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Montebello E-News

 November 15, 2010

Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change. Jim Wallis

This sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland, but, no, this is from an essay by Wallis entitled “Faith Works”, printed in the book The Impossible Will Take a Little While, available through the Montebello library. The meaning of the quote is that people's minds can be changed from opposition to support for a just cause.

1. Announcements
 2. "Ugly Americans"?
3. About Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”

Foreclosure assistance. Home Rescue Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 13, 2010. Huntington Park High School, 6020 Miles Avenue, Huntington Park. Sponsors include Montebello Housing Development Corporation and the Alliance for Stabilizing Our Communities. Free. For details, Marie Lugo, 323.7223955, lugomhdc@gmail.com.

Second Saturday of every month, which means...    On Saturday, November 13, there will be a swap meet in the Montebello High parking lot on Wilcox Avenue, about fifty yards north of Madison Avenue.    ... Come support MHS's Adult Transition Program fundraiser by becoming a vendor or customer. For vendor information call (323) 356-0439. Reserve your space now.

Library events. From our library's children's department. Every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. through December 8, toddler and preschool story time, rhymes, music, and art activity. Saturday, December 11, art activities to celebrate the season, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. More information, 323.722.6551.

Golf tournament for a good cause. The Kathryn E. Millan Memorial Foundation (KEMMF) will host it's 10th annual golf tournament to support local children's charities on November 26, 2010 (The Day After Thanksgiving). KEMMF was started by longtime Montebello residents Frank and Julie Millan to keep the memory of their daughter Katie alive. Katie passed away in 2001 days before her 15th birthday. For more information on Katie's story and the upcoming golf tournament visit www.kemmf.org/golf/

Eighth annual run and walk in Montebello. 8th Annual Taco Mambo 5K Fun Run/Walk. A fundraiser benefiting the Schurr High School Spartan Legion Music and Pageantry Program, Saturday, November 27, 2010, Schurr High School athletic field, 820 North Wilcox Avenue, Montebello, California 90640, RAIN OR SHINE! Check in begins at 8 a.m.  Contact 5K@schurrmusic.org or http://www.schurrmusic.org/SHSCore/forms/2010TMOnlineRegForm.pdf

Want to keep your boys very busy? Check out what Montebello Boy Scout Troop 330 is up to. On the weekend of September 17 - 18, Troop 330 and Crew 461 backpacked up the East Fork of the San Gabriel River to Iron Fork trail camp. The scouts enjoy this trip so much, it is an annual event. We leave Friday night and make our way with flashlights to a trail camp about 1 mile up the river. After spending the night there, we pack up and continue upriver to the Bridge to Nowhere, which was built in 1936. Sometimes we can watch people bungie jump off of the bridge. ... On the Weekend of October 15 - 17, 2010, Boy Scout Troop 330 won top honors at the Rio Hondo District 2010 Fall Camporee. The Camporee was dedicated to Esten Grubb, a dedicated Scouter whose passion was astronomy and who was a good friend of Troop 330. The Scouts participated in all of the astronomy activities, won first place in the Gateway Competition and was in a 4-way tie for 1st place in the Campsite Inspection. ... Your boys are welcome to join. Contact Scoutmaster Cindy Farber at clfarber@hotmail.com.

Yes! Every little bit helps. Our library lets us sign up to receive notices by e-mail, so that mailings become unnecessary. Are you signed up with the library to get e-mail notices? Call 323.722.6551 or stop by the library. Making the change is quick.

Two additions to “My Montebello”. Last month, the US Postal Service mailed residents a pamphlet about fraud. Tips from that pamphlet are at http://www.mymontebello.com/lists_tc_about_scams1.  Also last month, tips about avoiding waste during the holidays was brought to my attention; you can find the tips at http://www.mymontebello.com/lists_tc_green_consumer1. 

It ain't over till it's over. Last Sunday I received an e-mail telling me that there were mail-in, provisional and other ballots yet to be counted for the November 2 election. California had an estimated 2,342,000 such ballots. Wow. http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/2010-elections/2010-election
-information/november-2010/total-unprocessed-ballots.pdf

Do the Russians have a problem like ours, overpaid officials? Note how the Russians handle the problem. Translated from Spanish: The Russian government has dismissed over 100,000 government employees in the last three years, which supposedly calculates to a billion Euros in savings. ...   Euronews, September 20, 2010.

