Mountain Views News          Saturday, May 3, 2014

B5

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, May 3, 2014 


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

RICH Johnson 

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Rev. James Snyder

Tina Paul

Mary Carney

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Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Greg Welborn

Renee Quenell

Ben Show

Sean Kayden

Marc Garlett


FIRST GRADE FRACTURED 
PROVERBS

AND THEN IT WAS MAY.....

For a very brief time 
last week I was under 
the impression I was 
all caught up. Don't 
you like the feeling 
that comes knowing you are up to date and 
everything is accomplished? I do, I just do 
not experience it enough.

It was entirely my own fault. I was gloating 
over the fact I had accomplished everything 
on my to-do-list and had some time to 
spare. Spare time is a rare commodity 
these days, at least for me. I do not even 
have spare change and it has been months 
since I have seen my spare tire.

Time is a different matter altogether. Just 
when I think I have a little spare time on 
my hands, I find it slipping through my 
fingers.

As I said, I was gloating over the fact I was 
all caught up. Being in a rather cheerful 
mood, I thought I would look at my 
calendar. I do not look at my calendar that 
often. It is so depressing, always telling me 
what to do. I hate it when somebody tells 
me what to do. My calendar looks at me 
and I look back and it simply says, do this. 
And there it is in black and white. What 
else can I do?

Without actually thinking the issue 
through carefully, I opened up my calendar 
and discovered something quite startling. 
It takes a whole lot to startle me. In fact, 
it takes a whole lot just to get me started 
on anything. However, I looked at my 
calendar and was woefully startled.

I noticed on my calendar it was the month 
of May. What happened to March and 
April? In fact, what happened to January 
and February?

I should have gotten a hint with all the 
rain we had in April. Remember that 
little line that goes, "April showers bring 
May flowers"? While I was focused on 
the showers in April, I did not notice that 
April was exhausting itself and May was 
sneaking around the corner to surprise me.

Boy, did it surprise me.

I guess I was just too occupied during the 
month of April to realize that April has 
a time limit. April has 30 days and when 
those 30 days are kaput, April is over and 
it is May.

I do not think May is any different from 
any other month. It is just that I wish 
the months would slow down a little bit. 
It seems at the beginning of the month 
everything is going rather slowly and then 
when you hit the middle of the month 
the days must go into some kind of panic 
and race towards the end. Why these days 
of the month have to hasten towards the 
remainder of the month is something I will 
never wrap my head around.

If I were a swearing man, I would swear it 
was still February. I believe there ought to 
be a month, at least one month in the year, 
where there are like 75 to 80 days. Why be 
so legalistic about all of this? Why be so 
judgmental?

Every day of the month insists it will only 
be around for 24 hours. Not 25 hours. 
Not even 20 hours. But every day insists 
on being around for 24 hours and then it 
disappears. Now, where does it go?

When I go on a vacation, I know where I 
am going and the sad part of my vacation 
is at the end of the vacation I come back. 
Now where does time go? And, why doesn't 
it ever return.

For instance. I am thinking of celebrating 
my 37th birthday this year. I am not 37 
years old, but I cannot remember what I 
did on my 37th birthday. I think that if I 
cannot remember what happened on my 
37th birthday, I should be able to repeat it. 
Why can't I go back and be 37 for just one 
day? I do not need to be 37 forever, just one 
day!

But no, Father Time has made a rule that 
you can only be 37 one day out of the year 
and you can never repeat that, ever again. 
Of course, there was Jack Benny who was 
39 all his life.

I noticed in my calendar there were many 
items that needed doing. As I looked 
at them, I realized I had done them the 
month before. Some things are so insistent 
that you do them every month. My electric 
bill, for instance. Why do I have to pay 
that every month? Why can't the electric 
company give me a vacation once a year?

Another thing that bothers me. When I am 
having a good time at whatever I am doing, 
why does time pass so quickly? I remember 
in school the time leading up to recess went 
ever so slow and I never thought it would 
arrive. Once I got out to recess, it went 
so quickly I had to return to class almost 
before I left the classroom. What is that all 
about?

I took a little bit of time to think about 
what good old King Solomon said about 
the subject. "To everything there is a 
season, and a time to every purpose under 
the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Time is a commodity either you spend it or 
lose it. The bad part is once you lose it you 
can never get it back. Enjoy today, it's the 
only today you have.

Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family 
of God Fellowship, PO Box 831313, Ocala, 
FL 34483. He lives with his wife, Martha, 
in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 1-866-
552-2543 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. 
His web site is www.jamessnyderministries.
com.

 A particularly 
fulfilling part of 
my life were the 
years 1994 through 
2002. Those years 
my kids were going 
through elementary and middle school at 
Bethany Christian School here in Sierra 
Madre. I admit I got a little involved. 7 
years as President of the Parent Teacher 
Organization (called PTF not PTA). And 
several of those years on the school board. 
A couple highlights of those years: First, 
every Tuesday at noontime for years I 
barbecued hamburgers in the outside 
“Quad” of the school. I made such an 
impact that to this day I’ll have 25+ 
year olds walking up to me on the street 
greeting me as Mr. Hamburger Man. It 
could be worse.

 Another wonderful memory was the 
day I talked to God on the phone in front 
of 350 children in an assembly. I actually 
didn’t talk to God. I asked the kids at 
this assembly whether God wanted us 
to be happy. I said let’s call God and ask 
him. I had pre-recorded the voice of God 
(a radio news friend named Phil Reed 
who sounded like God). I then timed 
my lines to carry on what sounded like 
a conversation. The next day several 
Kindergarten parents came to school 
wondering why their children came home 
the previous day insisting I had talked to 
God on the phone and they had heard 
him. They did!

 I also spent a fair amount of time in 
the various classrooms causing mischief 
and occasionally teaching something. My 
own personal crowning achievement was 
the creation of a rather funny document. 
I can call it funny as I really didn’t create 
it. The kids did. (There may be a couple 
added from the internet but most were 
the product of Bethany first graders fertile 
imagination).

 What I did was give the students the 
first half of a proverb leaving the second 
half blank. I then invited them to “finish” 
the proverb. This is what we came up with.

Better to be safe than…punch a 5th 
grader!

Strike while the…bug is close!

It’s always darkest before…daylight 
savings time!

Never underestimate the power of…
termites!

Don’t bite the hand that…looks dirty!

A miss is as good as a…Mister!

You can’t teach an old dog…math

If you lie down with dogs, you…will stink 
in the morning!

Where there is smoke, there’s…pollution!

Happy is the bride who…gets all the 
presents!

A penny saved is…not much!

Two is company, three is…the Musketeers!

Children should be seen and not…
spanked or grounded!

If at first you don’t succeed…get new 
batteries!

You get out of something what you…see 
pictured on the box!

When the blind lead the blind…get out of 
the way!

Laugh and the whole world laughs with 
you. Cry and…you have to blow your 
nose.

 Those first graders are now the 25 year 
olds who stop me on the street. If you are 
reading this and have kids or grandkids in 
elementary school, do whatever you can 
do to get the time to spend with them and 
their fellow students in the classroom or 
on field trips. There is not much you will 
find more rewarding then that time spent.

 If you wonder why I often come across 
as a goofy child you now know why. You 
can do it too. And if you have not kids or 
grandkids of your own, volunteer. The 
payoff is priceless.

200 S. Los Robles Ave., Suite 320, Pasadena, California 91101 . (626) 792-2228 . www.cliffordswan.com 
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 LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

GREG Welborn

HOWARD Hays As I See It


SHARE THE WEALTH OR 
GET OUT OF TOWN

 
“Yeah, I believe he said 
those things.”

 - L.A. Clippers’ coach Doc 
Rivers

 “My house has been 
burned to the ground, 
animals tortured and 
burned as well. Along with 
everything we ever loved, 
and held treasured, because 
of the color of my Dad’s 
skin.”

- Doc Rivers’ son Jeremiah, on the burning of 
their San Antonio home in 1997 

 “Over fifty years later, things have changed 
dramatically.”

- Chief Justice John Roberts 

 Our Buddhist reverend told the story of 
the guy who gave $2,000 to his temple, then 
complained when the newsletter mistakenly 
listed the gift as $20 – and insisted on a 
correction. The reverend expressed his 
appreciation and assured there’d be a 
correction the next month, but noted the 
guy’s insistence on proper credit substantially 
changed the karma there would’ve been 
otherwise.

 (In Buddhism, it’s not a matter of “good 
karma” and “bad karma”, but understanding 
that all words, thoughts and actions, once 
they occur become permanent – and have a 
lasting effect not only on those from whom 
they originate, but on all of us.)

