Increased Proselytizing by City of Las Cruces

Note photos on the 12/10/10 posting. The City of Las Cruces is increasing its illegal activities, nothing new here, and continuing the installation of the proselytizing Latin crosses signage on lamp posts about the city.

It's not enough to place the signs where traffic signs-only were restricted, but the new idea now is to install them at an IN-YOUR-FACE eye-level position to force an attentive driver, and passengers, to look at the City's Latin crosses symbol. See lamp post at east Wal-Mart entrance/exit on Triviz Drive and across Telshor Drive from Olive Garden. See the signs at Camino Real Middle School and Alameda Elementary School (2).

You will also find these various in-your-face signs in front of businesses who support the City's proselytizing. Locations: Olive Gardens, Buchanan Insurance, Stull Real Estate, Citizens Bank, Kiwanis Club, etc..

For those of you that don't understand what is going on with the City's symbols this is for you:

Look at the City's illegally adopted symbol. You will see three stacked Latin crosses. You will also see 15 points surrounding the crosses. Now, think Gospel of John 3:15 (three crosses- Verse 15) - "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." If you don't see it, you are in denial, or perhaps afraid to see it. Comically, yet pathetic, Federal magistrate Judge Lourdes Martinez said, "I can't see that third cross....."

Naming the New High School in Las Cruces

CENTENNIAL HIGH SCHOOL:

I propose the name for the following reasons:

1. Next year, 2012, is the Centennial Year for the state of New Mexico.

2. Celebrating a ‘Centennial High School’ not only represents the past of our history, but it also represents the hope of our future – our children.

3. Promoting a ‘Centennial High School’ is an inclusive, welcoming non-sectarian name for all the various, past and present and future cultures, races, religions, and representatives of nations that have built our community and state.

4. ‘Centennial High School’ would be a means to include the often ignored Las Cruces and surrounding area in the state-wide celebration of statehood.

5. The Sun-News has a list of suggested names that are all quaint and well-meaning in their fashion, but any one of those names on such an edifice would not do justice to the purpose of pride the children would feel while attending such a school with an inclusive name.

6. Additionally, some of the combinations of initials of the proposed names can be used to accent the oftentimes vulgarities of youth.

Intentional Proselytizing by City of Las Cruces

Government-owned lampposts and street lights' poles for the posting of political signs and notices, garage sales, lost pets and missing persons, etc., has always been restricted to only signs that pertain to traffic information.

Except in the city of Las Cruces, Dona Ana County, New Mexico. It's not enough for the police, firefighters, city employees, all city vehicles, every document generated by City Hall and its departments, every newspaper advertisement, mailings, and every major building to have the in-your-face representation of the Christian Trinity crosses.

The City is now engaged in placing signage with the illegal Trinity crosses symbol on all the byways of the city at eye-level to force the vehicles' drivers to see the symbols. The signage is particularly noticeable at locations near schools and the crosswalks for the students.

Federal Crimes in Las Cruces

Federal money comes with the old strings attached. Lawyers make thousands of taxpayers' dollars ensuring cities, counties and states follow the rules. Except in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The main string (rule) is one requiring all federal rules and laws be obeyed which pertains to that project the money is allocated for.

Judge Robert Brack made no law as federal judges do not have that power or authority, and basically insulted all of Christendom, or so one would suppose, when he ruled that the three Latin crosses the City of Las Cruces uses is not religious. Even his trois singes pals at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals cannot write laws, nor the organization that wrote their ruling for them, which supported the denial of the religiosity of the crosses of Las Cruces.

The latest violations of the federal laws are seen on the new, small, 15-passenger buses the City of Las Cruces purchased with taxpayers' funds, which now exhibit the Gothic-inspired symbol titled "Keep Las Cruces Beautiful." The brochure-promoted sun replaced with the triune crosses of the Trinity surrounded with 15-points for the Gospel of John 15. Or is it the three crosses also representing the number '3' and 15-points also representing the number '15' for the Gospel of John 3:15?

This latest attempt to divide the city by promoting Christianity and excluding the religious and non-religious Others is a perfect example of the Christian hegemony maxim: "We do it because we can and we will continue to do it."

Remember: sectarian, prejudice, Christian, exclusion, Las Cruces, and even beautiful, all have the same number of letters.

Banned Books Week Sept. 25-Oct. 2, 2010

List of Banned Books prepared by AARP for American Library Association's Banned Books Week. Exercise your rights to read anything you please and to own any written matter you please. German Nazis burned books not only to destroy a culture, but to destroy one's right to read and to control one's thoughts.

TOO POLITICAL:

1. Uncle Tom's Cabin

2. All Quite on the Western Front

3. A Farewell to Arms

4. The Grapes of Wrath

5. For Whom the Bell Tolls

6. Animal Farm

7. 1984

8. Doctor Zhivago

9. Slaughterhouse-Five

10. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

TOO MUCH SEX:

1. Madame Bovary

2. Tess of the d'Urbervilles

3. Ulysses

4. The Sun Also Rises

5. Lady Chatterley's Lover

6. Tropic of Cancer

7. Lolita

8. Peyton Place

9. Rabbit, Run

10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

11. Jaws

12. Forever

13. The Prince of Tides

14. Beloved

15. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

IRRELIGIOUS

1. On the Origin of Species

2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy

3. The Last Temptation of Christ

4. Bless Me, Ultima

5. Harry Potter series

SOCIALLY OFFENSIVE

1. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

2. The Scarlet Letter

3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

4. As I Lay Dying

5. Brave New World

6. Gone With the Wind

7. Of Mice and Men

8. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

9. The Catcher in the Rye

10. Fahrenheit 451

11. To Kill a Mockingbird

12. James and the Giant Peach

13. Catch-22

14. A Clockwork Orange

15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

16. In Cold Blood

17. Cujo

18. The Color Purple

19. Ordinary People

20. A Thousand Acres

My Las Cruces: A Clarion Blast of Bigotry

(NOTE: Mr. Maxwell suddenly resigned on 11 November 2010 after three months on the job.)

