Montebello E-News

A restful and reflective Thanksgiving Day to all.

 November 27, 2008

… Most countries have a surplus of companion animals and are forced to euthanize or disregard their great suffering. The surplus is in the tens of millions in the United States. For every human birth, approximately 45 cats and 15 dogs are also born. There are just not enough homes for all these animals, and a large percentage end up in animal shelters.
Los Angeles County Animal Care Foundation
http://www.lacountyanimals.org/save.html

[Depending on how statistics are presented, they can leap out at us.  The problem of animal overpopulation is well made with the statistics above.]

1. Spill the Pills, Part 2

2.  Are We Going to Lose This One?, Part 4

3. Announcements

4. Fun Facts about Where We Live

5. The Flashback Quarterback:  The Bling Thing    

6. Be Aware and Share:  How Much?  Take a Guess

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

Spill the Pills, Part 2

In last week’s community lesson, we looked at the effect of acidic food and liquids on our bodies.  (By the way, there is much information online about acidic and alkaline foods.  For a chart, see http://www.seagulltechnologies.com/acidic2.htm.)  Here is sister’s advice for Dad, who is eighty-five years old:

Lots of fruit and veggies of course, especially high alkaline ones: celery, potato (especially the broth), avocado, banana, fig, corn, watermelon.  Also, as stated in the previous e-mail, the salt is important.  Mom really needs to be using the sea salt in all baking and cooking since the white salt is bleached, overheated and robbed of natural nutrients and extremely acidic.  This will help balance some of the processed salt he'll be getting from any other source (processed and packaged foods).  Water is also important and that is where those alkaline drops will help.  Most water is acidic.  Dasani and Evian are alkaline.  I will forward that e-mail to you also.  Please check the Lawry's salt Mom uses to see if it has MSG, because it used to.  I will see if I could send some of the REALSALT season salts so that Mom can use them for cooking.

If you answer the multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in 2008 by a local nonprofit organization.

1. Of which kind of food should we be eating more?

(a) Alkaline food.

(b) Acidic food.

2. Most water is

(a) acidic.

(b) alkaline.

3. As for salt, it is better to use

(a) sea salt.

(b) processed salt.

 Libertarian ideologues and moneygrubbers stand aside. Make room for the people.
Statement of August 19, 2008, by Don McCanne,
retired physician and an advocate on behalf of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of fourteen thousand American physicians advocating for single-payer national health insurance.

I believe that there would be a solution to the malaise outlined below:  the shareholders would take over the corporation or the patients the asylum.  In other words, instead of our expending energy complaining about Congress, we should be on the inside explaining and getting redress.  Does anyone not know that the size of Congress kept growing until about a hundred years ago, from one hundred fifty members in 1789 to four-hundred thirty-five members around 1910?  Why should we not have a larger Congress now, so that the members be more answerable to us and divide up the work so that we prevent the kinds of problems mentioned below?

...Beyond the presidential campaign, consider why barely 10 percent of Americans express confidence in Congress.

Congress ignored for years the festering problems at Fannie and Freddie, despite lights shined on these problems. Now we taxpayers (you and me) are exposed to some $5 trillion of their debt.

Unfortunately, this political irresponsibility is the rule rather than the exception.

This is the same Congress that woke up one night to discover 12 million illegal immigrants in our country.

And the same Congress that continues to ignore the $50 trillion or so (whose counting?) in unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare.

The pathetic dynamics are quite clear. Being honest about problems means taking responsibility and making hard decisions. Why do that when you can ignore them, let them fester and grow, and pawn them off on the next generation when you will be long gone? 

Government -- federal, state, and local -- now takes about one of every three of the dollars we produce. Estimates are that by mid-century it will be more than one of every two.

Are we going to be in rocking chairs telling our grandchildren how we remember when America was a great country?

From “Mortgaging Our Children’s Future”, by Star Parker, “Star Parker on C-SPAN”, August 4, 2008.

