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Newspaper Archive of
The Goldendale Sentinel
Goldendale , Washington
June 17, 2004     The Goldendale Sentinel
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June 17, 2004
 
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USE SUBJECT TO LICENSE AGREEMENT. REPRODUCTION, DISSEMINATION, STORAGE, DISTRIBUTION PROHIBITED. PAGE 4 JUNE ANDREW J. MCNAB -TARTAN PUBLICATIONS, INC., PUBLISHER KAREN HENSLEE, GENERAL MANAGER SAM LOWRY, EDITORIAL STAFF GREG SKINNNER, EDITORIAL STAFF Commitment to unbiased and fair coverage will continue Leadership changes in civic institutions can be jarring, but they nearly always offer positive opportunities -- if people see them that way and act accordingly. Goldendale already has new hospital management and a new school super- intendent. Last week The Sentinel followed suit, changing its leadership. As with the hospital and the schools, our new general manager is a woman. Differing from the other institutions, however, The Sentinel's owner, Andy McNab, has placed the paper in the hands of a long-time local, Karen Henslee. We are thrilled with the choice, positive that Karen's knowledge as a 27- year Goldendale resident and her skills as an eight-year Sentinel employ- ee will keep the paper vital and always improving. You will notice a change on this page as well. Since last summer, Dan Richardson's editorials have offered direct and challenging commentary on issues that needed just that approach. With Dan's departure, Sam Lowry and Greg Skinner will share respon- sibility for the editorial content in these pages and, for the visible future, editorials too. Each of us sees the world through a different lens; both of us promise to be mindful of subject and tone, and the responsibility that goes with speaking for a 125-year-old community institution. Here are some of the main things we believe the editorial writer needs to aim for: • Historical perspective and useful commentary that reflects a higher interest in the community than as a source of news fodder. • A wide scope: We two expect to look at the 1,800 square miles of the county, Appleton to Alderdale. • Opinions: You will not find them in our stories; you will find them here. Our new second job as editorial writers will involve weighing in on issues we also report. It can be a tricky business. We are not the first to do it. We prom- ise honesty, thoughtfulness, and attention to the community's interest. -- SL and GS ,er isn't It's easy to forget how much air travel has changed over the years. I remem- ber the days when a person could walk into an airport, hand over his suitcase, and get on the plane. Now, we arrive hours before takeoff, park the car miles away, and spend half the morning answering Th6 questions about how our bags were packed. Then BAG][ we jump on a conveyor and ride through the air- port -- just like a bale of hay entering the barn. F6~ Someday I'm going to tell the baggage clerk, "No, :I didn't pack my bag: My wife packed it. And nei- " th~f)~ou, tibr I are~shppose~l to kn0w what's in it." All of this hassle comes inthe name of progress and security. I can't speak for everyone, but I felt better in the old days -- when I could see where my baggage went. The concept of airline '~nubs" with huge planes and enormous airports has gone too far in my opinion. We' re getting to the point where it costs more to park the car than it does to buy the plane ticket. Why can't the airlines help upgrade the smaller airports where a person could find his way around, instead of building a monstrosity no one can even get into? I have fond memories of flying into the little airport at Pendleton, Oregon - many years ago when United Airlines still scheduled flights there. The Pendleton Airport was small then, and I don't suppose it's any bigger now that United has abandoned the premises. I sat in that airport one morning and watched the wind howling down the runway. You can't see the wind in many parts of the country, but you can in Pendleton. The wind there is full of things: Russian thistles, Jim Hill Mustard, pieces of driftwood. This particular morning, windows rattled and lights in the airport lobby began to flicker. I wondered if this was a normal day for that part of the coun- try. A woman staggered in from the parking lot to report someone tried to open the hood on his car. The wind peeled the hood back like someone opening a new can of Spam. "Must have been a tourist," the woman surmised. Soon after that a 5v-gallon oil drum went rolling across the runway. I figured the breeze was freshening. Airport personnel suggested it was probably an empty oil drum I saw. "Ihe planes don't fly when the full ones are blowing." I handed my suitcase to a luggage clerk, and he handed it to the guy behind him. I don't know what that fellow did with it. I wasn't worded, though. It's pretty hard to lose your luggage when there's only one airplane. The baggage derk was the same person who took my ticket and ushered me onto the plane. I think he was in charge of security, too, judging from the little