Threats from future energy users
Have pity on Ms. Sontag. She’s being threatened by children. Oh, it’s not her person that’s being threatened, but her livelihood. As spokesperson for the “energy” industry, she may lose her job if New Mexicans don’t fight back against these special interest groups. Jobs will be lost. Money will be squandered. Lives will be tossed onto the trash heap of history.
Wait a minute, Ms. Sontag. Don’t you represent a special interest group? Never do you name the special interest group: the coal, oil and natural gas companies. You refer to them as the energy industry. That’s like calling a tobacco company an agricultural industry. It is, but then it isn’t, unless you enjoy eating tobacco leaves. What you really want is people in New Mexico to continue to pollute their air and water.
What else have you neglected to tell us? Never do you mention that continued reliance on coal, oil and natural gas will destroy landscapes and habitats that make New Mexico the “Land of Enchantment.” You don’t tell us that mining for coal and digging for oil will contaminate our ground water. You neglect to inform us of the deforestation and erosion caused by mining for coal. I know that in this era of “fake news,” people are not obligated to tell the truth. But I’ve always been told, honesty is the best policy, and blaming children for fighting for their future — a future without coal and oil and natural gas — is simply not telling the truth.
Robert O’Brien
Las Cruces
Selling our kids down the drain
With school districts all over the state being the major employer, any positive efforts that are focused on bettering children's lives and futures is superseded by making sure that said departments maintain teacher and administrative jobs without regard to results. Early childhood education programs just created more teacher jobs along with state-subsidized daycare with no focus on the quality of creating learners than just normalizing them to the structure of outdated teaching practices. Sit down, shut up and turn to page 43 in your book.
Nothing in the report says anything about teacher wellbeing but the public naively thinks our Legislature would never have anything in mind except the children's wellbeing. Legislators march to the tune of school districts (teachers and bloated administrations) voting power as they justify pouring more money into a hole that does nothing to better the end results (beyond saying they graduated) and the future of our children.
Robert Wood
Las Cruces
What about the rights of the unborn?
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” These three rights are strongly defended and loved by the American people. In fact, we have fought wars and risked lives to protect them. As we recall the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the court case that legalized abortion, we must ask ourselves: What about the rights of the 58 million babies who have been killed since 1973?
During the Second World War, America helped put an end to the cruel concentration camps in Europe. Yet today, an even greater, silent holocaust is waged within our very own borders. Every year, over a million babies are aborted. In short, the most fundamental right, that of life, which is the basis of all the others, is being denied to our own people. Some may ask whether the unborn child is really a human. The answer is yes. Science tells us that the unborn baby has a distinct, unchanging, and unrepeatable genetic code, unique in all of history, from the moment of conception.
Many say that a woman has the “right” to choose. And what of the baby’s right? Even more, it is illegal in this country to harm the unhatched eggs of an eagle. Why then, is it legal to kill an unborn child, who is more precious than any bird?
Should life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be denied to our unborn babies? To answer in the affirmative would be highly un-American and simply immoral.
Greg Goldblatt
Las Cruces