 I’d think of that story whenever I saw 
those ads in the L.A. Times that Donald 
Sterling took out to congratulate himself on 
his philanthropy. When I heard this week’s 
news about Sterling, I thought of Justice 
Roberts’ rationalization quoted above for last 
year’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the 
Supreme Court.

 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put it best; that he 
wasn’t bothered by Sterling’s racism as much 
as he was that “everyone acts as if it’s a huge 
surprise”. Sacramento Mayor (and former 
point guard for the Cavs and Suns) Kevin 
Johnson wants to know why the NBA had 
taken no action in the past, though Sterling’s 
behavior had been part of the public record.

 Donald Sterling started out in law and 
went into real estate, buying properties and 
seeking to increase their value by bringing in 
what he considered a higher class of tenants. 
Those who were with him then recall never 
having seen an owner so personally, zealously 
involved in pursuing the most minor 
infractions to justify breaking leases and 
evicting tenants.

 He knew what kind of tenants he wanted, 
and what kinds he didn’t: “Hispanics smoke, 
drink and just hang around the building”, he’s 
quoted as saying, and “black tenants smell and 
attract vermin.” 

 Sterling settled a tenant harassment suit 
brought by the City of Santa Monica in 
2001 and a housing discrimination suit in 
2005. He settled in 2009 with the U.S. Justice 
Department for violations of the Fair Housing 
Act, involving charges he’d kept blacks and 
families with kids out of his buildings in 
Koreatown. There never seemed to be any 
vacancies whenever prospective black tenants 
came to apply. 

 Former Clipper General Manager (and 
Laker forward) Elgin Baylor testified Sterling 
had a “plantation mentality” towards his 
team, and told him how he’d like to see a 
“white Southern coach” in charge over “poor 
black players”.

 As Abdul-Jabbar put it, “if we’re all going to 
be outraged, let’s be outraged that we weren’t 
more outraged when his racism was first 
evident.”

 It was only a week before that folk-hero 
of tea-baggers and Fox News, rancher Cliven 
Bundy, “shocked” his fans by publicly opining 
that “the Negro” will “abort their young 
children, put their young men in jail, because 
they never learned how to pick cotton.” He 
“wondered” whether they’d be better off as 
slaves.

 Bundy is a government leech who’s grazed 
his cattle on public lands over the past twenty 
years, racking up some $1 million in fees he 
refuses to pay (while scores of fellow Nevada 
ranchers have paid what they owe).

 Thugs and yahoos from all over gathered in 
support – and they brought their guns, railing 
against a tyrannical central government, 
vowing to resist due enforcement of the law 
- but enough about the situation in Eastern 
Ukraine.

 Promoters from the Republican Caucus 
and Fox News bailed when Bundy’s comments 
were aired, but it shouldn’t have been a “huge 
surprise”. The whole “militia”, “sovereign 
citizen”, resist-big-government movement has 
its roots 150 years ago during Reconstruction, 
when the former Confederacy resisted 
imposition of equal protection under the 14th 
Amendment. Fifty years ago, “states’ rights” 
was the rallying cry to oppose civil rights.

 Now, the pretense is to claim that racism 
is simply not a problem anymore - except for 
maybe a couple of crotchety old guys – as 
Justice Roberts did last year in ruling to gut 
the Voting Rights Act. The same argument 
appeared with the recent decision regarding 
use of affirmative action in admissions 
for Michigan schools; but as Justice Sonia 
Sotomayor pointed out, “to know the history 
of our Nation is to understand its long and 
lamentable record of stymieing the right of 
racial minorities to participate. . . ”

 Under the Voting Rights Act, states could 
get out of the Section 4 requirement for pre-
clearance of election rule changes if only they 
could go ten years without having a major 
discriminatory elections complaint. Some 
states (mostly you-know-where) were unable 
to pull even that off, so they went to court to 
have it overturned.

 In Michigan, it’s okay to give an edge in 
admissions to those with an established family 
“legacy” tradition of alumni, but not okay for 
schools to try and even things out for those 
unlikely to have such an advantage.

 When news first broke with doubts of the 
Sterling tape’s authenticity, it was settled for 
me when his spokesman apologized to “those 
who might have been offended”. The corollary 
to that is an assumption there are people who 
“might” not have been offended, or indeed did 
not find it offensive at all.

