Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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About 12 years ago, when I was at the Las Vegas Optic, we worked up a special section on the seven-county region of Northeast New Mexico. Not surprisingly, our lead story was about water. At the time, Las Vegas was facing some serious drought conditions that had slowed the Gallinas River to little more than a trickle, leaving the city — which gets nearly all its water from the Gallinas — with only a couple months of water in reserve. City officials at that time said the reservoirs were only 68% full and sinking. Also aro...
Set aside for a moment Joe Biden’s haunting performance at the debate last week, there was something even more troubling that just took place. It’s not getting as much attention because we’re used to it. The debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is an example of style versus substance. Trump won on style and Biden won, by default, on substance. Biden supporters blamed a head cold on their man’s hoarse voice and subdued manner, while Trump’s supporters declared Biden ready for the nursing home. Meanwhile, Trump used his...
Common sense is not as common as it once was. Used to be, good ol’ horse sense would tell you that if a jury found a businessman turned politician guilty of every damn charge brought against him, he must be guilty. But now, way too many people have suspended their reason to see the convicted felon as nothing more than a victim of some unimaginable conspiracy against him. It makes no kind of sense, but that’s the Republican Party these days. The fact is, Donald Trump paid a porn star to keep quiet about their sordid affair so...
I must admit to a certain grudge against Californians who come rolling into New Mexico with an attitude of superiority over us poor souls. It’s a prejudice I developed after a few years living in the Land of Enchantment, after seeing more than enough arrogant Californians coming in and trying to tell the rest of us how best to live and behave. I’ve held the same grudge against Texas, but developed it years earlier while growing up in Arkansas. But I felt my own attitude of superiority when, within just a few years: the Raz...
I’m a big fan of vacations on the cheap, which is good, since I’ve seldom been able to afford anything first-class. Besides, top-dollar travel often overlooks the best stuff to see. Several years ago, when my family was younger and we were fairly new to the Land of Enchantment, we decided to take a New Mexico-centric vacation. My wife and I, along with our two daughters, got into our four-door sedan early one summer morning and left our northern New Mexico home in search of wonderment, which we found at just about every sto...
If you’re not aware of it yet, you will be soon. Route 66 is turning 100 in 2026. Last month, a New Mexico committee called the Route 66 Centennial Coordination Group held a public meeting in Santa Rosa — one of more than a dozen communities across New Mexico that either grew up or grew more prosperous with the highway that was officially designated as a national highway in 1926. Officials gathered to brainstorm ideas for celebrating the centennial anniversary with attractions and festivities worthy of “the kicks” people...
If you ask me, history is speeding up. Used to be, things didn’t change much from one generation to another, but with the onset of the 20th century, it all began to accelerate. And, now that we’re a couple of decades into the 21st century, we’re living as if the past doesn’t matter anymore. But of course, it does. History is how we got here, and it portends where we’re going. My baby-boomer generation has been through some incredible history. We were raised during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, which led o...
It’s that time of year, when just about every newspaper in the state gives front-page attention to at least one local graduation. They’re always a big deal, especially to those who walk across that ceremonial stage and make their families proud. It’s also the time when yours truly offers some less-than-conventional advice to those who are about to move on to bigger and better things: First, let’s dispel the notion that you can be anything you set your mind to becoming, because you can’t. If you’re short, you won’t likel...
I just want the world to know that all this “catch-and-kill” National Enquirer-style of so-called journalism is a disgusting exception, nowhere close to the rule of how newspapers behave. In my 30-plus years of newspapering, I’ve worked at big dailies and little weeklies and others in between, and I can confidently attest to the fact that I never, ever saw an editor or publisher “buy” the rights to a story, much less buy the right to bury it, as the Enquirer’s Pecker said he did for Donald Trump. That just doesn’t happen, at...
The noise may be more pronounced elsewhere, but here in New Mexico, we’ve got plenty of hot topics of our own. Hottest at the moment, I suppose, is the lawsuit that’s been filed challenging the Public Education Department’s new rule requiring 180 days of classroom instruction per year per school district, which effectively nixes the four-day schedule that dozens of school district have been operating under. There are two questions before the 9th Judicial District Court in Curry County: Whether to order an injunction that...
Imagine living in a household full of smokers. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with each other, so if you want to overcome your problem, you’re going to have do it together. More than one doctor has told you as much, but not everyone in the household believes what the docs say, opting instead for a quack’s opinion that the whole problem is better off ignored. The problem is, you’ve all got to quit together or you will all get sick and die by either first- or second-hand smoking. All that coughing and hacking around...
We have some big, rich and powerful neighbors, but that could change in the years ahead. Let’s start with Texas. New Mexico is heavily influenced by our neighbor to the east. In fact, a good number of New Mexicans on the east side of our state are wannabe Texans, aligning themselves to Texas values more than New Mexico’s. There’s a lot of chili (without the “e”) being eaten in eastern New Mexico. And the last time I visited the resort city of Ruidoso, I saw so many Texas license plates I wondered if I’d inadvertent...
Earning a bachelor’s degree is a lot more complicated than it used to be. Not necessarily harder, just more complicated. Set aside for a moment affordability, which is skewed toward the middle and upper classes along with straight-A students who test well. Getting into college is easier than staying in college, and staying in college to earn that degree requires lots of delayed gratification. I have long contended that a bachelor’s degree does more than show your developing “expertise” in a particular field or two. It show...
