Category: Opinions

Wow, New Mexico, really?

I’m late to this party, but just have to write a few words of huffiness regarding the New Mexico Senate’s vote to start taxing tortillas.

I got wind of this from former Albuquerque mayor Jim Baca‘s blog and have read up a bit more this morning.

This article from New Mexico Independent told me all I need to know.

The vote has already passed the Senate. Ugh.

So look. I get it, ok? In the best of boomtown heydays, New Mexico has never been a rich state. How does a state make money? Taxes.

A few years back, New Mexico made the move to end taxes on groceries.

When I moved to California over a decade ago, I was shocked to discover that grocery food items here aren’t taxed. Holy jeebus, California will certainly tax everything else! But food, no.

Then California decided to add in a tax on junk food items.

Ok, fine. I disagree with it, but I get it.

So, in theory, I understand what New Mexico is doing. They need money. Lots of it, and so adding in a junk food tax is not totally unprecedented.

However…when the “junk food” term applies to cultural food staple items like tortillas and chile pods, now I have to ask myself just what the sam hell is going on in my home state?

I tend to shy away from the “tax the rich!” debates, but I have to say, on the face of it, taxing flour and also taxing tortillas made from flour really sounds like punishing the less financially well to do.

I’m left a bit perplexed at this whole thing.

For New Mexico, a state that has always sought to maintain the ethnic heritage of the multi-cultures that call the Land of Enchantment home, this seems to be a strange and rather elitist move.

To quote Joe Monahan, this whole debacle “will surely be remembered as an example of the utter disconnect in our time between the elected and voting classes.”

It seems not really very fair, Oh Fair New Mexico.

(You’d think the guv, no stranger to a tortilla, might have more to say?)

Messin’ with mah mind

This is false spring. I *know* this is false spring. Mother Nature has yanked my chain like this before.

Every year, in fact.

When I first moved here in 1997, it was a bad El Niño year, and I’d never seen so much rain in my life. Just when I thought I’d never see the sun again, the clouds parted and the temps warmed and flowers started to bloom. I was so relieved.

As I frolicked in my first false spring, a friend and lifetime Bay Area resident told me, “it always rains for Easter.”

I gave her a “feh!” and kept dancing in the cherry and almond blossoms, thrilled with the sun on my face.

Then, when Easter rolled around, dark and gray and cold, my kind, forgiving friend took a long drag off her cigarette and caustically said, “told you so.”

Yeah. And she’s been right every year since.

But I can’t help it. I hate the dark damp winter. It’s cold. It rains. It’s perpetually damp. I’m a desert rat! I am not built for rain!

So when, in February, the clouds part and the temps get up into the sixties and the first blossoms come on, the California poppies burst through the cracks in the pavement and tulips and irises find their way upward, I can’t help but be overjoyed!

In news from the east, I see feet and feet of snow, but for me, I’m digging out my favorite pair of flip-flops and trying to find my flowing skirts. I hate jackets! No more wellies!

Yes!

The temps are well into the sixties. My yard has exploded with clover and dandelion and all manner of life!

I love it! And every year I imagine it will stay like this.

I sing, I dance, and I frolic!

And as I do, a longtime Bay Area resident reminds me that there is more rain to come.

There always has to be a dream killer practical person, who is, of course, always right.

But forget about rains yet to come. I’m all about sun that is here TODAY!

Look at that, inn’it that purty? 67! Today! Yes!

Every Holiday Needs a Song

You know Clinton and Bush(s)
and ‘Bama and Reagan
Carter and Kennedy
Ford and Nixon

But dooo you recaaaaalll
The most hated President of alllll?

Andrew Johnson, the first impeached president
Was not a really wonderful dude
And if you ever saw him
You would even say he blews (as a president)

All of the other parties
Used to laugh and call him names
The National Union Party
Never managed to hold any sway

Then one foggy April night
John Wilkes Booth came to say
Lincoln with your hat so tall
Won’t you go away?

Johnson was sworn in the next day
Now he’s the guy in charge
All his wishy-washy Confederate leanings
Crashed ahead on the country like a barge!

Two years later Johnson was impeached (unsuccessfully) for the first time. The next year, 1868, Congress made it stick, so buh bye Johnson.

He may not have done much with his time as commander in Chief.

But in his short rein, he did manage to buy Alaska.

Home of Mz. Palin and Republican grief.

So his legacy lives on……

Or, one might say….

Andrew Johnson, the first impeached president,
You’ll go down in history!

Photo and facts courtesy of the Andrew Johnson Wikipedia page.

I’m not ashamed to admit it

I love the Olympics.

I really, really adore watching the Olympic games, both summer and winter.

I can’t explain why, but I’ve always been a fan of the Olympic games. I used to lament that it took SO long between games (back with both summer and winter games were done in the same year).

It probably harkens back to my youth. I’m of the era that watched the U.S. Men’s hockey team do the impossible (the so called “Miracle on Ice“) in 1980.

I am also of the Mary Lou Retton generation. Watching that tiny girl full of courage stick the landing on a flip over the vault and land squarely on a bad knee to win the gold. Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.

I’m also of the Dorothy Hamill era (tho I never had the haircut), the Kristi Yamaguchi era and while we’re at it, I’m of the Carl Lewis flying through air with the greatest of ease era.

Man. Am I ever excited for the games to start tonight!

And hey, this time around, I’m not so many time zones away from the games, so no events that I might want to see that are scheduled for 3:30am. Yes!

I’m fired up to watch Apollo Ohno skate again this year. I have a big fondness for men’s speed skating (and it’s not just the tight body stockings, but that sure doesn’t hurt!).

I’m also ready to see who emerges from these games as the athlete with heart, crazy endurance, or able to pull a feat of magic out of the Olympics. Michael Phelps did that for the summer games last year.

I wonder who will we be talking about long after the winter games are over?

The show begins tonight. I’m ready!

Best Laid Plans

Or something like that.

I’d meant to do a round up post on my thoughts and experiences from spending Thursday afternoon at MacWorld 2010.

This, the first year without the presence of Apple at the show.

But I pretty much summed it up on Twitter:

“Steve kicked the baby bird outta the nest and it ain’t flying. At all.”

The air is out of the show. I have been going to MacWorld shows as a feature of my employment since 1995. I’ve seen a lot of ’em.

I’m used to the buzz in the air all around Moscone Center. Even in Apple’s down years, there was a lot of energy in San Francisco surrounding the show.

It was the wondering, the excitement, the anticipation. What will be announced? Can I lay my hands on an iPhone (no, they just twirled in a tantalizing fashion in a glass case with security guards), what accessories can I buy. What cool 3rd party products will I see?

There was no buzz. There was no “wow” product at the show. There was no life.

The surrounding streets were eerily calm. The San Francisco flagship Apple store, located within walking distance of the show, was no more busy than an average day.

Even the people running the booths at the expo were lacking energy.

What was once one of the most hotly anticipated shows in the tech geek world is now nothing more than a limp echo of what it once was.

So that’s that.

End of an era, I suppose.