What's In A Fire Name?

It's mid-April and much of the state is already in a perpetual swath of "red flag warning" alerts on Wunderground for fire danger. If I follow the news correctly, firefighters just finished containing the "Lumbre" fire near Vaughn and are in process on putting out the "Ojo Feliz" fire north of Mora. The danger has become at this point a semi-permanent fixture for New Mexico.

I could get into my personal beliefs about global warming (and it's interesting to use the word "belief" in reference to human-influenced meteorological phenomenon) and my limited understanding of "La Nina", so I'll just focus on something that's bothered me regarding the fires for some time. Namely, how do we name these things?

Who gets the job of naming these fires, and why are the names almost universal in their bewildering obscurity? I know there must be a rhyme/reason to the process, and that putting monikers on them like "that big ass fire over there" doesn't relate significant information, but how much useful information is being generated by giving names like "Lumbre" and "Ojo Feliz"? What's the percentage of New Mexicans who would respond to terms like "Lumbre" by saying, "what the Hell is that?" and "Ojo Feliz" by saying, "is that the bar in Jemez Springs or that village with the hot baths up past Espanola?"

Which gets me to an idea. Let's put in a system to naming fires similar to the hurricane naming thing. Why should the hurricane-naming World Meteorological Organization (WMO) get all the fun, when we could create a New Mexico Big-Ass Fire Organization (BAFO) whose job it would be to create a list of annual alphabetized names to rattle off as the inevitable conflagrations start up around the state.

BAFO could get the kids involved by starting up a naming contest every Winter for the upcoming year. School districts and teachers could stop the continuous cycle of testing and more testing to have one day of in-class brainstorming to think of a new batch of names for the next year's fires. BAFO could pick the winners ala the Spelling Bee.

Fires that proved to be really awful could have their names retired by BAFO, leaving us all to remember them in a vaguely twisted nostalgia: "man, I remember Fire Betsy back in '07, now that was some big-ass fire."

The way I see it, the fire danger is pretty much a fixture on the NM scene for, well, forever. We might as well have some fun with it. Naming things "Lumbre" and "Ojo Feliz" just reminds people that they suck at geography and that "ojo" is Spanish for "eye" ("Lucky/Happy Eye"...what kind of name for a fire is that?)

We might not be able to stop the weather patterns or our influence on them, but we sure as heck can put better names on 'em than "Lumbre". If we can spend $300,000+ to change TVI to Central New Mexico Community College, why can we spend a few bucks to give our new permanent friend, the out-of-control fire, a name as well?

The fires are now part of our state...our collective culture. Let's slap some real names on 'em.

Old Rancid Wine in New Wicked Bottles

I've had Kevin Boyle's telling of a 1925 race-related murder and aftermath, Arc of Justice, on my shelf for a few months and finally picked it up. I find the paragraph below in the prologue of the book:


"The nativists campaign reached high tide in 1924. Anti-immigrant groups had been demanding for years that Congress restrict entry into the United States. The pressure became intense in the early 1920s. Veterans groups lobbied their representatives, the Klan launched a massive letter-writing campaign, businessmen endorsed restriction, and nativist scientists and authors appeared before congressional committees to explain the growing threat to the American racial stock. Congress finally surrendered in the spring of 1924. The National Origins Act imposed such strict limits on the number of immigrants allowed into the country that, for all intents and purposes, it ended the great era of immigration, now eight decades old. Ethnic spokesmen pleaded with the president to veto the bill. But (Calvin) Coolidge remained silent, as was his habit."

How far we've come in 80+ years. How very far.

Who Doesn't Love Surveys?

In an effort to make Burque Babble even more irritating, I threw a little survey together....let's see if this works

Click here to take survey

The Sublime and the Ridiculously Useless

I finally got off my lazy bohiney Sunday and experienced for the first time this year my absolute favorite thing about ABQ: the Bosque Bike Trail. Evidently, the trail is a favorite for many of us, as approximately 70% of the city's population was using it as I huffed and puffed my way up and back to Paseo from Rio Bravo.

