Mountain Views News          Saturday, February 21, 2015

15

OPINION 

Mountain Views-News Saturday, February 21, 2015 

Mountain 
Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

CITY EDITOR

Dean Lee 

EAST VALLEY EDITOR

Joan Schmidt

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LaQuetta Shamblee

PRODUCTION

Richard Garcia

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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

WHO IS SANDRA SIRAGANIAN?

By Robert Niles 

A school board race might not seem as important as races for 
higher profile offices such as Congress and the Legislature. But 
a school board can have a direct effect on the lives of thousands 
of community children and their families. When voter turnout 
is small, it’s all too easy for candidates with extreme views and 
questionable interests to make their way on to the school board. 

 So who are these candidates running for school board? It 
turns out to be a very interesting question, in the case of District 6 
in the Pasadena Unified School District, which includes Sierra Madre, East Pasadena, 
Chapman Woods, and my neighborhood, an area of unincorporated Los Angeles 
County between Pasadena and San Marino. Two candidates are running to replace 
the retiring Tom Selinske for our district’s seat. 

Larry Torres is National Board Certified Teacher with 29 years’ experience teaching 
in public schools. He’s served for 14 years on PUSD school site councils and holds 
a master’s degree in education from Harvard. He has a campaign website and has 
appeared at multiple local candidate forums, providing district residents with plenty 
of opportunities to get to know him and his positions. 

 Torres’ opponent is Sandra Siraganian, a Sierra Madre real estate agent. Siraganian 
doesn’t have a campaign website, and she’s not bothered to show up for any candidate 
forums yet, making it hard to get any sense of what she thinks about education or 
what kind of board member she would be. We do know that the Pasadena Foothills 
Association of Realtors has endorsed Torres for the seat. Why would Siraganian’s 
own co-workers endorse her opponent? 

 When I was teaching journalism at USC, I told my students that the best way to get 
to know a candidate is to learn about the people donating money to that candidate. 
The City of Pasadena publishes campaign contribution reports from candidates for 
the PUSD board. It’s still early, but Siraganian has submitted one contribution report 
already. 

 And it’s a biggie — $1,000 from Frederick “Fritz” Hitchcock, who was listed with a 
Las Vegas address on the contribution report. Despite the Vegas address, Hitchcock 
is the chairman of California Chamber of Commerce and lives most of the year in 
the Ritz Carlton Residences at L.A. Live, according to an interview published on the 
chamber website. He’s a major player in Republican politics, having contributed more 
than $142,000 to federal and California state candidates and campaign committees 
alone just last year. 

 Why is a high-roller GOP player from Vegas and downtown LA dropping a grand 
on a Pasadena school board candidate? Let’s take a look at Siraganian’s own campaign 
contributions to get a better picture of her political beliefs. 

 Siraganian doesn’t give nearly as much money to political campaigns as Hitchcock. 
But she did give nearly $400 to a Tea Party Political Action Committee in 2011. She 
also gave $250 to the California Lincoln Clubs in 2013, and $100 to Tim Donnelly’s 
campaign for governor last year. Donnelly enraged even his fellow Republicans 
during the gubernatorial campaign by accusing fellow GOP candidate Neel Kashkari 
of supporting the imposition of Muslim Sharia Law in the U.S. Donnelly has had 
his own issues with the law — he was busted by the TSA in 2012 for trying to bring 
loaded handgun on a plane. 

 On the subject of guns, Donnelly sponsored a bill in the California Legislature to 
allow teachers and school janitors to have guns in schools. Does Siraganian support 
bringing guns into our schools, too? 

 Donnelly also was one of the founders of the “Minuteman” movement, a group of 
border-control vigilantes. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that Donnelly in 
2006 reacted to that year’s immigrant rights rally by saying, “We are in a war. You 
may not want to accept it, but the other side has declared war on us.” 

 Does Siraganian agree with the candidate she supported? Does she really see 
immigrants as the enemy in a war? What does Siraganian think about the thousands 
of immigrant children and families she would be called to serve as a school board 
member? With her being a no-show at candidate events, it’s hard to ask her that 
question. 

