Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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I’ve been watching with some interest the backlash to Harvard University President Claudine Gay’s resignation. If you were to believe the media reports, at least the ones from The Associated Press and other legacy institutions, Gay was railroaded into a premature departure by bigoted white men who were threatened by her superior intellect and accomplishments because, as we all know, that is the only reason a Black woman would be forced to resign. Gay was not forced to res...
Regular readers weren’t surprised when I voted against John Fetterman in last year’s Senate race in Pennsylvania. I spent months, and ink, sounding the alarm about a man who was to the left of Lenin on all of the social issues that mattered to me, including and most especially his refusal to consider any limits on abortion. I was also angered by his softness toward convicted criminals who came before him when he was on the commonwealth’s parole board, particularly because one...
Around this time of year, I start seeing posts on social media about how Jesus was a refugee, an asylum seeker, an immigrant, etc. It’s based upon a version of the Nativity story, where the Holy Family was forced to “flee” to Bethlehem to avoid persecution. This is at best a “whisper down the lane” misinterpretation of the Christ child’s birth, and at worst an attempt by modern day activists and rhetoricians to frame Jesus as a liberal icon who represents modern day victims...
On March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected by the College of Cardinals to succeed Jozef Ratzinger as pope. Pope Francis was the third non-Italian, after Karol Wotyla of Poland and the aforementioned Ratzinger, to lead the church in over 500 years. There was a great deal of celebration and expectation at his elevation to the papacy, including from this columnist. Unfortunately, the honeymoon didn’t last long. Fairly early into his papacy, Francis began t...
About six years ago, there was a little boy named Charlie Gard. Charlie lived in England, and had two loving parents who begged the country’s National Health Service to provide experimental treatment for the boy, who suffered from a debilitating condition known as mitochondrial disease. At every turn they were stymied because the nihilistic powers that be in the U.K. determined that his life was not worth the effort. Then, the parents tried to have him moved to the U.S. w...
Initially I said to myself, this is not my battle. But then I watched, in horror, as people marched through the streets of Philadelphia chanting the genocidal slogan of the Palestinian people: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” Translation: Kill the Jews, push them into the river, keep faith with the ancestors and their desperate attempts at a final solution. In fact, I heard the words “solution” used in exactly that context by young students of all races a...
When I was a teenager, my father belonged to Philadelphia’s Union League. Back then, in the late 1970s, women were excluded from the membership rolls. I also remember that the female guests who dined with their male friends were politely asked to use the entrance on Sansom Street. It was a delicate way of showing that they were welcome to visit, but not to stay. Unfortunately, I’ve been to see signs recently that it’s women handing out membership cards to the Old Boys Club.... Full story
There is something in asylum law called the “material support to terrorist” bar, which essentially states that if you have given significant assistance to a terrorist organization, you cannot obtain refuge in the United States. In virtually all cases, any kind of support of a financial or tactical nature to a militant of any stripe, even if you have a gun pointed at your head or at the head of your child, will deprive you of the right to asylum. It might seem draconian, but it...
One of the first pieces of verse that I ever memorized was this, from Pastor Martin Neimoller: “First they came for the Communists / and I did not speak out / because I was not a Communist. “Then they came for the Socialists / and I did not speak out / because I was not a Socialist. “Then they came for the trade unionists / and I did not speak out / because I was not a trade unionist. “Then they came for the Jews / and I did not speak out / because I was not a Jew. “Then t...
When I learned that Josh Kruger had been murdered in Philadelphia, I felt the same sense of shock that most people experienced at hearing the news. The media community in the Delaware Valley is fairly insular, even though we happen to be in a rather large market, and most of those who write either know personally, or have had some kind of interaction with, others who write. Josh — I presume to use his first name even though we never actually met — was someone whose pol...
John F. Kennedy’s book “Profiles in Courage” told the story of a rare, few U.S. senators who went against the tide of popular opinion and committed acts that ultimately led to severe criticism and in some cases, political defeat. The names are at best vaguely remembered and in some cases lost to history, but the idea of defying societal standards in service of a higher purpose i.e. “doing the right thing” as Spike Lee might say, is fundamental. I thought of the book last week...
When my father proudly mentioned to one of his colleagues that his firstborn child had just been accepted to Bryn Mawr College, he responded: “Let’s hope she doesn’t stop shaving her underarms.” This quip was relayed to me years later by that same gentleman, with a half apology. While there was some truth to the suggestion that Bryn Mawrters were not exactly glittery Disney princesses, I didn’t notice an unusual amount of hirsute women flooding the campus. We seemed to run th...
