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Articles written by Tom Mcdonald


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  • Opinion: Starting to feel the effects of getting older

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Mar 26, 2024

    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...

  • Opinion: PED decision could mean good year for GOP

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Mar 19, 2024

    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...

  • Opinion: Challenge of this election surviving without hate

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Mar 16, 2024

    The biggest challenge to this election year will not be deciding between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Ninety percent of us already have our minds made up on that. No, the biggest challenge will be surviving the campaign and election without coming to hate each other. Granted, some of us already do. Some can’t differentiate between a person’s politics and their humanity. I know families in which one person no longer speaks with another family member because one of them drank the Trump Kool-Aid or the other is preaching Wokeness...

  • Opinion: Sometimes just finishing is the achievement

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Mar 5, 2024

    Back in the 1970s, when dinosaurs roamed the land, I coached basketball in an inner-city league in Nashville, Tenn. Inspired by “The White Shadow” television show at the time, the Black teenagers on my team named themselves the Shadows because I was the only white coach in the league. We lost every game that season. Even though we had a standout team captain who worked the post and led the team with natural skills, a guy we all called J.C., we just couldn’t pull off a single win. Of course, we didn’t lose because I was whi...

  • Opinion: Haley nomination would lower the political temperature

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Feb 27, 2024

    For years, I’ve been calling Donald Trump a snake-oil salesman, but that’s such an antiquated term. Then I heard about the line of shoes and cologne he’s now promoting, and now I’m thinking he’s a telemarketer. And, I must say, he’s good at it. I heard on NPR that his red, white, blue and gold sneakers are selling out. Like the Trump brand itself, they’re getting terrible reviews, but he manages to sell them to his salivating suckers anyway. Trump may be bringing down our democracy, but hey, he’s one of the best pitchmen o...

  • Opinion: Lawmakers did good work in session

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Feb 20, 2024

    Pay too much attention to the goings-on in Congress and you’d think our nation is broken. But focus your attention closer to home and you’ll see an altogether different picture. Take the New Mexico Legislature as an example. It just went through a whirlwind 30-day session and got plenty done, and not just for the special interests. The people of our state, both left and right, might actually benefit from our lawmakers’ recent actions. Altogether, 72 bills were passed and now await Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s signatu...

  • Opinion: Finding I've lived through some amazing history

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Feb 17, 2024

    I just turned 68. Happy birthday to me. It’s been a long and winding road, one in which I’ve stolen from the Beatles more than once. But, hey, what can I say — I was Born to Run! Actually, and with apologies to the Boss, I was born to live through some incredible history. From the unraveling of Jim Crow to the rise of Artificial Intelligence, we baby boomers have seen it all. By the time I got to high school, I was attending an integrated school and getting to know Black people as equals. That may sound quaint today, but b...

  • Opinion: Truth, honesty no longer valued

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Feb 6, 2024

    For just a moment, let’s deviate from modern times and actually be honest about the state of our nation. Remember how, back in the old days before lawyers replaced gunslingers, honesty was actually valued. “A man’s word is his bond,” went the old adage, while a simple handshake could close the deal. Now, that handshake is considered unsanitary and you’d better have some wet wipes and a contract before you go any further. Fact is, as a society we don’t really value honesty anymore. Advertising has always been about super...

  • Opinion: Trump, abortion biggest issues on 2024 ballots

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Jan 30, 2024

    Seems to me that Nikki Haley is a bigger problem for Donald Trump than he’s letting on. She’s exposing a rift in Trump World, one that might just get him defeated. I still say she’s the one who can beat Biden, but Trump appears ready to run roughshod over the Republicans’ nomination process to claim the crown. Then he’ll ride herd over another thumping at the polls, up and down the nation’s ballot. It’s almost funny to say, but I think the two biggest issues on 2024 ballots will be Trump and abortion. And on both those is...

