Swickard: Arresting citizens before they commit crimes

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “…society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind. It is really extraordinary that our people refuse to apply to human beings such elementary knowledge as every successful farmer is obliged to apply to his own stock breeding.” Former President Theodore Roosevelt, 1913.

             It is revolting that the philosophy of eugenics from the past is raising its head again. Reasonable people destroyed the eugenics movement in the last century but we must confront eugenic thinking as it rises again.

            Note: America should take Theodore Roosevelt off Mount Rushmore and replace him with the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., or movie star and WWII B-24 pilot Jimmy Stewart. I respect Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln but despise Progressive Era eugenicist Theodore Roosevelt.

            In the late 19th and early 20th century the Progressive Era Movement embraced the philosophy of eugenics as a method of improving the dominant population by weeding out what elites considered undesirables. The German Nazi Party took eugenics to an extreme by killing millions of people.

            Fast forward to elites in today’s society advocating eugenics without the name. Example: people are saying the government must stop crime before it happens by identifying those undesirables who are going to murder, rape and rob in the future.

            They say an all-powerful government is needed to insure our safety. Already the elitist government can take property from citizens who are neither charged nor convicted of a crime. It is called, Civil Forfeiture, which the elites in government love for the power and money it brings. That leads to something even worse.

            In the website American Intelligence Report, Kristan Harris reports: (Chicago) Police are arresting people for crimes they’ve not committed yet using a new computer algorithm software that identifies criminal behavior and predicts future crime. Suspects were arrested this year as a result of being put on a predictive policing Strategic Subject List and Chicago Special Order S10-06 which equips law-enforcement with the ability to arrest citizens before they commit a crime.

            My concern is that the government will extend this to other classes of citizens. With the bitter fight for gun control in our nation perhaps the government will start with gun owners. They are already tagging members of the military and former members as potentially dangerous.

            But it isn’t just now that this is mainstream. Bill Mauldin in his 1947 book, Back Home, wrote: During a period when veterans were big news, every time an ex-soldier got himself in a jam the fact that he was a vet was pointed out in the headline… But the sad fact was that such headlines gave added impetus to the rumor that always appears in every country after a war that the returning soldiers are trained in killing and assaults and are potential menaces to society.”

            There isn’t more of a betrayal than to send citizens into battle and then view them as a class of killers who are dangerous to the society because of what they learned and did to protect our freedom. Today the leaders of our country, in general, didn’t serve in the military nor do their children serve.

            Returning veterans are not treated well for their sacrifices and as Bill Mauldin pointed out it goes back into World War Two and beyond. Journalist Tom Brokaw in his book, The Greatest Generation, praises the soldiers of World War Two fifty years after they served.

            But we have the 1947 words of Bill Mauldin to remind us that WWII soldiers faced an ungrateful society when they came home. As did the Korean and Vietnam soldiers.

            The politicians who see our former military members as dangerous and take action before these men and women do something are as bad as all of the eugenic progressives combined. We are already betraying our former soldiers by having a Veterans Administration that is shameful in provided care.

            Who knows what will come of the Chicago “arrest them before they commit a crime” but I sense that former military and gun owners are in the cross-hairs of this all-powerful government. Their eugenic moves must be stopped. And we should honor our military and former military members. Without them America would not be a free nation.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Swickard: Arresting citizens before they commit crimes

Swickard: Budget special session possibilities

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez will call a special legislative session because of lower oil and gas revenues than projected. If there are budget cuts, will some government workers get fired? Or will there be a tax increase a month before the November election? Both solutions may cost votes for legislators in close races.

            Cutting the budget usually means someone loses their government job because much of the state’s budget is used to hire people. Often the way those people in charge respond to budget cuts is to fire the most crucially important people first because the citizen outcry may protect their budget.

            Organizations often target doctors, EMTs, fire and police along with in-classroom educators. That always gets lots of citizen outcry and media attention.

