Editor, Inflation has absolutely devoured American wages for the last three decades. If Obama was really a socialist, wouldn’t the ACA include a single payer public option? Republicans seem to have forgotten that we live in a republic.
Secrecy is largely about shame, fear and guilt. I refuse to live that way. My beloved longtime friend told me in our deep, last conversation two days before his sudden death that he wanted to have first-time sex with me, but not a relationship. He said if I told anyone, he would kill me and maybe kill himself. I did not have sex with him. I want to celebrate sex with a friend, not hide it as a poisonous secret to keep him from killing me or himself. As he left my home that day, he told me “I love you” – maybe the only time since he and I met 39 years earlier. Several days later, I was devastated to hear that he was dead. This was my most heart-wrenching experience of 2011.
Editor, There are two helmet laws under consideration in the Legislature. One mandates motorcycle helmets for all.
Jason Darensburg, you recently claimed in your column “Today’s youth are bombarded with bad music” that music today is an implicative mess. I wish to address you on these matters and hopefully change your mind. Your claim falsely implies that because today’s youth has bad music, yesterday’s youth must have had good music. Is it truly honest to think that, for reasons you had not pointed out, music today must be automatically worse than music in the past? Why is it that the use of auto-tune automatically implies that one isn’t fit to sing? What you’re essentially saying is that music in the past is the only means of music, and that if music today does not emulate such archaic music, then it must be implicitly bad. This is stupendously ridiculous.
The United States strongly supports many bloody regimes now: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Pakistan and Mexico. The United States strongly supported many bloody past regimes: El Salvador, Philippines, Guatemala, Haiti, Chile, Iran, South Africa, Argentina and Indonesia. The main goal — worldwide — of the U.S. government is grabbing more wealth, resources and cheap labor by any means necessary, regardless of how many millions are robbed, tortured, starved, imprisoned and murdered.
Although the administration is perpetually exhorting the UNM community to buy more corn dogs at the ball game, or to buy them a new gym that will photograph better in brochures, I would like to direct the reader’s attention toward another matter. UNM (or is it WisePies? Or, as former President David Schmidly maintained, Wal-Mart?) is most properly understood as a tax-exempt corporation operating a sports franchise and an academic theme park. Accordingly, the actual management of UNM employees is by the Wal-Mart corporate model: every employee is seen as a black mark against departmental management. At the Center for High Technology Materials, staff was laid off with just four weeks’ notice after decades of documented excellent service.
“No taxation without representation!” That was the motto of the original Tea Partiers in pre-Revolutionary War Boston. The phrase encapsulated one of the primary grievances the American colonists had with King George’s government: Parliament kept imposing new taxes and tariffs without their knowledge or consent, and the revenue was being used for purposes at odds with the immediate needs of the settlers in the 13 colonies. The colonists argued that they had no representatives in Parliament and therefore their concerns weren’t being addressed. The British claimed they were being “virtually” represented. Tensions rose. In 1773, colonists violently rejected a proposed tax on tea imports at the so-called Boston Tea Party. What exactly transpired that night is under dispute, but the end result was that Britain retaliated in an escalating chain of events that ultimately led to the American Revolution.
The recent execution-style killing of three Muslim American students in North Carolina by a man who had posted anti-Islamic and anti-religious messages on social media could hopefully be the catalyst for some positive change in this country. While some stupid, racist people with low self-esteem have actually praised suspected killer Craig Stephen Hicks on social media for what he did, the overall reaction of many ordinary non-Muslim Americans has been horror and rejection of this cowardly act of terrorism. Average non-Muslim Americans need to understand that the mainstream media has corporate sponsorship which makes money from invading and taking the natural resources of Muslim countries.
