Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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In the first line of the book, we find out that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. It’s a pretty big book, and a lot of stuff follows that. None of it could happen, though, if that first bit didn’t. The Bible unfolds in actual time and history. The reality it describes is the objective one we live in. God created the heavens and earth. This is not an illusion. Without that truth, all bets are off. You are reading these words with your eyes. But are you really? How can you be sure that you’re not a brain in a vat somewhere,...
Have you ever Googled yourself? Mostly you don’t find yourself. David Stevens has over 35 years of experience in the mortgage banking industry. David Stevens is an American politician and a former Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives. Highly skilled 168-pounder David Stevens scored a wild last-second KO of Sean Hemphill in January. None of those David Stevens are me. There’s a David Stevens on a wrestling roster, a David Stevens on a football roster, a lawyer named David Stevens who specializes in bankruptcy, a David Ste...
Malcolm X said it best in a 1962 speech: “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is a black woman…” More than 60 years later, these words still ring true. Recently, it’s an apt description as it relates to footage of a horrific incident that occurred recently in Houston. Ro Bashe, a Somali immigrant, took to social media to show viewers her badly injured face. Bashe said a man hit her with a brick and then ran away. The reason...
Thank God for Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. I wish every major television and radio network in the country had covered what the smart and colorful Republican did in the Senate last week. As part of a hearing looking into the alleged threat to freedom posed by parents who want to have sexually explicit gay and trans books removed from their school libraries, Kennedy bravely quoted some choice excerpts from two of the books. While he read out loud from “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Gender Queer,” every adult in the room with a brain and a lic...
This past Monday was Patriot Day. Like Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Sept. 11, 2001, is a day to remember attacks on U.S. soil that led to a massive loss of American lives (2,403 at Pearl Harbor and 2,977 on 9/11) and got us into a war. Unlike World War II, after which we made real peace with our attackers, we never should consider peace with terrorists such as those behind the 9/11 attack. Rather, we must protect ourselves even to the point of personal inconvenience for the good of all and always be on the alert for more attacks. Terrorism is...
New Mexico’s governor last week issued an “emergency health order” that bans firearms in all public places in Albuquerque. The only people exempt from the ban are police and security officers. And criminals, of course. Criminals don’t follow laws, so this nonsense does not apply to them either. Michelle Lujan Grisham herself said she expects opposition from those who care about liberty and the U.S. Constitution. She was right. New Mexico’s House and Senate Republicans immediately announced plans to file a federal lawsuit. “It is unacceptable th...
It appears some Republican donors are really concerned that presidential candidate Tim Scott, South Carolina’s junior senator, is a 57-year-old bachelor — and whatever implications that may entail. Top party donors are raising concerns about the fact the conservative Black senator has never been married. and want some of their concerns about the matter addressed before they decide to become committed to his candidacy, according to Axios. Scott has never been known to talk about his romantic life. Apparently, his reluctance has “raised conce...
Almost 100 years ago the great American author Sinclair Lewis wrote a political novel called “It Can’t Happen Here.” The 1935 book was a warning that what was happening then in Europe – the rise of fascism and Nazism – could come to America in the form of a Hitler-type politician who gets elected and then becomes a dictator. Though the power of the federal government has grown enormously since FDR’s days, we never became a totalitarian country like the fictional one Lewis imagined. But out here in California, where parents, public schools and...
The brilliant man in the video was asked whether he believed in God. He said the amount of suffering he sees in the world makes it hard for him to believe in a God who is good and loving. This is a common argument among skeptics. Suffering is bad, so God must not be good. He’s either too weak to do anything about it or unconcerned with it. For an atheist to make the whole suffering argument, however, is inconsistent with atheism, which can have no objective morality. He doesn’t believe in God, but he’s somehow confident that suffering is bad....
We don’t always end up where we think we’ll be when we start out on our journey. For some, the journey is straightforward. I think about the people in my life who knew what they wanted to do and be, and then set out to make it happen. For others, myself included, there were more twists and turns than the normal straightaway. It isn’t just that plans change, but that we change. Or our situations change. Or we discover what we thought we wanted, just didn’t work for us. Or it just took longer to find our path. Everyone has a special bit of work...
In May 2005, a federal committee charged with reducing the nation’s military installations recommended that Cannon Air Force Base be closed. Local, state and federal lawmakers joined the community to rally behind the base in hopes of saving it. Area residents wrote hundreds of letters and thousands lined the streets of the city when the federal Base Closure and Realignment Committee came to town for a public hearing. If the local efforts had a vocal leader, his name was Bill Richardson. New Mexico’s governor never claimed he saved Cannon, but...
After whipping themselves into a frenzy, conservatives have tried to do a rapid U-turn of their embrace of YouTube sensation Oliver Anthony and his hit song, “Rich Men North of Richmond.” The flip-flop comes after Anthony (real name Christopher Anthony Lunsford) derided Republican politicians, radio hosts, and conservative news outlets for brazenly adopting his song. “It was funny seeing that (Republican) presidential debate,” Anthony said. “I wrote that song about those people.” The tune, which Anthony uploaded to YouTube last month, had...
Seriously folks. Maybe we Republicans better stop banging on Old Joe Biden for the serious cognitive issues he obviously has. Unless we hold the players on our own team responsible for their cognitive issues, we have to stop harping on the obvious mental declines of President Biden, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Diane Feinstein, my home state’s ancient senator. I’m talking of course about the problem of what to do about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s shaky brain. The Republican Senate minority leader had another one of his sad and scary...
