Fool’s Gold: Spin Cycle
It’s been a rough autumn in the news. From ISIS to reports that Tony Bennett is still alive, I for one am as depressed as ever. Other people are always saying, “Newspapers should run more positive stories, like about that nice young boy who picks up roadside garbage for free.” But other people don’t realize that no one—not even that parolee doing his time collecting trash—commits truly selfless deeds worthy of print.
No one, that is, except for me. For just as Rumpelstiltskin spun whole roomfulls of worthless straw into precious gold before it broke the camel’s back, so I want to puree leftover news into easy-to-swallow gold before anyone else chokes on it...
New Mexico, Where Scotusocracy Rules
I love our new Scotusocracy here in beloved New Mexico, though it looks an awful lot like the political system in some other countries, if you ask me.
Bigtime experts say, democracy works thisaway: Two candidates with different views put their cases to the voters to decide which candidate seems best qualified. The voter is the decider, and this causes citizens to have lots of problems trying to choose which of the two to vote for. There are debates and two campaigns, and stuff like that, and it’s all just so very confusing and demanding. Thank God now we have a better way thanks to the Soopreme Court...
Rafting: The Art of the Circle
Here’s how a couple of tight-wad, do-it-yourself river amateurs managed to survive a four-day, 68-mile rafting trip in Labyrinth Canyon on the Green River in Utah.
We bought a cheap little raft online. It weights 60 pounds. It takes about 10 minutes to pump up. It holds four adult passengers. And during previous day trips on the Rio Grande in Colorado, the Rio Chama in New Mexico and several New Mexico lakes, it has proven to be well-nigh indestructible, bouncing effortlessly off boulders, grinding uneventfully over gravel and brushing off the sharpest overhanging branches...
Fool’s Gold: Squashed Dreams
The daylight hours are getting short, and all consumer goods from hot dogs to Honda Accords now come with pumpkin spice flavoring. But not everything this time of year need be tainted by such doom and gloom.
For instance, autumn is also the season when plants die. In their stead, they leave behind delicious plant babies for us humans to eat. Home gardeners today share in a long-running tradition with humankind’s original farmers. The experience is precisely the same, except that, to our pioneering forebears on the “Oregon Trail” computer game, failure meant dysentery and to us, it means eating peanut butter with a spoon...
Augustin Plains Ranch water case crucial to protecting New Mexico’s rural water
On September 22, we asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to order the State Engineer to dismiss a massive speculative water appropriation application from Augustin Plains Ranch, LLC. We live next door to the Ranch, which has spent almost eight years trying to appropriate a massive amount of water in Catron County. This attempted appropriation threatens the towns, ranches and homes of the entire San Augustin Plains region, all of which are wholly dependent on wells and groundwater.
Bruce Frederick of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) filed a petition on our behalf for a writ of mandamus. In the petition, we ask the Court to compel the State Engineer to “promptly” reject the Ranch’s most recent application for 54,000 acre-feet of water per year...
Revelations about New Mexico Poverty
Hey, guess what-- New Mexicans are poor! Isn’t that astounding? I am gobsmacked. The 20.8 percent poverty increase between 2012-13 here has absolutely nothing to do with our governor. You see, poverty is very very complex, and our governor is very very simple. Remember that please.
One issue that keeps us back is small business finance. There’s only one place to get a business loan in New Mexico, and that’s Payday Loanster. Payday Loanster is owned by some good Arizona friends of the governor. The nice folks there at the local Loanster office will help you learn what signing in blood is all about...
Ensuring that Sportsmen Continue to Have Access to America’s Public Lands
I have always loved the outdoors, the peace and tranquility from connecting with nature is a refuge from the hustle and bustle of daily life. But lately, the politics in Washington, D.C., has crept in and disturbed those quiet moments. You see, the program that has helped to protect habitat and secure access for sportsmen is expiring soon – and Congress hasn’t yet taken action to renew it – threatening my way of life.
For 50 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has protected local and national parks, working forests, historic landmarks, and wildlife refuges. It has been called one of the country's most important conservation programs, preserving America's cultural and natural heritage...
Fool’s Gold: Peanuts and Cracker Jills
Superstitions are, by definition, bunk. Knocking on wood, crossing fingers, pinching a black cat over your shoulder after spilling salt on a broken mirror: any rational person with a sound understanding of causality will disregard these practices. Baseball traditions, on the other hand, are universally sacrosanct and supported by hard science.
There is no room for mumbo-jumbo voodoo magic in baseball, which is driven by statistics—what old-school managers refer to as their “gut instincts.” If an aspect of the game cannot be tracked in tiny rows of numbers on the back of a bubblegum card, it is removed from the rulebook and offered to another, more interpretive sport, such as figure skating or chess...
Assaulting Women
“He tried to fork me to death,” the trembling woman said as we stood in her living room in Adams County, Colorado. I was the Public Defender appointed to represent her husband in this wife beating case. My wife, Julie came with me to help with this interview.
Julie and I were puzzled as to what “fork me to death” meant until this woman rolled up her sleeve and showed us a series of tiny marks – four black and blue dots – where her husband had repeatedly jabbed her with a fork. Then she took Julie into her bedroom, removed her clothing and showed Julie that her whole body was completely covered with these marks. The husband had jabbed her hard enough to cause pain and leave the black and blue marks but not enough to break her skin...
Mercury Poetry: Central and San Mateo
A group of
strangers waits
for the bus, all
looking down the
street at the same
moment for
something that
will carry them
into the future,
and one of them
takes his shirt
off, as if to say:
this is my city