Our view B-2 My view B-3, B-4, B-5, B-6
SUNDAY, JULY 20, 2014 THE NEW MEXICAN
OPINIONS
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The best political cartoons from the past week. Page B-3
Sen. Heinrich leading on border crisis
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
SFCC, city address hospitality
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he New Mexican (“Put hospitality first in tourism,” Our View, June 30) is right on: “There is no better place for worldclass hospitality education than Santa Fe — and the city of Santa Fe and Santa Fe Community College should take the lead in making it happen.” We are pleased to say, we’re on it. The city of Santa Fe and Santa Fe Community College welcome the opportunity to collaborate on making Santa Fe “a center of excellence for hospitality education.” We have the cultural, educational and professional resources in place. SFCC offers degree and certificate programs that help prepare students for our vibrant hospitality industry, including culinary arts, hospitality and tourism. The city of Santa Fe has a newly created pilot talent recruitment project that has already placed 12 interns with local businesses and organizations that will diversify the labor force and keep our college graduates and their talents in New Mexico. We agree that it will take more than the city and SFCC to create the pathways for careers in hospitality and tourism. It has to be a holistic approach strengthened with community collaboration. We will work together to garner support from the community to develop a citywide initiative. Javier Gonzales
mayor, city of Santa Fe Randy W. Grissom
interim president, Santa Fe Community College
A governor for women When comparing candidates — it is actions that matter. Gov. Susana Martinez has a record of positive action for women — a record that brings pride to all New Mexicans. Richard Ellenberg’s letter (“A tale of two candidates,” July 12) failed to mention Gary King’s shameful actions towards his own female employees. In the Attorney General’s Office,
multiple women sued King for gender discrimination. Instead of taking leadership and correcting the problem, King belittled the women, said they had “average capabilities” and were simply “jealous” of their male co-workers. In the end, King had to settle the lawsuit. King’s actions speak very loudly. King shows he is fighting against women. In stark contrast, Gov. Martinez reached across the aisle and signed the Equal Pay For Women Act — even the liberal ACLU praised her for her pro-woman stand. In an election, actions matter. Gary King should be ashamed of his “War on Women.” Orlando Baca
chairman Republican Party of Santa Fe County
Help fleeing children
Israel responds On a daily basis, Israeli citizens endure a barrage of rockets from the Hamas military. Five million Israelis live within range of this deadly arsenal, which includes some 11,000 rockets aimed at Israel. Israelis spend many hours a day in their bomb shelters, hoping to return to a “normal” existence. Yet Hamas forces continue to bombard Israel, blaming their neighbor for all their economic and political woes. Remember that this conflagration began because Hamas murdered three Israeli yeshiva students, one of whom also had American citizenship. Imagine if rockets were launched against Santa Fe from the Rio Rancho area. What would be our government’s response? Hamas uses its citizens to protect their army. Israel employs its army to protect its citizens. Rabbi Martin W. Levy
Congregation Beit Tikva, Santa Fe
I rise in support of President Barack Obama’s request for authorization of money from Congress to be spent on behalf of the children presenting themselves at the border. I see this as an opportunity for our nation to help. As Samuel Johnson has written: “How little virtue could be practiced, if charity were to wait always for the most proper objects, and the noblest occasions; occasions that may never happen, and objects that never may be found?” It is far from certain that any American will suffer from charity extended to these children. New scenes of misery make new impressions. The need to fulfill President Obama’s request has been generated by a kind of calamity few of us can imagine: we who have always lived under the shelter of legal protection in the safe calm of a settled society, certainly a blessing, which we celebrated on the Fourth of July. Let us resolve to aid these children, who unlike prisoners of war, whom we also shelter and feed, never raised a sword against us.
Shame on The Santa Fe Opera for allowing Stephen Wadsworth to hijack Fidelio, Beethoven’s sublime opus on human love, courage and freedom, reducing it to a trite Nazi charade. Shame on SFO for forcing unforewarned Jewish and European audience members — and anyone else for whom the Holocaust evokes painful memories — to stare at a large swastika banner for most of the performance in order to see what was going on onstage. For distracting us from the glorious music, and perhaps from a personal meditation on the moral ambiguity presented. For overshadowing Leonore’s heroic act with the trumped-up arrival of British troops and more big flags. And shame on your critic, James Keller, (Opera Review: “Finding Fidelio under the Führer,” July 14) for finding this inflammatory trope so delightful.
Jarrett V. Smith Jr.
