I drive a lot on Old Pecos Trail. I have admired the median adopted by Kokopelli Realty. It is beautifully maintained, a real asset to the surroundings. Then I take a look at other medians around town. Many of them are neglected and weedy, with plants ragged and certainly not flourishing.

Too many medians look like orphans, not adoptees. Their purpose, adding natural beauty and a civilizing effect, is far from achieved. Adoptive parents should take care of their "children," as they promised they would do when they adopted them.


I want to publicly thank Santa Fe Storage and Kokopelli Property Management for their maintenance of the medians on Old Las Vegas Highway! This takes time and money and is very much appreciated by those of us who drive by daily. Maybe the other sponsors will be inspired to keep up their sections!?


Frustrated dads

Regarding Inez Russell's June 21 column, "Boys to dads, and the steps in between ...": Us divorced dads appreciate Russell's encouraging fathers to remain a part of their kids' lives, but the family courts are the problem, not the dads.

The official story is that family courts encourage joint physical custody. Reality is that judges are rubber stamps for recommendations of social workers spouting psychological mumbo-jumbo that results in taking kids away from dads.

Even engaged fathers with no parenting problems cannot get 50/50 custody. Mom opposes joint custody because the more custody dad gets, the lower her adult support, I mean child support. Despite its purpose, most child support is squandered on the mom's luxuries, her boyfriend, and her other children. Fathers and children are separated. The fathers are forced to pay someone else to raise their children, when they could do it on their own, and the children are financially poorer than if there were no child support.


No cause to celebrate

It is both interesting and ironic that members of the pro-life movement are condemning the tragic murder of Dr. George Tiller while simultaneously celebrating the subsequent closing of his Kansas clinic. Since they can wash their hands of the murder, having it conveniently carried out by a more disturbed third party, they have created an artificial separation from the act.

Were only the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks on 911 guilty and their co-conspirators and sympathizers free of guilt? Terrorists and those who sympathize or celebrate the aftermath of terrorist acts are equally as guilty.


We were warned

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in his 1952 book, The Irony of American History, showed amazing farsightedness when he warned us Americans against "our dreams of managing history" — born of an odd combination of hubris and narcissism. Thus we have an outsized confidence in the efficacy of American military power to reshape the global order, and win the War on Terror.

But the world's mightiest military did not stop the 9/11 disaster, nor did the Spanish military stop the terrorist attack on the Madrid railroad station, nor did the Indian military stop the terrorist attack on Mumbai. Obviously, superior military forces don't work, nor do years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But where do we get the notion that we are called upon to straighten out Muslims on freedom, democracy and the right relationship between Islam and politics? And that we know how? With our own house on fire, we had better attend to it, set a good example, and get the American military out of the Middle East.


Friends of ferals

I want to thank the wonderful people at Felines & Friends. We could not have trapped our feral colony over on San Mateo Road without their help. All the cats have been fixed and new homes found for a couple of them. The day David came over and trapped the calico and her four kittens in two hours was amazing!