Perception,

they say, is everything! In politics, anyway.

Don't know about everything, but perception does count for a lot. Once I perceive that something is happening a certain way, it takes a lot of persuasion to change my thinking.

I have always marveled at how brief, how concise our Constitution was written. It is remarkably clear, unmistakeable in purpose.

Laws are no longer written that way. Now they are thousands of pages long, unreadable, unless you have the time to check all the references. I once thought that was because the attorneys writing these laws wanted to make them very narrow, wanted to make them "escape proof". My perception has changed.

Now, I believe these bills are written long and complicated to provide lots of wiggle room. To obscure, to obfuscate, to hide certain politically unpopular agendas.

I find that saddening. Must we start from a position that will allow us to deceive? What is the reason for this position? If a politician has an idea for a new law, why cannot he/she throw it out there to be tested in open debate? Is it the desire for re-election that drives them to couch things in a way that can be modified without admitting they may have been wrong?

As Charles Krauthammer noted, the beauty of passing a bill of such monstrous length. You can insert a chicken soup recipe and no one will notice.

Once a long, complicated piece of legislation is introduced, why do Congressmen and Senators vote on it, and presidents sign it, without even reading it? Is it all for the protection of their particular political party? Have we really fallen that low?

Don't know, but that is my perception.

Santa Teresa, NM

Ever heard of that place? You may, in the future.

Most of New Mexico's southern border abuts against the state of Texas. But, moving westward, Texas ends at El Paso, while New Mexico extends westward to the Arizona border. All of which is a way of saying that part of New Mexico's southern border adjoins Mexico.

Mexico happens to be the largest trading partner of the U.S. Many American manufacturers have their products parts assembled in Mexico, then shipped back as finished products. Mexican store shelves are crammed with U.S. brand products. Agriculture trade is huge. Much of your grocers produce comes from Mexico when it becomes too cold to grow it on U.S. farms.

Much of that trade travels north and south along the route of the old Spanish Camino Real (royal highway) which ran from Mexico City to Santa Fe, New Mexico. A historic trade route! That route passed through El Paso, Texas, named originally El Paso del Norte by the Spaniards. That translated to The pass to the north, which pretty well describes the geography there... a fairly narrow pass between two mountain ranges.

That pass was adequate for the old Spanish ox carts, but today, the hundreds of trucks and trains which transport the commerce between our two nations, has caused quite a congestion.

And, since the Rio Grande delineates the border at El Paso, all trade traffic must cross bridges! Another impediment.

Smart planners on both sides of the border determined that they could skip west of the mountains that formed the west wall of El Paso's "pass" and find a much less congested route to the north. They built a modern, efficient Port of Entry on the Mexico-New Mexico border, at the little town of Santa Teresa. This is beyond the Rio Grande so there are no bridges. Extra lanes can be added to hiways, less expensively.

Doña Ana County, NM, built its airport nearby and New Mexico greatly improved the highway from Santa Teresa, northward. A huge freight handling depot was built to accommodate the truck freight traffic through the new POE. A number of businesses have sprung up in the area to serve the increasing population in the area.

Now, a $400 million rail facility is nearing completion at Santa Teresa, and will open early in 2014. This will greatly increase rail traffic between our two nations.

Trade routes have historically determined population growth and area development. The Santa Teresa route will be no different. Albuquerque, currently New Mexico's largest city, was built along the old U.S. Highway 66 (now Interstate 40) a major east-west trade route.

And, remember, the world does not end at Mexico. Latin America is booming. Trade with Brazil and other South American nations can only grow.

I predict that the Santa Teresa route will be even more important and that eventually the population there will surpass that of Albuquerque.

Observations, on December 25

Nothing to do with the holiday, today... except that I have time for a little abstract thinking.

We just removed all the carpet in our home - except for the bedrooms. Replaced it all with tile. The tile my wife chose is very pretty, and the men who laid it did a great job. I love the look, but there is, of course, some of those unintended consequences.

First, the tile has significantly hardened the acoustics. I am seriously hearing impaired, a condition which almost no one with good hearing can understand. Everyone thinks the problem is volume. So they talk louder, which does not help. The problem is intelligibility: I can hear them, I just cannot understand them.

I don't know how to explain what has happened between my ear drums and my brain, but the effect is very disconcerting. If two people talk over each other, I can understand neither. If people talk too fast, it seems my brain cannot process that jumble of words, especially if they are not clearly annunciated.

With our new tile, there is a slight echo effect. I'm sunk, unless I am close enough to the speaker for their voice to drown out the echo.

