Larry Hagman - A Las Cruces Appreciation

Larry Hagman, who died Friday, arrived in Las Cruces in 1970 to make a Hollywood movie.

When he showed up on the set and spotted the red sports car that would be used a lot in the film, he immediately suggested we go for a ride around the county in it. A lowly assistant to the director, I worried that we didn’t have permission. But he was one of the film’s stars.

We had a great ride. And toward the end, when he learned that it was my girl friend’s birthday, he gave me a joint for later. Recreational use of marijuana was a bigger illegality then than now, so I appreciated the gesture.

The film, spawned by an uneasy marriage between sexploitation studio and a serious and talented director named Ted Flicker, the movie made little money and was soon forgotten.

At the time, though, it featured two of the era’s biggest TV stars, each playing a character best-known for viciousness, greed, and dishonesty: Hagman, then known for "I Dream of Jeannie" but soon to be mega-famous as J.R. Ewing on "Dallas," played the conservative president of a southwestern university, and Joan Collins, later star of "Dynasty," played his wife.

(In the film, young man angry at Hagman because of a lost scholarship gets back at him by seducing his daughter, wife, and mistress. Initially called "High in the Cellar," the film’s name got changed by the studio first to "Up in the Cellar," to avoid such a brash reference to drugs, and later to "Three in the Cellar," to take advantage of the greater success of an earlier but utterly forgettable film by the studio, "Three in the Attic.")

The Hollywood cast and crew kept Las Cruces amused for a month or so; And I got to know and enjoy Larry Hagman and his wife Mai.

Larry was truly funny; and although he often played somewhat nasty right-wing figures, he was about as liberal, tolerant, and generally relaxed as anyone could be. The first time I saw him, he was telling a story about someone accusing him of being gay, and the punch-line was him telling the would-be gay-basher, "Well, if you are and you think I am, then come and give me a big kiss. Otherwise, it’s none of your business."

I’ve seen a few other stars on location. Many have their own trailer, and hide there from everyone else except when needed on the set. Larry and Mai had a trailer – or, more precisely, a Volkswagen bus or Dodge van with a great sound system – but he was always out throwing frisbees with NMSU students.

The van sticks in my mind because of the many evenings on which we rolled out to La Posta in it, smoking Larry’s good dope. The food there never tasted so good. Too, in those days there was still a pretty strong distaste among most folks for dope-smoking young rebels; and as one of those, I enjoyed the irony of sitting around a big table in the restaurant, stoned out of my mind, while various conventional citizens came up and introduced themselves to the famous actor, who managed to act suitably un-stoned.

[Disclaimer: I’m not suggesting anyone smoke marijuana, particularly anyone young, although certainly the stuff should be legalized before Prohibition helps bankrupt us and further enriches the drug cartels. Forget working for the Chinese, we’ll be working for the drug cartels in a decade or two.]

Larry was a talented actor and a wonderfully candid and funny man. I not only enjoyed our talks, but I appreciated his "un-Hollywood" nature. Mai, who was a wonderful woman, was as non-Hollywood-Glamour as anyone could be. If Larry had a big ego, I never saw it. He was just a regular guy.

Ironically, while he was as unlike his character as could be, Joan Collins – from my more limited contact with her – seemed every bit as bitchy as her on-screen character. I remember driving her to the El Paso Airport, in a Winnebagos we had rented for the shoot, listening to a steady stream of complaints about the director (whom I liked and respected), the conditions, and other members of the cast.

But Hagman was a delight, to everyone he met or worked with here.

                                                       -30-
[The foregoing appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News today, Sunday, 2 December. ]

What I probably didn't manage to say clearly enough was that Larry Hagman, aside from being the consummate professional, was just a wonderfully warm, fun, imaginative, caring, curious, creative, and tolerant human being.   That made it ironic that he so often played complete S.O.B's such as J.R. Ewing (and President Camber in the film made here).

Thanksgiving Thanks

Thanksgiving Week reminds me to be thankful for people in our community quietly doing good things.

Three I’ve run into recently are "Rags to Britches," Crossroads Border Project, and Jardin de los Niños.

Mountain View Co-Op not only sells healthy food but a small collection of colorful clothes for women and kids. Women in Juarez make them.

The business is called "Inspired Imports", and includes furniture, flags, and other items. The clothing line, "Rags to Britches," features mostly "hippie/patchwork designs - comfortable and fun," according to Rosario Escobedo at Mountain View.

Her mother, Siba, volunteers with the Proyecto Santo Niño, a clinic run by the Sisters of Charity for special needs children in Anapra, Mexico.

Siba, who lives in La Union, "got very acquainted with the families and their needs" and wanted to help. When Rosario wanted some clothing, and had a design in mind, her mother said she knew several seamstresses. The seamstresses made Rosario various items, those items garnered compliments from friends and acquaintances, and soon there were special orders. After less than half a year, those add up to enough to support several families in a more benign and child-care-friendly way than working twelve-hour days in a factory.

They can make "anything you can envision," Rosario says. Prices are quite moderate. The clothes are quite colorful. There’s also hand-crafted furniture, entirely from recycled wood. Another woman makes paper-mache altars for the holidays.

You can contact them at inspiredimports@yahoo.com. Clothes are sold at Mountain View and various outdoor events. The ladies hope other local businesses will soon step up and carry some of the items.

"Juarez is a bleeding city," Rosario notes. "A war zone, right in our backyard. This is a way to help. These are incredibly resourceful women, extremely industrious, just trying to get a leg up."

So thanks to Siba and Rosario for making it happen, to Mountain View for providing rack space, and to any of you who drop by and buy.

We also visited Ryan Bemis’s acupuncture clinic at Greenworks. One thing we liked immediately was the sliding scale for payments: treatments cost between $16 and $41 per hour, depending on what you feel you can afford. Talking to Ryan we learned of an interesting project.

A U.S. organization that has trained volunteers to provide something like acupuncture in war zones has started a program in Ciudad Juarez. Widespread violence there has traumatized survivors, many of whom can’t sleep and suffer panic attacks. Twenty Catholic parishes in Juarez now run servicios comunitarios, open to everyone, where volunteers administer an ear therapy technique known in New Mexico as acudetox. (It’s not full-body acupuncture.)

