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Montebello
E-News
January
31, 2008
My creed is
that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly.
It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full
recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and
consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but
sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to
be earned, not bought.
One
of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people
talk too much and think too little. They act impulsively without thinking. I
always try to think before I talk.
Moral
cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this
country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and
easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral
character.
Margaret
Chase Smith, 1897 – 1995,
Republican
Senator from
Maine, and one of the most successful politicians in Maine
history. She was the first woman to be elected to both the U.S. House and
the Senate, and the first woman from Maine
to serve in either. She was also the first woman to have her name placed in
nomination for the U.S. Presidency at a major party's convention …
Senator
Smith is prominent not only for her many firsts as a woman, but also for her
early principled opposition to the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy. On
June 1, 1950, she gave her “Declaration of Conscience” speech on the
floor of the Senate, earning McCarthy's permanent ire and the nickname
"Moscow Maggie" from his staff.
1.
Casinos, Yes! Taxes,
No!
2.
A Not-So-Divine Comedy, Part 6
3.
Announcements
4.
Fun Facts about
Maryland
5.
The Flashback Quarterback:
Détente in
Montebello
6.
Beware and Share: Inside
the Pages of Facebook
7.
About
Montebello E-News and “My
Montebello”
Casinos, Yes! Taxes, No!
Is it axiomatic that our personal desires are stronger
than our desire for community cooperation?
Does this sum up human character and, therefore, tell us which laws
we should adopt and which decisions we should make?
Personal desire refers to the lottery and casinos,
among other things. Community
cooperation refers to taxes and donations.
I recall that, when the California
lottery was being considered for adoption some twenty-five years ago, then
Governor George Deukmejian was opposed, saying that a lottery to raise money
for public services was bad public policy.
Let us say that the lottery and casinos are vices.
Imagine if government controlled all
vices, and all profit from such
vices went into the public coffers. That
income would be significant and might well lessen the tax burden on
individuals and “non-vice” businesses.
But such a possibility would be Kafkaesque.
Should government be dependent on vices, which means that government
would be promoting, if not openly approving, such vices?
Would that encourage more people to indulge in vices and, therefore,
harm their families and themselves? Would
government then have to spend money to right the wrong?
Somebody could point to cigarettes and alcoholic
beverages as vices which are permitted and regulated.
Does the benefit in income outweigh the harm done?
Should we even be asking that question?
It gives me an uneasy feeling to answer “yes” to
the last question, but we humans are not keen on community cooperation as
manifested by taxes and we fall short on community cooperation as manifested
by donations.
Conundrum. Perhaps
this is a time for us to think outside the box.
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
2007 by a local nonprofit organization.
1. From which vices do we receive income for public
services?
(a) Casinos.
(b) Cigarettes.
(c) Alcoholic beverages.
(d) Lottery.
2. Why are vices necessary?
(a) The majority of people do not complain about taxes
derived from vices.
(b) Vices which are lawful and regulated are less
harmful than vices which are run illegally.
A
Not-So-Divine Comedy, Part 6
No one can earn
a million dollars honestly.
William Jennings
Bryan, 1860 – 1925,
an American lawyer,
statesman, and politician, three times the
Democratic Party
nominee for President of the United States.
The decadent international but
individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after
the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is
not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.
-----
Capitalism is the astounding belief
that the most wickedest [sic] of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of
everyone.
John Maynard Keynes, 1883 – 1946,
a British economist whose ideas, called Keynesian economics, had a
major impact on modern economic and political theory, as well as on
many governments’ fiscal policies.
So far, we have noted many deficiencies in the
capitalism which we practice. The
purpose behind such a look is to encourage thought and
action about how to make capitalism work better.
So we look at more deficiencies.
Have you wondered why libertarians want little or no
government intervention? History
is replete with examples of how those who accumulate wealth keep
accumulating it by ensuring that the law favor their continued accumulation
of wealth. Why do libertarians
not see this?
They suffer from the same problem from which the rest
of us suffer. We are creatures
of our experiences and our fears, which means that our interpretation of
reality is naturally biased. Each
of us has experiences in her or his subculture.
Some subcultures favor individual enterprise over community
cooperation; other subcultures
favor community cooperation over individual enterprise.
Relatively speaking, some are ethical or spiritual, others are
opportunistic or material.
Fears? Just
as I am inclined to find people who share my views—in part because I am
fearful and do not want to confront the possibility that my values might be
relative instead of universal—libertarians find like-minded people.
When like-minded people speak to one another, they reinforce their
values. They find it hard to
understand the values of others. Even
if I were to tell a libertarian that laissez-faire
capitalism preceded government regulations, meaning that the abuses of
capitalism came before the burden of regulations, the libertarian would
insist that the best form of government would be little or no government.
However, is little or no government in the public
interest? We in the United States
are rather permissive with regard to businesses.
As a result, we have periodic catastrophes, like the Citigroup loss
of earlier this month:
NEW
YORK -- The sub-prime mortgage crisis hit Wall Street with full fury Tuesday
as Citigroup Inc. reported a nearly $10-billion fourth-quarter loss, and
both Citigroup and Merrill Lynch & Co. got cash infusions to shore up
their financial stability.
Citigroup
wrote down by $18.1 billion the value of sub-prime-related holdings on its
books, slashed its dividend 41% and said it would eliminate 4,200 of its
roughly 300,000 jobs worldwide in what is expected to be the opening volley
in a series of layoffs by the company this year. ...
Los Angeles
Times, January 16, 2008
In the next part of this essay, we will look at ways in
which capitalism influences public policy.
