THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2017
FRIDAY EXCHANGE
5A
Hyak Maritime
W
e are writing to voice our
support for the recently
announced sale negotiations of
North Tongue Point involving Hyak
Maritime and Washington Devel-
opment Co. (“Port poised to leave
North Tongue Point,” The Daily
Astorian, Aug. 2) The opportu-
nity to see a premiere tug and barge
company like Hyak Maritime tak-
ing the reins and ownership is good
news, and we embrace and wel-
come them to Clatsop County.
Our relationship with Hyak goes
back almost 20 years, and with this
pending sale, WCT Marine & Con-
struction Inc. is looking forward
to a permanent location and rela-
tionship with Hyak to continue our
business operations of repairing and
constructing vessels.
We wish to commend the Port of
Astoria Commission for taking fast
and definitive action to allow this
sale to proceed at last Tuesday’s
commission meeting. The decision
to relinquish control by the Port is
welcome news. When a port can
lead the way for private industry to
prosper, we all win.
Please join us in offering full
support for Hyak Maritime and
welcoming them to Clatsop County.
CAROL TORISTOJA
President, WCT Marine &
Construction Inc.
Astoria
Brave opposition
I
have never seen a guiltier act-
ing or guiltier-looking man than
President Donald Trump. It’s like
watching the guilty brother on “The
Sopranos.” And who would’ve
believed a Soprano episode where
the family was hooked up with the
Russian Mafia? We’d have said,
“Naaaaa, that’s too crazy; that
couldn’t happen.”
I am seeing a lot of good, brave
opposition springing up in the coun-
try, though, and that gives me a lift.
Adversity often brings out our best;
maybe we’ll survive this and the
country will rise to the occasion.
Hoorah for both U.S. Sens. Jeff
Merkley and Ron Wyden.
JOSEPH WEBB
Astoria
Answer in wilderness
F
rom Vietnam, Watergate and
Irangate, through Iraq, Afghan-
istan and Syria, we read daily about
the poor judgment of our elected
officials. Barbara Tuchman, in her
book, “The March of Folly,” poses
the question well: “Why do hold-
ers of high office so often act con-
trary to the way reason points and
enlightened self-interest suggests?
Why does intelligent mental pro-
cess seem so often not to function?”
I found the answer, not in the
confines of some Washington think
tank, but on the edge of a wilder-
ness river in Northern Idaho while
fishing with my old trapper friend,
whom I fondly called Guru Char-
lie. I was haranguing him with all
the international and domestic cor-
ruption just as he cast a grasshop-
per fly upstream. Looking back at
me, he yelled, “Scandal to the jay-
birds! The world ain’t round, it’s
crooked!”
REX AMOS
Cannon Beach
Quick stamp of approval
O
n July 25, I and several oth-
ers spoke at the Port of Astoria
Commission meeting to express our
grave concern as to the safety and
prudence of relocating the Shoot-
ing Stars day care facility onto
Port property. Along with concerns
of high volume truck and general
industrial traffic, we felt there were
also significant liability and insur-
ance issues.
The newly elected commission
didn’t even give us the courtesy of
a discussion. After we presented,
there was an immediate motion to
approve pending conditional use
approval from the city planning
department, as if the Port had no
skin in the game, despite the facts
it’s their building, on their property.
Never once were the words
safety, liability, tsunami inunda-
tion zone or insurance spoken. Just
immediate action. This was a mock-
ery of the entire process.
Commission meetings will now
be short, efficient and really a waste
of everyone’s time; merely a for-
mality. My prediction is that if staff
and the director want it, they will
get it 100 percent of the time, no
matter the merits. The stamp is cut
and the ink pad is full.
CHRIS CONNAWAY
Astoria
Columnists over the top
S
teve Forrester was right on when
he wrote there’s “gridlock and
deep enmity between the polar
ends of the political spectrum …”
(“Smith covered Congress when
it accomplished big things,” The
Daily Astorian, July 31).
There’s no doubt journalists
today foster much of the enmity
Forrester refers to. For example, in
my lifetime there have never been
such vicious and personal attacks
by New York Times journalists
against a duly elected president.
The New York Times was the
grand master of print media when I
was growing up. It’s now flounder-
ing in its blind inability to see why
so many voters reacted to the Estab-
lishment, and what’s happened to
the country. And the Times’ well-
known columnists appear unable
today to rationally discuss gov-
ernmental policy like they used
to. Rather, they increasingly resort
to vicious personal diatribes and
over-the-top name-calling of the
president.
As the president famously asked
about the uncontrolled influx of ille-
gal immigrants: “What the hell’s
going on?” The same question can
be asked of journalism today.
I find it hard to believe The
Daily Astorian approves of all the
vicious name-calling and personal
claptrap emanating from New York
Times’ columnists. Indeed, it even
warns readers it won’t print letters
to the editor with language like that.
