On Friday, March 31, a group of students at the University of New Mexico gathered in protest outside the philosophy department offices after the University declared the college of arts and sciences officially part of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
This past week, the ROTC led a coup d'etat that resulted in the ousting of Garnett Stokes as the University of New Mexico’s president and the installation of a puppet government.The cadets seized power after learning that there was an oil reserve under Stokes's house. The former president was arrested immediately on the grounds of caring too much about the environment. University officials reportedly regret “caring too much for the environment,” in light of the coup.
Undergraduate Laura Driver from the University of New Mexico will stand trial for collecting nearly 500 parking citations thus far in the 2022-2023 academic year, amounting to $12,500, according to Karen Patton, the University of New Mexico’s Parking and Transportation Service public information officer.
The Straight White Male Resource Center has worked faithfully to create a vibrant community at UNM focused on raising visibility and support for all straight white males on campus. The center is delighted to bring resources and community to all students who qualify to the specific straight, white and male constraints, according to the center’s president Jake Micheals. Micheals — former social media director of Sigma Chi, 2019 Wii Golf Intermediate Level Champion and the loudest man in your political science class — is interested in providing services that combat hateful environments on campus and protect the privacy of its members (men who are straight and white).
This past weekend, fraternities at the University of New Mexico gathered at a summit on Johnson Field to sign a non-hazing pledge. They vowed to hold each other accountable and never again subject initiates to the cruel and unusual punishments that come with joining their organizations (wink). The men participating in the on-campus frats gathered unsupervised to conduct a meeting to write and sign the pledge; a passerby reported hearing gales of laughter from the gathering group.
This past week, a new film was released in location. The adjective film starred name, a nepotism baby, who was more adjective than expected. Though the film was negative adjective, it ultimately past verb my expectations.
The second annual New Mexico Renaissance Celtic Festival was held this past weekend, March 24 to 26, at Wildlife West Nature Park in Edgewood NM. The event, which also hosted a variety of Celtic, medieval, viking and pirate-themed celebrations, included vendors, performers, cosplayers and more. Eric Vigil, who also produces the annual Pirate and Viking Summer Bash, created this event in part to celebrate the Scottish clans of those who live in New Mexico. This year’s Celtic celebrations included local dance performances from the McTeggart Irish Dancers and Highland Dancers of Albuquerque, as well as music performances by Albuquerque-based artists.
This spring, the ABQ BioPark Zoo asked the community to donate any old cell phones and electronics to help save chimps and other wildlife, according to the city of Albuquerque website. The ABQ BioPark will send outdated and old technology to be recycled through ECO-CELL, a company that focuses on recycling electronics. This is part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ initiative “Gorillas on the Line,” according to Patrick Horley, ABQ BioPark aquarist.
In Lana Del Rey’s new album, “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd,” released on March 24, she insists we are wrong about her. Del Rey embodies an attitude that succeeds in representing the violence and anxieties of girlhood, but fails to respond to her history of cultural appropriation. She fills 1 hour and 17 minutes with conflicted representations of family, memory and legacy. Her song “Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing,” the 11th song on the album, begins by confronting common claims about her manufactured identity into her lyricism: “I know they think that it took somebody else to make me beautiful … but they’re wrong.”
As midterms wrap up and the semester progresses, many students may find themselves burnt out or exhausted. David Hernandez, a third-year vocal performance and international studies student at the University of New Mexico, gave his tips on how he takes time to relax and be present as the second half of the semester starts. Yoga Yoga is a spiritual and physical practice that can be meditative and offer peace of mind, along with being a way to stretch and care for your body. Recently getting back into practicing yoga, Hernandez said it gives him a reason to wake up early and de-stress before the day.
Krystah Pacheco won the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico president-elect and Mikenzie Chessman won vice president-elect during elections held from March 8 to 9 for the 2023-24 school year president and vice president term. Pacheco and Chessman ran together and were both number two on their respective ballots: Pacheco won the presidency by 296 votes and Chessman won the vice presidency by 281. Pacheco touched on what she thinks helped them reach students during the election. “I think going to student organization meetings and not just presenting what our campaign was, but really opening it up for feedback,” Pacheco said.
