OPINION
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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
E
ach week we recognize those people and organizations
in the community deserving of public praise for the good
things they do to make the North Coast a better place to
live, and also those who should be called out for their actions.
SHOUTOUTS
This week’s Shoutouts go to:
• Members of American Legion Post 99 in Seaside and
Clatsop Post 12 American Legion in Astoria for conducting sol-
emn memorial services that honored those who served and died
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, 75 years ago this week.
In Seaside, a brief service was conducted in the lobby of the
Civic and Convention Center and then moved outside to the Pearl
Harbor Memorial Bridge where Pearl Harbor survivor Spurgeon
Keeth participated in a wreath-laying service. Keeth, who was sta-
tioned at the U.S. Army’s Schofield Barracks on Oahu during the
attack, was also a special guest at the service in Astoria.
Laura Sellers/The Daily Astorian
The Astoria Fire Department made the rounds on the South Slope
Wednesday night and Santa was joined by lots of volunteers, including
Astoria Mayor Arline LaMear on the ground picking up food offerings.
Those who were away during the food parade can drop off a bag of
nonperishable food items to the Astoria Fire Department, 555 30th St.
The lobby is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but arrangements can be made
to drop off donations outside of those hours by calling 503-325-2345.
• The Astoria Fire Department, which this week conducted
its 28th annual Astoria Fire Department Christmas Food Parade.
Firefighters, family and friends picked up nonperishable food
donations block by block throughout the city on decorated fire
engines in an effort to help needy families during the holiday sea-
son. The goal of this year’s effort was to collect more than 4,000
pounds of food.
• Providence Seaside Hospital’s 19th Annual Festival of
Trees, which helped raise money for three-dimensional tomosyn-
thesis imaging equipment, a state of the art mammography tech-
nology that enhances early cancer detection and reduces false pos-
itive readings. Through the years, the event has raised more than
$1.3 million to benefit community health services and programs
that the hospital provides, and this year’s event added to that total.
• Students at the North Coast Christian School in Hammond
who last week packed more than 10,000 meals of dried rice, soy,
vegetables and a nutrient mix that they sealed into individual
packets for Feed the Need, a nationwide fundraiser sending basic
meals to people facing extreme hunger. The students helped raise
more than $16,000 in a variety of events since October, and one-
third of the proceeds went toward the meals project. Last Friday
they conducted a packing party with 2,000 of the meals going to
the Clatsop Community Action Regional Food Bank while the
other 8,000 are being shipped to Haiti.
• The Oller Fund, which provides free swimming lessons at
the Astoria Aquatic Center for schoolchildren from south Pacific
County, Wash. The fund, named for Verna Oller, was created
from a $4.5 million bequest in her will that the money be used to
increase access for swimming education for all residents of south-
ern Pacific County.
• The Lower Columbia Chief Petty Officers Association
which created a first-time, $1,000 scholarship for Clatsop
Community College that will be awarded this spring for the fall
2017 semester.
Trump: Madman of the Year
By CHARLES M. BLOW
New York Times News Service
S
o, Time magazine, ever in
search of buzz, this week
named Donald Trump Person
of the Year. But they did so with a
headline that read,
“President of the
Divided States of
America.”
The demi-fas-
cist of Fifth Avenue
wasn’t flattered by
that wording.
In an interview with the “Today”
show, Trump huffed, “When you
say divided states of America, I
didn’t divide them. They’re divided
now.” He added later, “I think put-
ting divided is snarky, but again,
it’s divided. I’m not president yet.
So I didn’t do anything to divide.”
Donald, thy name is division.
You and your campaign of toxic-
ity and intolerance have not only
divided this country but also ripped
it to tatters.
This comports with an
extremely disturbing tendency of
Trump’s: Denying responsibility
for things of which he is fully cul-
pable, while claiming full praise for
things in which he was only partly
involved.
As my mother used to say:
Don’t try to throw a rock and hide
your hand. Own your odiousness.
But Trump delivered the lie with
an ease and innocuousness that
bespoke a childish innocence and
naiveté. In fact, his words disguised
cold calculation.
Demagogy
That is the thing about dema-
gogy: It can be charming, even daz-
zling, and that is what makes it all
the more dangerous.
Demagogues can flatter and
whisper and chuckle. They can
remind us of the good in the world
because they have an acute aware-
ness of the ways of the world.
They can also love and be loved.
They can reflect our own humanity
because they are human, but their
ambitions do not bend toward the
good.
Their ultimate end is distraction,
which allows domination, which
leads to destruction.
Trump is running two post-cam-
paign campaigns: one high and one
low, one of frivolity and one of
enormous consequence.
One is a campaign of bread and
circuses — tweets, rallies, bom-
bast about random issues of the
moment, all meant to distract and
excite — and the other is the con-
stant assemblage of a Cabinet full
of fat cats and “mad dog” gener-
CALLOUTS
This week’s Callouts go to:
• The state’s most recent information technology security
efforts, which a yearlong audit by the Secretary of State’s Office
show are insufficient. The recently released audit examined 13
state agencies and showed, “Overall, planning efforts were often
perfunctory, security staffing was generally insufficient, and crit-
ical security functions were not always performed. These weak-
nesses collectively increase the risk of a security incident at one
or more of the agencies.” All of the agencies examined maintain
large databases of sensitive personal data, and all fared poorly
when it came to managing and protecting user accounts to ensure
no unauthorized users had access to internal information. Gov.
