Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Every now and then, someone comes along who makes a unique contribution to the world in which he live. Kris Kristofferson, who died recently at age 88, was that sort of man. Kristofferson hit Nashville and the country music scene in the 1970s, first as a broom-pushing songwriter on Music Row, then as a gravel-voiced singer/songwriter on the Nashville scene, and finally as a movie star in Hollywood. But before all that, he was a standout athlete in rugby, football and boxing, a Rhodes Scholar and an Army officer. He was even...
In this “calm” before the storm that is this year’s election, let’s take a break from the partisan banter to recognize some thinkers in our midst. Think New Mexico turned 25 this year. Regular readers of this column know it’s a favorite of mine; I’ve written numerous times about how this nonpartisan and intellectually independent think tank focuses not only on New Mexico-centric issues but on proposing practical solutions as well. I like the way Executive Director Fred Nathan and his team take on the issues — first by identif...
Other than the presidential election and a super-tight congressional race down south, it’s a fairly tame general election in New Mexico. It could have been a more consequential year, with a mid-term, term-limited governor struggling to keep her party in lockstep on issues like crime containment and school calendars — while every seat in both the state House and Senate are up for election. Currently the New Mexico Senate is run by the Democrats, who command a 27-15 supermajority. All 42 Senate seats are up for election thi...
Other than the presidential election and a super-tight congressional race down south, it’s a fairly tame general election in New Mexico. It could have been a more consequential year, with a mid-term, term-limited governor struggling to keep her party in lockstep on issues like crime containment and school calendars — while every seat in both the state House and Senate are up for election. Currently the New Mexico Senate is run by the Democrats, who command a 27-15 supermajority. All 42 Senate seats are up for election thi...
Now that the dust has settled over the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, I’m ready to call the election for Harris. And not just because of the debate. There’s also Taylor Swift, the superstar childless cat lady who cleverly endorsed Harris immediately after Harris wiped the floor with Trump. If you don’t see the significance of the Swifties, you haven’t been paying attention to pop culture. We’re talking hundreds of millions of fans worldwide, millions of whom will be voting right here in t...
I heard a report the other day that the St. James Hotel in Cimarron is closing. Another Wild West landmark goes down. The St. James is where I got the best steak I’ve ever eaten, but that wasn’t so long ago, when its owners’ focus was more on fine dining than cowboy accommodations. Back in the day, it was a rough and rowdy place, to say the least. Lots of shoot-em-ups, dozens of killings — one estimate I read had the total at 26 dead. Traveling lawmen and notorious outlaws frequented the place, and stories have been passed...
Never in my life as a political observer have I ever associated “joy” with a candidacy for any office, much less the presidency. But it’s not the word so much as it is the sentiment the Harris-Walz campaign is trying to tap into — an upbeat view of our future. It’s something that’s been lacking for some time now, although there are still folks out there who see America’s future in a positive light. I recently read a piece by Matthew Yglesias, a “techno-optimist” and blogger/journalist who contends there are many reasons to lo...
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of federal money coming into New Mexico these days, thanks in large part to the infrastructure bill passed in President Biden’s first year in office. According to the White House, about $5.2 billion has been allocated for around 500 infrastructure projects around the state, including transportation, water and broadband infrastructure. Mostly the funds will be administered through the state, which is still flush with oil-and-gas revenues (although indicators point to a slowdown in the...
Fear and hope, the stuff campaigns are made of. As unique as this year’s presidential campaign is, there’s nothing new about the candidates’ efforts to tap into these two visceral emotions. Each side is trying to scare the hell out of voters by demonizing their opponent and promising to lead us into a better future. And like all other campaigns before this one, the hyperbole runs thick, but I don’t want to create a false equivalency here. Donald Trump is the fearmonger in this race, while Kamala Harris is bringing hope ba...
New Mexico has its own unique culture and lifestyle, but I’m not sure all New Mexicans see it. This state is influenced heavily by its neighbors — Texas, Colorado, Arizona and Mexico. We are clearly impacted and even inspired by these next-door neighbors, in both good and bad ways. Take “chile” and “chili” as an example. I’d wager that residents of the Rio Grande Corridor refer to our beloved “chile” far more than they do on the east side of the state, where Texas infiltrates our state with beef-and-bean-bas...
Homelessness isn’t as far away from home anymore. January “point in time” counts show that New Mexico’s unhoused population has been growing in recent years, while nationally it’s at a 15-year high. Last year’s count found a 48% increase in New Mexico’s homeless population from a year earlier, and this year’s count showed a 62% increase. This is more than a perception; it’s a reality. It’s not just in the cities these days. Where I live, along Interstate 40 in Santa Rosa, we get our share of transients, sometimes hoofing or h...
What a change in the political landscape, with Joe Biden’s cancellation and Kamala Harris now topping the Democratic ticket. Suddenly, Donald Trump is the decrepit old man in the race. The best thing the 78-year-old Trump has going for him are sound bites. Listen to one of his stream-of-consciousness rants in its entirety and you’ll see what I mean. His record-setting (in length) Republican National Convention speech was three times longer than his prepared speech, and 10 times more nonsensical. His ramblings show his age...
