Montebello E-News

 July 10, 2008  

There can be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society.
Warren Earl Burger, 1907 – 1995,
was Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986. Although Burger was a conservative and considered a strict constructionist, still under his leadership, the United States Supreme Court delivered a variety of major decisions on abortion, capital punishment, religious establishment, and school desegregation.

[Is there an invisible line which is crossed at which point religion turns into tradition and, thereby, no longer violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution?]  

1. Ready for College?  Ready to be Scammed?

2.  Social-Impact Report, Part 3

3. Announcements

4. Fun Facts about Texas

5. The Flashback Quarterback:  Do Statistics Lie?

6. Be Aware and Share:  Feed the Car, not the Star…ving!   

7. About Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”

 Ready for College?  Ready to be Scammed 

Business Week, May 8, 2008  

Is Your Kid Covered?
Insurers make big profits from college students, but some families are left with huge bills
by Ben Elgin and Jessica Silver-Greenberg  

Six out of 10 colleges and universities now recommend specific health insurance plans for their students, and three of 10 require them. But...many of the policies turn out to be scanty at best, and inferior to comparably priced alternatives. This can leave families exposed to crippling medical bills they thought they'd be protected against. Insurers, meanwhile, have found that the student market can be quite profitable.  

More than half of the insurance plans recommended by colleges offer benefits of $30,000 or less, according to a survey published in March by the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress. Many plans have further limits that prevent payout of even modest maximums.  Apart from low maximums, insurers can contain payouts by imposing "interior caps" on coverage for particular types of treatment. Sean Marquis discovered the hard way how this works. After turning 26, Marquis, a medical student at Ross University in Edison, N.J., was bumped from his parents' plan. He signed up for the school-sponsored plan with United Healthcare, comforted by its $100,000 overall maximum.  

Last spring, Marquis became dizzy during class. He stepped into the hallway and collapsed, fracturing a bone near his jaw. He stayed in the hospital for 48 hours, and left owing $24,098.  United Healthcare covered only $6,260, because Marquis had hit the $2,500-per-day cap for room, board, and miscellaneous expenses. ...  

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 2008 by a local nonprofit organization. 

 1. What is a cost along with other college costs which three out of ten colleges require of  students?

(a) Gasoline for commuting.

(b) Health insurance.  

2. What is the danger of health insurance for college students?

(a) A cap on total benefits which does not cover catastrophic illness.

(b) A cap on particular types of treatments.  

 When most companies close the year, they assess their financial performance and thank their customers for sales. While we definitely succeeded on that dimension this year with over 1,000 retail locations across the United States and 300% sales growth, our far more important impact was increasing the quality of life for thousands of women and children across the globe – and we want to thank you for making that possible.  ...
Priya Haji, Co-founder and CEO
“World of Good” Social-Impact Report 2006, http://www.worldofgood.com/impact/index.shtml  

A “social-impact report”?  We have heard of “environmental-impact report”;  for example, one has to be filed with regard to the disposition of our Montebello Hills before a decision be made about the hills.  A social-impact report would talk about the probable and possible social consequences of a planned or existing activity.  

In the first part, we attempted a definition of a social-impact report, “SIR”.  In the preceding part, we looked at the usefulness of a SIR with regard to pension-fund investments.  Here we look at the usefulness of a SIR with regard to the Federal “No Child Left Behind” policy.  

Some people might say that “’No Child Left Behind’ has left our world in a bind” is a slogan whose time has come.  Our policy to help children in school has cut them off from the communities in which they live and, consequently, has hurt those communities.  There is a significant social impact from the chasm which “No Child Left Behind” has created between school students and the neighborhoods which surround the schools.  

Indirect proof of this chasm comes from an Americorps announcement of May 13, 2008.  Americorps is a Federal program of service, www.americorps.org.  Americorps is a voluntary program, not part of “No Child Left Behind”.  By looking at what Americorps has accomplished, we see what “No Child Left Behind” has not accomplished.  

