Columns

Really, President’s Day is a second-tier holiday — most of us don’t even get to take off work for this national holiday.

Still, I’ve decided to use the day as fodder for today’s column, beginning with a single question: Who was the greatest U.S. president of all time?

The guy is either contemplating his navel (isn’t that the expression people used decades ago, for doing something pointless?) or he’s texting while driving. His head bobs to check the color of the traffic light, and sometimes he relies on a honk from the car behind him to decide when to proceed.

That’s become a common occurrence. Some state organizations have even created a public service ad that urges people to sign a pledge in which they promise to W8-2text.

When Felix Martinez acquired La Voz del Pueblo and moved it from Santa Fe to Las Vegas in 1890, he also brought with him its Santa Fe editor and former owner, Enrique H. Salazar, who helped Martinez get the newspaper off the ground in Las Vegas.

Salazar also penned many of the fiery editorials which first appeared here in La Voz, but he and Martinez soon parted ways, and Salazar would establish another Las Vegas newspaper, El Independiente, which later fell into the hands of political boss Secundino Romero, as will be related in a subsequent column.

Seems that for the past few years there’s been concern about how much longer the Fort Union Drive-In Theater will be able to remain open. And yet, year in and year out, owner Jeanna DiLucchio manages to produce another season of good movies starting on or near the Memorial Day weekend.

Each year, however, it gets more and more challenging, because the movie industry is moving away from the 35 mm celluloid films that Fort Union depends on. In fact, according to DiLucchio, the industry has set 2013 as a cutoff year for such films. Instead, they’re going digital.