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I haven’t been counting, but it seems that every two or three days now, somebody is saying Voice Mail is dead, and that Voice Mail is one of the most awful plagues inflicted upon mankind, and that Voice Mail deserves to die because … well, you get the idea.

So when did Voice Mail become such a threat to society? Or am I just behind yet one curve?

It’s early in the morning. I like to start the day with something that demonstrates democracy is alive and well. At least the two-ply version is anyway.

In today’s Journal, the paper’s first-rate UNM beat reporter, Martin Salazar, has a story ($ sub. req.) showing that for the first time CNM — Central New Mexico Community College — has become the state’s largest higher education institution, surpassing UNM’s enrollment by 172 students.

After I read Martin’s story, two people came to mind, each retired from UNM after long and distinguished careers — David Stuart, former Associate Provost for Academic Affairs; and his wife, Cindy Stuart, former Director of Admissions.

I was curious to know their thoughts on the notion that CNM had surpassed UNM in student enrollment.

Here’s what David Stuart had to say:

“What it means to me is that CNM is meeting community needs, being efficient, being practical, being inexpensive — in other words, CNM is doing all the things UNM isn’t doing right now,” he said.

He elaborated a bit: “Even though it’s (CNM) not the same kind of institution, it’s meeting a lot of basic educational and community needs and it’s doing it very, very well.

“I don’t know why UNM can’t do that. If UNM hadn’t gone into the tank with so many high-priced administrative positions and PR campaigns that are sometimes just downright goofy, UNM would still be ahead of CNM. But it’s not. And it’s by its own hand.

“UNM is not offering enough courses to undergraduates; it continues to trim the number of sections offered to undergraduates, so kids are having a harder and harder time getting their basic classes; and I personally know quite a few kids in the coffee shops around campus who take a lot of their required courses at CNM. They’re enrolled at UNM, but they just transfer them in (from CNM) because it’s so much cheaper.”

His wife, Cindy, said: “I was on the phone with a UNM senior tenured research faculty member when all of a sudden he said: `Oh, my God, what are they are trying to do? Turn this (UNM) into a teaching university?’ I was stunned. I had no response. He wasn’t joking. He meant it.”

David Stuart then concluded the conversation: “This is a big story and it’s not a sign of the economic times. It’s a sign of the hubris times at UNM. UNM is behaving like General Motors: “This is what we think you should have and you’re going to buy it.”

“It doesn’t matter that it’s not needed or outmoded. UNM has a tin ear to buyer preferences, which is to say, student preferences.

“UNM says to its students: “You’ll take what we give to you,” he said.

I’m having a conversation (e-mail) with an old news pro, a guy who has been around the block more than a few times. The topic is Manny Ramirez, an odd creature formerly playing left field for the Boston Red Sox and now doing the same job for the Dodgers. He has been suspended for 50 games for testing positive for … something. I stopped reading the story before it reached that point. I just didn’t care what he had tested positive for.

Then an e-mail from the old news pro just happened to show up: “Are we all tired of Manny Ramirez? I am.”

He’d struck a nerve and I wrote back: Funny you should ask if I’m tired of Manny Ramirez. Yes, I am. I’m tired of A-Rod, too. I’m tired of the repetition, the 24/7 news cycle that demands news whether it’s there or not, the endless analysis and all the rest that comes with what we call “news” today. But I sure don’t know what to do about it. Any suggestions?

He had one:

“We need an automatic television editor. You punch in “Manny Ramirez”, and the minute the words “Manny Ramirez” are spoken by the announcer, the television switches channels to the nearest Yogi Bear cartoon, Clint Eastwood movie or whatever you program it to do. I choose Yogi Bear because he is slightly more relevant than Manny Ramirez.”

Are the two of us jaded? Worn out? I don’t know. But it does seem to me that an awful lot of what passes for news isn’t. It’s not so much the Manny story itself that ran today that bothers me. That’s a legitimate news story. What I have in mind is the next 72 hours of non-stop analysis that surely will follow today’s story.

Then of course there’s the perpetual A-Rod saga and … Oh, let’s not go there.

From Reuters:

Afghanistan’s only pig quarantined in flu fear

Jon Carroll writes a column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He writes five columns a week. If the thought of that doesn’t fry your brain, you need to try it sometime. In public. (It doesn’t count unless you do it in public, you know.)

