Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, May 28, 2022

14 Mountain Views-News Saturday, May 28, 2022 OPINION 14 Mountain Views-News Saturday, May 28, 2022 OPINION 
MOUNTAIN 

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Susan Henderson 

PASADENA CITY 
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Dean Lee 

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John Aveny 

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Peter Lamendola 

CONTRIBUTORS 

Stuart Tolchin 
Audrey SwansonMeghan MalooleyMary Lou CaldwellKevin McGuire 
Chris Leclerc 
Bob Eklund 
Howard HaysPaul CarpenterKim Clymer-KelleyChristopher NyergesPeter Dills 
Rich Johnson 
Lori Ann Harris 
Rev. James SnyderKatie HopkinsDeanne Davis 
Despina ArouzmanJeff Brown 
Marc Garlett 
Keely TotenDan Golden 
Rebecca WrightHail Hamilton 
Joan Schmidt 
LaQuetta Shamblee 

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Mountain Views News 

Mission Statement 

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community news


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concerns of our readers 


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top priorities. We 
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community of well-
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values of the exceptional

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Integrity will be our guide. 

OUR NATIONAL 
PATHOLOGY OVER GUNS 
IS INHUMAN 
By John Micek 

Want to know what rage feels like?
It’s waking on a Wednesday morning on a 
school day as the cable news talking heads sift 
through the latest on the shooting at a Texas elementary 
school that left 21 people dead, most 
of them children, and looking at your daughter 
as she gets ready for her final day of classes of 
the year, and saying, “Please, God. Not today.” 

Want to know what it feels like to have your 
heart break? 
It’s kissing your daughter goodbye, reminding 
her to stay safe, having her look back at you, 
and listen as she tells you, with perfect clarity, 
that she’s grown numb to the incidents of 
carnage that have made mass casualty drills a 
reality for an entire generation of American 
schoolchildren. 
But then, I’m one of the lucky ones. 

I got to kiss my daughter goodbye. For too 
many families in Texas, and in Buffalo, in Philadelphia, 
in Pittsburgh, in every American city 
where our pathological love affair with firearms 
has destroyed lives and ripped families apart, 
there will never be another good morning. 
There will never be another good night. There 
will never be another happy birthday. 

And it doesn’t have to be this way. That is the 
most heartbreaking and maddening thing of 
all. 
At a time when a clear majority of Americans 
say they want Congress to enact stricter gun violence 
reduction measures, bills that would do 
just that are bottled up in the narrowly divided 

U.S. Senate. 
Insanity, as has been famously remarked, is doing 
the same thing over and over again, and 
hoping for a different result. And that is the 
story of our lawmakers’ ongoing inability to 
pass even the simplest of gun violence reduction 
measures. 

And, then, under our very noses, we’re hit with 
another Sandy Hook.
And we’ll wring our hands. We’ll offer our 
prayers for the dead, and our sympathy to the 
families. And, past being prologue, nothing will 
change. And weeks, or maybe even days later, 
we’ll be back in the same place, wondering how 
such tragedies can occur in a nation where they 
happen every day. 

That’s not just insanity, it’s utter inhumanity, as 
a wave of social media memes since the shooting 
have made clear. 

STUART TOLCHIN 


But it doesn’t have to be that way.
And it starts with you. It starts with me. It starts 
with every one of us, standing up, and saying in 
a loud and clear voice that we’ve had enough.
It’s an election year.
Make it clear to the people seeking your vote 
that if they don’t support expanded background 
checks and closing the gun show loophole, they 
don’t get your vote.
Tell them that if they don’t back an assault 
weapons ban, or bans on expanded magazines, 
they don’t get your vote. Make it clear that if 
they don’t support eliminating the filibuster so 
that these bills, or bills expanding voting rights, 
can get an actual up or down vote in the U.S. 
Senate, then they’re not getting your vote either.
Not one of these measures will infringe on the 
rights of law-abiding gun owners. Anyone who 
says differently, isn’t being straight with you. 
Even the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin 
Scalia, in the 2008 Heller decision, said that 
while the Second Amendment clearly allows 
for Americans to keep and bear arms, that right 
comes with some limits. 
“Like most rights, the right secured by the 
Second Amendment is not unlimited,” Scalia 
wrote, even as he sketched out exceptions. ” … 
the right was not a right to keep and carry any 
weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever 
and for whatever purpose.” 
On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut 
Democrat who represented the families of Sandy 
Hook when he served in the House, begged 
his colleagues to reach common ground on reform 
measures. 
“I’m here on this floor to beg — to literally get 
down on my hands and knees — to beg my colleagues. 
Find a path forward here. Work with 
us to find a way to pass laws that make this less 
likely,” he said.
We should not have to beg for the answers that 
are staring us in the face. We should not have to 
beg for parents to have the right to wake up in 
the morning and not worry that today might be 
their child’s last day on Earth.
We should not have to beg so that Black people 
in Buffalo can go to the grocery store safely. We 
should not have to beg so that the residents of 
Philadelphia, of Pittsburgh, of Harrisburg, of 
every American city where these senseless tragedies 
unfold daily can live safely in their own 
neighborhoods.
Beg? That time is done. Demand it. And don’t 
settle for any other answer but “yes.” 

– 

An award-winning political journalist, John L. 
Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania 
Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at 
jmicek@penncapital-star.com and follow him on 
Twitter @ByJohnLMicek. 


PUT THE LIGHTS ON 

IN PRAISE OF ------------


To say the least these are very troubling times. Added 

to that several very close friends are more or less recovering 

after surgery and others are undergoing chemo treatments. 

