Prediction: Cockfighting bites the dust

Sure, I’m irritated. Wouldn’t you be?

This is the year cockfighting is going to get clawed to death in the New Mexico Legislature. You just know it has to happen.

All this folderol about two birds celebrating a blood bath of cultural heritage is about to be exposed for the nonsense it is.

Sen. Mary Jane Garcia of Las Cruces, a Democrat, will join with Republican Steve Komadina of Corrales to legislate this barbaric practice out of existence.

Why, you ask, if cockfighting is on the way out, is this columnist fighting mad? I’ll tell you why. Getting rid of the brutal practice has been my own personal cause. But do you think I am going to get any credit? No, sir.

Pamela Anderson will get the credit. Pammy, a major star whose list of attributes do not necessarily include acting talent, is new to the game. Makes no difference. Pamela got a lot of ink last year when she told Governor Bill he better do away with cockfighting.

“The whole country is watching, especially Hollywood,” she warned in a letter to the governor. Bill reportedly adopted that stern, serious look of his, chuckled inwardly and chomped down another Snicker’s bar.

Rue McClanahan will get the credit. The seasoned Golden Girl actress also jumped on my bandwagon. The TV cameras were rolling when Rue got her dander up about cockfighting in New Mexico.

Bill Maher may even get some credit, but I don’t think he should. Maher wrote the New Mexico governor to protest cockfighting.

I don’t much like Bill Maher. I think he is about as funny as a bloodied rooster on a Sunday after-noon in Deming. His ABC TV “Politically Correct” show was canceled after he said of our armed forces, “We have been the cowards, lobbing Cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away.”

It is good we live in a nation where Bill Maher has the right to say such things. It is also good we live in a nation where we can call him a butthead after he says them.

Jack Handy might get some credit. Who’s Jack Handy? Jack recently moved back to New Mexico and joined the animal rights crusade against cockfighting. Jack and I have a lot in common. We wrote together at the Carlsbad Current-Argus many moons ago.

I made my way to Ruidoso where I spend my time begging the governor to appoint me a Czar of something. Anything.

Jack made his way to New York where he became a top writer for Saturday Night Live. Among his contributions was Jack’s Deep Thoughts, which included stuff like this: “I hope if dogs ever take over the world and they choose a king, they don’t just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.”

I’m fond of Jack, but he is a tad weird. Were they ever to figure out his brain by hooking it to a medical scanner, the machine would likely smoke and tremble and finally explode.

This year, I predict, cockfighting beats the dust. But it won’t be this columnist who shares the limelight with Bill Richardson when he signs the legislation. No, it will be Pammy at the guv’s side, with Rue and Jack and jerk Maher looking on.

Is there no justice?

Ned Cantwell of Ruidoso is a retired newspaper publisher and member of the New Mexico Press Association Hall of Fame. E-mail him at:

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