Montebello E-News

 December 18, 2008

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Plato, circa 427 BC – 347,
was a Classical Greek philosopher, who, together with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy.  Plato was also a mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens.

[How far can we stretch the definition of “light”?  Can “light”, synonymous for truth, refer to change, also?  If so, are we all living a tragedy because we shun change?]

1.  Legalize Drugs, Heyday for Thugs?

2.  Are We Going to Lose This One?, Part 7

3. Announcements

4. Fun Facts from Science

5. The Flashback Quarterback:  Creating Little Monsters

6. Be Aware and Share:  Can Cancer Be Fought So Easily?

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

Legalize Drugs, Heyday for Thugs?

Could legalizing drugs be beneficial?  A friend drew my attention to an article:

…Savings on drug-related law enforcement – FBI, police, courts and prisons – of $2 billion to $10 billion a year if marijuana were legalized, based on various estimates, or up to $40 billion a year if all drugs were legalized, based on enforcement costs from the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. That’s before the cost of overseeing the new drug regulations.  

Increased productivity as fewer people were murdered, drug offenders were freed to find work and those stripped of their criminal record found it easier to get jobs (including running drug boutiques). However, how many of those now in prison would turn away from crime is unknown. … http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/
RaiseKids/WhatIfWeLegalizedAllDrugs.aspx

I like innovation, but innovation which does more good than harm.  Legalizing drugs would be acceptable as an experiment under certain immutable conditions:

(a) a clear definition of acceptable and unacceptable drugs, without the pharmaceutical companies having a hand in the definition;

(b) there would be drug communities far away from non-drug communities;

(c) the drug communities could not ask for medical resources from non-drug communities;

(d) the drug communities could not travel to non-drug communities;

(e) the drug communities could not have or raise children;

(f) the drug communities could not attempt to do any drug business with non-drug communities.

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. What might legalizing drugs do?

(a)  Save us money.

(b) Reduce the number of murders.

2. On what weak premise is the essay based?

(a) That there would be enough jobs so that drug offenders could find jobs for which they were qualified.

(b) That legalizing drugs would not adversely affect youth.

3. What “fixes” might be included to overcome the weak premises?

(a) Drug communities would be far from our communities.

(b) Drug communities could not attempt to do any drug business with non-drug communities.

(c) Drug communities could not have or raise children.

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.

Should the voting age be raised?  Does the following make for an argument to do so?

“Why You Get the Joke”
A leading expert reveals the secrets of “intelligent memory”
Barbara Mathias-Riegel, AARP, July and August, 2004

Barry Gordon, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and cognitive science at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. …

…The two types of memory actually stem from different parts of the brain.  Ordinary memory is heavily dependent on a relatively small section of the brain called the hippocampus, while intelligent memory seems to be a property of many different nerve cells that are spread throughout the brain.

The beauty of intelligent memory is that it doesn’t fade. …

Intelligent memory, says Gordon, “thinks on its own”—that is, the connections between thoughts and ideas happen automatically. …”You can take small pieces at a time and then kind of chew on them.  It doesn’t overwhelm your learning capacity, and it allows your brain to connect what you’re reading to other ideas.”  For example, don’t’ race through a book all at once;  take the time to review in your head what you’ve read.  Another tip:  when you learn something new, sleep on it, literally.  “There’s good evidence now that forming connections in memory appears to occur during sleep,” says Gordon. …

Because intelligent memory will automatically absorb anything you’re interested in, it can be improved without a lot of effort on your part.  Let’s say you’re in the dentist’s waiting room:  Try to figure out what music is playing in the background.  Or randomly skim a book of quotations or a dictionary.  Or imagine new endings to the last movie you saw.

…intelligent memory can accumulate errors if you’re not asking questions and using your critical thinking skills.  Says Gordon:  “Beware of hunches and absolutes, such as ‘I bet I’ll never get my money back.’” …

FOR EVERYONE.  Magic in Montebello.  Rafael and Katia Magic Show, Thursday, December 18, 2008, Chet Holifield Library.  Sponsored by Friends of the Montebello Library.  For the show time and other information, 323.728.0421.

FOR EVERYONE.  “Christmas at the Cannon”.  Twenty-second annual Montebello event to be held on Wednesday, December 24.  Guests are to pre-register at St. Benedict’s, Miraculous Medal or Calvary Chapel.  Limited seating.  Volunteers to attend to the guests are welcome and are asked to come after 8 a.m.  The event runs until 1 p.m.

An inch (2.5 centimeters) of rain water is equivalent to fifteen inches (38.1 centimeters) of dry, powdery snow.   [The ratio is ?]

Tremendous erosion at the base of Niagara Falls, USA, undermines the shale cliffs and as a result the falls have receded approximately seven miles over the last ten thousand years.

40 to 50 percent of body heat can be lost through the head (no hat) as a result of its extensive circulatory network.  http://www.hightechscience.org/funfacts.htm

We have talked in past issues of E-News about the illogic of having to pass a law to address an obvious problem.  Why do we have to pass a law for the obvious?  Why should we consider it a triumph when we do the obvious?  There is something seriously wrong with a society which is so obsessed with legalism that common sense, culture, and ethics are discarded, creating a vacuum which the law could not fill.

PICO RIVERA (KABC) -- A new ordinance allowing Los Angeles County to sue taggers and their parents or guardians goes into effect Thursday.

When busted a tagger and the tagger's parents could be held liable for civil damages and have to pay from the crime.

Supervisor Gloria Molina led the effort to draft the law in response to the fatal shooting of Maria Hicks, who was killed Aug. 10, 2007, when she tried to stop a vandal from defacing a wall near her home in Pico Rivera.

Under the new law violators will have to reimburse the county for all graffiti-related costs. Officials say the goal is to hold graffiti vandals and their parents accountable. …

Viewer comment:  Why is it the parents always get fined for the kids, the law doesn’t allow us to control them, if they did there wouldn’t be as many little monsters out there.  http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/
local/los_angeles&id=6399190

The following is interesting and worth following up, but should not be taken at face value.

Science and Health Series, Article 17 - Understanding Cancer, by Sang Whang

The Japanese classify human diseases into two major categories: contagious diseases and adult degenerative diseases.  Contagious diseases are caused by viruses and bacteria, and modern medical science is very much advanced in taking care of them.  Adult degenerative diseases are caused by acidic wastes our body generates.  The most dreaded disease in this category is cancer, a major cause of death in this country. ...

...instead of dying ' as normal cells do in an acid environment ' some cells survive by becoming abnormal cells.  These abnormal cells are called malignant cells.  Malignant cells do not correspond with brain function or with our own DNA memory code.  Therefore, malignant cells grow indefinitely and without order.  This is cancer.' ...

...Since cancer is caused by excess acidic waste in our body, drinking alkaline water to reduce them is the best cancer prevention method.  Alkaline water does not have any nutritional value to give us energy or medicinal value to cure any disease; however, it neutralizes acid and improves blood circulation.  With more alkaline blood circulating throughout the body, alkaline blood can inhibit the growth of cancer cells and may even kill existing cancer cells. ...   http://www.alkalife.com/
page.php?&cms=article&articleid=36

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