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Montebello E-News

 August 31, 2010

Men can know more than their ancestors did if they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors had already learned....That is why a society can be progressive only if it conserves its traditions. Walter Lippmann

So, progressives need conservatives. And if conservatives want to slow progressives, traditions must be let go?

1. Announcements
 2.  Government Cannot Create Paradise 
3. About Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”

Meet our Spartan Legion. Schurr High Music Boosters Fundraiser at Polly's Pies. Mark your calendars for Tuesday, August 31, and plan to visit Polly's Pies at 1322 West Beverly Boulevard, Montebello, for a great meal. Come for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner! Just print out our flyer and present it to your server. The Schurr High School Spartan Legion includes the band and pageantry, orchestra and drill team. The program will receive 20% of the proceeds. Thank you for your support! Contact Karen at 626-429-8892 for additional information.

Library book sale.  Thursday, September 2, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.  323.722.6551.

Awards dinner coming. The Montebello Housing Development Corporation is having its eighteenth anniversary gala awards dinner and auction on Thursday, September 9, 2010, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Luminarias Restaurant. Awards will be given to State Senator Ron Calderon, Victor Ramirez of Citibank, and George Cole of the Oldtimers Foundation. For information about tickets, table hosting or sponsoring, contact Conrado Terrazas, (213) 200-6161 or conradoterrazas@roadrunner.com.

Public meeting soon about Gold Line extension. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, "Metro", has been planning an extension of the Gold Line from where it now ends near Beverly and Atlantic to (a) near the 605 freeway or (b) Whittier Presbyterian Hospital. On Wednesday, September 1, 2010, there will be an update for the public. Everyone is invited to attend. 6 p.m. - 8 p.m., Montebello Golf Course, Cannoneer Room, 901 Via San Clemente, Montebello. For more information, 213.922.3012 or visit www.metro.net/eastsidephase2.

One way in which our city empowers us. I get tired of hearing myself whine. I like it when our city makes it possible for us to take care of business when the city does not have the funds or time. An example from an e-mail which I received from the city on July 19, 2010, in reply to the question about residents repairing the sidewalk in front of their houses:  Residents can get a Street Works Permit from the Public counter at City Hall and make their own repairs. ...

Hear the new mantra? "Grow food locally, because the Feds are not omnipotent". Note the words which I have colored in red. A salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds and led to the recall of hundreds of millions of eggs from one Iowa firm will likely grow, federal health officials said Thursday. ... "I would anticipate that we will be seeing more illnesses reported likely as a result of this outbreak," said Braden. The recall of 380 million eggs from Iowa's Wright County Egg is one of the largest shell egg recalls in recent history. The outbreak could have been prevented if new rules to ensure egg safety had been in place a few months earlier, an FDA spokeswoman said. The rules, which require producers to do more testing for salmonella and take other precautions, went into effect in July. They had languished for more than a decade after President Bill Clinton first proposed that egg standards be toughened. The FDA said in July that the new safeguards could reduce the number of salmonella cases by nearly 60 percent. [And what of the remaining 40 percent?] ... August 19, 2010, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Illnesses-linked-to-eggs-will-apf-257580832.html?x=0

"Must see" video about ourselves. And about how technology is fundamentally changing youth. http://www.buzzardblog.com/2010/07/12/the-secret-powers-of-time/?utm_source=
feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BuzzardBlog+%28Buzzard
+Blog%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

Doing the right thing without being told: a sign of maturity? The following message was forwarded in July, 2010, by the Consumer Change service, www.consumerchange.com:  Cave and Cheney of Texas mailed an unsolicited offer to the house. Neither the envelope nor the letter had any conspicuous indication of recycled paper, biodegradability, soy ink or the planting of trees. // I urge the company to become proactive immediately with regard to its waste, so that it be a leader in the financial-services industry. For one, every company office should have green-practices advocates who would look for ways to conserve and recycle. It is inexcusable for any company to wait until compelled to do the right thing. Thank you.

Green advice should be freely and liberally given. The following message was forwarded in July, 2010, by the Consumer Change service, www.consumerchange.com: On June 21, 2010, I received a renewal mailing for my driver's license, from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, "DMV". The enclosed letter told me that I could renew online. I thought that this was a very good option. However, the renewal mailing itself was quite unnecessary and environmentally unsound; if DMV were compelled by statute to mail, it should have sent a postcard on recycled, biodegradable paper, with references to online services and the option to receive a mailing, printed on the card in soy ink. Money and trees would have been saved. I ask DMV to count me as a supporter if it needs legislation to make such a move. Also, I ask that DMV ask for e-mail addresses so as to facilitate a transition away from paper. Every DMV office, including headquarters, should have an assistant manager for green practices, who would continually look for every possible way to green the office and the transactions with the public. Thank you.

So, oil spills are not a "Western" problem alone. Chinese authorities are scrambling to keep an oil spill caused by a pipeline explosion last week in the Yellow Sea from spreading into international waters. The spill, reportedly the largest in China's history, has spread to cover more than 165 square miles of water despite the efforts of cleanup crews. Greenpeace China is calling on authorities to reform the energy sector and endorse a serious push toward the use of renewable energy sources. As abstracted in UN Wire, July 22, 2010, from reports in Toronto Star/The Associated Press and The Christian Science Monitor, July 21, 2010.

