Poverty
Staving off summer hunger
The carefree days of summer instead are times of struggle for families who rely on school lunches and breakfasts to provide their children with a nutritious meal.
But the Roadrunner Food Bank reports that several organizations came together to help ensure those children had an additional food source during these summer months.
Philanthropic foundations gave $260,000 to the Summer Food Program, which leverages an additional $264,000 in federal funds, reports Roadrunner Director Melody Wattenbarger.
Donors included the Albuquerque Community Foundation, the Anderson Foundation, the McCune Foundation, PNM Resources Foundation and several private donors. The Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives out of Gov. Bill Richardson's office coordinated 37 Summer Food Program sites through New Mexico, while the Albuquerque Community Foundation served as the fiscal agents of the funds, according to Roadrunner.
Domestic violence laws get tougher, with hopes that abuse drops
New Mexico's domestic violence laws just got a little stronger, with several new laws going into effect July 1st that address prevention, protection of victims, and in one case the provision of increased penalties for offenders.
The package would allow public domestic violence treatment funds to pay for the treatment of batterers statewide, as an enhancement of prevention efforts.
GOP: Don't register with ACORN
The state Republican Party is cautioning against registering to vote with workers employed by ACORN.
“Voters who would like to register to vote would be better served by contacting their county or state Republican or Democratic parties or their county clerk,” Adam Feldman, the state GOP executive director, said in a news release.
The GOP joins the Doña Ana County Bureau of Elections in expressing concern about the nonprofit group, which has had two problems in the county in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the county warned that it had received complaints about misleading voter-registration activities by ACORN employees, a charge ACORN denied. And about a week ago, 90 completed voter-registration applications were stolen from ACORN’s Las Cruces office.
Prison reform outlined
The state should consider charter schools in its prisons, expand on its current limited use of a Navajo Nation practice of restorative justice and divert as many non-violent drug offenders to treatment as possible rather than lock them up. More drug and mental health courts, as well as halfway houses, should also be opened and more educational opportunities given to inmates, including domestic violence prevention programs. Those were among the recommendations from a task force task force report submitted Tuesday to Gov. Bill Richardson. The report was the product of a task force Richardson empaneled earlier this year to devise ways to curb future prison overcrowding and to lower the rate of offenders who return to prison after being released.
Cradles of hope, with love to Africa
Get off the dime
An editorial in Saturday's New York Times offers a concise explanation of the stranglehold seven senators now have on a bill that, if allowed to go to a vote, would reauthorize funding to fight three of the world's deadliest diseases of poverty -- AIDS, malaria and TB.
The bill, which has already passed the House by a 3-to-1 margin, is expected to similarly sail through the Senate and is supported by President Bush. But the seven are holding it a procedural hostage, saying they won't allow it to go to the floor unless it's rewritten to specify that a certain percentage go to treatment of AIDS vs. how much will go toward prevention.
This has become a classic syndrome in health care funding: the competition between prevention, care and treatment and finding a cure. New Mexico tries to deal with the competition for scarce funding with the Behavioral Health Collaborative.
Pain at the pump redux
Political leaders have taken the low-ride over the past week, ramping up a partisan fight over whether or not drilling for oil will solve our energy crisis while regular people are just worried about how to afford the gasoline they need to get around.
And our governor hasn't been shy about wading right into the thick of it in his capacity as an Obama surrogate. On CBS' Face the Nation Sunday he charged that John McCain was following the policies of George Bush--"drill, drill, drill"--a refrain he used multiple times while championing renewable energy development and conservation strategies. Of course, McCain's positions are a little more nuanced than Richardson would have one believe, but McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina did a pretty good job of getting those across.
Obama's first TV ad touts love of country and targets red states
Here's the gist of Barack Obama's first general election ad, a minute-long encomium to humble roots and land-of-opportunity patriotism that's set to run in 18 states: "I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn’t have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated. It’s what guided me as I worked my way up — taking jobs and loans to make it through college."
Those 18 states: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia.
As Joe Sudbay writes at Americablog, all but four of those states (New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) went for Bush in 2004.
Barack Obama: "Country I Love" (1:00)
No rest for weary state lawmakers. Psych!
State lawmakers, get ready for a nice little break from the summer. To prepare, close your eyes and just imagine a bustling state Capitol in August or September.
Yep, that's right. Start packing your bags, New Mexico legislators. Make your hotel reservations, o weary public servants. Gov. Bill Richardson announced to a roomful of skeptical reporters Thursday that he still wants a special session on health care and he's penciled in something for August or September.
"I keep my word," Richardson said, reminding the Doubtful Thomases that he had promised a special session earlier this year and he's going to have it.
Food on the go
A semi-trailer truck labeled "Mobile Food Pantry" rolled out of the Roadrunner Food Bank Wednesday to deliver fresh produce and staples to its first delivery stop: the off-the-grid community of Pajarito Mesa on the city's far West Side -- "opening a world of possibility in reaching hungry people," in the words of the food bank's director.
USA Today: Navajo nurses deserve praise for raising alarm on salmonella
A USA Today story today gives props to public health nurse Kimberlae Houk and her colleagues in the Navajo Nation for raising the alarm early about the ongoing salmonella outbreak in tomatoes. The article describes the magnitude of the impact, which is nationwide, gives a timeline, and credits Houk and the Shiprock Indian Health Services Unit for quick action:
...it could have been a lot worse if a red flag hadn't been raised early in the outbreak last month by a public health nurse with good instincts in one of the nation's poorest, most remote regions.
South Valley test
The South Valley is known for its rough edges. Rustic building facades and wooden corrals meld with unpaved roads and century-old homes. But the same South Valley may soon be known as home to one of the nation's most innovative approaches to primary health care.
