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OPINIONOPINION

Mountain View News Saturday, November 23, 2024

RICH JOHNSON 

NOW THAT’S RICH

STUART TOLCHIN

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

SALES

Patricia Colonello

626-355-2737 

626-818-2698

WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

Peter Lamendola

CONTRIBUTORS

Michele Kidd

Stuart Tolchin 

Harvey Hyde

Audrey Swanson

Meghan Malooley

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Dinah Chong Watkins

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


JUST WONDERING......

PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE

CORFU, FABLES, FANCIES AND A GOOD BOOK 

Last week I told you about the terrific new bookstore in Sierra 
Madre, “Fables and Fancies”. (South side of Sierra Madre Blvd. 5 or 
6 store fronts west of Baldwin.) Fables & Fancies is right next door 
to Corfu, my favorite Mediterranean Restaurant. Being that Corfu 
is right next door to Fables & Fancies and thinking about lunch, I 
went into the bookstore. Lo and behold I discovered (and purchased) a book on 
bacon by a writer named Bacon. I think its entitled “Bacon on Bacon”. My intent is 
to consume bacon while reading portions of the book on bacon by Bacon. Get it? 
Got it? Good!

Corfu, by the way, has been aound almost 18 years under the ownership of Vic. 
If you’ve never dined there, I highly encourage you to visit them…particularly if 
you’re hungry. Corfu is much more than just Mediterranean. They have fantabulous 
breakfasts, and their lunch and dinner choices include traditional items plus 
yummy stuff you’ve never heard of. My favorites? Greek Village Salad (get this…
no lettuce which you won’t miss). Yummy, especially with chicken. Of course, all 
the kebabs with rice, hummus, pita (what you’d expect). A tuna melt (the best I’ve 
ever had) (And I should know as I’ve had 503 of them). Pastrami, hamburgers, 
fries, Kids menu. Open Tuesday through Saturday (9:00-3:00. 5:00-9:00) and all-
day Sunday. Go in. Live music weekend evenings. Call (626) 355-5993. Parking and 
entrance in the back too!

GO INTO CORFU THIS WEEK FOR A MEAL, TELL THEM YOU SAW THIS 
ARTICLE AND THEY WILL GIVE YOU 10% OFF YOUR BILL!

Well, let’s move on… the election is over. Joe Biden will soon be our newest ex-
president. I wonder if he’s aware when he signed up to run, what post “presidenting” 
would be like. Thank you, Joe, for your service, but now you need to know the 
rules for ex-presidents.

There are activities ex-presidents are restricted from doing. (The fall from power 
can be dramatic):

1. They can’t drive on public roads anymore. The last one to do so was Lyndon 
Johnson circa 1964. If you want to take the “sled” out for a spin do what George W. 
Bush did. Buy a sprawling ranch with private ranch roads. And knock yourself out.

2. As an ex-president, the government will give you a generous allowance to 
leave town for “diplomatic” travel. Schmoozing in other words. Up to one million 
dollars. (I’d schmooze for half that.) Your spouse can get her own $500,000 per year 
for travel and security. 

3. Establish a Presidential Library (sorry “Fables and Fancies already taken”)

4. Rent an office. It should be an Oval Office (really) and used for post-presidency 
activities. I wonder how Jimmy Carter’s post presidency activities differ from 
Bill Clinton’s.

5. Don’t break the law. It’s not permitted. Not even for presidents.

6. No garage sales permitted selling secret or classified information.

7. As an ex-president you are not permitted to walk into Best Buy and purchase 
a computer, tablet or phone. I’m sure if you tell someone what you want, they 
will get it for you. No browsing.

8. No secret or private deliveries. The secret service doesn’t care if it smells like 
perfume. They are going to see whatever is in there before you do.

Don’t feel too bad about our former presidents. They get $218,000 a year in pensions. 
Their widows get $20,000 pension a year. Presidents get $96,000 a year for 
office staff. We, the people, will pay for office space and pencils.

If you are a president and have been with the government for five years or more, 
you get government health benefits. Jimmy Carter, for example, doesn’t get health 
coverage as he was only employed for four years. (Don’t panic, I’m sure he did 
okay).

Finally, one of our commanders in chief obligations is to plan their own funeral 
while in office. 

On a final note, this holiday season, consider carrying a few extra $1 or $5 dollar 
bills. Instead of just walking past that homeless person, slip them a couple of bucks 
without breaking stride and wish them happy holidays. The guy who Christmas is 
named after will be happy you did.

