Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 16, 2010

10

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 16,, 2010 


Mountain Views

News

Publisher/ Editor

Susan Henderson

City Editor

Dean Lee 

Sales

Patricia Colonello

626-355-2737 

626-818-2698

Art Director

Allison Kirkham

Production Assistant

Richard Garcia

Photography

Jacqueline Truong

Lina Johnson

Contributors

Teresa Baxter

Pat Birdsall

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Stuart Tolchin

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Chris Bertrand

Mary Carney

La Quetta Shamblee

Glenn Lambdin

Greg Wellborn

Ralph McKnight

Trish Collins

Pat Ostrye

Editorial Cartoonist

Ann Cleaves

Webmaster

John Aveny 

 In this election just a few weeks away, we have much 
at stake. We are to choose the next Governor and 
one of the two U.S. Senators. All of our statewide 
elected officials will be chosen along with numerous 
State Assembly and U. S. Congressional seats. Those 
are important positions. These are the people who 
ultimately will decide our future. They are supposed 
to represent the best that we have to offer, capable of 
leading California, one of the 10 largest economies in 
the world (we used to be the 5th). They need to actually 
be qualified to do the job.

 Qualified? Yes. Each and every candidate running 
has the superficial qualifications – they are citizens 
of the US, residents of California, well educated and 
felony free. However, the most important credential 
that they need is to have a demonstrated commitment 
to the people of this state. It is in that last qualification 
however, that we find that we find too many of the 
candidates, who are willing to spend the most money, 
seriously lacking.

When making decisions on who to vote for, the first 
thing a responsible voter should do is turn off the TV 
and Radio. The commercial marketing of candidates is 
no way to choose a leader. It is okay to let a commercial 
lead you to the purchase of a new brand of cookies, 
because if you don’t like them, you can throw them 
away. But when the salacious sound bites blindly lead 
you to their candidate, when you find out you don’t like 
your choice, you can’t take it back. So, voters, do your 
homework. Know who and what you are voting for. 

 Having said that, and with the contributions of a dozen 
members of the Mountain Views Editorial Board who 
reach across both sides of the aisle, here are this papers 
recommendations for the November 2, 2010 Election.

Susan Henderson, Publisher/Editor

Governor: Jerry Brown 

Lt. Governor: Gavin Newsom

Sec. State: Debra Bowen

Controller: John Chang

Treasurer: Bill Lockyer

Atty General: Dual Endorsement:

 Kamala Harris 

 Steve Cooley 

59th Assembly District Darcel Woods

44th Assembly District Anthony Portantino 

U.S. Senate Barbara Boxer

U.S. Rep Dist 26 David Dreier

U.S. Rep Dist 29 Adam Schiff

Proposition 19. Should California legalize the 
possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal 
use of adults 21 years and older, and allow state and local 
governments to regulate and tax related commercial 
activities? NO

Proposition 20. Should the state Constitution be 
amended to have the Citizens Redistricting Commission 
redistrict for the U.S. House of Representatives, to 
change existing redistricting criteria, and to reduce the 
redistricting timeline? NO

Proposition 21. Should the state levy an additional 
annual $18 vehicle license surcharge to provide funds 
to operate and maintain California’s state parks and 
wildlife protection programs? YES

Proposition 22. Should the California Constitution 
be amended to prohibit the state, even during a severe 
fiscal hardship, from redirecting certain tax revenues 
dedicated to transportation or local governments? 
YES

Proposition 23. Should the AB 32 air pollution 
control law be suspended until unemployment drops to 
5.5 percent or less for a full year? NO

Proposition 24. Should recent tax law changes that 
allow some businesses to pay lower state income tax be 
repealed? YES

Proposition 25. Should the state Constitution be 
amended to allow passage of budget bills by a simple 
majority in each house of the state Legislature and 
should legislators be required to forfeit their pay if a 
budget is not passed on time? NO

Proposition 26. Should the California Constitution 
be amended to require two-thirds vote approval for 
the imposition of certain state and local fees that now 
require majority vote approval? NO

Proposition 27. Should the state Constitution 
and state laws be amended to eliminate the Citizens 
Redistricting Commission established by the voters in 
2008, return all redistricting to the state Legislature, 
and change the redistricting criteria? NO

