News Feature
Here's to Your Health
The governor sets his sights on health care reform
Gov. Bill Richardson has outlined a plan that could make it easier for the 410,000 New Mexicans without health care to get coverage.

Council Watch
2008: Back to the Future
The wilder fringes of the built environment dominated the Jan. 7 City Council meeting, from tents to adobes to very tall cosmetic shells.
Answer Me This
A dozen Tasmanian devils cost how much? What was Big Bill's first action off the campaign trail? What were those two guys from Chaparral thinking? What will UNM do to raise graduation rates?

News Bite
Final Hours
U.S. Attorney General asked to inspect the proposed closure of the Albuquerque Tribune
As the Albuquerque Tribune lies on its deathbed, there are still a few supporters intent on finding a cure.

Thin Line
Farewell, Rabbit Ears
In just 13 short months, analog television signals, the conduits through which TV has broadcast since its emergence in the late '30s, will cease to be. Anticipated for more than 10 years, old-hat analog will soon be replaced by the not-very-wavy wave of the future: digital television. Aside from improved picture quality, DTV's superiority lies in the fact that it takes up less bandwidth, freeing scarce space within the broadcast spectrum and, according to the government, transforming your viewing experience.
The Real Side
The El Vado Mess
No way to do historic preservation
Richard Gonzales bought the old El Vado Motel on west Central in 2005. The motor court was losing thousands of dollars each month. “I can’t make it anymore,” the previous owner told the Albuquerque Journal.

News Bite
Merlot To Go
Little-known law allows those who dine to take home unfinished fruit of the vine
Oenophiles know the hesitation often born of deciding whether to order an entire bottle of wine at a restaurant. A whole bottle is both an investment and a commitment to five glasses—and a big buzz. But ordering a bottle is no longer such a monumental decision.

Odds & Ends
Dateline: New York--In what was either an ugly case of check fraud or an attempt to remake Weekend at Bernie’s, two 65-year-old friends wheeled the dead body of their roommate to a store in Midtown Manhattan to cash his Social Security check. The trouble began last Tuesday when David Dalaia and James O’Hare allegedly tried to cash Virgilio Cintron’s $355 Social Security check at a store in Hell’s Kitchen on their own, police said. The man at the counter told them Cintron had to be present to cash the check, so they went back to his apartment, which at least one of the suspects shared with the recently deceased man. Cintron was apparently undressed when he passed away, sometime within the previous 24 hours. Police said Dalaia and O’Hare proceeded to dress him in a faded T-shirt, pants they could only get up part way and a pair of Velcro sneakers. They threw a coat over his waist to conceal what the pants couldn’t cover. “He was sitting in the chair with his head in the back of the chair,” witness Victor Rodriguez told New York’s KDKA-2 News. “From where I was looking, he appeared to be dead.” As Dalaia and O’Hare were pulling Cintron’s partially dressed, wheelchair-bound corpse into Pay-O-Matic, a check cashing store in midtown Manhattan, they caught the attention of a plainclothes police officer who was eating lunch next door. The officer phoned police, who arrived and took O’Hare and Dalaia into custody. Cintron, 66, was taken to a nearby hospital and declared dead, most likely from natural causes.
Letters
I figured out why The Don [Schrader] is so different. It's because he's not in our world. He's in a better one. I hope it's not a world like Oz. Although that world with George Bush being the villian and subsequently having a house dropped on him is not without it's appeal. I hope Don's world is more like Whoville. Bush is now predictably the Grinch. This is probably a world best suited for Don. No one eats meat and everyone is just as unusual as he is. The vehicles in this world run without need of fuel. This makes Don very happy. The only problem this world presents to Don is that eveyone is straight. But that doesn't matter because no one has genitals.

EVENT HORIZON ()
Arboreal Overload
Festival of Trees
I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as hundreds of Christmas trees filling up Albuquerque Convention Center’s Ballrooms A, B and C from Friday, Dec. 6 through Sunday, Dec. 8 from 10am to 6pm. This 12th annual Festival of Trees raises funds for the Carrie Tingley Hospital Foundation through the $1 donations requested at the door. It is chock-full of Christmas decorations, wreaths, Santa, hot cocoa and, of course, trees. For more information on this all-ages event, see festivaloftreesnm.com.

EVENT HORIZON ()
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
Twinkle Light Parade
