OPINION
4A
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
Like many of the 50 or so who gathered for the rededication of the
Doughboy Monument in Uniontown, Richard Kaufman had a personal
reason for being there.
His great-uncle, Robert J. Denver, is one of 32 World War I soldiers
and Marines from Clatsop County who gave their lives for their country
during the “war to end all wars.”
Kaufman said Denver was the last surviving male in a pioneer Ore-
gon family that settled in Jewell. When he died, his mother received a
small blue pin with a gold star on it from the military, which was passed
down through the family. Kaufman wore the pin proudly on his lapel
for the rededication ceremony Saturday, which marked the monument’s
80th birthday.
The City Council of Seaside unanimously rejected the bid
to build a retaining wall for the skate park in Broadway Park
Monday.
“We don’t have the money at this point,” said Public
Works Director Neal Wallace before the meeting.
The opening ceremonies of FinnFest USA 2006 commenced in two
languages and three national anthems as organizers welcomed visitors
and dignitaries from Finland, Canada and the United States.
The ceremonies offered a sampling of the many cultural opportuni-
ties available throughout the week. Several visitors from all over the
country and abroad spoke at the event, and performers played short sets
previewing later performances.
This photo shows some of the lumber and other materials still
piled on the bridge, which will form a bottleneck requiring one-
way traffic if the bridge is opened Friday.
50 years ago — 1966
There was still no announcement today by the enigmatic
Oregon Highway department when the Astoria bridge will be
open to trafic.
Speculation was rife in town, with consensus being that this
may be the inal week of ferry service.
Final concrete pour on the bridge will take place Wednes-
day morning, involving the last uncompleted segment of para-
pet on the main channel crossing. Next-to-last pour took place
this morning.
Some work was being completed on the toll booth at the
bridge’s Astoria end. Washroom facilities for the toll keeper
and some emergency lighting for the state police were being
installed, but the work was nearly over.
The Astoria bridge will open for one-way controlled trafic Friday at
6 a.m., Rep. William Holmstrom announced this afternoon.
The announcement came after an all-day conference of highway
Department oficials and bridge contractors to iron out many problems
to make possible use of the bridge while construction work is still in
progress.
Ferry service will cease tonight.
Commemorative coins celebrating the August 27 dedica-
tion of the Astoria bridge have arrived and orders are being
taken for them now at the chamber of commerce.
There appears to be a big demand for the coins, according
to Hayes P. Lavis, of the committee in charge of the project.
75 years ago — 1941
The price of a good show these days is one piece of aluminum. Both
the Riviera and Liberty theaters will adopt this new dues system for one
matinee apiece this week. To further the drive for aluminum for national
defense purposes.
The Corssett Western lumber company has sold its 30-year-
old Wauna mill to a newly-organized irm to be known as the
Wauna Lumber company, which includes some of the opera-
tors of the Knappton mill which was burned out of existence
July 12.
Soldiers of the 18th coast artillery and the 249th coast artillery entered
a harbor defense tactical inspection Sunday at 4 p.m., taking positions in
the ield and manning all defense emplacements for a week’s maneuvers
and observation by inspectors of the ninth coast artillery district.
The last of six 74-passenger Boeing clippers built for Pan
American Airways lifted from the waters off Tongue Point
at 12:35 this afternoon en route to San Francisco. The huge
four motored ship left Seattle at 10:18 this morning and
landed on the Columbia River at 11:20. Captain E.T. Allen,
director of light and aerodynamics for Boeing, lew the ship
from Seattle.
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2016
Let’s go to the Hops
F YOU ARE A BASEBALL
fan itching for the live expe-
rience, salvation is just two
hours away.
I
The Hillsboro Hops are a
delightful experience. Drive up
Highway 30 to Cornelius Pass.
Take that path south to the ballpark.
The Hops are a Class A,
short-season minor league team,
afiliated with the Arizona Dia-
mondbacks. There are three reasons
this is a great experience.
1. It is reasonably priced (our
seats were $15).
2. You are close to the action
everywhere in the stands.
3. The food.
Ah, the food. Being at the edge
of Willamette Valley wine coun-
try and in the heart of Oregon’s
brewing culture, the wine and beer
offerings exceed what you’ll ind
at a Major League park. Beyond
the traditional hot dog and ham-
burger, food offering are varied.
My wife and I had a grilled brisket
and cheese sandwich. Not an item
you’ll ind at Safeco Field.
The game we saw between the
Hops and the Everett AquaSox
was a comeback thriller. Everett’s
pitcher maintained a no-hitter into
the seventh inning. Hillsboro over-
came a sizable deicit in the bottom
of the ninth inning. The Hops’ win-
ning gambit was a runner on irst
breaking for second, which allowed
their runner from third to score on a
bad throw to home.
Every play in minor league ball
is an audition, and we saw quite a
few that night Some succeeded in
their audition. Others not.
▼▼▼
IF YOU’VE NOT BEEN TO
Fort Columbia Theater to see
the Peninsula Association of
Performing Artists, it’s time. My
wife and I made our irst trip last
Saturday night to see Once Upon a
Mattress.
This is not a simple work, with
lots of dificult singing and cho-
reography – a challenge even
to professionals. These penin-
sula amateurs delivered a credible
performance.
Columbia Theater is a nice ret-
roit. The audience experience
exceeds the Coaster Theater in
Cannon Beach. While the Coaster
resists the need to upgrade its light-
ing, Columbia Theater appears to
have contemporary, LED lighting.
Likewise, chairs were comfortable.
Going to theater inside a state
‘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
Wikimedia Commons
The Hillsboro Hops play at Ron Tonkin Field.
