Letter to the editor  - March 28

"But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man."

— Jesus of Nazareth

Children exposed to obscene speech

I am tired of the obscene vocabulary my fellow Tucumcarians tolerate in our community.

As I write this letter, two of my neighbors sit on their front porches, expressing themselves in front of their children with a full range of choice metaphors.

Not to single out any particular person, my ears can listen on almost any day and hear a stream of filthy speech from about any direction.

A few years ago, I witnessed a local resident berating two small children at the local grocer with language too obscene to describe. After several minutes, I interjected that there were better ways to speak to children.

What surprised me was not that the person I spoke to was offended (she certainly was), but that she and the others looked at me as though I were out of my mind.

We are raising a generation that has no sense of decent speech. When you speak garbage in front of your children, they will do the same.

Can you be surprised to hear that your child is suspended from school for obscene insults? I suspect most teachers would say the apple does not fall far from the tree.

It is a shame I must walk my children into the house with ears covered so as not to be subjected to the mindless filth that pours out of the mouths of so many.

One might feel this is not a serious issue in a community plagued with drugs, crime, and violence. I say the way we speak reflects the heart of our problems.

Brian Haines

Tucumcari

Demand sets fuel prices

The current hot topic is gas prices.

Republicans are screaming "Drill baby drill ... the 'radical environmentalists' are preventing new leases ... the XL pipeline would create thousands of jobs as well as oil."

The facts determining gas prices are fairly easily obtainable.

Prices are determined by supply and demand worldwide, a market function. The demand for oil in China and India have increased dramatically and will continue to do so.

Our production of oil has increased while importation has gone down.

The oil companies have thousands of leases that are not being used.

The XL pipeline would create only a few jobs, less than 1,000, according to officials.

Interpreting the current market, a large part of that oil would go abroad.

The price we pay for gas has never reflected the true cost.

The prices in other countries have always been 30-to-50 percent higher than ours.

The gas tax comes nowhere near paying for the infrastructure that supports our transportation system.

Engineers say our infrastructure is in pitiful shape and would take billions, possibly a trillion dollars to fix.

We are living in a socialized fossil fuel system via subsidies.

The subsidized oil almost did in our auto industry.

Nobody wanted our gas hogs, they could not afford the gas. GM could not sell the Hummer division.

A president has little or no control over gas prices. Our situation is of bi-partisan origin.

Leon Logan

Tucumcari