If printing, please conserve by doing so on the front and back of each sheet.  Reduce font size if necessary.

Montebello E-News

 May 15, 2010 

We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world - introspection. We discover that humanity may resemble us very considerably - that the best way of knowing the inwardness of our neighbors is to know ourselves. Walter Lippmann

Since we do not know our neighbors well, does that mean that we do not know ourselves well? Should we have a national day of introspection, one which would not devolve into a day of watching television or sunbathing at the beach?

1. Announcements
 2. So Very Deceptive 
3. About Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”

"Must see" report from CBS news about how your private information becomes public without your knowing it. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6412572n&tag=mg;mostpopvideo

Mark your calendar. The Holy Cross Cathedral Festival Committee is pleased to announce their annual fun-filled festival celebrating authentic Armenian food, music and culture on Saturday, May 22, from 12:00 noon to 10:00 p.m. at the Holy Cross Cathedral in Montebello. The festival's highlights include a rich variety of Armenian food and live Armenian musical and folk dance performances. ... For more information, www.armenianfoodfair.com or call 323.893.9053.  From Spotlight on Montebello, April, 2010.

A note from Montebello Housing Development Corporation. This local nonprofit supports the monthly flea market at Montebello High School, in order to fundraise for the Montebello High School Special Education Adult Transition Program. The next flea market is on Saturday, June 12, 2010. For more information, go to http://www.mtbhousingcorp.com/, scroll down the left column to the link to the flea market, and click on the link to see a flier with the details.

Good job. Can it be better? Local volunteers raised $117,000 in support of the YMCA's Financial Assistance Program. The YMCA is a local not-for-profit (501c3) organization that raises money each year to scholarship [sic] local families in need of a hand up, not a hand out. Scholarships help the YMCA keep its promise, that no one will be turned away from the YMCA because they cannot afford program fees. This year's campaign is being lead [sic] by Tom Millhouse, general manager of Helms and Hill Towing... From Spotlight on Montebello, April, 2010. This can be better if, in emphasizing "hand up" instead of "handout", the YMCA thanked people for their service to the community by giving them program access without charge.

Why is the public not involved? ...The Montebello Police Department has been awarded $25,012 which it will use to purchase an automated license plate reader (ALPR) system. ALPR is a technology that captures images of license plates and converts those images to usable data for public safety, tolling and other intelligent transportation applications. ... From Spotlight on Montebello, April, 2010.

The fantasies which hold us in thrall. Few of us want to change his or her lifestyle; thus, Al Gore chose a good title for his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth". We cling to any reasoning, however bad, to maintain our lifestyle.  (Remember the statements by Walter Lippmann in previous E-News issues? "We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists."  "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. ")  Even if Al Gore were wrong about climate change, how do we justify "business as usual", as in the case of possibly the worst oil spill in history? White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that BP will be held responsible for compensating Gulf Coast fishers whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill -- an accident that has caused BP's stock to plunge. The costs are likely to greatly outweigh the $75 million cap on liability for economic damages such as lost wages, which has prompted several Democratic U.S. senators to push a bill raising the ceiling to $10 billion. In advance of the economic damage certain to follow as the vast oil slick reaches the coast, sea turtles and other marine life have already begun washing up dead in Pass Christian, Miss. As abstracted in UN Wire, May 4, 2010, from reports in The Guardian, May 3, 2010, and Financial Times, May 4, 2010

Do you smell a business opportunity here? ARE YOU SICK OF GETTING PARKING TICKETS FOR STREET SWEEPING? So are we! The City of Chicago tickets its residents every chance it gets and we at Stopparkingtickets.com are fed up with it. Did you know that the average Chicago street parker pays over $100 per year in parking tickets? Our goal is to change that by sending our subscribers email & text message warnings both the day before and the morning of street sweeping in their area. So join us in our quest to defend our fine citizens from street sweeping tickets! Rise up and say "No!" to poorly marked warning signs and outrageously high violation fees! Rise up and say "Stop Parking Tickets Now!" Just $9.99/year. Totally worth it! http://stopparkingtickets.com/

Take that thought a step farther. Do you wonder how your block would look without so many signs? What if we took out all signs on a block except stop signs and speed signs? The signs taken out would be replaced with devices emitting text messages to a driver's cell phone upon her activation, telling her what the parking and driving rules were on the block.

Imagine if we were so self-sufficient in Montebello that we would not be concerned about the machinations in Washington, D.C. A lot of us think of the filibuster as an inside game; a parliamentary tactic; a tool used by a handful of Senators to obstruct the legislative process. It's all of those things. But it also has real-world implications for people like you and me. When the filibuster clogs up reform efforts, real people suffer. We're looking for those stories. ... From a Common Cause newsletter, May 6, 2010.

