Michael Swickard

Shuckins! At my gas station this week was the dreaded note on the pump: “This gasoline now contains ethanol.” I have changed stations several times this last year to keep from buying E10, gasoline laced with 10 percent ethanol. This move to ethanol laced gasoline is political in nature. I have three major objections to being forced to use E10.

First, the BTU (energy) content of E10 is not as high as regular gasoline, so I surrender gas mileage. I already drive carefully and under the speed limit to boost gas mileage so this will not “break the bank” in my life. However, I do not want to spend money foolishly fuelish.

Further, my 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis reacts to E10 with a warning to “Check Engine” which means the oxygen sensors in my car puke with E10. It has always done so and the advice of my mechanic has been to not put ethanol in my gas tank. When I put regular gas back in the warning light goes off. So, why should I pay money to have a problem with my car and lose gas mileage to boot?

Second, the use of the food crop corn to make fuel raises the price of corn-based food since the production of corn competes with the federally subsidized ethanol production. Farmers weigh the value of producing corn for food or for fuel where they get a federal ethanol subsidy. The reduction of corn in our food chain increases the cost of food both for humans and for animal feed. Increasing the cost of feeding animals results in higher animal-based food costs to consumers.

Taxpayers subsidize the production of ethanol, which in turn raises the cost of our food. While food cost is not a problem for me, I do not want to spend the extra money needlessly. Importantly, the escalating food costs are very problematic for the more fragile families in New Mexico.

More so, this artificial increase in food prices have causes riots in Mexico and in other countries with large populations who are mired in poverty, since the increase in food prices is very real to those people and quite catastrophic. There is no reason their corn-based food should increase in price.

Finally, closer to home, New Mexico uses its oil industry to fund education. The use of E10 fuels subtracts money from our schools because the 10 percent of ethanol used in gasoline is mainly produced in the “corn belt.” There is no reason to use less New Mexico produced petroleum to satisfy political whims.

From voluntary to mandatory

Understand, I have no objection whatsoever to E10 being sold. Anyone who wants to drive with E10, or E85 for that matter, is free to do so. My objection is that E10 is being forced upon me because it is getting harder and harder to find gasoline without ethanol. While we can talk about ethanol being cleaner burning I am not convinced it is critical when compared to the harm done to food production and New Mexico schools.

Likewise, there is a move to mandate paying for recycling when some citizens do not wish to recycle. In Las Cruces the city council is considering mandating the payment of recycling for every citizen even if some citizens do not wish to recycle. Either directly or indirectly every citizen pays for recycling because recycling does not pay for itself. If recycling made dollars and sense it would not have to be subsidized.

It is important to note that often with government what starts as “voluntary” moves quickly to mandatory, as friends of mine in other cities have found. I have a friend who must separate into six barrels paper, glass, metal, garbage, and two other things which I do not remember. I just remember when I visit he is perpetually upset by all of the care he must take in separating everything he uses. His garage is taken up by the mandatory recycling which he remembers WAS voluntary when it started.

Is it certain that if the Las Cruces City Council starts a recycling program with mandatory payment it will end up as obtrusive as my friend’s? No, but that is the way to bet.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

The facts are simple. David pulled up to his house and noticed a rattlesnake in his driveway. He killed the rattlesnake to protect his family. No, he did not try to get along with the rattlesnake or pick it up and move it to the yard of someone else. He killed it exactly as I would have done.

I was rather amazed when reading his column in the Las Cruces Bulletin that he would admit killing a Rio Grande High Mountain Desert Southwest Chihuahuan Wilderness Silvery Mexican Gray varmint rattlesnake. People add all sorts of extra names to ordinary varmints such as rattlesnakes to make them seem exotic. Also, they have been saying that rattlesnakes are not dangerous to our grandbabies when in fact they are.

Well, he did kill the rattlesnake and wrote about it. I salute him. There are those people who think that rattlesnakes can coexist with grandbabies. Not so. Most of us kill varmints without public comment since there are wingnuts out there who weep copious tears and want us to walk around rattlesnakes at our peril. I was raised differently.

