Mountain Views News          Saturday, May 17, 2014

Mountain Views-News Saturday, May 17, 2014 
8 OPINION
Mountain 
Views 
News 
PUBLISHER/ EDITOR 
Susan Henderson 
CITY EDITOR 
Dean Lee 
EAST VALLEY EDITOR 
Joan Schmidt 
BUSINESS EDITOR 
LaQuetta Shamblee 
SENIOR COMMUNITY 
EDITOR 
Pat Birdsall 
SALES 
Patricia Colonello 
626-355-2737 
626-818-2698 
WEBMASTER 
John Aveny 
CONTRIBUTORS 
Chris Leclerc 
Bob Eklund 
Howard HaysPaul CarpenterStuart Tolchin 
Kim Clymer-KelleyChristopher NyergesPeter Dills 
Hail Hamilton 
Rich Johnson 
Merri Jill Finstrom 
Lori KoopRev. James SnyderTina Paul 
Mary CarneyKatie HopkinsDeanne Davis 
Despina ArouzmanGreg WelbornRenee Quenell 
Ben Show 
Sean KaydenMarc Garlett 
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at 80 W. Sierra MadreBlvd., No. 327, Sierra 
Madre, California, 91024. 
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR 

Dear Editor: 

The Sierra Madre Kiwanis Club and the former Fire Safe Council “FSC” has taken 
a great interest in helping to provide our city with the very best in an emergency 
warning system, second to none. 

Mike Kinney, president of the FSC approved a counter top collection design that 
Gary Hood and myself put out at over a dozen businesses in town. Hank Landsberg, 
former president of the Kiwanis Club designed and helped oversee the construction 
of the emergency radio station that is now on the air 24/7 at 1630 AM. The ‘horn’ 
at the corner of Montecito and Baldwin however sits idle. We are now somewhat 
frustrated in waiting to, what we feel, are the next steps to completion. Everyday of 
delay is one day closer to the time it will be needed. 

A member of the Kiwanis was asked by the council to survey the business district 
to find out the best time for testing, either daily , as recommended, or weekly, or 
whatever. The survey was also to include the optimum time. As of now there has 
been no tests scheduled that is necessary to educate the public and to determine if 
an additional “horn” is needed. Some members of the Kiwanis Club, from Gem 
Plumbing, have offered to provide the work to install a second “horn” at the city 
yards, where a necessary air tank is located, if needed. 

The Kiwanis Club and city hall have passed out brochures at every opportunity but a 
real regularly schedule sounding of the horn is really needed to test it’s effectiveness. 
Broadcasting an audible signal are awaiting testing. 

As you may have read, a city in Mexico has developed a 72 second warning system 
for earthquakes, with our local talent from CalTech and JPL available in this city, we 
should be tapping them for a comparable system. 

Ladies and gentlemen, please, let’s hear from you and let’s move forward with a very 
important emergency warning system. 

Former Mayor George Maurer 


HOWARD Hays As I See ItLEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 
GREG Welborn 
“There is a time for 
politics and time to put 
politics aside for the good of 
the nation.” 

- Greg Welborn 
“Will you automatically 
add your name todayto become a Benghazi 
Watchdog? Help fight 
liberals by donating today. 
. . Let’s go after Obama 
and Hillary Clinton. Help 

us fight them now.” - Fundraising website 
of the National Republican CongressionalCommittee 

Greg began his own column with a quote last 
week, Hillary Clinton’s “What difference does 
it make?” In this instance especially, context 
is helpful.

 It begins with the 2012 posting of a schlocky 
YouTube video mocking Islam, promoted by 
Florida pastor Terry Jones, who a couple years 
earlier had his International Burn a Koran 
Day.

Jones was taken more seriously in North 
Africa than here, and it wasn’t long before 
crowds were protesting the video at our 
embassy in Cairo. The embassy put out a 
statement condemning “efforts by misguided 
individuals to hurt the religious feelings of 
Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend 
believers of all faiths.”

 News of the Cairo protests spread; within 
hours crowds had gathered outside our 
consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and then came 
the assault. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 
released a statement to “condemn in the 
strongest terms the attack on our mission.”

