Why paralyze Albuquerque for Amarillo’s problems? is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Now, isn’t that better? Why do we have to work our way around the ugliness? Beauty makes life better. What does ugly do?

Sometimes, it’s AlBAHquerque. is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Billboard owners should be ashamed is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

The driver – a thief, as it turns out – was decent-looking, thirty-ish, clean-shaven, with short but not really-short black or dark hair. He was calm, albeit distracted. As I stood there, I pulled out my cellphone and called my neighbor. Perhaps she was expecting a delivery or worker or friend. She was quite surprised by my information. During this brief call, the guy closed his trunk and slowly drove off into the neighborhood. I saw a balloon fiesta NM plate starting with ‘LM’. (I’m easily befuddled by license plates – I expend a lot of energy scanning random characters for meaning.) At that point, my neighbor and I concluded it was an odd episode, nothing more.

When she got home, the neighbor realized someone had actually broken in. The front door was ajar. The back sliding door was broken and open. The bathroom window was broken. Some of her stuff was in pillowcases, but it seems they didn’t get away with anything. The cops arrived minutes after she called them and were very thorough and professional. They say they’ve had many such calls in our neighborhood and the University area.

If I’d gone down the hall instead of through the living room, I’d have missed the whole thing. Keep an eye out. Neighborhood watch works.

I talked to a burglar … #neighborhoodwatch #abq is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Wiener rejects calls for his resignation | NMPolitics.net

“There’s an election in 37 days and if the people at that time want to pick somebody else to represent them on the county commission, that’s certainly the way a democracy works that we all belong to,” KOB-TV quoted him as saying. “And I’m going to let the voters in my district speak rather than a few elected officials.”

Wiener rejects calls for his resignation | NMPolitics.net

If I agree with Wiener does that make me a dick? is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

ABQJournal Online » Jury Verdict In Excessive Force Case Overturned

By Scott Sandlin / Journal Staff Writeron Thu, Apr 26, 2012

APD’s arrest of an unarmed, 60-year-old intoxicated man by firing numerous bean bags at him, siccing a dog on him and then repeatedly Tasering him was “clearly excessive” force, says a federal judge who took the unusual step of overturning the jury’s verdict in the case …

“No reasonable person could believe that an inhibited, slow-moving 60-year old individual who made no physical or verbal threats and wielded no weapons could constitute a threat to the safety of any of the 47 armed and shielded police officers who stood 20 feet away,” Black wrote, reversing the outcome of the weeklong jury trial last October in Santa Fe.

“Nothing presented at trial showed that the officers’ extraordinary use of force was reasonably necessary to safely arrest (the plaintiff),” said the opinion Black wrote this month.

ABQJournal Online » Jury Verdict In Excessive Force Case Overturned

Paramilitary police lead to violence is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

ABQJournal Online » Couple: SWAT Storming Traumatic

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writeron Wed, Apr 18, 2012

Bertha and Carlos Gamboa were watching TV in their home last week when SWAT officers with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office broke through a door and ordered the couple at gunpoint to lie on the floor.

The deputies were executing a search warrant April 10 at an apartment two doors away from the Gamboas’ home in connection with the deaths of two people whose charred remains had been found earlier that day on the West Mesa.

But the Gamboas had no connection with those deaths, the couple said. A week later, the Gamoas remain traumatized that armed men stormed their home and held them at gunpoint for up to 10 minutes. …

Deputies used a battering ram to break through a wooden outer door, she said. When Bertha Gamboa opened her solid wood door, she saw the muzzle of a shotgun thrust toward her.

About seven deputies armed with shotguns entered the apartment and ordered the couple to lie on the floor, she said.

“Carlos was frozen, standing in the living room,” his wife recalled. Carlos Gamboa, who doesn’t speak English fluently, did not understand the deputy’s order. Bertha Gamboa said she told her husband in Spanish to lie down.

For the next five to 10 minutes, armed men stomped around the apartment until one of the deputies explained that they had the wrong apartment, she said.

ABQJournal Online » Couple: SWAT Storming Traumatic

Couple: SWAT Storming Traumatic is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

I took that picture four years ago. I was driving when I saw the truck. It took me a moment to catch the error. I thought, “I wish I had a camera,” and my wish came true (it had been on the seat next to me the whole time). Later, I decided not to post this because I abhor that word and the violence of this act. However, time passes and it’s never too late to ridicule the idiot who painted this. (Mind you, dyslexics have my sympathy; misogynists do not.)

Similarly, I was appalled to find the following sign in my neighborhood park. Who would wrap packing tape around a tree to post a sign. And who would hire such a person who couldn’t spell or use spell check – or capitalize properly.

Both of these are part of a large topic I call “AlBAHquerque,” with which I document the ugly side of our town. I call quite a few of these “screw the view,” because that’s what they say to me: that someone’s profit matters more than beauty.

Photojournalism is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Albuquerque developer plans West Side water park

Dan Serrano, who built the water park at the Radisson Hotel at Carlisle and I-40, is planning a new water park on the West Side.  He’s billing it as much easier to access and more affordable.

As far as the probability of the project actually going through, Serrano calls it a 50/50 chance.

“If we can get the financing, it would be an ideal opportunity to go out there and create economic development,” says Serrano.  “It’s going to bring jobs during development, construction, thereafter.” [mjh: Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! That’s all you need to say? What about water, water, water, ya fool.]

