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The
The INDEPENDENT, October 5, 2011
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Wednesdays of each month
by The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St.,
Vernonia, OR 97064. Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Deadline is noon the Friday before each issue.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
“Occupy Wall Street” is a
recognition of inequity
When 200 young people gathered on Wall Street,
with signs opposing the stranglehold on our economy
by bailed-out bankers who are still paying themselves
huge bonuses with taxpayer money, few people no-
ticed. When the crowd reached about 500, some news
outlets did little articles about the leaderless group and
their lack of a specific demand. They didn’t notice the
demonstrators’ outstanding use of social media such
as twitter and Facebook.
When the gathering expanded to a couple thousand
polite, nonviolent people who were camping out in a
public park, traditional media started wondering what
was going on. They didn’t really pay attention until a
police department supervisor used mace or pepper
spray on some of those nonviolent young people.
Since then, all ages have joined in the still polite
demonstration, and groups in other cities have begun
to develop their own gatherings. The young adults
have led the way, and one of the signs explains why:
“That we’re young only means we have
the most to lose by standing idle”
They’re right. Wage inequality is worse than it’s
been in modern history. Everyone except the top 10
percent is being harmed, whether by loss of jobs, fore-
closure, unaffordable health care, or reduced income,
but young people have the most to lose. For example:
With each 1 percentage point increase in the unem-
ployment rate, there is an initial wage loss of 6 to 7%.
That will impact young people for years to come.
The recent 2010 Census’ American Community Sur-
vey showed that employment among young adults be-
tween the ages of 16 to 29 was at its lowest level since
the end of World War II. Just 55 percent were em-
ployed, compared with 67 percent in 2000. Additional-
ly, many of them are saddled with debt from education
loans, for which banks earn interest even with govern-
ment guaranteed loans.
Don’t be surprised if you haven’t seen much about
this. Because of nearly total corporate ownership of
media outlets, much information is marginalized, or
even blacklisted in our traditional media.
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators understand
that change begins with perception. And you don’t
change things by asking. You change them by acting.
Ike Says…
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League
Summer is over, the
rains are back and so
are the salmon. I did a
few spot checks on the
water temperatures this
year. We actually had a
pretty cool summer and
when we did finally get a
stretch of hot weather, it
was too late in the year to have a harmful effect
on local streams. The angle of the sun in rela-
tionship to the river has a significant effect on
how fast a river heats up, and the lower in the
sky the sun is, the more shadows are cast from
streamside trees. That is why streamside trees
are so critical, and the taller the better. This year
the highest temperature that I found was in the
main stem Nehalem below the green bridge,
here in town. The temperature was 68.1 degrees
on September 10th, and was taken when I have
usually observed the highest temperatures of
the day, the 7:00 pm hour.
During the week in September that we had
the higher temperatures, I was checking the riv-
er in three locations, the green bridge and at the
confluence of Rock Creek and the Nehalem. On
one of my back-to-back days of checking tem-
peratures, I was greeted with a young lady hold-
ing a dead Chinook salmon, at the confluence of
Rock Creek and the Nehalem River. It was quite
obvious that it had been dead for a while, due to
rigor in the salmon’s body. I went ahead and
took the stream temperatures and, while doing
so, noticed a spawning bed that this female
salmon had probably built on the Rock Creek
side of the gravel bar that separates the two
rivers. Then I noticed the small fire ring and
empty beer cans scattered around where the
previous night’s occupants had a party. While
nobody can be sure, I suspect that the nighttime
partyers probably had a hand in the female
salmon’s demise. What a shame to have beaten
the odds of hatching from an egg, surviving all
the predators in the Nehalem and the ocean,
surviving all the commercial and sports fisher-
men and getting 90 miles back up a low Ne-
halem River to — get clobbered with a rock in
the head, and with her eggs still in her abdomen.
What a shame!
Archery hunters had their season interrupted
by another fire season, which had local private
timberland operators shutting their lands to ac-
cess. Archers really do have to be versatile; they
must have a back up to hunting private industri-
al forestlands on the west side of our state, or
they must head east to the national forests. A fire
closure is just about a given every year, it is the
nature of the beast.
The weather leading up to rifle deer season
appears to be a mixed bag, but enough rainfall
is expected to keep the private timberlands open
for hunting. Check with local timber companies
as to their access policy and which areas will be
open to drive-in or walk-in-only areas. With local
deer populations being as depressed as they
are, the incentive for the timber companies to
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