Our Schizophrenic Times

Writing a column requires maintaining, at least briefly, illusions that one understands something that matters and that one can shape that understanding into an effective, engaging communication.

I can’t manage that this morning.

There’s plenty that’s true and worth saying: Joanne Ferrary is a dedicated, caring, incredibly diligent public servant and Isabella Solis seems mostly devoted to Isabella Solis. Xochitl Torres-Small, a smart and moderately progressive young woman representing a sprawling, varied district, is hearing progressives say she’s too nice to gas and oil and gun owners and conservatives say she’s the second coming of Karl Marx.

Still, I feel paralyzed. By awareness that many more than usual are dying. By the vast weight of misinformation and disinformation on the Internet. By the rancor of contemporary political discourse. By amazement that we’ve elected a narcissistic conman to the Presidency, that he’s trampling on our democracy, and that good and decent people smile on him, or shout “Hillary Clinton’s worse!” or “look at Hunter Biden!”

Life feels schizophrenic. We are both more isolated (most of us, physically) and far less so (the isolation, compounded by nervousness and extra time, drives us to spend longer periods on “social media.”

Some are racked by grief for loved ones taken by this pandemic, while others shout about our personal freedom to spurn masks and infect whomever we infect. Some are fighting boredom and others fighting exhaustion from working feverishly in hospitals or meat-packing plants. Some of us are glad that large numbers of whites may finally understand the toll it takes on a person to be black in this country, while others are infuriated that too few express outrage at killings of police officers. (Can’t I hope for better understanding, demand that we face our racism, yet also deplore ANY unjustified killings?)

I feel the dissonance between the dispiriting rancor of Internet communications and the warmth of some more personal communications. While I recognize the threat Donald Trump is to our democracy, and the viciousness of some Republican policies, and feel that our country could be at an important turning point, I can’t manage to hate the Trumpists I know.

I play pickeball with several Trumpists. “I see you’re still writing columns to piss people off,” one said recently when he returned from traveling. “Hey, one thing,” I urged another Thursday, “Don’t vote!” Mostly we acknowledge our differences with a laugh and play ball. Discussions do happen, without anyone convincing anyone of much, but with one notable exception they’re amicable. Still, sometimes, as I’m praising a great shot by my partner, my mind recalls he’s part of the threat.

That one fellow Las Crucen believes George Soros funds Antifa, doesn’t keep me from feeling and expressing sorrow for his loss of a family-member to drugs. Another funds political candidates I oppose, but I’m sorry the pandemic has caused him to close a business I sometimes patronized.

Thursday an acquaintance I greatly respect, a lawman’s lawman, remarked that he truly liked and respected our current sheriff, Kim Stewart, adding: “She’s got good people in good positions, and knows her people. She and I don’t agree on political things, but I love her. She’s honest and she’s police.”

I particularly enjoyed our conversation, and appreciated his ability to work with others despite political disagreements.

Yet it’s schizophrenic. Those deep divisions ain’t going away. Which enhances the importance of talking across the canyon to each other. With mutual respect.

                                              – 30 –

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 25 October 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG’s website. A radio commentary will ait during the week on both KRWG and KTAL (101.5 FM, http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and will be available on demand on KRWG's website.]

[However all this comes out Tuesday, we sure need a national conversation about healing. If the Dems win, they had better not forget that a whole lot of people are sick enough of “the system” that they’ll vote for a Donald Trump, twice, while latching onto some pretty odd sets of allegations presented as facts. We need to ask “Why?” and face up to underlying problems. If Trump wins again, things will be pretty hopeless; but that conversation will be even more urgent, but it’ll be less in our power to make it happen – and many of us will be in despair. ]

[I mentioned Ferrary and Solis. Aside from generally preferring Ferrary’s stand on the issues to Solis’s, I’ve watched both at work.

A, who has spent much of her career working to curtail drunken driving, decides to run for State Legislature, feeling that her views better suit the district’s voters’ views than do those of the incumbent, a well-liked doctor with funding from oil companies and such. He wins. Two years later, she tries again. The doctor prevails, after a recount, by eight votes. Two years down the road, she runs again, and wins. She approaches her work with the same fortitude it took to run three times for the office. Throughout the year she’s extremely busy with interim committees and less formal work. She’s extremely active solving problems that aren’t necessarily left vs. right issues, but human ones, like adult guardianship, drug courts, etc. She busts her ass at the job, and seems gnerally friendly to and cooperative with everyone.

