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OPINIONOPINION

Mountain View News Saturday, August 23, 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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John Aveny 

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Lori A. Harris

Michele Kidd

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Harvey Hyde

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Howard Hays

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Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

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Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

STUART TOLCHIN

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

RICH JOHNSON

 

NEW WORDS


TRUTH, JUSTICE & THE AMERICAN WAY


There may be Truth and Justice but, as far as I can tell, it’s 
not the American Way. On Monday my wife’s old friend 
who lives in Boston came to spend a little time with her. 
We picked her up at the Burbank Airport and she spent the 
night at our home. She is quite a wonderful lady, and I did 
my best to stay out of the way so that she and my wife could 
enjoy one another. Sometimes I think my staying out of the 
way without asking inappropriate questions like “why do you think this or 
that” is the best way I can contribute to comfortable conversations.

 Yesterday afternoon we drove her to Disneyland where she was to meet 
her daughter and son-in-law. I enjoyed seeing her daughter who has recently 
shared the news of her pregnancy. The last time I visited Disneyland she was 
employed as a server at one of the Disneyland restaurants. Now she is an 
esteemed Attorney who is invited to make presentations in the Child Welfare 
Area. I feel connected to her present success because I was the person 
who suggested that she think about becoming an attorney as I recognized her 
brightness and curiosity. Maybe other people had some influence on her decisions, 
but I take some joy in thinking I was important in her eventual choice 
of profession.

 Obviously, this last visit to Disneyland was many years ago. This time the 
visit resulted in me being unable to sleep all night. I was extremely bothered 
by what I had seen. First of all, the price of tickets was absolutely obscene. 
Ticket prices ranged from $104 to $206 for a single-one day park ticket. 
Thank goodness my wife and I had no intentions to enter the park but were 
there only for the purpose of transportation and of sharing a meal. Parking is 
costly, and we could not find a space that was anywhere near where we wanted 
to go, but fortunately, the car displayed a handicapped sticker associated with 
my age and immobility. A person walking the huge distance from where 
her car was parked to the location of the actual gate to the entrance took the 
trouble to walk around and directed us to the one vacant handicapped person 
space. Yes, there is hope for humanity.

 Once we entered Downtown Disney, after seemingly walking endlessly, we 
entered the gate to the restaurant. We are still 2 months away from Halloween 
but there surrounding us were pumpkins everywhere. I stopped to think and 
realized that already in my Sierra Madre Canyon there are displayed Halloween 
decorations. People are, to my mind at least, very eager to ignore present 
conditions and turmoil and environmental probabilities and just forget and 
celebrate at good old Disneyland, a place once much more affordable.

 At home that night I could not sleep and continued to be bothered by what I 
had seen. I kept hearing Jack Nicholson telling Tom Cruise he couldn’t handle 
the truth. What I kept thinking about was how Americans and human beings 
in general kid themselves into not recognizing present conditions and unfairness 
and believing they live in a society that reflects values of truth, equality, 
and caring for the general welfare. Certainly, on occasion, like the lady in the 
parking lot, people will go out of their way to help others; but generally, people 
only think about their own situation and own comfort and maybe it’s always 
been this way. 

 I guess most of us much of the time we just ignore the things we don’t want 
to think about. Among the things I am not good at, that’s just one-more. If I 
could I would stop worrying about kids being afraid to go to School and try 
to get some sleep. Maybe not! Perhaps worrying is my true 
American Way and I am fortunate to be able talk to you about it. You don’t 
have to listen if you don’t want to, but you might want to worry about that.

Take Care. 

Years ago I began considering 
writing for a 
hobby or a diversion 
(certainly not to become 
a millionaire). 
I was motivated by a 
rather obnoxious fellow 
who happened to be a professor of mine 
in college. I was drawn to him because 
a byproduct of his being obnoxious 
was his cleverness. He had a rapier wit, 
funny, albeit often biting and sarcastic. 
I could do without the animosity, so, as 
long as I wasn’t the victim of one of his 
pejorative putdowns I was okay.

Ironically, he was very popular despite 
being dangerously armed rhetorically to 
the teeth. I rather enjoyed the humor but 
could do without the nastiness.

So, as we all should strive to do in this 
70+ year walk, adopt the best and leave 
the rest (I promise my last attempt at 
iambic pentameter).

Afterall, writing was certain to be easy. 
Mark Twain confirmed it saying: “Writing 
is easy. All you have to do is cross out 
the wrong words.

My namesake, Samuel Johnson, was a 
British writer living in the 1700’s. He 
said: “The only end of writing is to enable 
readers better to enjoy life or better 
to endue it.” (I know what you are thinking. 
He misspelled “endure” leaving the 
“r” out. Not so fast. You’re wrong. Look 
it up. “Endue” is the correct word.)

What word has 645 meanings? Are you 
ready for the word? Here it is: “Run”

How about the most used word in 
America? “the”.

How about phrases and expression 
unique to American English?

“Break a leg”, “Shoot the breeze”, and 
“Ride shotgun”. “For the birds”. “Behind 
the eight ball”. “Plead the fifth” “A piece 
of cake”, “More bang for your buck”, “A 
foot in the door”, and my favorite “not 
rocket science”.

Care to guess how many words are added 
to the English language every year? 
800-1000.

Let’s look at a few of those new words 
shall we?

“Skibidi”, can be used as cool or bad. 
“What the skibidi are you doing?”

“Delulu”, a play on the word “delusional” 
believing things that are not real. Recently 
the Australian Prime Minister 
used the word in a phrase of a speech: 
“Delulu with no solulu”.

“Tradwife” short for traditional wife, 
one who stays home cooking, cleaning 
and raising children.

“Inspo” Short for inspiration, especially 
posted on the internet.

