Mountain Views News          Saturday, March 3, 2012

5

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views News Saturday, March 3, 2012

 In an announcement that took many by surprise, 
U.S. Congressman David Dreier, who 
represented the 26th Congressional District 
announced earlier this week that he would not 
seek re-election. Below is is formal statement 
in it’s entirety.

Statement from Congressman Dreier

 

WASHINGTON, DC – Rules Committee 
Chairman David Dreier (R-CA) delivered 
the following statement today on the floor of 
the U.S. House of Representatives: 

"Mr. Speaker, I have chosen to leave Congress 
at the end of this term. I take the unusual 
step of announcing this from the floor 
of Congress for two reasons. First, this is 
where my fellow Californians sent me to 
represent them. Second, I am a proud institutionalist, 
and I believe that this institution 
is as great as it has ever been.

 

"My decision has been a deliberative one. 
Three years ago I contemplated leaving at 
the end of the previous Congress, but I ultimately 
chose to seek reelection for the 
sake of pursuing four key objectives: (1) to 
reverse the very dangerous 82% increase in 
non-defense discretionary spending that we 
had in the previous two Congresses; (2) to 
finally pass the job-creating free trade agreements 
with Colombia, Panama and South 
Korea; (3) to enhance our national security 
by working to strengthen the legislatures of 
new and reemerging democracies across the 
globe through the bipartisan House Democracy 
Partnership; and (4) to ensure, through 
the Rules Committee, that both Democrats 
and Republicans have the opportunity to 
offer their solutions by proposing amendments 
on the House floor.

 

"Mr. Speaker, I have been honored to play 
a part in the effort to accomplish these four 
goals. Acting in a bipartisan way, we have 
fundamentally altered the federal spending 
process, focusing on fiscal discipline 
rather than profligacy. We not only passed 
all three pending free trade agreements. We 
did so with the largest bipartisan support of 
any trade measure in years. The 17 partner 
countries of the House Democracy Partnership 
are making important strides, and the 
advent of the Arab Spring has brought about 
the greatest opportunity in more than a generation 
for democracy throughout the Arab 
world. Finally, both Democrats and Republicans 
can offer their ideas on the House floor. 

"This work is far from over, and I intend to 
spend this year working toward greater bipartisan 
progress. Our economy and our 
job market remain in peril, and the effort to 
rein in the deficit has only just begun. Having 
cleared out the backlog of trade agreements, 
we must embark on a renewed trade 
liberalization agenda to revitalize the worldwide 
marketplace. The endeavor to ensure 
that American workers and entrepreneurs 
are able to grow our economy and increase 
our standard of living is an ongoing one. It is 
an endeavor that I look forward to pursuing 
as vigorously outside of Congress as I have 
here.

 

"I have always believed that Republicans and 
Democrats alike serve the American people 
best when we find ways to build bipartisan 
consensus. The framers of our constitution 
envisioned Congress as a forum for a great 
clash of ideas. We all have different, sometimes 
radically different, views of how to 
build a better and stronger America. I have 
always believed that our efforts must be rooted 
in our pursuit of a free economy, personal 
freedom, limited government, and a strong 
national defense. Others may take a different 
view. These differences demand a passionate 
debate, but that debate must ultimately arrive 
at consensus. 

"As I prepare to follow the Madisonian directive 
that Members of Congress should 
one day leave office to live under the laws 
they passed, there are many whom I would 
like to thank. Family and friends, volunteers 
and supporters, and of course the voters who 
first gave me my party's nomination in 1978 
when I was 25 and lived in the Phillips Hall 
dormitory at my alma mater, Claremont 
McKenna College.

 

"I would also like to thank the dedicated 
public servants in my offices in California 
and Washington, who have so ably worked 
in behalf of the people I've been privileged 
to represent."

 

PET OF THE WEEK: HEIDI: Animal ID #A4399107

CONGRESSMAN DREIER RETIRES


Meet a really awesome dog, the 
exceptional Heidi (A4399107). Heidi 
is an easygoing, companionable 
seven-year-old black and fawn female 
purebred German Shepherd who was 
found in West Covina on February 
24th and brought to the Baldwin 
Park Animal Care Center. Weighing 
eighty-two pounds, this even-keeled 
girl walks perfectly on the leash. She 
gets along with other dogs. Heidi 
is even tempered, and very well-
behaved. She will be a fantastic 
indoor pet for an individual or family 
living in a private home, and we think 
she will be great with kids, or with an 
older person who wants a large but 
easy-to-handle dog. To view a video 
of Heidi please visit: www.youtube.
com/watch?v=27j_yCMHfIU

To meet Heidi in person, please 
see her at the Baldwin Park Shelter, 
located at 4275 N. Elton, Baldwin Park, CA 91706 (Phone: 626-430-2378 or 626-962-3577). She 
is currently available now. For any inquiries about Heidi, please reference her animal ID number: 
A4399107. The shelter is open seven days a week, 12 pm-7 pm Monday-Thursday and 10am-5pm 
Friday-Sunday. This is a high-intake shelter with a great need for adoptions. For more information 
about Heidi or the adoption process, contact United Hope for Animals Volunteer Adoption 
Coordinator Samantha at samanthasayon@gmail.com or 661-309-2674. To learn more about 
United Hope for Animals’ partnership with the Baldwin Park Shelter through its Shelter Support 
Program, as well as the many dogs of all breeds, ages, and sizes available for adoption in local 
shelters, visit http://www.unitedhope4animals.org/about-us/shelter-support-program/.