Slip, slide, avalanche? Are the people who bring such news as the following to our attention crying wolf or should we be paying attention? "Public sector workers paying more of their health care costs", Workers in private industry have felt the sting of rising health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for decades. Now, as government budgets bleed, public employees are starting to share the pain. In the past year, Sacramento's largest school districts have trimmed health care coverage. Local and state government officials also are looking for ways to save. And while public employee unions have made preserving health benefits a priority, they have been pressed to give ground or face more layoffs. In his proposed budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is seeking to cut $152.8 million in health premium expenses by requiring the California Public Employees' Retirement System to offer lower-cost coverage, possibly with fewer benefits, or give the state authority to do so. Health insurance costs have "reached the point where we can't sustain those benefits," said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for the state Department of Personnel Administration. http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/15/2891358/public-sector-workers-paying-more.html

Would somebody please give us some good news? . . . In several speeches about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama extolled the immediate end of insurers denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions. He was wrong. His miscalculation stems from the fact that he seemed to trust the insurers to do the right thing for patients instead of continuing to place their own business interests first. Although the insurers can no longer reject a child with preexisting disorders, they can close the plan to new enrollees. As a business decision, that is what many are doing. A social good is not part of their business model. . . . From an online newsletter by Don McCanne, M.D., July 27, 2010.

Good advice from a northern neighbor? Letter to the editor, The Oregonian, Saturday, June 26, 2010.

The numbers are staggering. In fiscal year 2009 Oregon spent $598 million dollars for employee health, dental and vision benefits. Total payroll was $2.4 billion, so health care costs took up more than 20 percent of total payroll. A single-payer national health insurance program would be funded with a much smaller employer health premium, closer to 5 percent of payroll. If Oregon financed its employee health care coverage with a 5 percent payroll tax under a single-payer national health insurance program instead of the more than 20 percent of payroll it now spends, it would have only paid $120 million on health benefits in fiscal year 2009. This is a savings of $478 million, or more than 80 percent of our current state budget deficit.

Good advice from another northern neighbor? At the risk of boredom, our topic today is Canada. But here's a thought to keep you from dozing: Americans can learn a valuable lesson from our northern neighbors. While U.S. governments from D.C. to Los Angeles still founder in an economic funk, Canada has weathered the global meltdown and is unworried about a double-dip recession. Housing prices are rising, jobs are plentiful, and the economy is growing at more than twice the U.S. Rate. We've always heard that when the United States sneezes, Canada gets the grippe, but not this time. Canadians seem to be doing all the right things with their economy, while Americans and most Europeans just don't seem to get it. How to explain this? The answer is so Canadian. Be more restrained, Big Spenders. Instead of maxing out the nation's credit cards, live prudently and within your means. It's not that Canada was somehow sheltered from the financial cascades of a couple of years ago. Its economy is deeply intertwined with its giant neighbor's, and like all developed nations it is dependent on foreign trade. But, unlike the others, Canada acted swiftly and smartly by cutting back early, temporarily increasing government spending when recession hit, then getting out of the way of business and consumers. There were two key differences. To begin with, Canada never deregulated its banking system to the extent of the U.S. and Europe. There was no subprime mortgage disaster because there never was a bubble: banks lent only to home buyers who could afford the mortgage payments, and didn't peddle smelly loans to high-flying speculators. Also, the culture matters. Canadians are less inclined to spend money they don't have, or buy cars that are bigger on glam than on affordability. But the essential lesson remains. When debt gets out of hand, cut expenses. The Canadian government started scaling back, sometimes painfully, in 1993. By contrast, in Washington the administration still hankers to borrow and spend, not cut. In Sacramento, politicians still talk more about preserving spending than reducing it, and despite more than two years of recession the state payroll has grown rather than shrunk. Many California cities and counties have been cutting back on expenses, largely because they can't legally run a deficit. But almost none have dealt with the most menacing debt of all, public pensions. The remedy is unexciting but simple. Look northward for inspiration. From Whittier Daily News, July 17, 2010, http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_15534236

Disheartening news from our southern neighbor. There is a large telethon in Mexico to help poor people, desvalidos. The telethon is operated by Televisa. A lengthy cartoon which I received by e-mail says that Televisa was exploiting people's altruism. I asked a friend who used to live in Montebello about the Televisa telethon. I translate from his answer in Spanish:  I believe that, sadly, it is true and worse, as many businesses "contribute" to the Telethon by deducting for months from the the lamentable salaries of their employees. ... In this world of limited resources, the neoliberal model, that is, capitalism carried to the extreme, permits this and more, because for a person to become so absurdly rich happens because he made many millions miserable; that is to say, to be rich is because, necessarily, something is being taken from someone (or many people). . . . From an e-mail dated July 19, 2010.

