Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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I have written before about the George Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I’ve also noted that when I first became aware of that quote, I assumed that the “cannot remember the past” part referred to some significant length of time, maybe a century or two. Alas it’s much less than that. Recently the Pentagon confirmed that there were, indeed, American troops on the ground, in Ukraine. These troops were not combat troops, rather the...
This week we will celebrate Veterans Day, on Nov. 11. As I’ve written before, when I was a child we celebrated that day as Armistice Day. During the Great War, on the Western Front, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, after fighting more than four years, an armistice was signed, and the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Also, as a child, we were required to memorize a poem from that conflict written by a Canadian doctor and teacher who served in t...
The conflict in Ukraine continues to drag on. Regardless of how the conflict began or who was responsible for starting it, the fear remains that the war may get out of control, or may already be at that point. Whatever happens, the war may very well have unintended consequences just as most wars do. One of these consequences may be the impoverishment of Europe for many years to come. At the onset of the struggle, the strategy of the Collective West as explained by its leaders...
At the onset of the television age, most Americans remember Walter Cronkite as the go-to guy when it came to getting the real scoop on what was happening in the news. Ending each show with, “And that’s the way it is …” Cronkite made CBS News No. 1in its time slot. Numerous television reporters of that age got their start in newspapers, then went on to radio and had a wide range of diverse experiences before they came to television, including many from the world war. Contras...
A number of cities have established some sort of safe enclave by resolution or public signage from the local governing body of these cities that purports to show how warm and caring these communities are for groups of people that they consider down-trodden or ill used by society in general. Usually, these resolutions or signs have no mechanism for enforcement, nor do they carry any penalties should a citizen disregard the dictates of the declarations. An example of one such...
It appears that the votes are in as to who is responsible the Nord Stream pipelines and most of the media agree. Russia did it. I don’t know who did it, and what follows is an attempt to look at the situation through the normal investigation process that includes means, motive and opportunity. MEANS: News reports specify that the damaged pipes are constructed of steel that is five inches thick and coated with concrete. These pipes lie on the seabed at depths of between 230 a...
As a data point, I write these missives early in the week and they get posted on Sunday. As such, they may appear a bit dated or missing the very latest facts and figures of the subject matter I am covering. Having said that, it would be absurd to discuss anything other than the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 & 2, the two pipelines that provide gas to Germany and originate in Russia. As I write this it appears that both pipelines have been disabled by explosions that will result...
Over the last several years, I have asked the question, “Who will decide when the COVID pandemic is over?” In an interview with Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes” last Sunday, Joseph Robinette Biden stepped up to the plate and declared that, “the pandemic is over.” Immediately after the program, a plethora of medical experts beginning with the head of the World Health Organization begged to differ, when he stated, “we’re not there yet, but the end is in sight.” What the presiden...
The president of the United States is the only member of the executive branch of government who is elected. Constitutionally, he operates as the chief executive officer of the U.S. government and the commander in chief of the U.S. military. The president appoints cabinet secretaries and agency heads and these folk serve at “the pleasure of the president.” Any power these positions may claim flows from the presidency. Over the last several years, there has been a movement fro...
The United States left Vietnam in April 1975. We lost more than 58,000 Americans in that war. Most Viet vets are getting a little long in the tooth now, with the youngest ones in their 70s. That war is another story for another day. Today marks the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, commonly known as 9/11. These attacks consisted of four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamic extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States, and...
Labor Day is observed on the first Monday in September and this year, that’s tomorrow. Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, and over the years the day has come to denote different things to different people. Labor Day was originated to pay tribute to the contributions and achievements of the American worker, and has its roots in the deadly Chicago Haymarket Riot of 1886. Police and workers faced off in clashes that turned violent when thousands of workers took to the s...
When I first read that the Inflation Reduction Act sent to the president for signature contained 730 pages, I thought that must be a misprint or an outright error. Then it occurred to me that this may be the Cliff Notes version of the legislation. A major bill with less than 1,000 pages? No way. While it is always difficult to ferret out exactly what impact a major fiscal bill will have on the hoi polloi, there is one thing you can count on for sure. The title of the legislati...
