Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Our parents were tired. That’s the most obvious explanation for, well, a lot. I’m thankful that they had me, though a “planned” child, I obviously was not. If I’ve done the math correctly, Mom was 42 when I was born, and Dad was 44. Since I am confident I was no surprise to my Father, it’s never bothered me that I was completely unexpected by my parents — until the doctor confirmed that I was expected. I can only imagine how that news took their breath away. I wonder what t...
For those too young to fully remember the OJ Simpson trial, it was a television spectacle with all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Sex and violence, interracial relationships and marriage, infidelity, alcoholism, sexual deviancy and a host of lurid details that titillated and fascinated the public. Stories covering the trial became daily tidbits, as just about every outlet – from weekly tabloids to highbrow magazines and newspapers – intensely covered the trial. You...
“Death to Israel!” “Death to America!” It sounds like something you’d hear chanted by hundreds of brainwashed young people in the streets of Tehran. But as we saw last week, those are the chants of our own children on college campuses. People can agree or disagree on what the Israeli military is doing to the Palestinians in Gaza to punish Hamas for its attack on Oct. 7, or what our State Department is doing wrong in the Middle East. And am I seriously worried about Joe Biden...
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...
Curry County commissioners recently voted to replace a road department tractor that had been totaled in a fire. It brought back a memory from some years ago when I was mildly reprimanded for putting out a fire on a piece of heavy equipment I was operating. That’s right, the foreman wanted me to let it burn. I had a job working for a company that went around with heavy equipment tearing down trees, ripping up the land and such in advance of creating housing subdivisions. I wanted the job because it got me outside, out of an o...
Everybody wants to start at the top. And so, of course, the deep-pocketed investors behind the attempt to build a centrist third party under the No Labels banner started with a presidential election. And not just any presidential election, but one in which the Republican nominee is a former president who is facing 88 felony indictments in four separate cases and is vowing vengeance if he wins. Democratic voters with sour memories of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein still haunting them greeted the No Labels effort with fear and...
What if I told you that one federal government policy could do the following: 1) Undermine Russia’s war against Ukraine (without the U.S. spending a dime); 2) Strengthen economic ties between the U.S. and Asian and European nations; 3) Reduce CO2 emissions; 4) Increase U.S. tax revenues and American jobs (including in New Mexico). The policy I’m referring to is to allow American exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Thanks to American technological prowess the U.S. is pro...
I’m pretty sure the number of people who are mourning the death of OJ Simpson can fit into the trunk of the smallest car Hertz ever rented. He was a man who killed his wife Nicole, as well as innocent stranger Ron Goldman, and was acquitted because he played the race card. As a human being, I am repulsed by the fact that he treated women like a punching bag. As a lawyer, I am repulsed by the fact that he did the same with our legal system. But perhaps his death can serve a p...
To say I’m skeptical of the institution of government is an understatement. If individuals make bad choices, a collective of people with an incentive to do bad things and very little chance of being held accountable -- unless they anger some opposing faction within this institution -- won’t do any better. Quite the opposite. Organized evil is worse in every way than disorganized incompetence. It doesn’t matter if this institution has been around “forever.” The same excuse wa...
Edward Luttwak is an American author, generally considered one of the premier military theorists in the West. He is known for his works on grand strategy, military strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations. Luttwak recently published two articles in Britain that at first glance are 180 degrees out. The first of these was published in The Telegraph on March 15 under the headline, “Europe is a continent of pacifists – no amount of money can fix NAT...
As chief executive officer of the New Mexico Restaurant Association, I am compelled to address a growing concern cropping up in dining establishments across our state — the presence of non-service dogs in restaurants. While we understand the love and companionship our furry friends bring, it is important to recognize the potential health and safety risks of allowing dogs in food service establishments. New Mexico Health Department regulations clearly state that only ADA service animals are permitted inside restaurants. U...
When young Ashley Prewett was growing as part of the third generation to live on his family's farm west of Pep (a tiny community in southern Roosevelt County), "I was all about baseball, basketball, and hunting," he said. But by the time he graduated from Dora High School in 2002 - president of the 13-member senior class - he was quite literally singing a different tune. In the 2002 yearbook, there's a photo of Prewett assisting the Dora School music teacher Ginger Tull by...
My three brothers and I are back down at our maternal grandparents’ old homeplace at Robert Lee, Texas, for a few days. Since all of us are pastors (a couple are supposedly retired, though they don’t look much like it to me), getting as much as possible done early so we can get out of our respective towns and covey up together is always challenging. And since we all seem to be connected with non-prophet organizations (bad pun), much else often surprises us. But for around 40...
