Dave Maass

and it makes me very sad. Sydney Schanberg’s The Death and Life of Dith Pran was one of the books that really ignited my professional passion for human rights and journalism.

Yeah. From last night.

SFR Talk w/Claire Simpson
Sticking it to the Man
This week I had the pleasure to interview Ms. Simpson, a feisty octogenarian with a talent for coining clever anti-Bush slogans. When I turned up at her beautiful home atop a hill overlooking downtown Santa Fe, I was surprised to realize that I already knew her: Simpson and her dogs Delilah (a miniature greyhound) and Bashti (a full-sized greyhound) are regulars at the dog park. If you get a chance, check out her new company, Mischief Unlimited.

Commish-eration
Eight Democrats, two seats=one lively election.
This week, I interviewed all the candidates for the county commission’s two open seats. But since these profiles can often be kinda dull, I fit in a few fun, if not irrelevant details, like their “Transformers Name” according to Cartoon Network. I also used the opportunity to pump the MuckrakersGuide.com site by providing little known details (like lawsuits and Bill Richardson contributions) that I was able to dig up.

I turned 29 today, began the final 365 days of my 20s. To mark the occasion, here’s a quote from Patrick Neate’s The London Pigeon Wars:

“These were twirtysomethings–Tom’s expression to span the ages of say, twenty-seven to thirty-four, the age range in which degrees of wealth, power, and happiness significantly diverged for the first time.”

3pm Update :: The office got me a cake!

Inside Out
Did Peter Fernandez’ punishment fit his crime?

Maybe it’s ironic that prisons, of all things, are in what I’d describe as my journalistic comfort zone. I’ve studied them academically, written about them in depth for several newspapers, but for the most part I was always looking at facilities that contract with state governments. In this piece, for the first time, I look at the federal criminal justice system, from the prosecution to the prisons. This story was only possible because a fearless former inmate of the La Tuna Federal Corrections Institution, a treaty prison on the TX-NM border, was willing to speak out about the injustices he faced. I love the cover art by Chang Park.

Spitzing Distance
Sheriff of Wall Street patrolled NM.

Poor, poor Eliot Spitzer. I don’t know that there’s a Democrat around who’s not nursing a broken heart. In this piece, I go over Spitzer’s ties to New Mexico, from class-action lawsuits to hounding Don Imus to Gov. Bill Richardson’s fundraising for his New York gubernatorial campaign.

Winners & Losers: Primary Campaigns.

The day after the Santa Fe municipal election, signs started springing up everywhere for the June Congressional, state and county primaries. I got a few funny bits into this weeks column, ranging from Don Wiviott’s grease-powered van to the incompetence of the GOP netroots movement.

I like to draw, but I only seem to be able to draw pictures of myself. Here’s the latest one. Can you tell I was on deadline?

Here’s the email Semantics is sending ’round:

My good people,

Let me begin this email by commeding and appreciating you all for all your various individual support given me during my asylum process which took almost a year.

The Immigration Judge at the Immigration Court in Minnesota,Judge Kristin W. Olmanson granted me asylum yesterday,March 17 at 5:00PM Central time and said that “this young man is one of few asylum seekers that deserves asylum because these are the kinds of people that the United States needs.”

The proceedings that began at 1pm Central Time was witnessed by my Lawyer,Dan white and his boss Dan O’Fallon,my church pastor, Brad Fraslee and two other church memebrs,the Government lawyer,Lewis Dickson, and a Liberian Expert,Armeh Sirleaf who testified on my behalf.

When the Judge was making concluding statements that would pave way for her final decision, the government lawyer indicated that he would appeal if the woman Judge granted me asylum.

But after five Minutes of break,we returned and when the Judge began on the record recording,stating some asylum laws and referencing why she decided to grant me asylum, the government Lawyer withdrew his pending appeal.Therefore, the Judge granted me final asylum.

This means i have the right and or oportunity to live and work here in the United States indefinitely.

After one year(On March 17,2009)i can apply for permanent residence card and after five years,i can elect to become a U.S.Citizen.

