Clearly New Mexico

If you want a few good laughs, check out Scot Key's regular blog, 'Burque Babble

Burque Babble

Scroll down (hell, read the whole damn thing) to Saturday, January 3, 2009: Cheese Sandwiches and the Hieronymus Bosch World of Public School Cafeterias. We hope the legislature will expand a great bill they passed a few years back to provide regular servings of fresh fruit and vegetables to all New Mexico public school children. You'll see some of the rationale here. But mostly, it's just damn funny.

(Check out the Food to Table website to learn more about the issue of getting local fresh fruits and vegetables into our schools for meals and snacks.)

I am very sorry for the governor. I know that he has vast ambition about his future. It must have been pretty positive for financial coruption for him to resign from competition for commerce secretary. I'm sure he is sad,embarrassed,and frustrated. I'm sure that lt. governor denish is unhappy and mad also. GOD BE WITH YOU,BIG BILL!!

Man, this is sure going to be an interesting legislative session.

MSNBC - Richardson withdraws

The New Mexico Independent's venerable Arthur Alpert kicks off the New Year with a scorching screed against market fundamentalists. But he reserves a special vitriol for "liberals who still grovel before a god that's failed."

Alpert writes:

Liberals must reject conservative myths to get at bedrock issues. Who gets what? And how? Answer: corporate America employs government, under Democrats as well as Republicans, to redistribute wealth upward.

You go, Arthur.

Despite orchestrating the most massive deficits and the biggest transfer of power to government (via the Wall Street bailout) in history, the conservative pundits still have sufficient gall to warn of Obama's "big government" designs. On that score, Paul Krugman gave us this today:

...some commentators warning President-elect Barack Obama against bold action have held up Bill Clinton's political failures in his first two years as a cautionary tale.

But America in 1993 was a very different country -- not just a country that had yet to see what happens when conservatives control all three branches of government, but also a country in which Democratic control of Congress depended on the votes of Southern conservatives. Today, Republicans have taken away almost all those Southern votes -- and lost the rest of the country. It was a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the G.O.P. into a cul-de-sac.

Mr. Obama therefore has room to be bold. If Republicans try a 1993-style strategy of attacking him for promoting big government, they'll learn two things: not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn't play the way it used to.

So, since you didn't ask, my two favorite free marketeers are Alan Greenspan and George Gilder.   Read More »

The new issue of Harper's (January 2009) has an special three-page edition of the Harper Index - this one devoted entirely to "A retrospective of the Bush era".

As we say good bye to the old year and to the reign of W, here are just a few of the choicer items. Read 'em and weep. Happy New Year!

Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069

Number of all U.S. war veterans who have been denied Veterans Administration health care since 2003: 452,677

Percentage change from 2004 to 2007 in the number of Army recruits admitted despite having been charged with a felony: plus 295

Date on which the White House announced it had stopped looking for WMDs in Iraq: 1/12/05

Portion of all U.S. income gains during the Bush Administration that have gone to the top 1 percent of earners: 3/4

Estimated percentage by which Social Security benefits would have declined if Bush's privatization plan had passed: minus 15

Number of Republican officials who have been investigated by the Justice Department since 2001: 196

Number of Democratic officials who have been: 890

Ratio in 1999 of the number of U.S. federal employees to the number of private employees on government contracts: 15:6

Ratio in 2006: 14:15

Total value of U.S. government contracts in 2000 that were awarded without competitive bidding: $73,000,000,000

Total in 2007: $146,000,000,000

Amount by which the federal government has underfunded its estimated cost to implement NCLB: $71,000,000,000

Number of press conferences at which Bush has referred to a question as a "trick": 14

Average percentage of Americans who approved of the job Bush was doing during his second term: 37

Percentage of Russians today who approve of the direction their country took under Stalin: 37

The complete Harper's Index of Jan. 2009

After about five years of doing community organizing work in Albuquerque New Mexico, I am officially taking a much needed break. Mostly I worked with the League of Pissed off Voters, which morphed into the League of Young Voters. In 2008 I helped to grow a new Organization called New Mexico Youth Organized. I learned a lot this year. Mostly I learned about myself.

My teachers along the way included my friends, family, colleagues and the occasional honest critic. With there support and strength I have built an extensive skill set, and more importantly I've built lasting relationships. This letter of thanks is to those amazing folks who have helped me along the way.

Thank you for showing me that this work is bigger than you and me.
Thank you for not sugar coating the bad times.
Thank you for showing me that it's ok to celebrate a victory.
Thank you for teaching me the power of humility.
Thank you for investing in my potential.
Thank you for caring about what happens to those without a voice.
Thank you for sharing your stories.
Thank you for giving me space when I needed it.
Thank you for helping me to reflect and learn from mistakes as well as successes.
Thank you for trusting my judgment even when you disagreed.

You did not teach me with abstract examples, but with living breathing examples. It's not easy to walk away from this work, but I told myself I would take a break when the time was right, and it's a promise I am keeping.

