Bravo, GOP rebelsThe Republican senators who voted against the president’s tax cut for stock dividends deserve our appreciation. There are many kinds of courage during war. Some of them may go unnoticed. I believe those senators acted bravely and should be commended.

The last time I saw any projections, Social Security would be bankrupt in 2042 and Medicare in 2026. The budget submitted by the president would create substantial deficits for several years. The president tells us that by giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the richest people in the United States, we will all come out winners. I don’t think that is very likely to happen.

So I want to thank those Republican senators whose caution and common sense led them to vote for the future security of the men and women serving in our armed forces during this war.

MIKE McCAULEY

SeasideBravo, GOP rebels

The Republican senators who voted against the president’s tax cut for stock dividends deserve our appreciation. There are many kinds of courage during war. Some of them may go unnoticed. I believe those senators acted bravely and should be commended.

The last time I saw any projections, Social Security would be bankrupt in 2042 and Medicare in 2026. The budget submitted by the president would create substantial deficits for several years. The president tells us that by giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the richest people in the United States, we will all come out winners. I don’t think that is very likely to happen.

So I want to thank those Republican senators whose caution and common sense led them to vote for the future security of the men and women serving in our armed forces during this war.

MIKE McCAULEY

Seaside

Where is the vision?

The Clatsop Community College board is now about to select a new president for the college. I think it is regretful that this selection will be made before the new board takes office. It would seem to me that with the somewhat tarnished record of the current board, it would be advisable to wait until the public has an opportunity to express itself in the coming election of board members.

I am also somewhat disturbed by the selection criteria which apparently will be utilized in selecting the new college president. As I understand it, the current board feels that two key areas of expertise that it will be looking for are how to build a new campus and how to pass a bond issue to support the construction of a new campus. This is somewhat understandable, as the board has pushed the idea of funding a new campus by the issuance of bonds.

However, this has not been popular with the voters of Clatsop County. It does not appear logical to me that an organization, failing to meet its objective, would continue with the same goal and the same strategy that failed in the past.

What the board and the selection committee should be looking for in a new president are strong leadership and communications skills. They should also be looking for a person who has a positive record of innovation. He or she should have been a leader in the development of new instructional programs and techniques and should be very familiar with non-traditional approaches to education (distance learning, instruction over the Internet, and cooperative programs with other educational institutions).

Clatsop Community College has been a great educational institution, but I feel that it has lost its vision. A new president should be able to work with the college staff and the community in creating a new vision. Then, once the vision is in place, we can determine what kind of physical campus we should have and where it should be located. With such a vision in which the entire community has participated in establishing, the community will be willing to come up with the funds to implement the vision. Failing to create such a vision will once again result in more money wasted on studies and bond issues.

I hope that the selection committee and the board will select a visionary with a track record of success. If they don’t, they will have done a disservice to the college staff, our youth and our community.

DON McDANIEL

Astoria

Supporters thanked

Fire Mountain School would like to extend a heartfelt “Thank You” to all of the people and organizations that helped support our 2003 Spring Raffle. It is through the generosity of community members like you that we are able to continue to provide our children with an exceptional education and we at FMS are truly grateful for your support.

A special thank you goes out to everyone who purchased raffle tickets. We know that during these difficult economic times it is a blessing to have caring people invest their hard-earned dollars to help a unique educational institution like Fire Mountain. Congratulations to the winner of our grand prize, Nancy Burton of Cannon Beach, and to second-prize winner Bob Eliason of Estacada.

We would also like to thank everyone who donated time, goods and services that helped make this year’s raffle a success. It is a great tribute to our community to have such diverse group of contributors, ranging from corporations to small businesses and individuals, who come together for a wonderful cause.

Thank you from the Fire Mountain staff, board of directors, parents, and especially, the children.

For more information about Fire Mountain School, located in beautiful Falcon Cove just 10 minutes north of Manzanita, visit www.firemountainschool.org on the Web or call (503) 436-2610. We are currently accepting applications for the 2003-04 school year in the 3- to 4-year-old class, the 5- to 6-year-old class and the 7- to 9-year-old class.

