Culture
Navajos take on the government over compensation for uranium mining.
The Rocky Mountain News is taking an in-depth look at how Navajo uranium miners are faring in receiving compensation from the U.S. government decades after their work.
The story says many uranium workers are by law supposed to be compensated automatically through a program created eight years ago. It compensates workers who sacrificed their health, and sometimes their lives, as they labored amid highly toxic and top-secret materials used to build nuclear weapons.
But the paper reports:
Many of the Navajo were compensated $100,000 by a previous program created in 1990 and were to be automatically eligible for the new one, so their total benefits would rise to the current standards.
Instead, the Navajos have joined other former nuclear workers in fighting a different cold war, this time against their own government.
NM to adopt first-in-nation Navajo-language school textbook
New Mexico's Public Education Department announced today that the state will become the first in the nation to adopt a Navajo language textbook on Monday at the Instructional Materials Bureau Advisory Council meeting in Santa Fe.
A press release from the education department says:
The textbook is Dine Bizaad Binahoo’aah (Rediscovering the Navajo Language), written by Dr. Evangeline Parsons Yazzie (Navajo), Professor of Navajo at Northern Arizona University, and Dr. Margaret Speas, Professor of Linguistics at University of Massachusetts.
The textbook will be used in ten school districts that provide Navajo language instruction and by Bureau of Indian Education schools. In 2006-07 seven Native American languages were taught in New Mexico public schools throughout the state. Navajo language classes served the highest number of Native language learners totaling 5,024 students in 2006-07.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Layoffs at the Santa Fe New Mexican
By Trip Jennings, benito aragon 07/24/2008
The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper is resorting to layoffs because of a decline in ad revenue, the paper reports today.
The state of New Mexico has signed an agreement to explore clean energy projects to supply power to Kirtland, Holloman and Cannon Air Force bases according to New Mexico Business Weekly.
An innovative charter high school is set to commence within the confines of the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center. Gordon Bernell Charter High School is a full fledged APS charter school and will begin classes full-time on August 4th, according to the Weekly Alibi.
The Associated Press is reporting that Nebraska is putting an embargo on beef cattle coming from New Mexico and California.
A national Hispanic group is calling on Gov. Bill Richardson to back a change in the New Mexico Constitution that would strip him and future governors of the power to appoint university regents, but Richardson isn't biting, the Albuquerque Journal reports.
The state announced a hearing on proposed rules for New Mexico's medical marijuana bill, according to The Associated Press.
The Navajo Nation also averted a shutdown of its Internet services -- for now, the Gallup Independent is reporting.
The big H2O transfer
The demand for water has driven up the value of Middle Rio Grande water rights more than tenfold in the last 20 years, and landowners are cashing out in what appear to be record numbers. But even as water transfers speed up, so has opposition from farmers and pueblos alike. In recent months the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has chimed in over concern for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow.
There's great jazz in NM. Who knew?
By Marjorie Childress 07/23/2008
National Public Radio had a great feature about Albuquerque's jazz community Monday night in their series on homegrown music scenes:
A jazz fan visiting Albuquerque, N.M., might equate the chances of seeing great live jazz there with the chances of getting caught in a rain shower. But since the 1970s, a devoted group of musicians and educators has turned the area into a hotbed of jazz performance, with a scene so hearty, its musicians can support themselves by playing out. Its venues are so magnetic that international stars often make it a stop on their tours.
Cathedral update
By David Alire Garcia 07/22/2008
The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi is arguably Santa Fe's most famous landmark. Beginning earlier this month, the 122 year old building is undergoing a restoration and embellishment project led by artist John Alan Warford. It's not the first time he's been called on to enhance an historic church. NMI video produced by Benito Aragon.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Bernalillo County Clerk sexual harassment suit settled
By Joel Gay 07/22/2008
A lawsuit that exposed sexually charged working conditions in the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office has been settled for $80,000, The Albuquerque Journal writes today.
Work on a 40-foot-tall sculpture memorializing Mexican immigrants who risk their lives crossing the border illegally may be halted near Downtown Santa Fe after officials said it may pose a safety issue to passersby, according to The Santa Fe New Mexican.
Carlsbad residents aren't exactly rushing to get the new U.S. passport card that substitutes for a passport when crossing the border into Mexico, Canada and several other Western Hemisphere countries, The Carlsbad Current-Argus writes today.
No fine for "NippleGate."
By Gwyneth Doland 07/21/2008
Today a federal appeals court shot down the $550,000 fine the FCC levied against CBS after Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" shocked viewers during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The court said the fine was "arbitrary and capricious." It had been the largest fine ever for a TV station. The New York Times has the story here.
Reactions to the "wardrobe malfunction," which came to be known as NippleGate, were varied, but Michael Powell, the FCC chairman, ordered an investigation into the show. An AP poll at the time showed that while more than half Americans thought the show was in bad taste, only 18 percent thought it was an illegal act worthy of investigation.
Defining poverty
By Mike Lillis 07/21/2008 | 1 CommentIn January of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Congress with a formidable challenge. "This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America," Johnson proclaimed. "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it." Forty-four years later, the country has fallen far short of Johnson's mark. Now, a growing group of lawmakers and economists say the failures derive not only from an insufficient commitment to the poor, but also from a flawed formula for identifying them.
NYTimes: NM kid becomes El Gringo, and makes good in Mexico and here.
By Trip Jennings 07/21/2008
Shawn Kiehne, aka El Gringo, is apparently big with a certain demographic, not that I knew this fact until Sunday.
