Tom’s 2025 Thanksgiving Thankful List
By TOM GARRISON
© 2025 Tom Garrison
Each November. I compose a “Thanksgiving Thankful List” for the preceding year. My wife, Deb, and I enjoy our life in red rock southern Utah and have many things for which we are thankful.
I hope sharing them brings a smile and acknowledgement that even the seldom thought of can be a source of thankfulness.
Below is my 2025 list.
- Southwest Utah has grown enormously in the last 15 years. Because of that I’m thankful for street signs. I’m an old guy and getting around is hard enough. Without street signs to guide me, I’d probably end up in the twilight zone.
- I’m thankful
There’s More To The Pilgrim Story Than Thanksgiving
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1863-1930, The Mayflower Compact 1620, Oil on Canvas. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Courtesy/Wikipedia CommonsBy CHRIS BROWN
and
ASENATH KEPLER
New Mexico’s Mayflower Society
This Thanksgiving marks 70 years since New Mexico’s Mayflower Society was founded by descendants of the ship’s 102 passengers. Our mission is to keep the Pilgrim story alive and relevant to New Mexicans today. More important than the first Thanksgiving that half of the passengers survived to celebrate only with help from their native benefactors, Plymouth’s settlers
Op-Ed: Vaccines – Who Can You Trust?
By RICHARD SKOLNIK
White Rock
The Republican Trump administration has “gone to war” against vaccines. This includes recently changing the CDC’s website on childhood vaccines at the direct request of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to imply that “vaccines cause autism.” This is despite the complete lack of scientific evidence for this idea.
Secretary Kennedy’s battle against vaccines appears to have four pillars, dealing with trust and the destruction of key vaccine institutions:
- Reduce trust in vaccines
- Take over the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
- Make
Op-Ed: New Mexico’s Economic Freedom Now Dead Last
By PAUL J. GESSING
President Rio Grande Foundation
and
MATTHEW MITCHELL
Canadian free market think tank
Lives in Angel Fire
In a study published earlier this year, we highlighted the fact that New Mexico was the only state in the US to have lost economic freedom since 1981. We now know that it is worse than we thought.
People are more economically free when they are allowed to make more of their own economic choices; economists measure this freedom by looking at the degree to which government spending, taxation, and regulation limits choice.
We relied on data from the Fraser Institute’s Economic Read More
Op-Ed: Blotting Out The Stars, One State Project At A time
By GALEN GISLER and DIDIER SAUMON
Los Alamos
We are writing as concerned residents regarding the recently activated parking lot lighting at the new Piñon Elementary School.
Upon inspection and measurements, we have found that the level of illumination is far in excess of what is allowed under the Los Alamos County Development Code lighting ordinance (02-333, 16-44ff). Nineteen very bright fixtures now illuminate the northeast parking lot—all night long—when the lot is empty. This single area alone represents a substantial increase in light output and electricity consumption compared Read More
Weekly Fishing Report: Nov. 24, 2025
By GEORGE MORSE
Sports and Outdoors
Los Alamos Daily Post
Happy Thanksgiving.
Snow is now beginning to fall in the higher elevations and the beautiful white covering on the mountains is a most welcome sight. When planning a trip it will be increasingly important to keep track of weather and road conditions at and going to your destination.
Several lakes will begin to freeze over and it will be awhile before the ice is thick enough to allow for ice fishing. Santa Cruz Lake and Monastery Lake do not allow any ice fishing.
Eagle Nest Lake, Fenton Lake and Lake Maloya are popular ice fishing destinations Read More
Daily Postcard: Male Evening Grosbeak Visits Overlook Park
Daily Postcard: Male Evening Grosbeak visited Overlook Park last week. Evening Grosbeaks are fairly large finches that often travel in large flocks. These birds may be found in Northern New Mexico all year round, but their numbers can vary considerably each year. Over the last fifty years, the population of Evening Grosbeaks has declined by 50% and the decline has accelerated in the last decade. Photo by Richard Skolnik Read More