AMBER SMITH

Fire Mountain School

Falcon Cove

Comedy of life, c. 2003

Regarding the current administration, and particularly its inner circle. Perhaps Seneca, Roman statesman and philosopher, echoed more than a thousand years later by William Shakespeare, said it best: “What fools these mortals be.”

‘Nuff said?

Robert Arenz

Gearhart

Perception is reality

This past week I have done more than my normal amount of TV watching, Internet surfing and newspaper reading. While monitoring news reports from all over the world and various government statements about our new war, I am reminded of a story about public relations and marketing.

The father of public relations, Edward Bernays, was once asked by the head of the American Tobacco Company, George Hill, to help the company increase its sales of cigarettes.

Given that the cigarette market for men in the U.S. lacked growth potential, he hoped to introduce women to smoking, as they were an untapped market. Bernays created a publicity campaign in the 1920s whereby he encouraged young women to march in New York’s Easter Day parade down Fifth Avenue carrying what a psychologist called a “torch of freedom protesting man’s inhumanity to women”- in reality, lit cigarettes.

The press showed photos of these ladies publicly smoking and within a few months the New York smoking rooms, reserved for men, had to be opened to accommodate a growing new class of smokers. Bernays termed this kind of work “the engineering of consent.”

In a March 24 Christian Science Monitor article by Noel C. Paul, the implementation of such practices by our government became evident. Paul reports that Jack Trout, a successful advertising executive, had been retained by the State Department to help the administration “reposition” its message on the necessity for this war. Like the selling of cars, wine or cosmetics, the administration has attempted to “reposition” the war in the minds of Americans by altering the image the war may have had for us initially. As Trout said, “This battle is for perception.” When these kinds of marketing practices enter the politics of war, their use becomes potentially dangerous for us in a free society. Ironically, two of Trout’s best selling books are Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, and his classic, Marketing Warfare.

For years business has adopted military terms that reflect a steely determination and managerial focus. We develop “strategic and tactical” plans, identify “target markets” and even hold sales “boot camps.” But now it seems that the military has embraced marketing terms. Influenced by marketing and public relations gurus, they no longer bomb enemy targets, they “service” them. And they don’t service them with bombs, they do so with “packages.”

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld often refers to enemies on the ground as “folks.” So, just like FedEx or UPS, the military now services folks with packages. Certainly this presents a far more palatable “positioning” of war and battle and highlights the modern military’s mastery of these softer skills.

Nevertheless, as the old saying goes, “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” No matter how skillfully this war is repositioned in our minds, sooner or later we will learn if the product is worth its price, or just a lemon. As I follow this war in the media, I try and remember the warning to consumers echoed in recent years: “Let the buyer beware.”

Daniel W. Block

Astoria

A faith lift

We all have our own interpretation of how we visualize peace. Peace in this world, in our country, in our state, our community and most important, in ourselves.

The destruction our communities witnessed and personally experienced on that fated day of September continues to reverberate.

How we transmute that hatred we endured on that day is as personal as our concept of peace.

The root of hate is pain. The seed of hate is fear. Each one of us knows our own fear. We can walk with that fear as it teaches us to grow, or we can hide from that fear and become angry and hate.

The loss we have experienced, the violation we endured on Sept. 11, was transmuted by our country rising together to help one another with love and compassion.

Dropping bombs on innocent people and sacrificing our children in the name of hate and vengence furthers pain and fear.

Our children will return scarred, forever affected by the power of hate and greed. Consequently, their children become affected by their parents’ pain, and the cycle continues.

America, we never stood so high as when we stood together in love and compassion surrounding Sept. 11.

Standing tall, working through this fear and hate requires a vision of balance, we can attain that balance in the world with words and worldly support much more powerfully than with any bomb.

Fawn Russo deTurk

Nehalem

A mad, mad, mad, mad world

Has the world gone mad? Are we so dumbed down that we can follow the logic of 1) thoroughly disrespecting and distancing ourselves from the United Nations, 2) passing a giant tax cut that benefits the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, and 3) asking the United Nations for money to provide humanitarian aid to Iraq, which we have attacked without United Nations’ backing?

