Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 4, 2014

B4

OPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, October 4, 2014 


Mountain 
Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

CITY EDITOR

Dean Lee 

EAST VALLEY EDITOR

Joan Schmidt

BUSINESS EDITOR

LaQuetta Shamblee

PRODUCTION

Richard Garcia

SALES

Patricia Colonello

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WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

CONTRIBUTORS

CoCo Lasalle

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Dr. Tina Paul

Rich Johnson

Merri Jill Finstrom

Lori Koop

Rev. James Snyder

Tina Paul

Mary Carney

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Greg Welborn

Renee Quenell

Ben Show

Sean Kayden

Marc Garlett

PEOPLE, AFTER ALL, ARE JUST PEOPLE

RICH Johnson


Dr. James L. Snyder
I believe many people put 
too high importance on 
certain people as if they 
were special. Everybody 
wants to be considered 
special, but then if 
everybody is special then 
nobody is special.

 Whatever anybody else thinks, I am growing 
weary of celebrities. We have a terrible, incurable 
disease in our country called celebrititis. In my 
research, I have not found any cure for this. And 
believe me, I have searched.

 Celebrities come in all sizes and shapes; sports, 
music, movies, TV, news reporters and even 
religious leaders have gotten into this game. In our 
culture today, nothing really happens unless some 
celebrity does it or says it.

 Frankly, I am tired of all of that nonsense. I 
do not know one celebrity I would take anything 
from that resembled the truth. A celebrity cannot 
think on his or her own, but must always rely upon 
a script. We all know what happens when they go 
off script.

 There is this phenomenon out in Hollywood 
called the red carpet. I am not sure exactly what 
the red carpet is except that it is a carpet in the 
color red, thus The Red Carpet. And yet, if one of 
these celebrities walks on this so-called red carpet, 
everybody wants to take a picture of them.

 I cannot think of a celebrity anywhere, living or 
dead, that I would like a photo. Have you ever seen 
one of these celebrities without their makeup? You 
would not recognize him or her.

 If I want a photograph these days, I want it 
to be of my family. In my book, my family is all 
the celebrity I need. If I want to sit down and go 
through some pictures, I want it to be of my family, 
people that I know and love. I do not want it to be 
some made-up picture that has been photoshoped 
by some expert. Anybody who has a photograph 
taken of them and then has somebody touch it up 
and make it look better is a hypocrite. That is not 
the way they really look.

 Is there a celebrity anywhere that wants 
anybody to see them as they really look?

 Celebrities are just people and we need to start 
treating them like the people they are.

 A person is not important because they make 
a certain amount of money. A person is not 
important because everybody recognizes them.

 Newscasters today have become celebrities in 
their own right or left depending on their political 
position. Somehow, they have tricked us into 
thinking because they are celebrities and they 
look like $1 million, that what they have to say is 
something I want to hear.

 When I was young, I watched the Three 
Stooges. They could make stupid things funny. 
Now when they were making these stupid movies 
they were doing so on purpose. I laughed at them 
because what they did had an agenda to make me 
laugh. Nobody ever took what they did seriously.

 Now we have the Three-Stooges-syndrome in 
our newsrooms today. I often wonder if they know 
how ridiculous they look and sound when they are 
touting their opinion about something going on 
in the world? Actually, when you think of it, they 
would make the Three Stooges envious.

 I think if our country is ever going to 
be saved, we are going to have to somehow 
get rid of all of the celebrities. I know it is 
going to be hard, I know we will have severe 
withdrawals, but it will serve us well in the end. 
I am tired of celebrities and I want to see 
something real for a change.

 Of course, we have on television now what is 
called reality shows. In reality, these reality shows 
have not an ounce of reality to them. The thing 
that is so significant to me is, many people think it 
is reality.

 The only reality about these reality shows is the 
money these people are making pretending to be 
real. The money is real, but the moneymakers are 
about as false as my grandmother’s teeth.

 I have come to the place where I do not believe 
anything I see on television. If it is on television, 
it has been tweaked so that somebody can make 
MONEY. After all, the only purpose of television 
is to make some people rich, filthy rich. And the 
richer they are the filthier they are.

 My premise is still the same; people are just 
people. When will everybody come to that 
conclusion? I think the sooner we come to that 
the more we will realize that nobody is better than 
anybody else. I do not have to take a second seat 
to some person starring in the movies. How can 
you say somebody is important when they have to 
memorize a script somebody else wrote and then 
they have to shoot it 17 times to get it right? That is 
a celebrity?

