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This is usually one of my favorite times of the year.

The morning sky and mountain canvasses are dotted with warm colors and special shapes; long-sleeved cottons and wool push the linen line toward the closet rear; the smell of sage squash soup, the sound of football, and pi¤on smoke enhance the red and orange ambience of each evening.

Speaking of football, I feel a little guilty not going to the Lobo homecoming game last week. But I always choose plastic instead of paper at the grocery check out line, so I didn't have anything to wear.

Things are different this October.

I always wonder what our out-of-town guests think about us during balloon fiesta week, based on stories in the news at the time. Let's see. It would appear that kids aren't safe from gang members in our youth-detention facilities. We have a state treasurer accused of fraud - make that a couple of treasurers in a row. And we have a new insurance superintendent, because the previous one was run off over questions of financial and ethical impropriety.

Depending on what political ad happens to be on at the time, it seems that we either have a sitting congresswoman who doesn't mind that underage pages were sexually solicited in Congress, or we have a woman challenger who doesn't mind that sexual predators aren't in jail. No matter where you are from or where you are going, you can't escape the bombardment of negative political attack ads in the fall of an election year.

I know it must be tough on Republicans right now because of the growing e-mail scandal involving former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, but even worse news for the Republicans, in my mind, was the airing this past week of Bill Moyers' expose on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former House majority leader, Republican Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas. No matter how damaging the Foley scandal may be, there's no way it will ever reach the magnitude of insensitivity, greed, pain, racism, corruption and shame of the Abramoff and Delay affair. In case you missed it on PBS, you can watch the program anytime on the Internet at: http://www.pbs.org/moyers.

Back here in New Mexico, the Democrats have their share of not-so-proud moments, too. The most recent has come to light in an investigative report by the Albuquerque Journal that broke on opening day of the Balloon Fiesta. The report says former Democratic state Rep. Vincent "Smiley" Gallegos of Clovis apparently received about $870,000 in state money that was supposed to be used for a housing program for the poor, according to the State Investment Council.

Let's hope the really big corruption story that's coming about Albuquerque's Downtown courthouse won't break until after the Balloon Fiesta.