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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 4, 2018)
4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 2018 editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM Business Manager Water under the bridge JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager than 600 parties checked into the park’s camping facilities Thursday night — somewhat more than listed capacity. On the basis of four persons per party, that made Fort Stevens one of the largest communities in the county. LONGVIEW — A wooden footbridge jammed with peo- ple watching fireworks collapsed Thursday night, plunging scores of people into a lake near the center of Longview. All apparently survived. Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers 75 years ago — 1943 10 years ago this week — 2008 Google has helped put Astoria on the map — the digital map. Google, a billion-dollar company that began as an Inter- net search engine, has just added Astoria to the list of cities that can be viewed with the website’s “street view” function. Street view is a part of Google Maps, which works exactly like MapQuest — a person can enter starting and ending addresses and Google will provide driving directions from one location to the next. A total of six recreational fishing representa- tives are leaving the 16-member stakeholder group designed to resolve disputes between sport and com- mercial fishers over Columbia River salmon. In addition to ensuring more battles over salmon fishing seasons, the departures suggest to some that the influential sportfishing groups plan to take their grievances to the state Legislature. TV crews were in Astoria last week filming an episode of the Discovery Channel’s “Smash Lab,” a show that deals a team of engineers and designers a complicated problem and asks them to solve it in a week. In this episode, the group is asked to redesign the trailer of a timber-hauling truck, with the goal of preventing the truck from rolling when taking a tight turn. Because these trucks are filled with loads of trees that have varying weights, the trail- ers can be thrown off balance on curves, easily sending the trucks rolling. The “Smash Lab” crew is using Jim and Mike Gedenberg’s truck shop on Oregon Highway 105 as a home base for the show’s operations. The Gedenbergs own a log hauling com- pany and know the dangers of driving logging trucks. The U.S. Coast Guard is warning boaters to exer- cise caution and keep alcohol for celebrations off the Fourth of July crowds jammed into Seaside this weekend in numbers reminiscent of prewar days, and filled all hotel, cottage and auto court facilities to overflowing in the largest vacation splurge of the 1943 season. The crowds of Portland’s war industry work- ers, plain civilians and others in and out of uni- form from many points in Oregon started arriving Friday night. By early Saturday eve- ning, all housing accommodations were full, and people started wandering around looking for a bunk, bed or meal. Many of them hurried into this resort city by bus; and it was understood here that many were stymied in Portland, unable to make connections for their proposed double-holiday at the seashore. They found sleeping space in the lobbies of the hotel; and many of them simply laid down and snoozed in chairs, davenports and even on the floor of the Seaside hotel’s main deck. water today and over the weekend following the Fourth of July, the busiest — and deadliest — boat- ing holiday of the year. 50 years ago — 1968 Sporting the bright new paint of a major overhaul and a false bow, the Kieu Lo III is scheduled to sail from Port Docks late Tuesday on the 5,000-mile trip to Saigon. The former ferry M.R. Chessman, built 21 years ago for the Oregon Highway commission, will go into government service on arrival in the Vietnam area. An executive of Northwest Aluminum company said today, “We are making progress as fast as we can” on financial arrangements for the proposed $142 million plant at Warrenton. A few spectators at the Port of Astoria’s Pier 3 witnessed quite a show late last week when the Norwegian ship Ronde- ggen discharged 750 tons of newsprint. The 540-foot vessel is equipped with three innovative cranes that pick up the rolls of newsprint by suction. A sunny Fourth of July appeared to have given the vacation season a rousing send-off Thursday in Clatsop County. Natives, inlanders and visitors from other states went to the beaches, picnicked and watched fire- works on a national holiday which has usually been observed in fair weather on the north coast. Workers at Fort Stevens State Park said more A shipment of 7,000 silk, rayon and nylon stockings recently gathered and sent from Astoria, doubles the total number of stockings contributed by local women since the campaign begun here a year ago. The stockings are used in the manufacture of powder bags for the navy. Appeals to man the local airplane observation post and the warning center are being broadcast today by authorities. The need for personnel for both services continues to grow as more and more Astorians go into war work activities in the canner- ies and defense plants here. A U.S. navy plane from the Clatsop airport plunged into the soft earth at the side of the Young’s River road near Miles Crossing on the coast highway Monday between 6:30 and 7 p.m., instantly killing its pilot and almost burying the plane, presumably a Grumman Wildcat. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Need to address climate change is very urgent I n the guest column “Working forests help Oregon fight climate change” (June 26, The Daily Astorian), the author, Jed Arnold of Hampton Family Forests on the North Coast, recognizes how “climate change could affect forest and community health,” but he does not seem to recognize the urgency of facing the steadily accu- mulating evidence of how rapidly we are transforming the climate conditions of this planet. The chairman of the Oregon Global Warming Commission put it very suc- cinctly in the 2017 Biennial Report to the Legislature: “If it is not too late to protect our children from the most severe effects of climate change, it soon will be.” (bit. ly/2MLoycG) He charges that there are proposals that Oregon could meet its carbon reduction goals by halting harvesting in our forests. I personally do not know of any responsible environmentalist who has suggested this drastic step. Obviously, there will have to be changes in some forest practices — pri- marily with investment-type loggers, whose only concern is the rate of return on their investment, and who leave the land devastated — but society will always need forests, loggers, mills and wood products. I wholeheartedly endorse the writer’s final statement: “Let’s work together so our forests can continue to sustainably pro- vide for a multitude of benefits.” CAROLYN EADY Astoria No common sense left in Congress T here are untruths being told to the peo- ple of the U.S. and our neighboring countries by the newsmakers. As I read the law passed years ago (to stop MS-13 groups coming across the bor- der as a family), those illegally crossing will be separated until they are found to be a family. Quit blaming the Border Patrol for doing their job, as prescribed by a law that was passed years ago. The way things are now, we will be short of workers who come here legally, with permission from the govern- ment. We better elect new people to run the government who want to either change the law, or do what they are doing by upholding present law. Never have I seen so many obstruction- ists in elected representatives. It doesn’t seem like there is any common sense left in our Congress. Now I can’t vote in District 1 because of gerrymandering. Now I have to vote with Salem, and the east valley. Years ago, District 1 included Tillamook County, with Clatsop and Columbia coun- ties. What do I have in common with the valley people? The only reason the lines are the way they are is so the valley has control over all the district, except District 2, which is east of the Cascades. DALE E. ANDERSON Nehalem Republicans don’t favor ripping families apart I was appalled by the letter to the editor that claimed “Many, if not most, Repub- lican voters approve of ripping apart immi- grant families and traumatizing their chil- dren” (“Cruelty should not be policy,” June 26, The Daily Astorian). I do not know any Republican who favors that policy. And, the president made an executive order reversing the aforesaid policy. Is this not more than Obama did, when the same condition of child separa- tion prevailed during his presidency? Further, it is clearly hate speech when, in the same letter, the writer states of Republicans that “… they’re far more of a danger to the U.S. than immigrants on our southern border.” It is true that the majority of the ille- gal immigrants are not criminals, but there are also, according to one liberal journalist I heard on the news, quite a few criminals coming across the border. Is being in favor of stopping MS-13 gang members some- thing that makes Republicans dangerous? I have heard too much about their crimes, which include the torture and murder of children, to approve of open borders. STEPHAN HERMAN Astoria Children should not be bargaining chips S o, how are you all doing? Are you sleeping well at night? Or do the cries of children, inconsolable after being sep- arated from their parents, keep you up at night too? Or knowing that siblings are not allowed to touch each other and comfort each other. Or knowing that parents have no idea where their children are, or when they will see them again? President Donald Trump’s executive order doesn’t call for, or have a plan for, reuniting the 2,000-plus children already separated. Children should not be political bargaining chips. The order doesn’t step back from criminalizing the misdemeanor act of crossing the border. Imagine having all your meager belong- ings stripped away from you and, hor- ror of horrors, having your children torn away from you for what amounts to a mis- demeanor parking violation. This is what is being done in your name. Traumatizing innocent children does not make America Great Again, now or ever. America must be better than this. It’s up to all of us to say no more. Stand up and speak out now. BEBE MICHEL Gearhart
