Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, June 29, 2019

B5

THE WORLD AROUND US

Mountain Views-News Saturday, June 29, 2019 

OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

FAMILY MATTERS By Marc Garlett


WHY SENIORS AND THEIR FAMILIES 
SHOULD BE WARY OF REVERSE 
MORTGAGES

If you’ve watched TV lately, you’ve likely seen ads selling reverse 
mortgages. A reverse mortgage can be a great tool to help you 
realize your dreams. However, it is a very specific type of tool for 
a very specific type of situation. If used incorrectly, it can cause a 
borrower to lose their home. You owe it to yourself and your loved 
ones to learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of reverse mortgages.
How they work
A reverse mortgage is a loan which allows homeowners 62 
and older to convert some of the equity they have in their primary residence into cash. The 
amount of equity required to obtain a reverse mortgage depends on your age. Younger borrowers 
need about 60% equity in their homes to qualify, while those over 80 may need just 45%.
Once approved, you can receive the money in one of three ways: as a lump sum, as monthly installments, 
or as a line of credit. Because you receive payments from the lender, your home’s equity decreases over 
time, while the loan balance gets larger, thus the term “reverse” mortgage.

With a reverse mortgage, you no longer have to make monthly mortgage payments, and you can stay in 
your home as long as you keep up with property taxes, pay insurance premiums, and keep the home in 
good repair. Lenders make money through origination fees, mortgage insurance, and interest on the loan 
balance, all of which can exceed $10,000 to $15,000.

Be aware, the reverse mortgage loan (plus interest and fees) becomes due and must be repaid in full when 
any of the following events occur:

Your death

You are out of the home for 12 consecutive months or more, such as in the case of needing 

nursing home care

You sell the home or transfer title 

You default on the loan by failing to keep up with insurance premiums, property taxes, or by letting 
the home fall into disrepair

A still evolving industry


In 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cracked down on some of the misleading advertising 
practices by lenders. All reverse mortgage advertisers are now required to disclose that the loans must 
be repaid after death or upon move-out. Additionally, advertisers can no longer claim the loans are a 
“government benefit” or “risk free.” 

In 2014, HUD developed new policies to better protect surviving spouses who were often being “left out 
in the cold” literally under the old rules. Now, if a married couple with one spouse under age 62 wants to 
take out a reverse mortgage, they may list the underage spouse as a “non-borrowing spouse” with rights 
to retain the home if the older spouse dies.

Despite these recent changes, however, the number of ads for reverse mortgages hasn’t declined and too 
many borrowers (and non-borrowing spouses) still end up going through foreclosure. The industry 
continues to need to offer better protections for the elderly against unscrupulous reverse mortgage 
lending practices.




Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and 
defining your legacy,

A local attorney and father, Marc Garlett is on a mission to help parents 
protect what they love

most. His office is located at 55 Auburn Avenue, Sierra Madre, CA 91024. Schedule an

appointment to sit down and talk about ensuring a legacy of love and financial security for your

family by calling 626.355.4000 or visit www.GarlettLaw.com for more information.

LET THE SUMMER FUN BEGIN 

Now that summer is upon us, we can turn our back on those frosty days of 
winter. I like winter as long as it is in the past tense. Otherwise, all that cold 
tenses me up something terrific. Now that summer is upon me, I can sit 
back, relax and enjoy those crazy, lazy days of summer.

My plans for the summer have already been established. I have a little notebook 
with all the things I plan to do during the summer. If someone were to open that little 
notebook, they will find, much to their surprise, not a thing written on any page.

That is precisely my plan. I plan to do nothing during the summer.

This is a relatively new strategy on my part. Every time I plan to do something, it never turns out 
right. In fact, if I plan to go right everything turns around and I end up going left. Therefore, my 
ingenious plan is to plan the opposite of what I really want to do. After all, it cannot be any worse 
than what I have been doing up to now.

I have been dreaming about the luxury of doing absolutely nothing for the summer. I have no 
personal goals to achieve. I have no projects needing completion. I have only one goal for the 
entire summer and that is to do nothing.

For this nefarious plan of mine to be successful, I will need to avoid the wife for the entire sum-
mer. If she was in the living room I would make sure, I was out in the garage. If she were out on 
the porch, I would be in the bathroom. I had this all worked out in my head long before Spring 
came to its finale.

