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OPINIONOPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday November 1, 2025

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

STUART TOLCHIN

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

RICH JOHNSON

USELESS FACTS ENDING WITH A TITTLE


THE PRESENT IS A GIFT I GIVE TO MYSELF

 
I am making 
a conscious effort to 
expand my world. I 
tell myself I want to 
relieve my feelings of 
isolation and inaction. 
Consistent with that 
desire I was presented 
out of the blue with the opportunity to 
join a softball game played by men and 
women in their 70’s and 80’s. My wife 
agreed to drive me to Santa Anita Park 
near the appointed time, and we managed 
to find the field where a softball 
game was in progress. I was invited to 
take a turn at bat, and it was a disaster. 
I was handed a bat and a woman about 
my age lobbed twenty underhand very 
slow pitches to me. I was completely unable 
to contact the ball even once. My 
wife watched the disgraceful exhibition 
from behind a fence, and I was embarrassed 
and humiliated.

 Worse yet I watched the other 
players, 70 and 80-year-olds and perhaps 
90-year-olds running from base to 
base. They weren’t flying around, but 
they were actually moving with a jogging 
gait at a speed faster than walking. 
After failing to hit the ball I went to the 
side of the field and for that moment I 
felt pretty miserable.

 Nevertheless, another coincidental 
meeting, another gift, occurred 
last week. Out of the blue a conversation 
began between with a man who lives just 
around the circle from me. I learned that 
his wife was a Cantor and a Rabbi who 
led services in Pasadena. Now, please 
understand that I have never been to 
religious services in my entire life. Oh, 
maybe I was in a synagogue once or 
twice attending friend's or relative's Bar 
or Bat Mitzvahs, but that’s it. I think of 
myself as Jewish and my parents and 
grandmother, the people who raised me, 
were Jewish but we never talked much 
about what that meant.

 I heard stories from both sides of 
the family about having to escape from 
the Ukraine and Lithuania in fear for 
their lives. My father told me that Jews 
were not allowed to go to School in the 
Ukraine. He would sit outside under a 
window and try to hear what was being 
taught even though the teaching was 
in a language he did not understand. 
My mother told me she never graduated 
High School after her father died as 
there was no money for bus fare.

 What a different privileged 
world has been gifted to me. This has 
been my present and consistent with 
that present and privilege I have always 
taken reading and education very seriously. 
My room surrounds me with 
books that I have read and forgotten. 
This connects with my meeting with the 
Rabbi’s husband. Last week he and his 
wife went out of town, so our Friday service 
attendance scheduled for last week 
was cancelled. Last week while watching 
the morning news I viewed an interview 
with Angela Buchdahl, a woman with a 
Korean mother and a Jewish father. She 
is presently the Rabbi and Cantor and 
the leader of a large New York Congregation. 
Last week I decided to read her 
327-page memoir entitled HEART OF A 
STRANGER before I attended religious 
services this Friday.

 I completed reading the book 
last night and was up almost all-night 
thinking about it. I am still thinking 
about it. Of course, I have been an atheist 
my whole life but lately I have been 
having some different thoughts. Among 
other things the book explains that God 
is not something out there; but is something 
already inside of us already at birth 
which influences our lives and attitudes. 
Perhaps this does not make much sense 
to you, but to me it answers some questions 
and perhaps explains the source of 
my values and powers and interests.

 Another point that I thought 
about all night is the declaration that our 
present is everything. It is where we live, 
and this present is the cumulative result 
of everything that has already happened 
to us and includes our fears, imaginations, 
and thoughts about the future. 

 The very important point is that 
we can choose to focus our attention in 
any one of many directions. We can successfully 
adapt to each new present if we 
choose to. I could begin strength training 
or begin to jog if that is of importance 
to me. The important point that 
Rabbi Buchdahl emphasizes is not to not 
allow ourselves to be seduced by comfort. 
It is our responsibility to be aware 
of the positive choices around us in each 
ever-changing present.

 Another thing I notice right 
now is my need for acknowledgment. I 
would very much welcome any response 
from a reader to my email at stuarttolchin@
gmail.com. 

 Any response would be a gift to 
my present.

There is so much information 
out there 
that is critical our 
need to know (for 
example the importance 
of the letters 
“E” and “F” on our 
dashboards fuel gauge). For all we 
know the letter “E” on our dashboard’s 
gas gauge could stand for 
“enough”. How about some useless 
information we can read and don’t 
really need to know? I believe I perform 
a truly valuable service.

