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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2016)
OPINION 4A My brother met Ali 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 A Lake Oswego man could throw a monkey wrench into two big devel- opments in the works along U.S. Highway 101 at Dolphin Road. Peter Ettro, a 28-year-old CPA who grew up in Knappa and Astoria, is ighting zoning and other land-use changes needed by Home Depot and Lum’s Auto Center. If and when Home Depot opens for business in Warrenton, it’s likely to provide stiff competition for Randy Stemper’s locally owned Builders Sup- ply stores in Astoria and Gearhart. “They’re going to impact us. At what level, is the question,” Stemper said, adding that he’s more worried about the effect the chain store will have on the community. “When’s the last time you saw their (Home Depot’s) name on the back of a kid’s jersey?” Stemper asked. Northern Star Natural Gas has moved ahead with its paper- work to build a liqueied natural gas terminal on the Columbia River at Bradwood. At the same time, a group of almost 100 people, including North Coast residents and visitors from as far away as Santa Barbara, Calif., marched in protest through Astoria Saturday and unveiled the beginning of a legal campaign to stop it. The proposed Warrenton Home Depot store will have a $4.5 million pay- roll and employ 155 people – 70 percent of them full-time and 85 percent of them local – and pay wages that exceed the Clatsop County average, com- pany executive Brian Cannard told the Warrenton City Commission Tues- day night. Cannard, Home Depot’s real estate manager for Oregon, was one of four company representatives who made the case for rezoning land on U.S. Highway 101 from residential to general commercial to accommodate the store. 50 years ago — 1966 Russia and the United States may begin talks soon on problems arising out of the presence of a Soviet trawl ishing leet off the Paciic coast. Possibility of the talks was dis- closed at a public rally attended by more than 400 persons at Ocosta school in Westport, Wash., Sunday evening. Columbia River Fishermen’s union has protested to the Oregon Sanitary Authority against Crown-Zellerbach Cor- poration’s proposal to pipe mill efluent and bleach waste into the Columbia River at Wauna, unless the material is com- pletely puriied. Russell Bristowd, union secretary, said piping the unpuriied wastes into the river would be an “unnecessary hazard to all marine life in the lower Columbia and to the health and well-being of the citi- zens of Oregon and Washington.” THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2016 ities with access to inan- cial capital have the capacity to modernize. That makes the difference between being stuck in an old economy and having the wherewithal to build a new economy. C That is one way of understand- ing the importance of John Berdes’ role in Astoria. Newcomers with new ideas and access to capital are what has changed Astoria over the past 25 years. Berdes typiied that phenom- enon. He had the capacity to look at Astoria as a highly informed outsider. That allowed him to cut through the inertia that aflicts all small towns. Like other newcomers who have become change agents, Berdes’ gift was in opening doors and seeing links to funding sources based elsewhere. To many of us who knew John over more than a decade, his decline and death on Sunday was a shock and sadness. ‘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 ▼▼▼ Photo courtesy Mike Forrester WHEN MUHAMMAD ALI died, I remembered my brother’s brief encounter with the champ. As an Associated Press reporter based in Los Angeles in 1967, Mike was sent to LAX to meet Ali, who was between lights. Writes Mike: “Ali suggested we talk on the way to the main termi- nal where he was meeting long- time photographer friend Howard Beingham. Anyway, as the three of us stood in the terminal facing each other, I heard one of them say, ‘Man, I really gotta go.’ The reply was, ‘Don’t go here, man, no, no!’ And then I felt something dropping on my shoe. The ‘drops’ turned out to be tiny pebbles which were part of Ali’s entertainment arsenal.” ▼▼▼ WHEN MY WIFE VISITED Pittsburgh about 40 years ago the air was a gray-brown haze. She remembers not being able to see more than ive blocks ahead. Such was the city’s air quality before the steel industry faded and the Clean Air Act gained traction. Today the city’s air is like Port- land’s. Like many other cities, Pittsburgh has reconnected with its rivers — the Allegheny, Mononga- hela and the Ohio. Muhammad Ali and Mike Forrester chat in Los Angeles Interna- tional Airport in 1967. Pittsburgh’s PNC Park is an intimate setting for baseball We came to Pittsburgh last weekend to see baseball — one of its two venerable franchises, the Pirates and the Steelers. Located on the Allegheny and in the middle of downtown, PNC Park gives the spectator good sight lines in all sections. The Pirates had a hot early season, but there was little evidence of that in the Friday, Sat- urday and Sunday games we saw with our friends from New Hamp- shire and St. Louis. The city abounds with great eat- ing. The aptly named Meat and Potatoes was a good dinner spot. The lunch spot Primanti has a his- tory going back to steel town days — with sandwiches that are layered with meat, cole slaw and french fries. The Heinz name is on a spec- trum of the city’s cultural attrac- tions. The Heinz History Center contains the stage sets of “Mr. Rog- ers’ Neighborhood,” which was produced by the Pittsburgh public station. Two loors of the Heinz Cen- ter are devoted to sports. The city’s industrial league’s football team photos evoke the steel town it once was. The NFL section of the museum depicts how many pro quarterbacks emerged from the coal ields of western Pennsylvania — such as Joe Namath, Joe Mon- tana and Johnny Unitas. — S.A.F. A time to stand with gay Americans By FRANK BRUNI New York Times News Service The Daily Astorian/File Laying of concrete deck on the Astoria Bridge main channel span began Mon- day almost at the middle of the bridge. Concrete laying will go on simultaneously on both sides of the middle, working out toward the ends of the span from the middle. Workmen here are laying the first concrete on the south side of the 2464-foot span. It took $325,000 and months of hard work and sweat, but Clatsop County now has one of the most advanced summer sports camps for boys in the country. Dubbed Sports Acres, the camp is 380 acres nestled in a valley between the Nehalem river and Highway 25 off Elderberry inn. “Here boys 10 and older can build their proiciency in a cho- sen sport under auspices of some of the inest college and high school coaches in the northwest,” revealed Joseph Peterson, director of the camps activities. There were 57 vessels in the Russian ishing leet and they seemed to be avoiding infractions of international law during the 10-day patrol of the cut- ter Yocona that ended last weekend. 