For weeks now, I have been busy planning my summer's spree of non-activity. Within a matter of 
time, some strange thought horned in on my serenity. For some reason I hit a snag in my planning. 
I thought I had everything worked out. Then I noticed something strange about this new 
strategy of mine. That is, it is quite hard to plan to do nothing.

For example, if I plan to go fishing I know what equipment I need to lay out and what clothes I 
need to wear. If I am planning to go on a vacation, I know what to pack and I know the clothes 
to put in the suitcase and so forth. But, how do you plan to do nothing?

When I first thought of this plan, it seemed like such an easy thing to do. Something natural for 
a person like me. My problem was, what clothes do I need to put on when I am planning to do 
nothing? What kind of equipment do I need? And, should I pack a lunch?

I decided to pack a lunch anyway.

It is only one week into the summer and I have found myself to be a little stressed. My plan was 
to do nothing but I am not sure what that means.

When you do nothing, what exactly are you doing or not doing? Boy, do I need a philosopher 
to-day. (Where is Dr. Phil when you need him?) And I suppose the biggest question is, how do 
you define nothing?

To define nothing, you have to say something, and something certainly is not nothing. So how 
do I know when I am doing nothing? If I do anything, does it cancel out my goal of nothing?

To show how desperate I was, I decided to ask the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage.

"How do I know when I'm doing nothing?" I asked her.

She looked at me with one of those strange looks I have become so familiar with and just stared 
at me for a few moments. Then with both hands firmly placed on her hips, she answered me.

"It is simply this. You are doing nothing when you are not doing what I asked you to do." Then 
she produced a thick notebook of things she wanted me to do. A “to-do-list,” if you please, for 
the summer.

It was at that point that it hit me. The only way you can do nothing is if you have something to 
do. If I don't have anything to do, there is nothing I can do. But if I have something to do and do 
not do it I am, in fact, doing nothing.

I surprised my wife by taking her to-do-list and clutching it to my bosom. I said to her with a 
smile, “Thank you for solving my summer problem.” With that, I walked off quite cheerfully, 
knowing that with this list in my hand, I now have a plan to do nothing for the summer. I love it 
when a plan comes together.

I then did something profitable. I turned to a favorite passage in the Bible. The apostle Paul 
knew a thing or two about doing things. Paul said, "I know both how to be abased, and I know 
how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, 
both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." 
(Philippi-ans 4:12-13). It may be difficult to do nothing but it is absolutely

https://garlettlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Marc-Signature-Blogs.jpg
CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown


HEALING WITH MEDICINAL PLANTS OF THE WEST

Interviewing Dr. James Adams - A Doctor on a Mission to Fight 
Opioid Addiction Using Native Herbs

[Nyerges is the author of “Guide to Wild Foods” and other books on self-reliance 
and the outdoors. He conducts regular wild food classes. He can be reached at www.
SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com. ]

GET IN TROUBLE: STORIES by Kelly Link 

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE A bewitching story collection from a writer 
hailed as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” (Michael Chabon) and 
“a na-tional treasure” (Neil Gaiman).She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the 
most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as “a national 
treasure.” Now Kelly Link’s eagerly awaited new collection—her first for adult readers 
in a dec-ade—proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the 
finest we have. Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short 
story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional 
universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of 
her formi-dable powers. In “The Summer People,” a young girl in rural North Carolina 
serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who 
inhabit the cottage behind her house. In “I Can See Right Through You,” a middle-
aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love 
interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In “The New Boyfriend,” a suburban slumber party 
takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big 
present: a life-size animated doll. Hurri-canes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, 
The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids . . . These are just some of the talismans of an imagination 
as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, 
they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty—and the hidden 
strengths—of human beings. In Get in Trou-ble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries 
of what short fiction can do.

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: A Novel by T.C. Boyle 

In this stirring and insightful novel, T.C. Boyle takes us back to the 1960s and to the 
early days of a drug whose effects have reverberated widely throughout our culture: 
LSD.In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad stu-
dents at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist 
and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology 
Ph.D. student and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug’s possibilities 
such that their “research” becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers 
and in-stead turns into a free-wheeling exploration of mind expansion, group 
dynamics, and communal living. With his trademark humor and pathos, Boyle 
moves us through the Loneys’ initiation at one of Leary’s parties to his notorious 
summer seminars in Zi-huatanejo until the Loneys’ eventual expulsion from Harvard and their introduction 
to a communal arrangement of thirty devotees—students, wives, and children—living together 
in a sixty-four room mansion and devoting themselves to all kinds of exper-imentation and questioning. 
Is LSD a belief system? Does it allow you to see God? Can the Loneys’ marriage—or any marriage, for 
that matter—survive the chaotic and sometimes orgiastic use of psychedelic drugs? Wry, witty, and wise, 
Outside Looking In is an ideal subject for this American master, and highlights Boyle’s acrobatic prose, 
detailed plots, and big ideas. It’s an utterly engaging and occasionally trippy look at the nature of reality, 
identity, and consciousness, as well as our seemingly infinite ca-pacities for creativity, re-invention, and 
self-discovery.