            Years ago in Albuquerque there was a budget crunch in the police department so they fired the street policemen in the worse section of town. Did they touch administrative people? No, because the citizens of Albuquerque wouldn’t care if those employees were fired.

            The citizens of Albuquerque capitulated and added more tax revenue to the budget rather than lose critical police protection. Some politicians claim that everyone employed by the State of New Mexico is essential to the state. They proclaim loudly to the media that taking any money away from existing programs will result in catastrophic damage to our state.

            The talking point: there are no workers on the state’s payroll who are not completely essential. Further, we citizens will be told we must consider that state employees are just like us with bills to pay and kids to raise so being fired is featured in the media reports letting us citizens know that firing state workers will destroy lives.

            Another option being discussed is to increase taxes. That way no one is fired. But in the middle of an election voters can express displeasure quickly. Increasing taxes is unlikely this time.

            One thing not being discussed much is that they can raid the New Mexico Permanent Funds. Some people call them “Rainy day funds.” The quick way is to confiscate needed financial resources from the New Mexico Tobacco or other small funds.

            The two funds with plenty of money are the New Mexico Land-Grant Fund created in 1912 and the 1973 created New Mexico Severance Tax Fund. It is dangerous to take money from these funds because these two funds are set to provide about one seventh of the entire New Mexico budget next year.

            It is not easy to raid these funds because legislators in the past realized the glimmering pot of money would be quite attractive to politicians who only thought short-term. States like California had vast financial resources which were taken in a short-term political frenzy years ago. Now California is close to bankruptcy.

            New Mexico’s budget increased more than fifty percent under former Governor Bill Richardson from 2003 to 2010. It went from about four billion dollars to almost seven billion dollars a year.

            The long-term solution is to increase the economy and the budget will be corrected as long as New Mexico doesn’t elect another free spender like Richardson. There is never enough money for free spenders.

            New Mexico revenues are down because the oil and gas industry is cyclically at a low point. It is a cycle but the government increase is linear. There are always difficulties when the energy resources go down.

            Roy Blunt wrote, “The shortest path to more American jobs is more American energy and more jobs that relate to American energy.” That is what New Mexico needs however the problem for New Mexico politicians is that the environmental lobby has lots of power and does not want New Mexico to increase energy jobs.

            So the source of money from the energy sector may not be politically available to some legislators. There are no other easily increased revenue sources. Raising taxes usually results in people and businesses leaving the state thereby actually lowering collected revenues.

            New Mexico’s government is still far larger than just a few years ago with the same number of citizens. Ultimately New Mexico’s state government is about creating jobs and political power. Tough decisions cannot be avoided at this time.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com

Swickard: Budget special session possibilities

Swickard: The “I deliberately lied” society

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “When in doubt tell the truth.” Mark Twain

             Mark Twain’s quote is from a long past society. In the 21st century people seem to view truth as to be avoided always. Our society which is connected by the media and internet absolutely worships at the altar of innuendo, myth, purposeful misdirection and downright lies.

            What are the three hardest words to say? Some think it is “I don’t know.” Many people say that. Others think it is “I was mistaken” which isn’t heard often. The three hardest words to say are “I deliberately lied.”

            Yet it happens all of the time. We’re inundated in this “I deliberately lied” society where making up stuff is valued more than telling the truth. Example: this presidential campaign.

            Today’s conventional wisdom is that everyone should lie “if we really care about our country.” They say, “I have to lie about this candidate I oppose because the opposition is lying about my candidate.”

            Candidates do not care if they have already been recorded saying the opposite of what they’re now saying. When questioned they proclaim, “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

            Worse, with all of the data available to citizens today it is amazing that the truth suffers more in today’s world than in past societies. As a lifelong historian I have studied most of the history of our country but I do not recognize statements currently being made about the founding and development of America.

            Example: In February 2015, President Obama said, “Here in America Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.”

            That is certainly not true. A more truthful statement would be that people from many lands wove the fabric of our country during the last couple hundred years. No one nation or region, certainly no one religion has dominated the founding of our country. However, America has been served well by Protestant, Catholic and Jewish citizens.

