artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
Dems, GOP gear up for competitive race for governor
Tuesday’s primary election results set the stage for a potentially competitive gubernatorial race between incumbent Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Republican nominee Mark Ronchetti. Research & Polling Inc. President Brian Sanderoff tells the Albuquerque Journal the national climate heading into the midterm general election Nov. 8 could influence the governor’s race here. “It just makes it more challenging for the Democratic incumbent during the campaign,” Sanderoff said. “The Democrats—in no way, shape or form—can take this race for granted.” The state Democratic Party yesterday issued a news release characterizing Ronchetti and GOP lieutenant governor candidate Ant Thornton—along with Republican Secretary of State candidate Audrey Trujillo—as “dangerous,” writing: “With a Ronchetti/Thornton/Trujillo ticket, the New Mexico GOP is on a warpath to destroy rights that have been protected in New Mexico and the country for decades, such as access to reproductive health care, the right to gay marriage, and they would dismantle all of the progress for families that New Mexico Democrats have accomplished” under Lujan Grisham. On the GOP side, a national group associated with the Republican Party, Get Families Back to Work, launched an ad attacking the governor. As the Journal notes, several national political rating sites, such as The Cook Political Report and Politico classify the race as leaning toward a Democratic win.
Weather poses flood risks in fire area
Fire officials in last night’s community update on the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire warned of the potential for flooding as a result of forecasted thunderstorms in the area. “You guys have had a ridiculous number of red-flag days, something like 24 in a month, and now we’re actually looking at clouds and some rain,” Public Information Officer Bill Morse said. “Is that manna from heaven or is it those flash floods and the debris flows that we’re all fearing and knowing could be coming?” The evening’s meeting also included videos of the ongoing suppression repair work taking place. As of last night, the fire remained at 65% containment, and 318,599 acres. Part of assessing the fire’s impact includes analysis of the soil in the burned areas, including an evaluation of the erosion and flooding potential in the fire’s aftermath. “Fires have this one-two punch, a lot of people forget about this,” Owen Burney, the director of New Mexico State University’s Mora-based John T. Harrington Forestry Research Center, tells SFR. “The first punch obviously being the fire, you know, devastating effects that can burn homes, obviously forests. The second punch is massive amounts of erosion and flooding.”
DOH reports rising COVID-19 cases, less severe illness
New Mexico is experiencing a current wave of COVID-19 infections, State Epidemiologist Dr. Christine Ross confirmed yesterday in the state’s first public briefing on the pandemic in three months, sharing data showing “the state has been seeing a rising number of cases for several weeks now,” along with an increased number of hospitalizations. But what New Mexico is not seeing is a rise of patients requiring intubation, nor an increase in “medically significant” cases, she said. “Clearly what we’re seeing with this wave, it’s very different than what we’ve seen in the past,” Ross said, enumerating the potential reasons for the shift to include the high percentage of people with immunity from either vaccinations or prior infection, along with changing properties of the current Omicron sub-variant responsible for most cases in the state (BA.2.12.1). Ross and Acting Health Secretary Dr. David Scrase also emphasized the myriad “tools” available in this stage of the pandemic, including oral treatments Scrase described in the news briefing, and in a recent op-ed published by SFR, as “game changers.” He noted yesterday the state has made “incredible progress on the percent of people we’ve treated,” and urged those testing at home to contact health providers if they test positive to access treatment. While DOH took a hiatus from public briefings during a lull in cases, the new surge may prompt a return to regular updates, he said: “We’re working on some sort of schedule to ensure you get your questions answered.”
COVID-19 by the numbers
New cases: 1,100; 542,746 total cases
Deaths: 13; Santa Fe County has had 304 total deaths thus far; there have been 7,862 total fatalities statewide. Hospitalizations: 140. Patients on ventilators: nine.
