OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2007
The last time Clifford Yarborough Jr.’s friends saw him alive, the athletic
17-year-old was boogie-boarding in shoulder-deep water off Long Beach,
Washington, then struggling against a strong undertow that dragged him
out to sea.
It was about the same time a passer-by jumped into the ocean to save a
person fighting the current at nearby Sid Snyder Beach.
Just a few hours earlier to the south, a 37-year-old woman was hospital-
ized after she and two 15-year-olds were rescued off Arcadia Beach.
Despite the onslaught of rip currents and the July 27 tragedy of Yar-
borough, plenty of other beachgoers found themselves in similar circum-
stances the following two days.
On the heels of the U.S. Coast Guard’s busiest weekend yet this year,
authorities are urging swimmers to take caution at Oregon beaches.
Hamburger wasn’t supposed to be in the overweight division,
but he ate his way in.
“I have the second biggest pig here,” said Hamburger’s
owner, Rachel Anne Miller, an 18-year-old competing in her last
4-H competition at the Clatsop County Fair and Expo.
Miller and other 4-H participants and their animals from
throughout Clatsop County were at the fairgrounds Tuesday for
the first day of this year’s county fair.
Ronnie Pass pushed control buttons on the Wauna mill’s aging No. 4
paper machine for the last time Monday, and he said goodbye.
“This is it, big guy,” he recalls saying.
Pass admits that in his 27 years working on No. 4, he’s spoken to it on
more than one occasion.
“It hasn’t always been nice things,” he said.
As of Tuesday, No. 4 is out of commission, and its contracts have been
taken up by other mills, including another Georgia-Pacific mill in Camas,
Washington.
50 years ago — 1967
The Daily Astorian/File
Showing its bright colors to Astoria Monday afternoon, the new
Columbia River Bar Pilots launch Peacock is lowered from the
German freighter Ostreisland. Blasts of boat and ship horns wel-
comed the vessel to Astoria
The new bar pilot vessel Peacock, traditional namesake of the
Peacock Spit, arrived in Astoria Monday afternoon to the horn
blasts of several welcoming boats and admiring looks of old-time
men of the sea.
The new Peacock, built in Germany for the Columbia River
Bar Pilots, was shipped from Europe on board the German
freighter Ostreisland, a journey that took it through the Panama
Canal and up the West Coast.
The vessel is crammed with equipment, while quarters remain
spacious. The engine room is clean, uncluttered and impressive
as is the rest of the more than 89-foot vessel
An historic meeting was held in Astoria last night. The Port of Astoria
took its first official step toward construction of the $142 million Northwest
Aluminum company plant near Warrenton.
The Port retained Bache and Co., Inc., of New York to underwrite the
largest industrial bond issue in U.S. history.
Neahkahnie treasure seeker Tony Mareno of Salem has given
up digging on the sand below the famed Oregon seacoast moun-
tain for the legendary Spanish treasure he says may be worth
$500 million.
He has pushed the sand back in his 18-foot hole and returned
to Salem and his house painting occupation.
Mareno said he plans to try again after raising $5,000 to con-
struct cofferdams so he can work around what the said were inge-
nious water channels installed by the Spaniards to foil looters.
Before manliness lost its virtue
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
T
he Trump administration
is certainly giving us an
education in the varieties of
wannabe manliness.
There is the
slovenly “I don’t
care what you
think” manliness
of Steve Bannon.
There’s the look-
at-me-I-can-curse
manliness that Anthony Scaramucci
learned from “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
There is the affirmation-hungry “I
long to be the man my father was”
parody of manliness performed by
Donald Trump. There are all those
authentically manly Marine generals
Trump hires to supplement his
own. There’s Trump’s man-crush
on Vladimir Putin and the firing of
insufficiently manly Reince Priebus.
With this crowd, it’s man-craving
all the way down.
It’s worth remembering, when we
are surrounded by all this thrusting
masculinity, what substantive
manliness once looked like. For
example, 2,400 years ago the Greeks
had a more fully developed vision of
manliness than anything we see in or
around the White House today.
Greek manliness started from a
different place than ours does now.
For the ancient Greeks, it would
have been incomprehensible to
count yourself an alpha male simply
because you can run a trading floor
or sell an apartment because you
gilded a faucet handle.
For them, real men defended
or served their city, or performed
some noble public service. Braying
after money was the opposite of
manliness. For the Greeks, that
was just avariciousness, an activity
that shrunk you down into a peo-
ple-pleasing marketer or hollowed
you out because you pursued hollow
things.
The Greeks admired what you
might call spiritedness. The spirited
man defies death in battle, performs
deeds of honor and is respected by
those whose esteem is worth having.
The classical Greek concept of
manliness emphasizes certain traits.
