Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 126 - 150 of 311
It’s being declared often these days. There’s even a book pushing the notion in its title: “America is a Christian nation.” To which I ask: Which Christian? Which version of Christianity are we talking about, the conservative Christian nationalists or the liberal Christian internationalists? They may share the “Christian” moniker, but they are, in reality, two separate religions. In some Christian churches, there’s a civil war going on. New Mexico’s largest Christian denomination, the Catholic church, is becoming more d...
Our institutions are taking a beating in the world of public opinion, and I think I know why. By institutions I mean those organizations that provide a measure of stability and security in our lives — our governing bodies, established religions, businesses and industries, news media and the internet, and other established bodies that we used to trust. There are a host of reasons why we no longer believe in them, and I’m convinced there is one root cause for our disillusionment — the lack of truth in what they tell us. I’m t...
Credit the Albuquerque Journal for launching a series on Title IX and its impact on sports, as this culture-shifting law turns 50 this year. The series is just getting started, and the Journal says it’ll be running for weeks to come. I’m looking forward to it. If you’re an educator, chances are you’re familiar with Title IX. It was signed into law just two years before I graduated high school, when women’s liberation was at full tilt and girls my age were growing up faster than guys like me. I was in high school when Title IX...
We’ve been living with inflation all our lives. That’s why old folks can remember when a gallon of gas cost under a buck and bread cost about a quarter a loaf. But now it’s getting out of hand. The most recent Consumer Price Index report shows a whopping 8.6% rise in prices over the past 12 months. Prices are going up on gasoline and diesel, food and clothing, housing and household items, air travel and new and used vehicles, medical costs and recreation. Wages and salaries are also going up, but it’s not keeping up for eve...
We Americans like to accumulate stuff through most of our lives, then somewhere around old age we start trying to get rid of it. At least that’s true for me. I’ve been working to downsize my stuff since around my 60th birthday, and I’m still at it six years later. Right now, I’m going through a stack of boxes that contain bits and pieces of my life through the years. It’s a step back in time for me, to go through stuff that at some point I couldn’t quite let go of. I’m not a hoarder, but all those boxes suggest that, at one t...
Fatigue seems to have set in over Americans following the latest mass shootings, and for good reason. The numbers are staggering. So far this year, we’ve had 27 school shootings, according to Education Week. Last week’s mass murder in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was the biggest since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 10 years ago. Legislatively, nothing was done then, and most of us expect nothing to be done this time, either. At this pace, our nation will easily surpass the 34 school shootings that Edu...
If you want to understand the impact that technology is having on us, consider the history of tobacco. Perhaps you know that Native Americans first introduced tobacco to Europeans, who turned it into a cash crop of great importance to the English colonies along the east coast of what we now call the United States. Europe was their first international market, with tobacco touted for its medicinal benefits. But it was a labor-intensive crop that became far more profitable when slaves were brought in to grow, harvest and cure...
When it comes to this year’s wildfire season, we’re witnessing history-making catastrophes and, if you look a little closer, catastrophes averted. The history-makers are monsters like the combined Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon fire in San Miguel and Mora counties. This week, it officially became the largest wildfire in recorded state history – more than 298,000 acres --surpassing the 2012 Baldy-Whitewater fire in the Gila Wilderness in 2012. Combined with the Cerro Pelado Fire in Sandoval County, the Cooks Peak Fire in Mora a...
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. Graduations mark a transition in our lives, but sometimes I think it’s over-emphasized. Anyone who thinks a diploma or degree is a ticket to success is sadly mistaken. It’s just a ticket to ride; you still have to get there on your own. But rather than continuing with a recitation of...
If Elon Musk is going to take over Twitter, I hope he reads a recent article in The Atlantic magazine by Jonathan Haidt, about the impact social media is having on our democracy and what we can do about it. Of course, the richest man in America isn’t likely to listen to a peon like me, which is why I also recommend this article to you. As Haidt points, we can’t really rely on anyone but ourselves to address this problem. Haidt is a social psychologist at the New York University School of Business. A fairly prolific author and...
If you’re like me, you’ve gone through a range of emotional reactions to the pressing issue of climate change. For me, now that wildfires are raging throughout this Land of Enchantment, it’s getting personal. Years ago, when I first saw “An Inconvenient Truth,” I was alarmed but not overly worried. I wanted to believe that America could lead the world away from fossil fuels. As former Vice President Al Gore had pointed out in his thought-provoking documentary, it was possible to solve this existential problem as we had done...
One of the most uplifting things to receive, and rewarding things to give, is mentoring. It’s certainly been an important part of my career. I was in my 30s when I met my first journalism mentor. Bill Rutherford was the page-one editor for the Arkansas Gazette who taught college classes on the side when I was pursuing my undergrad degree at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He was the best kind of journalism instructor, in large part because he was living it every day. He taught me the basics of good reporting, a...