On Aug. 8, headlines across the country reported things like: “Police: 4th Muslim man Killed in Albuquerque over Past 9 Months” The media proclaimed: “Shock and disbelief enveloped Albuquerque as it grappled with the fact that a city with a reputation for welcoming and embracing immigrants from around the world and that celebrates ethnic and cultural diversity like few others has given rise to a possible serial killer or killers targeting Muslims. “As the weekend closed the de...
I saw this meme on the ’net the other day: “The rule of law, like Santa Claus, is a myth. It is only real when people believe in it.” For several years now, it has become fashionable for electronic news media to describe some event they are covering as a “bombshell.” Last Monday, the news being discussed turned out to be exactly that. The FBI raided the Mar-a-Logo home of former President Donald Trump. Whatever you may think about this event, it is certainly unprecede...
One would have to believe that the president of the U.S. receives the best medical treatment possible, or at least care that is slightly better than that available to the unwashed masses. That being said, the president has come down with COVID-19 twice in the last few weeks. He tested positive on July 21, tested negative on July 26-27 and tested positive again on July 30-31. After the first positive tests, Biden was treated with the anti-viral drug, Paxlovid. Medical experts...
Lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about some of the disciplines I was required to learn in my misspent youth that have application in the world today. One of these issues is leadership. Leadership is defined in many different ways, with characteristics and traits listed and discussed in great detail. As I ponder the current situation recorded by our scribes and anchor persons, the 11th Principle of Leadership comes to mind: “Seek responsibility and take res...
The terms mass delusion or mass hysteria, when used by the general public, usually refer to a condition where a large group of people believe something that is not true. Two of the more notable cases of this disorder in the U.S. are the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692 and the McMartin preschool sexual abuse cases in the 1980s. Sadly, we may be witnessing another case of this phenomenon today in Europe. When Russia began its Special Military Operation in Ukraine during...
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960. Open-source data indicates that development of “the pill” began in the early 1950s and clinical tests were initiated in 1954. By my math, that’s more than 60 years ago. Since that time, millions of women have availed themselves of this form of contraception. One could reasonably assume that with this much raw data available, it would be possible to arrive at a conclusion as to the safety and effic...
I thought I had a pretty fair understanding of how door locks worked until I read the reports involving the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. According to news reports, the shooter entered the school through a door with a lock that could only be locked from the outside, and then got into a classroom through a door that had a “busted lock.” The busted lock is really immaterial, since the classroom door also had a lock that could not be locked from the ins...
Monday is Independence Day. As children in grade school, we were required to memorize passages from several documents and speeches that epitomized what the concept of independence meant for us. The opening of the Declaration of Independence states: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which t...
The latest Biden administration official I’ve heard declare that the United States is “on a war footing” is Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. Based on statements made by our political leaders, both the executive and the legislative branches of the federal government appear to believe we are at war. The only group of Americans who remain unaware that we are at war, are the great, unwashed citizenry. For what it’s worth, here’s the situation, as seen by one of those gre...
I’ve been seeing more and more articles about monkeypox in the last several months. Just last week, an AP article headlined “UK reports 104 new cases of monkeypox” informed me that the 104 cases of the disease were “what had become the biggest outbreak beyond Africa of the normally rare disease.” According to the United Kingdom’s Health Security Agency, there are now “470 cases of monkeypox across the country.” Further reading of the article informed me that the “vast major...
The mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, generated an outpouring of grief and compassionate empathy from across the country for the people in that rural community. And well it should have. Comes now the blame game played by both sides in the gun rights fight. What usually happens after these episodes is a rush to “do something.” One such suggestion comes from Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College at Columbia University. Klarevas feels that more laws are nee...
The news media have the responsibility to present current events as accurately as they can, using reliable sources and verifying these sources. Failure to present an accurate account or a skewed account of events is not only unethical, it is dangerous. People at all levels including political and military leaders regularly use data from media to determine actions that can have dire effects on their lives. An “unnamed source who was not authorized to comment,” is not a rel...
The shortage of baby formula in stores across the U.S. has been in the news recently, and trying to get to the “root cause” of the problem has caused me some puzzlement. My local newspaper informed me that “millions of babies in the U.S. rely on formula, which is the only source of nutrition recommended for infants who aren’t exclusively breastfed.” After blaming the onset of the problem on supply chain shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, I learned that in February...