Kate Brown in September ordered that all IT security functions be
placed under the state chief information officer’s umbrella rather
than the individual agencies to address the vulnerabilities.
Suggestions?
Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know
about? Let us know at news@dailyastorian.com.
als, a virtual aviary of vultures and
hawks.
“questioned the Obama adminis-
tration’s plans to open all combat
jobs to women, saying the military
would have to lower its physi-
cal standards to bring women into
some roles.”
This is disturbing, but Kelly
isn’t the only one of Trump’s mili-
tary picks who has a disturbing atti-
tude toward women.
Last month, The Daily Beast
reported that the office of Lt. Gen.
Michael Flynn, Trump’s pick for
national security adviser, “told
women to wear makeup, heels, and
skirts.” These directives to women
were presented in a “January 2013
presentation, entitled ‘Dress for
Success,’” which was obtained by
a Freedom of Information request
by MuckRock. The presentation
reportedly made sweeping patriar-
chal declarations — “makeup helps
women look more attractive” —
and gave granular detail — “Wear
just enough to accentuate your fea-
tures.” According to the presenta-
tion, “Do not advocate the ‘Plain
Jane’ look.”
So, in other words, while GI Joe
is in camouflage, GI Jane should
be in concealer. Got it. Indeed, on
Wednesday, my colleague Susan
Chira pondered in these pages:
“Is Donald Trump’s Cabinet Anti-
Woman?” She went through a lit-
any of anti-woman positions taken
and policies advanced by Trump
appointees, leaving this reader
with the clear conclusion that yes,
it is. She closed with this: “One of
the few bright spots that women’s
advocates see in a Trump adminis-
tration are proposals championed
by Ivanka Trump to require paid
maternity leave and offer expanded
tax credits for child care.” But, as
she notes, there is legitimate crit-
icism that even that is patriarchal
because it doesn’t cover paternal
leave.
The question hanging in the
air, the issue that we must vig-
ilantly monitor, is whether the
emerging shoots of egalitarian-
ism in this country will be stomped
out by the jackboot of revitalized
authoritarianism.
I feel like America is being
flashed by a giant neuralyzer, à la
“Men In Black.” We are in danger
of forgetting what has happened
and losing sight, in the fog of con-
fusion and concealment, of the pro-
fundity of the menace taking shape
right before us.
That is our challenge: To see
clearly what this deceiver wants to
obscure; to be resolute about that to
which he wants us to be resigned;
to understand that Time’s man of
the year is, by words and deeds,
more of a madman of the year.
Homeland Security
On Wednesday, The New York
Times reported that Trump had
“settled on Gen. John F. Kelly, a
retired four-star Marine general
whose son was killed in combat in
Afghanistan, as his choice for sec-
retary of Homeland Security.”
They also pointed out that Kelly
had “dismissed one argument cited
by those who advocate closing the
military prison at Guantánamo, say-
ing it had not proved to be an inspi-
ration for militants.” The prison fell
under his command.
That is our
challenge: To
see clearly
what this
deceiver wants
to obscure;
to be resolute
about that
to which he
wants us to
be resigned;
to understand
that Time’s
man of the
year is, by
words and
deeds, more of
a madman of
the year.
Make no mistake: The prison
at Guantánamo is one of the most
glaring and enduring moral blights
remaining from our humanitari-
anism-be-damned reaction to the
attacks of 9/11.
Trump said of the prison last
month:
“This morning, I watched Pres-
ident Obama talking about Gitmo,
right, Guantánamo Bay, which by
the way, which by the way, we are
keeping open. Which we are keep-
ing open ... and we’re gonna load
it up with some bad dudes, believe
me, we’re gonna load it up.”
Attitude toward women
The Times also said that Kelly
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
High cost
o fully appreciate the concerns
as voiced in the letter, “Walmart
— a good thing?” (The Daily Asto-
rian, Dec. 2) regarding the poten-
tial damage to local businesses from
the Walmart proposal for Warren-
ton, I recommend the powerful docu-
mentary “Walmart: The High Cost of
Low Price” by Brave New Films, and
available at Seaside Public Library.
The effects cut deep and with a wide
swath.
MARGARET GREEN
Gearhart
T
Shout out
just wanted to give a shout out to
the teachers and parents who helm
the Warrenton Head Start program.
I was shopping in my favorite lit-
tle market, the Select Market in War-
I
renton, when I became aware of lots
of noise and chatter in the produce
department.
The little children from Head Start,
accompanied by the teachers and par-
ents, were shopping for vegetables to
make soup. They were given instruc-
tion about which veggies to pick out,
and how to wait in the checkout line
to pay for their purchases. They were
so excited, and their enthusiasm was
contagious. It just made my day.
Thanks to all who make this kind
of teaching possible, and thanks for
giving me a treat on an ordinary shop-
ping day.
SUSAN BISH
Warrenton
Mission to the rescue
tip of the hat and a great big
thank you to organizer Jeff Hall
A
and volunteers from the Astoria Res-
cue Mission for teaming up for lit-
ter patrol on our downtown streets of
Astoria. Their care for our community
is just one of several reasons my wife
and I have come to appreciate our
new hometown. May God bless these
merry gentlemen.
JOHN SLIVKOFF
Astoria
They came …
egarding “Astoria will not pur-
sue sanctuary status” (The Daily
Astorian, Dec. 6): They came for
Mayor Arline LaMear, and I did noth-
ing … they came for Chief Brad
Johnston, and I did nothing … they
came for the city council members …
and then they came for me.
BOB WESTERBERG
Astoria
R