On 19 March 2024, without fanfare, Gary Oliver showed a movie in the Marfa Public Library theater for the 3000th time. He began sharing Oscar-winning movies, shows from the Telluride Film Festival, foreign films, noir and popular films back in 2004. He continues to research reviews and invite hundreds (who add their name and e-mail to the library list) as he assists with the acquisition of DVDs to the library’s collection. Cheers to Gary! Long may you run (show films)!

To get on the e-mail list contact the Marfa Public Library.

Annette Mendoza 

Marfa

“Petition to rename Elephant Rock sparks controversy”

I read the above article in the 3/14/24 of the BBS!

I simply don’t understand what the issue is. There is absolutely no connection with an elephant and Presidio County. 

What the issue deals with is a rock. 

Why not just name it “The Rock.”

Nuff said!

Richard Stone

Austin

Christian America

The historian Kevin M. Kruse wrote One Nation Under God in 2015. Recently, I ran across a term new to me: “Christian America.” It was coined in the 1930s when businessmen enlisted religious activists in their fight against FDR’s New Deal.

Big corporations paid conservative clergy “to attack the New Deal as a program of ‘pagan statism’ that perverted the central principle of Christianity: the sanctity and salvation of the individual.” They were able to get Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president in 1952. But President Eisenhower started a religious movement, and religion moved in with the government. The phrase “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” became our official motto.

Historically, we are a nation forged from the experiences of immigrants fleeing religious persecution. Immigrants were coming from countries with a state-sanctioned religion. They simply wanted to worship according to their own beliefs since they were persecuted for it in their mother countries. So, it’s not surprising that as the Founding Fathers fashioned the rules for our nation, they separated church from state. That has worked in our favor throughout the course of our history. So, it defies reason to learn that there is a movement afoot to recreate our nation as a “Christian America” and ignore the rights of other religions.

L. P. Martin

Fort Davis