Michael Swickard

There are plenty of nature-centric places in New Mexico to preserve, but not to exclude human entry. Preserve the nature-centric areas of New Mexico for all Americans but make sure all Americans can enjoy those areas.

Years ago, “wilderness” meant a place where man had not set foot. Now, after decades of wilderness legislation, no one can define wilderness. It means whatever politicians mean it to mean.

The intense politics around wilderness designations make winners and losers. The winners are the political operatives and lawyers who make their money in courts. The losers are the American public. It is a giant scam.

Take the wilderness problems of Tombstone, Ariz. Their water plant was built before any wilderness designation and served the town well. Last year a flood damaged the water pipes, which the town wanted to repair. They were told the land now was wilderness and they could not repair their water system.

How can wilderness mean iron water pipes, roads and water collection areas? It can, because the wilderness advocates and the thousands of lawyers who make millions of dollars advocating an odd sort of wilderness designation say it is.

Nature vs. urban

That got me thinking: We need new terminology to understand American wilderness issues. At opposite ends of a continuum are the concepts nature and urban. Nature-centric are areas whose attributes are those of nature as opposed to urban-centric whose attributes are those of the urban environment. Compare the wilds of Alaska with New York City.

Where we have problems is when the two intertwine either just a little or a lot. Some places in America are nature-centric with some urban intrusion. That is where we have the political rub. No matter what anyone says there are very little virgin nature landscapes, and all of them are in Alaska.

Other places have mostly nature-centric landscapes but there is always a little urbanization that creeps into nature. So it is the degree of blend that matters, eh? Speaking of creeps, politicians have perverted the language of wilderness such that wilderness can be a place where planes fly over, there are one hundred years of roads and if you are standing in a high place you can see Wal-Mart trucks on the freeway, but it is a wilderness. It is really nature-centric with urban intrusions.

The question that we have spent almost 50 years on is the purpose of our nature-centric lands. Years ago the idea was to have areas of our country where people could get a good nature-centric experience and then return to their urban-centric homes. We have lots of forests and mountains that are nature-centric. Then someone decided the deal was to exclude Americans and make areas where essentially no Americans can go.

This is the wilderness movement today. It takes land with roads and houses and cattle operations and attempts to clear the humans from the landscape by making it almost or entirely impossible for Americans to enjoy those nature-centric areas. It is done all in the name of “wilderness preservation.”

No ‘wilderness’ areas in New Mexico

To be blunt: there are no “wilderness” areas in New Mexico. All the areas have had roads; all have planes flying over, and all have lots of human pressure on them. They are nature-centric with some urban-centric intrusion. Not wilderness. There has not been wilderness in New Mexico for hundreds of years.

Even Alaska, as remote as it is, has planes flying over and into the wilderness areas such as the Brooks Range of mountains. It is the most like the wilderness stories of America in the early 1900s. But remember, even then there were lots of Native Americans already on the land. We have to go back 20,000 years or more to get land not trampled by humans.

So for those trying to curb the urban intrusion, is there some way to do so without scamming people into calling some place wilderness when it obviously is not? The limits of urban intrusion can be managed as long as it does not exclude Americans full access to the land.

There are plenty of nature-centric places in New Mexico to preserve, but not to exclude human entry. When entry must be by foot, it excludes the majority of Americans. Quit paying millions of dollars to environmental lawyers to exclude Americans from their own land. Preserve the nature-centric areas of New Mexico for all Americans but make sure all Americans can enjoy those areas.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

If the educational leaders in New Mexico really want kids to graduate they should aim the incentives on graduation. How about a graduation lottery?

It is college graduation weekend, with all of those happy graduates ready to hit the trail. They are the success stories, at least those who get a job. For the ones who don’t, there is always another degree to pursue forestalling entry into the job market. Many students just drift away from college without a degree.

The Lottery Scholarship pays tuition for certain New Mexico students and, despite all of the hoopla, it is only a semi-good idea. For one thing, the primary idea should be to get the students to graduate. College is supposed to be an alumni mill, cranking out alumni in increasing numbers. This being graduation time, that is what we focus on. But the Lottery Scholarship is focused on attendance. The incentive is to go to college, not graduate. When you graduate the money stops.

