Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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As we stare another new year right in its face, it’s helpful to gaze back for a moment. I mean all the way back, before the beginning. The Scripture says that a few things happened even before the events of Genesis 1:1 and following. Before God said, “Let there be light,” other things were decided. Those things then paved the way for “the foundation of the world.” Revelation 13 and 17, for instance, refer to something called the Lamb’s book of life. If you are in Christ, your name is written in it. The individual names of his people were...
You don’t have to be an animal lover to appreciate why a recent federal court order involving the future of more than 30 chimpanzees at an Alamogordo research facility is a big deal. The case is as much about the rule of law, reining in a rogue federal agency, and wise use of tax dollars as it is about the moral aspects of denying mankind’s closest living relatives the space and freedom they deserve to live out their lives the way nature intended. The ruling paves the way for the National Institutes of Health to relocate the chimps to a san...
As seems to happen more and more frequently, the curtain is dropping on yet another year. Rather than looking back at the year as it winds down, I want to look ahead without trying to predict anything. I don’t know if the past year was a good one for you, but I hope it was. Either way, you’ve about made it through. This is no finish line; only a checkpoint. The good news is, you’re still here and you’re still going forward. If you want this next year to be an even better year, you’ve got to make it better yourself. Don’t ask politicians...
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...
This Sunday is Christmas (in case you missed that). Although you’ve probably heard or read the accounts of Jesus’ birth multiple times recently, read them again because you might learn something new with each reading (Matthew 1:1-25; Luke 1:26-56; 2:1-20; Matthew 2:1-23; Galatians 4:4; John 1:1-18). You’ll certainly be encouraged by the hope that the reason for the season brings. Learning about hope and having that hope leads to rejoicing on many fronts. When the angels shared the good news of Jesus’ birth with the shepherds, both the angels...
Incoming president of Northern New Mexico College, outgoing Attorney General Hector Balderas, will be paid more than his three predecessors. His incoming salary has been set by the college’s board of regents at $232,500. Both interim president Dr. Barbara Medina and her predecessor, Richard Bailey, were paid $180,000 a year. Balderas has a 3 1/2 -year contract. The almost 30% increase in the salary seems excessive for someone who has never operated an institution of higher learning. Balderas has no record of work in academia. What he lacks in e...
I’ve realized most people don’t understand freedom of speech. Not even experts. Having freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can force anyone to listen. It doesn’t mean you’ll escape consequences of your words. It doesn’t mean anyone -- other than government -- is obligated to let you speak. Of course, I believe corporations are an arm of government due to the cozy arrangements they share. Government puts pressure -- with implied threats of retaliation -- on corporations to ban speech government doesn’t want allowed. This violates the First Amendm...
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...
Quay County will miss McCasland This month marked the last Quay County Commission meeting for Chairman Franklin McCasland, who has served on the commission for 16 of the last 20 years. He is term limited and could not run again. I have had the pleasure of working with Franklin over the past several years as county attorney. Over the last 35 years I have worked with many city and county commissioners in both Quay and Curry counties and I can say unequivocally that Franklin has been a model public servant. He has consistently looked out for the...
I grew up singing the old Christmas carols. I was stuck in the children’s choir at church when I was that age, and we learned these hymns by heart. I’d stand there, in front of the congregation with the other kids, feeling half-choked by the necktie that was foisted upon me, and we’d sing the songs that had been drummed into us. I was 23 years old when I became serious about my faith. That was at the end of a November eons ago. The next thing that happened was that it turned into December, and the church I attended sang the old Christmas hymns...
A one-game suspension. Really? That’s what New Mexico State University officials determined was the proper discipline for three basketball players who broke curfew early Nov. 19 to take possession of and hide evidence in a fatal shooting on the campus of the University of New Mexico. Police records say NMSU player Mike Peake was lured to UNM the morning of the highly touted NMSU-UNM rivalry game by a group of UNM students seeking revenge for an earlier brawl at the Lobo-Aggie football game. UNM student Brandon Travis was one of three p...
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...
Have you ever heard the term “beer goggles,” where the more you drink, the more attractive someone looks? Politics works the opposite. The more you see things politically, the worse everything looks. Once someone starts looking at things through the distorting lens of politics, there’s no telling what they’ll think they see. Even without politics, people see what they want to see, what they expect to see, or what they’ve been told to see. Politics make this effect worse. With politics, people see the worst possible interpretation of what’s in...