Why is nothing being asked of the citizens of America? Should we not be asked to sacrifice in a time of war? Should the wealthy postpone their windfall and help the innocent Iraqis on whose blood and sweat their plan is, no doubt, to reap all the benefits that globalization has to offer, once we add Iraq to our list of cheap labor locales?

For our president and his advisers to call themselves Christians is blasphemous. As the writer Sherman Alexie pointed out recently, “It was Shakespeare who warned, ‘The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.'”

Laura Snyder

Astoria

Twisted visions

We really appreciate The Daily Astorian and your point of view. Most of the electronic media has been very pro-war. Only NPR and The Daily Astorian are presenting more balanced news reporting.

Most of the media is now in the hands of five or six mega-companies tied to the corporate structures who have a vested interest in promoting a very one-dimensional point of view: GE, Disney, AOL Time Warner, Rupert Murdock, the Chicago Tribune and Clear Air control a vast majority of our news the American public receives.

Last week, NPR broadcast a chilling interview with an American-educated Saudi teacher. We are not only in danger of losing the military side of this ill-conceived war. Judging from her comments, we have already lost the more important struggle for the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. Our country stands isolated in the court of public opinion and we are being judged guilty. Saddam is evil, but we have succeeded in shifting the focus onto us, while fracturing the fragile coalition of international goodwill and combined vision that would have had promise of dealing with the Saddams of this world. We stand alone, “protected” only by our guns and our arrogance.

The lives of our young soldiers are being sacrificed to the twisted vision of those who have never really fought in war: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and our draft-dodging Texas Air National Guard president, who disappeared for 18 months from his assignment.

This administration is the worst we have had in the last 200 years. States are running out of money while this administration seeks tax cuts which will only benefit the top 1 percent of the population. Not only is this administration “leaving every child behind,” they may be leading us down the path to World War III.

Hugh McIsaac

Manzanita

Bush league

When George W. Bush was on the campaign trail in 2000, he stated that he was against “nation building.” Since he is currently spending most of his time to change the world by seeking to bring about regime change on foreign lands (and spending billions of our dollars that could educate our children, provide health care for the poor, etc.), we can only conclude that the nation he doesn’t want to build is our own!

Dennis W. Rodin

Gearhart

Duty, honor. Mandate?

It would seem almost schizophrenic to support American troops in Iraq if you oppose the war they are engaged in, yet this is what we are exhorted to do.

Support of the troops is of course distorted into implicit support of the war – and conversely, criticism of the war implies lack of support for the troops.

Opponents of the invasion of Iraq are imputed to have betrayed the troops who are making the assault. This puts the peace movement on the defense to prove its patriotism by affirming support of those who are doing exactly what the war’s opponents are distinctly opposed to.

In this sense, as in the earlier Persian Gulf War in which the same tactic was used to diffuse opposition to that war, dissent against this new war is craftily undermined. This disguises the contradiction that supporting a soldier’s warlike duty is a sure way of killing him or her.

The enthusiastic outpouring of love and support for American GIs might act instead as a relentless impetus that pushes troops into irreversible horror at the same time any who would conscientiously object are crushed underneath cheering war cries. The soldiers feel compelled to carry out what they see as public mandate, and in the belief that any doubts of their own would be met with disapproval, they would do their duty at whatever cost.

MICHAEL PAUL McCUSKER

Astoria

Keep crimes secret

Whenever I would come home with news from school – popular vs. unpopular, the haves vs. the have-nots, who-said-what-about-whom, my wise mother would tell me to be careful. “This is a small town you live in and some day these school mates of yours will be all grown up and you’ll be running into them at Safeway. Don’t ever say or do anything you have to be ashamed of. Treat people the way you want to be treated and never forget we’re all just one step away from trouble ourselves.”

How I wish my mother had the handling of The Daily Astorian.