I specialize in information we can 
forget and have it not really matter. I 
research my columns (really, I do…
believe it or not), submit them, my 
gracious editor prints them knowing 
my columns certainly qualify 
under the Supreme Court’s 1957 
ruling established in Roth v. United 
States, that obscene works are “utterly 
without redeeming social value”. 
So far anyway. Here goes:

1. No number from number 1 
to 999 includes the letter “a” in its 
word form. You won’t find an “a” 
anywhere.

2. Looking at a pair of dice, the 
opposite sides of a “die” will always 
add up to 7.

3. Golf balls tend to have 336 
“dimples”

4. The King of Hearts is the 
only King in a deck of cards without 
a mustache (He is also known as the 
“suicide king”. Why? Look at what 
his left hand is doing.

5. According to Oxford Dictionaries 
“dreamt” is the only word 
in the English language that ends 
with the letter “MT”. *MT is also a 
synonym for my head.

6. The little round metal studs 
on your pair of jeans have a purpose. 
They are called rivets and Levi 
Strause & Co. put those there for extra 
support avoiding rips and wear 
outs.

7. A Greek Canadian invented 
Hawaiian pizza. Sam Panopoulos 
was born in Greece, moved to 
Canada at age 20 and in 1962 had 
to clever idea to add pineapple to 
pizza.

8. Cats cannot taste sweet 
things because of genetic defect. As 
you probably know cats lack 247 
base pairs of the amino acids that 
make up the DNA of the Tas1r2 
gene. Sorry no sweets.

9. A group of hippos is called 
a “bloat”. Juliana Berners, a 15th 
century English Benedictine prioress 
wrote “The Book of St. Albans) 
which came up with the term and 
also a “swarm of bees” and a “gaggle 
of geese”.

10. And the perfect factoid to 
end this column: The average adult 
spends more time on the toilet than 
they do exercising. 3 hours, 9 minutes 
on the porcelain pony and 1 
hour, 30 minutes exercising. 

11. We will end our “bakers 
dozen” with this bit of useless information. 
Montpelier, Vermont, is the 
only U.S. capital without a McDonald’s. 
(Doesn’t have a Burger King 
either).

12. And finally, the little dot 
above a lowercase “I” and “j” has a 
name. We’re told the English language 
has only two letters that include 
a “diacritic dot”. The “dots” 
are called a “tittle”.

Looking to have someone else do 
Thanksgiving cooking? Moffett’s in 
Arcadia (their number is (626) 447-
4670). And Nano Café’s in Sierra 
Madre. Their number is (626) 325-
3334. Moffett’s is takeout only and 
Nano’s will be serving Thanksgiving 
meals from 10:00 to 3:00 in addition 
to takeout.

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Madre; in Court Case 
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Madre, California, 91024. 
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HOWARD Hays As I See It


“Who does that?” – Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on President Trump’s 
cutting off SNAP benefits to force an end to the government 
shutdown

Last Spring, we got our 
first look at that “Big, 
Beautiful Bill” coming 
out of the House. It 
made permanent the 
2017 tax cuts from Trump’s first term 
while adding new tax breaks for the 
wealthiest. It saw a $4.5 trillion reduction 
in tax revenue over the next ten years, 
along with increased spending for the 
military and immigration enforcement of 
$325 billion.

 

To help pay for it, there were cuts to programs 
like Medicare, SNAP (Supplemental 
Nutrition Assistance Program) and 
student loans of $1.4 trillion over the decade 
– with the bill still adding $3.4 trillion 
to our debt. $700 billion additional 
interest on that debt brought the total cost 
over $4 trillion for the decade – primarily 
benefiting those needing help the least 
at the expense of those who need it the 
most.

 

House Republicans advanced it with a 
simple majority. But in the Senate, they 
needed support from seven Democrats 
to get it through – and only had three on 
board.

 

Along with rescinding the Medicaid cuts 
in the bill and curbing Trump’s messing 
with Congress through his funding recissions 
and impoundments, Democrats 
also demanded that Affordable Care 
Act subsidies, soon to expire, be made 
permanent in return for their support. 
Those first two demands were eventually 
dropped, which left the ACA subsidies as 
their line in the sand.

 

Republicans, though, insisted that while 
expiring billionaire tax cuts must be 
made permanent, ACA subsidies had to 
end on schedule – while agreeing to take 
up healthcare issues later. Democrats reminded 
that a commitment was needed 
now - those subsidies would expire at the 
end of the year, 22 million Americans 
seeing premiums at least doubled come 
January, with 4.2 million priced out of 
coverage altogether.

 

This is where Republicans drew a line of 
their own: they’d have the government 
shut down before they’d protect affordable 
health coverage. They also saw political 
opportunity: blame the Democrats. 
They put “blame Democrats” messaging 
on official government websites – both 
cheesy and illegal. It soon became how 
Democrats were holding out for “free” 
healthcare for “illegals”. No matter how 
often that was debunked, the line still 
went over with the MAGA crowd.