Dec. 7, 1941, was described by President Franklin Roosevelt as “a day that would live in infamy” because of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. While most Americans have come to peace with Japan since then, the term “day of infamy” became associated with any day of such tragedy and disgrace. We’ve had a few more of those days since then, but each day of infamy has united our nation making us stronger and eventually resulted in a day of honor, such as V-J Day. The Bible describes many days of infamy followed by days of honor and glory that lead t...
Christmas was simpler when I was a little kid. Maybe it was just that my wishes were simpler back then. I didn’t wish for world peace so much as I just believed it already existed. And I didn’t wish that people would get along, because in my rosy little world, they did. Cue a 1970s “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” moment here. I also believed in the magic of Christmas. Still do. I believe that rather than name-calling and fighting, we need to remember that we belong to one another, brothers and sisters. I believe that rather than sepa...
Back in 2001, precious few Americans could have explained what Houston-based Enron did as a company and how it got so spectacularly wealthy. When it filed for a record-breaking bankruptcy, Americans got schooled fast about not putting their trust and money behind swaggering, fast-talking con artists. But fools and their money regrouped over the years, and along came FTX, a $32 billion cryptocurrency exchange that repeated many of Enron’s mistakes and yielded the same abysmal results. We suspect that a lot of investors who lost their shirts i...
Governments don’t respect rights. Your rights don’t change when you cross a line; not a state line or a national border. Rights are the same everywhere. Only the ways in which your rights are violated differ by location. Rights don’t change over time or due to majority opinion, either. If something is a violation of your rights today, it was a violation no matter how far back in history you go and it would remain a violation into the distant future. No matter what else changes. Slavery always violated the rights of the slaves, even when it wa...
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...
We’re studying through the book of Acts in church and one thing that struck us recently was the availability of places for those first preachers to engage listeners with the claims of the Gospel of Christ. Most cities had multiple synagogues that were happy to let traveling ministers address them. There were crowded, open-air markets where people bustled around: you were free to set up your soap box there and just start preaching. You could expect crowds gathered at riverbanks. In our little town, there’s no such place. What foot traffic the...
Few persons would think of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as appropriate Thanksgiving-season reading. Many among us, for some strange reason, prefer to imagine him delivering it under a searing sun and in soggy humidity. Perhaps we confuse the month of the battle with the month of the ceremony initiated to honor those who died at the Battle of Gettysburg. Absurdly and challenging the imagination, over 7,000 soldiers died. The fighting lasted three days, from July 1 through July 3, 1863. Lincoln’s spellbinding address at Gettysburg, which...
People are more alike than different. Even those who use politics against you want the same things you want. They want to live their lives the way they believe is best, and they usually believe their way would be best for you, too. The difference is they are pursuing a way you think is not going to work; for themselves or for others. They may prioritize feeling safe over liberty. You may think what makes them feel safe is too dangerous. Maybe they’d put green chilis on everything and you don’t want them on anything. You might be right or you...
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...
Thanksgiving reminds of our bounteous natural resources, our society’s diversity and the faith-based principles upon which our nation was founded. These have led to our great success as a nation because our forebears trusted in God (Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 91:1-2; 18:2; 32:12-32). We should never forget our true history because that would cause us to miss out on an equally bright future (Jeremiah 29:10-14). Remember that Israel had a long history of sin and repentance because they didn’t learn the first, second, or you count the times how goo...
Thanksgiving reminds of our bounteous natural resources, our society’s diversity and the faith-based principles upon which our nation was founded. These have led to our great success as a nation because our forebears trusted in God (Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 91:1-2; 18:2; 32:12-32). We should never forget our true history because that would cause us to miss out on an equally bright future (Jeremiah 29:10-14). Remember that Israel had a long history of sin and repentance because they didn’t learn the first, second, or you count the times how goo...
The powers that Google and Facebook have over economic and political power in society – especially over the news industry—has caught the attention of lawmakers in Washington, DC. After a close election and many worries over the quality of public debate, many ask if social media have played a role in the misinformation that erodes our free press and plagues our democracy. Nowhere is this power more daunting than in the social media giants’ use of news organizations’ reporting, which the platforms use without compensation to journalists. Google...