New Mexico Mercury

El Machete: BP Spills in Lake Michigan

BP Spills in Lake Michigan

Too Little Isn’t Enough

I write this on March 29th, 2014. The inscription period for President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act has been moved from two days from now to mid-April, as long as subscribers start their sign-up process by March 31st. This has been President Obama’s signature effort. He prioritized it at the expense of many others. Under the guise of “bringing everyone to the table” he gave seats at that table to the very industries that have kept healthcare in the United States so perverse and expensive: the large insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. Not surprisingly, they had their say and, in many cases, got their way...

The New Rebellion of Albuquerque

In an unprecedented Albuquerque City Council meeting on Monday night, the public expressed outrage at ongoing APD misconduct and the lack of accountability by local and state officials. 

Provincial Matters, 4-8-2014

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

Insight New Mexico - David Correia on APD

V.B. Price talks with UNM professor and author David Correia about the Albuquerque Police Dept's record of violence, the killing of James Boyd and the dynamics of the latest APD protest movement.

New Mexico must be bolder in mitigating racial disparities among children

It’s estimated that children will be a minority-majority population by 2018 nationally. In New Mexico—where 74 percent of children are racial/ethnic minorities—we’re way ahead of the trend.

In fact, only one other state (Hawaii) has a higher percentage of children who are racial or ethnic minorities. We have the highest percentage of Hispanic children, and just two states (Alaska and South Dakota) have higher percentages of Native American children. Just 26 percent of New Mexico’s children are white.

While we rightfully celebrate our rich cultural diversity, New Mexicans and our elected and civic leaders need to take action regarding racial disparities...

The New Game Changer!

Our avuncular mayor has just made a pronouncement of the most profound significance about the James Boyd incident, “It’s a game changer,” he said.

Relief flooded every sinew of my being when I heard that. The mental health and social services game in New Mexico is about to change. Because it’s just a game, see—

Big Government should be Big Business.  And then Little Government should be brought to its knees and then be beheaded, please. Companies should be running our schools, our social services, our mental health services. Efficiency. Efficiency. Efficiency...

A Reckoning Soon For Governor Martinez? Why She Is Vulnerable In 2014

First of all, let me express my disdain for "conventional political wisdom", or these narratives that emerge among the political class (that would be me) and somehow become predominant in political conversation. I am instinctively skeptical of anything-- local or national-- presented as political truth, deemed an unassailable political reality. That Governor Martinez is a shoe-in for re-election in New Mexico, for example. Or that Democrats are going to lose the U.S. Senate in 2014...

Heavy handed ‘Kendra’s Law’ offers simplistic solution for complex problem

Wednesday’s Albuquerque Journal editorial expressing the need for a State law mandating out-patient treatment for seriously mentally ill persons, while provocative and while expressing a widely-held point of view, reaches a faulty conclusion. This is especially true when it attempts to link the need for this “Kendra’s Law” approach to the tragedy involving James Boyd.

The editorial correctly points out that mandated out-patient treatment legislation has been considered and rejected several times by the Legislature in recent years. However, nothing in the Boyd situation changes the terms of the debate or the reasons I’ve opposed Kendra’s Law in the past. Nor does it minimize the importance of finding a solution to both the need for more and better mental health resources and the need for APD to stop shooting mentally ill people...

El Machete: Burque Protests

Burque Protests