B, a former FEMA employee, runs for County Commission as a Democrat, and ends up chairing the Commission. She looks kind of lost on the dais, apparently hasn’t bothered to master Robert’s Rules of Order, and sometimes behaves oddly. Maybe she started with good intentions, but forgets them. While she reams out another commissioner for voting on a solar-industry-related issue after accepting campaign contributions from a solar power company; she herself votes to legalize fireworks sales after accepting a large contribution from THE main company that’ll benefit from the change. Maybe the decision was right. Maybe it was wrong, given that we live in a desert and we’re experiencing a deep drought. Either way, it raises questions of hypocrisy when she criticizes another commissioner so vociferously for his conduct. She also changes her registration from “Democrat” to “Republican.” (Doing so while Donald Trump is the head of the Republican Party is either a big plus or a big minus, depending on one’s viewpoint.)

Before serving out her term, she pushes herself before the voters in the Las Cruces Mayoral Election. She comes in 5^th. Then she announces her candidacy for the state legislature. I know she feels strongly about some issues. But it sure appears that she cares primarily about pushing herself forward, in whatever manner proves feasible.

Solis’s top ten contributors, after the Republican Party, are mostly from the Yates family (owners of a petroleum company, which also donated), Bowlin Travel Centers (fireworks friends), and local businessfolks Lou Biad and Marci Dickerson. Ferrary’s are trial lawyers, environmental entities, and education-related entities, including the NM Federation of Teachers. Ferrary is also supported by the New Mexico Education Association and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. ]

 

 

We Should All Vote -- then All Discuss What's Gone Wrong!

The late breaks don’t seem to be falling Donald Trump’s way, so perhaps even Republican vote-suppression tactics won’t save him.

Polls have him well behind Joe Biden. Trump’s base still loves him; but he’s no longer a newcomer promising change. People have seen four years of mismanagement and illegality, beneath a thin veneer of bluster. He has a record now, notably his abject failure to deal with the pandemic; and Biden isn’t as unpopular as Hillary Clinton was.

The debates seemed a potential “Hail Mary,” but Trump aided Biden by feigning doubt Biden had sufficient stamina. That enhanced the effect of Biden’s energy and focus. Then Trump turned most everyone off by interrupting Biden and Chris Wallace constantly, without actually saying much, in what may have been a failed effort to induce Biden to stutter. Then Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, whose mere civility made both seem winners, yakked to sort of a draw. Harris “won” in the polls, though likely because she had more supporters going in.

Trump ducked the second debate because it would be “virtual.” But he needed it. Biden didn’t. And many folks might have felt like the friend who sent me a cartoon showing a mother working virtually at her computer, and a small child at her feet attending “virtual” school, and Trump saying he wouldn’t debate virtually. “If it’s good enough for my wife and daughter, why not for Donald?” my friend commented. The third debate might come too late, even if Trump could reshuffle his playbook.

Trump can’t reshuffle his playbook, to his party’s chagrin. While his base cheers his every mention of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Hunter Biden, he’s losing Independents and crossover Democrats who know him better now. The “Best Hits of 2016” won’t cut it. Trump’s response is to waffle on white supremacy, feign ignorance of Q-Anon but praise its stand against pedophilia, and now float the idea that the raid that killed Ossama bin Laden was a hoax. Really?

His key points don’t appeal to non-base voters. The truth value of each is highly questionable. More important, they’re all in the past. They won’t help keep a virus-infected parent alive, or feed any of the millions who’ve slipped into poverty since the last stimulus payments.

Meanwhile, a lot of “red” states are giving Biden a look. They too have people dying. They too may be tired of the sheer noise of a Trump Presidency, more than any other in recent memory. They may have relatives and friends in the military, or themselves have served.

But the effort to skew or undermine the voting has many facets. Many swing states have “purged” more voters than they should have. In California, Republicans have insisted on using apparently illegal “voting collection boxes” which allegedly bear misleading “official” labels and lack safeguards against chicanery. In Texas, courts had to overrule the effort to allow only one absentee ballot box per county. In New Mexico, Republicans put out misleading voting information, perhaps accidentally.

