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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 2016)
4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL August 31, 2016 O PINION Precautions, vigilance key during fi re season L ast Tuesday, Aug. 23, the Oregon Department of Forestry issued a request for reports of suspected illegal activities — including those that could lead to charges of arson for purpose- fully set fi res — in the state’s forested lands. By the next afternoon, it became clear to Cottage Grove residents that such vigilance could be of vital impor- tance each fi re season. On Wednesday, Aug. 24, South Lane Fire and Rescue, ODF and other agen- cies responded to reports of a fi re on Mt. David in Cottage Grove that was already too close to nearby homes for comfort, a fi re that soon threatened the rest of the dry, grassy and wooded hillside. The work of many, including that of a helicopter pilot credited with quickly squelching the fl ames, was necessary to prevent what could’ve been one of this community’s costliest (and potentially deadliest) disasters. It soon became apparent that the fi re may have been intentionally set, and locals here are left to wonder how such a reckless act could happen so close to them and their loved ones. The following day, police arrested three teens suspected of setting a fi re in a Bohemia Park restroom, only to be informed that the youths they were looking for had already set another fi re near Walmart in a populated area. Po- lice say they saw little remorse from the teens for actions that could have been life-altering or even deadly for many. But regret after the fact on be- half of these youths would have mat- tered little had these fi res not been quickly and properly extinguished, for it doesn't take an expert to notice that fl ames do not discriminate, that a fi re cares little about its cause or the intent of the person that sets it. Which is why it is of vital importance that Or- egonians take grave precautions dur- ing fi re season and keep an eye out for those not willing to heed warnings to that effect. This time of year, Oregon’s fi re agencies typically battle fi res started by lightning or by people’s careless- ness. But in recent weeks, ODF says they’ve found themselves chasing down fi re starts set by arsonists. Doz- ens of wildfi res have broken out in re- cent weeks across Oregon — many of them under suspicious circumstances. Law enforcement and wildfi re pro- tection agencies at all levels are work- ing hard to solve these crimes and pre- vent future arsons. Vigilance is high among Oregon State Police troopers, county sheriff’s deputies and state and federal forestry agencies’ fi eld person- nel. Oregon’s forests are expansive — 30 million acres — and they could use the public’s help to put a stop to this rash of deliberately set fi res. Thousands of recreationists enjoy- ing the forests this summer can serve as eyes and ears to report suspected illegal activity in the woods. Call the Oregon State Police Tip Line, 503- 375-3555, to confi dentially report tips. And by all means, be cautious this fi re season, and encourage others to do so as well. Offbeat Oregon History Japan’s balloon bombs could have done a lot more damage BY FINN J.D. JOHN For the Sentinel O n July 9, 1945, residents of northwest Oregon started seeing heavy smoke rising into the air over the Coast Range. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight. Twelve years earlier, in 1933, the granddaddy of all Oregon forest fi res had broken out in the same general region, and by the time it was snuffed out by early fall rains, it had turned 350,000 acres of prime virgin forest into a moonscape. Six years after that, it had happened again. And now, like a six-year jinx coming on schedule to haunt the state, the for- est was on fi re again. It would happen again six years further on, in 1951. But there was one particularly inter- esting thing about the 1945 burn: No- body knew how it got started. Both the earlier burns had been started by log- ging operations; this one, though, had just fl ared up, and when it was all over and done it was traced back to an almost inaccessible spot near the Salmonberry River – nowhere near any roads or log- ging operations. No one will ever know for sure. But the best explanation for the outbreak of the third Tillamook Burn, fi ve months before the end of the Second World War, is by far the most dramatic one: Enemy action, in reprisal for the Doolittle Raids on Tokyo three years earlier. Historian Robert Mikesh makes a solid case that the Doolittle Raids, launched in 1942 by the Pendleton- based 17th Bomb Group, shortened the war considerably by putting the Japa- nese military command into an intoler- able psychological position. The scant physical damage done by the handful of B-25s was nothing compared with the damage they did to Imperial Japan’s LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Just fi ne I’ve been in this country almost 90 years But its condition brings me a lot of tears. I don’t want it to be in this condition any more. It was a whole lot better the way it was before. You would think he could make a better place to live. But he just can’t fi nd a better solution to fi nd or give. So many of our nations’ people still live in poverty even tho he promised from debt, he would set them free. In my life time I’ve never seen everything so bad, pride, and after the raid the military was almost desperate to recover its lost “face.” Among other things, this led to the Japanese steaming out in force to meet the American Navy at Midway – in a battle that looked a lot more even than it turned out to be, because of how much more punishment the U.S. could take. It also led to a fl ood of innovation from the Japanese, brainstorming up ways to put some kind of hurt on the American homeland like the Yanks had done to them. One gambit, tried once in 1942 without much success, was the fi rebombing of the forest near Brook- ings by a submarine-launched sea- plane. But probably the most interesting innovation to be inspired by the Doo- little raid was the world’s fi rst inter- continental weapon system – a system based on a modernization of a technol- ogy from the 1700s: Hydrogen-fi lled balloons. They became known as “fi re balloons.” The Japanese had discovered that the jet stream runs from Japan straight across the Pacifi c Ocean to North Amer- ica all winter long at speeds of over 100 miles an hour. At speeds like that, they realized, a balloon launched from Ja- pan would reach the U.S. in about three Our nation is looking at the worst condition it’s ever had. The country’s poor people believed all of Mr. Obama’s lies, Then we found out he had so many big money ties. Many poor people continue to eat out of garbage cans today, Or any other food that has already been thrown away. Be careful that you don’t elect another one just like Mr. Obama next time, or one more that’s convinced that all the hungry and home- less are just fi