So Long, Jim

I was saddened by Jim Cooper’s resignation.

We were in law school together. Class of 1980.

Jim was always going to get into politics back home in Tennessee. (He was a Rhodes Scholar, a former governor’s son, and the grandson of a former speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.)

In 1982 Jim was elected to serve in the U.S. Congress, soundly beating the daughter of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. He’s now served 40 years. That’s worth pausing over, as when some couple is having a 60^th wedding anniversary. Hard to do, these days. Many small compromises and much hard work. And maybe sprigs of love and loyalty.  [NOTE: Actually, I was inaccurate there. Forgot Jim ran for Senate in 1994, and has actually served a total of 32 years.  Sorry for the inaccuracy!]

Decades as steady Jim Cooper: a gentleman from Tennessee standing for honesty and for liberal Democratic policies; a moderate, and eventually the head of the Blue Dog Coalition; and scandal-free. A good man. A man you could rely on. He never gave up, as the environment grew increasingly rancorous and extremely partisan.  Just kept winning elections and doing a highly competent job in a tough position.

This year, Republican gerrymandering got him. The district in which he ran unopposed in 2020 was replaced by one having a better than 15% edge for Republicans in registered voters. Tennessee’s red lilliputians wanted to get him, and seem to have succeeded.

I lived in Tennessee briefly one summer. As an unwelcome civil rights worker. In Mississippi Delta country, just east of Memphis. Fayette County. I mention it because when I met Jim in law school, and when I read later of his successful career, I knew a little about how conservative and racist parts of Tennessee could be, at least back then. That muted any tendency I might have had to complain that his politics were too moderate. But then, I was never gonna get elected dogcatcher. In any state.

Jim once called Congress “a farm league for K Street,” saying members were so preoccupied with what they’d do when they left, such as becoming lobbyists, that they fell into serving special interests rather than the public. In 2011, he said it was “enraging” that his colleagues were posturing so badly for the voters that they were “taking the cheap political hit instead of studying the problem before us.”

Jim would have been challenged in the Democratic Primary by Odessa Kelly, a more progressive Black woman. That’s as it should be, letting the voters decide; but instead the Tennessee Legislature has decided, which may be legal but is highly unfortunate, and unfair to local voters.

So this column from far beyond his district is a quiet, friendly wave good-bye, and an expression of gratitude. I’m grateful to Jim, for his service. And his quiet competence. I’m also grateful to New Mexico, for taking the lead in voter-protection, not voter suppression, in this dangerous season for democracy.

The other Tennessee news of note this week involved a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel that illustrates the Holocaust, with the Jews drawn as mice and the Nazis as cats. It’s vivid and historically accurate. The McMinn County School Board unanimously banned it from the school library. The animals say “Damn” a few times, and there’s “nudity” (a tiny drawing of an unclothed mouse who has just slit her wrists in a bathtub – did they ban pantsless Donald Duck too?). Has Tennessee progressed since the Scopes Trial?

Maybe resigning makes sense. The state doesn’t deserve you, Jim.

                                               - 30 - 

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 30 January, 2022, 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 KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[I don’t mean to put down Tennessee. Lots of beautiful country and lots of fine folks there, and obviously music; and Jim’s district is far from the Mississippi Delta country in southwestern Tennessee where I spent some time. But I’m appalled by any state participating in the current wave of voter-suppression, which has a somewhat racist aroma to it: urban and black voters getting targeted by legislatures dominated by rural white legislators.  (See this Politico article on Jim and his district.) Extreme gerrymandering and a host of other legislative actions to make voting harder, so as to decrease the county in such areas, and/or taking control of the process out of the hands of the local election boards. And stuff like the banning of that holocaust graphic novel represents the worst part of people’s tendency to short-change art and historical truth because it doesn’t fit the dominant narrative in the culture. But it ain’t only in Tennessee, or only done by conservatives.]

[I also think Cooper represents a kind of legislator we’re making extinct: someone who has some core values, but actually listens to others, and can put his team jersey aside, roll up his or her sleeves, and collaborate to solve problems. Sure, on many issues I’d likely have been frustrated that he wasn’t more progressive; but we have to work together. Too, as people grow more and more disgusted with politicians, of all ideologies, who are serving special interests and lining their pockets, Jim was refreshing.]

