Columns

Skolnik: Should COVID Still Be A Priority?

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By RICHARD SKOLNIK
White Rock

How much priority should public health put on COVID these days? Aren’t the risks of COVID so diminished that we don’t have to worry about it anymore?

In public health, as in other fields, there are well known principles for setting priorities, that largely have to do with:

          • The impact of the disease on illness, disabilities, and deaths.
          • The availability of cost-effective, doable, and sustainable approaches to addressing the problem.
          • Fairness/equity.

When it comes to the burden of COVID disease:

  • Provisional CDC data has COVID as the 10th leading cause of death in
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Bartlett: More Access To Lower Bayo And Pueblo Canyons

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By MELISSA BARTLETT
Los Alamos

The current Los Alamos County Parks and Recreation policy for access to the lower part of Bayo and Pueblo canyons is too restrictive and discriminates against those of us who have limited abilities.

Currently, parking is allowed only in the small dirt lot near the gate on the road that leads to the waste water treatment plant. Private vehicles that park anywhere past the gate are subject to ticketing.

This means that to access the many lovely trails of lower Pueblo and Bayo Canyons, the only option is a hike on the paved road and risk the trucks or on a small hot dusty trail Read More

Gruninger: What Is The Los Alamos Retired & Senior Organization?

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The Los Alamos Retired and Senior Organization staff. Courtesy/LARSO

By JACCI GRUNINGER
Executive Director
LARSO

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of columns written by Executive Director Jacci Gruninger to introduce Los Alamos Retired and Senior Organization and its services to the community.

The Los Alamos Retired and Senior Organization (LARSO) or the Los Alamos Senior Activity Centers is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that creates opportunities for healthy aging through social engagement, physical well-being, civic involvement, creativity, and lifelong learning. Read More

Robinson: Priest Miscalculates In Removing ‘Apache Christ’

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The ‘Apache Christ’ by Franciscan Friar Robert Lentz. Photo by Sherry Robinson

By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote
© 2024 New Mexico News Services

The Catholic Church stumbled badly.

In the dark of night, Father Peter Chudy Sixtus Simeon-Aguinam and his accomplices removed beloved paintings from St. Joseph Apache Mission on the Mescalero Apache Reservation and spirited them away. When parish staff and volunteers opened the church on June 27, they were shocked to find the sanctuary stripped of the eight-foot “Apache Christ,” by Franciscan Friar Robert Lentz, a famed iconographer.

Created in Read More

Home Country: We All Must Do Our Share

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Home Country
By SLIM RANDLES

Each of us, in our own way, smiles on the Fourth of July. We can’t help it. We are the most fortunate citizens of any nation in the world and we know it.

A bunch of us in the valley will be down on the sidewalk watching the parade go by. The bands are nice. The horses are great fun to watch, and the military with their stunning stout vehicles of war are hard to beat. So are we. We’re hard to beat, too.

My favorite part of the parade is when the kids walk by, with a small American flag in one hand and the end of a leash in the other. And that leash is attached to a dog. Not a world champion dog. Read More

Denish: Times Of Agony

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By DIANE DENISH
Corner to Corner
© 2024 New Mexico News Services

There has been no shortage of commentary about the Biden vs. Trump debate.

As the debate closed, the first focus was on Joe Biden’s appearance, voice and style. He had a poor start and improved as the night wore on, but commentators, journalists, Biden allies and Joe Biden himself conceded it was a bad night.

And a bad night for a candidate always brings out the vultures and the feeding frenzy. As journalist Nicolas Kristof once said, we report crash landings, not safe landings.

Since the debate, The New York Times has published 192 articles Read More

Catch Of The Week: Apple ID Phishing Attacks

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By REBECCA RUTHERFORD
For the Los Alamos Daily Post

Watch out for a new phishing scam targeting iPhone users … this scam sends targeted messages by email and text message to iPhone users trying to steal your Apple ID and can look very convincing.

Researchers at Symantec uncovered this scam last week, these links can lead to well-designed websites impersonating Apple, designed to steal your login credentials for your Apple account.

These sites can look very legitimate and many even include a CAPTCHA, adding to their seeming authenticity. These creds can be the “keys to the kingdom” for a hacker Read More

Posts From The Road: Beartooth Highway

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Beartooth Lake: Ripples from the wind on Beartooth Lake interrupt the reflection of Beartooth Butte, which sits a short distance from the lake. The butte rises 1,500 feet above the lake to an elevation of 10,518 feet above sea level. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com

Lakes and Vistas: A viewpoint on the Beartooth Highway reveals stunning alpine vistas including several of the 950 plus lakes in the Beartooth Mountains. Also shown are a few of the switchbacks in the highway as it ascends in elevation. In the distance are the Absaroka Mountains. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com

By GARY Read More

Fr. Glenn: Discerning The Right And The Good

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By Fr. Glenn Jones:

Saw an interesting story the other day in which the very well-known actor Kevin Bacon (Footloose, Apollo 13, A Few Good Men, Taking Chance, to name a few of his movies) went out amongst us hoi polloi and found that life without the privileges of fame just ain’t quite as easy. This isn’t to denigrate Kevin Bacon, who IS a great actor, but rather makes one reflect upon why so many people look to celebrities for life’s advice when they are often so insulated from the lives of the vast majority of common people.

But such stories and considerations DO elicit the thoughtful question: What/who Read More

All Shall Be Well: Treating Everyone With Dignity

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Clergy from left, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Deacon  Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, Associate Priest Lynn Finnegan and Pastor Deb Church. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com

By Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div.
ELCA

Faithful Christians claim to live by the tenets of Jesus, especially as they are outlined in his Sermon on the Mount. This sermon, especially as found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7, clearly expounds on Jesus’ concept of the life of faith. Honest Christians will tell you, though, that it is not always easy to live according to Jesus’ teachings.

For example, Read More