Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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In May 2005, a federal committee charged with reducing the nation’s military installations recommended that Cannon Air Force Base be closed. Local, state and federal lawmakers joined the community to rally behind the base in hopes of saving it. Area residents wrote hundreds of letters and thousands lined the streets of the city when the federal Base Closure and Realignment Committee came to town for a public hearing. If the local efforts had a vocal leader, his name was Bill Richardson. New Mexico’s governor never claimed he saved Cannon, but...
After whipping themselves into a frenzy, conservatives have tried to do a rapid U-turn of their embrace of YouTube sensation Oliver Anthony and his hit song, “Rich Men North of Richmond.” The flip-flop comes after Anthony (real name Christopher Anthony Lunsford) derided Republican politicians, radio hosts, and conservative news outlets for brazenly adopting his song. “It was funny seeing that (Republican) presidential debate,” Anthony said. “I wrote that song about those people.” The tune, which Anthony uploaded to YouTube last month, had...
Seriously folks. Maybe we Republicans better stop banging on Old Joe Biden for the serious cognitive issues he obviously has. Unless we hold the players on our own team responsible for their cognitive issues, we have to stop harping on the obvious mental declines of President Biden, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Diane Feinstein, my home state’s ancient senator. I’m talking of course about the problem of what to do about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s shaky brain. The Republican Senate minority leader had another one of his sad and scary...
This year’s flying by, with Labor Day being next Monday. While shopping recently, I saw the store I was in already had Halloween candy for sale, which made me wonder when the Christmas candy and ads would be out. Then, I thought again about Labor Day and wondered if Santa Claus and Labor Day had anything in common. We usually only hear about Santa doing anything, like work, when he delivers presents overnight before Christmas morning. Completely encompassing the globe north, south, east and west is a pretty big job. So, he and his reindeer prob...
Before he played the bouncer in “Road House” … before he was the focus in the documentary “Beyond the Mat” … before he was elected to five wrestling hall of fames … before he retired from the sport the first time in 1983 ... Terry Funk was a legend across eastern New Mexico and the High Plains. If you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, you were a Funk fan, whether watching him wrestle on television or seeing him in person in Clovis, Portales and other small-town venues. We lost the legend last week following a two-year struggle with dementia. He...
New Mexico should be in crisis mode. Our K-12 education system is certainly facing a crisis. Problems abound: recent reports highlight serious school attendance issues, the NAEP (known as the “Nation’s Report Card”) test places New Mexico 52nd across ALL age groups and subjects studied, the Kids Count report shows New Mexico kids are losing ground, and no one seems to have a solution. Education spending has increased markedly in recent years with nothing to show for it. With New Mexico already suffering from poor educational outcomes the COVID...
As usual, there was too much cross-talk and chaos on stage. And there was way too much partisan cheering and hooting by the audience. But the first Republican presidential primary debate on Fox News was an entertaining spectacle. Instead of watching Tucker Carlson interview Donald Trump on Twitter/X, it was a good way to check out the personalities and political positions of the GOP’s lineup of second and third stringers who have the impossible dream of beating out Trump for the party’s 2024 nomination. No one jumped off the screen and loo...
One day, the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom. These were motivated dudes, after all, wanting to know how to advance, how to climb that ladder. Jesus pointed to a child and told them to become like that. Some preachers have turned this text into a “How To Be Saved” sort of story. They think the disciples were asking about entrance to the kingdom, not status within it. So, the evangelistic answer is that we must have a so-called childlike faith. They don’t consider this in light of places where Jesus recommends a lot o...
You’ve probably heard the story by now. A small-town Kansas newspaper on Aug. 11 was raided by police who seized the paper’s computers and other electronic equipment. Newspaper officials claim the raid occurred because they had been looking into the background of the local police chief and other leaders in the county of about 12,000 people. Police claimed they had information that the newspaper was gathering information illegally and invading individuals’ privacy. Ironically, the newspaper reported little of the information it gathered in its p...
Voracious popular culture connoisseur that I am, I have been avidly following the drama surrounding pop icon Lizzo. As an academic who teaches race, gender and sexuality studies, the story has all the intersectional elements that make for a riveting story. Over the past couple of weeks, the Grammy award winning artist known for her hits “Truth Hurts,” “Jerome,” and “Exactly How Feel” has been embroiled in controversy and legal drama. Three of Lizzo’s tour dancers – Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez – have accused the singe...
Another week, another lame Trump indictment. Another week, another slimy Hunter Biden report. Another week, another smash-and-grab at a California mall. You can’t get away from this crummy stuff unless you turn off the TV, take the alerts off your phone and sleep all day on the beach for a week like Joe Biden. But I’m totally worn out by the never-ending troubles and crimes of Trump and Hunter. Nothing that happens to either of them in a courtroom months or years from now will hurt me, cut high gas prices or make my family safer. What con...
While traveling back from Albuquerque recently, our grandson reached into the backseat for something. Upon turning back forward, he bumped his covered insulated drink container. Because the container didn’t fit the cup holder snuggly, it made a loud clank and some drink spewed out through the straw at which time the automatic windshield wiper came on as if it were sprinkling outside. While that seems eerie, it’s likely when clank startled me, I bumped the turn signal indicator, which has the wiper control mounted on its end. I’d call that a col...
