Over-testing Takes Focus Away from Curriculum
Over the last few years our state has seen a massive push from the governor’s administration to drive education improvements through an increase in testing in our schools. In isolation, this might seem like results-minded reform, but in conjunction with the testing efforts already in place, the resulting “over-testing” is taking the learning right out of our schools...
Following dreams – to the end of the road
How far should you follow your dreams? When do dreams become obsessions? Obsessions become delusions? Delusions become tragedy?
These are the questions I pondered as I left a Saturday evening performance of a new play, Up (The Man in the Flying Chair) at the Mother Road Theater in Albuquerque...
Weekly Poem: Tonight the Moon is Mexican
and so is the wind
and so are the oleanders
the wind is bothering.
The porch light is no longer
anything but Mexican.
It’s true; tonight
is full of this miracle.
The river
is finally Mexican and...
Plants that don’t just sit there
Peter D’Amato walks among the hundreds of plants arranged in rows in the country’s—and possibly the world’s —largest collection of flesh-eating plants until he reaches a Venus flycatcher with hungrily gaping petals. He carefully lifts a live worm and lays it on the lower petal.
This is the eerie, beautiful and fascinating world of carnivorous plants. Once rarities, carnivorous plants have multiplied geometrically in recent years...
The Miracle of Alfredo
It’s a miracle, says Pastor Galván as we talk about the sudden recovery of Alfredo Ortiz, one of the mental patients in his asylum in Juárez. The problem is that I don’t believe in miracles. So how did this man recover from three months of being catatonic?
Alfredo was born in Juárez on June 9, 1977, appears to be a humble young man and is a skillful worker. In April 2012, his family committed him to Vision in Action, this private mental asylum founded by Pastor Galván...
An Open Internet for All New Mexicans
Open Internet, also known as net neutrality, preserves our right to communicate freely online while enabling and protecting free speech. It means that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should provide us with open networks and not interfere with any applications or content that we access on our computers, phones, and other devices, allowing me to read my favorite blogs even if they criticize big telecom companies...
Immigrant Women Rise Against Domestic Violence
Off a busy Albuquerque boulevard, one of the city’s most vital services goes on quietly with its work. Now 13 years old, Enlace Comunitario, or Community Link, works non-stop to prevent and resolve domestic violence among the Duke City’s large, Spanish-speaking immigrant population.
Beginning with a handful of visionary founders, Enlace Comunitario now employs a fulltime staff of 31 and many volunteers who educate the community about the varied manifestations of domestic violence, as well as channels assistance and resources to victims...
Weekly Poem: Thanksgiving Day
From the road,
the Brazos Cliffs rise up suddenly from the valley floor,
as the mountain falls away
and leaves brown, gray rock
exposed like broken bones.
I imagine being the first to trundle up the hillside in furs
with food,
and stepping up to the ridge and looking out
and down:
2,000 feet...
Holiday Shopping Goes Local, Independent
For those suffering from too much quality time with their families, the chain stores are poised to offer an escape by opening Thanksgiving Day. Before your dinner is digested, you can flee the table to vie for pole position at the big box entrance like Roman chariot drivers and prepare to do battle for one of those few really cheap “door-buster” flat-screens...
The Brave New World of New Mexico Education
The very first thing we need to do is privatize public education. We have to act with haste. Thankfully, there’s a model we can follow. We’ve privatized our prisons, and just look at all the money we shook out for the tax payers even though, for some reason, it costs us more to run the prisons now than when the government managed the penal system, but never mind that. Facts are not important. Kids are...