March 2, 1978 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
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jour00¢ oPINio00.,
Another snow job
Ask not what your government is doing to you or you
will be buried under an avalanche of paper and words.
A load of such descended on Mason County officials
when they understandably asked the Navy for assurance
that all possible safety precautions would be taken on raft
shipments through the county of hazardous cargo bound
for the Trident base at Bangor.
The Navy has announced it plans to ship nuclear
components to Bangor via the Toonerville Trolley tracks
that transverse Mason County.
Its response to the inquiry was a soothing public
relations pat on the head and a thick, single-spaced
document purporting to show that all possible precautions
are being taken to assure safe passage of the dangerous
goods.
A thorough reading of the document, however, reveals
that all safety measures are considered, then most of them
rejected. The words go in a circle and return to the starting
point with no results except a workout for the mimeograph
machine.
It starts with a resume of reports on the rail line made
by the Washington State Utilities and Transportation
Commission and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Both recommended a major upgrading of the track because
of the unusually hazardous nature of the proposed cargo.
This is understandable in view of the NTSB finding that
some 6,000 accidents involving derailments occurred in the
United States last year.
The recommendations included upgrading the Class 2
track to Class 3, signalizing all major highway crossings,
adding rail anchors to all track, providing guard rails on all
bridges.
All of these recommendations were rejected by the
Navy. The reason?
"While the recommendations of the NTSB and WUTC
would increase the margin of safety of the track, they
would also cost millions of dollars... Such a capital
improvement would not be economically feasible, since less
costly alternatives are available."
The less costly alternatives?
"Speed reductions and increased vigilance turn out to
be much less costly due to the small amounts of runs each
i year."
So there you have it, folks. Your Navy is spending
;billions on the Trident project. It is spending millions of
impact dollars in Kitsap County for parks and other civic
improvements.
But it can't provide the money necessary to upgrade
the ancient railroad on which it will transport its doomsday
..... ..... ' r
Instead, it will rely on regular maintenance, limit the
:train speed to 10 miles per hour, and send along a
trainmaster to keep an eye on things.
Choo-choo. Puff-puff. Off they go.
The innovative mind
If memory serves, it was Socrates who observed: "All
progress starts with a single intellect capable of separating
the wheat from the goats while lesser minds haggle over the
input to an overview."
He was right, of course. And citizens of Washington
State have had the opportunity to watch his theory prove
itself through the actions of Governor Dizy Lee Ray.
Her latest stroke of genius is a stroke of genius.
Applying the analytical mind that is able to leap tall issues
at a single bound, the governor has come up with a brilliant
new concept pertaining to school financing.
Educators, legislators and the man on the street have
:wrestled with this problem for years, to no avail. Now, in
:one blinding flash of distilled wisdom, the governor has
pointed the way to a solution.
In an interview with Darlene Himmelspach of The
iHighline Times, she provided a new starting point for any
idiscussion of school funding. Education, she commented,
"takes 58 percent of the entire budget. Are youngsters in
school 58 percent of the population?"
Voila! With one simple question, she has shown the
way to an equitable, simple distribution of tax money.
Individuals who benefit from government funds will receive
their share on a percentage-of-the population basis. And -
what could be fairer? - all will receive the same amount.
Why had no one before thought of this simple remedy?
Why did it take a biologist-cure-merry-go-round rider to put
government on the road to simplified operation?
State government will not be the only beneficiary of
the new system. City and county officials should
immediately adopt the Ray Redistn'bution Reform (RRR).
The savings in some departments will be considerable, while
heretofore lean budgets in others will be fattened.
For instance, we have computed the figures for the City
of Shelton and they reveal that the parks and recreation
department, which now gets $46,398, would receive
$ I00,000, and the police department, which is currently
budgeted at $377,808, would also get $i00,000. As would
the flood control department, which now receives a miserly
$4,200.
At first glance that might seem to pose a law
enforcement problem in the city. But the extra money for
the parks and recreation department will take care of that.
Another original thinker provided the answer with an
insight as penetrating as Dizy's.
"There is no such thing," said J. Edgar Hoover, "as a
bad boy with a tennis racquet."
/
6Reade00'J°urttal:
Feds want more control
@
O
The farmer and the welfare state
problem as ey ruminated over
their brew, till finally
Dumptruck gave a holler.
