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OPINIONOPINION

Mountain View News Saturday, September 6, 2025

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

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

RICH JOHNSON

 

 TIMES ARE CHANGING 
AND THE WORD UP

PUT THE LIGHTS ON


LOSS


No, I am not writing about how I lost my house in the recent 
fire. From what I understand many houses here in Sierra Madre 
Canyon could have easily been affected by the recent fire but 
were saved by the heroic actions of neighbors and their relatives. 
These people, despite the orders to evacuate, remained 
up here and fought the fire by dousing their homes and neighbor 
homes with water. Hurray for them! 

I fear that If I do not submit an article this week the editor might well refuse to accept 
my future articles and that, dear readers, would be a terrible “loss” to me. It 
is my obligation, which is actually a privilege, to send these weekly articles which 
are one of the centers, one of the foci, of my life in retirement. 

Already I seem to have “lost” my topic which is loss. The loss I am talking about 
is my present inability to remember names, to recognize faces, to become lost as 
my wife drives me from place to place. My wife has strongly suggested, “ordered” 
might be a more accurate word; to cease driving and I have followed her direction. 
This has resulted in a feeling of loss, a loss of freedom. It is not so much 
that I am required to ask my wife to drive me where I want to go but really going 
anywhere has become problematic. I experience myself as a pampered prisoner 
restricted to the house. It is true that the television is completely at my disposal, 
but this activity is not nearly as satisfying as it once was. Perhaps this lack of 
enjoyment relates to my hearing loss which remains bothersome even after the 
purchase of several increasingly expensive hearing aids

Additionally, television no longer interests me in the same way. Late night comedy 
seems repetitive and simply not very funny. I was always a great fan of news 
programs but today the news presented seems more for the purpose of distraction 
rather than dispensing information. Also, everything seems so political and 
partisan resulting in my doubting the veracity of what is presented. Yes, I associate 
the difficulty in accepting the news with the purposeful attempts of the 
Trump administration to create turmoil as a part of their attempt to bring about 
a result that I really do not understand. Is it all an attempt to further enrich the 
billionaires or does the chaos result from Trump’s need to garner more attention 
and a kind of status he seems to feel is lacking?

Seriously, one would think being President of the United States is enough, but 
our President seems to crave more. He has made it clear that he wants a Nobel 
Peace Prize and to be enshrined along with the other president’s heads on Mount 
Rushmore. (By the way, did you know that Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of the 
heads, had a studio right here in Sierra Madre? This is one thing that I do find 
interesting.)

Of course what my overall problem relates to is old age and retirement. During 
the sixty years I practiced law I worried about paying my staff and taking care of 
my kids and building a new house and forming new relationships. Today my 
wife is a true partner but increasingly she is forced to act as a caregiver. Who 
knew what it felt like to be an “old man”. Seriously, in my dreams and in my 
mind, I feel like I am the same person I always was; until I struggle to get up from 
a chair and walk down the stairs where I constantly fear falling. 

It is my hope that my comments will be instructive to my readers. I never knew 
that old people often don't feel old and misunderstand and perhaps resent their 
family-members attempts at ministering to them. I may have once or twice said 
to my wife "I think you are trying to infantilize me. I can do it myself”. Even 
though I don’t like to admit it, I generally need her help, Maybe I should stop 
complaining, but is there a more terrible loss than not being able to trust one’s 
own judgment? BEWARE!! 

Well, good friends, I closed down my business this past 
week. It was time. When you start a business, you are really 
rolling the dice. I gave it a shot. Some people may say, 
I should have stuck it out. That I gave up way too quickly. 
I’ll let you be the judge. After all, if you’ve read my column fairly regularly 
you already have an opinion of me. To a fair number of you, your opinion 
of me couldn’t get any lower.

I stuck it out. I managed to stay in business (drum roll please) cuarenta y 
tres anos. In English it’s a paltry 43 years. I made a living selling attorneys 
their required continuing education on audio cassettes. Hence the name of 
my company, Versa-Tape. In the 1980s cassettes gave way to audio CDs. All 
of a sudden my name was outdated. No more “tapes”. To show you what a 
clever fellow I was, I simply modified the original definition of my company. 
Versa-Tape was originally a noun because I was selling recordings 
on “tapes”. So I just switched it from the noun “tape” to the verb “tape” as 
in I “tape” the meetings digitally. I’m going to ask Stuart if that was clever.

But enough about me. I must admit I am robbing from a 12 year old column 
I wrote 12 years ago.

If you think English is easy, you were born here. If you find American 
English a little difficult you are probably a member of the British Empire. 
If English is nigh impossible you are from anywhere else. Here are some 
examples of our profound language that may give you insight into the difficulty 
others experience grasping our native tongue:

The bandage was wound around the wound.

The farm was used to produce produce.

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

He could lead if he would get the lead out.

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row...

They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things, when the does are present.

A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present 
the present.

Possibly the most difficult word in the language is a simple two letter word: 
UP. We wake UP. A topic comes UP. We speak UP. It’s UP to the secretary 
to write UP a report. We call UP our friends. We brighten UP a room, polish 
UP the silver; warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock 
UP the house while some guy fixes UP the car. People stir UP trouble, line 
UP for tickets, work UP an appetite and think UP excuses. The various 
definitions of UP go on and on.