  • Opinion: Wedge issues for New Mexicans

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Jan 27, 2024

    As this year’s legislative session gets underway, there’s one wedge issue already getting lots of attention. Rest assured that any and all gun-control proposals, no matter how reasonable, will get plenty of attention by the usual band of Second Amendment reactionaries and their demagoguing leaders. Remember last September when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order limiting the carrying of firearms in Bernalillo County? It was specific to metro Albuquerque, but some of the most aggressive demonstrations cam...

  • Opinion: A good laugh might be best medicine for what ails us

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Jan 20, 2024

    Trump. Climate change. Liberals. Conservatives. Socialists. Capitalists. Bet you don’t think any of these charged-up words are funny, but maybe you should. “All comedy starts with anger,” Jerry Seinfeld once said, explaining that stand-up comedy turns anger into laughter. But of course, it’s not just anger that generates laughs. It’s also pain, insecurity and other human frailties. And as it turns out, one of the most therapeutic approaches we can take in dealing with our problems is by laughing about them. My brother D...

  • Opinion: Turnout of Swifties may be what Biden needs

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Jan 13, 2024

    Random thoughts on the political year ahead: • Will Taylor Swift be the Oprah Winfrey of this year’s election? You might remember what Oprah did for Barack Obama back in 2007, giving a pop culture endorsement of great consequence in his winning bid for the White House. Maybe Taylor will do the same for Joe Biden this year. She did throw her support behind Biden four years ago, but then old Joe publicly confused her with Britney Spears. He’d better hope she’s not too sensitive about that. As far as I can tell, very few vot...

  • Opinion: Brother took my spot as comedian of family

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Jan 6, 2024

    When I was a kid, people compared me to Tommy Smothers, who, at age 86, died just as 2023 was winding down. Aside from sharing the same first name, I was also a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white kid with an off-the-wall sense of humor. When I imitated the clueless Tommy Smothers with one of his routines I memorized from a Smothers Brothers album, people would laugh and say I sounded just like him. My brother Don was more like Tommy’s brother, Dickie Smothers, straight man for their comedic schtick. Donnie, as we called my b...

  • Opinion: New year promises to be even more extreme

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Dec 30, 2023

    As intense as this year has been, next year promises to be even more so. For one thing, 2024 is a presidential election year, even though 2023 almost felt like one. This year will go down in history as the year when 91 felony charges were leveled against a former president, stemming from four major cases against him — and with each set of indictments making him an even stronger presidential contender, at least in his own party. In next year’s general election, however, he’ll be facing Joe Biden, who contends — perhaps...

  • Opinion: Handling Santa myth job of parents everywhere

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Dec 23, 2023

    Back in the 1990s, as a father of young children and a journalist committed to honest reporting, I became concerned with the whole Santa Claus “lie” that I was perpetuating with my own little girls. So I asked my father how he handled the whole myth about Santa. After all, I don’t remember ever thinking of Dad as a liar when it came to such matters, nor do I remember a day when I went from being a believer to a humbug, so I figured Dad must have done it right. For me while growing up, Christmas was all about Jesus’ birthda...

  • Opinion: Climate meeting closes with some encouraging signs

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Dec 16, 2023

    It’s a political myth, really, but it’s still poignant: that no one could have visited China back in 1972 but then-President Richard Nixon. His anti-communist positions provided him the political cover he needed to improve relations without being attacked by the Cold War “hawks” on the right. “Only Nixon could have gone to China,” historians and even Spock (in the movie Star Trek VI, Wikipedia says) have said. Maybe in the years ahead, they’ll add, “only the fossil fuel industry could take on global warming.” The l...

  • Opinion: Getting harder to stay well-informed

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Dec 9, 2023

    Could it be that today’s “Deep State” conspiracy theories got their start with 1947’s Roswell Incident? One could say you can draw a straight line from the UFO conspiracy theories that grew from that mystery to today’s belief that the 2020 presidential election was rigged by a massive government conspiracy. Garrett Graff, a seasoned journalist with extensive experience covering national security issues, is now making the rounds to promote his new book, “UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search of Alien Life He...

