New Mexico Mercury

Weekly Poem: I think I understand fishing

when lakes glisten with shallow ripples
and crows cry from distant pines,
echoing late summer
when the cicadas' clamor breaks afternoon calm
as autumn approaches
the fisherman stands along the shoreline waiting
sentinel-like, dressed in khaki pants and shirt
sunglasses and broad-rimmed brown hat
he contemplates the moment, then another in simple succession...

The Corporatization of Street Dealing South of the Border

A persistent narrative of narco issues south of the border maintains that violence is largely over the struggle to control drug routes leading into the dope-ridden United States, the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs.  Yet, an increasing share of Mexican narco-violence can be attributed to conflicts over domination of the country’s own expanding domestic market. From Tijuana to Tapachula and from Monterrey to Mexico City, the internal market is thriving as sales of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and methamphetamine all meet a demand that’s soared since the early 1990s...

The Gardener and the Woodsman

A story by Wally Gordon

Jackson and Enid moved to the mountains when he was 49 and she was 39. They bought a big house on 20 acres of dense forest an hour from the city, where they both taught at the community college. They could afford the house on teachers’ salaries only because it was rundown, the land overgrown, the property uninhabited since a bank foreclosed on it four years earlier. Jackson wasn’t sure, but Enid was, and that was that.

Five days a week Jackson and Enid drove together to work. He taught welding, spending his day with fire and fumes, on his feet all the time, sore at day’s end. She taught art and comparative religion, and talked about the gods of Hinduism and the ethics of the Tao...

Raytheon and certain members of Congress want our lunch money

Bless your heart if you believe our current Syria docudrama is about Team America’s moral outrage.  If so, you might also believe that Goldman Sach’s $1 million political contribution to Obama had no influence on his treasury appointments and the eventual multi-billion public dollar give-away to the orchestrators of the largest financial crisis the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, in this modern iteration of our “democracy,” our government’s moral outrage is often dictated by those greasing the gears. In this case, the $65 million put out by the war industry lobby is doing the greasing.  And they don’t fork out that kind of cheese for diplomacy and peace treaties...

Chemical Weapons

El Machete

September 11th and Syria

Each September 11th since 2001, as another anniversary of a tragic assault upon this country’s life and treasure is observed, we relive those horrendous images and think in powerful unison about the almost three thousand lives lost that bright fall day. Some of us mourn loved ones. Some feel collective grief. The hearts of some still pound with a desire for revenge. Some wish the tragedy had provoked a deeper, more profound and useful national conversation about the roots of anti-American hatred and what it means to live in a multicultural world—where one country cannot forever play the bully role and still expect to be loved and respected...

Mexico’s Teacher Uprising

Conflict and struggle are key words at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year in Mexico. After a summer break, the controversy over education reform laws promoted by the Pena Nieto administration and backed by the country’s major political parties is back at center stage.

In recent days, tens of thousands of teachers and their allies have taken to the nation’s streets, plazas and highways to register their firm opposition to the education reform package, including the professional service law approved last week by the Mexican Congress that establishes a new educator evaluation system requiring teachers to pass No Child Left Behind-like standardized tests...

Susana’s Brilliant Legacy

Make no mistake about it, Susana has learned a thing or two from her buddies the Koch bros. First she hired Catherine Torres to destroy the Dept. of Health. Since our wonderful gov. took office, case care workers who serve the most needy and helpless clients—folks with Downs Syndrome, the severely retarded, indeed anyone who can’t get by without help—these caregivers who are often family members, and are often the only support for the helpless, are now facing a huge paperwork increase to document in the minutest ridiculous detail every minute, every second, every nanosecond of their patient’s “progress"...

Hard Work Conquers All: Red Bull and the American Dream

Energy drinks have become a fixture in American culture, with 51% of college athletes drinking them. But little, if any, evidence exists that these drinks improve performance, and they can be unsafe. The World of Red Bull commercial implicitly claims that Red Bull helped professional athletes get where they are and can help you get there, too. Of course, the athletes, musicians, and dancers in the ad may not drink Red Bull at all and were paid by Red Bull to be in the commercial.

This sort of marketing of Red Bull can be dangerous because it preys on the hopes and dreams of young people who want to make it in really competitive fields...

I Pray Nadine Is Not In Syria

When I think of Syria. I think of Nadine.

I don’t know her last name. I met her when I was seven on a playground in Santa Monica. She told me she came from Syria. She had a beautiful smile and loved kickball. And her eyes were of the deepest brown and looked at me with what I felt was supreme kindness. She was sensitive and shy, but graceful and full of laughter. And she befriended kids who seemed to be alone.  Obviously, I’ve never forgotten her.  How could l?

She could still be alive. I pray she’s not in her homeland...