Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, October 12, 2019

9

OPINION: 

Mountain View News Saturday, October 12, 2019 


STUART TOLCHIN

SURE WE CAN ADAPT BUT 
THERE ARE SOME LIMITS

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LaQuetta Shamblee

 
Perhaps, just like me, you live in a pretty safe bubble. 
We Sierra Madreans live in a beautiful area, especially 
in the canyon. I happen to have a wonderful wife (who 
possibly will type this for me) and my car is almost paid 
off and we can make our house payments and still take 
an occasional vacation even though I plan on retiring at 
the end of the year.

 Well, as I am sure you are aware, times are changing. 
When my wife and I came back from our Alaska Cruise 
about two weeks ago I stopped as usual at Coco’s 
Restaurant for breakfast before work. Coco’s serves (or 
did serve) fresh fruit topped blintzes that reminded me 
of the ones I wished my mother had made. I confidently walked to the front door 
of Coco’s, mildly aware that there were few cars in the parking lot and the big sign 
had disappeared. The sign at the locked front door read CLOSED. How could 
that be? I had been going there for years? I survived and got a quick coffee and a 
pastry at Starbucks. While savoring the pastry, I looked up Cocos on the internet 
and learned that Cocos, Carrows, and Marie Calendar (all places basically in my 
price range) were closing or had closed!

 All right, much as I hate change, I adapted. A few days later I ordered a 
coffee latte and after finishing, asked the server to refill my cup with regular coffee 
just as I had been doing for years. The server, someone who had been serving me 
for years, apologetically informed that I would have to pay an additional charge 
as if I was ordering another cup of coffee. I was incensed; I asked to speak to 
the manager who, after a brief but brittle conversation, allowed me “just this one 
time” to have the refill without paying an additional charge.

 Yes, I survived but I wondered what was going on in the world to cause 
such drastic changes. Eventually it was explained to me that the closings and 
changes in policy were the result of the new minimum wage law that required 
all employees to be paid at the rate of fifteen dollars an hour. I responded to 
this information in typical fashion by saying “What’s that got to do with me. I 
haven’t worked in a restaurant since my first job at Bob’s Big Boy for which I was 
paid ninety cents an hour and glad to receive it”. Of course I understand, but 
speaking of Bob’s I remember that first day of work when I was fifteen and a half. 
A customer threw up all over the floor and I was delegated to clean it up. This was 
a mere sixty years ago and I still remember it clearly. It was probably the first time 
I had to clean up someone else’s vomit. Yes I have had a pretty charmed live and 
I adapted and ten years later became a lawyer cleaning up other kinds of vomit. 
Bob’s was probably beneficial experience.

 As I looked at the ridiculously inflated gas prices of today I wondered 
how we all would survive these additional costs. Somehow it reminded me of my 
year in Law School when I had little money to afford rent. I somehow worked 
out a schedule where I would couch surf at friends or sneak into an office that 
was associated with a work-study job that I had. That year I had a girl friend 
who lived in the Dorm and worked late as a switchboard operator. After work 
we would head to a friend’s house or to my office. The point is that I had little to 
do until her shift was over so I spent the time, generally in the library, studying. 
Yes for that year I was kind of homeless but never really thought of it that way. In 
fact, largely because of the extra time to kill, and as I recall did quite well getting 
the high grade in a couple of classes. 

 My point, of course, is that hat having to adapt to changing conditions 
can bring about unforeseen benefits. The unique characteristic of human beings 
is our ability to adapt and thrive in seemingly unthinkable conditions. Of course 
there are conditions and there are conditions. The need for Americans to adapt 
to the behavior of a President who openly disobeys the law and dares the rest 
of us to do something about it is something neither I, nor almost anyone else, 
ever contemplated. Well maybe James Madison thought about it and believed 
the system of checks and balances he and Alexander Hamilton devised would 
be strong enough to survive most anything. Of course, neither Madison nor 
Hamilton probably ever conceived that Hamilton would be shot dead by the 
sitting Vice-President of the United States. Still, the system survived, and we 
will adapt and do what is necessary to adapt to the unimaginable conduct of our 
current President. Really though, I hope he doesn’t test us further by shooting 
someone in broad daylight as he has already threatened. 


