13 Mountain Views-News Saturday, October 8, 2022OPINIONOPINION 13 Mountain Views-News Saturday, October 8, 2022OPINIONOPINION
MOUNTAIN
VIEWS
NEWS
PUBLISHER/ EDITOR
Susan Henderson
PASADENA CITY
EDITOR
Dean Lee
PRODUCTION
SALES
Patricia Colonello
626-355-2737
626-818-2698
WEBMASTER
John Aveny
DISTRIBUTION
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
Mountain Views News
has been adjudicated asa newspaper of GeneralCirculation for the County
of Los Angeles in CourtCase number GS004724:
for the City of SierraMadre; in Court CaseGS005940 and for the
City of Monrovia in CourtCase No. GS006989 and
is published every Saturday
at 80 W. Sierra MadreBlvd., No. 327, Sierra
Madre, California, 91024.
All contents are copyrighted
and may not bereproduced without the
express written consent ofthe publisher. All rights
reserved. All submissions
to this newspaper becomethe property of the Mountain
Views News and maybe published in part or
whole.
Opinions and views expressed
by the writersprinted in this paper donot necessarily expressthe views and opinionsof the publisher or staff
of the Mountain Views
News.
Mountain Views News is
wholly owned by GraceLorraine Publications,
and reserves the right torefuse 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
A member
of the
California
NewspaperPublishers
Association
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
valuesoftheexceptional
quality of life in our
community, includingthe magnificence of
our natural resources.
Integrity will be our guide.
PUT THE LIGHTS ON
STUART TOLCHIN
ARCADIA - IT IS OFTEN SO HARD TO
Every
single morning,
just after mid
night I begin
the N.Y. Times
Spelling Bee
puzzle just after
it arrives on my
IPhone. Gener
ally, I have been
impatientlywaiting for several minutes for midnight to
arrive. I disconnect my phone from its charger
and settle onto my recliner which is next
to the window in my bedroom. I settle back
onto the recliner trying to make sure that myfeet are above my heart as I have been assured
that this posture is beneficial for mycirculation. I try to make as little noise as
possible and keep all the lights low so as not
to wake my dog, DREAM(Y) who is already
sprawled across the bed. Those few of you
with a mind something like mine will note
that the letters of the dog’s name are exactly
the same (absent the “Y”) as the second
word of this wonderful city’s name which is
Sierra MADRE.
I would like to take credit for this
masterful linguistic duplication but I cannot.
Like almost everything else in my life
it just sort of happened. Some time, about a
year ago a dog wandered over to our home
and just hung around, obviously lost. My
wife and I read the chip (I don’t know if I
was actually able to read the small print) and
found a phone number which we called. The
number belonged to a canyon neighbor who
immediately came over to the house to claim
the dog. She explained that she had just obtained
the dog from a shelter and fortunatelyhad just attached the chip, She told us about
the shelter and said it was a wonderful place
where abandoned dogs were kept. I listened
and became aware that I needed to have a
dog as it had been months since our beloved
Milo had been euthanized. My wife said she
had a dream about Milo last night and asked
why I was writing about Milo anyway. I told
her I was not writing about Milo but, rather
I was writing about Arcadia but just had not
gotten there yet. Actually my intent is to
write about writing; but that’s even further
away.
Reluctantly, I leave Milo and return
to my recliner and my daily midnight appointments
with the spelling Bee. While on
the recliner I can only use my IPHONE to
engage the puzzle. After all it is midnight
and I am tired and it is just too much exertion
to get up, turn on the lights, risk wakingDreamy, and deal with the computer, which
still, after all these years, seems to scare me.
STAY THERE
I reserve the use of the computer for sacred
moments such as these when I struggle to
compose my weekly articles. “Struggle” is an
incomplete word---writing the articles and
seeing them appear before me on the computer
monitor is about as close as I come to
a mystical experience. Time disappears and
I lose myself in the process of attempting to
create something that is meaningful and accurate.
I still worry if anyone else will care.
Is it freedom or fatigue that places
me on the recliner at midnight attempting
to do the Spelling Bee puzzle using only myIPhone. The very IPhone which makes it
extremely difficult to see the keyboard and
to know if I have struck the correct letters.
Nightly I persist and eventually reach the
Genius level. I receive a small shot of dopamine
or some small exhilaration as I complete
the puzzle. Really it is not the solution;
but rather it is the whole quest hat engages
me. Perhaps the difficulty related to the
IPhone use is part of what makes the quest
so meaningful. Alas, this particular morningI could not solve the puzzle. I tried to actually
go to sleep, without disturbing Dreamy,
and thought of the pleasant yesterday Sunday
afternoon when my wife, son and I had
taken my granddaughter down the hill to
the Arboretum in Arcadia. We had eaten
lunch and then watched my granddaughter
running around safely on the grass and
merging with other kids chasing around
under a drone that was being operated by
someone’s father. Eventually my three year
old granddaughter, and my fifty year old developmentally
disabled but monumentally
caring and kind son, settled onto a bench
whereupon they were joined by a live chattering
peacock with whom my granddaughter
had exchanged greetings. For me watching
from across the lawn, seated next to my
wife, this was bliss that I remembered as I
tossed around in bed still bothered by the
uncompleted puzzle.
I recalled the pleasant feelings of the
Arcadia Arboretum and presto the puzzle
was solved. Arcadia, meaning a region of
simple pleasures and quiet, was the necessary
word to complete the puzzle. Concurrently,
I understood that it is often the difficulties
of life, the difficulties I attempt to
write about, which give our own individual
lives a personal significance. Maybe I could
make the puzzle easier for myself and maybe
I could even abandon writing these articles
and stop worrying that no one else cares
about them. I worry that I cannot care for
myself and that a part of my life, perhaps my
secret life as a writer. Is to worry about you.