- Cyrus Gould

The '11th Hour' produced by Leonardo DiCaprio is a realistic, profound, matter of fact, documentary on the state of Earth's condition. Michael Pollan's, 'Omnivore's Dilemma' and James Howard Kunstler's; 'Geography to Nowhere' are recent works of how we got to where we are following Rachel Carson's and Wendell Berry's predictions.

We all realize that world population is growing and currently at 6.6 billion -- I didn't realize that when Jack Kennedy was President world population was:
3 Billion. Population has doubled during 45 years. Land Misuse and Sustainable Use of the Land needs to be at the top of everyone's priority list, or, by 2035, when US population is 400 million, we may have 'urban sprawled' our way to dehydration and starvation.

Later posts to follow: Population/Energy/Economies of Scale; Population/Energy/Economies of Scale 2; Excess; Employment/Small Business/Wages.

I think Ezra Klein has a pretty straightforward summation of the current Israel/Gaza crisis.

Who Started It?

Christmas 2008: Tomorrow, December 25th, is the 58th birthday of Karl Rove (aka "the Architect", aka "Turd Blossom"), the man who dedicated his life to electing George W. Bush president and dreamed of creating a "Permanent Republican Majority."

Instead of a PRM, he gave us was a wretched war, a wrecked economy, and the corruption of the Department of Justice - just for starters.

So bah humbug to you, Karl.

Now on a cheerful note, dear friends, take a look at this wonderful video from Playing for Change - Peace Through Music.

When it comes to suitable ethics laws, New Mexico is simply behind the times.

Consider this.

* New Mexico is one of five states with no limits on campaign contributions (Incidentally, Illinois is one of the other four!!). Congressional and presidential elections have contribution limits.

* New Mexico is one of nine states without an independent ethics commission.

* New Mexico is one of two states that offers absolutely no compensation to its legislators.

* New Mexico is one of nine states that does not require open conference committees in its legislature.

Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Steve Terrell sheds light on yet another shortcoming. Turns out New Mexico is one of six states that does not webcast, or broadcast by television its legislative floor sessions.

I wonder how this lack of suitable ethics laws is affecting progress in other policy areas like health care, land use, or energy.

I'm not really big on micromanagement.

And, as I've watched the parade of cabinet appointments issue forth from Chicago, I don't have an all-consuming worry that president-elect Barack Obama is out to betray his left-of-center base.

He's made some good choices, most notably on State, Energy, Education, Health and Human Services, and, um, Commerce.

We elected Barack Obama , and we empowered him to make those choices. His cabinet is his most important cadre of advisors. We must pay attention to the background of his nominees, and closely follow what they do after they take their offices.

So I'm feeling pretty good about the big choices.

I guess that's why it bothers me so much that Obama has taken the grave misstep of inviting evangelical pastor and anti-gay rights activist Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration.

Amid all the cabinet appointments, it may seem like a small matter.

But it surely is not. Not to the millions of gay Americans who supported Obama's mantra of change while struggling to maintain their human rights every day. And not to the millions of Americans who stand with gay Americans in their ongoing fight.

Obama has already begun hearing from outraged gay groups and progressives who supported him and feel betrayed by this odd and insulting choice.

Obama needs to find a graceful way to disinvite Warren, and fast.

In case you didn't know, our man Juan Reynosa has been on a mission. Turns out The Nation chose to document this mission.

Check it out: Juan Reynosa's Environmental Mission.

   Read More »

It is clear Obama is going to move aggressively on health care reform, including it as a cornerstone of his economic recovery package. Kevin Sack, in his op-ed entitled, "Necessary Medicine?" in this Sunday's New York Times, cites Obama himself:

To broaden support for his plan -- whatever it ends up being -- he [Obama] insisted last week that systematic improvements in health care would be essential to any lasting economic recovery.

"It's not something that we can sort of put off because we're in an emergency," he said. "This is part of the emergency."

Mr. Obama said his health plan would be "intimately woven into" his administration's economic blueprint. And he directly confronted those who might ask how the country could afford a major expansion of health coverage in times of shrinking revenues and burgeoning deficits. "I ask a different question," Mr. Obama said. "I ask how can we afford not to?"

The state of health care in New Mexico is, to paraphrase Civil Rights organizer Bob Moses, like a boat in the ocean with a hole in it. You have to stay afloat to fix the boat, and fix the boat to stay afloat.

Some legislators will want to move immediately on additional reforms to New Mexico's health care system to address the urgent needs of New Mexicans facing ever-increasing costs. Other legislators will say we need to wait to see what the feds are going to do before we do anything too drastic.

Both sides lend more credence to the creation of an independent health care authority. Whether New Mexico wants to act first or whether we want to wait for the feds, we need an independent group of experts to formulate strong, thoughtful recommendations on systemic changes and the complicated interface between state and federal health care financing.

As Obama says, "how can we afford not to?" The health care system for New Mexicans is broken with no cost controls, a shortage of medical professionals and incentives for higher cost procedures rather than on a healthy population. Legislators cannot afford to wait, either for true reform or for the feds to act. An Independent Health Care Authority can move us forward with data and outcome driven solutions to our health care illness.

