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Today's Opinions

  • Horse over-population or slaughter?

     

    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.  

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  • Horse over-population or slaughter?

     

    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.  

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  • Is New Mexico the most corrupt state?

     

    Has anyone ever told you New Mexico is the most corrupt state in the nation? I’ve heard it for years, including from an FBI agent, who investigated our financial corruption mess. 

    Since I was a kid, I remember hearing that some powerful New Mexican, maybe Dennis Chavez, as saying that if you want to get a degree in political corruption, go to Chicago. If you want to get a Master’s Degree, go to Louisiana. But if you want a doctorate, go to New Mexico. 

    If you ask people from the East Coast, they’ll probably tell you that New York and New Jersey are the most corrupt states. It just depends on where you’re from. 

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  • Senators vote for marketplace fairness

    In a rare bipartisan moment, something significant happened last week in the United States Senate and New Mexico’s two senators, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, helped to make it happen by voting to end the chaos and misunderstanding surrounding the sales tax and online purchases.
    And good for them and the 67 other senators who joined in bipartisan passage of the Marketplace Fairness Act.
    One of the major fictions about commerce today is that Internet sales are immune from what we here in New Mexico call the gross-receipts tax, but is more commonly known elsewhere as the sales tax.
    Yet, while the great bulk of online sales do go tax free, so to speak, others are in fact legally subject to the sales tax in New Mexico and other states with such a tax.
    By law, any retailer with an outlet, store or office in a state where a consumer makes an online purchase is required to collect whatever rate the sales tax is levied. So if you live in New Mexico and purchase a coat from Eddie Bauer, you are obligated to pay the 5.125 to 8.6875 percent (depending on location) gross-receipts tax levied on that sale.
    Why? Because Eddie Bauer has an outlet in New Mexico.

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  • Tourism pros love N.M. true campaign

    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.

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  • CalPERS rate increases addressed

    Newspaper reports about an 85 percent hike in the cost of long term care insurance offered to California State employees tells only part of the story according to Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance.
    Slome noted that letters mailed to CalPERS policyholders offer seven options. “The letters clearly explain that options include accepting the premium increase and keeping current coverage to reducing options such as the built-in inflation protection and even reducing the premium paid,” Slome notes. “Isn’t it funny how that never gets mentioned in the news coverage.”
    “No one likes paying more,” Slome adds. “But in many cases these polices were purchased 15 years ago and the economic world has certainly changed over the past few years; not to mention that many of these folks are beneficiaries of increasing State-provided pensions.” Long-term care insurance policies offering five percent compounded growth options have been the ones most impacted by rate increases.

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  • Piñon luncheon a success

    May 6-10 was Teacher Appreciation week, and I again had the privilege of organizing Piñon Elementary’s Teacher and Staff Appreciation Luncheon.
    This reminded me how many people at Piñon work together to provide a good educational experience for the children.
    This includes teachers of preschool through sixth grade, special education, gifted and talented education, English language learners, art, library, Physical Education, music/band and orchestra; instructional assistants; principal; secretary; clerk; custodial and maintenance workers; counselor; nurses; psychologist; social worker; speech language pathologists; physical and occupational therapists and technology specialists.
    Thank you to all of you for all that you do for our children.
    Thank you, CB Fox and CB Fox’s Pajarito Greenhouse in Pajarito Acres, for again supporting Piñon Elementary’s teachers and staff by helping provide the beautiful blooming pansy plants for the staff gifts by obtaining the pansies, providing the individual pots and soil for the plants, transplanting and caring for the plants until the luncheon and even delivering the plants to us.

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  • Richardson busy, not out of trouble

    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.

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