Mr. Jim Maxwell, Publisher Mailed: 24 August 2010

Las Cruces Sun-News

256 W. Las Cruces Avenue

Las Cruces, NM 88005-1804

Subject: My Las Cruces

Dear Mr. Maxwell:

There are some, for one reason or another, religion or economics, perhaps a combination of both, bound and determined to make Las Cruces an outpost of Christianity, thereby excluding the recognition and historical contributions of all the non-Christian Others by purposely using a modified Christian symbol to represent the city.

Many people come to this valley for their own particular reasons, while others arrive with a vague purpose as they would in any other city; some answering to the few available jobs, or health, and perhaps, to be in close proximity to relatives. Some are driven to believe the ‘bought and paid-for’ accolades of the wonders of Las Cruces promoted by the City, Chambers of Commerce, and various publications including the Sun-News.

When a city promotes the fictitious stories surrounding its birth, its early years, and uses an ever growing variety of Christian religious symbols, at the expense of citizens who do not subscribe, nor march to those banners promoting a particular religion, the heart and purpose of the city is forever blackened. But that can change with some effort.

Your newspaper, the Las Cruces Sun-News, recently began publishing “Your Neighborhood Weekly Newspaper,” the My Las Cruces, with a not-well-thought-out, exclusionary, and thereby insulting, title that does not represent the cosmopolitan makeup of the city. It’s not ‘Our Las Cruces,’ a welcoming title, which would be more inclusive of all the various peoples of color, religions, non-believers, and worldwide cultures that exist in Las Cruces and makes it a city.

Aiding My Las Cruces is the fictitious belief in the promoted tri-culture of Anglo-Hispanic-Native American makeup of the city, county, and state. This is a pathetic example of views by the ‘ruling class’ as they decide the economically feasibility of their methods. Excluding the various peoples of color, this jaundiced view results in the promotion of the belief that Anglo means ‘white Protestant;’ Hispanic means ‘brown Catholic;’ and Native American means ‘conquered and made Catholic.’

The fourth ignored category of those of the supposed ‘ruling class’ is that of some well-blended ‘natives’ who oftentimes noisily claim sovereignty over the rights of newer citizens because of their own ancestors’ earlier arrival in the valley. And all the Others, non-Christian by choice or culture, exhibiting various hues of color by culture or nature…….basically ghosts-in-residence due to the illogical, traditional exclusion from newsprint.

My address is Las Cruces. Local federal Judge Robert Brack infamously ruled, to placate his ignorant, religious-driven, 'ride-‘em-out-on-a-rail’ supporters, that I had a “right to live here,” but I can’t describe Las Cruces as my ‘home.’ Nor can I ever say that I am a ‘las Crucen’ or ‘las Cruceño.’ Not ever, as long as the City government promotes Christianity as superior over all other religions and beliefs. Then supported by the Sun-News with its ‘My Las Cruces,’ which some will say means ‘My City of Crosses.’

As you know, a newspaper can do well by its citizens by reporting societal truths, and including all the various cultural groups, as it is in the position to lead the progress of the city. After all, this is the 21st Century and bigotry, exacerbated by local courts’ rulings, has no place where a program of outreach may be in order to some groups.

Memorial Day: Remembering One's Duty

As the smoke of thousands of cooking fires waft across the parks where families gather, thousands of boats plow the lakes and rivers, balls are tossed, children are running amid squeals of laughter, and another school year ends across America. A day off from work as the door to summer opens. And thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen lie in every corner of this country and dozens of cemeteries in foreign countries, unremembered but by families, friends, service organizations, and some government offices. New graves are dug daily and our national flags are seemingly forever at half-mast.

The spiritual passing of the legacy baton of the service to one’s country by the dead to the living can only be shared by those who have participated in the noble service and sacrifices that go with that duty of the common citizen. As the living look forward to their future, some willingly and some reluctantly, reach back and grasp the proffered symbolic baton of one’s continued duty to country and neighbor.

The innate formulation of responsibility to justice and fairness is not lost in service to one’s country, but rather, it is solidified by that service. The moral code is not surrendered! The strength of the grip on the baton provides insight into the continued worth of the individual.

Those citizens who were never afforded the opportunity, especially those who declined the opportunity, to reach for the baton, cannot understand the duty-bound camaraderie of service.

One particularly troubling area is that of public officials, especially federal judges with lifetime appointments like that of Judges Robert Brack of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Lucero, Ebel, and Hodges of 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, who take the same, supposedly selfless oath of devotion to the duties prescribed by tradition and our laws: “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Then in their own courtrooms, they openly mock and discredit their oath and duty to the country with “judges’ discretion” for their own selfish domestic ex parte personal beliefs and in support of domestic ideological groups.

Meanwhile, the children and grandchildren of those fathers and mothers who did their duty are filling the graves we honor today and on future Memorial Days.