As I do every other day, I walked Lucky Dog around the neighborhood park today. Our park has two soccer fields, both of which are in use most Saturdays and, maybe, Sundays. Today, all around the two fields, I picked up small water bottles thoughtlessly tossed on the ground by players or fans (parents). We tell ourselves many lies, one of which is that “sports build character and discipline.” The evidence of that litters fields all over the world. Another lie: “environmental consciousness has become mainstream.” Or any kind of consciousness, for that matter.
To all the coaches, referees and parents: how about a post-game sweep of the field to clean-up? Show some leadership, teach some discipline, encourage some character. To the athletes: it’s up to you to keep your world from becoming a pigsty. mjh
PS: original blog entry 04/23/07; printed in abqjournal.com 5/8/07
Category Archives: Letters-to-the-Editor
Mark Twain got his start this way.
This Week’s WTF?!
ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
The temporary global warming that we are now enjoying is indeed being caused by the same phenomenon that created the infamous “dust bowl” in the Midwest during the 1930s, namely a 40-year drought cycle. We are in the middle of another one. It, too, shall pass.
No one yet knows what causes short-term climate cycles. Real scientists think that they are the result of periodic, but not yet fully understood, solar activity. There is apparently a correlation between climate cycles and fluctuating sunspot activity. …
The important point is that there is no evidence for any over sweeping global warming caused by manmade carbon dioxide production, or any other greenhouse gas for that matter. The longer, drier summers and shorter winters we are now experiencing are a result of the 40-year cycle that we are about half way through.
In another decade or so, we will pass back into a cooler, wetter cycle like last occurred during the 1980s. At that time, I am sure the alarmists will be out again, as they were back in the 1980s, decrying the inevitable, inescapable and entirely destructive global cooling. They will, of course, exhort you to stop using valuable energy for the enjoyment of your life, because it will be needed to melt the great ice sheets. You can’t win.
JOHN BLAYLOCK
Los Alamos
John has figured out the environmentalists: we live to make you miserable. Yup, all we want to do is force you to live a primitive, bleak lifestyle (like ranching, except we want to destroy that, too). Fortunately, the good people who grow rich off of your ignorance are standing up to us. Show your support by wasting something every day! Join the oxymorons at Conservatives For Waste! mjh
Suffering Fools
ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
War Protest Greatly Exaggerated
THE ANTI-WAR demonstration turned out roughly one-fourth of one percent of the local population, and yet it somehow merited a huge photo in the Sunday paper. This was not a spontaneous demonstration, but a fully coordinated nationwide effort, linking to other poorly-attended protests— as the AP put it “thousands” protested. Thousands? You get bigger turn-outs at a yard sale. The American people don’t want to abandon our troops, or face the bloodbath that would result if we pulled out in a chaotic, Vietnam-style retreat.
BURKE NELSON
Albuquerque
Before the war-without-end, countless people took to the streets across the nation and around the world. Here in Albuquerque, they were attacked and gassed and threatened with worse by Darren White, campaign coordinator for Duhbya. Opponents of the war were shouted down by red-faced patriots bent on any act of revenge for 9/11, no matter how irrelevant or ill-conceived.
Years later, the red-faced patriots are still questioning the loyalty of Americans who opposed the war from the beginning and those who have just finally had enough of the pointless war that has created far more trouble than it solved.
Imagine that parallel universe, where sense prevailed, and we never invaded Iraq. Imagine peace. mjh
From Three Years Ago —
03/20/2003: War Protests in New Mexico
About 600 demonstrators protested the war near the campus of the University of New Mexico at 6pm, Thursday, 3/20/03 (the first day of Spring). Eventually, riot police used tear gas and “chemical agents” to “calm” the crowd. There was very interesting TV footage of children under 10 fleeing to nearby restaurants, eyes streaming tears. One bystander was hit between the eyes by a tear gas canister and taken to the hospital. 17 protesters were arrested, some for throwing the tear gas canisters back at the cops. Police advise those planning other protest not let “bad apples” make problems; “we will not tolerate them taking over the streets.”
Have you noticed how cops now all look like soldiers? The uniforms and, especially, the machine guns?
Peaceful protesters are camped outside the gates to Kirtland Air Force Base. It’s raining & 47 degrees at 11pm.
In Santa Fe, protesters surrounded the Roundhouse, the State Capitol building. Some 60 high schoolers walked out of school to join protests and were suspended for 2 days for “open defiance and willful disobedience.” No one was arrested. mjh
Remember what Sally Meyer said after the ‘riot’? What Mayor Marty did? Or what one-among-many of our fellow citizens wrote about protesters? Read on:
President Bush has issued his first veto ever
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
America is quite a place these days
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
Murtha on Rove: ‘He’s Sitting in His Air-Conditioned Office on His Big, Fat Backside, Saying Stay the Course’
ROVE: Like too many Democrats, it strikes me they are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough and when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party’s old pattern of cutting and running. They may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last, tough battles. They are wrong and profoundly wrong in their approach. …
Karl Rove attacked Rep. John Murtha during a speech last week in New Hampshire. Rove described Murtha’s Iraq plan as “cutting and running,” and suggested that the 37-year Marine combat veteran would “be with you at the first shots” but not “for the last, tough battles.”
Murtha defended himself this morning on Meet the Press:
MURTHA: He’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside, saying stay the course. That’s not a plan. … We’ve got to change direction. You can’t sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying 70 pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels hit with IEDs every day, seeing their friends blown up, their buddies blown up — and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, DC.
The Horse’s Mouth
The Horse’s Mouth — Greg Sargent
KARL ZINSMEISTER SAYS HE WOULD SUPPORT JAILING DOCTORS FOR PERFORMING ABORTIONS. This appears to have passed virtually unnoticed. In an interview on Thursday, June 15, with Ben Wattenberg on the PBS show Think Tank, new top White House domestic policy adviser Karl Zinsmeister said that he would support putting doctors who perform abortions in jail.
Here’s the key excerpt:
WATTENBERG: Do you want to have laws that prevent people from having abortions?
ZINSMEISTER: You know, personally I would vote in favor of that.
WATTENBERG: So you would feel comfortable putting a doctor in jail for performing a procedure that a woman wants? And not just on-demand, but it could be rape, incest, life of the mother.
ZINSMEISTER: Sure. No, again, I have a definition that had some exceptions for rape and incest where there could be real psychological damage to the mother. …
He appears to be serious. And keep in mind that this man is probably the presidential adviser with the most influence over domestic policymaking in the United States.