It is the same way that New Mexico colleges compensate for teaching – by the number of classes taught, not the number of students who graduate. If the educational leaders in New Mexico really want kids to graduate they should aim the incentives on graduation. How about a graduation lottery?

Picture this

Picture this: At each graduation, before awarding the degrees, some names are drawn. There are the usual dinners and car washes, but then come the better prizes. Several (lucky?) students get free tuition on their next degree. Even better, several get their student loans paid in full. Then will come the moment that has caused all of the media attention. One lucky graduate gets one million dollars paid over 20 years. I bet that would spice up the ceremony.

How the entry tickets are calculated is even better. Every college credit a student takes translates to one entry, so changing majors several times is not quite so bad, as long as the student eventually graduates. Further, they could even get three tickets for each A, two for each B and one for each C. Sorry, nothing for a D.

On a larger scale, perhaps the school leaders would factor more tickets for harder degrees. Electrical engineers would be envied because they earn 10 times the number of tickets for each A as someone in a “less demanding” program. At graduation one student may have accumulated 5,000 entries while a classmate only has 1,000. Again, only those who finish get to be in the drawing. Each college would be reinforcing graduation rather than just time spent in college.

Graduation point lust

Look at some of the other benefits: Every action deemed important at college could be quantified into entries. Picking up trash, voting in student elections, being pleasant while standing in line, eating vegetables, and of course, paying parking tickets. Everything worthwhile on campus could contribute to your total number of entries. Instead of a few thousand entries, students could earn millions. We could call them grad points, one point equals one entry. Imagine, “How many GPs do you have?”

“Oh, I’ve got about 16 million. I figure 20 million is what the lucky stiff who won last year had, so I’m trying to max out above that.” And they could.

It would discourage cheating because each student is trying to get as many GPs as possible. They would not dilute the pool of entries by helping someone cheat. There would be GP lust, pure and simple. There could even be a counter effect so that when students do things wrong they lose points. There could be a spitting assessment so that dippers and chewers of tobacco are fined one entry each time they spit on the sidewalk. The campus would be driven by graduation.

New Mexico colleges would also benefit because the national news media would come to graduation to see the lucky “millionaire” each graduation. Songs on the radio would talk about unrequited grad points. Maybe there would be a movie-of-the-week about a poor starving philosophy student holding little hope of employment after graduation. Then s/he is lifted up with the money and never has to eat Ramen Noodles again.

It would put New Mexico on the map! Every student would graduate. This is an idea that could revolutionize higher education. All of this because we reinforce graduation instead of attendance.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

Experience hath shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson

Las Cruces recently gave a green light to red light tyranny. Citizens are angry at what the city wants to do to those who do not pay red light camera fines. Also, citizens are upset because the story was picked up by national news organizations and comedians. It casts the city in a very bad light.

It started several years ago with a political move against the local, vibrant home building industry. At the time there were well over a thousand houses a year built, which poured money hand over fist into the coffers of the city government. The city gladly spent said money hand over fist.

Then a new progressive slate of anti-growth and anti-business city leaders was elected. The once vibrant building industry cratered with thousands of industry people being put out of work. This happened primarily because of the efforts of city leaders to reign in the industry along with national issues constricting building financing.

But the city government needs for ever-expanding amounts of money did not decrease. The city got fat on building revenue, so other sources of revenue were needed. The red-light camera scam was adopted. Oddly, it was adopted just as other cities were discarding their red-light systems.

The obligatory discussions were brisk, but adoption was a foregone conclusion given the financial needs of the city. Citizen input was solicited and ignored. It was never put to a vote of the citizens.

Abusing citizens

The legal sticking point was how to collect on the tickets. Since no police officer witnessed the infraction, the collection had to be administrative rather than criminal. Therein is the rub. Some people refused to pay. The city saw a pile of money glimmering from unpaid fines.

