Dear Editor:

I want to put in a big “thank you” to Anthony Martinez and members of the Corrales Youth Conservation Corp who spent a long, hot Saturday rebuilding a decrepit bridge over the irrigation ditch leading to the Boy Scout Bridge. They did a terrific job. We heard many positive comments all day Sunday as folks crossed over their new bridge.

Thank you, YCC.

Jeanne Phillipa

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Dear Editor:

Fairs are big in New Mexico in August and September. Great family entertainment. This year, fairs in Indiana and Ohio have generated unwelcome news. A few, primarily children, have come down with the flu after visiting a fair. Another swine flu virus, this time H3N2, has mutated enough to be transmittable to humans. The flu symptoms induced by the H3N2 virus in humans are mild —cough, myalgia (muscle pain) and headache.

However some flue viruses can induce severe symptoms, even death. Probably 50 million people worldwide died of flu in 1918-19. To learn more about season flu viruses and how they spread, look to the Centers for Disease Control website, www.cdc.gov, or the National Institutes for Health.

An easier and more fun way is to read my new novel Coming Flu. The science in the fiction is real. The plot moves quickly when a flu epidemic breaks out in a walled community near the Rio Grande. Two hundred die in less than a week.The rest face a bleak future when quarantine is imposed . One resident, a medical epidemiologist, pries into every aspect of her neighbors’ lives looking for clues on how to stop the spread of the flu.

Be warned, after you read Coming Flu you are more likely to wash our hands after you’ve moved livestock or someone who is coughing and sneezing. The best advice to fairgoers is to wash you hands with soap or use a sanitizer after you visit animal exhibits and before you eat cotton candy or other treats at the fair.

J.L. Greger

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Dear Editor:

Congratulations to Scott Sibbett for his fine letter concerning the right to bear arms and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Over the past few years, I’ve been tempted to write that kind of letter, but never seemed to get it done. Anyway, here it is.

The Second Amendment says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The Brittanica World Language Dictionary defines “militia” as “a body of citizens enrolled and drilled in military organizations other than the regular military forces.…” This includes the National Guard and the organized Reserves. Obviously having an armed militia makes it easier for the people of a nation to revolt when they have cause (or even no cause), and the United States of America in 1791, when the Second Amendment to the Constitution was passed, had causes for their revolution.

It certainly appears that the right to bear arms has to do with the ability of the people to revolt against the existing government. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with shotguns for hunting or pistols for protecting your home. In addition, in the United States today, a successful revolt against the U.S. armed forces is almost unthinkable, even if it does work in the Middle East against the Middle Eastern armed forces.

So what’s all the arguing about? If you’re in the National Guard, you are constitutionally entitled to possess a gun (not a fighter plane, not a tank, not an atomic missile, just maybe a rifle or a pistol). Perhaps the Second Amendment needs some clarification by the courts or Congress.

So if the Village of Corrales wished to outlaw firearms under certain conditions, they would be free to do so by merely passing an appropriate ordinance. It would appear that, in the absence of appropriate legislation, folks could possess firearms as they wished. This can, however, be regulated by appropriate legislation without referring to the Second Amendment unless the owner of the firearm is in a militia body. Perhaps the Second Amendment has run its course.

Please note that I was the Corrales Municipal Judge through the 1980s, and I received the top grade in the Constitutional Law course at the University of New Mexico Law School.

Melvin Eisenstadt

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Dear Editor:

Open letter to the mayor.

I felt bad for my country last night when we were shouted down during the pledge of allegiance. In my opinion, those that did that showed a total lack of respect for the Village, the Village Council, our flag, and most important, a lack of respect for themselves.

That had to be hard for you. Congratulations on handling it like a statesman.

Councillor Ennio Garcia-Miera

Dear Editor:

The board of directors of the Corrales Future Fund are pleased to provide this summary update of the Corrales Rescue Vehicle project to fund a new, reliable and more capable rescue vehicle to serve the citizens of Corrales.

The first stage of the project, in which we took an active role, has been successfully completed. A community-wide effort to raise at least $25,000 in private funding has met with an impressive response. A total of $34,278 has been raised as of August 17 with 189 donations from more than 350 Corraleños in amounts ranging from $5 to $1,500 plus a contribution from Intel of $5,000.

We extend our sincere appreciation and thanks to each donor.

An ad appeared in the last issue of the Corrales Comment thanking our donors.