 Sterling’s and Bundy’s karma stays with 
them. As a country, the words, thoughts and 
actions from our history remain part of our 
own, shared, permanent national karma. It 
may not be traditional Buddhism, but it’s 
something we need to accept and admit to if 
we’re going to move forward.

 Go Clips. 

With the first GNP growth clocking 
in at a whopping 0.1%, the jury’s still 
out on the national economic recovery. 
As an economist by early training, 
I personally believe the U.S. will 
continue to plod along in a forward 
direction. There won’t be a double-
dip recession at the national level. But 
that same economic training tells me 
California may not be so lucky; the 
California State Senate seems to be 
doing everything it can to push the 
Golden State backwards.

For those who haven’t heard, a 
California Senate committee just 
voted overwhelmingly to increase 
taxes on companies which don’t share 
the wealth. Rather than trying to 
stem the tide of employers leaving the 
state for Texas by offering tax reform, 
our politicians are determined to tell 
them to take a hike. Senate Bill 1372 
would raise taxes on companies whose 
pay gap between the highest earning 
employees and the lowest earning 
employees exceeds some magically 
determined threshold known perfectly 
to Democratic public policy experts. 
Words cannot describe the stupidity 
of the concept, let alone of the fact that 
grown, educated? adults voted for it.

 

Let’s dispense with the theoretical 
issues before tackling the economics 
of insanity. Some may be tempted to 
believe that fairness demands there 
be some limit to what those on the 
top can earn vs those on the bottom. 
Nobody can come up with a real 
reason why there should be a limit. 
They just assume that inequality is bad 
without trying to understand why the 
inequality exists.

As a conservative, I’d be the first to 
argue against a system of government 
enforced rules which reward a chosen 
group of people at the expense of others. 
That type of economic inequality 
would be unfair. But inequality 
stemming from differences in life 
choices, education, intelligence and 
work ethic is not inherently immoral. 
In fact a strong moral argument in 
favor of such inequality can be made.

In a free society, as long as everyone 
is free to pursue their goals using the 
talents God has given and the skills 
they develop through education and 
experience, we should expect unequal 
outcomes and actually celebrate 
the attainment of success – even 
spectacular success. We shouldn’t 
punish it.

As a conservative, I cheer the stories of 
poor immigrants who sought, found 
and prospered in 
America, the land of 
opportunity. I don’t 
think their success 
makes me or anyone 
else poorer. In fact, 
we usually benefit 
from the innovations 
they’ve developed or 
the more customer-centric businesses 
they’ve built. The technology we 
enjoy today is largely the result of 
people pursuing economic inequality. 
Neither Bill Gates nor Sam Walton 
pursued poverty. I do not in the least 
begrudge them their wealth. I thank 
them profusely for their products 
and stores. To take away their gains 
simply because we don’t like the level 
they attained is petty envy – one of the 
seven deadly sins - not a noble virtue.

Now to the economics of insanity. Did 
anyone notice Toyota’s announcement 
they were closing up shop in California 
to move their headquarters (along with 
5,000 jobs) to Texas. Tax rates and an 
insane regulatory environment were 
the cause. For those who missed the 
recent announcement, it read a lot like 
Nissan’s 2006 announcement when it 
left California for Tennessee. Even the 
Liberals of Hollywood are not inured 
to high taxes. California is losing 
market share in movie and television 
production.

In an interconnected national 
economy, and now the growing 
connectivity of the world economy, 
local tax rates matter. The U.S. is 
losing companies, or at least economic 
activity, to other countries with lower 
tax rates. The U.S’s combined average 
state-federal tax rate is nearly 40% 
compared to the global average of 
24%, not to mention specific countries 
where rates are in the teens. As a result, 
companies like Pfizer announce they 
will increase production or invest in 
new ventures in other countries, rather 
than in the U.S. Pfizer is investing in 
Britain to reduce taxes. Within the 
U.S. economic activity and investment 
gravitates to the states where taxes are 
lower. I’m sure there’s little love-loss 
between Governors Brown and Perry, 
but the fault lies with California, not 
Texas. 

The unavoidable message in Senate Bill 
is 1372 is that if you stay in California, 
Sacramento will reduce your profits – 
either taking them in taxes or forcing 
you to give them away. We shouldn’t 
be surprised when companies decide 
not to stay in California and instead 
take the hint to get out of town.

Mountain Views News

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