What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely, a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Aristotle, 384 BC – 322 BC,
Greek philosopher who was a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great; wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology; along with Socrates and Plato, he was among the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers

(Notice that Aristotle uses the word “statesman”. Whom among our Presidential candidates would you consider a statesman by Aristotle’s definition?)

If not Al Gore, Do We Believe the U.S. Military?

The following came from the Bloomberg news service, founded by the billionaire mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

UN Seeks Measures to Combat Climate Change Crises

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Rising sea levels are likely to prompt mass migrations accompanied by conflicts and sanitary crises, requiring urgent planning to guarantee food and other essentials, a UN conference on climate change heard.

Funds of $67 billion annually in 2030 ``may represent the lower bound of the amount actually required'' to help people in developing countries adapt to climate change, the United Nations said in a report to the meeting in Vienna. Money is needed to ensure access to food supplies, healthcare and infrastructure.

``These issues are certainly going to be a factor,'' said the senior climate negotiator for the U.S. State Department, Harlan Watson, late yesterday. ``Climate change can exacerbate already underlying tensions.''

About 1,000 diplomats, scientists and business leaders from 150 countries are attending the Vienna Climate Change Talks organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

More than 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of land worldwide, equivalent to the size of Canada, has been damaged by human activity, according to an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe report published in January. Rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases and frequent storms are likely to result from a warmer climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in April.

``Expanding populations around the world are already placing a strain on scarce resources,'' U.K. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup said in a June speech in London. ``Climate change will make this competition more acute and history is replete with cases of resource competition that have rapidly descended into armed conflict.''

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention, credited the U.K. with pushing climate change to the forefront of European Union policy considerations. The EU agreed in June to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent, from 1990 levels, in the next four decades.

The IPCC on Feb. 2 said temperatures have risen by 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.37 Fahrenheit) since the 19th century, and will rise by another 1.1 to 6.4 degrees this century. Global warming is ``very likely'' caused by human activities, such as emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, according to the panel.

The panel said 75 million to 250 million more people in Africa will be exposed to water shortages and rain-dependent agricultural yields could fall by 50 percent by 2020; the cost of adapting to changes brought on by global warming could be as much as 10 percent of economic output.

U.S. security experts are gearing up for an era of ``persistent conflict,'' Army Chief of Staff George Casey told the National Press Club in Washington on Aug. 14. Climate change raises the risk, he said. [Emphasis mine.]

``We live close to a very large number of countries that will be vulnerable to climate change as sea levels rise,'' said New Zealand's climate change ambassador, Adrian Macey, in an interview. ``Future population shifts caused by climate change need to be explored further.''

Developing countries like Indonesia, with 250 million people spread over hundreds of islands, would like to see discussions about population shifts brought into treaty negotiations, Deputy Environment Minister Masnellyarti Hilman said.

``We're already experiencing the problems of eroding coastlines and flooding,'' Hilman said, noting that talks will continue when the UN's climate change panel meets in Bali in December. Formal negotiations are due then on a treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The Vienna talks, which began Aug. 27, end tomorrow.

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 is likely to happen because of global warming?

(a) Mass migrations accompanied by conflicts and sanitary crises.

(b) Rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases and frequent storms.

(c) Climate change will make the competition for scarce resources more acute and history is replete with cases of resource competition that have rapidly descended into armed conflict.

2. What is being done in answer to these challenges?

(a) U.S. security experts are gearing up for an era of “persistent conflict.”

(b) The European Union agreed in June to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent, from 1990 levels, in the next four years.

Gatekeepers They Are, Sleepers Are We, Part 3

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” is a Latin phrase
variously translated as "Who will guard the guards?", "Who watches the watchmen?", "Who shall watch the watchers themselves?", or similar.
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis,
known in English as “Juvenal,” was a Roman poet
active in the late first and early second century CE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenal

In part 1 we learned that a “gatekeeper” could be an adult adviser to a youth club and that the gatekeeper’s personal limitations, caused by her / himself or by others, could harm youth. Such harm would come mostly through missed opportunities for education, skills demonstration or recognition. In part 2 we looked at examples of missed opportunities in Montebello.

There are other examples locally. It is not only the opportunities missed by our youth because of the adult gatekeepers and rule makers, but, also, the opportunities missed by all Montebelloans because of different gatekeepers and rule makers. So it is not fair to say that there is something wrong with the way adult advisers interact with youth in clubs, without saying that there is something wrong with the way those in authority—from city staff on down to school teachers—interact with the public.