The pandemic mandates more voting by mail. Trump and far-right groups are suing numerous states to make voting harder. As one conservative once told a group of evangelical leaders, “I don’t want everybody to vote [because] our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” Repeated studies show “voter fraud” is extremely rare.

Whatever your personal take on the last four years is, please vote!

                                                   – 30 –

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 18 October 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG’s website. A radio commentary based on it will air during the week on KRWG and on KTAL-LP, 101.5 FM (http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will be available on demand at KRWG’s site.]

[Trump knows right-wing “militia” members were arrested recently for trying to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and “try” her themselves in an undisclosed location. What astonishing lack of grace or good sense would allow him then to hold a rally in Michigan Saturday and enjoy his partisans’ shouting “lock her up!” and not raise a hand to say, courteously, at least that though we disagree completely with her, these are civil governmental matters, not justification for criminal violence against here? If one of these clowns shoots or “locks her up” next week, maybe this time is is legally an accessory.

Trump’s response to the “lock her up!” chant? “Lock ‘em all up!”
Some people in the audience then started chanting, “lock her up!”  He didn’t add, “Be careful, though. No violence!” Rather, he added, “be careful of her because you know they're like in charge of the ballot stuff. How the hell do I put my political and our country's political life in the hands of a pure partisan like that?" ]

[I have friends at pickleball (and elsewhere) who will vote for Trump. We kid each other, and mostly don’ actually argue. But it mystifies me that they seem not to see that this guy is a serious danger to our way of life. Not because of some crazy theories about what people allege, but simply from his own words and actions right in front of us. This is not Obama vs. Romney or McCain. This is not Clinton vs. Dole, or the elder Bush. Even George Bush, though an unqualified and lousy president, seems to have been a decent guy inside. Trump is not; and his policies are weakening the U.S. as a country in many visible ways.

Further, despite my experience with my Trumpist friends and acquaintances, Trump is personally making our political dialogue far more rancorous and hate-filled than it should be. He’s not the only cause of that. Probably we’re all guilty of contributing to that, or most of us anyway. But for him, spewing hate and insults is a way of life.]

[The quote is attributed to Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the conservative Heritage Foundation: “I don’t want everybody to vote [because] our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” The Heritage Foundation is one entity shouting out the voter-fraud myth; but apparently its own research shows that in the past 20 years, 0.00006 percent of all mail-in ballots cast were fraudulent. Greg Abbott sure saw it that way, mandating that each Texas county have only one drop-off box for absentee ballots. Some Texas counties are bigger than a lot of countries. A federal judge nixed this obvious vote-suppression move, but a three-judge panel of Trump-appointed appellate judges put the rule back in place. ]

[But all this is easy to see and say. What is harder to discern is just how we bring ourselves back from where Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party have brought us. Or, where we have brought ourselves. We elected a con man, a carnival barker, a known racist. We need to look inward, as a nation. Trump didn’t just happen; and that folks who helped him, including the Russians, weren’t well-meaning doesn’t explain or excuse us. What was the disease or infection we mistakenly hoped Trumpism might cure?” Maybe that’s my next column, but I can’t promise “The Answer.”]

 

This guy showed up yesterday.  Expressed no interest in Trump or Biden

The Harris-Pence Debate

I wish candidates would answer the questions.

The vice-presidential debate reminded me of moderating candidate fora where candidates take any question as an invitation to cover the next few talking points.

The first question to Mike Pence was why the U.S., with advanced medical learning and technology has seen so vastly more COVID-19 cases and deaths than other nations? It ain’t close. We’re 4% of the world’s population and have suffered more than 20% of the world’s COVID-19 cases. Some folks blame governmental incompetence.

I think other factors contribute. For example, our junk-food-driven obesity epidemic. But with many citizens listening to a leader who mocks disease and doctors, spurns masks, lies, and thinks he knows more than the experts on any subject, . . . well, you do the math.

Of course Pence didn’t attempt to answer. Not even the red herrings of “We count better,” or “The doctors call everything COVID-19 to sabotage Trump.” Pence just made a bunch of false statements about Trump leading the biggest mobilization since World War II.