Perhaps hard to believe, but I don't have a single sarcastic thing to say about the trail. Well, okay there's is one thing, but it doesn't have to do with the trail itself. Have you seen the Disneyfication of Tingley "Beach" yet? I was in wanna-be Lance Armstrong mode and didn't take any pictures last Sunday, but here is a webpage from the City on the "beach" including pictures of the new "train" and "train station".

If anything ever deserved quotation marks, it is the Tingley Beach renovation and in particular its "train" and "train station". It is precisely projects like this that make me wonder about humanity and whether I am a member of the same species as other supposed homo sapiens. I say this because from all accounts I've read this wholly inorganic, superficial tourist attraction is popular. Meanwhile, in my book about the lowest thing you can ever call something is an "inorganic superficial tourist attraction".

And besides...didn't Feudal Prince Marty balk at building a new Amtrak station? So instead he/the City builds a useless Disney train station gift shop for a "train" that runs about 400 yards?

That's it...I want some DNA screening. Either I or most of the "humans" on the planet have some pretty big gene coding differences.

Oh...but the Bosque Trail itself is great, and I'll be out there again this weekend.

La Raza and the Democrats-in-Hiding

The "National Day of Action" Immigration Rallies (AKA: "National Marches to Cause Lou Dobbs to Have a Brain Aneurysm") are interesting on a number of levels:

• Where are the Democrats, especially New Mexico Democrats running for office at these things? In the wholly mortal words of 70s rock band UFO it's "Too...Too Hot...Too Hot to Handle" (and yes, I'm guessing that will be the only time I ever make a mention or even think of the band UFO again).

• But what would Bobby Kennedy have done in this situation? Exactly.

• I guess it's pretty obvious the Democratic Party could use a Bobby Kennedy or two right now.

• Or a Hispanic Bobby Kennedy, and no I haven't seen hide, hair nor cowboy boot from Bill Richardson anytime lately. Only quotes from conference calls with reporters while he "explores" running for President. Here's the latest quote I've found from him:

"While they're debating in Congress, while we're talking on this conference call, illegal immigrants and drugs are crossing the border into New Mexico," Richardson said. "They're in our communities, they're in our hospitals, they're in our alfalfa fields, their children are in our schools."

• And yes, the level of fear-mongering in that quote (especially the "they're in our....") is on a par with what you might expect from a description of Al Qaeda.
  

• Local Report Interlude #1: Speaking of missing something, a co-South Valley resident just reported that the drive home down Bridge and over toward Central and Coors was a bit of a madhouse. The highlight: a woman pops through a car sunroof topless except for a scant Mexican flag bandana/chestwrap.
  

• Local Report Interlude #2: A friend who works at Highland High School reports that the lunchtime protest was calm and orderly, perhaps made more so by the announced policy that no "calls to incite violence" would be tolerated. "Si, se puede!....well, we can if we keep our voices down, maybe to a whisper and then just shuffle off to Fourth Period".

• Meanwhile, back in the world of making political sausage, that new moderate Republican Heather Wilson was one of 17 House Republicans who voted against the heinous Tancredo, et. al. House Bill passed last December. That's the one that included provision for 698 miles of double-layer border fence, and was significant in getting us to the marching we've seen the past few days.

• Interestingly, even the good community activists at SWOP recognize that Wilson has consistently voted against anti-Immigration legislation, and her voting record on the issue is almost identical to that of Rep. Udall over the years.
  

• Okay, enough Heather love...it's creeping me out.
  

• My point is that I don't understand the complete avoidance of New Mexico Democrats at rallies such as these given that even the so-called enemy has voted the same way on the issue. What is so controversial about standing up for a sensible immigration policy that acknowledges and appreciates the Mexican and other Central American "citizens" that are at the center of the debate?
  