Am I the only one in Montebello? Gulp. I hope that I not be the only one in Montebello who has signed the "Slow Money Principles", which could have a profound impact on our lives and those of our children and grandchildren, http://bit.ly/slowprinciples:

Vulnerable to terrorists? I had not realized this until an e-newsletter made mention of the oil spill (catastrophe?) in the Gulf of Mexico which began on Earth Day:  terrorists could do much damage environmentally if they damage certain forms of energy production. Destroying an array of solar panels or a wind farm would disrupt energy generation, but destroying an oil rig could do more damage, by polluting. http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/04/whats_going_on_beneath_the_sea.html

Your uncompensated labor. Here is something which you have to do, but for which you are not paid. ...The city is the legal owner of the parkways, that is, that strip of property normally located between the curb line of the street and the sidewalk. ... The Montebello Municipal Code that the owner of the property adjacent to the parkway keep the parkway maintained with live grass, free of weeds and debris, and properly mowed. It is, however, the city's responsibility to maintain parkway trees. ... From Spotlight on Montebello, April, 2010.

Those little things which spoil your day. An unusually mild winter has kept seal hunters from pursuing their annual harp seal hunt in eastern Canada, but is contributing to stress on harp seal pups that normally live on the region's ice. Seal pups are dying as a result of slipping off small pieces of ice or crushed by moving ice, and even those who survive will face challenges in finding spots to rest when they head out to sea. The New York Times, April 1, 2010, as abstracted in UN Wire, April 2, 2010.

I remember these butterflies from my childhood. Monarch butterflies may simply no longer exist in sufficient numbers to rebound from years of population declines, conservationists worry. Climate change and loss of habitat along the butterflies' migration route has left population numbers far below average for the past six years. From The Toronto Star, March 31, 2010, as abstracted in UN Wire, April 1, 2010.

Will we see the day of the "Untied"--not "United"--States of America? Remember the Presidential election when the map of the United States was divided into red and blue states? Cultural diversity is dynamic, meaning that our culture becomes ever more diverse. Cultural diversity is a natural process. How much money do we have to spend to support the FBI on one hand and congressional pork-barreling on the other in order to keep the United States united? Not a problem? Take a look at this, from a Common Cause e-newsletter of March 26, 2010: Common Cause yesterday called on the leadership of the House Democrats and House Republicans to hold an immediate, joint bi-partisan press conference to denounce the incendiary language, threats of violence and actual violence against those who voted in support of health care reform. In addition, we are calling on Sarah Palin to cease her violent rhetoric – "Don't retreat, instead reload" – and remove the gun imagery around a list of 20 members of Congress who supported health care reform and whose congressional districts appear to be caught in a rifle's crosshair in an offensive and inappropriate visual on her political action committee website. It's time to restore civility and decency to public debate. We are all Americans even when we disagree. ...

The Obama health-care reform will not fix this. A unit of WellPoint Inc. dropped Stellaris Health Network, a four-hospital chain in Westchester, N.Y., from its network after Stellaris asked for a 15% increase in reimbursement payments from the health insurer. Stellaris says it merely wanted the insurer to pay rates consistent with what it receives from other health plans in the market. "Our non-profit community hospitals can no longer subsidize the record profits of a health-insurance conglomerate," said Arthur A. Nizza, Stellaris's president and chief executive, in a statement. Empire asserts charges of overall profitability aren't relevant to this particular situation. The decision will affect thousands of members of Empire BlueCross BlueShield, a WellPoint unit in New York, who use the hospital system. Empire has six million members in New York, and Stellaris has been one of its top 10 hospital systems in the state based on size and member utilization. The failure to reach an agreement, which resulted in the contract being terminated late Wednesday, is the latest in a string of negotiations between hospitals and insurers that have gone hostile. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303960604575158042406727102.html

Montebello has many retirees. How to prevent elder abuse? Elders are targeted for fraud and financial abuse, say panelists. It’s a scenario heard frequently by elder abuse experts. The son (or daughter) who has been given power of attorney starts cutting back on his mother’s expenditures even though she has enough money to continue living as she had been. He decides where she lives and who she sees. He sells some of her favorite possessions. And as her on-hand cash declines, his swells. At the same time, new codicils to her will reduce the amount she had originally left to others and increase the amount for him.

