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.