FOR EVERYONE.  I feel like screaming.  In a letter to the Montebello City Public Works Department dated June 13, 2001, the following was said:  …nobody has given thought to a competition in which the refuse hauler identifies the most active recycling blocks, with a cash award for the residents on those blocks;  …nobody has considered that gleaners might contribute significantly to recycling, at less cost to residents, by being permitted to glean refuse;  what if we continued with the containers, but permitted gleaners to collect and to pay residents something?  No answer to that letter was received.

Why is this significant, apart from the fact that it adds ideas which the proponents and opponents to the Athens contract should be considering?  In ABC News’ “Spirit of America” report from November 18, 2008, we read:  When was the last time you got paid to take out the trash? A town in Massachusetts offers rewards and discounts to residents who recycle. Residents of Everett , Mass., are finding the chore more rewarding as they cash in their recyclables for store coupons. ... But when Everett sweetened the deal this summer with coupons and gift certificates as incentives, the amount of recycled material increased tenfold. ... http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=6274975&page=1

FOR EVERYONE.  The holidays are here.  You are invited to the holiday Christmas party of the Montebello Friends of the Library, to be held from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, December 5, 2008, at Salvatore’s Restaurant, 125 North Sixth Street.  The cost of $20 includes an Italian meal, tax, and gratuity.  You may pay now or at the door, but reserve a seat by November 30.  Call Mary or Ruben Bea, 323.724.3709.

[A] state's dominant personality turns out to be strongly linked to certain outcomes. Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime. Dutiful states -- an eclectic bunch that includes New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah -- produce a disproportionate share of mathematicians. States that rank high in openness to new ideas are quite creative, as measured by per-capita patent production. But they're also high-crime and a bit aloof. Apparently, Californians don't much like socializing, the research suggests.

As for high-anxiety states, that group includes not just Type A New York and New Jersey, but also states stressed by poverty, such as West Virginia and Mississippi. As a group, these neurotic states tend to have higher rates of heart disease and lower life expectancy.  http://online.wsj.com/article_email/
SB122211987961064719-lMyQjAxMDI4MjIyNjEyMTY5Wj.html

About seven years ago, University of Chicago economists Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst were researching the “wealth gap” between black and white Americans when they noticed something striking. African Americans not only had less wealth than whites with similar incomes, they also had significantly more of their assets tied up in cars. The statistic fit a stereotype reinforced by countless bling-filled hip-hop videos: that African Americans spend a lot on cars, clothes, and jewelry—highly visible goods that tell the world the owner has money.

But do they really? And, if so, why?

The two economists, along with Nikolai Roussanov of the University of Pennsylvania, have now attacked those questions. What they found not only provides insight into the economic differences between racial groups, it challenges common assumptions about luxury. Conspicuous consumption, this research suggests, is not an unambiguous signal of personal affluence. It’s a sign of belonging to a relatively poor group. Visible luxury thus serves less to establish the owner’s positive status as affluent than to fend off the negative perception that the owner is poor. The richer a society or peer group, the less important visible spending becomes.

On race, the folk wisdom turns out to be true. An African American family with the same income, family size, and other demographics as a white family will spend about 25 percent more of its income on jewelry, cars, personal care, and apparel. For the average black family, making about $40,000 a year, that amounts to $1,900 more a year than for a comparable white family. To make up the difference, African Americans spend much less on education, health care, entertainment, and home furnishings. (The same is true of Latinos.) ... Postrel , Virginia , “Inconspicuous Consumption”, Atlantic Monthly, July – August, 2008.  http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/consumption?ca=70Mmgrqck
Xa8X1WHgw2pFImoDVq%2FeBHIx85s1UvaMVA%3D

Is it not fascinating that, when we clean drawers and files, we find things we had forgotten about?  I am looking at a “vote-by-mail ballot pamphlet” for the May 15, 2007, election.  Why did I keep this slightly-more-than-a-sliver of paper?  There was only one election, Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees seat number 5, for which there were only two candidates.

How much did it cost to mail the pamphlet?  To hold the election?  Take a guess.  And could not an equitable election have been held with less cost?

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.