I Was So Wrong!

Thursday morning I reached the Amador/Alameda intersection immediately after two cars had crashed. Impact had crushed their fronts, and spun them around. The blue car rested on the northbound side of Alameda, facing South, hood crumpled and the engine steaming lightly. The yellowish one was in the southbound lane, facing North. The drivers were just starting to open their doors. The guy in the yellowish car looked dazed, and maybe his door wasn’t opening easily. Neither had visible injuries.

I thanked their seat-belts. I recalled two high-school friends crashing into another vehicle. The passenger’s face looked like a baseball mitt someone had poured ketchup on and run the lawnmower over. Whit and I sat up in intensive care watching him for a night or two, uncertain he’d live. I recall the car’s bloody broken windshield.

Thursday’s crash reminded me: I was so wrong to oppose the seat-belt law! In my twenties, I hated New Mexico’s new mandatory helmet law. I loathed helmets. For years, crossing the country, I removed my helmet when I passed through a non-helmet-law state. I was in my thirties one autumn afternoon in Virginia, near D.C., when a graveyard tree with beautiful orange foliage distracted me. I was going slowly, in town. When I looked back at the road, the car in front of me had stopped. My bike hit it. I flipped up in the air, and over, landing flat on my back on the car’s roof, my head (protected by a helmet) hitting right where roof met hatchback. I walked away, uninjured. And shut up about helmet laws.

In a long and rebellious life, I’ve gotten some things right. Others I didn’t, at least at first. I won’t get into how dangerous my driving was during high school and college; but I was so wrong, and lucky not to have killed or maimed anyone.

We regularly rode motorcyles in the desert between Cruces and the mountains, and in the foothills. We stayed on established trails, but I fear our definition of “established” loosened as the countryside’s beauty grew or we got tired. I should have known how easily our beloved desert could be scarred for a very long time; but it was fun. (And, jeez, you should have seen Bill Moore, who’d been on the Aggies Final-Four basketball team, on a dirtbike! Made me feel like a ten-year-old.)

I smoked four or five packs of cigarettes daily, until I was 26. Even then, no long-term health concern stopped me. I played 2-on-2 basketball with 16-year-olds in the NMSU gym, felt the burning sensation in my throat, and gave up smokes.

More generally, I was so wrong about the depth of our environmental problem. I loved camping in wilderness, tried not to disturb anything, prized nature and naturalness, but sure had no clue of the depth of our danger or the importance of curbing my behavior. I didn’t see that slowing down, driving and flying less, reusing paper when possible, and preserving what water we could, all mattered.

There are women to whom I owe serious apologies, for different sorts of insensitive or selfish conduct. I believed early in women’s equality and rights, but to some women in my life, I was just not as good a man as I should have been.

I’ve been wrong enough to treat my views as hypotheses, not God’s Truth. And to try not to judge others.

                                              - 30 -

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 23 January, 2022, 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 KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

© Peter Goodman

[I’m not seeking absolution for my misspent youth, or the pain I caused others, or my contribution to what we’re doing to our environment and fellow species here on Earth; but I am ‘fessing up to having acted badly, and passionately advocated positions I’d now reject, and suggesting we all tone it down a little, ‘cause I’m guessing few of us are without second-thoughts about how we’ve treated others or what we’ve believed at times.]

[Someone might wonder what the old Ford has to do with it.  (It looks like a 1954 or so, well before I was old enough to drive.  Maybe 1952?)  Maybe I'll try later today to write a poem about the car.  Like me, it's clearly old, past it's prime, settled.  Perhaps it manages a wry grin when it shakes its hood over misdeeds so ancient it's not sure whether they happened or were dreamed.  But there it sits.  No one knows the 7-11 robberies it helped someone get away after, or the fumbling kids who excitedly discovered each others' bodies in the back seat, or . . .  Anyway!] 

As of a few days later, and before I maybe take it to workshop next week, here's how that poem looks:

    RUST 
What high spirits linger
from hitting 80 miles per hour,
90, . . . a hundred!  Which young folks
discovered each others’ joyful bodies,
fumbling in the back seat?

