THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 2017
FRIDAY EXCHANGE
5A
Unifying Gearhart
T
here are two positive outcomes
occurring in Gearhart as a result
of Ballot Measure 4-188, which
would repeal and replace the city
ordinance that regulates short-term
rentals.
The first outcome is that we are
experiencing the unified voice of all
Gearhart residents, coming together
to defeat this measure. A dialogue
has been opened with all our resi-
dents, regardless of where they live.
We are aware we share a common
goal to maintain the quality of life in
the low-density neighborhoods.
The second outcome is that this
ballot measure will give our resi-
dents the opportunity to voice their
approval of the successful Gearhart
ordinance regulating vacation rent-
als. Residents, by their vote, will
be able to show their support of the
unanimous decision of our elected
officials that enacted a fair and well
thought out vacation rental law.
All of us in Gearhart need to
work together to protect our commu-
nity from a group of outside inves-
tors with deep pockets. These peo-
ple would like nothing better than to
turn Gearhart into their version of a
resort community, with basically no
enforceable regulations managing
an unlimited number of rental dwell-
ings. Their goal is to increase their
rental investment income at a cost to
all of us who call Gearhart home.
Please vote no on Ballot Measure
4-188 in November. Keep Gearhart
residential.
DIANNE WIDDOP
Gearhart
A way with words?
I
taught college courses in public
speaking, political communica-
tion and American public address
for 47 years, appreciating the elo-
quence of Franklin D. Roosevelt,
John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan
and Barack Obama.
But now I face the mind-bog-
gling task of understanding
the garbled rhetoric of Donald
Trump. How do I decipher his
remarks, often unencumbered by
the thought process and featur-
ing nouns and verbs that seem
estranged?
How can I understand those
strange scary quotes Trump so
often uses to distance himself from
his words, or his tendency to con-
tradict himself twice or more in
the same sentence? Tough job.
Consider just a few examples of
TrumpSpeak.
Grading his first 100 days as
president, Trump claimed: “I would
say communication would be a
bit less than an A, because I don’t
think we’ve gotten the word out
what we’ve done, because I think
we’re so busy getting it done, that
we’re not talking about it.” (April
27, http://politi.co/2oRnCas) Huh?
Referring to a New York Times
interview of July 19, 2017: “(The
New York Times) don’t write
good. They have people over
there, like Maggie Haberman and
others, they don’t — they don’t
write good. They don’t know
how to write good.” (http://politi.
co/2ahdz7V)
Yet the Donald did allow vet-
eran political correspondent
Haberman and two other New
York Times writers to interview
him. Slam dunk.
Finally, consider this doozy
from Trump, interviewed by NBC
anchor Lester Holt on May 11
(http://nbcnews.to/2pCaG8H):
“When I did this now I said, ‘I
probably, maybe will confuse peo-
ple, maybe I’ll expand that, you
know, lengthen the time,’ because
it should be over with, in my opin-
ion, should have been over with a
long time ago.” Dazzling.
What could account for
Trump’s garbled syntax and con-
voluted meanderings? A short
attention span, his obsession with
winning, his effusive braggado-
cio, cognitive decline, or perhaps
a sometime-stoner mind? Who
knows?
To me, Trump’s like an ordinary
barstool speaker, which makes him
seem “authentic” to ordinary peo-
ple. But is an articulate American
president no longer necessary? Has
Trump lowered the bar that much?
Stay tuned.
ROBERT BRAKE
Ocean Park, Washington
Three wise monkeys
R
egarding the connection
between the dwindling rental
housing stock in Seaside to prolific
short-term vacation rentals, the Sea-
side City Council remains willfully
blind to the impropriety or the con-
sequence of such commercial activ-
ity in residential areas.
“Who’s going to enforce more
restrictions? We don’t have the
staff,” bursts City Councilor Dana
Phillips (“Wanted: Long-term rent-
als in Seaside,” The Daily Astorian,
July 19). Who needs any restrictions
where zoning laws have no efficacy?
Seaside is a tourist free-fire zone.
The city is addicted to its lodging tax
revenues, and now it appears to rely
on Airbnb to police itself and to col-
lect the city’s lodging tax revenue
(“Seaside inks tax deal with Airbnb,”
Seaside Signal, June 20). Be my
guest. On the honor system. See no
evil, hear no evil, speak no evil …
GARY DURHEIM
Cannon Beach
Thanks, Coast Guard
most grateful.
Instead of finding fault with the
warming center, make an effort to
help out.
