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Montebello E-News

 November 15, 2009

 The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters.  Walter Lippman

This is sound advice for any elected or appointed official who wishes a long tenure in office.

1.  Announcements

2.  Thoughts on Our Recent Elections

3.  About Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”

Not “mumbo jumbo”; rather, “Taco Mambo”.  The Schurr High Music Boosters is sponsoring the 7th Annual Taco Mambo 5K Fun Run/Walk this coming Thanksgiving weekend, Saturday, November 28, 2009, from 8 AM to 12 PM.  Location: Schurr High School athletic field, 820 N. Wilcox Ave., Montebello, California. This is a fundraiser for the music and pageantry award-winning program at Schurr High School.  The event draws 300-400 participants.  Donations of bottled water and raffle prizes needed.  Goodie bags will be distributed to the participants.  Corporate sponsors may have appropriate items included in the goodie bags with a donation.  Contact George at 323 376 5324.  Our website:  www.schurrmusic.org.

Thanksgiving is coming.  Armenian Relief Society Nairy chapter invites everyone for a Thanksgiving dinner, Thursday, November 19, 2009, at  7:00p.m. at the Montebello Armenian Center, 420 West Washington Boulevard, Montebello.  Donation:  $20.00.  For information and tickets please call Heghine Harboian at (323)725-0956.

Library events.  November 16, Montebello Stamping Mavens;  November 17, Thanksgiving stories and art for the family;  November 18, toddler and preschool story time;  November 21, Thanksgiving stories and art for the family;  November 25, toddler and preschool story time;  November 30, movie day.  For more information, 323.722.6551.

If you were asked.  If somebody asked you to suggest the top ten Web sites for every family, what would you say?  Recently, I used the online service of the Better Business Bureau and thought that everyone should be aware of it, as one possible defense against scams and poor service:  http://www.bbb.org/us/Find-Business-Reviews/.

Getting to know you.  A neighbor sometimes picks up trash as she takes her morning walk.  In September, she found, on the street, an opened envelope with an IRS payment voucher for $2,000, but no check.  She alerted the person who had mailed the payment, who then put a “stop payment” on the check.  This neighbor learned that the mail had been deposited in the mailbox on the south side of our Montebello post office.  Somebody else said that there had been a problem before with mail stolen from that mailbox.  My question:  why are we not told of such risks?  Does the post office not have a responsibility to increase security or tell us of the risk?  Additionally or alternatively, should we the public not have the right to post a sign on that mailbox:  “Mail has been stolen from this box.  Deposit at your own risk”?  By the way, is it not a good thing that somebody stoops to pick up the trash while others hold their heads high and walk by?

Darwinian natural selection?  I cannot get over how, through complexity, we have boxed ourselves into a corner.  The 1040 instruction book.  The information book on Medicare which my parents received.  The eye-watering fine print in “Terms of Agreement” to use a service on the Internet.  Contracts to buy this, that or the other thing.  The misleading solicitation letter which is still legal because, somewhere near the bottom, there is a disclaimer that the letter is not coming from government.  If we do not take the time—who has the time??!!—to read and understand, legal lighting and thunder might rain upon us.  Is this a form of Darwinian natural selection, that is, if we are not quick readers and quick at comprehension, we are more likely to suffer calamity and die out?

Are we like sheep for the slaughter?  The piece here is humorous, but when the problem does come and other countries are angry with us, perhaps even demanding that we compensate, what are we going to do?  Or, rather, what are your grandchildren going to do?  With fish darting amongst them in a blue lagoon, the Maldivian president and his top team have staged an elaborate stunt to publicise climate change.  Billed as the world's first underwater cabinet meeting, President Mohamed Nasheed and 11 ministers, decked in scuba gear, held a meeting 4m (13ft) underwater.  While officials said the event itself was light-hearted, the idea is to focus on the plight of the Maldives, where rising sea levels threaten to make the nation uninhabitable by the end of the century.  Mr. Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president, has become an important global voice for climate change since he won in polls last October.... Lang, Olivia, “The Maldives”, October 17, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8312320.stm

This is troubling.  If we are not getting needed information in order to make good decisions, what is our alternative?  I almost always link to Project Censored's annual list of ignored stories, because I think they provide a painful context, direct and indirect, for the work that most of us do. (Indeed, for many of us, it's our own missions that have been ignored.) This year is no exception. The Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009 are: (1) US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street. (2) US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s. (3) Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates. (4) Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina. (5) Europe Blocks US Toxic Products. (6) Lobbyists Buy Congress. (7) Obama's Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past. (8) Bailed out Banks and America's Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions. (9) US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza. (10) Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate. (11) Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine . (12) Mysterious Death of Mike Connell-Karl Rove's Election Thief. (13) Katrina's Hidden Race War. (14) Congress Invested in Defense Contracts. (15) World Bank's Carbon Trade Fiasco. (16) US Repression of Haiti Continues. (17) The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan. (18) Ecuador 's Constitutional Rights of Nature. (19) Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor. (20) Secret Control of the Presidential Debates. (21) Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare. (22) Obama's Trilateral Commission Team. (23) Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud. (24) Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion. (25) Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon.   “Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009”, Online Nonprofit News, http://news.gilbert.org/clickThru/redir/7144/10524/rms

Not everything is gloom and doom.   “Wow!” to this report, although I would like more proof of China ’s effort.  “UN’s Billion Tree Campaign Hits its Seven Billion Goal Target”.  Global Climate Change Initiative Inspires Millions in Run-up to Crucial Copenhagen Conference.  The global public’s desire to see action on climate change was clearly spotlighted today with the announcement that the Billion Tree Campaign has reached 7 billion trees—one for every person on the planet.  Over the past three years millions of people ranging from scouts to presidents and from schoolchildren to city dwellers and corporate heads have been rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty for the environment through tree planting.  Today’s milestone was reached with the news that the Government of China has planted 2.6 billion trees as part of this unique campaign, bringing the total to 7.3 billion trees planted in 167 countries worldwide. September 21, 2009.  www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/campaignNews/BTC-Hits-Seven-Billion.asp

1. All those mailers.  Imagine if those mailers had carried community calendars, including when there would be sports signups for youth, and community lists, like the ten most useful telephone numbers.  Not relevant to a campaign?  Oh???  A calendar or list would more likely be attached to a refrigerator or a cork board in the kitchen than would a customary campaign mailer.

2. All candidates have their good side.  Every one has done something of value for Montebelloans whom they do not know.  All candidates have their dubious side.  The question here is whether irremediable circumstances compelled a candidate to do something against the public interest or, out of greed, bias, cowardice or a lack of imagination, he or she chose to do something against the public interest.

3. A vote can be like a gun in the hands of an untrained person, that is to say, do we really know what is going on when we vote or are we swayed by the plethora of pernicious papers thrown upon us?

4. All those lawn signs lying about, unrecycled.  All those wire sign frames inviting injury and a lawsuit.

5. Every candidate is ignoring or is unaware of the white elephant in the room, namely, that the process of local democracy needs fundamental reform, lest the convulsions of this election and the coming recall repeat, as almost happened when the city council almost convened a special meeting yesterday, November 13.

A bad process for making decisions leads to bad decisions, which, in turn, lead to expensive, tumultuous elections.