In today’s column, he confesses that he is the Zodiac killer. (I don’t know if this was planned or one of those deadline things. In the column business, your plans and deadlines often are in conflict.)

If you do not read Jon Carroll, you need to make this important change in your life and start reading him today. As Carroll himself has written, and as all columnists know (but not necessarily their editors), if you write multiple columns a week, it is guaranteed at least one will be a stinker. It’s a natural law or something and can’t be helped.

But Jon Carroll doesn’t write too many stinkers. I’ve been a fan for a long time. I thought I’d toss one of his columns your way. Give him a week or two. Read him every day. You will smile, you will think (he encourages it), you will notice fine sentences being built. Watching a fine sentence being built is one of life’s better pleasures, no?

This morning the Journal sports section ran a commentary by Blair Kerkhoff of the Kansas City Star. The subject was the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) schools and how they get the lion’s share of college football money. In the course of the commentary, there appeared a partial quote from Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas. (Oh, you silly goose, of course Congress is involved in college football. Where else would we go for answers to such vexing questions?)

Anyway, in the course of listing the sins of the BCS, the Republican said the system that’s been in place since 1998 is “like communism.”

I need someone to explain to me why conservative Republicans go down the “communist” road at every opportunity. I understand it when they’re talking about Barack Obama, that well known communist/socialist/fascist. Everyone understands that.

But college football? BCS Communists? Times have been tough for Republicans, but still … Why do they say these things?

Help me out here. I really do want to know. Why do they do this?

Haley Heinz, a good, young police reporter has a story that needs a new headline in today’s Albuquerque Journal ($sub.req.) Here’s the Journal headline: “Run on Ammo Leaves Cops Short.”

I’m thinking a more correct headline would go something like this: Right Wing Yay-Hoos Reap What They Sow.

The reason for the ammo shortage is — wait for it — Barack Obama. But you probably already knew that.

Remember when Obama was a secret Muslim, and then a socialist, and then he played nice with Hugo Chavez, and then there was that birth certificate thing, and then he bowed too much to …? Well, they all kind of run together after awhile and I have a hard time keeping all the conspiracies straight.

Anyway, the same yay-hoos who bought into all these rumors (one often hears some of them on KKOB, prattling on about the latest secret government plan to take away their “rights”) are running around America buying up all the ammo because Obama is going to take away their guns — and their ammo, too, I guess.

Of course, Obama is going to do no such thing. Nobody is coming to get their guns. Nobody is coming to get their ammo. Oh, there might be a lefty or two out there who wants some kind of common sense in gun control, but we all know that won’t happen because the NRA bought Congress a long time ago.

Of all that ails America these days, guns and ammo don’t make the cut. They’re not on Obama’s to-do list. But they do make for fertile rumor soil. So the yay-hoos are out there making ammo scarce and making life difficult for … Obama? No.

Liberals? No.

Democrats? No.

They’re making life harder for police officers.

Now, if they can just “prove” that Obama secretly imported swine flu so he could get all the ammo when they were laid up coughing and sneezing …

My friend, John Fleck, the veteran Albuquerque Journal science writer, has introduced me to a couple of physicist pals of his who regularly take on the evolution debate, which of course always leads to a religion debate.

In today’s Times, Stanley Fish, writes an essay on a book by the British critic Terry Eagleton. It sounds to me like Eagleton does a pretty good job of describing what science can and can’t do; and what religion can and can’t do. The book is “Reason, Faith and Revolution.”

Here’s a small bit: ”

By theological questions, Eagleton means questions like, “Why is there anything in the first place?”, “Why what we do have is actually intelligible to us?” and “Where do our notions of explanation, regularity and intelligibility come from?”

The fact that science, liberal rationalism and economic calculation can not ask — never mind answer — such questions should not be held against them, for that is not what they do.

And, conversely, the fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. When Christopher Hitchens declares that given the emergence of “the telescope and the microscope” religion “no longer offers an explanation of anything important,” Eagleton replies, “But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It’s rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov.”

It’s just a headline — Despite Recession, Fearful Brazilians Keep Armored Car Sales Booming. I suppose it’s a serious issue in Brazil, serious enough to buy that armored car if you can afford it, but not all headlines are created equal, and this one stopped me in my tracks. Here’s the link to the story if you want to read the whole thing.