Thanks to the so-called culture wars, debates about events on college campuses are being employed as useful weapons for attacking the gradual democratization that has occurred in higher education since the 1950s. Those of us who are academics and see education as crucial should be alarmed at the specter of partisan attacks, not to mention the garish and outlandish headlines that adversely affect many people trying to make sense of and understand their lives. Academic freedom,...
I don’t blame the public for not wanting to put the Republican Party back in power in Washington. As the GOP proved again in the House last week, it’s incapable of accomplishing anything of importance. The big vote was over the reauthorization of a reformed version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – aka, FISA. FISA is the controversial act that permits U.S. spy agencies to gather foreign intelligence by collecting the communications of non-Americans located outsi...
We have some big, rich and powerful neighbors, but that could change in the years ahead. Let’s start with Texas. New Mexico is heavily influenced by our neighbor to the east. In fact, a good number of New Mexicans on the east side of our state are wannabe Texans, aligning themselves to Texas values more than New Mexico’s. There’s a lot of chili (without the “e”) being eaten in eastern New Mexico. And the last time I visited the resort city of Ruidoso, I saw so many Texas license plates I wondered if I’d inadvertent...
With recent incidents of earthquakes in the New York City area and in Taiwan I got to thinking about earthquakes in my life. Ever since somewhere along life’s pathway someone told me that if you’re looking out over open fields during an earthquake you see the land quiver like a big lake on a choppy day, I’ve wanted to see that. But while I’ve been in a few earthquakes I’ve never actually gotten to appreciate that I was in one. Case in point, the 3-point-something quake that hit Roanoke, Va., around 1968. My grandpare...
In last week’s column, I said government had made up a new holiday and superimposed it over Easter. I suggested this may have been done as an intentional slap in the face to a major segment of the population, intended to provoke a reaction. I was wrong. Government made up that holiday — or official declaration — and set the annual date for it back in 2009. The only reason I heard about it this year was because it coincided with Easter, which generated the outrage that then...
Congress is once again in the throes of trying to cobble together a piece of legislation that will provide Ukraine with some money in support of its war effort. The amount of money being discussed has changed several times in the past few months, but it generally comes down to about $60 billion, so let’s use that figure for discussion purposes. Supporters of the war would have you believe that the $60 billion has to be provided, right now, and that is already too late. The m...
Earning a bachelor’s degree is a lot more complicated than it used to be. Not necessarily harder, just more complicated. Set aside for a moment affordability, which is skewed toward the middle and upper classes along with straight-A students who test well. Getting into college is easier than staying in college, and staying in college to earn that degree requires lots of delayed gratification. I have long contended that a bachelor’s degree does more than show your developing “expertise” in a particular field or two. It show...
We Americans are increasingly skilled at finding things that divide us, but last Monday legions of us found a common interest … even if only for a few minutes. The experts estimated that about 32 million residents of the continental United States lived in the path of that well-publicized total solar eclipse that spread like a beauty queen’s sash from Texas all the way to Maine. Untold millions more of us — present company included — made a pilgrimage to the path in hopes o...
Leave it to the right to make a cheap attempt to capitalize off human tragedy. For most people, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was a disaster of horrific proportions. Americans across the political spectrum expressed their sorrow and prayers toward the victims and their families. But for many in the bombastic world of right-wing conservatism, it presented an opportunity to partake in one of their favorite hobbies: injecting racism into the issue at...
The end of last month must have been especially rough for the people still living in the contaminated eastern Ohio town of East Palestine. On March 26, only hours after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor was knocked down by an out-of-control container ship, they had to watch President Biden come on national TV and promise to “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge “as soon as humanly possible.” They also had to see Biden pledge to have...
The capital outlay bill passed by the Legislature this year provides just under $290 million for 136 projects throughout the state, including $20 million for steam tunnel and electrical infrastructure upgrades at New Mexico State University. NMSU will also get $10 million for facility construction in the Creative Media Institute and $1.575 million for road improvements on the Gadsden campus. All 136 projects will be funded without any kind of ranking system to determine what our top priorities are, or vetting process to ensur...
I don’t like taking drug tests, but not for the reason you may think I don’t like taking drug tests. I don’t like taking drug tests because the whole shebang takes up precious time. It’s a drive over to the drug testing place, most likely sit in a waiting room waiting your turn, do the drug testing “thingy,” and then mosey on. The first drug test I ever had was for a construction job in Albuquerque years ago. I already had the job, I just had to report for a test. After a few days passed I wondered what became of my drug test...
