Mountain Views News          Saturday, May 14, 2011

12

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, May 14, 2011

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

HAIL Hamilton My Turn

Mountain 
Views

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Susan Henderson

City Editor

Dean Lee 

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Patricia Colonello

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Richard Garcia

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Lina Johnson

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Contributors

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Pat Birdsall

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Stuart Tolchin

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

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La Quetta Shamblee

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Pat Ostrye

Dorothy White

Webmaster

John Aveny 

IS IT JUST BASKETBALL?

 
Horrible, 
wasn’t it? 
The Lakers 
didn’t 
just lose; 
instead 
they 
managed to embarrass and 
betray us. Sure they lost in 
four-straight but that’s no 
crime. What they did was 
much worse than lose. They 
acted like bullies—their 
(our) giant young center, our 
hope for the future, all seven 
feet-two, three hundred plus 
pounds of him viciously 
attempted to injure their 
five foot-ten second string 
player. It was ugly, it was 
unnecessary, and to me it 
was criminal. In an attempt 
to explain his actions our 
hero explained that it had 
made him angry that the 
other player was getting to 
the basket so easily.

 I heard no remorse, no 
apology; no real explanation. 
What was left unstated but 
was well-understood was 
the feeling that we (THE 
LAKERS OR LOS ANGELES 
OR THE UNITED STATES 
but definitely WE) are big 
and powerful and we have 
the guaranteed right to stay 
that way and we can do 
whatever we want because 
we are rich and powerful 
and strong and should be 
allowed to stay that way. It 
makes me sick!

 Probably, you will disagree 
with this analysis but this is 
my view of the Bush-Obama 
administration. Yes Bush-
Obama. It’s all the same. If 
we don’t like what’s going 
on in other places in the 
world we just push our way 
in, throw trillions of dollars 
around, kill thousands of 
foreign civilians and make up 
flimsy reasons to justify our 
actions. We need not have 
trials; we need not respect 
sovereign boundaries, we 
need not even believe our 
own explanations. The 
only truth is that we do 
what we do because there 
is no one strong enough to 
stop us. Worst of all we are 
UNITED in this assertion 
of unrestrained power- the 
United States of Aggression. 
USA - USA.

 Is world-politics just 
another football game? 
What about our highly-
touted respect for the rules 
of law and decency and 
civilization? Do Americans 
approve of torture? Sure we 
do. Do Americans imprison 
people for years without 
ever bringing them to trial 
or even letting them talk 
to lawyers Of course we 
do? Really, I need to calm 
down. Much of what has 
always made me proud to be 
a Lakers fan or an American 
has turned out to be illusory. 
The truth is that when 
times get tough, the sugar-
coating falls off and there is 
a glimpse of what is really 
going on. Transparency is 
really frightening that way.

 The recently seized tapes 
of Bin Laden showing him 
to be a frail white-bearded 
old man are painfully 
instructive. Yes, there he 
is dying his beard black 
to maintain an image of 
strength and power. Of 
course we want him to 
look strong and powerful 
and frightening because we 
can more easily justify our 
otherwise unsupportable 
actions against only a 
powerful enemy.

 Perhaps it seems like I’m 
jumping around from one 
topic to another. To me 
it’s all related. The image 
that I have of the world is 
cracking and I don’t like 
what is leaking through 
the cracks. Yes, I thought 
the Lakers were a team of 
grace and class and that 
Phil Jackson was a masterful 
psychologist who obtained 
optimal performances from 
his players. SORRY - It’s the 
Emperor’s New Clothes all 
over again. In his farewell 
speech ,Jackson seems 
revealed as a false wizard, 
now relieved to escape the 
burden of pretending he 
knew what he was doing. 
Really, I guess, the Lakers 
were great when Kobe was 
young and now he’s older 
and things are different.

 The glow around Obama 
has also changed. To me 
his emergence illustrated 
the coming of civilization 
to these United States. 
Here was a man, a Black 
man, who represented all 
that was good. No spoiled, 
arrogant, cowboy, ignorant, 
isolationist wanting to 
rule with a six-gun. No 
limousine-driven tool of 
the moneyed classes raised 
to his position only by his 
name and connections - this 
was a man of worth of whom 
we could all be proud. Well, 
perhaps many of us are still 
proud; but what has been 
revealed is that this President 
isn’t very different from the 
last one. Money still rules - 
if we want foreign oil we get 
foreign oil. We keep the wars 
going; we support the banks 
and cater to the super-rich 
to the detriment of everyone 
else. Maybe that’s the way it 
always was but the truth has 
now become all too clear.

