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Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, May 12, 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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OPINION B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, May 12, 2018 TOM PURCELL Mountain Views News PUBLISHER/ EDITOR Susan Henderson PASADENA CITY EDITOR Dean Lee EAST VALLEY EDITOR Joan Schmidt BUSINESS EDITOR LaQuetta Shamblee PRODUCTION Richard Garcia SALES Patricia Colonello 626-355-2737 626-818-2698 WEBMASTER John Aveny DISTRIBUTION Kevin Barry CONTRIBUTORS Chris Leclerc Bob Eklund Howard Hays Paul Carpenter Kim Clymer-Kelley Christopher Nyerges Peter Dills Rich Johnson Merri Jill Finstrom Rev. James Snyder Dr. Tina Paul Katie Hopkins Deanne Davis Despina Arouzman Renee Quenell Marc Garlett Keely Toten Dan Golden FOR MOTHER’S DAY, EMBRACING OUR LOST SENSE OF HUMOR “You’ve lost your sense of humor, and you need to get it back!” Such was the admonishment my mother gave me many times over the years when one of life’s temporary failures gave me license to indulge in self-loathing. “Life is full of difficulty,” she’d say, “and you can either find the humor in life or let its continuous challenges make you miserable and self-absorbed!” In my mother’s world, nothing is worse than self-absorption - nothing is worse being trapped in the narrowness of your own point of view. During each of her “corrective sessions,” she’d have me laughing out loud before long. `You see, laughing loudly at life’s foibles was the greatest gift she ever gave my five sisters and me. Most nights after dinner, when I was young, my sisters and I sat around the table, relating stories about we’d done that day or week and laugh deep into the evening. On her 80th birthday a year ago, each of her family members (including 17 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren) shared stories, on video, about how her nurturing, love and humor has touched us all - a video presentation that was side-splitting funny. One of my mom’s funniest stories dates back to the 1980s. While other moms got real jobs in companies, my mom, much to my family’s embarrassment, staged children’s birthday parties as Clown Clara. She wasn’t embarrassed, though; she couldn’t have cared less what other people thought. She loved nothing more than making children laugh, and children loved her Clown Clara character. Regrettably, a male thief dressed as a clown had been robbing area banks; the clown robber had been widely reported upon in the local media. One Saturday morning, the clown robber struck again and the cops were on high alert. Coincidentally, my mother, dressed as Clown Clara, was speeding to a gig that same morning (she still has a lead foot). A police officer spotted her and the chase was on. He barked at her to exit the station wagon, hands up, no funny business! It took some time to clear up the confusion - at one point, the cop thought my mother was in cahoots with the guy who’d hired her to stage his kid’s party. When the confusion was finally ironed out, my mom had but one response: a giant burst of laughter. My mother knew of laughter’s benefits long before scientific studies confirmed them. Laughter, reports Forbes, releases endorphins in the brain and induces euphoria. It “activates the release of the neurotransmitter serotonin,” which provides a similar effect to antidepressants. It helps us form social bonds and strengthen our relationships. My mother also knows that not all laughter is created equal. Self-deprecating humor is the best kind. It uplifts us and brings us together. By poking fun at ourselves, we escape ourselves and focus more outwardly on others. However, she greatly dislikes sarcasm, mockery or ridicule - “humor” that is popular with many late-night comedians in our divided and polarized times. Such “humor” does not uplift. It demonizes those we disagree with. It encourages us to harden our thinking. In increases polarization. It tears us apart. Regardless of one’s politics or ideology, most of us agree on the issues of the day more than we disagree. Our differences have to do with approach, not necessarily the outcome. All of us want to eradicate poverty, educate our children, and solve a zillion other problems. We need to re-engage in civil conversation to more effectively do that. One way to get started is to heed my mother’s advice. “Hey, America, we’ve lost our sense of humor and we need to get it back!” - Copyright 2018 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available atamazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune- Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@ cagle.com or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com. Mountain Views News has been adjudicated as a newspaper of General Circulation for the County of Los Angeles in Court Case number GS004724: for the City of Sierra Madre; in Court Case GS005940 and for the City of Monrovia in Court Case No. GS006989 and is published every Saturday