Book Review – The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
When Michelle Alexander took a job working on racial issues in the criminal justice system, she expected to find the same problems with racial bias that afflict all institutions of our society. Instead, she found a large scale, intentionally created, ostensibly race-neutral (“colorblind”) system of racialized social control reaching deep into the fabric of African-American life. What Alexander found shocked her. As I read her book, it shocked me. The New Jim Crow (The New Press, $19.95, 261 pages) should shock any reader...
The Anti-abortion Theocrats
Those kind and good people who want to ban abortion after twenty weeks really, behind the masks and shadow-dancing fetuses, are arguing for the establishment of a theocracy where God’s Law determines public policy.
They talk with great conviction about the sanctity of life and they say the aborted child-to-be feels pain. For example, let’s imagine the late-term fetus that has no brain, or no lungs, or no heart. Further, let’s imagine the mother-not-to-be and her doctor. If abortion is no longer an option, is it better to let this woman who bears such a child die in agony? Does this woman and how she wants to decide count for nothing?...
Albuquerque Police Oversight Review Concluding
A task force working on police accountability in Albuquerque is on track to wrap up its mission by the end of the year. Although the city council-appointed Police Oversight Task Force (POTF) held this month the last of three forums designed to gather community input, public comments are still being accepted for a final report.
Andrew Lipman, POTF chair, told FNS that his group should have recommendations for possible changes to the official police oversight commission ready for city councilors to consider by the end of December. “We need to keep on moving,” Lipman said...
Weekly Poem: Dad’s Visit
What did we do
to deserve this beauty -- our blooming cactus flowers, the emerald green shine of our chiles, the boys
and girls the backbones of our families, taking a stab
at adulthood in middle school? In a city of strong kids, under a sky so wide and this blue,
it’s as though we’re being showered
with praise by a gorgeously generous god...
Heavily Redacted Audit Continues Lack of Due-Process
In a feeble attempt to placate the public’s demand to know the details behind the Martinez Administration’s undisclosed accusations of fraud against as many as 15 New Mexico behavioral heath providers, the Attorney General’s office release of a heavily redacted audit only muddies and delays the issue further.
And one of the few things we were actually able to glean from the audit was that auditors from Massachusetts-based Public Consulting Group Inc. (PCG) wrote that “PCG’s Case File Audit did not uncover what it would consider to be credible allegations of fraud, nor any significant concerns related to consumer safety.”...
Republicans Trash Municipal Voting Rights
Some time before the recent municipal election the University of New Mexico contacted the city to see if, as usual, there would be a polling place at UNM, something which has happened during the 2007 election, the 2009 election, and the 2012 election. The University never heard back and there was no polling place to serve students and faculty.
A couple of nights ago your non-partisan city council decided to disenfranchise thousands of Albuquerque voters who have regularly polled at the campus. This is the same non-partisan council controlled by Republicans that created the new gerrymandered Council District Two...
What’s Happened to Albuquerque? Part 10: Gary Goodman and the Big Idea
Working to overcome a familiar sense of dejection after the city elections, this month, I was browsing the internet and came across the disappointing September 30th KNME mayoral debate and then, quite by accident, found myself watching a TEDxABQ on YouTube from October 14, 2012 with New Mexico real estate developer Gary Goodman. What a glaring contrast...
KOAT picks up our Glyphosate story (video)
Although no credit was given to New Mexico Mercury, it's nice to know that some local news outlets are paying attention to our stories. After our piece on the use of Glyphosate by city, county and state governments in New Mexico, Susan Clair, who's interviewed in the article, was contacted by KOAT for their brief piece. Our original story was written by our intern Svetlana Ozden, who studies at UNM and was a former editor at the Daily Lobo...
Let’s Put God in the Driver’s Seat – The Upcoming Abortion Rights Vote
It’s always super nice when the divinity comes down out of the sky and tells us what to do, especially when we’re trying to think out thorny ethics issues like abortion.
Some folks yell at everybody else saying they are screeching with God’s voice. They want to see us ban late-term abortion. If you disagree, they will hit you with everything they’ve got...
Weekly Poem: Silence of the Messengers
We hear only hush of wings
these angels who
sweep around us
never a word spoken
never a sword drawn
though their voices be strong, their hearts brave,
knowing we would not remember
if they spoke
would not remember one soft word
nor recall one firey blow...