p12, v18.45 — Opinion — Mountain Views News

Opinion

Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, November 9, 2024

MVNews this week: Page 12

OPINIONOPINION

Mountain Views NewsSaturday, November 9, 2024

RICH JOHNSON

NOW THAT’S RICH

STUART TOLCHIN

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

MOUNTAIN
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LaQuetta Shamblee

UNDERSTANDING AND PREPARATION

POLITICAL REPERCUSSIONS OR REPERCUSSING

Last week my article had asked “what if” as I asked
myself to consider the possibility of Donald Trump
winning the election. I worried about this in conjunction
with the recognition of my own increasing cognitive
disabilities. I am now over 80 and reluctantly accept my
increasing physical limitations. It is the increasing mental
or cognitive disabilities that I have trouble accepting.
I could and should have been better prepared if I had
understood and foreseen the need.

A similar lack of understanding relates to my reaction to the
Presidential election. I awoke at about 2 A. M. Wednesday morning and
immediately checked my phone to get a sense of what was happening with the
election. I had presumed that the race would be close, and that results would
be days or weeks away. I was still half asleep and couldn’t find the phone
but found the TV remote and learned that the election was to be a victory
for Trump. How could this be when all the predictions seemed to agree that
a close election was inevitable? In fact, previously reliable forecasters like
Michael Moore predicted a Democratic victory. The main thing that worried
me was that Republicans were going to try and disrupt the counting of ballots.
On Tuesday night I recall hearing that there were already bomb threats at
some polling places and that what was what worried me as I struggled to sleep.

Actually, I was quite optimistic that the Republicans could not
legitimately prevail. After all, how could any rational person vote for Donald
Trump who seemed to be nothing but power-hungry and needed to avoid
punishment. He is a convicted felon who had made no secret of the fact that
he intended to ignore the Constitution and to act dictatorially.

I understood that there exists a percentage of Americans who care only
about their tax burden and the prices of gasoline and groceries. Perhaps some
for religious reasons might favor the Republican candidate despite knowledge
of Trumps sexual assaults and willingness to lie. Seriously, how could Trump
win? And then I heard on the TV that Trump would be declared the winner.
Tears dripping from my eyes I experienced bewilderment. How could people
vote for Trump and am I really crying? This cannot be happening. I just don’t
understand!!

Well now it’s Thursday and I still don’t understand. I have listened to
hours of different pundits expostulating on the reasons for Trump’s election
but the main thing I take away is how difficult it is for me to understand other
people’s reaction. Not understanding bothered me more than Trump's actual
election. What will be the consequences of this election? Will our Democracy
survive? What will happen to my family and what about the Ukraine and the
climate crisis and National Security? Will I be allowed to continue writing my
articles. Why, for me, is understanding more important than consequences?
Why am I having so much trouble focusing as I try to create this article. Is my
ageing connected to this difficulty?

As I write, I think I understand why Trump appeals to so many voters
who never went to college. College generally brings about an awareness of the
inevitability of change as any student is exposed to the resistance to scientific
change and social change. Americans become aware that the dominance of
White Christian Males in North America was connected to historical factors
rather that the result of some Divine creation. Changes in that historical
domination are understood to be inevitable as evidenced by the numerous
non-White, non-male, non-Christian candidates presented for election. This
change for many was unexpected especially for people who learned little of
history or science. These people were unprepared and angry, and their anger
expressed itself as they voted. I understand now that for many voters for
Trump and a vote against the Democrats is really a vote against change.

I correlated this lack of preparedness with my attitude toward ageing.
I just never realized that my mental abilities would be so affected. I apologize
to you, my friends and imagined readers, for your understanding, and thank
you for getting this far. Unlike Joe Biden, I have not stepped aside.

Looking back at the distant 2024 presidential elections, I think of those
people in the know (journalists) who were obviously not in the know this
spin around the political merry go round.

Don’t feel too bad. It’s not like this is the first time the political polyhistors (look it up)
misread the tea leaves. (Hint, drink the tea first.)

First, and oh my gosh, Dr. Lichtman got it wrong!

First, who is Doctor Lichtman? Allan Lichtman. Before receiving the title of “Distinguished
Professor” from the American University in Washington D.C., he earned a Ph.D.
specializing in modern American history and quantitative methods at Harvard. He’s
written 13 books and hundreds of academic articles.

Professor Lichtman has correctly picked the winners of presidential elections 9 out of the
past 10 presidential elections starting in 1984. His previous boffo before now? He predicted
Al Gore to win in 2000. And now he can add predicting Kamala to win as a mistake.

Okay, we’re past the elections of 2024. Now, have there been pollsters and journalists who
have been flat out wrong in the past? Hold onto your seats:

In the young French Republic’s first election in 1848, the people in the know were sure
General Louis-Eugene Cavaignac would easily beat his rival, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
for the presidency. The winner? Bonaparte. He was both the first and last president of the
young republic as four years later he declared himself “emperor” (Did he have reddish-gold
hair…just kidding)

Alf Landon was the republican candidate in the 1936 presidential election who journalists
(not all of them) predicted would beat incumbent FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) in a
landslide. Not only did FDR beat ALF, he also won the next two presidential elections.