Rigorous Longitudinal Study of AmeriCorps Finds Significant Impacts Eight Years Later  

[Americorps] Alums Outpace Controlled Comparison Group in Public Service Careers, Civic Engagement, Community Activism, and Life Fulfillment

Washington D.C. – AmeriCorps is building a powerful pipeline for public servants, civic leaders, and social entrepreneurs, finds a new longitudinal study released today by the Corporation for National and Community Service.  Released in coordination with a Brookings Institution briefing this morning, the study, “Still Serving: Measuring the Eight-Year Impact of AmeriCorps on Alumni”, is the most rigorous evaluation ever conducted on AmeriCorps’ long-term impacts on its members.  Based on data collected eight years after members completed their year of service, the study conclusively demonstrates that AmeriCorps causes long-term positive impacts on the civic attitudes and behaviors of the program's alumni.  AmeriCorps alums are significantly more civically engaged and more likely to pursue public service careers in the government and nonprofit sector than their counterparts in the scientifically crafted comparison group, which has also been tracked for eight years. They are also significantly more likely to be happy and satisfied with their lives. The report, executive summary, and other information is at www.NationalService.gov/research.  “Even those of us who started off believing that intense service can make better citizens have been astonished at the strength of these findings," said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps. “With more than 60 percent of our alums working in nonprofits or government, these results are way more than statistically significant.  AmeriCorps is becoming America 's most important pipeline to careers in nonprofits and government -- this at the same time that crisis level shortfalls in leadership and workforce are looming in these areas."  ...  

The study compares these AmeriCorps members with a group of like individuals who were interested in serving in AmeriCorps but did not, looking at changes in civic outcomes and career choices over time.  ... 

FOR EVERYONE.  “Yes” or “no” to locally-grown food?  Yes:  …[P]eople who eat organic, locally grown foods…are more conscious of what they eat in general. Or if the produce they buy is fresher for being locally grown, they may be inclined to consume more of it than people buying fruit out of season. … Locally grown food may be more satisfying in other ways too. It might connect the buyer to a community, put him in touch with seasonality, introduce him to less common cultivars, make him feel better about his environmental impact (though local isn't always better) or simply taste superior. …  No:  Consider the energy and climate impacts of local food production. Yes, shipping food tens of thousands of miles, as is often done today, burns lots of oil and spews lots of carbon. But simply cutting "food miles" isn't an automatic gain for sustainability. I'd burn far less fuel (and thus emit far less carbon) shipping a freight car load of produce from the Salinas Valley to Seattle than I would using dozens and dozens of individual pickup trucks to haul the same quantity of produce from local farms around Seattle to the farmer's market downtown. The paradox of our centralized, industrialized food system, with its carefully scheduled deliveries and obsessive focus on cost-cutting, is that it actually helps keep food transportation energy costs down. ... http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary
/la-op-roberts-grier19-2008jun19,0,2573365.story  

FOR EVERYONE.  Concerts in the park.  Montebello’s summer concerts at City Park begin on Thursday, July 10, 2008, and continue every Thursday through Thursday, September 11, 2008, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  Admission is free.  For band names and type of music, call 323.887.4540.  

FOR EVERYONE.  Montebello’s farmers’ market.  The City has arranged for a farmers’ market to be held at City Park to coincide with the popular summer concert series.  The farmers’ market at City Park is slated for Thursdays from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. from July 10 through September 11, 2008.  In addition, beginning on August 2, a second farmers’ market venue will be setting up on Saturday mornings from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Taylor ranch.  The community will have the opportunity to purchase the healthy [sic] wares of vendors displaying food products, many of them organic, as well as seasonal fruits, berries, flowers and vegetables. ... From Montebello Today.  For more information, Diane Albert, 323.887.1384 or dalbert@cityofmontebello.com.  

FOR EVERYONE.  The future of the Montebello Hills.  The City of Montebello is encouraging community participation at one of the public scoping meetings being organized to discuss the scope of issues to be analyzed as part of the preparation of the Environmental Impact Report for the [development of] the Montebello Hills... .  Saturday, July 12 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Senior Center, 115 South Taylor, Montebello, California, first floor. ... From Montebello Today.  For more information, Diane Albert, 323.887.1384 or dalbert@cityofmontebello.com.  

FOR EVERYONE.  Commission meeting.  The Montebello City Planning Commission is holding its regularly-scheduled meeting on Tuesday, July 15, 2008, at 7 p.m. at city hall.  The meeting is open to the public.  For more information, 323.887.1200. 

The Alamo is located in San Antonio.  It is where Texas defenders fell to Mexican General Santa Anna and the phrase “Remember the Alamo ” originated.  The Alamo is considered the cradle of Texas liberty and the state’s most popular historic site.