But according to The New York Times, he's gaining popularity among Mexican and Mexican-American audiences, a U.S.-born 30-something who sings in Spanish and plays his version of Norteno music, replete with all the accordions and 12-string bass guitars.
Here's another thing I didn't know: El Gringo is from Los Lunas, N.M.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Feds must help with public transit, group says.
By Marjorie Childress 07/21/2008
The Albuquerque Journal's John Fleck over the weekend looked at the growth of the Albuquerque/Santa Fe corridor, what a new Brookings Institute report identifies as one of several rapidly growing "megapolitan" areas in the west that are increasing in national importance.
The Alamagordo Daily News has an informative environmental health feature about the effects of formaldehyde poisoning.
The state is privatizing Medicaid senior care dollars by contracting with two private HMO's, through which it believes it can cut state costs by up to 20 percent in three years. This will happen by handing over a set amount per person to one of two companies, who will "maximize efficiency in the system," according to the Rio Grande Sun.
Mexico Notebook: Solar hot water for life
By Denise Tessier 07/21/2008
CHIHUAHUA CITY, Mexico -- "Free! Hot Water for Life," screams the billboard by the highway. In the near distance are the boxy-modern condos that spring up like hongos [mushrooms] around virtually every city in Mexico to accommodate their burgeoning populations.
No doubt the company selling this solar water heater -- in this case Signa Hogar -- would like to see a solar boiler atop each one.
Why don't we see signs like that in the States?
Mining reform: Will it occur this year?
By Susan Grant 07/18/2008 | 1 CommentWith the 2008 Senate calendar winding down, opponents and proponents of mining reform are anxiously waiting to see if the stalemate in the Senate Energy and Resources Committee over the bill, headed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and ranking member Pete Domenici (R-NM), can be overcome. The reform would establish hardrock mining royalties, add stricter environmental standards and would give local communities the right to deny a mining project in their immediate area.
The new boom towns
By Joel Kotkin 07/18/2008From the Washington Independent
The steep hike in gas and energy prices has created a national debate about the future of American metropolitan areas. But in many of the nation’s strongest regional economies, $5 a gallon gas is less a threat than a boon. From Houston and Midland in Texas, to a score of cities across the Great Plains, today’s energy crisis is creating new wealth and new jobs in a way not seen since, well, the energy crisis of the 1970s.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Tamalewood is attracting Bollywood.
By benito aragon 07/18/2008
Tamalewood is attracting Bollywood. New Mexico Business Weekly says the signature song and dance cinematic style will be coming to New Mexico. Roshan, a major star in his native India, will be bringing the production of "Kites" to the area.
The head of Santa Fe's city union remains under investigation for supplying the drug OxyContin in a drug sale, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Manny Aragon's luck has changed, at least momentarily. The tainted former state senator awaiting trial for public-corruption and conspiracy charges won a new sports car at the Isleta Resort and Casino's grand opening, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
According to The Associated Press, Greenpeace has been denied entrance to the 2008 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. The organization had planned to fly their Earth balloon, which reads "Stop Global Warming, Save the Climate," but their application was denied by fiesta officials.
Ex-N.M. deputy insurance superintendent sentenced
By benito aragon 07/17/2008
The former state Deputy Insurance Superintendent Joe Ruiz was sentenced yesterday to 48 months in prison. A federal judge also ordered him to pay $103,000 in restitution and $2,000 in special penalties.
Accusations against Ruiz, who was the deputy superintendent from June 2001 through July 2006, involved pushing insurance companies to donate to charities and non-profit organizations that he was involved with in exchange for reduced regulatory fines.
Bingaman: $2 billion for Indian country
By Marjorie Childress 07/17/2008
Senator Jeff Bingaman attached a significant chunk of change for Indian Country to the HIV/Aids Bill that the Senate passed yesterday.
The bill, which gives $48 billion in foreign aid over the next five years for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria treatment and prevention, triples the amount of previous U.S. aid authorized in 2003. The New York Times describes it as the most "ambitious foreign public health program ever developed by the United States."
Bingaman's amendment authorizes $2 billion for Indian communities: $1 billion to be used specifically to settle Indian water rights claims; $750 million for law enforcement; and the remaining $250 million for health care.
Power to the blogs
By Tracy Dingmann 07/17/2008 | 3 Comments
Bloggers gone wild, eh? If you frequent this space, you probably read the recent post by Chaves County Republican Dan Foley, the outgoing Minority Whip of the New Mexico House of Representatives, in which he complained about...well, he said a lot of things, but the phase that caught my ear was "journalistic terrorism." In explaining the term, Foley said he felt some bloggers abandoned fair and balanced journalistic principles to wrongfully accuse people of things they never did...
Playing to win
By benito aragon 07/17/2008A modern sound is set to ring through an ancient land in New Mexico come October. The ratcheting and chiming of hundreds of slot machines will echo throughout the Navajo Nation, as the Firerock Casino in Churchrock marks the Navajo's foray into the realm of Indian gambling.
From prisoner to renowned poet
By benito aragon 07/16/2008 | 1 Comment
In introducing Jimmy Santiago Baca this past Saturday, V.B. Price proclaimed to a packed house: "Many of us here would agree, poetry has saved our lives.
For Baca, a native New Mexican, few words are more true.
The native New Mexican left prison nearly 30 years ago to pursue a life of writing verse -- and to pass on his passion to others. The New Mexico Independent caught up with him this past Saturday as he spoke to a rapt audience at UNM's Summer Sunset Lecture Series.