If you are UP for it look UP the definition of UP in the dictionary. It will 
take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP and build UP a list of the 
many ways UP is used you may wind UP with a hundred or more definitions. 
Of course, it’s UP to you.

I think I’ll wrap UP my column because I’m certain it is way past the time 
to shut UP! Thinking about hitting Sierra Madre Blvd and panhandle. If 
you spot me, yes, I still take the credit cards. I will sing for donations and 
stop singing for larger donations.

Over and out!

Mountain Views News 
has been adjudicated as 
a newspaper of General 
Circulation for the County 
of Los Angeles in Court 
Case number GS004724: 
for the City of Sierra 
Madre; in Court Case 
GS005940 and for the 
City of Monrovia in Court 
Case No. GS006989 and 
is published every Saturday 
at 80 W. Sierra Madre 
Blvd., No. 327, Sierra 
Madre, California, 91024. 
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HOWARD Hays As I See It


“Trump’s excessive use of emergency powers is itself an emergency.” 
– Timothy Noah in The New Republic

President Trump justified sending the National Guard to Washington, 
D.C. by declaring it a “public safety emergency” - despite its 
Metropolitan Police Department noting that violent crime was at a 
thirty-year low. If it seems there’s been a lot of these “emergencies” 
declared recently, it’s because there has – as a pretext for Trump doing 
what he wants without having to bother with whatever our Constitution might 
say about it.

 

There were 13 “emergencies” declared during the eight years under George W. Bush, 
12 during the two terms of Barack Obama. Trump nearly doubled the pace with 11 
declared over the four years of his first term, with 9 during Joe Biden’s term in office. 
It now looks like 10 “emergencies” already declared here in Trump’s second term – 
and we’re only about seven months in. 

 

Similarities have been noted between Trump as president and when he was running 
his private businesses (as he probably still is). One such constant is using our court 
system to “run out the clock”, or to simply wear down whatever opposition. It appears, 
though, that as appeals run out, courts are less willing to accept emergency 
declarations as an all-purpose excuse.

 

Three months ago, Trump sent ICE, National Guard and federal troops to “liberate 
Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion”. Last week, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer 
ruled that the law expressly prohibits the military from engaging in civilian law 
enforcement, while it’s clear from the evidence that’s what they were doing. Breyer 
noted that “while there were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals 
engaged in violence . . . There was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable 
to respond to the protests and enforce the law”.

 

Testimony showed that troops had been given instructions on what they could and 
couldn’t do under the Posse Comitatus Act. But that training was ditched when, 
“all the way from the top” at the Defense Department, notification came of some 
“constitutional exception” that applied. Judge Breyer made clear that “These actions 
demonstrate that Defendants knew that they were ordering troops to execute domestic 
law beyond their usual authority. Whether they believed that some constitutional 
or other exception applied does not matter; ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’”. He 
concluded that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were effectively creating 
a “national police force with the president as its chief”.

 

Also last week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that no, you can’t just summarily 
round up and deport alleged gang members without due process under the 
Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Trump had argued it applied because they were somehow 
controlled by Venezuelan President Maduro – but didn’t offer any evidence to back 
that up. Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the ACLU, described the ruling as “a 
critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply 
declare an emergency without any oversight from the courts”.

 

On Friday before Labor Day, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling 
that no, those tariffs aren’t constitutional. The power to impose tariffs rests solely 
with Congress. Trump argued he had emergency power to impose them under the 
International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which, as one of the judges 
noted, doesn’t even mention tariffs – let alone authorize a president to ever impose 
one. This could get messy, as it might involve having to pay back countries for tariffs 
already collected. In response, Trump warns that, “If allowed to stand, this Decision 
would literally destroy the United States of America”.

 

It looks like there might be yet another “emergency” just around the corner. Treasury 
Secretary Scott Bessent says, “We may declare a national housing emergency in the 
fall”. A year ago, candidate Kamala Harris made housing a major issue in her campaign. 
Her proposal included tax credits for builders of starter homes and $25,000 
down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. As for what Trump is proposing, 
Bessent says, “We’re trying to figure out what we can do”.

 

We know what Trump has done already. Tariffs on building materials and round-ups 
of undocumented construction workers have made housing more unaffordable still. 
As reported by Associated Press, Trump has wanted to axe a federal program that for 
decades has helped rural communities build and repair homes.

 

Timothy Noah pointed out in his New Republic article a major irony: how woefully 
lacking Trump has been in dealing with actual disasters. “Even as Trump makes up 
fake emergencies, he blows off the real ones.” For the agency that actually has “Emergency” 
in its name, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Trump has 
suggested doing away with it altogether.

 

As for this proposed new declaration of a housing emergency, House Minority Leader 
Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters; “Donald Trump promised that he would lower 
housing costs on day one. Here’s a suggestion for the Trump administration: Try 
to legislate. And maybe we can find common ground in order to get something done 
on behalf of the American people.”

 

With actually trying to “legislate” being off the table for both Trump and House Republicans, 
heading to the polls in coming months becomes not just participating in 
an election; it’s dealing with a national emergency.


Mountain Views News

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informed citizens. We 
hold in high regard the 
values of the exceptional 
quality of life in our 
community, including 
the magnificence of 
our natural resources. 
Integrity will be our guide. 

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