at 80 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., No. 327, Sierra Madre, California, 91024. All contents are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the express written consent of the publisher. All rights reserved. All submissions to this newspaper become the property of the Mountain Views News and may be published in part or whole. Opinions and views expressed by the writers printed in this paper do not necessarily express the views and opinions of the publisher or staff of the Mountain Views News. Mountain Views News is wholly owned by Grace Lorraine Publications, and reserves the right to refuse publication of advertisements and other materials submitted for publication. Letters to the editor and correspondence should be sent to: Mountain Views News 80 W. Sierra Madre Bl. #327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Phone: 626-355-2737 Fax: 626-609-3285 email: mtnviewsnews@aol.com JOHN L. MICEK MAKING SENSE by MICHAEL REAGAN FOR A BUILDER, TRUMP LIKES WRECKING STUFF For a man who likes to brag about what a big builder he is, President Donald Trump spends a lot of time burning stuff down. From his pursuit of protectionist tariffs and withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, to his routine attacks on the norms of a liberal democracy, the developer from Queens has taken a wrecking ball to the United States’ place in the world, isolating us on the world stage, and marginalizing our moral voice. Even his cherished wall, the one he promised the United States would build and that someone else - the American taxpayer, as it turns out - would pay for, remains frustratingly out of his grasp. So it wasn’t a surprise Tuesday to find that Trump had taken a torch to the Iran nuclear deal, unraveling the signature foreign policy achievement of former President Barack Obama, and further straining relations with western European allies who had passionately lobbied the White House to stay in it. Writing in Slate, Fred Kaplan said Trump, driven either by rank ignorance, bald-faced malice, or some combination of the two, had dismantled the most significant arms-control deal in modern history. Even worse, the administration premised its argument for withdrawal on at least two fraudulent claims. First, that Iran is cheating on the deal. There’s no evidence to support that. If anything, Iran was complying with the terms of the agreement and, as Vox reports, it was giving inspectors the room they needed to do their jobs. Second, Trump claimed the agreement required the United States to “pay” Iran $100 billion. Nope. The United States froze that amount in Iranian assets, and the deal was conditional on returning them. That’s the carrot in this carrot-and-stick arrangement. Trump’s move to kill the deal came despite the pleadings of French President Emmanuel Macron, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, dozens of past and former diplomats, and even House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, who no one would confuse for a dove, Kaplan noted. Right on schedule, Iranian officials announced that they’d negotiate with European leaders, the Chinese and Vladimir Putin’s Russia about staying in the deal. As was the case with Trump’s announcement of the withdrawal from Syria, he opened another power vacuum that America’s geopolitical rivals will be only too happy to fill. On its face, Trump’s announcement appeared to be less about securing any long-term foreign policy goal than it was about dominating the news cycle, proving to his base that he could deliver on campaign promise, and perhaps most importantly, sticking a finger in Obama’s eye. In a statement, Obama called the withdrawal a “serious mistake.” “Walking away from the [agreement] turns our back on America’s closest allies, and an agreement that our country’s leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals negotiated,” Obama said. “In a democracy, there will always be changes in policies and priorities from one Administration to the next. But the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America’s credibility, and puts us at odds with the world’s major powers.” The former president’s words were a refreshing blast of policy sobriety in the face of the standard Trumpian hyperbole that accompanied the White House’s announcement. “This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Trump said. “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.” The problem ladled on top of this short-sighted decision is what the withdrawal means for the upcoming summit with North Korea. We already know that its leader, Kim Jong Un, is pathologically incapable of keeping his word. Will Trump’s withdrawal undermine whatever faith North Korea has in the United States keeping its word? That looming question could render the summit an elaborate bit of theater without any tangible result. No one’s arguing that the current Iranian regime is a good one. That’s not what this is about. It’s about effectively keeping tabs on the nuclear ambitions