 

But Americans knew who was at fault. 
Two weeks into the shutdown, 7 million 
turned out for No Kings rallies across 
the country. Three weeks later, the anti-
MAGAs cleared the table in local and 
statewide elections from coast to coast. 
Republicans were losing on messaging, 
so the question then became: in forcing 
Democrats to cave on healthcare, what 
would be even more unacceptable to 
them than seeing millions of Americans 
losing coverage?

 

How about seeing millions of Americans 
going hungry? Simply withhold SNAP 
benefits from the 40 million recipients 
and blame the Dems. The fact that real 
suffering would be inflicted on real people 
wouldn’t matter - as long as it forced a 
humiliating surrender.

 

This action was not only unnecessary but 
illegal. It was the first time payments had 
been interrupted by a government shutdown 
in the program’s 61-year history. 
And when courts ruled payments must 
be made regardless, Trump fought (unsuccessfully) 
to get those rulings reversed. 

 

As Trump appealed to the Supreme 
Court, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) posted, 
“Suing to starve people . . . great job @
POTUS”. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) added, 
“This psycho behavior. The money is 
there. Just feed the Americans you absolute 
maniacs.” 

 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer 
(D-NY) made a last-ditch offer – a one 
year, not a permanent, extension of ACA 
subsidies, and a bi-partisan group to work 
out longer-term healthcare solutions. But 
Republicans wasted no time rejecting it; 
they were so close to their goal of stripping 
affordable health coverage from millions 
of Americans; all they’d have to do 
is press their threat of taking food from 
American families to achieve it. Trump 
even had his Agriculture Department order 
states not to take care of residents on 
their own.

 

Now Senate Republicans have five additional 
Democrats to pass the bill – though 
who knows what’ll happen when it goes 
back to the House. As part of the deal, 
4,000 federal employees fired during the 
shutdown would be rehired with back pay, 
and furloughed employees would receive 
back pay as well (which Trump sought to 
deny them). There will be a vote on ACA 
subsidies in the Senate, but no guarantee 
in the House.

 

SNAP benefits, though, will be fully funded 
for at least another year.

 

It was a matter of weighing hunger against 
healthcare. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-
GA) explained, “I think that the Republicans 
were counting on the idea that we 
care about people more than they do.”

 

Senator Schiff remarked, “in the midst of 
all this, they’re appealing to the Supreme 
Court for the right to cut off food from 
people. . . Who does that? . . . Who goes 
all the way through the court system to 
cut food from people who need it right 
now? But that’s where they’re coming 
from. The cruelty is part of the policy.”

 

Attorney General Pam Bondi promises, 
“Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day 
and night, to advance President Trump’s 
agenda.” For hungry kids and those seeking 
affordable health care, they’ll have to 
find someone else to fight for them.


1 MILLION LIKES by Paul the Cyberian

AI Regulation in the US

As it currently stands, the United States relies on laws and guidelines 
currently on the books at the Federal, State, and Local levels. The current 
situation, depending on one’s skin in the game, looks quite different when 
evaluated from the outside. 

With some well-placed lobbying efforts, the AI Leaders stand to profit from 
unfettered access to American data and physical resources, most likely at 
taxpayer expense. For the consumer, the prospect is not so bright. There 
will be lots of giving with very little getting. The prevailing sentiment from 
the administration has been one that can best be described as permissive. 

Both the previous administration and the current one have published their 
versions of Executive Orders that aim to allow leading AI companies to 
do whatever they must in order to ensure American Dominance in the AI 
sphere. This already seems like a challenge, as many leading companies have 
a transnational business structure that allows different operations under 
their respective umbrellas to operate in different countries. 

A typical transnational often conducts operations in more than one country 
while considering no single country its corporate home. Most often, the 
glue that associates companies such as these in the mind of the consumer 
as belonging to one country or another is the marketing from the early days 
of its foundation. They may have started in a garage somewhere down the 
street decades ago, but that’s not where they live now. 

This structure has its advantages for global operations, including 
decentralization, specialization, brand localization, knowledge sharing, and 
tax benefits for ownership. 

When this model works as designed, production and delivery to the 
marketplace happen almost invisibly. 

The companies that comprise the list of AI Leaders in the US have been 
quite successful and have the results to prove it. They are also transnationals 
with operations in dozens of countries. 

The main challenge we face in the US concerning AI Regulation that makes 
sense for our country and our form of government is defining what we 
require to protect what we have from AI. Not far behind that challenge is 
finding the will and means to enforce it in a transnational world.


Mountain Views News

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