OP/ED

Op-Ed: Los Alamos Our Arts Need Help!

by

By BECCA JONES
Los Alamos

Code Red in Los Alamos: our town’s arts heartbeat is at risk.

The Los Alamos Arts Council and Fuller Lodge Art Center are facing a $10,000 year-end deficit, and they need our support now to remain thriving community anchors.

Why this matters…

These spaces offer essential, affordable access to the arts for all ages:

  • After-school programs for elementary students, a safe and welcoming environment where kids can explore creativity; giving kids a “third place”;
  • Adult art classes that build skills, foster community connections, and help neighbors reconnect with
Read More

Rule Of Law Advances A Civil And Engaged Democracy

by

New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice David K. Thomson, Courtesy/NMSC

By Chief Justice David K. Thomson
New Mexico Supreme Court

I am pleased to announce the New Mexico Supreme Court’s fifth annual “Rule of Law” program. The goal of the program is to educate middle school, high school, and college students on the judiciary’s role in our democracy and how the rule of law secures a just and civil society. This year we will hold oral argument at the Henderson Fine Arts Center at San Juan College in Farmington on Aug. 28, at 1 p.m.

Normally, I write an op-ed in advance of the program to discuss the importance Read More

Pawlak: In For A Penny

by

By JOHN PAWLAK
Advisory Board Member
UNM-Los Alamos

Okay, first of all, this letter has nothing to do with a penny. Absolutely nothing. Now, that being said, let’s talk about the penny. Due to the increasing price of copper and production, it costs four cents to mint/distribute a penny. Leave it to our government to lose money by making money, eh? 2025 will be the last year in which we mint the penny. Will this change the meaning of “A penny for your thoughts”?

OK, I didn’t want to talk about the death of the US penny, but rather about something more personal, your death. But let’s be honest, saying “Let’s Read More

Gessing: New Mexico And The Film Industry Recession

by

By PAUL GESSING
Executive Director
Rio Grande Foundation

Since the days of Bill Richardson’s Administration, the Rio Grande Foundation has opposed New Mexico’s generous film subsidies. Back in Richardson’s day, the primary subsidy was a 25 percent “refundable” tax credit, meaning that anyone filming in New Mexico received up to 25 percent of what they spent to film in the Land of Enchantment (courtesy of New Mexico’s taxpayers).

Gov. Susana Martinez attempted to rein in the subsidy program. Along with the Legislature, she placed a $50 million annual spending cap on film subsidies. When Lujan Read More

Op-Ed: New Mexico’s Energy Industry Is Leading the Way on Climate Progress

by

By MISSI CURRIER
President & CEO of New Mexico Oil & Gas Association

Throughout New Mexico’s oil and gas basins, a transition continues—one that is reshaping the narrative around energy production and environmental stewardship. Late last year, analysis from S&P Global Commodity Insights revealed that methane emissions in the Permian Basin have declined so significantly that the reduction is equivalent to the annual carbon emissions avoided by every electric vehicle in the United States. This is not just a milestone—it’s transformation and innovation.

Just last month, Read More

Op-Ed: Looming Anniversary Of Hiroshima At 80

by

By PETER N. KIRSTEIN, Ph.D.
Professor of History Emeritus
Saint Xavier University

Eighty years ago, on Aug. 6, 1945, the world changed forever when the United States exploded the first atomic bomb, “Little Boy”, over Hiroshima. In an instant, incineration ravaged the city, killing over 140,000 people. Three days later, the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki, killing another 75,000. By year’s end, an estimated 250,000 had died from the blasts, fire, and radiation poisoning.

These acts of war ruptured the moral and existential boundaries of modern civilization. While they marked the end of

Read More

Op-Ed: A Few Words About Demand-Side Economics

by

By ALAN HALL
© 2025 New Mexico News Service

Allow me to introduce myself. I am an arrogant man. It is a particular type of arrogance; the arrogance of Margaret Thatcher, who famously scorned economic ideas that were contrary to her real-life experience. Now, unlike Dame Thatcher, I was not raised in an apartment over the family grocery. But I was raised in an apartment over the family motel and gift shop, and like Thatcher, I was immersed in the business from earliest memory. That puts me firmly in her camp.

One thing that I learned as a child was the overriding importance of “business”. Whenever one Read More

Think New Mexico: Why Is This Dark Money Group Fighting Healthcare Reform?

by

By FRED NATHAN JR.
Executive Director
Think New Mexico

Recently the New Mexico Ethics Commission sued a secretive, dark money group calling itself New Mexico Safety Over Profits (NMSOP) for violating state laws that require the disclosure of the source of funds used to influence legislation.

The lawsuit alleges that NMSOP spent tens of thousands of dollars on advertisements opposing medical malpractice reforms designed to center the needs of patients and bring down malpractice premiums for doctors, which are about twice as high in New Mexico as in our surrounding states.

Earlier this year, Read More

Op-Ed: A Poem For The Times

by

By REBECCA SHANKLAND
Los Alamos

2025 Version of “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor”
[original on the Statue of Liberty by Emma Lazarus]

Give me your rich, your white

Your upper classes taxed for their great wealth

Your moneyed techies full of snobbish spite

Send these, the wealthy upper crust in stealth

Their visas get them in the golden door. Read More

OpEd: Forced Disappearances In New Mexico 2025

by

By PROF. JENNIFER MOORE, SEN. ANTOINETTE SEDILLO LOPEZ, and REP. LINDA SERRATO

Last week, the Supreme Court failed to stand up strongly for a bedrock constitutional provision granting birthright citizenship in the14th Amendment passed after the Civil War. In March 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials reported they had arrested four dozen people in immigration raids in three New Mexican cities: Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Roswell without accounting for them.

These actions force the question: what does the United States of America stand for on the world stage?

New Mexicans Read More