OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, 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
After months of wondering if the next season of “Shanghaied in Asto-
ria” would perhaps be street theater, or a wandering minstrel show, the
Astor Street Opry Company’s board of directors announced at a wrap party
Saturday that it had found a new home for the annual musical melodrama.
Starting next summer, audiences can sigh with the heroine and boo at
the villain in the building that formerly housed Roy’s Maytag, 129 W. Bond
St.
Astoria’s Valley Bronze Art Gallery has closed its storefront at
the corner of 12th and Commercial streets, where unique sculp-
ture collections have been on display for the past three years.
On Friday, sales manager Malcolm Phinney packed up the
artwork from the showroom and loaded it into moving vans to
be taken to the Valley Bronze Gallery in Joseph, where the Valley
Bronze Foundry makes metal art casting that ranges from small
sculptures to multimillion-dollar projects.
The 12 years of efforts by various groups in Seaside are being recog-
nized by the Oregon Recreation and Parks Association.
The Seaside Skate ‘N Ride Park is being awarded the 2007 Design of
the Year. The park opened for use in June.
“All the things came together and it has really become a focal point in
the community,” said Mary Blake, director of Sunset Empire Park and Rec-
reation District. “This was a big project for a small community.”
50 years ago — 1967
The Astor family is proud of
its ancestor John Jacob Astor and
considers founding of Astoria his
crowning achievement, Gavin
Astor, his fifth generation descen-
dant, told 350 people who crowded
the new Astor Library for its ded-
ication Sunday afternoon.
Astor, who came with his wife,
Lady Irene, from London for the
dedication ceremonies, shared
speaking honors with Gov. Tom
McCall, who flew from Salem.
“We are delighted to share in
The Daily Astorian/File
Gavin and Lady Irene Astor this library dedication, and con-
received Sunday an auto- gratulate all concerned,” Astor
graphed copy of the book said. “This is really a lovely
“Adventure at Astoria 1810- building.”
Astor noted that posting the
1814” during Astor Library
dedicatory
ceremonies. U.S. flag at Astoria by his ances-
tor’s expedition was a major fac-
tor in establishing U.S. claims to the Oregon country and giving
the United States a Pacific seaboard.
A self-styled spokesman for a group of county residents seeking answers
to questions about the proposed $152 million Northwest Aluminum plant
here accused the Port of Astoria commissioners of a “snow job” that could
be removed by them answering the questions.
The commission in turn told Eben Carruthers of Warrenton that many
of the questions were “silly and a waste of time” while they would attempt
to answer those they felt appropriate after research. Carruthers was invited
to attend the Port Commission’s meeting Nov. 14, during which answers to
the questions will be given.
75 years ago — 1942
An inspection of Lower Columbia towns and highways by
Army officers at the request of the Western defense command
has exposed glaring weaknesses in local observation of the com-
mand’s proclamation ordering a dim-out, it was learned today
from the state defense council headquarters.
The officers found that in Astoria, “requirements pertaining
to cars driving in dim-out zones are not enforced; street lights
painted on the seaward side are not blacked out, due to paint
peeling off the lights; a large number of lighted windows visible
from the sea did not have shades down.”
Scientific research is changing the face of the world and of everything
we use, Edward F. Flynn, assistant to the vice president and general counsel
for the Great Northern Railway Co., told the Astoria Rotary Club Wednes-
day. Flynn was introduced by Jack Wright, local manager of the Spokane,
Portland and Seattle railway.
“It is no doubt safe to say that in a day or two at present, the world is
spending as much to carry on its wars as the United States pays out in a
year for research.
“If, when the war ends we shall spend in our country for research as
much in one year as we now spend in one month for war, such great impe-
tus will be given industry and the discovery of new sources of power and
perfection and production of new medicines that will then be living in a
really ‘new world.’ We will then not need to fear that any other nation will
defeat us commercially or industrially in any part of the world.”
Chief of Police John Acton, acting upon receipt of complaints
from motorists who are claiming pedestrians are careless in their
travel over city streets in the dim-out, today issued a statement
warning both foot and auto travelers that city police are pre-
pared to enforce dim-out regulations with an iron hand.
“We are getting a good many complaints from motorists
regarding this carelessness of pedestrians during dim-outs and
wish to caution pedestrians that they must use extra caution in
crossing the streets just as well as the drive must be extra cau-
tious,” Acton said.
