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OPINIONOPINION

Mountain View News Saturday, August 2, 2025

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

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Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
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Dean Lee 

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Patricia Colonello

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Michele Kidd

Stuart Tolchin 

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Howard Hays

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Rich Johnson

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Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

STUART TOLCHIN

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

RICH JOHNSON

 

IF ONLY AND ONLY IF


THE COURSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS


No, I don’t mean “curse of consciousness” although that 
might perhaps be a more appropriate title. (We’ll see.) My 
intention is to produce a non-fiction article specifically reflecting 
the stream of my own consciousness as I struggle to 
produce my customary weekly article. What has led me to 
this attempt is beginning to read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia 
Woolf. (Don’t be afraid.) Before beginning the book, I knew 
that the author had committed suicide by filling her pockets with stones and 
then walking into the ocean and continuing to walk until the stones weighted 
her down causing her to drown.

Not a pretty picture but I began the book and had a great deal of trouble staying 
with the story, a third person fictional account of the character Clarissa 
Dalloway. The story seemed to skip from one subject to another and it was 
very difficult to figure who was who and what was real or what was imagined, 
even though I knew it all came from the imagination of the author. In desperation 
I consulted my iPhone and asked why the book was so difficult to 
read. The ever-helpful technology immediately explained the difficulty was 
“due to its stream-of consciousness style, fragmented narrative, and complex 
themes.” The novel’s characters’ thoughts are written past and present, often 
without transitions.

As a man of 81 years, my cognitive experience differs from what it was a few 
years ago. Like many seniors I am forgetting names and often have trouble 
finding the right word. I frequently get lost and my wife, after I had a very 
minor accident, has convinced me to stop driving. Of course, I am retired and 
other than playing golf on Wednesday mornings, I have no place to go anyway. 
My wife and I meet with my son, daughter and granddaughter two or three 
times a week and my wife does all the necessary driving. Now you have the 
picture. Most of the time I am alone upstairs with my thoughts and the need 
to produce an article each week gives me a kind of direction without which I 
would be completely lost.

Of course I am already pretty much lost anyway. After writing the initial 
sentence of this article my wife asked if I wanted to go to Trader Joe’s with 
her. I was very happy with that idea because my prior experiences at Trader 
Joe’s have always been very pleasant. I believe that the owners or managers at 
Trader Joe’s have explained to the staff the need to be cheerful and helpful and 
cordial at all times. Actually, I love going out into the world whenever I can 
and asking strangers about their tattoos or clothing or hair styles. Strangers, 
it seems, are always very nice to me. Hooray for connection! I wonder if that 
is possible only in our area, I would like it to be that way all over the world.

Oh yes, “stream of consciousness”. My point is that whenever I think about 
anything there is a voice inside that notices me thinking about whatever it is 
and wondering why I am thinking about that. Underneath that there is another 
voice wondering why I am wondering, while at the same time I am noticing 
where I am and the weather and wondering if there is something else, I should 
or want to be, doing. Do you have the same experience? I ask because I want 
to connect with you and to connect with myself. Consciousness is tough.

Right now, my wife asks if I want to watch the 3:00 PBS News with her as we 
do every weekday. Yes, I know there is a world that exists outside my head 
even though at times like this I would like to ignore it. Remember consciousness 
is not a curse! It is the possible lifeboat of awareness that can stop us from 
destroying ourselves through ignorance and indifference and greed. Thank 
you for trying Virginia. I will struggle on with your book; but I’ll keep my 
pockets empty and stay away from the water.

“If only” and “only if” demonstrate a dual meaning of the use of 
words “if” and “only” depending on where each word is in relation 
to the other word. Come again?

The rearrangement of those two words dramatically change what 
is conveyed. “If only” expresses a hope or a wish. “Only if” is a 
requirement to accomplish something.

“If only… I could go to the movies tonight” is the wishful thinking and daydream 
of any teenager. “Only if…you finish your homework can you go to the movies 
tonight” demonstrates what is required to fulfill your “if only” dreams.

So, the question is twofold…is your life full of if only’s? And, what are you going to 
do about it Bunky? Bear in mind we are often the greatest speed bump to fulfilling 
our dreams.

Donald Trump was the oldest man elected president when he became our chief 
executive in 2017. He was 70 and a half. He lost that dubious title when Joe Biden 
was elected in 2020. Joltin’ Joe was 77 when he moved into the White House.

So, what keeps you from fulfilling your childhood dreams or desires? Fear of failure 
keeps most of us from taking the risk. When asked why he succeeds, basketball 
legend Michael Jordan said: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve 
lost almost 300 games. 25 times I’ve taken the game winning shot and missed. I’ve 
failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

And Winston Churchill said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no 
loss of enthusiasm!”