Ryan says the model has been used "in refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border, Uganda for Kenyan refugees, and the Gaza Strip, as well as after natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina." He’s helped train the volunteers who provide the therapy in Juarez.

Juarez lawyer and human rights activist Maria Elizabeth Flores says the results have been good. "People say they feel better and sleep better."

To raise funds, the group also sells hand-crafted piñatas made by Juarez artisans. They’re available at Ryan’s clinic at Greenworks.

Further information on the project is available at www.crossroadsacupuncture.com/borderproject

.
Finally, we visited Jardin de los Niños to drop off an electronic image we’d donated as a Christmas card. Jardin provides nurture and care for kids who are homeless or nearly so, and is conveniently located adjacent to City of Hope and other facilities.

We were impressed with what they’re trying to do there – and with the idea of a single "campus" where those truly in need can address a lot of their food, shelter, child-care, and spiritual needs. Whatever you may think of homeless folks – and I get it that many feel "it’s their own fault," etc. – their kids deserve love and a little exposure to sources of hope and education.

The one sad thing I noticed was a lonely piano standing there, with no one to teach the kids a few notes. The piano appeals to them. They bang on it now and then, but right now there’s no one to teach them anything. (Made me regret again that I lacked the patience to keep taking lessons a thousand years ago.) So if you have the skills and a little place in your heart for homeless kids, please call Jardin de los Niños.

Their web-site is www.jardinlc.org
. You can make a donation or ask questions there– or order cards, by clicking on "Holiday Cards." There are several fine images to choose from.
The image we contributed, by the way, is a combination of two photographs taken on a snowy day last winter. We spotted a Santa, all dressed up in the customary red, riding an extra-tall red bicycle past the old Las Cruces city hall, and shot his picture. Then I tossed in a shot of the Organs from an hour or so earlier. It’s cheerful and seasonal. (And I don’t get any of the money from sales.)

Anyway, my version of "Black Friday" will be to buy one of the piñatas, get the ladies to make me a colorful shirt and some gifts, and buy some holiday cards with a bicycling Santa on ‘em.
                                            -30-
[The column above appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News this morning, Sunday, November 25th.]

With regard to the Bicycling Santa photograph: an earlier post (on Christmas Day 2011) describes the circumstances.  (There's also a shot of Mrs. Claus in that post.)  I'd forgotten that I'd taken it December 24th.  I was happy to donate it to Jardin de los Niños.  I'd personally have chosen this version,

because it approximates a crayon drawing of Santa, and crayons are a kid-thing; but maybe the photograph has more impact.  If the image is a tree or a car, a kid's crayon drawing of it might have more impact under some circumstances; but with stuff we don't usually see close enough to photograph, like a unicorn or Mr. Claus, the photograph might be a better choice.  Anyway, Jardin has several fine images available from a variety of local artists.


What I liked about the "Rags to Britches" was that it's simple, direct, and sensible.  You can see some of their stuff at the Co-Op, or e-mail inspiredimports@yahoo.com

Further information on Crossroads Acupuncture is readily available on-line. 

some thoughts from tuesday morning

I drafted this column before the polls closed, not knowing how things would play out Tuesday; but naturally I can’t resist updating it to acknowledge the results.

What I saw most clearly, thinking Tuesday morning about the future, was that whichever party won the Presidency shouldn’t get comfortable. The U.S. still faces some very real problems, some of which may not have widely acceptable solutions.

Our economy has not fully recovered, the deficit remains dangerously high, and we’re rapidly approaching a deficit-related "cliff." Longer-term problems include: past inattention to education and infrastructure; the aging of our population combined with rising health-care costs; climate change; energy costs and dependence on foreign oil; and the fact that we spend vast sums to protect military bases and interests around the globe.

If Republicans won, they’d lose in 2016.

The party has moved too far to the right to stay relevant in the 21^st Century. That point was clear before the election; but Election Night illustrated it neatly, as networks intercut between the largely young and ethnically varied supporters waiting for Obama and the older, mostly white group supporting Romney.

A Romney victory would have given us several more far-right U.S. Supreme Court justices. With their help, President Romney could have delighted the Tea Party and angered many women by making abortions illegal, and could pursue the fight against gay marriage, which is laughable to the young and loses support among older folks every year. Election Night illustrated this too: in two states, voters for the first time voted their approval of gay marriage, while two other states voted to legalize recreational marijuana.

Romney’s economic promises were wholly inconsistent with each other. Four years would have revealed that unmistakably to the voters who believed in 2012 that maybe he could work magic; and after four years President Romney could no longer blame Obama for not getting us out of the Bush recession fast enough.

Meanwhile, just as Hurricane Sandy pushed climate change back into the electoral conversation, other extreme weather events are likely to make Republican denials sound even hollower.

Republican extremists, emboldened by success, would have pushed Romney to extremes unpalatable to the rest of us – forgetting that Romney narrowed the 2012 race only by denying at the last minute everything he’d said for two years. No etch-a-sketch would have been big enough to wipe four full years from the collective memory.

But the Democrats also have reason to worry about 2016.

Four short years after Bush left office, as we’re still struggling to dig our way out of the mess, the Republicans nearly won. They nearly won with a candidate whom even Republicans couldn’t make themselves like, advocating the policies that helped create our financial problems. Fair or unfair, by 2016 Democrats will own those problems in the public mind.

This was also the first presidential election since Citizens United. Nationally and locally, PACs used abundant, untraceable funds to say increasingly outrageous things without fear of liability. The 2016 elections may become even more determined by money and Madison Avenue’s creativity.

Republicans, controlling many state governments, will continue their carefully planned effort to restrict voting among the folks most likely to vote Democratic. Fewer early-voting opportunities, more photo-I.D. requirements, and other "minor reforms" will subtract from the Democratic vote totals in 2016.

