Hey here’s a great idea for a TV show about Albuquerque

First, this news item from the Albuquerque Tribune:

Police say somebody stole an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” utility truck from the parking lot of a hotel near the Big-I on Tuesday night — the same day the crew unveiled a new home to a Southeast Heights family.

The show was in town to build a home for the Martinez family, who live in the Trumbull Village neighborhood, known for its history of crime and poverty — a fact mentioned repeatedly on promotional material for the show.

Here’s my idea — Extreme Makeover: Cops Edition.

Bad boys, bad boys, what’cha gonna do
What’cha gonna do when they come for you

The problem with my idea is that four years ago Mayor Marty banned Cops from filming in Albuquerque. “The city’s police officers are portrayed in a good light, but the rest of the city looks horrible. That has a real impact. That’s all people see, and that’s not who we are.”

Tell that to the Extreme Makeover guys.

Aztec Ruins National Monument (New Mexico)

… was established on this date in 1923.

Around 1100 A.D. ancient peoples embarked on an ambitious building project along the Animas River in northwestern New Mexico. Work gangs excavated, filled, and leveled more than two and a half acres of land. Masons laid out sandstone blocks in intricate patterns to form massive stone walls. Wood-workers cut and carried heavy log beams from mountain forests tens of miles away. In less than three decades they built a monumental “great house” three-stories high, longer than a football field, with perhaps 500-rooms including a ceremonial “great kiva” over 41-feet in diameter.

A short trail winds through this massive site offering a surprisingly intimate experience. Along the way visitors discover roofs built 880 years ago, original plaster walls, a reed mat left by the inhabitants, intriguing “T” shaped doorways, provocative north-facing corner doors, and more. The trail culminates with the reconstructed great kiva, a building that inherently inspires contemplation, wonder, and an ancient sense of sacredness.

Aztec Ruins National Monument

He’s not my mayor

“After discussing the issue and at the request of several legislators, Governor Richardson has agreed to put the red-light camera issue on the agenda for the ongoing session,” the New Mexico governor’s blog stated. “The governor believes it is reasonable for the legislature to revisit the issue.”

Richardson, who recently dropped out of the presidential race, is taking aim at Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez (D) who recently quit his run for the US Senate. Chavez had promised Richardson that he would drop the cost of fines in return for the veto, but Chavez has failed to hold up his end of the bargain. By doing so, Chavez has enjoyed $11.7 million in revenue since 2005 with more than $5.1 million in net profit to spend on new government programs.

Chavez briefly toyed with the idea of killing his automated ticketing program after it proved unpopular and became a drag on his aspirations to higher office. The city council, however, recently discovered that it has no ability to cancel the contract because of backroom agreements Chavez made with Australian vendor Redflex in 2005. The changes erased a cancellation clause that had been part of a draft contact approved by the city council. Some council members expressed concern that after more than two years of ticketing, even the city’s “blue ribbon panel” comprised of government officials and the insurance industry failed to generate evidence that the program has provided a public safety benefit.

The Newspaper

Additional key quote: “The council is also powerless to change the per-ticket method of compensation that gives Redflex up to $45 for each ticket it is able to issue.”

Mayor Marty is looking to the courts to overturn the limit that prevents him from seeking a third term. It seems to this observer (who doesn’t live in the city) that it’s the people of Albuquerque that should be looking to the courts — to remove the mayor from office.

White Sands National Monument (New Mexico)

… was established by President Herbert Hoover on this date in 1933.

At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain ringed valley called the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world’s great natural wonders - the glistening white sands of New Mexico.

Here, great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert and have created the world’s largest gypsum dune field. The brilliant white dunes are ever changing: growing, cresting, then slumping, but always advancing. Slowly but relentlessly the sand, driven by strong southwest winds, covers everything in its path.

White Sands National Monument

Brrrr!

17º here at 6:30 PM — on a day where it never got above 28º or so at Casa NewMexiKen. That’s unusual and I don’t like it.

Bundle up.

New Mexico Road Food

When you’re driving across America’s wide-open spaces, your worst enemies are an empty tank and an empty belly. Although a car may not be picky about the brand of gas you put into it, a body cannot run on beef jerky alone. That’s why we’re crazy about NEW MEXICO ROAD FOOD. Perhaps it’s the harmonious convergence of Mexican, American Indian, and Western-frontier cooking traditions found there, or maybe it’s the daunting distances between population centers, but we know of no other state in the Union where you can so consistently find such tasty cooking along the asphalt byways, often only steps from the gas pump.