EDINBURGH by Alexander Chee 

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, Winner of the James Mich-ener/Copernicus 
Society Fellowship Prize.” Arresting . . . profound and poetic . . . Chee’s voice is 
worth listening to.” —San Francisco Chronicle. Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy Korean 
American boy and a newly named section leader of the first sopranos in his local 
boys’ choir. But when Fee learns how the director treats his section leaders, he is so 
ashamed he says nothing of the abuse, not even when Peter, his best friend, is in line 
to be next. When the director is arrested, Fee tries to forgive himself for his silence. 
But when Peter takes his own life, Fee blames only himself. In the years that follow 
he slowly builds a new life, teaching near his hometown. There he meets a young 
student who is the picture of Peter and is forced to confront the past he be-lieved 
was gone. Told with “the force of a dream and the heft of a life,”* Edinburgh marked 
Chee “as a major talent whose career will bear watching” (Publishers Week-ly).The 3 reviews are from 
Amazon.com


Dr. Adams says that the medical 
profession is mistaken 
when it comes to how to treat pain. Adams explains 
that although the brain processes pain, all pain in 
the body is felt mostly in the organ of skin. However, 
pain in the mouth and other orifices is felt at 
the site of the pain, such as a tooth. Therefore, based 
on his western medical training, and supported with 
his Chumash healing training, Adams always treats 
the skin for all pain conditions. Further, he states 
that everyone can do such self-medicating “for free,” 
for any pain, with no harmful side-effects.

Dr. James Adams is a man on a mission. James Adams 
teaches pharmacology at USC, and also teaches 
medical students Chumash healing as part of regular 
classes. Adams earned his PhD in Pharmacology 
in 1981 at UC San Francisco in comparative pharma-
cology and toxicology, and is now an Associate 
Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences 
at USC. He’s written over 200 articles, both 
academic and general reading.

Adams got very interested in the medicinal uses of 
native plants back in 1994. He had been taking his 
son out on Boy Scout walks and began to realize that 
all the local plants had been used by the local Native 
Americans. Adams then set out to find a Na-tive 
American herbalist to learn from.

He talked with people from the Chumash tribe, but 
made no progress in finding a skilled herbalist for 
about two years. Finally, he met Cecilia Garcia. Adams 
then be-came Garcia’s apprentice, and spent 14 
years learning from her, and practicing Chu-mash 
healing on patients.

Adams and Garcia eventually collaborated to produce 
the book “Healing with Medic-inal Plants of 
the West,” which was published in 2005. Since their 
collaboration, Ad-ams and Garcia have led nearly 
100 walks and workshops to teach about the Native 
use of healing herbs, until Garcia’s untimely death 
in 2012. 

I asked Dr. Adams whether or not he was just cynical 
of the medical profession, as I am, or perhaps 
he believes that doctors are more concerned about 
making a buck than actually healing a patient. Neither, 
he told me. “Doctors are simply working on a 
false preconceived notion that herbs are not strong 
enough to deal with certain physical conditions. But 
believe me, some herbs are just as strong as any patent 
med-icines out there.” He adds that there is a lot 
of good medicine being practiced, but not with the 
use of opioids for pain.

He points out that there are currently at least 67,000 
people who die in the U.S. every year from prescription 
opioids, and that figure is rising. According to 
Adams, doctors work from the premise that you 
should try to control pain by using the drugs that 
af-fect the brain. They tell the patient, let’s try x, or 
y, or z, and when those don’t work, they try opioids, 
like Vicodin. 

Adams explained that opioids are compounds synthesized 
based upon opium’s chem-istry. This is 
highly addictive, and has not been shown to work. 
This is all based on the notion that you need to cure 
the pain in your brain, but there are no pain recep-
tors in your brain. More than 95% of the body’s pain 
receptors are in the skin.

