The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

In a book titled Yamsi, about cattle ranching in Oregon, the author/rancher laments about suckering in after the first snowfall and putting out winter hay too early. Then the snow melts and the cows and calves stand at the fence ignoring good green grass, bawling for their hay delivery. That’s a pretty good analogy for the condition we’ve gotten ourselves into vis a vis government and local problems.

After that last horrendous school shooting in Florida there was a lot of constructive talk about protecting our kids and our schools but that quickly degenerated into a progressive-led rant about gun control, a war on the NRA, and a cringe inducing performance in which the usual suspects recruited some of the kids to appear on national media to indulge in politically motivated demagoguery (in our local area, the latter was handled with restraint, to the credit of both kids and school administrators). Point of the matter is, even if the gun-control wackos got every single law they propose passed, it would make no difference. Kids that sick and angry will always find a way to arm themselves; if they can’t find guns, they’ll learn to make bombs. In my youth, gang kids used zip guns, made of pipe and rubber bands.

There are a lot of things we can and should do locally about this particular problem, including limiting access to the school grounds and buildings, organize ways to monitor those entering the premises, enhance any armed security that is already available (such as the sheriff’s department) and formally establish lines of communication about potential problems. We could do all this without waiting for Washington D.C. to pass a law or some important official from Olympia to tell us how.

Went to a meeting in Cathlamet last month where they were ostensibly seeking ideas about economic development that turned out to be a lecture on tourism followed by a short discussion concluding that we’d need some elected official to take the lead. In some areas like beach erosion, inland flooding, and timber revenue, the powers that be have delighted in thwarting our efforts with a regulatory and permitting shell game. In other areas we complain and demonstrate and wait for stuff that never happens.

Just like calves bawling at the fence.

Howard Brawn

Cathlamet