Unintentionally, says her grandson Philip Marshall, Brooke Astor’s greatest legacy may be as someone who raised awareness of elder abuse. Last October, when he was 85 years old, Astor’s son (and Philip’s father), Anthony Marshall, was convicted on 14 of 16 charges that included grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, forgery, scheming to defraud, falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing and conspiracy. He was sentenced to one to three years in prison, and the case is on appeal.... From California Bar Journal, May, 2010. On the same page there are tips to prevent elder abuse. http://calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_cbj.jsp?sCategoryPath=/Home/Attorney%20Resources/
California%20Bar%20Journal/May2010&sCatHtmlPath=cbj/2010-05_TH_03_elder_abuse.html&
sCatHtmlTitle=Top%20Headlines

No Major League Baseball all-star game this year? The all-star game is planned for Phoenix, Arizona, this July, but the recent immigration law enacted in Arizona has created a fury which makes me wonder about what will happen this year. Adrian Gonzalez is one of baseball’s best players and a two-time All-Star. But the San Diego Padres first baseman says he won’t go to the 2011 All-Star game — scheduled for Phoenix — as long as Arizona’s unjust law SB 1070 is in effect. Gonzalez isn’t alone. Many other major league players and coaches are saying they don’t want to play ball in a state where Latino players — who make up more than 25% of the League — and Latino fans are subject to racial profiling. ... From an e-mail received May 4, 2010. The underlying problem to this has been mentioned in E-News: our inability to accommodate cultural diversity. Cultural diversity, which includes political views, is dynamic, which means that we are becoming ever more diverse even though we, as humans, have limited psychological capacity to accommodate diversity. Couple this with the decline in our standard of living, arising from different reasons, and it should not be a surprise that Arizona would pass such a law, however lamentable that law might be. Let us say that we prevail upon Arizona to rescind the law or the U.S. Supreme Court finds the law unconstitutional. There would be many unhappy Arizonans who would feel that we had violated state rights. How do we keep proponents and opponents of the law happy? It is time to think outside the box.

The good and bad of texting. ... Last week, the Pew Research Center found that half of American teenagers — defined in the study as ages 12 through 17 — send 50 or more text messages a day and that one third send more than 100 a day. Two thirds of the texters surveyed by the center’s Internet and American Life Project said they were more likely to use their cellphones to text friends than to call them. Fifty-four percent said they text their friends once a day, but only 33 percent said they talk to their friends face-to-face on a daily basis. The findings came just a few months after the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that Americans between the ages of 8 and 18 spend on average 7 1/2 hours a day using some sort of electronic device, from smart phones to MP3 players to computers — a number that startled many adults, even those who keep their BlackBerrys within arm’s reach during most waking hours. ... One of the concerns is that, unlike their parents — many of whom recall having intense childhood relationships with a bosom buddy with whom they would spend all their time and tell all their secrets — today’s youths may be missing out on experiences that help them develop empathy, understand emotional nuances and read social cues like facial expressions and body language. With children’s technical obsessions starting at ever-younger ages — even kindergartners will play side by side on laptops during play dates — their brains may eventually be rewired and those skills will fade further, some researchers believe. ... Some researchers believe that the impersonal nature of texting and online communication may make it easier for shy kids to connect with others. Robert Wilson is the father of Andy Wilson, the 11-year-old sixth grader from Atlanta who was good-naturedly teased over Facebook. (Mr. Wilson quoted from the exchange to illustrate the general "goofy" and innocuous nature of most of his son’s Facebook interactions.) Andy is very athletic and social, but his brother, Evan, who is 14, is more shy and introverted. After watching Andy connect with so many different people on Facebook, Mr. Wilson suggested that Evan sign up and give it a try. The other day he was pleased to find Evan chatting through Facebook with a girl from his former school. "I’m thinking Facebook has for the most part been beneficial to my sons," Mr. Wilson said. "For Evan, the No. 1 reason is it’s helping him come out of his shell and develop social skills that he wasn’t learning because he’s so shy. I couldn’t just push him out of the house and say ‘Find someone.’" New York Times, April 30, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html?
pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1273068747-b/sYkHx9oLnH8bRIavfdJQ I have found teenagers to be irresponsible for the most part. (Were we this irresponsible when we were that age?) I wonder whether slow social development would affect their feeling of responsibility toward others.

Who would vote against Proposition 16 on the June ballot? The ads which we see on television say that the issue is about democracy, about keeping local governments from thwarting the will of the people. Oh? Unfortunately, that is far from the whole story. Proposition 16 favors large utilities like Southern California Edison. Here is e-mail from March on the subject:

Prop 16 drastically limits your choices on who provides you with electricity. It also makes it easier for all for-profit utilities in California to raise your electricity rates. Prop 16 is opposed by AARP, Agricultural Energy Consumers Association, California Association of Realtors, California Nurses Association, California Sierra Club, California Manufacturers & Technology Association, California Tax Reform Association, League of Women Voters, League of California Cities, TURN (The Utility Reform Network), dozens of cities and counties, and many more: http://www.localcleanenergy.org/powergrab/prop-16/opposing-organizations) ...

What does it say about our democracy when those of means and influence, like the utilities, can be mean and influence? Is our democracy broken and in need of fixing?

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.