badge on his shirt. Those were the days before metal detectors, photo I.D.s, and $1o per day parking. Some folks might like the big modern airports, but I don't. If I had my druthers, I'd still be flying out of Pendieton. THE GOLDENDALE SENTINEL OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER FOR GOLDENDALE AND KLICKITAT COUNTY, WA ESTABLISHED 1879 • PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY FROM OFFICES AT 117 W. MAIN • GOLDENDALE, WA 98620 TELEPHONE (509) 773-3777 • FAX (509) 773-4737 EMAIL: (NEWS) SENTINEL@GORGE.NET OR (EDITORIAL, ADS, COMMUNITIES, HOMETOWN) GSENTINEL@GORGE.NET THE GOLDENDALE SENTINEL STAFF BETH SCHRoDER, PAGE LAYOUT/DESIGN AMY WALKER, GRAPHIC DESIGN HELMUT ADLER, ADVERTISING SALES & CIRCULATION Deadlines: Display Advertising: 5 p.m. FridayI Classified Advertising: Noon Monday Legal Notices: 10 am. Tuesday News and Letters: Noon Friday Subscriptions: 1 Year, 2 Years Goldendale - Carrier $22, $37 In Klickitat County - $29, $52 Outside Klickitat County - $38, $70 USPS 2213-6000 WEEKLY. Periodical postage paid at Goldendale Post Office, Goldendale, Wash. 98620. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Goldendale Sentinel, 117 W. Main St. Goldendale, WA 98620-9526. 1lie I;oldendale Sentinel ERS FROM THE COMMUN Johnson wrong on gay marriage To the Editor: Steven C. Johnson states cor- rectly that ideologies have conse- quences, but that is about the only accurate thing he says. A conse- quence of Mr. Johnson's ideology is the embedding of a clutch of prejudices in a welter of half- truths and non-truths. For example, he cites the experi- ence of his Kenyan friend with the huge, ever-increasing death toll from AIDS. But in Africa, AIDS is almost exclusively a disease of the heterosexual population. Given that this is his faulty premise, he deduces that allowing gays to enter the state of matrimony -- a state that encourages sexual fidelity -- will "exacerbate" the death toll from a disease, which is most efficiently spread by sexual promiscuity. About those "millions of AIDS deaths" we may anticipate in this country: by the end of 2002 (the latest date for which I found statis- tics) the death toll for the entire U.S. epidemic was slightly over 500,000, and the current rate of infection is far lower than it was at the outset. Granted, a half-million deaths is bad and sad enough, but far short of Mr. Johnson's apoca- lyptic vision and nowhere near to sinking our national budget. Mr. Johnson attributes the ills of our current moral state, of which he appears to see homosexual mar- riage as the most recent expression, to that old whipping boy, the sexual revolution. Social change across an entire culture requires multiple causation, and I doubt that one could find agreement even amongst scholars as to what those causes are, or even what the enduring changes might be. Nor is there anything "inex- orable" about the extension of mar- riage rights past homosexuals to other kinds of relationships. The society still retains its right to define marriage, and one enlarge- ment of that definition does not require o~hers. In particular, there are laws against any form of sexual exploitation of children, and this society would be stubbornly resist- ant to altering those protections. Mr. Johnson expresses fears for the welfare of children in a society that allows gay marriage. He is con- eerned that "underparented" youngsters will have multiple mothers, fathers and grandparents, and that they will wind up in foster care or living on the streets. I sub- mit that children already suffer those ills because the one group that legally can marry cannot seem to stay married. With a divorce rate nearing 60 percent (I believe that the actual figure is 57-58 percemt) the marriage certificate has already been degraded to a status little above the driver's license or the hunting permit Mr. Johnson men- tions. It is not the homosexual union [;>AY IN, DAY OUT-- !~ TIN' KIDS' FAVORITE TARGET... FATHER'S --WHEN I'M, that threatens the future of marriage could be. And why do and the integrity of the social fabric; fear-based ar it is the heterosexual union and its together gays with practitioners that are tearing apart incest? It's been the the American family. Gays would be ried people who hard-pressed to foul up matrimony divorce rate out of worse than their straight counter- help from gays. And parts have already done. "sexual revolution," So Mr. Johnson need not look for having plenty of gay monsters under the bed when Too mare he can just look around at his ually molested by a friends and neighbors or, perhaps, before the sexual look in the mirror. In the immortal began. works of Pogo, "We have met the It is the ignorant enemy and he is us." beliefs of people like Freida S. Batten Christian Evan Goldendalekeep gay and lesbiala (and there are Johnson doesn't attitudes like yours that ( gay youth to commit have facts straightthe church has blood o~ Mr. Johnson, it's people like you and will have to answer that give Christianity such a bad day for its treatment name. In the first place, you don't als. Attitudes have