Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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Christmas is exhausting. These days, as a man teetering on old age and living alone most of the time, I’m just not motivated to get all dressed up for these holidays. My adult kids are having their own Christmases elsewhere this year, and I’m way too busy with work anyway; I don’t have time for a big holiday. I’ll be fine with a nice nap on Christmas Day this year. Not that Christmas is without depth for me, because it still means a lot to me — both as a religious and a secular holiday. When I was growing up, Christmas Day was celebrate...
My mother-in-law passed away on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was unexpected. On the other hand, she was a frail, little woman in her 80s, and stuff started breaking down. Ruth Martinez will be greatly missed. Ruth was a woman of faith. Her standard greeting was not, “Hey! How’s it going?” but rather, “Praise the Lord!” To the end, she clung to a promise she knew she had received from her God, that all of her children would enter into his kingdom. She prayed for each of them constantl...
Normally, the website The Gateway Pundit can and should be laughed off as right-wing, fake-news nonsense. But as Reuters recently reported, the site’s false allegations of election fraud in jurisdictions around the country have stoked harassment and death threats against two dozen election officials. The reason toxic platforms like this exist is because there is a market for them. Only when the news-consuming public learns to be more discerning in where it looks for information will those platforms loosen their damaging grip on political d...
This past spring I noticed a bigger than usual crop of the plant that becomes tumbleweeds when it dies and the wind blows. I told a few people to be ready for an epic tumbleweed season this year. Then, I failed to see many tumbleweeds last month and wondered what had happened to them all. It turns out they had all gone to Oasis State Park to plot their attack. So, I was right about the bumper crop, but I missed where they were going. I can’t win ‘em all. Some things are easy to predict based on what you see happening in the world around you, bu...
If you think New Mexico’s commitment to alternative energy sources is evident only by the wind turbines and solar farms going up, think again. Hydrogen gas is on the way. Earlier this month, officials with BayoTech Inc., alongside Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, unveiled the Albuquerque-based company’s first “hydrogen-generating hub” — the first of many the company plans to help build in the U.S. and Great Britain over the next three years. BayoTech’s CEO said the company’s goal is to be the largest hydrogen distribution company in the world — a...
Christmas is upon us, and many of us are enjoying the holiday hubbub, especially as a release from the COVID restrictions that kept families apart for well over a year. Others, such as Martha, are so caught up in the mundane holiday preparations, shopping and travel that they’re missing out on the fun (Luke 10:38-42). We were returning from Albuquerque recently, and it must have been a good day for our grandson because he said he wished time wouldn’t fly when you’re having fun. He preferred that time stood still when you were having fun and it...
Eighty years ago, on Dec. 7, 1941, our parents and grandparents were shaken out of the humdrum of daily living — and the trajectory of their lives forever changed — by news that Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, home to America’s Pacific Fleet and considered a forward deterrent to Japanese attack, had itself come under murderous fire in a surprise Japanese assault. Other U.S. military installations on the island of Oahu and nearby were also hit that morning, about 8 a.m. Hawaii time, 1 p.m. at the White House, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt was j...
I love people. I also know that humans are deeply flawed. This combination explains why I’m a libertarian. Every other position insists that no one is smart enough to run their own life while also believing most people are smart enough to run the lives of people they’ve never met. This running of strangers’ lives is carried out through voting and wielding political power. It’s not a realistic position. The libertarian position recognizes that most people are better at running their own lives than others would be and no one is qualified to run...
Sound the alarm! Gas prices are going up! Throughout my life, I’ve noticed a certain obsession Americans have with gas prices. I used to tease my father for driving out of his way just to save a couple of cents on a gallon of gas. I told him that he probably spent more money (and time) driving across town to the cheaper gas station than he saved at the pump, but he was unwavering in his search for the cheapest gas possible. To this day, I know guys who can make an entire conversation out of the price of gasoline. The media don’t help, sho...
I am not a science denier. You may hear otherwise, but I think that’s unfair. To be anti-science is to be anti God, who created and owns everything in the whole cosmos. Our fathers in the faith used to talk about the value of studying God’s two books. One, of course, was the Bible, and the other was the created world we live in. They believed that God used both books to reveal himself to those who look for him in their pages. The scientific method is one of the tools God has given humanity, so...
Ahmaud Arbery’s killing in February 2020 sounded at first like a horrific flashback to an earlier era in which white men killed Black men for appearing in places they were neither expected nor welcome, and then were coddled instead of arrested and prosecuted by the local police. It brought to mind the distant memory of Emmett Till and more recent one of Trayvon Martin. It seemed a bit more modern when finally, more than two months later, amid mounting public outrage and state pressure, Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William ...
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I grew up on them. They were the first thing I learned to make in the kitchen. That and a glass of milk. Microwaves hadn’t been invented yet. Playing basketball on a dirt patch in our back yard. That’s where I learned to dribble and shoot with one hand. And football in our front yard. When no one else was around, I’d take the hike from an imaginary center, drop back and throw to the trees, believing that I was the star quarterback for the Arkansas Razorbacks, the only college team that mattered in the unive...
It ought to be possible to operate a retail store in one of America’s largest and most iconic cities, but this most basic commercial proposition is in doubt in San Francisco. The erstwhile Golden City is beset by an ongoing tide of theft that is closing down retail locations and demonstrating again the city’s unwillingness to govern itself. Cities around the country dub themselves “the capital” of this or that signature product: artichokes in Castroville, Calif.; earmuffs in Farmington, Maine; spinach in Alma, Ark.; fried chicken in Barberton,...
