Tough Choices

This week’s Supreme Court argument, next Monday’s city work session, and a special state legislative session all focus on how we retain our values, treat the homeless folks fairly, and protect small businessfolk.

Half of us are a paycheck away from homelessness. Our modern world makes mental health problems epidemic; and our corporate capitalism helps create the homelessness.

I could be an unemployed carpenter pushing a shopping cart that contains all I own. I could be innocent of crimes, or guilty occasionally of trespassing or urinating where I shouldn’t. Maybe disease, war’s madness, or grief for my dead wife has addled my brain. Would you confiscate that shopping cart, stripping me of everything I can’t carry on my person?

I could be a small businessman whose parking lot out back is occupied nightly by a couple who sleep there, eat, shoot up, urinate, and defecate there, and leave garbage and needles. Each morning I arrive early to clean up their mess. After I politely suggested they find somewhere else, they threatened me, then started writing obscenities on my wall, and cutting pipes – at night, unseen. The police have many problems to deal with at each moment. Can you fairly ask me to experience all this so that you can feel our community is humane to the homeless?

Citizens enraged by vandalism or abuse aren’t always ready to hear about others’ constitutional rights or understand the economic and/or psychological reasons others aren’t homed. Citizens concerned about those constitutional and human rights, and housing homeless folks, don’t always admit the costs our law-abiding tolerance exacts on others who don’t live in some East Mesas mansion. We see many collisions between the needs and interests of basically decent people.

There are some very bad actors. One killed a policeman, for no discernible reason. Ran at him and stabbed him, when the officer approached him quietly and respectfully. Others threaten or curse other citizens, or inflict costly damage on homes and shops.

The Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of the Grant’s Pass anti-camping ordinance: is evicting and imprisoning the homeless cruel and unusual when there’s nowhere else they can sleep?

Monday, the City will hammer out public safety ordinances. For both constitutional and humanitarian reasons, ordinances must balance carefully the need to minimize the harm some people are doing to others without persecuting innocent but impoverished folks.

This complex problem has many layers. Drugs, including Fentanyl, exacerbate it. But addicts are human, too. Punishing addiction rarely helps. We must try our best to treat them, but that can’t mean allowing them to commit repeated crimes of theft, burglary, or battery. Some say, cut off the supply! But that likely would just significantly interrupt the supply, significantly jacking up the drug’s price, and significantly increasing burglary and theft.

Mental incompetence is a factor. Since courts can’t fairly try someone too addled to assist the defense lawyer, and you can’t throw someone into a mental institution because s/he’s obviously addled, sometimes someone commits crimes with impunity. While bail rules that jail poor people but not rich people are unfair, constantly releasing people who’ll commit more crimes immediately isn’t fair to the community. Our legislature will grapple with that and related issues, starting July 18^th, in a special session we thank the governor for calling. starting July 18^th.

These are serious, subtle, challenging problems. Fortunately, many of our public officials recognize that. I think. 

                                           – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 28April, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper’s website (sub nom Serious and Subtle Problems Face Las Cruces: Crime, Homelessness, and Accountability) and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[The newspaper put a good headline on this column: Laws Cruces faces serious, subtle problems trying to sail ordinances safely past shoals of unconstitutionality, impracticality, ineffectiveness, and community opposition. I like Chief Story’s approach, without necessarily endorsing every proposal. Above all, I wanted to write about this because I find friends of various political persuasions having some difficulty seeing other views as clearly as I wish they would. It can’t help the community decision-making process to have lots of folks passionate about one side and blind to the other.

However, we’ve come a long way. I hear folks on both sides articulating important points they seemed not to want to face a while back. That’s a plus. ]

[P.S.: Sorry not to post this earlier today.  It was a weird Sunday, with the Saturday Farmers' Market a day late, Joe Somoza's wonderful poetry reading in the afternoon, then another friend's retirement party at a brewpub where he plays music.]

 

 

Giving Ourselves the Gift of Gratitude

Sitting in Nessa’s, a fellow old man told me of a conversation with a neighbor, whose nonagenarian husband was sinking into dementia. My friend sympathized, and suggested that, even so, the four of them should get together for happy hour soon. His neighbor agreed, adding, “But these days we call it ‘Gratitude Hour,’ we’re so grateful to still be here.”

