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Montebello E-News

Election Special, October 23, 2010

"I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there." Maureen Reagan

"Each candidate behaved well in the hope of being judged worthy of election. However, this system was disastrous when the city had become corrupt. For then it was not the most virtuous but the most powerful who stood for election, and the weak, even if virtuous, were too frightened to run for office." Niccolo Machiavelli

1. Talking about My Generation

2. Is Anyone Asking These Questions?

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

... While Bell may be an extreme, worst case example of public corruption, the same thing could still exist in other cities in smaller degrees, said state Assemblyman and panelist Hector de la Torre. ... While the panelists disagreed on whether the misdeeds tied to Bell are the result of a few bad apples, or if it was the result of a flawed system of local government, they did agree citizens have become disconnected from their local, state and national governments, kept out of the loop, whether through a lack of civics education or diminished coverage from the press. ... Bell residents are not alone in lacking a point of comparison for judging their local government. [USC professor Terry] Cooper says schools everywhere have abandoned civics education. ... We have simply stopped preparing our people to be good citizens in democratic government...so it shouldn't be any surprise when we see people go crazy and tea parties and whatever, all these things that happen across the country,” he said. ... The middleman for this information [about issues which impact constituents] has traditionally been the media, but panelists say the press has been eroded in recent years. ... But there has to be something more than a book or a classroom to get people interested in government, [Cooper] says, something more like “experience...get out in the community, see what government does.” Excerpted from “Bell Scandal Shines Light on Lack of Civics Education, Engagement”, Montebello Comet, October 7, 2010. [My emphasis in bold.]

In February, 2006, I met with the AP government teacher at a local high school. I asked her about community activity. She said that there was none, as that did not help her students prepare for the May advanced-placement exam. Her job was dependent on how many seniors passed the May exam. The closest we come to student involvement is the YMCA's “Youth and Government” program, which is, at best, a modest effort for students to understand the status quo, with no infusion of innovation to improve the functioning of government. For years, millions of dollars have been spent on improving civic education.  What do we have to show for it?  Could the problem be that government at all levels would be flawed, given the changed circumstances of the twenty-first century? That the structure of government which worked well in the twentieth century no longer would work because of increased population, decreased job security, increased complexity, decreased purchasing power, and issues which were not a priority fifty years ago? Note that, in 1920, Montebello had 4,000 residents and five city councilors. As we celebrate our city's ninetieth anniversary this year, we have an estimated 63,000 residents and still only five city councilors.  Does it not seem obvious that there would be far too much for five city councilors to do, in which case much would be left undone, like monitoring city disbursements and ensuring that the city budget stay in the black?

Many people in the United States purchase one or fewer books every year. Many of those people have seen every single episode of American Idol. There is clearly a correlation here. Access to knowledge, for the first time in history, is largely unimpeded for the middle class. Without effort or expense, it's possible to become informed if you choose. For less than your cable TV bill, you can buy and read an important book every week. Share the buying with six friends and it costs far less than coffee. Or you can watch TV. The thing is, watching TV has its benefits. It excuses you from the responsibility of having an informed opinion about things that matter. It gives you shallow opinions or false 'facts' that you can easily parrot to others that watch what you watch. It rarely unsettles our carefully self-induced calm and isolation from the world. From a blog by Seth Godin, October 21, 2010, via “Take Your Vitamin Z”, http://takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com/2010/10/seth-godin-on-why-tv-
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Bravo!  Last week, we received election mailers at the house. Ugghhh! But I was a bit pleased that three of the mailers had the recycling symbol on them, although I thought that the symbols should have been prominently displayed. The three mailers were from the California Democratic Party, the California League of Conservation Voters, and Brown for Governor. My one question: why should doing the right thing be left to the left?

Below are excerpts about issues which candidates are not talking about. Do you think that candidates should be talking about them? If so, how do we get candidates to talk about them?

Is the American taxpayer being cheated on his / her investment? Our taxes fund universities, research grants, scholarships. When a breakthrough is made, as indicated below, do we deserve, and do we get, a return on our investment?

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2010) — A new process that simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity could offer more than double the efficiency of existing solar cell technology, say the Stanford engineers who discovered it and proved that it works. The process, called "photon enhanced thermionic emission," or PETE, could reduce the costs of solar energy production enough for it to compete with oil as an energy source. Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil. Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels -- which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises -- the new process excels at higher temperatures. ... "The PETE process could really give the feasibility of solar power a big boost," Melosh said. "Even if we don't achieve perfect efficiency, let's say we give a 10 percent boost to the efficiency of solar conversion, going from 20 percent efficiency to 30 percent, that is still a 50 percent increase overall." And that is still a big enough increase that it could make solar energy competitive with oil. The research was largely funded by the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford and the Stanford Institute for Materials Energy Systems, which is a joint venture of Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, with additional support from the Department of Energy and DARPA, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100802101813.htm 

Will we ever have an answer to health care? BOSTON – For the first time the Massachusetts Medical Society has asked doctors what they think about health reform in its annual “Physician Workforce Survey” of 1,000 practicing physicians in the state, and the results may strike some as surprising. A plurality of the physician respondents, 34 percent, picked single-payer health reform as their preferred model of reform, followed by 32 percent who favored a private-public insurance mix with a public option buy-in. Seventeen percent voted for the pre-reform status quo, including the permissibility of insurers offering low-premium, high-deductible health plans. ...   From a news release of Physicians for a National Health Program, October 22, 2010.