The bedrock virtue is courage. The
manly man puts himself on the line
and risks death and criticism. The
manly man is assertive. He does not
hang back but instead wades into any
fray. The manly man is competitive.
He looks for ways to compete with
others, to demonstrate his prowess
and to be the best. The manly man
is self-confident. He knows his own
worth. But he is also touchy. He is
outraged if others do not grant him
the honor that is his due.
That version of manliness gave
Greece its dynamism. But the
Greeks came to understand the
problem with manly men. They are
hard to live with. They are constantly
picking fights and engaging in
75 years ago — 1942
David J. Lewis, Clatsop County rationing administrator, appealed today
to state tire rationing authorities for at least 90 truck tires, 30 truck tubes
and a lesser number of passenger tires and recaps to supply a critical short-
age in this county.
Lewis said Clatsop County has not drawn tires from the state pool since
July 8. He said although cool weather has prevailed in the last week to 10
days, the tire requirements for trucks have become acute; and unless some
relief is provided immediately a great number of trucks will be sidetracked,
particularly if this area is struck by warm weather over any period of time.
Recommendations will be made that the riverboat Impe-
rial, plying between Astoria and Cathlamet and serving various
north shore communities, not be requisitioned by the U.S. Army,
according to Congressman Martin F. Smith of Washington.
There have been reports that the Army intended to requisi-
tion the boat.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, right, points to the direction of
his seat in the East Room of the White House Tuesday.
peacock displays.
Take the savage feuding that
marks the Trump White House and
put it on steroids and you get some
idea of Greek culture. The Greek
tragedies describe cycles of revenge
and counter-revenge as manly men
and women wreak death and destruc-
tion on each other.
It’s worth
remembering,
when we are
surrounded
by all this
thrusting
masculinity,
what
substantive
manliness once
looked like.
So the Greeks took manliness to
the next level. On top of the honor
code, they gave us the concept of
magnanimity. Pericles is the perfect
magnanimous man (and in America,
George Washington and George
Marshall were his heirs). The mag-
nanimous leader possesses all the
spirited traits described above, but he
uses his traits not just to puff himself
up but to create a just political order.
The magnanimous man tries to
master the profession of statecraft
because he believes, with the
Athenian ruler Solon, that the
well-governed city “makes all things
wise and perfect in the world of
men.” The magnanimous leader tries
to beautify his city, to arouse people’s
pride in and love for it. He encour-
ages citizens to get involved in great
civic projects that will give their lives
meaning and allow everybody to
partake in the heroic action that was
once reserved for the aristocratic few.
The magnanimous man has a cer-
tain style. He is a bit aloof, marked
more by gravitas than familiarity. He
shows perfect self-control because
he has mastered his passions. He
does not show his vulnerability. His
relationships are not reciprocal. He is
eager to grant favors but is ashamed
of receiving them. His personal life
can wither because he has devoted
himself to disinterested public
service.
The magnanimous man believes
that politics practiced well is the
noblest of all professions. No other
arena requires as much wisdom,
tenacity, foresight and empathy.
No other field places such stress on
conversation and persuasion. The
English word “idiot” comes from the
ancient Greek word for the person
who is uninterested in politics but
capable only of running his or her
own private affairs.
Today, we’re in a crisis of
masculinity. Some men are unable
to compete in schools and in labor
markets because the stereotype of
what is considered “man’s work” is
so narrow. In the White House, we
have phony manliness run amok.
But we still have all these older
models to draw from. Of all the pol-
iticians I’ve covered, John McCain
comes closest to the old magnani-
mous ideal. Last week, when he went
to the Senate and flipped his thumb
down on the pretzeled-up health care
bill, we saw one version of manliness
trumping another. When John Kelly
elbowed out Anthony Scaramucci,
one version of manliness replaced
another.
The old virtues aren’t totally lost.
So there’s hope.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing-
ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225-
0855. Fax 202-225-9497. District
office: 12725 SW Millikan Way,
Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005.
Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax 503-326-
5066. Web: bonamici.house. gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313
Hart Senate Office Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden.
senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E.,
H-373, Salem, OR 97301. Phone:
503-986-1431. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/witt/ Email: rep.bradwitt@
state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone (D):
900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem,
OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432.
Email: rep.deborah boone@state.
or.us District office: P.O. Box 928,
Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone:
503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/ boone/
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john-
son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy-
johnson.com District Office: P.O.
Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone:
503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296.
Astoria office phone: 503-338-1280.
• Port of Astoria: Executive
Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto-
ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300.
Email: admin@portofastoria.com
• Clatsop County Board of Com-
missioners: c/o County Manager, 800
Exchange St., Suite 410, Astoria, OR
97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.