Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Hood River news. (Hood River, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2015)
A4 V IEWPOINT Hood River News, Saturday, February 7, 2015 O ur readers write JOE PETSHOW Publisher/President, Eagle Newspapers, Inc. CHELSEA MARR General Manager JODY THOMPSON Advertising Manager DICK NAFSINGER Publisher, Emeritus (1933-2011) TOM LANCTOT Past President, Eagle Newspapers, Inc. Walden’s two faces KIRBY NEUMANN-REA Editor TONY METHVIN Columbia Gorge Press Manager DAVID MARVIN Production Manager Subscription $42 per year in Hood River trade area. $68 outside trade area. NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION Printed on OREGON NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION recycled paper. Official Newspaper, City of Hood River and Hood River County Published Every Wednesday & Saturday by Hood River News, P.O. Box 390, Hood River, Oregon 97031 • (541) 386-1234 • FAX 386-6796 Member of the Associated Press Danger Zone Improvement or impairment? T he amenities and upgrades on State Street are visible now that the Urban Renewal streetscape project is done: new pavement, better and wider sidewalks, underground utilities, landscaping, and pedestrian plazas featuring benches, drink- ing fountains, and more. THE PROBLEM: An unanticipated effect, however, is seen at 6th and State, where southbound drivers come to the stop at State from one of the steepest approaches in town — 6th between Oak and State. It’s one of Hood River’s little slices of San Francisco, and it can be tricky to stop there under the best of circumstances. The downward pitch of the street, compared with the angle of State, has always created a visibility issue for drivers stopped on the hill and looking west. It’s considerably worse now with the plaza and its ele- ments at the northwest corner of the intersection. The Urban Renewal changes look and feel nice, but what the city installed is more impairment than im- provement. A driver has highly limited visibility looking west, even when pulling well into the east-west crosswalk, if there are vehicles parked on the north side of State. That blockage, combined with the railing, trash can, and even drinking fountain, create a visual bulk that at times makes it all but impossible to see what is coming without entering the street itself. Given that the plaza’s very purpose is to attract and serve pedestrians, this creates an impediment for people on foot, as well as for drivers. THE FIX You can’t undo the plaza, but at the very least the trash can could be shifted, and a lower railing would help. The drinking fountain should be repositioned, too, and while there is a cost involved, it could be lessened if done while the Crestline Construction crew is still work- ing on the public restrooms at Third Street. The immediate solution is to prohibit parking in at least the two closest spaces. Yes, downtown parking is al- ready a premium, but public safety should come first. (There is no loss of revenue involved given that these have been metered spaces for only a few weeks.) Vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle traffic will pick up in a matter of weeks. Actual congestion should not be ag- gravated by visual congestion, which is what exists now. Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea THE VIEW from behind the wheel, southbound at Sixth and State, looking west. W HERE TO E-MAIL For letters to the editor, guest columns, news items and press releases, the e-mail address is: HRNews@hoodrivernews.com For e-mail letters to the editor, please include your name, address and daytime telephone number. Chelsea Marr General Manager CMarr@hoodrivernews.com Founded in 1905 419 State Street Hood River, OR 97031 P.O. Box 390 Phone: (541) 386-1234 Fax: (541) 386-6796 Operations: Joe Petshow Publisher President, Eagle Newspapers (541) 386-1234 JPetshow@hoodrivernews.com Chris Stenberg Bookkeeper CStenberg@hoodrivernews.com Front Office/ Classified Advertising: Stacey Methvin Classifieds/Receptionist HRNClass@hoodrivernews.com SMethvin@hoodrivernews.com Circulation: Esther K. Smith Circulation Manager (541) 386-1234 Ext. 205 ESmith@hoodrivernews.com Greg Walden is a really good politi- cian. I attended his town hall meeting where he took questions on Oba- macare, climate change and immigra- tion, among others. He told us he thinks Obamacare is here to stay but that he would work to