Columns

Did you know New Mexico once hosted a heavyweight championship fight? It was in Las Vegas, N.M. The colorful fight fell off my radar screen during our state’s centennial last year. But then-heavyweight champ Jack Johnson still is in the news so let’s talk about him now.
The fight was on July 4, 1912, just short of six months after New Mexico finally became a state on January 6. It was difficult for Johnson to find a fighting venue because he was the first black heavyweight champion. Most states wouldn’t allow an interracial fight. Most of his fights were held in Mexico, some in Canada and Europe and one in Australia.
The fight was known for being stopped in the ninth round by the local sheriff because Johnson’s opponent, fireman Jim Flynn, was fighting extremely dirty and the referee couldn’t handle the situation.
Johnson made it even tougher on himself because of his preference for white women. He had three wives, all white and many white girlfriends. His detractors constantly looked for a Great White Hope to take the championship away from Johnson.

Maybe you’re a college student looking to rent your first apartment, or a downsizing homeowner reentering the rental market for the first time in decades. Whatever your situation, there are many precautions you should take before renting any property. The last thing you want is to be saddled with a 12-month lease you can’t afford or to be stuck in a neighborhood you’ve come to detest.
As one who’s been there, let me share a few tips for renting a home:
Before you even start looking, know how much you can afford to spend. Housing is the biggest monthly expense for most people, so if you miscalculate what rent is affordable, your budget will suffer from the get-go.
Besides rent, don’t forget such additional expenses as a security deposit, utilities, cable/satellite, Internet access, renters insurance, parking and laundry facilities and one-time, move-in expenses like window treatments, appliances, or rugs.
Scope out the neighborhood and determine how safe you feel walking around, especially if you’ll be parking on the street.
Come back to see if the neighborhood’s character changes at night, or on the weekend.
Also, note the proximity to parks, schools, grocery stores, public transportation and busy commuter routes.
Thoroughly inspect each potential rental:

Are biblical prophesies about the end of the world coming to pass or will global warming predictions beat them to it? We’ve been hearing both in the wake of recent natural disasters.
But it may not be as bad as it seems. Some weather watchers blame the hysteria on the Weather Channel and various weather Web sites pumping up minor disturbances with dire predictions. Last year, the Weather Channel began giving names to snowstorms.
Sometimes the storms barely materialized. Remember back around the time Congress was about to vote on sequestration, a major storm was predicted for Washington D.C.? It was termed Snowquestration. Jim Cantore, the Weather Channel’s disaster master was sent to town. His biggest chore was not hanging on to light poles to keep from blowing away. It was trying to explain why only a half-inch of snow fell.
We see the same situation on Albuquerque television. We wake up, flip on the TV and see some cub reporter stationed at Sedillo Hill in Tijeras Canyon, east of Albuquerque, waiting for the first snowflake to fall.
Occasionally, one of them will make a wry comment about being sent out to cover a non-event at an ungodly hour. They are being honest, but it probably won’t grease their way to an anchor position in the studio.

Since the December shooting of 20 first graders and 6 teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., more states have enacted legislation weakening their gun control laws than have strengthened them.
New Mexico has neither weakened its gun laws nor strengthened them.
This, even though a 2012 overall state ranking of gun laws by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence found New Mexico to be one of 10 states with the nation’s weakest gun laws. And according to a report released earlier this month by the Center for American Progress, it also ranks among the 10 states with the worst rates of gun violence in America.
One and one still makes two, it seems.
At the 2013 session of the legislature, attempts were made in the Senate to beef up gun controls in New Mexico, perhaps the toughest proposal being an outright ban on the kind of assault-style weapons used to massacre those youngsters at Sandy Hook, and to kill 12 moviegoers and injure 58 others at a theater in Aurora, Colo., last July. The proposal also would have banned cartridges in excess of 10 rounds.
Both of those measures died in a Senate committee.
In the state House of Representatives, however, efforts to enhance gun safety in New Mexico fared considerably better with the passage of House Bill 77.