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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, AuguST 13, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Toothaches aren’t conducive to study
Bravo to
Providence
for continuing
Healthy Smiles
I
n the last 30 years, medical sci-
ence and community leader-
ship has slowly trended toward
a theme that was long overdue.
Wellness.
A holistic approach to individ-
ual health morphed physicians
from mere pill-pushing for a spe-
cific complaint, toward treating the
entire person.
There is a parallel trend in edu-
cation that has been simmering
beneath the surface and is now
emerging as a high priority.
Students don’t learn if they are
not properly geared up to study. It
should be the proverbial no-brainer,
but for far too long we haven’t
overly connected the dots between
student achievement and the com-
plications of health, hunger and
housing.
Part of that health component is
dental.
And that’s why is it pleasing to
learn that on the North Coast some-
thing has been done about it.
The Oregon Community Foun-
dation provided a five-year,
$300,000 grant to Providence Sea-
side Hospital for school-based out-
reach to improve access.
Under the Healthy Smiles pro-
gram, hundreds of students each
year receive dental screenings, as
well as sealants through the Ore-
gon Health Authority and informa-
tion on how to navigate dental care.
Incredibly, those administering the
program report they have encoun-
tered children who have never been
to a dentist before.
But after this next school year,
Warrenton Grade School students floss teeth using models in 2017 as part of the Healthy Smiles program.
the program’s grant funding runs
out. The good news is that wise
Providence leaders have decided to
continue the program on their own.
We join Tobi Boyd, Seaside
School District’s health special-
ist, in applauding Providence for
its forward-looking and caring
leadership.
“Dental problems affect your
whole body health and so it’s
incredibly important,” Boyd said.
“It’s probably one of the most
important things to make sure our
kids have healthy teeth.”
All is not perfect. Once dental
health issues are identified there are
insurance issues for many to over-
come, and it doesn’t help the over-
all picture that there are no pediat-
ric dental specialists in our county.
Transportation challenges also must
be overcome, too. But the program
certainly is a positive step in the
right direction.
For some while, Healthy Smiles
has partnered with the Oregon
Health Authority, local dentists
and others to provide a screening
and services once a year at Lum’s
Auto Center. It is one of many
examples of the Warrenton dealer-
ship’s positive contributions to the
community.
Coming up there is another
opportunity for such help. North
Coast chiropractor Dr. Robert
James is joining forces with Prov-
idence, Oregon Lions Club mem-
bers and others to host a health fair
and barbecue for students.
It is scheduled for 10 a.m. to
2 p.m. Aug. 24 at James Chiro-
practic Spine and Joint Center, 139
S. Main St., Warrenton. Dental,
vision and hearing screenings will
be offered free, plus sports physi-
cals, too.
It’s another positive sign that
people are stepping up with posi-
tive, specific actions because they
realize that to create the best cli-
mate for learning, we must remove
any and all obstacles to success.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Already too late?
he politicians, including the
fake Democrat who’s supposed
to be representing us in Clatsop County,
and the corporate money men and news-
paper editors who helped defeat the recent
cap and trade bill in the Oregon Legisla-
ture, need to stop their backslapping about
it.
In spite of the Supreme Court opin-
ion that they have all the rights of indi-
viduals, corporations, especially manu-
facturers, do not deserve our support on
this one. Not all of them — but many of
them — have proven themselves to be
lousy neighbors and unpatriotic citizens,
callously refusing to make the nominal
investments necessary to clean up their
dirty processes and reduce their output of
toxic byproducts.
And they’re here in Oregon not
because they’re loyal to the people here,
but because they’re making terrific profits
off the status quo. The cap and trade con-
cept is intended as an incentive for them
to make changes. Of course it’s not the
solution to climate change. Nobody ever
claimed that it is. But it’s a start.
Of course, it would be better if we
had the “wholesale changes in the White
House and Congress …” to lead that
effort, as was said in an editorial on the
subject (“Cap and trade bill would be
disastrous,” The Astorian, June 8). But we
do not have them. We have the opposite.
So the changes have to be led from the
bottom; from the grassroots; from here.
California has done it, and their economy
leads the nation. The people of Oregon
deserve the same effort, and need to see it
begin. It may already be too late.
JOSEPH WEBB
Astoria
T
Traffic problem
would really like to see something done
about the entrance and exit to the War-
renton Highlands plaza and Home Depot
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intersection. Maybe we could have an exit
out onto U.S. Highway 101 south from
the plaza.
Since the area is booming with new
businesses and high traffic, wouldn’t it be
better to get ahold of the problem before
it becomes worse? This is coming from an
employee of the area, and I see this prob-
lem daily.
JENNIFER BOEHM
Astoria
God protect El Paso
he first time El Paso, Texas, broke my
heart, I was 10. I was deeply grieved
by the incredible poverty across the Rio
Grande. I was wounded to know that my
nation could be so unjust. As a teenager in
Las Cruces, New Mexico, I grew to detest
El Paso, both its outward esthetic and its
moral inward esthetic.
The last time I was in the border region
was during the outbreak of the Occupy
Movement. In it, I was blessed to meet
many passionate and compassionate
people working for their ideal of what
humanity should be. There was a great
purity amongst people struggling to sur-
vive, and those individuals and groups
dedicated to their aid.
So much of U.S. culture is mind-
less consumption, ever the desire to have
more, and clueless to the costs of such
greed.
We’ve a gilded president who has
made a living exemplifying vacuous con-
sumption; who exploited the innate rac-
ism of the Birther Movement to step into
politics; who, in repeated utterances, as
well as his acts as a president, has demon-
strated either his own severe innate racism
or his willingness to exploit racism. Now
a notorious public liar expects the public
to believe he’s against racism and hate?
My heart goes out to El Paso. And my
God protect it from its enemies, both for-
eign and domestic.
MICHAEL ‘SASHA’ MILLER
Astoria
T
Cormo-rants
ename Astoria’s big bridge the Astoria
Cormorant Rookery. It is a complete
disgrace, and a failure of highway fund-
ing and public policy to allow these birds
access for perching, roosting and nesting on
the bridge.
Their numbers are staggering, and
largely unseen from the shore. The bridge is
a four-mile-long nesting site, with an occu-
pancy rate to make local hoteliers envious.
Placing a bounty on cormorants would
fund a solution to the problem, or, if cormo-
rants are to remain protected, then a bridge
toll could fund structural deterrents making
nesting and roosting impossible. I propose
a $5 toll to enter Oregon, but visitors could
leave any time for free. This, naturally,
would raise a hue and cry from Costco,
Fred Meyer, Home Depot, Walmart and all
the lesser gods in the American consumer
pantheon.
Anything that can be done to reduce cor-
morant numbers would certainly help out-
going smolt survive their journey to the
sea. We spend millions on hatcheries, yet
somehow we seem helpless to nullify the
explosion of fish predation by our feathered
R
friends.
Another day, another catharsis, Mr. Edi-
tor. If I may, thanks for your attention to my
frustrations. It’s high summer, and my bun-
ker mentality is in full flower.
GARY DURHEIM
Seaside
Stop spending
t can be really simple to combat climate
change.
Here it is: A dollar spent is a dollar that
is respent many times by other people.
Each time a dollar is spent and respent, it
is eventually spent on something that pro-
duces carbon dioxide and pollutants. The
more you spend, the more carbon dioxide
you cause.
So, just stop spending or, more realisti-
cally, spend as little money as possible.
And remember, the purpose of life is
not to grow the economy — that is just the
brainwashing talking. If we all just quit
spending so much money, we could solve
the problem of global warming.
RICK SOLLER
Seaside
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