artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
NM gun purchase waiting period remains for now
Federal Judge James Browning in the Albuquerque-based District Court for New Mexico ruled this week that New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period for gun purchases can remain in effect while litigation challenging the case proceeds. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in March signed House Bill 129, the Firearm Sale Waiting Period Crimes bill, into law. The National Rifle Association and two private citizens filed a lawsuit challenging the law in May. New Mexico’s law, the governor’s office says in a news release, “helps ensure that firearms are not transferred to prohibited purchasers under the ‘Charleston loophole,’ which allows gun purchases to move forward by default after three business days even if a federal background check has not been completed.” New Mexico’s law has several exemptions from the seven-day waiting period, including for: concealed carry permit holders; federal firearms licensees; transactions between law enforcement officers and agencies; and immediate family members. “The judge’s decision confirms that New Mexico’s waiting period is likely constitutional and allows it to remain in effect,” the governor said in a statement, adding that the seven-day “cooling-off period makes our community safer by providing a critical buffer against impulsive firearms purchases and ensuring comprehensive background checks are completed. This law is a commonsense measure designed to reduce impulsive gun violence and address a federal background check gap.”
NM at high risk for private equity exploitation
As this newsletter noted last April, New Mexico ranks high for risks related to ownership by private equity in its health care systems. A report issued today by the Joint Economic Committee Democrats, chaired by US Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM, underscores those and other concerns related to the state and private equity. The JEC report also cites the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, which found New Mexico “to be the state that is most at risk of enduring the negative impacts of private equity,” among the top 10 states with the largest share of hospitals and nursing homes owned by private equity; and the top 10 states with the great number of layoffs by companies controlled by private equity, as a share of the state’s entire private sector workforce. The report further details the risks private equity firms pose to the economy, health and other sectors here and nationwide. “New Mexico is at the highest risk of being exploited by private equity firms. From lowering the quality of health care to cutting wages for workers, these firms have prioritized lining the pockets of their executives over the interest of New Mexicans. That needs to end,” Heinrich says in a statement.
NNMC adjuncts push for pay equity
While Northern New Mexico College adjunct faculty union members secured a 10% wage increase in June for the upcoming school year, members of the Northern Federation of Educational Employees say issues with the overall adjunct pay structure linger. “That 10% might not seem like a large increase, but it’s a serious increase” for NNMC adjuncts, Anthony Ballas, an adjunct faculty member and lead union negotiator who has taught in the humanities at NNMC for a few years, tells SFR. He characterizes the negotiation as “historic.” Some of Northern’s adjuncts “face food insecurity,” he says, “some have trouble paying the rent—we also don’t get benefits.” NNMC is still far below the nation when it comes to adjunct faculty pay, although comparable to Santa Fe Fe Community College. Adjunct faculty act as temporary professors and are paid per credit hour they teach in a semester rather than a salary. For example, Ballas, who has a master’s degree, says he earned $2,220 for each three-credit hour class he taught last year. According to a report from the American Association of University Professors, the national average adjunct pay for the same experience level was $3,458 in the 2022-2023 school year. Even with the 10% boost, Ballas would still make 30% less than the national average. Despite their success, faculty members tell SFR they don’t expect the actual pay increase to have much impact, and they continue to object to the overall structure of adjunct pay at the school, such as scaling pay based on class enrollment. NNMC President Hector Balderas tells SFR via a written statement he was “excited” to work with both the NFEE and American Federal of Teachers unions, and believes student success at the school depends on retaining “high-quality instruction.”
On the ground and in the water
“A post-fire nightmare” is how the Washington Post depicts conditions in Ruidoso, where residents have grappled with flooding following the South Fork/Salt fires. “A never-ending nightmare,” in fact, resident Brook Smith tells the paper. Her home, which she bought last year, has repeatedly flooded and is currently protected on one side “by a military-grade flood barrier filled with dirt” as she, her children and neighbors wait for the inevitable next flood coming to their street. The “double-barreled disaster” by the numbers includes fires that scorched 25,000 acres, burnt nearly 1,000 homes and killed two people, followed by eight floods since June 21. “It’s a worst-case scenario that may become more frequent as weather extremes intensify in the American West,” the Post writes, as “studies suggest climate change is increasing the risk that severe rainfall comes in the wake of wildfires…increasingly hot and dry conditions breed fiercer blazes. Warming air can also hold more moisture, leading to more intense storms. The burn scars from fires can elevate the flooding risk for more than five years, as vegetation regrows.” The story details how that has played out in Ruidoso, talking to residents and property owners, such as Dana Schenk, who says, “This town is in survival mode, literally.”