Knee deep into my 7th decade on the planet, I’m lucky enough to weekly convince 
a brilliant newspaper editor/publisher to publish my rambling rantings and ravings 
in her newspaper. I’m blessed to be in a rock and roll band, JJ Jukebox, that regularly 
delights and entertains people with music from the 1960s and 1970s. Someone 
forgot to tell me I was too old to do this.

Noted speaker Zig Ziglar said, “It’s nor how far you fall, but how high you bounce 
that counts.”

While you ponder the words above, let me leave you with some totally useless trivia:

What is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise? Venus (How 
come you didn’t know that?)

Names the only substance that gives food its “taste” when being eaten: Saliva. No 
saliva, no flavor.

What are the only cells in the human body that don’t automatically renew themselves? 
Duh… brain cells!

Speaking of Elvis Presley…name the only country outside of the U.S. where Elvis 
gave concerts: Canada

What is the only state within the continental United States with an official state 
sport? Maryland. The sport? Believe it or not, Jousting

Finally, I’ve discovered a restaurant in Arcadia that takes me back to the 1950’s-60’s 
every time I stop in for a meal. It’s called “Moffett’s Family Restaurant”. It’s on Baldwin 
Avenue. one stoplight south of Duarte Road in a strip center on the southwest 
corner. Yes, they are known for their hot baked pot pies, but they have so much 
more including great sandwiches and breakfast. They just celebrated their 50th anniversary. 
And they are now open 7 days a week 8:00-8:00. Phone (626) 447-4670. 
Give them a try if you haven’t already.

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CHRISTINE FLOWERS

HOWARD Hays As I See It


“A man who cheats at golf will cheat at everything.” – John Cleese

I’m not a golfer (like Stu Tolchin, with whom I share this page). But 
along with so many others, I was struck by that (now viral) video of 
President Trump’s caddie dropping the ball near the bunker, away 
from higher grass at the Trump Turnberry golf course in Scotland. 
The rules seem pretty clear: If a ball is to be dropped, it’s by the 
player – never the caddie.

This comes a week after Trump claimed yet another championship, this one at his 
Trump Bedminster club. Last March it was the championship at Trump International 
at West Palm Beach and the Senior Club Championship at Trump National Golf Club 
at Jupiter. Tom D’Angelo of the Palm Beach Post notes that Trump “never loses an 
event at one of his tournaments”; those “wins” including one in which he skipped the 
first round and another where nobody saw him play.

Sportswriter Rick Reilly wrote a whole book about it; “Commander in Cheat: How 
Golf Explains Trump”. Reilly tells how “He’s never won a championship at a course he 
doesn’t own and operate. He’s played in Pebble Beach, he’s played in the Tahoe one, 
where there are rules and judges and cameras. And in those, he’s never finished in the 
top half. So, he wins when anybody who disagrees that he won is out of the club. . . He 
kicks the ball out of the rough so many times the caddies call him Pelé.”

That trip to Trump’s Turnberry golf resort on the west coast of Scotland, meeting 
with the leaders of the UK and European Union, was conveniently timed to coincide 
with the ribbon-cutting of his new Aberdeen course on Scotland’s east coast – giving 
the president and his family the opportunity to promote its opening and kick off the 
marketing campaign on the taxpayers’ dime. 

HuffPost figures this trip will end up costing us over $10 million – while the president 
already had a state visit to the UK scheduled for September, just a little over a month 
away. During the four years of his first term, we spent $152 million for Trump to 
golf at his own resorts. So far this year it’s already at $52 million – and we’re just six 
months in on this second term. As noted by Forbes, during this period Trump has 
spent more than a third of his time (75 out of 190 days) at one of his golf resorts or 
other properties.

At Turnberry, when he did get down to the business of being president, Trump re-
confirmed for all the world his reputation for – whatever. During a press conference 
with European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, our president complained that 
the White House doesn’t have a ballroom like the one there at his golf resort (the Donald 
J. Trump Ballroom). He took credit for having stopped six wars since returning 
to office. (“I’m averaging around a war a month.”) He explained how “windmills are 
killing us”, being “the most expensive form of energy”. 

Addressing the tragedy of Gaza, “If we weren’t there, I think people would have starved, 
frankly.” (Gaza Health Ministry reports more than 147 dead from malnutrition, 88 
of them children. The U.N. reports 800 killed trying to reach food.) Trump claimed, 
“We gave $60 million two weeks ago for food for Gaza, and nobody acknowledged it” 
– though perhaps that’s because nobody’s been able to figure out what that $60 million 
is that he referred to. Then our president told the world he was most troubled by the 
fact “Nobody said, ‘Gee, thank you very much’” to him, because “nobody gave but us”.

The next day, however, Trump seemed to acknowledge the crisis was real. Breaking 
with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that there’s “no starvation in Gaza”, 
Trump said there was indeed “real starvation” and that “we have to get these kids 
fed”. What was concerning, though, was his telling everyone how he came to this 
realization.