 Yes, the Lakers are 
Losers and we have all lost 
something. Yes, Americans 
internally are no better than 
anyone else and, really, that 
should not have been a 
surprise. Well, there’s always 
pro-football to distract us 
- but maybe not this year 
because the rich people are 
fighting over how to split up 
the money and the whole 
season might be cancelled. 
Well, so what - what possible 
relevance does what’s going 
on in the Sportsworld have 
to do with the rest of worldly 
concern? 

OLD People Are Bankrupting 
America!


You can complain all 
you want about trade 
imbalances, welfare, military 
spending, war, and 
housing bubbles. You can 
whine all you want about tax cuts for the wealthy 
and corporate rebates. You can scream all you 
want about government spending and public 
employee unions, and how they are driving us 
into the poorhouse. But you’re just wasting your 
breath.

 The real reasons behind the debt is SOCIAL 
SECURITY and MEDICARE, the two most expensive, 
budget busting entitlement programs -- 
programs that together eat up more than a third 
of the federal budget!

 In other words, the real problem is OLD 
PEOPLE. Seniors are living longer, baby boomers 
are retiring younger and all at once, and there 
are too few productive, employed, tax-paying 
people to take their place. 

 Our economy is like a gigantic upside down 
pyramid ready to topple any instant. It doesn’t 
take a genius to do the math. There are simply 
too many people at the top of the upside down 
pyramid making withdrawals from federal coffers 
and too few at the bottom making deposits. 

 The only solution is to get rid of OLD PEOPLE. 
Sorry OLD PEOPLE we just don’t have the 
money to feed you and pay for your medical bills.

 Heck, OLD PEOPLE contribute NOTHING 
to society. They sit on their rear ends all 
day, they are useless eaters, they complain about 
everything and, worst of all, they bore anyone 
within hearing distance to death with their elaborate, 
often confabulated stories about how great 
things used to be were when they were young. It 
drives YOUNG PEOPLE nuts!

 Sorry grandpa and grandma but you’ve got 
to go. You’re too expensive for the rest of us to 
afford. Federal generosity to seniors and their increasingly 
lavish lifestyle is breaking the country. 
Sorry seniors no more exclusive golf club memberships, 
no more luxury love boat cruises, and 
no more exorbitant vacations to exotic faraway 
places.

 Review panels will be set up in hospitals to 
examine all persons over 55. Those with severe 
or chronic illnesses will not be taken care of and 
denied all health care. 

Those still fit to work will be transported to 
FEMA camps where they will be transformed 
into cheap assembly line workers a-la Chinese 
factories in order to reduce the trade deficit.

 Billions, indeed trillions, of tax dollars will 
be saved -- more than enough to pay off the 
debt, eliminate the deficit, and still have plenty 
of money left over to finance all our future wars 
and support the opulent rich in the pretentious 
manner in which they’ve grown accustomed.

 Think about it. No more AARP lobbyists 
roaming the halls of Congress, no more overpaid 
Social Security administrators, no more Medicare 
fraud and waste. The enormous cost for the 
old and the infirm will be eliminated forever; 
and the nation will be free of all these GREEDY 
NEEDY OLD PEOPLE -- free to pursue its conservative 
Christian crusade to establish crony 
capitalism, conspicuous consumption and economic 
tyranny around the world!

 This is the only solution my friends. We 
have to sacrifice OLD PEOPLE for the greater 
good of YOUNG PEOPLE. 

 I know all this seems heartless and cruel, 
but cruel for whom? Cruel for YOUNG PEOPLE 
whose productive years are just beginning, or 
cruel for the OLD PEOPLE whose productive 
years are past?

 “Hurry up and die” will be the new national 
motto; the Pledge of Allegiance will be changed 
to “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty 
and justice for all YOUNG PEOPLE.”

