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Opinion

  • Perspectives on our budget

    The good news is that we have a budget to vote on. It was arrived at throughdiscussions that were a few  times at policy level and were more than a few times at very detailed levels. We looked at funds, departments and capital projects.

    Some of this detail is needed. However, I want to present a higher level perspective on the budget that will manifest some challenges and some questions, that both council and staff need to find answers for in the near future.

  • The race for governor is on

    SANTA FE — And the race is on. As predicted here a few days ago, narrowing the Republican gubernatorial race to two candidates  has meant they’re pulling out all the stops.

    Both Allen Weh and Susana Martinez  surely had been doing internal polling to determine approximately how their campaigns were faring,

  • To Tweet or not to Tweet

    Tweeting Dum and Tweeting Dee agree to have a battle. For Tweeting Dum tweeted Tweeting Dee a tweet that twit his trattle.  

    I am typing on my computer. My dog just walked into the room. I am drinking a cup of green tea. A car beeped its horn outside. I’m typing some more.

  • Establish new standards for storing...

    WASHINGTON, DC — Alongside rivers and lakes, on ocean shores and tidal bays, nearly 63,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste — which remains dangerous for longer than recorded history — sits in “temporary” storage. In some cases, it’s been there for decades. And it’s almost certain to remain for decades longer, scattered around 33 states.

  • Outdoor education: Why it matters

    In this time of financial downturn, our educational system threatens to become stripped of anything but the very basics — reading, writing and arithmetic. The perception is that everything must be taught right at the desk.   But I’d like to challenge that idea.  

  • Campaign ‘02 echoes in...

    Thousands of New Mexicans have become eligible to vote since the election of 2002, which made a former congressman, U.N. ambassador and U.S. energy secretary governor of the state of New Mexico.

    Many of those potential new voters were just kids — 10, 11, 12 years old — eight years ago, and it’s safe to assume that few were aware of the personalities and political forces that took Bill Richardson to the state’s highest office.

    Nonetheless, it was one of the more interesting gubernatorial campaigns in recent state history.

  • Turning 30 at Mount St. Helens

    The time has surely flown by for me.

    Thirty years ago I was a very young woman, really just a kid, living downwind of Mount St. Helens on the beautiful Sunday on which she tore herself apart. This was in the days before the Internet and even before 24/7 cable news, so our first clue the mountain had erupted catastrophically was when we were enveloped in a dense and dark ash cloud.

  • Appreciation for nurses

    New Mexico communities and schools are struggling with how to provide quality education for our children in the midst of budget shortfalls. In this context, it is important to remember the critical role school nurses fulfill in providing comprehensive health services that keep kids healthy, in school and ready to learn.

  • A ‘gem’ of a...

    I did well in school until the year my dad’s transfer moved us from southern California to Las Vegas, Nev. It was in the 1960s, with over-crowded schools, busing issues and the Viet Nam war on the nightly news.  

  • Candidates’ methods differ

    SANTA FE — What sort of governor should New Mexicans try next? If you are a Republican, you have a very wide range of choices available on your June ballot.

    When it comes to how each of the five GOP candidates would run state government, the differences couldn’t be more extreme.

    Former GOP state chairman Allen Weh seems to be the front-runner. He has now sunk $1 million of his own money into the campaign; most of it for a very large TV buy.

  • Halt Rail Runner in its pricey...

    While it appears to be popular in this political season to take pot shots at the Rail Runner, Mark Mathis in his recent op-ed missed the boat. Mathis claims that the original cost for the Rail Runner project was $122 million with the final cost at “nearly four times this amount.”

  • Gaining visibility at the national...

    SANTA FE — Former Gov. Gary Johnson is confounding national political leaders and pundits just as he did in New Mexico for a decade.

    Since leaving office in 2002, Johnson evidently has had enough adventures climbing mountains, skiing and hang gliding to want to try another political adventure. This time, he’s behaving very much like a presidential candidate.

  • Open borders? The final solution?

    It’s a rather hideous phrase — The Final Solution.

    It triggers memories — though fading — of Adolf Hitler’s evil plan to eradicate not only Jews from his Reich, but others he deemed less than worthy to live. Gypsies, certain Slavs. Others.

    But more than anything else, the Final Solution tends to stir thoughts of death. And not just death, but premeditated, vile death.   

  • Someone's got to do it

    Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and the inhospitable climate of Antarctica would dissuade even the most foolish among us. With temperatures dipping to 50 degrees below zero and frigid winds chewing the landscape, the only sign of life you might expect is that of a colony of penguins.

    Well, that and perhaps a German fluid dynamics research team studying the “rectal pressures necessary for penguins to project their poo over a distance of 40-52 cm.”

  • Nowhere better than Los Alamos

    Have you ever thought about where you would like to have your cancer? No! I don’t mean which part of the body (I think we’d all choose one that was easily diagnosed and treatable, right?) I mean, where you would like to be living at the time.

  • Udall pushes reform of Senate rules

    Kudos to Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) who has put his intellect and energy behind the push to reform, at long last, the archaic rules of the United States Senate.

    As matters stand, a minority of U.S. senators (41 to be exact) has the ability to block a majority of their colleagues (59) from so much as debating a legislative proposal. We’re not talking here about enacting legislation. We’re talking about debating a measure — weighing the pros and cons ­— before a bill even goes to the Senate floor for a vote.

  • Meet the new chief, same as the old...

    I thought that things would change under an Obama presidency, but the war continues in Iraq, we ramp up the war in Afghanistan, hand billions to Wall Street, health care reform is marginal, Guantanamo is running as usual, Colombia is practically a US bastion with seven of our new military bases and the Obama administration was instrumental in preventing a real climate change treaty in Copenhagen.

  • On affordable housing

    Several of the candidates at the council Q&A session talked about the need for affordable housing in Los Alamos, evincing what to me is a basic ignorance of economics.

    The cost of housing is based on the cost of its economic inputs; that is, land, labor, materials and capital. The price of housing is established in an auction market between a willing buyer and a willing seller.

    As the run-up and collapse of the recent housing bubble illustrate, the two are only loosely linked.

  • Investment is essential

    In the last month, we have seen dramatic steps toward the emergence of a national consensus on our nation’s nuclear security strategy and the investments needed to support it. That is good for our nation and for New Mexico.

    In April, the Obama Administration released its Nuclear Posture Review. In addition to outlining the investments required to maintain the safety, security and effectiveness of the nuclear weapons stockpile without testing, it elevates efforts to combat nuclear terrorism and prevent proliferation to the top of our security agenda.  

  • Lessons learned on the Llano...

    If you live in the mountains or a river valley, you’re probably a scenery snob. Admit it. You speed across the High Plains until you reach a place with more varied topography.

    Next time, slow down and take a better look. Once you marvel at the vast, level distances, you’re inclined to look up, and the great bowl of sky out here never disappoints, with its cloudscapes and palette of pastels. Ranchers here say they like to see the weather coming.