Traditionally, laws have protected juvenile criminals by sealing their records – a tradition the press maintains by agreeing not to publish the names of juvenile offenders. After offenders turn 18, their records are expunged or sealed, depending on state law. The philosophy behind this anonymity: Juveniles should not be stigmatized for the rest of their lives for acts committed while they were children. The emphasis of the juvenile criminal system is on rehabilitation, not punishment.

Amen.

I subscribe to the local paper for community news, not sensational junk. The stories recently run about Mayor Willis Van Dusen’s and other local families’ children have made me cringe. The headlines have been bigger than the stories they highlight. They have put forth information I would rather my kids didn’t read. They have made public some families’ very private crises, and worst of all, they have violated the civil liberties of some young people. Innocent, guilty, I don’t care … let the courts and the parents sort it out. Let authorities notify our educators if there is a danger to our kids and let those professionally trained to assist children do their jobs.

Be ashamed to show your face in the grocery store, Daily Astorian. Hope we behave better when your turn for trouble comes.

Debby Reed

Astoria

Watch for scams

My phone rang at about 6:15 p.m. March 25. I have caller I.D. The number showing with the man’s name was an 861 prefix. I am rather cautious, so I answered pretending to be my sister.

The man named Richard said that “Linda” owed $800 in back taxes to the I.R.S. I, still acting like I was my sister, said there was no way that I owed back taxes and that I wanted to know how the I.R.S. planned to prove that I owed taxes and how they planned to collect. Richard said that I either had to pay $800 in cash or have my furniture repossessed. At that point I was furious, so I told him to call back in about an hour.

I called two of my neighbors and they both called his number, “looking” for certain people. One response was, “Oh, the hooker in the next room?” and the other response was, “Oh, you mean Charlie? He’s sleeping.” After a while Richard had not called to talk to “Linda,” so I called him.

He gave the same statement he had given to “my sister.” I said I wanted to know their plans. He said that four agents would be at my home at 9 a.m. March 26 to collect $800 or take my furniture. I told him we would not be here, and he said they could break in and take my possessions. I told him that is against the law. Just then the phone went fuzzy. I took five minutes to compose myself and called back.

This time Richard was not home and I talked to a 17-year-old boy. He said, “This person has been making these prank calls to try to get money and is a crack user.” I told the kid I would not involve him, but that I would be calling the police. The police took all the information and said if he called again or showed up at my home they could arrest him. Other than that, they couldn’t do anything yet.

I just want to save other people the stress and possible loss of money and possessions. Please report anything even mildly strange to your police, and save the numbers on your caller I.D., or keep notes on times, things said, etc.

Linda Johnsen

Seaside

High cost of running

Regarding “Democracy is not a spectator sport” (The Daily Astorian, March 25)

Perhaps one reason that citizens have not stepped forward is the now expensive cost of placing information in a voters’ pamphlet. The cost is now $100 for positions that have no pay. I believe that the cost should be kept low by the districts paying for the voters pamphlets. There is a piece of legislation that will hopefully get passed that will change that.

Also, citizens need to learn how they can become involved.

Carl Clinton

Portland

Shhhh, it’s a secret

I am writing to you concerning the USA Patriot Act. This act affects us all. It only took five weeks from its initial conception to its final passage into law. This 342-page bill, thanks to the Sept. 11 rush to do something, has not had time to be thoroughly debated or studied. As a matter of fact, many legislators who voted for it did not read it.

Among the multitude of aspects of this law, expanded surveillance was just a small taste of the disturbing characteristics flavoring this bill. Expanded surveillance includes four traditional tools: wiretaps, search warrants, subpoenas and pen/trap orders. (Pen/traps tracks outgoing and incoming calls, which include Web surfing habits and e-mails.) These surveillance techniques no longer have to be reported.

Roving wiretaps now give government officials the power to eavesdrop without probable cause.

This includes eavesdropping on reporters’ phone calls and e-mails as well. Prior to the Patriot Act, the government needed probable cause. Because the Patriot Act does not require one to be notified after an investigation has taken place, even if no wrongdoing was uncovered, no one will ever know the frequency of its use; knowing the frequency is critical when determining if a government is misusing such power.