improve it. He implied that he understood climate change was a problem by telling us he drove two hybrids and is trying to pass legislation to do more logging to cut down on forest fires. He spoke of his admiration for agricultural work- ers, that immigrants have highly spe- cialized skills and contribute to our country. Sounds reasonable to a Hood River audience, but in Washington, D.C., he voted for legislation that would undo executive directives to provide tempo- rary work permits to four million im- migrants and gave relief to 600,000 dreamers. (Visit Causa Oregon, Google, Walden on Immigration.) He justifies his votes to hurt agri- cultural workers by saying the Presi- dent has no constitutional authority. Yet, Walden and his Republican party offer no solution to the immi- gration issue. Say positive things to the home audience and then vote to ruin the lives of some of the people you say you admire. Mr. Walden seems like a caring, thoughtful guy. So, it’s doubly disappointing when in Washington he votes like a two faced politician. Walden and the Republi- cans voted to repeal Obamacare again, which would deny me and my family affordable health care. Guy Tauscher Hood River me to add some reflections. A s a ch i l d I w a s fo r t u n at e enough to be vaccinated against polio, which had claimed the lives or mobility of so many in the gen- eration just before mine. I had a se- vere case of measles, however, and am just plain lucky that it didn’t result in lasting brain damage. During my medical training, I served in a pediatric ICU where most of the infants and toddlers suffered from a bacterial meningi- tis and encephalitis (brain and spinal fluid infection), which often left the survivors hearing-im- paired or otherwise permanently impaired. Later, I hospitalized adults for adult-onset chickenpox (and treated many others in the clinic), and saw three patients left sterile from the mumps. Measles, mumps and chickenpox vaccina- tions, among others, became avail- able since all of this, as has the “H. flu” vaccine, which prevents the very infection I mentioned in that pediatric ICU. Most of my younger colleagues have never seen a patient with measles, mumps, chickenpox or H. flu meningitis — just as I myself saw only two cases of polio when I practiced medicine. We should be deeply grateful to the scientists and public health professionals who have worked so successfully on immunization against pre- ventable suffering and disability. It takes all of us together to carry out the vision — to think of the collective good, to immunize our own children in order to pro- tect not only them but other chil- dren and adults, to get our own im- munizations on time and apprecia- tively. Here’s to prevention and community immunity! (I propose a bumper sticker with that rhyme to remind us all.) Tina Castañares Odell Community immunity Dr. Charles Haynie’s Feb. 4 let- ter about immunizations prompts EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK Running into the ‘what-if motif’ and trying not to nickel-and-dime the odds By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA A News editor recent visit to Eugene took me to some interest- ing intersections, figura- tively and literally. I drove to the Universi- ty of Oregon to see my first Ducks basketball game with son Delaney and take him to dinner. I had a lit- tle time to spare so I had decid- ed on a whim to detour from I-5 over to Corvallis to see my broth- er; that led me down Highway 99W and a different route to UO than if I had taken the direct route to Eu- gene via the freeway. It was one of the day’s detours that by early evening, led me to wonder: ■ What if I had not gone that way, and not happened into our friends Mark and Sophie from Hood River, who had just parked their car a block or so away? ■ What if I had left my coat in the car? It was a warm day and would be warm in the arena but I wore it anyway. I got to Delaney’s residence hall and we talked awhile in his room. (“How are classes going?”) It would be my first time at Matthew Knight Arena, and not knowing the lay of the land, one thing I wondered was the likelihood of my sitting with him in the student section. Should I just buy two seats or take a chance since he got in free? We decided to just get the one ticket. ■ Did something cause us to pause a few more minutes before heading to the arena? It’s just a block from his building, so no rush. ■ Once we