So, I was in DC for the first time at Trinity College to attend an event called Rootscamp. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the event, basically, it's a large scale conference based on the open space model of social networking and self organizing. There aren't any pre-set agendas, but only a wall for everyone to advertise room sessions they would like to facilitate and people are allowed to wander in and out of sessions as they so choose. It sounds interesting doesn't it? Well…it definitely is.

Participants ranged from the founder of Van to a plethora of Obama campaign workers. Other very interesting participants I've came across included members from online organizations, advocates, policy analysts, media gurus and even members of organized labor. The brain power and skill capacity that was present at RootscampDC from across the country was astounding!

Anyhow, the day began in a church, or the only room on campus that was big enough to house the close to 500 people that attended. After introductions, those who planned to initiate sessions were called to the front to announce their ideas. Ideas ranged from online organizing, a discussion on traditional volunteerism, irony in politics, Prop 8 issues, music merchandising to identify volunteers, experimentation, twitter service, etc.   Read More »

I was fascinated by Obama's choice of Steven Chu to head the Department of Energy. The choice of a scientist is unusual for a cabinet secretary, since cabinet positions often go to those from the political realm. Barb at Democracy for New Mexico has a lot more background on Chu, so I won't go into his qualifications here.

The real opportunity is that political appointees often bring in tens of loyal staffers, who themselves are political appointees, and not often best suited to the policy tasks ahead. With Chu, we may see a nice little experiment - bringing in real life, substantive experience for specific policy challenges at the top of the food chain, rather than somewhere in the middle.

See also:

Washington Monthly:
A Sterling Team at Energy and Environment

I read an article in the Albuquerque Journal last week which informed me that Albuquerque residents are officially beginning to use the Rio Grande (25% of it for now that is blended with aquifer water) for our drinking water(Abq. Journal - sub). I visited many water treatment plants during my tenure as an environmental science student and definitely feel that they are capable of treating the water to get it clean and clear.

What I am not sure of is if this treatment process is taking out the pharmaceutical remnants and radionuclides that have been found in the water. The group Agua es Vida has already brought this subject to the surface, and I definitely would like to see the concerns on the levels of these contaminants, even if they are low level as claimed, brought up since we are going to soon be drinking this water.

From all my experience in studying water treatment systems; I've never seen the treatment process address low radioactive particles, such as radionuclides. In the journal article, nothing is noted as to how these particles can or would be taken out, but rather it is dismissed as them being in low enough levels to not be of concern. To be honest, the only low level of radioactive particles that I want in my drinking water is a level of absolutely none.

Besides the issue of these possible lingering contaminants in the water; what is being said about the 25% percent of the river water being used (I'm assuming this percentage will continue to grow throughout the years as well) and how this is going to affect our contribution to the Rio Grande compact. Not only that, another question I have is how is this going to affect our acequia systems. I would love to speak with some mayordomos in town about how they feel this is going to affect the amount of water that they will get.   Read More »

The staff at Clearly New Mexico wishes to express our deepest sympathies to the family of Alice King. Mrs. King was a stalwart advocate for children and families. New Mexico is a much better place for her decades of service to our state.

Please take some time to review the following coverage and tributes to Mrs. King's passing.

New Mexico Independent (cross-posted at Heath Haussamen's blog)

Democracy for New Mexico

New Mexico Voices for Children Photo Compilation

New Mexico FBIHOP

Bernalillo County is in the process of developing a sector plan for the traditional Atrisco Village Center community. The effort ecompasses the area bounded by Bridge Blvd. on the South, Foothill Road on the West, Felicitas Drive on the North, and Atrisco Road on the East. This area is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America, with Spanish settlements dating back to the late 16th Century and native habitation, in both pueblo and itinerant contexts, extending to before history.

Traditionally, Atrisco has attracted settlers because of its proximity to the Rio Grande river, abundance of rich agricultural land, a very mature system of acequias and ditches for irrigation, and access to the vast West Mesa, where inhabitants have grazed livestock, hunted and foraged for medicinal and ceremonial plants and herbs. Today, Atrisco retains many of its unique features, serving as an intersection between old and new, as recent immigrants settle in the area among families who have occupied the land for centuries. The area, which served as a center of civic life for generations, has unfortunately suffered a measure of neglect, with minimal attention from municipal authorities and limited or ineffective economic and recreational initiatives. Much of the area lacks basic amenities such as sidewalks and underground storm sewers and includes pockets of blight, poverty and gang activity.

The community, however, is mobilizing to ensure that the Bernalillo County Sector Plan process results in policy recommendations that facilitate civic, community and economic revitalization in the Village Center area. In partnership with UNM's Resource Center for Raza Planning (RCRP), community members and other volunteers are conducting an economic needs survey to provide a more thorough understanding of the employment, commercial and service needs and priorities of the residents. The data derived from this process will provide planners with valuable insights to help set conditions for healthy future development that honors traditional values and customs while also accommodating the demographic shifts that are currently under way.

If you'd like to learn more about the Atrisco needs assessment survey process or would like to volunteer to help (and help is needed!), please contact Henry Rael at hrael at artsofaztlan dot com.