Practicing gratitude matters.

Yeah, life is tough. Time and age are merciless. So is capitalism. We are not only short-lived and insignificant beings clinging briefly to the edge of one of zillions of planets, but in our work, our diet, our health, our recreation and entertainment, we are at the mercy of vast corporations which use us as they can. Too, our world has closed in on us: the days when young persons could flee a dull or difficult home-life and hometown for the frontier died a century ago.

So what’s to be grateful for? We’ve each been granted a life. A span of years, with this marvel, a mind. A series of individual moments. Each moment, while we live it, is all there is. The past is clouded and no future is guaranteed. We build a life from that series of moments, by how we handle them. Just as many moments full of laughter and love carve a face with laugh lines, repeated moments of anger and envy carve a different face, unless we are Dorian Gray. And, more importantly, time carves our inner face accordingly.

It is not our good or bad fortune at work, or even in love, that determines such matters. We do. Each moment, even when we are not paying full attention, we choose.

Perhaps this is all taurine manure. Although I’m far from rich (or young, beautiful, or famous, nor can I dunk a basketball), chance has granted me a relatively comfortable existence. I do not live in Yemen or Gaza or Putin’s Russia, nor am I an untouchable in India or a Rohingya trying in Burma. I am not the friend who has been so devastated by Alzheimer's that she plays with her feces. I have a home, health, and something to eat. I do not have to work as a greeter in Walmart.

Yet we are all doing better than many and worse than many, in this way or that. That can anger us or simply amuse or bemuse us. As science and religions point out, it will pass. In a world of more fear and intolerance and greed and prejudice than we might wish, it’s essential not to take those qualities inside ourselves, as weapons with which to respond to life’s slings and arrows. Doing so only poisons us, without making us any more effective. Rather, practicing gratitude, not anger and envy, lets us consider each moment more clearly; and it may rather disarm others.

We chatted on radio recently with a wandering monk. When we asked, he said that he welcomed people’s intolerance, or other difficulties, as opportunities to strengthen his inner peace. While most of us are not wandering monks, we are always building or maintaining our ability to negotiate this very challenging game called life. Just as playing tougher opponents improves your bridge or pickleball (or football and video-game skills), we can use each experience, particularly the hard ones, to develop the muscles that let us do what needs doing without being distracted by others’ misconduct toward us.

                                           – 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 21April, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will soon also be available on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[I guess the short form of the above would be “LIVE your life: even if it sucks, it’s a huge gift; and keeping that in mind can both improve its quality and extend it.” Apologies to readers who have have expected something more political or analytical.]

"Monk Reading Sutras in the Jokhang" 

© Peter Goodman 1987

[Funny thing about columns: often I’ve written drafts days or even weeks earlier, and interviewed a lot of people and rea
d a lot of documents in trying to be fair and accurate. Sometimes, as during the last two weeks, other stuff I’m working on isn’t quite ready for prime time yet, and nothing has come readily to mind (or life has intervened!) and it’s Thursday morning, with a column due in hours. I’ve no clue what it’ll be, and even wonder if I’ll not manage it this time. Last week, a few moments’ reflection led to starting one on the MAGA cult, and the importance of distinguishing between that cult and either conservatism or even the Republican Party, though for the moment the Cult controls the Party. This week, a longer period of reflection got me started on the column above.]

 

 

The Cult

With our government paralyzed by the MAGA Cult, how must we look to the world?

We can’t even approve paying our debts.

Sadly, but comically, the House Republican majority could barely elect a leader, then a second, who survives at the pleasure of a lady who says God is sending us messages with these earthquakes and eclipses.

Further, whatever our government agrees on can be scuttled instantly by the cult leader, who holds no office.

Mr. Biden, most experts, and almost all Republicans and Democrats in Congress believe that for the world’s security and ours, helping fund Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion is good. It’s costly; but Putin’s Russia invaded a sovereign country and threatens to invade its neighbors, whom we are treaty-bound to defend. Without risking U.S. soldiers’ lives, Ukraine has been weakening Russia militarily and perhaps averting invasions of its neighbors. Right or wrong, a majority of our leaders appreciate that. But the cult obeys its leader. No wonder Putin and China favor his election!

