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A few years ago I was scammed by callers claiming to offer a great deal on my satellite TV service. I felt bad about losing the money, but felt worse about being duped.
It’s a human reaction. All of us like to think we’re too savvy to be taken in, and it stings the pride to admit it when we’re not. There are no free lunches. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. Everybody has to pitch in and carry their weight. These aphorisms from my youth, passed on by my parents and others from their generation who survived the Great Depression during their childhood, pop into my mind each time I hear about a new government plan to give people free money.
When the New Mexico Legislature passed SB 94 earlier this year, allowing college athletes to profit from the use of their name, image or likeness, some lawmakers feared we were picking a fight with the mighty NCAA. If that was the case, the masters of collegiate sports just cried uncle. The NCAA changed its rules last week, just as new laws here and in other states were taking effect. College athletes will now be able to hire agents, sign endorsement deals, make commercials, leverage their presence on social media and get paid for promotional appearances, autograph-signing sessions and coaching.
Frank and I were home after our first year of college, and Bruce had just graduated from high school in the summer of 1977 when we decided it would be safe to smoke pot in an abandoned field off a quiet road. We were in an abandoned field because none of us had a home of our own at the time. We were all staying with our parents for the summer. Several years ago, a Sunland Park City Council member got caught driving around town getting high with his buddies. And I wondered, doesn’t that man have a living room? The abandoned field wasn’t safe. The police officers dumped our baggie into the wind, took down information from our IDs, gave us a stern talking to and ended by threatening that they would, “talk to their shift commander about what to do next.” There was no next.
I wish Couy Griffin would do us all a favor the next time he goes on national television and tells them he's from Texas. Griffin was one of a handful of Jan. 6 insurrections featured Sunday night on a two-hour CNN special about the riot that day at the U.S. Capital. He was later arrested by FBI agents on federal charges of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.
I rise today in support of leakers.
Here’s to Daniel Ellsberg, a former Marine who was working as a private-sector military analyst in 1971 when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret study on U.S. activities in Vietnam dating back to the Truman administration. It revealed a decades-long history of lies to the American public by both military and civilian leaders, including their denials at the time of bombing raids beyond Vietnam’s borders. Thanks to solid investigative reporting by Searchlight New Mexico, the state Children Youth and Families Department is no longer using a secure messaging system designed to circumvent open records laws by automatically deleting records before a request can be made.
Former Gov. Bill Richardson loved to be around Hollywood stars, and would include them in his press conferences whenever possible. And so, when it came time to announce the deal between the state and Virgin Galactic that would lead to the construction of Spaceport America, the most famous person at the press conference was not the governor or Richard Branson, the publicity-loving owner of Virgin Galactic.
I graduated from both high school and college thinking that the Underground Railroad was an actual train, with Harriet Tubman at the controls. When I read last week about the controversy regarding plans by the Las Cruces school district to develop a more equitable curriculum, I thought back to my school days and how shallow and misleading my education was as to the contributions made by those who did not sail over willingly from Europe, and their descendants.
Anybody who wants the COVID-19 vaccine can now walk into any Walmart in the country without an appointment, an insurance card or a dime in their pocket, and get a free shot. In a very short period of time, the only people in the United States not vaccinated will be those who refuse to take the vaccine. That completely changes the equation on mandatory face mask laws.
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