Democracy for New Mexico

LWV Offers Free Program on Building a Better Health Care System

From the League of Women Voters:

“BUILDING A BETTER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM”
Saturday, October 29th from 1 to 3 PM
Smith Brasher Hall on the TVI Main Campus
717 University Avenue in Albuquerque.
Admission is free!
Sponsored by The League of Women Voters / Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Education Fund as part of the By the People national Deliberation Week

Speakers:

• President of the National Coalition on Health Care, Dr. Henry E. Simmons, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.P
• State Senator Dede Feldman, co-chair of the Legislative Health & Human Services Committee
• Moderator  will be Carol Pierce Philips, public health consultant and former President, LWV/ABC

The National Coalition on Health Care is the nation’s largest and most  broadly representative alliance working to improve America’s health care. The Coalition, which was founded in 1990 and is non-profit and rigorously non-partisan, is comprised of almost 100 organizations, employing or representing about 150 million Americans. Members are united in the belief that we need – and can achieve – better, more affordable health care for all Americans.

For further information contact the League of Women Voters/ABC Education Fund at 505-884-8441 or visit their website. The program is funded by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and The League of Women Voters of the United States Education Fund

Sound Off: Bird Flu, State Democratic Party & 2006 Legislative Session

Editor's Note: Here's an Open Letter to Progressive Democrats from Stephen Fettig. You're encouraged to read the entire post and respond as requested by the writer, who'd like to start a dialogue on this topic.

Dear Progressive Democrats:

I am asking that each of you listen to the October 19 program of Democracy Now with Amy Goodman.  You can download the program or listen to it on-line at https://www.democracynow.org/.  I don't make this request lightly.  I feel that the information presented in this program touches directly the topics of health care, security, mismanagement by governments (at all levels) and public trust in our political leaders.

The segment that I want you to listen to is the interview with Mike Davis author of the new book, "The Monster At Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu."  Davis says, "2005 is the year in which avian flu, now has acquired a critical mass amongst birds that it won't be eradicated and it's unclear whether it can be contained.  We are facing a clear threat in the next few year of a flu pandemic that could be more deadly than in 1918 when between 20-40 million people dead worldwide.

Davis makes these points among others:

1) The idea proposed by the administration to use the military to quarantine parts of the country, if needed, would not work.  People are contagious with the flu 24 hours before showing symptoms.  Also some people can be contagious and never show symptoms.  So a quarantine would not work biologically.  This is another example of the lies and poor planning proposed by our current leaders.

2) One of the largest threats to our population is the number of people without health insurance or access to health care.  These uninsured folks will increase the danger to the whole population because they will not be able to seek health care in an timely manner, leading to greater deadliness of any flu pandemic.

3) The government is wasting large amounts of money on biological threats that have an extremely low likelihood of happening, such as a biological terrorist event.  The known and real threat of a deadly flu pandemic is getting very little attention and funding.  We know that governments at all levels knew about the problems with the levees around New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, but funding was still cut for action that would have prevented the disaster.  If a flu pandemic hits the U.S. we can expect our health care system to be hit with an event 30 times the size of Katrina.  We need realistic priorities for our public health and safety dollars, and we need those realistic priorities now.

4) The great flu pandemic of 1918 infected 28% of all Americans.  An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in world war I.  We can expect a similar death rate or higher because our government is not prepared:  We don't have the anti-viral drugs on hand and we are extremely short of hospital beds as a result of our current health care industry.

I'm asking that each of you listen to the October 19 interview with Mike Davis and then provide me with action suggestions for the New Mexico Democratic Party.  Can we use the information that Davis provides, then insist that the party and the governor make increasing funding for health care a core focus of the 2006 New Mexico legislative session?

Your thoughts?

Sincerely,
Stephen Fettig
At-Large elected Member
State Platform and Resolution Committee
New Mexico Democratic Party
505-662-6785
ladp@cybermesa.com

Reminder: DPBC Third Thursday Meeting on Healthcare Tomorrow

From the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County:

Third Thursday meeting, October 20
6:00 PM, UNM Law School, Room 2401
All Democrats Welcome
Topic: Time to Confront the Health-Care Crisis
Speaker:  Mary Feldblum, Executive Director, Health Security for New Mexicans Campaign

The New Mexico Health Care Plan (the Health Security Act) is gaining broad support. The Health Security for New Mexicans Campaign, a growing coalition of 105 organizations, has been receiving public input for over ten years and is proposing that New Mexico set up its own health plan with freedom of choice of provider and a comprehensive benefits package. Private insurers could offer supplemental packages as they presently do with Medicare.