I have three rules about varmints such as rattlesnakes: First, if I see them anywhere around my house or my family’s ranch house I kill them. If I see them around civilization I often will kill them so as not to leave the danger for other people. If I see them anywhere else such as in the desert I strictly leave them alone.

Contrary to some people’s thoughts I do not hate nor fear rattlesnakes. At our family ranch south of Carrizozo I have thinned them out all of my life. As a child I pointed them out to my grandfather who killed them before they could kill me. Out in the desert I have left them alone all of my life. But, around the people I love I do not hesitate to act.

Now there is no joy in killing things in my life. I do not sport hunt, though I think that a personal preference and beyond the control of environmentalists who would ban such activities. One of the most interesting guests on my former talk radio show attempted regularly to sell the concept that caterpillars have the same constitutional rights and guarantees as humans. He did not convince me.

Back to rattlesnakes, which are found even in town. I would prefer to leave them alone, but I have a duty to those I love, a duty to humans that supersedes environmentalist concerns about the rights of rattlesnakes. Further, do not EVEN try to make the case that rattlesnakes will not bite or that the bite will not be an emergency. It does not sell with me.

Obviously, there needs to be an urban wildlife plan in Southern New Mexico to give guidance to the mix of potentially dangerous critters and people. Here is my take: I protect myself, my loved ones AND my pets from all wildlife. Period. The priority is humans first, pets second, varmints last.

That means the rattlesnakes, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears and wolves do not get to hang out in my backyard. If there is a law that they have priority over my life and my grandbabies I will go to jail killing the dangers in my backyard. Again, if they are out in the desert, we pass without comment.

Bears especially do come into our neighborhoods occasionally and this is where the urban wilderness plan must be specific: Humans have priority. The problem with bears is if you anesthetize Yogi and drop him in another’s bear’s territory in the great outback of New Mexico there is going to be at least one dead bear since they will fight to the death. It is either Yogi or the other bear who will die, but we pay no attention to the real outcome and seem to feel good that we dealt with the bear in such a “humane” manner.

Hence, let us be honest. When wildlife comes in contact with us at our houses, we either put them in a zoo or in the ground. Humans have the priority in our little slice of heaven, especially grandbabies.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com. The information about bears in this column comes from Rink Sommerday, a frequent guest from the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center east of Las Cruces. She spoke of bears and problems with relocating bears often as it was part of her background.

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Michael Swickard

Quick, what is the main purpose of city streets? It is to get the citizens to where each of us is going in the safest and most efficient manner. Note that safest is said before efficient in that sentence – and hopefully in the design of our city streets.

Safety engineers have spent decades making us safer as we travel. However, people have purposefully made our divided streets ever so much more dangerous, and they will be downright crabby if we complain about their actions. I can stand the criticism much more than I can stand needless deaths on our city streets.

I am talking about the medians that separate the two directions of travel on our divided city streets. It seems someone got the bright idea a few years ago that those medians should be “improved” – that they should be “beautified” by the addition of trees, rocks and boulders. I like that kind of landscaping in yards, but not in the street medians.

Medians of divided streets are specifically constructed to give drivers safety space in case “stuff” happens. Example: People on motorcycles will tell you that occasionally a driver in a car is inattentive. The driver of the motorcycle can just let the car run over them (not much fun) or they can move out of the way by driving onto the median long enough to escape. At least that is the plan of streets with a median.

They can, unless beautification project people have put trees, rocks and boulders in the median. The unexpected happens and in an instant, BLAM! – someone hits a ton of boulder instead of just safety space.

For those “whoops” moments

I am thinking of myself much like I do with the seatbelt and helmet laws: At times my driving has small moments when, frankly, it sucks. If I am lucky no one is close and I say to myself, “Whoops” and get back where I should be.

But if I make incidental contact with, say, a motorcycle I would hope and pray they are well enough protected that they just say to me, “Michael, you must be more careful” or words to that effect instead of the incidental contact leading me to cause their death.

