Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, December 12, 2020

12

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, December 12, 2020 


The Eternal Search For Meaning

 IT ALWAYS GIVES ME SOMETHING TO DO

STUART TOLCHIN

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

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Patricia Colonello

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John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

CONTRIBUTORS

Stuart Tolchin 

Audrey Swanson

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

 
One of the most disturbing things about being 
old and retired during this time of recommended 
(or is it required) Covid restrictions in that the only 
daily emails I receive are from some group or other 
that requests that I donate money for some worthy 
cause like saving the planet, or subscribing to 
some magazine or learning about my ancestors, or 
contributing to some worthy candidate, or perhaps 
receiving some guaranteed health cure. Generally, 
I am sympathetic to all of these foundations, 
political campaigns, and everything else but I 
am so wary of sending money or credit information anywhere that I ignore 
all requests and feel guilty. I also almost daily receive golfing instructions 
which lead to a sense of guilt since I haven’t played for over a year. A final 
disturbance is periodic emails informing me that some long lost girl friend or 
college roommate has died, generally related to their tripping over a dog. 

 One other bothersome thing is seeing old people, you know, like the 
regularly golfing almost gone President, and the new President elect, and the 
Speaker of the House, and the Senior Senator from California pretending that 
they are still young and vigorous and have not forgotten much of what they 
once knew (like I have). When I see Joe Biden trying to look vigorous as he 
runs up to the microphone it makes me sick. It seemed only fitting this week 
to learn that this weekend he fractured his toe playing with his dog; I could 
have warned him. Strangely this past week I had finally convinced my wife 
that it was time for us to get another dog. Ours had died almost a year and 
a half ago and we have been in a kind of mourning ever since. After hearing 
about Biden’s accident I concluded that the cosmos was informing me that it 
was not a good to get a dog but really I should forget how tired and generally 
depressed I was and get out there and play some golf. I am always looking for 
some secret meaning or message everywhere; what else do I have to do?

 So I reviewed the golf instruction. Keep your left arm straight, don’t let 
your right elbow chicken-wing, hit from inside out, and a continuous batch of 
information that I generally read and imagine myself going out to the course. 
Finally the day came, I called my golfing buddy that I had met on a different 
course a few years ago and set up a time. He is the perfect partner. Three years 
ago when we first met he told me he had only six months to live. Now, when 
I see him I am delighted to see that he is still around out and about enjoying 
himself. Still rather than being excited I found myself being very hesitant. 
Perhaps this was all noticeable to my friend who would not let me pay for my 
own round.

 During the round, as I worried about the position of my arms, elbows 
and chicken wings it became humiliatingly obvious that I had great difficulty 
making contact with the ball. Even when I chanced to hit it I could never see 
where it went and might finally spy it in some impossibly unreachable place in 
the midst of some rocks and trees. Disgusted as I was at my own ineptitude, I 
realized that I had a pretty good time. I am very fortunate to still be curious 
and realize that there is great pleasure in finding things out. Let Trump play 
golf, let Biden run to the microphone. I need not do these things and can 
happily ignore the golf instructions. I can be happy looking to the future, 
thinking about getting the right dog, and finding out about this final chapter 
of my life and enjoying my granddaughter, a true gift from God in whom or 
what I never believed. It is a great pleasure to understand that there is much 
that I do not understand. There is still time. MERRY CHRISTMAS? 


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LEFT, RIGHT OR CENTER! 

MICHAEL SHANNON

DICK POLMAN


LONG PAST TIME FOR CONSERVATIVES TO 
ABANDON THE GO

It’s my fervent hope the two Georgia 
Senate runoff elections are the last time 
conservatives will be forced to vote for 
Republicans because no conservative 
alternatives exist. For over 30 years conservatives 
have been told by the rich who 
run the Republican party that we have 
no choice but to hold our nose and vote 
for candidates who will turn on us immediately 
after they’re sworn into office.

 Republican election victories don’t 
mean conservatives will win anything. 
It only means con-servatives will lose 
slower. Compare what Obama did for his 
base during his eight years in office with 
what Republicans have done through the 
decades.