Turns out, Democrats have a mind of their own. You can see it in the fallout from Joe Biden’s weak debate performance, when the president showed his age. And you could see it in last week’s special session of the New Mexico Legislature, when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham attempted to run roughshod over her party with poorly vetted legislation. It should have been a humbling experience from our second-term governor, who has been getting things done her way for nearly six years now. But instead of coming out, hat in hand, to apo...
By now, most New Mexicans are aware of the case against the movie star Alec Baldwin. It was getting plenty of play both here at home and abroad until, poof, it went away. It shouldn’t disappear so easily. There are more than enough questions still left to answer. The case against Baldwin was dismissed Friday after it was discovered that ammunition from the set of “Rust” had been “misfiled” and was not disclosed to the defense. That was enough to compel Santa Fe’s First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to grant a mo...
About 12 years ago, when I was at the Las Vegas Optic, we worked up a special section on the seven-county region of Northeast New Mexico. Not surprisingly, our lead story was about water. At the time, Las Vegas was facing some serious drought conditions that had slowed the Gallinas River to little more than a trickle, leaving the city — which gets nearly all its water from the Gallinas — with only a couple months of water in reserve. City officials at that time said the reservoirs were only 68% full and sinking. Also aro...
Set aside for a moment Joe Biden’s haunting performance at the debate last week, there was something even more troubling that just took place. It’s not getting as much attention because we’re used to it. The debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is an example of style versus substance. Trump won on style and Biden won, by default, on substance. Biden supporters blamed a head cold on their man’s hoarse voice and subdued manner, while Trump’s supporters declared Biden ready for the nursing home. Meanwhile, Trump used his...
Common sense is not as common as it once was. Used to be, good ol’ horse sense would tell you that if a jury found a businessman turned politician guilty of every damn charge brought against him, he must be guilty. But now, way too many people have suspended their reason to see the convicted felon as nothing more than a victim of some unimaginable conspiracy against him. It makes no kind of sense, but that’s the Republican Party these days. The fact is, Donald Trump paid a porn star to keep quiet about their sordid affair so...
I must admit to a certain grudge against Californians who come rolling into New Mexico with an attitude of superiority over us poor souls. It’s a prejudice I developed after a few years living in the Land of Enchantment, after seeing more than enough arrogant Californians coming in and trying to tell the rest of us how best to live and behave. I’ve held the same grudge against Texas, but developed it years earlier while growing up in Arkansas. But I felt my own attitude of superiority when, within just a few years: the Raz...
I’m a big fan of vacations on the cheap, which is good, since I’ve seldom been able to afford anything first-class. Besides, top-dollar travel often overlooks the best stuff to see. Several years ago, when my family was younger and we were fairly new to the Land of Enchantment, we decided to take a New Mexico-centric vacation. My wife and I, along with our two daughters, got into our four-door sedan early one summer morning and left our northern New Mexico home in search of wonderment, which we found at just about every sto...
If you’re not aware of it yet, you will be soon. Route 66 is turning 100 in 2026. Last month, a New Mexico committee called the Route 66 Centennial Coordination Group held a public meeting in Santa Rosa — one of more than a dozen communities across New Mexico that either grew up or grew more prosperous with the highway that was officially designated as a national highway in 1926. Officials gathered to brainstorm ideas for celebrating the centennial anniversary with attractions and festivities worthy of “the kicks” people...
If you ask me, history is speeding up. Used to be, things didn’t change much from one generation to another, but with the onset of the 20th century, it all began to accelerate. And, now that we’re a couple of decades into the 21st century, we’re living as if the past doesn’t matter anymore. But of course, it does. History is how we got here, and it portends where we’re going. My baby-boomer generation has been through some incredible history. We were raised during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, which led o...
It’s that time of year, when just about every newspaper in the state gives front-page attention to at least one local graduation. They’re always a big deal, especially to those who walk across that ceremonial stage and make their families proud. It’s also the time when yours truly offers some less-than-conventional advice to those who are about to move on to bigger and better things: First, let’s dispel the notion that you can be anything you set your mind to becoming, because you can’t. If you’re short, you won’t likel...
I just want the world to know that all this “catch-and-kill” National Enquirer-style of so-called journalism is a disgusting exception, nowhere close to the rule of how newspapers behave. In my 30-plus years of newspapering, I’ve worked at big dailies and little weeklies and others in between, and I can confidently attest to the fact that I never, ever saw an editor or publisher “buy” the rights to a story, much less buy the right to bury it, as the Enquirer’s Pecker said he did for Donald Trump. That just doesn’t happen, at...
The noise may be more pronounced elsewhere, but here in New Mexico, we’ve got plenty of hot topics of our own. Hottest at the moment, I suppose, is the lawsuit that’s been filed challenging the Public Education Department’s new rule requiring 180 days of classroom instruction per year per school district, which effectively nixes the four-day schedule that dozens of school district have been operating under. There are two questions before the 9th Judicial District Court in Curry County: Whether to order an injunction that...
Imagine living in a household full of smokers. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with each other, so if you want to overcome your problem, you’re going to have do it together. More than one doctor has told you as much, but not everyone in the household believes what the docs say, opting instead for a quack’s opinion that the whole problem is better off ignored. The problem is, you’ve all got to quit together or you will all get sick and die by either first- or second-hand smoking. All that coughing and hacking around...
