Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 141
Back in the 1970s, when dinosaurs roamed the land, I coached basketball in an inner-city league in Nashville, Tenn. Inspired by “The White Shadow” television show at the time, the Black teenagers on my team named themselves the Shadows because I was the only white coach in the league. We lost every game that season. Even though we had a standout team captain who worked the post and led the team with natural skills, a guy we all called J.C., we just couldn’t pull off a single win. Of course, we didn’t lose because I was white. Maybe “white...
For years, I’ve been calling Donald Trump a snake-oil salesman, but that’s such an antiquated term. Then I heard about the line of shoes and cologne he’s now promoting, and now I’m thinking he’s a telemarketer. And, I must say, he’s good at it. I heard on NPR that his red, white, blue and gold sneakers are selling out. Like the Trump brand itself, they’re getting terrible reviews, but he manages to sell them to his salivating suckers anyway. Trump may be bringing down our democracy, but hey, he’s one of the best pitchmen out there. He also...
Pay too much attention to the goings-on in Congress and you’d think our nation is broken. But focus your attention closer to home and you’ll see an altogether different picture. Take the New Mexico Legislature as an example. It just went through a whirlwind 30-day session and got plenty done, and not just for the special interests. The people of our state, both left and right, might actually benefit from our lawmakers’ recent actions. Altogether, 72 bills were passed and now await Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s signature to become law. That co...
For just a moment, let’s deviate from modern times and actually be honest about the state of our nation. Remember how, back in the old days before lawyers replaced gunslingers, honesty was actually valued. “A man’s word is his bond,” went the old adage, while a simple handshake could close the deal. Now, that handshake is considered unsanitary and you’d better have some wet wipes and a contract before you go any further. Fact is, as a society we don’t really value honesty anymore. Advertising has always been about superficial spin and mental...
Seems to me that Nikki Haley is a bigger problem for Donald Trump than he’s letting on. She’s exposing a rift in Trump World, one that might just get him defeated. I still say she’s the one who can beat Biden, but Trump appears ready to run roughshod over the Republicans’ nomination process to claim the crown. Then he’ll ride herd over another thumping at the polls, up and down the nation’s ballot. It’s almost funny to say, but I think the two biggest issues on 2024 ballots will be Trump and abortion. And on both those issues, the Republica...
As this year’s legislative session gets underway, there’s one wedge issue already getting lots of attention. Rest assured that any and all gun-control proposals, no matter how reasonable, will get plenty of attention by the usual band of Second Amendment reactionaries and their demagoguing leaders. Remember last September when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order limiting the carrying of firearms in Bernalillo County? It was specific to metro Albuquerque, but some of the most aggressive demonstrations came in the more rur...
It’s the onset of our annual holiday season, when gratefulness, gift-giving and anticipation of a new year come over us. It’s coming during troubled times. Nationally and internationally, the problems seem overwhelming. One war, between Ukraine and Russia, keeps dragging along with no clear victory in sight, while horrors are unfolding in a brand-new Israel-Hamas war. All this while the Earth warms, the climate changes and the weather turns extreme. On our homefront, there’s a pitched battle coming between authoritarianism and democratic rule...
When it comes to Big Media news, all eyes this week will be on the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News as it goes to trial in a Delaware courthouse. It’s one of the most significant media trials in decades, with ramifications that strike at the heart of what we call a “free press.” Somewhere in Journalism 101, or maybe it was 201, I learned that a news reporting operation can get away with not telling the truth if it was done without malice. To prosecute a news outlet for an unintended error in reporting would have a chilling effect on those...
SANTA ROSA - A head-on collision just outside Vaughn resulted in five human and at least 10 canine injuries early Jan. 3, and a van-load of Chihuahuas and other mixed miniature dogs at Santa Rosa's animal shelter last that morning. According to Ray Wilson, public information officer for New Mexico State Police, the wreck occurred about 12:45 p.m. Jan. 3 when a 2000 Chevrolet Astro van driven by Missael Rodelo, 40, of El Paso, Texas, was going south on U.S. 54 about two miles northeast of Vaughn...
The world, and particularly Brazil, lost a great one when Edson Arantes do Nascimento, famously known as Pelé, died on Thursday. Pelé was incredible in the sport of football, famously known in the U.S. as soccer, with championship play that lifted the spirits and the national pride of South America’s largest nation, even as it suffered through a brutal dictatorial regime in the 1970s and ’80s. Widely known as “the king of football,” Pelé is the only player to ever win the World Cup three times and is arguably the greatest ever in his sport. He...
Wow. Another “existential” year. It seems they all are these days. COVID hit in 2020 and we, as a nation, argued over masks. Then 2021 brought vaccines and deeper divisions after an attempted insurrection. And this year is ending with a “tripledemic” and a stage set for a divided Congress and, probably, a more deeply divided nation. It must have been a couple of years ago when “existential crisis” became staple mainstream media language. Now it’s almost cliché, even if it is justified in its use — between a changing climate, threats to democ...
Every year about this time I get to be Santa’s editor helper. I clean up letters that children in Santa Rosa, Vaughn and Anton Chico write to him, for publication in my newspaper’s Letters to Santa special section, which is a big deal around here. Actually, I do very little editing, because a misspelled word here and there is somehow “cute” when a kid does it. More than anything, I format their letters for the purpose of “flow” and “readability,” which is something a paginator understands and readers appreciate even if they don’t notice. I...
