OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 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
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2006
Like the canary in the coal mine, birds know when danger is near.
And birds in the Northwest are signaling that the world is changing.
People who count birds are seeing a difference in species appearing in
the Northwest, a clear indicator of climate change. The annual Audubon
Christmas bird count Dec. 16 proved that.
“There were birds that had shown up that have never been seen before,”
said Keith Mohay, who took part with his wife, Carlyn. The count at Lead-
better Point on the tip of the Long Beach Peninsula was a joint effort
between the Discovery Coast and Willapa Hills Audubon Society chapters.
Although the final numbers are not in yet, he estimates about 97 differ-
ent species were spotted. “We learned a lot,” he said. “It was a wonderful
experience.
Red state hope for
Democrats in Helena
“Respectful of the industrial background of the waterfront,
but with a modern twist — and our signature rooftop garden.”
That’s how Astoria developer Chester Trabucco describes
River Park Suites, the four-story condominium project his cor-
poration, No. 10 Sixth Street Ltd, is set to build at No. 1 Sixth
Street, just west of the Cannery Cafe. Prices for the 32 condo
units will start at $450,000 and range upwards to more than $1
million.
On Tuesday, the Astoria Planning Commission unanimously
approved a variance request, with conditions, that eliminates the
required 25-foot setback from the Fifth Street right-of-way for
the building, which will be built on an existing pile field in the
Columbia River. The building will extend 215 feet over the water.
Calpine Corp, did not agree Wednesday to give the Port of Astoria more
time to consider the transfer of the land lease on Warrenton’s Skipanon Pen-
insula to Leucadia National Corp., a nonaffiliated company.
So, the Port today is asking the New York bankruptcy court overseeing
the transfer for more time to evaluate the new company and consider its
legal right as landlord to protest.
50 years ago — 1966
Shortly after the Russian fish-
ing fleet made its initial appear-
ance off the Oregon-Washington
coast, the Congress of American
Fishermen, in Seattle, released a
statement that they were “...con-
vinced that the Soviet trawl fleet
… is militarily oriented and consti-
tutes a serious threat to the security
of the nation.”
The Astoria-based buoy
Dick O’Keef, spokesman for tender Magnolia spent 2
the CAF, reaffirmed that statement 1/2 hours Tuesday pump-
Wednesday, telling the Daily Asto- ing water, transferring sup-
rian “the Russian fleet certainly plies and personnel to the
is militarily oriented. We know,” lightship.
O’Keef said, “that officers on large
ships are military officers.” He said even though the CAF feels
there is a threat, “it is another thing to prove it.”
It is gratifying that potential large-scale home builders are showing
some interest in Astoria property. We need new homes badly, and it is to be
hoped that someone will provide them in substantial numbers.
Astoria is perhaps as badly underbuilt as any city in the Northwest. Lit-
tle new building went on here for several decades when population was
static or dwindling. Meanwhile existing homes grew older an older, many
of them outliving their usefulness.
Today we are largely housed in over-age dwellings, with a minimum of
new and modern homes.
75 years ago — 1941
General plans for evacuating Astoria and other points in the
lower Columbia, not based on any immediate danger but merely
anticipating whatever may come, were discussed here Friday to
executive committee men of the defense council with Ross McIn-
tyre, Portland civilian defense authority, and F.D. Eason, divi-
sion engineer for the state highway department.
McIntyre and Eason are representing the governor and state
defense council in designing evacuation maps for localities par-
ticularly along Oregon’s coastal areas.
No short wave radio sets nor cameras were surrendered to police author-
ities in Clatsop County by 11 a.m., Monday, 12 hours before the deadline
for enemy aliens to give up such items went into effect.
City police received a telephone call in which two aliens said they were
bringing in their short wave sets. A local radio service man said he had com-
plied with the request of a Japanese cannery worker to destroy the short
wave mechanism of a radio several days ago, but refused to carry out sim-
ilar requests made by other Japanese Monday. The radio service man said
that he believed destruction of short wave apparatus in radios after the sur-
render order went into effect was not permissible.
Students in the Astoria public schools will be prepared in
the event that Astoria is ever subjected to air bombing by an
enemy through air raid drills which are to be held in the schools
as quickly as working plans can be drawn by a committee of
principals.
A new campaign to get every man, woman and child with a regular
income in Clatsop County so sign a pledge to systematically and continu-
ally purchase defense savings bonds will get under way January 21, County
Defense Savings Chairman William McGregor reported today on his return
from a Portland meeting Monday of county chairmen.
AP Photo/Matt Volz
Steve Bullock poses in the governor’s residence in Helena, Mont., in October. Bullock is the newly
re-elected democratic governor of Montana.