“Cecilia taught me how to make and use linaments 
from black sage and sagebrush,” says Dr. Adams. 
“And as a result of working with several hundred patients 
over the years, I have seen that these are great 
pain killers, which also have the ability to deal with 
chronic pain.” Dr. Adams added the science to his 
corroboration with Garcia, by explaining medically 
why the Chumash systems work.

 “We need to learn how to treat pain correctly, and 
we are not doing that correctly with oral medicines,” 
says Adams. “When I was a boy, everyone knew 
how to take care of themselves when it came to the 
most basic everyday medical issues, like using sassafras, 
yerba santa, and other common herbs. But no 
one seems to know any of this anymore.” 

Through his writings and teachings, Dr. Adams 
hopes to bring back the notion that the body can 
heal itself if we allow it to do so, and that everyone 
should take charge of their health, and not assume 
that the doctor can “heal” us.

Adams readily admits that there are some cases that 
his black sage or sage brush lin-iment doesn’t entirely 
cure, though there are no side effects either, as 
in the case of opioids.

Adams has also been compiling actual testimonials 
to demonstrate the efficacy of the healing method 
that he practices.

Though there is a comprehensive depth to his scope 
of teaching, he usually empha-sizes that he’s not 
healing anyone, that’s he’s only making it possible 
for the body to heal itself. 

RECIPES [more details are found in Adams’ book]

BLACK SAGE SUN TEA: FOOT SOAK FOR ALL 
BODY PAINS

Soak about . pound of black sage leaves and stems 
(Salvia mellifera) in two quarts of water, and set in 
the sun for several hours until the tea is dark red 
brown. Strain. 

Pour the sun tea into a pan, and soak feet for 15-20 
Minutes a day for 7 days. Refrig-erate after each use. 
Wait one week to see what happens to your pain. 
Repeat pro-cess after second week. This is for any 
body pains.

One student at one of Dr. Adams’ classes soaked 
his feet in the black sage tea and reported that his 
chronic neck pain was gone for over a week. “According 
to James Ruther, “Yes, it worked! I go to 
the chiropractor every three weeks to manage my 
condition. My condition is a pinched nerve in my 
neck. I soaked my feet in the black sage tea and I was 
pain-free for about a week and a half. My daily pain 
is more of a discomfort now.”

SAGEBRUSH LINIMENT: ELDER’S WINTER 
MEDICINE

Into a container [he typically uses an 8 ounce Mason 
jar], place one leaf of white sage. Add 4 to 6 pieces of 
avocado pits (for their oil). Fill the container with as 
much Sagebrush (Artemisia californica) as you can. 
Fill the jar with 70% isopropyl alcohol. Some use 
either tequila or vodka instead. Let sit for at least 
6 weeks. Decant, and use the liquid sparingly, as a 
spray or rub, on those painful parts of the body.

For information about Dr. Adams’ class schedule, 
and his several books, contact Ad-ams at www.abeduspress.
com.


PUSH BACK ON E- CIGARETTES

San Francisco became the first major U.S. city Tuesday to ban the 
sale of electronic cigarettes that have not undergone the required 
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review.” This is a decisive step to help prevent another generation of San 
Francisco children from becoming addicted to nicotine," City Attorney Dennis Herrera ."The U.S. Surgeon General 
has warned that we’re in the midst of a youth vaping epidem-ic," Herrera added. "San Francisco is taking action to 
protect our kids.” This tempo-rary moratorium wouldn’t be necessary if the federal government had done its job. 
E-cigarettes are a product that, by law, are not allowed on the market without FDA re-view. For some reason, the 
FDA has so far refused to follow the law. If the federal government is not going to act, San Francisco will.” Backers 
said they hope the legis-lation will curb underage use of e-cigarettes, but critics said the ban will make it harder 
for adults to purchase an alternative to regular cigarettes. The pushback to e-cigarettes is becoming a nationwide 
trend. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law rais-ing the legal age to buy e-cigarettes and tobacco in his state to 21 on 
June 7, joining 13 other states including California. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Tim 
Kaine, D-Va., also recently introduced a bill to raise the federal mini-mum age to buy tobacco. From 2017 to 2018, 
e-cigarette use increased 78 percent among high school students and 48 percent among middle schoolers, according 
to the Fad’s Francisco is a city that celebrates its marijuana culture, but it appears deep-ly opposed to other vices. 

All Things By Jeff Brown

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