I’m still struggling to learn to use my recently acquired lap


top so to combat all these personal and the ongoing troubling 
wars, droughts, viruses, shootings of children, inflationary prices I have decided to 
devote this article to positivity. Normally such newly coined words disturb me but I 
make use of it here just to show you how hard I am trying and hope this attempt will 
inspire you to find something positive in your life. 

So I thought about if for a while. I could praise my uniquely wonderful wife, 
children and grandchild but it’s always a risky business to write about actual living 
people who might take offense at some inaccuracy and the divulgence of something 
that they would deem private. So what about books. I have seemingly thousands 
(maybe hundreds) of books cluttering up the house. Since the start of the pandemic 
for some reason I have been unable to read for any sustained amount of time. I still 
try to read at night but generally fall asleep with an open book in my lap, another at 
my feet, and my glasses somewhere on the floor or some other inconvenient place. 
My wife, much to her displeasure, often finds me crumpled up and urges me to at least 
put on pajamas. (Oh I forgot, I wasn’t going to risk mentioning her) So no people, no 
books, so what else has made a positive difference in my life? 

The answer really surprised me. The thing that has continually made a difference 
in my life is the watching and viewing of TENNIS. Even now as my aggravating 
mobility limitations prevent me from playing, tennis is my favorite sport to watch 
on television. The tennis competitors wear no uniforms and are not covered with 
padding. They frequently express emotion and their tension and nervousness are 
completely visible. Tennis players come in all sizes and the game is internationally 
available and the agility and skill of the players is beautiful to watch. Furthermore, 
there is great continuity in that certain players remain at the top for decades combating 
injuries or giving birth and returning to the Court. 

I have attempted to describe my present appreciation of tennis as a spectator 
but it has great personal relevance in my life. Growing up I was a pretty isolated kid 
and I would occupy myself for hours playing with a paddle attached by an elastic 
string to a little pink ball. I played a game with myself by hitting the ball as many 
times as I could and giving myself three chances to obtain a better result. I played for 
hours and I think this solitary activity developed my skill as a ping pong and tennis 
player. I developed male friendships based upon these skills. As a lawyer I heard another 
lawyer and a bailiff, two very athletic looking guys, both significantly younger 
than myself mentioning that they were off to the LA Tennis club to play. I bravely 
asked if I could come along and eventually trounced them both. I have several other 
stories like that in which tennis brought me into contact with men who have now 
been my friends for over thirty years. 

When fate made me a single parent of two children I exposed them to tennis 
and watched from a bench as they played against one another. I loved seeing my children, 
two years apart and different in every way (oh. I wasn’t going to mention them 
either) play against one another. I felt strong, loving emotions as I agonized on the 
bench watching them. I always rooted for whoever was losing and it was a very involving, 
satisfying and meaningful experience. Now one last story. Across the canyon 
there lives a couple who are very athletic and fit and pride themselves on their overall 
abilities. My wife and I (oh, oh I’m doing it again) older and less fit trounced them 
and in the midst of the match they started hitting each other. This was many years 
ago, but it is still a fond memory. Okay enough positivity, now I can go back to worrying 
about gun violence and nuclear war and whatever else generally concerns me. 

Really, there are many joys in all of our lives. We just have to remember not to be 
overwhelmed by our present fears and take some time to remember some good stuff. 
It would be nice if my homage to tennis helped you to do that. 


RICH & FAMOUS 


THE POWER OF 
WORDS 

Famous and I do not agree 
on much (though she is always 
right). We do agree, 

however, that words are 
our stock-in-trade. 
And we are committed to 

improving the quality of life, to educate 
and entertain the masses. 

We are also motivated by British poet Lord Byron who penned: 
“A drop of ink may make a million think.” 

Thinking of how best to demonstrate the power of the use and 
misuse of words, we selected a topic of monumental importance 
to most of us: Buying and selling real estate. Why? Because our 
most costly transactions in life usually center around buying and 
selling a home (especially in California). 

Special thanks to the Granger Group for compiling a list of terms 
(including their actual meaning) that are used in advertising real 
estate. Ambiguous terms meant to convey a positive characteristic 
of a property. But also convey a shortcoming. (Due to space 
limitations Famous and I will only be sharing the “shortcoming” 
meaning of the word.) 

Cozy-A home too small for human habitation. 
Intimate-A home smaller than a cozy home. 
Charming- No indoor plumbing.
Needs Some TLC- You might fall through the floor. 
Handyman Special- No more need be said. 
Country Living -Far away from civilization and next 

door to livestock. 
Conveniently Located – Located on a busy intersection. 
Easy Highway Access – Located on a busy intersection 

right next to a freeway onramp. 
Not a Drive-By – If you drive by you definitely won’t stop. 
Ocean View – Stand on a ladder in the corner bed 

room of the second floor, lean out the 

window and you might be able to see it. 
City Living – Requires three deadbolt locks. 
Water Front – Located in a flood zone. 
Unique Another description which screams 

“stay away”. 
Easy to Show – No one has lived in the home in years 
due to gunshots down the street. 
Only One Owner – A recluse who hadn’t left the home in 

47 years. And made no improvements. 
Freshly Painted – With a single coat of cheap paint. 
Cul-de-sac Living- Fancy way of saying you’ll be living at 

a “dead-end”. 

Of course, these tongue-in-cheek definitions do demonstrate 
how important it is to involve a Realtor in any real estate transaction 
. 

There are many outstanding real estate professionals in the San 
Gabriel Valley. One I have seen in action is Danica Patton. Danica 
is with EXP Realty of California. Her knowledge of the intricacies 
of her profession, her communication skills and attention 
to detail are extraordinary. 

If you are in the market to buy or sell real estate, or even considering 
a change, I can recommend her without hesitation. She has 
been in the business for over 18 years. Danica lives here in Sierra 
Madre and her phone number is (310) 384-4665The Power of 
Words 

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