Three reasons why my newspaper subscription to the El Paso Times is skating on thin water:

1. Yesterday letter to the editor:

Parking tickets for church goers

Walking out of church, we witnessed the strangest sight -- a group of policemen were writing tickets and placing them on cars of parishioners who were attending church.

Apparently, the cars were illegally parked. There was enough space to get through, but I guess the policemen felt that churchgoers should be taugh a lesson in parking.

Are the red light camers not bringing in enough income for the city?

Don't cops have enough of a bad reputation right now? Talk about doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Whatever happened to "...Protect and Serve." Joe Rodriguez, West El Paso

Dada - As we learned under the Bush administration (now being continued through the Obama administration) we are no longer a nation of laws, but privilege instead. Kudos to Joe Rodriguez for reminding us here.

2. Today letter to the editor:

Voting bill would ensure fair process

(regarding a photo ID to vote)

Anyone need any more proof? Our leaders can't win on integrity or ethics, so they block the way in which we should be able to vote. The Democrats know they are not qualified to win legally, or by intelligence, so they block a bill that would make voting fair.

They want to keep it so illegals can vote over and over again without showing proof that they are eligible to vote.

That way they can win, whereas if it were done right, and only eligible voters were able to vote, they would never win.

I hope everyone with an ounce of intelligence remembers this and votes they out of office next time around. DeLos Bates (from my side of town ~ gulp!)

Free speech is a wonderful thing, but it can also be embarrassing.

3. Michelle Malkin (before her death in January 2008, Molly Ivins twice a week columns were cut to one -- to allow Malkin to "rebalance opinion.")

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Not sure if I'm showing my age here or not, but it seems to me there was some pride as a younger person when I received my very first credit card. It said some bank judged me worthy of extended credit. That's before banks and CC companies began willingly cramming those cards down (or up) any available bodily orifice with space available.

Well, in a kind of "things have come full circle," i.e., the U.S. as creditor, will not allow debtor banks to repay on their debts until given permission. Amusingly, our federal government didn't just jump at a $68 billion repayment installment (as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program began last October) offered up by 10 banks. They first had to give those banks permission to repay $68 billion (which our government did Tuesday).

We are being told by experts the payment "shows some stability has returned to the system," but before we get all jiggly joyous, please note the article also says by ponying up some token breadcrumbs owed the government, it also frees these banks "from restrictions on executive compensation that they say are making it hard to keep their top-performing executives"!!

"Holy shit, Batman!" Thanks American taxpayers. It would appear things are getting right back on the old status quo track to "normal." The one that landed us in this ditch to begin with.