SARA MEYER
Astoria
A
High cost of not thinking
nother instance of the U.S.
Coast Guard being there when
we need their help: Thank you to the
U.S. Coast Guard, Sector Columbia
River, for their service to our nation
— and to our community. Particu-
lar thanks to the crew of the cutter
Alert, who recently are helping at
the Ocean View Cemetery to clean
up the grounds, and the graves of our
loved ones.
Special thanks to those crew
members who reset six grave mark-
ers belonging to my paternal Car-
ruthers family members, whose
graves date back to 1917. Under the
direction of the cemetery’s mainte-
nance supervisor Jonah Dart-Mc-
Lean, all of those six markers, which
were listing at 45-degree angles, are
now on even keels.
Sincere thanks from our family
to the crew of the cutter Alert for a
heavy-duty job well done.
CAROL CARRUTHERS
LAMBERT
Hammond
Helping those in need
A
few leaders and neighbors of the
First United Methodist Church
have shared their opinions that the
Astoria Warming Center should not
be near them. Thankfully, most of
us have roofs over our heads and
money for our needs. If we need
mental or other medical care, we can
obtain those services.
If this rich U.S. had a real com-
mitment to end the ravages of preju-
dice, poverty and illness, we could.
But we don’t. Instead, too few vol-
unteers with too little financial sup-
port attempt to provide temporary
shelter for too many needy citizens.
I am thankful for their efforts, and I
know our homeless are
C
ontrary to the information in the
letter “Criminalizing dissent”
(The Daily Astorian, July 28), dis-
sent in America is not yet on the leg-
islative chopping block. And we can
have a peaceful, easy feeling our
way to the next parade/protest.
According to Congress.gov, the
115th U.S. Congress, S. 720 tries to
relegate opposition to the U.N. Res-
olution of March 24, 2016. It would
prevent opposition to protest in the
form of having countries divesting
and breaking contracts with our ad
hoc allies. In other words, it refers
to not participating in totalitarian
led boycotts of our NATO or other
allies, were that to be held in order
of the resolution’s restrictions.
The Social Security Act Pension
Fund lost $3 trillion between 2001
and 2012 to pension dollar removal
to cover trickle-down deficits. Peo-
ple, like most taxpayers, now have
their tax dollars paying off the credit
interest and bonds on those parcels
withdrawn. Nothing like having to
pay for our Social Security twice. I
choose not to wear the world on my
shoulders, but like to adhere to the
fairness of freedom of choice and
dexterity of thought, especially when
it comes to social justice.
Speaking to the making special
provisos, by the way, U.S. Sen. Mike
Enzi, R-Wyoming, was instrumental
when the Senate created a noncom-
petitive agreement for health insur-
ance companies in predominantly
rural areas. This allows a number of
insurance companies selling treat-
ment service policies to singlehand-
edly manage the sale of health treat-
ment services in those areas.
Most of this anti-corruption shel-
tering (waiver) from monopolistic
practices was superimposed into the
Affordable Care Act (embedded).
Thus when you hear the exchanges
are failing, it somehow infers there is
more than a company or two in those
areas. It is built-in obsolescence, and
the trickle-down management has
refused to fix the problem for the
last seven years, as they continue to
blame the Obamacare product.
So, we can continue to freely and
openly continue the spirit of friend-
ship with our friends and allies, and
ask further who pays the high cost
of not thinking. Medicare Part D,
anyone? They’ve been promising
a bond fix for years, too, but that’s
really another name for tax reform.
And the climate change disbelievers
will be even more expensive.
DAVID R. ISAACS
Astoria
Grim thinking
I
was thinking about Donald Trump
yesterday, and wondering: Are
we ever going to do anything about
this guy and his shenanigans? And
then I thought, what the hell, climate
change will take care of everything,
anyway.
And thinking about that grim and
depressing issues, I thought about
North Korea. Maybe we’ll have a
bomb or two go off. What would be
the effect of that on climate change?
Wouldn’t that slow it down a little?
So I looked up nuclear winter —
the effects on the planet if we set off
a bunch of nuclear bombs. Depends,
of course, on how many we set off,
but in order to slow down climate
change significantly, maybe 100 or
so would do it, causing probably
three years of nuclear winter, where
crops fail and worldwide and fam-
ine ensues. Not to mention the dire
effects of the bombs themselves.
So I thought to hell with it, and
had another glass of wine.
