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The Enumclaw Courier-Herald • Page 6
Darwin said I top the kid’s devil dog For most folks, May brings happy flowers and joyful thoughts of warm days to come. Not me. My joyful May Day means my personal tyrant will return to rule over my roost. My daughter Katy, is going on a vacation, which means I get the joy of taking care of Yodie the Yorkie despot. Yodie has never grasped the concept that she is the dog and I am higher on the evolutionary scale from dopey to smarty pants. When I read Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” I distinctly remember a chapter that said I get to be the boss Dennis Box of Yodie because I Editor am supposed to be smarter. Every time Yodie comes to terrorize me for a week or two, the first thing I do is show her Darwin’s book, multiple times. She apparently doesn’t read very well. Normally after I show her the book, I have to pick her up and place her on the bed, get her a treat and tell her she is the princess of the house and boss of me. Beginning next week the morning routine starts with Yodie jumping up and down my chest giving me the, “Wake up. I am the cutest thing in the universe. Worship me” look. If I don’t get up immediately she stands on my chest and gives me the Yorkie death stare. Taking Yodie for a walk is real treat. We will get about halfway around the block and she flops onto the sidewalk, rolls onto her back and plays dead with her limp paws. I have to pick her up and carry her home, which is a trial for me since that is almost like exercise. When she was a puppy I had her all trained to shake hands and do normal dog stuff. Since she has been living with Katy, the dopey little she-devil thinks she is in charge of my life when Katy isn’t available to boss me around. I was talking to a woman in Safeway the other day and she pointed out daughters get to do these things. They are in charge. It’s nice how no one ever tells me anything. I am not rolling over for this terrier. I have a plan of action. This time before Yodie invades my life, I am going search the web for an illustrated copy of Darwin’s book. Big pictures I can show her, with a graph showing me at the top and Yodie way, way down on the bottom, almost off the page. That’ll show Katy and her little dog, too. I get to win, Darwin said.
Our Corner
Volume 114 • Wednesday, April 30, 2014 • No. 33
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Question of the Week Are there areas on the Plateau where you worry about an Oso-type mudslide?
To vote in this week’s poll, see www.courierherald.com
LAST WEEK: The Seattle Mariners have played well, played poorly. Will they win as many as they lose?
Yes: 12.5% No: 87.5%
Wednesday, April 30, 2014 • www.courierherald.com
Trying to figure Putin’s plans The world watched with horror as Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Now the world is wondering if Vladimir Putin will follow the same pattern in eastern Ukraine. Time will tell because Putin must weigh Russia’s security needs of having buffer states between it and Europe, and Russia’s economic need to sell its oil and natural gas to keep its economy afloat. To understand the crisis in Ukraine, geography and history must be taken into account. Geography has played a major part in Russia’s entire history. Most of western Russia is flat with no natural barriers to stop an invader from the west. Russia has been invaded several times in its history from that direction: Vikings, Swedes, Poles, the French under Napoleon, and Germans in World Wars I and II. The Mongols in 1240, led by Batu Khan, grandson of Kublai Khan, captured Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, from the east. The Steppes (a flat, often treeless plain) of Russia provided no barriers to those ravaging hordes on horseback. Put yourself in Russia’s historical mindset for a moment. You live in a house that has been burglar-
In Focus Rich Elfers Columnist
ized seven or more times. What are you going to do? If you are like most people, you would find yourself becoming very suspicious and on edge, building high fences, getting ferocious dogs, perhaps even hiring guards to patrol your property. If you examine its history, that is what has happened to Russia due to numerous invasions. Russians are very security conscious. Bring that thinking up to the late 20th century. Joseph Stalin took over and occupied eastern Europe at the end of World War II after the Nazis had invaded the Soviet Union along a 1,000-mile front. The communists kept eastern Europe in subjection from 1945 until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia needs buffer zones to protect itself. It’s part of the Russian mentality. Let’s now look at what happened
in Ukraine. (The word Ukraine means borderlands.) Ukraine has been fought over for centuries, being first controlled by the Russians and then the Poles and Germans. The western part of Ukraine tends to favor European perspectives. The eastern part tends to be made up of Russophiles. They desire to be part of Russia again. In November 2013 Victor Yanukovych rejected a pending EU association agreement that would have tied Ukraine more tightly to Europe. He chose instead to link Ukraine to Russia. These decisions caused street protests in Kiev by those who were angry at his move. As we have seen in recent news, those demonstrations resulted in a near civil war that caused the injuries and deaths of many Ukrainians. In February 2014 Yanukovych fled the capital, eventually ending up in Russia. With the departure of Yanukovych, Putin’s plan to keep Ukraine nonaligned failed. The occupation and annexation of Crimea came as a result of that failure. Russia needs Ukraine as a physical buffer to future invasions from Europe.
See ELFERS, Page 8
There’s still plenty to listen to Last week I claimed that the “digital revolution” is destroying popular music as we’ve known it in the past. This week I want to conclude this theme. Today, there are literally thousands upon thousands of good rock bands – they’re a dime a dozen – all vying for radio air time, which makes it difficult for DJs to select any one in particular. Then too, the bands are scattered around on 30 or 40 different top-pop charts: Rolling Stone has listings for Heavy Metal, Classic Rock, Alternative Rock, Electronic Dance, Contemporary, Hip-hop, Rhythm and Blues, Punk Rock and Gothic Rock and that’s only a partial list. The lucky bands managed to snag the elusive No. 1 slot on this chart or another, where their popularity spikes within a couple of days and then they fade away into relative obscurity, except for their most ardent fans. (Perhaps in 15 years they’ll resurface for a reunion tour.) Reliable sources have reported that one electronic dance music DJ – see last week’s column – wrote a song on his laptop in a couple of hours, while flying from Nebraska to Las Vegas. Upon landing, he went directly to a recording studio and, in
Wally’s World Wally DuChateau Columnist
a matter of minutes, ran it through a synthesizer or two and a bank of digital filters and effects, creating a sound that was rather shallow and “tinny” – there wasn’t an actual musical instrument, not even a guitar, anywhere in the product – but it was good enough to release on the public at his EDM scene that evening. Undoubtedly, it shot to the top of the EDM charts, where it held the position for two days. The early punk rockers like the Sex Pistols and Patti Smith were right: “Ain’t no more rock superstars.” How long has it been since Madonna has had a song in the top 20 on whatever chart? Or Alice In Chains? And does anyone over the age of 14 really give a damn what Justin Bieber sings or does? By contrast, past artists like Bing Crosby had a song in the Hit Parade’s Top 20 every month for 20
consecutive years. The Beatles had a similar stretch, but it lasted just 10 years. Perhaps most impressive, Sinatra had an album in the Top 40 every single month for 50 years. I don’t mean to imply that the current lack of enduring popular superstars is necessarily an unwelcomed change. In some ways, it’s very progressive and democratic. Instead of one star like Sinatra hogging all the fame and money for 50 years, that esteem and wealth is now scattered among thousands of bands and singers. But this lack of durable stars, the apathy toward performers in EDM clubs, the fading popularity of CDs, combined with the scattering of rock on so many pop music charts, and the fact that downloaded tracks can be deleted after a few days, all indicate that popular music and artists have become throwaway commodities, far less significant and influential than they were yesterday. In short, popular music has been splintered and trivialized. I suppose that’s OK. I mean, there’s still a lot of good music out there. It’s just harder to find. And most people, myself included, won’t take the time to look for it because, you see, it just isn’t that important.