 On Sunday I had what I thought was a unique idea. I 
would draft a short story about a detective of my age who 
was trying to solve a murder. At the time I was completely 
unaware of any story in which the first-person narrator was 
someone in his eighties who suffered from the disabilities I 
experience together with the continuing fear that I now experience. 
(Have you read about Bruce Willis? While thinking about the story 
I picked up last week's copy of the Mountain Views News. A few Sundays ago, 
as my wife and I drove to pick up the paper we saw a man placing a pile of 
papers on the newsstand. I said hello. The man peeked into our car and said, 
“you’re Stuart, I read and save your column every week.” How he recognized 
me from my picture that always appears with my articles was amazing. The 
picture was taken maybe ten years ago when my face was clean-shaven. 

 On Sunday then I picked up this week’s paper and looked for my article. I 
love imagining that at some time a book will be created which will have all my 
articles going back to 2008 and that ten years from now my 5-year-old daughter 
might want to look at the book. (I wonder if she will.) Connected to this 
future imagining is the presence of a photograph on the wall of my bedroom 
of a column published in December 22.1933 written by my father. The article 
describes my father's gratitude to President Roosevelt for creating the Civilian 
Conservation Corps. Accompanying the column is a picture of my then 
23-year-old father wearing a hat tilted just like Walter Winchell. If you are 
too young to know about the CCC and Walter Winchell or even don’t know 
about the Depression, it’s okay; but it would be nice to find some oldster and 
ask them to explain it all to you. I think the older person would relish that 
opportunity and you might end up viewing the problems of today differently.

Leaving 1933 and back to Sunday, I opened the Mountain Views News to 
page 11 and found my article. 

 Thumbing through the paper on I chanced upon a notice of a scheduled 
meeting of a Writer’s Workshop on the next day, Monday November 18 
scheduled for 6:00pm. The writer leading the group was Naomi Hirahara, a 
name I had never seen. Remember now I was filled with thoughts about my 
planned short story starring an ageing hero of my age. This planned story 
would describe my actual present difficulties and fears and maybe I could 
get some help from a writer's group. Dutifully I went to the newly opened 
Sierra Madre Library and checked out one of the many books by Naomi Hirahara 
entitled Hiroshima Boy. I began flipping through the pages and learned 
that the hero of the book, Mas Arai, is an eighty-six-year-old Japanese man 
born in Altadena who becomes involved in a search looking for a murderer 
in present day Hiroshima, Japan the site of the horrific U.S. Bombing which 
ended World War II. Remarkably, on Friday I am due to visit a friend who 
wrote a play wondering about the need for that bombing. 

 What’s going on? Is some higher spirit just playing tricks on me? Are 
my 80’s to be my Age of Wonder? At the writers group there was one other 
man among thirteen women, and some were published writers, and all were 
much younger than me. Are men now a dying breed with the future to be 
dominated by women. Is there still a place for me? As I was leaving one of 
the women spoke to me and said that she read my columns every week and 
looked forward to them. That’s the encouragement I needed. I wonder if I 
will now begin to compose the short story.

 If you have anything you would like to share, please email me at stuarttolchin@
gmail.com. You might give me something else about which to wonder. 

Mountain Views News 
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HOWARD Hays As I See It

“Clearly, she has 
crossed the line.” 
– Rep. Newt Gingrich 
(R-GA) on Zoe 
Baird, Bill Clinton’s 
nominee for Attorney 
General, prior to 
her withdrawal from 
consideration upon 
discovery she’d hired 
an undocumented 
couple as babysitter 
and driver, 1993

 

In the Florida State Legislature, former 
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was one of only 
two voting against criminalizing “revenge 
porn”. In Congress, he voted three 
times against bills to combat human trafficking. 
He’s declared both the January 6 
insurrection and protests over the murder 
of George Floyd to be the work of 
“antifa” and called for defunding the FBI 
– claiming it was behind January 6, too. 

 

Gaetz was the subject of investigations 
by the Justice Department and House 
Ethics Committee over sex trafficking of 
a 17-year-old with attempts to “recruit” 
others, illicit drug use and shar-ing pics 
of women he (claimed to have) scored 
with among colleagues on the House 
floor.

 

The Department of Justice oversees the 
FBI, Federal Prisons, ATF, DEA, OIG – 
handling Antitrust, Civil Rights, Civil 
and Criminal, National Security - over 
9,800 federal prosecutors and 113,000 
employees overall, with a budget of $38 
billion. Matt Gaetz has no experience as 
a prosecutor, nor in management beyond 
his own staff. He’s Trump’s pick to head 
this department as Attor-ney General.