Ever wonder how other nations view us? For New Mexicans, the first thing a foreigner might think is that we’re a part of our neighbor to the south. If they knew Billy the Kid became famous as a Wild West outlaw here, then maybe they’d know we’re a bonafide state in the good ol’ USA, but as most traveling New Mexicans already know, U.S. citizens don’t even know that. Personally, I once had a man in Memphis, Tenn., when he saw me wearing a New Mexico T-shirt, engage me in a conversation about illegal immigration until I explained that I’m alrea...
Every time I go back to my home country, I pine for the good old days of my youth. I was born in Ozark, Ark., where the Arkansas River Valley meets the Ozark Mountains, and graduated high school upstream in Fort Smith. In between, I also grew up in other small Arkansas cities and towns, as the son of an itinerant minister. In the mid-1970s, I left Arkansas, and started bouncing around, mostly between Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas. By the 1980s, I “settled down” in my native state, back to be close to family, and started a family of my own. I...
The other day I heard a program on NPR discussing how children and youth are taking in the threat of climate change. One teenager spoke of how he became keenly aware of the threat when he had to leave his home as he viewed an approaching wildfire just outside his window. He’s an example of someone who recognizes the threat because he’s had a glimpse of it up close and personally. Other children and youth see it from a distance, like a cloud choking off their future. Anger and depression grow from such a dark view of what’s ahead. The NPR discu...
If you ask me, Thanksgiving is better than Christmas, for a whole host of practical, spiritual and personal reasons. For one thing, it hasn’t been commercialized the way the Yuletide has. Black Friday and Cyber Monday may fall near Thanksgiving, but those shopping-spree days are in preparation for the giving and getting of Christmas. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is a feast for the body and soul. Sure, it may be based on a misleading narrative in American history, but at its core Thanksgiving is about something much bigger — a spirit of gra...
Did America’s fever just break? Last week’s general election provided strong evidence that democracy remains strong in our nation, as just about all those who lost their respective elections admitted defeat, with some even graciously conceding to their opponent. If only for a moment, the political rhetoric has cooled. That’s typical of all our post-election cycles. Hyperbole, smears, fearmongering and us-against-them mantras all reach their peak in the height of a campaign season, followed by a more conciliatory mood in the days follo...
Sometimes I feel like an optimist in search of a reason to still feel that way. I want to believe in what’s good about this world, but writing about the issues of our time can be depressing. I’m penning this column in advance of this year’s general election results, so I don’t know who won and who lost. I’ve already written about my frustrations with this election cycle, including all the fears that have been espoused on both sides of the political divide, so even if I were to spin some optimism into the mix, you wouldn’t buy it. Win, lose o...
All year long, I’ve had a hard time getting excited about this election year. I’m just not into it this time around. This isn’t normal for me. For decades, I’ve told people that “politics is my favorite sport.” I liked the debates, the give and take, I even loved to hate the campaign commercials. But this time around, there’s just no fun in it for me. Maybe it’s the lack of a newsroom. After decades of newspapering at larger dailies with good-size newsrooms, going through an election cycle at my small weekly is a bit lonely. In my experience,...
As an observer of human nature and the body politick, I’ve reached the conclusion that the meanspirited attacks on both sides are largely due to the extremes. But there’s a more moderate middle that sees a third way, one that’s closer to our collective nature and articulated well by the pundit David Brooks. Longtime journalist Brooks is what I’d describe as a moderate conservative. He writes a column for the New York Times and gives analysis on PBS News Hour, but he’s more of a free thinker than a partisan political commentator. Search fo...
This is altogether anecdotal, so I won’t pretend it’s based on scientific observation, but I’ve noticed something in my annual trips to Arkansas for a Thanksgiving get-together in the Ozark Mountains. The autumn leaves seem to be peaking earlier. October is the best time to see a brilliant display of colors in the Ozark Plateau. It’s as if God painted the mountains just for our viewing pleasure. But by the end of November, when I take my trip, the fiery splash of the red, orange, yellow and green broadleaf colors have all but disappe...
Maybe you’ve read my brother Don’s column, something I run weekly in my Guadalupe County News because, well, he loaned me money. That’s why we call his weekly column “The One Percenter,” because that’s about how much of my newspaper he “owns,” although we are now locked in a pitched battle over an additional 1%, which he thinks he has earned by bringing in “at least a million” readers, a figure he arrived at using a mathematical formula he made up. Who says numbers don’t lie? Fortunately, my brother doesn’t make his living off math. He’s a...
If you ask me, a big reason why democracy in America is in trouble is because of the way we’ve set it up. First, there’s our Electoral College for electing presidents. By using state electors for selecting the overall winner through an antiquated Electoral College, instead of the majority of all voters, a lot of votes end up not mattering. For example, if you’ve been a Trump supporter in New Mexico, your vote for president in 2020 didn’t count toward the final tally that gave Biden the election. All of this state’s five electoral votes wen...
The other day, I heard a pundit call New Mexico “purple,” as in a balanced mix of “blue” Democrats and “red” Republicans. If that’s the case, we must have some closeted Republicans holding office, because these days the Democrats control the political landscape. Republicans, however, aren’t that far removed from power. Not only do they control some conservative areas around New Mexico, it was only four years ago when a Republican was governor, so maybe a little purple is part of the equation after all. The fact is, New Mexico is a unique sta...
In case you haven’t noticed, nuclear power is back in the headlines these days. Even here in New Mexico, where there are no nuclear power plants, it’s an issue. Not only do we have the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), where radioactive waste is stored deep underground in the southeastern corner of the state, federal regulators are considering another facility that would store up to 100,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive nuclear waste, which would be transported in from nuclear reactors around the nation. This one is called a “Co...