Update From Conservation Voters

From the League of Conservation Voters:
First I want to say thank you to all those who helped with the Conservation Voters New Mexico campaign to elect pro-conservation candidates in the Albuquerque election October 4. Thanks to your efforts, CVNM helped keep City Council District 3 in safe hands with newly-elected Councilor Issac Benton. And CVNM's mayoral candidate, Eric Griego, defied the financial odds to come just short of forcing Martin Chavez to a runoff, despite the $1.2 million Chavez warchest. Finally, District 9 candidate Chris Catechis may not be out yet -- he is seeking a recount after falling a mere 130 votes short of a runoff himself.

This local campaign brings to mind that the 2006 Congressional mid-term elections are only a year away. Many of you pounded the pavement last year during LCV's grassroots campaign, helping us contact tens of thousands of New Mexicans on the ground -- and we’re getting an early start on energizing our grassroots for '06!

As you know, we have been working on a campaign here in New Mexico to help protect the Valle Vidal near Raton. The El Paso Corporation's proposed mineral extraction now threatens this lush mountain basin -- home to wildlife, scenic vistas, and recreational opportunities. Don’t let corporate greed sacrifice one of New Mexico's national treasures. Help us with our grassroots campaign to protect the Valle Vidal.

You can help protect the Valle and fight against this corporate greed by signing up below. We will be going door-to-door to educate voters about the issue. We will also be asking citizens to take action by contacting Representative Wilson and Senator Domenici to persuade them to sign onto legislation that would protect the Valle for future generations

Sign up below:

Valle Vidal Community Canvass
Saturday, October 29, 2005 - 10 AM
LCV New Mexico Office - 400 Gold Ave. SW, Suite 100
To sign up click here

Valle Vidal Community Canvass
Saturday, November 12, 2005 - 10 AM
LCV New Mexico Office - 400 Gold Ave. SW, Suite 100
To sign up click here

I hope you will be a part of our team as we mobilize our grassroots and continue our efforts into the 2006 election season! Thanks again for all you do to help!

Maggie Toulouse
Campaign Manager, Southwest
League of Conservation Voters

Whoa Nellie! Armageddon, The Rapture and The White Sox

This has nothing to do with politics, but I had to post something on the long, long, long awaited American League pennant just won by the Chicago White Sox. I still find it hard to fathom that the long-suffering Chi-Sox will be playing in the 2005 World Series. Growing up in Chicago watching the Cubs and Sox on TV and at Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, pennants and World Series appearances were almost nonexistent.

There hasn't been a Sox win in a post-season series since 1959 and we all know about the famous Black Sox Curse. Then there's the Cubs' Billy Goat Curse that has prevented a pennant since 1945 and that struck again two years ago when the Cubbies ALMOST won their league championship. Close enough to cause rampant despair in Chicagoland natives around the globe.

So when the Sox won the ALCS championship this week with a walloping 3-run win over the LA Angels, there was alot to savor and hoot about at my house. Including FOUR, count them, FOUR complete games by their pitching staff in an era when one guy pitching all nine innings of a game is considered a miracle.

I'm old enough (ahem) to clearly remember the Go-Go White Sox of 1959, with Nellie Fox, Little Looie Aparacio, Ted Kluszewski, Billie Pierce, Early Wynn, Sherman Lollar, Turk Lown and the rest of the team known for base-stealing, bunting, incredible pitching and rousing defensive plays.

The night the '59 Sox won the pennant is burned into my memory, with Da Mayor, Richard Daley, ordering the fire department to sound the Cold War air raid sirens (go ahead and click) all over the city. We ran outside and joined neighbors up and down our street who were out there cheering and jumping up and down to the wailing of the sirens. I also recall that non-baseball fans were, shall we say, a little scared by those same sirens, it being the middle of the Cold War and all. But there didn't seem to be any of those confused souls in my working class neighborhood. I bet every house had its black and white TV tuned to WGN and the Sox game that night. Chicago baseball has a long and proud tradition and it was the background music for almost everyone's life where I grew up.

