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Montebello
E-News
April
24, 2008
Change means
movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a
nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that
abrasive friction of conflict.
Saul
Alinsky, 1909 - 1972,
generally
considered the father of community organizing.
Alinsky is often credited with laying the foundation for the
grassroots political organizing that dominated the 1960s. Later in his life
he encouraged stockholders in public corporations to lend their votes to
"proxies," who would vote at annual stockholders meetings in favor
of social justice.
[Is Alinsky’s quote another
way of saying that we must break eggs to make an omelet?]
1.
Special Announcement for Earth Day
2.
Montebello
Declares Weekly “Litter Day”?
3.
A Not-So-Divine Comedy, Part 18
4.
Announcements
5.
Fun Facts about New York
6.
The Flashback Quarterback: Need
to Peel More Paint and Pay More Attention!
7.
Be Aware and Share: Don’t
Drink That Bottled Water
8.
About
Montebello E-News and “My
Montebello”
Special Announcement for Earth Day
Black
is the New Green
If you're searching the Web -- and
searching for easy ways to save energy -- try using Blackle, a new search
engine powered by Google that turns your Web browser window mostly black
during searches. Using Blackle saves about 15 watts of power per display,
which really adds up: one blogger calculates the new search engine could
save the world 750 megawatt-hours per year. And not only does using a dark
computer screen save
energy; it will also remind you of the importance of fighting climate
change in other ways throughout your day.
Learn about it
at http://www.blackle.com/about/
and try it out at http://www.blackle.com/
.
Montebello Declares Weekly “Litter Day”?
Montebello
has changed.
It has become acceptable
·
for throw-away newspapers to be thrown any which way, landing in the
street, hedges, sidewalk;
·
for disposables from our fast-food restaurants to wind up curbside in
residential areas, where people choose to clean out their cars without
regard for the residents;
·
for nobody, be he or she on city council, among city staff, among
service-club members or in affected neighborhoods, to say anything about it.
Somebody will say that, if it had enough money, our
city would attend to this. I say
that our city is not our god, that we should stop looking to government for
a solution to all our problems. First,
government does not have the time and money.
Second, government’s hands are quite tied, by law or custom, an
example of which is in this issue’s “Flashback Quarterback.”
My concern is that (a) nobody cares or (b) nobody can
care because the system makes it difficult to care.
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 would be the purpose of “Montebello Litter
Day”?
(a) To clean up litter.
(b) To acknowledge that littering has become worse over
time.
(c) To put litterbugs on alert that there would be
consequences.
2. If we chose 1(c), what might the consequences be, if
we thought outside the box?
(a) Video surveillance of residential neighborhoods,
with litterbugs fined.
(b) Lawsuits against newspaper companies for
environmental degradation.
(c) The ability of neighborhoods to enact
mini-ordinances to upgrade and enforce neighborhood beautification.
A
Not-So-Divine Comedy, Part 18
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.
We have noted many
deficiencies in the capitalism which we practice.
The purpose behind such a look has been to encourage thought and
action about how to make capitalism work better.
We are now looking at possible solutions.
In the previous essay
part, we talked about a local currency, that is, about a community printing
its own money. We looked at the
role which the local currency could play in overcoming deficiencies of
modern-day American capitalism. Could
a local currency work for
Montebello
?
Yes, if the merchants of
Montebello
agreed to participate.
Could a local currency
have a large salutary impact on
Montebello? Possibly.
There is a special local
currency, existing to the best of my knowledge only as a concept, waiting to
be tested. This special currency
would be put into a community chest managed by youth and adults.
Other youth and adults, with ideas to improve the quality of life in Montebello, could ask for budgets to carry out activities.
Citizenship status would not be at issue for the management of or
grant requests put to the community chest, as long as everyone involved
labored, lived or learned in
Montebello
and wanted to contribute to a better quality of life.
As people earned the
special currency for socially-useful activities, they could spend with
merchants who had chosen to accept the currency toward partial payment on
purchases. The merchants then
would put the currency back into to the chest, as if making a donation.
The cycle would repeat indefinitely.
A bonus would be a significant increase in community involvement by
youth, much needed these days, but, also, much neglected.
Which socially-useful
ideas could the special currency catalyze?
Examples:
* tutoring * planting
and harvesting * safety monitoring * assisting the elderly * visiting and
reading to people who are convalescing * heightening environmental awareness
* facilitating recycling * installing and testing smoke detectors *
organizing and managing mini-town halls * nonpartisan election-campaign
education * nonpartisan voter assistance and empowerment * operating a
community chest * publishing an online community newsletter * keeping youth
busy after school * extracurricular sports and exercises * researching
socially-responsible micro-franchise opportunities * taking lessons in first
aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, family disaster preparedness *
neighborhood disaster drills * giving talks about ESOPs and cooperatives.
Creativity and
innovation for the public good would be given priority.
Announcements
FOR EVERYONE.
Two hundred-year celebration.
The
Montebello
Historical Society needs your support for our two hundredth anniversary
“Fandango” celebration of the birth of Juan Matias Sanchez.
This celebration will be an educational opportunity that will provide
the local community a glimpse into the area’s past. …All donations are
tax deductible, and excess proceeds from this event will be used to maintain
displays, preserve the museum’s collections and provide our local
educational programs. ... For more information, contact Gary N. Brougher at
323.721.8779 or gbrougher@sbcglobal.net.
FOR EVERYONE.