 In deference to the anniversary of 9/11, the 
Obama and Romney campaigns had agreed 
to suspend activities for the day. Romney, 
though, couldn’t wait; before midnight, as 
events turned tragic in Benghazi, he released a 
statement letting us know he was “outraged by 
the attacks on American diplomatic missions 
in Libya and Egypt”, and found it “disgraceful 
that the Obama Administration’s first response 
was not to condemn the attacks . . . but to 
sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” 

 Romney’s impatience to issue his press 
release, while we were still evacuating 
personnel and identifying casualties, was an 
embarrassment to his campaign – so they had 
to come up with something new.

 Accusing the administration of failing to 
keep our diplomats safe wouldn’t work; For 
Obama’s first year in office, House Republicans 
voted to cut funds for 300 additional security 
personnel. For fiscal 2011 they cut $128 
million from the administration’s requested 
embassy security funding, with a $331 million 
cut for 2012.

 (Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah 
went on Fox News to charge that ignoring 
security concerns “seems to be a coordinated 
effort between the White House and the State 
Department”. When asked on CNN if he 
himself hadn’t voted to cut security funding, it 
was “Absolutely . . . we have to make priorities 
and choices in this country.”)

Accusing the administration of an inadequate 
response wouldn’t work, especially with the 
conclusion of the Accountability Review 
Board co-chaired by former Ambassador 
Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs 
Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen:

 “The interagency response was timely and 

appropriate, but there simply was not enough 
time, given the speed of the attacks, for armed 

U.S. military assets to have made a difference. 
Senior-level military discussions were 
underway soon after Washington received 
initial word of the attacks and continued 
through the night. The Board found no 
evidence of any undue delays in decision 
making or denial of support from Washington 
or from the military combatant commanders”. 
It cited “exceptional U.S. government 
coordination and military response”. 
So the focus turned to U.N Ambassador 
Susan Rice’s TV appearances where she 
followed CIA-prepared “talking points”:

 “The currently available information 
suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi 
were spontaneously inspired by the protests at 
the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a 
direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and 
subsequently its annex.” There were indeed 
terrorists and militia members, as well as 
others who came along for the looting. An 
intelligence official described it as a “flash mob 
with weapons”, with “some pre-coordination 
but minimal planning”. The official conceded 
that looking at the “talking points” in hindsight, 
he’d change “spontaneous” to “opportunistic”. 

Ambassador Rice repeated the CIA’s caveat 
that “This assessment may change as additional 
information is collected and analyzed and as 
currently available information continues to 
be evaluated.” No useful sound-bites here, so 
the “controversy” became one of semantics; 
whether it was simply “protests” that happened 
or “terrorism” (assuming one precludes the 
other). 

 As if it mattered, in the second presidential 
debate Romney charged President Obama 
with not having called it an “act of terror” until 
14 days after the incident; while the president 
said he did so the very next day in the Rose 
Garden. Moderator Candy Crowley informed 
Romney the president was right. (“Can you 
say that a little louder, Candy?”)

 Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee then took aim at Secretary Clinton. 
At a January 2013 hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson 
(R-WI) demanded to know why calls were not 
immediately placed with evacuees to confirm 
that while there’d been an “attack”, there were, 
in fact, no “protests”.

 Secretary Clinton responded; “With all 
due respect, the fact is we had four dead 
Americans. Was it because of a protest or was 
it because of guys out for a walk one night who 
decided that they’d go kill some Americans? 
What difference at this point does it make? 
It is our job to figure out what happened and 
do everything we can to prevent it from ever 
happening again, Senator.”

 In that second debate, after referring to 
his Rose Garden remarks, President Obama 
recalled that “a few days later I was there 
greeting the caskets coming into Andrews 
Air Force Base and grieving with the families. 
And the suggestion that anybody in my team, 
whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. 
Ambassador, anybody on my team would play 
politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our 
own, governor, is offensive.”

 Republicans were hoping to ride 
“Obamacare” all the way to the mid-terms. 
That’s obviously not going to happen, so now 
it’s back to Benghazi to bring out their base.

It’s offensive and decidedly not for the good 
of the nation – but it’s politics. 

OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder 

WHY MOTHERS WOULD MAKE GOOD 


POLITICIANS 

In looking forward to 

Mother's Day, I could 

not help but think 
about the mess our country is in right now. 
Not that messes remind me of mothers in 
particular, but honesty compels me to admit 
they are good at cleaning up messes. And, 
the messes they cleanup are not their doing. 
That is what makes it so great. 

Somebody needs to clean up the mess we are 
in. 

