Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 126 - 150 of 261
The other day, I gave two teachers I know $300,000 apiece. Hypothetical money, that is. If $300k fell out of the sky, I said, and you could use it to improve your school, how would you spend it? Mary Ann, who works at an elementary school in Los Angeles, wanted to hire classroom aides to work one on one with “troublesome students who have not been properly diagnosed so they can be educated and not just written off.” Sonya, who teaches in the Chicago area, envisioned an incenti...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: syndicated columnist Would somebody please tell the hip-hop community to stop whining? Go drink some Cristal, buy some bling, pimp some hos or do whatever it is they do for amusement, but please, cease, desist, shut up already about how Oprah Winfrey has hurt their feelings. For those who came in late: Over the last month, a trio of high-profile rappers has leveled criticism at Winfrey for what they feel is her disrespect of their medium. The first blast cam...
Leonard Pitts : Syndicated Columnist In the first place, I never knew Bill Gates was a Spider-Man fan. But his stated reason for transitioning out of day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft two years from now to devote his energies to charity work (“... with great wealth comes great responsibility...”) comes suspiciously close to the creed by which the webslinger has lived since 1962: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In the second place: wow. Gates’ announcem...
Leonard Pitts Jr. : Syndicated Columnist Apparently, it’s news that Ann Coulter is a nasty piece of work. I had rather thought that was the attraction, at least for those people who find her attractive. So forgive me for being mildly mystified by last week’s headlines about her most recent spasm of trash mouth, i.e., her attack on four women who lost their husbands in the Sept. 11 attacks. But then, the attack is vicious even by Coulter’s standards: In her latest book, whose...
Leonard Pitts Jr. Syndicated Columnist So now you, too, can shoot up Columbine. Like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris seven years ago, you can roam the hallways with explosives and guns, bring a bloodbath to a high school in the suburbs. All from the comfort of your desk, all just by booting up your computer. Point, click, shoot. Super Columbine Massacre RPG is the name of the game, available for free online. It was created last year, but first came to media attention in...
They could have just shut up. That’s what’s interesting. The thing had been said, the controversy had flared and faded, bygones were becoming bygones. They could have moved on, left well enough alone. Instead, they declare themselves, “not ready to make nice ... not ready to back down ... still mad as hell.” That’s the refrain of “Not Ready to Make Nice,” the first single from the newly released first album by the Dixie Chicks in four years. More to the point, the first since... Full story
For its next trick, maybe the Senate will pass a law regulating the flight patterns of houseflies. That would be about as effective as something senators passed Thursday. The measure, an amendment to the immigration bill under debate, designates English the “national language” of these United States. Of course, that and $6.50 will get you into a matinee showing of “The Da Vinci Code.” In other words, the measure is practically meaningless — and would be even if it forbade the... Full story
So now we know how Martin Lee Anderson died. We can forget the original autopsy report filed by Charles Siebert, a doctor so inept he wasn’t technically a doctor (he had allowed his license to lapse) when he issued the report. A doctor so inept he once described a person he autopsied as having “unremarkable” testes. The person was a woman, so if she had testes at all, it would seem quite remarkable, indeed. Siebert claimed that after being hit, manhandled and choked by guards...
“The Covenant With Black America” is not a fun read. Not unless you’re the wonky type who likes to snuggle up with a good policy proposal. One would assume there aren’t nearly enough wonks in the world to put a book like that within shouting distance of the New York Times best-seller list, much less at the top of it. Yet, “The Covenant” went to No. 1 on the paper’s nonfiction paperback list on April 23. It is, according to its editor, Tavis Smiley, the first black book to...
In the first place: If I never see another stupid, cutesy shorthand (i.e., Billary, TomKat and Bennifers I and II) applied to another celebrity couple, I will light candles of thanksgiving. In the second place: Namibia? As you know unless you, well, have a life, that South African nation is where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — Brangelina to the cognoscenti — have ensconced themselves with their two young children while they await the birth of their baby. They’ve been followed...
When I was a child, I lived in a city that was predominantly black. It was a quaint little burg called Los Angeles. I took for granted that it was a black city because black people were virtually all I ever saw in my neighborhood. The few whites who passed through my day were cops, school teachers and social workers. I had no idea where they lived — the moon, for all I knew. But the one thing I could say for a certainty is they did not live in L.A. I was disabused of that noti... Full story
The car glides to a stop in front of the hotel. Light splashes off gleaming black metal as the valet gets out. He hands the keys to my wife. Marilyn says, “These aren’t my keys.” The valet says, “Yes, they are.” Marilyn says, a little more forcefully, “These aren’t my keys. That’s not my car.” The valet says, “That’s your car.” Marilyn’s brow knits in confusion. She looks at the key fob like she’s never seen a key fob before. Then she steps through the crowd of us gathered the...
