Cocoposts

Grief Porn

Leslie Linthicum takes credit for inventing the term.  From the Albuquerque Journal.

Earlier this summer, I coined the term "grief porn" to describe the obsessive, self-pleasuring nature of the reactions of a particular group of bystanders to a particularly horrible Albuquerque crime.   

I don't think so.   Update: I really don't think so.  

Chris Applegate's post on "Grief Porn"  is from late 2007.

Plus I get 890 Google matches.  Wiki entry bit: 

Grief porn is a pejorative, neologistic expression usually used to describe the behavior of the news media in the wake of a tragedy. It is distinctly different from Schadenfreude in that it describes a forced or artificial commiseration in response to unfortunate events, whereas the latter refers to a joy at the misfortune of others. 

SunCal Staffing

Some California Alamedans have been battling SunCal plans for the redevelopment of Alameda Point.  In the blog Action Alameda a letter writer says local government is owned by SunCal.  And he accuses city staff of being SunCal employees. (Photo from a rally in June.)

Taser Tucumcari

The news is heavy with crazy these days.  Take this from the Clovis News Journal, please. 

Tucumcari Police Chief Roger Hatcher has been cleared of any wrongdoing and reinstated, according to a press release issued late this morning.

Hatcher was placed on administrative leave July 6 after shooting a 14-year-old girl with a Taser stun gun four days earlier.

City Manager Bobbye Rose said in the press release that following an independent investigation the city has determined  Hatcher did not violate any city policies.

Maybe they need to take a second look at those policies.  Ya think?  Don't count on it.  The craziest part is the comment section where many feel confident to opine that the 14 year old "got what she deserved."

Bits of SunCal Optimism

Clearly New Mexico reminds us that SunCal hasn't gone away but says there may be reason for optimism.  Maybe.  Optimism is like a foreign language to me.  I need a translator and have to read gestures and facial expressions to understand.  The last line is easier.

When one takes in the whole of New Mexico politics, it is easy to be frustrated by the corruption, vagrance, and various chicaneries that seem to define it. Yet this is to miss the forest for the trees. SunCal, for all its high-paying lobbyists and advertising campaigns, could not see the simple truth, that it faced an all-too-rare moment of sanity in Santa Fe: SunCal’s last message on its Twitter account, dated March 19th, says “SunCal Tax Plan a Benefit to State!” On March 20th, Legislators defeated their proposal.

But this isn’t a reason to celebrate quite yet. The TIDD issue will almost certainly come up before the legislature again in the next session, and SunCal will continue to skew the facts as long as it thinks it can get massive amounts of bond money from a captive state legislature.

Mayoral Entitlement - Aviation Edition

The money line from a New Mexico Independent story.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez refused to renew Bode’s airport lease in retaliation for Bode declining to provide free or discounted air travel for the mayor.

An explanation from the Dr. Sanity Blog:

In psychiatry we use the term "sense of entitlement" to describe the outrageous attitude of some of our more narcissistic clients who believe that the world "owes" them and they want to collect NOW. Patients with this type of attitude always want more. Whatever you do is never good enough for them, and they also generally show no gratitute or express any thanks--even when someone goes out of their way for them. Like the most spoiled of royalty, they merely expect that they should be the center of your world at all times.

Three More Mondays

Letting go of convictions about my work and easing into retirement are aided by liberal use of profanity.  With varied intonation I can capture nearly everything I need to say about anything these days with,  f*ck this or f*ck that. 

I cleaned the house this weekend and noticed the walls really need painting.  See above.

Garden State Variety Corruption

How it works, or doesn't, is evident from New Jersey news.  Since 2001 they've gotten guilty pleas and convictions from 130 public officials and another 44 people were just arrested including the mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus, Jersey City's deputy mayor, two state assemblymen and a member of the governor's cabinet. Whew. 

From the New York Times:

The case shifted to focus on public corruption, prosecutors say, after one of the men accused of money laundering, Moshe Altman of Monsey, N.Y., a Hudson County developer, introduced Mr. Dwek to a politically connected building inspector in Jersey City, who then steered him to another city official, Maher Khalil.

Mr. Khalil, who is accused of accepting $30,000 in bribes from Mr. Dwek, made a series of referrals to what he called “players,” helping Mr. Dwek to branch out to a web of public officials, mayoral and council candidates, and their confidants.

Mr. Dwek — now operating under an assumed identity, according to people involved in the case — honed an approach: introduced to a local influence-peddler, he would say he was looking to build high-rises or other projects in their city or county.

He would offer $5,000 in cash for an upcoming campaign, or as a straight-up bribe, with the promise of more to come, and with earnest pleas that his official requests be “taken care of.” And he would pull the money out of the trunk of his car.