JIM ROBERTSON, Teacher of the Old Ways

 
By Christopher Nyerges

 

[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive 
Anywhere,” and other books. He can be 
reached at www.ChristopherNyerges.
com, where there is also a link to his 
weekly podcast on Preparedness Radio 
Network.]

 

 Jim Robertson is a practitioner and teacher of the survival 
skills of Native Americans that have become largely lost 
and forgotten. He teaches to school children in the Santa 
Monica Mountains through the Mountains Recreation and 
Conservation Authority in association with the National Park 
Service and the Topanga Canyon Docents in association with 
the California State Parks.

 On a recent Saturday morning, Robertson was demonstrating 
the use of the Piute deadfall, a method used not just by the 
Piute, but widely among the Native Americans, for capturing 
small game.

 The hard part is the trigger mechanism, which supports 
a large rock or log. Once the class is gathered around, 
Robertson shows how the various pieces are made. There is 
one vertical piece, whose top is chiseled. Another diagonal 
piece pivots on top of the vertical twig, roughly the size of a 
pencil. So far so good. Robertson shows how the pieces are 
to work. The rock will be held up by the diagonal piece of 
wood, which is held in place by a string tied to its lower end, 
to which a small toggle is tied. The toggle wraps around the 
vertical piece. And then there is a long bait stick that holds 
the toggle in place, which is pressed against the rock. 

 If that sounds very complicated, well, it is! Yet, millenia of 
Native Americans used this method, and several variations of 
it, to capture the small game that comprised the bulk of their 
meals.

 Robertson is concentrated and intense as he demonstrates 
how to secure the large flat rock in place above the trigger 
mechanism.

 “It has to be just-so,” explains Robertson. “Too secure and 
it won’t topple when an animals eats the bait. Too loose and it 
will fall in the wind.” After a few attempts, Robertson shows 
how it’s done, and each student gets to try. 

 Everyone likes to learn how to use these primitive traps, 
there are many that Robertson teaches. However, he always 
emphasizes that he does not actually set any traps up with 
students, 
since these 
devices are 
often illegal. 
“The one 
exception 
to this is 
a genuine 
survival 
situation,” 
explains 
Robertson. 
Still, he does 
not condone 
causing 
unnecessary 
suffering of 
any animals 
due to poor 
worksmanship with the snares and traps. 

 “Do your practice with stuffed animal toys,” suggests 
Robertson.

 “When I am practicing all-out survival in an area where it 
is legal to use dead fall traps, the killing of wildlife is still kept 
to the bare minimum because I regard the animals as a part 
of our family and, as with all life, they deserve the utmost 
respect, reverence, and consideration,” says Robertson.

 Robertson regularly teaches wilderness and survival skills 
privately and through various local groups. Not only does 
he teach, but he is constantly 
learning new skills as he attends 
the various survival skills schools 
offered throughout the country. 
He has taken classes with Jim 
Lowrey’s Earth Skills in Frazier 
Park, California; Boulder Outdoor 
Survival School (BOSS), in Utah; 
Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracking and 
Wilderness Survival School, and 
many other notable schools. 

 As a young child, Robertson 
would sometimes sneak out of the 
house before dawn for a full day 
of adventure and not return until 
after dusk, to the consternation of 
his parents, though he thinks his 
father was secretly pleased.

 “As I got a little older, my 
many natural athletic abilities and 
pursuit of a professional baseball 
career kept me kind of distracted 
from my beloved wild lands until I sustained a strange, 
painful, life altering illness,” explains Robertson. “The illness 
forced him to slow down, and to re-evaluate his life. One of 
his new priorities was to get back into the wild more often. 

“It was here, in the wild, that mother nature performed its 
healing magic on me, in its own time, at its own pace, teaching 
me the quiet lessons necessary for me to grow and move on. It 
was largely due to this powerful illness and healing experience 
that I felt compelled to become a naturalist, environmentalist, 
aboriginal skills, wilderness/survival instructor,” explains 
Robertson with a big infectious grin.

 For six months in 1970, Robertson lived in a large tent in a 
hidden little canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. 

 “An old high school buddy of mine owned the land and he 
loved the idea of me living on his wild, raw land. I absolutely 
loved living there, “ explains Robertson. “The outdoor 
showers were phenomenal, the rattlesnakes were friendly as 
were the deer, rabbits and quail. The nightly music of the 
great horned owl, crickets and frogs was majestic as they 
lulled me to sleep at night.”

 Robertson had no phone, television, or radio during this 
time, and would drive into town every few days to work on 
his insurance business. His tent living came to an end when 
he and his girlfriend returned from a five week trip to Europe, 
and found everything destroyed by the Santa Ana winds and 
the winter rains. 

 Robertson said that the only downside to this camping 
experience was that occasional curious hikers would stumble 
upon his place when they weren’t home and invite themselves 
in to our living quarters, burning incense, etc. He said this was 
disconcerting and that ironically he sometimes felt safer in 
the city than we did in the wild. “Regardless,” says Robertson, 
“the whole experience was among the best in my life!”

 Robertson can be reached through Aboriginal Skills, at 
j3rbrts@dslextreme.com or (310) 395-0943. You can also check 
his Facebook.