WINNERS
Air rifle brats
Come Christmas, New Mexico children wishing for BB guns have a new report to cite when their parents shout back, "You'll shoot your eye out!" According to a four-year report issued this month by the New Mexico Department of Health, the holiday season (November–February) is actually the low point of the year for BB-gun-related trips to the emergency room. And to further counter the Ralphie Parker argument from A Christmas Story, of those, only 36 percent were head shots. Locally, Santa Fe County averages only five reported BB-gun-related injuries per year.
Electrosensitivity sufferers
If anything New Mexican was going to top the Drudge Report over the Memorial Day weekend, SFR thought it would've been the suddenly scandalous 3rd Congressional District race. Nope. All weekend the Drudge Report's first-after-the-logo slot linked to KOB's segment on "electrosensitivity" sufferers who believe Wi-Fi signals are slow-roasting their nervous systems and that the City of Santa Fe's wireless network violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Santa Fe tourism
The convention center isn't open yet, but that's not keeping Santa Fe from drawing crowds of health-convention-goers who need places to eat, sleep and buy trinkets. This week, the city hosts two separate health-care conferences with very long titles: "The Santa Fe Holistic Health & Ecological Conference and Exposition for Your Whole Life" on May 31 at the El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe and the "Making Cities Livable Conference on True Urbanism: Designing the Health City" on June 1-5 at La Fonda Hotel. SFR's favorite health conference title is the "Santa Fe Bone Symposium," an expo to be hosted by the Osteoporosis Foundation of New Mexico in early August.
LOSERS
Swimmers
Cue the Jaws theme music and get ready to learn a nifty scientific factoid sure to dazzle and disgust your friends and loved ones: Cryptosporidium is on the rise in Santa Fe County. So says a news release from the New Mexico Department of Health. "Crypto," as it's known on the streets, is a chlorine-resistant infectious disease that wreaks havoc on folks' innards. In Santa Fe County there were three cases in 2006 and six in 2007. The health department does offer helpful hints to prevent crypto, including this nugget: "Do not swim when you have diarrhea." No shit.
Fundamentalist Islam
Perhaps the only good news coming out of Iran in the last five years has been what's described as a significantly "progressive" approach to dealing with AIDS in comparison to the rest of the so-called Muslim World. So, maybe it's only fitting that CytoDyn Inc., the Santa Fe-based biomedical research firm that's pioneering an antibody treatment for HIV/AIDS, has hired a new Iranian-American chief operating officer, Dr. Nader Z Pourhassan. Born in Tehran, Pourhassan emigrated to the US when he was 14 years old. Now an American citizen, he also is the author of the book The Corruption of Moslem Minds, a harsh critique of modern extremist interpretations of the Qu'ran.
Taxpayers
The National Priorities Project (nationalpriorities.org) notes that Santa Fe taxpayers will end up forking over $14.4 million to cover President George W Bush's tax breaks for the wealthiest 10 percent of our nation in fiscal year 2009. According to the Project's calculations, if the breaks were rescinded, the money could be used to pay for Medicaid for one year for 3,837 people in Santa Fe, 32,347 in New Mexico's 3rd Congressional District and 104,913 people statewide.