New Mexico Mercury

Mayor Attends Mental Health Training

Burque Mayor Bichard Merry recently attended a mental health training here in town.  Puffing up his chest in immense pride, Mayor Merry bragged that our city is on the national forefront in addressing the gap in urban mental health services by simply killing the mentally ill. 

Saying that offing the mentally ill was both entertaining and a huge cost savings, Republican Mayor Merry urged other cities to take the same step Burqueville has taken to reduce the public health budget by having the police conduct target practice on our most unstable citizens, especially those with PTSD...

Emerging Voices: Sarena Whitten

Curator’s note by Stevie Olson: This week, the Mercury is excited to run its first video documentary in Emerging Voices. For her senior project, Sarena Whitten took to the streets of Albuquerque to learn more about the city’s homeless population. In Invisible People - Stories From the Streets, Sarena pieces together powerful interviews from people explaining how they became homeless, what it is like to be homeless, and how the police treat them...

The most important book of the 20th century

Well, we could argue over a couple of other non-fiction books, but Silent Spring is somewhere at the top.

The sedge is wither’d from the lake,

And no birds sing.

John Keats’ couplet starts this book of revelation by Rachel Carson, published in 1962; my 1994 edition has an introduction written by Vice President Al Gore. The VP says it’s a humbling experience to write about this book, because the book is undeniable proof that the power of an idea can be far greater than the power of politicians...

El Machete: Good Riddance

Good Riddance

Moments of Truth

In her last MMA fight on March 29, Natalie Roy from Santa Fe floored her opponent at one minute and forty seconds of Round One. On Saturday night, June 14, it took her only 32 seconds to defeat Brittany Horton. It was a moment of truth for Brittany, however, because she agreed to take the fight on very short notice when Natalie’s original opponent had to drop out. Knowing that she didn’t have a chance and not having had a fight for three years, it took great courage to step into the cage against Natalie...

Five Questions with New Mexico Authors – David L. Caffey

This week we ask author David L. Caffey some questions about his detailed, fast moving and fascinating book called Chasing the Santa Fe Ring: Power and Privilege in Territorial New Mexico, from UNM Press, 2014...

Weekly Poem: Midwest Ranchera

Thursdays, the devil danced at the Black Saddle, cloven
hooves tracking dust for later evidence. He drove a black

Mercury with suicide doors and flames flickering the fins.
Sometimes he slid from the door with his tail forking long

and taut to the floor. Hot-tongued, he would say, Do you
want to touch it? And who didn’t want to touch that tail?...

Leaving China: An Artist’s Visual Memoir

Leaving China: An Artist Paints His World War II Childhood is a memoir by designer and illustrator James McMullan, who has long been the principal poster artist for Lincoln Center Theater.  I saw a few of the plays his works advertised when I lived in New York, but remember many of his posters. Like his posters, his illustrated memoir is clearly contemporary as well as vital and emotional.

Leaving China is categorized as a Young Adult book, targeted at teenagers. It would be a fine gift for any adolescent (especially young misfits), but it deserves a wider audience...

A love letter to New Mexico

Dear New Mexico,

No one writes letters anymore.  No one ever writes to states.  They should.  I’m writing to you because I’ve just driven through your land, beneath your open sky, for ten days.  Now that I’m back in Colorado, my belly is too empty.  I miss you.

I miss you, and I’ve never taken the time to tell you how I love you.

The first time I met you, in 1998, I was twenty.  I’d traveled all the way to Las Cruces because I’d fallen in love with a boy who was from there.  He said he wanted to show me the desert...

A Story of Three Women

This is a story of three young women in Juárez, Mexico. These three stories are intertwined by virtue of the asylum and the leadership of its founder, Pastor josé Antonio Galván, who has created a family atmosphere where not only the patients but the members of the larger “family” provide an enormous amount of support for each other...