New Mexico Mercury

Ligature Church loves you

Unless you are a member of Ligature Church and you are totally approved by Head Pastor Steve Smotherperson, don’t even think of running for Bernalillo County Sheriff because Jesus will bust you until the world looks level.

You see, God controls the law in Bernalillo County, so you had just better mind your Ps and Qs. As a matter of fact don’t even think of being a voter in Bernalillo County without belonging to Ligature Church. Remember last year, when Jesus personally handed out diplomas to all the new BC deputy cadets right here in good ol’ Ligature Church?...

Uncle Sam’s Psychic Reading

El Machete

ALEC Is in New Mexico, but only marginally in the Albuquerque Journal

Because the Albuquerque Journal has the resources – a team of investigative reporters and excellent politics and government reporters – I have been waiting for the state’s leading daily to produce a story explaining how many, if any, of New Mexico’s legislators are under the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Committee (ALEC).

ALEC trains state legislators and gives them boilerplate legislation to introduce in their states, furthering the national agenda of ALEC’s corporate backers. Read this story in The Nation to learn about its connection to the Koch brothers. Last week, four legislators were “outed” as supporters of this “bill mill”, but not by the Albuquerque Journal...

‘Sierra Challenge’—the impossible dream

After years of declining customers and service and increasing crime, Mexico finally ended rail passenger service a few years ago—with one exception. The tiny and impossibly scenic Chihuahua al Pacifico line still runs from the prosperous ranching state capital of Chihuahua to the Pacific Ocean, primarily because it is the greatest tourist attraction in the Copper Canyon region of the Sierra Nevada.

A new book, Sierra Challenge: The Construction of the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad (Brranca Press, 206 pages), by the late Glenn Burgess and his son Don Burgess, tells the dramatic story of the construction of the railroad in words and photographs...

Action breeds inspiration

My friend, Kris Olson, is a fifth grade teacher at Monte Vista Elementary.  Last week we were visiting over a cup of coffee and just catching up on one another’s summer adventures and about the upcoming school year. In the midst of this, Kris shared with me that she had attended the candle-light vigil at Bataan park for Travon Martin and how deeply that experience had touched her.

A few days ago, in preparation for school, Kris told me about going to Chama to clear her head and have some time to reflect before going into the classroom with her new fifth-graders.  While standing on the platform with many others awaiting the Cumbres and Toltec train, Kris said she noticed two gentlemen that walked up with these cowboy style hats on...

New Mexico’s dwindling Lottery Scholarship Trust Fund a symptom of state’s poor financial aid policy

Classes begin this week at the University of New Mexico and other state colleges and universities. The tuition for some students will be covered by the New Mexico Legislative Lottery Scholarship. Each level of education these students attain will mean higher incomes and lower levels of unemployment.

The lottery scholarship has made it possible for tens of thousands of New Mexico youth to attend college, but the trust fund that supports the scholarship is fast running out of money.  Unless the Legislature finds more money for the trust fund, limits the number of students who can receive the scholarship, or lowers the amount of the award, the fund will be nearly depleted by the end of fiscal year 2014...

Jerrymander

It’s no secret that Albuquerque retiree Jerrymander Ginsburg wants to buy the North Valley because he absolutely detests going in circles and he absolutely hates Isaac Benton who is running for city council in the Valley.

It seems Ike who was on the council before he was re-districted out of his elected position has been doing some terrible and evil things that renegade Democrat Jerrymander wants everbody to know about. This is why Jerrymander has given $40 grand to help some mysterious shadow group from outer space that has blanketed the North Valley with incredibly beautiful mailers...

A city with no reporters

When the Albuquerque Tribune closed its doors in February 2008, our city not only lost an afternoon daily with a blue collar, left of center slant, it also lost a pool of reporters and editors, experts in the ways of local politics, society, history, and culture.

When the Trib’s doors closed, it was like having an eye poked out. Our world became harder to see and harder to understand.

As the Albuquerque Journal gets smaller and smaller every morning, as its newsstand price goes up to compensate for falling revenue, the troubling thought crosses one’s mind of living in a city with no daily newspaper, and no pool of print reporters and editors. It would be like flying blind...

Weekly Poem: If Only

Losing control
as one grows old
could be divine.

A hoarder’s ecstatic
Zen trick
into letting go.

Hades ransacked
Zeus stripped of bolts
& tossed from Olympus...

Two plays deep in the heart of New Mexico

Last weekend I saw two plays that have deep roots in New Mexico. Although they sharply contrasted with each other in most respects, they shared something of the humor and tragedy of life amid our luxuriant culture and arid land.

One of the plays was Revelations, a comedy performed by the Sandia Performing Arts Company at Vista Grande Community Center in Sandia Park. The other was Dreamlandia, an ambitious tragedy performed by Working Classroom in the Barelas neighborhood in Albuquerque...