OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & 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 Astoria Police Department is asking for public help: Did anyone see
anything suspicious Friday night or Saturday morning?
The action follows the discovery of a “bomb-like device” that caused
a scare Saturday and led to the Astoria Regatta Grand Land Parade being
diverted.
Eventually, the item was destroyed as a precaution by a state bomb
expert.
A similar device was found in Portland two months ago, and the FBI is
investigating whether there is any connection.
In the land of clouds and rain, the sun usually makes an effort
to shine down on the Astoria Regatta Grand Land Parade. This
year’s event was no exception.
Martin Bue, one of the Regatta organizers, said in recent
years, “it has rained before and after, but not during.”
Some Americans are reducing their contributions to climate change by
driving less, using energy-efficient appliances and insulating their homes.
But dozens of activists who’ve spent the past six nights sleeping under
the stars in Skamokawa want to do more.
For them, combating human impacts on the Earth’s climate means fight-
ing fossil fuel development; it means pressuring the biggest polluters to
cut back and leaning on financiers to invest in renewable energy; it means
speaking out and demanding action.
Over the past week, about 70 West Coast people have camped at the
Wahkiakum County Fairgrounds in Skamokawa to model sustainable liv-
ing, compare notes on environmental and social justice campaigns — and
loudly oppose liquefied natural gas projects on the lower Columbia River.
Their plan starts with living low-impact; switching from petroleum and
natural gas to solar and wind power, reducing waste and water consump-
tion, and recycling and reusing purchased products.
50 years ago — 1967
The Daily Astorian/File
Clatsop County’s Nicolai Mountain will be location of one of 13
relay stations to be constructed in Oregon as part of the new
$21.7 million microwave network to link the Pacific Northwest
with California. All repeater stations will be atop mountain peaks
to provide unobstructed transmission signals.
No, the city did not make a mistake. The 15-star flag flying
over Fort Astoria at 15th and Exchange should bear just that
number of stars.
The reason is historical, dating back to the number of states
in the union when the fort was originally erected.
Mrs. Chester Love made the flag for the city approximately 1
1/2 years ago. City police are responsible for raising and lower-
ing the flag each morning and evening.
The newly-appointed Columbia River area representative of the Mar-
itime Administration said today the shrinking reserve fleet near Astoria
should be phased out “within a year.”
Joseph F. Corcoran Jr. labeled it strictly an economy move.
“We are reducing the number of mothball fleets from three to two on the
West Coast and from nine to seven nationally,” he said.
The Astoria Bridge recorded its heaviest traffic average of
the summer season this past weekend, tabulating a total of 9,646
vehicles for the three day period. Friday, 2,656 vehicles crossed
the Columbia via the 4.1-mile span. Saturday numbered 3,169,
and Sunday soared to 3,821.
Average per day over the weekend was 3,215.3.
Getting Trump out of my brain
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
L
ast week The Washington
Post published transcripts of
Donald Trump’s conversa-
tions with foreign
leaders. A dear
friend sent me an
email suggesting I
read them because
they reveal how
Trump’s mind
works. But as I
tried to click the link a Bartleby-like
voice in my head said, “I would
prefer not to.” I tried to click again
and the voice said: “No thanks. I’m
full.”
For the past two years Trump has
taken up an amazing amount of my
brain space. My brain has appar-
ently decided that it’s not inter-
ested in devoting more neurons
to that guy. There’s nothing more
to be learned about Trump’s mix-
ture of ignorance, insecurity and
narcissism. Every second spent on
his bluster is more degrading than
informative.
Now a lot of people are clearly
still addicted to Trump. My Twit-
ter feed is all him. Some peo-
ple treat the Trump White House
as the “Breaking Bad” serial
drama they’ve been binge watch-
ing for six months. For some of us,
Trump-bashing has become edu-
cated-class meth. We derive end-
less satisfaction from feeling mor-
ally superior to him — and as Leon
Wieseltier put it, affirmation is the
new sex.
But I thought I might try to lis-
ten to my brain for a change. That
would mean trying, probably unsuc-
cessfully, to spend less time think-
ing about Trump the soap opera and
more time on questions that sur-
round the Trump phenomena and
this moment of history.
How much permanent damage
is he doing to our global alliances?