            People today confuse opinion from theory from truth. In fact, it seems opinion is the new truth. If I say, “The Sun rises in the East.” I am told, “That is just your opinion since you belong to the other political party.”

            The great divider of our society are two dominant political organizations: Democrats and Republicans. Both groups view truth as only from their perspective. What one candidate is reported to have said is more an exercise in seeing the bias of reporters than seeing the truth.

            A real truth bomb is the recent “birther” controversy. It is contained in the question: was President Obama born in Hawaii? The media acts like it is a one-sided issue where Republicans are acting in very inappropriate ways.

            But the research is quick and easy. However, it doesn’t fit the political agenda so it is ignored. The birther question came into being not by Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton.

            Rather it started as a promotional booklet produced by then Literary Agency Acton & Dystel celebrating the authors they at that time were representing on the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of their company.

            On one of the thirty-six pages is this statement: Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation.

            The next page had a description of Ralph Nadar and the 1990s boy-band, New Kids On the Block.

            That’s where the “birther” story started. We know that some members of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign gave this information to the media. Mainstream Republicans repeated it then and in the eight years of Obama’s presidency.

            Did Donald Trump start this? No, but he could have researched it and then not repeated it. Truth has no place in the “birther” controversy since it serves the partisans on both sides. It is great for fundraising.

            An old joke is: how can you tell if a politician is lying? When their lips are moving. Today: how can you tell if the media is lying? Nowadays, they will always lie - so expect it and embrace truth.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com

Swickard: The “I deliberately lied” society

Swickard: A lesser nation as our veterans pass

Jesse Jacobs at age 23 flying B-17s in WWII

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

             In my mind the “Day that will live in Infamy” will be less remembered by history than what happened the very next day, December 8, 1941. That Monday many Americans walked into military recruiting offices and volunteered to serve.

            One of those, Jesse Jacobs, passed away last week at age ninety-three. He was a friend of my uncle and myself for many years. While his death was not a surprise, the loss of this national treasure hurts. His friends and family mourn, of course, but there is mourning for the passing of a way of life symbolized by Jesse Jacobs and many more like him.

            Even at an early age there were things he would die for. Country singer Randy Travis has a song, “Points of Light” that starts: There is a point when you cannot walk away. When you have to stand up straight and tall, and mean the words you say. There is a point you must decide just to do it because it’s right. That’s when you become a point of light.

            Colonel Jesse Jacobs, Air Force Retired, was born in August 1923 so he was just eighteen when WWII started. Like many in his generation he volunteered to serve in the military and was a B-17 pilot. Part of his training to fly the B-17 was in Hobbs, New Mexico.

            Eventually he ended up in England. After the war he continued his military career and happened to be stationed in Japan when the Korean War started suddenly. That day he left his wife and child in Japan and flew to Korea to fight for freedom.

            Jesse went as an F-80 fighter pilot. In the last seven years I have sat with Jesse as he talked about an America that went to war willingly and defeated the ones who intended to capture the entire world and hold everyone hostage.

            Adolf Hitler intended to have his country hold all other countries for a thousand years. But he did not reckon on Jesse Jacobs and other Americans who ended his reign of terror at just twelve years.

            Even talking about WWII is difficult in today’s world because we already know that the allies won. Italy, Germany and Japan were defeated and present no threat to us now. But in 1941 young men had to step forward and do their duty without knowing the outcome.

            Some came back and 420,000 Americans did not. Who knows what good they might have done if they had lived.

            My uncle who served in the navy as a radar specialist for naval aviation sat with Jesse many years and they talked quietly about that long ago generation. I took my uncle to the Senior Citizen’s Center Monday through Friday for lunch and enjoyed the history lessons.

            My father entered WWII out of high school at the outbreak and retired in 1966 with twenty-five years of service. He was a combat photographer and later taught photography at the Air Force School of Photography in Denver at Lowery Air Force Base.

