4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL February 10, 2016
O PINION
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Boundaries ruptured
mercial intrusion by data-mining as well
as governmental surveillance for a kind
of ever ongoing secret anti-democratic
census that results in watch-lists and
no-fl y lists and other even more chilling
para-military pre-planning.
And all of this has been accomplished
behind closed doors by invisible ‘profes-
sionals’ who can shrug off the impact on
human dignity by this state of total viola-
tion — a violation that strips every man,
woman and child of the boundaries by
which human beings retain our dignity.
Who asked for all this? Did anyone no-
tice it happening? None of this vast infra-
structure was put in place overnight. But
is seems that we are to be ‘taken care of’,
not ‘consulted’.
It is as if an un-elected secret elite of
watchers now stands, night and day, as
nurses with clipboards, covertly observ-
ing a room full of children at play from
an adjoining room behind a one-way
glass mirror for some ever ongoing scien-
tifi c test. Such a twisted re-interpretation
of the words ‘eternal vigilance’ seems to
have become a magic spell that dissolves
their intrusion into our basic humanity
and caused it all to recede into the walls
that surround us all in our homes and
workplaces — like Muzak at the mall.
It is to this matter of boundaries we
need to turn our attention.
Between the privacy of my thoughts
and the words I choose to speak lies a
boundary. Between the words I speak
as an aside to another and the speech as
made in the larger society of the offi ce,
place of recreation or to a public assem-
bly there is a boundary. And the curiosity
of the millions of the consumers of global
information lies on the far side of yet an-
other boundary.
There is a boundary between the speech
of those who are intimate and all others,
as well as one between those who are
family and the rest of the world. These
are boundaries of personal relationships,
but there are also boundaries of public
space. For instance, there is a boundary
between one's house and property and the
public space and civic concern and yet
another that divides the space we share in
the streets of our community from those
economic markets and social institutions
that are the larger commons of our nation.
These are spaces and boundaries that are
open to negotiation. There are human de-
mands of intimacy, and to support these
demands there are cultural social customs
that assist us to negotiate these forms of
communication.
And here is the problem:
At the outset of the 21st century, there
is not one of these boundaries that has not
been ruptured by both corporate-com-
Leo Rivers
Cottage Grove
more low-level felony drug-possession
cases since she took over in August."
In fact, Perlow stated that the D.A.'s
offi ce has prosecuted 80 more of such
cases each month since August.
CORRECTION : An article in
the Feb. 3 Sentinel quotes District
Attorney Patricia Perlow as stating
that her offi ce has " processed 80
Offbeat Oregon History
Captain’s refusal to leave shipwreck angered rescuers
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
E
veryone knows what a good
sea-captain is supposed to do in
a shipwreck: Go down with his ship.
He’s supposed to be the last person
to step into a lifeboat, and that only if
he knows all the passengers and crew-
members are safely away.
Skippers who ignore this old-fash-
ioned edict of the sea do so at their
great peril, both legally and socially
— as captains have learned the hard
way, from James McIntire of the S.S.
South Portland in 1903 up to Francesco
Schettino of the cruise ship Costa Con-
cordia in 2012.
But the story of Captain Louis John-
son of the steamship Laurel is no tale of
a panicky skipper breaking furtively for
the lifeboats at the fi rst chance. Rather,
Johnson got in trouble for taking the
whole “unwritten law of the sea” thing
too seriously: He refused to leave.
Johnson’s freighter, the 5,759-ton
steamship Laurel, was a steamship of
the Quaker Line. On June 16, 1929,
the Laurel was crossing the Columbia
River Bar with seven million board feet
of lumber, bound for East Coast ports
via the Panama Canal.
On the way out, at just the wrong mo-
ment, the steering engines failed. With
massive combers breaking over her
bows, the big freighter fell off course
and was swept onto Peacock Spit,
where, pinned to the unyielding sand,
she started taking blow after blow from
the high and heavy seas.
Because it was 1929, help was on
the way almost before the ship struck
ground, courtesy of “Sparky” in the
wireless room. The problem was, there
was a spring gale piling the seas up into
mammoth swells and breakers around
the stranded vessel, and the breakers
had burst the deckload chains, fi lling
the ocean around the ship with lumber.
The two Coast Guard motor lifeboats
made it over the bar but couldn’t get
near the wreck.
Meanwhile the pounding seas started
to have their inevitable way with the
ship. Early the next morning the Laurel
broke in half unexpectedly; 19-year-
old seaman Russell Smith, who just
happened to be standing in the wrong
place at the wrong time, fell into the
crack and was never seen again.
The next day the waves had dispersed
the lumber enough that the motor life-
boats were able to get close enough to
rescue survivors. There were two of
them — one from Point Adams, on the
Oregon side; and one from Cape Dis-
appointment, up in Washington. Both
of them managed to get in close to the
stern half of the big ship, which had
broken off just forward of the bridge.
The sailors dropped lines down from
the ship, and 24 of them slid down to
the waiting Coast Guard boats — 18 of
them ending up in the “Cape D” boat
and six in the Point Adams boat.
But they weren’t rescued yet. With
uncanny synchronicity, the engines of
the two motor lifeboats conked out at
almost the exact same time — likely
killed by water intruding into their air
intakes from the rough seas. Without
power, the bulky, unwieldy motor life-
boats were at grave risk of being picked
up by the next breaker and cracked like
eggs against the side of the Laurel. So,
leaving seven men still aboard the bat-
tered ship, the crews of the two now-
motorless lifeboats bent their backs to
the oars and strained to get the bulky,
unwieldy things away from the danger
and back toward land.
