Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
If you haven’t already, you are going to read and hear “the sanctity of marriage” quoted a lot in the next few months.
Whether or not you agree with the current definition of marriage, you have a right to be heard, and to share your opinion with our elected officials.
Congress will be taking up the issue of marriage when members are presented with an opportunity to create the “Federal Marriage Amendment.” If you want to let those who represent the people know how you feel about that potential constitutional amendment, the best way to do that is to visit the “e. the People” Web site at
There, you will find easy access to elected officials, current issues, and you can even start your very own petition (you decide on the subject). Explore the site thoroughly, you’ll be impressed with all of the options available to everyday folks like you and I — we can make a difference.
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Since I started off on a political-activism slant today, I reckon I will just keep going with that flow.
Although I’ve been out of town for the past few weeks, I have become aware of the issue with the Clovis High School newspaper and the staff’s claim of censorship.
I did not become aware of the issue by reading the Clovis News Journal online — I received an e-mail alert from the Google News Service.
About a year ago, I went to
news.google.com
and signed up to be alerted about any breaking news stories that referred to Clovis. Like clockwork, as soon as news stories started popping up on the Web about the high school newspaper, I was alerted. One of the first notifications that I received advised me that the “First Amendment Center” Web site at
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/
had just posted a story that they had received off the Associated Press news service.
The “First Amendment Center” Web site is well worth taking a gander at — check it out. If you want to locate the news story that I’m referring to, just type in “Clovis” in the “Search” box.
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I’ll wrap up the political slant with one final Web site address:
politicalweb.info/
If you want to keep up-to-date and informed about the 2004 presidential candidates, this Web site is a great place to start. There is actually a great deal more political information contained on the site — you’ll just have to go see for yourself.
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Are you into maps? Lots of people are into maps — both professionally and for personal use. I just received a notice that the National Geographic folks have totally redesigned their online atlas.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I went and checked out the revamped Web site — I was very impressed. Navigate on over to
plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/
(sorry for the long, funky address), and you will see what I mean.
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Speaking of maps and “stuff,” the State of California has the “California Coastline” project going on, if you are a former Californian — or if you just like to be nosey, jump over to
http://www.californiacoastline.org/
and have some fun.
Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance columnist and a resident of Clovis. He can be reached at
