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Montebello
E-News
January 3,
2008
Democracy is indispensable to socialism.
Vladimir
Ilyich Ulyanov,
better
known by the alias “Lenin,” 1870 – 1924, was a Russian revolutionary,
a communist politician, the main leader of the October Revolution, the first
head of the
Russian
Soviet
Socialist
Republic
and, from 1922, the first de facto leader of the
Soviet Union. He was the creator of Leninism, an extension of Marxist theory.
(We
believe that democracy is indispensable to capitalism.
Lenin thought democracy was indispensable to socialism.
But communism, the culmination of socialism, discarded democracy, and
today we are seeing capitalism without democracy in places like China. Maybe
the problem would lie in our definition of "democracy.")
1.
Enough to Make You Dizzy!
2.
A Not-So-Divine Comedy, Part 2
3.
Announcements
4.
Fun Facts about
Kansas
5.
The Flashback Quarterback:
We Are Not Alone; Look at
Italy
6.
Beware and Share: Do
You See the Problem?
7.
About Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”
Enough to Make
You Dizzy!
It
is natural, human, for us to try
to fit the facts to our beliefs. So
if we genuinely want to know what is going on with climate change, we must
be able to deliberate and do so
with participation from others.
First
of all, should we care? As has
been stated in a past E-News, yes, we should, if only to avoid going
to war with the Chinese over the supply of fossil fuels.
Here
are some excerpts from news reports. What
is your conclusion?
1. The Pope says “no” to global warming.
Pope Benedict XVI
has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning
them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and
not on dubious ideology.
The leader of
more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made
emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of
unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. …
From http://www.dailymail.co.uk
http://www.dailymail.co.uk, December 12,
2007.
2. NASA data point to accelerated melting of Arctic ice.
WASHINGTON (AP)
— An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this
summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming
has passed an ominous tipping point. One even
speculated that
summer sea ice would be gone in five years.
Greenland's ice
sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and
the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four
years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The
Associated Press. …
December
11, 2007. See
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html
3. Some scientists challenge global warming.
BALI, Indonesia -
An international team of scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears
promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore, descended on
Bali
this week to urge the world to "have the courage to do
nothing" in
response to UN demands.
Lord Christopher
Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate
conference participants on Monday.
"Climate
change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the
courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants. …
December 11, 2007. See http://epw.senate.gov/public/
.
4. We will face an oil crunch in five years.
The world is
facing an oil supply “crunch” within five years that will force up
prices to record levels and increase the west’s dependence on oil cartel
Opec, the industrialised countries’ energy watchdog has warned.
In its starkest
warning yet on the world’s fuel outlook, the International Energy Agency
said “oil looks extremely tight in five years time” and there
are “prospects
of even tighter natural gas markets at the turn of the decade”.
The IEA said that
supply was falling faster than expected in mature areas, such as the North
Sea or Mexico, while projects in new provinces such as the Russian Far East,
faced long delays. Meanwhile
consumption is accelerating on strong economic growth in emerging countries.…
The Financial Times, July 9, 2007.
Hmm, which course of action on our part would be prudent?
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. What are we reading?
(a) There are respectable voices who deny global
warming.
(b) There is a credible source which shows that the
Arctic ice is melting faster.
(c) We are headed for a shortage in the oil supply.
2. Which course of action on our part would be prudent?
(a) Regardless of the facts on global warming, conserve
in order to alleviate the coming oil shortage.
(b) Regardless of the facts on global warming, conserve
in order for us to have a stockpile of fossil fuels against unforeseen
emergencies.
(c) Regardless of the facts on global warming, conserve
in order to avoid confrontations with fuel-hungry countries.
(d) Regardless of the facts on global warming, conserve
in order to set an example for fuel-hungry countries.
A
Not-So-Divine Comedy, Part 2
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.
After our Southern California fires in October, 2007, a
news reporter noted that there would be increased activity for San Diego
businesses because of the rebuilding.