“Nepo baby” someone who gains success 
through familial connections.

“Jorts” shorts made of denim.

“Kinkeeping”, maintain family ties.

“Rizz”, romantic appeal or charm.

“Simp”, excessive longing for someone 
or something

“Bleisure”, A trip combining business 
and pleasure.

Words have energy and power with the 
ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, 
to harm, to humiliate and to humble. 
Here are some powerful phrases about 
words:

“Dream, believe, achieve, repeat”, “Live, 
laugh, love, learn”, “Work hard, stay 
humble”, “Choose joy today”, “Be the 
change”, “Never stop believing”.

Not a stretch to say that words are human 
kinds most powerful tool. They can 
be used to build up or tear down, affect 
or afflict. 

In closing, I think I made a Amazon 
driver’s day today. The van was parked 
in my neighborhood. I pulled up next to 
the van and motioned the driver to lower 
the window. I had hurt my right wrist 
the night before and at 8:00pm ordered 
a wrist brace from Amazon. Did I mention 
I was in pain? Well, at 6:00am the 
following morning, there the wrist brace 
was at my front door. Today was a much 
better day for me thanks to Amazon.

I tried to call Jeff Bezos but he was busy. 
So, when I passed the Amazon van I 
stopped and thanked the driver (not the 
one who delivered my brace but that was 
okay).

I’m closing with my first and last attempt 
at rhyming poetry…I promise. “Go out 
of your way, to make someone’s day!”

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HOWARD Hays As I See It


“It was humiliating to watch an American president act like a 
happy puppy upon encountering the dictator of a much poorer, 
much less important state, treating him as a superior.”

- Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic, on the summit in Alaska between 
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin



A couple of weeks ago I wrote of “nuclear rhetoric” exchanged between 
Russia and President Trump. He’d ordered the repositioning of nuclear-armed 
submarines, following Russian reaction to his threat to impose “debilitating secondary 
tariffs” should Russia not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine. But our TACO (Trump Always 
Chickens Out) president once again showed up for the world to see - with nobody 
surprised anymore and everybody having planned accordingly.



And nobody knows better how to play our president than Vladimir Putin. In most 
other countries he’d be arrested as an indicted war criminal. But here, days after Trump 
ordered the repositioning of those submarines and restated his commitment to a ceasefire, 
our U.S. soldiers were literally on their knees preparing the red carpet for Putin’s 
arrival in Alaska. Our president applauded Putin in welcoming him to our country. 
There were flyovers of military jets in Putin’s honor, then a private ride with Trump in 
the presidential limousine. 



At their meeting, Putin knew just what our president wanted to hear. At their joint 
appearance afterwards (no questions taken), Putin remarked how much easier it is to 
deal with Trump than it was with Joe Biden. As Trump recalled later on Fox, Putin 
marveled at how much had been ac-complished in the first few months of the new 
administration – compared to a year earlier when he’d regarded our country as pretty 
much “dead”. Trump himself added that their relationship would’ve been even better 
in his first term had he not had to deal with that “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax”.



Putin was reelected last year with 88% of the vote. Five years ago, Russian voters in a 
“land-slide” allowed Putin (who’d been in power for twenty years already) to hold office 
at least through 2036. And now Trump was eager to share Putin’s view that Trump 
had, in fact, won the 2020 election decisively over Biden. 



Trump was advised by Putin that the reason the 2020 election was so easy to “rig” was 
the vul-nerability of mail-in ballots. So, regardless of our Constitution stipulating that 
such matters be left to the states, Trump said that as president he’d ban their use moving 
forward (along with voting machines, while he’s at it). No less an authority on election 
integrity than Vladimir Putin recommends he do so.



According to Trump, it’s now up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to decide 
whether or not he wants to bring the war to an end. All he’d have to do is cede 
to Russia areas already under Russian occupation, cede to Russia additional areas still 
under Ukrainian control and then disarm to such an extent that Ukraine would be 
unable to defend itself if/when Russia wanted more. Posting after the summit, Trump 
referred to it as “Biden’s stupid war”.



For Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), “my stomach turned when I heard the president 
of the United States characterize Vladimir Putin as his fabulously good friend . . . Putin 
is a war criminal. He has directed soldiers to kill women and children and bury them 
in mass graves. He's kidnapped children as we speak. The reality on the ground is that 
people are bleeding and dying all around Ukraine because Putin is continuing to bomb 
them.”



Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) adds, “war criminals are not normally invited to the United 
States of America . . . [Putin] is intentionally murdering civilians, he’s kidnapping children, 
and now he got to stand next to the president of the United States, legitimized in 
the view of the world”.



 Following six Trump-Putin phone calls and five trips by Trump envoy Steve Witcoff to 
Moscow, the outcome of this summit was clear to Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik: “You can 
think that there was a plan behind it, but we see that there is no result of this plan. And 
that is why the only hope we have right now is in our European partners.” Once again, 
it’s been made clear that, under Trump, the United States has relinquished whatever 
claim to “free world” leadership it had established over eighty years of post-war history.



Perhaps Trump longs for that history – when it seemed the fate of the entire world 
rested on Cold War battles between two dominant adversaries; from Truman / Stalin 
through Kennedy / Khrushchev, Nixon / Brezhnev and Reagan / Gorbachev. Now we 
have former KGB officer Vladimir Putin and his “happy puppy”.



One more piece of news from the summit: Eight pages of State Department details on 
meeting times, locations, participants and phone numbers were found by a guest on 
the public printer at a hotel twenty minutes from the site. UCLA law professor Jon Michaels, 
who lectures on national security, saw it as “further evidence of the sloppiness 
and the incompetence of this administration . . . You don’t leave things on printers. It’s 
that simple.” 

 The White House denied it was a security breach.


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