The Cape Disappointment lifeboat
got lucky; the Coast Guard cutter Red
Wing was able to come alongside
and, after a harrowing transfer of the
rescuees to the larger ship, took the
crippled motor lifeboat in tow. With the
cutter’s help, the crew managed to get
the lifeboat across the bar, and several
hours later the rescuers were safe in
Astoria.
The Point Adams boat had worse
luck — but it could have been far worse.
Caught in the surf by the side of the bar
entrance, the rescuers were forced to
turn and make a desperate try for the
beach. They successfully brought the
boat in through the breakers without
capsizing, and the mariners splashed
ashore through the shallow waters
along the north jetty, where spectators
watching the rescue on shore hurried to
help get them ashore and warm them
around a big bonfi re there.
The next day, a third motor lifeboat
came down from Willapa Bay — nei-
ther of the local boats could be repaired
in time — and laboriously went about
rescuing the remaining mariners from
the Laurel. But the crowd of people
watching from the shore couldn’t help
but notice something odd:
“The watchers could not decipher
the riddle of the fi gure, like that of a
man but more motionless, remaining
on the deck,” the Oregonian’s reporter
recounted. “It was not until half an hour
later … the people fi rst learned that the
fi gure was really that of a man, and that
for some reason, yet to be learned, Cap-
tain Johnson had declined to leave.”
Over the following two days and two
nights, Johnson remained stolidly and
stubbornly on the derelict, pacing back
and forth as airplanes fl ew overhead.
The seas settled down a little, then
freshened up again, hammering the
steel hulk. Still the skipper wouldn’t
budge.
Finally, 54 hours after he’d fi rst de-
clined to be rescued, Johnson hung out
a white fl ag, indicating he was ready
for assistance. By a stroke of luck, the
seas had settled down to the kind of
lovely calm that’s more characteristic
of mid-June, and the rescue was easily
and quickly done.
In an impromptu press conference in
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 5A
Some whole grains are more whole than others
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
T
he vast majority of the
grain products eaten in
the U.S. are refi ned. When
whole grains are refi ned, for ex-
ample into white fl our or white
rice, they are stripped of fi ber
and micronutrients, leaving be-
hind a calo-
rie-rich,
nutrient-
poor food.
A
meta-
analysis
pooling the
data from
six previ-
ous studies
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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has concluded that eating three
servings (about 90 grams) of
whole grains daily is associated
with a 17 percent decrease in
risk of colorectal cancers. Also,
in review of 16 other studies,
they concluded that every 10
grams of fi ber consumed daily
provided a 12 percent reduction
in colon cancer risk. So it’s the
refi ned grains are that could in-
crease one’s risk of colon can-
cer. Studies have already linked
refi ned grains with higher rates
of breast cancer, too.
The most favorable way to
consume grains is with the grain
remaining intact. Examples of
intact grains are brown and wild
rice, wheat berries, barley, qui-
noa and steel-cut oats. Cooking
these grains in water is the most
healthful way to prepare them,
which also prevents the forma-
tion of acrylamide, a potentially
toxic compound. Intact whole
grains can be eaten for break-
fast with fruit and seeds, or with
tomato sauce and onions with
lunch or dinner. Whole wheat
pasta also has a fairly favorable
glycemic load, but bean and
lentil pasta are even better when
you consider the resistant starch
content and glycemic benefi ts of
beans.
Also, too much grain, even
too much whole grains, can
make your diet sub-optimal.
The reason for this can be:
If you eat too many grains,
you may not eat enough beans,
green and yellow vegetables,
which are more micronutrient
dense.
Most brown rice is contami-
nated with arsenic-containing
agricultural chemicals, which
can fi nd its way to your plate.
Many whole grains breads,
cereals and crackers are dry
cooked and can be browned,
forming a toxin called acryl-
amide, which is potentially
harmful. High acrylamide in-
take is associated with several
cancers.
Whole grain pastry fl our can
still have an unfavorable glyce-
mic load because it is ground so
fi ne. Many studies have linked
high GL foods to increased risk
of colorectal cancers.
Among carbohydrate sourc-
es, beans are superior to whole
grains with respect to their mi-
cronutrient density, glycemic
effects and fi ber and resistant
starch content. For example,
barley has a GL of 12, and a fi -
ber + resistant starch content of
35.2 percent; black beans have
a GI of 5 and fi ber + resistant
starch content of 69.5 percent.
Fiber helps to prevent colon
cancer by reducing the contact
between dietary carcinogens
and intestinal cells via increas-
ing stool bulk and accelerating
transit time. Resistant starch,
similar to fi ber, is a carbohy-
drate that is not broken down
by human digestive enzymes.
Fiber and resistant starch act as
prebiotics, fueling the growth
of healthy bacteria (probiotics);
healthy bacteria in gut the fer-
ment fi ber and resistant starch,
forming short chain fatty acids
that have a number of anti-can-
cer effects. Eating beans, peas
or lentils at least twice a week
has been found to decrease co-
lon cancer risk by 50 percent.
In summary, intact whole
grains are healthful natural
foods that contain benefi cial
phytochemicals. For optimal
disease protection, I recommend
eating beans every day, avoid-
ing refi ned grains, and primarily
eating whole grains intact and
cooked in water (and less breads
or pastas).
Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New
York Times best-selling author
and a family physician special-
izing in lifestyle and nutritional
medicine. His newest book, The
End of Dieting, debunks the fake
“science” of popular fad diets
and offers an alternative to di-
eting that leads to permanent
weight loss and excellent health.
Visit his informative website at
DrFuhrman.com. Submit your
questions and comments about
this column directly to news-
questions@drfuhrman.com. The
full reference list for this article
can be found at DrFuhrman.
com.
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