The 2008 SAVEUR 100

Follow the link for a number of suggested pit stops.

Thanks to Colorado Luis for the pointer.

New Mexico

… was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on this date in 1912.

Become America’s 22nd largest landowner

In just one $115 million installment — buy a 250,000 acre parcel of Bell Ranch in northeastern New Mexico.

An interesting article in The Albuquerque Journal ($) includes this:

There aren’t many pieces of private land left in this country where a man can stare for miles in any direction and see nothing but his own domain. The Bell is one.

The person who buys it will be the 22nd-largest landowner in the country, according to a ranking The Land Report magazine published in August.

But whoever saddles up to the $115 million asking price will be buying more than just land. They’ll be buying a piece— a very big piece— of history.

The Bell Ranch started to take shape in 1824 when a newly independent Mexico granted 655,000 acres of Indian hunting grounds to Pablo Montoya, a former captain in the Spanish army. It wasn’t until 1872 that cattle were brought to the ranch by its third owner, Wilson Waddingham. A “flamboyant Canadian” who fancied himself an Englishman, Waddingham personified cattle barons of the era and registered the Bell brand in 1874.

In the Spirit of the Season

This video was developed and produced by Mudhouse Advertising to help raise awareness about issues of homelessness. For every unique viewing, Mudhouse will donate $1 (up to $10,000) to support ArtStreet programming.

Almost the perfect winter’s day

It has been snowing fairly hard and fairly consistently at Casa NewMexiKen since 7:30 this morning, yet there is no accumulation on the pavement.

Beauty without the inconvenience.

Simply put, Albuquerque has the best four-season climate in the U.S.

Update: At 1PM it’s snowing and the sun is out. I’m thinking someone is making soap snowflakes around here like at Disneyland.

Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico

Gosh, Karen makes me homesick and it’s not even Christmas and I’m at home — Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico.

Mayor Marty update

For those few NewMexiKen readers outside New Mexico who may have been following the saga of Albuquerque Mayor Marty in the U.S. senate race, this is just to let you know he quit the race last Friday.

A poll had him behind Rep. Tom Udall for the Democratic primary by 30 points.

Flip Flop

In May, [Albuquerque Mayor] Chavez had announced plans to expand his program to include freeway-based speed cameras. In April, he successfully lobbied New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) to veto legislation that would have limited profit from automated ticketing. The pro-camera lobbying effort was so strong that leaders of the state legislature asked for an investigation into whether lobbying rules were violated.

Despite this active and effective role in the photo enforcement program, the official Chavez for Senate campaign website biography limits his most important mayoral accomplishments to: “He declared war on gangs, graffiti and DWI.” Photo ticketing does not merit even a brief mention on an extensive list of his accomplishments while in office.

The Newspaper

Everybody’s Running

The New York Times takes a look at the New Mexico senate race — Political Upheaval Follows a Rare Decision to Retire.

Absolutely nothing new or revealing, but . . .

Ghost birds

NewMexiKen has clerestory windows on both the east and west side of my living room. These are delightful in innumerable ways — the morning light, the evening color, seeing the moon and stars or the glow of the Albuquerque lights reflected on the mountains at night.

There are alas, two downsides. For one, it is almost impossible to watch TV when the sun shines directly in the west windows in the afternoon or early evening (depending on the time of year). And two, the bird-brained birds fly into the windows because (I’m guessing) they can see straight through the house.

At the moment there are three “etchings” in the glass from these collisions. The impact is so hard the bird leaves an imprint of itself that would do the Shroud of Turin proud. Of the three impressions currently, one is head on, one appears to be an oblique shot, and one is wings extended. If you click on the image and look carefully you can see this last image, almost like a ghost.

And perhaps it is a ghost, though in nearly nine years I have found just one carcass.

There are by the way six or seven quail gobbling up this morning’s birdseed as I speak. Still time to get in your Thanksgiving orders.

The photo was taken from the living room at around 9:30 this morning. The plants on the berm are — ah choo! — chamisa (Chrysothamnus nauseosus), its fall yellow dying away, and Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), its lavender flowers long gone.