Commission meeting. The
Montebello City Planning Commission is holding its regularly-scheduled
meeting on Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at 7 p.m. at city hall.
The meeting is open to the public.
For more information, 323.887.1200.
FOR YOUTH, PARENTS, TEACHERS.
Brower Youth Awards to honor young environmental leaders. Deadline:
May 15, 2008. A program
of the Earth Island Institute, http://www.earthisland.org/, the Brower Youth
Awards recognizes six young people in
North America
annually for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of
environmental and environmental justice advocacy. The winners of the award
receive a $3,000 cash prize, a trip to
California
for the award ceremony, a wilderness camping trip, and ongoing access to
resources and opportunities to further their work at Earth Island Institute.
Young activist leaders between the ages of 13 and 22 living in
North America
are eligible to apply. Further
information and the application request form are available at the Brower
Youth Awards Web site. RFP Link: http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/pnd/15012340/broweryouth.
FOR COMMUNITY LEADERS AND ELECTED
OFFICIALS. One way to solve a
problem. "Le 10 novembre dernier un petit groupe de personnes s'est soulevé
contre les criminel qui terrorisaient les gens du quartier et désormais,
c'est nous qui faisons régner l'ordre ici" dit un milicien. Ce fief
sunnite était jusqu'à récemment l'un des quartiers les plus dangereux de
Bagdad
. Ici les victimes de la violence sectaire se comptent par milliers. …”
Excerpted from Euronews, March 19, 2008.
Translation: “Last
November 10 a small group of people rose up against the criminals which
terrorized the people of their neighborhood and, since then, we are the ones
ensuring that order prevail,” said a militiaman.
This Sunni neighborhood was, until recently, one of the more
dangerous of
Baghdad
. Here the victims of sectarian
violence are counted in the thousands. …”
Fun
Facts about New York
The first American chess
tournament was held in New York
in 1843.
The Fashion Institute of
Technology in Manhattan
is the only school in the world offering a Bachelor of Science Degree with a
major in cosmetics and fragrance marketing.
Dairying is New York’s most important farming activity, with over eighteen thousand cattle and
or calves farms. [Farms,
not heads of cattle, so the number of cattle must be much larger.]
In 1807 the Clermont
made its maiden voyage from
New York City
to Albany, making the vessel the first successful steamboat.
New York City
has seven hundred twenty-two miles of subway
track. [The length of track is
the same as the distance from
Los Angeles
to
Las Vegas, back to
Los Angeles, and more than half way back to
Las Vegas!]
The New York Post,
established in 1803 by Alexander Hamilton, is the oldest running newspaper
in the United States.
The first capital of the
United States
was New York City. In 1789 George Washington took his oath as President on the balcony at
Federal Hall.
Sam Wilson, a meatpacker
from
Troy, whose caricature “Uncle Sam” came to personify the
United States, is buried at
Troy’s Oakwood
Cemetery. During the War of 1812, he
stamped “U.S. Beef” on his products. Soldiers
interpreted the “U.S.” abbreviation as meaning “Uncle Sam.”
Gennaro Lombardi opened
the first
United States
pizzeria in 1895 in New York City. [Why did Mr. Lombardi choose
New York
?]
European settlers who
brought seeds to New York
introduced apples in the 1600s. [Does
this mean that apples were not native to the
New World
?]
The “Big Apple,”
which is a nickname for New York City, is a term coined by musicians meaning to play the big time.
The first Eagle Scout
was Arthur R. Eldred from Troop 1 in Oceanside. He was bestowed the honor in
May, 1912.
Adirondack
Park
is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite,
Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Olympic Parks combined. [That
is big.]
New York
State
is home to fifty-eight species of wild
orchids. [Diversity, a subject
of interest in E-News, is natural.]
New York
has over seventy thousand miles of rivers
and streams.
The name
“Canandaigua,” pronounced “Can-an-DAY-gwa,” is derived from a Native
American word meaning the chosen spot. [So,
is this the origin of “Canada”?]
The
Flashback Quarterback: Need to Peel More
Paint and Pay More Attention
Last
issue we mentioned painting ourselves into a corner.
Boy, do we have an example here!
On
“Sixty Minutes,” March 9, 2008, there was a report about a man who had
spent time in jail for about twenty-six years.
His innocence was known at the time of his trial, but the attorneys
who knew it did not tell the judge, because the “attorney-client
privilege” prevented them from doing so.
Why?
The attorneys represented a different man, the guilty man, who had
told them that he had been responsible for the crime.
But the privilege, which is one of the major
rules among
attorneys in order to encourage their clients to speak freely to them,
barred them from telling the judge that the wrong man had been convicted.
The truth came out when the attorneys asked the guilty man for
permission to tell the truth after his death.
The guilty man agreed and, when he died recently, the attorneys made
the truth public.
We
have interesting values in America, at
times harmful and illogical. What
would have been your solution?
Be Aware and Share: Don't Drink
That Bottled Water!
In March there was a report on network news about
traces of pharmaceutical drugs in our water supply.
Neither sewage treatment plants nor bottled-water processors filtered
out the drugs in the water. So,
we are presumably ingesting drugs as we imbibe water which we think to be
clean.
Doing a Google search under “water supply drugs,” I
saw an abstract about pharmaceutical drugs in the water supply dated
November 17, 2005. Why did I
become aware of this problem just last month?
Was I not paying attention? Were
the major media not paying attention?
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, and for submitting stories to
"Montebello Memories" at the Web site.
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