Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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As I begin to write, I’m about 10 minutes away from hearing a beautiful sound. In 10 minutes, our chiming wall clock will ring out a quarter past the hour. You won’t notice, but I’m listening, and I’ll be pausing for a moment. You see, our clock has been away, taking time for a bit of a sabbatical for its health. For decades, it has been hanging on our living room wall and, as long as I remember to wind it, it has quite precisely and faithfully fulfilled its sweetly toned c...
It was “The Stepford Wives” meets “The Handmaid’s Tale.” More than a week later, people are still talking about the State of the Union response given by Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, which has been widely mocked by politicians and pundits alike. It certainly didn’t require the skills of a futurist to realize her less-than-stellar efforts would result in a raw and ruthless parody on “Saturday Night Live.” One Republican pollster called Britt “creepy,” while a national Republican...
Republicans are never going to impeach Joe Biden. I wish more Republicans would beat that fact into their skulls. Just as Democrats weren’t able to impeach Donald Trump because they didn’t control the Senate, Republicans are never going to impeach Biden for the same reason. It doesn’t matter how corrupt Biden and his family are, how he has allowed 8 million illegal immigrants to invade our Southern border or how mentally out-of-it he is. Biden will never be impeached and M...
On the first of March, The Wall Street Journal published an article by Max Colchester, Thomas Grove and Janes Marso. The headline read, “Document From 2022 Reveals Putin’s Punishing Terms for Peace.” A secondary headline read, “Draft peace deal drawn up shortly after Russia’s invasion shows Ukraine was confronted with becoming a neutered state.” The article discussed the peace negotiations held in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia during March and April of 2022. What caught...
Politicians tend to get every answer wrong. They also ask the wrong questions because they view everything through the warped lens of government supremacy. Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, is a prime example. Politicians are squaring off for or against TikTok, an addictive digital drug from China. Some, including Crenshaw, are looking to ban TikTok in America or force it to become an American company. Like the other digital drug, Facebook. TikTok can be harmful to the...
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...
But for one missing college credit back in 1967, it's quite possible that Don Criss would have never met his wife, settled in eastern New Mexico, helped create and establish our local public television station, and become a beloved member of this community. On top of that, more than 40 years of children in Portales and surrounding areas would have missed out on a Santa Claus who welcomed them with open arms, and kept their parents groaning with the corniest collection of...
One of my three favorite daughters-in-law has written a children’s book called “The Rowly Growly Bear.” Not in print yet, it soon will be, and I’m very proud of what she’s done. Danetta is a great wife, mother, and teacher, and a good while ago, she began writing this sweet book. It’s based on a story her father spun for her when she was just a small child. The main character in the book is a little bear — the “Rowly Growly Bear,” of course. And the little bear is looking f...
A miracle occurred last week in California’s U.S. Senate primary race. In a deep Blue state where Democrat voters outnumber Republicans 2-1, Steve Garvey, the former L.A. Dodgers star, ran against three Democrats and came in a close second to Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff. Garvey, a conservative Republican, finished behind Schiff in California’s crazy “jungle primary,” where voters are allowed to vote for any candidate regardless of party affiliation. That means in the gen...
Anyone hoping Republican voters around the country would use Super Tuesday to slow their party’s careening trajectory toward the Trumpian cliff now must face facts: It’s over. Donald Trump’s near-total sweep of Super Tuesday states, and challenger Nikki Haley’s subsequent campaign suspension last Wednesday, means that, barring some epic surprise, American voters on Nov. 5 will be faced with a presidential rematch that most don’t want. Even among the many Republicans out there who recognize Trump’s obvious unfitness f...
Some time ago I was pedaling my bicycle through an old section of Clovis, passing some houses that surely dated back a hundred or so years ago. I wondered if some of the big, old, rambling hulks had once been boarding houses. A boarding house is a place where people rent rooms … like someone might rent an apartment … .and part of the rent goes for “board” or meals with the boarders sitting around a big table chowing down. I once pondered having a place at an old-fashioned boarding house many years ago. I wouldn’t have been...
Monday is the fourth anniversary of Gov. Lujan Grisham’s first public health emergency dealing with what was then the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. Although restrictions varied widely throughout the next three years, the public health emergency did not end until March 31, 2023. Under New Mexico’s public health emergency laws governors have wide discretion to make policies unchecked by the Legislature or any other elected body. Objectively, it is hard to see any sig...
When Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro engaged in a legal battle with the Little Sisters of the Poor over their refusal to subsidize birth control for their employees, I got very angry. As a Catholic who takes her faith seriously and an asylum lawyer who knows a little something about religious persecution, it seemed to me that the then-attorney general was violating the rights of some women who just wanted to be left alone to serve God’s glory. Of course, there are those who w...
After having her Bernalillo County gun ban overturned by the court, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tried to do it the right way. She put together an impressive public safety package of proposed legislation that addressed not only guns but also bail reform, sentencing, and police pay and recruitment. If passed, it would have been a huge step toward addressing our state’s gun violence epidemic. New Mexico ranked seventh in the nation in gun deaths, according to a 2020 report by Johns Hopkins, which found that firearms were the lea...
In February 2023, at the first anniversary of the Ukraine war, Gen. Mark Milley told a news conference, “Russia is now a global pariah and the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost — they’ve lost strategically, operationally, and tactically.” That sentiment has been repeated ad infinitum by Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin. At the second anniversary, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing...
“There ought to be a law.” I am disappointed every time I hear that sad phrase. It’s an admission of failure -- both intellectual and ethical. If the only solution someone can see is to call for more government violence -- through legislation -- either they aren’t thinking clearly, or their ethical core is broken. Either way, it’s a problem. Many times when I hear someone say this phrase, there is no real crisis, only something they don’t like. This is a problem, not with th...
Marlowe J. Churchill heard about his family's greatest tragedy many times growing up. He didn't really feel it until he visited the gravesite for his murdered great aunt and her eight children in Farwell in 2017. Tears ran down his cheeks when he placed his hands on the gravemarker and followed the letters of the nine names carved into the stone. "It surprised me, it really did," Churchill said about the emotion that raced through him when he first encountered his ancestors. "...
As bargains go, it’s hard to beat the one being offered this month by the folks who volunteer with Clovis Area Fifty-Plus Olympics. For a $20 bill (or two $10s, a fistful of $5s, or any combination of your choice) anyone who is age 50 and older can register, participate in up to 10 different sports (many with multiple events), nosh on drinks and snacks, and even attend the end of season awards banquet in May. On top of that, for first timers that $20 also covers a t-shirt e...
“When I was 24 years old, I was pretty sure I had all the answers.” So said one of my dearest and, I think, wisest friends. He’s the kind of guy I always enjoy talking to, not least because in the midst of our “shooting the breeze” laughter, he always gives me something to think about. He’s lived a lot of life and taken both its deepest joys and most difficult sorrows with the kind of faith in God that I aspire to have myself. After making the statement, or confession,...
I’m glad I grew up before cell phones were so much of a thing. I think the pressure of having every moment, good or bad, recorded for the world to see would be too much. I already have a blooper reel, in my mind, of all the less-than-smart things I did as a kid. Sort of like having a personal “Ridiculousness” of missteps, trips, and fails. I’m not a fan of having my own photo taken to begin with, especially when it’s for something goofy. Growing up, I would turn out my grandm...
OK, Nikki Haley. Sing along with me, the Republican Party and the great Kenny Rogers: You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away, know when (NOT) to run. It’s long past time for you to drop out of the race for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination. You’ve been called repeatedly and you’ve still got a losing hand. Donald Trump has humiliated your political butt in primaries across the U.S. But you still don’t know wh...
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...
Being the ever-menacing carnival barker that he is, former president Donald Trump said the four criminal cases he faces have garnered him significant support from Black voters. Why? He claims due to the historic injustices Black Americans have endured at the hands of the criminal justice system, they can identify with his legal dilemma. “I think that’s why the Black people are so much on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happens to them. Does that make sense...
The Lady of the House has been enjoying “The Lassie Channel” since she found it out there in the great television universe. One afternoon there was an episode where everybody was in a dither because Timmy, the kid on the show, had appendicitis. “I haven’t heard much about appendicitis anymore. Do we still have appendixes?” I asked out loud. “I hear they’re treating appendicitis with antibiotics these days,” The Lady of the House said. “Seems they were always cutting those things out when they got infected. My mom told me sh...
I never visited the Dan Buzzard Memorial Law Library. And now I never will. The seven-decades-old building behind the Curry County Courthouse was demolished Wednesday morning to make way for a new magistrate court. I've always wondered about that odd little building – what's a law library? – and the man for whom it was named. While looking for those answers, I discovered one far more interesting: The building for more than 20 years was home to Clovis' first real public lib...
