It would be commendable if Catron County had some basic ground rules when diverse issues are discussed ("Flight or Fight," May 2005). The contentious nature of some "old timers" is apparent in their remarks. Obviously they are convinced anyone who does not agree with them on any or every subject is just wrong.
No productive talks can be achieved as long as some are unwilling to really listen and try to understand others' viewpoints without argument, derision or name-calling. Intimidation by a dominating faction, focusing on "them vs. us" rather than issues, diminishes the quality of life for all. Surely there is some common ground for pro-airport and PABA activists. Both love their area, if for different reasons.
I appreciate how "newcomers" have influenced Silver City. I have chosen to live here for almost 40 years. It's no longer just the cow-and-copper town it once was. It has become so much more. Change is part of history and always will be part of the future. Maintaining the "status quo" invites stagnation.
One question I would ask: If the airport becomes a reality, how soon will a safe, paved, double-lane road be needed to link it with Hwy. 180? And how will that be paid for?
Also, Mr. McKeen "threatened" the possibility of many new homes with "uncontrolled lights." Whoa! Surely he is aware New Mexico passed a Night Sky Protection Act effective Jan. 1, 2000. For instance, the installation of a glaring mercury vapor light since that date would be in violation. Shielding is required of any other outdoor fixture installed since that time with the exception of low-wattage bulbs. A number of communities have built on this with their own more stringent ordinances. Ignorance of this act is no excuse. Mostly problems will be dealt with on a complaint basis.
Sharon Morgan
Silver City
Your hesitation to leap over the 50-year-mark (Continental Divide, May 2005) is sad. You have no idea what you're in for. So many fuzzy things become clear and other clear things become fuzzy.
As your children get old enough to discuss their childhood at family gatherings, you become aware of God. As you find out what they actually did when out of your eyesight, you know that no one survives childhood without a lot of Divine protection. And you become aware of mercy--you were spared many a heart attack and your children were spared what is now called "abuse." We used to call it "spanking."
You become aware of why they taught you science. The law of gravity explains why everything is sagging. The laws of physics explain why all of those childhood accidents now hurt. The laws of chemistry explain why all these various combinations of foods now cause unexpected explosions and gas fields. Astronomy helps you realize how really insignificant you are--which explains the gap between your expectations of youth and the reality of your accomplishments. And you realize things worked out pretty well considering what you actually did (refer back to paragraph two).
You learn what Mark Twain actually meant when he classified lies into three categories: lies, damned lies and statistics. It explains so much about politics, business, marriage, theology and other complications in life.
Actually it is quite comforting to have so many things become clear and realize you ain't going to have to deal with it for all that much longer. Peace with your existence has a lot of value. So don't short-change yourself with Grecian Formula. Go ahead, leap into your future while you can still leap!
Charles Clements
Las Cruces, NM
You are wondering, David, why you got that letter and introductory membership card from AARP a year early. I can explain.
It comes of outsourcing. As we all know, everything boring and low-paid that can be done in an office is being shipped off to India--or would be if India could supply electricity reliably to enough computer banks to sustain all of it. Luckily for us, they can't. So there still are a modest number of boring, low-paid office jobs available to frantic Americans with recent, expensive college degrees, and other such discards of our domestic economy.
But big organizations, such as AARP, can generate their own electricity, by the miracle of geriatric friction. (At least in warm climates. I hear that pensioners in Russia are finding it more difficult.) Thus, your AARP letter was electronically generated right here in America, but the numbers were filled in--your numbers--in India. And you see, in India, they reckon the date of your birth as your first birthday. Thus you really are a year older in India.
Actually, everyone is a year older in India. Life is cheap there. It's the only way they've got to feed their burgeoning population.
But, you protest, does this mean that AARP has outsourced a year of your life?
Well, yes. But look at it this way: People in India also regard compassion as a religious duty. That underpaid Indian office worker--actually rather well paid by Indian standards even at a fraction of what they still couldn't afford a closet in Santa Cruz on in America--knows how expensive living in America can be. (Really. Well, maybe not Santa Cruz. But she does have a cousin who manages a Laundromat in Alamogordo.) They're doing you a favor.
So what if you're a year older than you thought you were? At least that makes you eligible for AARP's insurance and other discounts a year sooner. Then again, you'll need that insurance, for the hernia you'll get carrying in the mail that AARP now will send you, to sell you all that discounted insurance. Oh well. Win some. Lose some.
I hope that this has elucidated and enlightened your situation. With best wishes for an enjoyable dotage.
Uncle River
Glenwood
Having been advised all my life to "leave the South" in order to find some good people and some good sense, I sometimes go looking.
While searching around for some of the aforementioned "sense," a modicum of which one expects to find in Silver City, conspicuous at the top of the "Letters" page of Desert Exposure (April) was David Pedigo's letter. Now let's see, where am I? Is this the backwoods of Alabama or Mississippi?
Apparently he feels strongly that people need to "blow off steam" by torturing their fellow sentient beings to death. Strongly implied in his letter is the notion that brutal cockfights will prevent child abuse at home. David, there is one violence. We must get rid of it if the world will survive. And there is one true and authentic compassion, as well. That compassion is universal. It is not about me, my family, my species, my country; it's about everything.
Worse, below the Pedigo letter, another citing the proliferation of steel-jaw traps in New Mexico. Where am I? The incendiary hell of 21st century, George Bush America. North, south, east or west, it's all the very same thing.
Bob DeLay
via email
June 2005