 William Voegeli, senior editor of the 
Claremont Review, refreshes our memory: 
“Since 1994 Re-publicans controlled 
both houses of Congress and the presidency 
for 12 years, and never once during 
that time did the party ever zero out 
funding for the National Endowment for 
the Arts or the Corporation for Public 
Broadcasting.

 “If the low-hanging fruit in Washington 
is always higher than the tallest Republican 
ladder, then something is fundamentally 
wrong. If the conservative high 
priests don’t take limited government 
seriously, why should the voters?”

 GOP government is only limited when 
it comes to issues conservatives care 
about.

 The conservative base cares about immigration, 
jobs, culture and family. 
Donald Trump beat a field of candidates 
former Republican George Will called 
the most talented since 1980 because 
Trump ran on issues relevant to the conservative 
base.

 And the GOP establishment hated him 
for it. Trump had two years with complete 
control of Congress. And what did 
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell do? 
They looked smug, superior and blocked 
Trump at every opportunity.

 Now that Trump may be leaving office 
it’s business as usual. Republicans can 
hardly wait to re-pudiate Trump’s issues 
and his voters. Senators John Cornyn 
and Susan Collins, who both just rode 
the Trump re-election wave, want to 
grant amnesty to DACA illegals as a first 
step toward “immigration reform.” What 
that means is total amnesty for up to 30 
million illegals.

 Republican Rep. Tom Reed says now 
“pragmatic” lawmakers will rise to the 
top, which is code for big-spending RINOs 
sponsoring corporate pork bills.

 And last week I wrote about how every 
single Republican in the Senate voted 
unanimously to let U.S. corporations import 
more low-wage foreign tech workers 
to take the jobs of middle class U.S. 
citizens.

 After that final outrage Pedro Gonzalez, 
assistant editor of American Greatness, 
tweeted, “Burn the GOP down.”

Yes, and I’ll supply the $2.00-a-gallon 
Trump gasoline.

The Republican party is beyond reform. 
It is too entrenched. 
Too 
corrupt. And 
too wealthy. I 
used to think 
over time conservatives 
could 
beat RINOs in 
primaries. I was wrong.

 Republicans are wholly owned by large 
corporate donors who are leftists socially 
and tax Scrooges. Incumbents cannot be 
beaten in Republican primaries because 
there are no large conservative billionaires 
to fund challengers. We don’t have 
a George Soros or a Tom Steyer.

 Two years ago I had hope for a free market 
primary solution from the innovative 
Norbert Rich-ter. He founded FireYourCongressman.
com. Richter’s fund 
pooled money from small contribu-tors 
and when a qualified challenger arose 
donations were made in the form of a 
direct contribu-tions and independent 
expenditures. It was the first free market 
effort to fund term limits. It was a great 
idea. And it failed because Richter wasn’t 
rich.

 In the 2018 cycle FireYourCongressman 
raised $103,306.00. In the 2020 cycle he 
raised $16,655.00. The failure wasn’t because 
the conservative base is cheap.

 Near the mid-point of the 2020 campaign 
the cocktail conservatives in Congress 
were outraged that small-donors 
had provided more than half of Trump’s 
billion-dollar war chest and 56 percent 
of those contributions were in grocery-
money sized checks of less than $200. 
Conservatives will contribute to conservative 
candidates if they are aware they 
exist.

 It’s Curator of the Senate Mitch McConnell’s 
mission to make sure genuine conservatives 
stay unknown and unfunded.

 One conservative Trump supporter 
even tried a lawsuit. Bob Heghmann, a 
Virginia Beach, VA retired lawyer sued 
the national and Virginia GOP contending 
Republicans “[have] been engaged in 
a pattern of Racketeering which involves 
massive fraud perpetrated on Republican 
voters.”

 Heghmann added, “Republicans could 
have repealed and replaced Obamacare 
with two-page bill. But the leadership 
never intended to do it.”

 That didn’t work either.

 The Republican party is a collection 
of morally corrupt corporate tools who 
protect their donors at the expense of 
their voters. It cannot be reformed. A 
double RINO victory in Georgia will 
buy conservatives enough time to start 
building their own conservative party 
from the ground up.

 Let’s send a message in January: This 
one and we’re done.

