Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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“O most gracious God,” wrote the eloquent sufferer, “on this sickbed I feel under your correction, and I taste of humiliation, but let me taste of consolation, too.” John Donne, poet and priest, so wrote in one of his “devotions” in 1623 (which were published in January 1624 as Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions). I may be mistaken about the date, but I believe it was in 2000 when, in an article in Christianity Today, Philip Yancey shared a brief modernized excerpt from Donne...
It doesn’t matter how many terrible wars we’re mired in overseas. It doesn’t matter how many seemingly unsolvable social and political problems we face at home. At this time of year, we Americans have the usual Walmart store of blessings to be thankful for. An extra reason for the entire country to give thanks this week is the fact that the long-dreaded 2024 election is finally in our rearview mirror – and for half of us the outcome was a blessing. Thanksgiving is usually...
President-elect Donald Trump has hit the ground running, alerting the public to the sort of individuals he intends to appoint to his second presidential cabinet. He continues to advertise his colorful selections, rewarding his most ardent supporters, setting the tone for what his administration will attempt to accomplish, and demonstrating little if any concern for what anyone else thinks. Trump’s most controversial picks so far include former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to l...
Ah, Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of them all. As its name implies, it’s a day to give thanks for our many blessings. And for me, it’s family time up in the mountains, in a lodge we rent out every year for a long holiday weekend reunion. This year, we’ll be grieving the loss of a loved one, celebrating the youngest among us, reconnecting as a family and going home exhausted from all the fun. And then there’s politics. I’ve already been warned not to be bringing it up, and I said I’ll try. I’m not a bit happy with Tr...
Gamblers who sit down at a casino blackjack table know the odds are slightly tilted against them, but expect the game to be fair. Gamblers who bet on horse races can’t have that same expectation. While other sports have been touched by gambling scandals (the Black Sox of 1919 and an NBA referee caught betting on games in 2007), in horse racing gambling scandals are endemic. It was announced this month that a horse trained by Phil D’Amato had tested positive for methamphetamine. Under the old rules, D’Amato would have been sus...
There is a great old movie, a black and white classic called “Advise and Consent.” I make sure to watch it at least once a year, not just because of the incredible cast that includes Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Walter Pidgeon and Franchot Tone, but because it is incredibly relevant six decades after it debuted in theaters. It’s about the tug and pull of politics in D.C. and a brutally honest examination of how the sausage is made. The title refers to the p...
Deportations only mean less money for Social Security I am writing to take issue with a specific comment attributed to Republican Party Chair Steve Pearce, printed in the Eastern New Mexico News on Nov. 13. In explaining why he believes Democrats’ concerns over losing Social Security is a “scam,” he states, “If Trump is able to secure the border and return people to their homeland, that will cut leakage out of Social Security.” In fact, the opposite is true. Many, if not most, undocumented workers are paid via a paycheck in t...
If you read or follow online blogs or podcasts you realize there are those who are aggregators of news from many sources, such as Real Clear Politics. Some provide in-depth examinations of complex issues, like the Duran. And some are original stories from onsite reporters. I consider interviewers like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan to fall into the “in-depth” category. I regularly peruse as many of these sites as I can absorb before I get MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over). Also, I add n...
Should you try to make the world better or give up because it’s hard? Judging by how those trying to make things better are treated, most people want you to give up. When I say “better,” I mean safer for life, liberty, and property. Those who are too weak or confused to live in the real world, or who benefit from ruling you, would have a different definition. Most of them believe keeping you like a zoo animal is better for them, and they’ll work to make you imagine it’s be...
The 2024 election has set our country on a fresh course, one that embraces traditional American values: freedom, economic responsibility, and effective governance. For New Mexicans, these shifts on the national stage bring renewed hope for policies that support local communities, protect our resources, and prioritize sustainable growth. With new leaders in place, we have a real chance to address key issues that affect our state and secure a more prosperous future. Among the areas where national policies can have an immediate...
It may be the most beloved tree in Portales. It's certainly the most photographed. The majestic ginkgo tree that graces the front lawn of the administration building at Eastern New Mexico University's Portales campus has had a banner autumn. Beautiful in any season, every few years this tree pulls out all the stops and turns its corner of campus into a glowing canvas of gold. This was one of those years. It seems almost wrong to talk about it in past tense, but last weekend's...
I probably hadn’t seen Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” before launching my crusade 50 years ago, but the idea “lost causes are the only causes that are worth fighting for” would’ve certainly resonated with me. On Nov. 10, 1974, I opened the Sunday comics section of the Nashville “Tennessean” and discovered that “Dick Tracy” had been unceremoniously canceled mid-story. I was blindsided. The jut-jawed detective had “always” (well, since 1937, anyway) been part of the “Tennessean” Sunday funnies. Call me an obsessed...
“Stay with us,” came the morning TV tease, “and we’ll hear from a restaurant critic who’ll help us plan for a stress-free holiday. Coming up is his guide to the perfect Thanksgiving dinner.” Well, that put a bad taste in my mouth, and I tuned out before I heard what to stuff in my stuffing. Any recipe that claims to marry the flavors of “stress free” and “perfect” is 100% guaranteed to cook up gut-wrenching failure and frustration. On any holiday. On any day. In any life. I...
