Timing is Everything

Just like 'showing up' is important, so is timing on any occurrence.  Take our rightwing fundamentalist State Land Commissioner who  used oil and gas money to slither his way into office.  On the day that he reinstalls an oil pump jack in front of the State Land Office, the Pope releases his plea for attention to climate change.  Aubrey Dunn's tribute to the 'Lords of Yesterday' is a scar on a major entrance to the historic Santa Fe Plaza.  It is also a throwback to worshipping the past instead of looking forward.  It is a sad thing to see.

This battle was fought years ago and settled when a pump jack was removed from the site, but like Vladimir Putin, Dunn is trying to revisit the glory days of a great dynasty.  In this case the oil and gas industry that had virtually owned the Land Office since New Mexico became a state in 1912.  Supposedly it is a tribute to oil and gas revenues to the land office.  They are formidable, but the oil boys forget to tell you that the oil was on state land in the first place, it wasn't theirs and these revenues were not taxes but payment for a product from state trust lands.  The money went into the State Permanent Fund for Education, which the oil boys used as a hedge against paying fair taxes like they would have to do in other states.

The oil boys have their mojo back in the guise of this Commissioner who represents the past .