Did a nervous lookout
speed away with pals and loot
from a 7-11 store?
Did a sober husband or wife
start to leave, driving slowly,
letting waves of guilt and freedom
wash through choppy mind and heart?
Did s/he drive
until the gas ran out
and start a new life?
Or turn back, thinking of the kids,
or some moment
when love rose like the full moon,
absolving them both of everything?

Did one of those kids
take the same car to college
ten years later, unaware?

How many children mumbled or shouted,
“Are we there yet?” or played car games
across states and pastures, sometimes
falling asleep while daddy drove,
knowing they were loved?

Does the old ford
settled and calm, at home
with all its rust, still manage
a wry smile at what went on?

any suggestions?  looking at it now, i'm thinking "knowing they were loved" oughtta be a more concrete image, such as:

falling asleep while daddy drove,

hardly aware of mother

placing the blanket over them.

 

and should "at home

with all its rust" be

                     "comfortable
with all its rust," as i initirally wrote it, or perhaps

                      "unembarrassed

by all its rust"   ?

 

"Are We There Yet, Daddy?" -- Yet Another Season of Pandemic

An email this morning says Judge Arrieta has closed the courts to in-person contacts with defendants and others for the next two weeks due to omicron-spiked coronavirus cases. My phone just buzzed to tell me one friend’s email about weekly coffee [outdoors] elicited from another friend: “Sorry guys. In retreat until the virus peaks.”

This week I started wearing my colorful cloth mask over a white KN95, as the CDC will probably recommend soon. Studies show that, with a cloth mask, if you’re sitting indoors within six feet of an unmasked person with this variant of COVID-19, it generally takes 25 minutes for you to get infected. The N95 makes that two and a half hours. More than ten times as long. Way longer than I’d sit jawing with anyone!

The omicron variant may be peaking elsewhere, but our state is experiencing its surge in cases right now. New Mexico’s Health Department reported 5,547 new cases Thursday.

Omicron is very infectious, but a mild illness, usually. Widespread vaccination has further decreased deaths. We’re seeing relatively fewer hospitalizations and deaths among vaccinated folks; but some vaccinated friends are certainly not enjoying their illnesses.

It’s harder and harder to get and maintain a clear perspective on anything. We in the U.S. aren’t noted for our patience or long attention spans. We’re frustrated, tired, and/or scared. To varying degrees, we’ve been good for months, now years – what feels like a decade. Shouldn’t this be over by now? (“Are we there yet, Daddy?”) Some experts think “the end” is in sight. Others say it’s “unlikely but plausible” that yet another variant in the spring will be both more contagious and deadlier. I haven’t figured out whether “unlikely but plausible” translates to the less than one half of one per cent chance the San Francisco 49ers had last Sunday to beat the Rams with two minutes to go, or their odds on beating Dallas this Sunday, in Dallas, with the Cowboys favored by 3.5 points. Probably closer to the former, but the ‘Niners made the playoffs. None of us will be rooting for COVID. (The Earth should root for COVID, as should the many species whom we’re extinctifying with our greed and carelessness. But that’s another column.)

It’s comforting to know that while the coronavirus has every incentive to morph into a more contagious form, it has reason NOT to be deadlier, or, at least, not to kill off its hosts before we can infect as many of our friends and acquaintances as possible. But that hasn’t kept COVID-19 from killing 5 ½ million people so far.

I can’t agree with tennis star Novak Djokovic’s mother that he’s an international hero for lying on his Australian visa application and spouting medical nonsense. I enjoyed Anthony Fauci getting caught by a hot mike muttering in shock, “What a moron! Christ,” after Sen. Roger Marshall kept asking him over and over how to obtain Fauci’s financial investment disclosures, which have been public information for years, and implying Fauci is on the take.

Lots of folks have different ideas about dealing with COVID, based on our different fears and life styles. That’s understandable. A senator (and doctor!) implying false information and asking questions he knows are stupid deserves worse than Fauci could give him.

Let’s keep our heads up, live what we can of life, and help protect our community while acknowledging contrary views on how.

                                                          - 30 - 

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 16 January, 2022, 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 KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

 

© Peter Goodman

 

Our Challenging Times

My first column written in 2022 is a chance to contemplate how we’re doing.

We still face a pandemic, a powerful internal attack on our democracy, and economic inequality that’s grown to absurd levels, while climate change looms like Death in The Seventh Seal.

Yet we’re persevering. How can we do that better?