Watching television, I have great difficulty understanding anyone who does not annunciate like a professional announcer. Even then there are differences. I notice that speakers with a wider mouth annunciate more clearly than do speakers with a narrower mouth.

Sound weird to you? It certainly does to me, but it has proven to be true in countless observations.

As a radio announcer, especially when I went on the air at 5:00 a.m., I did various exercises to "wake up" my lips and tongue. I drove to work in the pre-dawn hours, repeatedly articulating the phrase How Now Brown Cow exaggerating each word, as I spoke.


There was another phrase that helped me to annunciate:
The cow moos, the kitten mews. Each day at noon, we read the news.

A cow never mews, a kitten never moos. We never read the noos... at noon, or at any other time. We only read the news!

Often I listen to TV commentators and wish they would take a break and repeat How now brown cow a few dozen times.

Most conversationalists do not like to be asked to repeat, so I wish I could avoid asking "What did you say?" It is often better to just smile and chuckle, but certainly not always. Sometimes they give you a puzzled look and say "I asked you to please hand me that pencil."  Oh! Sorry.

Okay, enough abstract thinking!

Color, color, color

The human ability to visualize color is a wonderful gift. It beautifies our world, and it gives us another way to communicate: red light means stop.

Talk about the color of skin, however, and people go nuts.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., came on the scene, it took me awhile to warm to his philosophy. After thinking about it however, I agreed, character is important. Skin color, not so much.

Looking at the world as a community, it seems the closer to the equator, the darker the skin. Go to Norway or Sweden and see light skin. Did it originate with the sun? From without, not from within?

When Barack Obama was elected president we heard endlessly of his overwhelming support by Black Americans... even when his policies were failing. Were all Blacks voting for his skin color? You may expect that from people who care little about politics, policy, or the results thereof.

But, what about Black "intellectuals"? As in Black college professors, physicians, CEOs and other people of high accomplishment? Wow! There is a huge diversity of opinion. These outstanding Americans care more for character than for skin color.

Then it was time to analyze comments by some race hustlers. They demand that we be colorblind about skin, while demanding that we be more fair to people of color. What color? Have we not all become "skin-colorblind"!

Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly made some remark about a white Santa. Her colleague, Bill O'Reilly backed her up by saying the mythical character originated in European nations with white populations. The ladies on ABC TV's The View took issue.

What color for a Department Store Santa? Who can you find to do that job? Stick a bushy white wig, mustache and beard on him, and, who can tell?

What color do you want Santa to be? Wait! Remember, we are "skin-colorblind"!

Some insist we should have more Black actors on TV. How can we tell if we're skin-colorblind?

Affirmative Action, diversity in employment practices? How can we tell if we're skin-colorblind?

Then, there is the question, "What color was Jesus?" We don't know because the contemporaries who wrote of him were obviously skin-colorblind!

Well, I, and most white people today are not skin-colorblind. Tanning devices, tanning lotions, etc., are a zillion-dollar business among white populations. We love a beautiful, healthy, brown skin.

It's time to enjoy skin color the same as we enjoy the beauty of color everywhere.

Inflation

The Government has an interesting way of deceiving us. Take the U.S. Unemployment Rate. This figure is achieved by telephoning a sample number of households and asking if anyone is looking for work.

Okay, the findings tell us about people looking for work. They say little about the number of able bodied folks who would like to work, but do not currently have a job. Are they not unemployed?

Or, how about the widely touted inflation rate? For this they use the Consumer Price Index. They survey prices of a number of items, and compare those prices with the prices of the same items one year ago - or at some arbitrary date in the past. Problem is, they do not include the prices of certain categories of products or services.

How meaningful are the numbers they offer? Not very.

Telling us that the average price of some things we buy has increased a percentage point or two, compared to the average price of those same items one year ago, doesn't tell us a lot.

What is telling is when you go to the store and buy some item you have not purchased in a while. That tells you something about inflation.

I don't know if there is an accurate way to compute how many Americans are unemployed. I simply feel the current method is bogus.

Inflation? Well, the thing that matters is the buying power of our money. When our money buys fewer items, we say prices are inflated. Actually, that is not true. Modern manufacturing and farming methods, have brought products to market more quickly, efficiently then ever. Modern transportation means more products can come to us over greater distances then ever. Why are these products costing more every year? Because our money is worth less.

There may be an accurate way to compute rates of unemployment, inflation and other economic indicators. But, the results may show some government policies to be wrong. Not likely they will ever be developed.