FRED LUNDIN
Astoria
Once again, the guardrails hold
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
ASHINGTON — A
future trivia question
and historical footnote,
the spectacular
10-day flameout
of Anthony
Scaramucci
qualifies as the
most entertaining
episode yet of the
ongoing reality
show that is the Trump presidency.
(Working title: “The Pompadours
of 1600 Pennsylvania.”) But even
as the cocksure sycophant’s gob-
smacking spectacle stole the show,
something of real importance took
place a bit lower on the radar.
At five separate junctures, the
sinews of our democracy held
against the careening recklessness
of this presidency. Consequently,
Donald Trump’s worst week
proved a particularly fine hour for
American democracy:
(1) The military says “no” to
Trump on the transgender ban.
Well, not directly — that’s
insubordination — but with rather
elegant circumspection. The
president tweeted out a total ban on
transgender people serving in the
military. It came practically out of
nowhere. The military brass, not
consulted, was not amused. Defense
Secretary James Mattis, in the
middle of a six-month review of the
issue, was reportedly appalled.
What was done? Nothing. The
chairman of the Joint Chiefs simply
declared that a tweet is not an order.
Until he receives a formal com-
mand and develops new guidelines,
the tweet will be ignored.
In other words, the military told
the commander in chief to go jump
in a lake. Generally speaking, this
is not a healthy state of affairs in a
nation of civilian control. It does
carry a whiff of insubordination.
But under a president so uniquely
impulsive and chronically irrational,
a certain vigilance, even prickliness,
on the part of the military is to be
welcomed.
The brass framed their inaction
as a matter of procedure. But the
refusal carried with it a reminder
of institutional prerogatives. In this
case, the military offered resistance
to mere whimsy. Next time, it could
be resistance to unlawfulness.
(2) The Senate saves Sessions.
Trump’s relentless public
humiliation of Attorney General
Jeff Sessions was clearly intended
to get him to resign. He didn’t, in
part because of increasing support
from Congress. Sessions’ former
colleagues came out strongly in his
defense and some openly criticized
the president’s shabby treatment of
his first and most fervent senatorial
supporter.
Indeed, Chuck Grassley, chair-
man of the Judiciary Committee,
warned Trump not to fire Sessions
because he wouldn’t get another
attorney general — the committee’s
entire 2017 schedule was set and
there would be no hearings to
approve a new AG. That was a
finger to the eye of the president.
Every once in a while, the Senate
seems to remember that it is a
coequal branch.
(3) Senate Republicans reject
the Obamacare repeal.
The causes here are multiple,
most having nothing to do with
Trump. Republicans are deeply
divided on the proper role of
government in health care. This
division is compounded by the
sea change in public opinion as,
over seven years, Obamacare
has become part of the fabric of
American medicine, and health care
has come to be seen as a right rather
than a commodity.
Nonetheless, the stunning Senate
rejection of repeal was also a
pointed rejection of Trump’s health
care hectoring. And a show of sen-
atorial disdain for Trump craving
a personal legislative “win” on an
issue about whose policy choices he
knew nothing and cared less.
(4) The Boy Scouts protest.
In a rebuke not as earthshaking
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
President Donald Trump waves to the crowd after speaking at the 2017
National Scout Jamboree in Glen Jean, W.Va., in July. The Boy Scouts
are denying a claim by Trump that the head of the youth organization
called the president to praise his politically aggressive speech to the
Scouts’ national jamboree.
but still telling, the chief executive
of the Boy Scouts found it neces-
sary to apologize for the president’s
speech last week to their quadren-
nial jamboree. It was a wildly
inappropriate confection, at once
whining, self-referential, partisan
and political.
How do you blow a speech to
Boy Scouts? No merit badge for the
big guy.
(5) The police chiefs chide.
In an address to law enforcement
officials, Trump gave a wink and a
nod to cops roughing up suspects.
Several police chiefs subsequently
reprimanded Trump for encourag-
ing police brutality — a mild form,
perhaps, but brutality still.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders said it was all a joke.
Nonsense. It was an ugly sentiment,
expressed coyly enough to be
waved away as humor but with the
thuggish undertone of a man who,
heckled at a campaign rally, once
said approvingly that in the old
days “guys like that” would “be
carried out on a stretcher.”
Whatever your substantive posi-
tion on the various issues involved
above, we should all be grateful
that from the generals to the Scouts,
from the senators to the cops, the
institutions of both political and
civil society are holding up well.
Trump is a systemic stress test.
The results are good, thus far.