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Montebello E-News

 December 31, 2009

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.  Samuel Adams

For better or worse, this is how America works. Ditto Montebello.

1.  Announcements

2.  A Message for Montebello from President Obama

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

Not for Valley boys or girls. Welcome to Hard Work U, where students don't pay tuition, work for an education, graduate without debt, learn character. This is from the home page of College of the Ozarks, http://www.cofo.edu/. Willing to send your son or daughter there? And what would scholarship grantors do with their money if there were no reason to award a scholarship?

Kafka, Lewis or Vonnegut? Which author do you think would be most likely to turn the following into a story?
It is with great sadness that we urge you to vote against the health care reform legislation now before you. As physicians, we are acutely aware of the unnecessary suffering that our nation's broken health care financing system inflicts on our patients. We make no common cause with the Republicans' obstructionist tactics or alarmist rhetoric. However, we have concluded that the Senate bill's passage would bring more harm than good. We are fully cognizant of the salutary provisions included in the legislation, notably an expansion of Medicaid coverage, increased funds for community clinics and regulations to curtail some of private insurers' most egregious practices. Yet these are outweighed by its central provisions – particularly the individual mandate – that would reinforce private insurers' stranglehold on care. ... This is an excerpt from a December 22, 2009, letter from Physicians for a National Health Program, www.pnhp.org, to members of the U.S. Senate. This organization advocates universal health care through a single payer, the government. Now, juxtapose their letter to this report: ...Insurer shares [stocks on the stock market], in particular, are zooming. There are three reasons. First, stripped from the Senate bill is the so-called public option -- a government health plan that threatened to undersell private insurers. Second, a proposed $6.7 billion industry tax is now likely to be phased in only gradually beginning in 2011, which should give health plans enough time to raise prices accordingly. Third, individuals will be required to purchase insurance -- a fine deal for insurance sellers -- although critics say the penalties for noncompliance are weak, suggesting many individuals will prefer to remain uninsured. ... http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/stocks/3-stocks-soaring-on-healthcare-bill/

A splendid time was had by all. Our library had a magic show for children and adults the evening of December 15. I admired the magician, not only for his ability to make a pigeon appear out of nowhere, but, also, for the ability to captivate the children.

Deceptive or incompetent? Two experiences this year with Web sites which were not clear -- whether intentionally or not, I do not know. In the first case, I thought AT&T was including an $80 modem as part of a one-year special offer for fast Internet. Wrong. But when I complained to the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T refunded $50. So, there was something wrong. In the second case, I thought that I had followed instructions by American Greetings to cancel a subscription, but was told later that I had to call, not just cancel online, in order for the cancellation to be official. But when I complained and pointed out that I would pursue this for as long as it took, American Greetings refunded the $29.99. I am interested if you have a story about an unclear instruction from a Web site and what happened afterward.

Want to change the world? Become a scriptwriter.  "Introducing television to an area can shift the horizons of the possible radically and quickly, especially for women. It's worth noting that both the positive and negative consequences recorded in this study were by and large unintended and unforeseen."  Cable and satellite television may be having an even bigger impact on fertility in rural India. As in Brazil, popular programming there includes soaps that focus on urban life. Many women on these serials work outside the home, run businesses, and control money. In addition, soap characters are typically well-educated and have few children. And they prove to be extraordinarily powerful role models: Simply giving a village access to cable TV, research by scholars Robert Jensen and Emily Oster has found, has the same effect on fertility rates as increasing by five years the length of time girls stay in school. ... http://www.culture-making.com/post/what_a_difference_a_tv_makes/

Among our new-year resolutions: do not harm. From prominent pastors to politicians to professional rock stars, everyone it seems has a heart and a plan for Africa.  But good intentions don’t always translate into good results.  And when things seem to go wrong for so long, we ought to ask some hard questions and not automatically do more of the same.  In Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa Dambisa Moyo, an economist and native of Zambia, is not afraid to ask hard questions about her own continent.

The answer, says Moyo, "has its roots in aid" … Dead Aid is a short, pungent, provocative book.  The thesis is simple and controversial: aid is the problem, not the solution. … http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2009/11/10/the-futility-of-good-intentions/

Ouch, these pricks to our self-satisfaction! Some people make money from oil or coal. Other people get asthma or black lung from it. Should the former pay for the ills of the latter? From Worldwatch Institute newsletter, 10.29.09.  "Cheap Energy Comes at High 'Hidden' Cost".  U.S. consumers pay less for their energy than consumers in most industrialized nations. Yet electricity and fuel prices typically fail to reflect the full cost of energy production and consumption, especially in terms of health effects. As part of its 2005 energy bill, the U.S. Congress requested a clarification of "hidden" energy costs. The result, released recently, concluded that the external effects of burning fossil fuels cost the United States more than $120 billion in 2005."  For more info, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6298?emc=el&m=315853&l=7&v=f3ef7744a5

Would you accept any successful businessperson into your club?  H. C. Engelbrecht, author of Merchants of Death, a bestseller about arms dealers, spoke at a conference of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. "Armament is an an industry that knows no politics, friends, right or wrong—but only customers," Engelbrecht said. "If you can pay, you can buy." … "In every war," said Engelbrecht, "the armament maker who sells internationally is arming a potential enemy of his own country—and that, practically, if not legally, is treason." It was April 14, 1934. … From the book Human Smoke, by Nicholson Baker.

The following is real. It was forwarded by a friend who works for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is a message to Montebello as well. We might go a long way toward lessening the problems which we encounter if we take the spirit of the directive to heart.

What is arguably most impressive about the Directive, as highlighted in a public briefing by CIO Vivek Kundra and and CTO Aneesh Chopra, is its specificity and focus on execution. … The directive is dated December 8, 2009.

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.