My father has a question for which the answer is less
difficult than what we imagine. He asks why, with all
our technology, we have not found a solution to tornados and hurricanes, in
light of the huge devastation. Answer:
it is because of the huge devastation that we have not found a solution.
Devastation means rebuilding, which means stimulation to a local or
regional economy.
Besides the rebuilding, if we did a better job of
fireproofing our homes and businesses, what would that do to firefighters
and fire-equipment manufacturers? If
residents took control of neighborhood security and reduced crime, what
would that do to police officers, attorneys, court clerks, court
transcribers, judges, bailiffs, corrections officers, and suppliers to
prisons?
Morbid? No.
Macabre? No.
Mendacious? No.
A maxim? Maybe.
The ills of our society give rise to business, to jobs, to the
exchange of money. Many jobs
would be lost if we had a perfect society.
(Side note. It is
interesting to note that in Christian Scripture this is not an issue for
those of faith who inherit paradise on the new Earth.
One imagines that police officers, attorneys, physicians, and others
would not be needed, so the faithful would have other occupations.
Willingly take other occupations?
Which other occupations?)
There is the opinion that capitalism would be the worst
form of economic organization except all those others which have been tried
from time to time. In other
words, we could not do better than capitalism.
Yet, capitalism needs misery to keep going.
Not a comfortable feeling, unless we be willing to look for a form of
economic organization which would be not as bad.
Announcements
FOR EVERYONE. Anniversary.
The one
hundred sixty-first anniversary of the Battle of San Gabriel River is on
January 8. “The Battle of Rio
San Gabriel was a decisive action of the
California
campaign of the Mexican-American War and occurred at the sites of
present-day
Montebello
and Pico Rivera
on January 8, 1847. …” For
more information,
http://www.mymontebello.com/battle_san_gabriel_river.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rio_San_Gabriel.
FOR ADULTS. Turnaround
to state line. This
is a fundraiser put on by the Schurr High Music Boosters.
Must be at least twenty-one years old.
Saturday, January 26. Contact
fundraising@schurrmusic.org
to make arrangements to turn in your payment and form.
FOR EVERYONE. Meeting.
The next regular meeting of the Montebello
city council will be at city hall on Wednesday, January 9, 2008, at 7:30
p.m. If you wish to speak during
orals, come before 7:30 p.m. and sign up.
If you have more to say than there is time allotted, prepare a one
pager, make copies, and hand out before you speak.
FOR EVERYONE. Can
everything have a second life?
Share
your ideas about how you recycle items instead of throwing them away.
For example, in our office we had leftover promotional calendars for
2007. Instead of discarding
them, we covered the holidays with white paper.
Now, when clients come, we can keep their children busy with a little
game, “What’s the holiday name?” Another
game is “Write down all the birthdates which you know.”
project_teacher@mymontebello.com
Fun Facts about
Kansas
A ball of
twine in Cawker
City
measures over thirty-eight feet in circumference [can you figure the
diameter in your head?], weighs more than sixteen thousand seven hundred
fifty pounds, and is still growing.
A grain
elevator in Hutchinson
is one-half mile long and holds forty-six million bushels in its one
thousand bins.
At Kansas
State University College of Veterinary Medicine waterbeds for horses are
used in surgery.
Dodge City
is the windiest city in the United States. [Think “wind turbines.”]
The first
woman mayor in the United States
was Susan Madora Salter. She was
elected to office in Argonia in 1887.
The first
black woman to win an Academy Award was Kansan Hattie McDaniel. She
won the award for her role in “Gone with the Wind.”
Kansas
inventors include Almon Stowger of
El Dorado, who invented the dial telephone in 1889; William Purvis and Charles Wilson
of Goodland, who invented the helicopter in 1909; and Omar Knedlik of Coffeyville, who invented the first frozen carbonated drink machine in 1961.
Amelia
Earhart, first woman granted a pilot’s license by the National Aeronautics
Association and first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, was from Atchison.
Dwight D.
Eisenhower, from
Abilene, was the thirty-fourth President of the United States.
