THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2016
FRIDAY EXCHANGE
Surviving survival
Students thanked
for preservation
projects
R
.J. Marx’s column about
eliminating the tsunami
risks for Seaside’s schools is
thought-provoking
(“South-
ern Exposure: Anniversary of
the high school: now can we
move?” The Daily Astorian,
May 16). If the schools are ulti-
mately relocated, and surely
they will be over time, then
what? Surviving the tsunami is
one thing. Surviving your sur-
vival is quite another, and all the
more so for the young.
The Oregon Department of
Geology and Mineral Indus-
tries notes that following a mag-
nitude 9.0 event travel on U.S.
Highway 101 will not be pos-
sible, and that roads to the coast
from Portland and the Willa-
mette Valley will not be restored
for at least a year, and possibly
longer.
Locally there will be neither
electricity, nor sewer service,
nor municipal water. Resupply
of groceries and liquid fuel from
points inland will be initially
impossible, and later dificult.
How are schools to cope when,
post a school day tsunami, few
parents are able to reach the
school in a timely fashion, and
many children are traumatized?
How will schools provide
not only the essentials of shelter,
food and water, but also manage
distraught youngsters? How will
sanitary facilities be provided, as
well as basic sanitation for the
survivors? And for how long?
Relocating schools brings a
new set of complexities. There
needs to be another level of
planning, preparation and prac-
tice, practice, practice if desired
outcomes are to be achieved.
Being unprepared to survive
survival is to contemplate a fate
too horrible to consider.
JON CHAMBREAU
Ilwaco, Washington
End parties
T
he world we live in now
has been tainted by those
who have no need to think about
how their actions affect oth-
ers. People are passing bills, as
we speak, that make life easier
for one group of people, only to
ensure that another group will
be cast into hardship.
Having said that, this county
needs to be non-biased, and no
group should be able to silence
the voice of a group just so that
another will be satisied. In other
words, there should be no polit-
ical parties.
LUKAS HELLBERG
Astoria
Community pass
I
read an article about commu-
nity members having to pay
a parking fee to go take prom
pictures at the Astor Column
(“Astoria teens asked to pay
before prom pictures at park,”
The Daily Astorian, May 19).
Recently, a friend and family
member of our community were
shocked to realize they had to
pay for parking, when they were
only going to the Astoria Col-
umn to take pictures.
I believe that the members of
our community shouldn’t have
to pay to see our local treasure.
I understand charging tourists to
maintain and improve the land-
mark, but since we live here
we should be able to visit our
city park whenever we want.
Thank you Joe and Joanie Di
Bartolomeo for taking a stand,
and bringing this issue to light
(“Grads get free pass at Col-
T
he Knappton Cove Heritage Center (KCHC), the site of the
historic U.S. Columbia River Quarantine Station, thanks
Lucien Swerdloff’s Clatsop Community College Historic Pres-
ervation students for continuing their preservation projects at
the 1912 Lazaretto (aka pesthouse) at Knappton Cove.
Dan Haslan has repaired and painted plaster walls in the iso-
lation ward, Joe Cain is rebuilding the old cupola that adorned
the top of the old water tower and Brooke Willoughby has been
helping with yard work and historic landscaping plans. We are
so thankful for these dedicated students keeping the center on
track in the preservation of this old building.
The KCHC, 521 State Route 401 in Naselle, Washington,
will be open summer Saturday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m.
We’ll kick off our summer schedule on May 28 with a tribute
to these CCC students. The museum is free but donations are
tax-deductible, and always welcome.
NANCY ANDERSON
Gearhart
Letters welcome
Letters should be exclu-
sive to The Daily Astorian.
We do not publish open let-
ters or third-party letters.
Letters should be fewer
than 450 words and must
include the writer’s name,
address and phone numbers.
You will be contacted to con-
irm authorship.
All letters are subject to
editing for space, grammar
and, on occasion, factual
accuracy.
Letters written in response
to other letter writers should
address the issue at hand and,
rather than mentioning the
writer by name, should refer
to the headline and date the
umn,” The Daily Astorian, May
19).