In related news, the state Office of the Superintendent of Insurance yesterday issued a statement in response to a ruling by First Judicial District Judge Mathew Wilson it says fails to require State Farm and Casualty Company to comply with a provision of the office’s amended emergency order to require insurance companies to pay $5,000 in living expenses to policyholders forced to evacuate by the South Fork and Salt fires if the consumers’ insurance policies covered additional living expenses. Superintendent of Insurance Alice T Kane in a statement said her office “respectfully disagrees with today’s ruling. The circumstances on the ground in Ruidoso were and continue to be dire…Evacuees who had paid insurance premiums for decades needed help accessing basic necessities like a place to stay and meals, which ALEs cover. Evacuees didn’t need funds to cover these kinds of expenses weeks or months later—they needed them immediately.” The office is evaluating its legal options, she notes. Kane had sought a temporary restraining order to bar the insurance company from non-compliance. In its opposing filing, the insurance company notes that it has already paid the $5,000 additional living expenses for people whose policies include them, but objects to the OSE adding advance payments for expenses that have not and may not be incurred.
Listen Up
Even if you can’t attend any of this season’s Santa Fe Opera performances (although you really shouldn’t miss Der Rosenkavalier), you can still hear them. The Santa Fe Opera announced this week 95.5 KHFM Classical Public Radio or khfm.org, will broadcast feature performances recorded live from The Crosby Theatre of Verdi’s La traviata, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Spears and Smith’s world premiere of The Righteous, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love at 6 pm July 29, Aug. 5, 12, 19 and 26. Soprano and KHFM host Kathlene Ritch will be joined by co-host, tenor and Santa Fe Opera Chief Artistic Advisor David Lomelí for the broadcasts, providing commentary in English and Spanish. Both KHFM.org and santafeopera.org will offer free on-demand streaming of each performance for 30 days following the air date.
Indigenous eats
“A new Native American cuisine is emerging in New Mexico,” Food & Wine magazine declares. “Modern iterations” of Indigenous cuisine, as discussed in the story, include: frybread green chile cheeseburger and red chile cheese fries; blue corn-crusted onion rings with green chile ranch and blue corn-fried pickles marinated in black cherry Kool-Aid; and blue corn gnocchi arrowheads with guajillo chile sauce. That last dish comes courtesy of Lois Frank, who teaches a teaches a three-hour Native Cooking class at the Santa Fe School of Cooking that also includes greens with jalapeño dressing, lamb-stuffed rellenos with tomato sauce, and sweet frybread with berries and prickly pear syrup.”The new Native American cuisine means re-indigenizing certain ingredients and encouraging food sovereignty based on choice,” Frank, a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author, tells Food & Wine regarding the cooking classes she also teaches in Native communities. “Some Native people don’t know how to make masa anymore or how to use the corn ash. Awakening that and creating stewards and caretakers of the earth is the future.” Food & Wine also visits with Celia Tsabetsaye (Zuni Pueblo) as she makes traditional cornballs; Tina Archuleta (Jemez Pueblo), who reportedly owns the only vegan Native American restaurant in the US, Itality Plant Based Foods in Albuquerque; and Raymond Naranjo, who runs the fusion Native American food truck Manko (which offers the frybread green chile cheeseburger). “I saw a disconnect with our community and saw only fast-food choices in the Pueblo,” he tells the magazine. “I’m trying to serve as a bridge.”
Hills like red modernism
Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1930 painting “Rust Red Hills” reflects the modernist art era and, lacking representational qualities, doesn’t qualify as conservative art. That’s the argument made in a court petition by Valparaiso University in Indiana, which owns and is trying to sell the O’Keeffe painting, along with American Impressionist Childe Hassam’s 1914 painting, “The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate.” Reporting on the legal battle surrounding the sale of these two paintings, the New York Times says Valparaiso University’s latest gambit to sell the two paintings—which it first announced last year to much public consternation—comes down to the claim that the school should not have purchased them in the first place. That claim stems from the financial bequest that allowed for the purchase—from Percy Sloan in honor of Junius R Sloan, his father and a self-taught Hudson River School artist—which specified the gift could only be spent on “conservative” works of art (the school does not include a third painting it wants to sell, Frederic E. Church’s “Mountain Landscape,” in its “conservative” art argument). “At the time those paintings were purchased in the 1960s, the committee knew that it was straying from Sloan’s directive to acquire conservative art,” the petition says. As for the O’Keeffe painting, which depicts New Mexico mountains, the school said it purchased it in 1962 for $5,700; current appraisals place its fair market value at $10.5 million to $15 million. The school hopes to sell the paintings to renovate freshman dorms. The current argument will come down to how a judge decides to interpret “conservative” as it relates to art. The Times notes that according to O’Keeffe scholar Linda Grasso, O’Keeffe avoided political language “but did see her work as part of an avant-garde movement.”
Through the haze
The National Weather Service forecasts a 30% chance for precipitation today, with scattered showers and thunderstorms, mostly after 3 pm. Look for widespread haze before noon (from fires in Canada and Nevada, the NWS says), increasing clouds and a high temperature near 82 degrees.
Thanks for reading! The Word is making her way through Emergence Magazine’s Shifting Landscapes film series by Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, and looks forward to finishing Aloha ‘Āina as soon as she wraps up today’s newsletter.