Gila Cliff Dwellings (New Mexico)

… was proclaimed a national monument 100 years ago today by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument offers a glimpse of the homes and lives of the people of the Mogollon culture who lived in the Gila Wilderness from the 1280s through the early 1300s. The surroundings probably look today very much like they did when the cliff dwellings were inhabited.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

Getting Lost in History in the Other Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, N.M., laid claim to its name about 70 years before that upstart neon metropolis sprang out of the sands of Nevada — and it shows. With only about 14,000 people, this Las Vegas has 900 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, four grand old hotels (two still accepting guests), and not one but two period-piece downtowns.

Its Old West credentials are solid. Doc Holliday had a dentist’s office in town, and Billy the Kid hung out there. Teddy Roosevelt recruited some of his Rough Riders in Las Vegas and spent a not-so-rough stay at the local hot-springs castle. And before that, this was a stop on the Santa Fe Trail.

Read more about Las Vegas from The New York Times.

‘Chavez is an ass’

It seems kos doesn’t much like Albuquerque’s Mayor Marty.

“Oh, I soo hope Chavez doesn’t drop out of the Senate race. It’ll be sweet seeing him go down, along with his crooked political career.”

Geez, even NewMexiKen wouldn’t go that far.

On second thought . . .

Just in case you’re keeping score

Albuquerque’s Mayor Marty, until yesterday the biggest champion of the much-disliked red-light cameras in the city, has now decided to appoint “a nine-member independent task force to look at every aspect of the program.”

This has absolutely nothing to do with his campaign for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. senate.

The Phantom

The neighborhood phantom that NewMexiKen has mentioned previously still shows up in the evening from time-to-time, parks his car across the street (in front of the vacant house) and wanders off for 15-20 minutes or more.

He was here tonight early as I headed out to dinner and still here when I got home (much longer than his usual M.O.). He was walking up the street as I drove in and I’d have to say he looked away to avoid being seen directly in my headlights. I pulled in the garage, closed the garage door, and went through the house and quietly into my front courtyard where I doubted I could be seen. When he got near his car I spoke.

“Just curious, you’ve been parking there for off-and-on for some time now. What are you up to.”

“I like this neighborhood. I just like the way it smells. I like the smell of the flowers.”

Well, that solves that. Makes perfect sense to me.

Don’t drive and talk

According to a report in the Albuquerque Tribune, 798 drivers have been cited for talking on a hand-held cell phone since the ordinance went into effect. Two have been cited twice since enforcement began in April.

It’s $100 for the first offense; $200 for subsequent offenses. Those would be a pretty expensive calls.

NewMexiKen sees this violated all the time, including one police officer I noticed using a hand-held phone while driving.

Elsewhere The Newspaper.com has a lengthy piece on red-light and speed cameras — The Roads Have Eyes.

Death and Taxes

Well, taxes anyway.

NewMexiKen received the property tax bill today — just seven days before the first half is due. (Nice work, Bernalillo County!)

Most of the agencies are up a few dollars but a couple are down a few too. One however, is a big change. The taxes for Albuquerque Public Schools are up a whooping 29.2% over last year.

Now I happen to think schools are underfunded and teachers (most of them anyway) underpaid. But 29% in one year? I need to start paying attention — it’s 36% of my tax bill.

Here’s another interesting one — taxes for the University of New Mexico Hospital are 22% of my total bill.

And overall, in eight years, my property taxes are up 50%. (The assessment is up just 22%, so most of the increase is in the tax rates.)

How about you? Do you ever look at your property tax bill?

Is this a good thing?

With an open Senate seat for the first time in 25 years and THREE open House seats, New Mexico is shaping up as the center of the political universe in 2008.

The Fix

And for those of you unaware, New Mexico only has THREE House seats. In other words, 80% of the New Mexico Congressional delegation is on the line next year. (Chris Cillizza above is assuming Rep. Tom Udall will run for the Senate — meaning all three House members are in the fight.)

And another “Why ask why?” question. A significant number of state and local New Mexico politicians appear to have Hispanic origins. None of the current Congressional delegation — Domenici, Bingaman, Wilson, Udall or Pearce — appear to. Why is that?

I know he’s not doing well in the polls

But Bill Richardson would be the best president of the lot. For example:

My opinion of Gov. Bill Richardson has just grown by leaps and bounds. He has appointed veteran criminal defense lawyer Charlie Daniels (a real criminal defense lawyer, by the way, who truly believes in and has been passionate about defending the rights of the accused his entire career) to be a Justice on the New Mexico Supreme Court.

Talk Left

Sort of the anti-Alito.