Our southern border is a problem. Reasonable minds differ on how best to solve it. A majority of Republicans and Democrats found a compromise they thought would greatly help. It included authorizing President Biden to close the border, which the Republicans (MAGA loudest) had been yammering for. They were prepared to vote, until the MAGA Cult Leader said “No!” Notably, he offers no reason that a productive compromise on this contentious issue wouldn’t be to our benefit.

He’s notorious for judging anything and anyone based on what helps him or hurts him. Allowing something good for us is bad for him because Mr. Biden, against whom the Cult Leader will run in November, might get some of the credit. That all the other leaders think it’s good for our country, and that acting like grownups might marginally increase citizens’ respect for Congress, mean nothing. (Venality is an occupational hazard in politicians; but most have conscience, ethics, or faith holding that in check.)

I’m not against dissent. I’ve strongly argued that certain wars were bad for the nation. The Cult Leader offers no serious argument that having Ukraine defend against Putin doesn’t benefit us.

Health care is notoriously abysmal here, compared to other nations. In 2010, the national government adopted a plan that would help significantly, although it would be far from solving the problem. Some Republicans opposed it, as with Social Security, but then saw that it clearly benefited people, and accepted it. But the Cult Leader remains obsessed with repealing it. It was the signature achievement of President Barack Obama, a Black man who, the Leader felt, had once insulted him at a public dinner.

We progressives poke fun at the Cult, but understandably worry. It could run this country, perhaps for the rest of our lives. The Leader has no respect for the Constitution.

Many Republicans say the Cult isn’t even conservative, and that the Leader spent wildly while in office. Since the Leader’s election in 2016, they’ve lost Senate seats, and governorships, and the Leader, lost the Presidency, as incumbents rarely do.

But inflation caused by two wars might enable the Cult to win in November. I don’t say Biden’s blameless. Since October, I’ve said that Israel’s tragically excessive response to Hamas’s terrible massacre of civilians might elect MAGA. Biden has let Netanyahu lead him by his nose, but has done much good. He’s also decent and sane.

                                             – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 14April, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and and will soon be available on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[The MAGA Cult is not the Republican Party, although certainly it now controls the Party, and may some day destroy or evict non-MAGA Republicans.

Cult? How do you tell a cult? Blind obedience to the Leader, and subordinating not only one’s though but one’s entire well-being to his. That includes “conservatives abandoning their most cherished beliefs: republicans and military folk once believed in confronting a threat to world peace and allies’ security, so much so that they launched lunatic wars against Viet Nam and other small nations (and they honored our war dead); conservative Republicans preached respect for the whole Constitution (not just the 2^nd Amendment!); Christian leaders at least purported to honor Jesus and his words (although some managed to harmonize those in their minds with human slavery) and respected men for their honesty, fortitude, loyalty to their wives, respect for Jesus’s example, humility, and care for the poor; and “fiscal conservatives” preached tightness with public funds, not corruption and a heyday for large corporations. But all beliefs fall by the wayside when following the Leader is paramount.

A handy dictionary defines “cult” as a system of religious worship or “an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers.” Admirers venerate Mr. Trump greatly. They lose their senses. They donate hard-earned cash to help him, a supposed billionaire, avoid accountability for his defaming a woman he bodily assaulted, violations of financial and election laws, violations of national security rules regarding documents, and even fomenting a small insurrection. (Jeez, he’s been busy!) They even abandon their faith and their patriotism, or twist those into unrecognizable shapes so as to pretend still to embrace them.

Protecting our young is supposedly one of our deepest instincts. Like the children of Hamelin, they will even follow him over the cliff of climate-change denial, endangering their own children’s well-being. ]

[Speaking of parents, this would be the 105^th birthday of the young ex-Marine in this picture. Whom I loved during his life, despite some pretty strong disagreements during my youth, and honor now.]

 

 

It's Time for Las Cruces to Re-Start its Oversight Committee

In 2018 alleged misconduct led the City to enact the Accountability in Government Ordinance to protect against “fraud, waste, and abuse.”