Anybody who steps outside their house 
knows that the country is in a terrific mess 
these days. It would be impossible to blame 
one political party over another. In this area, 
everybody is equal. The truth is, politicians 
make messes. Furthermore, they leave these 
messes for other people to clean up. Many 
politicians have dirty mouths and minds, 
but none has dirty hands from cleaning up 
messes. 

There are two kinds of politicians in our 
country. Those who make messes and 
those who allow those messes to be made. 
Wouldn't it be nice to find a politician who 
actually would clean up a mess? 

Our country is in the soup, and not the 
kind of soup your mother used to make. 
Politicians make soup out of circumstances 
that nobody can stomach while mothers 
have a marvelous way of making soup out of 
almost anything, and it tastes heavenly, plus 
it is good for you. 

Recently, some politicians have been in an 
uproar and quite nervous over the swine flu 
situation. And there is good reason. With 
all the pork in Washington these days, they 
should be afraid they might catch whatever 
is going around. Maybe, and I know I'm a 
little sadistic here, it might be good for a 
couple of them (okay, all of them) to come 
down with some kind of flu to send them 
to their beds for at least a month. Possibly 
a high fever might clear up their thinking. 
Plus, our country could use a vacation 
from politicians. We could put them all in 
quarantine until the danger is over. (I'll let 
them know when it is over. Honest. Cross 
my fingers and hope to vote.) 

But getting back to my subject, I believe 
mothers would make wonderful politicians 
for several reasons. Mothers, generally 
speaking, know how to ask questions. 

"Have you washed behind your ears?" 

"What time are you getting back?" 
"Do you have clean underwear?" 

"If all your friends jumped off a bridge 
would you?" 

It is one thing to ask a question, but it is 
another thing altogether to ask the right 
question. I firmly believe asking questions is 
a highly refined art. Politicians, for example, 
ask questions they think people are asking. 
Before they query any audience, they take 
197 polls to make sure they have the right 

question so they are not embarrassed. 

Mothers, on the other hand, ask questions 
to embarrass you and put you back on the 
straight and narrow. 

Politicians rarely expect answers to their 
questions. They are all rhetorical. They 
ask questions in such a way that nobody 
in their right mind could ever answer it. 
Quite frankly, if they ever got an answer to 
a question they would be so shocked they 
would not know what to do about it. 

Mothers expect an answer to their questions 
immediately...without delay. 

Question a politician, you get the 
runaround. Question your mother and she 
will chase you around. It would be more 
beneficial to be chased around by your 
mother than to have some politician give 
you the runaround. 

Another reason mothers would make good 
politicians is that they never stop until 
the work is finished. Everybody has heard 
the old saying, "A man works from sun up 
to sun down, but a woman's work is never 
done." At the end of the day, every mother 
has something to show for her work. 

It would be beneficial for our country if 
every politician were apprenticed to a 
mother with four or five kids. Let him follow 
her around for a week, if he can last a week, 
and he will get some idea of what working 
is all about. 

Let some politician clean up after four or 
five kids for a week and experience what 
real work is all about. Perhaps, if he has to 
clean up messes of other people's making he 
might think twice before he makes a mess 
himself. The only work a politician really 
does, is working his mouth, which rarely 
accomplishes anything useful. 

By her very nature, a mother is always 
thinking about others. Rarely does she take 
any time for her own personal pursuits. 
Other people come before her interest and 
comfort. Wouldn't that be a wonderful trait 
in some politician? 

Instead of always thinking about reelection 
and what can get him reelected, he begins 
to think about other people and their needs. 

Instead of putting his political career 
ahead of everything else, he would sacrifice 
himself to benefit other people, to help clean 
up the messes around him. 

Although it may seem like a good idea, 
we cannot afford to send mothers to 
Washington and neglect the important 
work she has at home. Nehemiah said it 
so well, "I am doing a great work, so that I 
cannot come down: why should the work 
cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to 
you?" (Nehemiah 6:3). 

God knew exactly what he was doing when 
he put together a marvelous creature we 
now know as Mother. 

WHAT LIBERALS CAN 
LEARN FROM LIBERALS 


The middle of May: that traditional time at newly sprouted green 
campuses where we celebrate the culmination of 4 years of learning. 
Graduations are typically just celebratory, but this particular season 
we are being treated to an education in affective liberal policy 
management, which we can only hope Liberals take to heart.

