Reflections on the Trumpist "Convention"

 The Trumpist Convention was an alternate-reality show of questionable legality.

There were moments of grace: Senator Tim Scott spoke well, but he IS the entire Congressional Republican Black Caucus. Karen Pence spoke movingly of art therapy helping a PTSD-plagued veteran, but didn’t explain the connection to Trump.

Mostly people said, straight-faced, how much Trump cares about the average person, and how hard he works. Trump even mentioned the “unnecessary deaths” from COVID-19, as if our absurd global lead in per capita deaths had nothing to do with him. (In Trumpworld, when China “let” this virus spread, Trump started the biggest national mobilization since WWII. And he “follows the science.”)

The Hatch Act forbids federal employees to engage in partisan activities while on public business or federal property. Doesn’t apply to Trump. Applies to the official who naturalized five new citizens in the White House for the Republican convention video – suggesting Trump (who’s sharply cut legal immigration) welcomes immigrants. Applies to the minions shooting and editing the videotape.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a convention speech while on federal business in Israel. Other Trump Administration figures spoke at the White House – violating the Hatch Act.

Florida Attorney-General Pam Bondi spoke about fighting corruption. In 2013 she was preparing to have Florida join in a fraud lawsuit against Trump’s charity. Trump’s charity donated $25K to her re-election campaign, and Florida didn’t join the suit. Charities can’t legally contribute to candidates; Trump was fined, but bribing Bondi worked.

Eric Trump, VP of The Trump Organization, spoke the same day New York issued another subpoena to him to testify about allegations The Trump Organization inflated assets to facilitate loans.

While pro athletes were canceling games over police shootings of unarmed black men, the Trumpists used Kenosha, Wisconsin and exaggerated tales of violence to illustrate the refrain, “You won’t be safe in Biden’s America.” ( “What part of 180,000 deaths don’t they understand,” a commentator asked.)

On the Centennial of U.S. women’s suffrage, Trump had a speaker who believes in “household voting” (each household gets one vote), and says, “In a Godly household, the husband would get the final say.”

Melania Trump came out against slavery. Talking about a former slave fort in Ghana was her most emotional moment. Otherwise, she was wooden – and victimized by whoever placed the teleprompters so far apart she had to look too far right then left, exaggerating her discomfort.

Trump spoke for a record hour and ten weird minutes. He seemed at his best attacking Biden. Mostly he looked bored, particularly when reading about U.S. history.

It was wholly inappropriate to hold this event at the White House, which has always been a kind of national shrine, above politics, belonging to all of us. While presidential speeches and family photo-ops have had political implications, no one previously made the place a prop for a political extravaganza designed to project power and patriotism. Trumpists installed scores of flags, illustrating Samuel Johnson’s 18^th Century remark that “pretended patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.” (Trump has repeatedly ignored national interests to serve his own.) The grand finale was a fireworks display at the Washington Monument.

Trump used the White House as a dictator would. Like a dog urinating, he showed us this was HIS territory, even boasting, “What’s the name of this house? We’re here. They’re not!”

I hope that changes soon. But appeals to fear can be effective.

                                  –30–

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 30 August, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website.  A spoken version will also be available on KRWG's site, and will air during the week on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM ().]

[Among the lawbreakers backing Trump were Mark and Patricia McCloskey.  Although the convention avoided mentioning the white youth who killed two people and wounded a third with a semi-automatic rifle in Kenosha, the RNC had the McCloskeys speak in prime-time.  They're the St. Louis couple whose only claim to fame is having illegally (and pointlessly) brandished firearms at passing Black Lives Matter protesters last month.  They were charged in July with unlawful use of a weapon, a felony.

[One of the creepiest and clearest Hatch Act violations surfaced afterward: a federal official, a Trump supporter who oversees public housing, invited four women to talk with her about conditions.  She did so as a federal official, and concealed from three of the women that she her real purpose was to edit a two-minute video clip of them to be played at the Trumpist convention.  Suddenly famous (or infamous), the women hastened to explain that they do not support Trump.  One added that as  a first-generation U.S. citizen from Honduras, she was "not a supporter of his racist policies.  More than the Hatch Act violation is wrong with that conduct!]