TOM PURCELL
HUNG UP ON RUDENESS
Changing communications technology is one of life’s never-ending
annoyances, and now we have a new agitation: voice messaging.
Voice messaging allows smartphone owners to record their voice
and send the recording to others as they would a text or a chat.
According to the Wall Street Journal, some people consider the technique
bothersome and rude — a camp I am clearly in, and I’ll
happily explain why.
I’ve experienced a lot of phone-technology changes in my life.
When I was a kid in the ‘70s and the phone rang, it was always a surprise and you’d hurry
to find out who was calling our house.
Hard as it is for some to imagine, we had no caller ID.
We had no call-waiting, either — if you were on the line talking and someone called you,
that person would be greeted by a busy signal.
Worse yet, if you needed a ride home after football practice, good luck getting through
to my house.
My five sisters and my mom kept our single phone line occupied throughout the day. I
spent half of my high school years redialing a pay phone.
The truth is, we actually wanted to answer the phone back then to learn who was calling.
Nothing was more disappointing than getting to a ringing phone too late and having the
mystery caller hang up.
That began to change in the ‘70s when answering machines became affordable and many
people began using them to screen their calls — behavior that was considered rude by
many.
Here’s what was even ruder: For whatever reason, some people refuse to leave messages
on answering machines. Getting home to hear a hang-up click on the answering machine
was awfully agitating.
Until the invention of “*69.”
Punching those three keys into the phone would provide the number of the dirty rotten
person who had the audacity to call your home and not leave a message.
This gave us the ability to call the rude person back, wait for his answering machine to
play, then hang up!
And so it was that technology enabled rudeness began to proliferate.
Now, when our smartphones ring, we look to see who the rude person calling is, and
think, before letting it go to voicemail, “Why couldn’t the idiot text me like a normal
person?”
Which brings us to voice messaging.
As a highly impatient person, I’m far too busy to listen to other humans use spoken words
to convey human thoughts to me.
The inflexions and changing tones they use to illustrate their points may seem more human
and nuanced to them, but they only make me grumpier.
Look, I am a master procrastinator who wastes time all day long — but I resent when
others waste my time for me by sending me voice chats that I have to spend precious
seconds listening to.
For goodness sakes, email me or text me and give me words to read.
I’ll email you or text back some nice words you can read, and then the both of us can go
on our merry way promoting the rudeness, grumpiness and incivility that we have allowed
our technology to make a regrettable reality in modern life.
I leave you with this warning:
Keep voice messaging me and I swear to goodness I will buy a cheap cell phone that does
not trace back to me and I’ll call your home phone — then hang up on your answering
machine!
RICH & FAMOUS
KNOW NO-NO’S
Planning an exciting excursion to some
far off land in the near future?
Before entering the airspace of foreign
countries, travel professionals recommend
doing your homework regarding
social customs.
We at the Mountain Views News are committed 120% to world peace. So, Ihave been tasked by higher authorities to share a few international no-no’s.
DO NOT CHEW GUM IN SINGAPORE: Its outlawed. You cannot buy or
sell gum. If you’re caught you will pay a hefty fine.
IN LATIN AMERICA AND MEXICO DO NOT ARRIVE ON-TIME! If
the party is said to start at 8pm, do not arrive before 9pm.
A number of faus paux are committed using the hands. Possibly the most
universally abused signal is what we Yanks know as the “okay” sign. Forefinger
and thumb touching creating a circle.
In Brazil its like giving them the middle finger. In fact, Richard Nixon infuriated
the entire country of Brazil by making the okay sign on national
television. In the middle east it symbolizes the “evil eye”.
The “thumbs up” in the middle east of Greece is the equivalent of giving
them the middle finger. Yikes!
In China, Japan, France and Saudi Arabia: Never blow your nose in public.
Take your nose into the rest room and for heaven’s sake wash your hands…
they may be watching.
France: Never, never refill your wine glass without first offering more to the
rest at your table.
France: Do not ever engage in a conversation with a local until you have
greeted them. Bonjour or Excusez-moi are friendly greetings. Then you can
tell them how we saved their backsides in World War 2.
Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom: If you give someone the
two fingers up peace sign, particularly with your palm facing you, you have
flipped them off. If you want two drinks in a crowded pub you won’t get
served with the two-finger salute.
Germany: Believe it or not many Americans are guilty of this. Do not ever
do the Nazi salute. It’s against the law and you could be put in das gefangnis.
AKA the slammer.
Indonesia, India and the Middle East: Do not use your left hand when shaking
hands or eating. Standard biological activities conducted in bathrooms
in Indonesia are done with the left hand. It should be limp at your side.
Malaysia: Never pound your fist into your hand. It’s an obscenity. Pounding
your fist with your hand is the Malaysian counterpart to gesturing with
your middle finger.
Nepal: Don’t shake hands or hug someone you are just meeting. Press your
palms together in a prayer-like gesture known as namaste. Kissing in public
is also a no-no, particularly if you don’t know the person lol.
New Zealand: If a New Zealander suddenly slaps their chests, grunts and
sticks out their tongues they haven’t lost their mind. They are participatingin a Haka. A war-cry performed before a war, or a rugby match. Best not to
make fun of it.
Russia and Europe: This seems odd. When giving flowers to someone, always
give them an odd number of flowers…unless they’re dead. Then an
even number of flowers is totally appropriate.
Thailand: For heavens sake do not put your feet on the table. Or use them
to pick something up. In Thailand, the head is the most sacred part of the
body and the feet are the least. Resist the temptation to jump on a table in
Thailand.
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
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