OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 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
Once again, the Clatsop County staff is recommending denial of the
application from liquefied natural gas developer NorthernStar Natural
Gas Co. for land use at Bradwood Landing
Astorians will have another chance to consider adding an
interpretive center at the Astoria Column.
The idea has been controversial since it was first proposed,
with many fearing it would spoil the view, increase traffic at
the Column and otherwise change the peaceful ambiance at the
site. Although many favored an architect’s concept for an inter-
pretive center presented in 2004, many others did not, and the
project was put on indefinite hold.
The rain continues to come down — with the prospect of more on the way.
Wednesday night, the National Weather Service in Portland issued a
high surf advisory to be in effect from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. today for the
south Washington and north and central Oregon coasts as the impending
storm moves in.
Crew members aboard the educational historic tall ship
Hawaiian Chieftain tested out their sea legs Tuesday when
heavy winds forced them to lower the sails and 14-foot seas
threatened to sink the 65-foot-long topsail ketch.
50 years ago — 1967
The biggest, least known and potentially one of the finest of Oregon
state parks in the coastal area is Saddle Mountain park, deep in the hills
of central Clatsop County and accessible to motorists only by one road.
It is only slightly developed and little known, despite the fact that it
has great natural beauty and is capable of much greater recreational use
than it now has.
Saddle Mountain park contains approximately four and a quarter sec-
tions — some of them oversize sections — or about 2,900 to 3,000 acres.
Only facilities that have been developed in the park are a small picnic and
campground at the base of the 3,000-foot high mountain, and a trail to the
summit from which there is a magnificent view of the coastal mountains
and the distant ocean.
It happened again this year … the Astoria High School
homecoming bonfire pile was burned down Wednesday night
about 8:15.
A lot of guessing is going on, but no one, at least not school
officials, knows who destroyed the hours of effort put into gath-
ering material.
High school vice principal Doug Clark said it was too bad
the fire occurred, but students were asked not to begin the bon-
fire pile until Thursday afternoon at 3.
“There hasn’t been a bonfire built early that hasn’t been
burned down,” Clark said.
Oregon Highway Commission has no plans for any change in routing
Highway 30 through Astoria, Gov. Tom McCall informed Mayor Harry
Steinbock in a letter received Monday.
The governor wrote in answer to requests made at a town meeting ses-
sion he held here several weeks ago.
Cursory attention was given some years ago to a bypass from John
Day River to Youngs Bay, the governor wrote, but this was before the
decision to build the Youngs Bay Bridge in the present locality and before
the Astoria Bridge across the Columbia was built.
75 years ago — 1942
Vice Admiral C.S. Freeman, commander of the north-
west sea frontier and commandant of the 13th naval district
in Seattle, today sent a special message to Astoria, following
the Navy’s disclosure of the loss of the 10,000-ton heavy cruiser
Astoria, named for this city.
Admiral Freeman said: “I should like to join the people of
Astoria in their pride at the part the USS Astoria played in the
battle of the Solomons. I know that those men from Astoria
now on the high seas are waiting anxiously to avenge her loss.”
The big ship was launched at the Bremerton navy yard Dec.
16, 1933 and christened by Leila C. McKay, lineal descendant
of the founders of Astoria. The $8 million ship carried to her
grave last August a silver plaque formally presented by John
C. Ten Brook, then Astoria mayor and purchased from funds
raised locally during the depression.
Republicans, spare us the
phony Weinstein outrage
By MICHELLE GOLDBERG
New York Times News Service
S
ay this for Donald Trump:
When it comes to sex, he’s
less of a hypocrite than Harvey
Weinstein. Until
Weinstein’s abrupt
downfall amid
proliferating
accusations of
sexual assault and
harassment, he
posed as a backer
of women’s rights. He made films
with substantive female leads
(82-year-old Judi Dench joked that
she’d tattooed his name on her
butt in gratitude), donated money
to politicians supporting feminist
policies and contributed to endow a
chair at Rutgers University honoring
Gloria Steinem. He even attended
the Women’s March at Sundance.
Yet privately, he appears to have
been a sexist ogre, using his power
to exploit and humiliate women.
After the truth about his conduct
was widely revealed, he was cast out
of his professional community and
rendered a pariah.
Trump is more consistent. He
is a pig in public as well as behind
closed doors. In 1992, New York
Magazine reported that he said the
best way to deal with women is to
treat them like excrement, though he
used a more vulgar term. He has fol-
lowed his own advice. His first wife,
Ivana Trump, accused him of raping
her in a fit of rage. (She later denied
that the events she’d recounted were
rape “in a literal or criminal sense,”
but stuck to the underlying story.)