 Where are the good honest hard-working 
people that made this country what it used to be?

 The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage 
reminded me of something Jesus said. “And the 
King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say 
unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me” (Matthew 25:40).

 It is comforting to know that people, after all, 
are just people and I count myself to be one of 
those “just people.”

 

 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 or website www.
jamessnyderministries.com.

AGING

 To be truthful 
and forthcoming, 
I am well into my 
fifties. At the end 
of this month I will 
turn fifty-thirteen. 

 It seems that just 
a few seconds ago I 
was sixteen. Let me pass on a little secret 
to you young people: Older people (okay, 
at least me), don’t feel any different than 
when we were 16. Well, except for all the 
aches and pains. The only other difference 
I feel is I don’t make mistakes with the 
frequency as I did at 16. Okay, fewer 
mistakes. 

 A few people have some interesting 
perspectives on aging and I thought I 
would pass them along to you.

 “You know you’re getting old when you 
stoop to tie your shoes and wonder what 
else you can do while you’re down there.” 
George Burns

 “Never ask old people how they are 
doing if you have anything else to do that 
day.” Joe Restivo

 “Errol Flynn died on a seventy-foot 
yacht with a seventeen year old girl. 
Walter’s always wanted to go that way, 
but he’s going to settle for a seventeen 
footer and a seventy-year old.” Mrs. Walter 
Cronkite

 If your friend is a woman this one works: 
“An archaeologist is the best husband 
a woman can have; the older she gets, 
the more interested he is in her.” Agatha 
Christie

 “If I’d known I was gonna live this long, 
I’d taken better care of myself.” Unknown

 “I’m in the prime of my senility.” Joel 
Chandler Harris (at age 58)

 “I’m not young enough to know 
everything.” Oscar Wilde 

 Now, if I can only get through my 
sixty-third year I will have outlived Wilt 
Chamberlain, Audrey Hepburn, Mickey 
Mantle, Rembrandt, and FDR. If I make 
it through my sixty-fourth year I will have 
outlived Sammy Davis, Jr., LBJ, C.S. 
Lewis, Karl Marx and Wilson Pickett. 
I’m really shooting for living through year 
sixty-five and beating Johann Sebastian 
Bach, Francis Bacon, Lewis Carroll 
(author of Alice in Wonderland), Walt 
Disney, Shari Lewis and Richard Pryor.

 In conclusion, a few anonymous 
comments on middle age and aging.

 Middle age: When you can do just as 
much as ever, but would rather not.

 Middle age: When the only thing you 
exercise is caution.

 I know I’m old cause its now taking me 
longer to rest than it is to get tired.

 I’ve hit the metallic age. Gold in my 
teeth, silver in my hair and lead in my 
pants.

 I can only give good advice at my age. 
I’m too old to set bad examples anymore.

 And the single best part of being my age 
(it’s a biggie). Nobody asks you anymore to 
help them move. YAY! 

We’d like to hear from you! 

What’s on YOUR Mind?

Contact us at: editor@mtnviewsnews.com or 

www.facebook.com/mountainviewsnews 

AND Twitter: @mtnviewsnews

 


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HOWARD Hays As I See It

GREG Welborn


Character Matters, 

Ideology Shouldn’t 

“You have enemies? 
Good. That means you 
stood up for something in 
your life.”

- Winston Churchill

 In his column last 
week, Greg Welborn 
complained that 
“California is ruled by 
a liberal aristocracy 
huddled together in their thin blue coastal 
ribbon”, outside the “overwhelmingly wider 
red (Conservative) landmass in the rest of 
the state”.

 Californians on the coast do call the 
shots, because that’s where most of us live. 
Those dozen counties in that “narrow strip 
of blue (Liberal) population from San Diego 
up through San Francisco” themselves hold 
57% of California’s population. Adding the 
four coastal counties north of Marin brings 
it to 60%.

Half of California resides in its seventy 
largest cites (populations more than 
100,000), while 80% of our water goes to 
agriculture - 10% of it for almonds. With 
the current drought, more wells are tapped 
to drain remaining groundwater, while 
California remains the only state where the 
practice is unregulated. Many in the red 
part of the state want to keep it that way; 
especially those in corporate agri-business 
more concerned with next quarter’s profit 
statement than in preserving resources for 
future Californians.