Recently Albuquerque disbanded its red-light camera system. But the City of Las Cruces last week decided tyranny was in order. Those who do not pay red-light camera fines will find their water and natural gas turned off. The city claims they are forced to get rough with the citizens. Now, my air conditioner requires water to work. They intend to turn off my air conditioning going into the summer heat season. How reasonable is that?

This action confirms that red light cameras are principally a money-maker. If the city wanted to stop a behavior, why would they also count on the money from the tickets? At some point there should be no offenders. But if you sign a contract with a firm that must be paid, you are counting on the tickets.

The city is abusing citizens one at a time because they know that if they try to abuse citizens in a group there is too much pushback. Individual citizens subjected to the full tyranny of the city must submit.

State intervention needed

Know this: the City of Las Cruces has no business being involved in utilities if they can shut off the utilities for reasons outside of the delivery of service. The Public Regulation Commission needs to take all utilities away from them. The city has shown it is an unworthy steward of the public trust.

Likewise, the leadership of Las Cruces must go; they are not worthy of the trust the citizens put in them when they placed the leadership in authority. It is time for the State of New Mexico to take over the city management. Taking away the ability to cool a home in the heat of summer could lead to inadvertent citizen deaths. The citizens are being put at mortal risk by the leadership’s shortsighted use of tyranny to satisfy their need for money. Hopefully, the state can restore the right of citizens to receive their life-preserving utilities.

Like most wrongdoers who are caught, the leadership of Las Cruces can place themselves in a rehab clinic for leaders who just cannot keep from embracing tyranny. Maybe after they are successfully discharged and are certified to not be attracted to tyranny they can play some minor role in the city again.

However, some people say once a person of tyranny, always a person of tyranny.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

Trying to improve education is quite slippery since it depends on what you mean by success when you are looking to find it in the schools. It is very different for political leaders than for citizens.

A professor back in college turned crimson whenever he thought about the campus parking situation. He would say loudly, “It’s going to get a heck of a lot worse before it gets better.” I would immediately ask: So you do think parking will get better? “No,” he would answer.

That sums up public education in America. It is going to get a heck of a lot worse before it gets better. Do I think it will get better? No. Trying to improve education is quite slippery since it depends on what you mean by success when you are looking to find it in the schools. It is very different for political leaders than for citizens.

There are three standards for educational success: First, if a student comes to school looking to learn, can that student learn? This is the core ability of schools. They must be able to teach those students who come ready and willing to learn and only need the teachers to enable that learning. Ability to teach is essential at all levels.

Secondly, there are students who come to school and would learn if teachers could tailor the instruction to them. Incidentally, this is much more prevalent in our schools than anything else. If teachers can adjust, some students who otherwise would not learn do so with the right, flexible instruction. The student’s success or failure rests upon the flexibility of the school experience to adapt to the student rather than the other way around. When public schools invest in the “factory model” of education where students must, for the most part, all be treated the same, the majority of students get a lesser education. Why do schools do the factory model? It is easier for the adults to run the schools.

Finally, when talking about the success or failure of education, we have to consider the Educational Industrial Complex, which has little interest in the outcomes of students. Instead, this stakeholder in the educational process concentrates on the adult area of employment and benefits. The overarching concern at all times is: Can we make a good financial and political base for the adults?

Currently, the Educational Industrial Complex is most powerful in schools with the factory model as the core strategy. Add to that the notion that hiring more people is more important than success of students. Hence, there is a fad of over-administering every aspect of education, because it allows so many more non-teachers to be hired to run the numbers and interpret the numbers and to rename the numbers.

The Swickard Test

Some people talk of educational research, but the reason I feel education is going to get a heck of a lot worse before it gets better, if ever, is that some problems are never really tested. Example: Try the Swickard Test in your community. Take two elementary schools, the one rated the very best and the one rated the very worst, and switch entire staffs between the schools. Move the teachers, counselors, librarians, administrators, janitors and cafeteria workers entirely from one school to the other. Then we will get an honest look at the staff and administrative effect.

One day the school staff is either on the exemplary or the poop list. Then they are at the other school. In three years the effect of the staff will be seen, which is largely, not that much. The best school will still be best and the worst school will still be worst. But educators will not try the Swickard Test because they instinctively know the outcome.