Two school board members in Virginia this month called for the burning — yes, burning — of books in the school’s library that they deem sexually offensive. This is, of course, the logical direction of the conservative movement to crack down on any school curriculum that doesn’t reflect a right-wing view of the world. And it’s another reason why liberals and progressives should reclaim the mantle of free speech that was once an integral part of liberal thinking but that has now, alarmingly, fallen out of fashion on college campuses and other...
The Kyle Rittenhouse trial may have served as a canary in the coal mine. That’s how I saw it. Government doesn’t respect your right of self-defense and would prefer you die at the hands of attackers. Fortunately, the jury saw through the malicious prosecution. Unfortunately, much of the public believed the lies spun by the national media corporations to advance their anti-gun, anti-defense agenda. Rittenhouse was even called a “white supremacist” and his attackers were called “his victims.” Rittenhouse was persecuted for doing something e...
Every year I write about Thanksgiving with a hope that I can avoid, or at least minimize, my political commentary, opting instead to make an annual kumbaya column, writing about what’s close to my heart in advance of my favorite holiday. At least I try. This year, however, I freely admit I can’t do it. The things for which I’m grateful are just too politically tainted this time around. Maybe it’s a sign of the times that my worldview is undeniably political, because the fight for “truth, justice and the American way” (as the a-political Superma...
We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving in America this week, but the times seem pretty bleak right now with all that’s happening in our nation and around the world. I’m not just talking about political strife, COVID, empty shelves, natural disasters, or just plain evil. While evil will increase over time and take a lot out of us, there’s still hope it will all end and life will be better (2 Timothy 3:12-13; Matthew 24:4-13, 21-22). But this article isn’t necessarily about the present evils. It’s about how we should still be thankful despite all that’s...
If you’ve watched a movie that depicted a funeral in the last 40 years or so, I’d place my bet on two things. One, it was probably raining; and, two, the Scripture quoted by the clergyman was Psalm 23. I’m not sure how we got there, where Psalm 23 is associated with funerals. I’d guess it’s because verse 4 mentions “the valley of the shadow of death.” But, take another run at it, and simply read the words as they’re written. This “Shepherd Psalm” is not gloomy at all. Death is not the topic at...
Whether you call it the “Capitol protest,” the “insurrection” or the “riot,” it seems those who entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 are deservedly and appropriately being punished for their actions. Most of those charged are being sentenced to probation, fines or a few weeks in jail. About two dozen have been sentenced so far. Former Clovis physician Leonard Gruppo, for example, expressed remorse and received 24 months probation and a $3,000 fine after pleading guilty to charges that he illegally entered the Capitol during the melee. That...
While Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was in Scotland touting the need to address climate change, President Joe Biden, at the recent G-20, pleaded with other nations to increase their oil production to lower the price of gasoline. Maybe the governor should tell the president that New Mexico could produce the extra oil if he would quit strangling energy production with his brave new government regulations. The governor should take note at how green energy is destroying Europe. What began as an optimistic power policy in nations across that...
Forget what the polls say. President Biden is getting things done. Some on the left say his accomplishments are too little too late, while others on the right cry socialism and foul play. But let the record show that, so far, Biden’s been an effective leader. In less than a year, he has managed the pandemic and a massive vaccine rollout — not as well as some would have hoped but far more competently than his predecessor. If you ask someone like me — a card-carrying, fully vaccinated recipient of some impressive science — you’ll hear that, whe...
There are more than 10 million job openings in America right now. The worker shortage is contributing to goods shortages, rising prices and supply network problems. One solution often proposed now is to raise the minimum wage, but that wouldn’t work. Instead, policymakers should loosen never-needed regulatory barriers to job creation, rein in excessive occupational licensing, lower trade barriers, relax zoning and land-use regulations, and work to keep inflation in check. Minimum-wage advocates argue, correctly, that higher pay will persuade mo...
Our state is on the verge of a long overdue update to our schools’ social studies standards, and it has some New Mexicans needlessly worried. The proposed new standards are posted on the Public Education Department website for public comment through Friday, and more than 500 people have already had their say. One theme comes through loud and clear: Fear. Fear of change is a normal human reaction, but in the case of New Mexico social studies standards, a noisy minority with a deep stake in maintaining the status quo has seized upon those f...
The port city of Glasgow in southern Scotland is a happening place right now. So much so that even the governor of a small state feels she must be there. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham went to Glasgow for the first week of the United Nations’ conference on climate change to represent New Mexico’s interests on the world stage. She hails from a state that’s part of the problem and part of the solution. We’re part of the problem in that we’re a big producer of oil and gas, major emitters of carbon into the atmosphere, and we can’t quite wean oursel...
I occasionally reuse themes or phrases from my previous articles without reusing articles in their entirety. To commemorate Veterans Day over the past three years, I’ve written about the increasing political and other strife in our country, and it hasn’t slowed down any. So what follows is much of what I wrote in 2018. Because I wrote about national strife/peace also in 2019 and 2020, I’m reminded of a preacher who continued presenting the same sermon. When asked why, he replied when people started doing what he preached about from the Bible, h...