The City Council has passed laws that penalize drivers who aren't using hands-free devices when on their cellular phone or when texting, and rightly so. My question is, when are they going to get on the ball and do something about female drivers who drive while applying makeup? That's just as bad, if not worse.


Baseless claims

Regarding Orlando Romero's Aug. 23 column, "Health care: hypocrisy from right": The hypocrisy is Romero's. I chuckled at the lack of facts to back up all of his rhetoric. It is so easy for him to write about Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, yet not to cite facts or examples to support his arguments.

Has he ever watched or listened to either of these gentlemen's programs? If he had, he would have seen guests from both sides, for and against the health care bill. They offer historical data and facts to support their arguments. Sean Hannity has experts on his television show to give historical perspective.

I personally couldn't look myself in the mirror and write what Romero just wrote and call myself a writer/historian. For his information, I am a conservative, which in his view makes me a right-wing extremist. So be it.


Davises deserve better

I was appalled to read the Aug. 8 article, "A taxing problem: One-of-a-kind mansion proves a challenge for assessor's office," about Andrew and Sydney Davis, in which you stated that their home has yet to be placed on county tax roles.

It is a disgrace for you to constantly try to find some fact or innuendo that will cause the Davises further embarrassment. Sydney and Andrew Davis are two of the most giving, involved, charitable and honorable citizens of Santa Fe. Don't you have something better to do than to report these ugly falsehoods and nonsense?

I hope that in the future you will write an article about the Davises and how much they have contributed to our city and state. As a fellow Santa Fean, I am so very happy and grateful that they continue to choose to make Santa Fe their home. Let's thank them and not continually lambaste them.


Paucity of practitioners

One reason that existing universal health care systems must ration medical care is scarcity of doctors. My primary-care physician terminated his practice last year in Santa Fe, in part because he couldn't survive on what Medicare paid him.

There are fewer primary-care physicians who accept Medicare, much less Medicaid, because they can't afford to. Can we expect young men and women to shoulder the work and expenses of medical school, with the debt they incur, to set up a practice dependent on the government's largess?

We're told the government will squeeze economies out of the system. We know they'll raid Medicare. Will the future soaring of our taxes make the difference? Just pondering that recalls Samuel Johnson's 18th-century denial of a charge that he had ghost-written a condemned man's pardon requests to the king: "Depend on it, sir," he said. "When a man knows he's to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."