Mountain Views News          Saturday, November 27, 2010

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviews

 


11

OPINION

 MountainViews-News Saturday, November 27, 2010 

Perhaps it’s all connected 
to Mark Twain’s 
175th anni-versary. 
Everywhere I look Mark 
Twain seems to pop up. 
There’s a Huck Finn 
sandwich at The Only 
Place in Town and there’s 
a Mark Twain Statue on 
a park bench right in front of the Monrovia 
Library. My two kids are born on the same date, 
November 28th, just two days before the date 
of Mark Twain’s birth it seemed appropriate to 
buy this huge 737 page Autobiography of Mark 
Twain and realize that it’s only Volume 1. Right 
now I’m rereading Huckleberry Finn and I’m 
beginning to understand something new about 
what freedom means...

Throughout the book 
Huck wrestles with 
questions of right 
and wrong. He is 
accompanied on much of 
his journey by the escaped 
slave Jim whom at first 
Huck regards as a being 
much less worthy than 
a White Man; but Huck 
soon learns the error 
of his thinking and the 
error of his whole culture. 
Huck undergoes a kind 
of reverse initiation out 
of civilization and learns 
to measures Jim’s worth 
according to his own 
instinctive sense of justice 
and brotherhood, rather 
than the beliefs of society. 
Still Huck is unable to 
completely ignore what 
has been drilled into him 
and worries that he will 
be forever condemned to hell if he continues 
to aid Jim. Huck’s willingness to risk Hell is a 
decision of great moral magnitude. Americans, 
including Huck, have many options and have 
the power and the freedom to make choices 
that will determine the kind of life we live. Often 
our freedom of choice is obscured by simple 
habit or corporate sponsored education and 
over exposure to the banality of mass-media. 
Nevertheless, the options are present as are the 
risks and in the end we may regret our choices; 
but we do have the power to choose.

All right, that is the question facing us today. 
How do we want to live and how do we want 
to influence the lives of our children and loved 
ones? Society’s rules keep changing as to what 
is acceptable and desirable. In the 1950’s pre-
marital sex faced public disapproval. Living 
together before marriage and having children 
out of wedlock was unthinkable at least among 
my White college-bound friends. None of my 
friends had divorced-parents and up until the 
Viet Nam War we had few political differences 
with our families. Almost everybody’s father had 
fought in World War II and even though we were 
almost all Democrats everybody sort of liked 
Ike. Well along came the war and along came 
drugs and along came the sexual revolution 
(although my friends and I were mainly non-
participants) and along came Civil Rights and 
Police Brutality and Watergate and things were 
soon very different. My friends and I probably 
all worried about being “normal” but we never 
talked about it. We knew no homosexuals and 
had no association with people of different races 
or different values. How boring it all sounds.

Okay, times are different now. Almost all of my 
friends are divorced. Many have had children 
out of wedlock and increasingly the whole idea 
of marriage seems irrelevant. Race and sexual-
preference seem to matter less and less. There 
may appear to be greater options but the chronic 
anxiety concerning our future and our children’s 
future has not disappeared. Uncontrolled drug-
use is a major problem and the reigning heroes 
of the society are the athletes and movie stars 
and other “celebrities” who seem to live lives 
that are completely out of control. Do Charlie 
Sheen and Lindsay Lohan really represent the 
true aspirations of a society?

Mark Twain mercilessly criticized a hypocritical 
and elitist society and demanded change and 
above everything respected moral clarity. The 
quote on the plaque next to him at the Monrovia 
Library contains one of his most famous and 
enduring statements, “The man who does 
not read good books has no advantage over 
the man who can’t read them.” I think this 
statement is once more an assertion of freedom. 
We have the choice to learn from experience 
and to take advantage of our education and our 
opportunities any make decisions in a changing 
world. Maybe one way we might begin to help 
ourselves and our kids to clear our heads is 
top literally stop and sit on a park bench for 
awhile. We might even happen to find Mark 
Twain right next to us and might spend some 
time thumbing through his autobiography. 
Maybe we will find the clarity to utilize all of our 
advantages and recognize our actual options. It 
would be nice to rise above contemporary chaos 
and take pleasure in our Freedom to choose. 
Sure, we might choose to go back to the TV 
and watch Dancing With The Stars or we might 
actually find ourselves more in touch with the 
blanket of Stars and miracles constantly around 
us but generally obscured. We have the option.