"Crossbreeding chickens," he
shouted triumphantly. "That's
your answer."
I was impressed. "Chickens
and what?" I asked, naively.
"Hogs," howled Dumptruck. "So
you can have ham and eggs."
"Or Dogs," contributed
Captain Fungus, "for pooched
eggs."
"Put your chicken coop in
your garden," chimed in the
Cyclops, "and then you'll have
all the eggplant you need."
Filthy Louis suggested
feeding the roosters chewing gum
in order to produc chicklets,
aO_,Maurice the Bowler came pp
...... wtt, 'the idea of combinitag
chickens and cows to prode
eggnog.
"Okay, fellas, okay," I
pleaded. "Enough's enough. No
more guffaws, please. I'm really
serious about this. What am I
going to do to make this farm
work?"
The boys fell silent again. In
fact, they almost became sober.
Then Filthy Louis extracted his
head from out of his mug.
"What kind of land do you
have?" he asked me,
semi-solemnly.
"Well, to tell you the truth,
it's pretty soggy," I answered.
"Too wet to grow corn, I
suppose," inquired Maurice the
Bowler. "Yes, I'm afraid so,"
was my reply.
More silence. Then the
Cyclops' eye lit up. 'Tee got it,"
he exclaimed jubilantly. "Farm
subsidy!! That's the solution!"
"How so?" I asked,
cautiously, suspecting another
avalanche of laughter at my
expense. "Easy," replied the Cy.
"The U.S. has a surplus of corn,
right? Right. So the government
pays farmers so much an acre
not to grow com. Even an
inexperienced farmer like you
could do a good job of not
By DENNIS KELLEY
Just about a month ago my
wife and I bought the farm.
Now that's a curious
expression, isn't it - "bought
the farm." Jon Voight uses it in
the movie "Deliverance," only he
isn't referring to a farm at all.
He's talking about death. As in
Guy Lombardo recently bought
the farm. Or Mao-Tse Tung. I
suppose you might say old MaD
purchased the commune.
But back to our farm. We
bought it literally - not
metaphysically or otherwise. We
paid cold, hard cash for it. (For
part of it, anyway.) It was an
excruciating decision. My largest
purchase previo¼sly, had:' ben a
Husqvarna chaL6 v, ,, that
choice was based largely on the
attractive Swedish girls in the
Husqvarna catalog.
It was quite a thrill to join
the landed gentry, but after our
initial elation subsided, we found
ourselves quagmired in a
quandry. What, we asked each
other, are we going to do with a
seven-acre farm? Both of us
knew that there's more to
farming than just sowing your
wild oats and making hay while
the sun shines, but somehow we
came up a little short on
particulars.
Confused, dismayed and
perplexed, I wandered down to
the local tavern to consult with
the boys. They mulled over my
The missing
grammarian
By DAVE AVERILL
She was an arbitrary lady with a stern expression, and
" every day she found painful errors all around her.
Even a stray apostrophe could cause her discomfort.
"The word 'it' does not take an apostrophe in the
possessive," she would say sternly. "And do not use an
apostrophe to make a plural."
She never had far to look for bad examples.
"I don't mind people putting signs out in front of their
homes," she would say. "If they want to advertise, that is
their privilege. But why do they insert those hideous
apostrophes? The Smith's. The Brown's. Terrible!"
It would be nice to report that her students loved the
lady, but such was not the case.
They thought she was too fussy. Other teachers failed
to grow indignant over apostrophes, or over the proper way
to use words like hopefully and presently and disinterested.
In a relaxed world, nobody was causing trouble but this
compulsive grammarian. Why all the excitement?
All the same, it was difficult to spend an hour a day in
her classroom without becoming faintly uncomfortable
about misused words and misplaced punctuation. Like the
medical student who keeps finding symptoms in himself,
the lady's students became a bit more self-conscious.
She was fussy about spelling, too. Fussy? Actually, she
was downright intolerant. Her students learned that it was
easier to refer to a dictionary than to listen to another
lecture.
She pestered a generation and a half of kids into paying
attention to what they read and what they wrote. And
then she retired, to a minimum of applause. She was
replaced by teachers who were less arbitrary and more
popular.
And it wasn't until some years later that anybody
realized how important she had been, or how badly she was
missed.