GENERAL ELECTION ENDORSEMENTS

Dates to Remember

October 18, 2010

Last day to register to vote

October 26, 2010

Last day to apply for a vote-by-mail 
ballot by mail

November 2, 2010

Election Day


Mountain Views News 
has been adjudicated as 
a newspaper of General 
Circulation for the 
County of Los Angeles 
in Court Case number 
GS004724: for the City 
of Sierra Madre; in Court 
Case GS005940 and for 
the City of Monrovia in 
Court Case No. GS006989 
and is published every 
Saturday at 55 W. Sierra 
Madre Blvd., No. 302, 
Sierra Madre, California, 
91024. All contents are 
copyrighted and may not 
be reproduced without the 
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reserved. All submissions 
to this newspaper become 
the property of the 
Mountain Views News and 
may be published in part 
or whole. 

Opinions and views 
expressed by the writers 
printed in this paper do not 
necessarily express the views 
and opinions of the publisher 
or staff of the Mountain 
Views News. 

Mountain Views News is 
wholly owned by Grace 
Lorraine Publications, 
Inc. and reserves the right 
to refuse publication of 
advertisements and other 
materials submitted for 
publication. 

Letters to the editor and 
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Mountain Views News

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Phone: 626-355-2737

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email: 

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STUART Tolchin..........On LIFE 

 

HAIL Hamilton

My Turn


The Aggrieved Element In Everyone

My Country Is 
Guilty As Charged

Today is 
my first day 
back from an 
East Coast 
Vacation 
and while 
leafing 
through 
magazines that arrived while 
I was absent I came upon 
this language describing the 
subject of a new movie. “…
as insensitive as he is, (he) 
reaches the aggrieved element 
in everyone, the human desire 
for response.” All at once the 
rockets go off, finally I have 
reached some understanding 
of myself. Do those words, 
“the human desire for 
response” mean anything to 
you? Perhaps not; I will try 
and explain.

 Returning from 
my trip and looking at the 
pictures taken mainly be 
my wife I realized that, for 
me, the most memorable 
and enjoyable parts of trip 
were the conversations that 
I had with strangers. Often 
these were momentary 
exchanges or sometimes 
even prolonged discussions. 
My major realization is how 
much I enjoyed being alive, 
really being alive and being 
me, during these moments of 
unexpected contact. It is true 
that I have a habit of making 
comments to strangers. I do 
this when I am alone and I do 
it when accompanied by wife, 
children, or friends. Generally 
people—not the strangers—
but my friends and relatives 
find this practice annoying. I 
have been accused of flirting 
or showing off or just wanting 
to make a pest of myself but 
really I don’t think that’s what’s 
going on.

 By way of explanation 
I will recount an instance 
that occurred about three or 
four years ago. It was a very 
hot day and my wife and 
I, accompanied by her two 
nephews aged four and five, 
took a moderately long hike 
to the waterfalls in Eaton 
Canyon. There were not many 
hikers that day and the hikers 
we saw were coming back from 
the falls. I, like most Sierra 
Madreans, nodded hello or 
said something to each of the 
hikers as we crossed paths. 
I noticed that, at first, the 
boys were surprised by this 
behavior but very soon they 
started greeting people on 
their own. As we saw other 
hikers approaching the boys 
became visibly excited; they 
could hardly wait to say hello 
and would add other words 
like “Great Day for a hike!” 
When people responded, 
as they invariably did, they 
boys were elated—actually 
jumping for joy. Eventually, 
some hikers approached 
and the boys said something 
and received no response. 
The people were Asian and 
perhaps did not speak any 
English. In any case, the boys 
were very hurt. They were 
hurt and angry and deflated. 
In the words of the article I 
mentioned above they were 
aggrieved because their desire 
for response had not been 
realized. They were no longer 
happy about being themselves; 
now they had doubts. Had 
they done something wrong 
or was there something wrong 
with those other people. I 
think I recall one of the boys 
saying he hated those people 
and I probably tried in vain to 
talk him out of his feelings. I 
was younger then.

 Enough said about the 
incident I guess; but I think it 
makes my point more easily 
understood. I would not 
write any of these articles if 
they were not being published 
but I know that I am not 
writing in an attempt to 
please any particular reader. 
I know I am writing to meet 
some personal need of my 
own and yet I am absolutely 
thrilled when someone reacts 
to my . I am elated when, as 
a result of reading my article, 
people are motivated to e-mail 
me. I am happiest when 
people share their feelings 
and recollections with me. I 
value these responses more 
than appraisals of the worth 
of my articles or a discussion 
of political opinions. I 
really believe that a few of 
my almost 150 articles have 
allowed people to gain a 
greater understanding of their 
own lives and I treasure that 
feeling.