Although six flags have flown over Texas, there have been eight changes of government: Spanish 1519-1685, French 1685-1690, Spanish 1690-1821, Mexican 1821-1836, Republic of Texas 1836-1845, United States 1845-1861, Confederate States 1861-1865, United States 1865-present.  [Is there something in a Texan's personality which makes him or her resistant to government?]  

The King Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.  

More wool comes from the state of Texas than any other state in the United States.  

The state was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845.  [Which other states were independent before admission into the United States?]

Texas is home to Dell and Compaq computers and central Texas is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of the South.

Texas comes from the Hasinai Indian word tejas meaning “friends” or “allies”.

El Paso is closer to Needles, California, than it is to Dallas. [Woah!]

The state’s cattle population is estimated to be near sixteen million.

More land is farmed in Texas than in any other state.  [Some of these facts impress upon us just how large Texas is.  Imagine having so many cattle and so much farmland, each of which is separate from the other.] 

Statistics can be intentionally false, negligently acquired or poorly understood.  Accepting a statistic without investigating it is dangerous if we are going to make a decision about a person, group, place or event.  

What do you make of the following, excerpted from http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo3/3dial.php? 

…A Pew Research Center poll of 579 eighteen to twenty-five year-olds released in January revealed that to 81 percent of them, getting rich is their generation's first or second most important life goal, and 51 percent said the same about being famous. A similar poll of junior high students, conducted a few months later, showed that when asked what they want to be when they grow up, the majority said they want to be famous. Not necessarily for contributing anything meaningful to society, mind you, just famous—perhaps in the same vacuous way as Hilton or the late Anna Nicole Smith, who was famous for many things as well: being a beautiful Playboy Playmate, then a fat former Playmate who married a man 63 years her senior and inherited his millions before starring in her own reality TV show, where she slurred her words and appeared to be generally incapacitated most of the time.  

Of course, that was a few years ago, before she (also famously) got back into shape, got pregnant, gave birth to a daughter three days before losing her 20-year-old son to a drug overdose, and then succumbed to one herself a few months later.  

"I won't be happy til I'm as famous as God.” —Madonna  

"Don't confuse fame with success.  Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.”
—Erma Bombeck  

You don't exactly need a poll to tell you these things, though. We are surrounded by anecdotal evidence of it. Ever see an entire stadium full of people waiting outdoors for three days for a chance to audition for American Idol? It happens about a half dozen times a year and all over the country.

Compare the above with the following, from the US Public Service Academy newsletter [have you heard of the academy, www.uspublicserviceacademy.org?]:  

By 7:1 Margin, Millennials Support Public Service Academy  

Between April 3 and April 8, 2008, SocialSphere Strategies of Cambridge, Massachusetts, conducted a poll of 800 members of the "Millennial Generation":  college-bound high school students, college students, and college graduates.  The Academy commissioned the poll with support from the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

The goal of the poll was to assess Millennials' attitudes toward public service and their opinions about the Public Service Academy, and the results are astounding:  1) By a margin of more than 7:1, Millennials overwhelmingly support the creation of the Public Service Academy. ...  2) More than half (57%) of all Millennials indicate that they "likely" would consider applying to the U.S. Public Service Academy, with 19% saying that they "very likely" would consider applying.  Those most likely to consider applying include: men (63%), Southerners (63%), African Americans (64%), Latinos (68%), and Asian Americans (70%). ...

The impact which we Americans and others in the industrialized world have on the entire world is significant, but sometimes that impact is more than significant—downright mind-boggling.  

The statistic below is mind-boggling.  From the Worldwatch Institute newsletter of May 16, 2008:  

Dear Fellow Worldwatcher,  

How many days could someone be fed on the corn needed to fill the tank of an ethanol-fueled SUV? 

Answer: 365.  

Today's biofuels industry is being built on an agricultural system that is unsustainable. Until this system is fixed, rising production of both fuels and food will wreak havoc on ecosystems, the climate, and the world's hungriest people.  

I found the statistic mentioned in another source, a University of Illinois student newspaper:  http://www.uis.edu/journal/opinion/2008/
2008BeyondBiofuelsProvetobeaWorseEnvironmentalEnemythanOil.html

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.