The problem, then, shows that spending the lion’s share of your time getting more administration in the worst school is of no use. More administration and more tests and more fads does nothing to change the best to the worst or the worst to the best. Education after the Swickard Test has to admit that the differentiator of success in the schools does not happen to be in the professional staff.

Second to the clients

Now do not get me wrong, there are better teachers and great teachers and administrators who do less harm than others. Jim Smith, teacher of the year in New Mexico one year, commented that every great teacher is just one bad administrator away from leaving the field of education forever. These better teachers do make a difference — not enough to improve an entire school, but they do matter. Good administrators, well, they are like baseball umpires: The best are the ones you do not notice.

Likewise, the better schools will always be better and the fragile-population schools will still reflect that fragile population. The real problem for education in America is that it is a one-trick pony. The only thing education knows is to spend more money on education. For every problem, the solution for the last several decades has been to hire more administrators and administer the schools more. It would be interesting to cut the administration staff back to the 1960s levels of perhaps 10 percent of today to see the effect.

But it would be administrators having to fire themselves, so there is no chance of moving in this direction. Like all government, school administration just gets bigger and bigger. To really make education better, the desires and political needs of the administrators must be second to their clients, the students.

Education will get a heck of a lot worse before it gets better.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

There are some casualties of the extended drought and government decisions involving ownership of water. New Mexico watches lots of water travel through our state without being able to use it. This protracted drought and lack of water for farmers directly caused something the newspapers recently covered: the appearance of horse maltreatment and a plan for a horse slaughterhouse in Roswell. The two-fer of horses not being fed well and the desire to slaughter horses has people not understanding.

Do not get me wrong, any day I get horse boogers on me is a good day. I like horses better than people and only slightly less than dogs, but it is close. I have spent quite a bit of time around horses and have a good understanding of equine issues. In fact, I understand the physics of when a horse is standing on your boot; it will take all of the weight off the other three hooves.

Cattle to market

So why are horses looking bad these days? Start with this question: Why did many New Mexico ranchers take most of their cattle to market last summer? It was the price of feed. The normal price of alfalfa was about six dollars a bale. Suddenly it went up and up until, today, that price now is around $22 a bale. Why sell herds of animals? Because it is too hard to feed the livestock and remain profitable when feed goes up 400 percent. And feed them the producers must, because New Mexico is in an extended, hard drought.

That does not excuse mistreatment of any animal, but we need to soften our hearts a bit and understand the dynamics at work. First, why is feed up 400 percent? It is entirely connected to lack of water for New Mexico farmers. Growing alfalfa requires lots of water. Rain alone will not do it in New Mexico. When the snowpack is much less than abundant and the allocation of water to farmers is cut, the farmers must concentrate their slender water resources on growing fewer fields to have enough water for their crops.

Consequently, the price of feed started going up. There was a scarcity of New Mexico alfalfa that was satisfied by alfalfa growers in Colorado and Arizona. The law of supply and demand for feed made the price rise. Competing for the feed are three broad groups: people with horses, dairies, and other livestock producers.

There is one other factor: Horses require feed with very little or no weeds concurrently grown in it. Cattle can eat alfalfa that has some weeds that grew intermingled in the alfalfa. Some livestock such as goats can eat weeds with no ill effects. The fragile horse palate means they can only eat the best feed, which costs the most.

So last summer amid the drought and rising feed prices, many cattle operations culled their herds down, taking most of the cattle to market rather than feeding at skyrocketing prices. But what about horse operations?

What about horses?

What do horse operations do with a glut of horses that no one wants because feed prices make the horses too expensive? What to do with those horses? Years ago those extra horses would have gone to slaughterhouses so horse ranchers could recover some of their investment and stay in business. It was not what anyone who had horses wanted to do, but it was what they had to do.

Then the federal government, with no understanding of the economics of horse ranchers, closed the last slaughterhouse in 2007 by not certifying it. It is not illegal to slaughter horses; the government just decided for political reason to not certify each slaughterhouse. So horses have to go somewhere. They are shipped to Mexico to be slaughtered there under less-humane conditions.

