Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, December 4, 2021

OPINION Mountain View News Saturday, December 4, 2021 
11 OPINION Mountain View News Saturday, December 4, 2021 
11 
MOUNTAIN 

VIEWS 

NEWS 

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson 

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR 

Dean Lee 

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Patricia Colonello 
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John Aveny 

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Peter Lamendola 

CONTRIBUTORS 

Stuart Tolchin 
Audrey SwansonMeghan MalooleyMary Lou CaldwellKevin McGuire 
Chris Leclerc 
Bob Eklund 
Howard HaysPaul CarpenterKim Clymer-KelleyChristopher NyergesPeter Dills 
Rich Johnson 
Lori Ann Harris 
Rev. James SnyderKatie HopkinsDeanne Davis 
Despina ArouzmanJeff Brown 
Marc Garlett 
Keely TotenDan Golden 
Rebecca WrightHail Hamilton 
Joan Schmidt 
LaQuetta Shamblee 

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STUART TOLCHIN 
PUT THE LIGHTS ON 


LIKES AND DISLIKES AND CHANGES 

First, let’s talk about getting older. I don’t like it very 

much. I know it’s better than the alternative, at least 

the alternatives that I think I know a little about; but 

I still don’t like it. I feel like I’m wearing clothes that 

don’t fit very well and that these ill-fitting clothes 

prevent me from doing the things that I have always 

done. Actually, I know it’s not my clothes that are the 

problem—it’s my body and also my sense of the whole 

world outside my head that now doesn’t fit very well.

Let me try and explain. I am in my very late 
seventies, which seem to be getting later every day, and my wife and I have been 
very fortunate to spend time with our 2 year old granddaughter. She also keeps 
getting older but ageing treats her in a very different way. A perfect example of 
this difference occurred a couple of weeks ago when the three of us went to Descanso 
Gardens, a wonderful place filled with ever- changing flowers and trees 
and grassy empty space. At first we all walked together and then, all at once, our 
granddaughter took off running, or walking very fast in a direction away from 
us. Wonderful I thought. I loved seeing her independence and how well she 
now moved. After all, in my head she is still the same person for whom turning 
over was a great achievement. My wife and I laughed and I said we better catch 
her. Please understand that in my head I am still person who was the fastest 
runner on the Little League team. Now, for some reason, I couldn’t catch her. 
You know the reason, I’m old. Eventually my granddaughter ended up running 
in a circle and we managed to corral her. It is sad to admit that we have all now 
learned that the best way to walk together is to equip our granddaughter with 
an attractive pink backpack to which a long pink leash is attached. I know this 
sounds bad, but to my surprise, our granddaughter feels great affection for her 
backpack and reminds us that she wants to keep it on. One of her favorite things 
these days is to wear the backpack with lease attached while she holds in her 
hand the leash as we walk the dog. 

Anyway, this describes some of my dislikes about being “old”. 
Of course there really are two sides to everything. On Saturday night my son 
and I attended UCLA v Cal game at the Rose Bowl. I attended both Schools so 
I couldn’t lose (but of course I could not really have a clean win either.) It was 
night game and my wife prevailed and would not allow me to drive to the game. 
She drove and fought traffic and displaying my handicapped placard was able to 
get through and drop us off at a seemingly convenient parking section. It really 
wasn’t that convenient because both my son and I have some problems walking, 
especially in the dark, and getting home was going to be a problem no matter 
where my wife managed to arrive. I told her not to worry about it and that we 
would figure something out.

At the game my son first got angry at me for chatting with strangers. 
By the end of the game I had developed such a cordial relationship with the 
people sitting next to us that they volunteered to lead us to a shuttle that would 
get us to a convenient place where my wife could pick us up. These nice younger 
people, about the same age as my son, noticed our difficulty in the dark and with 
keeping up with them and they offered to drive us to where we needed to go. I 
was very pleased and was well aware that my aged appearance had a lot to do 
with the offer of assistance. At the same time, after the car was parked, it upset 
me that the man offered me help in getting out of the car. Did he dare to think 
that I was so old that I could not care for himself?! Yes, it all goes to prove that 
there are likes and dislikes to almost everything and feelings change from moment 
to moment. 

THERE’S NO CURE FOR

DICK POLMAN 



COVIDIOCY 

If only I had a magic wand, I would henceforth consign 
all conspiracy freaks and vaccine refuseniks (78 million 
in number) to some distant desert isle where they could 
breathe free upon each other until God sorts them out. I 
know that sounds harsh, but I am beyond fed up. I suspect 
you are, too.

Right now, in the wake of the discovery of the variant 
Omicron, we are suffering fresh breakthrough infections of idiocy that 
prove, yet again, that the MAGA loons have learned absolutely nothing – despite 
a death toll of nearly 900,000, driven ever higher by the unvaccinated.

For instance, it’s a disgrace to the human species that Fox News hack Lara 
Logan can appear on camera and equate Dr. Anthony Fauci with Nazi doc 
Josef Mengele (she did that yesterday), thereby schooling the network’s credulous 
couch potatoes that someone who’s dedicated to saving lives is the 
same as someone who abetted the murder of six million lives. What a message 
for Hannukah week.

