Saturday, May 30, 2009

Letters to the editor

Changing parties is not same as changing U.S.

EDITOR:

Our founders must be rolling in their graves.

It seems every morning we awake to a new, startling provision conjured up by a White House that fades the fathers' dreams and propels us farther away from the patriotic purpose penned on the parchment of the greatest document known to man this side of the Holy Bible, the United States Constitution.

The Constitution has been incorrectly described as a fundamentally flawed document full of negative rights. Vowing to change America at its base, the present administration has belligerently made it clear that it is "our turn." I'm not sure who "our" is, but I am sure that this newly elected team of liberal politicians is unapologetically taking a hatchet to individual freedoms and to much of what we hold dear. Ironically bold, yet subtle enough to fool many, their carefully calculated programs are moving forward at an alarming pace. Yes, there are those who agree that a change at the White House was desirable, but changing presidents, policies and/or changing parties is, I think, quite different from changing America.

In just a few short months a radical footing has been laid for what has been called the "remaking of America." Well beyond reformation, this platform for change, perpetuated by ultra leftists, who would dissolve capitalism, diminish free speech, attack traditional Judeo-Christian influence, cater to abortionists, gay rights activists and apologetically meld America into a new world order, unexceptional and weak, is upon us!

Probably the brightest and best funded political campaign in American political history has brought to office a dynamic leader whose charisma, prompted eloquence and personal charm has excited a base that wants massive entitlements and a mega powerful, social minded government.

It was a majority, not a mandate that inaugurated this new direction. The minority, however, still breathes. The sacrifices of those who bravely fought to establish and sustain this unique, great nation must not be forgotten! Dedicated to the preservation of the Republic, we must carry on in the belief that freedom will prevail. In God we trust.

Howard Stansell
Los Lunas

Obama is working to restore Constitutional law

EDITOR:

Recent writers of letters in the local newspaper avoid certain facts, because objective reality is their enemy.

1. Barack Obama won the election for President in November 2008. That an African-American won the popular vote is a major accomplishment (in this racist country), and the landslide in the electoral college is equally important. The people are now back in power.

2. The Japanese surrendered in 1945, but the permanent opposition to the people did not surrender in November. Those seeking to render the U.S. Constitution worthless continue to spew their propaganda, as regularly appears in local newspapers across the country (including this newspaper), as well as on national hate-talk radio and on the faux TV news channels

The Party of No — no facts, no rights, no health care, no accountability, no security, no jobs, no education — is made up of the Republicans, fascists, racists, Federalists, Wall Street barons, members of P.N.A.C., all the unindicted traitors and criminals of the Bush Administration,, your war profiteers, and just plain demagogues plotting together and separately to reverse the intent of the Constitution and to further destroy the Nation. Their evil job is not done.

3. The Republican national debt today stands at $25 trillion. If — and that is still a very big if — Barack Obama and his team saves America and the world from suffering the decade-long Second Republican Depression that looms on our horizon, then he will have done a greater thing than F.D.R. did, because President Obama has only eight years to rescue the country. The matter is extremely urgent.

4. The economy of America and the world has not yet reached bottom. We have yet to go through the turmoil that awaits from the credit card crisis. If President Obama makes the right choices and his plans get enacted in time, then the economy won't get too much worse. If what needs to be enacted is faulty or is blocked or watered down by the Party of No, then the Republican Great Depression of 1929 to 1938 will look like a picnic in the park in comparison.

5. A recent national poll by ABC News found that only 21 percent of American voters will admit to being registered as Republicans. The Party of No has lost power because their lies are both the cause and the result of believing their own propaganda.

Barack Obama and his team are the only chance that America has to restore Constitutional law, to survive the Republican economic meltdown, and with a little luck maybe even prevent your grandchildren from living as slaves to the oligarchy.

G.E. Nordell
Belen

It's wonderful to see triplets' triumphs

EDITOR:

It was a pleasant surprise to see a familiar face above the fold in May 16's News-Bulletin: Avila Garcia of The Triplets. When I was a substitute teacher in Los Lunas, their reputations preceded them around campus. I had Avila in an Ag class for a week, and she was a bright spot. So unassuming was she that I had no idea of all her accomplishments until now.

How refreshing also to know a true scholar-athlete, who never asked for privileges often demanded by those clearly her inferiors. The story was a welcome change from some past leads about Los Lunas District. No doubt others are saying similar things about Adán and Estevan.

Closer to my home, the 27 graduates of Belén's Infinity High School are to be commended for sticking it out, under each one's own difficult circumstance. I remember many of them with pleasure. The staff worked hard with these young people. Although mislabeled "bad kids" by some, they were the ones who chose to come to class. May they do as well, in future.