The pandemic endangers our health and economy, as well as our mental-emotional equilibrium and our patience. The Trump-inspire attack on our democracy is the worst we’ve seen for 160 years. The violence a year ago was designed to support a coup, in which politicians would veto the electoral vote. It failed narrowly because some Republicans chose democracy over thievery. Other Republicans are changing election laws in swing states to facilitate a similar theft in 2024.

Today I’m less interested in debating details than in assessing how these and other challenges are affecting us personally, and how we can maintain our ability to communicate.

Everyone knows today’s excessive political partisanship (which has turned the pandemic into pigskin) endangers our civility, and our democracy. You can’t run a country, city, or radio station without talking AND LISTENING to each other. Economic inequality is not only bad for poor folks, and for our economy, and just-plain-wrong, it widens the chasm between people.

I’ve no answer to all that.

But let’s start by admitting we’re falling into mindless team loyalty. Let’s also admit we’ve each helped create that, or deepen it. No matter how firmly we each feel we’re on the side of Science, God, Truth, Democracy, or Justice, we’re mostly being jerks about it. We’re so determined to score political points that we don’t hear each other. Meanwhile, the pandemic-based isolation is wearing on us.

It’s easy to point out that the Trumpists’ Herculean efforts to uncover material faults in the 2020 election failed. Trump himself appears not to believe it, but rakes in huge contributions and creates great political energy by shouting “Election Steal!”

The harder part is to recall that the folks sending Trump money and praising him on the Internet are fellow human beings, fellow U.S. citizens, fellow community members; recognize that most of them love many of the same things we do, and are NOT evil; and do the hard work of ‘sussing out why our friends, neighbors, and cousins are believing such blatant lies. From the start of this sad six-year episode in our history, it’s been clear that Mr. Trump did not invent the real problems and perceived slights that groomed these folks to follow him like the Pied Piper.

Without understanding why people follow Trump, and why many believe non-Trumpists are evil, we’re lost. We can beat them, or lose to them; but we can’t erase this toxic partisanship that’s poisoning us and our well of democracy. So let’s redouble our efforts to seek out our “opponents” and hear them. Some are violent, some are racist, some are political opportunists or con artists; but most are folks just trying to survive, as we are.

I don’t belittle the danger we’re in. With encouragement from significant government officials, a violent mob forced its way into the Capitol, threatening death to political opponents, battering and even killing police, trying to overturn a presidential election. Now a significant minority of Congresspersons and right-wing opinion-makers deny it happened, blame Antifa, or suggest it was just a picnic.

That’s scary – and magnifies the importance of understanding each other.

                                 - 30 -

  

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 9 January, 2022, 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 KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[I kind of wanted to avoid writing about last January 6^th, but then felt I had to. (For another perspective, from a local conservative whom I know as thoughtful and independent-minded, read Randy Lynch’s What Ever Happened to Personal Responsibility? in the Sun-News. Viewing “personal responsibility” as a key Republican value, he asks why it doesn’t apply to January 6^th.) I also felt that I wanted to not say, “Republicans bad,” but discuss, without whitewashing or exaggerating the events of a year ago, the political chasm that helped enable those events.

A subscriber, already this morning, pointed out on the S-N website that my own description of some of what happened or is going on now tended to help widen that chasm. I had regretted that, in writing the column. As I wrote to the subscriber, I found it tough to thread that needle: while I cannot excuse the conduct of Mr. Trump and other “leaders” cynically profiting from challenging the legitimacy or the 2020 vote or minimizing the events of January 6, I sympathize with many who listened to those voices, particularly some who got tricked (“I’ll be with you!” Mr. Trump shouted; and he was, in spirit, watching on TV) into criminal conduct. They should be sentenced, as I’d say of someone who committed similar acts for a cause to which I was more sympathetic; but they were gulled. I am interested in talking with more of those folks; but I can’t pretend January 6 didn’t happen, or blame it on black folks. There’s an obvious tension there. ]

[ In passing, let me than the American Association of University Women (for inviting Nan Rubin and me to brief them on what’s going on at Las Cruces Community Radio [KTAL-LP, website URL above] and promote an event, the NM Alzheimers Association’s all-day virtual caregivers’ workshop on Saturday, 29 January, which a representative of the group will discuss with us on “Speak Up, Las Cruces!” at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday the 26^th. This week’s show, 8-10 a.m. Wednesday, will feature a discussion of the state’s water situation with two excellent experts, starting at 9.]