We should not put ANYTHING at all in the street medians that would degrade safety. This is a test of thinking: If people say we need the beauty and it only kills a couple people a year, we need to remove them from a position of leadership. If they admit they had not thought of it and now that they see how dangerous this is, well, pat them on the back and support them.

Likewise Las Cruces has been trying to get a grip on a sign ordinance. The sticking point is they want signs that are not distracting. HELLO, no business wants a sign that is not distracting. But that is why the city council gets the big bucks to think carefully. Obviously safety must be included in the sign ordinance.

The core job of government

The core job of government is to protect citizens. It is so easy to be distracted by all of the other interests in a community, but safety is the central aspect of government. Often what starts out as a genuine concern for the safety of citizens gets hijacked by the fact it produces revenue.

We see that many of the traffic laws in our towns and cities were initially tied to safety. But each municipality has long since come to depend on the revenue from the tickets, which seems a bit strange. It puts them in the business of hoping citizens offend because they need the money. How sad.

What the last century has shown is if our towns truly want people to stop offending by doing things that are unsafe; collecting a nuisance tax does not get it done. It seems to say that we are very concerned with safety but we are more concerned with collecting money.

This just does not look right for the kids. They think we are stupid and they are right. We say our first goal is safety and then we do all of these other things instead of focusing on safety.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

August is roasting time in New Mexico: fresh-picked green chile and the New Mexico public schools for their Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) numbers. We take green chile most seriously – Big Jim or Sandia? Two sacks, will that be enough? Make it three, no four…

Meanwhile, most New Mexicans shrug at the AYP numbers indicating three of four New Mexico schools are not making the prescribed annual yearly progress.

When I look at the numbers I see something far more ominous in that half of all New Mexico students are not reading at or above their own grade level. Reading is THE core educational activity in schools. Any dysfunction in reading has broad long-term implications for students.

At the very least they do not get all of the instruction since 80 percent of instruction is in written form. At the worst they become turned off to education and form the nucleus of the drop out problem, which is sometimes framed to be about half of the students. Hmmm, half do not read to grade level and in some districts half of the students drop out.

While half the students are not reading at least at grade level their textbooks are carefully written for their grade reading level. Further, tests are first a test of reading level and then a test of the subject matter. So half of the students are not reading at the level of the material being presented or of the tests they are taking.

Time for action

It is time for action. New Mexico must focus on one and only one goal: Making all students able to read at the level of their grade. OK, I would set a realistic goal of 90 percent of New Mexico students reading on grade level.

Remember, the one and only goal is reading on grade level, not reading 10 percent better or using phonics or using some program approach since these are only strategies. The goal, the one and only goal, is that they read on grade level.

This fix for New Mexico schools is in two parts: First, students must start kindergarten on or above grade reading level and keep making one year of reading level progress each year. Or, second, if students start kindergarten behind in reading level then they must make catch up reading level progress while also making one year of reading level progress, which is very hard to do.

Special attention should be focused on no student starting third grade without the ability to read at the third-grade reading level. Period.

A cultural change

This is an educational goal, not a political goal like No Child Left Behind. How New Mexico students got behind is very important. For many students it is their first day in school when it is obvious they lack the literate and numerate skills of a five-year old. There is no way the schools can be blamed when students arrive at school their first day with the literate skills of a three-year old, while some have the literate skills of a four-year old. They go into the classroom with the rest of the students who arrive with at- or above-the-required literate skills. Those who start two years behind rarely can catch up and are always a dropout risk.

To really address the central problem in schools does require a cultural change in the society so that all children ages one to five get read to 20 minutes every day and spend at least five minutes each day in letter/number games. This reading to children each and every day must take on the specter of buckling them into their car seat each and every time.

Failure to read to children has the potential to damage them like not buckling them into a car seat. Each and every family, each and every child care provider must take the sacred 20 minutes seriously. Then all students will start on the correct reading level their first day in school.

