Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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When is it offensive? Congressional Democrats stumbled all over themselves and each other last week trying to answer that question. Then they scrambled to cover any culpability that might result from any answer that may hint that any Democrat anywhere might discriminate in any way against anyone or any group. Here in my view is what happened: Democratic freshman legislators in Congress have made a habit of trumpeting points of a far-left agenda that is every bit as offensive to most people as any racially charged statement from Iowa GOP Rep....
The downtown Second Street resurfacing project in Tucumcari accumulated more funding Thursday as the city commission approved $313,892.08 in New Mexico Department of Transportation and local funding for construction on the project. The commission approved a combination of $235,4109.06 in transportation department funds and $78,473.02 in local matching funds to help pay for the project. The project, which will include replacing the roadbed and resurfacing Second Street from downtown to Historic Route 66, will “help with the traffic generated b...
I would like to know why so many modern conservatives treat every minor exception to their rigid code of convictions and beliefs as a threat to the nation. Yes, liberals are getting more inflexible, too, but the very liberal Elizabeth Warren is not calling fellow Democrat Sherrod Brown an enemy of the people because he’s a moderate. The New York Times recently ran stories that showed Democratic presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar may have abused staff members. The Los Angeles Times reported that the California Department of Justice paid out $...
Here are some brief thoughts for the end of a short month: Victim or survivor? Why is it if you are mugged, you’re called a “victim,” but if you have undergone sexual abuse you are a “survivor?” I always thought survivors were people who had faced a strong probability of death in an incident and come out alive, like a plane crash, a heart attack or a bout of an often-fatal cancer. Sexual abuse is traumatic, but then so is having your house broken into, being assailed by a robber, and having your identity stolen. These acts produce “victims....
The Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday passed a resolution that would commit $240,000 in funds raised through existing gross-receipts taxes to street, water line and sewer line improvements to accommodate the Coronado Park Racetrack and Casino if the state chooses Coronado Park to receive the sixth “racino” license. Warren Frost, a Logan attorney who has led the racino effort in Quay County, told the commission the resolution would help strengthen Coronado Park's case for receiving the sixth and final state racino license. District 1 Com...
I’ve never cared much for puritanism. While the Pilgrims came to America to avoid religious persecution, they mostly wanted to exchange the rigidly enforced rules against their brand of Christianity for the right to impose their own equally rigid code on each other. In a puritan society, there are usually authorities all must answer to. That usually means the authorities give their own biases and notions, whatever their origin, the weight of Gospel truth. They also have the power to define and punish transgressors according to their personal pr...
President Donald Trump may have come to his senses about government shutdowns and his coveted wall. Last month, the mainstream media, however, called Trump’s conciliatory statements on the matter a “stinging defeat” and a blow to his presidency. They were crowing. They shouldn’t crow in the first place, at least not in news stories. Further, they crowed prematurely. Trump has not been defeated. In fact, by coming to the table, Trump is likely to get more of what he wants. He wants security and he can get it. If, that is, he is willing to spen...
The Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday appointed Noreen Hendrickson, a longtime community volunteer leader, to be the city’s municipal judge. Hendrickson was appointed on a 4-1 vote, with District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya voting against the appointment. Hendrickson and Larry Brown, who has been serving as acting municipal judge, were interviewed before Thursday’s meeting. Moya said “both candidates were very, very impressive” in the interviews but in Brown “we have a very good judge.” Hendrickson on Friday said “I’m thrilled and ho...
The board of Tucumcari MainStreet fired the downtown improvement organization’s executive director Gail Houser, board members and Houser confirmed Thursday. Houser was informed of his firing Jan. 21 and given only a few hours to collect his belongings and leave, he said. He had served as MainStreet’s director since August 2014. MainStreet board president Cooper Glover confirmed Houser was fired Jan. 21, saying MainStreet was moving “in a new direction.” Glover said Friday, “We’re not doing anything crazy, no major changes. We just decided we...
Russell Baker, who died on Jan. 21 at age 93, has joined the likes of Mike Royko, Jimmy Breslin and Art Buchwald in the special part of heaven reserved for those who could make millions laugh on deadline. Baker’s New York Times “Observer” column ran at various frequencies from 1962 to Christmas Day 1998. Inviting the risk of a big “So what?” I’ll say that as a journalism student in the early 1970s, Baker’s work inspired me to want to write. I’ll qualify that — not just to want to write (Hemingway did that for reasons I still can’t fathom) — b...
As the New Mexico Legislature ends its first week in session, I am a little disappointed to say I know only one of the legislators for either Quay or Guadalupe counties personally now. I’ve been doing business in both counties lately in positions where one gets to know state legislators. I know Dennis Roch, who left the Legislature after last year’s session to focus on family and Logan Municipal Schools, where he is superintendent. It was an interview with Roch that led to my first job in Tucumcari, teaching at Tucumcari High School, 10 yea...
Two candidates for Tucumcari municipal judge will undergo interviews with the Tucumcari City Commission on Jan. 24, the commission decided in a public work session before Thursday's regular meeting. The candidates are Larry Brown, who has been filling in as municipal judge since former judge Joe Dominguez resigned Oct. 29 after a drunken-driving arrest, and Noreen Hendrickson, a resident known for her involvement with Tucumcari's Veterans of Foreign Wars 2528 and the Quay County Health Council, among other community groups. The new municipal...
