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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
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 — 2008
Port of Astoria and city of Newport leaders will meet next
week to select a proposal from one of two companies inter-
ested in providing passenger air service between the coast and
Portland.
The two agencies have a $3.6 million grant through the
state’s ConnectOregon II program to subsidize the cost of
establishing air service. Two companies, Cape Air of Massa-
chusetts and Air Azul of Florida, have submitted proposals to
provide at least two daily, nine-passenger flights to Portland
from each city.
The effort to bring air service back to the coast comes as
rising fuel prices and stagnant ticket sales are causing air-
lines to abandon their flights to smaller markets elsewhere in
Oregon.
The end is in sight for Ilwaco residents wonder-
ing when the fire station is going to be rebuilt.
Officials say as soon as a building permit is
issued, work will begin on the new station at 301 S.E.
Spruce St. The expected completion date is mid-
March 2009. The station burned in 2006.
50 years ago — 1968
The 9th annual Gearhart rodeo Saturday and Sunday was
the most successful one held so far, rodeo association officials
said today.
Between 5,000 and 6,000 people were estimated to
have attended, with fine weather helping make the event
succeed.
Eastbound traffic on Sunset highway became
so thick late Sunday on the eastern segment of the
road that state police had to divert some vehicles via
Banks junction to the Forest Grove-Beaverton-Port-
land road.
The congestion became bad about 8:30 p.m. as
traffic coming in on Wilson River road from Til-
1968 — USS Colonial (LSD-18) will be an Astoria Regatta visitor. The ship was built in 1945 and operated for sev-
eral years in the western Pacific. It also saw duty during the Korean War.
lamook merged with that moving east on Sunset
highway.
State police said that Sunset Highway’s stretch
of four-lane road eastward from Portland is being
extended to the Wilson River-Sunset highway junc-
tion and that when this is done the traffic problem
on busy weekends will be much alleviated.
Missing since Tuesday night, the drag boat Rodoma of
Astoria was the object of an intensive search by Coast Guard
air and surface craft Thursday morning.
David Thomas of Blue Ridge, skipper of the missing
66-footer, radioed the Coast Guard late Tuesday that his ves-
sel had struck a log about 12 miles off Cape Perpetua and was
in danger of sinking in 50 fathoms of water.
Soviet trawlers moved northward during the
week ending July 25, with 30 sighted off the Wash-
ington coast during three aerial patrols and one
surface search by the Coast Guard, according the
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries.
Fort Stevens state park, enlarged this summer to a
total 485 sites for campers, is enjoying another boom
season.
Val Jones, superintendent of the park, reported that the
number of visitors is slightly down from 1967 totals, due
probably to a considerable cooler and damper early summer
season this year, but that the people are staying longer.
Survivor of a harrowing 41 hours at sea in an
open life raft, skipper Dave Thomas of the ill-fated
dragger Rodoma was in exhausted sleep today in his
modest home in Astoria.
Thomas was pulled from the sea shortly after 4
p.m. Thursday by the Coast Guard cutter Modoc
after his tiny gray-blue raft was sighted, 30 miles
southwest of Newport, from a Coast Guard Alba-
tross flying out of Port Angeles.
75 years ago — 1943
Astoria’s long series of apartment house fires, called to public
attention first during the disastrous blaze at the Astoria rooming
house on Jan. 24 when 30 people were made homeless and six
hospitalized, climaxed last week with the West End conflagration
centering in rooming houses and homes housing more than 200.
In recent months there have been 27 apartment house fires in
Astoria in addition to the almost daily reports of fires in dwell-
ings where one or more families are housed. Many of the fires
have been classed as of undetermined origin, while others appear
on the record of the local fire department under the general head-
ing of “flue fires.”
Albacore tuna surged into Astoria canneries in
increasing volumes today and there were two deliv-
eries Monday of soupfin shark which totaled 2,207
pounds and commanded the season’s high price of
$5.45 a pound.
The Columbia River Salmon company paid two
boats more than $12,038 for their shark, the high boat
being Ferdinand Sandness Lincoln with 1,707 pounds.
The Argo had 563 pounds.
Grocery shoppers, beginning Aug. 1, will have to give up
three ration points more per pound for seven frozen foods —
fruits, berries, green beans, lima beans, cut corn, peas, and spin-
ach — and one point more per pound for tomato juice.
The new point values, announced today by the office of
price administration, will apply to blue stamps R, S and T which
become valid Aug. 1. There were no point value changes in such
regular canned foods as corn, beans and peas.
Observance of Aug. 1-7 as Aircraft Warning Ser-
vice week in Pacific coast states will get under way in
Astoria officially with a public meeting scheduled for
Monday night at the USO house, Mike Cosovich, Clat-
sop County director of the “eyes aloft” program, said
today.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Trump-focused editorials
will not change the world
y wife and I take The Daily Astorian
(dead tree edition) to read its news
and columnists about the happenings in and
around our small part of the world, as well as
matters related to the Pacific Northwest. This
it does well, but apparently the editorial page
finds local matters boring, seeking to flex its
mettle on a larger stage.