by Christopher Nyerges

Sometimes we get 
so caught up in the 
problems of now 
and tomorrow that 
we simply disable 
ourselves to live in 
the moment and 
enjoy the miracle of 
life. I’d been so focussed on solving 
my own and other people’s problems, 
of growing older, of seeing friends 
die, of the consequences of financial 
mismanagement. I’d barely realized 
I’d fallen down the rabbit hole of not 
seeing the incredible that is before me. 

After a late night meeting, I drove 
home, nearly mid-night, through 
the Arroyo Seco and along the Rose 
Bowl. The coolness of the night was 
refreshing, invigorating. I breathed 
deep and found myself looking anew 
at the enchanting hillside landscape 
that has always been hidden in plain 
view. I realized I’d been looking but 
not seeing. A lone coyote runs along 
the rode. Further along, a skunk hides 
from view by swiftly descending a 
storm drain. A melodic bird sings. 
The landscape is alive and bright, and 
I marvel at the late-night runners still 
engaged in their exercises. 

Though my body aches with the scars 
of aging, I found that my mind was 
fresh, young, awakening again after a 
long sleep. I felt 17 again (or was it 14?) 
when I felt that I was immortal, eternal, 
a part of all things. I breathed deeply, 
and found great joy in the Eternal 
Now that was before me, the Eternal 
Now which always is. I experienced 
this same Eternal Now when running 
and motorcycling through the Arroyo 
Seco years ago, and when I would 
stand in the rain and feel its miracle. 

I had been feeling anxious, worried, 
concerned, and though nothing had 
changed, I now felt free, hopeful, 
curious. I wanted to share, and I began 
to sing and think of poetry. But I 
quickly realized there is nothing that 
needs to be done. To experience the 
moment is sufficient, to go fully into 
the beauty of the moment, and to feel 
the past, and present, and future, all 
ripe with possibilities and discoveries, 
all in this moment. 

I could now see the lights of the city and 
the peaks of the Angeles Forest with its 
occasional twinkling lights. I come by 
here every day, but somehow this was 
a new land, a magical land, the land 
of my mind. I began to wonder about 
the lot of man, working endlessly at 
jobs that are not enjoyed, to pursue 
more and better things, never defining 
real goals except maybe "retirement," 
which is not a real goal. I felt sad, and 
a gust of wind sobered me up, telling 
me to be concerned about my own 
choices, to refine my own daily actions 
and not to dwell on whatever it is that 
other people do or do not. The wind 
freed me of yet another pointless 
anchor—the thinking about what 
"other people" do or don’t do.

Be here now. Wasn’t that the title of an 
old hippie book? Be here now. Easy to 
say, hard to do. But it has become the 
main dictum in my inner religion, and 
though I have no church, the Arroyo 
Seco is the closest I’ve found. It is 
my homeland, my place of work and 
dreams, my place of endless adventures 
and ongoing discoveries. It is my 
Walden Pond, my Field of Dreams, 
my Golden Pond. It is simultaneously 
nothing and everything. It is a vehicle 
through which I continually find 
myself, still that same Self, still in that 
same body (for now), still eager to 
learn and to grow.

I finally got home and stood outside 
looking at the stars, feeling the cool 
evening wind. It felt good to be "up," 
and to know the fight is not over. I 
could feel the meaning of Bodhi-
Dharma’s insightful words: "Fall down 
seven times, get up eight! Life starts 
from NOW." 

And I began to realize, isn’t that the 
Christmas message? To rise again 
from the darkness, to be reborn 
again from the depth of the winter, 
to rediscover our inner self and our 
neighbor in this darkest time of the 
year? I felt a deep inner appreciation 
for whatever it was that provided me 
with this insight, this knowledge that I 
am apart of everything and everyone. 
I realized then that to truly experience 
the real meaning of Christmas I 
needed to create the environment so 
that the Christ-within can be born 
again within my own soul.

