Heroes and Villains

This was quite a week for domestic and international news. Local and international events are not mutually exclusive. One example is that when we were drafted into the armed services or volunteered, it’s local men and women being inserted into a far away war zone. And now we are more interdependent than ever.

Let’s take a look at some heroes and a villain.

A local hero, Danny Santillan, passed away recently. I thank my IV Press colleague, Arturo Bojorquez, for bringing this to readers’ attention in his column, Mex Factor. Danny lived in Calexico, and I’d occasionally meet him at local events. Yet, I really got to know Danny through his columns or Letters to the Editor in which he took local governments and institutions to account for their actions or lack of action.

Danny did speak up for the average woman or man. He spoke truth to power challenging the IID, the county, city police, or the Junior Fair Board to explain their actions. One of my constant complaints about Imperial Valley residents is that they don’t complain enough in order to keep leaders and organizations honest. Danny did. He thought that the “big guys” should be held accountable. Not everyone agreed with his political views verifying that he was on the right track.

Danny also had a great sense of humor explaining in 2015 that federal troops were in Texas to force Mexico to take Texas back. A good idea. And once he closed a column with, “Shalom Y’all.” He wrote about gun violence, misuse of power and plenty of other topics. He wrote!

Internationally, the world has lost a true hero with the death, or murder, of Alexi Navalny in the Polar Wolf penal colony, a remote Russian prison. Navalny was in prison for attempting to run against Vladimir Putin for president, and, more so, for exposing the corruption of the Russian political elite. He was Russia’s most prominent dissident. He was influential enough to mobilize demonstrations against corruption and against the Putin regime in dozens of cities.

Mr. Putin evidently feared Navalny enough to have him poisoned twice before. In the second instance in 2020 he was airlifted to Berlin for treatment. German doctors saved his life and confirmed he had been poisoned with a chemical nerve agent.

Despite this, Navalny returned to Russia in 2021 and was immediately arrested. Over the years, the trumped up charges against Navalny escalated. He would never be free again. However, Navalny’s team posted a much watched video, “Putin’s palace,” on YouTube illustrating corruption.

Navalny’s popularity was due to his

Life is filled with ifs. The ever constant dilemma is, “If I do this, what will happen?” People also lament about the past with thoughts of “If I had only done things differently.” Then there is worry about the future with “What will I do if that happens?”

You can’t go forward in life when you are caught up in the past. Although you can learn from the past, you can’t change it. Getting caught up in thoughts of “if only I had done such and such then things would have been different,” is a total waste of time.

Learn the lessons your past has to teach, then focus on the ifs of the present. Rather than becoming stressed when faced with many ifs, be thankful you live in a country that provides the freedom to have so many choices.

Ifs serve a valuable role by enabling you to evaluate various options. One pitfall is inaction as a result of becoming overwhelmed by all of the choices. Doing nothing is at times a valid option, but only when it is intentional, not as a result of indecision.

Make the best decision you can and move forward. Don’t become immobilized due to paralysis by analysis. Often, a person is afraid to make a decision because they can’t guarantee the outcome. Some people even project negative scenarios for every if they are considering. charisma and his preaching truth to power. The Russian ruling elite has been robbing the nation, and Putin has been crushing all dissent and alternative paths to democracy. The average Russian doesn’t even know much about the Russian invasion of Ukraine due to the censorship of state run TV.

Why do people, very rare people, risk their lives against oppression? Why does a Martin Luther King, Jr. emerge? King, as Navalny, knew he would eventually be murdered. And, why too, does a Cesar Chavez emerge to lead farm workers to demonstrate for better working conditions and wages?

And then we have former President Trump. He declared at a recent political rally that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet the 2% defense spending guidelines. So European nations fear that the U.S. no longer has its back, and that Trump is simply emboldening Putin to attack Estonia or Poland as it has Ukraine.

