Gallup Sun

I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt like it was on fire. I thought I was having a heart attack. And I was terrified.

Alone in my car, on my way home to my kids after work, all I could do was react. I instinctively drove the two miles to Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital. They admitted me right away.

It wasn’t a heart attack; it was gallstones, but the hospital didn’t have the right equipment to treat me.

I needed to be transported to Albuquerque.

After receiving pain medication, I wasn’t coherent. I was scared and still in so much pain. The billing people came in to see me. All I remember is them saying to sign here and sign there. I did.

Then I was rushed more than 100...

New Mexico residents are encouraged to register for the Cornovirus Vaccine. It’s an easy process, at first. Pertinent information is gathered, and a decision is made about notification: phone, text or email. But then, depending upon how you connect to the internet, a test must be passed. It’s called a “CAPTCHA.” Presumably, most pass the CAPTCHA, as unlimited retakes are allowed. But there are those, such as myself, who fail repeatedly. For us, online registration is an impossibility. This angers me.

Moreover, for those who browse the internet by way of a VPN or the TOR network, I suspect that the bar for passing is elevated.

Fortunately, though, the New Mexico Department of...

In New Mexico, approximately 1.9 million people rely on public water systems to provide a safe and reliable supply of drinking water to our homes and businesses. But how do we know if our community drinking water supply is safe to drink? The simple answer is that our drinking water supply is tested regularly to ensure that it complies with state and federal regulatory standards. Without regular testing, local drinking water utilities would not learn of a known or potential health risk in a timely manner.

Water analysis at certified laboratories can often cost several thousand dollars per year for one small community water system. In 1993, the New Mexico Legislature enacted a law that...

Redistricting

The American system of representative democracy rests primarily on the concept of equal representation in legislative bodies. The Constitution requires a census of the population every ten years and then states reapportion representation and draw new district lines based on this census.  Unfortunately, the devil is in the details.  Our New Mexico Constitution, passed in 1912, leaves the drawing of district maps to the legislature.

N.M. has very few standards guiding the drawing of these maps.  Only Texas and Nevada have looser standards. The process of redistricting ends up being totally partisan because the legislature is a political body, manipulation during the map...