LEXY SOLOMON
Astoria
Disgusted
I
have been voting in Dem-
ocratic primaries since the
1960s, and I have never wit-
nessed one in which there was
a greater sense of the ix being
in, despite an immense ground-
swell of support for Bernie
Sanders.
The coronation of Hillary
Clinton in 2016 began as soon
as Obama won the nomina-
tion in 2008. The superdele-
gate system, installed by corpo-
rate Democrats in the 1980s, has
enabled an oligarchy of party
notables to ride roughshod over
the progressive Sanders’ can-
didacy. Some one-third of del-
egates, representing powerful
interests, will cast their votes for
Clinton regardless of the out-
come in each state’s election.
Such oligarchic control con-
tradicts the very purpose of pri-
maries, to express the popu-
lar will. In Oregon, we have
elite superdelegates like Attor-
ney General Ellen Rosenblum
declaring she will vote in the
convention for her favorite,
Clinton, despite the will of the
voters in choosing Sanders by
over 10 percent. Others over-
ride popular will with simplis-
tic assertions like, “It’s her turn.”
Since when is the election of
a nominee for the highest ofice
a matter of taking turns, like chil-
dren on a see saw? This is not a
monarchy with a set succession
Community
Emergency
letter was published. Dis-
course should be civil and
people should be referred to
in a respectful manner. Let-
ters referring to news stories
should also mention the head-
line and date of publication.
Submissions may be sent
in any of these ways:
E-mail to editor@dai-
lyastorian.com;
Online form at www.dai-
lyastorian.com;
Delivered to the Asto-
rian ofices at 949 Exchange
St. and 1555 N. Roosevelt in
Seaside.
Or by mail to Letters to
the Editor, P.O. Box 210,
Astoria, OR 97103
to the presidency. Many Demo-
crats would like to see a woman
president, but we have solid rea-
sons for opposing Clinton.
I, for one, strongly oppose
her extreme militarism in for-
eign policy. She is part of a
bipartisan neo-conservative fac-
tion, which seeks U.S. dom-
ination over the entire earth,
and exercises special belliger-
ence towards Russia. It was Bill
Clinton who, against the strong
advice of cold war architects
like Soviet expert George Ken-
nan, chose to retain and expand
NATO, a military alliance
against the Soviet Union, even
after it was abolished, with Rus-
sia going capitalistic.
Under neo-con imperialist
inluence, with Hillary’s hearty
support, NATO has surrounded
Russia with troops and missile
bases, and they have plans to
do the same with China. Clin-
ton and her neo-con cabal seek to
bring “regime change” to Russia,
much as they have done in the
Middle East. Such policy need-
lessly risks nuclear war. Sanders
eschews “regime change,” favor-
ing diplomacy instead.
While pursuing dangerous,
aggressive foreign policy, Clin-
ton Democrats gain most of
their support from the corpo-
rate-inancial elites who have
given us the vastly unequal soci-
ety Sanders progressives indict.
It is the height of arrogance for
Democratic elites to short cir-
cuit a vast popular upsurge for
peace and equality. The result
will badly split the party.
STEPHEN BERK
Astoria
Preparedness
Forum
Presented by the City of Astoria
Speakers
Include:
Tuesday
Liberty Theater
st
May 31
1203 Commercial Street
At the
Astoria, Oregon
Presentations
from
Doors will open at 5:30 p.m.
6 pm - 8:30 pm
to
•
•
Dr. Althea Rizzo , Geologic Hazards Program Manager | Oregon Emergency Management
Tyree Wilde , Warning Coordination Meteorologist | National Oceanic & Atmospheric
Administration
•
Patrick Corcoran , Coastal Natural Hazards Specialist | Oregon State University, Oregon Sea
•
Neal Bond , Protection Unity Forester | Oregon Department of Forestry
Grant
A question and answer period will immediately follow each presentation.
A final question and answer period will be available at the conclusion of the evening.