 The current press release of the National 
Science Foundation leads, “Cause of 
California drought linked to climate 
change – Extreme atmospheric conditions 
responsible for drought more likely to 
occur in current global warming”. It 
cites a just-released study out of Stanford 
University finding that “a persistent region 
of high atmospheric pressure over the 
Pacific Ocean – one that diverted storms 
away from California – was much more 
likely to form in the presence of modern 
greenhouse gas concentrations.” 

Planting oil platforms off our coast and 
fracking our hillsides won’t help. Pumping 
more oil to send elsewhere (U.S. exports 
currently top 400,000 barrels a day) won’t 
address California’s energy needs. Those 
in blue California want to address those 
needs with 21st Century technology and 
awareness, regardless of whatever nostalgia 
those in the red part might retain for the 
Industrial Age.

 A lot relates to science. Greg wants 
taxpayers to pick up at least part of the tab 
(“vouchers”) for those who don’t want to 
send their kids to public school and don’t 
want to pay for a private one, either. In the 
red parts, this often means schools that 
conflate “science” with “belief”, and teach 
an ideologically-censored history.

 The red and blue approaches to raising 
kids was contrasted last month in a poll from 
the Pew Research Center, where liberals and 
conservatives were asked what values were 
important to instill in their children. Some, 
like “responsibility” and “hard work”, 
ranked high across the spectrum. But there 
were differences:

 Among conservatives, 81% thought it 
“especially important” that a religious faith 
be instilled in their kids, but only 26% of 
liberals thought so. 67% of conservatives felt 
the same about obedience, while just 35% of 
liberals found it “especially important”.

A number of values were considered 
“especially important” by larger percentages 
of liberals than of conservatives; such 
as curiosity (82% of liberals ranking 
it “especially important” v. 57% of 
conservatives), creativity (85% v. 63%), 
empathy (86% v. 55%) and tolerance (88% 
v. 41%).

 Aside from personal views, we can be 
thankful the blue part of our state is in 
control by comparing ourselves to the red 
states - as judged by Wall Street.

 A couple weeks ago, both Standard & 
Poor’s and Fitch downgraded the bond 
rating for New Jersey under Gov. Chris 
Christie (R) – making eight downgrades 
since he took office in 2010. S&P explained 
Christie’s reneging on his agreement to fund 
public pensions “has significant negative 
implications for the state’s liability profile.”

 Moody’s gave another downgrade to 
Kansas. Gov. Sam Brownback (R) blew 
a $600 million surplus while giving $1.5 
billion in tax cuts to the “job creators”. 
Kansas now trails the whole country in 
job creation, and by some reports could go 
bankrupt in two years. Brownback blames 
President Obama.

 Last summer both Fitch and S&P 
downgraded Michigan’s credit under 
Gov. Rich Snyder (R), finding “softening 
of projected 2014 revenues, expected 
slow economic growth”. There always 
seemed to be enough to support tax cuts 
for corporations and the rich, but nothing 
for struggling cities, school districts and 
pension obligations.

 In the meantime, there’s been at least five 
upgrades in California’s rating under Gov. 
Jerry Brown (D). Last June, Moody’s cited 
“the state’s rapidly improving financial 
position . . . strong liquidity and robust 
employment growth” in bringing our rating 
to its highest level in 13 years.

 Whatever the differences between the 
red and blue, Wall Street confirms the 
observation of former Gov. Howard Dean 
(D-VT) that “Republicans just can’t handle 
money”.

 As for this week’s opening quote, I 
found it atop a column by Trevor LaFauci 
at PoliticusUSA.com on the legacy of Atty. 
Gen. Eric Holder. The column describes 
his role in advancing marriage equality, 
his actions leading to the Supreme Court’s 
overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. 
There was his work addressing draconian 
drug sentencing, the extreme racial disparity 
in the prison population and pushing for 
rehabilitation over incarceration.

 He used the Justice Department to 
take on states restricting people’s right to 
vote. He launched a federal probe into the 
shooting of Michael Brown, then came and 
shared with the people of Ferguson personal 
experiences of humiliation and anger “and 
the impact it had on me”.

 LaFauci’s column ends with a quote from 
Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of murdered 
civil rights leader Medgar Evers; “There has 
been no greater ally in the fight for justice, 
civil rights, equal rights and voting rights 
than Attorney General Holder.” Following 
the dictum of his boss, Holder sees not blue 
states and red states but a United States of 
America.

 Still, I’d like to draw one more blue / 
red distinction. Most of us on the blue 
California coast regard the cause of “justice, 
civil rights, equal rights and voting rights” 
as defining the character and strength of 
our country. Listening to Fox News, though, 
others call it “divisive”.