On the national level, Tea Party Republicans (and party leaders who fear them) greeted Obama’s initial election by deciding that destroying him was more important than doing the best they could for the country. Will they greet his re-election as a warning to work with him toward solving problems? One hopes so; and one hopes that if they continue their obstreperous course their constituents will see them for what they are; but it’s more likely that Republican House members will automatically call the sky red if Obama says it’s blue, and then try to blame him for not getting a consensus on the sky’s color.

Republicans will again play "chicken" with the nation’s economy the way teenagers do with cars. They’ll gamble that Obama will drive off the road to avoid disaster – or that if he doesn’t the public won’t be able to see whose fault the disaster is.

Civility and compromise are at a pretty low ebb in the political world. That’s partly because of the Republican flight to the right, but also because we live in a time when every political sneeze is analyzed ad nauseum in cyberspace, and on talk radio and TV, before anyone can say "God Bless You." Gridlock will leave voters even more disgusted with both parties in 2016 than it did this year.

I didn’t have to know who won Tuesday to know that politicians in both parties need to relearn some manners, and be more flexible and creative in seeking practical solutions to very serious problems.

Part of that change needs to start with each of us. As I wrote Tuesday morning: "Wrongheaded as some of us will think he is, the next President is neither a traitor nor a devil. At some level he believes his policies are good for the country, although his view of the country may differ sharply from ours. We owe him frank but fair criticism and more respect publically than some of us will think he deserves."

"Could you do that?" someone asked. Had Romney won, I’d have tried.

                                         -30-
[The foregoing column appeared this morning, Sunday, 11 November, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, under heading "Either Side Would Have a Tough Four Years Ahead."]

Beyond the barebone facts -- that Obama won more comfortably than expected, despite the bad economy, and that Democrats picked up a few seats in House and Senate -- there are some grounds for hope.
One of those is the resistance voters showed to the heavy-handed tactics and generous financing of the "super PACs."   For example, casino billionnaire Sheldon Adelson, the largest single political donor in history, invested heavily in backing eight candidates, including Mitt Romney.  He gave tens of millions of dollars to super PACs supporting them.  None of the eight won.   All Karl Rove could say to the fat cats who invested $300 million in his two pro-Romney super PACs was that "Without us the race wouldn't have been this close."
In fact, Rove was beside himself.    He'd talked a lot of rich folks into parting with a lot of cash, making big talk about turning his Crossroads PACs into a "permanent presence in U.S. politics," working alongside the Republican Party.  His American Crossroads super PAC spent at least $1 million in each of ten Senate races, and saw its candidates lose in nine of the ten; or, as someone else calculated, when you counted its support for Romney and various others, just one per cent of the money the PAC spent accomplished its desired result.  No wonder Rove screamed at his Fox pals not to call Ohio for Obama!  Wednesday another conservative activist called Rove's PACs "ineffective" and  wrote that "in any logical universe he would never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again."
In New Mexico, the super PAC run by a Martinez lieutenant and funded largely by Oil & Gas backed quite a few candidates, but in many instances voters seemed able to see through the misleading fliers and ads.  Martinez actively sought to retire several long-time Democratic legislators, and actually got rid of only one, despite heavy spending by the super PAC.
Unfortunately, we haven't seen the end of the super PACs.  With all that money, the Republicans will be able to buy a few brains capable of identifying better and more persuasive ways to spend.  (I won't offer any specifics!)  I'd like to think that folks will still shake off that shit like the proverbial water off a duck's back. 


One slight correction, or amplification, too:
I wrote that two states voted to legalize same-sex marriage.  A third, initially too close to call, also turned out to have done so; and Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate.
During the campaign, her sexual preference apparently was the non-issue it should have been.

The other night at a political meeting, a white-haired gentleman got up to speak about the election; and after praising a progressive candidate who'd lost, he added that it was also wonderful that three states had approved gay marriage, Minnesota had rejected a DOMA, etc., and at that point it was clear that he was tearing up with emotion.   When he sat down, his white-haired companion put his arm around him, affectionately, and complimented him on his brief talk.  It was moving.  There was a certain sweetness to them.
I thought of a friend I'd known here in the early 1970's.  We'd been in the initially small minority strongly questioning the wisdom of the war in Viet Nam.  At some point in the 1980's, visiting NMSU, I ran into him in Corbett Center and we talked awhile.  He told me then that he was gay, and had been gay back then, but had feared letting even his fellow progressives know about it.  He spoke a little bitterly about watching me sit on the lawn at a meeting with a girlfriend, maybe holding hands or whatever, when he knew very well that if he did that with his lover someone would have stomped them.  It was sad that he had thought even we would reject him -- and sadder that some might have.   I thought also of a retired English professor I met again recently, a fellow I'd vaguely understood was gay back in the early 1970's, and whose long-time companion was and is a professor from a more conservative department.  I've never had to hide for decades a major part of my life, and undoubtedly can't fully appreciate the pain it would cause if I couldn't reveal my love for Dael to even many of my closest friends -- and if just turning on the TV or reading a newspaper, or getting a drink at the water fountain at work, could at any moment provide some zinging reminder that much of society thought we were somehow disgusting.

By the way, I heard that as of Satuday morning the race between incumbent Terry McMillan and challenger Joanne Ferrary is a tie.  It'll be certified that way, I'm told, but subject to a mandatory recount anyway because it was so close.  Should be interesting. 

Finally, congratulations again to Evelyn Madrid Erhard for running hard and well against a highly-favored opponent.  She carried the County, and made the final tally a lot closer than I'd have guessed when she started the race.   I called her this morning, just to thank her again for trying and congratulate her on running so well, with no initial name-recognition and not much money against the darling of New Mexico's oil and gas industry.  A reader called her "Don Quixote" in this morning's "Sound-Off" column in the Sun-News.  She deserves our thanks.





  

Morning after Election

Jeez, it feels good to be home.

Of course I'm pleased by President Obama's victory.  I felt fairly strongly that he would win, but thought it would be closer.   I did not expect him to win almost all the "battleground" states, and to do so by margins that were almost comfortable. 

I'm also pleased that New Mexico, and particularly Doña Ana County, as expected, gave the national ticket and Martin Heinrich very comfortable margins.

