New Mexico Mercury

One Million Bones on ¡Colores! particularly timely

My most striking memories of being on the National Mall for the One Million Bones installation are of the conversations I overheard. Families of four would stop and look. One of the younger family members would ask, “What’s that?” One of the older family members would pause for approximately a moment of silence. Then, I’d listen as the adult gracelessly tries to choreograph an explanation as to why there is a mass grave in front of the United States Capitol without stepping on the word “genocide"...

Weekly Poem: Fire or Water

A flock of crows
reflect the midnight moon.
A coyote howls
the starless horizon.

Quiet settles
the slow footsteps
of a sleepless man
as he strikes a match

lights a filterless cigarette
and pretends a herd
to keep watch over,
imagines a Winchester in his hands...

Bradley Manning

El Machete

UNM involved in privatizing medical care in NM‏

Why is the UNM Health Sciences Center (UNMHSC) so keen to go into business with private Texas investors who were part of the largest medical fraud scandal in US history? The UNM Board of Regents has enabled the UNM Health Sciences Center to enter into a part-ownership deal with the for-profit LHP Hospital Group to buy up the Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services Hospital in Gallup. UNM will have a 20% stake.

The leadership of UNMHSC is being careless with our taxpayer money and trust.  Either they choose to ignore the background of their business partners, or perhaps they just don’t know how to do a simple Google search...

The problems with Jamie Oliver’s idea of a food revolution

Jamie Oliver claims that he doesn’t understand modern-day poverty in the U.K. Yeah. That sounds about right.

In a recent interview promoting Jamie Oliver’s new television series and book, Oliver said, "I'm not judgmental, but I've spent a lot of time in poor communities, and I find it quite hard to talk about modern-day poverty. You might remember that scene in [a previous series] Ministry of Food, with the mum and the kid eating chips and cheese out of Styrofoam containers, and behind them is a massive f****** TV.” Perhaps with one of his TV shows on it...

When everything tastes like chicken (Part 2)

Last weekend, I was asked to judge for the Dukes of Ale’s State Fair Pro-Am Craft brew contest.  It was fun, engaging, involved a lot of talking, sniffing, and tasting of beer, lots and lots of beer.  As I was judging, I couldn’t help but think how slippery judging the aroma, appearance, flavor and mouthfeel of beer really is.

Judging beer or poetry and determining what is “good” and “bad” is very hard, if not impossible.  Yet, I think there is a criteria for it that a lot of us recognize, and that criteria is actually pretty simple.  The criteria that overwhelmingly is used to prescribe some sort of value on art is “craft”...

For Berry, nothing sticks

Mayor Berry is Teflon, the Teflon being applied by the Albuquerque Journal.  He says he has guided Albuquerque through tough economic times with a steady hand.  The Journal doesn't really question his lack of action.  Paul Heh, one of his opponents said it was 'bull shit' and pretty much lowered his expected vote from 5% to 2%.  Pete Dinelli didn't get in any killer shots in this last debate.  All of this is being fueled by incredible apathy on the part of the public who can't see that New Mexico and Albuquerque are falling further and further behind in economic growth compared to the other cities and states in the region...

The suicide of elders and the middle-aged

Many of us, I’m sure, have had friends or acquaintances who’ve committed suicide.  And the longer we live, the ever more mysterious and frequent suicide seems to become in our experience – often to the point of grieving despair.  Those left behind inevitably search themselves for missed opportunities to have helped, misperceived clues that might have signaled a call for intervention, and failures of compassion that might have lifted someone’s burden just enough...

Why aren’t more people in ABQ concerned about the Kirtland jet fuel spill?

During the past few months, a sense of dismay and outrage about the situation has been growing in me. In March, V.B. Price wrote a NM Mercury article entitled “Kirtland Spill: Get Serious,” which was commendable for its honesty in raising red flags. I began to pay more attention to this issue. Over the summer, I read with growing alarm various Albuquerque Journal articles by John Fleck. Fleck reported that the current effort to clean up the spill, the soil vapor extraction system, was malfunctioning repeatedly and even when running was only able to extract about half of the contaminants originally projected...

Weekly Poetry: A mudslide on the rocks

I held the glass suspended
between fingertips,
as firm a grip as any lover’s
thighs. My world churned
with the alcohol, as volatile
when exposed to air.

It was the first bar we passed
when we left the park.
“This must be where all the white
people go,” you said
as we canvassed the dim
in search of stools...