[Watching the “convention” was painful.  I may watch Triumph of the Will again this week.  I found brief respite in watching, again, the end of It Happened One Night on another channel.  If you don't know it, I strongly recommend it.  It's a 1934 Frank Capra comedy.   That and My Man Godfrey (1936), which is not by Capra, are a fine treatment for cabin fever or depression about the pandemic or politics.  The latter begins with two flighty sisters from a wealthy New York family competing in a scavenger hunt in which "a forgotten man" is one of the items each must find, with
William Powell at his best as the forgotten man they find in a homeless encampment under a bridge.  It Happened One Night features Clark Gable as the recently-fired newspaperman who happens to run into a famous millionaire's runaway daughter (Claudette Colbert) whose activities are dominating front pages as she tries to make it to New York with neither money nor much of a clue about life. [Gable and Colbert, neither of whom really wanted to do the film, each won an Oscar – and the film actually won five major awards, including Best Director and Best Picture.

Sclupture by Sami Muhammed

World War II started a few years later. In the interim, Lombard married Gable, and was the love of his life. Then she died at 33 in a plane crash in Nevada, returning from a trip selling war bonds, whereupon Gable enlisted.  Capra had enlisted right after Pearl Harbor, and when General George Marshall assigned him to make a series of documentary films called Why We Fight, he saw Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, and initially concluded "We can't win this war!" then saw how to use the Germans' own propaganda against them.]

 

Reflections after the Democrats' "Convention"

The Democratic “Convention” talked policy, but stressed character, competence, openness, and grace. And highlighted real people with real feelings for the candidate, from the New York elevator operator who’d spontaneously said, “I love you!” to the New Hamshire boy who stutters as Joe did, whom Biden encouraged.

Capped by a Joe Biden speech even Karl Rove praised on Fox, the well-produced event taught us who Biden and his wife are. Character counts, and whatever Republicans do next week, they can’t copy this with Trump’s life and character.

Biden’s father was a workingman, a loving father with character and principles. Dad losing his job was a defining moment in Joe’s childhood.

Trump’s father was a very successful and unscrupulous businessman, and a demanding father. You can call Mary Trump disgruntled, believing Donald and his siblings ripped off her father’s share of her grandfather’s wealth; but all accounts portray a cutthroat family dominated by a cutthroat Father.

Biden quit a high-paying law job to be a public defender. When he ran for the U.S. Senate, Republican Caleb Boggs was so entrenched that no top Democrats sought the nomination. Joe took it and won, narrowly. Before he was sworn in, his wife and daughter died in a car crash. His sons survived. Friends talked him out of resigning from the Senate to care for the boys; but he was home for supper every night, in Wilmington, working on the commuter trains to D.C. and back.

Trump ran a half-dozen businesses into bankruptcy. His life is littered with lawsuits by suppliers, contractors, and investors. He was saved by a crafty ghostwriter whose book in Trump’s name attracted a TV producer.

Widower Joe met a lovely, smart, and strong-willed young woman, Jill, who married him and made them a family again. Dr. Jill Biden, who taught school through eight years as Second Lady – and who reacted to a rough spot in life by running marathons.

Trump’s three marriages and other sexual arrangements resemble a bad soap opera. His first wife alleged rape. He got his second wife pregnant while still married to the first. I defy anyone to claim s/he’s seen Trump and Melania share a moment of spontaneous love or humor.

I think it matters who you are inside.

It’s no sin to make money; but competence, good judgment, and caring for your workers are consistent with making a fortune. Having the self-confidence to listen openly to others is not weakness. Had Trump listened, our nation might not have suffered the world’s most unnecessary COVID-19 infections and deaths. He tries to cover inadequacy with boasts and bullying. He asserts that he knows best, and when facts show otherwise, he denies the facts and calls people names.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan Senate Select Committee (Republican-controlled) has finally reported that Trump’s campaign manager was sharing confidential information with the Russians; and his former top advisor Steve Bannon has been indicted for bilking investors in a (purported) non-profit “build a border-wall” scheme from which Bannon and others were secretly profiting. Trump didn’t deny their initial statements that it had his blessing, but now he says he didn’t know about it – and was against it.

