Columns

All you people who work from home, listen up. Somebody thinks you’re important.
The governor has suggested reducing or eliminating the gross receipts tax on small businesses with a gross receipts tax liability of less than $200 a month – about half of the 80,000 businesses in the state.
One of those businesses is mine. Wow! I was as happy to hear about a tax break as I was  to learn there are 40,000 of us out here.
Who are we? We’re writers, consultants, bookkeepers, caterers, travel agents, website designers – you name it – and we work from home to minimize overhead.
Critics have pointed out that if the governor’s goal is to create jobs, this slice of the private sector is least likely to do it.

Expect fireworks from the 2012 Legislature even though everyone promises to be nicer.
The thaw in relations began when Republicans, Democrats and Gov. Susana Martinez reached some agreements late in the redistricting process.
Short 30-day legislative sessions were created for the purpose of building the following fiscal year’s budget.
The governor and Republican lawmakers would like to see tax breaks for businesses and Democrats want to reinstate some program cuts.
Now that the word — compromise — seems to be less onerous, a few tax cuts and a few increases in previously cut programs may be on the horizon.

Little kids are amenable to learning new habits – generally much more so than those of us who are set in our ways because this isn’t our first rodeo. That’s why it’s sometimes more effective to teach children health science information rather than to do outreach aimed directly at their parents.
 That’s part of the background to the Global Soap Project. It’s a project that rests on some simple science long ago worked out by biologists and medical researchers.
The basic fact is that many types of infections are spread through contaminated water and dirty hands. Microbes can flourish in such spots, particularly sometimes in places like crowded refugee camps or in poor nations.

It’s human nature for judicious restraint to sometimes be supplanted by the desire to “take action.”
Pursuit of unrealistic desires sometimes leads us to a precipice where we are finally forced to decide whether to make a potentially fatal leap or turn back.
Our community finds itself at just such a precipice with the impending decision about the Trinity Place strip mall development.
When we began our quest back in 2005, we were searching for a formula that would significantly diversify our retail sector, provide a suite of new and exciting shopping opportunities, greatly enhance gross receipts tax revenue, provide a community gathering place, and ensure a large, constant revenue stream for our schools.