This year’s flying by, with Labor Day being next Monday. While shopping recently, I saw the store I was in already had Halloween candy for sale, which made me wonder when the Christmas candy and ads would be out. Then, I thought again about Labor Day and wondered if Santa Claus and Labor Day had anything in common. We usually only hear about Santa doing anything, like work, when he delivers presents overnight before Christmas morning. Completely encompassing the globe north, south, east and west is a pretty big job. So, he and his reindeer prob...
Before he played the bouncer in “Road House” … before he was the focus in the documentary “Beyond the Mat” … before he was elected to five wrestling hall of fames … before he retired from the sport the first time in 1983 ... Terry Funk was a legend across eastern New Mexico and the High Plains. If you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, you were a Funk fan, whether watching him wrestle on television or seeing him in person in Clovis, Portales and other small-town venues. We lost the legend last week following a two-year struggle with dementia. He...
New Mexico should be in crisis mode. Our K-12 education system is certainly facing a crisis. Problems abound: recent reports highlight serious school attendance issues, the NAEP (known as the “Nation’s Report Card”) test places New Mexico 52nd across ALL age groups and subjects studied, the Kids Count report shows New Mexico kids are losing ground, and no one seems to have a solution. Education spending has increased markedly in recent years with nothing to show for it. With New Mexico already suffering from poor educational outcomes the COVID...
As usual, there was too much cross-talk and chaos on stage. And there was way too much partisan cheering and hooting by the audience. But the first Republican presidential primary debate on Fox News was an entertaining spectacle. Instead of watching Tucker Carlson interview Donald Trump on Twitter/X, it was a good way to check out the personalities and political positions of the GOP’s lineup of second and third stringers who have the impossible dream of beating out Trump for the party’s 2024 nomination. No one jumped off the screen and loo...
One day, the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom. These were motivated dudes, after all, wanting to know how to advance, how to climb that ladder. Jesus pointed to a child and told them to become like that. Some preachers have turned this text into a “How To Be Saved” sort of story. They think the disciples were asking about entrance to the kingdom, not status within it. So, the evangelistic answer is that we must have a so-called childlike faith. They don’t consider this in light of places where Jesus recommends a lot o...
You’ve probably heard the story by now. A small-town Kansas newspaper on Aug. 11 was raided by police who seized the paper’s computers and other electronic equipment. Newspaper officials claim the raid occurred because they had been looking into the background of the local police chief and other leaders in the county of about 12,000 people. Police claimed they had information that the newspaper was gathering information illegally and invading individuals’ privacy. Ironically, the newspaper reported little of the information it gathered in its p...
Voracious popular culture connoisseur that I am, I have been avidly following the drama surrounding pop icon Lizzo. As an academic who teaches race, gender and sexuality studies, the story has all the intersectional elements that make for a riveting story. Over the past couple of weeks, the Grammy award winning artist known for her hits “Truth Hurts,” “Jerome,” and “Exactly How Feel” has been embroiled in controversy and legal drama. Three of Lizzo’s tour dancers – Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez – have accused the singe...
Another week, another lame Trump indictment. Another week, another slimy Hunter Biden report. Another week, another smash-and-grab at a California mall. You can’t get away from this crummy stuff unless you turn off the TV, take the alerts off your phone and sleep all day on the beach for a week like Joe Biden. But I’m totally worn out by the never-ending troubles and crimes of Trump and Hunter. Nothing that happens to either of them in a courtroom months or years from now will hurt me, cut high gas prices or make my family safer. What con...
While traveling back from Albuquerque recently, our grandson reached into the backseat for something. Upon turning back forward, he bumped his covered insulated drink container. Because the container didn’t fit the cup holder snuggly, it made a loud clank and some drink spewed out through the straw at which time the automatic windshield wiper came on as if it were sprinkling outside. While that seems eerie, it’s likely when clank startled me, I bumped the turn signal indicator, which has the wiper control mounted on its end. I’d call that a col...
The answer is yes. I am ready for some football. The high school season starts this week. I started liking football in 1967 when the first game I can clearly remember played out on my granddad’s color TV set – the Dallas Cowboys played the Green Bay Packers in the “Ice Bowl.” The temperature was 15 degrees below zero. Most fans considered it pro football’s championship game, though the Super Bowl was still to be played. My granddad was for the Cowboys because … Tom Landry, I think. Everybody in Texas loved the Cowboys coach in those days...
The evolution of Black Lives Matter, the election of Donald Trump, and a growing fear of immigrants have led to deep levels of resentment and hostility among a sizable segment of white Americans. Many Americans of European descent misguidedly see the nation they grew up in as infested with hordes of non-white people, threatening to resign the country as a potpourri of foreign languages, multiple religions and mass confusion. Not all white Americans harbor such deplorable viewpoints, of course. But those that do have been indoctrinated by...
Half the country has no idea why the front page of Thursday’s New York Post was so hilarious. That’s because, thanks to the liberal media, half the country still has no idea who Hunter Biden is, or why he is in trouble for raking in millions for his extended family from foreign businessmen by selling access to his father Joe’s “brand” and political influence. The Post – which is famous for its funny front pages and lively conservative journalism – brilliantly summed up the Biden Family’s international influence-peddling racket. Its front page...