 

Pete Hegseth served in the Minnesota 
National Guard. He was pulled from the 
contingent set to guard the 2021 Biden 
Inaugural two weeks after the January 6 
insurrection as fellow Guardsmen tagged 
him a possible “insider threat” because of 
white supremacist tattoos.

 

On Fox News, Hegseth called concerns 
over white supremacists and violent extremists 
in the military “fake” and “manufactured”. 
He said the real problems are 
diversity and inclusion – especially allowing 
women to serve in combat. He’s 
advocated for letting war criminals off 
the hook – those convicted of shooting at 
civilians and killing POWs. 

 

In 2020 Hegseth reportedly paid off a 
woman who’d accused him of rape at a 
political confer-ence - though his lawyer 
argued that since he was drunk and she 
wasn’t, she must have been the “aggressor”. 
The payoff came as he worried it 
might cost him his job at Fox.

 

The Department of Defense is responsible 
for 1.3 million active-duty troops 
and another 1.4 million National Guard, 
Reserves and civilian employees around 
the word – with a budget over $800 billion. 
Pete Hegseth has no senior military 
or national security experience. He’s 
Trump’s pick to become Secretary of 
Defense.

 RFK Jr. brings to mind rants over wi-fi 
causing cancer, school shootings blamed 
on antidepres-sants, something in the 
water turning kids trans, whatever – and 
also a story out of Samoa from a few 
years ago:

 

In 2018, two infants in Samoa died 
after having received their MMR 
vaccinations. RFK Jr. and his group 
jumped on this opportunity to 
pitch their anti-vax line in Samoa, 
and it worked. Vac-cination rates 
fell from some 70% to 31%.

 

The ensuing measles outbreak infected 
5,700 Samoans (out of a population 
of 200,000). 85 died, most 
of them under four years old. One 
out of every 150 babies in Samoa died 
from the outbreak.

 

It turned out those initial two infant 
deaths were not caused by the vaccine 
itself. A couple of nurses (since criminally 
charged) had mistakenly added an 
expired anesthetic. RFK Jr. never apologized 
to the families who lost their babies 
because of the anti-vax panic he helped 
incite.

 

RFK Jr. has also been accused of sexual 
assault by his family’s former babysitter. 
(Seeing a pat-tern here?)

 

The Department of Health and Human 
Services includes the FDA, CDC, Medicare 
and Medicaid – 83,000 employees 
and a budget of $130 billion discretionary 
and $1.7 trillion mandatory spending. 
RFK Jr. is a lawyer mainly known 
for spreading conspiracy theories. He’s 
Trump’s pick to become HHS Secretary.

 

These are just three - and the list of unfit, 
dangerous choices grows every day. 
Trump is by-passing standard FBI background 
checks, both for potential nominees 
and in granting security clearances. 
As to “vetting”, all candidates are required 
to submit detailed records of their sup-
port for Trump – whether it be positive 
media interviews they’d given, fundraising 
or whatever volunteer efforts. And 
they’re all committed to rid their respective 
departments of any whose primary 
allegiance is to anything other than Donald 
Trump.

 

The last line of defense against this takeover 
appears to be Senate Republicans. 
They’ve al-ready rejected Trump’s designated 
pick for Majority Leader, Florida 
Sen. Rick Scott (who as a hospital CEO 
"oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in 
the nation’s history") – going instead 
with Sen. John Thune (R-SD). And although 
there are some who see their job 
as to simply roll over for the incoming 
president, others take their constitutional 
duties of “advice and consent” in 
confirming nominees seriously.

 

Trump, of course, tells them to simply 
accept his picks as recess appointments 
– avoiding scru-tiny altogether. But 
some senate Republicans see their own 
careers as potentially lasting long-er than 
Trump’s – and are concerned how their 
actions today might be seen sometime 
in the future, when once again the interests 
of our country come before those of 
Donald Trump.

 

Breaking news as I write this: To run the 
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 
– over-seeing Medicare, Medicaid, 
Children’s Health Insurance Program 
and the Healthcare.gov in-surance marketplace 
- 6,400 employees with a budget 
of $1.6 trillion (nearly a quarter of the 
entire federal budget) – Trump’s pick is 
Dr. Oz. Really. 


Mountain Views News

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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