Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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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...
Being the ever-menacing carnival barker that he is, former president Donald Trump said the four criminal cases he faces have garnered him significant support from Black voters. Why? He claims due to the historic injustices Black Americans have endured at the hands of the criminal justice system, they can identify with his legal dilemma. “I think that’s why the Black people are so much on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happens to them. Does that make sense?” Trump said at the Black Conservative Federation Gala in Columbi...
OK, Nikki Haley. Sing along with me, the Republican Party and the great Kenny Rogers: You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away, know when (NOT) to run. It’s long past time for you to drop out of the race for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination. You’ve been called repeatedly and you’ve still got a losing hand. Donald Trump has humiliated your political butt in primaries across the U.S. But you still don’t know when to throw in your cards and just go away. Ron DeSantis was smart enough to...
During my junior high school years, we lived in south-central Kentucky about 15 miles south of the Dogpatch Trading Post, a tourist trap based upon the “Li’l Abner” newspaper cartoon series. The cartoon included a character named Sadie Hawkins, the homeliest girl on earth for whom Sadie Hawkins Day is named. To get her a husband, Sadie’s father initiated a race in which bachelors got a head start on being chased by spinsters. Like running from a lion, you needn’t be the fastest, but you wanted to be faster than spinsters in pursuit. Originall...
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...
It should probably come as little surprise that a majority of American millennial and Generation Z women identify as liberal. A Gallup Poll released earlier this month indicated the ideological gap between men and women across various generations has increased over the past few years, and that young women today are much more liberal than young men. Some of their findings: • Women aged 18 to 29 are now 15 percentage points more likely to identify as liberal than men of the same age group. • Young men are slightly more likely to identify as con...
The Democrats are trying to put Donald Trump in jail. The Republicans are trying to put Joe Biden in jail – along with the rest of his extended political crime family. Both sides think the only way they can win is by putting their opponent in jail. Is this what our beat up republic has to look forward to as we head for the election in November? The country is not just going to hell in a handbasket, it’s already there. I’m watching an invasion of illegal immigrants parading across the open border in Texas and crawling down the hills south of Sa...
Psalm 51:8 - “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.” Whatever you think of the Harry Potter books, the author created a creepy monster called a Dementor. It was meant to be the personification of clinical depression. Dementors are invisible, heartless, and relentless in their desire to suck all the joy and happiness out of a person. One victim said the monster’s effect was to make her feel like she’d never be cheerful again. Live long enough and you’ll come to a place where you fear death less than you fear...
As Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, told the floor as debate over this year’s budget wrapped up: “You’re not a poor state. Quit telling other people you’re a poor state.” He’s right. New Mexico is not poor. But what about the people of New Mexico? Among the citizens poverty remains high. According to World Population Review, New Mexico has the third-highest poverty rate in the US. Crime remains troubling and the education system is in dire straits. The state of New Mexico -- meaning the government itself -- has had massive surpluses in recent ye...
From the Duchess of Sussex and actress Meghan Markle to former Harvard President Claudine Gay to Vice President Kamala Harris, Black women have been the target of severe attacks in recent months. The most recent example are the distasteful comments made by Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas toward his colleague, Democrat Cori Bush of Missouri. Nehls, an acid-tongued conservative, took it upon his shamelessly arrogant self to refer to representative Bush as “loud” and “mouthy.” Nehls also referred to Bush’s husband, a man who served as a memb...
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...
Today is Valentine’s Day, but I have a question for you that’s not “Will you be my valentine?” Rather, it’s “What do Valentine’s Day, Cupid and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre have in common?” The answer is love, even for the massacre. The massacre was based in the love of money, leading to all kinds of evil that pierces with many griefs (1 Timothy 6:9-10; Ecclesiastes 5:10). It took place during Prohibition when, to satisfy love of money, many took advantage of people’s inappropriate love for alcohol. Those slain that day were riddled with b...
There may be no tenet of faith so fundamental to the cult of gun control than the idea that more guns equate to more crime — a theory that was soundly disproven in 2023. Just four years after the biggest recorded one-year spike in our nation’s homicide rate, it looks as if the United States may have just gone through the biggest one-year decline, an impossibility according to gun control activists. There are millions more guns around than there were four years ago, yet the vast majority of cities reported fewer homicides than they did in 202...