Our country has a robust intelligence apparatus; military intelligence, the CIA, the 
National Security Agency, etc. – all under the Director of National Intelligence. But 
with our current DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, somehow obsessed with Barack Obama, and 
our president famously averse to intelligence briefings, Trump let it be known that 
he’s informed on Gaza by what he sees on TV (“those children look very hungry . . . 
you can’t fake that”).

At a joint press conference with British PM Keir Starmer, Trump offered a new take 
on what caused the break-up with his friend of fifteen years, Jeffrey Epstein: a teenage 
spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago lured away by this erstwhile friend to become part of his 
sex trafficking operation. Trump said Epstein “stole” her from him – which is how 
one would refer to property, with “property” being how both Trump and Epstein seem 
to regard these young women. 

Showing a clip of Trump at the ribbon-cutting for his new golf resort at Aberdeen, 
Desi Lydic on The Daily Show asked, “Is this his side hustle or is America his side 
hustle?” But whether on the golf course or in the clubhouse with world leaders, there’s 
no doubt we’re being cheated.


AI IS A 21ST CENTURY ‘INVASION OF 
THE BODY SNATCHERS’

My favorite horror 
movie is the original 
“Invasion of the 
Body Snatchers,” 
closely followed by 
the 1978 remake with 
Donald Sutherland.

The reason I still sleep with the lights 
on after watching them is the idea that 
we can live among facsimiles of reality, 
when it’s all fabrication. Inauthenticity 
isn’t necessarily bad.

In fact, it’s how we mate, campaign for 
votes, and become social media influencers. 
There is nothing more anathema 
to intimate relationships these days 
than having your original lips.

But now that artificial intelligence has 
entered the chat, I’m worried. It’s not 
just the sense that I’m being fooled. It’s 
the dangers that exist in allowing this 
Trojan horse of illusion into our daily 
lives.

The fear comes from making it increasingly 
difficult to identify the truth. As a 
former teacher, the understanding that 
we will never again be able to completely 
trust the work product of ambitious 
high school seniors is chilling.

When I used to grade papers, I prided 
myself on knowing when one of my little 
charges had done a cut and paste job.

Now, I’m not sure I’d be able to discern 
the real from the Memorex, and if you 
don’t get that reference you’re too young 
to be up this late reading.

I know that there have always been 
cheating scandals, and I myself sneaked 
a few peeks at Cliff Notes in my halcyon 
academic days, but this is a whole new 
level of dissimulation.

But that’s not the only concern I have 
with AI. The other day, I asked Chat 
GPT to write something in my own 
style about the pope, and the result was 
so similar to words I’d actually put to 
paper in the past that I reflexively deleted 
it.

Chilling. Here was a technology that 
had made me irrelevant.

There are some progressives who might 
love that, particularly after I read what 
Chat GPT had to say about me when I 
asked it for a description of “Christine 
Flowers, columnist.”

But I come from that last generation of 
people who put physical words to physical 
paper, and who actually had to work 
to erase her mistakes.

Now, we don’t even need to press the 
back key on the word processor. We can 
eliminate the mistakes before they even 
occur, by simply giving the job over to 
our friend the chatbot.

It reminds me in a sinister way of the 
new genetic technologies that allow parents 
to design children without illness, 
without brown eyes, without receding 
chins and unathletic builds.

And don’t get me started on the pathetic 
people who have AI boyfriends and girlfriends, 
which are nothing more than 
the virtual equivalent of blow up dolls.

A lot of folks would say that I protest too 
much, and that I’m ignoring the great 
benefits of the new technologies.

That’s a fair point. But I seriously think 
that we are going to lose much more by 
giving ourselves over to this alien sort of 
technology than we will ever gain.

The other day, I asked Meta, another 
form of artificial intelligence, to give me 
some versions of myself.

I uploaded a photo, and watched as the 
program spat out a hundred versions of 
Christine, in different outfits, against 
different backgrounds, with different 
levels of wrinkles and gray hair.

In some I looked like Gidget, in others 
like my mother, in one like my grandmother. 
I was thinner than I now am, 
and in some cases taller.

I actually liked my doppelgangers, including 
the ones that really did make 
me look like Sarah Palin.

The one with the third arm was a little 
weird, but whatever.

But then I noticed the eyes. In almost all 
of them, the pupils were either too big, 
or the whites had disappeared.

And the expression was, and I can’t 
think of another word to describe it, 
anesthetized.

The fake me was a prettier physical version, 
but rather empty looking.

And that’s what scared me so much 
about “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

The appearance of reality was merely 
the shadow of what we are when our 
distinct characters and personalities are 
gone.

And I don’t know about you, but give 
me a flawed, mistake-prone, wrinkled, 
but human, being over an idealized avatar 
anyday.


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