Over two centuries, the U.S. has supported and been supported by its European allies from the First World War to Afghanistan. Mr. Trump would end this mutual support and leave us at our peril. The former president’s position is ludicrous and unpatriotic.

It’s a very tough world out there. I’m not a saber rattler and have opposed several U.S. wars. But make no mistake, the Putins of the world thrive on fear and the conviction that might makes right. The U.S. cannot afford to jettison its allies, and we need to celebrate heroes home and abroad.

This is the NOtSoEarly (NOSE) notification which is becoming an annual alert necessary for the preservation of society, if I may place such a heavy responsibility on a mere newspaper column. Hey, guys! This is addressed to you. It’s time to get out of your man cave. Take off the blinders. Turn off the ESPN poker tournament and look around. Get in your pickup or your used BMW; get on your skateboard. Step on it. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Make a laser focused dash to Zales, Kay’s, Macy’s, or the 99 Cents Store. Or get her a Taylor Swift album. It doesn’t much matter. Well maybe not the 99 Cents Store. But you get the idea. The message is that you need to buy some gifts for your sweetie or suffer the locks being changed by sundown February 14th. Forget Lids, an all-day pass to the shooting range, or the NFL app download. Not only is the NFL season over, yours may be too if you present this as a

“What if f I change jobs and then

I’m unhappy?” “What if I go out on a date and then the other person rejects me?” “What if I paint my living room and then don’t like the color?” “What if I get my car fixed and then it breaks down again?”

A person who always assumes a negative outcome for each option most likely doesn’t make any decisions at all. Or when they do, they subconsciously program their mind to produce, or attract, the very outcome they feared.

Why not anticipate a positive outcome? It takes no more effort, yet conditions your mind to produce or attract good things. You don’t have to be afraid. Make your best pick based on all the information you have at the time. The negative ifs listed above could be altered to provide a better chance of success.

“What if I change jobs and then I’m really pleased with my new position.” “What if I go on a date and then we get along great?” “What if I paint my living room and then love the new look?” “What if I get my car fixed and then it serves me reliably for many more miles?”

So, what if things don’t turn out the way you had hoped? Then you come up with some more choices and change what you don’t like. Don’t be hard on yourself. No one gets it right gift for her.

If you are reading this on the way home from work and time is short, stop off at one of the street corner vendors and buy an overstuffed animal and balloons. They’ll sell you a bunch of Teflon, helium filled balloons, but be careful. If you are driving a Mini Cooper or especially a Fiat 500, don’t put too many balloons in the back seat. They will lift the rear wheels off the pavement making the car unsafe to drive. Also, if you are driving a Ford 200000 pickup with your dog in the back, do not attach the balloons to your dog’s collar. Your faithful doggie may be last seen floating to Yuma. Finally, avoid any IID checkpoints. They will pop your Teflon balloons. They cause havoc with power lines.

It’s not hopeless. The weather is still cool enough to buy chocolates. They come in a large red box shaped like a heart. Yes. They have doilies or other odd things inside, but they are also filled with chocolates. If it’s under 85 degrees, you might get away with leaving them in your trunk while you stop off at Burgers and Beer to see your buds on the way home. But beware. Check the contents before you hand her the heart because if it has melted into one huge lump, we’ll just pray for you.

If you are under 25 years old, a dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings might be ok. A little older and Chili’s will do. All else: Fortune House or Garden, and Fujisan Japanese. Real old: Denny’s or La Fonda. It’s ok to ask for the senior discount. But if you have lasted this long as a couple, you don’t need this column as a reminder. Just remember to be nice and don’t ask her to pay the bill. Going to the bathroom when the bill arrives simply doesn’t work. Step up for this occasion. No Mickey D’s drive-thru. Show some class. Adding a chocolate milkshake to the drive-thru order is not quite what I had in mind.

