Each day I try—I stress try—to read far and wide, from national newspapers to tech blogs, to keep up with the world inside and outside New Mexico. My habit makes my head hurt some days; there’s so much happening out there. Oftentimes the stuff I read has little relevance to life in New Mexico. Sometimes it does. So bear with me as I pass on the stories I find interesting each day. Maybe you’ll see connections to the Land of Enchantment and you’ll let me know. Maybe we can figure out what the news is together.

Here’s how I started Monday morning:

The nation’s governors are concerned about costs to their respective states as Congress talks about expanding the four-decade-old Medicaid program to cover more of the nation’s uninsured. Medicaid, the government’s health insurance program for the low-income, is funded jointly by the federal government and the states. The worry lines are already appearing on the brows of New Mexico state officials as some projections predict a huge funding shortfall here in New Mexico at the start of 2011.

O.K., I know Mark Sanford is governor of a state all the way across the country. But I can’t avert my head from the train wreck that has become his public life. Apparently Republicans and Democrats in the South Carolina House of Representatives have joined forces to ask Sanford to step down. Pressure is building. We’ll see what Sanford will do. So far he’s resisted calls for him to step down.

The state to our north—Colorado—is hurting. It’s not just the recession. The federal government basically said last week that the state can’t spend $114 million previously appropriated on transportation projects across the state. It was part of a cost-saving move by Congress. Which makes me think I should call New Mexico’s transportation department to see if they hit with a similar loss of spending authority.

Because I’ve been in the media for the better part of the last 25 years, I’m fascinated, and a bit heart sick frankly, about the recent tumult upending the media firmament.

Case in point: this story, from the Chicago Tribune. It’s about how today is the deadline for bidders to put up money for the Tribune’s cross-town rival, the Chicago Sun-Times. So far, there’s only one bid: Chicago financier Jim Tyree has bid $26.5 million for the Chicago Sun-Times and more than 50 suburban newspapers. A few years ago, Tyree and his bid would have been laughed out of the room. It goes to show how much the value of some newspapers have fallen in the past few years.

Here’s the latest update on all the speculation about whether Time-Warner will sell off its magazine division—Time, Inc. (home to Time and Sports Illustrated).

Say it ain’t so. Hulu is thinking of converting to a pay model? That’s the latest buzz. Hulu, as you may know, is that online site that offers movies and TV episodes for free. (If you don’t know, look up the funny commercial starring Alec Baldwin who touts Hulu as an alien’ plot at world domination). I don’t watch much TV, but if I want to keep up with trivia, say, from Firefly, Joss Whedon’s short-lived classic from earlier this decade, I’ll go to Hulu to enjoy one of the show’s 14 episodes. For now, they’re free. But who knows if it’ll stay that way, or for how long. The times, they are a changing.

Ed’s note: You’re not kidding, Trip. Condé Nast decided today to close its flagship food magazine, Gourmet, which has been publishing since 1940. Condé Nast also publishes the popular (but inferior!) Bon Appétit. It is truly the end of an era.

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