Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 4756
We can hardly be too careful when we’re choosing what we’ll worship. Most folks don’t read the Old Testament prophets for comedy, but the prophet Isaiah made brutal fun of down-on-their-luck idol worshipers who couldn’t afford to commission a metalworker to cast a custom-made god and hire a goldsmith to overlay it. A high-quality idol can be pricey. Instead, the poorer folks were forced to go with cheaper gods by searching carefully for wood that wouldn’t rot and hiring a work...
Is government trying to provoke you? I believe it is. It’s setting a trap. If, by doing provocative things, government can trigger you into acting, your actions become an excuse to crack down harder -- which will trigger more people to act. Like a feedback loop. It’s part of the reason for anti-gun legislation. It’s part of the reason the two main factions of authoritarians love the fight over the issue of “immigration.” It’s why the real solution to crime is criminalize...
Most conspiracy theories are based on kernels of truth. This is true for the terrorist attack that occurred in Moscow on March 23 and resulted in more than 100 deaths. The U.S. government issued a statement asserting it provided a warning to the Russian government, that the Russians failed to heed, which led to the loss of life. A public statement was issued by the U.S. Department of State on March 7 that read, “The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have i...
If there’s anything I know for sure, it’s that crime in Clovis is on many minds. I read on Facebook that local crime is spiraling out of control. Mostly it’s Joe Biden’s fault. But the anecdotal evidence shared on social media does not match up with the statistics, which suggest crime may be dropping … dramatically. Consider: In 2013, Clovis police recorded 2,646 arrests. That number has been steadily decreasing since. In 2023, CPD recorded 1,061 arrests – a 150% drop. Jail...
Words of wisdom can turn up in the most unexpected places, and sometimes from people who have already left us. That happened to me on a couple of occasions recently. The first was a little over a week ago at the memorial service for Leroy Thomas, a retired pastor, tireless community servant, and the longtime owner of the Print Shop in Portales. He died March 24 at the age of 89. He and Gaynelle, his wife of more than 72 years, were steadfast supporters of every good cause you...
Spring fever is in full bloom at Head Acres, evidenced by tissue boxes, allergy meds and decongestants. There are also dozens of little plantlets growing in cut-down toilet tissue holders, and peat cups scattered around the house. They all look alike to me, but my husband Wayne can tell me what’s in each little set. We’ve tried longer than not to get tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers of all kinds, and various other veggies to grow with fair to little success. The other day, Way...
Too much stuff. In our society, that seems to be the exact amount of stuff that most of us have. Not exactly a technical term, two words are nonetheless quite nicely descriptive: too much. Stuff storage. It’s big business and growing all of the time because, well, see Paragraph One. People who have as much stuff as we do, and are continually adding more to their mounds of stuff, eventually run out of places to put it. Perhaps we don’t want to disappoint archaeologists who will...
Recently, Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, after pushing the Legislature for a 25% tax hike on New Mexico oil and gas producers, made the decision to pull those “highly valuable” tracts of land and not lease them. That decision has raised concerns that her actions may violate her fiduciary responsibility to maximize revenues from the lands under her control. Garcia Richard told the Albuquerque Journal, “It’s worth it to temporarily forgo the dollars (from leasing...
The world as I know it has ended. I agree with Ron DeSantis on something. On March 25, the Florida governor and former mini-Trump wannabe signed into law a state ban for children ages 13 and younger from social media while also requiring 14- and 15-year-olds to get parental consent. Forget the fact that Florida’s new law will almost certainly be challenged in court, it’s still a step in the right direction. We’re facing a mental health crisis among our children, and social media has a lot to do with it. That and the COVID...
An anonymous reader sent a letter last week reprimanding the newspaper because it “refuses to publish” an important story. “There is a big cover up,” the letter read. Our reader is referencing a lawsuit settled in February by the state’s Children, Youth and Families Department. The lawsuit alleged improper handling of a 2020 case in which a Clovis child was placed in her father’s home after her mother died. The father, Juan Lerma, subsequently killed the child, Samantha Ru...
Once I had a job, a lazy soul’s dream, low stress too, I got paid to drive cars all day. I remembered it when a Facebook memory popped up from eight years ago, a photo of the car I got to drive, a Toyota FJ Cruiser. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this vehicle but it’s kind of an oversized Jeep in bright colors, looks like some kind of big ol’ toy. I drove it and discovered, eh, I didn’t like it so much. I’m glad I didn’t spend “big coin” on one and find I didn’t like it.. It was big and clunky, it was more vehicle than...
January’s contract renewal for Eastern New Mexico University Chancellor James Johnston is “not valid.” That’s according to the Government Counsel and Accountability Division of the New Mexico Department of Justice. The DOJ issued a letter to ENMU regents Friday in response to complaints from The Eastern New Mexico News and New Mexico Foundation of Open Government. The complaint was that regents violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when they renewed Johnston’s contract on... Full story
There is one way to “win” a war without winning on the field of battle and that is to become the side that can dictate what determines success in the war. There are presently three sides in the Ukraine conflict. They are, Russia, Ukraine and the collective West. In his book, “The Russian Art of War,” Jacques Baud notes that at the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation, Vladimir Putin enumerated two objectives for the campaign and has never abandoned either of those. Th...