left, did something make us run into Mark and Sophie again, and stop and talk for a few minutes — “How are classes going? — before heading to the ticket booth? Somehow we were in the right place at the right time when, a mo- ment after arriving at the window, a stranger approached Delaney News: Kirby Neumann-Rea Editor HRNews@hoodrivernews.com and said, “I have a ticket I don’t need — you want it?” It saved me buying a ticket. Weirdly I had even taken a slight detour when I thought I saw a gate employee beckon me. Total fake-out. Had I not taken that de- tour or had any of these pauses taken longer, ei- ther way, the free ticket would have gone to someone else. We get inside the arena and the 13th and Olive student housing complex is handing out “Go Ducks” towels, and we each take one. Thousands of people ended up with those towels; more on them later. We watched the game and left the arena and immediately decid- ed that even though it’s not quite 4, since we were both hungry we would head downtown for dinner. We come to a stoplight at Oak and I decide to take the right. I signal. The light turns green and — bam! A cyclist runs into my right front panel, and hits the pavement hard. We jump out to see about the guy, along with four passersby: one 40-something and a trio of col- lege students heading to party with a couple of six-packs. Medics and police arrive a few minutes later. Guy is bleeding but alert. Someone gives the bicyclist their 13th and Olive towel, and it comes in very handy. Without it, we would have figured something out, but how lucky were we that we had these towels, and the one guy had the presence of mind to hand his to the cyclist? There was a fair amount of blood, but his helmet probably saved him from serious head injury. It rattled me, and I have to say I was glad Delaney was there to calm me. Trisha Walker News/Features TWalker@hoodrivernews.com (The bicyclist walked away, push- ing his undamaged bike, after medics turned him loose.) ■ I can doodle all month in the “what if ?” motif: Would it be different had I done this or not that done that, or done this at a certain time, as opposed to “what if ” I had done that in a certain other place five minutes earlier, or had done so later. On that Saturday after- noon, I wondered what if: would I have collided with that cyclist if Delaney hadn’t had to go up to his room to retrieve the coat I never needed, or if we had chosen to go another direction to dinner. Of course, the loosey- goosey sci-fi premise naturally suggests, well, something ELSE might have gone wrong — or right. Like, say, encountering Marcus Mariota who’d run out of gas and needed a ride to practice ... These kind of space and time associations are the stuff of Rod- denberry and myriad time travel movies and TV shows. Moments as they match up with experiences are not like players-to-be-named- later in some great trading game. You take them as they come and don’t concern yourself with some parallel universe. Does everything happen for a rea- son? We are not talking about coin- cidence here (oh, I’ve had my share of those), but it’s like a cousin to co- incidence. And it’s probably about as worth my time as comparing the weight of 10 dimes against 20 nick- els. They amount to the same thing and get you just as much in the end. No matter what way you go in life, Buckaroo Banzai, well, there you are. It’s all how we respond to the moment, no matter what way the coin flips. And sometimes fate throws in a towel. Production: David Marvin Production Manager Adam Lapierre Ailene Hibbard Archivist DMarvin@hoodrivernews.com News/Features Advertising: Jim Drake ALapierre@hoodrivernews.com Jody Thompson Advertising Manager JThompson@hoodrivernews.com Production/Commercial Printing Liana Stegall Advertising Sales LStegall@hoodrivernews.com Production/Commercial Printing Ben Mitchell News/Features BenMitchell@hoodrivernews.com Jim Drake Entertainment JDrake@hoodrivernews.com Kirsten Lane Advertising Sales KLane@hoodrivernews.com JDrake@hoodrivernews.com Andy Taylor ATaylor@columbiagorgepress.com Allen Diers Commercial Printing ADiers@hoodrivernews.com 419 State Street Hood River, OR 97031 P.O. Box 390 Phone: (541) 386-1234 Fax: (541) 386-6796 Tony Methvin Plant Manager (541) 386-1234 TMethvin@columbiagorgepress.com Andy Taylor Commercial Printing/Production ATaylor@columbiagorgepress.com David Marvin Commercial Printing/Production DMarvin@hoodrivernews.com