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

IN NEWS OTHER THAN 
IMPEACHMENT…

MICHAEL REAGAN

RICH MANIERI

Sure, I 
could write about 
impeachment 
again this week, 
and probably for 
countless weeks 
to come. But I 
think we all could 
use a diversion, 
what with the 
24/7 news coverage, 
analysis, and editorializing that 
passes for news coverage. It makes you 
wonder if the earth is still turning on 
its axis. 

So, I thought it a public service to highlight 
some news stories you might have 
missed because they were barely covered 
or buried somewhere within the 
depths of your favorite online news 
outlet. Here they are, in no particular 
order:

- The Nobel Prize for medicine was 
awarded to three men who have spent 
years studying oxygen, specifically how 
“cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.” 
The research could lead to new 
strategies in fighting cancer and other 
diseases. If you’re looking for further 
explanation, I’ve gone about as far as 
my “C+” in chemistry will take me. 

- Scientists claim they’ve seen pigs using 
tools to dig. The pigs were observed 
in a French zoo using sticks. I watched 
a video on YouTube and was unimpressed. 
It looks to me like the pig is 
just moving the stick around with his 
snout. When a pig walks into a café and 
orders a croissant, I’ll pay attention.

- President Trump’s new bestest buddy, 
Kanye West, is stumping for the 
president. West, a Trump supporter, 
told a crowd Sunday that political loyalties 
and decisions based on race are 
“mental slavery.” He went on. “And we 
got the right, right? We got a right to 
our opinions, right?” Not according to 
some of the emails I receive.

- Russian President Vladimir Putin 
turned 67 (I forgot to send a card). 
Putin did what most of us do on our 
birthday - he posed for a bunch of 
weird photos in the Siberian mountains. 
In a surprising turn of events, he 
kept his shirt on.

- Miley Cyrus says she can date other 
people. The singer split from her husband, 
actor Liam Hemsworth, in August. 
She now says she’s “all grown up” 
and can do what she wants. What do I 
know but it seems as if “doing what she 
wants” hasn’t been an issue for Cyrus, 
before or since she became an adult. 

- A truck carrying 38,000 pounds of 
frozen bagels caught on fire in Indiana 
Sunday. No one was injured but the bagels 
were burned beyond recognition. 

- Acting Homeland Security Secretary 
Kevin McAleenan showed up to speak 
at Georgetown Law School Monday, 
but was shouted down by protesters 
who take issue with the Trump administration’
s immigration policies. 
McAleenan walked of stage before he 
got started. So much for constructive 
discourse. 

- Democratic presidential candidate 
Kamala Harris detailed her plan to give 
workers up to six months of paid family 
and medical leave - twice the length 
of time included in any family leave bill 
to date and way more generous than 
any other proposal by a presidential 
candidate. No word on what it will 
cost. Who’s going to pay for it? If your 
answer is “other people,” well done.

- I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, 
most of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 
ideas are terrible, but she is prolific. 
The New York Democrat unsheathed 
another gem this week – abolishing 
prisons in the U.S. “We need to have a 
real conversation about decarceration 
& prison abolition in this country,” she 
tweeted. Like I said, awful and unrealistic 
but she never fails to disappoint.

- Rising fuel prices in Ecuador triggered 
angry protests. The Ecuadorian 
government had an interesting response 
- it left. The short story is the 
country is broke and had to end subsidies 
that had been keeping fuel prices 
down. The government, such as it is, 
is now operating in a remote location, 
away from the capital of Quito.

- As long as we’re talking about the 
consequences of irresponsible government, 
a gallon of gas in California is 
now approaching $5. Part of the reason 
is that the state’s environmental 
regulations have reduced oil production. 
Some refineries have even closed. 
California’s gas prices are the highest 
in the country. Rising fuel prices, crippling 
taxes, an out-of-control homeless 
problem and a median home price of 
more than $600,000. No wonder people 
are leaving.