Is there something for Montebello here? Whittier residents get a newspaper entitled Waste Not News, published by their refuse hauler, Consolidated Disposal Service. I saw the fall, 2010, issue, and noted with delight the statements “Printed on recycled paper. 70% post-consumer news content, using soy inks. Please recycle this publication after you have read it!' Consolidated gets an “A” for that. However, the statements should have been conspicuously displayed on the front page, instead of tucked in a corner of the back page. Also, a key question: with all the useful information in that issue, how many people read and follow through? A fundamental problem throughout America is that, while we are more knowledgeable, our habits have not changed. Would it be better for Consolidated, instead of spending money on a newspaper, to create a contest with cash prizes in which schoolchildren would rally parents and neighbors to do the right thing?

Does being fair mean that life will become expensive? Much of life's comfort comes from some kind of economic advantage. But as those who are at an economic disadvantage create conditions to improve their lot, will our comfort become discomfort? For example, how much will the price of medicine go up? Developing countries, such as Brazil, India and Colombia, called on the United Nations to step up efforts to stop what some call bio-piracy -- a practice by which pharmaceutical companies and other commercial enterprises exploit the plants and other genetic material of environmentally rich countries without giving proper compensation to their hosts. Proposed rules would regulate how drug companies could use plants from the Amazon and would mandate that they share profits with indigenous people from the area. As abstracted in UN Wire, September 23, 2010, from Reuters, September 23, 2010.

Interesting fact from the nonprofit SmileTrain, www.smiletrain.org.   ...When do clefts occur and how common are they? Clefts occur very early in the development of the fetus, and many women may not even know they are pregnant when their fetus is developing a cleft. This can be a problem for obvious reasons. Stopping smoking and drinking two months after conception may be too late to avoid the negative effects on the fetus and a resulting cleft. The critical time for head and face development of a fetus is between the third and ninth weeks of pregnancy. ...

Time out for some good news. I was told about a Website, http://www.groupon.com/los-angeles/.  I signed up for free and now get one very valuable coupon every day for use in greater Los Angeles. Example, from October 16: $35 for a Family Membership to the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden ($70 Value). ...

We could say that, if others create problems for themselves, that is not our concern. But what if their problems become our problems? The so-called "timber mafias" responsible for vast logging in Indonesia have stripped Borneo of much of its rain forests, resulting in months of flooding that already has overcome villages -- although the monsoon season has yet to begin. The rate of deforestation, which also endangers wildlife, is "one of the largest unfolding disasters on the planet." As abstracted in UN Wire, October 25, 2010, from a report in The Guardian, October 24, 2010.

But Massachusetts is not California, right?    ... “Should the state representative from this district be instructed to support legislation establishing health care as a human right regardless of age, state of health, or employment status, by creating a single payer health insurance system like Medicare that is comprehensive, cost effective, and publicly provided to all residents of Massachusetts?” 222 of 228 precincts reporting, Yes – 63.5%, No – 36.5%. From November 2, 2010, http://masscare.org/announcements/single-payer-ballot-
questions-pass-in-all-fourteen-massachusetts-districts/

Could somebody argue that the growing human population would have something to do with this crisis? The Small Ruminants' Plague has a death rate of almost 100% and is threatening 50 million sheep and goats across Africa, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization warns. While the virus does not directly affect humans, the devastation of livestock poses serious social and economic risks for the continent, FAO says. As abstracted in UN Wire, November 3, 2010, from CNN/This Just In blog, November 2, 2010.

And what about this? Would the growth of human population have something to do with this? Conservationists, governments and Interpol are working together in an attempt to save the world's rhinoceros from extinction now that poachers have begun targeting one of the species' last refuges, South Africa. Rhino populations have plummeted globally by 90% since 1970, with poachers killing the animals for horns worth as much as $400,000 on Asian markets. As abstracted in UN Wire, November 3, 2010, from The Globe and Mail, November 2, 2010.