Michael Shannon is a commentator and 
public relations consultant, and is the author 
of “A Conservative Christian’s Guidebook 
for Living in Secular Times.” He can 
be reached at man-date.mmpr@gmail.
com.

CAN DISEASE-SPREADING DOLTS BE REASONED WITH?

I suppose this is progress: On Sunday, Trump’s vaccine “czar,” Moncef 
Slaoui, endorsed President-elect Biden’s plan to ask all Americans 
to wear masks during his first 100 days. Slaoui’s said, “I think it’s 
a good idea…We all need to take our precaution, have our masks…
We will not all have the vaccine in our arms before May or June. So 
we need to be very cautious and vigilant.”

Alas, and oh so predictably, Slaoui’s message was undercut 24 hours 
later by his lame-duck boss, who proceeded to violate CDC guidelines by host-ing a 
maskless ceremony in the Oval Office. How many more people will he kill on his way 
out?

He’s our most prominent menace to public health, but he’s hardly alone.

Two random examples: Last week, a viral photo showed maskless patrons of a popular 
D.C. bar whooping it up in tight quarters, all of them exercis-ing their God-given freedom 
to infect. And last month, out in Oregon, a high-profile doctor named Steven LaTulippe 
appeared at a Trump rally and told the cultists to “take off the mask off shame”
(few wore masks an-yway). He also boasted that none of his clinic staffers wore masks.
The cultists cheered for that one. (The state has since suspended LaTulippe’s medical
license, so now he’s a martyr.)

You have to wonder how many more deaths and hospitalizations and ill-nesses and 
quarantines we must endure, on the cusp of our darkest win-ter, before the selfish idiots 
among us finally recognize their responsibility to their fellow citizens.

Actually, I remember pondering that question when the death toll hit 1,000. But now 
it’s 280,000, and I’m pondering anew not just because that stat is so horrific, but because 
one of my pen pals – a reader – has emailed me a blast of ignorance that epitomizes the 
worst of America.

He signed the email “Beowulf,” so let’s call him that. Beowulf was upset with a recent 
column where I criticized Scott Atlas, Trump’s incompetent (and now-departed) coronavirus 
adviser. After a few insults, Beowulf wrote:

“You are without objectivity. One example; where in this piece is the switching positions 
of both Fauci and the concerning masks? Why do you not say why he was originally 
against them? And do you know that the average mask mesh size compared to virus size 
is the same as that of a chain link fence and a swarm of flies?”

This is what we’re up against, folks. People like Beowulf are still assailing Anthony Fauci 
for what he initially said about masks way back on March 8. They’re still mimicking 
Trump’s fake claim that Fauci was against masks – whereas, in truth, Fauci was trying 
to prevent a mask shortage for health workers.

Also, at that time, the extent of asymptomatic spread was unknown. But as health authorities 
learned more – about the spread of the disease and the efficacy of masks – 
their recommendations changed. That’s called science. The CDC endorsed masks for 
the general public on April 3, and Fauci has confirmed that in countless interviews ever 
since.

Beowulf’s other argument – that the virus passes through masks with the ease of insects 
flying through “a chain link fence” – is a viral Facebook lie that’s persistently popular 
among deniers. But infectious disease expert Brian Labus, a member of Nevada’s coronavirus 
task force, had the best response:

“First, the viral particles don’t leave your mouth at that size. They start out larger and 
shrink due to evaporation. Second, they don’t come out in a nice, single-file line with 
the ability to navigate the mask. They all come out together, bang into each other, hit 
the mask and so on. Lots of them get caught. That’s the idea. Go sneeze on a window 
screen and see how much crap is left on it. Same idea. It doesn’t have to be perfect – we 
are talking about risk reduction, not risk elimination. Quit your bulls—- and put on 
your mask.”

That last part is what I told Beowulf, quoting Labus. I shared Labus’ refuta-tion of the 
chain link lie, and explained Fauci’s stance on masks.

You might be tempted to ask me whether Beowulf was swayed by my re-sponse, but you 
know the answer. As Thomas Paine famously said, “To ar-gue with a man who has renounced 
the use and authority of reason…is like administering medicine to the dead.”

Thanks to science, there’s hope on the horizon. But alas, there’s no vac-cination against 
ignorance.

–

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer 
in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at 
dickpolman7@gmail.com


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