Doug Pruner
Belén

Henry's, Justo's — ah, the good old days

EDITOR:

Sandy Battin's article, People and Places, was fantastic (May 9). So many things are getting lost; you don't know how many things I'd ask my mother and my grandmother; it's too late now. They are both gone.

There's a few things here and there, but Henry's food market brought back memories. The generosity of people back then was amazing.

I'm going back to before Safeway. There was Becker-Dalies and then there was Justo's. We could go in on Becker and exit on Dalies and across the street to the drugstore for a strawberry soda. Remember the red soda in a bottle (Nehi, I think.)

The floor at Justo's was board; I have no idea what kind of wood. I do remember them sweeping with sawdust on the floor. The meat refrigerator was to the southwest or to the left as you entered right, going west. We went to buy carne de rez. Grandma always reminded my aunt because, one time, she got home with the wrong piece of meat and, boy, was she ever in trouble. She didn't have to take the meat back, but we had to walk — yes, walk — all the way back to get the right kind of meat, which I think was a roast. When we got back to the store, my aunt told Justo, "Mama said you know what she wants." He grinned and said, "I wondered why you pointed to the one you took." My aunt went to pay him and he wouldn't take the money. He said, "My mistake."

When I made my First Communion, no one had white shoes in my size — Justo's, Becker-Dalies or Feil and Ellermeyers. I had to wear black patent leather shoes; my aunt and uncle said I looked like a black-faced lamb. It didn't bother me.

Later came Frank Tabet; it was way great, closer. Then came Salo's that was home to us; everybody had a tab at his place, paid once a week or once a month.

Bubble gum was a penny, and that's the first time I tasted baloney. He had hired me to clean the store; at noon, he or his wife asked if I was hungry. I said no because I didn't have a lunch. But Lucy, his wife, brought me a sandwich — bread and baloney. That's what they ate, too.

That was the biggest treat I ever had, a baloney sandwich. After that, I would buy a pound of baloney every time I worked.

We would walk across the field over the tracks to the depot for a drink of water sometimes. When we walked to school, we went over the black bridge.

I had lived in Albuquerque, so I was raised or grew up in Belen — or Jarales, I should say — but it wasn't even in Jarales, it was Los Trujillos and Albuquerque and, oh, what a difference. A lot of it was about the same because of my upbringing, but it was still different.

My dad was a businessman; he owned a business on Fourth and Barelas next to the Francis Bar and a drugstore (I think Rupert's) and they later moved farther north on Fourth Street. We lived two blocks on a residential area; later, as I got older, it became what Rudy Anaya describes in his book about Barelas and the Country Club area.

My happiest days of growing up were in Los Trujillos, where the neighbors knew each other, they helped each other. We would all go roast chile at one neighbor's, then the next and so on, making red chile ristras. Same thing until all of it was sone. As a child, I remember once them making a coffin in our garage for one of the neighbors. This was long, long before Salo's because Salo's was still owned by one of the Tabets. The two girls would come and play with me; it was Grandma's house.

There was no electricity, no gas, irons on the stove to iron the clothes. During the winter, it was nice, but oh, in the summer. I can remember getting up early in the morning, and my aunts were ironing on the table. If they hadn't finished before breakfast, they had to set up again for ironing. It was not left until tomorrow. Sometimes, they did the washing by hand in a tub with a washboard, another tub for rinsing and do the ironing the same day. They would be perspiring, kept wiping their faces with a hanky. Yes, all ladies always had a hanky in their pocket. So did boys and men.

If I could write well, I would write a complete book. There are so many little stories all around us that we don't know about.

What it was like working in the ice plant, the roundhouse, the men playing baseball with families watching.

There are so many great people that we don't know about unless we go back to our childhoods, tell our kids and our grandkids.

Thank you for acknowledging someone's kindness. They (the Henry Jaramillo family) a great family.

Things like this went on all the time, but no one seems to care. It's because of deeds like this that we call them the good old days.

Ana Hirschfeld
Belen

It's time to think about their rights

EDITOR:

A few of your readers promote the Bible as a source of inerrant morality.

Mrs. Mowrer recently discussed Old Testament verses to endorse her claims against her topic. I would just like to offer that using the Bible is a false argument as there are great portions of the Bible that we are forced to reject on ethical grounds and which endorse illegal behavior.

Among some very beautiful passages, there are a great many very unsavory prescriptions for slavery, rape, genocide,the very bad treatment of women and children, the opposition to marriage, and the murder of children or people who do not think as you do. Really.