            My sadness is that years ago my parents died while my uncle who I cared for many years died last year. Now Jesse. We are losing those of that generation as of course age takes them. It will be my generation next. What bothers me is that growing up with my “I like Ike” button I was steeped in the understanding of what it took to defeat the forces of evil the last time there was a world war.

            Much of that history is no longer taught in schools and we have people disrespecting our aged military veterans. That is their right but it doesn’t make it right. I wonder: what will these who bash the military do if a country decides to take us over… a country like Russia which is effectively a dictatorship.

            Will they fight? It is doubtful. Even with patriots left, there is little leadership. I bid a farewell to Jesse Jacobs and all he stood for as a point of light. We are a lesser nation for his passing.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, Michael's new novel is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: A lesser nation as our veterans pass

Swickard: A lesser nation as our veterans pass

Jesse Jacobs at age 23 flying B-17s in WWII

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

             In my mind the “Day that will live in Infamy” will be less remembered by history than what happened the very next day, December 8, 1941. That Monday many Americans walked into military recruiting offices and volunteered to serve.

            One of those, Jesse Jacobs, passed away last week at age ninety-three. He was a friend of my uncle and myself for many years. While his death was not a surprise, the loss of this national treasure hurts. His friends and family mourn, of course, but there is mourning for the passing of a way of life symbolized by Jesse Jacobs and many more like him.

            Even at an early age there were things he would die for. Country singer Randy Travis has a song, “Points of Light” that starts: There is a point when you cannot walk away. When you have to stand up straight and tall, and mean the words you say. There is a point you must decide just to do it because it’s right. That’s when you become a point of light.

            Colonel Jesse Jacobs, Air Force Retired, was born in August 1923 so he was just eighteen when WWII started. Like many in his generation he volunteered to serve in the military and was a B-17 pilot. Part of his training to fly the B-17 was in Hobbs, New Mexico.

            Eventually he ended up in England. After the war he continued his military career and happened to be stationed in Japan when the Korean War started suddenly. That day he left his wife and child in Japan and flew to Korea to fight for freedom.

            Jesse went as an F-80 fighter pilot. In the last seven years I have sat with Jesse as he talked about an America that went to war willingly and defeated the ones who intended to capture the entire world and hold everyone hostage.

            Adolf Hitler intended to have his country hold all other countries for a thousand years. But he did not reckon on Jesse Jacobs and other Americans who ended his reign of terror at just twelve years.

            Even talking about WWII is difficult in today’s world because we already know that the allies won. Italy, Germany and Japan were defeated and present no threat to us now. But in 1941 young men had to step forward and do their duty without knowing the outcome.

            Some came back and 420,000 Americans did not. Who knows what good they might have done if they had lived.

            My uncle who served in the navy as a radar specialist for naval aviation sat with Jesse many years and they talked quietly about that long ago generation. I took my uncle to the Senior Citizen’s Center Monday through Friday for lunch and enjoyed the history lessons.

            My father entered WWII out of high school at the outbreak and retired in 1966 with twenty-five years of service. He was a combat photographer and later taught photography at the Air Force School of Photography in Denver and Lowery Air Force Base.

            My sadness is that years ago my parents died while my uncle who I cared for many years died last year. Now Jesse. We are losing those of that generation as of course age takes them. It will be my generation next. What bothers me is that growing up with my “I like Ike” button I was steeped in the understanding of what it took to defeat the forces of evil the last time there was a world war.

            Must of that history is no longer taught in schools and we have people disrespecting our aged military veterans. That is their right but it doesn’t make it right. I wonder: what will these who bash the military do if a country decides to take us over… a country like Russia which is effectively a dictatorship.

            Will they fight? It is doubtful. Even with patriots left, there is little leadership. I bid a farewell to Jesse Jacobs and all he stood for as a point of light. We are a lesser nation for his passing.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, Michael's new novel is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: A lesser nation as our veterans pass

Swickard: A look at college years ago

One of Michael Swickard's 1968 photos

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   Old folks joke about walking to school in snow, uphill both ways while their grandkids roll their eyes. But those words have some truth about the changes in a couple generations.

