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Montebello E-News

 January 31, 2010

There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission.  They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation. Walter Lippman

Is Lippman criticizing American missionaries and American presidents? Does one conclude that, to avoid the sin of pride, one must say that “truth” is relative, that each culture has its own “truth”?

1. Announcements
2. A Scarlet Letter
3. Touching a Sacred Cow
4. About Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”

Do you remember? The following quotation was printed in the December 15, 2009, Montebello E-News. I repeat because I find it highly relevant. I should print and put it on the wall above my computer monitor to remind myself. (I just did.) The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class. Walter Lippman

Montebello pride. Senior Erick Gonzalez, who scored the only goal in overtime to lift Montebello High School to the CIF Southern Section Division III boys water polo title, has been named Division III co-player of the year with Murrieta Valley junior Trent Virgil. Montebello's Kenny Clements is division coach of the year and the Oilers had four other players on the All-CIF team selected by the Southern California Water Polo Coaches Association. ... http://www.wavenewspapers.com/sports/80018792.html

Yet, all is not well in society at large. Ellen Goodman is morally troubled. The liberal columnist for The Boston Globe surveys the moral landscape and laments "there's no shame in the game." Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, whose observations are predictably liberal and feminist, but also marked by a keen eye for cultural detail. I still remember a column she wrote almost thirty years ago about an abandoned church being transformed into a condominium. In "Whatever Happened to Shame?," published in the December 18 edition of the Boston paper, Goodman reports that The New York Post has hired Ashley Dupre, the prostitute at the center of the controversy that brought down former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, as an advice columnist. Goodman does not welcome this news: "I may be a cynic, but somehow I don't think the Post was motivated by a desire to reform a wayward (call) girl. Dupre's second act isn't reformation. It's confirmation, if we needed it, that there's no shame in the game." Ellen Goodman is not a scold. She tells us this, insisting that "Shame on you" is "not a phrase that trips off my lips." But she does see a loss of shame as an ominous moral signal. She referred also to the "scandal of the moment" centering on Tiger Woods and the financial scandals of the last two years. Her greatest concern is the absence of shame:  "If, as anthropologists say, shame comes from a violation of cultural norms, it seems to have found its match in a newer cultural norm: fame. Notoriety isn't so notorious anymore. If Hester Prynne were around, she wouldn't be the subject of a novel, she'd be the author of a tell-all memoir with cell-phone pictures of a buff Arthur Dimmesdale." Goodman's reference to The Scarlet Letter will, I fear, be familiar to a decreasing number of Americans each year. The story has less hold on a society that does not fear (or even understand) shame. The problem with Ellen Goodman's understanding of shame is in her paragraph above. If shame is rooted only in "a violation of cultural norms," then shame disappears as cultural norms change and what was once condemned is now celebrated. I share Ellen Goodman's concern about the disappearance of shame, but I do not believe that a secular understanding of morality can sustain a stable structure of shame. ... http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/12/18/newsnote-whatever-happened-to-shame/
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Free movie. Monday, February 8, 2010, 3:30 p.m. In a post-apocalyptic world, a rag doll named g9h happens upon a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the Earth intent on their extinction. ... Rated PG-13. Run time 79 minutes. For more information, Montebello library, 1550 West Beverly Boulevard, Montebello, 323.722.6551

Scholarship for Montebello high schoolers. Legal Secretaries, Incorporated, has a $1,000.00 scholarship program up and running. The Eula Mae Jett Scholarship Plan is available to current college students (Plan A), current high school seniors (Plan B), and to others (Plan C) who plan to attend school in the Fall of 2010 with the goal of learning skills valued in a law office environment or advancing within same. Please consider and/or share with friends and family - application packages must be postmarked on or before March 12, 2010. Attached is a self-explanatory application. Caveat: members of Legal Secretaries, Incorporated, do not qualify for this scholarship program. For more information, log onto http://www.lsi.org/scholarship.php .