Would you say that Halliburton was cutting corners to make more money? If so, what is the solution? (Reuters) – Halliburton Co. used flawed cement in BP Plc’s doomed Gulf of Mexico well, which could have contributed to the blowout that sparked the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, a White House panel said on Thursday. ... While not absolving BP of responsibility, the report heaped criticism on Halliburton’s cement job, raising investor concerns it could be forced to bear some of the clean-up costs. BP has taken a $32.2 billion earnings charge to cover the cleanup. ...   October 29, 2010, http://blog.cleantechies.com/2010/10/29/halliburton-flawed-cement-bp-
well-panel/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL24&utm_source=
YMLP+Newsletter&utm_term=uf83_wwwreuterscom150x150.jpg 

Careful as to whom you believe.   ... However, when calculating how many jobs are truly created in a green economy, the count can include activities that are not truly green in terms of not emitting carbon dioxide. For example, some biofuel and biomass production may come in the form of using fossil fuel inputs such as chemically derived fertilizers and pesticides. Yet, biofuels and biomass that involves such things as using fossil fuel inputs would be counted as part of the green economy in the same manner as the installation of solar panels and windmills that are part of the new green manufacturing and infrastructure program cited by The Center for American Progress. So, two million jobs may be created, but it comes with caveats as to how we define the term “green.” ...   October 26, 2010, http://blog.cleantechies.com/2010/10/26/how-many-jobs-are-truly-
created-in-a-green-economy/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL24&utm_
source=YMLP+Newsletter&utm_term=uf83_installinghomesolarpanels 

Are the naysayers keeping us from doing what we must? Temperatures have risen and sea ice has melted to record setting levels in the Arctic, and the region is unlikely to ever return to previous colder states, international atmospheric researchers warn. Researchers tied recent severe storms in the U.S. and Europe to the warming Arctic, and caution that sea level rise predictions and other climate-related projections will need to be scaled up as a result of the findings. As abstracted in UN Wire, October 22, 2010, from reports in TIME/The Associated Press and AlertNet.org/Reuters, October 21, 2010.

The debate goes on, the debate goes on. (Sung to “And the Beat Goes on”.) This study, http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.2010.0073v1,  provides credible evidence that lower life expectancy in the United States, when compared to twelve other nations, is not due to smoking, obesity, traffic accidents nor homicides. Thus this study can be used to refute those who contend that we have the greatest health care system on earth, but it is the bad habits of those unworthy of health care that result in our lower life-expectancy ratings. ...    From an e-newsletter of Don McCanne, M.D., October 7, 2010.

Would you consider this thinking outside the box? Putting the word green and carbon together may sound like an oxymoron to most people. But researchers at Rice University in Houston, Texas, working at the new Green Carbon Center, think that instead of being a “villain in the global warming debate”, carbon could be a “boon if the world can learn to use it well”. And how can that be achieved? “The key is to turn carbon dioxide into a useful material so it’s no longer waste,” says James Tour, a chemistry professor at Rice. “We want the center to partner with energy companies – including oil, natural gas and coal – to make carbon a profitable resource.” The center is part of Rice’s Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and will “draw upon the combined knowledge of the university’s nanotechnology experts, for whom the development of clean and plentiful energy is a priority.” In a paper published by Nature Materials, Tour and colleagues Vicki Colvin and Carter Kittrell state that since fossil fuels will play a major role in the economy for many decades to come, despite the expansion of renewable energy, the center will try to develop the technological expertise to back up what it calls “green carbon” to make a transition to a clean tech future. ...    November 2, 2010, http://blog.cleantechies.com/2010/11/02/recycling-carbon-energies/
?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL24&utm_source=YMLP+
Newsletter&utm_term=Recycling+Carbon%3A+New+Center+E...

Mom, when it is wrong to eat veggies. British love for asparagus is helping drive water-scarcity issues in Peru's Ica Valley, leaving small farmers and families with dry wells, development group Progressio warns in a report. Peru has emerged in recent years as the world's top asparagus exporter with about 95% of supply originating in the Ica Valley. The report urges governments, agribusiness and investors to take responsibility for the impact on water supply and examine more sustainable methods of use.  As abstracted in UN Wire, September 15, 2010, from a report in The Guardian, September 15, 2010.

From which song did we get the words “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?” The escalation in U.S. military operations against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan is having little effect, officials say, making peace talks unlikely before a tapering off in U.S. troop increases slated for next summer. "The insurgency seems to be maintaining its resilience," a senior Defense Department official said.  As abstracted in UN Wire, October 27, 2010, from a report in The Washington Post, October 27, 2010.