During this week,we(my lawyer and i)were told to wait for a while so that my name and information can be stored and shared with data system of all federal and state agencies after which we can go for my work authorization card, an unrestricted Social Security card and other benefits for asylees.

I want to share this joy with you all because you individually helped me throughout this process.

I can’t find the exact words to express my gratitude to you,your loved ones and family members for all your financial,moral and physical support. Now i know i am in the United states and thanks so much for everything.

In the meantime, NewLiberian is about to start full scale operations and two new members have just joined the team. One is in Canada and the other in Massachusetts.

With Much Love,

Semantics King Jr.
Editor
NewLiberian.com

Expose & Conquer
Muckraker’s Guide lets the light shine.
Sunday marks the beginning of Sunshine Week, seven-days of awareness of open-government and public-relation issues. And so, we felt it was time to develop MuckrakersGuide.com V2.0 on its own Wordpress site. It took me a little more than a week to design and update. I hope the work paid off and it’s a lot more efficient for users. Updates include more than 50 new links, a widget, and an instant FOI letter generator. In the print edition, we published a short story on the state of open government reform in New Mexico, along with a display ad promoting the resource. About 25 percent of the links are New Mexico-specific, the rest are applicable to anyone in the country. So, let me know what you think (click the logo).

Why Not to Fix a Clinically Ugly Smile
OK, so this is a bit awkward for me. I wrote the first version of this essay for Rated Rookie, a short-lived zine out of NYC launched by a friend of friend. The issue in which it was supposed to run never made it to the printer and so I hung onto it, revised it a bit, and eventually submitted it for publication in Multi-Storey, a literary mag connected to the South Manchester Writers Workshop. Again, that issue never came out. So, I turned it into a spoken-word monologue of sorts and performed it at Auto Test Pilot and as the grand finale (and my swan song) at Verberate’s Chorlton Art Fest event in 2006. Then, in December, my pal Gary Parkinson (former co-editor of Multi-Storey, author of one of my favorite, and so far tragically unpublished, novels, Land o’ Cakes) asked me to contribute something to his new digital lit-mag, Stargazy Pie (an actual Cornish dish). I just didn’t have time to come up with something new, so I told him I’d revise this piece… but never did. He had a copy in his email, so he just published it anyway. I’m a bit scared to read it because I have no idea how I left it. Anyway… you can read it at the link above, though it’s not fiction as the section implies.

And finally… a short little video currently up on SFR’s YouTube Channel from the city council inauguration night:

Suicidal Tendencies
Lawmakers tackle biopolar/antidepressant controversy.
It used to be I had trouble thinking of people I know whose parents aren’t divorced. Nowadays, I can’t think of people I know who haven’t been on antidepressants at some point. Are we an over-medicated nation? Probably. Is there a danger to that? Absolutely. This week I look at the case of Sarina Cuoco, a 21-year-old girl from Albuquerque who committed suicide after a nurse practitioner prescribed her six different medications in the span of a month. While the causal relationship might be debatable, there certainly is a correlation. Sarina’s mother went on the war path this legislative session and convinced lawmakers to assign the health department to study the relationship. Oh… and Heath Ledger definitely had something to do with the passage of Sarina’s bill.

Winners & Losers: Lawsuits
David Alire Garcia and I teamed up this week for this edition of Winners & Losers looking specifically at silly court cases around the state.

Waiting for Results
SFR’s City Election Roundup
While the rest of the country was waiting for Hillary to make or break in Ohio and Texas, DAG, our intern Madason and I cruised the “victory” parties awaiting results from Santa Fe’s municipal election. I was exhausted, so DAG did the real reporting, while I harassed candidates with my Flip cam. Here’s the video I turned out; my tongue-in-cheek attempt at capturing our not-at-all-lackluster (not) making our somewhat lackluster candidates seem hip… but read DAG’s piece, too. It’s gooood.

C’mon Lil’ Russ: If 0 percent of the precincts are reporting, does MSNBC really need the too-close-to-call disclaimer?