Forum A13
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THE DAILY HERALD
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WWW.HERALDNET.COM/OPINION
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SATURDAY, 08.09.2014
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ■■EHS CLASS OF 1952
Thanks to those who organized reunion Many thanks to those classmates who expended their time and energy to put together our recent Everett High School class of 1952 reunion. It seems impossible it’s been 62 years since all those fresh-faced youngsters burst through the front doors of our school auditorium (Now Everett’s Civic Auditorium), diplomas in hand, ready and excited to face whatever the future was to hold. Some would continue their education, others would enter the workplace, while some would opt to serve our country in the military. More than a few high school sweethearts would marry within the next few years. It was a fun afternoon getting reacquainted, and I think everyone had a good time. We missed those who are no longer with us. To all my fellow grads (kids) of the class of 1952, “Happy 80th or 81st birthday this year. Although we all have aged “a bit,” the facade of dear EHS remains as
THE DRAWING BOARD
lovely as it was in 1952. Until we meet again, may God bless, and remember, “Keep those old bodies movin’ and groovin’. Gloria Martell McClinchy Everett
■■SUPPORTING BUSINESS
Local vacuum shop offers excellent service On Broadway in Everett there is a small shop (Everett Vacuum Sales and Service) that has been there for at least 25 years. I know because they serviced my mom’s old Hoover when I first relocated here. It is a clean place and the guy there knows all there is to know about vacuums and then some. He has all kinds of parts as well as new vacuums. I am glad to know, that, with the big box stores all around me, that I can support a local business that has competitive prices and excellent service. And more important, someone who knows about the product they service and sell. Made my day.
Reader to Reader Today’s letters section is reserved for thank-you letters and other expressions of appreciation. The Reader to Reader feature runs on Saturdays, as the volume of letters dictates. Send letters, along with your name, address and daytime phone number (we’ll only publish your name and hometown) to: E-mail: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The The Daily Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Fax: 425-339-3458 Have a question about letters? Call Carol MacPherson at 425-3393472 or send an e-mail to letters@ heraldnet.com.
Elaine Knapp Mukilteo
OTHER VIEWS | Embargo hurts importers
Putin puts Russians on a Soviet diet By Leonid Bershidsky Bloomberg News
G
oodbye, Roquefort cheese, feta, prosciutto and jamon. So long, German raspberry jam, U.S.-made Planters nut mixes, Norwegian salmon and Faroese shrimp. In his efforts to hit back at the West, President Vladimir Putin is depriving Russians of the delicacies to which they have grown accustomed since the Soviet Union collapsed. On Putin’s orders, the Russian government Thursday banned the import of certain kinds of European, U.S., Canadian and Australian food for a year in response to those countries’ Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. Unlike Western governments, Putin is not concerned about minimizing the effect of sanctions on his own country’s businesses. The measures will hurt Russian retailers and importers as much as Western exporters. To ordinary Russians, the measures show how serious Putin is about returning to Soviet times, when all grocery stores were called simply “Food” and sold almost exclusively local produce — when they had anything to sell. The embargo appears focused on products that Russia can source
internally or from friendlier countries. It includes all kinds of dairy, fruit and vegetables, meat and seafood. Parmesan cheese is banned, but Italian olive oil isn’t. German sausage is out, but German beer can still be imported. French foie gras is out, but Sauternes is in. Irish cheddar will be gone from the few Russian stores that sell it, but Irish whiskey will still be served in Moscow bars. Russia imports more than $30 billion worth of food a year from countries outside the former Soviet Union. In all, Europe’s biggest economies plus Poland, Norway, the U.S., Canada and Australia stand to lose some $6 billion in the next year from the Russian food sanctions. That is far from deadly for them. The Russian Micex stock index has lost a third of that amount in capitalization since the food sanctions were announced, because they are expected to hurt retailers such as the discounter Magnit, which has called itself the biggest food importer to Russia. More upscale retailers will need to reconsider their entire sales matrices, shifting to Asian and Latin American imports. That cannot but have an effect on their bottom lines. Putin appears to care little about the effect of the sanctions. His focus
is, as ever, domestic. He is showing his voters in the most tangible way possible that Russia doesn’t need the West to survive. The Kremlin’s propaganda is already playing up this message. “I can survive perfectly well in a world without polish apples, Dutch tomatoes, Latvian sprats, American cola, Australian beef and English tea,” Yegor Kholmogorov wrote on Izvestia.ru before it became clear that tea or cola would not be sanctioned. “Especially if this results in a substituting expansion of Russian agribusiness and food industry.” Blanket-bombed by the state TV channels, most Russians will swallow the patriotic line, as they have bought Putin’s takes on Ukrainian events and the annexation of Crimea. To the few propaganda-resistant citizens, the food embargo is another step toward the Soviet era of selfreliance. They’ve been stocking up on the last French cheese they’re going to see for at least a year and chuckling at the latest Putin joke: “The president decided to show he’s a Western leader, too, and imposed sanctions on Russia.” Bloomberg View contributor Leonid Bershidsky is a a Moscowbased writer.