Due to clerical error and late arriving donations we wish to acknowledge support for the Rescue Vehicle Project by these additional Corraleños: Polly Benavides, Nancy Dusenberry, Martha Eaves,Sandy Gold, William Kent, and Kip and Deborah Wharton responded to this important Village need with their generous donations. In addition, Road Runner Waste Services provided valuable in-kind support. We thank them all for their interest in the quality of life in Corrales.

In addition to these privately raised funds, the Village Council has included $50,000 in the 2012-13 budget as matching funds to be added to our monies.

And largely through the efforts of board member Nora Scherzinger and Commissioner Donnie Leonard, Sandoval County has committed $10,000 of additional matching funds. The combined amount of $94,278 will be used to request funds from the Department of Health to total the approximately $170,000 required to purchase a new ruggedized rescue vehicle to serve us all.

We are happy to have had the opportunity to address an important Corralesʼ need. Those interested in our long-term goal of establishing an endowment for future Village capital needs such as the Rescue Vehicle Project may obtain more information by calling 899-2608 or sending an e-mail to

Gary Miller, president

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Dear Editor:

 There are some bills filed by Republican members of the U.S. House which were sent back to committee until a more favorable presentation time to avoid a presidential veto.  I would like to bring some of these details to the attention of your readers.  The current media is too busy with political campaign rhetoric to deal with real issues right now.

 Lou Dubose, editor of the Washington Spectator (to which I subscribe) has been reading through these bills for the past 19 months.  I’ll just hit the highlights and refer interested readers to check out the August 1, 2012 issue available online for more details.

Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee’s Free Industry Act (125 co-sponsors) would amend the Clean Air Act to “(1) exclude from the definition of the term ‘air pollutant’ carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydroflourocarbons, perflourocarbons, or sulfur hexaflouride; and (2) declare that nothing in the Act shall be treated as authorizing or requiring the regulation of climate change or global warming.”

 Intel would love that one!  Maybe their free speech dollars helped to pay lobbyists to get such a bill crafted.

 Then there’s one imposing restrictions on EPA’s authority to administer regulations under the Clean Water Act.  That’s from Florida which John Mica filed as Clean Water Cooperative Federation Act (39 co-sponsors).  States would have to concur.  That means big petrochemical polluting states such as Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Jersey could exempt themselves from any new EPA measures protecting either ground or surface water.

 When will we, the people, realize it is up to us to say “No! We don’t want mega-buck corporations polluting our water supply.?”

 There’s a bill with 217 c-osponsors to permanently repeal the estate tax which would probably add $1.3 trillion to the deficit the next 10 years, according to Dubose.  Likewise, if the bill with 31 co-sponsors made all the George W. Bush tax cuts permanent, that would cost $3 trillion over 10 years.

 The problem with all of the bills designed to legislate the tax structure is that the system is broken!

 Mega-buck corporations are defined as “persons” with their money doing all the talking.  Yet live, flesh and blood human beings are often not allowed free speech out of their mouths or words printed on signs if others deem such activity un-American or disrespectful of our dysfunctional legislative hierarchy.

 The whole issue of abortion needs a dialogue few are willing to straight forwardly engage in.  Instead, it has become a dictate of extreme fundamentalist religions and/or preachers to the extent that believers are challenged to impose these views in the political arena.  This is an infringement on the separation of church and state.

 Organized religion is one thing. A thoughtful, meaningful participation can be beneficial as one journeys through this life on planet earth.

 Faith, on the other hand, is not synonymous with religion.  Faith is a very personal relationship developing from one’s experience with whomever or whatever one reveres as God. It influences how one relates to his fellow human beings in every day encounters.

 Abortion is now a dominating issue in the Republican Party to the extend Mike Pence has a bill with 178 co-sponsors which seeks to deny Planned Parenthood funding. 

 However, the bill that really is absurd is Georgia’s Paul Broun’s Sanctity of Human Life Act (64 sponsors) which defined human life as beginning “at fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent,” and confers upon the fertilized egg, whether  in utero, in vitro, or in a theoretical cloning laboratory the “full legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”  What a set up for legal professionals to make a mint of money!

 There is one more, one-sentence bill Dubose brings to our attention, which seeks to tie the hands of the president, our government,  and every serious-minded, thoughtful, intelligent scientist or lay person concerned about and seeking answers to man-made climate changes.

 Blaine Luetkemeyer, as a Missouri state legislator, filed a bill before 2008 which states: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President may not make contributions on behalf of the United States to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”  

 That sort of sums it up.

 Roberta King