Several years ago, Taylor Swift was far from the femme fatale some members of the MAGA far right now consider her to be. Many conservatives used to revere Swift. In 2015, Republican lawmakers invited the pop icon for personal tours of the U.S. Capitol and offered to provide donors tickets to her concerts. Even Donald Trump stated she was “terrific” and “fantastic.” How times have changed. Swift is now political poison to the right, largely despised for her progressive viewpoints, her unabashed support of feminism and, perhaps worst of all, fo...
Videos of Joe Biden not knowing where he is or saying he just met with a French president who died 25 years ago are not so funny anymore. They’re tragic. And I can’t help feeling embarrassed and sorry for the president. It angers me to see him dodder out in public almost every other day and make a mumbling and confused fool of himself. Biden’s clearly been in the early stages of dementia for several years. It’s getting worse by the week and there’s no pill or treatment he can take that will ever make him better. In the 1990s I watched m...
Psalm 51:5 – “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” David is direct, even blunt, here. He’s not sugar-coating anything. Even so, these words are routinely misunderstood, especially by new readers of the Bible, or older ones who’ve never paid attention. The sense is the same as if he had said, “I was born into the tribe of Judah, and therefore Judah is my tribe.” Only, here, the tribe in question is that one we call “humanity.” As cats bring forth cats, and dogs have litters of puppies, so the d...
In response to the inordinate amount of time young Americans spend online, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to curb students’ access to social media sites while at school. The goal of keeping students off TikTok during the school day is undoubtedly worthwhile, but policymakers would be better off taking a simpler and more effective approach: banning mobile phones from schools altogether. It’s by now indisputable that allowing kids to have phones in the classroom harms academic performance — even among those who don’t actually use the...
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...
It’s a good thing Donald Trump doesn’t own one of the Super Bowl teams. If he did, people would already be rioting in the streets of Las Vegas, demanding that the NFL call off this weekend’s big game. The liberal media would be cheering on the rioters, as usual. But believe it or not, Trump is not just the madman from New York who his political enemies say tried to destroy democracy in America and has plans to install himself as a dictator this fall. According to leftist Democrats and the liberal media, Trump is to blame for everything that’s g...
Double digits. Gavin, aka The Dad’s mini-me, is turning 10. How. Did. That. Happen? I remember when Gavin was born. I blinked, and now he’s 10. I have a million and one memories of this munchkin’s shenanigans in my brain. Some of my favorites are of my dad and Gavin. We have a photo of my dad as a toddler, and Gavin as a toddler. They look identical, which makes me laugh since they acted alike as well. Just a few decades in between kiddo and ‘grrrrrrampa.’ Even though Dad isn’t physically here with us, his mini-me sure keeps us on our toes. G...
My wife related a recent incident to me involving her and our youngest grandson. She reviewed and approved of this article. Several of the grandchildren were outside in two separate areas of our yard, and some were oblivious to the situation. One of the older ones was playing with a toy she wouldn’t let the youngest grandson play with. So, when he came inside complaining, my wife came up with the wise idea of telling him to get a cheese stick and ask his cousin if she wanted to go inside and get one. After thinking for a moment, his c...
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...
I was driving through Colorado last summer when I encountered a series of electronic highway signs warning me to, “Slow the fast down.” Being a product of the Colorado school system, I was taken aback by the poor grammar and sentence construction. Then it occurred to me that “fast” was a four-letter word starting with “f” so I was supposed to think — well, you know. How edgy. Just what I want in my highway signs. Now, it’s posted alongside Interstate 25, next week it will be doing the opening set at Jimmy’s Chuckle Hut. There’s apparentl...
The truth is that within Christian churches we have a history of allowing people to “identify” as something they merely feel or wish they were, but for which there is no objective evidence. Not only have we done this consistently, but we have a little sub-culture in which this is enthusiastically encouraged. We make quasi-celebrities out of the preachers who can convince the most people to make this (false) identification. We call this evangelism. Sometimes we hold special services called revivals, in which the goal is to get as many peo...
Rare earth minerals are more abundant than their name suggests. Mineral-rich deposits are scattered around the United States, but our country has only one rare earth mine, in Mountain Pass, Calif. There are other potential mineable deposits, but they are many years away from starting production. To meet our increasing need for rare earths, we rely on imports, mainly from China -- and that’s boneheaded given the brittleness of U.S.-China relations and our own resources. U.S. policymakers are well aware of the peril to our national security a...