Best redux line of the day, so far

Grandpa NewMexiKen keeps telling The Sweeties® they should move to New Mexico because we not only have Santa Claus, we also have Santa Fe!

(And, when you think about it, Santa Fe is a fantasy a lot like Santa Claus, only in earth tones.)

Enchanted Skies star party

Angel Station has a great description of an evening I’m very sorry to have missed. I’ve included some here to whet your interest, but you really need to go read it all.

What happens at the Enchanted Skies star party is that you show up and are given a BBQ chuckwagon dinner with all the trimmins. Then you sit on hay bales around the campfire circle, eat your dinner, and watch the sun set over the San Mateo Mountains while cowboy singer Doug Figgs entertains you with western ballads. (”Let me tell you ’bout the horses on my strang.”) This year he brought a fiddler with him.

Next, as the sky darkens and the tiny crescent new moon drops below the horizon, you listen to storyteller Great Bear Cornucopia (he answers to “G.B.”) tell Indian legends about the stars. He’s the “night sky interpreter” at the Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, living among Anasazi ruins and the Navajo Nation, and he knows a lot of Indian legends about the stars. These always include the story of “How Coyote Fucked Up the Stars,” which is told in so many variations that it doesn’t get boring when you hear it year after year.

I’ve been waiting for you, Obi-wan. We meet again at last.

Buggs’ Blog has three great photos from Thursday night’s Balloon Fiesta glow — including the Darth Vader balloon.

Chaco Canyon just got closer

Friday!

That’s when The University of New Mexico and the National Park Service plan to open the 1.5 million-piece Chaco Collection at the university’s Hibben Center, said Wendy Bustard, the collection’s curator.

The collection includes items such as prehistoric pottery, stone and bone tools, sandals and matting, Bustard said, but isn’t limited to those items. The items range in age from A.D. 850 to A.D. 1200.

Santa Fe New Mexican

Chaco Canyon served as a major urban center of ancestral Puebloan culture. Remarkable for its monumental public and ceremonial buildings, engineering projects, astronomy, artistic achievements, and distinctive architecture, it served as a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area for 400 years–unlike anything before or since.

National Park Service

Thanks to dangerousmeta! for the link — and the heads up.

Truest — and saddest — line of the day, so far

“[L]aunching a balloon is never mandatory, but landing it always is.”

The above from hot air balloon pilots quoted in the Albuquerque Tribune in a story about a fatality as a woman fell about 80-feet from a balloon gondola Monday morning. The balloon, Heavenly Ride, was carrying four paid passengers when it collided with a utility line. A tether to people on the ground was used to steady the balloon; the line snapped, tipping the wicker gondola as the balloon rose quickly.

The last fatality at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta was in 1998. It too was a balloon carrying paid passengers. Balloon pilots NewMexiKen knows told me last night that accidents are often (usually) commercial balloons, as they tend to fly in more borderline conditions.

On Saturday, balloonists in the second (and later) wave of launches were told the wind was increasing and to treat their flight like a first date: “Don’t go far and come home early.” Commercial balloons don’t always have that prerogative.

What I Want For Election ‘08

New Mexicans interested in politics and sharing more or less NewMexiKen’s outlook should be sure to read Burque Babble’s What I Want For Election ‘08.

NewMexiKen, too, might vote for Republican Wilson in a Wilson (R) vs. Mayor Marty (D) senate race. And I have never voted for a Republican, and I have been voting since 1966. I even voted for Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale once (for mayor of Oakland, California — he came in second of nine).

Photo Enforcement Generating Millions

All together, [Albuquerque] collected $10,611,397 in revenue and handed over $2,844,920 to Redflex. This left the city with between $5.8 and $7.8 million in net profit. The precise figure is not known as officials charged as photo enforcement expenses a number of part and full-time police officer salaries as well as the entire administrative hearing office budget. The audit report sidestepped the question of whether the ticketing program has had any beneficial effect on traffic accidents. It mentioned that police could claim only two of the nineteen intersections with cameras might have seen a decrease in accidents.

TheNewspaper

I like this most about our local system: “The so-called ’speed on green’ feature ensures that motorists will not be able to adjust their speed to make it through a short yellow light without getting a ticket.”

None of the above

The retirement of Senator Pete Domenici has put our local politicos and journalists into a tither. C’mon, none of you thought an increasingly unpopular 75-year-old who wears pajamas to work might not run? It’s unexpected, but surely not a shock.

