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OPINIONOPINION

Mountain View News Saturday, August 16, 2025

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

SALES

Patricia Colonello

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WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

Peter Lamendola

CONTRIBUTORS

Lorie Veiner-Claus

Lori A. Harris

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

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

STUART TOLCHIN

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

RICH JOHNSON

 

CHUTZPAH or KUPUMBUKA


IS IT IMPORTANT THAT HUMAN 
BEINGS SURVIVE?


Note: It took real chutzpah for me to pen a column entitled 
“chutzpah”. Particularly knowing it would be printed directly 
opposite my Jewish friend Stuart’s column. In all fairness I 
waited 10 years or so for him to step up to the proverbial plate 
and “trump” me with an article on chutzpah. So, I’m finally 
filling the gap. I actually researched the word. By the way, 
“chutzpah” in my ancestors original tongue (Norwegian) is “kupumbuka”.

 Chutzpah (pronounced “hoot-zpa”) is a Hebrew word roughly translated 
as someone saying or doing something bold or risky that might annoy other 
people, (Sounds like a description of all my columns).

Not necessarily a rude or a bad statement, chutzpah has been an integral 
component of the human psyche since way back when. Chutzpah shows up in 
the Bible: it took a significant amount of “chutzpah” for Moses to argue with 
God. Ironically, Moses “chutzpah” ended up changing God’s mind. Go figure. 

Now, jump forward a couple thousand years. It took quite a bit of chutzpah for 
Albert Einstein to challenge existing beliefs regarding relativity. (I’ll get back to 
you on how that turned out.)

 Honing my chutzpah skills, I thought I might expose examples of the 
dunderheaded utterances spoken by famous and really smart people. Here goes:

“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost an important part of your life.” 
Brooke Shield

“I actually don’t like thinking. I think people think I like to think a lot. And I 
don’t. I don’t like to think.” Kanye West

“And now the sequence of events, in no particular order.” Dan Rather

“Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion.” Madonna

“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” Dan Quayle

“It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.” Dan Quayle

Here’s a two for one from Paris Hilton:

“What’s Walmart? Do they sell, like, wall stuff?” Paris Hilton

“No, no, I didn’t go to England, I went to London.” Paris Hilton

 I have devoted my life to effective communications. And someday I hope I 
achieve that goal. In the meantime, let me share a few slivers of potentially wise 
truths. (Caveat emptor)

 As hard as this may be to believe, the less you talk, the smarter you will be 
perceived. Yes, you can quote me on this truth (I learned it the hard way lol). 
Talking less was made famous by a king. King Lear to be accurate. Act 1, Scene 
4.You know, Billie Shakespeare’s alter ego. King Lear’s exact words were:

“Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than
thou owest.”

 Franklin D. Roosevelt is famous for saying: “Be sincere, be brief; be seated.”

Yes, I know you, dear reader and I, your intrepid writer, know everything worth 
knowing. People would do well to sit at our feet hanging onto every participle 
emanating from our lips. The dichotomy in speaking less and listening more, 
is most people will end up giving you credit for your brilliance in helping 
them solve whatever it is they are trying to unpack. There is an art to effective 
communications. Listening is at the top of the list!

 Ironically, the most profound quote on effective speaking was offered up by a 
famous Hollywood director known for his western movies. John Wayne’s go to 
director John Ford is quoted as saying: “You can speak well if your tongue can 
deliver the message of your heart.”

 Be passionate about your listening. When your friend comes to a conclusion 
you helped THEM arrive at, that improves their life, you will have participated 
in making the difference. A big difference. You can then go ahead and have 
another cookie!

Now, if I could only get Stuart to say “chutzpah”.

 Sometimes I wonder. 
Actually, I often 
find hummingbirds 
more interesting. 
Just now I was out 
on our deck in the 90 
degree weather sitting 
watching numerous hummingbirds 
floating in and visiting our hummingbird 
feeder. Right in front of my eyes as 
they descended from the sky they seemed 
to change color. Luckily I had my trusty 
iPhone nearby. I went inside and found 
the google app, pressed a button and read, 
"Yes, hummingbirds can appear to change 
color, but it’s not a true color change. It’s 
an optical phenomenon called incandes-
cence where the angle of light hitting the 
feathers causes them to reflect different 
colors.”

