Lobos Basketball Tournament

From Redondo to Records

Royalty Life Records has come a long way from the Redondo dorms. "As far as 2006 goes, we've done a lot of incredible things," said student Lameck "Humble" Lukanga, CEO of Royalty Life Records. "We've done shows with Fat Joe, DMX, Paul Wall, Chamillionaire - any big artist you could possibly imagine. Now, people are kind of understanding there is talent in New Mexico. There is talent in the Southwest, and we're just trying to open up the doors for everyone else."

Students: Get heated up about global warming

Editor, I just watched Al Gore's movie about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," and it was very concerning. It really made me realize that we need to do something about global warming right now. Last semester, NMPIRG was working on getting renewable energy on campus, and I think this is a great step.

Local vintage-clothing hot spot to close its doors

It's a sad time for the Retail Sleuth. One of my favorite stores in Albuquerque is scheduled to close the last day of January - never to return.

With a simple majority vote, med students can unionize

Residents and fellows at the UNM School of Medicine will vote Jan. 31 on whether to form a union. If they formed a union, the physicians would bargain for salaries and benefits as a group, rather than individually.

Dealing with mice in Coronado

Student Mary Fortuin's room in Coronado Hall was occupied by unwelcome guests over winter break - mice that littered her room with feces. "It just makes my skin crawl," she said. "I know the mice aren't going to kill me, but their diseases might."

Middle ground needed in smoking ban debate

Editor, After reading Tuesday's article about banning smoking on campus, I wondered why the UNM community is not settling for strictly enforced restrictions. Why can't we respect the rights of smokers by providing designated smoking areas or appropriate distances from campus entrances without sacrificing the health of nonsmokers like myself? Why are there ashtrays at the entrances anyway? It seems that all the rhetoric coming from both camps does a great job at ignoring the middle.

Petitioning prices

Editorial: Severe weather proves U.S. is hardly invincible

The Albuquerque blizzard of 2006 was not a blizzard. It was a few inches of snow. That being said, it caused a lot of trouble, including highway closings, a shortage of potatoes at Flying Star and multiple power outages. The state spent pretty much its entire road budget for the year in about three days.

Overloaded server crashes MyUNM

The MyUNM Web site crashed Tuesday morning because about 2,500 students tried to login at the same time, said Moira Gerety, director of ITS Computing. "The system is appropriately designed to handle what we expect with concurrent users," she said. "But when everybody hit the login screen concurrently, that piece choked."

Local art aficionado shares his collection with UNM students

Sixteen years ago, Chris Burmeister walked past a gallery in San Diego and saw a Roy Lichtenstein. He said to himself, "Someday, when I graduate from college, I'd like to own that." He bought it after graduation and has been collecting art ever since.

Atheism has its advocate

When Lori Lipman Brown began her job in 2005 as director and lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America, she was worried about criticism. "I was fearful that everybody would hate me, and I would go from being a semi-beloved Nevada politician to a hated representative of atheists," she said.

Defender drafted 10th to MLS

When Andrew Boyens was on the field for the UNM men's soccer team, opposing offenses usually left frustrated. Now that his collegiate career is over, Boyens will be taking his outstanding defense to the professional level.

Column: Saints need tricks up sleeves for Cinderella ending

For longer than Kevin Federline has had a celebrity life, the sports editor and I have been debating who tops the NFL quarterback totem pole. Our two choices always have been Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, both of whom will face off in the AFC Championship game. But who wants to wait until that game happens to find out who is the best? I'll let you in on a little secret - it's Manning.

New student regent chosen; awaits Senate confirmation

Law student Dahlia Dorman said she'll be practicing to be a lawyer by being an advocate for students when she becomes a member of the Board of Regents. Gov. Bill Richardson appointed Dorman to the student regent position Dec. 21.

QB gives up chance to play for 6th year

Kole McKamey will not be returning to play quarterback for the UNM football team next season. McKamey announced at a press conference Friday that his football career will be over after five years as a Lobo. He had petitioned the NCAA in an attempt to receive a sixth year of eligibility after he was lost for the 2006 season in the second game because of a torn ACL.

Broke nation cannot fix dysfunctional countries

Editor, Who is the enemy in Iraq? Is it terrorists, insurgents, al-Qaida, private militias, private contractors, foreign fighters or U.S. troops? The resistance in Iraq is coming from Iraqis. We have become our own worst enemy in Iraq. The U.S. is the aggressor, the invader and the occupier in Iraq.

UNM to blame for failure to handle LoboWeb traffic

Editor, In our day and age, with the advances of high-speed Internet, you would think that by now UNM would have figured out that on the first day of the semester, every single student will need to log into LoboWeb for one reason or another. But still, after many years of ITEL outages due to high volume, the new LoboWeb system has also failed due to "extremely high volume," according to LinkAlerts.

Men's tennis team in high spirits after strong spring start

The UNM men's tennis team dusted off its rackets this weekend by opening spring play at the Purdue Boilermaker Invitational. The tournament, which was held in West Lafayette, Ind., was not a team-scoring event, but the Lobos still had positive results.

Column: Brees to dash Manning's hopes for a trophy, ring

I need to mail Andy Reid a gift certificate to Krispy Kreme. Reid, the head coach of my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, made a couple of the most boneheaded decisions I have seen in the playoffs, seemingly because he was daydreaming about the next batch of doughnuts he could feast on rather than watching the game he was supposed to be coaching.

Library's east wing reopens after fire

Teresa Neely, director of Zimmerman Library, said she has been eager to reopen the east wing of the library since the fire in April. "We're very, very happy to open up this much larger space," she said. Fran Wilkinson, dean of University Libraries, cut the yellow caution tape blocking the east wing Tuesday. Neely said faculty and staff had to share offices for the last year and were grateful for the reopening.