  • Opinion: Good soul lived inside tortured man

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Dec 2, 2023

    In my formative years, I worked for a program called the Appalachia Service Project, a home repair project affiliated with the United Methodist Church. We went into the poorest areas of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and used donated money, supplies and volunteers to make homes warmer, safer and drier for their residents. Once we came upon a house with no running water because the pipes had frozen and burst. A small, frail, elderly woman and a confused, friendly old man lived there, and they wanted and needed our help, but...

  • Opinion: Parents counted their blessings until the end

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Nov 25, 2023

    As you get older, you get more used to death. You become familiar with seeing your elders pass on. Death can be painful; oftentimes more so for the ones left behind. It’s a tragedy when a loved one’s life is cut short; for parents, the loss of a child must be the worst. I haven’t gone through that, but I can imagine how incredibly heart-wrenching it is. I’ve lost a lot of people who meant the world to me — friends, mentors, family members. The loss of my parents, Charles and Lois McDonald, was the most monumental for my li...

  • Opinion: Make sure hope part of holidays

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Nov 21, 2023

    It’s the onset of our annual holiday season, when gratefulness, gift-giving and anticipation of a new year come over us. It’s coming during troubled times. Nationally and internationally, the problems seem overwhelming. One war, between Ukraine and Russia, keeps dragging along with no clear victory in sight, while horrors are unfolding in a brand-new Israel-Hamas war. All this while the Earth warms, the climate changes and the weather turns extreme. On our homefront, there’s a pitched battle coming between autho...

  • Opinion: New Mexico still in the spaceflight game

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Nov 18, 2023

    This from a Source New Mexico report last week: Virgin Galactic, New Mexico’s anchor tenant for Spaceport America, is pausing its flights to the edge of space and laying off a bunch of its workers. That’s not a good sign for the state’s $212 million spaceport southeast of Truth or Consequences, but I’m glad we built it anyway. You might remember Spaceport America as the creation of then-Gov. Bill Richardson, who saddled up with British billionaire Richard Branson to sell the idea of a commercial spaceport to New Mexico...

  • Opinion: NMAA right to tighten sportsmanship rules

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Nov 11, 2023

    Esports is a good example of what’s wrong with our world today and what the schools are doing right about it. In case you haven’t heard of it, at the middle and high school levels, esports is basically video gaming as a competitive team. Some call it a “mind sport” along the lines of a board or card game, taking its place as one of many “cybersports” online. Regardless of how you cast it, esports is growing in popularity in schools around the country. In 2019, the New Mexico Activities Association sanctioned esports as...

  • Governor still has political life

    Tom McDonald, Correspondent|Updated Nov 4, 2023

    Maybe I wrote Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s political obituary too soon. Not so long ago, after the governor issued a public health order restricting the carry and concealment of guns in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, a firestorm of protests broke out statewide. Some Second Amendment proponents defiantly brandished their firearms in public protests over her order, and even some of her fellow Democrats said she was overreaching her constitutional authority. It made national news and Lujan Grisham was widely criticized. I... Full story

  • Opinion: Great history has been built by flawed humans

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Oct 21, 2023

    When I was a young man (a college dropout searching for meaning and fun in the 1970s), I made my way to Washington D.C., where I visited the Thomas Jefferson Memorial with a couple of friends. I wasn’t well-versed in history at that age, and they set me straight when I idolized this Founding Father, a fellow Southerner whose words set in motion the ideal of human equality. I’ve since learned that great and wonderful things are often set in motion by seriously flawed people, and now that I know a more complete story of Thomas...

  • Opinion: Both parties guilty when it comes to gerrymandering

    Tom McDonald, Syndicated content|Updated Oct 14, 2023

    Let’s be honest about the hypocrisy coming out of both political parties when it comes to gerrymandering. Both sides do it when given the opportunity and both sides decry the other side for doing it — all depending only on who’s in power at the moment the maps get redrawn. If you want a definition for “gerrymander,” here’s Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s: “to divide or arrange (a territorial unit) into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage.” And if you want to see an example of gerrymande...

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