President Obama sits in the White House 
in no small part because of his criticisms 
of President Bush for relying ron bad 
intelligence and lying, so there’s some 
irony in Obama’s false claim that our 
intelligence services have mislead him 
in their assessment of the ISIS threat. 
But irony aside, President Obama’s 
predicament illustrates that character 
matters, ideology shouldn’t, and that 
when all is said and done, Obama’s 
character flaws and subservience to 
ideology are destroying his presidency 
and endangering the nation.

 The ability to admit error and take 
responsibility is a necessary prerequisite 
to successfully lead the country. 

 Honesty is also critically important – 
not the little, political (I voted against 
something after I voted for it) white 
lie variety, but the bold, in-your-face, 
substantive variety. It is obvious by 
now that president Obama possesses 
neither the ability to admit error or the 
capacity to deal honestly with issues or 
the country as we saw last Sunday when 
Mr. Obama used “60 Minutes” as an 
opportunity to blame the intelligence 
community for his own failures. He 
said, “well I think our head of the 
intelligence community, Jim Clapper, 
has acknowledged that I think they 
underestimated what had been taking 
place in Syria”. \

 Notice who committed the error; he 
hadn’t messed up; he didn’t make a poor 
judgment. Mr. Clapper and the spooks 
are to blame. But here’s the problem. 
This stands in stark, glaring contrast 
to the facts known by the intelligence 
head and by the President. Mr. Clapper 
is an intelligent guy. It is inconceivable 
that he was unaware of Lt. Gen. Flynn’s 
Feb 11, 2014 Senate testimony in 
which he stated that ISIS was strong, 
was growing and would attempt to 
take more territory. Nor would Mr. 
Clapper be unaware of articles written 
by Senators McCain and Graham over 
the course of the last 15 months or so 
pointing out the very same reality. As 
of this writing, we now know that Mr. 
Clapper was aware of these things and 
that the President had in fact been 
briefed on them for many months.

 `To all who want to see, it is as clear 
as the sun rising in the east that Islamic 
terrorism is on the rise and poses a 
grave threat. And yet, The President 
makes his bold-faced denial of any 
knowledge of ISIS’ rise and significance. 
This administration was also quick 
to deny that Islamic terrorism has 
again surfaced on our shores. I do not 
believe even 48 hours had passed before 
the Oklahoma beheading was being 
described as “workplace violence”- 
as if disgruntled recent converts to 
the Methodist denomination behead 
people.

 ”President Obama is a smart guy. But 
he is not a wise man because ideology 
and personality are 
in the way. He is 
wedded to a Leftist 
ideology that insists 
America is the cause of almost all that’s 
wrong in the world, that there are no 
problems with a religion in which 10% 
to 20% of its adherents believe terrorism 
is justified, and that every foe can be 
reasoned into peace and harmony. Over 
and over again we hear apologies for our 
past sins, excuses that Islam is peaceful, 
and that resets and negotiations will 
solve our problems. This is not the real 
world; it is the mythical world of leftist 
ideology.

 `Secondarily, and perhaps more 
significantly, there is a deep narcissism 
in Mr. Obama that forces him to see all 
issues through the prism of how they 
affect him, not the country. For those 
who doubt that narcissism is present, 
remember this is the man who told his 
chief of staff that he could do every job at 
the White House better than the person 
holding the position. That leak was the 
tip of an iceberg which convinced at 
least one Harvard-trained psychiatrist 
to publicly explain Obama’s behavior as 
extreme narcissism.

 `Since he sees himself as the only 
one truly capable of “transforming the 
United States”, of fully implementing a 
leftist ideology he believes will save the 
world, which he’s espoused since young 
adulthood, he cannot possibly see or 
admit to the folly of his world view, his 
policies or the danger they represent to 
the country.

 ``Because of this, his presidency is 
failing. Because of this, America is 
failing in its responsibilities to its allies 
and to the civilized world. Because 
of this, President Obama cannot do 
the things which would rescue his 
presidency and our nation. For most 
people, these things are simple things: 
stop calling your predecessor a liar, stop 
demonizing Republicans, acknowledge 
there’s some wisdom on both sides 
of the aisle, compromise, learn some 
humility and admit you – not someone 
else – made a mistake.

 ` If he could do these things, he might 
have a chance to save his presidency, 
protect us. and defend those who 
desperately need an active, muscular 
U.S. Because he cannot, it’s going to be 
a long 28 months of recurring examples 
of why character matters and ideology 
shouldn’t.

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@
gma/5l.com

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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