            Take myself: I went to college in a different world than kids today who live in the same town and attend the same college. In 1968 I packed my suitcase at my parent’s house in Alamogordo and moved to my uncle’s house in Las Cruces a mile from the New Mexico State University campus.

            My uncle allowed me a bedroom since I barely had enough money saved to pay tuition and fees and then books. There were no student loans so I paid my way through college and could because tuition and fees were about $180 a semester which adjusted to 2016 inflation is $1,200.

            Compare that to $4,400 a semester now charged at the same college and you see that loans are required.

            My possessions were a couple pair of jeans, some shirts and clothes and shoes. I had a four dollar Timex watch, a wind-up alarm clock and a 1930 Underwood #5 manual typewriter borrowed from my grandmother.

            It is no longer 1968 and college students have personal wealth items today in values I didn’t have for the first five years after I graduated and began working professionally. The only thing I didn’t have was debt which young people now have lots.

            I had the choice of going to college or having a car, my ability to earn money would not support both so I came to college on foot. The good of it was I had almost nothing for anyone to steal from me. The first couple years I lived a very small life that did not use much money.

            Luckily my father taught me photography when I was in junior high school so I had a trade to bring which allowed me to make money… typically two dollars a published picture. That was enough to keep me in school and allowed me enough to eat. But eating was another story.

            The first week I was walking to campus one Sunday afternoon to study at the library. As I walked by the Methodist student center just off campus I smell food and it smelled good. So I walked in. The campus minister, Don Murphy was standing there and asked, “Come to eat with us?”

            I replied that I didn’t have any money. He said, “Then you can wash dishes.” The food was great. They say that appetite is a great seasoning. My uncle was a bachelor and didn’t keep much food in his house.

            As I was leaving Reverend Don said, “Did you know that tomorrow the Church of Christ has a dinner, Tuesday the Presbyterians, we feed Wednesday night and the Baptists serve Spaghetti on Thursday.” He gave me a couple other leads to free food and I lived a fine life.

            Every Tuesday was Air Force ROTC which was a requirement for freshmen and sophomore men to take. I enjoyed the classes and actually enjoyed marching. They found that I was a photographer and I was appointed student photographer which meant I went to many functions.

            For a couple years I walked to and from campus once or twice a day through sunlight, dark, rain, dust and gloom of night. Not any snow that I remember but it would make a better story. Those days I had what I called the number but I didn’t share that with anyone.

            The number involved how soon I would be completely out of money and have to quit college. I got down to sixty days but never closer. Importantly, I left college without any debts.

            My graduation was a semester late since I was the first production director of KRWG-TV and helped put it on the air in February 1972. That was an unpaid position and I dropped hours to have the time which I made up to graduate the next semester.

            Yes, it is a different world for college students with computers, smart phones, designer clothes and cars along with a consuming life. Their choice, not mine. I wonder how a couple more generations will change.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Swickard: A look at college years ago

Swickard: Testing centric schools are toxic to students

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” Albert Einstein

             The effort to kill curiosity in public schools is the problem in our educational system. Curiosity doesn’t survive the always testing public schools. Our nation takes normally curious young people and uneducates them by focusing on testing which is of no interest to students.

            Worse, we spend incredible amounts of money on testing and administrators. We are spending money to have a problem. The teachers know that the system is corrupt and does not serve the students but can’t be heard over the administrators feathering their nests.

            The new accountability numbers are out from the New Mexico Public Education Department and like all years before we in the public know nothing after seeing the numbers. To most people it is a list of monkey points that each school has earned with no understanding of what the numbers mean.

            Schools go up and down on the scale and it is the average of the school so it doesn’t really tell us anything about individual teachers or classes. After looking at the numbers I know nothing about any school.

