I Love Spineroosms, Don’t You?
As our fantastic governor knows full well, most people in our glorious state are either garbage, or they simply don’t exist. New Mexico Native Americans for sure exemplify the non-existent, erased people as shown forth by recent event on Native American Day at the Round House.
For the first time in living memory, tribal leaders were not invited to address the State Legislature, now dominated by sensitive, warm, and fuzzy Republicans. Instead, Queen Susana herself took the podium and held forth to tell everybody she knows all about this Native American thingy and what to do about it, and how big she is, and how great everything is with the New Mexico tribal types...
Dispatch from ‘Tent City’
This week, the City of Albuquerque issued eviction notices to the residents of "Tent City." That is, to those residents who haven't been ran off, arrested or bribed out with a weekly voucher to a motel. By Thursday all must be out and gone; to go who knows where. My name is Vincent and I write this not just as a journalist but as someone who has been a part of the street life here downtown for over 20 years.
The people being talked about on the various stations as residents of Tent City are my friends. I have eaten with them, gotten high, and walked these streets alongside just about every one of those who live here in what is now known as “Tent City.”...
Fool’s Gold: Lights Out
I’ve traced my ancestry as far back as Paleolithic cavemen and rural West Virginians. Yet I never understood their rough subsistence—not fully—until my power went out.
So I didn’t have electricity. Big deal, right? We humans shape the world with the mere strength of our minds. Borders, governments, religions, and the continued success of ABBA could not endure without our constant and combined mental fortitude. Climate change does not exist, so long as we refuse to acknowledge it. A little loss of electricity should hardly matter to such a superior being as I.
And it didn’t, for a half hour or so...
Curbing Money in Politics the Key to Restoring Public Trust
Early last month Common Cause New Mexico commissioned a poll to find out how New Mexico voters felt about money and politics in the wake of the 2014 elections. The results from Research and Polling are now in, and one thing that is abundantly clear is that disclosure of campaign finances of all sorts—candidates, lobbyists and independent groups—is important to voters.
The results confirm what we’ve been saying for several years, namely that everyone wants and deserves to know who is lobbying and paying for the campaigns of our elected officials. And according to these results, transparency is almost a magic word...
A Birthday in the Desert
The rain started before dawn—a pounding bitter cold downpour—so Pastor Galván and I decided to forego the pig roast. Therefore, the huge El Chino got to live for at least another week.
It was January 30, my birthday and many months ago the patients at Vision in Action, Galván’s mental asylum in Juárez had promised me a fiesta and pig roast in celebration. Although I have no interest in birthday celebrations, this was a gesture of kindness that I couldn’t resist. I mentioned it to a number of friends and many showed up, but I was very concerned as to how they would react...
The Lost Poets of the Russian Revolution
I have always loved poetry, its power and resonance in the human heart; and I have always had an affinity for the Russian poets, especially those of the October Revolution of 1917, how they used their words to further that revolution.
My meager study is cursory at best, a mere dip in a great sea of verse. Yet, it might whet your appetite to explore further, as Russian poetry holds a unique place in literature. As Joseph Brodsky says in his essay on Osip Mendelstam, “For those raised in the English-speaking world, it is difficult to comprehend that Russian poets have long had a political status as great as that as more public figures and that Russian poetry frequently has a political impact.”...
Yucatán Journey, Part II: Where poison and antidote are seldom far apart
This is the second and final column about a Yucatán journey. Read Part 1 here.
We traveled around Yucatán exclusively by public bus, which does have the advantage of giving you lots of idle time to study the people and countryside. Everybody has their own opinions on when and where the buses run, so you have to be resigned to long waits and occasional dead ends. Even though the distances in Yucatán are modest by U.S. standards, it takes a day or two to get just about anywhere by bus...
Susana Whiffed on Behavioral Health
Two years after blowing New Mexico’s community behavioral health system to smithereens and bringing in companies from Arizona to replace it, spending $27 million in the process, the topic of behavioral health drew nary a mention from our Governor in her State of the State speech.
Nor did any of the press releases that accompanied her proposed budget for next year mention the topic. It is not the subject of any legislative proposals sent down from the Fourth Floor. She has no position on Albuquerque and Bernalillo County’s efforts to address the needs of the mentally ill and addicted populations, which include requests for additional taxes here and for increased State appropriations for services...
McMartinez Wants to Slash McDrug Court Money
The rumor is spreading, but I don’t believe a word of it. The McGovernor’s trusted McAdvisor, Jay McCleskey runs the McMartinez Administration from an opulent underground chamber ‘neath the McRound McHouse. Perhaps Jay hisself is responsible for the latest McIdea to come from McSusana: Let’s slash funding for New McMexico’s Drug Courts!
We can save beaucoup McBucks. And we can help at least a hundred deadbeat human garbage addicts back into the criminal justice system where they belong...
Fool’s Gold: Tipping Point
Welcome to the Fool’s Gold Advice Column for Smarties. It’s just like “Dear Abby,” only with deeper expletives.
This week, our topic is: TIPPING.
Tipping is the act of giving money to the waitstaff at a restaurant so that their hornswaggling bosses don’t have to. Tipping perplexes many otherwise intelligent diners, possibly because it involves calculating percentages on a full stomach. So how can you know, quickly and reliably, how much to tip your server?
Answer: Generously, unless you’re a complete chumbucket.
Well… that’s that. It turns out that tipping is not as difficult as scurvy bilge rats make it out to be. So let’s go on to talk about something else that annoys me....