Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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In the Bible-reading plan I’ve designed for myself, I come to the book of Ecclesiastes about twice a year; and every time I read it, I end up thinking, “I should read this more often.” As a brand-new believer in my 20, all those decades ago, Ecclesiastes was confusing to me and even a little depressing. Now, it’s a welcomed friend who continues, somehow, to keep reminding me of the things I’ve managed to forget since I last read it. Young men, as designed by God, should be filled with fire, eager to conquer the world and unsatisfied until it...
Turns out, Democrats have a mind of their own. You can see it in the fallout from Joe Biden’s weak debate performance, when the president showed his age. And you could see it in last week’s special session of the New Mexico Legislature, when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham attempted to run roughshod over her party with poorly vetted legislation. It should have been a humbling experience from our second-term governor, who has been getting things done her way for nearly six years now. But instead of coming out, hat in hand, to apologize for her fai...
The political world was shaken by the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Footage from the event showed Trump clutch his right ear and go down after gunshots rang out. Quickly rising to his feet amid a phalanx of U.S. Secret Service agents, Trump pumped a fist at the crowd as blood seeped from the side of his head. The agents responded swiftly to protect the former president and shot the apparent attacker, a registered Republican, to death. From the outset, both Democrat and Republican leaders denounced the attack....
“This isn’t my father’s Secret Service.” That’s what I immediately tweeted in response to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Little did I know. Every day, drip by drip, we get more proof of the incredible incompetence of the agency that is supposed to prevent the kind of shooting that happened in broad daylight near Pittsburgh. While we wait for the inevitable shocking new revelations about the attempt on Trump’s life, he, his family and millions of other people are saying they believe it was not just luck but an act of God that saved...
I was recently reminded of the Andy Williams song, "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing," which describes some of the splendors of love with these phrases: "It's the April rose that only grows in early spring; love is nature's way of giving a reason to be living; the golden crown that makes a man a king." These words put limits on love that weren't intended from the beginning because they're based on whimsical emotion triggered by physical contact (the kiss and the touch). Although, I like that,...
By now, most New Mexicans are aware of the case against the movie star Alec Baldwin. It was getting plenty of play both here at home and abroad until, poof, it went away. It shouldn’t disappear so easily. There are more than enough questions still left to answer. The case against Baldwin was dismissed Friday after it was discovered that ammunition from the set of “Rust” had been “misfiled” and was not disclosed to the defense. That was enough to compel Santa Fe’s First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to grant a motion to dismiss the...
If you need assistance with your federal benefits, you can speak with staff members for U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan at their district offices. If you have issues with the city or county that need to be resolved, you can reach your representative on the city council and county commission at their offices. Constituent services are a vital part of the job for most elected officials. If, however, your problems are with the state, you can try reaching your state senator and representative, but they don’t have an office and there’s a...
Being far away from home in Iceland and Britain for the last two weeks was perfect timing. Just as President Biden was proving to the whole country that he’s incapable of being president for another four years, or another week, I left the madness of American politics and flew off to Europe for a vacation cruise. As I often have had the pleasure of doing, I traveled with my travel-agent wife Colleen and a bunch of her clients. This time, though, we also took along my two kids, Cameron and Ashley, and their families. We Reagans had an e...
Evangelical Christians might be scandalized to realize how strongly the God of the Bible comes down on the side of festivals, parties, and days off. They know what tithing is, but they’ve never seen the rule saying that a third of the tithe was meant to save up for the feasts. Basically, one facet of tithing was to build up your vacation fund. It gets worse, though. God comes right out and encourages the (moderate) enjoyment of wine and other strong drink during those festivals. Jesus would not be a good Southern Baptist. There were initially t...
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 around that time, I got...
For the past five decades or longer, the state Legislature has been planning for what we will do when the oil runs out. We’ve set up permanent funds to ensure we’ll be able to keep our schools open and provide other essential services, tucking away money that is not needed now. We haven’t planned nearly as well for the depletion of an even more precious resource — water. The state didn’t even have a water plan until 1987, and the one drafted that year led more to regional competition than conservation. Many of the plans submitted to the Inter...
The latest edition of Kids Count provides more devastating news about New Mexico and the condition of our children. The report, created by the Annie E. Casey Foundation (a center/left non-profit that works nationwide) analyzes and ranks all 50 states based on 16 variables relating to childhood outcomes. Surprising absolutely no one, New Mexico was once again at 50th. I analyzed the report and counted seven variables that improved, seven that got worse, and two that stayed the same relative to last year’s report. Based on this it is hard to p...