People admire different qualities in others. The traits each of us admires are shaped by our own values and experiences. What some see as a virtue, others see as a vice. Or worse. It seems most people admire obedience -- they voice admiration for those who follow orders without hesitation. This isn’t something I admire. Too much depends on who is giving the orders and what those orders are. This can include bad parents as well as people wearing uniforms or holding a p...
It’s almost Easter, and here I am thinking about an almost-Christmas ride to the North Pole. I wrote one of these columns about that ride 14 years ago. I just reread what I wrote, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll write some of it again. I started by saying the North Pole was surprisingly warm on that ride, but it was less surprising when you realize that my wife and I and our sweet little 2 1/2-year-old giggling granddaughter were riding from Lubbock to Brownfield, Texas, on th...
You’d never expect a tax revolt to start in the blue California city of Oakland. But a bunch of angry, over-taxed and under-protected local business people there have said, “Enough is enough.” The owner of a restaurant has called on other Oakland small businesses to stop paying local taxes until their city starts doing what it should be doing – protecting them from a recent wave of robberies and thefts. Big businesses like Tesla or Oracle can escape the madness and high ta...
The geographic political divisions in New Mexico have become so entrenched that both parties have just stopped trying in areas of the state where the other side has the advantage. Of the 42 seats up for election in the state Senate this year, only 15 will be decided in the general election. Democrats will claim 17 seats and Republicans will win 10 without posting a yard sign, shaking a hand, making a campaign promise or kissing a baby. Democrats have apparently given up on the seat they held from 1989 to 2020 when John...
Lately I’ve been thinking about old age, and for good reason. Two close friends of mine, one a few years older than me, the other about three weeks younger, have given me pause about my own future at this point in my life. My older friend died after a heart attack. My younger friend had a bad fall and must now retire into an assisted living facility. They are just two of many fellow baby boomers I’ve known who have either passed on or been overcome with illness or disability. There but by the grace of God go I. At age 68, I h...
Cheech & Chong’s public relations people called Bossman at The News, wanted to know if we were interested in an interview when they came to Clovis. Who grew up in the late 20th century doesn’t remember Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong? The interview became my assignment. “The place’ll be packed,” The Lady of the House predicted. “A crowd? In Clovis?” I said. It was an interesting concept to me. So I visited Mike Wood, Great American, who works at the weed store they’d visit. He was confident there’d be plenty of parking. When...
Some of my most dismal high school memories are of those dreaded ventures around Portales attempting to sell yearbook ads. Even as a teenager, it felt to me like we were asking for something we probably didn’t deserve, and even then I knew that every business we walked into was being visited by kids from every other school with requests like ours. That may be part of why I loved hearing about an experience Leslie Creighton had with a student who came into her family’s Por...
About the most hurtful thing anyone can say about me is to describe my writing as “political.” It wounds me more deeply than almost any other words can. Politics is what someone is doing when they encourage others to vote for or against something. Or someone. Politics is what people engage in when they advocate yet another law aimed at the rest of society or want existing laws enforced more violently. Politics says this politician will be better at running your life than som...
I received greetings from my local draft board in 1962. At the time I was serving with the U.S. Marines in Japan. The letter had my correct mailing address, including my current rank, service number and unit as well as FPO, San Francisco, Cal. The FPO stands for Fleet Post Office. The address should have been a clue that I was on active duty. Back in the day, when you graduated from high school, if you were an 18-year-old male, you could almost count on being drafted shortly....
Most Americans think we have the right to attend public meetings and let our elected officials know what we think about how they’re doing. There is no such right in New Mexico. Our open meetings law requires that accommodations be made for the public to attend and listen to meetings of the city council, county commission and other government boards and commissions. But, there’s nothing that says we have the right to speak at those meetings. It’s up to each board to set its own rules. Typically, elected leaders under...
In the great red-blue divide that is America these days, we live in an atypical state. New Mexico is not as politically divided along rural and urban lines as other states. For years now, Democrats in New Mexico have dominated politics in enough rural counties to add to their “urban” majorities in Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe. Meanwhile Republicans have held a grip on other rural area and many smaller cities, with a lock in the southeastern corner of the state, a region deep in agriculture and rich in oil and gas...
I find it strange how some folks don’t know or care about their ancestors … what they did, how they lived, what they accomplished. I think that’s just sad. When I think about “my people” who lived long ago, I believe we honor them by knowing a bit about them. I learned a lot about some of my ancestors from my father’s mother, my grandma, a great storyteller. Grandma was one of seven children of an iron ore mining company superintendent and his bride. Grandma was from the Appalachian Mountains in western Virginia near the We...