The 36,000 square foot water park would be built somewhere west of 98^th, off I-40.  It would be indoors, and have a similar design to Radisson’s water park, but would be 3,000 square feet larger. Admission would be anywhere between $18 to $24 for a day pass.

The cost of the whole project would be around $8 million, about three times less [mjh: is that a third as much?] than the cost of the Radisson Hotel and Water Park. The hotel’s water park project was more expensive because a building had to be demolished, and land costs have changed.

“There are a couple of land owners saying you know what, I’m having a tough time selling this land now, I would be more than happy to come down and deal with you and bring the land as part of my investment,” says Serrano.

People that Eyewitness News 4 interviewed in Albuquerque think it’s a great idea.

“I would love a water park,” says Adrianna Zachary, who moved to Albuquerque four months ago from Maine [mjh: get used to the desert, Adrianna – this isn’t Maine].  “I think it’s so hot here, we need to cool off and there aren’t a lot of places to do that; there’s Tingley Beach, but who wants to swim in Tingley Beach?”

“I think it’s a great idea, I really do,” said Linda Vikdel.  “I think it would be a very healthy, fit way for kids to get some activities in.”

Serrano wants to have the water park built sometime within the next two years.  The design work is about 70 percent complete.  He says the biggest hurdle now is getting the financing. [mjh: because getting the water is no problem at all. Yeah, right.]

KOB.com – Albuquerque developer plans West Side water park

Let’s Go Swimming after Golf–Ignoring the Reality of Here and Now is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Billboards are a finger in the eye. An erect middle finger. A billboard is a selfish and cowardly statement. It says anonymously, “my profit is more important than the environment.” It places personal gain ahead of community values. Every billboard in the world should be pulled down by angry mobs.

Isn’t this picture beautiful? Doesn’t it make you proud to live in New Mexico? The mighty Tijeras Arroyo is already doomed by Mesa del Sold. In the meantime, enjoy the view. As you drive this stretch with its dozen billboards, notice most are for Clear Channel, the owners of most billboards. Buy stock and demand they get out of this business.

Farther south, Isleta shows what Indians really think of Mother Earth, with their dozens of billboards north of Los Lunas. No stoic native with a tear in his eyes at the sight of all the garbage — those are dollar signs.

Where’s your shame? mjh

‘Billboard King’ Reid Looks to Leave Mark on Senate War Funding Measure By Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post Staff Writer

In a (quite) large sign that protecting U.S. troops isn’t the only thing on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s mind these days, the Nevada Democrat inserted an item into the Senate’s Iraq war funding bill — safeguarding billboards.

Senate debate began yesterday on the bill, which provides $122 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; sets a goal of March 31, 2008, for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq; and — if Reid has his way — allows thousands of billboards destroyed by bad weather to be rebuilt.

For the senator, who has referred to himself as the King of Billboards, “it’s a constituent issue, but it’s a value that he believes in,” said Reid spokesman Jon Summers.

The battle over billboards began in 1965, when the Highway Beautification Act set a policy that “nonconforming” billboards — defined by states but usually meaning those packed closely together, or in scenic areas — would be allowed to die of natural causes. As storms and other acts of God destroyed them, their owners would not be permitted to replace them. Recent hurricanes have fueled a fight between the powerful Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), which wants to roll back the federal law, and opponents led by Washington-based Scenic America, which decry billboards as “visual pollution.”

On March 15, Reid wrote Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) asking for a provision that “clarifies” the rules governing rebuilding of “outdoor structures” after natural disasters.

“This is a matter of personal importance to me,” the majority leader wrote, a comment that “goes back to the values,” Summers said. Meaning that out west, “there’s a big sense of independence, and your property is your property,” Summers said. [mjh: "so fuck you if you like scenery."]

About 40 billboard companies operate in Nevada. Over the past two years, Reid’s Searchlight Leadership Fund has received $6,000 in contributions from the OAAA’s political action committee.

The OAAA represents a booming industry that earned $7 billion nationwide in revenue last year, but it emphasizes the role of billboards in advertising local businesses. Association spokesman Ken Klein said Reid’s amendment aims to reverse “a pattern of overreaching” by the federal government, which threatened to withhold highway funds to Florida when companies rebuilt nonconforming billboards hit by hurricanes in 2004. Reid’s bill would have prevented such actions.

Kevin Fry, president of Scenic America, said: “The bill carves out an exception to local land-use rules for a single industry that is not available to any other. . . . One might reasonably ask why legislation affecting the South and Southeast was introduced by a senator from Nevada.”

Reid’s request went to the Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, which pared it back to apply to 13 mostly hurricane-prone states, instead of all 50. The law would come up for renewal in 24 months.

Scenic America is fighting the amendment, which “sets a destructive precedent that will certainly be revisited anytime natural disasters take their toll on nonconforming billboards,” Fry said. “The two-year time frame is a joke.”

The OAAA sees the measure as a “positive step,” Klein said. “Senator Reid is a longtime supporter of mobility, tourism and property rights. We appreciate those principles.” [mjh: and he hates beauty]

PS: I don’t expect Republicans to oppose Reid’s support for the right of every landowner to stick his finger in your eye as you drive through beautiful countryside. I’m reminded of the end of Animal Farm, where there was no longer a difference between the new masters and old — they were all pigs.

A Finger in the Eye is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh