Letters to the editor - March 26

‘Sleepy little college town’ treasures community

I write in response to a “Commentary” piece by Phill Casaus, editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, which appeared in the March 15 edition of The Eastern New Mexico News.

Casaus’ strong endorsement of the appointment of Ray Birmingham as a new regent on the Eastern New Mexico University board was rousing and enthusiastic, and, I believe, was well received by those of us who love, admire and cherish ENMU.

We all hope Birmingham’s presence as a regent will prove to be most productive and advantageous to our beloved university.

That being said, Casaus’ accompanying denigration of Portales and ENMU that filled some of his commentary was most inappropriate.

Portales is a small town, but there are those who love it. From a roughshod cowtown on the High Plains at the turn of the 20th century, it has become a virtual Brigadoon where its folks take great and good care of one another, and are filled with an enriching sense of community and appreciation of each other.

Casaus refers to our precious city as a “sleepy little college town.” His condescending and patronizing view of Portales and of ENMU is characteristic of too many folks who inhabit the appalling cultural and political cabal of Northern New Mexico, with its leftist capital sinkholes of Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Folks in Northern NM gladly ignore or diminish the rest of our vast and complex state, as if the only true New Mexican spirit resides in their benighted regions. This approach seems to be an appallingly characteristic of the all-too-frequent and (UNM-inspired) bloated, and ultimately, in its own way thoroughly soporific ego.

John Mauk Hilliard

Portales

Women have rights to control health care

A big thank you to the city and county commissions of Clovis and Roosevelt County.

Thanks to you for passing those archaic anti-female bills.

Without all the time and expense you wasted on them our state legislators might not have so quickly passed House Bill 7 ensuring a woman’s right to have control over her own health care.

Special thanks to our state legislators who could see that real freedom (not conservative’s freedom) happens when every person can make decisions for themselves.

And, a really big thank you to our governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, for signing that bill into law.

Gene Bundy

Portales