Harris should have noted the widespread conclusion that there was mismanagement and Pence’s failure to offer any alternative explanation, and yielded him 20 seconds of her time to explain why we’ve suffered so much worse than other nations. The moderator should have told Pence, “Gee, perhaps I didn’t word my question clearly: with all our advantages, we’ve suffered way worse than almost anyone else. Democrats blame Mr. Trump. What is your explanation?”

Both Harris and Pence declined to answer the good question, “Given your presidential candidate’s age, have you conferred with the head of the ticket about what should be done if he’s incapacitated? If not, should you?” Good question, but one I’m guessing the debate-prep teams might have missed.

Of course, this debate was much more civil and watchable than the first presidential debate. (What wouldn’t be?) But uttering ridiculously false statements in reasonable tones doesn’t move them into the same zip code as the truth.

Pence said many things that contradict the available evidence. About the pandemic and about Trump’s disregard for military people. He said, “We’ll follow the science” on global warming. He reiterated the claim Trump has some magical health care plan. When a fly landed, and lingered on Pence’s white hair, the Internet lit up with suggestions that some of Pence’s answers smelled like a substance flies are known to favor.

Harris exaggerated some, and substituted some stories from her life for actual answers, but didn’t seem as prone to flat misstatements; and she too evaded questions. One tough question the Democratic candidates understandably duck is their position on possible court-packing or other measures if Trump successfully adds yet another far right Justice. Tough question. The answer either becomes an instant headline (“BIDEN WON’T RULE OUT COURT-PACKING” ) or seems a broken promise if the court is later “packed.” But I’d sure try to fashion a more presentable way of waffling.

I think Harris reassured skeptics that she is not wild or weird, but well-spoken and calm and thoughtful. That was her task, as the first lady of color on a national ticket. Pence came off as far more reasonable and articulate than Mr. Trump, although some women critics accused him of “man-spaining.”

Polls showed a majority thought Harris won, perhaps because a similar majority already preferred her ticket. Probably the whole thing will matter little more than the fly.

                                                                      - 30 -

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 11 October 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper’s website and KRWG’s website. A spoken version will air during the week on KRWG and KTAL (www.lccommunityradio.org), and will be available on demand at KRWG’s site.]

[Law students love the old Latin phrase, “Res Ipsa Loquitur.” “The thing speaks for itself.” Here, that’d mean that governmental incompetence must be the explanation of our country’s higher death rate. Add to that the many known and alleged ways that Mr. Trump has (or allegedly has) screwed this thing up.

However, journalists and lawyers try to consider all possible explanations for anything. It certainly seems that our obesity epidemic could be a factor. I’ve wondered if our medical ability to keep folks alive for a very long time could be a factor, but other countries have longer life expectancies but lower COVID-19 death rates. So I’d really be interested in ANYONE’s explanation of why we’re being hit so bad, if it’s not negligent leadership. And the fact that Democratic-led states, on the whole are doing better than Republican-led states tends to support (but doesn’t prove!) the incompetence theory. ]

[Being a moderator is frustrating, particularly when the pandemic precautions mean Walt and I are talking to candidates over the phone. We don’t tend to give people set time limits; and, because facial expressions don’t cut it, and we can’t indicate with a facial expression or nod that “yeah, we got it, wind that answer up, please,” I end up interrupting, often after minutes of battling with myself. Some mornings I hate all political candidates – particularly the ones I like. ]

[By the way, vote! I’ll vote this week. I had ordered an absentee ballot, but likely will hand-carry it to the polls. By the way, if you have ordered an absentee ballot, but want to vote in person because of concern that the absentee ballot could get lost in the mail or be disqualified for some technical reason, you’ll save a hassle by taking it in with you. My understanding is that if you don’t, you can still vote, but yours will be a provisional vote, counted only at the end once they know your absentee ballot never came in. That’s fine, and your vote will be counted, but it takes a little extra time. ] 

 

River Thoughts

Our community is illustrating Aldo Leopold’s remark that our "paradoxical mixture of appetite and altruism for our recreational lands” requires tough decisions among opposing interests.