Churchill wins the war, loses the election. You can imagine how high Winston Churchill’s
ratings were in the summer of 1945. He just led the Allies to victory in Europe. Beat the
Nazi’s for heavens sake. Certainly he would be shoo-in to win the upcoming election. How
did that happen? Well, even though I personally remember Churchill as an extremely good
looking bloke, lol, while he and the conservative party were focused on winning the war,
his opponents, the Labour Party, helped rule at home. Don’t feel too bad for Winston, he
became Prime Minister again in the 1950s.

Back across the pond, the Chicago Daily Tribune found new fame when they published their
premature headline in 1948 “Dewey Defeats Truman”. The headline was very believable as
Truman was sinking precipitously in popularity. Several southern democrats abandoned
him and the Democrat party because of Truman’s staunch support for civil rights.
Interestingly, (and don’t spread this around) Truman privately approached Eisenhower
offering to be his running mate if Douglas MacArthur won the Republican nomination.
Eisenhower declined saying soldiers should “keep out of politics” (well, at least until 1952).

I’ll end with a few presidential trivia questions and answers

1. Which president made Christmas a national holiday? Ulysses S. Grant (The law
included New Year’s Day, Independence Day and Thanksgiving Day. Grant, trying to
reunite the north and the south after that little skirmish aka the Civil War)

2. Before this very moment who was the first U.S. president to serve non-consecutive
terms? Grover Cleveland

3. Who was the first president to write a biography of another president? Herbert Hoover
wrote “The ordeal of Woodrow Wilson”

4. Which president was often mocked by the newspapers for his appearance? Abraham
Lincoln. Press called him “hatchet-faced”, and “lean and gangly” (like me lol)

5. Finally, which president so hated his painted portrait that he eventually burned it?
Teddy Roosevelt

Finally, looking pasT last Tuesday, what else is new? And by the way, have a good week.

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TOM PURCELL

DYING MAKES LIFE WORTH
LIVING!

Get this: life expectancy has apparently hit its peak.

According to msn.com, a recent study published in the
journal Nature Aging finds that, barring any major medical
breakthroughs, “people will top out at a maximum average
age of around 87 — 90 for women, 84 for men.”

This news runs counter to numerous more optimistic studies
I’ve written about the past 20 years.

Back in 2003, I wrote about futurists who strongly believed that advances
in cell and gene manipulation and nanotechnology would allow humans to
live up to 180 years — and maybe even into the 500s.

Good God, do we really want to live until we’re 500?

Do we really want “Me Generation” Baby Boomers to have 430 years to vote
government benefits for themselves after retiring?

Do we really want to encourage our younger generations, notorious slackers,
to keep putting off adulthood? (Mother to son in year 2125: You’re a century
old, when are you going to go out and get a job?)

I don’t want to be a killjoy, but there are downsides to living long.

Sure, I’d love to have my parents around forever. It would be great if Dave
Chapelle could keep telling jokes, or someone like Elon Musk could keep
advancing rocket science.

But the rest of us?

I’m 62 already and have no desire to live for 100 years. In my experience so
far, life is made up of colds, bills, speeding tickets and people who let you
down.

These experiences are connected by a series of mundane tasks we must
complete to sustain ourselves — like working in an office with people we
loathe.

This daily drudgery is occasionally visited by an exciting and enjoyable
moment, but do we really want to live 500 years like that?

Besides, how would we pay for it all? Living is expensive. Are we going to
work full-time for 40 years, retire, burn through our nest eggs, then sling
hamburgers at McDonald’s for hundreds of years?

Anyway, it’s dying that makes life most worth living!

Consider, would you enjoy a movie if you knew it was going to last for 24
hours? No, what makes the movie enjoyable is its ending.

The key to human happiness, you see, is not an abundance of a thing, but
the shortage of it.

Doesn’t pie taste better when we know it’s the last slice?

Doesn’t a football game capture our attention more when it is the last of the
season with only a few minutes left — the final game that determines who
goes out the winner and who goes out the loser?

And isn’t a comedian funnier when he exits the stage before we want him
to go?

Hey, futurists, we don’t want to stick around on Earth too long. If you
believe in God, as I do, life is just a testing ground anyhow.

This life is just practice. It’s like two-a-day football drills. We must first
prove ourselves during the agony of summer practice to earn our rights to
play in the big game in the autumn.

Do you really want to spend half a millennium running wind sprints in
summer practice?

I surely don’t.

Besides, if I only live until 84, I still have to suffer through five more
presidential elections.

When you consider the misery of that, pushing up daises in a quiet field
suddenly doesn’t seem so bad!

LEGAL NOTICES

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File
No. 2024-225993

The following person(s) is (are) doing business as:
ALLSKIN NATURALS BEAUTY, 13337 SOUTH
ST # 24, CERRITOS, CA 90703. Full name of
registrant(s) is (are) SONIA A STINSON, 13337
SOUTH ST # 24, CERRITOS, CA 90703. This Business
is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL. Signed;
SONIA A STINSON/OWNER. This statement was
filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles County on
10/31/2024. The registrant(s) has (have) commenced
to transact business under the fictitious business name
or names listed above on N/A. NOTICE- This Fictitious
Name Statement expires five years from the date
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prior to that date. The filing of this statement does not
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