You know that feeling you get when you’re up on stage accepting your Oscar and you forget to thank your director? Neither do I. How about the feeling when you have a party and you forget to invite your best friend? You make all the arrangements and are careful to invite your other friends, but somehow you just assume that your best friend knows because, well, they’re your best friend. I’ve been there; in fact quite recently and right here in this column. My last article was about sexual assault and resources to tap into if it happens to you. Yet I somehow managed to not mention the resource most near and dear to me and most convenient and immediate to you on campus: our very own SHAC. I guess I figured SHAC was a given. My grown children know all about this. They are always the last ones to hear plans for a family reunion. I just assume they know by osmosis or something. Chalk it up to my middle-aged brain.
The individual who shot three innocent Muslims in cold blood showed himself as a nut when he first approached two of the individuals in a parking lot in what apparently was a hostile posture with a gun in his possession.
The unprovoked and opportunistic murder of three young Arab-American college students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina could well have been avoided if the victims had brought in the police earlier. When the white, middle-aged gun nut who eventually executed them had threatened them, and walked up to their door with a gun – had they warned him they had told the police, this could have made him back off.
Would a loving human parent slam and lock the door forever against a son or daughter regardless what evil they have done? Would a loving parent-God sentence billions of people, or even one person, to never-ending torture with no pardon, no parole? To all who believe in God, do you believe in hell? I would never want to spend eternity with such a cruel monster God.
On Thursday evening, as I was working on homework and having a cup of coffee, my partner informed me that there had been a sexual assault at Zimmerman. I’ve spent countless hours studying at that library. It always felt safer than Parish, even though Parish is open later. When I was younger, I used to play hide-and-seek in the stacks. I’ve shown up, like many other UNM students, in pajamas during Finals Week.
Our courts require additional resources to meet the justice needs of New Mexico’s citizens. Each day, courts address the aftermath of strained social and economic conditions including crime, child and domestic abuse, and broken family and business relationships. Our independent court system also supports economic growth and investment by enforcing contracts and resolving business and property disputes. And it does all of this with less than 3 percent of the state’s overall budget. Inadequately funding the Judiciary undermines our ability to serve the public and fulfill our constitutional responsibility to provide fair, timely and impartial justice to all New Mexicans.
The UNM Conservative Republicans are disappointed to find that ASUNM recently passed a resolution supporting the issuing of licenses to illegal immigrants. Last school year, our student organization showed documentaries with the goal of informing the UNM community of the economic cost of illegal immigration and the security risks of an open border policy.
I am not surprised that New Mexico has the dubious honor of being the second deadliest state for bicyclists. New Mexico’s rate of bicyclist injuries is 50 percent higher than the U.S. average. While both of these facts are troubling, I find that experts and public officials are placing much of the blame in the wrong direction. Officials state that primary reasons for the appalling number of bicyclist deaths and injuries are New Mexico’s high rate of substance abuse, lack of bike lanes and poor street infrastructure. In addition to the reasons listed, they also state a need to increase motorists’ awareness and understanding of motor vehicle laws pertaining to bicyclists and motorcycles.
In a recent “communique” Provost Chaouki Abdallah asked, “What will the American university look like in 2025?” Well, it will be far too expensive for the average American, unless he is an athlete, and administrations will be much larger and modeled after corporations and make even more money than the faculty and staff.
I don’t believe in random acts of kindness. This is not expression of a value judgment or a misanthropic sentiment. I simply don’t believe that random acts of kindness exist. If the phrase is intended to identify a category of actions, I don’t believe that category exists — it is a conceptual void. To make my position clear, it is necessary to examine the concepts of randomness, kindness and action.
What is it that makes Mayor Richard Berry think that the citizens of Albuquerque don't realize and appreciate the fact that police officers have a difficult and dangerous job? In his remarks to the Albuquerque Bar Association, he urged the public to demand accountability from the police department while at the same time recognizing the dangers of police work. Is this just another attempt by the mayor to gloss over the real issue - that the U.S. Department of Justice has cited APD for operating in a culture of aggression and a pattern of violating citizen's constitutional rights?
Mr. Darensburg’s impassioned analysis of New Mexican emigration touches upon the main cause: graduates getting “much better pay for the same skills in neighboring states.” But the rest of his reasons just reflect the important issues at the top his mind and not of the typical person deciding where to live.
Solutions by The State News