• And why do I get the feeling the Left is somewhat uncomfortable with this whole "It's about Mexicans" thing? The Lou Dobbs foaming mouth old white guy arguments are sickening and overtly racist, but there's a vibe undercurrent to the Democratic response that doesn't feel quite right.

• By the way, if you haven't seen the Lou Dobbs show on CNN, it's because you have a brain and are not sickeningly fixated on bad political shows like I am, especially when I am at the health club and stuck on a treadmill with nothing to do but either stare at a mirror (why the mirrors at these health clubs...aren't we there because we don't like how we look in the mirror?!?) or stare at Lou Dobbs frothing about our "Broken Borders".

• But getting back to the Democrats...maybe in part the rather unsettling vibe is there because the Democrats are so obviously uncomfortable with the issue on some level, But why should they be?
  

• And I reiterate...what would Bobby Kennedy do?

• And lastly, speaking of feeling creepy....any series of marches in which the most prominent name/organization involved is Archbishop Michael Sheehan/The Catholic Church is gonna make me a little creeped out. Maybe the strong Church presence is one reason some on the farther Left are tip-toeing on the issues/rallies, but I'm just asking for a little more State and little less Church on this issue in the future. Especially State Democrats.
  

• Yes, that would include the current Governor and Attorney General.
  

Madrid And The Church of the "Heather = W" Chant

Update: Damn! I just spent a bunch of words/time on Patricia Madrid when I could have been writing about the far more important news that KATIC COURIC IS GOING TO CBS NEWS! Wow! Mindblowing! Worthy of multiple news stories, including one interviewing "media experts" on what it all means! (rr)

Well, criminy. I already spent all the words/time below on Madrid, so what the hey. If the extreme lack of KATIE COURIC coverage continues I'll weigh in on the global position altering importance of KATIE....but for now, less meaningful stuff....
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Okay, I just saw Patricia Madrid in action at the Democracy for New Mexico monthly meeting and I gotta say I have mixed feelings. I wanted to like Madrid as much as most of the crowd, a crowd at the Unitarian Church that admittedly would have cheered a Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat as long as the Australian marsupial constantly chanted "Heather IS George W. Bush...Heather IS George W. Bush" repeatedly between munches of sedge and roots.

And don't get me wrong...Madrid said all the right things, but almost exclusively only "right things" that were national in scope. Namely, she mentioned the following (in a stump speech with rather rambling interludes in which her wispy voice would almost sound like she was crying or at least getting her heart stuck in her throat):

• Katrina response
• Other incompetence and corruption in the W Administration
  
• The Fourth Amendment and the need to protect it
  
• Other Bill of Rights amendments and how the Administration was attacking them
• Something about Trade and China and the Dubai ports deal and how it all shows that the rest of the world is trying to buy the United States
• Medicare D "deserves a D" (this got a big laugh)
• Heather/Domenici voted for the evil Energy Bill
• An understandably long attack on the Iraq Invasion, including everything from "Mission Accomplished" to "Heather is not asking the tough questions" and "Heather just voted for more money for the war"
  
• Bring the troops home, set timeline (Big claps and excitement)

Then followed what I thought was the closest thing to a real New Mexico mention in the speech: a well-delivered explanation of the environmental work Madrid has done and positions taken on various enviro issues like Otero Mesa, Valle Vidal, roadless rules, groundwater restoration, silvery minnow/ESA stuff.