These are recent headlines or extracts from
the lead editorial or column ...
July 16: Donald Trump isn’t the first presi-
dent to obliterate the truth …
July 17: The Trump EPA isn’t conserva-
tive, but profoundly disruptive.
July 18: Trump and Putin versus America
July 19: The Trump administration sows
so much chaos within America and around the
world on a daily basis
July 20: Donald Trump gave a mortifying,
humiliating account …
We get it. Five consecutive days tells us
The Daily Astorian editorialists do not like
President Donald Trump, something already
evident. Fine. Having resolved that myriad
challenges face us locally, they have moved
on to a stage more befitting their talents. Or
not.
From where we sit, this appears more like
succumbing to obsession, rather than the pur-
suit of objectivity. It doesn’t really matter
whether or not we agree or disagree, but why
not smaller thoughts for smaller places that
have more relevance to your readers’ daily
lives? That’s why we subscribe.
The Trump editorials will not change the
world, but focused ones might help move
Astoria, Clatsop County and the region to a
better place.
JON and JOAN CHAMBREAU
Ilwaco, Washington
M
Please warn people on
Riverwalk when passing
was almost hit by a bicyclist on the
Astoria Riverwalk. I had stopped to
birdwatch — no one around me — and
turned to continue my walk, as I didn’t
hear anyone or anything, and no one said
anything.
There were the bicycles. I said, “Please let
people know when you are coming up behind
them.” The woman in front slammed on her
brakes, and her partner almost hit her from
behind, just so she could, in a terse voice, tell
me she didn’t know what movement I was
going to make. Exactly.
She continued her complaints as she
rode off from me, as if I were in a bike lane,
instead of on a walking path, and should be
I
looking out for them. She was mad at me.
Please.
Other folks on the Riverwalk say some-
thing, and even folks in the grocery store warn
if they are behind you, etc. It’s easy and cour-
teous to just say “on your right (or left),” or
“behind you,” or ring your bike bell. Please,
folks. It makes for a much safer Riverwalk …
or wherever you are enjoying your travels.
ROBIN RODGERS
Astoria
Sunset Empire bond
would be a burden
’m a regular user of the Seaside Empire
Park and Recreation District facilities, and
have heard all of the excitement regarding the
expansion. We are a retired couple, on a fixed
income and another addition to our taxes is a
burden.
Has the commission assigned with this
expansion exhausted all options of federal
grants before putting this on the ballot this
November? I, personally, have investigated
grants and found several for a smaller com-
munity such as Seaside. I think it would be
less expensive to hire a grant writer, and use
the money we have already paid in taxes, than
make us pay anew.
LINDSEY MORRISON
Seaside
I
Biased news is now
obvious everywhere
P
resident Trump caused a furor with his
rhetoric that the press is the enemy. But the
press is in denial about its ethical status that
resulted in Trump’s remark. Sadly, the press
ignored reality like the proverbial ostrich with
its head in the sand.
Americans expect the press to report facts
as news and to express opinions in other ways,
such as editorial pages. Most Americans, how-
ever, believe political opinion injected into
news reporting is unethical and unfair. And,
blatant political bias on both the left and right is
the reason the press has such a lousy reputation
for trustworthiness in most polls these days.
Political bias doesn’t involve only national
news organizations. Local community news
outlets often are sucked into printing politi-
cal bias through their relationship with national
news organizations like the Associated Press.
Biased news is now so obvious everywhere
that President Trump, in his rhetorical way,
said out loud what many millions of Ameri-
cans have already concluded — political bias
has become an integral part of news reporting.
And most Americans don’t want that for any
ideology.
The press’ current view of its ethical obli-
gation poses a dilemma. The press is the only
business mentioned in the Constitution. Every
constitutional right is limited in some way or
other. And “freedom of the press” is likewise
not a business with a Constitutional right to
operate in totally unlimited ways.
The press would be wise to re-think its eth-
ical obligations and not fool itself, like the
ostrich does.
DON HASKELL
Astoria
Words missing from
judicial nominee story
n the article I read by Jeff Mapes, “McCon-
nell withdraws Trump judicial pick minutes
before vote” (The Daily Astorian, July 20), I
see no hint of the columns in question Ryan
Bonds authored.
Readers are apparently supposed to be hor-
rified by the unseen words Bonds apparently
wrote.
This omission tends to make it hard for the
uninitiated readers to make a decision con-
cerning the actual words of Ryan Bonds. I off-
hand suspect Bond’s words paraphrase only
words that are found in the Christian Bible,
the Jewish holy documents, and the basic lit-
erature supporting every other major religion.
It is disingenuous to hold Bond liable for
the “political correctness” that has come to
pass since his words were written.
BENJAMIN A. GREAVES
Seaside
I