Corker told the truth about Trump
By MICHELLE GOLDBERG
New York Times News Service
O
ver the past few months,
the country has been in a
foul sort of trance. Among
people who
work in politics,
Republicans as
well as Democrats,
it is conventional
wisdom that
President Donald
Trump is stagger-
ingly ill-informed, erratic, reckless
and dishonest. (He also might be
compromised by a hostile foreign
power.) But it’s also conventional
wisdom that with few exceptions,
Republicans in Congress are not
going to stand up to him. America’s
nuclear arsenal is in the hands of
a senescent Twitter troll, but those
with political power have refused
to treat this fact as a national emer-
gency. Thus, even though a majority
of Americans consider the president
unfit for office, a fatalistic sense of
stasis has set in.
Credit U.S. Sen. Bob Corker,
R-Tenn., for momentarily snapping
us out of it. On Sunday evening,
after a Twitter feud with Trump,
Corker gave an interview to The
New York Times in which he said
publicly what Republican office-
holders usually say only privately.
Trump, Corker told the reporters
Jonathan Martin and Mark Landler,
is treating the presidency like “a
reality show” and could be setting
the nation “on the path to World
War III.” Corker has previously
said that Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, Secretary of Defense
James Mattis and chief of staff John
Kelly “help separate our country
from chaos.” On Sunday, he identi-
fied the agent of that chaos. “I know
for a fact that every single day at
the White House, it’s a situation of
trying to contain him,” Corker said
of Trump.
Now that Corker has done the
country the immense favor of
acknowledging the obvious, the key
question is: What’s next? Corker,
despite his culpability in helping
to legitimate Trump during the
presidential campaign and despite
waiting until he’d announced his
retirement to speak out, has behaved
more patriotically than most of his
quietly complicit colleagues. But
as Trump continues to tweet threats
at a war-ready North Korea, it is
not enough to simply hope that the
president’s minders can stop him
from blowing up the world.
Corker, after all, is not a pas-
sive spectator; he’s the chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. “The Congress holds
the ultimate power for war,” Jerry
Taylor, president of the Niskanen
Center, a libertarian think tank, told
me. “Though they have more or less
delegated that power away to the
executive branch, they can take it
back.”
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee, chats with reporters in September at the Capitol in
Washington, D.C.
They could start with a pair of
bills introduced by Sen. Ed Markey
of Massachusetts and Rep. Ted
Lieu of California, both Democrats,
prohibiting the president from
launching a nuclear first strike
without a congressional declaration
of war. So far, the only Republican
to sign on in either chamber is Rep.
Walter Jones of North Carolina.
But given how little faith Senate
Republicans have in Trump’s
judgment, they have a duty to take
up this legislation or develop an
alternative. “Increasingly, senators
and members of Congress are going
to come to the conclusion that there
has to be a firewall that is erected
so that a single human being cannot
impulsively launch nuclear weap-
ons,” Markey told me.
Corker’s
expression
of alarm is
a reminder
that we are
teetering on
the cusp of
horror.
Despite its overall record of
weakness, Congress has acted on
one occasion to curb Trump’s worst
foreign policy impulses. In July,
Republicans voted overwhelmingly
for a bipartisan bill that, among
other things, limited Trump’s ability
to unilaterally lift sanctions on
Russia. Tying Trump’s hands on
nuclear weapons would be a far
more aggressive step, but it’s one
that members of Congress who are
mindful of this moment’s profound
peril should take.
Of course, “should” is the key
word here. There are plenty of
things that Republicans should do
about Trump, including impeaching
him for violating the emoluments
clause of the Constitution. We’ve
grown so inured to Republican
politicians’ persistent refusal to put
the welfare of the country above
their re-election prospects and lust
for tax cuts that complaining about
it feels banal and naïve.
But Corker’s expression of
alarm is a reminder that we are
teetering on the cusp of horror. He
made it clear that Trump’s tweeted
provocations of North Korea are
impulsive rather than strategic.
“A lot of people think that there
is some kind of ‘good cop, bad
cop’ act underway, but that’s just
not true,” he said. We need to
take seriously the possibility that
Trump might cavalierly start a war
that could kill millions of people.
It would be a human calamity of
inconceivable, history-bending
scale, and it would leave America
as a hated global pariah. Now that
Corker has admitted that Trump
cannot be trusted with the power
he holds, he and other Republicans
have no excuse not to try to take
that power away.
Taylor, of the Niskanen Center,
is in frequent contact with anti-
Trump Republicans, and he senses
a growing sense of urgency among
them. “Having an unstable nar-
cissist who is ignorant of politics,
policy and foreign affairs with the
nuclear codes has probably turned
them white as a sheet,” he said.
“There is some degree of serious
responsibility that they fully realize
that they hold.” If so, now would be
a good time to show it.
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.