of a dangerous rival. “We know more about Iran’s program with the deal than without it,” former CIA director Michael V. Hayden told The Washington Post. “The Iranians lie. They cheat,” Hayden told The Post. “That’s why you need to have the best possible verification regime in place.” By scrapping the agreement, the White House has made it potentially easier for Iran to build weapons. Trump may have scored a political win, but that’s a foreign policy loss by any measure. - Copyright 2018 John L. Micek, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. An award-winning political journalist, Micek is the Opinion Editor and Political Columnist for PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. Readers may follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek and email him at jmicek@pennlive.com. THE DEAL WITH SINGAPORE So Donald Trump has a date with Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12. Good deal - so far. As long as the president doesn’t get arrested for chewing gum or hanged for spitting on the sidewalk, his meet-up with North Korea’s “Rocket Man” in that spotless city might actually become a historic summit. Singapore 2018 might even become one of Trump’s legacies, though I suspect at this point he’s not as fixated on legacy building as most presidents. He’s more focused on making a deal with a nasty communist regime that no previous president has been able to make. We’ll know soon enough if Singapore is for show or for real. Meanwhile, I hope when Mr. Trump sits down to negotiate with Kim Jong Un he’ll remember what happened when Ronald Reagan went to Reykjavik in October of 1986 to meet Mikhail Gorbachev. My father’s meeting in Iceland with the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a “session” and not an official summit, but it was a huge, huge geopolitical deal at the time. The hope was for the two superpowers to discuss ways to put limits on strategic nuclear weapons arsenals and to come up with a sweeping arms-control agreement that would bring about the major mothballing of their nukes and missiles. I remember when my father’s administration was putting the Reykjavik trip together. It was his second meeting Gorbachev, and hopes were sky high for a historic agreement that would end the scariest part of the Cold War. Everyone in the administration - including Nancy - was excited because they thought Reykjavik was going to be Ronald Reagan’s greatest legacy. Everyone was pushing him - relentlessly - to make a deal with Gorbachev. Almost any deal. But when Mr. Gorbachev said he wouldn’t sign the document unless the United States gave up the Strategic Defense Initiative - the proposed “Star Wars” ballistic missile defense system - my father said “Nyet.” He got up and walked away from the table. Everyone was shocked and concerned by what my father did, but the rest was history. The Soviet Union soon went bust. The Berlin Wall came down. The Cold War was over. Saying no to the USSR when it wanted the United States to give up something was not an audible my father called on the spot. It was something he had been hoping to do for a long time. I remember in 1976 at the Republican National Convention when he lost the nomination. I walked over to his hotel room and asked him, “Why in world would you even want to run for president?” “Michael,” he said, “for too long I’ve watched presidents of the United States meet with Secretary Generals of the Soviet Union. “Every time we sit sit down with them they’re asking us to give up something to get along with them. “I want to be the first president who says ‘Nyet.’ That’s the reason I wanted to run for president.” In order for President Trump’s meeting on June 12 to be a success, and he certainly has it in him to make it one, he also has to be willing to walk away. You can’t make a deal just because you’re thinking it’s going to be good for your legacy. Your legacy might be when you stand up and walk away from a bad deal. The only way you’ll ever win real victories against the people who run hellholes like the USSR, North Korea and Iran is if you’re willing to walk -- and they know it. Anyone can make a bad deal - look at the one President Obama made with Iran. So my suggestion to the president is, “Don’t make a deal with North Korea just to make a deal. Sometimes the best deal is to walk away.” And anyway, Mr. Trump, with three American prisoners safely back home from North Korea, you’ve already got a win. Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments toReagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com. Mountain Views News Mission Statement The traditions of community news- papers and the concerns of our readers are this newspaper’s top priorities. We support a prosperous community of well- informed citizens. We hold in high regard the values of the exceptional quality of life in our community, including the magnificence of our natural resources. Integrity will be our guide. 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 | ||||||||||||||||||||