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court got me to thinking about other African-American women who have made their mark on American history. There are many, including lesser-known women such as the late Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship. In her day, she played a pivotal role in desegregating Southern institutions of higher learning, critical to ending the era of Jim Crow. Then there are famous Black women like Rosa Parks. In 1955, she refused to g...
It’s starting to feel more and more like summer, a time that’s ripe for weekend getaways. And if you’re like me and enjoy the “hidden treasures” of our state, here’s one you might enjoy: Mills Canyon in Harding County. It’s tucked away in the grasslands of northeastern New Mexico, in the most sparsely populated county in the state. The park is managed by the U.S. Forest Service and includes one of the most rugged stretches of the Canadian River in northeastern New Mexico. It’s within the Kiowa National Grasslands, whe...
All this national news about Supreme Court judges has me thinking about the judges who make day-to-day differences in our lives, namely, the lower court judges who live and die among us. As a journalist, I’ve known many judges through the years, and have bittersweet memories of one district judge in particular. I came to know him quite well as a reporter in Conway, Ark. His name was Watson Villines, a young man in his 30s who took the higher standards of his job quite seriously. He followed the law in his courtroom, but he a...
I firmly believe that the greatest contribution to my daughters’ education wasn’t in helping them get through high school or even college. It was in teaching them a love for reading. Often it came as bedtime stories by Dr. Seuss, or one of the tales of the Berenstain Bears, or through a Japanese children’s book I couldn’t read but their mother could. Whatever it was, they came to look forward to it every night and their love for books grew with time. As parents, we didn’t teach them to read, but by the time they were old...
Recently, I read an obscure little book I think is worth writing about. It suggests Billy the Kid lives on — genealogically. The book is titled “Billy the Kid’s Kid — The Hispanic Connection” and was written by Elbert A. Garcia, who claimed to be the descendent of Billy the Kid. Garcia, who died a couple of years ago, wrote it mostly for his family. It lacks the proof needed for a decisive contribution to the real history of the Kid, but it does offer up a perspective worth considering. Much has been written about Billy the...
Back in the 1950s, in the thick of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union at that time, famously said, “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.” Of course, they didn’t destroy us. The U.S. ultimately won the Cold War and saved the world for democracy. But it’s a new day now, and such a threat may be more real than ever before — not because of the threat that Russia now poses through cyber-attacks and military incursions, but becau...
Who would’ve thought that the Soviet Union would rise from the ashes and re-establish itself in Eastern Europe once again? It’s now clear that is exactly what Russia President Vladimir Putin wants to do. He has reportedly said the Soviet Union’s fall was “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century” and his actions are speaking louder than his words. So far, he has invaded the former Soviet “possessions” of Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, and Ukraine in 2022. It’s an opportune time for his ambitious expan...
Last week ended with big New Mexico news, several times over. The governor surprised the state by lifting the mask mandate. The speaker of the House announced he is voluntarily stepping down. And the 30-day legislative session ended with a mixed bag in the 11th hour of legislative wrangling at the Roundhouse. All in an election year that is still stacked to favor of the Democratic Party of New Mexico. In historic terms, you can’t call it an overly productive legislative session that adjourned last week. The Albuquerque Journa...
It’s hard to be optimistic about the world these days, but I still try. A rise in nationalism is not only ripping into the fabric of democracies, it’s making a global effort to save our earth seem impossible. Nevertheless, my belief in humanity’s problem-solving abilities was restored the other day when I ran across a TED Talk featuring Dr. Ilissa Ocko, a climate scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund who spoke on how we can mitigate climate change by tackling methane first. According to Ocko, “Cutting methane is the...
As a professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Dr. L.T. Williams had a way of making history multidimensional. He gave history meaning for the present-day world. As a student pursuing my degree at UALR, I recognized his teaching talents early on. Initially, I took his course in U.S. history up to the Civil War and loved it so much that the next semester I jumped straight into his second U.S. history overview, from the Civil War to the present day, then I delved into both of his Black history classes,...
To steal a quote from former GOP President George H.W. Bush, the Republican Party of New Mexico is in “deep do-do” these days, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better anytime soon. Already the Republican Party is powerless statewide, since the Democrats control both legislative chambers as well as all statewide offices from the governor on down. But it’s recent news out of Washington, D.C., that has the state GOP stepping in its own mess. Last week the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 at...
This nation has been divided over the “facts” for some time now, but does that mean we’re divided over telling the truth, too? Used to be, Americans valued honesty, even if we didn’t always practice it so well. We said things like, “Honesty is the best policy,” “A man’s word is his bond,” and “If you always tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.” But that was then, and this is now. Used to be, politicians and used car salesmen were among the least respected professions, because of their perceived lack of ho...
Sometimes politicians govern. Sometimes they campaign. Most of the time, it’s hard to tell the difference. Take, for example, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s legislative agenda for this year’s 30-day session. It’s ambitious and aggressive, and just in time for her re-election bid. In her first three years in office, Lujan Grisham has accomplished a lot, thanks to her party’s domination of both legislative chambers and a growing surplus in state revenues. This combination of power and money gives her the ability t...