Trump also encourages Q-Anon, people who actually believe that Democratic leaders like Biden and Harris are devil-worshiping pederasts (and cannibals) from whom Trump will save us. And after the 2017 Charlottesville white-supremacist rally and attack, Trump spoke of “very fine people on both sides.”

                                                      – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 23 August 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG’s website. A related radio commentary will air during the week both on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM (http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on demand as well.]

[I don’t claim Biden or Harris or anyone else is a saint, or profess to agree with all anyone’s positions. Under all these folks, the U.S. government continues to make errors and omissions that are both unwise and sometimes illegal. However, I thought the virtual convention was effective, at times eloquent, even moving, in illustrating Biden’s decency and the party leaders’ variety. Then his speech, which I feared might be too long and too dull, pretty much knocked it out of the park. It was effective, direct, personal, and powerful.]

 [Families are important.  Donald Trump has a strong father who taught his kids that life's goal was to make as much money as possible, that anyone who didn't was a loser, and that only weaklings worried about others.  Donald was compelled to emulate that.  No mitigating influence appeared to counter the lesson that other people exist to be taken advantage of or to be induced to admire him.  Women to be groped, if decorative, and demeaned as "horse-faces" if not. 

Trump sure won't have his niece, Mary Trump, at the convention. He won't have older sister Maryanne Barry, the recently-retired U.S. appellate judge, appointed to her first judgeship by Ronald Reagan.  I urge everyone to read this Washington Post story about Barry's honest view of Donald, recorded by Mary without her aunt's knowledge.  In summary, pretty much what we say about Donald she says too: that he's "only out for Donald," that "he doesn't read," and that his immigration policies are hateful. That “Donald is cruel.” And  “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this. . . . His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”

Bottom line?  Biden's family, who know him well, love him.  Trump's family, knowing him a lot better than we do, loather him.  Fact. ]

[Biden would also try to rebuild what Trump has destroyed, as often by incompetence as by design, and deal more sensibly and honestly with the current pandemic.]

[For another perspective, read Algernon D’Amassa’s Sun-News column this morning, “When You Vote, You're Choosing a President, Not a Friend.” I tend to agree with much of it. However, despite that, I see a sufficiently significant difference between current policies of the parties, and particularly between Trump’s incompetence and lack of compassion and Biden’s relative competence and basic decency, that I will vote for Biden and encourage others to do so. I still know, as I did in my youth, that this bus is driven to benefit the wealthy far more than the poor or middle-class; but if that bus runs off the mountain road, that’s no good for any of us.

Looking through the paper, before reading Algernon’s column I read a story about a tragic car crash that killed a 32-year-old wife and mother in Santa Teresa. Drunken driver charged with depraved-heart murder, not just manslaughter or vehicular homicide. As likely he should be; but what’s the right charge for a guy who’s so selfish, narcissistic, and childish that he lets a dangerous pandemic kill a vastly higher percentage of his country’s citizens than it kills in any other country, despite wealth and relatively good health technology and healthcare people?]

Celendin Market

© Peter Goodman

La Encantada

© Peter Goodman

Guardianship Redux

The plight of Dorris and Rio Hamilton has adult guardianship on my mind again.

I hope Rio and his lawyer provide all the information the court has requested, to stop the huge drain on family emotions and finances. I hope the lawyers and professional “guardians” let that happen.

Mrs. Hamilton needs supervision. That’s a sad fact after her impressive career as an educator. Her son Rio returned home from New York to take over providing that supervision. He seems capable of it, he wants to do it, and she wants him to. The court-appointed “guardian ad litem,” David Lutz, told the court he thought Rio should be helping his mother. She’d remain in a congregate-living facility and have a financial advisor, but Rio could make decisions for her or with her, take her to medical appointments, etc.