To improve, New Mexico’s public schools should forget everything else and concentrate on making reading at grade level THE GOAL. Any attention to anything else is wasted if the core competency of reading on grade level is not achieved by all students.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

In the last month I have had a front-row seat to a controversy in which the Las Cruces leadership has acted improperly. At stake are millions of dollars and jobs for our local economy. Also at stake is the reputation of our city, with companies wanting to do business but unsure if the city leadership can be trusted.

Several years ago a golf course to replace the Las Cruces County Club course was built on the East Mesa as the centerpiece to a large development. Last year a road was put in by the developer of the project to the golf course but the city council said a second road was necessary for the facility to be used.

So the golf course has sat as a stranded asset for a long time using water but not generating tax revenue.

Concurrently, the Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) decided to build an elementary and a middle school near the golf course, in part to use a planned four-lane road for access and the water and sewage development. The first developer left the project unresolved, and the current developer, who has been in the community for 20 years and has successfully done several large projects, tried to find a win/win method to resolve getting the development project done while providing infrastructure for the schools.

Special assessment district stalls

The stimulus money that might have built the $10 million, two-mile, four-lane road with the water and sewer was lost when the funds dried up last year. So late last year the four-lane road was planned using a financing method called a special assessment district. This is an often used method of privately financing infrastructure development.

Staff members at both LCPS and the city, along with city bond counsel, the city finance director, and the single property owner/developer in the special assessment district worked diligently and reached detailed agreements in January of 2010.

The Las Cruces City Council reviewed the proposal and voted 7-0 in favor of a resolution to get the private funding for the special assessment district finalized and the road completed. Detailed descriptions and surveys of the property to be assessed to pay for the project were sent out for an independent appraisal after the council’s unanimous vote.

Then, inexplicably and without any notice to LCPS staff or the business people funding the special assessment district, in an early April work session it became clear that six city councilors, all speaking from what seems the same talking points, reversed their January positions, so the project stalled. The schools have moved as quickly as they could and hope to have a temporary two-lane road to their schools. But in doing so they have had to spend money they had not intended to lose to the infrastructure cost.

Thousands of hours of planning and untold dollars spent in good faith were squandered. These six councilors left LCPS, local area residents, the business people providing the financing, and all local unemployed road building and construction workers in the lurch. During the April work session, only the mayor tried desperately to avert the disaster.

LCPS loses out on $1 million reimbursement

On the talk show I do with Jim Spence, News New Mexico, Mayor Ken Miyagishima attributed the problem to the “inexperience” of the other six councilors as well as misinformation fed to councilors by still unknown parties. The mayor also made it known for the first time that the school district would lose out on a $1 million reimbursement commitment from the special assessment district property owner so now the schools must spend their own money and the temporary road will be removed when the real four-lane road is finally built.

Confirming the details of this was LCPS Associate Superintendant Herb Torres. Local businessman John Moscato, representing the sole property owner providing the assessed property for the entire road building project, also confirmed what Mayor Miyagishima had said.

What is obvious at this point is that this is no way for the city of Las Cruces to do business. Many other companies will be watching to see if the city can be trusted to stand by their word. One thing is for sure: This time they did not.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

“American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it.” – Dave Barry

Americans have a love/hate relationship with every aspect of fat, from fat cats on. They hate fat and love donuts.

I am not casting any stones from my fat glass house. However, some have said that because of the potential extra health care cost, if you are fat, government must save you from you and also save us from you. Government officials say they have a mandate to do so because of health care reforms that put their noses right over our bathroom scales and into our refrigerators.

Example: in the German state of Saxony, according to Reuters, a member of parliament said it is unfair and unsustainable for the German taxpayers to carry the cost of treating obesity-related illnesses in their public health system. That is an interesting statement that seems to say that if you eat that Twinkie we will not buy your Insulin. How far are we willing to take this approach?

Incurring more costs

People with calorie-rich lifestyles do incur more costs than citizens who smugly limit themselves to carrot sticks and bottled water at parties. If they do not live longer than the unhealthy people at least it will feel longer.

Those who smoke, drink more than is prudent, shake salt on food and camp out at buffets are not making good choices. But fat? The government must first ascertain if you are fat. Imagine citizens made to strip naked and stand on a scale. A government worker announces, “232.5 pounds, step down, put on your clothes and go to window five. Next!”