Ruby, our latest rescue dog, is a hoarder. She has a kennel in the living room, a good-sized wire kennel. We set that up the evening we trapped her. We floofed blankets and I put a couple of my t-shirts in there for her. The first couple of nights, I slept in the living room, just to keep her company. She never made a peep. She loves that kennel. She can come and go as she pleases. She has blankets, toys and a giant tennis ball in there. And if we don’t watch her, she’ll have slippers, pillows, and anything else within teeth-range. She doe...
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 arsenal of misinform...
Several years ago, when I was covering state government from Santa Fe, I attended the annual briefing given to reporters prior to the upcoming wildfire season. After going over the current conditions and expectations for the coming months, the discussion turned to reporters’ safety. We were warned about the unpredictable nature of fire and the importance of following their directions at all times. At the end, they talked about worst-case scenarios. The instructor pulled out what looked like an aluminum-foil blanket and explained that when a...
Going into Joe Biden’s debate with Donald Trump on CNN, the big question was whether Biden could last 90 minutes. We found out he couldn’t last 90 seconds. On Thursday night everyone saw what’s left of the president’s brain and body – and it was not just a disastrous political moment for Joe Biden, it was a sad one. It wasn’t just that his voice was hoarse at the start. It wasn’t because of his confused and muddled answers or his five-second freeze about 13 minutes in, which he ended by uttering the mysterious words “we beat Medicare.” It w...
Last year, my Independence Day article was published in the Quay County Sun on July 5. I lamented in that article the holiday is now commonly called July 4th by those who may not be as concerned about the history and meaning of the holiday as they are about having another day off from work and doing fun things such as fireworks. I recognize that many, including myself, also call it July 4th out of convenience, but the origin still has great meaning to us. Generally, dates move backward one weekday from year to year, but because 2024 is a leap...
“Pastor, isn’t the church full of hypocrites?” That’s a common objection. There are people who don’t go to church at all, and they’ll tell you the reason is because of all the hypocrites. They don’t want to be like them. That’s a noble desire. But is the charge accurate? Is the church full of hypocrites? I’ve certainly known a few. That’s for sure. But they were hypocrites as they walked through the doors. The church didn’t make them that way. One consequence of freely inviting sinners to join you at church is that some of them take you up o...
Stifling heat, brutal winds and massive wildfires. Extreme storms, flooding and still a years-long drought. Welcome to New Mexico’s summer of 2024. Before the summer solstice even arrived, much of our state was experiencing 100-degree temperatures. Then “fire season” blew up with a pair of wildfires in the Ruidoso area, while the 2-year-old Hermit’s Peak burn scar led to flooding in Las Vegas as the Gallinas River overflowed its banks. No corner of the state is immune from what’s to come, which is probably going to be more extreme than in s...
Expectations were sky-high in 2005 when British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson inked a 20-year lease on a new spaceport that had yet to be built in southern New Mexico. The lease called for Virgin Galactic to pay $1 million a year for the first five years, with payments after that dependent on the company’s success in developing an industry for space tourism. There was no reason to believe that the venture would not be a huge success. Virgin Galactic reported that 38,000 people from 126 countries had already registered for the opportunity t...
Who do the liberal ladies of “The View” think they’re kidding? Last week Joy Behar and her ragged troop of pretend political pundits were again acting terrified by the specter of Donald Trump – aka, Adolf Hitler 2.0 – returning to power this fall. Behar, who used to be a comedian, was as serious as an insurrection. She and her Tuesday show’s special guest, none other than MSNBC’s insufferable St. Rachel Maddow, worried that if Trump is elected again he would take revenge on them and take their shows off the air. Or sic the IRS on them. Or wors...
I learned something interesting while reading about Father’s Day, celebrated this past Sunday. While Mother’s Day has always been focused on one’s mother and is, therefore, singular possessive, Father’s Day was originally meant to be a celebration of fatherhood, in general, as most of the world observes it, and was proposed as the plural possessive, Fathers’ Day, but the singular precedent already set by Mother’s Day won out. In the USA, a Father’s Day holiday was initially rejected because Mother’s Day had become immensely commercialized....
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 he could get electe...
Earlier this month, during an event in Philadelphia supporting Donald Trump and the Republican Party, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds made the attention-grabbing assertion that Black families were stronger and more conservative under the Jim Crow era. “You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together,” Donalds said. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — because Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively.” Huh? New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority le...
So I turn on the news …. We’ve got wars raging in Ukraine and Israel. We’ve got nuke-carrying Russian warships visiting Cuba. We’ve got 4,000 illegal immigrants a day crossing our Southern border. We’ve got eight men from Tajikistan with potential ties to ISIS arrested this month in New York, Philadelphia and here in Los Angeles. We’ve got pro-Palestinian and antisemitic protestors making trouble on our college campuses, surrounding the White House, blocking traffic and making plans for disrupting the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19....