New Mexico must get a handle on water such that farmers have a full allotment of water for their growing season, or cost-of-feed problems will only get worse. If New Mexico farmers can grow lots of alfalfa, the price will fall and pressures will ease on the livestock producers.

It will not entirely do away with the market need to slaughter horses, but it will reduce it.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

Rest in peace, Trayvon. It was not racial; it was just a bold young men moment, a tragedy. This is neither the first nor the last time young men will die needlessly.

“Don’t be a show-off. Never be too proud to turn back. There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.” – E. Hamilton Lee

The national media has not presented the real reason for the tragic shooting in Florida. Politician Rahm Emanuel observed, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Some people bring a race agenda to every discussion. Others want to complain about bad police work. Some shoot their mouths off about gun control.

Know this: The shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman had absolutely nothing to do with race nor police work or gun control. The shooting was caused entirely by the bold young men syndrome.

Every day there are plenty of news stories about fist, knife and gun fights among bold young men that end in tragedy. These deaths are caused by the inability of young men to step back from a confrontation. They charge head first into the confrontations as if honor were more important than life itself. To them maybe it is.

Viewing the shooting in Florida through the lens of bold young men, it is easy to see how this situation happened. But bold young men theory is of no use politically, since from the beginning of time young men have been bold and reckless, leading to needless deaths.

Long after the television lights of this story have gone somewhere else we have the ability to learn something from this needless death. There are three issues: first, one step back and there would have been no story. Secondly, this is much more about the demons inside these two young men than about societal demons. Finally, sadly, the next generation of young men will be just as bold and reckless. They also will die needlessly.

I remember those days for myself when it was unlikely that I would have stepped back. Today, I have a different perspective. But when I was young, I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof, as the saying goes. I got into some confrontations that luckily had no lasting effect. I understand the emotion of the moment and the cost of that emotion.

While some in our society might like to play the blame game, having young men ready to sell their lives for honor is not the fault of programs on television or what is seen in the movies. That young man behavior was just as prevalent a hundred years ago as today. Young men then and now die needlessly.

Tragedy stalks

One night in a small country bar I was irritated by an interloper to my good times, so I reached way back and punched this guy right in the horns as hard as I could. His head went back a ways and then he said to me, “You know it sometimes makes me mad when someone hits me.”

I had not knocked him down and certainly not out. The pain traveled up my arm and I blurted, “My God, if I didn’t hurt you, I’m sorry I hit you.” He chuckled as I dashed full speed through the bar’s screen door. At the coffee shop the next day, the regulars kidded me about the cross-hatch pattern on my face from that screen door that I ran through rather than take the time to open. I said, “At least I still have a face, that guy was King Kong.”

I am thankful I made it through the young bold stage without lasting consequences. I wish we, as a society, could find a way to pull back the testosterone-fueled, young bold men. Before anyone thinks the way to deal with this is to pass more laws, that is emotion, not thinking. The same emotion that Alfred, Lord Tennyson captured, “…theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.”

Tragedy stalks the bold young men.

Rest in peace, Trayvon. It was not racial; it was just a bold young men moment, a tragedy. This is neither the first nor the last time young men will die needlessly.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

Lotteries exist to make winners and losers. Governments cannot talk about fairness and income redistribution while they run lotteries.

This last week was pretty tough on 100 million Americans. The Mega Millions lottery jackpot reached a reported $640 million. Oh, my! Serious money and to get it all anyone had to do was buy one lottery ticket.

So there were many people who stood in long lines dreaming of what they would do with all of that money. While all it took was having the right ticket, some people wanted to increase their odds from a reported 176 million to one, odds that reflect all of the combinations of numbers possible.

Get this: Some people put a hundred dollars into the lottery, which reduced the lottery odds to a more manageable one in 1.7 million. Then, clutching the tickets, they dreamed of $640 million, which was just six numbers away from them. They started mentally shopping for stuff.

Note: The real payout number they would receive was smaller, since to take the lump sum payout one must divide the jackpot in half and then pay all applicable taxes. The effective jackpot was just over $200 million.