The speculation this morning about the probable senate candidates and then who will rush to fill the other chairs has NewMexiKen thinking about Bill [Richardson] and the 7 dwarves.

Mayor Marty couldn’t win reelection in Albuquerque today. Why would anyone think he’d be a good U.S. senator?

Current Representative Heather “Are you working on those indictments?” Wilson barely won her race last year. She’d get about three votes in northern New Mexico (and those from former Texans living in Santa Fe).

Patricia Madrid. Puh-leese, she is so o-ver. She couldn’t beat Wilson in a Democratic year. And god forbid if there was a candidates debate. Might as well have that big hair blonde that does the Beaver Toyota ads run.

It’s enough to give me a brain disease.

The scramble begins

U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) will announce tomorrow that he will not run for reelection next year.

Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post broke the story today at 2:30 MT.

Domenici was first elected to the Senate in 1972.

Interesting fact NewMexiKen did not know. Domenici’s parents were immigrants — from Italy.

Best line of the day about Albuquerque’s Mayor Marty, so far

“There was a comment made tonight that [Mayor Chavez] was offering an olive branch. He needs to bring the whole tree.”

Councilman Brad Winter quoted in the Albuquerque Tribune.

Albuquerque election

Albuquerque’s city council election was yesterday and though NewMexiKen doesn’t live in the city, I had posted an item or two here about the goings on.

You may remember the mail-order college degrees candidate. She got 18.6% of the vote in her district.

Indeed all the candidates endorsed by Mayor Marty seem to have lost. Maybe a few more pandas and a few more red-light cameras Marty, and your popularity will take off.

Or maybe, just maybe, being mayor isn’t about you. Maybe it’s about us.

2007 Balloon Fiesta!

The 2007 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta begins this coming Saturday and runs through the following Sunday, October 14.

Two years ago NewMexiKen posted photos and text about the preparation, launch and landing of a balloon — Balloon Fiesta!

Pueblo, Colorado, has a river walk

Pueblo — that city we hurry past on our way to Denver — has a river walk. But, oh no, not Albuquerque!

Pueblo, CO: Interactive - Virtual Magazine

The City Different

NewMexiKen sees that Santa Fe has slipped behind Albuquerque suburb Rio Rancho and is now just the Land of Enchantment’s fourth most populated city. (Albuquerque is first; Las Cruces is second.)

Is it no wonder?

The appearance of the town defies description, and I can compare it to nothing but a dilapidated brick-kiln or a prairie-dog town. The inhabitants are worthy of their city, and a more miserable, vicious-looking population it would be impossible to imagine. Neither was the town improved, at the time of my visit, by the addition to the population of some three thousand Americans, the dirtiest, rowdiest crew I have ever seen collected together. Crowds of drunken volunteers [American soldiers] filled the streets, brawling and boasting, but never fighting; Mexicans, wrapped in serapes, scowled upon them as they passed; donkey-loads of hoja—corn-shucks—were hawked about for sale; and Pueblo Indians and priests jostled the rude crowds of brawlers at every step. Under the portals were numerous monte-tables, surrounded by Mexicans and Americans. Every other house was a grocery, as they call a gin or whisky shop, continually disgorging reeling, drunken men, and everywhere filth and dirt reigned triumphant.

[George F. Ruxton, an Englishman, who visited in 1846. Quoted in David Dary's The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore.]

NewMexiKen loves Santa Fe, a city that works very hard at maintaining its image. Still, it’s good to throw a little reality about their past at them from time-to-time.

Best line of the day, so far

“Taxation, which they dislike; slavery, which they hate, and Texas, which they most cordially abhor.”

Bvt. Major Henry L. Kendrick, writing about New Mexicans, quoted in an Austin, Texas, newspaper in 1850.

We’re pretty much still like that.

A little New Mexico history

The first American governor of New Mexico, Charles Bent, was beaten, murdered and mutilated in his Taos home in front of his family on January 19, 1847. The assassins were from the nearby pueblo but their action was part of a larger insurrection by Mexicans and Indians against the American conquest. Several other Americans were killed.

If you’ve been to Taos Pueblo, you’ve seen the ruins of San Jeronimo church. To capture the insurgents taking refuge inside, the U.S. Army destroyed the church with fire and artillery on February 4, 1847. An estimated 150 Indians were killed in that and the subsequent pursuit, and several more were tried and hanged as ringleaders. (The father of one of the American victims presided over the trial.)

All part of that “peaceful” conquest of New Mexico we learned about.