If you have even a passing interest in New Mexico history, odds are you have at some point encountered the F. Stanley books — dozens of slim softbound volumes that tell the stories of some of our...

Purchased for a quarter at the last Portales Public Library book sale, my book-of-the-month summary for June is “How the Body Works: 100 Ways Parents and Kids Can Share the Miracle of the Human...

I’ve been enjoying reading a fine book by Alan Jacobs, a professor in the honors program at Baylor University. When I tell you the title of the book, you’ll likely smile and tell me that, obviousl...

During one of Billy Graham’s meetings in England many years ago, his wife Ruth Graham had joined him. On that particular day, the local dignitaries had arranged for a luncheon and many of the...

Recently, I read a rant describing libertarianism in unlibertarian ways. This is normal. I’ve never seen a criticism of libertarianism that hit the mark. The point is usually that libertarians are...

Here is my latest sermon to butter up my flock at The Podcast Church for Couch Potatoes — where I am the Minister of Defense Against Little White Lies and Great Big Whoppers. To avoid interfering...

I have told this story before, but I think it warrants a rerun. I was in the grocery store one day several years ago and my heart was sad as I observed a mother and father shopping with their three ch...

In the last couple of weeks, two famous people whose names I barely knew took their own lives, and so both departures have been in the news. In fact, I knew one name not at all; fashion designers and...

Who would be desperate enough to eat a cake baked by someone who doesn’t want to bake it? Would you want a wedding cake someone was forced to bake — at gunpoint? Even if the gun is hidden at...

Because of his own experiences with suicide, Portales resident Jim Lee is trying to spare others from its devastating aftermath. His father, a World War II veteran, committed suicide at 46, and Lee...

It was over 35 years ago next week that I was terrified we had lost Buffy. She was only five years old at the time and I still can remember the horror and hopelessness I felt when we lost her at Six F...

I don’t remember ever quoting that famous philosopher Forrest Gump, but here you go: “My momma always said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’”...

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know the Fort name and associate it with a well-respected historic ranch family in Lea County. But, for whatever reason, I had never met Curtis and Carol...

Politics might be an amusing hobby, but it is a horrible basis for a society. One should never confuse government with society. Society grows naturally from the voluntary interactions of people,...

It begins with a dab of mud in a discreet corner, easily passed by without drawing attention, yet over the course of a few days, the mud slowly builds upon itself and takes shape, eventually...