Legislation that blocks the proposed construction of a storage facility for the nation’s nuclear waste in Southeast New Mexico passed into law Friday, March 17 at the New Mexico State Legislature. The bill, formally known as Senate Bill 53, was passed 35-28 and was signed into law by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham the same day. The company Holtec International had planned to construct and operate the site that would have housed nuclear waste from commercial power plants around the United States, transported by railway into New Mexico. The bill states that no disposal facilities can be created without the state’s consent and creates a radioactive waste consultation task force to negotiate on behalf of the state on such issues with the federal goverment.
Weems Gallery & Framing, a local art gallery, has partnered up with the Albuquerque Domestic Violence Resource Center to host a private fundraiser and raise funds to increase resources at the center. The event will take place in April, according to a press release. In the United States, almost 20 people are physically abused by their intimate partner every minute. In New Mexico, “37.6% of New Mexican women and 33.3% of New Mexican men experience intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking in their lifetimes,” according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
The Albuquerque Isotopes unveiled their new concessions items for the upcoming 2023 season on Friday, March 24. Hungry fans can rest easy: almost everything sampled was a homerun. The executive chef of the ballpark, Jim Griego, crafted these new food creations; his inspiration came from wanting to give fans variety. “I wanted fans to feel like when they came to the park, there was choices. There were not just, a hot dog or a hamburger,” Griego said. “I wanted them to feel like they could come here and have a food destination.”
The most dangerous 8 seconds in sports came to Albuquerque with the Ty Murray Invitational as part of the Professional Bull Riding "Unleash The Beast" tour. It was a near sold out crowd all three days of the event. In PBR riders have to stay on their bull for 8 seconds to receive a score. If the rider is able to do so he receives a score for how well he rode out of 50. The bull also receives a score out of 50 depending on how hard they bucked. These scores are added together for the ride's total score.
The use of film photography has soared since 2015, according to The New York Times. Film photography has been matched with certain aesthetics that overwhelm social media feeds with grainy, lower quality “photo dumps.” Curating posts that strive for perfection have become “cringe,” according to an article from Vogue that explains how photo dumps have answered “overly-manicured” aesthetics with the “moodiness of Tumblr-era emo sensibilities.” Social media platform Tumblr could have had an effect on the resurgence of film, according to Emma Ressel, a first year photography graduate student at the University of New Mexico.
When I taught expository writing at the University of New Mexico in 2018, my students read “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. A staple of most high school English classes in the U.S., a lot of students dismiss the book as being just “a fairy story.” A few students asked me why they had to read it again in college, and I asked them to be patient and see if they could glean anything new. Once you understand a story’s plot, you can focus on dialogue, setting, characterization, theme, historical context — all elements of a good story that point a reader toward its deeper ideas.
The newest album by Fall Out Boy, titled “So Much (For) Stardust,” proves it was never just a phase, mom. The eighth album sees the band going back to their earlier work in more ways than one without feeling played out. The album feels like a reaffirmation by the band of what made them great with the intent to move forward. This album balances long ballads with shorter pieces of spoken poetry and monologues. This album is longer than the band's previous three albums with 13 tracks coming in at a total of 44 minutes and 20 seconds. Fall Out Boy makes good use of the time, repeating themes of moving on — but still holding on — throughout the album.
Oscar Wilde famously said, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” Yet, “Life x 3,” the latest show to be put on by the Fusion Theatre Company in Albuquerque, takes inspiration from the nature of the universe itself, according to Jacqueline Reid, the director of Fusion’s expansive production of the show. Written by Yasmina Reza, “Life x 3” presents the same raucous dinner party from three different possible universes, which the press release describes as “a time/space continuum of repetition, redundancy, and revelation within the most intimate of relationships and their elemental ties to the universe.”
For 12 years, the University of New Mexico’s Lobo Gardens have been growing as a University mainstay for the creation of community, environmental awareness and, of course, delicious produce. Tucked behind a building on the corner of Vassar Drive NE and Campus Boulevard NE, this quiet growing space and “living laboratory” teems with life, according to volunteer coordinator Amara Szrom. The Gardens are an open space for students to help, learn and grow their own plants. In addition to being a volunteer space open on Tuesdays from 1 to 3 p.m., classes, workshops and guest speakers are hosted out of the garden as a part of its role as an outdoor classroom, according to Szrom.
Solutions by The State News
