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Today's Opinions

  • In remembrance

    Sixty-nine years ago, the SS Paul Hamilton — carrying 7,000 tons of explosives — was torpedoed, resulting in the loss of the ship and all 580 men aboard. 
    The ship left Hampton Roads, Virginia, on April 2, 1944, and was headed with munitions and fresh troops to the theater of operations in North Africa.
    Near sunset, on April 20, the Hamilton was attacked by German Ju 88 bombers, 30 miles off the Coast of Cape Bengut, Algiers, in the Mediterranean Sea. 
    The attacking aircraft launched its torpedo less than 150 feet from the Hamilton.
    Immediately after the torpedo hit, a violent explosion threw debris and black smoke high in the air, and when the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the ship. 
    During the attack on that convoy, the USS Lansdale also was sunk, with the loss of its
    47 crew members.
    In a Veterans Today article, Jim W. Dean noted that, “details [surrounding the Hamilton] were classified for 50 years ... only two bodies were recovered and are buried at the Allied cemetery in Algiers.
    They were identified through fingerprints, so those two families had some closure.”

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  • Caterer's agility saved evening

    On Friday night, the Blue Window Bistro suffered a plumbing disaster resulting
    in flooding.  
    This could also have been a disaster for the Los Alamos Concert Association as we had reserved the restaurant for a post-concert dinner for
    60 people following the
    performance of Amsterdam’s Calefax Reed Quintet Sunday evening.
    Instead, Melissa Paternoster and her wonderful staff flew into action and catered the dinner at the Betty Ehart Senior Center.
    Working in an unfamiliar kitchen, these great people presented us with splendid hors d’oeuvres and tableside service featuring salad, four entree choices from their regular menu and dessert.
    How they managed to do this on such short notice seems nothing short of miraculous.  
    Los Alamos is very fortunate to have this young and enthusiastic restaurateur in our midst.  
    Her community spirit is an inspiration.

    Ann McLaughlin
    artistic director
    Los Alamos Concert
    Association
     

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  • Workers' Comp. according to law

    The following is a real message (slightly edited, name changed) that I sent to a friend who owns an insurance agency:

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  • How financially literate are you?

    I’m not sure whether it was intentional or merely a coincidence that several years ago Congress proclaimed April to be Financial Literacy Month.
    April is also the month when millions of Americans grimly write a check to the IRS and resolve to do a better job managing their money; and when millions of others squander their tax refund without realizing why receiving overly large refunds isn’t sound financial management.
    In recognition of 2013’s Financial Literacy Month, the National Foundation of Credit Counseling just released the results of its seventh annual Consumer Financial Literacy Survey, which tracks Americans’ attitudes and behaviors related to personal finance.
    NFCC spokesperson Gail Cunningham said, “On a positive note, by certain measures a large percentage of Americans do feel they’re getting a better handle on controlling their finances,” she said. “On the downside, however, many people give themselves poor grades on their knowledge of personal finance, and worry that they’re not saving enough for a rainy day — or for retirement.”
    Here are some of the survey’s key findings:
    • Forty percent of adults have a budget and closely track their spending. In other words, 60 percent don’t use a budget.

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  • Forest Service needs reform

    Driving to Ruidoso after the Little Bear Fire last year, we passed a meadow brimming with hay bales about to become mulch on burn-scarred land.
    Up north, Santa Clara Pueblo officials figure it will take $100 million and 100 years to restore Santa Clara Canyon after fire devastated half the watershed.
    The average westerner is relinquishing the notion of our forests as a pristine resource and getting used to the reality of an overgrown, parched and buggy tinder box, dangerous as a warehouse full of old dynamite.
    We don’t lack for solutions. In fact, there are so many loud voices, that’s part of the problem.
    Another is that policy makers don’t recognize that the real cost of these fires goes beyond firefighting.
    Those are two points made by the nonpartisan, nonprofit National Institute for the Elimination of Catastrophic Wildfire.
    Its organizers and supporters are retired forestry professionals and firefighters.
    In a nutshell, the institute sees a federal Forest Service that’s paralyzed by a dense patchwork of conflicting laws, decisions made by political appointees with no experience on the ground, poor morale, under-staffing and budget cuts. The fires grow bigger, and the funding grows smaller.

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  • Lotspeich: Three-time owner of Copper Flat

    George Lotspeich may be the only New Mexican to make the cover of “Inc.” magazine. The occasion was July 1981. Lotspeich was CEO of Cobb Resources, a uranium company.
    “Inc.’s” annual list of the fastest growing small pubic companies then tallied the top 100. Cobb Resources was number one with 366,567 percent five-year growth—from $2,993 in 1976 to $11 million in 1980. Though interesting 32 years later, the Inc. list and Lotspeich’s cover appearance are not the concern here.
    Lotspeich has always been in involved in various things—gold and manganese starting in the 1950s, oil, copper, uranium. The Copper Flat property, along N.M. 152, west of I-25, may be the most various in that Cobb owned the property three times and sold it to developers. Twice he got it back. He hopes now to be done. “It’s got a better chance now than it has in a long time,” said. That chance comes from Themac Resources Group Limited of Vancouver, B.C. (http://themacresourcesgroup.com), and Themac’s subsidiary, New Mexico Copper Corp. of Albuquerque.

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  • Letters to the editor 4-7-13: Tuesday is Equal Pay Day

     Tuesday is Equal Pay Day. It marks how far into the year a woman must work to earn as much as a man earned in the previous year. The day is an unhappy marker of how far we have to go before we close the gender wage gap. This gap hasn’t budged in nearly a decade, leaving women and their families to suffer the effects of lost wages.

    Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which requires employers to give women and men equal pay for equal work. At that time women were paid 59¢ for every dollar men were paid. Today that figure is 77¢. Although we’ve made significant strides since 1963, pay parity continues to elude us.

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  • Bliss on tap

    “Ignorance is bliss,” they say. Well, if this is really true, we have a lot of happy people in this world.
     When using a credit card at a grocery store last month, the clerk handed it back and said she couldn’t accept it because it wasn’t signed. That was very responsible on her part. Cards are signed to provide security.
     So I took out a pen and signed the card. Then she accepted it and ran it through for the purchase.
    Ah yes, I do love security procedures.
    A few weeks ago, we celebrated Pi Day. I was telling someone about how one can estimate pi by tossing rods across a set of parallel lines and counting the percentage of times they cross the lines. I then mentioned how the Otowi bookstore did this last year by having children toss hot dogs across a grid.
    The man asked me, “So, is that how they compute pi?”
    Uh, yeah. Yes, that’s right. They do it with hot dogs. Lots of hot dogs.
    Like I said. A lot of very happy people out there.
    Rudolph Zallinger’s classic picture of the ascent of man shows an early primate walking, standing more and more erect, his head lifting ever higher toward the heavens. My theory is that as man’s head was elevated, the increased altitude reduced the oxygen level to the brain.

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