By TIMOTHY EGAN
New York Times News Service
F
or the longest nights of the
year, there is no better place
to be than on snow-crusted
ground, staring up at Montana’s big
empty sky. Dem-
ocrats across rural
America must
know the feeling,
this Christmas sea-
son, of looking into
a black void and
feeling so very alone.
There is a chance for the pulse
to quicken — a flash of the northern
lights, perhaps, the distant howl of a
wolf — in that utter darkness. And
there is hope for a party spurned in
the wide-open spaces of the coun-
try, as well. Meet Steve Bullock, the
newly re-elected Democratic gover-
nor of Montana.
Donald Trump took Montana
by 20 percentage points — a rare
win for celebrity-infatuated mega-
lomaniacs in a state whose voters
can usually smell the type from a
hundred miles out. But once again,
Democrats won the governor’s
office and did it with votes to spare.
Bullock’s Mountain State secret
sauce is something national party
leaders should sample during their
solstice.
A week after the election, Bull-
ock went deer-hunting with his
10-year-old son. This doesn’t mean
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey
should start shooting Bambi near
the Meadowlands. But the cultural
thing is a wash for Bullock. As a
Montana native and a graduate of
Columbia Law School, he has a foot
in both coastal elitism and prairie
pragmatism.
“Every morning my wife and I
drop our kids off at the same public
schools that we went to,” he said.
Public, that’s key. As in pub-
lic land — the great shared turf of
the American West. Public health,
which the governor expanded in this
poor state. Simple stuff, grounded in
the nontoxic populism of the past.
So when the Trump adminis-
tration starts taking away people’s
health care, trashing public schools
with a church-lady billionaire as
education secretary or colluding
with a Congress that wants to off-
load public land, Montana can offer
a resistance playbook.
Specific advice
I asked the governor to give
some specific advice to fellow
Democrats.
“Show up,” he said, noting that
Barack Obama was at the Fourth
of July parade in the hardscrabble
Montana mining town of Butte in
2008.
That year, the black community
organizer from Chicago came within
2 percentage points of winning a
state with one of the smallest black
populations in the nation. To Hillary
Clinton, on the way to fundraisers
with tech millionaires, Montana was
flyover country.
Democrats
should not
forget that
they have the
majority on
their side on
almost every
major issue.
Had she gone to Great Falls or
Glendive, she would have seen that
struggling white people desire the
same things that struggling people
in diverse urban areas want. Bull-
ock brought Obamacare’s Medic-
aid expansion to his state — a lit-
eral lifesaver to thousands, forcing
Republicans to defend the indefen-
sible. He attacked Republican calls
for tax cuts as budget busters and
community-killers. And in a state
where hate groups still pop up like
poisonous mushrooms, he was a
champion of Native American sov-
ereignty and gay and lesbian rights.
“It’s not about identity politics,”
he said. “It’s about trying to bring
everybody up.”
That’s the theme. Everybody.
Not just the “emerging demograph-
ics,” charted on many a Democratic
PowerPoint. Vice President Joe
Biden, that son of Scranton, Penn-
sylvania, sounded much like Bull-
ock, but his fellow Dems didn’t lis-
ten. Perhaps they’re listening now.
“I mean these are good peo-
ple, man!” Biden said on CNN this
month. “These aren’t racists. These
aren’t sexists.”
A former Iowa governor, Tom
Vilsack, tried to remind Democrats
that rural America is about 15 per-
cent of the population — larger than
the Hispanic vote.
Democrats shouldn’t need a
translator to learn how to speak
to these lost constituents. Frank-
lin Roosevelt, a bit of a dandy from
Hudson Valley wealth, knew the
language. It’s about lifting up those
left behind. And taking it directly to
those who obstruct progress.
Bullock didn’t abandon people
whose paycheck is dependent on
coal. Nor did he make false prom-
ises about coal roaring back. Even
coal plant owners acknowledge
that their days are numbered as the
free market turns to cheap natu-
ral gas to generate power, and as
the world turns away from it for
self-preservation.
Truth as a commodity
With the Trump presidency, truth
will be a commodity more precious
than the gold lining his throne in
Manhattan. He no sooner won the
Electoral College than he started
the Trump era with a big lie, say-
ing he’d achieved “a historic elec-
toral landslide.” For the record: His
victory ranked near the bottom, 46th
out of 58 presidential elections.
But it was historic — no presi-
dent has ever lost the popular vote
by a larger number, almost 3 mil-
lion votes. And yet half of Republi-
cans believe that he won the popu-
lar tally.
As we say goodbye to a dreadful
year, one that should be bound up
in chains and dropped into the Mis-
souri River, Democrats should not
forget that they have the majority
on their side on almost every major
issue. It’s time they got reacquainted
with the millions of other people
who make up that majority.