I especially liked this part from busted Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III:

"There's the people who were with us, and that's you guys," the complaint quotes Cammarano saying. "There's the people who climbed on board in the runoff. They can get in line. ... And then there are the people who were against us the whole way. ... They get ground into powder."

New Mexico has more in common with New Jersey than being next to it on the list of States.  But here our corruption investigations appear limited to septic tank inspectors.  While meanwhile.   How about those other big public buildings built right around the same time as the courthouse?  How about the coveted contracts, huge bond sales and land, road and water deals for "economic development"?

  ::chirp chirp chirp::

Abbey's Apartments

Author Edward Abbey lived in dozens of places in and around Albuquerque according to James M. Cahalan's biography - Edward Abbey, A Life.  He would claim that he lived in twenty places in thirty-one months in Albuquerque during 1948-51.

I like searching for Abbey abodes.  In 1959 he and his second wife Rita moved to the North Valley - an apartment on Mission Avenue NE.  They were living there when his second son was born.  

He also lived on Grand (now MLK), Edith, Lead, and High Streets, in Carnuel, Cedar Crest, Peralta, and Tijeras Canyon where he said he spent the last six weeks of one UNM semester living on a small hilltop where he dragged a sleeping bag every night. 

Vast Criminal Enterprise

From Salon - John R. Talbott, former investment banker with Goldman Sachs and the author of "The 86 Biggest Lies on Wall Street," "Contagion," "Obamanomics," and "The Coming Crash in the Housing Market."

"So what did banks do that was criminal? Well, first they paid your government to eliminate bank restrictions, then they overleveraged, knowing they could not honor contracts with such leverage, then they lied to their shareholders about the risks and magnitudes of their positions, hid their positions illegally off balance sheet, and through the use of derivatives managed to violate minimum capital requirements on an almost daily basis. They took bank debt leverage from 8:1 to over 30:1, thus assuring that the banking system could not survive even a modest credit tightening or recession. They made crazy bets in the credit default swap market that they could never honor in a downturn. They loaned money to anyone who could fog a knife because they knew they were going to stuff it to others through securitization and CDOs. If we had a criminal investigation, we would have access to the incriminating phone calls and e-mails in which the banksters disclosed what they really thought of the assets they were pawning off on others. To see how traders incriminate themselves, watch "The Smartest Guys in the Room," about Enron's collapse.

The final storyline of criminality is the biggest of all. It is bigger than the current financial crisis. It is corporate America's complete control of our nation's elected officials, especially our Congress, through lobbying and campaign donations. Yes, the banks played this game, but the game was much bigger than just the financial industry. Coal-fired utilities have so watered down impending legislation concerning global warming that they have now come out in favor of it in the House vote. TARP money went to banking friends of Hank Paulson, although 97 percent of congressional correspondence from the American people was against it. The credit card industry took a minor slap on the wrist, but faces no limitation on the egregious interest rates it can charge its customers. Pharmaceutical and hospital corporations are fighting hard to keep Americans from having a public alternative to their healthcare, and right now are winning that fight. The transportation industry is at the government trough trying to pass a $500 billion windfall. The AARP prevents any meaningful reform of Social Security; the teachers' union does the same for education reform. Is it crazy to think that defense companies like Dick Cheney's Halliburton (which saw its stock price increase 700 percent during the Iraq war, thanks to no-bid contracts) may be promoting U.S. aggression around the world?"

Menaul School Charm

Enjoyed a tour of the Menaul School campus, hosted by the Albuquerque Historical Society and led by school President Lindsey Gilbert.  The occasion was the unveiling of a historic marker for Old Brick.  The entire property is on the National Register of Historic places.  

The roots go back to 1881 when a Presbyterian named Sheldon Jackson began a school for Pueblo Indians on a different site in Los Duranes.  But the place known as Menaul today was established in 1896 when Rev. James A. Menaul, another Presbyterian missionary, got funding from the church for a boarding school to serve Spanish speaking boys.   At that time there were around 65 Presbyterian schools in the region, mostly in the north, and these acted as feeder schools for the upper grades at Menaul.

From their website:

Many students came from Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado, where public education was nearly non-existent in those early days. It was not unusual for parents to contribute to their children's education with grain or livestock. These contributions were in turn used on the school's farm, which kept the students well fed.

The grades taught at Menaul School have fluctuated from primary school to high school throughout its history. The first students to complete high school comprised the Class of 1906.  In 1934 Menaul became co-educational.

Today it is for grades 6-12 and no longer a farm boarding school, but this history is remembered and treasured. I was charmed by the place and wanted to stay all day.  It made me wish I'd gone there instead of to my dreaded high school that shall not be named.