Nullius in verba
Yesterday was the 48th anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970. Back then, April 22nd was a turning-point day, what anthropologists call a liminal moment, a threshold, in American political history. Pages upon pages of environmental legislation have been signed into law since that great populist moment. And economic elites have risen up to […]
In the face of chronic drought, entrenched ethnic tensions and a brand of racism that neo-fascists thrive on, it’s not untoward to ask ourselves, “Are Southwestern cities and state economies fit to survive? Or are many of them just hopelessly clumsy at adapting to new conditions, unable to join the winners’ side of the survival […]
Albuquerque and UNM: Losing Their Sense of Purpose and Identity What’s going on at UNM? What’s happened to Albuquerque’s mayor? Why is the athletic department’s request to have a nearly $5 million debt “forgiven” being supported by a UNM Regent appointed by Governor Susana Martinez when the rest of the university is in penury? Why […]
Though sloth plagues us all, intellectual sloth, along with censorship in all its many forms — from the repeal of net neutrality to blatant redaction to SLAPP suits against journalists — is the enemy within as far as democracy is concerned. Without an “informed electorate,” as quaint phrasing put it in the ‘50s, democracy is […]
Killing in self-defense or in a war — those are the only forms of homicide that our laws sanction and that our culture imbues, on occasion, with respect. All other kinds of murder we loathe or profess to loathe as moral abominations, but not the most premeditated kind of killing there is: vengeance murder by […]
What would happen to Albuquerque if the Southwest suffered a double whammy from climate change — rising seas on the West Coast and a mega drought in the Colorado River and Rio Grande Basins? Would we see a migration of the dispossessed from California and the big cities that depend on the Colorado River, Tucson, […]
All dirty tricksters know about the indelible damage wrought by making false accusations. Our trickster-in-chief is a master at it. As the predominant “birther,” he falsely accused his predecessor of being an alien and therefore illegitimate as a president. He falsely accused his opponent in the last election, “crooked Hilary,” of being a criminal. And […]