Commentary

Highly technical water, land use issues need highly sophisticated reporting

Most urban consumers of news in New Mexico probably don’t know about the intensity and wide spread Native American opposition to uranium mining and the dread that is felt across Indian Country of another so-called uranium boom. And it’s clear that despite desalinization being in the news a lot these days, the controversy surrounding it is not a hot topic either.

Weighing the pros (and cons) of the sparkly green economy

Your grandmother was right — there is no such thing as a free lunch. Belief in this core principle unites all economists, from conservative Walter Williams to liberal Paul Krugman. It’s a principle (feel free to call it “opportunity cost” while sipping eggnog at your next holiday gathering) that says when you choose to invest a resource in a certain way, you are giving up the value of the next best alternative.

Mr. Attorney General, where are the results of the Housing Authority investigation?

I was looking at a posting the other day that talked about ethics and the need for ethics reform in New Mexico. The article talked about former State Sen. Manny Aragon and the recently defeated Senate Republican Whip Lee Rawson. What I was shocked to see missing was any real discussion about the New Mexico Housing Authority and the people who are involved with it.

Detroit isn’t exactly jumping through hoops yet

Albuquerque Journal’s opinion pages need a dose of balance

“Wagner’s music,” said Mark Twain, ”is better than it sounds.” And the Albuquerque Journal is better than a perusal of its Op-Ed pages suggests. Unfairly, the Journal’s loud right-wing voice obscures the paper’s many virtues, of which I will write another time. Today, though, the focus is on those Op Ed pages. If they’re intended as a marketplace of ideas, the Journal has stocked them poorly — more like a neighborhood grocery than a supermarket.

Freedom of speech: Another reason to give thanks today

It was March 20, 2003, and hundreds of people were peacefully protesting the Iraq war in front of the University Bookstore in Albuquerque. One of the protestors, an Albuquerque family practice doctor named John Fogarty, was beating a drum to express his opposition to a war he believed would bring needless injury and death to thousands of American troops, not to mention Iraqi civilians.

The Henry Paulson shuffle

Time to start planning for our future

We need a growing body of citizen experts to motivate and guide elected leaders in directions that serve the good of all, much like we had in the heyday of the environmental movement in the 1970s. A good example is something called the New Mexico Water Dialogue.

Card check bill is bad for workers

I started thinking about the last few elections and all the work of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) together with groups like ACORN and the ACLU working to make sure as many people vote as possible. These same organizations are working hard for a law that would no longer allow workers a free and open vote on the question of choosing to unionize.

Guv’s approach to budget woes is shortsighted

Gov. Bill Richardson’s proposal to impose a hiring and pay freeze on state government may appease fiscal conservatives, but such a plan at this time would once again punish the little guy — especially middle- and low-income state employees — as well as citizens who rely on state services.