I totally agree with Lisa Strout’s assessment of how the film industry has impacted New Mexico [Re: Letters, “Hoot Are You?,” Nov. 5-11].It has been nothing but positive. As a person who has been "background" on three movies and a made-for-TV movie, it’s a real kick to see how movies are made.New Mexico’s landscape and people have made it the ideal state to impersonate any other. How many of us have gotten a kick out of watching Tommy Lee Jones drive down Central Ave. and pass the Frontier restaurant in In the Valley of Elah , and smile at the various sights used in "Breaking Bad," whose main character, played by Bryan Cranston, just won his second Emmy for best actor in a drama series. Not only is the series shot here, the storyline takes place here as well.Kudos to Lisa and to our very excellent Governor Bill Richardson for bringing the film industry to our front door.Hoot, when they said "rolling" on set, they didn’t mean whatever you were smoking!
Letters: Hooray For Heinrich Hooray For Heinrich
After months of partisan division and massive lobbying from special interests in Washington, health reform finally came to a vote in the House of Representatives.Powerful interests from the health care and insurance industries pulled out all the stops to defeat this landmark bill, but with the help of Albuquerque’s own Representative Heinrich, it passed.For local families and small businesses who are sick of constantly rising costs, and on top of unfair practices by insurance companies, passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) means one simple thing: Help is on the way.We all owe a big round of thanks to our Representative Heinrich for standing with us, not the powerful interests in Washington.
Letters: Women’s Health For Ransom Women’s Health For Ransom
For millennia, women have been bartered for everything from peace treaties to a few handfuls of rice. Daughters of kings and princes were especially valuable, but any female offspring was looked on as potential currency. Just when I thought we had evolved beyond this deplorable custom, along came the Affordable Health Care for All Act, approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 7.A few religious fanatics, held in thrall by a superstition-laden document, parts of which are well over three thousand years old, held this Act hostage for several days. The ransom was the loss of rights to a legal medical procedure by one half of the population of America.Most health care insurance, even that purchased completely by private funds, will be unable to pay for a woman to end her pregnancy. Unable to directly outlaw this choice, some House members have managed to make it financially out of reach for the women who need it most.And Nancy Pelosi had the insensitivity to stand up in front of American and crow about making "progress" with this archaic piece of legislation that set her gender’s hard-won rights back decades.Disgusted doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel.
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