I have in my e-mail an exchange with a very good teacher with a very good journalism program. When I saw from his students’ publications that the neighborhoods of Montebello were not regularly mentioned in the publications, I volunteered to come once a week for fifteen minutes to tell the students about Montebello. His answer was that, if the students wanted to write about Montebello, they would. I closed this interesting, perhaps bizarre, exchange by saying that, if the students did not know about the issues of Montebello, what would motivate them to write about the issues?

Another example comes from an advanced-placement course in government taught by a different teacher. For that course, you and I might think that the students could and should become involved in the community, because doing so would tie directly to the course. But the teacher said that she had no community activity, as she had to spend all available time preparing the students for the advanced-placement examination in May. So, some of the best students at the high school had no interaction—and continue not to have interaction—with the community other than through the youth clubs which limit students’ opportunities.

The problem extends to the way city staff interacts with the public. According to an article from Spotlight on Montebello, July and August, 2007, staff from our police department decided to stop citizen patrols “because of a recent shooting involving a police volunteer in New York City…” One would think that the real reason were not being told, because a shooting in New York would hardly seem to be a reason to stop citizen patrols in Montebello.

And soon we are to have surveillance cameras in Montebello. That is good, but the idea that we would be dependent on our city and its available funds is not good. That our city makes it plans according to the twentieth-century view that professionals could and should care of the rest of us is not good for our growth as individuals and as a community. In other words, did anybody on city staff consider that a meaningful role for residents in the operation of surveillance might give us more effective surveillance and heightened resident interest in their neighborhoods?

But the problem of gatekeepers is not peculiar to Montebello, as we will see in the next week’s part to this essay.

FOR EVERYONE. Meeting. The next regular meeting of the Montebello city council will be at city hall on Wednesday, September 12, 2007, 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 RETIREES. Senior-center activities. As shown below, there are activities six days a week at the Montebello Senior Center, 115 South Taylor Avenue, Montebello. Also, there are several services: legal aid, renters assistance, flu clinic, income-tax preparation, etc. Call to confirm before going, 323.887.4575.

Diversity is good and bad, as we have read in the essay “To Laugh, To Lament, Perchance to Dream.” A student of cultures and history would understand how difficult it would be to transfer an ideal of one culture to another culture, as in the case of American democracy being transferred to other countries. Here is an interesting example from this year, made possible by the knowledge of a foreign language. A translation appears below the Russian.

Опрос аналитического центра "Левада-Центра" показал, что каждый третий россиянин ожидает политической цензуры, а треть россиян считает нонконформистские мнения экстремизмом.

Согласно результатам опроса социологического института "Левада-Центр", проведенного на всей территории Росси, 36 процентов респондентов ожидают в ближайшее время запрета любой критики власти под видом борьбы с экстремизмом. 34 процента опрошенных граждан не согласились с данным утверждением, остальные затруднились ответить.

Что считать экстремизмом?

Каждый третий россиянин (33 процента) уверен, что любое публичное высказывание, не отвечающее мнению большинства, можно считать экстремизмом, даже если в нем не содержится призыва к насилию.

38 процентов опрошенных считают, что власти будут использовать закон "О противодействии экстремизму" для борьбы с политической оппозицией и отстранения опасных для них оппозиционных политиков от участия в выборах.

В опросе принимало участие свыше полутора тысяч россиян.

A survey by the think tank “Levada Center” showed that every third Russian expected political censure and a third of Russians considered nonconforming opinions as extremism.

According to the results from the sociological institute “Levada Center”, carried out throughout Russia, 36 percent of respondents expect, for the near future, a ban on any criticism of the powers that be, this ban under the guise of the war on extremism. 34 percent of surveyed citizens are not in agreement with that position, while the remainder have difficulty answering.

Every third Russian is sure that any public expression not in agreement with the opinion of the majority can be considered extremism, even if in such expression there is no call to violence.

38 percent of those surveyed believe that the powers that be would avail themselves of the law “Counteracting Extremism” in order to fight the political opposition and to remove from elections those opposition politicians whom they consider dangerous to their interests.

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.

If not Al Gore, Do We Believe the U.S. Military?

UN Seeks Measures to Combat Climate Change Crises

Gatekeepers They Are, Sleepers Are We, Part 3

Announcements

Grim Fact, Fun Fact

The Flashback Quarterback on Russians Thoughts on Democracy