Letter: Veto aims to please Bush’s few remaining supporters – Opinion
Editor,

President Bush has issued his first veto ever.

Why wasn’t this plastered over every newspaper in the country? For the first time in seven horrible years of incompetent leadership, President Bush actually vetoed a bill. This time, instead of cynically circumventing the Constitution by attaching a ‘signing statement’ to a bill he doesn’t agree with, at least he did the proper, legal thing and vetoed it.

Of course, this historic veto is against stem cell research. The message seems to be that science, which actually helps humanity, will not be tolerated. Death and destruction are far more profitable than saving lives. Bush has already spent most of his presidency standing in the way of our constitutional protections. Now, he is standing in the way of scientific advancement.

This man clearly has a great legacy to look forward to.

The question is, why the veto this time? The answer: religious idiocy. This guy is so beholden to the religious right, he has no choice. If it’s not the Zionists, it’s the fundamentalist Christians. Frankly, they are the only supporters he has left. Anyone with a functioning brain stopped listening to him years ago.

But what’s even more stupid is new White House spokesman Tony Snow’s ridiculous reply to a reporter’s question as to why Bush chose this moment for his historic veto: “The simple answer is he thinks murder’s wrong.”What? Was he serious? It’s always the same story – it’s perfectly OK to murder innocent civilians by the thousands in illegal acts of aggression, but it’s not OK to kill tissue that is not even alive.

Jason Darensburg

UNM student

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
The Post 9/11 World Has Changed

ANN COULTER screams calculated insults at 9/11 families and makes a million dollars.

I make one inadvertent remark on 9/11 and receive hate mail, death threats and am compelled by the University of New Mexico to sign a confession.

America is quite a place these days.

RICHARD M. BERTHOLD
Albuquerque

If you have ever read my blog before, you may know what I think of John Dendahl, aka Dimdahl. In spite of his puckish & jovial manner, he is one nasty character. It is not remotely possible, in his mind, that he is ever wrong. Worse, his opponents are not simply misguided, they are “insipid” and not to be trusted in the least. To Dimdahl, any public money spent for any cause he doesn’t love is socialism. To Dimdahl, global warming is a naturally occurring phenomenon to which human contribution is nil. Ad nauseum.

So, we might all wonder about the temperature in Hell when I sit down to write a defense of Dimdahl. What set me in that direction is the following letter to the editor:

ABQjournal: Letter to the Editor
Dendahl Should Exit New Mexico

JOHN DENDAHL’S columns are obviously anti-Hispanic and now anti-Spanish language. … New Mexico is bilingual, as our county is becoming, and what is wrong with that.

The most successful democracy in the world which avoids wars and according to a worldwide poll was found to have the most satisfied citizenry, has three official languages. The United States, on the other hand, has one recently declared “national” but not official. We are the only country in the world which sends ambassadors around the world who don’t speak the language of the country to which they are assigned.

Dendahl is an unhappy separatist influence in the most ethnically stable state in the union. Why doesn’t he go some place where Hispanics will not irritate him.

MIGUEL ENCINIAS
Albuquerque

Encinias, like all of us, is entitled to his opinion and the free expression of that. I would not try to silence him or the odious Dimdahl. However, I think Encinias goes too far (right) with this. His conclusion is nearly identical with the old right wing battle cry of the 60’s: Love It or Leave It. It is painfully close to the bigot’s “go back where you came from.” Ironically, Dimdahl comes from New Mexico. Now, I have met home-grown bigots in New Mexico (and everywhere I’ve been). I don’t know whether Dimdahl is a bigot, but his argument for English, which I do not agree with, is not sufficient proof. THIS is not the reason to run Dimdahl out of town.

Still, before I could compose my defense of Dimdahl (I had a lot of bile to suppress), I saw him again on The Line and hated what I saw so much I could hardly follow through with this (everyone laughed at him when he cited Michael Crichton, fiction writer, as THE authority on global warming — kinda like worshipping L. Ron Hubbard). Is Dimdahl a bigot? I don’t know. Jackass — without question. But he is New Mexico’s own and it would be wrong to export him — the rest of the world has its own problems. mjh

PS: Keep reading for another letter to the editor that illustrates a clearer instance of a bigot in public. Every time a bigot opens his or her mouth, they prove their ignorance. And yet, somehow, it keeps getting passed on because, at its root, it’s all human nature.

Continue reading In Defense of Dendahl (gag) →

Home on the Range: A Corridor for Wildlife – New York Times By CORNELIA DEAN

[T]he naturalist Aldo Leopold wrote more than 30 years ago:

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well — and does not want to be told otherwise.”

[via dangerousmeta!]

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
Brave New Education

I WAS DELIGHTED to read the story about the drug searches at Rio Rancho High School. The value of this educational opportunity is incalculable. It is absolutely essential that our young adult students understand the importance of these exercises.

Not only do they learn the importance of obedience to the law, they also now have a better understanding of law enforcement’s need to do warrantless searches and seizures whenever there is the slightest chance that drugs might be involved.

They also received valuable instruction in the need for quiet, unquestioning obedience to all dictates of anyone in authority. We are preparing these students for life in the 21st century. All citizens will need special training in these concepts as the new police state emerges.

JOE GABEL
Albuquerque

Bravo, Joe.

The Radical Right speaks constantly about “respect for the law” even as they push laws, like South Dakota’s abortion ban, that neither respect precedent nor the citizens. The Radical Right can’t stand all those “illegals” demanding — demanding! — rights. The Radical Right can’t stand the courts, where reasoning has standards, evidence and proof — those damn unelected activist judges; those frivolous lawsuits. The Radical Right hates government, compromise and nuance but loves obedience to absolute authority (the bible). The Radical Right clings to a dim-witted strongman who feels free to interpret all laws any way he sees fit. We’re one terrorist attack from martial law.

Just shut up, get in line, and do what the men in uniform tell you to do — or else! mjh

PS: As an aside, sarcasm is tricky in writing or verbally. Some never get it; some hate it. In the same section, I think Gary didn’t handle it quite as deftly as Joe, though he makes his point even so.

Drought Does Not Compute Continue reading Brave New Education →