The ordinance (Municipal Code Section 2-179) created an Inspector-General and an Oversight Committee to keep a close eye on city spending. Both make sense: Las Cruces’s annual budget exceeds half a billion dollars. It spends this public money on a variety of salaries, contracts, supplies, and costs. With 1600 employees, that’s a lot for anyone to keep track of.

This ordinance was mandatory. Provisions read, “The committee shall consist of [three city resident members, one each from accounting, law enforcement, and professional management/business] . . . The mayor and one councilor . . . shall be nonvoting ex officio members. . . . As vacancies on the committee occur, the council shall appoint new members. . . . The committee shall meet at least four times per year,”

“Shall” means what your father meant when he raised his arm in a ready-to-spank position as he told you to do something. Legally, it doesn’t mean “if you feel like it” or “if the wind is blowing just right, could you please . . . ?”

The city hasn’t done it. Management’s years-long delay in hiring the required inspector-general was widely reported. After a search, the City hired a really topnotch gent, who’d been a GS-14 at the DEA, but perhaps Pili didn’t exactly welcome him. He resigned while “on probation.” Pili then hired Charles Tucker, sans search, off the Oversight Committee.

The committee functioned, but last met in September 2023. Chair Jack Eakman is its only current member. In a meeting last August, city councilors acknowledged what others had alleged, that Ifo Pili didn’t much like oversight.

Has the City really tried? It shouldn’t be hard to find an accountant or a lawyer or ex-cop. Have they even called the Southern New Mexico Bar Association? The City tells me that it made efforts, but “It was determined that the ordinance needs some revisions, and it would be better to make those revisions before appointing new members.” Revisions will go “to City Council at a future work session in the coming months.” Translation: “Later, kid!”

This wasn’t a do-nothing committee. Eakman declined to discuss specifics or name names, calling that confidential (although I understand Ifo was meant to publish committee reports). I asked whether the committee had uncovered “mismanagement and misappropriation of funds.” He replied, “Absolutely. And fraud, waste, and abuse.” Whether that saved us $1 a year or $1 million, that’s money not being recovered currently, and problems not being identified, because of management sluggishness.

Basically: some city folks screwed up, or worse; investigators found the city wasn’t keeping track of its money (our money) well enough and suggested an oversight committee; city council created one; but management has put the committee to sleep for now.

That’s a problem. This committee is an important tool to spot and prevent carelessness and corruption. I hope councilors feel some urgency about it. One guessed “revisions” might include loosening the requirements, to facilitate appointing committee-members; but “some future time in months” doesn’t sound urgent. Maybe a citizen or group will take some legal action to force Las Cruces to follow a Las Cruces City Ordinance calling for good-government.

I hope Mayor Enriquez will light a fire under someone to get the Oversight Committee two more members soon. Drafting “revisions” shouldn’t take six months.

                                – 30 –

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 7April, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/).]

[The city needs to do this. Further delay to June or July isn’t necessary. It can’t take that long, at this point, to get the subject into shape for a meaningful discussion, with a draft ordinance on the table to focus that discussion. It’s already been six months! The further delay means probably we’ll have spent a full year in violation of our own ordinance before (perhaps) coming back into compliance. I’m just not seeing a good excuse for such an extensive delay.]

[I’m guessing here, and not stating a fact or advocating anything, but the delay to date and the need to amend the ordinance may be related. One councilor told me she’s been asking acquaintances who are lawyers, ex-cops, or accountants to consider it, and that’s yielded no applications so far. So maybe they’re considering easing the requirements. Might be necessary, although I’m still guessing management hasn’t made serious efforts to fix this. (Maybe Ikani will.) And how to loosen up the requirements while still making sure to have savvy folks on the committee will take some thought. One idea would be to loosen the residency requirement so that a member need only reside within a few miles of the city limits. I know several great candidates who live in, say, Talavera.]

[On another topic I’ve written about a little, the city was finally going to have a work session [Monday, 8 April] on evidence that Memorial Medical Center is not performing satisfactorily under its contract with city and county. I even declined the Monday afternoon bridge game to attend. But now, I’m told, MMC has asked for more time to prepare. Time they might not need if answers that would be both true and acceptable to the city and the public were easy to form. Anyway, if you were planning on attending, do something fun instead.]

Main Street 1885