Julia Moore
Santa Fe
Galisteo
Shameful opera
Border needs help for the suffering children
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ne of the most troubling and disturbing humility, generosity, compassion and accepimages that I can’t seem to rid my mind tance? What kind of “Christian” nation turns its of is that of young immigrant children back on people, mostly mothers and children, being placed in kennel-like cages. Since then, a fleeing war and death and hopelessness and more humane approach has been taken to house the reality that young children will be brutally them. Yet I can’t shake off the image. massacred if they don’t flee their own It is bad enough that we have to put countries? This is not just “another dogs and other animals in this type case” of “illegal” immigrants. These of cage and environment, but when are refugees. Their families know young children are given a blanket and staying in their countries means sure you see them prostrate in these cages, death for their children. Would you it can’t help but break your heart. At not do the same for your children? least most people’s hearts, I would The dichotomy of what we fund, hope. what we go to war for and our priorities regarding humanitarian relief Some of us prefer to protest the Orlando seems to be as fickle, political and arrival of these children. Some of us Romero absurd as the inability to realize that prefer to suggest they bring disease Commentary these are refugees, desperate refugees. with them. Some of us suggest they are more like lepers who should be It is also very disturbing to me that sent back as soon as possible. Yet, children have become pawns internasome of these same people will go to church tionally in wars of hatred and religious, ethnic on Sunday, smile, be polite and act as if being a and cultural intolerance. Christian is nothing more than being something Three Jewish boys are kidnapped and murin a display window. dered in Palestine. Then, in revenge, a boy is The same folks who rant and rave that this is burned in Israel as if children’s lives mean notha “Christian” nation seem to me to act the least ing at all. Religious fanatics kidnap girls, pawns Christian of all. What happened to the Chrisin a sick game of intolerance and religious bigtian concepts of forgiveness, tolerance, charity, otry. Adults publish, share and partake in por-
nographic adventures with innocent children as if they were play things for their disturbed and sick minds. The great suffering of children throughout the world is now on our doorstep, and some would say, and I agree, that our own children are in great danger because of this lack of understanding of true “Christian” principles. All you have to do is look at Chicago, the president’s backyard. How many more children are going to die in what is surely domestic terrorism? We can send troops to foreign lands, yet we ignore the very real national threat to our security when hundreds of American children get massacred by our own “terrorists,” thugs with guns. And we say we value children? We can hide our heads in the sand and say, “That’s not my problem.” The reality is that this violence against children is all our problem, whether it’s in Chicago or on our border. Besides, there’s nothing sadder than seeing a “Christian” with his head stuck in the sand. Or a “Christian” who has never read or understood the life of Jesus. Jesus would never turn his back on the suffering of children. Orlando Romero is a writer and historian.
Editorial page editor: Inez Russell Gomez, 986-3053, igomez@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Brian Barker, bbarker@sfnewmexican.com
.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico apparently will be a leading voice of congressional Democrats in pushing back against Republicans in the debate over the border crisis. The state’s junior senator made a speech about the situation on the Senate floor last week. Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent wrote the next day that Heinrich “has been tasked by Senate Dem leaders to take the lead in this big argument.” Heinrich, in an interview with Sargent, said that Democrats need to “firm up their case” that if Congress doesn’t provide the funding requested by President Barack Obama, it could make the border less secure. In that interview, Steve Terrell Heinrich said that SenRoundhouse ate Dems would oppose Roundup Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s call for ending deferred deportation for “Dreamers” — children who were brought to the country illegally as children. Heinrich said that notion is an “absolute nonstarter.” Said Heinrich: “We are not going to allow Ted Cruz to use this as an opportunity to punish Dream kids.” Heinrich rejected the GOP argument that Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is a cause of the crisis. “The numbers don’t bear this out,” Heinrich said. “We were seeing this surge out of Central America since before DACA was a policy. If DACA were [the cause] we’d see the same increase in Mexican immigration that we’ve seen from Central America.” Heinrich argued the administration has not been slacking in terms of border security. “We have way more Border Patrol agents. We have dramatically more mobile surveillance systems. We’ve reduced illegal crossings,” he told the Post. “All this makes it clear this is not a border-driven crisis; it is a refugee crisis that has shown up at the border.” And he threw in a general political jab: “Obstruction from Republicans is a serious threat to our border security,” Heinrich said. “We need these resources to deal with the refugee crisis.” Heinrich wasn’t the only member of the New Mexico congressional delegation talking about the border last week. My colleague Milan Simonich was part of a conference call with U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, who talked about a recent trip to Central America. In that call, Pearce said he and the rest of the House delegation who went to Honduras and Guatemala were afraid to leave their hotel very often because of the dangers in those violence-ravaged nations. That led the left-leaning Clearly New Mexico to tweet, “Rep. Steve Pearce says Central America too dangerous for congressmen — but not for kids.” Probability blues for Gary: It has been months since there has been any independent polling in the New Mexico governor’s race. As was the case with Richardson’s 2006 re-election race, incumbent Gov. Susana Martinez is so far ahead in fundraising, national pollsters don’t want to spend time or money here. (The seemingly lopsided Senate race between incumbent Democrat Tom Udall and GOP challenger Allen Weh doesn’t help in drawing pollsters here either.) The candidates themselves have provided anyone interested with their own polls. About three weeks ago, the Martinez poll, conducted in late June by Nicole McCleskey (wife of the governor’s political consultant Jay McCleskey), showed Martinez beating Democrat Gary King 54 percent to 38 percent. On Thursday, the King campaign came back with a poll showing that 16-percentagepoint spread to be only 6 percent. In this poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners, a firm that polls for Democrats, Martinez was ahead of King 45 percent to 39 percent. But earlier Thursday, King got some discouraging news from Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight blog that gave the probability of winning for Democratic gubernatorial candidates across the country. The probability is based on polling, and like I said, there has been a dearth of polling here, so I’m not quite sure how this mathematical hoodoo works. But King was way down. His probability of winning was about 12 percent. There were only four Southern states plus Iowa and Idaho where Democrats had worse chances of winning their race for governor. Contact Steve Terrell at sterrell@ sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at www.santafenewmexican.com/news/blogs/ politics.
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