Obama won for three reasons, not including his significant advantage in the "ground game."  I saw a little of that firsthand.  I happened to be at Democratic Headquarters, and past 5 p.m., with the polls closing at 7, people were still doggedly calling voters, urging them to vote, thanking them for voting, or trying to arrange a ride if one was needed.  Not many people; but they were volunteers, not a call center.  They were neighbors and committed advocates, not folks making an hourly wage.  You could hear it in their voices, too.

Obama won, despite a difficult economy, because:
1. People could just not bring themselves to like or trust Mitt Romney;
2. The Republican Party has moved too far to the Right for a changing United States; and
3. People apparently did recall, as the Republicans urged them to forget, which party had contributed mightily to the economy's downfall.

A recent Doonesbury mocked the fact that the Republicans, just four years after Wall Street played a huge role in our financial crash, nominated a Wall Street guy, and at least one analyst on TV emphasized this; but more crucial, though related, was the fact that folks just can't warm up to the guy for more visceral reasons.  All during the Republican Primary Season, when the Republicans played "Anybody But Romney," it was not merely because his record as a governor had been somewhat moderate, but also because people just couldn't warm up to the guy for visceral reasons.  That was related to, but distinguishable from, their distaste for Wall Street guys.  George Bush was a rich guy who never had to work with his hands to make a buck, but people liked him and wanted to believe him.  With Romney as the obvious eventual nominee, Republicans in 2012 went through an almost weekly enthusiasm for an embarrassingly unlikely cast of characters such as Cain, Gingrich, Perry, and Bachmann.   Romney appeared wooden.  His lack of familiarity with the average person's life made for some howlers when he tried to cozy up to working-class folks; and although his handlers had urged him to smile more, he lacked a solid instinct about when to apply that principle, and sometimes smiled like a monkey as he spoke of the suffering of an unemployed single mother with cancer or something.  He didn't have what George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton had.  With Reagan or Clinton, people felt better listening to him, even if he was uttering something idiotic; with Romney, people felt his brittleness and absence of commitment to anything other than trying to gain the office his revered father had failed to reach.

The Republican lurch to the Right and the changing nature of the country were well-covered in the election  night TV stuff.  It was wonderfully on display in Senate races such as Indiana's and Missouri's, which by all rights Republicans should have won: they chose a Tea Party buffoon in each state, tossing out a respected long-time Senator in Indiana, and each buffoon behaved like one but still figured he could win.  It was also on display in the vast differences in age and ethnicity between the crowds at each party's Presidential Headquarters: Obama's supporters were young, lively, and multi-ethnic; Romney's were almost universally white, mostly middle-aged, and probably included a hgiher percentage of males.  Meanwhile, Maine and Maryland became the first states ever to vote their approval of same-sex marriage, which is anathema to the Republican stalwarts and Romney, Minnesota rejected a constiutional amendment banning gay marriage, and Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana use.    (Sadly, physician-assisted suicide appears to have been defeated in a fairly close election in Massachusetts.  Particularly since my parents' deaths I've had strong feelings that terminally ill folks ought to be able to end their suffering if they choose to do so, as my father did.)

Finally, exit polls confirmed that folks said by wide margins that Bush, not Obama, bore primary responsibility for our poor economy.  To me, the Republican arguments against Obama always sounded like a guy who'd run up $100,000 in credit-card debt while he and his wife had a combined annual income of $80,000, then, after she confiscated his credit cards and insisted on keeping the checkbook, screamed six months later that she hadn't gotten them out of debt.  The Bush Administration was incredibly irresponsible.  Disaster followed.  Obama has made some of the right moves.  That he has not made more of them is partially Republican opposition and partially his own appointment of some "financial experts" of the wrong stripe, and probably also partially a failure of political will.  However, for the most part he's tried reasonable steps and probably saved us from a worse economy than we currently have.  Romney offered nothing except more of the Bush-Cheney policies -- and a mythical "Plan" he couldn't quite define.

Waiting for Romney to concede was tedious but interesting.  It became increasingly obvious not only that he was clinging to unrealistic hopes but that he and his folks had really drunk their own Kool-Aid and believed that his momentum and the poor economy were carrying him to victory.  That happens in campaigns (or in trials, theatre productions, feature film-making, and sports): you're so surrounded by your co-workers / well-wishers / supporters and your "kind of people" that the messages from outside that circle pale by comparison with the palpable enthusiasm your people are bestowing on you.  That Romney didn't understand he was still an underdog these past weeks may also have symbolized his major problem: that the America he sees is an extemely limited one, restricted by his privileged life and narrow world-view.

I'm pleased, but concerned: election night euphoria fades quickly, and the financial cliff hasn't moved.  We're still rushing toward a dangerous place with regard to the deficit, and the Republicans aren't sounding like folks who understand that survival will require compromise by everyone.

A few weeks ago I analyzed in my notebook why I was going to feel a good deal more depressed by a Romney win than I'd been by other presidential elections that had gone the wrong way.  I concluded that one factor was the extremely vicious nature of some contemporary Republican positions and another was Romney's conscienceless ambition.  To me, his combination of passionate ambition and whorish willingness to reinvent himself whenever it might garner a vote or two was a dangerous mix.  Meanwhile Obama was a genuinely competent President who'd started as a community organizer.  Finally, the prospect of spending the rest of my life watching an irretrievably right-wing Supreme Court stifle progress was uninviting. 

For the first time in years, having moved back to Las Cruces, I was also deeply interested in the local races.  I know some of the candidates, I know plenty about almost all of them, and as a columnist I took strong positions on some of the races.  Almost all the races went as I hoped.  In particular, the ones I'd spoken out about went well.   I don't assume or suggest there was any causal connection there, but mention it to explain how I feel.  When I lived in Las Cruces before, a lot of my beliefs weren't too popular.  With changes in the times and the town, Las Cruces has a quite progressive local government and voted quite strongly for Obama and Senator-elect Heinrich -- and even gave Evelyn Madrid Erhard a respectable majority against the incumbent U.S. Congressman.