There’s also a “lawyer for Mrs. Hamilton,” Caralyn Banks. Mrs. Hamilton doesn’t want her. Nor does Rio. Casual observers wonder what Banks adds that Lutz can’t. The fact that Banks has passionately advocated that Advocate Services be the well-compensated guardian for adults in many cases (but denies that she’s ever represented AS as its lawyer) might suggest finding someone more neutral – if there must be two attorneys for Mrs. Hamilton and one for Mr. Hamilton collecting fees for each hearing.

Providing guardians for cognitively-challenged (usually elderly) folks without family or friends, or with family that’s distant, dishonest, or incapable of care-taking, is an important service. Agencies such as AS do that. (I hope they do so when the “person in need of protection” is poor, too.) Courts naturally appreciate that. But courts should recall that when family-members want to take care of Aunt Sally, the folks collecting hourly fees for helping her are not impartial observers but highly interested parties. There’s an inherent conflict of interest: as paid guardian, I want the best for my ward, but I like getting paid.

Some agencies, having stepped in during a crisis to help, are reasonably graceful in releasing control to a capable family. Others all too often get into pitched battles. From what I’ve seen (and heard from others) the folks at Advocate Services can be particularly abrasive. In the case I’m most familiar with, the professionals testified that the stepson seeking custody had come to a meeting with food on his tie and that his wife (who denied this) had said he was losing cognitive abilities himself.

A family-member who rushes home to take care of someone may be upset, even angry -- then may face blame for not having intervened earlier. Disagreements are inevitable. Professional guardians often paint those as attacks on the court’s decisions.

So why do judges sometimes seem to take the word of guardians as gospel? Why isn’t keeping families together a higher priority? Why isn’t it a high priority to stop the financial bleeding? Why don’t lawyers, collecting fees from a helpless person who doesn’t want them intervening in the first place, try to economize, so that the protected person doesn’t incur unnecessary legal fees? Too often I hear remarks that our judges are paid off by lawyers or guardianship agencies. I strongly disagree with that conclusion, though I understand the frustration.

Adult guardianship (and abuses thereof) is a national problem. New Mexico recently started trying to make the process fairer and more open. Sadly, that job is far from finished. And none of us is getting noticeably younger.

                                                    – 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 16 August, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website.  A related radio commentary will air during the week on both KRWG and KTAL-LP, Las Cruces Community Radio [ 101.5 FM) and will be available on demand at KRWG's site.]

 

[I sure wish Dorris and Rio the best, as do many in the community. One step we can all take, and should, is to write and sign a plan that states whom we'd like a court to appoint if we are ever found incompetent.  A judge also makes that suggestion in this video on a Nevada case. Rick and Terry Black ( the son-ion-law and daughter in the Nevada case) now work full time trying to help fight guardianship abuse around the country.  I met them through Rio, and Rick was a guest on my radio show a few weeks ago.  email   info@CEARjustice.org  for information. ]

 [One suggestion Rick made during our radio discussion our radio discussion, which I've seen elsewhere, is to provide for jury trials in contested guardianship cases.  Traditionally, we kept such cases highly secret, to protect the "person in need of protection" from having everyone know s/he was losing it.  A worthy goal; but experience showed that ruthless guardianship companies, lawyers, and perhaps even judges around the country abused that secrecy by using it to cloak misconduct.  New Mexico opened the process; but might we do even better to go the whole hog, and put these matters into jurors' hands?  The traditional argument, as for all jury trials, is that open court is more ethical court, and that jurors, even when they may not understand all the technical or legal jargon, have great instincts about people, and usually get it right.   The counter-arguments would be that it more openly washes a family's dirty laundry in public, could be traumatic for the person in need of protection, and could lead to having the most superficially persuasive lawyer -- not necessarily the most deserving side -- prevail.  I should probably note that I worked on worked on a case in which Advocate Services attempted to maintain control of someone, arguing that moving her to California as her stepson and she desired would not be in her best interest, and have written on the subject previously in "Why New Mexico Is Improving Its Guardianship Laws," "Someday You'll Be a Person in Need of Protection,"  and "Further Thoughts on Guardianship Issues."]    