Sometimes when I write about my father’s civil rights work in Mississippi, I get emails telling me that I should be proud of his fight against racism at a time when it was neither easy nor accepted, particularly in a young white man. Other times I get comments about how bizarre it is that such a wonderful father sired such a backward daughter, someone who voted for the wrong president and holds bigoted beliefs. But the comments that anger me the most are the ones that d...
I hate to be cliché, but I’m going to tell you a proverb you’ve probably already heard a hundred or so times. There was a frog, and he saw this pot of boiling water and said to himself, “I’m not going there. I’m not crazy.” A few days later, he saw another pot of water, and it looked rather lukewarm. Since the frog wanted to take a quick dip, and he was far from his lily pad, he jumped in and started doing the backstroke. It felt good and he thought, “this isn’t so bad a...
Over the weekend, I was looking for free movies to watch. Fortunately, some of the best films — black and white classics — show up on the budget channels. One of my favorite B movies, the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” was available on demand. So I popped the popcorn, made some tea and settled in. When I first saw this movie I must have been about 10. It scared the beejeezus out of me, and triggered a lifelong fear of whatever was growing under my bed. To this da...
Conservatives are often hesitant to criticize other conservatives. Florida issued its guidelines for teaching history last month, including a set of standards that covered the issue of slavery in grades 6 through 8. It’s likely that what happened next would have been a big yawn for most folks, until Kamala Harris pointed it out in one of the few speeches she’s ever given in coherent English. The vice president referenced a section of the new guidelines that read as fol...
When Democratic wunderkind Josh Shapiro campaigned to become the next governor of Pennsylvania, he tried to assume a centrist, bipartisan tone on “helping kids.” That included supporting Lifeline Scholarships for children in disadvantaged areas, which would allow their parents to put them in better schools with some limited government assistance. This was a rather courageous and tactically savvy move by the governor, given the stranglehold that the public teachers’ union...
Hannah Arendt, who observed the trial of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann many decades ago in Israel, coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe crimes that were anything but banal. She was actually referring to what kind of person was capable of committing these horrific acts, not the acts themselves. Sadly, while evil clearly exists, it is not so easy to figure out who is likely to be its architect. Eichmann, as Arendt wrote, could be considered an evil per...
Every year, during the last few days of June, I sit at my computer and wait impatiently for the most important Supreme Court decisions to be announced. Last year, the picnic brought the Dobbs decision, which ended legalized abortion, so it seemed like anything else would be a let-down. Boy was I wrong. Last month, the Supreme Court announced that giving someone an advantage because of their race was illegal, unconstitutional and dead wrong. If you thought this was already the...
A few years ago, around the time of the last presidential election, a friend told me a story. She was at Mass in the Philly suburbs, and when the homily began, the priest started to tell the congregation why they could not vote for Joe Biden and still be consistent with Catholic doctrine. He told them that while he was not telling anyone to vote for Trump, he could not in good faith remain silent about Biden’s support for abortion. The priest said if Biden were not a s...
Facebook has a feature called Memories, which culls from old posts and allows you to see what was of interest on any given date over the years that you’ve been on the platform. It’s an interesting window into your activities, your priorities and your relationships from the recent, or distant, past. Recently, the overwhelming majority of my posts from mid-June 2020 had to do with a controversy involving the removal of a statue of Christopher Columbus in South Phi...
As I was scrolling through my Facebook “memories,” a video popped up from seven years ago. I was in Harrisburg, Pa., speaking on the steps of the state capitol at a pro-life rally. The thing that struck me, other than the fact that it was such a large crowd of people, were the words I was using about … words. More specifically, I was talking about the importance of using the correct language when talking about pro-life issues. The abortion rights movement has been able to defl...
When you grow up with an Italian mother, you are familiar with the phrase, “let’s go in the kitchen and have coffee.” Most people, regardless of their ethnicity or heritage, are used to the idea of sitting down and having coffee. It’s just that with Italians, this was the female equivalent of war room discussions at the White House. Growing up, I spent a lot of time with the Italian side of my family. My mother, Lucy, would often head down to what we called 49th Street,...
I just saw the trailer for a movie that made me actually tear up. The preview of “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret” propelled me backward in time, over 50 years, to a moment when I was in the sixth grade and sitting in a corner, falling in love with a book of the same title that changed my life. I think it might have changed the lives of millions of 11-year-olds over the years, which means that Judy Blume, the author, had at least as much impact on the world as J.K. Rowli...
I once had a client from a country where the instability of the government led to widespread chaos. He had supported a candidate who was running against the president in a hotly contested election, and was severely beaten because of his affiliation with the perceived “enemy of the state.” He lost his job, his money, everything. When he came to my office to file for political asylum, I asked rather naively why he had chosen the United States. I remember with a clarity that has...