To understand how long ago 1959 really is, check out the year's events. A few highlights:

• Hawaii and Alaska became states
• Fidel Castro's revolution took power in Cuba
• Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens went down in a plane crash on the "Day the Music Died"
• the first Barbie doll went on sale
• the Dalai Lama left Tibet
• VP Richard Nixon and the USSR's Nikita Krushchev had their famous "kitchen debate"
• Ford discontinued their Edsel model
• the Twenty-One quiz show scandal with Charles Van Doren erupted
• Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown was born
• Billie Holiday died

Chicagoans have always claimed that the end of the world as we know it would occur if the White Sox or Cubs ever appeared in another World Series. You can see where I'm leading with this now, can't you? Those right-wing Armageddon-Rapture mongers may be on the right track after all ... Whoa Nellie (as in Nellie Fox, he of the big tobacco chaw in his cheek)! Added eerieness: a Daley is Mayor of Chicago today, just like Richard Senior was in 1959 (cue Twilight Zone theme). And it's anyone's guess what can happen if the White Sox, dare I whisper it, actually WIN the World Series this year...

JibJab Strikes Again

From Wal-Mart Watch:
There's less than a month left until Wal-Mart Watch's Higher Expectations Week, but the heat is already turning up on Wal-Mart as activists are pressuring the big box giant to reform its negative business practices. The criticism got sizzling last week on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno when political satirists JibJab premiered their new animation Big Box Mart. Wal-Mart isn't mentioned by name, but the inspiration for the satire is clear. During the past election, JibJab's political parodies were seen over 80 million times, turning JibJab into an overnight household brand.

(Click on image above to see animation.)

Big Box Mart tells the story an unsuspecting consumer who learns an economic lesson the hard way when his high-skilled factory job is shipped overseas to accommodate the "everyday low prices" he's come to expect from his favorite retailer. At the end of the song, the only work he can find is as a janitor at Big Box Mart. Visit our website to see it for yourself and make sure to spread the word to your family and friends.

Wal-Mart is being taken to task on the big screen as well. Trailers for Robert Greenwald's upcoming documentary WALMART: The High Cost of Low Price are being shown in movie theaters in Los Angeles and New York. The documentary will premiere during Higher Expectations Week (November 13-19), a national week of action sponsored by Wal-Mart Watch and more than 400 national and local organizations. Hundreds of events in 32 states are already planned with more being added daily. Make sure you are registered on our website to find out about events in your area.

Go to https://walmartwatch.com/november to sign up and pledge your support to take action.

This increased scrutiny by Wal-Mart Watch and fellow activists is already having an impact. You can amplify our efforts by taking action during Higher Expectations Week and getting your friends to do the same.

KUNM Program Features Atrisco Land Grant Discussion Tonight

Tune in to Espejos de Aztlan on KUNM 89.9 tonight, Monday, October 17th at 8:00 PM for an interview with James Aranda (heir of the 57,000 acre Atrisco Land Grant on Albuquerque’s West Side) about the struggle against the proposed sale of Westland Development Co., Inc. to Delaware corporation ANM Holdings Inc. for $160,000,000. This past Saturday afternoon, over 250 land grant heirs and supporters held an organizational meeting at Rio Grande High School to discuss the issue's seriousness.

"Espejos de Aztlan" is a weekly radio program highlighting the courage, strength and beauty of the Chicano/Latino community in New Mexico. Espejos has been on-air since 1979 and is part of the Raices Colectiva which conducts programming on news, culture and music from a Latino perspective on KUNM 89.9.

For more information about current organizing efforts against the proposed sale of Westland Development Co., Inc., contact James Aranda at 553-0879 or via email at atlixko@yahoo.com.

Election Reform Activists Urge Media Coverage of Vigil-Giron's Coming Purchase of New Voting Machines

Media Alert from Verified Voters NM:
NM Secretary of State(SOS) Rebecca Vigil-Giron appears ready to spend millions in taxpayer money on voting machines for the disabled but has ruled out the one machine the disabled are said to like best. Moreover, she is doing this out of the public view.

Her action, she says, is to comply with the requirement of the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that at least one voting system accessible and usable independently and privately by the disabled must be purchased for each polling place by December 31. The Secretary seems poised to use an estimated $9 million in HAVA funds for buying some 1,400 electronic voting machines.