The answer is yes. I am ready for some football. The high school season starts this week. I started liking football in 1967 when the first game I can clearly remember played out on my granddad’s color TV set – the Dallas Cowboys played the Green Bay Packers in the “Ice Bowl.” The temperature was 15 degrees below zero. Most fans considered it pro football’s championship game, though the Super Bowl was still to be played. My granddad was for the Cowboys because … Tom Landry, I think. Everybody in Texas loved the Cowboys coach in those days...
The evolution of Black Lives Matter, the election of Donald Trump, and a growing fear of immigrants have led to deep levels of resentment and hostility among a sizable segment of white Americans. Many Americans of European descent misguidedly see the nation they grew up in as infested with hordes of non-white people, threatening to resign the country as a potpourri of foreign languages, multiple religions and mass confusion. Not all white Americans harbor such deplorable viewpoints, of course. But those that do have been indoctrinated by...
Half the country has no idea why the front page of Thursday’s New York Post was so hilarious. That’s because, thanks to the liberal media, half the country still has no idea who Hunter Biden is, or why he is in trouble for raking in millions for his extended family from foreign businessmen by selling access to his father Joe’s “brand” and political influence. The Post – which is famous for its funny front pages and lively conservative journalism – brilliantly summed up the Biden Family’s international influence-peddling racket. Its front page...
When God brought Israel out of Egypt, he gave it a set of rules. Beginning with the Ten Commandments, he spelled out a constitution for the new nation, a law by which they were to govern themselves. The New Testament calls this the “perfect law of liberty.” In this law of liberty, there were no entitlement programs. Neither businesses nor poor folks received any handouts from the central authority. (This is because there was no taxation. Without this, the government had nothing to “generously” give to anyone.) This doesn’t mean the new const...
You’ve got your standard New Mexico centennial license plate, your standard red and yellow plate and your standard chile plate. That last one’s really pretty and it won the America’s Best License Plate Award in 2017. But did you know the Land of Enchantment has almost five dozen sanctioned license plates, including one that just hit the road last month? Travel with me here … There’s the standard centennial personalized plate, the red and yellow prestige vanity plate, and the Las Cruces plate, because, well, we all know about Las Cruces dr...
There are probably many Americans who thought this day would never come. More than a few people, myself included, were skeptical that Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice possessed the strength and courage to overcome their traditional habit of risk aversion. Instead, the criminal justice system is going to do battle against one of the most devious and horrendous conspiracies in the history of the nation. The latest indictment of Donald Trump, brought by special counsel Jack Smith, are the results of a tedious, laborious,...
“In the eight years that my father was President of the United States I never once sat in the room with business associates and called him on the phone. If I had, the Democrats would have skewered me.” When I posted that tweet the other day, it got a huge response. As we know from last week’s big whistleblower news, over the course of 10 years – while Joe Biden was vice president and when he was out of power – Hunter Biden put his father on speaker phone at least 20 times during meetings he was having with foreign business people. That bombshel...
As with my last Quay County Sun column on July 19, this article is based on readings with complementary themes from books used for my daily devotion. One article was titled “The Holy Spirit: The Power of the Highest,” from “365 Ways to Know God” (Elmer Towns, Regal Books, 2004), and the other was from “The Best of the Bible” (Tyndale House Publishers, 1996) titled “Daily Life in the Early Church.” I’ve added some of my thoughts. The Towns article, based on Luke 1:35, emphasized that God is the highest authority/power. However, Jesus and the Hol...
I’m spending the dog days of summer complaining about the soul-sapping heat, and tweaking my teaching materials for the fall. Because of that, I’ve fallen into a rabbit hole of sorts. I always reference my dad in leadership presentations, as an example of honor and integrity, and doing the right thing even when it’s hard. Memories flooded my mind while I worked on my slides. I take those unexpected moments as a gift, a hug from heaven. I’m grateful to have another chance to lose myself in these flickers from the past. The other evening as I wa...
The weekend brought news that several hundred Cannon Air Force Base personnel and seven MC-130J aircraft are transferring to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. That’s supposed to happen “in the upcoming fiscal years,” according to a news release from New Mexico’s congressional delegation. But Mayor Mike Morris said the announcement is no reason to worry about Cannon’s future. “(A)ny news that the Air Force is moving a squadron from CAFB is definitely troubling,” Morris said. “However, I understand that force structure and personnel numbers do tend t...
Recently I was asked how I voted on a bill in the Legislature. I was interested in why that person, a friend of mine, didn’t already know! So, I sat down and explained how they can watch how I voted on any piece of legislation or how I voted on bills in the past and how they can monitor my votes going forward. Every voter should have immediate access to their representative and senator’s votes. The website is: www.nm legis.gov. Anyone can search any legislator’s votes on any bill before the House or Senate and with a little work you can see how...
Despite the Republican Party’s routine claims it wants to increase its appeal with non-white voters, it often seems to find a way to impede any progress made. Such supposed attempts encountered a series of roadblocks last month when two GOP lawmakers made racially offensive comments, resulting in fierce condemnation from civil rights groups and further weakening the party’s message that it is a large and politically diverse tent. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Arizona Rep. Eli Crane made the racially inflammatory statements, prompting reb...
They didn’t understand what he was up to. When I say “they,” I mean all of them. The Pharisees and Sadducees (conservatives and liberals). The Herodians, politically loyal to King Herod, who suspected that Jesus might lead an armed insurrection. The revolutionary Zealots, who would’ve loved that. The 12 closest disciples of Jesus. Whatever it was that he was up to, it didn’t involve acting like a normal king. They knew kings. They were familiar. This Nazarene was not that. Many hope that when he returns, he’ll finally act like a normal king...