New Mexico Mercury

Does it matter how many students are raped?

A young woman, a student at the University of New Mexico, gets into a BMW with three men, including two UNM athletes.

Later she shows up at her dormitory in tears and reports that she has been raped. Her lawyer says she was drugged.

The men say she had sex voluntarily with them. She says she blanked out because she was drugged. The investigation has been dropped at least temporarily.

This incident, which transpired in April, and the questions it raises are typical of many of the sexual encounters on campuses around the country. Was it a sexual assault? Was it rape? What should the university, the police and the district attorney do about it?...

Emerging Voices: Anna Jenkins

Curator's note by Stevie Olson: This week we have an intriguing short story by Anna Jenkins. She uses Raymond Carver’s style in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” to construct her own version. I love her attention to detail throughout the piece and her use of dialogue to pull the reader into lunch-table conversation. Her pieces gives the reader a peek at what teenage girls may talk about when they talk about love. Anna, thank you for sharing your piece with us, and good luck in your final year of high school...

Texans, New Mexicans Team Up for a Sustainable Economy

On a blazing July day, the temperature in El Paso’s Union Plaza District was almost as hot as the brassy sounds of the local musical group Riboflavin that entertained the crowd at the Downtown Art and Farmers Market (DAFM) with bursts of jazzy R&B. 

A great portion of the fresh produce sold at the El Paso market is actually grown just across the state line in southern New Mexico’s Dona Ana County. While the legal battle between Texas and New Mexico over use of Rio Grande water has been in the news as of late, the DAFM is an instance of cooperation between Tejanos and Nuevomexicanos in harnessing land and water for mutual benefit...

King, Duran spar over campaign contributions

The New Immigration Crisis

Governor Rick Perry orders 1,000 National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border. President Obama urges the Presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to focus on their “shared responsibility” for the influx of migrant children from their countries. But where are Governor Perry’s troops going to go and what are they going to do? And what responsibility does President Obama think we have for this crisis?...

Five Questions with New Mexico Authors - David E. Stuart

This week we ask archaeologist and author David E. Stuart some questions about his groundbreaking book Anasazi America: Seventeen Centuries on the Road from Center Place, which has given many people interested in New Mexico and in Pueblo culture a way to think about the past and about its applications to the future...

Albuquerque’s Homeless Murders and Our Ordinary Passing Violence

Two men who had been beaten to death with cinderblocks were found this weekend on Albuquerque’s Westside. These men were homeless, and police have only recently identified them because they were beaten beyond recognition. Three teenage boys--ages 18, 16, and 15--have been arrested and charged with two counts of murder. These acts are horrifying, disgusting, and stomach-turning. At the same time, I wonder if I have anything in common with these boys...

Parties and partisanship

We have elections that are mostly controlled by two major parties and the partisans of each who function to organize policy arguments in our representative democracy.

This process has its critics. Complaints surface here and there in the New Mexico commentariat. Ideas for improvement – suggestions like open primaries – are championed.

But some of the arguments around the issues of voting and parties and elections and partisanship need to be chopped down or trimmed back before we can get on with a more reasoned discussion of any changes...

Doug Dunston’s Mind: “Practical Creativity”

In numerous postings, the New Mexico Mercury has commented on the great number of brilliant and creative Albuquerque residents, capable of turning our city’s uniqueness into prosperous livability—if only our urban structures and political machinations allowed us to make real use of such talent. Doug Dunston, who is Professor of Music at New Mexico Tech but lives in Albuquerque, is one such extraordinary mind...

El Machete: Pro Life?!

Pro Life?!