Play Illustrates Idealism vs Reality in American Corporatocracy
“What laws ever made men free?” Henry David Thoreau asks in The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, a thoughtful new production at the Adobe Theater in Albuquerque. If his question has more than a passing resemblance to the rhetoric of the Tea Party 170 years later, the parallels deserve close examination.
I have published a detailed review of this brilliantly acted and skillfully directed play on talkinbroadway.com and won’t repeat that here, but I do want to discuss further the idea of freedom that is the core of this play—and of much of the political debate in the U.S. today...
The Skandera Loop
In computer programming loops are repetitive iterations of the same operation used to carry out specific tasks. The computer having no brain and no sense of monotony simply repeats the script ad infinitum until a particular condition is satisfied. The New Mexico legislature seems to be in some kind of incarnation of the loop phenomenon. We have been running the Skandera loop for going on five years now, over and over again and with the same result...
PNM is Greenwashing their Plan for More Coal and Nuclear
“More Sol. Less Coal” is PNM’s latest spin in their “green” campaign, but what they aren’t telling you is that PNM is in fact adding more coal and barely scratching the surface in their adoption of “Sol”. Here is the truth…they are proposing to bring more coal, nuclear and natural gas into the mix at a cost to ratepayers of $66 million annually. This cost does not include any future carbon or coal regulations that might be incurred, nor does it factor future rises in fossil fuel costs...
Why the poor pay the highest tax rate in New Mexico—and one step toward a fix
It’s widely agreed that the poorest among us should not pay the highest tax rate, but in New Mexico (as in most states) they do. State and local taxes—particularly sales and property taxes (shown in the light blue and orange bars in the graphic below)—take up a higher percentage of incomes at the lowest end of the scale. That’s because the smaller your paycheck, the more of it you spend just on day-to-day living expenses—most of which are taxed...
Rio Rancor Genius Scores Legislative Highs
In a sweeping move showing the depth and scope of local Republican strategizing, the profound humanity and insight of conservatism, Rio Rancor legislator Craig Brandt wants to prohibit some public school activity fees because they are, in his humble opinion, UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
You know, junk like science lab class fees where they might teach evolution and garbage like that, or fine arts class fees that encourage students to become culturally corrupted, or special education fees that promote the coddling of inferior children, or library fees that might stimulate free thinking, reading banned books and other executable offenses...
Space Invaders
I never should have presumed I was friendless. It turns out that I DO have friends. And they both decided to spend a night at my house.
It’s a miracle these two people— I’ll call them “Andy” and “Kristen,” because those are their names—even know where I live. I generally don’t share more than the two-letter state code of my address, lest the federal student loan thugs find me and repo my formal education. But I seem to have acquired too many manners while on my parents’ generous 18-year full-ride scholarship. Over the holidays, I suggested that Andy and Kristen were always welcome to stay with me, should they ever pass through the municipality of [REDACTED]...
Tipping Point?
Periodically one nation or group attacks another. The assault can be shocking. The corporate press, eager to sell news, keeps the headlines going as long as possible. Governments and pundits who have the power to use what’s happened in support of their interests, extrapolate from the particular to the general. They spew accusations that instill fear of everyone who shares a racial or cultural identity with the perpetrators. Before we know it the situation escalates, and we may have another Inquisition, Middle Passage, invasion of First Nations, Holocaust, Patriot Act, or rash of police murders of unarmed youth on our hands...
Mercury Poetry: The woods eat war and forget it
The metal jackets of bullets
rust in the dark river
beyond the weaving grass.
Lightning bugs rise up
in their landscape gaping
with old graves overgrown.
Tractor guts rot and ripped
up soil becomes nutritious...
Iguala Revisited
Mexico’s President, Enrique Peña Nieto has just completed his lightning fast January 5 visit to Washington to meet with President Obama, a report has been issued, citing their areas of discussion and the meeting could, in normal times, be considered a success. The press coverage was so minimal, however, that Mexico is obviously not a priority issue in the United States. Besides, the real “Mexico issues” are back home in Mexico and they are not favorable to Peña Nieto. This is bad news for us as well.
First, take Iguala where 43 students were kidnapped and later killed last September...
Five Questions for New Mexico Authors – Benjamin Radford
This week we ask author, researcher, and editor Benjamin Radford about his new nonfiction work, Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment, published by the University of New Mexico Press. Radford is the deputy editor of the must-read Skeptical Inquirer science magazine.
New Mexico Mercury: I know you must be a skeptical inquirer yourself. But what first drew you to investigating old New Mexico mysteries like the haunted KiMo theater and the real-world crime scene of a serial killer on Albuquerque’s West Mesa?...