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Columns

  • Geopolitics rears up in rare earths

    The world journeys into the Green Age and renews  old themes. Chapters of political history grow thick with the value that  accrues from whatever.
    So it was and ever shall  be, for better and worse. Biblical enterprises valued gold, frankincense and  myrrh. Explorers in the Age of Discovery sought gold and silver fit for royal  heads and sought trade routes to faraway lands of spices and silk.  

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  • Listen to the silence

    What one does is important, but what one says can be just as important.  
    In fact, we even have laws stipulating what can or cannot be said.
    You can’t launch a volley of vulgarity in a public restaurant. You can’t yell “Fire!” in a building just for fun. You can’t joke about having a gun in an airport.
    Oddly enough though, there’s no law against lying.

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  • Congressional race tightens

    Could there be a huge upset in the 3rd Congressional District this year? The little bit of polling that has been done makes the race appear to be one of the closest of the state’s major contests.
    The Albuquerque Journal has polled the races for governor and the 1st and 2nd congressional districts twice already this fall but has omitted polling the 3rd Congressional District, represented by Democrat Rep. Ben Ray Lujan.

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  • Reforming state government

    Asked last week who she supported for governor, a small businesswoman in Eagle Nest responded, “I hate them both! Get off the TV and let me watch my shows!”
    By now, more than a few people feel that way.
    We don’t care where Susana Martinez grew up. We don’t care about Diane Denish’s Christmas cards. Be assured that Martinez can’t give our water to Texas, even if she wanted to, and that the conflict-of-interest story about Denish’s husband is fiction.

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  • Considering amendments and bonds is direct vote on issues

    This year, New Mexicans have the opportunity to vote on five constitutional amendments and four bond issues in addition to all the state and local candidates on the ballot.
    You may feel it a bother to read the small print on the reverse side of the ballot but this is the one part of state government in which citizens actually get a direct vote on issues facing the state.
    The rest of the ballot is just voting on the people who will make all the decisions for us.

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  • Its getting scary out there

    It’s that time of year again.  The days are shorter and nights are cooler.  The aspens are slowly turning golden and Aquarius is rising in the seventh house (well actually, it’s rising in the south).  Store aisles are filled with cheap waxy candies and carved pumpkins glow on windowsills.  As October’s end creeps ever closer like a mutant troll, we see more and more instances of scary things that go bump in the night (and whack in the day).

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  • Keep it within the fence posts

    Unlike Congress, the New Mexico Legislature is not teetering on the brink of a Republican coup this year. Democrats have firm control  of both houses.
    Democratic control of the Senate is assured for next year because no Senate terms expire this year. Senators like it that way. All the statewide offices are up for election this year. So senators can take a free shot at them without having to relinquish their Senate seats.

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  • 'Nays' defeat the 'Ayes'

    “I never vote for anyone,” W. C. Fields supposedly once snorted. “I always vote against.”
    Judging from comments I’ve been hearing lately, whole gobs of prospective voters are approaching their polling places this year with much the same mindset.
    Another whole batch of prospective voters reportedly has no intention whatsoever of approaching their voting places this year.

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  • Process vs. punishment

    Corruption has two costs — the loss itself and the clean-up.
    And the latter isn’t small potatoes, as State Investment Officer Steve Moise made clear during a talk last week at UNM’s Anderson School of Business. Moise (pronounced mo-EESE) became the Marshal Dillon of state investment when his predecessor, Gary Bland, left in a tailwind of allegations.

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  • Are you ready for some voting?

                Early Voting begins in New Mexico on Oct. 16. Are you ready?

                Perhaps you have reached a firm decision on your choices for governor and your district’s representative to Congress. Good. How about the rest of the ballot? 

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