The
Arkansas River
may be the only river whose pronunciation changes as it crosses state lines.
In
Kansas, it is pronounced “ahr-KAN-zuhs,” while in
Colorado
and
Oklahoma, it is pronounced “AHR-kan-saw.”
Hutchinson
is nicknamed the Salt
City
because it was built above some of the richest salt deposits in the world.
Salt is still actively mined, processed and shipped from
Hutchinson.
In 1990 Kansas
wheat farmers produced enough wheat to make thirty-three billion loaves of
bread, or enough to provide each person on earth with six loaves.
[That is just Kansas. Extrapolating from that figure, the United
States and Canada might be able to feed the whole world. If so, why do
so many people go hungry around the world?]
The graham
cracker was named after the Reverend Sylvester Graham, 1794-1851. He
was a Presbyterian minister who strongly believed in eating whole wheat
flour products.
A hailstone
weighing more than one and a half pounds once fell on Coffeyville. [Ouch.]
http://www.fun-facts.com/item/86104
The
Flashback Quarterback: We Are
Not Alone; Look at
Italy
Italy
is grappling with
the issues of public safety and privacy after acts of violence by young
people. I have excerpted from
RomaOne.it, July 16, 2007. What
caught my attention was the belief that a society could have security and
privacy side by side, with security provided through law and culture. (We
would have a tough time in the
US
using culture as a tool to cultivate nonviolence, since diversity impedes a
cultural standard.) Perhaps the
words below which should be emphasized are “govern attentively,” which
to me means that we the public must participate in maintaining security and
privacy, not leaving these to government alone. The
translation follows.
..."Il nostro compito - sostiene Touadì - è spezzare questa
spirale attraverso azioni di ordine pubblico.
Quindi lavoro di intelligence e accertamento dei
fatti, come ha ricordato il Prefetto Serra, ma è necessario anche un
lavoro culturale, sulla memoria, di educazione". "Dobbiamo offrire
a questi ragazzi sottolinea l'assessore - delle prospettive sociali, di accesso al lavoro,
alla formazione. E' necessario isolare le frange violente e dare alla città
una
prospettiva che non guardi più a ideologie del passato, ma guardi al
presente". ...
..."Non c'è una contraddizione naturale tra la questione della
privacy e la questione della sicurezza – dice Labarile - ma è necessario
governare attentamente questi due processi e le tecnologie che vi sono
applicate, solo così è possibile dare piena garanzia ai cittadini".
Our task, maintains Touadi, is to break this spiral
[of violence] through actions of law and order.
Therefore, intelligence gathering [police work] and the verification
of facts, as the prefect Serra has reminded, but, also, it is necessary to
work on the upbringing [civility] culturally [nonlegally].
We must offer these boys, the city councilor emphasizes, social
opportunities, access to jobs and education.
We must isolate the violent fringe and give the city an outlook which
does not look to ideologies of the past, but, rather, looks to the present.
There is no natural contradiction between the issues
of privacy and security, Labarile says, but it is necessary to govern
attentively these two processes and the technologies which are applied to
you. Only thus is it possible to
give a full guarantee to citizens.
Beware
and Share: Do You See the
Problem?
Diversity is natural.
We humans express it through different cultures, different dress
styles, different kinds of music. Also,
mobility is natural, reinforced by law, which means that we can travel to
most places with the expectation that we would not be challenged.
But diversity and mobility clash, sometimes
violently. Remember the British
teacher in Sudan
who was jailed in December because her pupils named a teddy bear after the
Prophet Mohammed? Did you hear
about the sixty-one year old Texan who, on November 14, shot and killed two
men who had burglarized a neighbor’s house?
One burglar’s widow said that her husband did not deserve that.
It should be noted that the Texan had called police, but that the
police had not arrived in time, that is, the burglars had exited the house.
Diversity and mobility—a lethal mix.
Wherein lies the solution? Perhaps
we need a mantra, an “eleventh commandment,” that we must be ever so
careful not to assume that others share our cultural norms when we leave our
immediate neighborhood?
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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