Trump reportedly pressured his sec-
ond wife, Marla Maples, to pose for
Playboy. He owned beauty pageants
and, by his own admission, would
barge into changing rooms to ogle
the naked contestants. The makeup
artist Jill Harth said he tried to rape
her. Multiple women have accused
him of groping and sexual harass-
ment. Those charges appear credi-
ble in light of the infamous “Access
Hollywood” tape in which Trump
boasted of grabbing women by their
genitals. After the truth about his
conduct was widely revealed, he
was elected president of the United
States.
Somehow, in the wake of the
Weinstein revelations, the president’s
supporters appear to believe they
hold the moral high ground. Donald
Trump Jr. — a man who once said
that women who can’t handle work-
place sexual harassment “should
go maybe teach kindergarten” —
has been tweeting about Weinstein
incessantly. Appearing on CNN,
the Republican National Commit-
tee chairwoman, Ronna Romney
McDaniel, attacked Democrats for
taking Weinstein’s money, insisting
that there’s no comparison between
Weinstein and Trump because the
Vince Bucci/Invision
Film producer Harvey Weinstein has been accused of sexual harass-
ment and rape by several women.
president “didn’t have eight settle-
ments.” (According to an exhaustive
investigation by USA Today, at least
20 lawsuits have accused Trump and
managers at his companies of “dis-
criminating against women, ignoring
sexual harassment complaints and
even participating in the harassment
themselves.”)
Trump
supporters
acting shocked
by sexual
harassment
are in no
position to
complain about
hypocrisy.
On Fox News, a network that
Roger Ailes ran like his personal
sadomasochistic brothel, Tucker
Carlson feigned outrage at the Wein-
stein news. “Many powerful peo-
ple knew what Harvey Weinstein
was doing, and not only ignored his
crimes, but actively took his side
against his many victims,” Carl-
son said. (Fox News is under fed-
eral investigation, in part for payoffs
made to Ailes’ victims.)
Bad faith on the right does not
mitigate the deep, perverse cruelty
of Weinstein’s alleged crimes. If
anything, it makes the fallout more
painful. For the past 11 months,
many feminists have been reeling
from the defeat of the first female
major-party presidential candi-
date by a predatory misogynist. The
confirmation that a hugely pow-
erful man who is supposed to be
on our side is just as bad as Trump
is shattering. While many women
are showing defiance — outing
the Weinstein types in their indus-
tries, using hashtags like #MeToo to
demonstrate the ubiquity of abuse
— it’s hard not to feel crushed won-
dering how many men really see us
as full human beings.
Still, Weinstein’s disgrace is a
sign that even if patriarchal sociop-
athy is more pervasive than we like
to imagine, it can be defeated when
a culture adopts other values and
is forced to live up to them. After
decades in which Weinstein cava-
lierly destroyed women’s lives, his
impunity has come to an end. He
has lost his job and been expelled
from the Academy of Motion Pic-
ture Arts and Sciences. France
has taken steps to strip him of his
Legion of Honor award, the coun-
try’s highest civilian distinction. He
is being repudiated for violating pro-
gressive ideals about sexual consent,
workers’ rights and the fundamental
equality of men and women.
The people now ruling this coun-
try don’t share those ideals. Yes,
Ailes had to leave Fox News after
charges that he’d demanded sex-
ual favors from women in exchange
for professional opportunities. But
in the aftermath, conservatives did
not ostracize him. Instead, Trump
defended Ailes and defamed his
accusers, then brought him on as an
adviser. Most Republican voters and
officeholders, in turn, implicitly con-
done Trump’s treatment of women.
Now that Weinstein has been
exposed, conservatives are jeering
that Hollywood has lost the right to
lecture anyone about sexism. “Lib-
erals love to be so sanctimonious,
holier than thou, but they’re really
hypocrites,” said Fox’s Sean Hann-
ity on Oct. 10. Perhaps, but Trump
supporters acting shocked by sex-
ual harassment are in no position
to complain about hypocrisy. The
movie business is corrupt, depraved
and iniquitous — and still morally
superior to the Republican Party
under Trump. Betraying the princi-
ple of gender equality is bad. Reject-
ing it is worse.
LETTERS WELCOME
The Daily Astorian/File
Cruiser Astoria, shown here alongside the dock at Puget Sound
Navy Yard, following impressive launching in December 1933.
Then 85 percent completed, she was having interior fittings in-
stalled. The vessel was commissioned April 28, 1934.
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