            At the core is the notion that administrators can improve the education of students by making them spend most of their time learning how to juke the testing system. We see the administrators say that testing is only a couple of days a year which is false.

            Testing is every day and all day. It is the “Be all and end all” of every data meeting that teachers must attend. Testing holds no interest to students. Day after day, hour after hour students are preparing to take tests that mean nothing to them about subjects to which they are not interested.

            Teachers have a personal battle to try to keep something interesting in their classes while being pushed to only focus on tested material. Want to talk dinosaurs? Forget it, it is not on the test.

            If America had an enemy that got control of our educational system, they wouldn’t do anything different with American education since the administrators have made the enterprise as bad as it can be.

            What is maddening to thinking people is this thought exercise which I have suggested many times. Since there is the notion of testing the teachers by testing the entire school, let us swap all of the adults at the five highest scoring elementary schools with the five lowest scoring elementary schools in Albuquerque.

            Two years later the five highest scoring schools will still be the five highest scoring schools and ditto for the five lowest scoring schools. This is despite all new teachers, administrators, cooks, librarians, janitors and crossing guards. The adults lauded as the best become the worst by being moved to a different school. The whole testing mania is bogus.

            Just as bad is the new push to get every student to go to college, starting in Kindergarten. We need to give all students basic education and let them follow their dreams, not ours. Tell me this: when a smelly sludge comes back flowing out of your biffy what are you going to do? Call a plumber or a philosopher? The learners need to be in practical education if that is what sings to them.

            In junior high school I took six semesters with some practical education classes. One semester it was electrical wiring, one was woodworking, one was tools, one was metal work, one was welding and one was automotive. The rest of my life I have been relatively handy because of those three years. And it didn’t change that I got a Ph.D.

            Primarily we need to refocus education onto the students.

            Students every year need: first, engage their curiosity, next give them literate and numerate tools to satisfy that curiosity. Third, they must enjoy the passage of time in school. It doesn’t have to be a carnival but if they hate every moment, they will come away with little. Next, the education must be appropriate to their brain development and finally, they must retain their dignity at all times.

            School years in a testing-centric school environments are toxic for students. Let’s wake up and focus on the students.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Swickard: Testing centric schools are toxic to students

Swickard: The no longer grateful nation

21 year old B-17 pilot Jesse Jacobs

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  New Mexico born World War II cartoonist Bill Mauldin died more than ten years ago. To some people he is of no use any longer, therefore he is forgotten. To those who were home or in combat during the second world war Bill Mauldin and his cartoon characters Willie and Joe were some of the most important people ever.

            That was long ago. It is not even taught to young people today. Being forgotten is happening not only to those who die but also those who get old. When I was young old people were revered.

            Today there seems a backlash against elderly citizens. Even when we talk of the “Greatest Generation,” those who fought in World War II, there is little acknowledgment by young people today.

            A few years ago at halftime during a New Mexico State University football game, former NMSU president Gerald Thomas, a WWII combat flyer, was honored on the field. At the time President Thomas was about ninety and was moving slowly. He made it to age ninety-five before his death.

            At this football game one student was impatient and hollered, “Get those old farts off the field so we can get back to the game.” Everyone around him, including me, tried to hiss him into silence. He protested, “I was not even alive during that time so I do not owe him anything.”

            We gave him an earful but he was never convinced. He asserted that if he was not alive in the 1940s he does not own any debt to these people who served in the military. He and many young people today show no gratitude for what has come before them. Apparently they were never taught these things.

            This last weekend was the 93rd birthday of my friend Colonel Jesse Jacob USAF retired. He flew B-17s in World War II and F-80 fighters in Korea. After that he had a long aviation career that would take several books to document. Unlike most of his fellow flyers in Europe and Korea, Jesse is still alive. He is one of my favorite people of all time.

            Cartoonist Bill Mauldin died in 2003 and was born 95 years ago near Alamogordo at Mountain Park. He enlisted in the Army in 1940 as a rifleman and gradually people realized that while a fine rifleman he was a fantastic cartoonist. What many people don’t realize is he was also a great writer.