your facts straight. The Right encourage gay defense budget is far more spendy murder, discrimination l than all social programs combined, because they paint a as less than human bashers feel they Christianity a service. A recent report puts the defense budget at 50 percent of the 2005 fiscal budget. Social programs are a mere 33 percent. Welfare is funded by the state. You hit on the "hot spots" to rile people up, as the Christian conservative right always does. Are you .implying~that-the~ AIDS epidemic in Africa has some- tOO Kerry, thing to do with homosexuality? promoting di Aids in Africa has been spread largely by the rape of women by Reply to Wayne L. straight men and then passed on to Internal dissent in the children. Or your statement encourages the enemy about social security for gays. Mr. our troops and costs Johnson, do you personally know longing the war, any gay or lesbian couples? I know stay of people like plenty and the average time togeth- Democrats of this er of those I know is between 25 to you Wayne for putti! 50 years. If two people have been many real Americans together for 30+ years, have the words of truth, worked and put into Social Kerry and the Security, why shouldn't they be know the meaning allowed to receive the other's Social name finger Security? How does that take away stabbing, from you or anyone else? sight is the From my viewpoint, it is the which Kerry has many conservative/fundamentalist many, many, times. churches that keep Goldendale from being the peace-loving town it At home on the range with young writers, During a spring storm, a group of ",Guest Column the fourth-graders are considering how will they their lives will change. I've asked Kate Krautkramer correctly? Probably. them to think about anything that scores better than might be different for them tomor- Writers on the Range Colorado's test. Most, row, or even 30 years down the road. be deemed A bunch of hands go up, and the first thinks he's a dog. Another girl writes, But trying to student I call on looks out the window "I dream of snowflakes being worlds ty for compassion or and says, 'The drought will end." we don't know about." A boy writes, like trying The next boy says, "Grandpa will "I think of my hands being as swiR as put a yardstick give me the ranch." the wind." Writing Like a lot of people I work with at Sometimes when the children read he lives, a South Routt Elementary in Yampa, what they've written, I feel jealous. "Above Blue Star Colo., these children live dose to the They are so sure about the earth and the snow on the land. They're growing up with the the elements, so na~rally devoted to hits the pinks weight of aranching ethic; they know observation. I want to be able to it look so beautiful. more than I ever will about cattle, hay speak as intelligently about the mak- sky and see the and weather, ings of a good laying hen as Sarajane retiring from a busy My job is to teach them how to Rossi does. crescent moon write. I try to get them to feel, analyze I can't say that every child in my and communicate. I try to get them to school is salt of the earth. Our little Sometimes, whe~ think lyrically. I believe it's an impor- town is situated just off a state high- read, I stop worrying rant job. Some of the parents in our way between two of the biggest ski just listen. The kids tiny district worry about the limited resorts in Colorado. There is a large a number of programs an elementary ranching community; there are also me imagine what school with just 172 students can pro- students whose parents work for the writers and thinkerS vide. The principal and superintend- railroad or in construction, or who given a few school ent worry about disappearing funds drive every day to work service jobs in funding for and declining enrollment, the neighboring resorts. But the size staff. Next year, the sixth grade, which of the district draws the students used to be part ofthe middle school in together. On average, two-thirds of expressing the next town over, will be moving the children v/ho start kindergarten their mountain into our building. Our district is los- in a class of 25 will graduate from they look getting on 1 mg one of only four admires" trat°rs' high school with the same kids, 13 the end of the day --: as well as two teaching positions. We years later, gers and platform all worry about the budget and what When the lo-year-olds read their Carhartts and is best for our kids. work, troubles, faults and fears vault ing one another So I teach poetry, lessons on onto the page. Children listeningnod; talking about what "writerly" voice, figurative language, they identify with a dog dying, having rains. sentence fluency. One girl reads a parent leave home, having no Kate about her ranch, where there is "a breakfast in the house, having a hay utor to Writers sweet smell of fresh stacked hay" and crop fail because of no rain. service of Hit "where hills and fields are covered in Will these same students do well (hcn.org). She hungry cows." She tells how the piglet on a high-stakes standardized test? In Yampa, in western