Can Montebello do better? Whittier has completed initial construction on the Greenway Trail, a five-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail which replaces an abandoned railroad right-of-way. The official dedication of the trail was held Saturday, January 31, 2009, at Palm Park. ... Community participation is a very important part of the Greenway Trail development. A community meeting was held in May, 2002, to acquaint residents with the project and receive their input. A trail design team was selected by City Council in December, 2002, and worked with a task force to develop conceptual and preliminary designs. A community-wide public meeting about the project was held in February, 2003, at the Whittier Senior Center. ... Special benefits of the Greenway Trail to the City include alleviating traffic congestion, improving air quality and providing a scenic greenbelt area through the center of Whittier. The trail also provides increased safety for those who prefer to bike or walk to their destinations. The Greenway connects with the local and regional busy systems ... All acquisition and development funds come from state and federal sources. The bulk of the money for the project has come from Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Caltrans grants. Also, the state has contributed more than $2.3 million, primarily through bond funds. ... http://www.cityofwhittier.org/content/Greenway.html

The train without a brain. My father, a General Motors retiree, gets much unwanted information from General Motors and from the United Auto Workers, his union. Recently, he received a notice about the management of the funds in his pension plan. The notice was incomprehensible. The most important part was on a separate sheet of paper, "The attached notice is provided for your information only. This information does not impact any GM benefit entitlement you may have, and it does not require you to take any action."  The reason this incomprehensible waste of time and paper was sent was because, "beginning this year, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requires that the plan administrator provide an annual funding notice ..." Does Congress know what it is doing? No, it does not. This is what happens when 535 members of Congress make decisions for the many issues for which they have too little time.

The local train without a brain. The Feds and national organizations are not the only ones who should pause to consider the bizarreness, the irrationality of what they are doing. Last week, we received the sample ballots for the Montebello City election. Three voters, three large booklets. Why three, as they make for considerable unnecessary waste. The argument is made that we should not have recall elections because they are costly; however, they are costly because of the way in which we implement them, not because, they are, by nature, costly.  As the California Secretary of State does with statewide propositions, one copy can be mailed to a household. 

Good advice. This came by e-mail last week from the Southern California Gas Company. Can we do better? Keep a 12-inch or larger adjustable wrench next to the meter's shut-off valve or with your emergency preparedness supplies, and know how to shut off your gas if you suspect a natural gas leak. You may smell the distinctive odor** we add to natural gas, see a damaged connection to a gas appliance, or hear a hissing, whistling or roaring sound near a gas appliance or pipeline. You may notice other telltale signs over or near gas pipelines such as a fire, dying vegetation, flying dirt or water, or exposed pipeline after a disaster. Don't light a match, candle or cigarette, and don't turn on or off any electrical devices, not even a light. Immediately move your family to a safe location away from the gas leak, and call The Gas Company at 1-800-427-2200 or dial 911. **Some people may not be able to smell the odor because they have a diminished sense of smell, they have smelled the same odor for too long or because the odor is being masked by other odors in the area. In addition, certain conditions in pipes and soil may cause the odor to diminish or "fade" so that it is not detectable.

Better advice. With regard to the question in the previous announcement, (1) the meter reader could note those gas meters which do not have an adjustable wrench nearby; (2) an e-mail could be sent to homeowners and landlords telling of the availability of quality wrenches at cost; (3) the meter reader could bring the wrenches and place them near, or even attach them to, the meters. The weight of the wrenches would not be an issue, because the meter readers could cart them.

Is half a loaf better than none? One of the stronger advocates for health-care reform is the organization "Physicians for a National Health Program", www.pnhp.org. PNHP opposes the President's health-care legislation because, in the end, the winner is the health-care industry, not the public. That is not to say that the legislation does not bring benefit to the public. So, is half a loaf better than none?

Should our service clubs not be at the forefront of this? Two years ago, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress, and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute came together to grade the states on school performance. In that first Leaders and Laggards report, we found much to applaud but even more that requires urgent improvement. In this follow-up report, we turn our attention to the future, looking not at how states are performing today, but at what they are doing to prepare themselves for the challenges that lie ahead. Thus, some states with positive academic results receive poor grades on our measures of innovation, while others with lackluster scholarly achievement nevertheless earn high marks for policies that are creating an entrepreneurial culture in their schools. We chose this focus because, regardless of current academic accomplishment in each state, we believe innovative educational practices are vital to laying the groundwork for continuous and transformational change. And change is essential. Put bluntly, we believe our education system needs to be reinvented. After decades of political inaction and ineffective reforms, our schools consistently produce students unready for the rigors of the modern workplace. The lack of preparedness is staggering. Roughly one in three eighth graders is proficient in reading. Most high schools graduate little more than two-thirds of their students on time. And even the students who do receive a high school diploma lack adequate skills: More than 33% of first-year college students require remediation in either math or English. ... http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2Q061p/www.fastcompany.com/blog/ben-paynter/
ben-paynter/new-homework-states-innovate-school-systems/r:t