I had felt particularly strongly about the three judicial races.  Governor Martinez (the former long-time District Attorney here, in case you're reading this outside New Mexico) appointed three cronies as judges here.  One in particular seems a somewhat spiteful sort, and a Tea Party darling; two of the three had lied to or about me; and their three opponents all seemed decent people who had good reputations as lawyers.  Further, the close alliance of Governor-Judges-District Attorney seemed unhealthy.  (A fourth Martinez crony was the District Attorney.)  We were surrounded by "Keep Judge So-and-So" signs, as if to suggest we had elected and expressed affection for the three (of whom one, by the way, seems a very decent sort of fellow).   I wrote a strong column on these races, but was not optimistic.  I didn't have recent experience with elections here, and knew Martinez was extremely popular.  The judicial candidates -- Marci Beyer, Mary Rosner, and Darren Kugler -- all defeated the Martinez "incombents" by several percentage points.

Similarly what I'd heard and seen of Amy Orlando and Mark D'Antonio convinced me that the county would be a lot better off with Mark as D.A.  Still, I feared his optimism might be a product of hearing so much from well-wishers and having far less contact with opponents.  I'd kind of expected to spend some time during the next two years writing columns trying to expose certain problems within the D.A.'s office.  Without getting into details, there was a certain nastiness and heavy-handedness to the Martinez-Orlando campaign to keep Ms. Orlando in office.  Mark is a capable lawyer with a great background for a prosecutor, and will bring a much-needed "breath of fresh air" to the D.A.'s office here. 

Most of the other local races went as I hoped they would too.  In one there's currently a twelve-vote margin, which may or may not survive provisional ballot counting and perhaps a recount.  Particularly because progressive or moderate candidates had been subjected to a barrage of ugly and misleading attacks by a PAC funded by Oil & Gas and run by a Martinez lieutenant, I'm heartened.  I hoped people would see through that garbage and make choices based on candidates and their actual positions; but I had no basis for predicting how these races would come out.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, one key race turned out badly.  Our Congressional District includes Las Cruces but is weirdly cut to be primarily a Republican one.   Republican U.S. Congressman Steve Pearce is the darling of NMOGA and the Tea Party, but pays little attention to the needs or desires of the rest of his constituency, particularly progressives, environmentalists, and the like.  He doesn't have to.  Thus he's already voting to toss out the Affordable Health Care Act, and has consistently taken many extreme positions.  He'll likely be one of those unreasonable Republicans declining to compromise even to save the country's credit rating and possibility of financial recovery, and he snorts at the very idea that we might be contributing to climate change.

His challenger this time was a lady named Evelyn Madrid Erhard.  She had little political experience and less funding.  It was the classic David-and-Goliath battle, and Goliath was going to win; but Evelyn gave him a tough fight.  She dedicated her life to this race for the better part of a year, spoke energetically and well, and performed well in debates.  A newspaper poll a while back claimed she would win about 35 per cent of the vote.   She carried Doña Ana County and got about 41 per cent of the vote overall.  A fair way to put it would be that she lost in a landslide, but less of a landslide than most people predicted.  She ran heroically.  She deserves our thanks. 

I feel at home in Las Cruces; but it's still a little unsettling to a muckraking journalist to look around and notice that a high percentage of local office-holders are progressive, open-minded, and even environmentally-conscious individuals who also seem not to be motivated primarily by greed or political ambition.  Whom am I going to write about?

This Election Matters

Let’s step back from the sound-bites and examine the core differences between Democrats and Republicans in 2012.

On the Economy, the Republicans still voice the "trickle-down" theory that goes back at least to the 1890's: if the really rich have more money to spend, it’ll "trickle down" to the average joe. And jill. The wealthy will invest money in ways that employ the rest of us.

Economic studies and a century of experience have shown it just ain’t so.

If you give a wealthy person $10 million, s/he might invest it in a factory, but probably won’t: s/he might buy a yacht made in Taiwan or some astonishing jewelry, or invest outside the country (perhaps through an offshore entity to minimize taxes).

If you give 10,000 middle-class people an extra $10 each, almost all of it goes straight into the U.S. economy. It goes to the grocer or car repair guy, who pays some tax and spends the rest here. It circulates, providing income to many U.S. citizens or businesses and contributing to the public treasury.
Nevertheless, Republicans refuse to extend middle-class tax cuts unless the cuts for the very wealthy are also continued.

Bill Clinton left office with a surplus. The Bush Administration left with a huge deficit. Blame that partly on arcane and speculative manipulations by financial folks, whose crazy schemes Democrats are somewhat more ready to regulate than Republicans are; and there are other contributing causes.

A major cause of our economic predicament was Bush’s idea that you could give rich folks (and others) a massive tax break, start two costly wars, and somehow come out all right.

Consider the longer context.

There are parallels with the 1920's: a decade of greed and speculation, during Republican Presidencies devoted to unfettering business, crashed in October 1929.

There followed Roosevelt’s "New Deal" and a strong effort to get people back to work. Helped by World War II, our economy improved and stayed pretty powerful throughout the 1950's and 1960's.

In 1961, at the end of Eisenhower’s eight-year Presidency, the top marginal income-tax rate was 91%; it was 70% when Nixon resigned in 1974; now it is a mere 35%!

It’s no coincidence that figures also show a massive increase in economic inequality in this country since 1974. Further, new studies link equality to economic development. Increased economic inequality isn’t just unfair, it’s bad business for a nation.

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer Republicans like Eisenhower or Dirksen or Nelson Rockefeller – or even the elder George Bush.

More and more, Republicans are extremists, or people who bow to the Far Right to get campaign funds and primary votes. Locally, we get a district attorney seen applauding a mention of the Confederate Flag at a Tea Party meeting; a rigidly right-wing congressman; and a state senate candidate (Alberson) from the Tea Party who touts her belief in public education but won’t let her children experience it – and believes education should be based on literal interpretation of the Christian Bible.

Our country and our state have a lot of tough decisions to make. How can we protect the environment without unduly hamstringing the economy? Help those who need help without creating an underclass of dependent people? Guarantee workers a decent life while remaining competitive in the world? What mix of drilling and alternative energy can ultimately free us from dependence on foreign oil?

