Today's Opinions

Valley Meat Company in Roswell has become the focal point for arguments over horse over-population in the same way ants become the focal points of bored boys with magnifying glasses. There’s more heat than light.

In the back-and-forth chatter, I’m hearing a lot of arguments that don’t hold water. And, even if the determined Rick De Los Santos manages to open his plant, it doesn’t solve all of our horse problems. 

The most ironic argument against a slaughterhouse for unwanted horses is that the noble animal is a western icon, a star in the Taming of the West. Somebody needs to read more history. To pioneers, the army and Indian tribes, horses were transportation. When a horse was used up, it was eaten: Meat’s meat.  

Thank God for Texans and their money.
Texans help explain the 3.3 percent growth of leisure and hospitality wage jobs over the past year, say hospitality executives.
The situation offers a big, “nnaahhh, so there!” to those who whined about the state Tourism Department choosing an ad agency based in (gasp!) Austin. As in Texas.
Around Taos, Texans are making life economically better, but things have not returned to the peak of 2007.
Silver City gets fewer Californians than in the past, though Alaskans come. Activity is generally fairly good. Bus tours and RV owners are coming back. Along the Turquoise Trail drive north from I-40 to Santa Fe, business is pretty good. New York is one source of visitors.
These impressions come from conversations at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism, held in Albuquerque in early May.
Conference sponsors ranged from the corporately huge to the sort of very small business that seldom generates a headline. ConocoPhillips was the big guy.
A couple of years ago the company decided it should talk to the people around it. Given that tourism people talk to many others, and given that ConocoPhillips is the state’s leading oil and gas producer, talking to tourism people seemed obvious.

As long as we have been talking about Gov. Susana Martinez and former Gov. Garry Carruthers, we don’t want former Gov. Bill Richardson to feel left out.
While our current governor darts around the nation and world, our immediate past governor, Bill Richardson is doing much the same. He is serving on numerous boards, some of which he heads. He is speaking at prestigious universities.
He is writing a book, “How to Sweet Talk a Shark.” It tells of his experiences successfully negotiating with dictators.
Richardson said the secrets are to connect with them personally. Let them vent about how badly the United States has treated them. Find out what they really need, not what they say they need. And use humor.
Negotiating with dictators is dangerous business. Richardson was basically by himself with no protection other than his own wits. He always had quiet approval of the presidents he served and he was a U.S. official.
But it all was taking place on a back channel. Richardson was good at it and has lived to tell the story. The book comes out this fall, but he already is being interviewed on television and in newspapers.