 Magic isn’t it? But what I quickly realized 
as I read more about hummingbirds 
was how amazing and interesting human 
beings are. Today with the press of a button 
one can learn almost everything one 
would ever want to know about most everything. 
In fact as I say this I realize that 
even more than I enjoy watching hummingbirds 
I enjoy watching little human 
children from infants to toddlers and 
even six year olds like my granddaughter. 
After six I think the kids get less interesting 
as they are more controlled and have 
absorbed many adult rules whether they 
follow them or not.

 It is the freedom of the very young that 
is so beautiful but it is the miracle of their 
and our consciousness that is a unique 
miracle. Human minds 'eye have created 
Artificial Intel-ligence and the technology 
and scientific advancement that has 
made it possible for the world population 
of 8.2 billion people to survive. (Yes, I just 
looked that up on google.} My point is 
that I wish that wonderful human intelligence 
could now be used to make all of 
our lives a little more secure, a little more 
safer, a little less crazy.

 Isn’t it possible to establish a world 
where people do not go to war? A world 
where people do not act violently injuring 
their supposed enemies along with their 
former lovers and their children? I am not 
asking that technology be advanced so as 
to eliminate our individual deaths. In 
fact, most of us accept the inevitability of 
our death but just have trouble enjoying 
our life. For me, at my advanced age of 
81, I am happy to have survived this long 
but this particular era is very troubling.

It seems clear that there are sufficient resources 
such that no human should go 
hungry every day. There are huge differences 
between the very rich and the rest 
of us. Economic inequality has substantially 
increased worldwide and the rich 
use their money to make more money 
and ignore other concerns. According to 
google, global warning will increase and 
lead to even greater warming which will 
affect public health, infrastructure and 
agriculture.

 I wish that our wonderful human consciousness 
with the assistance of human 
created artificial intelligence would focus 
more on the climate crisis but I am 
aware that what is necessary for long 
term changes threatens the interest of the 
money making companies in the short 
term and that these companies influence, 
even dominate, the governing officials 
of the various world nations. Recently, 
I have become aware that research that 
would potentially eliminate certain diseases 
and conditions like diabetes and 
dementia, and a multitude of others is 
not being done because powerful pharmaceutical 
and medical concerns garner 
so much money from continual prescriptions 
and medical procedures. This flow 
of money would stop if the diseases were 
eliminated.

 I wish that the countries of the world 
would act like nurturing mothers and 
tend to the real needs of their population. 
Of course, I am in favor of nuclear 
disarmament. In fact I am in favor of 
total disarmament and believe a world-
wide system could be established wherein 
any leader who proposed militant action 
would be immediately removed from his 
position. How could this be done? I really 
believe that our brilliant human minds 
could de-vise such a system if only the 
powerful people in charge would comply.

 The problem, of course, is that the 
people who rise to power are invariably 
aggres-sive people concerned with 
their own advancement and prestige 
and wealth more than car-ing about the 
welfare of the world. If this cannot be 
changed then humanity will not survive 
and I believe that would be a great loss. It 
is comforting to know, at least, that humming-
birds and the other wonders of the 
world will still be around. 

At least that is my hope! . 

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HOWARD Hays As I See It


“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” – President 
Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural address



“That was some weird sh*t.” – President George W. Bush, reacting to Trump’s 
2017 inaugural address

 Last March, the White House bragged that “illegal immigrant killers, rapists, 
and drug dealers have been taken off the streets in droves”. A couple 
of weeks ago, a DHS spokesperson said ICE was “working around the clock 
to arrest even more pedophiles, drug traffickers, and other illegal aliens convicted of heinous 
crimes.”



Now Trump says, “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty crimi-
nals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people”.