So why does The Daily Astorian
continue to print columns by New
York Times journalists who write
such viciously personal diatribes
about the president of the U.S.?
DON HASKELL
Astoria
Tongue Point potential
A
t the Aug. 1 Port of Asto-
ria Commission meeting, a
proposal presented by Bob Dorn,
co-owner of Hyak Maritime, was
supported by a near unanimous vote
of the commission. By relinquish-
ing the Port’s lease and allowing the
sale of Tongue Point to Hyak Mar-
itime, I am confident that Astoria,
and all of Clatsop County, will see
new and positive development of
the Tongue Point site.
Operating at Tongue Point for
the past four years, WCT Marine &
Construction already has had a big
impact. Under this new ownership,
and with the experience of Hyak
Maritime in the marine transporta-
tion business, it is very exciting that
more of the potential everyone rec-
ognizes at Tongue Point now has a
very real chance of being realized.
I encourage everyone to support
this exciting development, and wish
to thank the Port of Astoria for all
of the support that they have given J
& H Boatworks Inc. during the past
eight years, and for the courageous
vote to support Hyak Maritime and
WCT Marine & Construction.
TIM HILL
J & H Advisors Inc.
Astoria
Paving paradise
‘D
on’t it always seem to go,
they don’t know what they’ve
got ’til it’s gone …”
I have lived in Jeffers Gardens
for nearly two decades, and have
worked on the North Oregon Coast
since 1986. I came to this area from
my hometown of Portland to get
away from the rush-rush of the big
city, and now I find that the rush-
rush of the big city has come to me.
I spend a great deal of time on
U.S. Highway 101 between Asto-
ria and Seaside, and find that traffic
patterns are now resembling traffic
patterns of the Portland area I left
behind.
“With a pink hotel, a boutique
and a swinging hot spot …”
After crossing the drawbridge
over the Lewis and Clark River,
I must now deal daily (including
Sundays) with dump trucks depos-
iting dirt excavated from an area
near the new Walmart, and depos-
iting the spoils onto the side of air-
port hill.
Navigating through this fiasco,
my next encounter with coastal
“progress” is the ongoing exten-
sion of the area east of the food
bank near the turnoff to Warrenton.
And, just a minute or so past this, is
the sprawling asphalt of the North
Coast Business Park, including the
soon-to-be Walmart. I am not look-
ing forward to the second (or third)
set of stoplights I must deal with in
order to access U.S. 101 to Seaside.
“They took all the trees, and put
’em in a tree museum …”
Heading south to Seaside, I’ve
been watching the bulldozers level
sand across from the truck weigh
station to make way for scores of
units, with the ensuing residents
clogging the highway each day.
And when finally arriving in Sea-
side, I note the hillside to the east
the dwindling number of trees,
being replaced by roads and houses.
This has added up over the past 31
years to a point where this summer
on U.S. Highway 101 at times does,
indeed, resemble a parking lot.
“They paved paradise and put up
a parking lot.” (Joni Mitchell, 1970)
MATT JANES
Jeffers Gardens
Poor access to fair
D
uring the Clatsop County Fair,
I attended both as a volunteer
and visitor. I was overwhelmed by
the amount of vendors that took up
space around the fair buildings and
a portion inside. The programs, ani-
mals, awards and assistance pro-
vided by the staff and volunteers
were really great. Many visitors and
participants were happy with the
overall outcome of this event, I’m
sure.
Several older and disabled visi-
tors were truly upset about the total
lack of parking for disabled vehi-
cles, and/or access to dropping off
people at the lobby entrance. In
front of the fair building where the
entrance was located, vehicles were
not allowed anywhere because of
vendors taking up all spaces in the
parking lot.
Visitors displaying disabled
cards in their vehicles were turned
away at the entrance, as there was
no room to drive through, or for
the unloading of disabled people.
There were no signs showing the
general public where to go to park
for disabled. No disabled signs
were observed anywhere at the fair.
There should have been accessibil-
ity, as required at any state fair or
public festival.
During the 2016 Fair, when we
worked as volunteers, six disabled
parking stalls were observed adja-
cent to the fair lobby entrance. Due
to a fire equipment display/game
needing room, five of the disabled
parking area were blocked off. They
did, however, have enough open
area that allowed vehicles to stop at
the lobby entrance.
Because we received three com-
plaints about the disabled parking,
contact was made with two differ-
ent security/gate volunteers, who
were asked where the disabled
parking was located. The answer
was parking is in the lower lots, and
people would be transported up the
hill. This would still not get the dis-
abled to the lobby entrance. We do
know that several vehicles had been
allowed up a back road on the south
side of the fair building, and that
some disabled were assisted with
unloading.
We like the county fairs, and
are glad to volunteer when we can.