 Really, during my 
trip to the East Coast, I must 
have had at least twenty 
significant conversations with 
strangers. These strangers 
were waiters or waitresses, 
people I met while waiting in 
line or people sitting next to 
me on a train or bus or plane. 
There were tears in several 
of these conversations which 
touched upon frustrations 
and dreams and loneliness. 
When a stranger listens to 
us attentively we are not 
distracted by individual 
characteristics but instead 
feel their individual humanity 
and our own. During that 
brief conversation we feel 
connected and cared about 
and alive—at least I do. 

 Sure, eventually, 
our desire for connection 
and response will be 
thwarted and, yes, we will be 
aggrieved. Really, though 
it is my experience that this 
disappointment usually 
happens with friends and 
loved ones of whom we 
unrealistically maintain 
expectations of connection 
and understanding. With 
strangers we have no 
expectations and therefore 
cannot be disappointed. I 
hope the time you took to 
read this article is a time you 
felt was well spent but I can 
say without reservation that I 
have enjoyed my conversation 
with you. So far so good. 

I don’t believe in blaming 
the US for all of Mexico’s 
problems. But I do think we 
deserve much of the blame 
for the narco-terrorism that is 
increasingly engulfing much of 
Mexico. occuring and growing 
in Guatemala and rightly so. 

 I am a teacher in East LA and 
am married to a naturalized 
U.S. citizen from Mexico. Until 
2006, for 14 years I owned 
a beach house in Puerto 
Escondido, Oaxaca. I have 
always had my misgivings 
about the war on drugs. 
However, seeing it up close 
and personal for the past 
decade has only increased my 
misgivings into on the drug 
issue. It is the devastating 
effect of the drug war that 
finally made me decide to sell 
my house in Oaxaca. 

 How are the cartels and the 
mafias and the narco-traffickers 
able to maintain their reign of 
terror. It’s the money. Billions 
of dollars of easy money every 
year. The vast majority of this 
money comes from the drug 
consumers of the US. And 
that is what finally hit me. 
US citiizens are financing all 
of cartels and mafias and the 
narco-traffickers and that 
makes the US government 
responsible for all of killing 
and corruption and terror in 
Mexico, and elsewhere in Latin 
America. 

 Because the drugs are illegal, 
there is risk in bringing the 
product to the customer and 
that results in the high prices 
that the consumer has to pay. 
The US war on drugs has 
effectively placed a very high 
tax on the drugs that, of course 
gets passed on to the consumer. 
But, the ironic thing is its not 
the US government that gets to 
collect the tax, its the cartels, 
the mafias, and the narco-
traffickers that collect the tax. 
They have more money than 
the national governments. 
They are better armed than 
most police. They hold entire 
cities hostage. They fight each 
other for control of territory , 
killing not only each other but 
anyone else that happens to be 
in the way. 

 Crime in the streets, Tijuana, 
Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, it doesn’t 
matter where, is like fighting 
a gorilla war. You can never 
win a gorilla war. It just keeps 
going on and on. For normal 
crime we have police and they 
do what they can to protect 
us. But the drug business is no 
normal criminal activity. There 
just so much money involved. 
It makes the narco-traffickers 
absolutly ruthless. With so 
much money, they can easily 
corrupt officiaals and those 
they can’t corrupt they kill. 

 Unlike all other gorilla wars, 
this gorilla war can be won, 
sort of speaking. If drugs 
were legalized, there would 
no longer be the profit motive 
that there is now. This idea is 
usually rejected for fear that 
drug use woud increase. I’m 
not convinced. From what I’ve 
read, Holland and Portugal, 
which have very liberal drug 
laws, have seen an increase in 
drug use. There will always be 
a segment of society that are 
going to use drugs and they 
are going to use them whether 
the drugs are legal or not. 
Legalizing drugs would free up 
billions of dollars that could 
be better spent on programs 
to help people free themselves 
from their addictions. 

 I don’t know if the US will 
ever change their stance on 
the drug issue. I certainly 
hope so. I feel bad that my 
country is responsible for so 
much suffering in the world. 
Good luck to you and to all the 
people of Mexico.

Mountain Views 
News

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