Of those immigrants “taken off the streets in droves”, 72% had no criminal convictions and just 
35% of those had any charges pending – mostly traffic infractions and the like. As for “pedo-
philes” and those “convicted of heinous crimes”, Jeffrey Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell, 
convicted on five counts related to child sex trafficking, now looks set for work-release from 
her new low-security prison.



An image that sticks from Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, during Trump’s first term, is of 
unidentified federal agents grabbing protesters off the streets and stuffing them in the back of 
unmarked vans. As Trump then explained at a town hall, “I know about antifa, and I know 
about the radical left, and I know how violent they are and how vicious they are, and I know 
how they are burning down cities run by Democrats.” 93% of those BLM protests were peaceful.



Also that year, Trump had the National Guard and US Park Police teargas and violently clear 
protestors from D.C.’s Lafayette Square. Defense Secretary Duane Esper says Trump asked, 
“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” WSJ reporter Michael 
Bender says Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley told him Trump called for law enforcement 
to “crack their skulls”. Trump wanted the Square cleared for his photo op holding a Bible.

In our “capital city” with its “drugged-out maniacs”, violent crime dropped 35% in 2024 from 
the year before; its lowest rate in 30 years. Under local leadership, it’s down another 26% so far 
this year. But for Trump, it’s all “Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum”. He’s asserted federal con-
trol over the D.C. Metropolitan Police and sent in 800 National Guardsmen.



Less than five years ago, Trump claimed he was powerless to summon the Guard to confront 
his MAGA thugs storming the Capitol, assaulting law enforcement officers and threatening 
the lives of our representatives, trying to overturn the results of an election. Summoning the 
Guard, he explained, was the responsibility of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).



Trump is now threatening deployment of federal forces to other communities outside of D.C.; 
specifically mentioning New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland and Los Angeles. But this 
apparently has little if anything to do with crime. According to Newsweek’s analysis of most 
recent FBI figures, only two of the cities mentioned by Trump made it on the top-thirty list for 
violent crime rates; Chicago (#16) and Baltimore (#26).



Number one on that list is Memphis, TN., followed by Cleveland and then Toledo, OH. Texas 
is represented by three cities on the list, with two from Missouri. Arkansas, Oklahoma, Indiana, 
Louisiana and both Carolinas have cities making that top-thirty list. New York made the 
list for Albany and Buffalo, but not NYC. California didn’t make the list at all.



It’s not crime rates leading Trump to threaten these cities, but rather the fact they’re all anti-
MAGA. Whatever suspicions about how Trump intends to use his prerogatives of power 
were confirmed by his comment on the candidacy of Democrat Zohran Mamdani; “Whoever’s 
mayor of New York is going to have to behave themselves or the federal government is coming 
down very tough on them.”



Trump’s response to predictions of a loss of congressional majorities in the mid-terms is not to 
try earning more voter support. Instead, it’s to order mid-decade gerrymandering to create the 
cush-ion of additional MAGA-safe seats. And if that doesn’t work, his Justice Department has 
been directing states to turn over records on their voter rolls – so the DOJ would be in a better 
position to “question” whatever results were not in Trump’s favor.



This is similar to what was planned in the days leading up to January 6: to “question” results 
from Georgia hoping to invalidate the outcome of the entire election. That plan was halted 
when a mass resignation of DOJ attorneys was threatened if it went forward. But now, attorneys 
who’d put allegiance to the Constitution over allegiance to Trump have been forced from 
the Department.



Similarly, our Defense Department no longer appears to have an Esper or Milley who’d dare 
cau-tion the president against urging law enforcement to “crack their skulls”, or explain to him 
why troops can’t “just shoot them in the legs or something”.



The administration’s purpose now is to change our thinking: federal troops in our communities 
enforcing the will of the president is no longer regarded as unimaginably abhorrent in the 
United States, but is rather a new normal to be gotten used to.



This is not simply “weird sh*t”, as President Bush would say, but downright scary. 


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