Hat’s off to Portantino
I’ve had my disagreements with Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, but my hat’s off to him for bucking his party by voting against the recently passed state budget.
The Democratic leadership is punishing him for voting his conscience instead of what the party demanded — the price one must pay for daring to vote what’s best for California, rather than what’s best for Democratic politics.
His political career may be over, but I salute him for risking it all for the good of California.
Bob Tanabe
La Cañada Flintridge
I know, I know, you might be tired of my Verdugos trails tales, but stay with me for one more.
Last week, as I went up to the top, I picked up the usual trash, including horrifying cigarette butts, as well as a plethora of drink bottles. The hot weather caused the bottles to sprout along the roads like noxious weeds. Yet, I marveled at and enjoyed the profusion of red wildflowers — Penstemon, larkspur, Indian pink and even a patch of California fuchsia.
Although well past their prime, there were still pink prickly phlox, purple lupine and orange monkey flower in the more sun sheltered spots.
What a lovely morning it was until I got to the benches at the intersection with the Brand Park Motorway, where I found more trash, but even worse, I found numerous brown bundles of dead dried out colorless wild flowers, which caused me once again to dig deeply into my lexicon of profanity.
In the month or so since I last visited this spot, someone had picked bunch after bunch of live wildflowers and killed them for some sort of thoughtless pleasure. But then amazingly, just after I turned around to go back down the road, here came a woman with a large bundle of wildflowers she had just ripped from the plants along the road.
Needless to say, I rather strongly suggested that she stop picking the flowers. I doubt if she cared much. Her noxious action replaced bright living flowers, to be enjoyed for weeks to come by all walking along the road, with bunches of quickly withered colorless dead flowers heaped around the benches. Also, those dead flowers will never mature and go to seed to furnish the lovely flowers for next spring and the springs for years to come.
I don’t understand why so many people appear to click their brain-off button when they head for the hills. Why can’t they open their eyes and minds to see that they are senselessly despoiling and endangering our precious hills, including even our homes and lives, by smoking?
Robert Morrison
Glendale
The dilemma in Washington, D.C., reminds me of when, many years ago, I would go to Las Vegas to play the slot machines.
I would promise myself I would limit my indulgence to say, $40, and when that was gone I would quit!
But then I would find that I had several more hours in Las Vegas before returning home, so I would allow just a few more dollars. That too, would disappear into the one-armed bandits!
After that, I realized that promising a limit should be kept and thus, I have kept that promise in the following visits to Vegas!
Why can’t the government see that raising the debt limit is just pouring good money into bad? If that limit is not kept, then cut spending, which is often going where it is not appreciated!
Francis Adams
Glendale