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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
March 2, 1978     Shelton Mason County Journal
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March 2, 1978
 
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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 :. : .. .... • .. :.