75 years ago - 1941 An estimated 500 new citizens will be honored by recognition services Saturday evening at Gyro ield at the joint celebration of “I Am An American Day” and Flag Day. These 500 citizens have reached the age of 21 within the past year and are residents from all parts of Clatsop County. In addi- tion to them are the naturalized citizens who have received their papers within the last year. A possibility exists that operation of the Clatsop airport will be sus- pended, and that the Civil Aeronautics authority’s grant of a student liers’ course of training for Astoria will be withdrawn because of dredging work in the renovation and expansion of the Clatsop airport. News has been received from the regional ofice of the CAA at Seattle that the school had been withdrawn because of the lying ban to be applied on the airport during the dredge work. The Astoria port commission was told last night that without use of the airport’s main runway, lying operations among 90 students in the Clatsop County Aviation association would have to be abandoned along with any plans for a CAA school. Additional protection for the port of Astoria facilities was authorized by the port commission Tuesday night. R.R. Bartlett, port manager, was instructed to proceed at once with the erection of high fences across the frontage of the three piers in order to keep out prowlers and all persons, particularly after hours, who have no business on the port premises. ome of June’s gay pride cele- brations happened last week- end, but many are still ahead. The one in Louisville, Kentucky, is among them. There’s a parade scheduled for Friday. S That’s your state, Mitch McConnell. You should go. If you’re not comfortable marching, stand on the sidelines. If parades aren’t your thing, make an appearance at one of the other pride events in Kentucky in coming days. Just show up. And by doing so, show that the absence of “gay” or “LGBT” in your statements immediately follow- ing the Orlando massacre — and in the statements of so many other prominent Republicans — isn’t because you place us and our concerns behind some thick pane of glass with a Do Not Touch sign on it, and the sign stays up even when blood and tears pool beneath it. For more than 48 hours, Paul Ryan also seemed to avoid any mention of the kind of nightclub that the Orlando gunman chose and one of the reasons its revelers were marked for death. On Tuesday morning that silence inally ended, as Ryan told journalists at a news conference in Washington that he wanted to “be clear.” “Members of the LGBT community were the targets,” he said. “They were simply attacked for who they are.” He thus joined his 2012 running mate, Mitt Romney, who sent out a tweet midday Monday saying that he and his wife, Ann, were offering “a spe- cial prayer for the LGBT community that was the focus of this attack.” Ryan also joined Donald Trump, who mentioned LGBT Americans repeatedly in his formal remarks on Monday afternoon, expressing “soli- darity with the members of Orlando’s LGBT community” and asserting that the gunman wanted “to execute gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation.” But more conspicuous than what viewed about 700,000 times. Romney and Trump said was what so many other “If the murders had hap- Republicans didn’t. pened, God forbid, in a Bemoaning the carnage, church of a particular Chris- they justly condemned the tian denomination, Catho- Islamic State and violent lic leaders would decry the extremists. They rightly paid murders and then naturally tribute to “irst responders.” express their solidarity with But this speciicity didn’t members of that denomina- extend to the lives and loves tion,” he said in the video, of the people killed. Even adding that for the most Frank Rick Scott, the Republi- part, “this was not done Bruni can governor of Florida, for the grieving LGBT sidestepped the subject, community.” failing to emphasize that You want He told me on Tues- many of them spent their day that there were some to show exceptions, including inal terriied moments in a place where they had Bishop Robert Lynch of our sought precisely the com- St. Petersburg, Florida, fort and belonging that enemies who wrote an extraordi- they didn’t always feel on nary blog post in which what the other side of its walls. he conceded that religion, We still have much Catholicism, America including to learn about the range “often breeds contempt and exact mix of the gun- for gays, lesbians and stands man’s motives. There transgender people,” and are reports that he cased for? Then that such contempt can other locations. His lead to violence. Lynch stand unhinged diatribes appar- stressed that the Orlando ently extended to women, “were all made in with us. victims blacks and Jews as well the image and likeness of as gays. God.” His past behavior and his call to 911 “We teach that,” Lynch wrote. “We demonstrated an overarching hatred of should believe that. We must stand for America, with its celebration of diver- that.” sity and individual liberty. The revel- “We” includes political leaders of ers in Pulse epitomized that liberty, and both parties. If Ted Cruz can mourn what happened to them is part of a big- Orlando as an attack on gay people ger story and bigger struggle that affect — which, in fact, he did — then every everyone in this country. other Republican can, too. But that doesn’t preclude an This is one of those moments, in the acknowledgment of their sexual ori- wake of terror, when we ind the most entations, and it doesn’t explain — or apt and evocative ways to underscore excuse — any reluctance to discuss our oneness and renounce our fear. that. When we make grand gestures. When Roman Catholic leaders, too, shied we make pointed ones. away. Statements by the bishop of So Majority Leader McConnell, Orlando and by the president of the pick your rally. Speaker Ryan, accom- U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pany him. Gov. Scott, attend the funer- said nothing about a gay nightclub or als of gay victims. Other Republi- cans and Democrats, recognize LGBT gays. This so troubled the Rev. James Americans with both your words and Martin, a best-selling Jesuit author, that your presence. You want to show our enemies what he posted a video commentary about it on Facebook on Monday afternoon. America stands for? Then stand with Twenty-four hours later, it had been us.