When members of the House Judiciary Committee asked how many times such permission had been granted, the assistant attorney general wrote back stating that information about roving wiretaps was classified.

When our government alters our rights, even under the banner of national security, it is incumbent upon us as citizens to express our concern while legislators remain frozen in the political need to appear patriotic. Subsequently, this letter is an expression of my concern.

Dale Flowers

Astoria h2>Where is the vision?The Clatsop Community College board is now about to select a new president for the college. I think it is regretful that this selection will be made before the new board takes office. It would seem to me that with the somewhat tarnished record of the current board, it would be advisable to wait until the public has an opportunity to express itself in the coming election of board members.

I am also somewhat disturbed by the selection criteria which apparently will be utilized in selecting the new college president. As I understand it, the current board feels that two key areas of expertise that it will be looking for are how to build a new campus and how to pass a bond issue to support the construction of a new campus. This is somewhat understandable, as the board has pushed the idea of funding a new campus by the issuance of bonds.

However, this has not been popular with the voters of Clatsop County. It does not appear logical to me that an organization, failing to meet its objective, would continue with the same goal and the same strategy that failed in the past.

What the board and the selection committee should be looking for in a new president are strong leadership and communications skills. They should also be looking for a person who has a positive record of innovation. He or she should have been a leader in the development of new instructional programs and techniques and should be very familiar with non-traditional approaches to education (distance learning, instruction over the Internet, and cooperative programs with other educational institutions).

Clatsop Community College has been a great educational institution, but I feel that it has lost its vision. A new president should be able to work with the college staff and the community in creating a new vision. Then, once the vision is in place, we can determine what kind of physical campus we should have and where it should be located. With such a vision in which the entire community has participated in establishing, the community will be willing to come up with the funds to implement the vision. Failing to create such a vision will once again result in more money wasted on studies and bond issues.

I hope that the selection committee and the board will select a visionary with a track record of success. If they don’t, they will have done a disservice to the college staff, our youth and our community.

DON McDANIEL

AstoriaSupporters thankedFire Mountain School would like to extend a heartfelt “Thank You” to all of the people and organizations that helped support our 2003 Spring Raffle. It is through the generosity of community members like you that we are able to continue to provide our children with an exceptional education and we at FMS are truly grateful for your support.

A special thank you goes out to everyone who purchased raffle tickets. We know that during these difficult economic times it is a blessing to have caring people invest their hard-earned dollars to help a unique educational institution like Fire Mountain. Congratulations to the winner of our grand prize, Nancy Burton of Cannon Beach, and to second-prize winner Bob Eliason of Estacada.

We would also like to thank everyone who donated time, goods and services that helped make this year’s raffle a success. It is a great tribute to our community to have such diverse group of contributors, ranging from corporations to small businesses and individuals, who come together for a wonderful cause.

Thank you from the Fire Mountain staff, board of directors, parents, and especially, the children.

For more information about Fire Mountain School, located in beautiful Falcon Cove just 10 minutes north of Manzanita, visit www.firemountainschool.org on the Web or call (503) 436-2610. We are currently accepting applications for the 2003-04 school year in the 3- to 4-year-old class, the 5- to 6-year-old class and the 7- to 9-year-old class.

AMBER SMITH

Fire Mountain School

Falcon CoveSailing sweetlyAs a merchant captain, recently ashore, I have not had to look far for reassurances of the greatness and selflessness of neighbors, friends and countrymen.

A friend in the Portland area is the commodore of the Cascade Pacific Council Sea Scout program. He mentioned a need in the Astoria area and asked for my help. I studied the situation and formulated a plan, only to have “locals” severely affect the outcome. What I thought would take months, will now take mere weeks.

Thank you, Port of Astoria, North Coast Truck, Les Schwab, Napa Auto Parts, U.S. Coast Guard and all of your employees for going the extra mile. In a country where we have the freedom to choose our actions, you have chosen to support a youth program. This same program has been part of the lives of many who are now business owners, servicemen and women, neighbors, a governor of Oregon, and yes, even merchant mariners.

God bless you and God bless America.

Capt. GREG REKART

Long Beach, Wash.