Tables with handouts, printed materials and examples of emergency preparedness tools and kits
will be available in the Lobby.
City and County Emergency Management and Response personnel
will be available to answer questions and provide information.
5A
The arrow of history
where none exists. Sovereign nations remain in
incessant pursuit of power and self-interest. The
pursuit can be carried out more or less wisely.
ASHINGTON — How do you But nothing fundamentally changes.
Barack Obama is a classic case study in for-
distinguish a foreign policy “ide-
eign policy idealism. Indeed, one of his favorite
alist” from a “realist,” an optimist from a quotations is about the arrow of history: “The
pessimist?
arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends
Ask one question: Do you believe in the toward justice.” He has spent nearly eight years
trying to advance that arc of justice. Hence his
arrow of history?
initial “apology tour,” that burst of confessional
Or to put it another way, do you think his- soul-searching abroad about America and its
tory is cyclical or directional? Are we con- sins, from slavery to the loss of our moral com-
demned to do the same damn thing over and pass after 9/11. Friday’s trip to Hiroshima com-
over, generation after generation — or is there pletes the arc.
hope for some enduring progress in the world
Unfortunately, with “justice” did not come
order?
peace. The policies that followed — appeasing
For realists, generally conservative, his- Vladimir Putin, the Iranian mullahs, the butch-
tory is an endless cycle of clashing power poli- ers of Tiananmen Square and lately the Cas-
tics. The same patterns repeat. Only
tros — have advanced neither jus-
the names and places change. The
tice nor peace. On the contrary. The
best we can do in our own time is to
consequent withdrawal of American
defend ourselves, managing insta-
power, that agent of injustice or at
bility and avoiding catastrophe. But
least arrogant overreach, has yielded
expect nothing permanent, no essen-
nothing but geopolitical chaos and
tial alteration in the course of human
immense human suffering. (See
affairs.
Syria.)
The idealists believe otherwise.
But now an interesting twist. Two
They believe that the international
terms as president may not have dis-
system can eventually evolve out
abused Obama of his arc-of-justice
of its Hobbesian state of nature into
idealism (see above: Hiroshima visit),
Charles
something more humane and
but they have forced upon him
Krauthammer
hopeful. What is usually over-
at least one policy of hard-
looked is that this hopefulness
headed, indeed hardhearted,
A dose of
for achieving a higher plane
realism. On his Vietnam trip
of global comity comes in coldhearted this week, Obama accepted the
two lavors — one liberal, one
reality of an abusive dictator-
conservative.
ship while announcing a warm-
realism
The liberal variety (as prac-
ing of relations and the lifting of
is always
ticed, for example, by the
the U.S. arms embargo, thereby
Bill Clinton administration)
enlisting Vietnam as a full part-
welcome. ner
believes that the creation of a
in the containment of China.
dense web of treaties, agree-
This follows the partial
ments, transnational institutions and interna- return of the U.S. military to the Philippines,
tional organizations (like the U.N., NGOs, the another element of the containment strategy.
World Trade Organization) can give substance Indeed, the Trans-Paciic Partnership itself is
to a cohesive community of nations that would, less about economics than geopolitics, creating
in time, ensure order and stability.
a Paciic Rim cordon around China.
The conservative view (often called neocon-
There’s no idealism in containment. It is raw,
servative and dominant in the George W. Bush soulless realpolitik. No moral arc. No uplifting
years) is that the better way to ensure order historical arrow. In fact, it is the same damn
and stability is not through international insti- thing all over again, a recapitulation of Tru-
tutions, which are limsy and generally pow- man’s containment of Russia in the late 1940s.
erless, but through the spread of democracy. Obama is doing the same, now with China.