This year’s event, though, seems
to be about money. There were too
many vendors, and too little space.
We hope that 2018 will allow our
seniors and disabled to be able to
have better access, and to enjoy
their fair.
MELVIN and ELIZABETH
JASMIN
Warrenton
Sorry, Vice President Pence, you are doomed
By FRANK BRUNI
New York Times News Service
T
he other day, from the Naval
Observatory in Washington,
D.C., you heard a howl of
such volume and
anguish that it
cracked mirrors
and sent small
forest animals
scurrying for cover.
Vice President
Mike Pence was
furious. He was offended someone
— namely, my Times colleagues
Jonathan Martin and Alexander
Burns — had dared to call him out
on the fact that he seemed to be
laying the groundwork for a presi-
dential bid.
Problem No. 1: His president is
still in the first year of his first term.
Problem No. 2: That president is
Donald Trump, who doesn’t take
kindly to any glimmer that people in
his employ are putting their vanity
or agenda before his. Just ask Steve
Bannon. Or Anthony Scaramucci.
They were too big for their
britches, and Trump snatched
their britches away.
The Times report put Pence in
similar peril, so he pushed back with
an operatic outrage that showed just
how close to the bone it had cut.
When a story’s actually wrong, you
eviscerate it, exposing its erroneous
assertions without ever breaking a
sweat. When it’s a stink bomb at
odds with your plotting, you set your
jaw, redden your face and proclaim
it “disgraceful,” never detailing
precisely how.
That was Pence’s route. And his
rancor, I suspect, reflects more than
the inconvenient truths that Martin
and Burns told. It’s overarching.
It’s existential. On some level, he
must realize that he’s in a no-win
situation. Without Trump he’s noth-
ing. With Trump he’s on a runaway
train that he can’t steer or brake. If
it doesn’t crash, Trump can scream
down the tracks straight through
2020. If it does, Pence will be one of
the casualties.
So why has Pence formed a
political action committee, the only
sitting vice president ever to do so?
Why is he taking all these meetings,
building all these bridges? I guess
there could be some imaginable
future in which Trump falls and
Pence is left standing strong
enough to soldier on. But mostly
he’s in denial, and he’s living very
dangerously.
Many Republicans wonder if
Trump will remain in the picture and
viable in 2020. He could implode
— even more than he already has, I
mean. He could be run out of town,
one way or another. He could stomp
off. The scenarios are myriad, and
to prepare for them, Pence indeed
needs an infrastructure and a net-
work of his own. But there’s simply
no way to assemble those without
looking disloyal to Trump and court-
ing the wrath of alt-right types who
know how to go on a Twitter jihad.
Other would-be successors to
Trump aren’t in the same bind. They
don’t owe Trump what Pence does.
They never pledged Trump com-
plete allegiance. Gov. John Kasich
of Ohio, whose unofficial 2020
campaign commenced even before
Trump’s inauguration, can raise
money, stage news conferences, take
up residence on CNN and pick apart
Trump’s proposals all he wants. It
won’t endear him to Trump’s base,
but it won’t make him a marked
man.
U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska
can style himself as a humble,
homespun remedy to Trump’s
cupidity and histrionics. U.S. Sen.
Tom Cotton of Arkansas can take a
calibrated approach, more hawkish
than Trump on foreign policy but
eager to link arms with him on
immigration.
Pence, though, is squeezed
tight into a corner of compulsory
worship. And despite his behind-the-
scenes machinations, he has done a
masterful job of appearing perfectly
content there.
In news photographs and video,
you catch other politicians glancing
at the president in obvious baffle-
ment. Not Pence. Never Pence. He
moons. He beams. It’s 50 shades
of infatuation. Daniel Day-Lewis
couldn’t muster a more mesmerizing
performance, and it’s an unusually
florid surrender of principles.
I’m not referring to policy and
the fact that before he agreed to
become Trump’s running mate, he
blasted Trump’s proposed Muslim
ban, tweeting that it was “offensive
and unconstitutional,” and fiercely
advocated free trade. I’m referring to
Pence’s supposed morality.
He trumpets his conservative
Christianity and avoids supping
alone with any woman other than his
wife, then turns around and stead-
fastly enables an avowed groper
with a bulging record of profanely
sexual comments.
He publishes a testimonial,
“Confessions of a Negative
Campaigner,” in which he invokes
Jesus while vowing never to repeat
such political ugliness in the future,
then turns around and collaborates
with a politician whose ugliness
knows no limit.
No wonder he wants and expects
a reward as lavish as the White
House itself: He sold his soul. But
I don’t think he studied the contract
closely enough and thought the
whole thing through.
There’s no political afterlife in
this equation, just the loopy, mortify-
ing limbo in which he and so many
of Trump’s other acolytes dwell.
Maybe the howling is cathartic.
Won’t change a thing.