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.