Because, in the end, democracies are inherently
He thus leaves a double legacy. His arc-of-
more inclined to live in peace.
justice aspirations, whatever their intention,
Liberal internationalists count on globaliza- leave behind tragic geopolitical and human
tion, neoconservatives on democratization to wreckage. Yet this belated acquiescence to real-
get us to the sunny uplands of international har- politik, laying the foundations for a new con-
mony. But what unites them is the belief that tainment, will be an essential asset in address-
such uplands exist and are achievable. Both ing this century’s coming central challenge, the
believe in the perfectibility, if not of man, then rise of China.
of the international system. Both believe in the
I don’t know — no one knows — if his-
arrow of history.
tory has an arrow. Which is why a dose of cold-
For realists, this is a comforting delusion that hearted realism is always welcome. Especially
gives high purpose to international exertions from Obama.
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
Thank you, everyone, for making the 10 th annual Assistance League ®
of the Columbia Pacific Golf Ball Drop such a great success.
WINNERS OF PRIZE PACKAGES/PRIZE DONORS
Jim Folk (Annie) – Wine Tasting for 12
from Cellar on 10th
Linda Moreland – Round of golf for 4
plus cart and meal from Astoria Golf &
Country Club
Jackie Cartwright – Boat ride donated
by Columbia River Bar Pilots
Holle Young – Ocean Lodge stay, meals
at The Driftwood & Tom’s Fish & Chips
Sheila Ranta – Cannery Pier Hotel stay,
meal at Silver Salmon, 4 tickets and
book from Columbia River Maritime
Museum
Pattie O’Brien – Surfsand Resort stay
and meal at Public Beach Brewery
Leetha Parham – 2 Rounds at Gearhart
Golf plus 6 sleeves of balls, Doogers
gift certiicate and beer
Marvin Autio – High Life Zip Line Tour
tickets and Buoy Beer Certiicate
Susan Schaffrina – Hallmark Resort
stay and wine
Linda Weber - Complete Beauty Spa
Facial, Ter Har’s cozy comforts,
gift certiicate from Human Bean,
Chocolate & Chardonnay
Laurie Riser - River & Sea Property
Management gift basket of home care
products
Karin Bright – AAA 1 Year Membership
and luggage
Andi Mackey – Placemats/prints from
Forsythea and picture frames from Old
Town Framing
Dave Corkill - Salon Verve’ Gift Basket
and Gift Certiicate from Yoga
Namaste
Cindy Daley – Gift Bag of goodies from
FinnWare
Roxanne Bagwell - 4 Tickets to the
Maritime Museum plus Columbia River
book and Fort George gift basket
Carl Foeste - Natural Nook/Gearhart
Grocery gift certiicates
Diane Fish - T. Paul’s Supper Club
Gift Certiicate plus glasses from
Commercial St. Antiques
Mary Bales – Dundee’s Dining gift
certiicate
Matt Nye - Wine and pasta from Fulio’s
with wine glasses from Commercial St.
Antiques
Jennifer Rodgers - Gift Certiicates
from St. 14 Coffee and Blue Scorcher
Bakery
Leigh Mortlock - Prana Wellness Center
Sauna session plus candle and bath
salts from Sea Gypsy Gifts
Donors not listed above: Bloomin’ Crazy, Bruce’s Candy Kitchen, Curious
Caterpillar, Drs Liebel and Crass, Escape Lodging, Fairweather House & Gallery,
Fultano’s, Funland, Gearhart Bowling Alley, Gearhart Golf Links, In the Boudoir, the
Kee Family, Martin Hospitality, Purple Cow Toys. Thank you all!!!
HUGE THANK YOU TO OUR MAJOR SPONSORS:
NW Natural Gas, Lektro, Columbia River Bar Pilots, Astoria Golf & Country Club,
Paciic Power, US Bank, Seaside Temps LLC, Senator Betsy Johnson,
Remax River & Sea
Additional thanks to: North Coast Subway, Reed & Hertig, Van Dusen Beverages,
John Kawasoe, Knutsen Insurance and to all our ALCP volunteer members.
Finally, a special thank you to everyone who supported our organization
by purchasing tickets and participating in our event. You helped us
reach our goal of dressing 650 school kids in need this school year.
THANK YOU FOR HELPING US “HELP DRESS THE KIDS!”