Page 4 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, March 2, 1978
growing corn?'
"Why stop there?" added
Captain Fungus, contagiously.
"As long as you're using your
Editor, The Journal:
In behalf of the people of
Shelton School District 309 1
attended the American
Association of School
Administrators (AASA)
convention in Atlanta, Georgia
February 16-20. I would like to
relate to you the following
general overview I made on the
flight home.
In these days of public
unrest with the federal
government dominance over local
control, I had hoped to hear
these concerns addressed;
unfortunately, contrary to the
popular consensus, I heard
echoing from the podium
through the massive arena of the
Atlanta World Congress Center,
more federal government
controls.
The overall theme at the
general session addresses, where
one was likely to find
15,000-25,000 public school
administrators from all parts of
the nation and Canada, was:
1. The formation of a new
Federal Department of
Education - the grand school
board ...
2. Federal government
analysis of existing training
programs.
3. Federal government
training and retraining programs
for teachers and administrators.
4. Federal government aid in
eliminating sex role stereotyping.
5. Federally funded
management programs for
women to learn to become
administrators and executives.
6. Federally funded child
advocacy and child care
developmental centers.
Each of the above are vital
goals for the federal government
which they will valiantly attempt
to achieve. In my opinion,
however, the local and state
government should solve their
own and immediate problems,
taxes should be cut federally in
order for local government to
provide the local programs
without federal strings attached.
land not to grow corn, you may Has it not proven out, the more
as well al9 use it not to grow the federal government acts as
tobacco, he goverl)ment will. 'the and board of directors the
subsidize you for that, too. less power and money we have
"The possibilities are
boundless," roared the
Dumptruck. "As long as you
rotate the crops you're not
growing wisely, there's no limit
to the number of crops you
can't harvest. For example, you
wouldn't want to not grow kiwis
and papayas back to back, but if
you sandwiched a year of not
growing mangoes in between,
then your soil has a chance to
become revitalized."
I was beginning to warm up
to the idea. I ordered another
round of pitchers, and we settled
down to the serious task of
ironing out all the details in the
farm subsidy business. By the
time the tavern dosed, my
farming operation was well
underway.
Of course, not raising a large
number of crops on seven acres
is more work than one man and
his wife could possibly hope to
accomplish, so me and the boys
decided to incorporate. There's
certainly a lot of hard paperwork
involved in subsidy farming, but
it's already proven to be quite
lucrative.
Why, just today we got a call
from one of the big
oil.producing Arab countries.
They wanted to know how much
money we'd consider before
we'd agree not to find oil under
our seven acres. We're going to
let them sweat a bit before we
give them our answer.
But it just goes to show you,
doesn't it, how far a person can
go with a little bit of land, a lot
of ambition, and some good old
American ingenuity.
here at home? Plus they do not
understand endemic problems.
Was massive centralized
government the goal of the
founding fathers? I do tend to
approve of the idea of having
federal money appropriated to
help students obtain more
education through the student
loan programs.
I was impressed with t.he
clinic on sex role stereotyping;
general agreement was achieved
with regard to women and
responsible equality.
I do not, however, condone
discrimination against men in
Order to obtain such status. I
personally have never been
discriminated against because of
sex; anything I have set my mind
to achieving I have obtained. The
only place I think women need
considerable polish is witl
talking out differences between
themselves as far as opinion on
issues is concerned. The problem
is philosophical discrimination
among the feminine gender.
I was impressed by hearing
Sam Zagoria, director, Labor
Management Relations Service,
Washington, D.C. He favors open
negotiation during collective
bargaining between
administration and public
employe union leaders. He also
discouraged binding arbitration.
Shelton people e be proud
that we do hold open
negotiation with the Shelton
Education Association.
In confusion, I did have an
opportunity to visit the Atlanta
State Capitol campus. It was
most interesting to follow the
of s
historical bronze plaques "The shores of
describing the fall of the littered with
confederate states under the civilizations where
power of the federal government, entrusted their
The general feeling of the South liberties to a whollyC
was aptly described upon one of government."
the plaques. The anonymous
statement engraved read:
ulIllY
Mack McGinnis'
No action by city
Editor, The Journal:
The signs that are seen at the
edge of town will have to be
changed from Christmastown
USA to "Honey Bucket Heaven"
unless the council does
something about the dead horse
they bought for our t'me city.