I realize that the environmental issues aren't limited to New Mexico, but, outside of a brief mention of predatory loans, there wasn't any reference to anything in or about New Mexico directly in the whole spiel. Nothing. So it was immediately back to:

• Heather voting for the evil Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005
  
• Why the Democrats must take back the House
• An interlude of sorts in which she talked about meeting Isabel Allende and Allende bringing up her uncle, the one assassinated in a CIA-sponsored coup by military thugs (great crowd groaning during the "with CIA help by the way" line), and how the same thing might happen here
  
• Oh, and by the way, Heather IS George W. Bush...Heather IS George W. Bush...Heather IS George W. Bush
  

The upshot was that Madrid's speech could almost have been delivered in Pennsylvania or Idaho to similar effect. And what is the effect of the Madrid campaign choosing to run against George W. Bush? I remember reading elsewhere on the blogs (and I forget who mentioned it earlier...was it Tim McGivern?) that this was the Madrid strategy, but having had a chance to see it live and in person I've got to say:

1. The maxim from the famous/infamous big-nosed Tip O'Neill that "all politics is local" is still my dominant paradigm.
2. Patsy selling Bush Bashing at the Dean-influenced Democracy for New Mexico is like shooting fish in a barrel with clusterbombs.
3. I still wonder how effective a purely national focus is gonna play in other constituencies and other parts of town.
4. I realize that Madrid might have a very different speech for more centrist crowds. For instance, AG Madrid never mentioned once her offices' extensive work on nabbing online predators. I'm sure that's in the speech in other venues, and I plan on attending some of those in coming weeks.
5. Still...I get a very queasy feeling with such a national focus. Study after study shows that voters might hate their national officeholders and national political institutions, but they still tend to disconnect their local Representative/Senator from the national institutions.
   
6. So, in my mind, Patricia/Patsy/Madrid needs to also run against Heather as a local representative, not merely as a national symbol of a national problem.
   
7. One part of my queasiness is the "national" focus of this race. As Madrid mentioned in her speech, the House #1 race is one of the most talked about in the nation. A disporportionate amount of press and punditry has been created already. Right now, Madrid seems to be responding to this national reaction by speaking to a national audience instead of a local one. I might be overreacting, but it was certainly the vibe I got, a vibe given some credence I think by the sheer preponderance of the national in her stump speech tonight.
8. Oh, by the way, despite saying the right thing about the Iraq Invasion, Madrid didn't sound very knowledgeable about what the military situation is now or what should happen to make it better in the near future. Right now if she debated Heather on this issue, it would be almost as ugly for Patsy as is the war itself. Definite work needed here.
   

Finally, after giving the speech with occasional somewhat rambling interludes, she only answered four questions from the audience. Four. Four stinking questions after having stood up DFNM a few months back at a scheduled meeting. It was mentioned that she was under a time constraint. Sorry, but that left a bad taste in my mouth...I mean I know we are the lefty choir and are very used to, at this point, being mistreated by our Democratic candidates.

Still, there should have been more questions. More questions about things in Albuquerque, New Mexico. More questions about gay marriage, Green Party status and some of the other "wacky" issues that might prevent a few on the supposedly far-left from voting for Madrid. Because we all know that it will only take a few to possibly swing this race, and because Democracy for New Mexico meetings is the perfect place to clean up issues like Madrid's gay marriage stand.

You know, the stand she took about the marriage licenses in Sandoval County. You know, in New Mexico. Real close to Albuquerque, New Mexico even. Like dangerously close to NM House District #1.

Update #2: A real good add-on follows in comments from Scott Hale, another spectator last night. I'd like to hear from others who were there as well, especially as the predominant vibe seemed much more positive than I felt. Maybe as a group we were just being nice...or maybe we lefties are so deprived of political love than when a politician just shows us the merest smidge of affection we get all blubbery.

And I'm even more ticked off about only being given four questions this morning than I was when I wrote the above last night. Geez...four.

Spring Training Politics, Beer and Other Sinful Matters

I notice Joltin' JoeMonahan.com has spent another 10 inches of electrons relating that Big Bill Richardson might not get 60% in his re-election win, this time because Hispanics can't stand him. I'm all for building excitement in political races, but last time I checked you can still win one of them Guv'nor races with less than 60% of the vote. If debating whether Big Bill gets 60 over and over constitutes building excitement we got us one hell of a boring Guv'nor race here.