 But there is another clue online: Siraganian appears to have a Twitter account, 
though it’s been inactive since late 2011. The posts reveal a political outlook very 
much in line with the Tea-Party views that her political contributions suggest. Here’s 
a Twitter post on immigration: 

Let’s ignore the nonsense math and the dubious accounting. It’s the use of the slur 
“illegal alien” that ought to concern voters. Yes, “illegal alien” is a slur -- a phrase 
intended to demean and dehumanize immigrants. In no other case do we use the 
word “illegal” to modify an entire person, instead of that person’s acts. And the use 
of the word “alien” -- an old legal term -- further serves to make immigrants seem 
inhuman. 

It’s fair to question whether a candidate who so casually uses this slur can serve a 
school district where the majority of students are of Hispanic origin. PUSD voters 
deserve to know what Siraganian thinks about the use of this slur, today. 

Two other tweets also prompt concern: 

 The Web addresses in those 
tweets no longer work, but the 
words in the tweets say enough to 
make voters want to ask questions. 
The phrase “the gay agenda” is 
almost exclusively used by people 
who oppose the efforts to allow 
gay and lesbian citizens equal 
rights under the law, including the 
freedom to marry. 

 The timing and content of the 
second tweet appears to reference 
an April 2011 controversy when 
Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant 
called a referee a “faggot.” That’s 
another despicable slur, and 
Bryant swiftly and appropriately 
apologized for using it. But many 
commentators, including many on 
the right wing of American politics, chose to joke about the incident, recalling the 
word’s archaic meaning as “a bunch of sticks.” 

 Voters deserve to hear what Siraganian thinks about the gay, lesbian, and bisexual 
teachers, parents, and students in the PUSD community. Will she protect their rights 
as citizens and their dignity as community members? Or will she make jokes about 
them, dismiss them with slurs, and insist that they head directly for the closet once 
they pass through the schoolhouse door? 

 We need to know what Sandra Siraganian thinks and believes. Her record paints a 
picture of a radical Tea Party member who has supported racists for public office and 
supported the casual use of terms that evoke racism and bigotry. Is this who Sandra 
Siraganian really is? 

 Maybe if she bothered to show up for a candidate forum, we could ask her. 

 Robert Niles also can be found at http://www.themeparkinsider.com


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LEFT TURN / RIGHT TURN

HOWARD Hays As I See It

GREG Welborn


“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful 
for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”

- H. L. Mencken

 We should all be thankful, though being satisfied merely because 
things could be worse is sort of a cop-out. We should always strive for 
the best; not simply for better than what it otherwise might be.

 In his column last week, Greg Welborn expressed concerns about the 
current state of our State of California – and well he should. He focused 
on the annual shortfall of $17 billion in the state’s contribution to the 
public pension fund. It’s reassuring, though, to note that CalPERS reported investment 
income for its fund of over $45 billion for FY 2013-14. This compares to a loss of $196 million 
in the first full FY after Gov. Jerry Brown took office.

 Greg also notes that 1% of us pay 50% of the taxes. I assume he’s referring to income taxes. 
Those percentages don’t seem out of line in a state where, as of 2012, the average income of the 
top 1% ($1.6 million) is some 35 times the average of the other 99% ($45,800). I share Greg’s 
frustration with this high-speed rail project. Especially after my having recently returned 
from Tokyo, it’s hard to accept any excuse for why we remain so far behind the rest of the 
industrialized world in this area.

 News from other states, however, gives us ample reason to be thankful we’re here in 
California. Things could be worse – a lot worse. Here are some stories we might keep in mind 
when getting frustrated with the goings-on in Sacramento:

 In Montana, State Sen. David Moore (R) proposed an indecent exposure law that could 
prohibit “tight-fitting beige clothing”, explaining, “Yoga pants should be illegal in public, 
anyway.”

 In Arizona, State Sen. Jason Rapert (R) wades into foreign affairs by suggesting ISIS be 
taken care of with “a strategically placed nuclear weapon.”

 In Alabama, racial gerrymandering led to the recent Supreme Court decision on the 
Voting Rights Act and current voter ID laws threaten to bar hundreds of thousands from the 
polls. Still, Secretary of State John Merrill (R) suggested last week that, in regards to past acts 
of voter suppression, it’s time to “forgive people” and “move on”.

 Mississippi State Rep. Gene Alday (R) explained he opposes funding for education and 
literacy because he comes “from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what 
I call ‘welfare crazy checks’”.