 Career politicians will termed out after 
serving a limited number of years in office or 
humanely euthanized at 55, whichever comes 
first. OLD POLITICIANS will thus be regularly 
replaced by YOUNG POLITICIANS and, as a 
result, CORRUPTION and INCOMPETENCE 
will be all but the exception rather than the rule 
at all levels of government. 

 Of course, there will be exceptions to the 
general rule. People who are over 55, in good 
health and working at certain jobs will be exempt 
and allowed to live as long they are productive 
-- for example, OLD PEOPLE who write for 
small town newspapers will be exempt. 

 TALENT and WISDOM are always worth 
keeping alive. 

Editor’s Note: No, he is not serious!

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RICH Johnson

Paradoxical Commandments

 A paradox is defined as, 
“a statement or proposition 
that seems self-contradictory 
or absurd but in reality 
expresses a possible truth.”

If you’ve ever struggled 
with the “why bother” syndrome, 
this column might 
be worth reading. When Adam and Eve did the 
one thing God asked them not to do in the Garden 
of Eden (eat of the fruit of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil) God might have 
toyed with the “why bother” syndrome. And if 
the “why bother” recommendation had been 
implemented, we wouldn’t be here. Thank God.

If you are successful you have found a way to 
implement these truths. And if you want to be 
successful you need to adopt them.

The Paradoxical Commandments

 by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and 
self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish 
ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends 
and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten 
tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest 
ideas can be shot down by the smallest men 
and women with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top 
dogs.

Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed 
overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if 
you do help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll 
get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001

Dr. Keith received his B.A. from Harvard; His 
M.A. from Oxford; a J.D. (law degree) from the 
University of Hawaii; and an Ed. D. from USC. 
He is a Rhodes Scholar. Visit his websites at 
paradoxicalcommandments.com, and KentMKeith.
com.

The paradox I remember most is the “Dichotomy 
Paradox” formulated by Zeno of Elea. He 
lived in approximately 450 BC and was a pre-
Socratic Greek philosopher in Southern Italy.

“That which is in locomotion must arrive at 
the Half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.”

Huh? Okay, suppose you want to catch a bus 
parked at the corner. Before you reach the bus 
you must get halfway there. Before you get halfway 
there you must get a quarter of the way 
there; before that, an eighth, one-sixteenth, and 
so on. You, in theory, can never reach the bus 
because you must pass through an infinite number 
of halfway points. 

Zeno’s answer: “All motion must be an 
illusion.” 

Since we arrive at the bus there must be a 
scientific answer to the Dichotomy Paradox. 
However, it is way above my intellectual station. 
So I will ask my fellow writer, Stuart, to tackle 
the query. He is much higher on the intellectual 
ladder than I am. He’ll get back to us I’m sure. 
Maybe in half the time.

PORTANTINO JOINS THE FIGHT 

AGAINST CHILD PROSTITUTION

Co-Authors AB 12 to Raise Fines Against 
“Johns”

Sacramento – Assemblymember Anthony Portantino (D-
La Canada Flintridge) has added his support to AB 12, the 
Abolition of Child Commerce, Exploitation and Sexual 
Slavery Act. The bill, which passed the Assembly Public 
Safety Committee with unanimous support, would increase 
the fine against anyone convicted of engaging in prostitution 
with a minor under the age of 16.

“Current law is too lenient on these so-called ‘johns’ or 
customers,” said Assemblymember Portantino. “These 
children often come from homes where they have been 
brutalized or abandoned and they turn to the streets to 
support themselves. We have to shield these children from 
the dangers of these sexual predators. As the father of two 
daughters, I am horrified and angered that current law 
doesn’t do more to keep these creeps away from minors.”

AB 12 increases the fine for paying for sex with a minor to 
$25,000. That money would be deposited in the Victim-
Witness Assistance Fund to support agencies that aid 
exploited minors. The bill now goes to the Assembly Floor 
for a vote.


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will be our guide. 

SENSE OR NONSENSE?! - 

Believe It Or Not This Happened In 
Washington This Week:

The CEOs from the five major oil companies -- which together 
booked $36 billion in profits in the first quarter of 
2011 alone -- went to the Senate on Thursday to try to justify 
the $4 billion in tax giveaways they’re receiving this year!