I can understand why people throw things at Barry Bonds. No baseball aficionado am I, but even I’ve heard folks over the years say the San Francisco Giants slugger was to nice as Eva Longoria is to butt-ugly. Indeed, Bonds was reputed to be a jerk of such antisocial magnificence that other jerks removed their hats and stood when he passed by. And that was before two reporters wrote a book, “Game of Shadows,” recently excerpted by Sports Illustrated, that painted Bonds as an... Full story
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” — John 8:32 It’s too late for the truth to be of any help to Ruben Cantu. He was executed by the state of Texas 13 years ago after being convicted in a 1984 robbery and murder that left one man dead and another badly wounded. He was 17 at the time of the crime. Cantu, it must be said, was no angel. He grew up on the south side of San Antonio, a drug user, a gang member and a car thief. But maybe not a killer. In fact,... Full story
Lionel Richie always seemed like one of the good guys. I interviewed him many times back in the ‘70s and found him friendly, funny, gregarious, a great guy to be around. So it has always surprised me that his daughter is such an idiot. Maybe I shouldn’t care. There’s a lot going on in the world right now — war, famine, bigotry, war — and one could argue that these things matter a lot more than the idiocy of Richie’s 25-year-old adopted daughter. But Nicole Richie’s di...
Last week, I received e-mail from a man named Keith in Atlanta. He wrote: “I keep hearing and seeing all these allegations and books about Barry Bonds using steroids but I’ve yet to hear one person, other than some clown trying to make a dollar by slandering his name, say they have ever seen him use them. He has not admitted to using steroids, nor has he ever tested positive, so why is the media feeding this nonsense?! As far as I’m concerned, it’s all a bunch of hearsay...
Barack Obama is not Jesus. Forgive me for pointing out what ought to be obvious. But I feel the need after reading the umpty-millionth profile (this one appearing last week on the front page of USA Today) in which seemingly every exhalation of his name was accompanied by angels singing hosannas and sighs of adoration from a congregation of Democrats looking to him for political salvation. Or, if you prefer, resurrection. Enough, already. I want to stress that I hold no animus...
What happened at the University of California-Irvine last week would have embarrassed a reasonably mature 8-year-old. It seems two campus groups, the College Republicans and the United American Committee, held a panel discussion about the riots that engulfed parts of the Middle East and Asia last month over a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider it blasphemy to depict the prophet. So naturally, the student groups unv...
Allow me to share with you an epiphany. I think Fred Phelps is gay. Not that I’d have any way to know for sure, and not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it seems obvious to me that Freddie has spent a little time up on “Brokeback Mountain,” if you catch my drift. I’m thinking he’s secretly into show tunes, interior decorating and man-sized love. Granted, that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about the Fredster, who is defined by an apparently pa... Full story
“The enemies of freedom will be defeated.” — President George W. Bush, 2005 “We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Pogo, 1971 The following happened in the United States of America on Feb. 9 of this year. The scene is the Little Falls branch of the Montgomery County Public Library in Bethesda, Md. Business is going on as usual when two men in uniform stride into the main reading room and call for attention. Then they make an announcement: It is forbidden to use the library’s...
So apparently, we didn’t get the real story on Cindy Sheehan’s arrest. Some of you will recall that I wrote last week how Sheehan, the anti-war activist, showed up to President Bush’s State of the Union address wearing a T-shirt that referenced the number of Americans killed in Iraq. Capitol police took her out of the gallery and placed her under arrest. Meantime, Beverly Young, wife of a Florida representative, showed up in the same room wearing a sweatshirt that said, “Supp...
I am not cynical enough. Surely those who do not suffer this deficiency have already read conspiracy into the controversy over two shirts last week on Capitol Hill. But my ability to do likewise is impaired by a need to believe my elected leaders are not total horse’s patoots. Partial patoots, maybe. Three-quarters patoots perhaps. But “total” horse’s patoots? I don’t want to think it. For those who haven’t heard: Two women attempted to wear shirts bearing messages into the ga...
I don’t expect you to shed any tears because Aron’s is gone. Unless you grew up in L.A. as I did, you’ve probably never even heard of it. Aron’s was this used record and CD store that I discovered 30 years ago. It was a quirky place, an audiophile heaven where there was never any telling what offbeat treasure you might find. More to the point, it was “my” place, a store where I spent endless hours browsing for rarities and oddities you could never find elsewhere. To this day,... Full story
And now, here’s this week’s episode of Great Moments In Black History. The year is 1979. Carter is in office, disco is on the radio, and Ron Stallworth has just joined the Ku Klux Klan. We are indebted to the Deseret Morning News of Salt Lake City for revealing this in an article earlier this month commemorating Stallworth’s retirement from the Utah Department of Public Safety. Since then, the story has made MSNBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Co., and blogs from here to etern...
So he’s guilty as charged. Never mind the timeline that some thought made it almost impossible for him to have committed the crime. Never mind the book casting doubt on his culpability. Never mind his death chair declaration: “An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight.” Never mind any of it. Last week, a DNA test confirmed that Roger Coleman did indeed commit the crime for which the state of Virginia executed him in 1992, the rape and murder of his sister-in-law Wanda Mc... Full story