 North Carolina passed tax code revisions to count mortgage debt forgiveness as taxable 
income and to end the deduction for tuition expenses. These new taxes on college students 
and those trying to get back on their feet after losing their homes come two years after those 
with million-dollar incomes got tax cuts of $10,000 a year. Republican Gov. Pat McCrory 
and the Republican legislature are also targeting research centers in the University of North 
Carolina system; the Carolina Center for Public Service, Carolina Women’s Center, Center 
for Black Culture and History, UNC Center for Civil Rights, UNC Institute on Aging, Center 
for Poverty, Work and Opportunity, etc.

 The Education Committee of the Oklahoma legislature approved a bill banning Advanced 
Placement US History in its high schools. The bill offers instead its own list of “foundational 
documents” for study, including the Ten Commandments and speeches by Ronald Reagan 
(but nothing from any Democratic president since LBJ). The bill’s author, Rep. Dan Fisher (R) 
complains that AP History fails to adequately address “American exceptionalism”. 

 The Republican-led senate in Wyoming overruled its Republican governor and blocked 
Medicaid expansion in the state under the Affordable Care Act, thus denying coverage for 
some 17,000 of the state’s uninsured.

 Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is still trying to deal with the billion-dollar budget 
hole caused by his tax cuts for the highest-income residents. In addition to forcing disabled 
Kansans off Medicaid, now there are proposals to cut $127 million from education, $300 
million from road repair and withholding $446 million in state pension fund payments 
(estimated to cost the state $3.7 billion in the long run). In the meantime, Gov. Brownback 
rescinded protections state workers had against discrimination based on sexual orientation. 
Thanks to Gov. Brownback, it’s now okay to be fired because you’re gay. 

 Shortly after speaking at a Washington D.C. conference on the importance of funding 
education, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) returned to push for cutting state colleges by $300 
million – a third of their current budget. Meanwhile, despite a $1.6 billion budget shortfall, he 
continues doling out subsidies to those who don’t need them (like $330,000 for each episode 
of “Duck Dynasty” filmed in the state).

 Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) proposed cutting $75 million from the state’s universities, 
while earmarking $5 million for a private prison that even Maricopa County Sheriff Joe 
Arpaio calls unnecessary. Gov. Ducey received $10,500 in campaign contributions from the 
private prisons industry.

 Legislation called the “Second Amendment Education Act” proposed in South Carolina 
would require all elementary, middle and high schools to conduct an NRA-developed course 
on the subject for at least “three consecutive weeks” per semester. 

 Former Republican State Senate leader Dale Schultz of Wisconsin offered this assessment 
of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget; “As soon as there was any revenue, [Walker] 
wanted to cut taxes. It’s great for turning on a certain element of his base, but I’m not sure 
what it’s doing for the average mother and father in Wisconsin.” The state now faces a $2 
billion deficit, and a proposed budget state officials call “nonsensical”.

 California faces serious problems. A look at other states, though, affirms Mencken’s 
observation that “there is always something to be thankful for.” Rather than “rejoice” about 
whatever our own individual political affiliation might be, we can at least be thankful our 
state isn’t being run by those other guys. 

JOBS FOR JIHADIS

President Obama headlined the White House Conference on Violent 
Extremism with an impassioned call for jobs, more jobs and lots of jobs 
so that terrorists won’t feel the call to arms. The specifics were a bit 
fuzzy – clearly to be worked out later in the rumble tumble of various 
high-level committees - but I half expected to hear about programs 
to teach “Electronic Activation Systems for Non-bomb Makers”, or 
“Aircraft Flight Dynamics for Pilots Who Want To Live”. The Middle 
East is deteriorating faster than anyone could have imagined, and this 
president’s solution is a Jobs-For-Jihadis bill. 

 What the Jihadis thought about the proposal is hard to tell. I’m not sure they had a chance to 
really monitor the conference’s progress; they’ve been pretty busy lately. In just the last several 
weeks, Jihadis burned to death a Jordanian pilot. They have organized and carried out the 
simultaneous beheading of 21 Coptic Christians. They produced, edited and distributed fairly 
high-quality videos of both events. 17 caged captured Kurdish fighters were paraded through 
streets in Iraq, presumably on their way to the ovens. Yemen has all but fallen to the Jihadis, 
while in Niger and Chad they have captured more territory. Advancing their reach beyond the 
immediate Middle East, in efforts mocking the “Je Suis Charlie” movement in Europe, Jihadis 
destroyed all the headstones in a French Jewish cemetery and fired automatic weapons into a 
free-speech gathering in Copenhagen.

