Greg Smith talks with Carlos Medina, Jr., a Chicago firefighter, 40-year film industry veteran, and part-time Las Cruces resident, about his debut memoir Across the Lawn. The title carries more meaning than it first lets on: it refers to the family landscaping business, to the border his father crossed at 17 with $42 in his pocket, and to the street where Carlos first met the woman who became his wife. Medina traces a life that moved from Chicago to a small town in Mexico and back and reflects on the string of right-place, right-time moments that led him to Subway franchises, movie sets, and a fire department application line. The conversation touches on what drew him to Las Cruces, his adoption of his youngest daughter, and the message that runs through the book: your starting line doesn't dictate your finish line.
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Congratulations to New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, who was able to win a small slice of justice for children in our state who have been victimized by social media.
Last week, a jury in Santa Fe found that Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) violated state law by misleading consumers about their safety and allowing children to be sexually exploited. Today's guest Richard Coltharp has a diverse, lengthy, and in-depth history with journalism. He currently teaches journalism at New Mexico State University.
He starts with defining the distinctions between "Media" and "Journalism", and the need for more teaching of logic and critical thinking. He shares some of his direct experience with the devastating decline of local journalism and the rise of corporate ownership of local newspapers. He also touches on the rise of a relatively new model for local news organizations - non-profit news "New Mexico Local News Fund". He comments on the rapidly evolving influence of Artificial Intelligence on media, journalism, and education in the classroom. Upon asking his journalism students what we need to be doing these days, they answered "Talk to your neighbors". That's reassuring. As a non-profit community radio station, we at KTAL do just that. We talk to our neighbors. This week, we aired a 2023 interview from our archive. Las Cruces mountaineer, Ron Lautenbach, who climbed Mount Everest and Denali. With humor and insight, he conveys his penchant for adventure and intensity, his reverence for nature and faith in a higher power, his love and respect for people, and hard-won wisdom acquired from taking measured risks that include possible death as part of the equation.
You can hear the interview here:  Hosts Mike O'Larey and Brian Cox sit down with NMSU Basketball Hall of Famer and longtime Las Cruces High School boys basketball coach William Benjamin for a conversation about one of the most storied careers in local sports. Benjamin recalls his four years as an Aggie point guard under coach Neil McCarthy — four straight postseason appearances, a signature upset of seventh-ranked UNLV at a rocking Pan American Center, and a Sweet 16 run that ended against a UCLA team loaded with future NBA players. He also shares the story of McCarthy personally paying his tuition to help him finish his degree after his playing days ended. The conversation turns to his 15-plus years coaching the Bulldawgs, including five state championship game appearances, titles in his fourth year and again in 2020.
Meghann O'Leary and Vesper Moore of Kiva Centers joined Walt Rubel and Jamie Bronstein to discuss Soteria Las Cruces, a new community-based residential alternative to psychiatric hospitalization opening in Las Cruces. Funded through HB 87 and housed in a five-bedroom home on Twilight Ridgeway, Soteria accepts up to five guests at a time who are experiencing psychosis or altered states, offering a home-like environment staffed primarily by certified peer support workers — people with their own lived experience of mental health crisis. O'Leary and Moore described the model's emphasis on self-determination, relationship-building, and early intervention, noting that research shows an 84% improved wellness rate for people experiencing early psychosis when relationship-based support is provided. They also addressed the question of medication, explaining that Soteria supports guests' autonomy in working with psychiatrists to adjust or taper medications rather than requiring compliance. At roughly $100 per day compared to thousands for inpatient hospitalization, both guests argued the model is not only more effective but more sustainable and replicable.
Dylan McDonald of the NMSU Library and Jessica Onsurez, news director for the Las Cruces Sun-News, joined Walt Rubel and Jamie Bronstein to preview this year's Sunshine Week panel at NMSU, titled When Juvie Fails: Problems with New Mexico's Legal Code and Practice. McDonald explained that the annual event, co-hosted by the library for over a decade, uses New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act and the Open Meetings Act as a lens for examining how government transparency works in practice. This year's panel focuses on juvenile crime in the wake of the Young Park shooting, with participants including Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Storey, former state representative Bill McCamley, and an NMSU criminal justice professor.
Walt Rubel and Jamie Bronstein opened the show with a discussion of two major local stories — the city and county's legal action against LifePoint Health over alleged breaches of its contract to operate Memorial Medical Center, including failures to serve indigent patients and reinvest in the physical plant, and New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez's successful $375 million lawsuit against Meta over harm to children. The conversation then turned to national issues, including the ongoing U.S. military involvement in Iran, the lack of a clear endgame, and the controversy over renaming Cesar Chavez Elementary School and what it means to contextualize complicated historical figures.
Greg Smith talks with consultant Nancy Bruner about what separates genuine leadership from the mere holding of a title. Bruner's core argument is that leadership has nothing to do with position and everything to do with behavior: showing up, being fully present, asking great questions rather than claiming to have all the answers. The conversation ranges from the collaborative nature of creative work to the slow and still-unfinished evolution of who gets to lead, with Bruner drawing on her own experience as a woman navigating predominantly male workplaces to argue that the most important thing leaders can do right now is be the example — intentional, accountable, and willing to do difficult things without resorting to top-down pressure.
It’s my hope that by the time this column is printed, Democrats in Congress will have ended the government shutdown and federal workers will be getting paid again.
Democrats aren’t wrong about the need to dramatically reform ICE, just like they weren’t wrong about the need to prevent health care costs from skyrocketing. But they are foolish in thinking a government shutdown will somehow change the equation. |
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