Have Americans really decided
they no longer want to be a univer-
sal nation with a special mission to
spread freedom around the world?
Is populism now the lingua franca
of politics so the Democrats’ only
hope is to match Trump’s populism
with their own?
These sorts of questions revolve
around one big question: What les-
sons are people drawing from this
debacle and how will those lessons
shape what comes next?
It’s clear that Trump is not just a
parenthesis. After he leaves things
will not just snap back to “normal.”
Instead, he represents the farcical
culmination of a lot of dying old
orders — demographic, political,
even moral — and what comes after
will be a reaction against rather than
a continuing from.
For example, let’s look at our
75 years ago — 1942
The “Go” signal has been given on a $3 million wooden shipyard and
barge construction program for Astoria, it was announced today; and work
starts this week on the Lower Columbia’s fist major shipbuilding effort
since the first World War.
SALEM – A bill that may be submitted to the 1943 Legisla-
ture would prohibit women from entering beer dispensaries of
state liquor stores. Identity of the sponsors of the proposed legis-
lation was not disclosed.
There are 540 Washington motorists on the state tire rationing board’s
blacklist as “tire abusers,” State Patrol Chief James A. Pryde reported today.
Autoists convicted of traffic violations that are detrimental to tires are
listed here and the list sent to the tire board. Their names are sent out to their
home county boards and those motorists will be unable to get new tires.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump talks about North Korea during a briefing on
the opioid crisis Tuesday at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
moral culture. For most of American
history mainline Protestants — the
Episcopalians, Methodists, Presby-
terians and so on — set the domi-
nant cultural tone. Most of the big
social movements, like abolition-
ism, the suffragist movement and
the civil rights movement, came out
of the mainline churches.
What lessons
are people
drawing from
this debacle
and how will
those lessons
shape what
comes next?
As Joseph Bottum wrote in “An
Anxious Age,” mainline Protes-
tants created a kind of unifying cul-
ture that bound people of different
political views. You could be Cath-
olic, Jewish, Muslim or atheist, but
still you were influenced by cer-
tain mainline ideas — the Protes-
tant work ethic, the WASP definition
of a gentleman. Leaders from The-
odore Roosevelt to Barack Obama
hewed to a similar mainline stan-
dard for what is decent in public life
and what is beyond the pale.
Over the last several decades
mainline Protestantism has with-
ered. The country became more
diverse. The WASPs lost their perch
atop society. The mainline denomi-
nations lost their vitality.
For a time, we lived off the
moral capital of the past. But the
election of Trump shows just how
desiccated the mainline code has
become. A nation guided by that
ethic would not have elected a guy
who is a daily affront to it, a guy
who nakedly loves money, who
boasts, who objectifies women, who
is incapable of hypocrisy because he
acknowledges no standard of pro-
priety other than that which he feels
like doing at any given moment.
Donald Trump has smashed
through the behavior standards that
once governed public life. His elec-
tion demonstrates that as the uni-
fying glue of the mainline culture
receded, the country divided into at
least three blocks: white evangelical
Protestantism that at least in its pub-
lic face seems to care more about
eros than caritas; secular progres-
sivism that is spiritually formed by
feminism, environmentalism and
the quest for individual rights; and
realist nationalism that gets its man-
ners from reality TV and its spiri-
tual succor from in-group/out-group
solidarity.
If Trump falls in disgrace or
defeat, and people’s partisan pride is
no longer at stake, I hope that even
his supporters will have enough
moral memory to acknowledge that
character really does matter. A guy
can promise change, but if he is dis-
honest, disloyal and selfish, the
change he delivers is not going to be
effective or good.
But where are people going to
go for a new standard of decency?
They’re not going to go back to the
old WASP ideal. That’s dead. Trump
revealed the vacuum, but who is
going to fill it and with what?
I could describe a similar vac-
uum when it comes to domestic
policy thinking, to American iden-
tity, to America’s role in the world.
Trump exposes the void but doesn’t
fill it. That’s why the reaction
against Trump is now more import-
ant than the man himself.
One way or another I’m gonna
wash that man right outta what’s left
of my hair.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 439 Cannon House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20515.
Phone: 202- 225-0855. Fax 202-225-
9497. District office: 12725 SW Mil-
likan 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.