The Democrats did not do a good job of dealing with their terrible loss. In fact, they and the liberal media collectively melted down in front of the whole world when Donald Trump and America’s voters dealt Kamala Harris a decisive, humiliating and historic election defeat. For a bunch of supposedly sophisticated liberal politicians, journalists and celebrities who profess to love democracy, it was an embarrassing but completely predictable display of bad sportsmanship, d...
It’s been two weeks since Election Day, and we’ve heard what pundits think cost Vice President Kamala Harris the election. Their hit list of topics included the uneven economy, high inflation, the Israeli-Hamas conflict, rising crime, extreme and excessive wokeness, and out-of-control borders. Yet, there is another reason that hasn’t been discussed nearly as much in most quarters – the intersection of race and gender. Harris would have been the first woman of any race and the...
When Amazon billionaire and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided not to allow his newspaper to endorse Kamala Harris for president, a quarter million readers canceled their subscriptions. Now this esteemed newspaper is suffering from a credibility crisis that may never recover under Bezos’ compromised ownership. Something similar happened to Fox News back in 2020, when the network essentially called the election for Joe Biden while their most loyal viewers were drinking in Donald Trump’s Kool-Aid and denying the rea...
I was listening to one of my mix tapes on my hi-fi stereo cassette player the other morning while I was piddling around in the kitchen when a Dale Watson song came up. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever heard any Dale Watson, but he’s what I call “real country,” which is probably why you may not have heard of him. He might be “too country” for modern country radio. My favorite song of his is “A Real Country Song,” with the opening line, “Mr. DJ, won’t you please play, a real country song…” Watson has another song I like, the...
I’m glad the election is over. I was getting a little tired of the political ad rubbing our community’s worst day in our face every time I turned on a TV. “One day in one city, two double homicides, four dead. Another day, an officer killed leaving two kids with no dad. New York or LA? No, Las Cruces.” I don’t understand why any candidate would trash the community they are hoping to represent. And, why would the people living in that community vote for that candidate? Does Yvette Herrell feel like she is in New York or L...
Nuclear energy appears poised for a remarkable comeback. Interest in restarting mothballed nuclear reactors and building a new generation of small modular reactors has soared. And most promising of all, big words have been followed by big financial commitments from tech companies hungry for power for data centers, and the federal government focused on boosting reliable, emissions-free power. Yet, for all of the wind in the sails for commercial nuclear power, enormous hurdles remain. The logistics of restarting closed nuclear...
Now that the shock of the election results has subsided a bit, we can take a deep breath and rejoice that we’ve all returned to some semblance of normalcy. Said no one, ever. The past two weeks have been filled with anger, desperation, accusations, pretentious pronouncements of moral superiority, threats of vengeance, attempts to flee the country and seek asylum in places where the government subsidizes Aperol Spritzes, and other such nonsense. I have noticed on a l...
After the election results were in, did you start crying, shaking, and screaming? Did you start threatening those who didn’t support your preferred candidate? Did you announce to the world that you are leaving America to escape? Perhaps posting videos of your emotional crisis, whichever form it took, on TikTok? If you’re reading this, probably not. If you did, though, it’s a sign you take politics too seriously and may be allowing a handful of biased national media corpo...
The period immediately after a presidential election is a glorious moment for institutional media of all types. This instant in time allows them to race ahead with a multitude of what purports to be news, but is in actuality political posturing and news releases from those seeking appointments to positions in a new administration. If, for instance, I would like to be secretary of defense, one of my trusted associates will contact his friend who is a reporter for the current...
Donald Trump will inherit a solid economy when he assumes the presidency in January. The stock market is at record highs, unemployment is low by historical standards and gross domestic product has been expanding at a healthy pace of around 2.5% so far this year. Yet there’s a reason for voter dissatisfaction with the economy and, beneath the surface, there are several risks for Trump 2.0 as he thinks about enacting his trade and fiscal agenda. Let’s start with jobs. Trump took over a stable labor market in 2017, with the une...
Infracaninophile. The word above, friends, is indeed an actual word. By the time you finish reading the other words I’m hoping to line up here, my additional hope is that you might have some idea as to what it means and how to use it. But I confess that my deeper hope and confident belief is that you will also have enough good sense not to use it. I can only imagine how impressed folks down at the coffee shop, the waiting room, or the teachers’ lounge would be should som...
I got to thinking about an old friend the other day. My denim jacket. I was swapping stories with someone about my Sears catalog leather fringe jacket, kind of like the one Dennis Hopper wore in the 1969 flick “Easy Rider.” It’s not a very warm jacket so it doesn’t get much wear. I put it on when I want to bring out my “inner hippie.” But that denim jacket, that had some stories. I bought it back in 1972, the glory days of denim. Denim this, denim that, denim button-fly bell bottom jeans, denim shirts and such. It was a Le...