Solutions aren’t always obvious, and they don’t flow magically from ideology. Finding the answers requires an honest search – not a telephone call to find out what Grover Norquist or the Koch Brothers says the answer should be. Nor can we find details in the Bible or the Koran.

Meanwhile racism, in an interesting way, plays some role in the present Presidential race. Obama is a fairly middle-of-the road liberal. His positions on issues were slightly to the right of Hillary Clinton’s; but liberals saw him as further left because of the power of his eloquence and the color of his skin. In folks whop hopefully viewed him as more liberal than he was, because he was"black," there was a scent of racism; and there’s racism in the Far Right’s nonsense about him fomenting socialist revolution or plotting to make us Moslems. One conservative lady recently said, "Michele Obama just doesn’t look like a First Lady." Yet she’s intelligent, articulate, and caring, appears to be a wonderful wife and mother, and dresses better than any First Lady since Jacqueline Kennedy.

Obama is a smart and ambitious man who cares deeply about doing a good job, both for the country and because he doesn’t like to screw up. He has done a pretty good job, too, under all the circumstances. His mixed ethnic background and varied childhood experiences gave him a broader perspective than most of us have in our youth.

Romney, the etch-a-sketch man, seems to want to accomplish what his beloved father failed to do, but he lacks his father’s character and compassion. When he views the world he sees the upper class and upper-middle class, wants to free them from nagging high tax-rates and regulations, and trusts that this will be good for the country as a whole.

                                         -30-
[Much of the foregoing appeared as a column in the Las Cruces Sun-News today, Sunday, October 28.  I wrote it hurriedly, to replace a column on NM Constitutional Amendment #5 that might have been redundant after the Sun-News published a column on that issue Thursday.  (That one is also on the blog, if you page down to the next post.)  There's a lot more to say about the present election.]

Further observations:
Folks have been saying in every election for two hundred years that the Republic's future hangs in the balance, and the United States has continued to exist, despite some rather bad choices as president (e.g. Buchanan, Harding, and the second Bush.  Actually, it may be too early to claim we've survived the damage done by George's eight-years.).  I'll just say that it will be very difficult for us to survive another four years of Republican Rule just now.

We barely survived what the Bush Administration did to the economy.  Four more years of that kind of nonsense would weaken the country significantly -- not only because Romney wants to lower taxes for the rich at a time when we have a record deficit, but because it would exacerbate the growing economic inequality that hampers us now.

Four more years of Republican Rule so soon after the eight-year Bush Administration would mean a Supreme Court that would: (1) prevent real progress on most fronts for at least another decade, (2) possibly take us back to a time when young girls died frequently in botched illegal operations that couldn't be conducted at medical facilities, and (3) continue the work of the Roberts Court to strengthen corporations at the expense of the rest of us on a variety of fronts, some obvious (Citizens United) and others known mostly to lawyers in various specialties.

Romney himself should be a little scary, not just to women but to all of us.  His willingness to re-invent himself to please whoever seemed able to help his ambitious plans for himself means there's no real center there, no strong character.  All politicians, to some degree, play to their audience and contradict themselves; but Romney's made it an art form.  Things he said to get elected in Massachusetts flatly contradicted things he'd said and done as a Mormon "Bishop"; most of what he said during the Republican Primary Season flatly contradicted and often tried to deny his record as governor in Massachusetts; and most recently he's re-invented himself again by starting to deny much of what he's spent the last two years saying. 

Four more years of Republican Rule right now would also weaken environmental protections, weaken regulations aimed at keeping our food and drink somewhat safe, weaken regulations designed to keep banks and other finance specialists from the kind of speculative risks that helped destroy our economy recently, and guarantee we wouldn't even try to deal with globabl warming.

Four more years of Republican Rule would likely end the progress we've made during Obama's term in developing a viable foreign policy in a difficult post-Cold-War world.  Romney has shown he hasn't a clue, and he's shown that he's not too likely to appoint folks who can really help him.  The world is just beginning to respect and trust us a little, after the madness of Bush's people; but Romney doesn't sound like he values that improvement or understands how to continue it.

For months now it has appeared likely that Ohio will be the critical state.  It's possible but highly difficult to point to a way Romney can reach 270 without winning Ohio; and no Republican Presidential candidate ever has prevailed without winning Ohio.  We can hope that with the workers of Ohio Romney's willingness to let nearby Detroit go bankrupt and his general upper-class bias (and his very real contempt for them) will make a difference.

But either way, the uses the Republican right (and the Koch Brothers and their ilk, and the New Mexico oil and gas industry) are making of their new freedoms under Citizens United bode no good for democracy, or for future Democratic prospects.  However, maybe folks will learn somehow to shrug off all that stuff the way they do most TV commercials.

As to the discussion of local races, I'm in New Mexico Senate District 37, which Bill Soules and Cathy Jo Alberson are contesting.

I voted for Soules.   He seems alike a capable thoughtful guy, respected by some of my neighbors who know him well.   He has sensible positions on the issues, and some experience. The blemish on his record is that he and his fellow school-board members were convicted of holding a meeting that violated the open meetings law.  Mistake.  He says he'd been assured it was legal.  He's otherwise been a good neighbor and an active and productive citizen.

Heloise Wilson's letter in today's Sun-News ably articulates a parent's and grandparent's view of Soules as school principal here: a kind, caring, innovative man who improved education for those under his charge, but did it with a heart.  [The letter's at http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_21862964/your-view-letters-editor-oct-28?IADID=Search-www.lcsun-news.com-www.lcsun-news.com - just page down through the first few letters to "Supports Soules."]

Alberson is a right-wing zealot without meaningful experience.  (Apparently she's also a bit dishonest: in listing her memberships in organizations on her web-site, she slyly omits her memebership in the Tea Party and on the board of a group of parent educators who believe in teching the literal Bible.)  Michael Hayes discusses her in a column the Sun-News and, in more detail, at http://firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com/

Let me state clearly that I'm not against home education.  My in-laws home-school their kids in New Hampshire, in a remote area, and those two kids amaze me.  Locally, I know a couple who raise cattle and home-school their son, and he's smart, respectful, creative, and cheerful, and seems at ease with various adults wherever I've seen him.  I am against someone who asks for our vote and conceals her core believes and activities, as Ms. Alberson appears to have done.  I'm against someone who states, as the first qualification on her website, that "I am an educator" -- but apparently has no professional experience in that field.  I'd also be against anyone for whom a high priority was to turn public education to the service of any specific religion.  "Public" means for all of us.