 

 

Writing Santa for our Community

Dear Santa,

For our community, please send more rain. (I promise to be better conserving water!) I’d also ask:

Bumper crops for produce vendors at our vibrant Farmers Market, more people buying healthy, tasty local food – and growing some at home; and McDonalds ceasing to sell, so-called “nutritious” junk food that contributes to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Removal of the eyesore on Main, between Lohman and Amador, a developer’s giant middle-finger to city government, which officials keep promising is being dealt with. (And could you remove Amador Live, or at least lower its noise volume to sane, healthy levels?)

Meaningful, evidence-based discussion of school policies, with folks on all sides actually listening.

More water!

A higher vaccination rate, both to boost community health and to minimize disruption to our economy, health, recreational pursuits, and hanging out with friends and family.

More pickleball courts. Pickleball is a joy for all ages, despite the silly name. It’s great exercise, with minimal injury potential (being non-contact). It’s fast-growing, with many Las Crucens addicted to the game. With the new Apodaca Park courts so crowded at times, other outdoor sites are essential, particularly for folks who want to play without unnecessary hobnobbing with strangers.

Continued printing of our local daily newspaper, the Sun-News – and continued success and support for radio stations KRWG and KTAL, our NPR-affiliate and our local community radio station, respectively. They all help the community talk to itself, which is ever more critical as other meaningful discussion fora disappear. And I promise to help all three.

Help also for so many fine local nonprofits, including Community of Hope, Jardin de los Niños, La Casa, and Wildlife for All.

More opportunities to eat at The Shed, Luna Rossa, Willow and Blaine, Habañero, Nopalitos, La Nueva Casita, Aqua Reef, The Mix, and other wonderful local restaurants – and to drink good coffee at Milagro, Nessa’s, Beck’s, and the Bean.

Leisure to watch the mountains come alive in the afternoon sun, then grow that unbelievable red, then become black shapes outlined by a rising moon; to swap stories and discuss the issues of the day with pals at those coffee houses; and to visit the Bosque del Apache and watch thousands of bright white snow geese rise from the water, bathed in dawn’s rich light, and watch sandhill cranes return at dusk, their spindly legs hanging down as they try for a steady landing in the shifting winds.

A victory (or two!?) for the Aggies in the NCAA basketball tournament. Chris Jans is a hell of a coach, and senior Johnny McCants is a Cruces kid.

State legislative action on predatory lending, a state bank, strong support for early-childhood education, and whatever sensible, constitutional steps could decrease gun violence; and “business-development” efforts that recognize the significance of the arts. Federal help for Downwinders. And more water, and fewer pecan orchards.

And, Santa, a lump of coal for Joe Manchin, or leave him and the energy companies that own him the grace to face up to the incredible suffering their short-term greed and “politics-as-usual” could cause their own grandkids – and ours.

But, above all, grant me further opportunities to express gratitude to this community and the caring people (whether or not we agree on issues) who breathe life into it, our independent spirit. Also, the best-ever bone for Foxy, who’s hoping I’ll stop scribbling and toss her ball.

Happy Everything to All!

                                             - 30 -

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 2 January, 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as ob the newspaper's website and KRWG's website (Gotta add a hearty thanks and “Happy Trails!” to Fred Martino, who left KRWG at the start of last month. A gentleman and a journalist. He’ll be missed.). A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

2013

[As you might guess, this was written initially for last Sunday’s paper, but other features were running long so this “Community Christmas List” got delayed, but, even so, Santa delivered a good downpour of rain to mark the new year, as well as snow atop the Organs. Thanks, pal!]

[I’ve little to add to the column, except that I apologize to any local eateries and coffee joints I may have omitted (or may not yet have had the pleasure of). I think I left out Salud, a favorite; and Hacienda de Mesilla, which we can’t necessarily afford to visit often but which we’ve enjoyed each time we did. And there are so many others, for a small city.]

[By the way, we’ll have a discussion of New Mexico’s water situation with two real experts and maybe a state legislator Friday, 12 January, on “Speak Up, Las Cruces!” on KTAL-LP, 101.5 FM (Website URL above).]