All of a sudden, we are closing in on the big day. There are all these ads for Valentine’s Day romantic outings. For some, you will have to drive out of the Valley where marketing is much more aggressive and your dollars simply fly out of your wallet faster. Incredible as it may seem, there are gondola rides in San Diego Bay. Drive to Coronado Island where the Gondola Company gets high ratings. A major benefit of a San Diego gondola ride is not having to spring for tickets to Venice, Italy. The deluxe package includes a pepperoni pizza for two. So get on it. Reservations required.

Got to go for flowers. I hear my dear wife exclaiming. “Practice what you preach, Rich.”

Richard Ryan is at rryan@sdsu.edu.

every time. All you can do is consider all of the options and then make an intelligent, informed decision.

Just as it’s pointless to bemoan the past, it is also a waste of energy to fret about the future. When you become engrossed with the ifs of tomorrow, you take your attention away from the ifs of today.

The best way to plan for your future is to pay attention to the ifs of the present. The person who worries about what happens if they are not happy tomorrow, isn’t going to be happy today. A better approach is to concentrate on completing the following: “If I’m going to be happy now, then I have to do ______ today.”

Life doesn’t stand still and neither should you. Welcome the ifs as an opportunity to live the way you want to.

Bryan is the author of “Dare to Live Without Limits.” Contact Bryan at Bryan@columnist.com or visit www.DareToLiveWithoutLimits.com © 2023 Bryan Golden.

Of all the skills that children may acquire in school, none surpasses reading in importance. The ability to read and comprehend what’s read is the key to all other learning, either formal or personal, and the students in California’s schools are not doing well.

Results from the state’s latest academic achievement tests, released last October, revealed that fewer than half met standards in English language skills and scarcely a third met those in mathematics.

California’s overall score in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal government’s program of measuring academic achievement, is equally bleak, ranked seventh from the bottom.

One reason the state fares so poorly is that for decades, California embraced trendy theories of teaching them to read, such as “whole language,” while spurning strong evidence that using phonics, a more traditional method, would produce better results.

The conflict, dubbed the “reading wars,” was not confined to California, but the state was one of the major battlegrounds given its size.

Ultimately, phonics-based instruction, recast as “the science of reading,” won out, at least on paper. But the state has not been insistent on its adoption, and many local school systems have continued to use less effective teaching methods.

Last month, the National Council on Teacher Quality released a report on how well states are implementing the science of reading and California achieved only a mediocre score, once again falling behind other states, such as Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama, that many would regard as regressive.

California won plaudits in some areas, such as setting reading standards in teacher training and including skills in its licensing process, but fell behind in requiring ongoing literacy training and overseeing teacher preparation programs to ensure that the science of reading is being stressed.

“In California, only 58% of fourth grade students can read at a basic level based on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP),” according to the report. “That number falls precipitously for California’s historically underserved students.

“Students who are not reading at grade level by the time they reach fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school, which in turn leads to additional challenges for them as adults: lower lifetime earnings, higher rates of unemployment, and a higher likelihood of entering the criminal justice system.

“These alarming statistics can be largely attributed to inequities in access to effective reading instruction, a problem that strong state policy and bold state leaders can solve.”

The brighter side of the picture is that within a few months, California will require teacher preparation programs to stress the science of reading with an eye on meeting the state’s new literacy standards.

Newly introduced legislation would make the science of reading mandatory. In the absence of such a mandate, it could take years for full implementation, if ever, because many liberal school districts will continue to resist, falsely believing that phonics are incompatible with educational equity.

California has an odd policy on overseeing what happens in local school systems. It closely monitors their finances and will essentially seize districts that are in danger of becoming insolvent, but takes a more hands-off stance regarding educational outcomes.

Reading is too important to allow local school systems to decide if and when they will adopt the science of reading. As the report on teacher quality points out, a child who can’t read is likely to fall behind for the remainder of his or her life.

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He has written more than 9,000 columns about California and its politics and his column has appeared in many other California newspapers. He writes for CalMatters.org a nonprofit, non-partisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.