Case rates: According to the most recent DOH report on geographical trends for COVID-19, as of June 6, the state had recorded 6,104 new cases in the preceding seven days—a nearly 55% increase from the prior seven-day period. Grant and Santa Fe counties had the two highest daily case rates per 100,000 population in the most recent time period: 82.5 and 64.8, respectively.
Community levels: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “community levels” tracking system—which uses case rates along with two hospital metrics in combination to determine the state of the virus on a county level—classifies nine NM counties as “yellow” or medium for risk: Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, Mora, Harding, Sandoval, Bernalillo, Cibola and Grant counties. The rest of the state remains “green” for low community levels. The CDC will provide an update later today by 8 pm EST. CDC recommendations for individuals and communities based on the community level rankings can be found here.
Resources: Vaccine registration; Booster registration Free at-home rapid antigen tests; Self-report a positive COVID-19 test result to the health department; COVID-19 treatment info: oral treatments Paxlovid (age 12+) and Molnupiravir (age 18+); and monoclonal antibody treatments. Toolkit for immunocompromised individuals. People seeking treatment who do not have a medical provider can call NMDOH’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
How did chocolate end up at Chaco Canyon? Encounter Culture podcast host and El Palacio magazine Editor Charlotte Jusinski delves into that local mystery with scholar Patricia Crown and retired archaeologist Jay Shapiro in “All Roads Lead to Chocolate.” The most recent episode is topically tied to Chocolate: The Exhibition, which opens on June 17 at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science via Chicago’s Field Museum.
Dark Winds showcases Indigenous talent
Dark Winds, the adaptation of Tony Hillerman’s mystery novels, premieres June 12 on AMC and, in advance, The Hollywood Reporter takes a deep dive into the “30-year journey” to make the show. Produced by Robert Redford, George RR Martin and others, Dark Winds is one of the first productions to utilize Tesuque Pueblo’s Camel Rock Studios, which is located in the pueblo’s former casino and, THR says, is the first Native American-owned film and TV studio. The show was filmed in three different sovereign nations, written by a writers room of five Indigenous writers and Chris Eyre (Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes) was its primary director. Producer Graham Roland is Chickasaw and the crew and main cast are also mostly Indigenous. Zahn McClarnon (Lakota), who plays Detective Joe Leaphorn tells THR says he’s been acting since the early ‘90s “and it’s been a struggle the whole way through. I’m really glad that I’ve stuck out this business and that I’m finally seeing this stuff come to fruition with having Native writers, Native crew, Native talent and Native directors and producers. We’re in a unique time.”
Capturing fire
Santa Fe’s photo-eye Gallery recently featured two of its Showcase artists, Carl Moore and Patricia Galagan, who made daily images of the Cerro Pelado and Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fires. In cooperation with the gallery, Moore and Galagan are now offering a selection of the photographs from the series Seeing Through the Fire to be sold as an open edition through July 1 with proceeds benefiting The Food Depot’s Disaster Relief Fund and the Santa Fe Humane Society’s efforts in providing aid to evacuated animals. Moore is a fine art photographer based in Santa Fe; Galagan is the co-author, with her late husband Philip Metcalf, of the photography book Fire Ghosts, a depiction of the effects of New Mexico’s 2011 Las Conchas Fire. Gallery Director Anne Kelly tells SFR the photographers went out each night to capture images of the fires. “Obviously what was going on was really terrible,” she said, “but the result of the smoke was creating these beautiful sunset images. They felt really strongly they wanted to use these images in order to help the victims of the fires and we had a lot of conversations about who was being impacted and how we could best help.” In addition to viewing the portfolio online, people can also come view them at the gallery (1300 Rufina Circle, Suite A3).
Waiting on the monsoons
Once again, the National Weather Service forecasts a chance for isolated thunderstorms today, this time after 3 pm, but with little or no precipitation expected. Otherwise, it will be mostly sunny with a high near 90 degrees and south wind 10 to 15 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Fingers crossed, looks like monsoon season might start soonish?
Thanks for reading! The Word can’t wait to see the new David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream (although it seems she will have to wait at least a little while).
