Somewhere around 1991, I ran into Gov. Bruce King, and he asked me to make an appointment to come up to his office and see him. I couldn't imagine why he would invite me, a lowly satirist, to his office, except perhaps to lambaste me for the Bruce King imitations I used to do on radio, at banquets, etc.

I asked a few political types what they thought, and the most definite guess I got was from a hard-right critic of the governor who said "Oh, he's just a nice guy and probably just wants to know what you're up to and what he can do to help." It turned out that this prediction was exactly right. I will miss the governor.


Buck up, fly right

Cuts in education, Medicaid and other essential services to mitigate the state's financial problems will continue to secure New Mexico's ranking in the basement. Only reluctantly has the governor agreed to eliminate 84 exempt state positions.

The depth and breadth of Richardson's largesse in appointing people with little education and few qualifications to six-figure make-work jobs usually comes to light when these folks are arrested for a crime.

The New Mexican would do citizens a considerable service by publishing the names, positions, and salaries of these lucky individuals who benefit from Uncle Bill's Personal Stimulus Package. (Please include the relationship that "earned" these folks their special treatment.) The $6 million should be immediately re-directed to education, housing, and health care, including behavioral health services.

And the governor should sell the jet. When our citizens are unemployed and homeless, the governor of the second-poorest state can buck up and fly commercial.



It is clear that the Catholic Church wants to sacrifice its tax exemption and now pay taxes. The abject lobbying of President Barack Obama, admitted by Cardinal Sean O'Malley, to prohibit a woman's right to choose her own health care under pending national health care legislation goes far beyond any tax-exemption limits enjoyed by churches.

O'Malley's lobbying and that of the Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning pending health care legislation reveals a clear contempt for our Constitution and its prohibition on the imposition of religious doctrine on our country.

This contempt for our Constitution is amplified by the actions of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington to extort the D.C. city council over gay rights issues. The church wants to unconstitutionally impose its dogma on the rest of us, therefore, they should pay taxes and register like other lobbies.


Specificity needed

As a lifelong Republican, former town councilman in another state, one-time volunteer firefighter and a resident of Rancho Viejo, which would have gotten enhanced fire protection courtesy of the fire excise tax, I was flabbergasted to receive a slick (i.e., expensive) postcard from the Republican Party of Santa Fe County opposing the tax.

I think it's time for Republicans everywhere to come out from behind the smokescreen of "lower taxes, less government" and tell us exactly what services they would cut if they held power. Perhaps the local Goppie mouthpiece, Gregg Bemis, could devote a column to the subject, to help voters decide what they want.


Show us the receipt

One is pleased to know from John Madden's Nov. 15 letter, "Don't need reform," that his knee replacement was so successful. What he doesn't tell us is who paid for the surgery. Was he fortunate enough to have that amount sitting in his bank account or to be one of the minority of Americans whose employment comes with adequate health care benefits?

Or was the greater part paid for by that government-sponsored program Medicare (opposed by leading Republicans as socialistic at the time it was instituted by Lyndon Johnson)? Or did he stop paying his mortgage and risk foreclosure to come up with the money, as many Americans have had to do? Health care reform is needed for the millions for whom none of the above alternatives is available.


Free to be sick

It's pretty hard to ignore the Nov. 15 letter of John Madden, who claims that 85 percent of the national populace is happy with available health care, and only 15 percent want any kind of reform, and they don't need it because they are never turned away from any hospital now.

I don't know exactly what percentage of us don't have any medical insurance, but if it's not a majority it's close. Without it, they get in nowhere but soup kitchens and the morgue, and the biggest single cause of catastrophic economic news is that people go broke and die because they aren't protected.

Presenting inaccurate facts to protect an unfair economic advantage one may have is an evil act. Likewise for Rob Loblaw, who claims in his Nov. 15 letter, "Not on the 'A' list" that all forms of universal health care make us less free. Tell me, please, how disease and poverty make a person free?