[There's a hearing set for 11 a.m. Thursday, 20 August, in New Mexico 3rd Judicial District Court.] 

 

An Exceptional Judge?

Whom should the Democrats nominate to run in November for the new judicial position, with a half-criminal and half-civil docket?

The Judicial Nominating Commission considered nine strong candidates, sending four names up to Governor Lujan-Grisham. She, with General Counsel Matt Garcia, interviewed all four and nominated local lawyer Casey Fitch, who will serve at least until year’s end.

November’s election will decide who holds the position after that. The Governor selected Fitch; but former Magistrate Judge Richard Jacquez, whom she also interviewed, is contesting the Democratic nomination. Doña Ana County members of the State Central Committee will choose a nominee next week.

Many say the Governor’s selection should end the discussion. She’s a Democrat, and carefully vetted the choices. No one alleges anything improper about the process. In urging Democrats to nominate Fitch, the Governor noted, “Judge Fitch is a native New Mexican, with extensive experience in civil and criminal law and is an excellent public servant with an exemplary record as a lawyer and as a judge,” adding, “Our nominee must have an impeccable record, a proven record of public service, and a dedication to justice. Judge Fitch exceeds all of these criteria.

However, anyone has the legal and ethical right to seek a judicial nomination in the primary – or, where the primary is over, through the Central Committee, as Mr. Jacquez is doing.

These interviews were careful, and a far cry from the “How much did you give the Party this year?” sort we’ve heard allegations about. The Governor participated; and Garcia asked challenging “lawyer questions.”

I’ve talked to Fitch and Jacquez. I suspect either would be a reasonably good judge. I believe I saw, talking to Mr. Fitch, why the Governor chose him. I think they saw in Fitch a uniquely judicial temperament and recognized that he has an unusually broad range of experience, including a Ninth Circuit clerkship after law school. (Those hard-to-get positions give the holder a wide-ranging and intense introduction to deciding tough cases at a high-level. U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal are the last appellate stop before the Supreme Court. They referee battles between some of the nation’s best lawyers.)

Interestingly, each candidate had a DWI conviction in his youth. Jacquez also had an ethics issue in 2004, when he was “informally admonished” for not providing defense counsel with significant evidence. The defendant was a cop. Deputy City Attorney Jacquez and defense counsel interviewed the arresting officer; later, days before trial, Jacquez provided defense counsel with a video of that officer talking about whether or not the defendant was drunk. The Judge reamed him out, and the Disciplinary Board said Jacquez should have produced the video before the interview.

If I were defense counsel, I’d sure want that video before interviewing the witness; but this was 16 years ago, Jacquez was a young lawyer caught in a political situation, and I think he learned from it. Lawyers commenting on Jacquez as Magistrate Judge say he did well, and ran a good courtroom.

Jacquez may want too intensely to be a judge. In 2018, he passed on seeking re-election to Magistrate Court for an unsuccessful primary run for District Judge; and in 2019 he unsuccessfully challenged Joy Goldbaum for Las Cruces Municipal Judge.

I hope the DCC chooses Fitch. I wouldn’t mind seeing Jacquez win some other judicial election; but I agree with the Governor that Fitch could be an especially good judge.

                                              – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 9 August 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website.  A related radio commentary will air on KRWG and on KTAL 101.5 FM (https://www.lccommunityradio.org/) during the week, and will be available on demand on KRWG's site.]