OK, I promised different, not good. 
And if you still want to hear more 
about impeachment, you won’t have 
long to wait.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born 
journalist and author. He is currently 
a professor of journalism at Asbury 
University in Kentucky. His book, “We 
Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father 
and Me” is available at amazon.
com. 


RAISING OUR KIDS TO HATE

A Jeb Bush tweet this week got me thinking 
about some of the ways our nasty partisan 
politics has been hurting our kids.

Paraphrasing Jeb, he asked, “How can 
parents teach their children that using 
bad language is wrong when we have a 
president and members of Congress who 
constantly use profanity to talk about 
each other?”

Jeb’s tweet also reminded me of something 
a wise Sunday school teacher of 
mine said once: “There are more things 
‘caught’ than ‘taught.’ ”

I often quote that line when I’m invited 
to speak to parents, and I thought about 
it again on Wednesday when I took some 
kids on a tour of my dad’s library in Simi 
Valley.

It was nice to go to the Reagan Library 
and be reminded of the positive attitude 
my father had about politics, his political 
opponents and people in general.

On my father’s tomb, for example, is the 
message, “I know in my heart that man is 
good, that what is right will always eventually 
triumph and there is purpose and 
worth to each and every life.”

I don’t know how many of the kids I was 
with the other day were equipped to catch 
that optimistic message.

It’s really sad that they’re growing up in 
such a hateful political and cultural environment 
that has so little room for tolerance 
or civil debate.

Even a beloved liberal comedian like Ellen 
DeGeneres can get blasted by the Hollywood 
left just for sitting with her friend 
George W. Bush at a football game.

What happened to DeGeneres is a sign 
of how stupid and low our nasty partisan 
politics are.

Liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, 
you can’t be seen in public with 
someone from the other political tribe 
without catching hell or hate from your 
own tribe.

Those kids I was with at the library were 
too young to know it, but there was a time 
before Twitter, Facebook and 1,000 cable 
TV channels when the most powerful 
people in politics could disagree vehemently 
yet still be civil to each other.

One of the most famous examples of that 
political civility and mutual respect was 
the relationship my father had with the 
Democrat Speaker 
of the House, 
Tip O’Neill.

Not as well-
known was the 
time my father 
was asked in 1985 
to give a fundraising 
speech for 
the John F. Kennedy Library.

In 1960 my father had campaigned hard 
against JFK. But when he was President 
and he was asked by John and Caroline 
Kennedy to help them kick off an endowment 
drive for the JFK Library, he did it 
graciously and enthusiastically.

Praising JFK for being, among many 
other things, “a patriot” who had “a good 
hard, un-illusioned understanding of 
man and his political choices,” my father 
admitted he had not supported Kennedy 
for president.

“But you know,” he said, “it’s true: when 
the battle’s over and the ground is cooled, 
well, it’s then that you see the opposing 
general’s valor.”

That kind of civility being shown to a 
political opponent could never happen 
today in Washington, where Democrats 
and Republicans hate each other, call 
each other bad names and refuse to cooperate 
or compromise. 

As for our kids today, they’re being taught 
by the bad example of adults to hate the 
political tribe they don’t belong to. It’s reinforced 
24/7 on TV, in social media and 
college campuses. 

If we’re not careful we’re going to end up 
like Israel, where the Palestinian kids and 
the Israeli kids don’t play with each other 
and are raised from infancy to hate each 
other.

Maybe there’s still time for our children 
to turn to their parents and tell them it’s 
time for them to grow up and stop hating.

-

Michael Reagan is the son of President 
Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and 
the author of “Lessons My Father Taught 
Me: The Strength, Integrity, and Faith of 
Ronald Reagan.” He is the founder of the 
email service reagan.com and president of 
The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his 
websites at www.reagan.com and www.
michaelereagan.com. Send comments to 
Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @
reaganworld on Twitter. 

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