Nyerges is the author "Self-Sufficient 
Home," "How To Survive Anywhere," 
and other books. He can be reached at 
www.ChristopherNyerges.com or Box 
41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041

DISCOVERING THE 

MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

Mountain 
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Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

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HOW DO WE WANT TO LIVE 


Aaron Tolchin

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My Turn

HAIL Hamilton

Lies, Coverups and 
Conspiracy Theorists


I had an 
epiphany 
the other 
day; a 
“moment 
of clarity” 
that has changed my view of the role 
the United States has been playing in 
the world for the last 63 years. I feel like 
Rip Van Winkle waking up after a long 
slumber with a huge hangover. 

It now seems to me American history 
since WWII is all about conspiracies--
yes, I used the “c” word--most of which 
relate to our National Security State as 
established beginning in 1947, clinching 
with further developments in Iran, and 
Guatemala occurring during the early 
Eisenhower years, 1953-55. This was a 
result of the profound rearrangement 
of the CIA under Director Allen Dulles. 
According to Eisenhower’s papers, the 
president was never short on second 
thoughts about these changes, long 
before his famous Farewell Address. 

With the vast amounts of power and 
profit available to those in government, 
you don't have to buy the premise of 
every conspiracy theory out there to 
realize that--no matter how big or small-
-private collusion for personal gain, and 
a subsequent cover-up by those involved, 
is going to occur at some point or another. 
Likewise, there would be few incentives 
for later politicians to shed light on the 
events, and many more incentives, both 
professionally and privately, to keep their 
big mouths shut. 

Hypothetically speaking, can anyone 
think of any recent, powerful American 
political leaders who largely avoided 
intensive scrutiny by the press, 
encouraged governmental secrecy, and 
displayed a notable interest in enhancing 
their private wealth while in office? 
Better still, can you think of two such 
upstanding celebrities, perhaps with a 
shared background going back some 
years, recently using their public office 
for self aggrandizement? 

This is not to point the finger, but simply 
to note that the extremes of long-held 
ideology, paired with the potential for 
wealth and the accumulation of power, 
would provide fertile grounds for 
conspiratorial behavior to be encouraged, 
rather than reduced. 

Does anyone remember ABC news 
reporter Chris Bury, at a conference 
in Philadelphia, labeling noted FBI 
whistleblower Colleen Rowley a conspiracy 
theorist on camera after she critiqued the 
Bush administration's curious activities 
before 9/11. Now the phrase “conspiracy 
theorist” is wielded as an all-purpose put-
down by some, and unwillingly adopted 
by others who now question the `official 
story' surrounding any number of events. 

Have you ever wondered who’s really 
calling the shots? I have, and it’s my 
considered opinion it’s not our elected 
officials, at least not at the national level. 
Former CIA agent Ray McGovern asked 
this question in a December 2009 article 
entitled "Are President's Afraid of the 
CIA?" In his article McGovern described 
how former President Harry S. Truman 
was censored by the Washington Post 
and later cajoled by Warren Commission 
member Allen Dulles (remember him?) 
for writing an incredibly strong editorial 
condemning the CIA for becoming, in 
effect, a policy making, rather than a 
policy implementing organization. 

Does anyone see a pattern in all the crap 
that’s happened since the 1960s? What 
about the murders of JFK, Malcolm X, 
MLK, and RFK, the Vietnam War, the 
War on Drugs, and Watergate? And what 
about the more recent malarky like Iran-
Contra, Panama, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, 
and the Wall Street Meltdown? Do 
we really know why these things have 
happened, who has been behind them, 
and who has benefited from them? No, 
not by a long shot. I think what we do 
know is really a bunch of lies we’ve 
been told to coverup what have been 
real conspiracies perpetrated on the 
American people. 

Why are those responsible for watching 
out for us--the national press corps and 
the Justice Department not doing their 
jobs? How many dedicated reporters 
and investigators are thwarted by 
superiors on the payroll of those being 
investigated? How often are they told 
a story or case has been closed because 
it’s “better to let sleeping dogs lie,” when 
in reality “those dogs aren’t sleeping at 
all, they’re training, getting ready... for 
the next conspiratorial assault on the 
American people.” 

If I sound disillusioned it’s because I am. 
I’m also damned mad!


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