Think twice about any product which you do not know well. The California Department of Public Health...put out a consumer alert on December 31, 2009, about the candy "Ticorindo", imported from Mexico, saying that the candy had a high level of lead and must not be eaten. c Montebello Comet, January 7, 2010

Careful what you wish for. Now armed with gift cards, many will be in the market for cell phones for the family this post-holiday season. If San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has his way, by the end of this year those cell phones will come complete with warning labels. The proposal is a response to some scientific studies linking long-term cell phone use with brain tumors and other health issues. Renee Sharp, who is director of the California office of the Environmental Working Group, says evidence shows that the effects of cell phone radiation are especially harmful to children and fetuses. ... Montebello Comet, January 7, 2010

Outdoor and indoor curfews for teenagers? Only about 8 percent of high school students get enough sleep on an average school night, a large new study finds. The others are living with borderline-to-serious sleep deficits that could lead to daytime drowsiness, depression, headaches and poor performance at school. The study, which appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health, evaluated responses from 12,000 students in grades 9 through 12 who participated in the 2007 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. ... National Sleep foundation research shows that delaying school start-times by an hour or more increases the amount of sleep adolescents get and improves their performance in school. However, to promote optimal sleep, [lead study author Danice Eaton, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] said that adolescents should have set bed times before 10 p.m. On school nights and consistent wake-sleep times every night. ... Montebello Comet, January 7, 2010

A lesson for Montebello? Substitute "resident" for "employee" as you read the following. Could not, should not, residents be far more involved in the governance of Montebello? Yet, do you hear any of the candidates talking about that?

This is from a Gallup Management Journal interview:
GMJ: How can government begin engaging the minds of all its employees, managers included?  
Mears: The answer begins with swapping control for accountability — and accountability requires ensuring that employees understand the outcomes that are expected of them. When employees understand desired outcomes and have simple metrics to track them, you have accountability. Employees also should be empowered to think about better ways to reach those outcomes. They can experiment and make appropriate local improvements as long as outcomes are reached. This helps eliminate some of the busywork that builds up when people don’t understand the big picture. Accountability works better than control. http://www.whatsbestnext.com/2010/01/swap-control-for-accountability/
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I am still awaiting a reply to this letter, which I sent by e-mail. Does somebody have a solution, if not for the newspaper, then at least for the youth?  Please share your solution and I will convey to the newspaper.

January 21, 2010

Steve Lambert, Publisher
Kathy Michalak, Vice President, Circulation 
Steve Hunt, Senior Editor 
Whittier Daily News
7612 Greenleaf Avenue
Whittier, CA 90602
(562) 698-0955 
steve.lambert@inlandnewspapers.com 
kathy.michalak@inlandnewspapers.com 
steve.hunt@inlandnewspapers.com 

Dear Mr. Lambert, Ms. Michalak, Mr. Hunt:

During the evening of Tuesday, January 19, 2010, in the dark, a young man, a twelfth grader at Santee High School, south of downtown Los Angeles, knocked on the door and asked us to buy a subscription to the Whittier Daily News. This was approximately two weeks after a different young man, from a different high school, knocked on the door to sell a subscription to the Whittier Daily News.

The program through which you induce teenagers to sell subscriptions is unfair to them. That they would be far from home with no adult in accompaniment, selling newspapers in a neighborhood which has had its fill of newspapers, is unconscionable. That you would be selling subscriptions at a time when conspicuous, even mindless, consumption is a major issue is, likewise, unconscionable. You cannot be doing such things in order to secure the newspaper's bottom line or the jobs of your staff.

If I find anybody in my neighborhood—whether or not he or she be selling at our doorstep—soliciting for the Whittier Daily News, complaints will be filed, because there is enough circumstantial evidence that the promises made to the youth are misleading. If you claim that the responsibility is solely that of the adult supervising the youth, then I am telling you that I am holding you equally responsible.

If increasing income is important, try what the New York Times is trying, namely, charge for online news.

Thank you.

Sincerely, 

Van Ajemian, 331 North Vail Avenue, Montebello, California 90640

Most Americans applauded the collapse of Soviet communism in the early Nineties. Many think that this proved our market economy to be superior; others think that we were on the side of God.

It does not matter whether we would have the superior system or be divinely protected. Our system is flawed. Many people suffer at home and abroad because of our system. We can do better. It is saddening that we try to do better only when there has been an egregious failure, as has happened recently. Yet, when we try, we do not get far, because our vaunted democracy fails to implement the will of the people.

As with all things human, our market economy and our democracy are imperfect. The question is not why that is the the case, but, rather, why we are not committed, driven and focused to do better.

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.