Regarding "N.M. drivers to test fuel tax alternative" (July 9): I'd like to know whose buddy you have to be to get $16.5 million to do a study that doesn't need to be done! Installing computers in vehicles to tell how many miles they've been driven for tax purposes is insane, except for the computer manufacturer and installation business.

I could almost go along with the idea, if we required annual physical inspections nationwide as a basis for registration renewal. Mileage could be recorded at the same time, and the inspections would help get unsafe and high-emission vehicles off the road.

Miles multiplied by gross vehicle weight could be used to determine a tax, but it would be far simpler to raise the gasoline/diesel road tax — an indirect measure of mileage and weight. Older, larger, and less efficient vehicles would be "encouraged," economically, to retire.

Can I have my $16.5 million now?




Kudos to photographer Jane Phillips and The New Mexican for Phillips' excellent photo feature in the International Folk Art magazine ("Journey into Africa").

Phillips adroitly summed up the need for and purpose of the market when she said, after seeing the African artist's home during a recent visit to South Africa, "Seeing her home showed me the mission of the market in action: using folk art as a way to change lives."



The Folk Art Market is fantastic and wonderful. But what is the basis for "international" in the title, when there is not a single U.S. artisan, Native or otherwise, represented at the market?

If they can find a dozen qualified entries from Uzbekistan, shouldn't they also be able to find a representative selection from this country? Perhaps they should call it the "Foreign Folk Art Market."



Thank you to the International Folk Art Market and Good Water Company for having water stations at the market.

The market did not sell bottles of water this year. Instead, you could refill your own drink container for free. Much less waste!

I hope the idea catches on for other local events.



Regarding "Help not hype," Lucy Ohlsen's letter of July 10: This country surely
has its warts, but warts and all, I can think of no other country where I would want to live.

When I reach Ms. Ohlsen's frame of mind — that I am ashamed of America — I will surely leave for some more hospitable place. How about Ohlsen?



Regarding the July 9 editorial cartoon: I was deeply offended by your pathetic political cartoonist, Oliphant, in his sycophantic manner currying favor with your bigoted rag.

I assume Oliphant read the late Louisiana Attorney General Jim Garrison's book, On the Trail of the Assassins, in which he convincingly reveals that a covert coup d 'e'tat was committed by the C.I.A. in the assassination of John Kennedy; that the benefactor was Lyndon Johnson; and that Vietnam was Johnson's war.
Kennedy was assassinated because he was about to end our involvement in this most obvious of America's military-industrial wars of aggression.

As for depicting McNamara in hell, my mother was a McNamara (the greatest mother ever born); Oliphant had better watch it. He does have one inhabitant of Hades — Henry Kissinger — depicted right.

Oliphant should be careful, however, lest The New Mexican notice that one of its ilk is being ridiculed and decide to send the cartoonist "down below."