A Holiday Thank You
Last week, I had the opportunity to be with volunteers from New Mexico who were bringing holiday cheer to thousands of needy Mexican children.
On Thursday, I met up with a non-profit named Amigo Fiel, a program which provides care and education to children at risk in Juárez or, to put it another way, a “home away from home “ program. It was started by Carlos Garcia of Santa Fe and his brother, Hector...
Flat-Lining New Mexico’s Tax System Would Make it Even More Unfair
New Mexico’s state and local tax system is already unfair—with the lowest-income New Mexicans paying a rate double that of the highest-income earners. A so-called ‘flat tax’ or ‘consumption tax’ would make the tax system even more regressive. Still, there are legislators who would like to enact a consumption tax. Representative Tom Taylor and Senator William Sharer introduced twin bills (HB-369 and SB-368) during the 2013 legislative session to do just that. Although that legislation did not pass, it is all but guaranteed to make a reappearance in January—and in subsequent years if it is not adopted in 2014...
Governor’s proposals continue to demoralize teachers
In the upcoming 2014 Legislative Session I will again seek approval of a bill that would appropriate nearly $68 million to hire intervention teachers to help identify and serve students from kindergarten through the eighth grade who are struggling academically in reading and/or mathematics.
In 2013, Rep. Mimi Stewart and I introduced Senate Bill 474, which sharply contrasted with Governor Susana Martinez’s and Public Education Department cabinet-secretary-designee Hanna Skandera’s past initiatives to retain third graders not reading at proficiency without their parents’ approval of the action...
The women behind a great man who changed New Mexico
The logic would seem irrefutable: The atomic age made modern New Mexico; Robert Oppenheimer was the man most responsible for making the atomic bomb; three women in his life helped shape the man; these women are important for us today to understand.
This logic led me to An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer’s Life by Shirley Streshinsky and Patricia Klaus, which was published in September...
Harmful pesticides not needed around the house
We are using way too much pesticides in our society, in our homes, in our schools, in public buildings and even in our forests. I have covered the many problems pesticides cause many times in my columns. We have to have a system where we use safe and effective methods for pest control. Some companies do this and I recommend them in some instances. Many companies prefer to spray pesticides because it is easier and you really don't have to know what you are doing. Just spray and pray – spray pesticides and pray you kill something...
Weekly Poem: We Considered Ourselves
The towers on Sandia Crest transmit
through sunset in some other home, Smokey
Bear is dead like a pop song
on a distant radio I keep
toying with the dials flipping the brights in a code
here no one remembers the first fire,
distant suns or one close star...
Reflections on Mandela by a South African who was there
"I was not born with a hunger to be free," Nelson Mandela writes in his autobiography. He immediately explains, "I was born free - free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow-moving bulls. As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God."
This is part of his reflection and frank assessment of how his life unfolded. Like all of us, Mandela was free in every way that was within his imagination or visible in the world he inhabited...
Mannyism
If you are a Manny, you probably won’t like what I am about to say one damn bit because it’s the Mannys of this world that are spoiling it all for everyone else. In fact, it is the very name Manny that is the probable suspect cause for all misery in the Universe, to say nothing of good ol’ NM.
During 2012 in the United States, the name Manny ranked 2044 in popular baby names. Compared to Bill, say, which is wildly popular, the name Manny has experienced a plummeting decline that could be graphically compared to the collapse of the NYSE in 2008, and it’s no wonder why the name Manny is going to the dogs...
Democracy or Safety? America’s Strategy in Central America
Democracy or safety? Which do you want? This isn’t a reasonable question for us Americans because we can have both. For many countries, it’s a wrenchingly difficult choice.
Take the tiny Central American countries of Honduras and Nicaragua. Honduras just held its Presidential elections and they offer some important lessons about our role in Central America, the impact of drugs and violence, and the factors that make a country viable...
Fighting over funding is hindering real education
In response to my colleagues’ recent op-ed column, “Stop the Cycle of Failure,” let me first say that I think our New Mexico public schools are good, our teachers are great and our students are performing well. I know, that’s not what you’ve read, but please hear me out.
We can argue about test results; let’s look at test design. All standardized-based tests spread children out on a continuum, a bell curve, by design. In every state, children from poverty, with rare exception, score at the bottom, by design. Children learning English as a second language tend to score at the bottom, by design. Does this mean they can’t learn or teachers aren’t working hard enough?...