Something to learn from the Chinese? I received a PowerPoint in Spanish about the damage which cow's milk supposedly does to our bodies. The accusation was serious. In short, cow's milk contains natural ingredients which are made for calves, not humans. Those ingredients apparently increase the odds that a person would have cancer. A statistic uncorroborated, is that only one in ten thousand women in China gets breast cancer. Also, Chinese men have a lower incidence of prostate cancer. Why? Because they are lactose-intolerant and, therefore, do not drink cow's milk. If this were true, we would have to take a close look at all daily products, from milk to cheese to yogurt. And if we concluded that there were a correlation, would we change our dietary habits or just hope that science would cure our cancers? And what would the dairy industry do if we changed habits? This is akin to the challenge about changing our habits before we pollute our planet beyond redemption. I would be interested in statistical information which you might find about the effects of cow's milk.

When the census incenses us. The percentage of people without health insurance increased to 16.7 percent in 2009 from 15.4 percent in 2008. The number of uninsured people increased to 50.7 million in 2009 from 46.3 million in 2008. The percentage and number of uninsured Hispanics increased to 32.4 percent and 15.8 million in 2009, from 30.7 percent and 14.6 million in 2008.  See the news release of the US Census Bureau, September 16, 2010, http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb10-144.html

Love the battle, forget the war.  I find it curious that advocacy groups would engage in a policy fight without questioning whether the fight were fair. It is as if one were in the boxing ring with an opponent who was permitted to put ball bearings inside his gloves. For example, on September 21, 2010, an e-newsletter came from Environment California. The author acknowledged that environmentalists had lost in Copenhagen recently, where there were talks on the environment, in Washington, D.C., and in Sacramento. Yet, he said, the fight must go on! I would not fight if I knew that the odds were stacked against me, unless I loved the battle and did not care about the outcome.

How many drops of blood will sober us up? In a past issue of E-News, there was mention of the possibility giving an enemy land in order to stop violence. Unfortunately, we Americans start with the notion that we eradicate an enemy, however expensive it be, however long it take, however much blood be spilled. And afterward, as in Vietnam, we sober up. Note “leave parts of the country under Taliban control” in this abstract: There have been some significant gains in the fight for women's rights in Afghanistan since the 2001 fall of the Taliban government, and advocates now fear women's rights will be sacrificed as part of negotiations between the government of Hamid Karzai and the Taliban. While Afghanistan's constitution guarantees equal rights, advocates fear negotiations will not include minimum standards and an eventual deal to end hostilities will leave parts of the country under Taliban control.  As abstracted in UN Wire, 10.7.10, from a report in The Toronto Star, 10.6.10.

Mr. Drucker's dry goods. Who remembers “Green Acres”, the television comedy, which included Mr. Drucker's store, where folks hung around? About that hanging around, could it be said that buying and selling used to have a social component, meaning that neighbors got to know one another when they bought, sold and hung around the store? Fortunately, Montebello's quarterly yard sales are a substitute; unfortunately, they might be an insufficient substitute for online buying and selling.

We Americans get criticized for our insensitivity. We are insensitive and more: naïve, arrogant, short-sighted. But we are not the only ones with policies which have been called into question. The European Union took issue with France over the summer because French President Sarkozy was deporting Gypsies. In mid-September, the Social Democrats in Sweden lost to a conservative group, in part because of immigration. As translated from the German:

Thirty-one year old Jimmy Akesson is responsible for the emergence of the extreme right in Sweden. For sixteen years, he has been a member of the Swedish Democrats and, in a few years, has succeeded in getting the party into parliament—a party which before had hardly existed on the political landscape. "Our party would like our demands to be implemented as quickly as possible, which means responsible immigration policies, a resolute response to crime, and aging with dignity." ... 9.5 percent of the population was without work in June; however, the average among young workers was over 21 percent. The economic crisis alone cannot explain the phenomenon which is occurring in ever more European countries. Just in July the Dutch right-of-center populist Geert Wilders won twenty-two seats for his party in parliament, and in April the extreme conservative Jobbik got into parliament for the first time.  Euronews, September 20, 2010.

Very different immigrant cultures? Economic hard times? Is this not a recurring phenomenon, meaning that we have not gotten to the root of the problem? Remember what Einstein said? "The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."

To learn about this newsletter, Montebello E-News, and the accompanying, growing Web site, “My Montebello”, visit www.mymontebello.com.  Also, you will find instructions and contact information for submitting announcements for publication in this newsletter, and for submitting stories to “Montebello Memories” at the Web site.