For starters, let's look at the murder of children. Psalms 137:9: "Happy shall he be who taketh and dasheth thy little ones against rocks", talking about the children of enemies. In Deuteronomy, God even directly commands that the entire Caananite population including "newborns, infants, adults and the aged" be slaughtered to make way for his people. Not a pro-life statement, I think. There are many others too numerous to mention. If we decided to invade Mexico because we wanted more ocean front, would this be something we would say we were entitled to do based on the Bible?

In the New Testament, Mark 18:25 speaks about the rightness of selling debtors, their wives and children into slavery. Luke speaks of Jesus discussing the right beating for slaves (Luke 45-48) and in Ephesians 6:5-9, we learn that slaves are to treat their masters as if they were Jesus himself. The Old Testament of course, advises us to get a good price for our daughters when we sell them into slavery and that all female slaves are obliged to lay with their masters even against their wills. Slaves or wives that are raped by others than the master should be flogged, killed or simply abandoned to fen for themselves. Sometimes their children are punished with them. Who can forget that passage in which Lot offers his virgin daughters up to be raped by a crowd rather than let his male guest be molested by men?

Women, according to Paul in one passage, should be silent, stay at home, be obedient and pregnant, their natural purpose in life. In the Old Testament, women are not allowed to testify in court, in some passages they must be double veiled, never be in male company other than that of relatives. If you are raped, you may be forced to marry your violator or be cast out from your family. Menstruating women are considered "unclean" and social pariahs. Women and children are the basic property of men to do with as they please.

A number of passages such as Luke 19:27, state that those who refuse to accept Jesus should be slain and it is even a Christian obligation to do so. In other passages, even a Christian who believes other than prescribed teachings is to be struck down or punished. Pagans are a great source of wrath on so many levels. Anything they do is wrong and worthy of extreme measures of retribution-they are killed, their temples razed, etc. The free-wheeling sexuality of the ancient world was a great source of ire which resulted in an extreme emphasis on chastity in the early church.

This intolerance of infidels leads to the antisemitism in the New Testament, which has been used to kill Jews for nearly 2000 years. But it is also more specific. Jesus calls Jews the "children of the Devil" John 8:37-39 and the Matthew 27:25 quote ties them to the murder of Jesus and that his blood would be on their children, who of course may be slain for it.

Nor is marriage a preferred state in Paul, 1 Corinthians: 24-31. Rather those who remain chaste are the true servants of God, whereas those who succumb to lust must marry to avoid sin. But "It is good for a man not to have sex with a woman" 1Cor, 7:16, Also within Paul, he states that the procreation of children is unnecessary as Jesus will come soon.

There are sundry prescriptions in the Old Testament which very few adhere to, such as considering pork and shell fish — even dogs — an abomination.

There is a big thick book of Jewish law that needs to be studied if we wish to really adhere to The Law of the Old Testament.

Do we pick and chose what we take from the Bible? I certainly hope so. All of us who read the Bible take from it what speaks to us. Often, it is a source of good, but unfortunately, it has also been the wellspring of much of the intolerance and violence people have visited on each other. Over time, we have evolved our understanding of such things as women's and children's rights and the right of people not to be owned by others, the wrongness of killing others for land we want or because they are not Christian. I propose it is time to think about the rights of people who merely wish to love someone of the same sex as well. Just maybe God made them that way. The Bible is such a quirky book, maybe it is just some kind of test to see if we will figure out ethical behavior on our own.

Otherwise, you need to throw the pork chops away and buy some help for the house.

Hanna Van Arnim
Los Lunas

Resolution shows it's a Christian nation

EDITOR:

In response to the comment President Obama made during a visit to Turkey the first week of May that "the United States isn't a Christian nation . . .," the first session of the 111th Congress has introduced House Resolution 397, "Affirming the rich spiritual and religious heritage of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as 'America's Spiritual Heritage Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith."

To illustrate the veracity of the intent behind the resolution, the resolution contains 74 "Whereas" statements of fact regarding our nation's Judeo-Christian heritage and the importance of its maintenance. Included here is a tiny sampling. The entire Resolution can be found at aclj.org.

"Whereas in 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin declared, God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? His concurring aid? . . . Without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel;

Whereas in 1776, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence with its four direct religious acknowledgments referring to God as the Creator, the Lawgiver, the Judge and the Protector.

The 16 pages of the resolution state historical facts, previously debated in the paper, that affirm the role of God in the creation of this mighty nation and the absolute necessity that recognition of, and faith in God be the driving force behind its governance. In light of President Obama's statement, such may not be the case for the next four years, a decision for which we may dearly pay. I urge everyone to read the full resolution and contact your representatives in Congress to support its passage.

Reid Mowrer
Los Lunas

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