The importance of being Dad
In the week running up to Father's Day, the Navajo Nation Program for Self Reliance [NNPSR] has launched its first media campaign to promote and encourage responsible fatherhood, according to an article in The Gallup Independent.
Of the more than 3,000 households served by the program, nearly 90 percent are headed by single mothers, the newspaper's Diné Bureau reports.
A simple click for hunger
I've come to take it for granted, because I visit every time I get on the Internet. But today, I paused a second, struck by the fact that an Internet phenomena called The Hunger Site is celebrating nine years of existence.
Hunger is literally all around us -- especially in New Mexico, which, as Roadrunner Food Bank reports, has the second-highest percentage of hungry people in the nation (16.7 percent). It can be overwhelming and make one feel inadequate as far as being able to help.
No surprise: NM kids fare poorly
New Mexico is once again near the bottom of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's rankings designed "to track the status of children in the United States."
New Mexico ranks 48th overall out of 50 states in the group's annual Kids Count report. Last year, New Mexico ranked 47th.
"It's always disappointing to see New Mexico so close to the bottom," said Lisa Adams-Shafer, Kids Count program manager for New Mexico Voices for Children, which co-releases the annual report. "But, as always, there are some bright spots. We continue to do very well in terms of infant mortality rates, and we continue to outpace the national average in improvement in high school dropout rates," she added. "Sadly, our child death rates have continued to worsen."
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Are acts of kindness a bribe?
State Rep. Debbie Rodella likes to practice "random acts of kindness," and apparently spent money from her re-election campaign to do it, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting.
One three occasions, Rodella, D-Ohkay Owingeh, gave constituents $100 to help cover funeral costs, reporter Raam Wong writes in todays editions.
Elsewhere around the state, New Mexico Law enforcement agencies cracking down on DWI this summer are finding more than drunks at area sobriety checkpoints. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports today that at a checkpoint last week near Santa Fe, 16 Mexican citizens were detained as they tried to pass in a Ford F150 pickup.
Speaking of immigration issues, the Las Cruces Sun-News reports today that a steel and concrete fence erected on the U.S.- Mexico border around parts of Sundland Park isn't doing much to keep illegal immigrants out of the U.S.
Gas prices hit rural areas hardest
The New York Times has some interesting maps this morning illustrating where the price of gasoline is highest, how income is distributed, and how much of that income is spent on gas.
The Times attributes the difference among the states to state gasoline taxes. When it comes to gas prices, New Mexico isn't doing as bad as we think we are, with gasoline still below $4 a gallon around the state. And according to this local map, thats still true in Albuquerque. But gasoline prices aren't the whole story. There's a big difference between urban and rural areas when it comes to the impact of high gasoline.
Regarding income, the Times map doesn't tell us anything we don't already know: New Mexico is poor. That combined with the rural nature of our state is causing a lot of pain at the pump. Remember the campaign that Denise Tessier wrote about a few weeks back, in which she described the problem lower-income rural New Mexicans were having just getting to the grocery store? According to the Times, "The counties where motorists spend the highest percentage of their income on gasoline tend to be in poor, rural areas."
NM has second-worst graduation rate in nation, new report says
A new report out shows that New Mexico has the second-worst graduation rate in the country.
According to the report, which is in Education Week, fewer students in New Mexico's class of 2005 graduated with their peers than students in virtually every other state in the union, except Nevada.
Here's an excerpt from the report:
Nationwide, about 71 percent of 9th graders make it to graduation four years later, according to data on the class of 2005, the latest available. That figure drops to 58 percent for Hispanics, 55 percent for African-Americans, and only 51 percent for Native Americans. While more than eight in 10 students graduate on time in Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, that rate drops to fewer than six in 10 in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Carolina.
The press release announcing the report also has a link to a cool map that allows you to see what the graduation rates are for local districts.
ABQ helps Unser Crossing with money for roads and other improvements
The Albuquerque City Council voted unanimously last night in favor of a compromise plan to incentivize the Unser Crossing shopping center at the intersection of West Central and Unser. Councilor Ken Sanchez had previously proposed extending the West Central Metropolitan Redevelopment Area (MRA) to the intersection. This would have allowed the developer the benefits of an MRA designation, including the elimination of impact fees on new development as well as access to other public subsidies.
As previously described by the Independent, there is extensive support by area residents for the project, which was voiced at a City Council meeting in April. But a number of councilors objected to the extension, saying that MRA’s are intended for blighted areas and that extending this particular MRA would set a poor precedent since the area in question is not blighted. Instead, it’s located in an undeveloped area on the edge of the current West Central MRA. The compromise plan provides $1.8 million in public funds for infrastructure improvements at the site and on surrounding roads.
No foie gras on the menu this time
Eager to avoid charges of hypocrisy, leaders at a UN summit on the world food crisis, meeting this week in Rome, have banned foie gras and lobster in favor of a more modest menu.
As the London Times Online reported today:
"It does not look good if leaders discussing global starvation are seen to be dining lavishly," an official of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. "At the last summit in 2002 we did not give enough thought to the menu and were open - unfairly, in our view - to the charge of hypocrisy."
The 2002 menu, published by The Times, began with foie gras on toast with kiwi fruit and lobster in vinaigrette, followed by fillet of goose with olives and seasonal vegetables and ending with a compote of fruit with vanilla, all accompanied by an array of fine wines. This time the catering was scaled down. Leaders first ate vol au vent stuffed with sweetcorn and mozzarella, followed by a pasta dish with a sauce of pumpkin and shrimps, and then veal meatballs and cherry tomatoes, with a fruit salad and vanilla ice-cream for dessert.