Announcements
FOR EVERYONE. Which
key foods are we overlooking? According
to one online service, “there are many superfoods that never see the
inside of a shopping cart. Some you've never heard of, and others you've
simply forgotten about. That's why we've rounded up the best of the bunch.
Make a place for them on your table and you'll instantly upgrade your
health—without a prescription.” How
the food is prepared can be as important as what the food is, e.g., beets
from a jar have far less nutritional value than those which are fresh and
raw. Here is the list:
beets, cabbage, guava, Swiss chard, cinnamon, purslane, pomegranate
juice, goji berries, dried plums, pumpkin seeds.
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100168275
FOR EVERYONE. If
you have a mother, sister, daughter or girlfriend.
A woman having a heart attack might have symptoms different from those of
a man. This is worth reading and
discussing: http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/womensami.htm
.
FOR EVERYONE. Light
show in the sky. ...Such an eloquent description certainly fits our current morning sky,
for these final days of January and the first days of February will be an
exceptional time for predawn sky watchers with a beautiful pairing of the
two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter. They will appear closest together
in the dawn sky of Friday, Feb. 1, and a few mornings later, the waning
crescent moon will later drop by to join them. ...Joe Rao, www.space.com.
FOR COMMUNITY LEADERS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS.
Nonprofits being scammed. A
new email fraud campaign is luring unsuspecting
nonprofits
across the
U.S.
with the promise of foundation grant money.
Sunbelt Software, a Windows security and management software
provider, has issued an alert for nonprofits that might be enticed by the
new email scam. The email
appears to be sent by a "Barbara Moratek" who claims to be
director of grant programs for the "Ivete Foundation" and requests
"additional information for prospective donors or volunteers." ...
Philanthropy
Journal,
January 25, 2008.
Fun
Facts about Maryland
The United States Naval
Academy
was founded on October 10, 1845, at Annapolis.
During revolutionary times Rockville
was known as Hungerford’s Tavern, the name of its most familiar landmark.
One of the first calls to freedom from British rule was heard at the tavern
in 1774.
The Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary is considered a masterpiece and one of the finest nineteenth century
buildings in the world. The basilica is the first cathedral in the United States.
Baltimore
represents the first Roman Catholic diocese.
America’s national anthem was written by Francis Scott Key a
Maryland
lawyer. It is believed Key wrote the anthem on September 14, 1818, while
watching the bombardment of
Fort
McHenry
in Baltimore
Harbor.
King
Williams
School, opened in 1696, was the first school in the United States.
On June 24, 1784, in
Baltimore, 13-year old Edward Warren went airborne in the first successful manned
balloon launch in the United States.
Maryland
forests cover approximately 2.7 million acres, or 43% of the states land
surface. Oak and hickory are the dominant hardwood or deciduous forest type,
making up 60% of forested areas. Loblolly pine is the most prevalent
softwood and is the predominant forest wood on the
Eastern Shore.
The town of
Garrett Park
declared the first nuclear free zone in the United States
in 1982, thus affirming a tradition of peacefulness that began back in 1898
when it became illegal to harm any tree or songbird within the town limits.
Maryland
was first to enact worker’s compensation laws in 1902.
On the morning of August 10, 1813, residents of Saint
Michaels having been forewarned of a British attack hoisted lanterns to the
masts of ships and in the tops of the trees. The height of light caused
cannons to overshoot the town. This first known blackout was effective and
only one house was struck and is now known as the “Cannonball House.”
The town has been known as the town that fooled the British since this
historic event.
Maryland
gave up some of its land to form Washington,
D.C.
Clara Barton National Historic Site commemorates the
life of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. The house in Glen
Echo served as her home and headquarters for the American Red Cross and a
warehouse for disaster relief supplies.
Annapolis
was known as the Athens of America during the seventeenth century and once
served as the capital of the
United States.
The Community Bridge
mural project in Frederick
transformed a plain concrete bridge into the stunning illusion of an old
stone bridge. The entire structure was painted by hand by an artist and his
assistants, using advanced trompe
l’oeil, that is, “deceive the eye”, techniques.
[If you wish to see a photograph, go to http://bridge.skyline.net/
.]
http://www.fun-facts.com/item/86108
The
Flashback Quarterback: Détente in
Montebello
Few
of us know what détente
means, a term used in the Seventies to describe a relaxing of the tension
between the
United States
and the
Soviet Union
.
Détente
goes against the advocacy of outside-the-box thinking advocated in E-NEWS
to address community problems. Do
we have “détente
in
Montebello”? In other words, do we shy
from innovation in the public interest in order to please and appease?
We
have many communities within our community of
Montebello. Yes, diversity. For everyone to get along,
we leave each other alone. Détente.
This
is a good thing. And a bad
thing. Bad because we do not
challenge one another to do better. We
do not take on activities to improve our common lot.
(We do have much charitable activity, which repeats yearly.
That maintains the status quo, but does not improve our common lot.)
How
much better is life in the twenty-first century if we are afraid to stand up
for the common good? Could it be
that we lack financial security and are afraid to challenge the status quo,
thinking that we might lose our job or business?
Or could it be that we believe that we should not change the status
quo, because life is a crucible for the soul which should not be changed?
Beware and Share:
Inside the Pages of Facebook
It was interesting seeing the
January 13, 2008, report on “Sixty Minutes” about “Facebook,” the
online community with now more than fifty-nine million members.
But what is popular is not
always safe. Or right.
For a strong criticism, see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
About
Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”
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.
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