 [For two weeks, researching this column, I had wanted to watch the Judicial Nominating Commission's "virtual" meeting in which Commissioners interviewed candidates.  A terrible computer wipeout at UNM, followed by a positive COVID-19 case at the relevant department, delayed the process, but they finally got me the link right after I sent in the column Friday.   I watched the interviews with Casey and Richard.  Doing so tended to confirm what I'd already learned or figured out: Richard was a viable candidate, and sounded a whole lot better than one other candidate of whose interview I heard a portion; but Casey was a far stronger one.  And the video helped me put my finger more clearly on why:

Casey Fitch brings to the table a wider and more applicable set of qualities and experiences.  He has clerked for a federal judge, a 9th Circuit judge, and now for three years the U.S. Magistrate here.  As Justice Miles Hannisee says in the JNC interview, 9th Circuit clerkships are plum positions that many strong candidates seek. They’re a unique boot camp for top lawyers; and I knew many who delayed big bucks from big law firms to spend a year or two clerking.  Casey’s writing sample is not just well-written, but shows a level of complexity we don't see in Richard's.  They’ve dealt with different kinds of cases. Casey has seen a varied and complex set of civil and criminal cases, heard them well or poorly argued, and written decisions, or drafts of decisions, that serve as precedent to lower courts.  Decisions that will be read not just by Joe and Mary, or the local fence company and its former employee, but by top lawyers later litigating similar cases and trying to assess their chances and decide how best to argue to the 9th Circuit.  No, he wasn't a judge, and the sometimes the written opinions that ultimately went out were often much changed; Casey thought them out, researched and analyzed the cases contesting attorneys cited, and wrote them, and likely some of them were published with little change from his draft.  He was integrally involved in deciding cases and helping the court write decisions that are precedents U.S. district courts must follow.

As a lawyer, he also had some experience as a criminal prosecutor and as a public defender, as well as a lot of defense work in civil cases and a bit of plaintiffs' work.   Since the new job is half criminal and half civil, with potentially a bit of family law thrown in, having done at least some work in all those areas is a plus, as is the fact that he dealt with all of them in helping judges decide cases and write opinions.

What I also saw in the hearing, and had been struggling to put my finger on when we talked, is what I would call genuine humility.  A JNC commissioner had noted that Casey brought up his DWI as the start of changing his life, and the JNC commissioner thought that would enhance Casey's ability to empathize with addicts and people in rough situations.  In the Commission interview, he says it was "an opportunity for self-reflection and the start of a program of recovery."  He has also been a foreigner trying to make himself understood: he spent two years in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria, and he mentioned having learned German and Bulgarian -- not as gold stars on his report card but because of the "open-mindedness that goes along with a different culture."  Being the foreigner often teaches one a kind of humility (and identification with folks who wander into a court feeling confused and intimidated by the legalese) that comes from not being able to make your needs or ideas understood by the surrounding majority.  (He is proficient but not fluent in Spanish, being married to a woman from Juarez, and says he can converse well with his mother-in-law, who has no English.)  I realized that a lot of his answers to the JNC were candid and self-deprecating, when they could have been more self-serving. 

Sorry if I've run on a bit.  I've no idea how the central committee members will view all this.  Few are lawyers.  What I hope I've said (and what they might see if they take the time to watch the JNC interviews at https://www.mediafire.com/file/vhshk7azonjneiw/file) is that while Judge Jacquez is certainly a reasonable candidate for the job, there's reason to be excited about Judge Fitch in this position.  Some will feel they'd prefer a Hispanic candidate who grew up in Chamberino to an Anglo who grew up in Socorro.  So would I, all things being equal.  Some will complain that Casey has not paid his dues, politically; but this is a judicial position; and it is not as if Casey were a Republican, or held rightwing views.  He just hasn't been much involved in politics.  

Bottom line: this is an important position; this district judge will affect a lot of people's lives, some deeply.  Reasonable people could differ on which candidate to support; but I hope committee members who are in doubt will either educate themselves more fully on the candidates' objective qualifications, by reading their applications and watching the JNC interviews, or else concede that Lujan-Grisham and Garcia (and I, for whatever that might be worth) have taken that deeper look and concluded that Casey should be the new judge.

 

  

 

 

 

Appreciating Lou Henson

Lou Henson was a good man who was damned good at what he did. His accomplishments and the esteem of all who knew him will live on and continue inspiring others.

Many can recite that he took two different teams to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, NMSU and Illinois, and retired as the sixth winningest basketball coach in NCAA history. But a key fact about Lou, buried in the 11^th ‘graph of the wire service story on his death, was that in 1962, as a high-school coach from Las Cruces interviewing for his first college-level coaching job, as head coach at Hardin-Simmons, he said he’d take the gig only if they integrated the place. They did.