Still, that is serious money. But it is not $640 million, as some people repeated to each other in a frenzy. The media whipped up the interest and many Americans who never play the lottery felt compelled to stick some money into the pool. Good for them.

I think it is sweet of them to make some new American millionaires with their dollars. I really do. Our country needs more millionaires, and this method works well enough. It does show that math education is lacking in many people. Not because they wager a dollar, but because they had any anticipation of winning. I do not know this to be true, but I bet at least one American quit his/her job in anticipation of winning.

A voluntary tax

Know this: For some people, even that much money might not last a year, while for others they could change the world with that kind of money. So by last Friday night about 100 million people had placed $1.5 billion into the lottery. Many were breathlessly waiting for the word that they and only they had won the biggest lottery in American lottery history. They dreamed of what the money would do. All of those people who were rude to them, well, it was going to take five bucks to send them a postcard because they would move so far away.

And that kind of money would remove the high school name of “Fish face” from polite conversation. Lured by the dreams of having millions of dollars with only a small wager, 100 million people bought tickets for the lottery and 99.9 percent did not win. Curses! Who could have seen that coming?

The newspaper had stories last weekend of people who plaintively cried, “I really wanted that money.” Three tickets split the big prize and there were a handful of others who won enough money to feel it, but most of the 100 million were brokenhearted and sad and left with just dreams that soured. It caused people to return to a common theme in today’s society, fairness.

Is it really fair for one American to have more than another American? There are plenty of people who maintain that fairness requires everyone to have the same amount of “the good life.” But in this case some people were going to put millions upon millions in their bank and others won nothing. Where is the government when we need fairness in our society? Oh, that is right, they run the lotteries.

Much of our political dialog is about wealth redistribution and fairness in our society. How can we concurrently have a mechanism for wealth concentration taking from many and giving to a few? The government loves the money the wealth concentration with lotteries gives them.

I like the lottery because it is a voluntary tax. People stand in lines to pay it. But would they if fairness dictated that everyone got the same amount from buying a ticket? Doubtful. Lotteries exist to make winners and losers. Governments cannot talk about fairness and income redistribution while they run lotteries.

Everyone is free to buy those lottery tickets.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

Last week’s column mentioned political energy policy as one of five major issues Americans need to keep their eyes on this election and not be distracted by hundreds of other lesser political issues. When I mentioned drilling to lower gas-pump prices, my e-mail filled up with Econ 101 deniers who said supply and demand does not work in the oil patch because oil is global. That answer is simple, quick and wrong.

Econ 101 deniers say all nations drink from only one bucket (a very large one) so the price of oil in India is exactly the same price as it is in Indiana. It is not. There are many reasons why crude oil price is different by nation, not the least of which is the actual purity of the oil.

Further, we use oil products regionally; therefore regional influences adjust the prices. It is important to count the major ways our government is a factor in the pump price of fuel.

You do not use crude oil to get to work; rather, refined oil products subject to government regulations. The North American regional price for West Texas Intermediate crude as it is turned into gasoline and diesel fuel reacts to three major influences. Each has political components.

First, there is the total available oil supply, because it has the major effect upon price. However, almost as important are the refining issues including capacity and regulation. Finally, there are the distribution issues which can influence the pump price leading to differences between regions of the United States.

Political energy policy

While there are other issues, these as the big three influences on your pump price. They are dynamic with political energy policy. Example: For political reasons the United States has not built new refineries to keep up with increases of the amount of fuel needed and the various required blends of gasoline, of which there are 45 or so. Because of specific blends, some refineries operate at less than 100 percent at times as the blends they are set up to produce reach capacity. The overall pump supply drops because there are not enough refineries and they are busy with such a wide variation of blends to satisfy political entities.

More refining capacity does lower the price of fuel. But it is politically difficult to get new refineries approved. This is felt at the pump as increased price.