            His 1946 book Back Home details how poorly combat troops were treated when they returned to our country after the end of the war. But that premise is rejected today because people just don’t want to believe it. The ink on my book was put there in 1946 by this Pulitzer Prize winner and no revisionist can change that.

            In our everyday life we see wrinkled old people and not the youngsters that they were. One of my grandfather’s friends fought in the Pacific. He had a tattoo that read, “Tojo is a dwarf.”

            When I first met him years ago I asked him what that meant. He said it meant that while in combat with the enemy from Japan, he was never going to surrender. Few men in the Pacific on either side did.

            My father was a combat photographer in WWII making landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Anzio. In the middle of the battles my father and his fellow photographers were documenting what was happening.

            Stephen Ambrose summed up, “Then I think about those who didn’t make it, especially all those junior officers and NCOs who got killed in such appalling number. What life was cut off… a builder, teacher, scholar, novelist or musician? I sometimes think the biggest price we pay for war is what might have been.”

            I salute those serving and who have served in our military and their families. But there is more. It seems that our nation has turned on the older generations who built and ran our country. There is a blowback against senior citizens by the young because the senior citizens are no longer as productive as they were in their prime.

            As a senior citizen I see this often and I am offended.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Swickard: The no longer grateful nation

How do they campaign twenty hours every day?

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  Ask any astronaut what question they are asked most. Is it about the wonders of the cosmos or dangers they face or what launch feels like? According to many astronauts, they’re most often asked how they use the biffy in space.

            Lately I have been thinking about the presidential contenders. While I don’t care about their biffy use, I wonder: how can they campaign twenty hours a day, seven days a week, and do so for months and months?

            Speaking for myself, I work ten-hour days usually five or six times a week, and get plenty tired. The presidential contenders could be tougher than me, or, as some people suspect, they enhance their stamina pharmacologically.

            There is no chance the current presidential candidates will disclose what drugs they take to campaign relentlessly. I wonder about the side effects?

            Maybe none of them take drugs. A few years ago I remember watching New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson spend much of six years running for president while he was also the governor of New Mexico.

            Sometimes in debates he was sharp and collected. Other times he was sweaty and off target. Could it have been too much caffeine? He has the Guinness handshaking record for an eight-hour span. He shook one hand every 2.15 seconds for eight hours. How much energy does that take?

            The 38th Vice President of the United States, Hubert Humphrey, was elected vice president in 1964. He was known as the Happy Warrior because he could campaign around the clock. Interestingly, he was a licensed pharmacist. Perhaps there was a connection.

            This presidential election cycle we are getting some very odd statements from both major candidates. In 1972, Ed Muskie broke down weeping uncontrollably at one campaign stop while reportedly taking drugs to keep his energy up. This kind of behavior on a slow news day spelled the end of his candidacy.

            Writer Hunter S. Thompson wrote in a 1972 edition of Rolling Stone Magazine: “It was not until his campaign collapsed and ex-staffers felt free to talk that I learned working for Big Ed was like being locked in a rolling boxcar with a vicious 200-pound water rat. Some of his staff considered him dangerously unstable. He had several identities, they said, and there was no way to be sure on any given day if they would have to deal with Abe Lincoln, Hamlet, Captain Queeg, or Bobo the Simpleminded…”

            Thompson captured the antics of politicians in the extreme on the campaign trail. Some stand for hours at fish sliming plants shaking hands with workers before they wash their hands at the end of their shift. Mechanically they say, “Shake hands with the next president, shake hands with the next president...”

            As I watch this presidential race I wonder: is this the best we, as a nation, can do to select our leaders? Further, will this process produce the best leaders? After they have spent many a disgraceful year pandering to the voters, will they be able to step into the White House prepared to be presidential?

            This election is not about how many hot dogs they can eat or a parking ticket or if a friend of a friend heard someone say they didn’t leave a tip one day. They are asked “Gotcha” questions which are routinely misreported by media sources who are pushing a candidate.

            Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have stumbled on the stump. Perhaps they took just one too many of the energy drinks or whatever they take to keep going. Wondering is not proof but both have had some bad moments on the campaign trail.

            The over-hyped media makes each day on the campaign trail sound like the Hindenburg has just crashed: “Trump is one point up in Indiana today. We will have twenty-four non-stop hours of analysis to know what the people of Indiana are thinking just one hundred forty-two days before the election.”

            Going back to Kennedy/Nixon, I’ve watched each presidential election, somewhat in awe and often in horror. This presidential cycle is worse than any other I have experienced. If they are like this normally and not taking dangerous drugs - it will be a long four years.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

How do they campaign twenty hours every day?

Swickard: Budget problems then and now

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   Many people were surprised at the recent controversy about New Mexico State University needing to save $12 million because of a budget shortfall. There are many hard feelings by people being cut and the push back is enormous to any cuts.

            What the administration of NMSU wanted was to make no cuts and force the students to cover the budget shortfall by another tuition increase even though enrollment is dropping. That’s because of the tuition increases over twenty years which increased tuition and fees from $600 a semester to over $4,000 a semester.

            The NMSU Regents would not go for another increase so the budget axe has fallen on several programs with the resultant howls of outrage. Budget problems have been a continuing problem at NMSU starting with the institution’s first classes in January 1890 clear up to today. Often something was done to shrink the budget.

            In June 1997 here is part of what I wrote in my column:

            There is a battle going on at New Mexico State University - not a noisy battle with clanking swords, it is a battle of wills. As with most battles there’s winners and losers. Some employees will gain, some will lose. It was started by a June 18, 1997 report from the NMSU Strategic Planning Academic Programs subcommittee which rated academic programs and recommended some academic programs be eliminated.

            What effect will this have on the citizens of New Mexico? I don’t know but this scuffling is good for NMSU and New Mexico. It forces the NMSU leaders to accept they cannot be all things to all people. A priority must be established for the NMSU core programs.

            Three perceptions: First, it’s good someone started the process of aligning the academic programs to NMSU’s mission; secondly, the committee members are going to be flamed vigorously by employees who stand to lose; and this is just a report, the NMSU Administration and Regents will make the decisions.

            The mission of NMSU is to benefit the citizens of New Mexico. The output of NMSU is graduates, research done and the service that NMSU’s faculty, staff and students provide New Mexico’s citizens.

            One of the recommendations was that the Philosophy Department be eliminated. Those professors did not take that recommendation philosophically. There was a call to eliminate the Engineering Technology Department. The people in these departments will be injured by these decisions, if they are made.

            Still, there comes a time when the injury to a few must be accepted. NMSU is not some employment agency that seeks to employ the most people possible regardless of need - even if that is what it seems.

            NMSU has a job to do in this time of declining budgets. They must insure NMSU is of benefit to the citizens of New Mexico above any personal interests of NMSU’s employees.

            It is a battle of priorities - personal and professional. There will be winners and losers. Hopefully, the losers won’t be the citizens of New Mexico.

            Amazingly the issues today in August 2016 are much the same as in 1997 while the NMSU Philosophy Department remains with seven professors. Nineteen years after they were identified as not a priority they remain nor were they cut this time.

            The University of New Mexico has thirteen faculty members in their Philosophy Department. In good financial times both NMSU and UNM can duplicate each other’s programs to no harm. But when money is tight, as was noted in 1997, this is one place to cut.

            The notion is once a program is started using public money, once the first person is hired by the government in some form or another, there can be no shrinkage of the size of government. In fact, there is a notion that all government must cost more every year, even with money becoming tight.

            Having worked at both UNM and NMSU at different times over the last forty years I have experienced the budget crunch syndrome at both institutions. In every case I have said, “Guess now we will see what our core priorities are at this institution.”

            Often the priorities are the employees rather than the citizens of New Mexico. We should change that.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com

Swickard: Budget problems then and now