The world as I know it has ended. I agree with Ron DeSantis on something. On March 25, the Florida governor and former mini-Trump wannabe signed into law a state ban for children ages 13 and younger from social media while also requiring 14- and 15-year-olds to get parental consent. Forget the fact that Florida’s new law will almost certainly be challenged in court, it’s still a step in the right direction. We’re facing a mental health crisis among our children, and social media has a lot to do with it. That and the COVID...
Lately I’ve been thinking about old age, and for good reason. Two close friends of mine, one a few years older than me, the other about three weeks younger, have given me pause about my own future at this point in my life. My older friend died after a heart attack. My younger friend had a bad fall and must now retire into an assisted living facility. They are just two of many fellow baby boomers I’ve known who have either passed on or been overcome with illness or disability. There but by the grace of God go I. At age 68, I h...
In the great red-blue divide that is America these days, we live in an atypical state. New Mexico is not as politically divided along rural and urban lines as other states. For years now, Democrats in New Mexico have dominated politics in enough rural counties to add to their “urban” majorities in Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe. Meanwhile Republicans have held a grip on other rural area and many smaller cities, with a lock in the southeastern corner of the state, a region deep in agriculture and rich in oil and gas...
The biggest challenge to this election year will not be deciding between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Ninety percent of us already have our minds made up on that. No, the biggest challenge will be surviving the campaign and election without coming to hate each other. Granted, some of us already do. Some can’t differentiate between a person’s politics and their humanity. I know families in which one person no longer speaks with another family member because one of them drank the Trump Kool-Aid or the other is preaching Wokeness...
Back in the 1970s, when dinosaurs roamed the land, I coached basketball in an inner-city league in Nashville, Tenn. Inspired by “The White Shadow” television show at the time, the Black teenagers on my team named themselves the Shadows because I was the only white coach in the league. We lost every game that season. Even though we had a standout team captain who worked the post and led the team with natural skills, a guy we all called J.C., we just couldn’t pull off a single win. Of course, we didn’t lose because I was whi...
For years, I’ve been calling Donald Trump a snake-oil salesman, but that’s such an antiquated term. Then I heard about the line of shoes and cologne he’s now promoting, and now I’m thinking he’s a telemarketer. And, I must say, he’s good at it. I heard on NPR that his red, white, blue and gold sneakers are selling out. Like the Trump brand itself, they’re getting terrible reviews, but he manages to sell them to his salivating suckers anyway. Trump may be bringing down our democracy, but hey, he’s one of the best pitchmen o...
Pay too much attention to the goings-on in Congress and you’d think our nation is broken. But focus your attention closer to home and you’ll see an altogether different picture. Take the New Mexico Legislature as an example. It just went through a whirlwind 30-day session and got plenty done, and not just for the special interests. The people of our state, both left and right, might actually benefit from our lawmakers’ recent actions. Altogether, 72 bills were passed and now await Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s signatu...
I just turned 68. Happy birthday to me. It’s been a long and winding road, one in which I’ve stolen from the Beatles more than once. But, hey, what can I say — I was Born to Run! Actually, and with apologies to the Boss, I was born to live through some incredible history. From the unraveling of Jim Crow to the rise of Artificial Intelligence, we baby boomers have seen it all. By the time I got to high school, I was attending an integrated school and getting to know Black people as equals. That may sound quaint today, but b...
For just a moment, let’s deviate from modern times and actually be honest about the state of our nation. Remember how, back in the old days before lawyers replaced gunslingers, honesty was actually valued. “A man’s word is his bond,” went the old adage, while a simple handshake could close the deal. Now, that handshake is considered unsanitary and you’d better have some wet wipes and a contract before you go any further. Fact is, as a society we don’t really value honesty anymore. Advertising has always been about super...
Seems to me that Nikki Haley is a bigger problem for Donald Trump than he’s letting on. She’s exposing a rift in Trump World, one that might just get him defeated. I still say she’s the one who can beat Biden, but Trump appears ready to run roughshod over the Republicans’ nomination process to claim the crown. Then he’ll ride herd over another thumping at the polls, up and down the nation’s ballot. It’s almost funny to say, but I think the two biggest issues on 2024 ballots will be Trump and abortion. And on both those is...
As this year’s legislative session gets underway, there’s one wedge issue already getting lots of attention. Rest assured that any and all gun-control proposals, no matter how reasonable, will get plenty of attention by the usual band of Second Amendment reactionaries and their demagoguing leaders. Remember last September when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order limiting the carrying of firearms in Bernalillo County? It was specific to metro Albuquerque, but some of the most aggressive demonstrations cam...
Trump. Climate change. Liberals. Conservatives. Socialists. Capitalists. Bet you don’t think any of these charged-up words are funny, but maybe you should. “All comedy starts with anger,” Jerry Seinfeld once said, explaining that stand-up comedy turns anger into laughter. But of course, it’s not just anger that generates laughs. It’s also pain, insecurity and other human frailties. And as it turns out, one of the most therapeutic approaches we can take in dealing with our problems is by laughing about them. My brother D...