A few years ago the Phoenix area had gasoline suddenly shoot above $5 a gallon because the pipeline that carried their very specific blend of fuel from El Paso ruptured and Phoenix city law would not allow any other blend into the city. Stations started raising their prices. Econ 101 says in America we ration everything by price which is dependent on supply and demand. So fuel cost lots of money and people only bought what they absolutely needed.

After a citizen outcry about the lack of fuel and the high prices, the city council reversed the blend specific requirement. The price went back to nearly normal while the pipeline was being repaired since other gasoline blends were trucked in. The pipeline is about 10 times cheaper to move fuel so there was still an increase but it was acceptable.

When government policies push fuel distribution to motor tankers, as opposed to pipelines, we see that this form of distribution is much more expensive than pipelines. The more we as a nation use pipelines, the lower the pump price goes. If 40 years ago we connected the Alaskan Pipeline to the lower 48 states by pipeline, our pump price would have reflected that savings and there would have never been the Exxon Valdez spill. Politics stopped the pipeline to the refineries and Americans paid at the pump,

Each of these three areas is dynamic and can cause price fluctuations. The president and everyone else who are carrying the political water for him are wrong that energy policy will not lower the price of gas at the pump. But do this: Ask the poor slub standing at the pump watching most of his/her discretionary funds being sucked out of their wallet; ask that person if there will be a change in their voting this fall.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

I am quite taken by the fact that facts no longer seem to be in vogue in our society. In the last 10 years or so our news media seem to represent a truth-less society. Example: The electronic recordings of what one person says often are ignored by that person who says, “I never said that,” regardless of the contrary data.

Even more of a problem is the use of distraction to keep citizens from dealing with the real core issues. In today’s society, opinions hold favor with people because they are so much more useful in political debate. For one thing, opinions do not have to be founded on fact, though I think they should be. Often opinions are framed as facts and held as facts when the listeners cannot distinguish between facts and opinions.

More so, in today’s society what you believe seems to be more important than the reality of the facts. In storytelling, of course, you should not let facts mess up a good story. But when we, as a society, are trying to deal with the important problems of our society, facts are ever so critical.

How does distraction work? Perhaps call it deception, since the point is to get people looking at the wrong things, to get people thinking about lesser problems. Currently a huge deception is going on in the media where every day a myriad of less-important things keep citizens from noticing the critical problems concerning the five core election issues: government reach, energy, employment, financial insolvency and security.

Why these five? These five are what will truly change our lives for the better or worse. Each of these five is an area in which bad policy really destroys our country. After these five core areas, everything else is subservient to those concerns. Example: This week some people lost whatever mind they had when Obama supporters in Florida put the president’s picture in the flag of our country instead of the stars. So what?

There are hundreds of distraction stories, starting with the critics known as birthers who spend their political capital in a losing game. Me, I could not care less where this president was born now that he is in office. I care about this president’s actions and their effect upon me.

Facts that are obscured by opinions

In this political debate little time is spent on the facts of government reach into our lives and whether that reach is the legitimate role of government in a free society. Little time is spent on the role of the president’s energy policy as it applies to the cost of energy. Likewise we are not seeing the president’s role in jobs, our desperate financial crisis and the security of our nation. This election is centered on these five areas.

All of these topics have facts that are obscured by opinions. Fact: Fuel is about twice as expensive as it was three years ago. The reasons are several, but all go to supply and demand. It is quite disturbing to hear one side say that increasing the oil supply in the U.S. through drilling will not lower the price of fuel.

The truth of how prices are adjusted in energy is right out of Economics 101: increases of supply or decreases of demand lower prices. The president’s plan to require an increase in gas mileage for car makers will lower prices at some point, but not until those standards are on the ground, which will be in years. Contrast that to drilling, which has an immediate effect upon the futures market, the place where tomorrow’s prices are set.

People out of a job are really out of a job even if the government gives assistance. No amount of fiddling the job figures changes what is really happening to our society because we have so many people outside the job market. Looking the other way as perhaps one person in five is not employed does not help the situation.

Also, continuing to spend $3.7 trillion a year while taking in $2.2 trillion is a society-killer regardless of the people saying you cannot cut enough to bring those figures back in line. The government went up by 40 percent in the last couple of years. It can come right back down if there is the will to do the financially correct things. Having members of Congress say that the runaway spending is not a problem is a huge problem.