 And the President of The United States calls for jobs. So accustomed are many Americans to 
hearing this president talk about jobs that his call had a momentary appeal to logic and common 
sense. Who doesn’t support good jobs? Who doesn’t support “good” government, another of 
the items within the President’s program? It seems funny in the context of all that’s happened 
– almost a bad joke Obama didn’t quite delivery correctly. But President Obama was absolutely 
serious; he, and others on the left, honestly believe that the lack of good jobs and sound 
governance are the root causes of terrorism. Nothing could be further from the truth, and no 
other belief has hampered this president more from truly meeting the civilizational challenge he 
faces.

 It is a truism to say that jobs are a good thing, as it is to say that good governance is good. 
However, the opposite is not true. Lack of jobs and lousy government do not automatically 
lead people into terrorism. There are hundreds of millions of people on this planet who do not 
have decent jobs; they live in, or close to, poverty levels. There are equal numbers who live in 
countries managed terribly by their governments. These people are not killing and torturing 
others. Tibetans have lost their country to China. Many Indians live in poverty. Thousands of 
Christian Africans live in poverty and under oppression by their governments, and yet there is 
no large movement of any of these people toward terrorist tactics or terrorist organizations.

 Terrorism is a choice made because of a value system, a philosophy, which justifies it and/or 
calls for it in the name of some perceived greater philosophical or religious good. Al Qaeda, ISIS, 
Boko Haram and other such groups are motivated by a deeply held religious belief. They are 
all Islamic, drawing credibility from real historical interpretations of the Koran which call for 
violence against the infidels. The Jihad is a movement within Islam that has powerful adherents 
and respected religious leaders who justify and support the violence in the pursuit of their 
religion.

 We can trace the calls for Islamic terrorism back to Ibn Taimiyyah in the 14th century and, 
more recently, to Sayyid Qutb in the 20th century. This is a strong movement within Islam to 
return to the “literal teachings of the Koran and the Hadith”. These people do not believe there 
is a middle ground between pure Islam and a life of decadence. Anything which is not purely, 
and literally, Koranic is by definition evil and must be stopped.

 What this president does not understand is that modern terrorism is fighting more than a 
military campaign. This is not an effort to simply establish political bona fides in preparation for 
negotiations or an effort to simply win territory. Modern terrorism is fighting a philosophical 
and religious war; it seeks nothing less than to capture the soul of Islam. Theirs is a philosophy 
that directly challenges Judeo-Christian values and modernity. They recruit based not on the 
promise of jobs, riches or power, but on the promise that the Jihadi warrior will be doing the will 
of God and ridding the world of the infidel.

 What’s morbidly fascinating here is that only our president, among all the world’s leaders, 
denies this reality. None of this is denied by leaders in the Muslim world. Most recently, Abdel 
Fattah Al Sisi, President of Egypt, addressed leading Islamic clerics at Cairo’s al-Azhar university, 
telling them, “[they] need to revolutionize [their] religion”. He meant by that to reclaim for 
Islam that vein of the religion which might reasonably be expected to join other major world 
religions as a true religion of peace. In so doing, he is all but admitting that today Islam cannot 
legitimately be called as practiced a “religion of peace”. Only our president sees Islam for what he 
wants it to be, ignores the strains of that great religion which contradict his vision of it, and thus 
calls for jobs rather than for a full frontal assault against an enemy which will not accommodate, 
but will only surrender.

 At a practical, real-politik level, our president must come to realize that the world needs 
moral leadership. This will not come from Russia, nor from China, and Europe is physically and 
emotionally spent. The world – including the parts of the Middle East that want to resist radical 
Islam – awaits the moral, philosophical and practical leadership that only the United States can 
provide.

 Once again, we have arrived at an American moment – a time when our destiny is pushed 
upon us. Previous generations rose to that calling, to that demand, to that moral imperative. At 
a time such as this, the world needs more than a jobs program.

 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 at gregwelborn2@gma/5l.com

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