It reminds me of last year when airline fuel prices were so high and the airlines were trying to find some way to snake more money out of the pockets of flyers. It was proposed to weigh every passenger and then charge them an extra fee if their real weight (not the weight shown on the driver’s license) was above a certain standard for their height and gender.

Already airlines charge people who take two seats. The airliners use more fuel to fly more pounds, so why not monetize the extra pounds? This idea did not get off the ground.

If it had I would have gone to the airport the first day to see the first portly person put protesting on the scales. Again, I am not picking on fat people since I belong to the club.

A train wreck

So what about our cares-about-each-of-us government weighing each of us for a healthy Body Mass Index that would be applied to our taxes for the health care system? Our government tends to use the sledgehammer approach to making citizens toe the line. How would this same government indicate to people sensitive about their weight that they are 50, count them, 50 ugly unhealthy pounds overweight?

It would be a train wreck. What occurs to me is that I do not think there is much chance that the people in our country would revolt otherwise, like citizens of the American colonies did in 1776 – that is, except if our government makes them stand on a scale and be confronted with the reality of their real weight. The cry will be, “Give me liberty from bureaucrats with bathroom scales or give me death!”

I can see it now. One of the fat states might just leave the rest of the rest of the states. It may be a Southern state with a history of calorie-rich comfort food. No government worker can ever go to the Deep South and ban fried chicken, eh?

The attempted cure might be interesting. The nanny government will try to keep me from eating the wrong things or too much of even good things. It would result in no more unemployment since it would take more than just a few people to physically keep each of us large ones from the buffets and lunch counters. The minders would have to lurk everywhere. About the only thing that would have any chance to work is duct tape but it would also really limit my abilities in talk radio.

I know these government nannies would be doing all of this imposition on my way of life for my own good and the good of the U.S. treasury now that the government has a financial interest in my health. But am I so different than other Americans? Jay Leno observed, “For the first time ever, overweight people outnumber average people in America. Doesn’t that make overweight the average then? Last month you were fat, now you’re average – hey, let’s get a pizza!”

Who decides?

So who decides the right weight? With me the answer is “less” but some people might be only a little fat. Does that count for anything? I do know that fat is dangerous, according the Dennis Miller. He says, “A recent police study found that you’re much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.”

The nanny health care government: People know where they want to start, but the more interesting question is where should they stop? The easy answer is that probably they should stop before they cause a revolution against a government not smart enough to leave us fat people alone with our comfort foods. Praise the Lord and pass the Double Fudge Ice Cream Sundae.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

Opponents of the New Mexico oil industry would have you believe that life in New Mexico hangs by a thread due to the potential disasters tied to oil exploration, development and production. Further, they insist that state government must intensify the rules on drilling or the water, air and land of New Mexico will be ruined for generations. Not true.

There was a time when New Mexico was very contaminated, and it has taken decades for that terrible pollution to abate. Many New Mexicans were sickened by this pollution and the human damage remains to this day. This pollution was not by oil; rather, it was plutonium. No one seems to remember this.

The first atomic explosion was a test of an implosion-design plutonium device. It was set off at Trinity Site roughly between Socorro and Carrizozo on July 16, 1945. There was one aspect that surprised scientists. The explosion stirred the landscape below the 100 feet tower and then spewed this toxic material into the atmosphere while subsequent rains flushed the fallout down the Tularosa Basin, Pecos and the Rio Grande Valleys. The plutonium acted upon generations of unknowing New Mexicans.

When the United States dropped the two devices on Japan it used an “air-burst” method at about 2,000 feet to keep from really contaminating these areas. While that helped Japan, it was not much help to already contaminated New Mexico.

Of interest: There were three nuclear devices over two years at the Trinity Site and only two of them exploded. One device underground did not explode and was dubbed Sleeping Beauty. The unexploded nuclear device was finally dug up in 1967 and removed.

