D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April
2009
Best in Business
Just wanted to say I think Donna Clayton's Business Exposure column is the best in the Southwest. I live in Las Cruces and subscribe to the Las Cruces Sun-News, but I learn more about the businesses and food places here from your newsy columns then I do from their tabloid paper on Mondays.
Hope you are able to continue to keep us business groupies well informed and entertained by your accurate stories and musings. Thanks for the good reading experiences.
Larry J. Haddrill
Las Cruces
A Different Perception
It's been several months since I've read a Desert Exposure, and I see Larry Lightner is still rambling on both indoors and outdoors, with his mindless word games. According to Larry (Ramblin' Outdoors, March), perception is relative, except for his! The vast majority of people who recognize that trapping is unnecessary, cruel and just plain sick have not had to see an actual terrified, suffering animal in such a barbaric device, much less thought of stealing or damaging one. The traps have more legal rights than the innocent victims.
Larry's "perception" that it's OK for some folks to shoot protected wolves due to the mistaken belief that they're dangerous predators is more about prejudice than perceived reality. Anyway, dream on, Larry! Or "perceive" on! You're usually good for a laugh, like Rush Limbaugh the comedian.
Bob Young
Las Cruces
Editor's note: Actually, Lightner's column did not state
that it was OK to shoot wolves. Rather, he equated that illegal activity with
illegal actions against traps: "This attitude is no different than the attitude of someone who takes or damages traps." Both
the anti-wolf and anti-trapping folks, he argued, justify illegal actions by
their particular perceptions.
Pirate Praise
Loved your article on "Pirates of the Roundhouse" (March)! You covered a lot of important information.
I just found out that in the last six years of Gov. Bill Richardson's administration, state government spending has increased 54 percent and the number of employees by 24 percent (5,100). Funny — state services don't seemed to have improved.
Frost McGahey
Silver City
It was a community service to have the political commentary ("Pirates of the Roundhouse") in the March issue. Loved it!
Peggy Chinkes
Via email
Catching Up
It's gratifying having both eyes back in business after a six-to-seven-week hiatus following surgery. In the process of catching up with accumulated reading, I'm moved to log in my reaction to Jerry Eagan's "I Hike Where They Lead Me" (December). The story under this catchy headline, which tells the reality like it is, hit me with the realization, "This guy has come a long ways."
The genuineness of Jerry Eagan's reactions to "Hiking Apacheria" underlines the significance and depth of what he finds, feels and sees. He obviously is not missing much as he explores in-depth the rich lode of Apache history embedded in the Mimbres and Gila regions of the Apache homeland.
Reading the accounts of where Eagan has been "led by the Spirits" had made me better able to understand and appreciate the richness and meaning of what surrounds us here in Apacheria — of which too many of us have for too long been unaware. And, you know, this old guy ranching amidst all this for 36 years now better understands and intends to ameliorate the growing reality that there's so much I know I don't know.
Gene Simon
Faywood
Editor's note: After a brief hiatus of his own, Jerry
Eagan returns with more "Hiking Apacheria" in this issue, beginning a new series on forts and camps of Southwest New Mexico. Readers can catch up on any "Apacheria" installments
you may have missed online at www.desertexposure.com/apacheria
Let us hear from you! Write Desert Exposure Letters, PO Box 191, Silver City, NM 88062, fax 534-4134 or email letters@desertexposure.com Letters are subject to editing for style and length, and must be in response to content that has appeared in our pages. Deadline for the next issue is the 18th of the month.Read Ink
I loved your article on the demise of the Albuquerque Journal's local distribution (Editor's Notebook, February). I hate reading it online, but I need a paper to read during breakfast, and now I read Desert Exposure cover to cover, ads and all.
Jeanie McLerie
Silver City