And

And Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., which was vilified by Democrats this year for proposing huge rate hikes in California, has given nearly nine times as much to Republicans this year. ...    As reprinted in an e-newsletter by Don McCanne, M.D., October 4, 2010, from the Chicago Tribune, October 4, 2010, “Insurance Firms Infuse GOP with Big Doses of Cash”.

Are we asking our candidates the right questions?     ... Economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty have examined tax records extending back to 1913. They discovered an interesting pattern. The share of total income going to the richest 1 percent of Americans peaked in both 1928 and in 2007, at over 23 percent. Between the two peaks is a long, deep valley. After 1928, the share of national income going to the top 1 percent steadily declined... to 9 to 11 percent in the 1950s and 1960s, finally reaching the valley floor of 8 to 9 percent in the 1970s. After this, the share going to the richest 1 percent began to climb again... reaching its next peak of more than 23 percent in 2007.

Medicare for all. The passage of health care legislation in 2010 represents only the first step toward reform. The next stage should be Medicare for all. The most efficient way to provide all Americans with high-quality health care is to allow everyone to sign up for Medicare and to subsidize the costs for middle-class and lower-income families. http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307592811.html, http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2008.pdf,  Comment: The landmark study by Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty has been cited by many in helping to explain what went wrong with our economy. The productivity gains of American workers were not shared with the workers but were transferred to the wealthiest Americans. Robert Reich explains that the economy falters when the masses to not have the funds to purchase the products and services made possible by their own productivity. ...   From an e-newsletter by Don McCanne, M.D., October 8, 2010.

Whom to believe, the German military or the US military? And when the two agree?     ... According to Spiegel Online: "The study... uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises." A defense department's response is, not surprisingly, defensive. But Germany is not alone. The US Department of Defense has declared a major commitment to renewable energy, for deeply practical reasons, and Navy Secretary Ray Maybus has set a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for the Navy and Marines of 50% by 2020 -- higher than even the most aggressive state RPS program. From the Natural Logic e-newsletter, October, 2010. The depletion of raw materials is under the umbrella of environmental stewardship, different from climate change, although there is overlap. How does this information affect the coming elections? The question to ask: what are our candidates saying about this?

To be forewarned is to be forearmed.      ... For the last four months, the communications network Circle of Blue has been investigating the potential impacts of rising U.S. energy demand on the nation’s water resources. At the Wilson Center event, Keith Schneider and J. Carl Ganter from Circle of Blue talked about the possible effects of the Department of Energy’s projected 40 percent increase in U.S. energy consumption by 2050. Schneider warned that if we are not cautious, this new energy development will come at the expense of “the nation’s water, land, and quality of life.” Will the shift to a clean energy economy exacerbate water scarcity in the United States? Schneider, Ganter, and other Circle of Blue reporters agreed that it will, unless we are extremely careful. Out of today’s market-ready, low-carbon technologies, only solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy require little-to-no water over their lifecycles. In fact, some renewable energy technologies have higher water demands than conventional energy sources. ...   From Worldwatch Institute, October 14, 2010, http://blogs.worldwatch.org/revolt/the-trade-off-between-water-and-energy-a-look-at-concentrating-solar-power/ 

The question is not whether there be climate change or whether it be anthropogenic, but, rather, the question is “What do we do about changes in weather which pose a threat to our national security? Several years of drought are turning once-bountiful farmland in Syria into a barren strip of desert. The changes in the heartland of the Fertile Crescent, which have impoverished some 2 million to 3 million people, also pose a security threat to regional governments that have grown more dependent on imports of food and water.  As abstracted in UN Wire, October 14, 2010, from a report in The New York Times, October 13, 2010.

China is surpassing us. Now Brazil? What are we doing wrong? Brazil is poised to surpass the United States as the breadbasket to the world on the strength of growth in the agricultural region of Cerrado, which covers nearly one-fourth of the country. Seen formerly as a wasteland, scientists have learned how to fertilize the soil there while developing specific varieties of crops that thrive in the area. As abstracted in UN Wire, October 18, 2010, from a report in The Washington Post, October 16, 2010.

Worse than we thought? Where is the solution? Ever get the feeling that things are a lot worse than everyone is letting on?  Officially the unemployment rate is 9.6%, but there's a lot more people out of work than that. If you add on top of that people who have dropped out of the labor-force, as well as people who work part-time but would prefer full-time if they could get it, AND people who have been out of work for over a year, as economist John Williams has done, you get a whopping 22.5% underemployment rate for September. With hiring in the pits, now is a good time to start on that side business you've been dreaming about. You can do it by just setting aside one hour a day to work for yourself. ...   From The Consumerist, October 19, 2010, http://consumerist.com/2010/10/the-real-unemployment-figure-is-225.html 

Three of the many reader comments to that article:

 What are “conflict materials”? From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_minerals: 

You have heard of “blood diamonds”? Same thing.

We have a law now that public-traded companies have to disclose what they are doing to eliminate conflict materials from their products. Why is this a good thing? It is the first step in our becoming aware that, when we buy certain products, some army is getting money to wage war. If we do not care what happens in Africa, we probably would care about what happens to us, as when Al-Qaeda buys weapons with the profit from conflict material.

The law which we have is a good start, but only a start. Look at the abstract below. We should not wait for the Federal government to do the right thing. What can we be doing ourselves?

More than 400 children in Nigeria have died from lead poisoning over the past six months, according to an aid agency. A UN report says the deaths are only "the tip of the iceberg" regarding the health effects of illegal gold mining in Zamfara state, where runoff poisoned the soil and water with lead.  Abstracted in UN Wire, October 6, 2010, from Google/Agence France-Presse, October 5, 2010.