Yes, I say, they bought,
because they had absolutely no
help from us. Maybe if they
would have had help from us,
and a vote of the public, they
wouldn't be the proud owners of
a ridiculous eyesore.
That's right, they are the
proud owners because we sure
aren't going to claim any part of
it, even if we do have to use
$200,000 of our money to pay
for it.
While writing our letters to
the editor every week, we have
been very careful about what
we"re said. Not any more. We
have waited long enough for our
council to do something for our
community.
So now we are going to
squeeze a little, and we won't
mince any words while doing it.
We've given the council
enough time to do something
about the garbage system, and
knowing how the community
feels, have done absolutely
nothing, and we can give you
several examples of the
efficiencies of your very own
city commissioners.
During the meeting of
February 7, the Mayor suggested
a citizens' committee be formed
to take a look at the city's new
system and make suggestions if it
found the system improper. Well,
folks, that was 3½ weeks ago
and we have seen no committee
appointed. , .... - - ':!
During the same meeting we
heard a report on our municipal
code. At that time, our city
attorney, Herb Fuller, stated that
the following week he would
have a report on the proposal.
He made no comment at the
following meeting. On several
occasions he has stated he would
have to do research and then
give the council an answer, and
there was never any further
discussion. Maybe they think our
code isn't important enough to
be updated any more than every
13 years or so.
During the same meeting we
asked Dennis Colvin when our
new truck would arrive, and he
said by the 15th of February.
Anybody see a new truck? You
don't hear any explanation,
either, and you won't unless you
ask first. When you do ask, if
you get the right answer, it will
be a first.
Also, we have heard a million
times that we, the public, are
confusing the new rate hike with
the new garbage system. In the
December l issue of the Shelton
Journal it says, quote, "The rates
are based on the larger container
sizes." If you stop and think
about it, if you're already
running in the red, and then you
borrow $200,000 on top of that,
you're going to have to do
something to pay for it.
It seems to us that they have
a problem of not answering a
question the same way twice.
Now it seems since December
the story changed altogether, and
why nct, since they already have
the public snowed with all their,
"speculative" figures.
On January 31 we presented
the commission with the petition
pertaining to the garbage system.
It was voted to rule the petition
invalid on
of a 30-day time
same meeting
Fuller would fde
court for a final
today, February
been done. A lot
money wasted. Ate
The
petitton with only
and they
immediately.
interesting
You must
council could
garbage system
they want.
them doing it.
They could
petition to get
very easily,
appear to be
to get it held up
long period of
how the 920
knowing there
damn thing
two-bit system
for us that we
Fuller said the
be brushed aside.
I wonder what
it; it must
under the rug
time we are
definition of
heard in
our city.
As usual, st
we see the
money they
Tuesday,
Raft truck waS
Capitol Hill
pick up their
Really saving,
are two men
times because
assistance.
Just follow
you can see it
taking much
old system ever
man isn't
pay him
on the truck on
We would
Journal for
every week
Olympian
of speech! One
read and
Which
"garbage snafu
heard truer
We are
every day,
interesting
the system
entertaining,
cans in trees
cans and
Of course,
isn't broken
If you hsv¢,
on our
Heaven"
commissionerS,
to answer
several
Keep up
They get more
time.
Hats off to
fantastic letter
hear from tl
citizens who
by
Remember
drill holes in
cans for the
and the flies
Write a
opinion.
something we
much! t
Dave
Mu
There is a sign in the parking lot of a South Dayton church that says, Mailing Address: Box 430, Shelton, Wa. 98584
"No parking - violators will be Imptized."
• (Bob Batz in Dayton Daily News) Published at 227 West Cota Street, SheltOn,
Washington 98584, weeklY
The primitive African who beats drums to ward off evil spirits is Second-class postage paid at Shelton,
scoffed at by the American motorist who leans on his horn to break
up traffic jams.
, (Mark Beltaire in Detroit Free Press)
Teenager Cecil Blakely's riddle: Q. What do you get if you cross a
mole with an elephant? A. Great hig holesin your yard.
(Red O'Donnell in Nashville Banner)
Member of National Editorial
Member of Washington
SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $7.00 per
$9.00 per year in State of Washington
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER :. : .. .... • .. :.