The triggering device used car batteries with a life of seven years, so the scientists waited 21 years to declare the batteries really dead. Of course, visitors to Trinity Site in the 1950s and 60s did not know about Sleeping Beauty.

The federal response to concerns about nuclear contamination and danger was, “We beat the Japanese, what do you want?” I would like to know if it was worth making New Mexicans sick.

An attempt to impose political agendas

The current phobia about oil contamination pales in comparison to our plutonium contamination. Any problem with oil can be dealt with no lasting effect. But we must understand the notion of oil contamination for what it is: an attempt to impose political agendas upon New Mexico.

The environmental lobby is foremost concerned with an agenda that places the environment ahead of everything else in New Mexico. Know this: For truly pristine air, water and land the nation must stop using all oil products. The environmentalists may say, “Good riddance.” What about New Mexico’s school children? They are dependent upon the revenue that oil and gas brings to our state.

So how much pollution is acceptable if zero tolerance removes the funding for all New Mexico public schools? Right now the state is in a flutter due to too much spending and not enough resources. Public school teachers are being fired. All over New Mexico in potential oil development areas and especially in places like the Otero Mesa we must wonder how attractive is the political ideal of no pollution if generations of New Mexico school children get a lesser education.

Again, the money for the schools comes from the oil industry, which is being hammered by the environmental lobby. New Mexicans cannot have it both ways – plenty of money from the oil industry to fund the schools and no pollution.

A good example is the new “pit rule,” which oil people say makes New Mexico less competitive. Environmentalists say it protects New Mexico from pollution, but it would seem that the way it protects is it sends many drillers to other states instead of New Mexico. A pristine Otero Mesa provides no financial resource for the schools. Which is more important: schools or the Otero Mesa?

The decision to develop an oil field is made on four factors: the current and projected value of crude oil; the projected amount and quality of the crude oil in that field; the cost of developing, drilling and bringing into production the wells; and, finally, the amount of hassle it takes to do this business.

Example: More rigs will start when the price of crude oil reaches $100 a barrel and no rigs will even pump if it falls below $10 a barrel. More to the point: If the ease and cost of drilling is better in one state, it will attract more drillers. The drillers are not married to New Mexico. There are many other places for them to go, but New Mexico is tied to oil and gas to fund its public schools.

The rigs may just go somewhere else and New Mexico would be the poorer.

Worrying about real contamination

Any contamination by the oil industry must be weighed with the benefits both financial and by the use of oil. In theory at least, we can do away with all of the oil contamination from cars, trucks, roads, roof repairs, etc. Without any oil we are confronted with not having the value of paved roads, inexpensive mobility along with goods and services brought to New Mexico, not to mention heating/cooling our houses.

On this 65th anniversary of the contamination of New Mexico by plutonium, maybe we should worry about real contamination rather than political anti-business environmental ideals. What is best for our children?

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

It is the absolute pinnacle of hypocrisy for the American news media to decry the influence of money in American politics since said money is most often spent in the media.

Federal and statewide campaigns run on money as football teams run on cleats. Without them, there is no traction. Even the most naïve politician understands that the candidate with the most money wins most of the time.

When there is an attempt to moderate the influence of money in politics, the media is quick to bring out the argument that money is free speech. But is it? It is speech, that is assured. But with the way money is spent, it is not free speech: It costs a bundle per minute.

In today’s society we are bombarded with commercials because most politicians follow a formula for success that demands more and more money for more and more political advertisements. From signs and radio commercials to television infomercials, money opens the door to being able to speak to the masses instead of trying to speak to one voter at a time.

Money is labeled as speech, and perhaps in an odd way it might be considered a part of speech, but really resembles free speech as pinto beans resemble jelly beans: in appearance but not substance.

Both parties run on money

Most politicians dial for dollars with the mantra: Help me get my message out to the people; give me money now and money later and money again. As we know when we watch carefully, politicians nationally and statewide spend almost every waking hour glad-handing for dollars. Almost every activity of their campaign has at the core a fundraiser of one sort or another.

Why must they do so? Those who do not usually do not win. And I hate to dispel the myth, but there is never ever ever enough money, and do not forget it, according to those people running for office.