So I am against Alberson.  One of our problems is that the the Tea Party already so dominates the Republican Party that meaningful government is more and more difficult.  Another is the effort by oil and gas to dominate New Mexico politics, and they're active in support of her, with the Reform New Mexico Now PAC's usual vicious and misleading material..  (Whoever chose or created the terrible picture they use of Soules is highly competent, though.  It makes him look truly weird, which he doesn't in person.)   Alberson's appears to be another who'll do the bidding of NMOGA in the Legislature, although her highest priority appears to be making abortion illegal.  
       

Vote for an Independent Public Defender's Office in New Mexico

Quick, on this year’s ballot, what’s New Mexico Constitutional Amendment #5?

Most folks don’t know. But we should. Kudos if you do. If you don’t, you’re not alone. I didn’t know until two lawyers I respect sent me e-mails about it.

Amendment # 5 would replace gubernatorial oversight of public defenders with independent oversight by a public defender commission and would create an independent public defender department. The commission would appoint the chief public defender and oversee the department, but wouldn’t interfere with lawyers’ professional judgment in individual cases.

The U.S. Constitutional right to a fair trial by jury is a fundamental protection we each have against possible abuses by state or federal prosecutors. That right cannot be adequately protected by a public defenders’ office administered by the Governor of New Mexico.

Governors are elected. While campaigning, they often promise to be "tough on crime." There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you were wrongly accused of a crime, and lacked funds for an attorney, would you want to depend on a public defender appointed by that "tough-on-crime" governor? Suppose your appointed attorney couldn’t fully investigate the case or hire a necessary expert witness because that governor hadn’t sought sufficient funds for the public defender’s office?

There’s an inherent conflict of interest. The governor oversees the district attorneys’ offices statewide. The governor decides how much to ask the Legislature to budget for the public defender’s office each year. Might there be a powerful temptation to ask for an annual budget of $1.29 for the public defender, to guarantee more convictions?

Prosecutors can and do seek budget increases and capital improvements. Governors support them – and would face political trouble if they didn’t. Public defenders can’t even tell the Legislature what they need, except through the governor.

This is not about Governor Martinez. It may seem so because she is a governor who has spent most of her professional life prosecuting criminals, has appointed fellow prosecutors as judges, and has remained close to her former associates in the Dona Ana County District Attorney’s Office; conceivably, folks could be prosecuted by someone Martinez hired as an ADA, defended by someone she appointed as a prosecutor, and judged by someone she appointed from among her former ADA’s; but Governor Richardson was equally unenthusiastic about the change. Governors ain’t wild about releasing any of their authority. (Most of us aren’t, whether it’s in our homes or in our jobs or on our softball teams.) Clinging to power is a non-partisan instinct.

Amendment No. 5 is a matter of fairness. There’s little opposition, at least openly.

In our country folks are not guilty unless and until a court determines they are in a fair trial

. That’s a fundamental distinction between our system and the governments of Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam. A key part of that equation is the fair trial, and this Amendment will help preserve that. Let’s be tough on crime without tossing into jail folks who would be acquitted in a fair trial.
* * * * *

I’ve already voted for all five amendments, thanks to early voting.

One of the last items on the ballot stalled me. I got to it and realized I’d intended to research it further on line before deciding how to vote, but I hadn’t gotten around to it.

So how did I want to vote on Bond Question C, the bond for higher education? Normally I’d likely favor such a measure. Higher education is critical – to the young folks who oughta get the educational opportunities I had at NMSU, and to taking our best shot at maintaining a significant position in the world.

But NMSU was extraordinarily stupid in dealing with Barbara Couture, the DACC nursing accreditation problem, and the athletic conference issue. If it’s true that DACC administrators knew losing accreditation was reasonably likely but didn’t warn the students – didn’t DACC essentially defraud those students? College football is such a shark-pit these days that it’s easy to end up on the floor when the music stops in the musical conferences game. That’s where we seem to be.

Even if the Regents were right to tell Couture to get lost, and even right to pay her a huge wad of money to get lost, they were comically stupid in the way they did it, probably in the timing, and certainly in the lack of transparency. Whatever the true story is, we don’t know it, which leaves the "Sound-Off" column full of one-liners about the Regents, and most of us wondering how anyone could do the thing so awkwardly just months before asking us for money.

On the other hand, as one professor remarked the other day, "It’s for capital improvements, and at least the Regents contract out the work." Too, the bond issue is not just for New Mexico State. And whatever the rights and wrongs of how the Regents handled Couture, do we want to penalize the students?

So of course I voted in favor. After standing there for a minute or so. Gritting my teeth, holding my nose. But I voted for it.
                                             -30-

[Earlier this week I sent this in to the Las Cruces Sun-News sas next Sunday's column; but then on Thursday the paper ran a "Their View" column by a retired public defender analyzing Amendment No. 5 and making the same recommendation I did, so I offered the paper a replacement column for Sunday that wouldn't be so redundant.  Thus I'm posting this here.]
[The paper also printed a column (after I'd sent mine in) by J. Paul Taylor on the Bond Question I discuss in the latter part of the column above.  We reach the same conclusion, to vote for Bond C,  but his column is a whole lot kinder and more gracious -- with no impolite comments on recent events involvng NMSU.  I'm not as nice a guy as he is.  (Few humans are.)  But I also felt that my recommendation would be marginally more credible if I stated up front that I shared some of the feelings that other citizens say will make them vote against Bond C.  I just don't think those feelings should keep us from doing the right thing.]
[I also enjoyed his column, in which he discusses the specific projects Bond C would help with at NMSU.]


 

A PAC Invades Las Cruces

Big-money PACs have reached Las Cruces, abusing their power as badly as we feared.

