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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 11, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2016 Great artists search for new persona 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 — 2006 Although the Senate rejected emergency assistance for West Coast salmon ishermen as part of a giant spending bill approved this week, Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith said he would keep pushing for relief. Smith, a Republican, tried to insert language into the $109 billion emergency spending bill calling for $81 million in disaster assistance for West Coast ishermen. But he was shot down under Senate rules that limit assistance to natural disasters. Boys with some very big toys are hard at work at the Columbia River South Jetty, shoring up the century-old structure against the elements. Crews from Kiewit Paciic Co. have begun work on the $18 million repair of the jetty, part of a plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ix weakened sections of the rock structures on both sides of the river’s mouth. The repair of the north jetty wrapped up last December with the placement of about 58,000 tons of rock on the structure. The Clatsop Community College Board will not be swayed from its decision to examine John Warren Field as the top location for a new campus, leaders said Tuesday. The college is studying the feasibility of building on the Astoria ield, a plan estimated to coast $60 million. The Oregon Legislature pledged $7.5 million toward the project last year, which matched by the college will provide $15 million for the new campus. The college plans to put a bond issue before voters to fund the rest. To be in the running for Georgia-Paciic’s Chairman’s Environmental Excellence Award, the company’s 300 facil- ities are rated on environmental compliance and other standards. And last year, the Company’s Wauna mill ranked highest among U.S. facilities with more than 500 employees, earning the paper mill the 2005 Excellence Award. 50 years ago — 1966 IOPICS REMIND ME OF what the curator of the art in the U.S. Capitol said to me. “There is a lot of statuary in the Capitol,” he said. “Some of it is good.” B Biopics can be good, or very bad. Miles Ahead is somewhere in the middle. The movie of Miles Davis’ life was well-described by a reviewer who said the movie was not great, but that seeing Don Cheadle’s layered portrayal of Davis is worth the ticket. I caught it in Portland last Saturday. There are three jazz biopics out right now. The others are about Chet Baker and Nina Simone. The central struggle of the movie is the thing that aflicts all great artists — the need to recreate oneself. The KMUN jazz programmer Ben Hunt notes that, “Miles was always rein- venting himself.” The movie’s most disturbing moment is the true story of Davis being brutally arrested for loiter- ing outside the club in which he was performing. ‘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 ▼▼▼ SEEING AN OLD FRIEND after years is fun. Stan was one of my irst friends at Portland State University. That mattered because I started winter term in 1968 after inishing my U.S. Marine Corps enlistment and Vietnam tour. No one — on campus or off — wanted to hear about what you had done in Vietnam. But Stan was curious. In Economics 101, we sat next to each other in a classroom that was incredibly packed, courtesy of the accelerating baby boom. I enjoy telling people how Stan never got a degree, but he did very well in business. If we look back- ward, we see how one relation- ship led to another. Through Stan, I met a woman who got me a great situation as an apartment house manager. ▼▼▼ WHY DIDN’T YOU GET ME Out? is a Vietnam memoir by Frank Anton. Ben Hunt sent it my way. When Anton’s chopper went down in 1968 he was captured by the Viet Cong. The book describes his ive years of captivity, most of it in jungle coninement. His last jail is the Hanoi Hilton, which was comfortable by comparison. The disturbing aspersion that Anton casts is that U.S. intelligence knew where he was, but chose not to rescue him. He also infers that hun- dreds of men were left behind at the war’s end. AP Photo Miles Davis is shown in concert in the old Roman Amphitheater in Caesarea, north of Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1987. Miles Davis was always reinventing himself. ▼▼▼ CUMTUX, THE QUARTERLY of the Clatsop County Historical Society, is the equivalent of a state historical society publication. The spring issue contains an element that I am developing for later publication. One element of Liisa Penner’s story is Astoria’s Finnish language newspapers, which have fascinated me. I am realizing that there were more of these than I realized. Even a paper aimed at the male audience and another aimed at the female audience. Tovari is the paper whose front page we have framed in one of our conference rooms. A caption on this artifact notes that some of its edi- tors were deported for their social- ist leanings. I asked Penner where Tovari’s ofices were in Astoria. Alas, she said, she’s never been able to ind them. Apparently, they were always being evicted by landlords. — S.A.F. Learning to put grit in its place By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service Grit is persevering through unpleasantness. e all know why it exists, Sure, she starts the book but the grade-point aver- by describing grit as perse- age is one of the more destructive vering through unpleasant- elements in American education. ness. She describes Beast W An ad from 50 years ago this week. The president of the Congress of American Fishermen said today that the organization is now convinced that the Russian ishing leet operating off the west coast is “military oriented and constitutes a seri- ous threat to the security of the nation.” The two Clatsop County museums, which draw an aver- age of 40,000 people a year between them, bring many thou- sands of dollars revenue by keeping