New Mexico Mercury

Interview with David Correia on APD’s nearly 30 killings since 2010

Albuquerque police have shot and killed nearly 30 mostly unarmed citizens since 2010.  With each killing, concern and protests grew.

Then, on March 16, 2014 the police shot and killed James Boyd, a mentally ill, homeless man, who had been illegally camping in the Sandia foothills. Unlike prior shootings, video footage taken by a police lapel camera was available and appeared to show that Mr. Boyd had been needlessly shot in the back while surrendering. The video immediately went viral and mass demonstrations ensued with the chant: “They say ‘justified’! We say ‘homicide’!”...

Fool’s Gold: Bushwhacked

Remember a few weeks ago, when people everywhere started dumping ice water on their heads to raise public awareness of people dumping ice water on their heads? Those folks bullied into the so-called Ice Bucket Challenge were required, according to entirely arbitrary rules, either to drench themselves in an arctic shower or to donate money to the ALS Association.

I, alone among humankind, refused the challenge when put to it...

El Machete: Not Very Christian

Not very Christan

Five Questions with New Mexico Authors – Debra Bloomfield

This week we ask photographer and author Debra Bloomfield some questions about her transcendent, exquisitely beautiful book of photographs, essays, and soundscapes entitled Wilderness published by UNM Press this year.

New Mexico Mercury: What’s so exciting about this book is the total experience it allows a reader to have with its remarkable conversion of visual, audial, and intellectual experience of wilderness. How did you conceive the possibility of achieving such a total experience?...

Governor Promises to Finish Off NM

Why is our governor always surrounded by elementary school children? There she is on the cover of the Albuquerque Urinal for the thousandth time, and the picture could have been taken when she was running for governor the first time, or last month, for that matter.  

In fact that’s not the governor at all but a stand in that has been hired to do all the gov’s kid shots while the chief exec. is off destroying the educational system, beating homeless food stamp recipients into the caliche, selling our social services to Arizona, ripped up environmental protections, etc...

Northern: Hispanic Serving Institution? Not Under Barcelo’s Watch

The continued dismantling of Northern New Mexico College now includes cancellation of ESL (English as a Second Language) classes and evening GED courses. The Barceló Administration and the NNMC Board of Regents have gone far afield from the mission of our publicly-funded community resource. We should look carefully at how Barceló has taken charge of our “Hispanic Serving Institution,” regularly displaying disregard for our distinct culture and history...

Fool’s Gold: Cracking the Health Nut

I take pretty good care of my body. I floss before every dentist appointment, and I am so flexible that I even touched my toes once. So you should absolutely take me seriously when I tell you that I have no idea what, exactly, is the normal condition of my prostate.

No one ever told me that I have a prostate, and I completed four whole levels of sex education in school, plus a college semester in Europe and several rounds of the board game “Operation.” I used to think—and I am surely not alone here—that prostates were lumps of tissue, or possibly gremlins, that developed only inside old man bodies...

A day on the river. Mixed.

Early on, it was a sunstruck/river spirit day, paddling in a rhythm that doesn't exist for me anywhere else, ever. Dip, pull, feather, switch. Action in the wrist, shoulder, elbow, moving along propelled by my body, my legs braced forward, nursed by the river's current. Incredible green along the banks, healthy huge cottonwoods, silver-green olive trees hanging dead limbs over the water to catch unwary boatmen and sweep them out of their cockpits while immobilizing the boat.

At first I laughed at the sweepers/strainers every time I hit one, which was often and almost always river right. Now that I think of it, a puzzle; there were almost none on river left, and why was that? I thought of this later...

Charles “Chuck” Bowden

It’s devastating news. Charles “Chuck” Bowden died last Saturday evening of an apparent heart problem. The author of Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields; El Sicario; Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family; A Shadow in the City and many other books and articles, he was a true hero in terms of his work in Juárez and the border. Everyone talks about immigration and border issues but Chuck was one of the few who was actually there, again and again, in the most dangerous times and the most deadly places...

Reunion

All right, this is serious. The Upper Gorge, formerly known as Wild Rivers Area, now part of the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Haven’t been up here for years. This is where we came in ’98 before we moved, when I looked out at pure landscape (not this view) and started to cry. It was my birthday, too. That’s kind of what did it.

There’s such power in this place. As soon as you drive back to the nearest village, it mostly goes away. People just mess things up. I’m sorry, but it’s true. There aren’t many places on the planet where you feel this non-material sustenance. Like your spirit taking a long drink after exile in the desert of culture. I didn’t want to leave today...