone, and that we are
lonely and generally À ummoxed until we ¿ nd
them,” she said. “And then we have a wedding
at the end.”
Brown admitted that, “as a young adult, and
as an adolescent, I was very much shaped by the
myth of the romantic comedy — and this to det-
rimental effect,” she said. “So, years and three
marriages later, I can tell you, this is not a healthy
myth.”
Healthy and unhealthy myths
Presidential campaigns offer a revealing look
at the salient myths within U.S. culture.
Candidates’ stump speeches, she pointed out,
frequently contain some variation on the classi-
cally American myth of “pulling oneself up by
one’s bootstraps,” which is “perhaps the de¿ ning
myth of our culture,” she said.
“Almost every candidate uses this myth to
connect with people, because this myth is a part
of almost all of our personal mythologies if we
were raised in America,” she said.
Republicans make liberal use of another
common myth, the “myth of scarcity and being
uniquely threatened,” which, she said, goes
something like this:
Tricia Gates Brown
a Nehalem author
Shooting unlikely to dampen tourism
By CYNTHIA WASHICKO
EO Media Group
See SEASIDE, Page 10A
Feds say
‘yes’ to
storm aid
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
See MYTHS, Page 9A
‘Even if you don’t know what a myth is, you have one.
In fact, you have several personal myths because we all do.
And most of us are not conscious of our personal myths.’
The fatal shootout in downtown
Seaside this month was a tragic but
isolated incident, the city’s tourism
leaders believe , and is unlikely to
dampen business or tourism.
Sgt. Jason Goodding was shot
and killed while trying to arrest Phil-
lip Max Ferry on a felony assault
warrant. Ferry was killed by a sec-
ond Seaside of¿ cer.
Seaside’s economy depends on
tourism, but while potential visitors
may have heard of the shooting, Jon
Rahl, the director of tourism for the
Seaside Visitors Bureau, does not
think it will deter visitors.
Advocates for a hike in the minimum wage
to $15 pitched their tents at the Capitol
Thursday as the state House of Represen-
tatives debated and passed a three-tiered
plan that increases the wage more slowly
than a proposed ballot initiative.
Daily Astorian/File Photo
People walk on the West Broadway Bridge in Seaside in 2015. Busi-
ness owners and advocates don’t anticipate a drop in tourism be-
cause of the tragic shootings earlier this month.
President Barack Obama has declared
Oregon’s record rainfall and storm damage
in December a disaster, opening the way for
support from the Federal Emergency Man-
agement Agency .
Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of
emergency in 13 counties, beginning pre-
liminary damage assessments last month by
local agencies working with the state and
national emergency agency. Tiffany Brown,
emergency manager for Clatsop County, said
the national declaration starts the second
phase of the assessment process, in which
FEMA vets the estimated damage.
Through FEMA’s Public Assistance
Grant Program, the government can cover at
least 75 percent of emergency repairs to and
replacements of public infrastructure, utili-
ties, buildings, recreational areas and other
property.
The Port of Astoria, city of Astoria,
Columbia River Maritime Museum, state
Parks and Recreation Department, state
Department of Forestry and Western Oregon
Electric Cooperative Inc., have collectively
estimated more than $1.2 million in dam-
age. Brown said all the amounts are rough
estimates and do not include damage being
reported by the county, state Department of
Transportation and Cannon Beach.
To get a state declaration of emergency,
she said, the county needed to suffer $3.56 in
damage for each of its 37,000 residents, but
ended up with $32.75 in damage per capita.
See FUNDS, Page 10A