I have been thinking about walls lately, because I’ve been reading the news. President Trump is demanding a $5.7-billion wall between the U.S. and Mexico. That’s a $5.7-billion slap in the face to Mexico, our southern neighbor and key trading partner, and its people. Most Mexicans don’t look like most of us or speak the same language, and they are poor. I think that makes them seem threatening to Trump and his followers. Some Mexicans would rather live here. They may break our laws to get here if they don’t get permission first, but that’s...
As I write this column, President Donald Trump has not yet carried out his threat — he says he doesn’t make threats, but I don’t know what else to call it — to declare a national emergency in order to build his wall at the Mexican border. Should he? In my opinion, no. Can he? Can he declare that people, including many children, who seek to escape brutal, lawless gang rule in Central America by coming to the U.S. constitute an emergency threat to national security? Maybe, it seems. Current law is vague about what can constitute a nationa...
I am writing this on Dec. 28. A new year, 2019, is fast approaching. Outside, it’s snowing, and since I don’t have to go anywhere today, I am joyfully watching the white blanket grow as it covers the lumps and bumps in my ill-kept yard with graceful, drifting curves. This close to the new year, one could say it symbolizes the pure blank page of fresh starts the next year will bring. This column will publish on the second day of 2019, but I’m happy to report on Dec. 28 that I neither contemplate nor intend to make resolutions for 2019. To be su...
Billboards will continue to inform eastbound and westbound drivers on Interstate 40 about the attractions of Tucumcari, after the city commission approved three-year contracts with the respective leasing companies Thursday. The three commissioners who attended the Thursday meeting unanimously approved the following deals: • An annual $18,720 deal with Lamar Advertising for billboards visible to westbound drivers coming from the Amarillo area. Documents indicate the billboards are in Amarillo, Wildorado and Adrian, Texas. • An annual $27...
Merry Christmas, Vladimir! As much as I’d like my column this week to reflect the holiday spirit, events of last week, the week before Christmas, I think demand some urgent attention Last week, President Donald Trump gave Russia’s Vladimir Putin a vast gift — Syria. Trump said U.S. troops are leaving, defending this move with the palpable lie that ISIS has been defeated. Russia praised the move almost before the words were out of Trump’s mouth. With the Mueller and New York prosecutor’s probes seeming to close in on the president, it seems tha...
Owners of rental property in Tucumcari apparently are tired of being held responsible when tenants skip out on water bills when they leave town, according to an attorney and Tucumcari City Commission members who discussed the issue in a public work session Thursday. The work session was held just before the commission's regular meeting, and no decisions were made as a result of the discussion. "There is a problem here,” Attorney Don Schutte said. "Landlords are getting hammered. Sometimes they don't even remember who the tenants were.” Sch...
The New York Times ran an “op-ed” piece, an opinion not that of the newspaper, this week by an economist named Eduardo Porter. It’s about the declining state of rural America and what to do about it. The answer: Not much you can do, at least in the opinion of the writer and others he quoted. If tech jobs are the future, they seemed to think there is not much rural America can do. Their thinking says tech jobs tend to cluster around areas where tech workers are already plentiful. They aren’t in many rural areas, including Quay County and its...
The death of former President George H.W. Bush has been met with as much mourning for the gentlemanly politics he practiced as for the man himself. Bush saved incivility for America’s enemies, launching genuine armed hostilities against Manuel Noriega, the gangster head of Panama, and Saddam Hussein, who tried to spread his cruel despotism into neighboring Kuwait. But in politics, Republican Bush fought hard within reasonable limits, as did the Democrats of that time. What happened between then and now? Why, without the excuse of a p...
Policies related to shrines at the Tucumcari Memorial Cemetery remained unresolved Thursday as the city commission gave final approval to other changes in the ordinance that governs administration of the cemetery. The commission delayed action on whether to allow shrines in the cemetery after hearing differing views from cemetery board members, though the board had voted to recommend against allowing shrines, and language forbidding shrines was included in the revised ordinance. Vicki Maestes, a member of the cemetery board, asked the...
Fox News pundits use “political correctness” as a blanket to cover any opinion they dislike. Progressives are enamored with political correctness, however, and despite my distaste for Fox News pundits in general, I think that even properly defined, political correctness may do as much harm as good. Merriam Webster defines “politically correct” as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated.” That definition works for me. Political correctness...
I’m writing this on Black Friday and I’m not going anywhere. Black Friday, New Year’s Eve, Labor Day and Memorial Day have become my favorite times to stay home. Just to be ornery, I don’t intend to order anything online today, either. Luckily, my wife of many years feels the same way. We walked this morning up to a bridge over Interstate 40. It was early and the lanes carried lots of semi-trailer trucks and a few cars getting a head start on long drives, either back home or maybe on business already. Traffic wasn’t bad, just a little he...
Happy Thanksgiving, Quay County and all of New Mexico. To my media colleagues, however, I issue a warning. The media corps seems to think they have reason to gloat over their turkey dinners as President Donald Trump eats crow over a restraining order that re-admits CNN reporter Jim Acosta to the White House after the president kicked him out for acting like a reporter. Even Fox News protested Acosta’s removal. The media universally are reporting federal District Court Judge Tim Kelly’s restraining order as an unqualified victory for the new...
The Tucumcari City Commission Thursday agreed without taking action the commission should appoint a new municipal judge in the wake of Municipal Judge Joe I. Dominguez's resignation Oct. 29. Dominguez resigned under terms of an order from the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission, which reviewed his standing after Dominguez was arrested for driving while intoxicated in February. According to a news release from the commission, Dominguez resigned rather than face further disciplinary action from the commission. Dominguez was on unpaid...