During Sept. 19-23, Secretary Vigil-Giron held an unpublicized meeting in Rio Rancho, to which she invited representatives of the disabled as well as county clerks from throughout the state. She has not revealed who these disabled representatives were and how comprehensively they reflected the range of disability. At this meeting she barred the county clerks from providing input and asked the disabled representatives to rate three touch screen machines – the Sequoia AVC Edge and the ES&S iVotronic and the ES&S AutoMark. According to testimony on 10/13 before the legislative task force on election reform, nine out of ten of the participating disabled voters at the Rio Rancho meeting preferred the AutoMark. But inexplicably the SoS told them that the AutoMark is not eligible for selection on grounds that it is not HAVA compliant -- this despite the fact that the other two machines being rated are also not HAVA compliant at this time.

Election reform activists with Verified Voting NM and United Voters NM say the SoS is arbitrary and wrong to willfully bypass the AutoMark.

The AutoMark utilizes a ballot marker that enables the disabled to vote without assistance and in private. It has a sip/puff tube for voters unable to use a touch screen and an audio function for blind voters. It is equally efficient for non-disabled voters. Also, the AutoMark does not count votes as other voting machines do. Instead, to insure counting accuracy, it utilizes a conventional paper ballot that can be readily audited or recounted by hand or by the electronic scanning machines already available in many NM counties. By contrast, the Edge and iVotronic use rolls of paper tape for verifiable paper ballots that are much more difficult to audit and recount.

North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming have all selected the AutoMark as their voting machine of choice, as well as counties in California, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Florida.   

This impending purchase by the Secretary of State is of major importance to voters in NM since these voting machines are used by both the disabled and non-disabled. Selection of voting machines should be carried out with full public input and with all alternatives openly considered.

On behalf of many election reform supporters in NM, we urge the media, in your key role as watchdogs of democracy, to look into this issue and report your findings. (signed)  Robert Stearns 988-3718; Kim Kirkpatrick 454-0598; Stephen Fettig 662-6785, Pat Leahan 425-3840; Paul and Laura Stokes 898-1237, all citizen volunteers with Verified Voting NM or United Voters NM. Note: We have no financial connection with any voting machine manufacturer or vendor, nor does VVNM and UVNM.    

More info on Verfied Voting New Mexico: https://vvnm.org

Editor's Note: If you'd like to contact media in your area about this issue, here's a site that makes it easy.

Contact information for NM Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron:

Office of the New Mexico Secretary of State
State Capitol North Annex, Suite 300
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87503
Phone: (505) 827-3600 
FAX: (505) 827-3634
Toll Free 1-800-477-3632
Email: secstate@state.nm.us

Click for contact Information for NM County Clerks:

UN Day Events at UNM 10/24

UPDATE: The Albuquerque Journal printed an incorrect date for UN Day at UNM, which I used in this post. As noted by one of the commenters in this thread, UN Day events will be held on Monday, October 24. You can contact the UN Association at 293-9693 for more information.

The University of New Mexico will host UN Day on Monday, October 17 October 24, to observe the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. All events are free and will be at the Student Union Building.

Albuquerque civil rights attorney Eric Sirotkin will speak on "Peacemaking in the 21st Century: Embracing Our Similarities" at 7:00 PM in Ballroom A. The event also features workshops from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM on topics including health care in developing countries, UN reform, human rights and threats such as poverty, nuclear weapons and disease. Workshop presenters will include Sirotkin, Martin Brennan, diplomat-in-residence for the U.S. Department of State, and Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group.

The event is sponsored by the United Nations Association of Albuquerque. For more information, call 242-0769 or 293-9693.

Sunday Bird(less) Blogging

I know, I know. I haven't featured any real Sunday Bird Blogging for some weeks now. There's been little opportunity for taking new photos of our parakeets or Bosco, the peach-faced lovebird. The family photographer was out of town and/or we've been busy with other things, so I'm giving you more canine shots this morning. Well, Bailey IS a bird dog breed:

You may recall Barnum (the chihuahua) and Bailey (the yellow lab) from last Sunday's post, the dogs who were along for the ride at Mary Ellen's week-long family reunion at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I couldn't resist the photo above of Bailey, sneaking food out of Barnum's tiny food bowl. Ah, stolen food always yields the most tasty morsels.

And stolen afternoon naps are the tasty morsels of any vacation:

Bow wow wow, zzzzzzzzzzzzz.