Of the many jobs that I happily do not have, politics is number one for me to avoid. It is not the hard questions to avoid or the seemingly impossible situations we Americans have gotten ourselves into. No, it is having to spend all of my time before the election, and then if successful, all of my time while in office, focused on the drumbeat of fundraising.

Example: The two stories most often told in the New Mexico governor’s race: how much money each candidate has raised and how many negative statements have been made in political commercials bought with the money that was raised. The two are connected.

There are three basic problems in the body politic of our country. There is an undercurrent of influence peddling, there is the power of incumbency such that most politicians leave office when they die, and, finally, money has changed what people in politics do: Now they spend all of their time raising funds.

The damage to our society is not that all politicians call each other “Poo poo heads;” rather, it’s that to get a politician’s attention citizens must be donating money. I am painting with a wide brush, but if you think this is not so try to get time with the candidates without a donation while someone else gives freely, and see which one of you is blessed with the attention of the candidate.

Note: It is both parties who run on money and run to money all of the time.

How do we take money out of politics?

There have been some people talking about taking the influence of money out of politics, but that would require politicians to surrender that power, which they will not willingly. To those politicians who have been elected again and again to decide to surrender the power of money and incumbency, well, perhaps some politicians do think in a higher way, but they are few and far between.

What to do? The problem is that Americans have the body politics that they have in general wanted and rewarded. We say to the politicians, “Here is a pot of money, make sure I am taken care of well,” and the politicians have done so.

The question is: How do we take money out of politics? My answer is, I do not know.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

Please excuse me for being partly personal. Today I am returning to talk radio after being away three years. I love talk radio – it is like sitting in a coffee shop with friends just talking about the news.

Talk radio is a rather recent media phenomenon here in our country. It is the common-person media in which everyone has a voice and viewpoint. The ideas are rapid and some even make sense. There are yahoos and heroes and people who are so funny it is almost a danger to drivers who may laugh too much.

I find it amazing that people I do not know will share their time and often send me thoughts and ideas. One idea was that I trade my word processor for a trash compactor, but I thought that suggestion was just humor.

I am fairly hard to amaze. Sure, at times I stand transfixed while I gaze up at the Milky Way and ponder the meaning of life. And I do look with complete wonder at anyone who can dance the polka without moving their lips. And I am always amazed by politicians, though the word chagrined comes to mind often.

Talk radio is much like what happens to me at coffee shops. First a story is told and then a joke, and then I look up and an hour has gone by. I love sitting in coffee shops telling stories and telling what I would do if I was in charge of things – which I am not, nor should I be.

Soaking in the enjoyment

I have always been a bit shy in many circumstances, but not on stage. Early in life my parents hung the moniker, Little Filibuster, on me for some reason or another. Then in college I learned to play guitar, learned a couple dozen songs and somehow passed myself off as a musician, which was incredible since I had enormous interest and very little talent. But I would go on stage and time flew nicely unless some shouted, “Play something you know.”

About 15 years ago I had a serious spat with cancer and was laid low for quite some time. A friend who had an afternoon talk show here in Las Cruces asked me to come down on Thursdays to his show for two hours and talk about education. At the time I was unsure of my mind, unsure if I could hold a coherent conversation, but I did. It was so amazing that for the two hours on the air I did not feel the hands of sickness, I just soaked in the enjoyment of talking live on the radio.

A few years later I was at a crossroads because the Title V grant that funded my position at a community college had ended. I thought carefully about what I wanted to do and realized that my true interest was in doing talk radio full time. It seemed one of the few things that I was always jazzed to do, so I talked a local station into trying me and for almost six years I was on from six to 10 in the morning, five days a week. It was quite a load to talk that much but with guests, I really enjoyed it.

Then a calling came to use my education doctorate and introduce to New Mexico public schools a way of dealing with students who do not easily learn to read. Three years passed quickly as I drove all over the state. In the car I listened to talk radio and felt the tug to be back in it.

Sitting and talking at a coffee shop

Recently, one of my favorite guests when I was doing the talk radio, Jim Spence, asked if I would like to return to talk radio and be a co-host with him. I will do so, and will still be involved in my New Mexico literacy issues. Starting today I return to the airwaves with co-host Jim Spence, Monday-Friday from 7-9 a.m., for News New Mexico on KSNM-AM 570 in Las Cruces. The webpage is newsnm.com.

Join Jim and me as we talk about good ideas for our community. It is just like we are all sitting and talking at a coffee shop.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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Michael Swickard

I was talking at the coffee shop recently about the upcoming elections and I indicated that my gullibility does not run deep. I used to be much more gullible than I am now.

I was cured while taking pictures at a rodeo. At the time I owned a small weekly newspaper and was trying to get something for the front page.

It was a two-night rodeo. The first night I shot some of the action in the arena from the fence. At the rodeo dance I took pictures. A rodeo clown sauntered up. He had a hat with five playing cards on it, all jokers, so he was called, Joker.

“If’n you want good bullriding pictures you have to get in the arena and shoot at the chutes opening with the audience behind,” he said.

I thought it over. My shots so far were not good because I was stuck at the fence and was shooting the hind end of the bull as bull and rider rode out into the arena. I visualized that if I was in the middle of the arena shooting at the jump-out when the gate was opened, why that would be a great picture. Then I visualized a ton of bull doing the four-step on my body.

“Sure it would be a good picture, but what keeps the bull from breaking my camera and my neck, too?” I asked.

“Shoot,” Joker snorted, “It isn’t dangerous out there because we know what the bull is going to do. After watching them night after night for a while we know which ones are going to just spin and which ones run all over the place. We are safe out there because we stand where they ain’t going to go.”

I saw his point. If I knew where the bull was going, I could go to a spot near there. Joker saw the wheels turning and offered, “Heck, I could show you where to stand and you would be perfectly safe.”

Not what I expected

So that’s how I happened to be out in the arena the next night. I was a bit tentative the first couple of bulls but Joker kept pointing to spots where the bull wasn’t going to be. He was right and I became bolder. I took a great bullriding shot and was jubilant. Then it happened.

Next up was a boy from my hometown and I wanted a front page shot of him. He was riding a large Brahma bull named Ol’ Strychnine. Joker waved me out to about 50 feet in front of the gate. “He comes out and spins right in front of the gate and then goes down the fence. You’ll be safe out here in the middle.” He said. I caught the hint of a smile beneath his painted on smile. Joker said, “Crouch down here so your picture can show how high he jumps.”

I got down on my knees so that I could exaggerate how high the bull was going to jump. Joker went back to the fence, “Good luck pard,” he shouted.

The local boy, Justin hunched down on the back of the bull and nodded. The gate sprang open. I got a smidgen lower and Ol’ Strychnine catapulted out with Justin hanging on for all he was worth. I snapped a great shot of the bull about two feet off of the ground and I anticipated that when Ol’ Strychnine came down he should start spinning. He didn’t.

In one awful moment I realized that Ol’ Strychnine was making a beeline for me crouched in the dirt on my knees ready to shoot another picture. At that point I would gladly have had a bazooka instead. I lurched to my feet about three hooves ahead of the bull who had completely forgotten Justin.

The three of us hit the fence at the same moment. I was pitched over the fence into the first row of spectators. My camera embedded itself in the wooden fence. Justin heard the 8 second whistle and jumped off while Ol’ Strychnine stood on my straw hat (luckily my head wasn’t in it) looking hatefully at me in the first row. I had bull slobber all over my back and a ringing in my ears.

Elections haven’t been fun since

I came to my senses to the roaring sounds of the crowd’s laughter. Joker and the rest of the rodeo clowns were leading the laughter. The crowd loved it. Later they said it was the best entertainment in many years, especially when I chased Joker around the arena with a tire iron.

The picture of Justin and Ol’ Strychnine came out fine and was on the front page of the newspaper that week. The camera, however expired, as did my gullibility. Elections have never been much fun since then.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.

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