Finally, we have extreme security challenges being ignored by people who should know better. As lesser nations go nuclear and cartels buy off law enforcement in our country and others countries, American citizens are very much in danger. Putting our heads in the sand makes us easier to be destroyed by people of evil intent.

‘Are you going to believe me or your ears?’

These areas of concern are being ignored by the media and citizens. On the campaign stump candidates are followed all day long by reporters. At each stop the politicians amend their remarks to curry favor with that set of voter. Often they play fast and loose with facts. This seems odd since we are an electronic age where what people say is recorded. So by the end of the day reporters have several versions of the truth and it is not reported. Confronted politicians ask, “Are you going to believe me or your ears?”

Americans can continue to be distracted or they can vote the facts.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.

Michael Swickard

“Five rules of education: First engage their curiosity and then give them the tools to satisfy that curiosity. While doing so students must enjoy the passage of time. All curricular and instructional experiences must be correct for their brain development and students must retain their basic human dignity at all times.” - Michael Swickard

There is a great evil in our schools perpetuated for political rather than educational reasons. Many who embrace this evil are good people not realizing the harm they cause. Namely, we no longer treat young students just entering our schools humanely. Specifically, kindergarten students are treated inappropriately for their age.

We must band together to restore the humanity to kindergarten. It will take our voices and feet. First, it takes seeing the problem. The Swickard Axiom: Never use a political solution for a non-political problem, especially in education.

In the last 25 years political leaders have completely overpowered educational leaders. Politicians contend educators are not rigorous enough. Education must be as tough as Marine basic training. School is not supposed to be fun and it is not. This is counter to my rules of education and counter to all published research.

Politicians demand dramatically more paperwork, which turns teachers into record clerks and takes time from teaching. School administration in the last 25 years is perhaps five times bigger without increasing student success.

But then they decided to destroy kindergarten.

The children’s garden made toxic

In the last 10 years educational leaders have destroyed a cherished institution, kindergarten. Translated, the name kindergarten means the children’s garden, a place where they can grow. Kindergarten was one of the few things that public schools did well. No longer is this true since the garden has been made toxic by people who lack the understanding of children and how they mature.

When kindergarten was introduced into the public schools, the core outcome for students was to transition from home individual learning to group learning. As my quote says, students must enjoy the passage of time. It does not have to be a carnival, but what students do must engage their curiosity and they must enjoy the process. Further, it has to be brain-appropriate, and herein is the problem in the schools today.

Kindergarten was best when it was only half a day. All-day kindergarten is too much for students at that age. Brain research supports this question of how much to teach to young children. Technically, the issue involves data consolidation, the long-term memory of learned skills and data that comes with sleep. The data to be converted is temporarily stored in the emotional area of the brain’s limbic system and then transferred to long-term memories in sleep. Older students can handle more data to be stored and transferred, while at age five it is a small amount.

Also there is the issue of brain development. Young minds are not mature minds. The leader of education in the world, Finland, starts their students at age seven to ensure most students have adequate development of the frontal lobe of the brain, which is where the formal operations of the mind are conducted.

‘I sure do love school’

In short, trying to teach information that requires formal logic is impossible until the student’s brain is ready. Herein is the problem. Kindergarten was a place where children came and worked on gross and fine motor skills, one-step memory data such as colors, numbers and the alphabet, sang songs, danced, played games that stimulated their brains, and went home saying, “I sure do love school.”

It was half of a day, which matched the brain transfer storage ability and formal development ability. Alas, political needs required kindergarten to be changed to all day so more teachers could be hired. Leaders reasoned incorrectly that starting earlier would give the students an advantage. It does not, as Finland understands. “How the Brain Learns,” by David Sousa, focuses on what educators need to know about brain development.

Teachers who see this harm done to young students have been hushed by their political leaders. Therefore, we citizens must band together to rescue kindergarten students from the inappropriate demands made upon them for political reasons. Join me - michael@swickard.com - in forming an organization to restore kindergarten.

Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.