And speaking of building electoral excitement...I'm giving Patsy Madrid one more chance and am actually venturing beyond the four psychedically painted walls of the Burque Babble Bunker to attend her alleged appearance Thursday night at the Democracy For New Mexico monthly meeting. My avid readership might remember that Patsy stood me up some months back at a scheduled DFNM meeting (which would have been the first I've ever attended). I was stung by the non-appearance, but I've had a few sessions of really helpful therapy on the subjects of grasping and letting go of insensitivity in those around me.

I'm ready and I'm giving Patsy another shot. Unless I don't get to my laundry by Thursday. Or I really feel a need to take a nap because of this darn time change. Or something. But seriously, that's it...I'm going this time, and Patsy's going. It's like we're going together. I'll have a report on BB here in a few days.

Yes, I am one of those people who shorten things down to an acronym when they really are short enough already and don't need acronymization.

On the subject of Patsy v. Heather (or Madrid v. Twistedly Kindler, Gentler Domenici Disciple [TKGDD] if you prefer a more respectful use of last names), my only current wager on the race is a six-pack of beer. That needs to change. So I'm making an all-call to those who wanna make an early season friendly wager on the House One race. I'll take the incumbent. No, you don't get points, or odds. Straight up, I've got Heather (AKA TKGDD) and you take Patsy.

I didn't say that's what I WANT to happen (not yet anyway...I still have the long-awaited date with Patsy coming up). It's just what I think WILL happen. You know, incumbents, never underestimate the stupidity of the American people...that sort of thing.

By the way, if brazenly announcing public call-outs for wagers on political races is illegal in New Mexico, that's pretty lame. Still, if so I'll add one of those disclaimers that my discussing the issue is purely for informational purposes only. And I'll post a Gambler's Anonymous 800 number, and make it flash at the bottom of the screen, along with a picture of our current NM Attorney General. I promise.

And for those of you still thinking it over, I'm not talking about some weak-ass Miller Light crap, but a six-pack of Stone IPA or equivalent. Let's get serious here.

We need something to liven up this heretofore less-than-tantalizing political season, and talking about Big Bill being below 60% sure ain't gonna do it. And that's when you roll out the rampant gambling and beer. Works every time.

The Black Dahlia: Part Infinity

Leaving the Constitution/Carlisle Smith's late this afternoon I pass by "newspaper guy", his sales made more brisk by a relatively large special sales display over a small wire rack. "Astorga Nabbed" the large print says atop a black/white copy of the now-famous photo. The photo we've seen in all ABQ media for the past ten days. The same photo used in all the many 10 O'Clock News teasers, above-the-fold newspaper updates, and wherever finest news is sold. In many cases, sold in a disgusting manner.

I realize I'm not breaking any new ground when I say that news organizations take advantage of public fear and outrage in the same way the Lottery takes advantage of people's dreams and inability to understand probability math. But when the signature news-as-sales hyperhype kicks in, like it has in the McGrane shooting, it's hard to stomach the sheer audacity of a media in full slithering feeding frenzy.

Yeah, I get the other argument. It's the public's right to know. Yes, I understand the other position. Maybe the media does go overboard, but it's only responding to what people want. And true, I understand that this same debate of journalistic ethics happens with every Astorga, Schiavo, Katrina, Peterson, etc. It's nothing new, and the ABQ/NM media is no more guilty than the ABQ/NM citizenry, or the media and citizenry of countless other hyperhype stories in the past and to come.

Still, it was hard not to walk by that sign display at the "newspaper guy's" rack outside Smith's today and not think: "I wonder what a few more Astorgas could do for newspaper sales in this town?" "I wonder if there's a news producer at a local station in town secretly wishing the crime could have taken place during May sweeps?"

So, Hurricane Astorga has made landfall. It was a slow moving system, but now it's hit. We're winding down coverage now to some damage reports, interviews with a few displaced, a face-to-face with a insurance adjuster or weather historian. And then it's time to wait for the next storm.

Back to you Carla.