New Mexico Mercury

Charlie Minn film questions whether the real Joaquin ‘Chapo’ Guzman was arrested

Provincial Matters, 7-21-2014

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.

El Machete: Good Riddance

Good Riddance

Lucy Lippard’s Mind: A Review of “Undermining”

The inimitable Lucy Lippard’s latest work offers a critical examination of land use in the West and the wheels of politics and art that affect it.

What would N.M. look like without Albuquerque?

While the state's overall economic lag in recovery gets the most attention, Albuquerque's influence on the numbers is the seldom spoken elephant in the room.

Provincial Matters, 7-14-2014

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.

Fracking Fights Loom Large in Mexico

Mexico is emerging as the next big battleground in conflicts over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as the method of extracting natural gas is commonly known.

While Mexican lawmakers consider regulatory legislation to put into practice the 2013 energy reform that opened up their county’s oil and gas reserves to private investors,  anti-fracking forces are mobilizing for a moratorium or an outright ban of the controversial practice from the Mexican Congress...

The Journal, Guatemalans and American Exceptionalism

Atop their dusty perch, the Albuquerque Journal’s editorial board adjusted their monocles last week, put on their flag attire, and took a stab at defining patriotism.  The piece was entitled, “Why celebrate the Fourth? Try asking a Guatemalan.”  While the piece neither quoted, referenced, or made any attempt to include the voice of an actual Guatemalan, it did spew forth a surreal, Bush-esque view of American Exceptionalism that equates to ‘Shut up and wave the flag'...

The guilty children

Let me start by telling you that my children are guilty.  Guilty of being born to middle class, not wealthy, parents, guilty of having special needs, guilty of being the kind of poor test takers who falsely convict their teachers of being bad at their jobs.  Most of all they are guilty of being children living in New Mexico...

Remembering the largest radioactive spill in U.S. history