these visitors a little lon- ger in Clatsop County, speakers at the chamber of commerce luncheon said Friday. Burnby Bell spoke on behalf of the Clatsop Histori- cal Society’s museum in the old Flavel home, Rolf Klep on behalf of the Columbia River Maritime Museum in the for- mer city hall. Both urged support of Measure No. 3 on the May 24 bal- lots, which will provide a tax levy of $5,000 annually in sup- port of two museums, to the matched by $5,000 annually of state funds. Contractors should be ready to start decking the 2,464-foot-long main through truss of the Columbia River bridge channel crossing before June 1, Highway Department engineers reported this week. 75 years ago — 1941 Governor Charles A. Sprague has interested himself in Astoria’s effort to provide an armory and recreation build- ing here and has had reassuring words from the national defense organization, he advised Chairman J.C. Wright of the Clatsop County Council of Defense in a letter just received. The Columbia River Packers association today announced cancel- lation of its 1941 Bristol Bay ishing expedition because of “prohibi- tory union demands controlling the Alaska ishery.” After the cancellation decision was made, the packing irm char- tered its 8,800-ton Alaska isheries vessel to the States Steamship com- pany for carrying defense materials and supplies under the lend-lease bill, it was announced today by Willaim I. Thompson, chairman of the board of directors. Success is about being passion- ately good at one or two things, but students who want to get close to that 4.0 have to be prudentially balanced about every subject. In life we want independent think- ing and risk-taking, but the GPA sys- tem encourages students to be def- erential and risk averse, giving their teachers what they want. Creative people are good at asking new questions, but the GPA rewards those who can answer other peo- ple’s questions. The modern economy rewards those who can think in ways computers can’t, but the GPA rewards people who can grind away at mental tasks they ind boring. People are hap- piest when motivated intrinsically, but the GPA is the mother of all extrinsic motivations. The GPA ethos takes spirited chil- dren and pushes them to be hard work- ing but complaisant. The GPA men- tality means tremendous emphasis has now been placed on grit, the abil- ity to trudge through long stretches of dificulty. Inluenced by this cul- ture, schools across America are busy teaching their students to be gritty and to have “character” — by which they mean skills like self-discipline and resilience that contribute to career success. Angela Duckworth of the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania is the researcher most associated with the study and popularization of grit. And yet what I like about her new book, Grit, is the way she is pulling us away from the narrow, joyless intonations of that word, and pointing us beyond the way many schools are now teaching it. Wallace put it in his Kenyon commencement address, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actu- Barracks, the physical ally no such thing as athe- ordeal that irst-year West ism. There is no such thing Point cadets have to endure. as not worshipping. Every- She writes about high body worships.” Some wor- school students who grind ship money, or power or away at homework for popularity or nursing or art, hours and athletes capable but everybody’s life is orga- David of practicing in the most nized around some longing. Brooks arduous way possible. The heart is both a driving And yet Duckworth notes that engine and a compass. moral purpose also contributes to grit. I don’t know about you, but I’m People who are motivated more by really bad at being self-disciplined altruism than personal pleasure score about things I don’t care about. For higher on grit scales. She also notes me, and I suspect for many, hard work that having a hopeful temperament and resilience can only happen when contributes to perseverance. there is a strong desire. Grit is thus Most important, she notes that the downstream from longing. People quality of our longing matters. Gritty need a powerful why if they are going people are resilient and hardworking, to be able to endure any how. sure. But they also, she writes, know Duckworth herself has a very clear in a very, very deep way what it is they telos. As she deines it, “Use psycho- want. logical science to help kids thrive.” This is a crucial leap. It leads to Throughout her book, you can feel her a very different set of questions and passion for her ield and see how gritty approaches. How do we help students she has been in pursuing her end. decide what they want? How do we Suppose you were designing a improve the quality and ardor of their school to help students ind their own longing? clear end — as clear as that one. Say The GPA mentality is based on the you were designing a school to elevate supposition that we are thinking crea- and intensify longings. Wouldn’t you tures. Young minds have to be taught want to provide examples of people self-discipline so they can acquire who have intense longings? Wouldn’t knowledge. That’s partly true, but as you want to encourage students to James K.A. Smith notes in his own be obsessive about worthy things? book You Are What You Love, human Wouldn’t you discuss which loves are beings are primarily deined by what higher than others and practices that we desire, not what we know. Our habituate them toward those desires? wants are at the core of our identity, the Wouldn’t you be all about providing wellspring whence our actions low. students with new subjects to love? At the highest level, our lives are In such a school you might even directed toward some telos, or vision de-emphasize the GPA mentality, of the good life. Whether we are aware which puts a tether on passionate of it or not, we’re all oriented around interests and substitutes other people’s some set of goals. As David Foster longings for the student’s own.