ne. Glen Bricker Cottage Grove days. So they got busy fi guring out how to take advantage of that. There were serious engineering problems, though, involved with over- night balloon fl ights. The sun would warm the gas during the day, increas- ing the lift; and it would then cool off at night. If left to its own devices, a bal- loon would simply sink into the ocean after sunset. To deal with this, the Japanese engi- neers rigged the balloons with an inge- nious clockwork mechanism rigged to an altimeter. When the balloon dipped below 30,000 feet or so, the mechanism would release one or two bags of bal- last, sending the balloon back up into the right altitude range again. When the morning came and the expanding gas threatened to raise the balloon out of the jet stream, the clockwork would open a gas valve, venting some of the helium gas to keep it at the proper height. Each balloon was rigged with enough ballast to go through two day-night cycles. On the third day, engineers cal- culated it would be over the continent, and the clockwork bomb-control device would drop its payload of incendiary or antipersonnel bombs, after which the balloon itself would self-destruct. The Japanese fi nally got these weap- ons worked out to their satisfaction in the fall of 1944. On the island of Hon- shu, nestled among protecting hills, a team of schoolgirls worked to build the balloons out of tough, light mulberry paper; they were rigged with the clock- work, ballast and bombs and launched into the sky, one by one, for all that winter. A total of roughly 9,000 of them rose into the sky over Japan and started out across the Pacifi c Ocean. It was the longest-ranged attack in military his- tory, a record that would stand until 1982 when the British broke it during the Falkland Islands war. A few days later, odd things started happening in the American and Cana- dian West. A father and son on a fi sh- ing trip one morning on a north-woods lake saw a balloon drift by and disap- pear over a nearby hill – and then a big explosion echoed through the woods. Two farmers working in a fi eld were startled by another big explosion. A mother was tucking her child in for the night when the tyke’s bedroom was lit up by the fl ash of a big explosion near the window. In all these incidents, all that re- mained of whatever it had been were metal fragments, blast craters and sometimes bits of mulberry paper. Please see OFFBEAT, Page 5A Soda and junk food affect children’s behavior and school performance BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD For the Sentinel T he standard American diet, chock full of soda and other sugary drinks, fast foods and other low-nutrient foods, can have a major impact on the health and lives of our children. Rising rates of child- hood obesity driven by this way of eating have received much attention; however, low-nutrient foods are still having negative effects on the physical and men- tal health of children who are not $ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM 116 N. Sixth Street · P.O. Box 35 · Cottage Grove, OR 97424 ADMINISTRATION: JOHN BARTLETT, Regional Publisher.............................. GARY MANLY, General Manager................942-3325 Ext. 207 • publisher@cgsentinel.com ROBIN REISER, Sales Repersentative...............942-3325 Ext. 203 • robin@cgsentinel.com TAMMY SAYRE, Sales Repersentative......... 942-3325 Ext. 213 • tsayre@cgsentinel.com SPORTS DEPARTMENT: SAM WRIGHT, Sports Editor...................942-3325 Ext. 204 • sports@cgsentinel.com CUSTOMER SERVICE CARLA WILLIAMS, Office Manager.................942-3325 Ext. 201 • billing@cgsentinel.com LEGALS.............................................................942-3325 Ext. 200 • legals@cgsentinel.com NEWS DEPARTMENT: JON STINNETT, Editor......................................942-3325 Ext. 212 • cgnews@cgsentinel.com GRAPHICS: RON ANNIS, Graphics Manager overweight. Children are not im- mune to the damaging health ef- fects of the standard American diet, which can set them up for a lifetime of poor health, ranging from heart disease to behavior problems and lower cognitive perfor- mance. On average, U.S. children and teens consume over 200 calories a day from soda and other sug- ary drinks, and it is estimated that about 14 percent of their calories come from fast food. As a result of the poor diets of American children, more than one-third of normal-weight teenagers (and about half of overweight teenagers) have at least one diet-related risk fac- tor for heart disease. These di- etary patterns have the potential to dramatically affect not only public health but the productiv- ity of our future adult popula- tion; studies have implicated poor diet in limiting intelligence and academic performance and also drawn parallels between consumption of sweets during childhood and violence in adult- hood. A study on soda consumption found an increase in behavior and attention problems in fi ve- year-old children (as assessed by their mothers) with increasing daily consumption of soda. For- ty-three percent of the fi ve-year- olds in the study drank soda at least once a day. The authors ad- justed their results for potential confounding factors that might affect behavior, such as hours of television and a stressful home environment, and still found a signifi cant association between soda consumption and aggres- sion, withdrawn behavior and poor attention. They proposed that caffeine and/or fl uctuations in blood sugar might be respon- sible for the association between soda and behavior problems. Blood glucose levels do affect the workings of the brain, and habitual high sugar intake has been shown to impair cognitive function. Several previous stud- ies on high school students have also associated soda consump- tion with aggressive behavior, as well as depression and self- harm. Plus, higher sugar sweet- ened beverage consumption is linked to diabetes, cardiovascu- lar disease and cancers. In addition to soda, higher fast food consumption in fi fth grade (four or more times per week) has been associated with poor- er academic progress in math, reading and science between fi fth grade and eighth grade. Children who ate fast food one to three times per week—a com- mon level of intake—compared to those who ate no fast food had lower scores in math. These results suggest that children eat- ing fast food frequently could slow their academic progress. The food habits children de- velop in their early years have a substantial impact on their physical health and mental well-being throughout the rest of our lives. Parents need to know this information, so that they can help their children to live healthfully, maintain a posi- tive mindset and reach their full cognitive potential. Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New York Times best-selling author and a board certifi ed family physician specializing in life- style and nutritional medicine. Visit his informative website at DrFuhrman.com. 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