 How do you enforce Liberal policy? Once you’ve decided what 
policy should be, how do you eliminate potential opposition? Our 
universities, where the overriding ethos is to instill and support 
liberal ideals, offer several object illustrations on how to counter and 
nullify opposition to the Liberal Way.


Brandeis University banned Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born feminist who has 
criticized the treatment of women in Islamic countries, prohibiting her from speaking at 
commencement exercises. Haverford College forced the withdrawal of commencement 
speaker Robert Bergeneau, ironically the former Chancellor of uber-liberal UC Berkeley, 
because he allowed police to arrest Occupy protestors. Smith College axed Christine 
Lagard, the female head of the International Monetary Fund because the IMF abuses 
women worldwide. Sadly, even in the Christian realm, Azusa Pacific University cancelled 
Dr. Charles Murray’s speech because it might “hurt faculty and students of color”. 

 The point is that all the above, and many more who could be listed, dared to voice 
opinions different than prevailing Liberal thought. Despite volumes of lectures about 
tolerance, multi-culturalism, pluralism and inclusiveness, when it gets down to the 
street level - to something as pedestrian as making sure everyone stays in line - Liberals 
understand you have to punish your enemies, or at least intimidate them into believing 
that they will be punished if they don’t support policy. 

 Each of the invited speakers was publicly humiliated for holding the wrong viewpoint. 
More importantly, the witch hunts warned innumerable others what would happen to 
them should they not support Liberal policy. The key point, which in their gut Liberal 
activists understand, is that punishing and intimidating your opponents works. There 
has to be a threat or promise of credible punishment should you fail to comply.

 So why don’t Liberals in D.C. understand this concept when it comes to U.S. foreign 
policy? Why is this administration so afraid of articulating credible promises of, and 
then following through with, meaningful punishment in order to accomplish their 
goals? Shouldn’t the Mullahs of Iran, the Butcher of Syria, the thug in Russia and the 
kidnapping, slave-trading rapist who now roams Nigeria face at least the same rage and 
punishment from Liberals that a few commencement speakers have suffered? Liberals 
claim to have great policies on the issues of human rights, social justice and world peace. 
And yet, there are those in the world who mock the very concept that the U.S. stands for 
anything good or noble.

 The most recent and pathetic example of this is the First Lady’s participation in the 
social media campaign to obtain the release of some 300 Christian Nigerian school girls 
kidnapped by Boko Haram. What is the point of Michelle Obama using the President’s 
weekly address to show she is joining the #BringBackOurGirls twitter campaign? This 
must be put in perspective to understand the stunt’s futility and the damage it will cause.

 We all understand the U.S. cannot afford to involve itself everywhere. Deciding 
where our interests lie or where morality demands our involvement is the President’s 
tough choice. If our involvement is needed, then we must take meaningful actions. If 
our involvement is not warranted, as sad as that sometimes is, then we shouldn’t get 
involved. But the worst possible thing to do is tell the world we do care, tell the bad guys 
we’re coming, and then fail to bring them to justice or put a bullet in their heads. 

 This is exactly what the First Lady’s twitter participation implies. Social media can 
be a great tool for convincing our leaders we should get involved, but that rationale does 
not apply here. Michelle is married to the President and presumably does not need 
twitter to exert pressure. It appears to be a stunt, insipid, demeaning and undermining 
of whatever seriousness still attends to President Obama’s statements.

 There is much to be said about the need for friends trusting us, enemies fearing us and 
the rest of the world respecting us. Liberals on campus get it. Liberals with considerably 
more responsibility in D.C. do not. 

 In the last several weeks, Iran has announced it is increasing its centrifuges and 
ballistic missiles, Syria again used Chemical weapons on its people, and Russia continues 
to devour Ukraine. Every one of these rogues has been warned by President Obama, 
threatened with a line in the sand, and allowed to violate that line without meaningful 
punishment. 

 Nobody respects us and nobody fears us; we shouldn’t be surprised to learn nobody 
trusts us either. Perhaps Liberals can learn from other Liberals. Perhaps inviting 
Putin, Assad, Khamenei and Boko Haram to speak at US colleges followed by public 
withdrawals of the invitations would do the trick. 

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a freelance writer and has spoken to several 
civic and religious organizations on cultural and moral issues. He lives in the Los Angeles 
area with his wife and 3 children and is active in the community. He can be reached 

gregwelborn2@gmail.com

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.mtnviewsnews.com