Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Recently, I read a newspaper article about the most stressful jobs, with rankings. These rankings have come out before. The jobs that most consistently seem to make the top 10 list as being the most stressful are public school teaching, nursing and being a police officer. This year, however, the list included serving in the military and being a reporter, which had not been included on some of the other lists. Surveys such as this are, of course, suspect. Using the military as an example, not everyone in the military has a str...
There are a lot of historical figures that have left their mark on the world. For me, Gandhi, M.L. King, Jesus, Abe Lincoln, and Peter Lawrence “Yogi” Berra are such people. Berra, a Hall of Fame baseball player, went to 13 World Series as a player and nine more as a coach or manager. Some have argued that when he was playing for the New York Yankees, you most wanted Yogi to come to bat in the late innings. His three Most Valuable Player awards are tied for the most MVP awards ever by a pro baseball player. I par...
It’s been over a year since I started writing this column. Tom McDonald, the publisher and editor of The New Mexico News Exchange (and my brother), went from agreeing to let me write a few to letting me write a weekly column. Now I am told I have four newspapers publishing me on a regular basis. I figure there’s another 10 or 20 papers running my column that I haven’t been told about. The editor (Tom) writes the headlines for the articles, butchers my words with his editing and often writes snide comments hidden in the “tag...
Donald Trump, who had tweeted criticisms about Barack Obama for firing three chief of staff employees in three years, has fired his third chief of staff in less than two years. As most followers of the news know, Trump is firing his administrative staff at a record pace. I think I could have gotten the chief of staff job if I had made my intentions known earlier. It’s not like there was a lot of competition. The first four people approached for the job turned Trump down. The one who agreed to take the job, Mike Mulvaney, o...
Now that my presidential campaign has been flushed down the crapper, it’s time for me to get on with my life. I did not abandon my campaign, my campaign abandoned me. I imagine my campaign manager was arrested and the rest of my staff (many in fear of being arrested, too) ran. And, to make everything worse, I may be investigated for colluding with Russian lobbyists. I’m now working 30 to 50 hours a week. If you know my work history, that’s semi-retired for me. I want more but different work. The public should know I am avail...
As I have stated a number of times, to be a good modern-day politician, you must be able to apply the theory of exaggeration. To do this, you must falsify your data and claim your moral superiority while declaring the moral worthlessness of your opponent. If someone has rational points that undermine your position, call them a name and change the subject. Being somewhat skilled at exaggeration, I felt the time has come for me to take my act on the road to test the waters for a presidential campaign. Trump has a news station u...
I was a lousy medical student. I worked very hard but struggled. However, I came into my own as a psychiatric resident. My first job after my training was with a state-run mental health facility, the Behavior Health Service (BHS). One of my assignments was to start a small psychiatric hospital. My confidence was fully restored during by this time. Some even accused me of being arrogant, to which I would reply, “It’s hard to be modest when you know you’re great.” Dr. Don Fisher was the medical director of BHS. One day I asked...
I believe in nonviolence. But I have not always been successful at practicing my belief. Looking back on my life, I have had a fair number of skirmishes. Growing up, I loved to wrestle. Sometimes the matches would get a little heated but about the time it was about to become a fight, Mom or Dad would show up and ask, “Are you fighting?” My partner and I would immediately respond, sometimes in unison, “No, we’re just playing.” We did not want to deal with my parents’ wrath. As a psychiatric resident in Memphis, Tennessee, I fr...
I have lived in the South my whole life. My father was a descendant of slave owners. My mother’s family was too poor to own slaves, but her ancestors did not oppose slavery. As a grade-school child before integration, all my buddies used the “N word” to describe people of African-American descent, yet my brothers and I were not allowed to speak that way. We were being taught, in effect, to go against your culture if you believe your culture to be wrong. This was not how my parents were raised. What changed them? In 1945,...
Dr. Jenifer Landa, while speaking at a medical conference, told the following story: As a shy fifth-grader, she reluctantly tried out for a school play. After tryouts, a list of who was accepted was posted on a wall. She expected to be rejected, but to her surprise, she was picked to play the lead character, Winnie the Pooh. Landon asked, “Did you ever have a time in your life where you found a hidden talent or passion you didn’t know you had?” She hoped we would feel what she felt that day in the fifth grade. I have felt...
In my psychiatric practice, I see quite a few children and adolescents. I strongly encourage them to get involved in competitive activities, such as sports. I tell them that sports will teach you how to win well, lose well, lead well, follow well, accept criticism well, be a good teammate, and to follow rules and orders. When the coach tells you to line up for wind sprints — you do it. All of these are valuable life lessons and, if learned, will increase one’s chance of success. And as an added side bonus, it occupies the...