Organizers of the 4^th Annual River Run (October 17^th, with a smaller event October 10th) proudly proclaim they expect thousands of people, many from outside New Mexico, for a rally in which jeeps, trucks, and off-road vehicles race up and down the Rio Grande. They hope to donate funds raised to a charity and to needy families. They’re particularly excited about organizing a fun event after months of relative isolation.

Unfortunately, the rally would be disastrous. A huge gathering of strangers in town, eating, drinking, and laughing together, could easily become a COVID-19 “superspreader” event. State officials in charge of enforcing the Public Health Order, New Mexico State Police, and Doña Ana Sheriff’s Office are on alert.

Rally organizers expect at least a thousand people from Arizona alone; but out-of-state visitors are required to quarantine for 14 days, which would preclude participating in the event.

The event requires a special event permit from the International Boundary and Water Commission, which controls the riverbed. All departments, including Environmental, must review the permit application. The process is usually lengthy. Organizers were unaware of the permit requirement until last week, and may not have applied yet. They also would have to obtain appropriate liability insurance against personal injuries and property damage.

Several conservationist organizations sent IBWC a detailed letter explaining damage the rally could do, including harm to migrating birds and to four riparian habitat-restoration projects.

Southwest Environmental Center Executive Director Kevin Bixby said, “the river, despite its appearance at times, is a living ecosystem. Those pockets of water – which are fun to drive through – contain fish, on which herons and egrets depend for food. They’re particularly important right now for migrating waterfowl.” The rally would destroy vegetation, erode riverbanks, and spill a lot of oil and gas in the river.

Elaine Stachera Simon of Mesilla Valley Audobon Society said the event would harm birds, including migrating birds, by destroying insect larvae and other food sources. “There are other places they could do this. The migratory birds have no alternative. No one is anti-ATV. We’re pro-wildlife.”

Another conservationist said that no sane community, after approving use of public land for the Rio Grande Trail, creating a corridor plan highlighting its river as a functioning survival route for migratory and resident species, spending funds and effort on wetland and riparian restoration, co-hosting Species in Peril workshops and lectures, and spending $200 million to raise levees, would then support “a monster truck/ATV rally with hundreds, if not thousands, of resident and out-of-state vehicles pummeling this same corridor, threatening all these investments and commitments.”

Doña Ana County Commissioner Shannon Reynolds said, “I’m in favor of outdoor recreation, if it’s done right – in cooperation with nature, not an abuse of nature – and with appropriate permitting.”

As often happens, both sides involve good people trying to do what they feel is good for the community. We should listen to all viewpoints – and hope the current controversy educates all of us.

Aldo Leopold suggested we "quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically right, as well. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." 

                                                           – 30 – 

 

 [The above column appeared this morning 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 on both KRWG and KTAL (101.5 FM, http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), as well as being available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

For those interested in looking further into this, here’s a video clip of last year’s event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha4h4uas_FE&fbclid=IwAR0ufPEw9lBHq25A2MFh0exyJ9Y1p42_UdOfksIW87CR6N9D3iFsVu38JO4]

[I look forward to discussing this on radio Wednesday morning with both Randall Limón and Kevin Bixby, and perhaps others. By the way, “Speak Up, Las Cruces!” this week will include: at 8, our candidate forum for New Mexico House District 33, with incumbent Rep. Micaela Cadena, whose opponent, Beth Miller, has apparently pulled out or declined to appear; at 8:30 or so, we’ll talk about this difference of opinion regarding the river; at from 9-10 we’ll discuss the proposal for New Mexico to have a state bank. Proponents and opponents will participate, including bankers, a credit union executive, County Treasurer Eric Rodriguez, and his electoral challenger Bernadette Dorazio. We invite listeners to call in with questions or brief comments.  (101.5 FM, http://www.lccommunityradio.org/)]

[By the way, it's not clear whether or not the River Run organizers have actually applied for a permit yet.  That process turns out to be quite complicated; and I know from prior experience that applications for a license or permit from the IBWC can take a while.  Organizers have an alternative site in mind, although I'll admit I hope they postpone the whole thing.  It's just basic arithmetic that drawing many visitors from out-of-state and elsewhere within the state right now, some of whom will stay here a night or two, eating in restaurants and drinking in bars, just seems unwise right now from a pandemic viewpoint.  But it'll be interesting to talk further with both organizers and conservationists.  ]