Elsewhere, Texas congressman Ronny Jackson (who was Trump’s White 
House doctor, and who, amazingly enough, still has doctor creds) tweeted 
on Sunday that news of the Omicron variant is just a Democratic plot to win 
the midterms in 2022: “Here comes the MEV – the Midterm Election Variant! 
They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. 
Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election.” 

I tend to doubt that the South African scientists who shared their evidence 
with the world, in the hopes of saving lives with an early warning, were 
thinking about what balloting options Americans might have one year from 
now. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the whole world is in on the Democratic 
plot.

That’s how the tinfoilers “think” – clearly it’s a tribal disease that defies 
treatment – as evidenced on Sunday by Kari Lake, a Republican gubernatorial 
candidate in Arizona, who said of the Democrats, “They are going to try 
and sell us new ‘variants’ for the rest of our lives if we don’t tell them to shove 
it.” On Saturday, another Fox host, Pete Hegseth, insisted that Democrats 
will keep cooking up variants on the eve of every election: “You can count on 
a variant about every October, every two years.” But their logic (and I use the 
word advisedly) makes no sense. Fox host Rachel Compos-Duffy said (lied) 
that the Democrats are exploiting variants in order to justify “more lock-
downs,” but wouldn’t more lockdowns hurt the Democrats at election time? 

There’s no point in parsing these people. They’ve whined that Trump didn’t 
get any credit for speeding some of the vaccines to market…then they decided 
to pride themselves on not getting the vaccine. They’ve periodically 
insisted that Covid is overhyped, that it’s no worse than the flu…but now 
they’re complaining that President Biden isn’t getting Covid under control. 
(Yesterday, on the official GOP Twitter account: “Joe Biden promised he 
would shut down the coronavirus. He failed.”)

Of course he’s having trouble getting Covid under control – because the 
Covidiots refuse to cooperate. Urging them to do the right thing, to protect 
themselves and their fellow Americans, clearly hasn’t worked. And requiring 
them to do the right thing, via federal mandates, triggers rants about 
their vanishing Freedom. The right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board 
complained the other day that “Mr. Biden had no plan to deal with the large 
numbers of vaccine holdouts.” What, pray tell, would Rupert Murdoch’s 
minions suggest that he do?

Statistics don’t seem to matter. Only 59 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated 
– lagging far behind countries like Cuba, Costa Rica, Cambodia, Sri 
Lanka, Aruba, and Ecuador – and those who refuse the jabs are disproportionately 
Republican. (Shocking, I know.) The nonpartisan Kaiser Family 
Foundation reported in October that the unvaccinated are three times more 
likely to be GOPers than Democrats, and that the ratio has widened since 
the spring, when vaccines became widely available. Indeed, the redder the 
counties (in terms of their fealty to Trump), the higher the Covid case rate.

It’s hard to foresee how we can fight new variants, and curb the virus long 
term, when so many millions of Americans are a clear and present danger to 
public health – and still function as dumpsters for conspiracy garbage. Biden 
said yesterday, “I expect this not to be the new normal. I expect the new normal 
to be, everyone ends up getting vaccinated and the booster shot.” Good 
luck with that. 

I was thinking that perhaps Fiji, a nation of 300 islands, would be willing 

to take our Covidiots…But nah. Fiji’s fully-vaccinated rate is notably higher 

than ours. A MAGA infestation would only lower its quality of life. 

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and 

a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. 

Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com 


RICH JOHNSON NOW THAT’S RICH 


AMERICAN GRAFFITI 

Now for some graffiti around the world (translated into 
English) 
“Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd.” 
“Don’t grow up. It’s a trap.” 
“We judge people for judging people because judging 

people is wrong.” 

“The meek shall inherit the earth. If you don’t mind.” 

“Bad spellers of the world – untie” 
“Coffee, a person who is coughed upon” 

“Cole’s Law: Thinly sliced cabbage” (Say the first two words fast) 

“Deja moo: The feeling you’ve heard this BS before” 

“Dwn wth vwls” 

“Earn cash in your spare time – blackmail friends” 

(sign over urinal in pub) “Express lane: five beers or less” 

“Help wanted: Telepath. You know where to apply” 

“Indecision is the key to flexibility” 

“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone” 

“Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand” 

“My daughter thinks I’m nosy. At least that’s what I she says in her diary” 

“My mother was the travel agent for guilt trips” 

“Perforation is a rip-off ” 

“Veni, Vidi, Velcro: I came, I saw, I stuck around” 

“Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again” 

Profound statement: “The worst mistake anyone can make is being too 

afraid to make one.” 
Second profound statement: “Some people are so poor, all they have is 
money.” 

Final profound statement: “Winners…are not those who never fail but 
those who never quit!” 
This gives me motivation to restate some suggestions on restructuring gov


ernment. I resubmit them for your consideration: 

1. Let the president serve one (1) six-year term and out. Give it your 
best shot. 
2. Have congressional elections every four years. The current two-year 
system forces legislators and wannabes to be constantly campaigning. If we 
have four-year terms, just maybe we might get a couple years of true governing 
between election slugfests. 
3. Designate one Senate seat in each state as a one term only seat. Take 
California for example. Senator Feinstein’s seat could be occupied by the 
same person for as long as they can win an election. Senator Other Person’s 
seat, on the other hand, is good for one term and out…at least for re-election. 
In six years, maybe they can run again. Or, go after Senator Feinstein’s 
seat 
Have a good week everyone. 
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