Columns

 I remember it like it was yesterday: 9 p.m., Dec. 31, 1999. The world, according to people who knew, would soon end. All of civilization was run by computers, and when 1999 rolled over and became 2000 we would be launched back into the Stone Age.  
Or at least the Eisenhower years.
I checked our stockpiled food and water, gathered the family together, built a fire, brought out our most cherished family game, and waited. Ever vigilant.  
Finally, I dozed off. My son poked my ribs, “Wake up.”

In the old days, a friend reminisced long ago, we had to move after every election.
State office buildings were rented, she explained. After the election the new governor could reward political supporters with leases.
Mediocre facilities, scattered all over the place, imperfectly matched to the needs of their occupants or the public. Short leases.
With all the talk of reorganization and consolidation, don’t we wish those good old days were back again. Many of New Mexico’s state institutions are now, literally, set in concrete.

The current Age of Anger feeds on daily news that reports and receives public gripes.
Mainstream news is a prime venue for bouts between camps of adversaries, called “strategists.”  
The most public value of the medium, apart from entertaining joy rides or rant fodder, depends on whether its role is understood. What is news and how does it fit in?  
To explore news, I make up a typical, but imagined, news event. I do it to disrupt political habits.  

I was my mother’s third child and her third son.  I never did understand why parents care so much about the gender of their newborns, but my mother sure did and the entire hospital wing knew it.  
As the story was told to me, she literally threw a tantrum, throwing things and crying that she had wanted a girl. The nurses even put a pink bracelet on me in an attempt to calm her down.