One well-meaning, progressive citizen running for State Representative is suddenly the target of a "Super-PAC" from outside our county.

Joanne Ferrary is running in District 37. She’s a do-gooder who got her MBA atNMSU and worked 16 years for the Traffic Safety Bureau, pushing for DWI reform, thenand has continued to work to decrease DWI fatalities. Only thing is, she may be more effective than most do-gooders. She helped get key legislation passed, and DWI fatalities have dropped. (She doesn’t and couldn’t claim credit for that, but contributed significantly.)

Late last month, voters started receiving vicious e-mails from something called "Reform New Mexico Now." The mailings spout such blatant lies that no candidate could put his name to them.

Her opponent, Terry McMillan, says he doesn’t control the PAC, that it’s independent, and that he wishes there were no PACs. I believe him. On the other hand, the PAC is funded by the oil and gas industry and run by political allies of Dr. McMillan’s. The two big donations that started the PAC came from Mack Energy (which contributed $22,000 to Susana Martinez and $1,000 to Dr. McMillan in 2010) and Chase Oil, which gave Martinez $75,000 and the Republican Party $24,000 in 2010.

McMillan courted oil and gas support from the start. When he ran in 2010, fellow Republican Lee Rawson sent lobbyists an e-mail promising, "His [McMillan’s] candidacy should be particularly appealing to those of you representing energy, mining, medical, and business issues!" It continued, "The more you know the candidates, the better your clients will be served." (Rawson had been rejected by District 37 voters in 2008 while under fire for alleged misuse of taxpayer funds. Also heavily supported by oil and gas, Rawson had allegedly used public funds to pave a road in front of his family business.)

McMillan told me that the first he heard of this e-mail was "at the Sun-News debate [in 2010], when my opponent brought it up. Jeff Steinborn."

Rawson’s account differs. Although he says that McMillan didn’t see the e-mail in advance, he confirms telling McMillan at the time that, "I’d sent a note up there. His goal too is, he wants to meet those guys. I didn’t just send it up to those guys and not tell Terry anything. That’d be like an ambush."

The PAC’s address is the address of Susana Martinez’s political director, Jay McCleskey. (You gotta wonder how a guy with McCleskey’s police record became a former prosecutor’s "top advisor." DWI’s, leaving the scene, and battery on a woman are well-documented facts.)

The PAC apparently started by breaking the law. It registered with the Secretary of State on May 29. It said it had received its two big oil company contributions on April 24. The law says a PAC must register within ten days of receiving a contribution greater than $500.

No problem. The PAC filed an amended report changing the dates of the two major contributions to May 21 and May 24. Careless the first time or lying the second? I’m betting Lie. If someone gave me more than $100,000, I’d have a real good idea when I received it. The PAC says the date was a typo.

McCleskey and McMillan’s oil company pals are sending absurdly negative and misleading ads to help McMillan keep his seat. That should make the rest of us feel like getting out of our seats and walk some blocks knocking on doors for his opponent, Ms. Ferrary.

As I was finishing this column, I spoke to McMillan again. The PAC had made a crazy allegation that Ms. Ferrary was going to raise New Mexico income taxes by $350 million. I’d not heard of any such proposal, and Dr. McMillan confirmed that he hadn’t either.

He also told me he’d just heard a local radio ad against him from a new PAC called Patriot Majority USA. First I’d heard of it, though a Sun-News story appeared on-line that evening.

My first reaction was annoyance. I don’t want PAC’s telling lies on behalf of either side. I then looked at the group’s website. The site listed the group’s priorities, which sounded generally good, and said the PAC was formed, largely by labor unions, to combat the Republican PAC. (I’ve found no website for that one.)

I hope this new PAC won’t descend to the level of the other one. Looking at the web-site, there’s some hope of that.

And of course I hope the Supreme Court some day overturns Citizens United.

Meanwhile, the Court may have saddled us with PAC’s that make elections even more of a circus than were, but we don’t have to listen.

I’d urge voters to tune out the kinds of vague allegations against candidates – Ferrary, McMillan, or anyone else – that PAC’s can toss around so freely.

                                                                       -30-

[The foregoing column appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News today, Sunday, 14 October, with one slight wording change.]

To facilitate readers' further review of the substance discussed in the column, I wanted to provide some links to sources here.
First of all: I still haven't found a web-site for "Reform New Mexico Now", but . . .
The web-site for the "Patriotic Majority" is           .
The column also refers to Jason "Jay" McClekey, who deserves a separate column some day. 
I'd advise anyone who's interested to take a look at Independent Source for details, and even a link to some of the police reports and civil pleadings involving McCleskey.  See
As near as I can tell, the record includes:

-- at least one DWI (with speeding, no registration, and no insurance);
-- at least one "leaving the scene of an accident" (which usually means defendant left to avoid a DWI charge) and "criminal damage to property" two weeks after pleading guilty to the DWI -- and although th;
-- battery on a woman (a younger woman, smaller than he), although that charge apparently was never tried and thus did not result in a conviction (but the police report is pretty deatiled and credible; and the police report indicates that McCleskey, smelling of alcohol that night and slurring his words, apparently lied to the polic officer about his whereabouts); and
-- in a civil case, using his superior resources to bully his female adversary (a much younger woman he'd met on the Internet and impregnated).
It's an unappealing picture, and his reported problems with drink, vehicles, and apparently violence are only a part of it.  His more recent record includes:
-- apparently running "Reform New Mexico Now," making him responsible ethically or morally for its vicious and wildly inaccurate mailings to voters;
-- getting taped making
-- working (until Martinez got elected) with a group run by the same fellow who runs the group in Florida that is under investigation for voter registration fraud.  (There's no hint that he was involved in the Florida situation, and no evidence that he was involved in any voter registration fraud here.  He says he had no involvement with that side of the operation.)

McCleskey's personal problems and brushes with the law are irrelevant, except that his carelessness with the truth (talking to police officers or courts, or through PAC mailers) and apparent contempt for women are also visible in the PAC's mailings.   His redeeming feature is his potential for helping voters see that maybe Susana Martinez ain't a wonderful choice for her current position.