GUEST COMMENTARY | Farming and fish restoration
Smith Island project needs scrutiny By Kristin Cook and Dan Michael
W
e love seafood, especially salmon, and we understand the importance of salmon to our Northwest economy and to Native Americans. But if we are to understand and debate the Smith Island Restoration Project, we need facts, not spin and deception. For six months, citizens have voiced to the Snohomish County Council via public comment. In turn, the county offers inaccurate rebuttal on its website, tinyurl.com/SnoCoSmithIsle, where plain facts are skewed and spun in favor of its project. First, the county calls the project a “restoration” effort, stating that the island was previously “covered with water” and only became land because it was diked and drained by farmers. In actuality, Smith Island has been in existence for thousands of years. The Bureau of Land Management historical map of the Island from 1869, tinyurl.com/ BLMSmithmap, shows that Smith Island is virtually the same shape and size today that it was in 1869, at which time it had only a couple of small levees on the north end of the island. The current dike system was not put in until the 1930s. Before that, the island interacted naturally with the surrounding
water, and virtually no changes occurred to the island’s shape and size during that span of time. This project restores nothing. It destroys farmland. Smith Island was drained of rain water to allow for planting, in the same way you would guide water away from your own home or garden, but it was never covered with salt water with the tides. The 1869 map also shows the island’s namesake, Dr. Smith, settled near an “Indian camp” on the north end of the Island, (west of where I-5 runs today). Remarkably, this is the one area of Smith Island with direct exposure to Port Gardner Bay tides. Dr. Smith’s writings indicate periodic seasonal flooding, but this did not discourage him from living there and planting fruit trees there for nearly a decade and a half. We also know that Dr. Smith logged the island for timber. Trees do not grow where their roots are soaked with salt water. Second, the county claims that present day farmers do not want to farm on Smith Island because the soil is poor, and that better farmland is found elsewhere in the county. But the Snohomish County Farm Bureau disputes this. In fact, at least one persistent farmer has been asking the county to sell him land on Smith Island since 2010. Another farmer who recently owned
property on Smith Island tells us that the soil was excellent and no soil amendments were needed. In fact, the soil on Smith Island is not at all poor. It’s very good, and farmers would like to buy it. Third, the county purports that this project will reverse a decline in salmon, which it says is related to estuary conditions. The fact is, only 2 percent to 4 percent of salmon live long enough to return to spawn, even in good years. So why are they not returning? Perhaps it’s caused by ocean conditions, disease or overfishing, as indicated in recent studies. tinyurl.com/CBsalmon and tinyurl.com/FishSec. Finally, where is the evidence of increased salmon populations, resulting from other, completed restoration projects similar to Smith Island? We haven’t found any. Which begs the question: Should we pay taxes (upwards of $25 million) for an experiment? We can have a legitimate public discussion about the value and wisdom of this project, but we implore the county to correct the information on its website. We deserve to debate the merits of the project based on facts, not spin. Kristin Cook is the 44th District Republican Party Chairwoman and Dan Michael is with the Puget Sound Conservative Underground.