Lou was modest about his courage in risking the opportunity, saying he knew they really wanted him. But the fact that they really wanted him – a young man who hadn’t coached a college team – tells us that he was recognized early as special.

Integrating meant recruiting in the southern U.S. in years when civil rights workers were being killed. A white outsider associating with blacks in some Mississippi burg was sometimes in physical danger. Lou experience isn’t irrelevant to contemporary discussions of black and white. He was no crusader, and of course he was trying to coach better basketball teams; but he had courage and he cared. He also changed many lives.

I met Lou when I got here in 1969. Soon I was working part-time for him.

I was also one of the most visible campus radicals, agitating for black-white equality (on which he surely agreed) and peace (which he likely didn’t). When an outraged NMSU vice-president called Lou to ask “why are we paying that radical?” Lou asked his then top assistant, Ed Murphy, “What’s Pete doing for us these days?” Ed told him. Lou asked if I was doing a good job, and when Ed said I was, Lou politely told the VP to live with it. Lou was not going to fire one of his people, even a minor one, for speaking his mind.

A small matter.  And no one was going to argue with Lou, who had taken NMSU to the Final Four; but at the time, as part of an embattled campus minority fighting for change, I sure appreciated his attitude.

Lou was incredibly focused. Murph used to say that if someone took Lou to a play, Lou diagrammed plays on the playbill.

Friends of Lou’s and mine say he was similar at the bridge table. One friend said this week, “He was always the perfect, congenial gentleman.  Everyone who played as his partner enjoyed it and he enjoyed playing with as many different people as he could.  His Bridge was a little above average.  His memory wasn't what it once was but the competitive spirit was as strong as ever; always trying to learn from every hand.”

“He did kvetch about the pay in his day versus the astronomical salaries many coaches now command,“ the friend added. Another friend said Lou was “thoroughly a gentleman and a true human being who had a real interest in whatever person he engaged in conversation.”

About seven years ago I got to talk with Lou for an hour on radio. It was a delight to gas with him about old times; and he was, as always, incredibly gracious.

Few attain Lou’s level of professional success. Even fewer also make the world a better place.

                           – 30 –

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 2 August 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website.  A radio commentary based on it will air during the week both on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM (https://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will be available later on KRWG's site under Local Viewpoints and on KTAL's under "Archives."]

[I arrived here just in time to experience the excitement on campus as the Aggies, in their most successful season ever, reached the Final Four and lost to their nemesis, UCLA, the eventual champion.  (I seem to recall they won the consolation game to finish 3rd instead of 4th.)  It was fun.  All the more so because I knew some of the players socially.] 

[I happened to travel with the team to North Carolina in early 1975 for the first round of that year's NCAA Tournament.  (I was making a film for Lou.)  Far less discussed than the 1969-1970 team, that NCAA appearance might have been one of his biggest accomplishments as a coach.  There were no stars.  The tallest player was Jim Bostic, 6' 7".  (I recall Jim, who hailed from Westchester County, NY, as I did, as rather more scholarly and thoughtful than many ballplayers.  I'd forgotten that Jim was drafted by the Kansas City Kings and actually played a few NBA games with the Detroit Pistons.  He later coached for years, but also earned a Ph.D. in Theology and became a minister.)  That unheralded team garnered an at-large bid; but playing 7th-ranked University of North Carolina IN North Carolina was no fun.  The Aggies lost by 25 points, but Lou was the Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year for getting them there at all. 

That trip was when the news broke that Lou was going to leave us for Illinois, where Coach Gene Bartow had been announced as UCLA's successor to ___ Wooden."  We were all happy for him, but sad for New Mexico.  I remember afterward hoping Rob Evans, Lou's top assistant then, would be the Aggies' next coach, but that wasn't in the cards.]

[Note: Lou's obituary is also in today's Sun-News, as is a compilation of comments and memories from many who knew him.]