Told you so. Two months ago, in http://www.mymontebello.com/enews_tc_6_30_10.htm, there was the complaint that ours is too much a society of law and not enough of ethics, which I believe to be greater than the law. A case in point, from Whittier Daily News, July 17, 2010. A law that makes it illegal to lie about being a war hero is unconstitutional because it violates free speech, a federal judge ruled Friday as he dismissed a case against a Colorado man who claimed he received two military medals. ... Denver attorney Christopher P. Beall, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said the Stolen Valor Act is fatally flawed because it doesn't require prosecutors to show anyone was harmed or defamed by the lie. "The government position was that any speech that's false is not protected by the First Amendment. That proposition is very dangerous," Beall said. There are those who would be shocked, angered or both by what this attorney reportedly said.

Will we be seeing and hearing more of this? Powerful ideas attract their own supporters. One such idea that is slowly beginning to attract international attention is the idea of Science Debates. Most of the world’s great challenges now revolve around science policy issues, yet we are paralyzed on many of them because of politics, particularly because science has ceded a certain measure of the public definition of reality to ideologues who define it using "but faith or opinion, but not knowledge," to quote John Locke, whose seminal work centered around avoiding such paralysis. Science debates bring policymakers together with science and the public, highlighting key knowledge issues and helping to break logjams. . . . From an e-newsletter by Shawn Otto and the team at ScienceDebate.Org, www.sciencedebate.org, July 17, 2010.

Is globalization making things socially worse? From a manuscript by Lorenzo Almada, Ph.D., 2010: ...Rousseau told us that the system itself would increasingly foster "a growing sense of interdependence that would ultimately force humans to compare themselves to one another and, in the final analysis, create unwarranted fear which would serve as a foundation upon which to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others". Additionally, it was also why Montesquieu argued for the separation of powers to create a system of checks and balances. Let us not forget that even under the systems that these refreshingly honest thinkers proposed, it would still be necessary to periodically revisit our societal relations and make necessary adjustments. ...

When religious revelation conflicts with national policy, who should win? HAR BRACHA, West Bank — Twice a year, American evangelicals show up at a winery in this Jewish settlement in the hills of ancient Samaria to play a direct role in biblical prophecy, picking grapes and pruning vines. Believing that Christian help for Jewish winemakers here in the occupied West Bank foretells Christ’s second coming, they are recruited by a Tennessee-based charity called HaYovel that invites volunteers "to labor side by side with the people of Israel" and "to share with them a passion for the soon coming jubilee in Yeshua, messiah." But during their visit in February the volunteers found themselves in the middle of the fight for land that defines daily life here. When the evangelicals headed into the vineyards, they were pelted with rocks by Palestinians who say the settlers have planted creeping grape vines on their land to claim it as their own. Two volunteers were hurt. In the ensuing scuffle, a settler guard shot a 17-year-old Palestinian shepherd in the leg. "These people are filled with ideas that this is the Promised Land and their duty is to help the Jews," said Izdat Said Qadoos of the neighboring Palestinian village. "It is not the Promised Land. It is our land." ... The use of charities to promote a foreign policy goal is neither new nor unique — Americans also take tax breaks in giving to pro-Palestinian groups. But the donations to the settler movement stand out because of the centrality of the settlement issue in the current talks and the fact that Washington has consistently refused to allow Israel to spend American government aid in the settlements. Tax breaks for the donations remain largely unchallenged, and unexamined by the American government. The Internal Revenue Service declined to discuss donations for West Bank settlements. State Department officials would comment only generally, and on condition of anonymity. "It’s a problem," a senior State Department official said, adding, "It’s unhelpful to the efforts that we’re trying to make." Daniel C. Kurtzer, the United States ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005, called the issue politically delicate. "It drove us crazy," he said. But "it was a thing you didn’t talk about in polite company." ... New York Times, July 5, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/world/middleeast/06settle.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

What's the real issue? If you are awaiting some revelation about a global conspiracy by scientists, don't hold your breath. Rather, ask, "If global warming is happening, whether or not caused by humans, what should humans be doing about it to prevent or mitigate disruptions in our lives?" A comprehensive review of 10 key climate indicators, including sea level, glacier melt and air temperatures, by 300 scientists in 48 countries shows unmistakable signs of global warming, the group says in a report released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report does not address possible reasons for the trend. As abstracted in UN Wire, July 29, 2010, from reports in Te Toronto Star/The Associated Press, July 29, 2010, and AlertNet.org/Reuters, July 28, 2010.

This is a recurring theme in our lives: we look to government to save us from a disaster, a recession, a family problem. The government is less able to do that, as disasters, recessions and family problems become more intense or more diverse. So, should we demand more of government or more of ourselves? A Montebello woman whose son committed suicide June 8 said Monday she thinks a visit that day from a county Department of Children and Family Services case worker and police drove the 11-year-old to hang himself with a jump rope. ... A senior county official said DCFS planned to return after visiting Perez's home June 8. Nothing in the boy's demeanor or words that evening led them to believe he was in immediate danger of committing suicide, the official said. Lt. Corral said the child had a history of "a chaotic home life." ... August 2, 2010, http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_15613328?IADID=
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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.