In minor
league
baseball,
every play is
an audition.
park is a novel and refreshing expe-
rience. One could easily have a
pre-performance picnic dinner.
other American has ever been so
fortunate, or even half so fortunate.
His career irst amazed observers,
and then dazzled them. Well do I
remember the hot Saturday in Chi-
cago when he was nominated for
the Vice-Presidency on the ticket
with Harding. Half a dozen other
statesman had to commit politi-
cal suicide in order to make way
for him, but all of them stepped up
docilely and bumped themselves
off.”
Hillary Clinton may be this
year’s darling of the gods. Carrying
so much baggage, Clinton lucky
break is to oppose the serial fabulist
(as Mencken would call him) Don-
ald J. Trump.
— S.A.F.
▼▼▼
LUCK IS IMPORTANT IN
life. Especially in politics. Luck
will certainly come into play during
the presidential election.
The best writing on that matter
was H.L. Mencken’s piece follow-
ing the death of former President
Calvin Coolidge. Mencken labeled
Coolidge “the darling of the gods.”
Of Coolidge, The Sage of Bal-
timore (aka Mencken) wrote: “No
Why Democrats are still struggling
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
HILADELPHIA — Dear
Hillary,
P
Donald Trump has presented
you with an amazing opportunity to
become a world historical igure!
If you crush him in this election,
you could create a new Democratic
majority and reduce the GOP to an
ever-declining rump of ethnic nation-
alism. On the other hand, if you fail
to beat Trump, you will go down as
America’s most hapless political loser
and be viliied forever for enabling an
era of American Putinism.
No pressure! Have fun in
Philadelphia!
To end up on the right side of this
equation you’re probably going to have
to resist three natural tendencies, two of
them your party’s and one your own.
First, you’re going to have to ight
your party’s materialistic mind-set.
This is 2016, not 1992. Over the
past few years, economic and social
anxiety has metastasized into some-
thing spiritual and existential.
Americans are no longer conident
in their national project. They no lon-
ger trust their institutions or have faith
in their common destiny. This is a cri-
sis of national purpose. It’s about per-
sonal identity and the basic health of
communal life. Americans’ anger and
pessimism are more fundamental than
anything that can be explained by
GDP statistics.
Many Democrats have trouble
thinking in these terms. When asked
to explain any complex phenomenon,
they instinctively reduce it to a mate-
rialist cause. If there’s terrorism there
must be lack of economic opportu-
nity. If marriage is declining it must be
because of joblessness.
This materialistic mind-set means
that many Democrats are perpetually
surprised by events that involve cul-
tural threats and national identity. Why
don’t working-class Kansans vote for
us? We offer them more programs.
gia of the left is as futile as
Why did the Brits leave the
the demographic nostalgia
EU? It’s against their eco-
nomic interest.
of the right.
The mind-set is also
Somehow you’re going
reductionist. There’s a ten-
to have to come up with
dency to break national
an updated muscular Clin-
problems into small, inter-
tonism. For 30 years your
est-group-size chunks and
name has stood for a Dem-
then deliver pandering pol-
ocratic governing style
icy promises.
that is internationalist in
Look at your website. As
foreign affairs, socially
David
Oren Cass points out
moderate and pro-
Brooks
in The City Journal,
global integration
every demographic or No pressure! (while softening its
interest group gets its
edges). That open,
own pander. If you’re
Have fun in optimistic approach
a horse lover, the Clin-
has to be combined
ton campaign vows Philadelphia! with a more aggres-
to crack down on
sive and radical
“horse soring, in which chemicals or effort to help people compete in the
other inhumane methods are applied to new economy.
horses’ limbs to exaggerate their gait.”
Third, you’re going to have to
If Democrats wage that kind of answer hatred with love. Your ten-
niche-targeted campaign this year dency so far in your career has been
they will lose. Voters are worried that to answer hostility with distrust, and
the whole society is falling apart. If secretiveness.
Democrats think a crisis of national
You’ve ended up projecting cold-
identity can be addressed with tar- ness but also weakness and hurt. Peo-
geted tax credits they are living in a ple who build emotional walls amid
different century.
conlict do so out of fear, not strength.
To stand a chance, Secretary Clin-
Along the way you’ve made your-
ton, you’re probably going to have to self phenomenally unpopular. The
talk as adeptly about threats to per- polls show that you are now just as
sonal dignity as you do about day care. distrusted by the American people as
You’re probably going to have to talk Donald Trump is.
bluntly about the American civic reli-
The conident move is to break out
gion. You’re going to have to show you of the emotional bunker with vulnera-
understand the way members of your bility. The sign of strength is to answer
class have slighted people who are less the “Lock Her Up” enmity with a coni-
educated and less cosmopolitan.
dent honest account of what it feels like
Second, you’re going to have to to be you — embroiled in the political
ight the Sanders tide, which on Day combat, encased in this global celebrity
1 of this convention was astoundingly role, but maintaining authenticity in a
strong. Many Democrats have grown world that conspires against it.
hostile to capitalism. Sixty percent of
Imagine if you displayed honest
Democrats are friendly to socialism, self-appraisal and even moments of
according to a poll by OnMessage Inc. remorse. You’d have the world rooting
for you, not against you.
and the American Action Network.
This convention is about reset-
Of course, this is general election
suicide. If you want a perfect way to ting relationships: establishing trust
turn off suburban service economy between you and voters, restoring opti-
ofice park workers who will decide mism that we can thrive in the modern
this election, then the Bernie Sand- economy, redeining a soul satisfying
ers route is it! The economic nostal- faith in the American project.