{"id":1153,"date":"2020-03-02T15:18:28","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T22:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/?p=1153"},"modified":"2020-03-02T15:18:39","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T22:18:39","slug":"trash-talkin-and-dirty-dancin-in-el-norte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/2020\/03\/02\/trash-talkin-and-dirty-dancin-in-el-norte\/","title":{"rendered":"Trash Talkin\u2019 and Dirty Dancin\u2019 in El Norte"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Guest Commentary by<\/em>: Bill Whaley<\/strong>
1 March, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Las Cucarachas y El Raton<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, you thought you\u2019d retire to El Norte and enjoy your espresso with the pristine breeze from the west blowing cross the sage, punctuating the arid beauty of the high desert. You warm up in the golden morn as the sun emerges above the white-capped peaks. Drift through the day and settle into cocktails and nightcaps at a local bistro. Watch the fiery orb turn the west mesas into an orange-red valedictory on a day well-lived. Still, even if you\u2019re a Native, or native newcomer or local vato loco, the land of enchantment plays you for a pendejo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as Bernie burns up progressives and sleepy JOE rallies the Biden\n liberals in a Trump stop-gap, so the New Mexico homies, Lujan-Grisham, \nUdall, Heinrich, Little Ben Lujan have set their sights on expanding \nLANL-NNSA by some $5 Billion in the next five years for the national \nsacrifice zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The Atomic bombers poisoned El Norte\u2019s WWII generation, now they\u2019re sending for the grandchildren.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The staff at the Santa Fe City Different negotiates behind closed doors to install a second campus of LANL because the Pajarito Plateau is plateaued out as manufacturer of Nuclear \u201cPits\u201d in old decrepit buildings. (Read Greg Mello\u2019s \u201cLos Alamos Study Group\u201d newsletter.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ill wind blows down into the Taos Valley from the home of the \n\u201cPitmakers,\u201d a suicidal cult (Remember Heaven\u2019s Gate, origins in Taos). \nThough we may not all be born under the sign of Cancer, we can die of \nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make the sign of the Holy Cross above our bodies and bank accounts. \nAs the golfing buddies from TSV and Taos County push \u201cthe hospital,\u201d the\n one managed by another \u201cfailed\u201d cult (See Robert Silver\u2019s pithy \nanalysis lo\u2019 these many years ago). They want us to throw good money \nafter bad medicine and prop up a medical center that needs urgent care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I turned 70, I have toured, due to coincidence and chance, with\n friends and self in search of medical counsel, diagnoses, prognoses, \nsurgery, and cure from Holy Cross to Los Alamos Medical Center, from \nPresbyterian in Espanola to UNMH in Rio Rancho and Albuquerque. By \nchance and recommendation, I discovered the joys of first world practice\n at the five-star Anschutz Cancer Pavilion \u2212 University of Colorado \nHospital in metro Denver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At HCH I have seen minor improvements: they can (sometimes) take \nblood and, more or less, (sometimes) insert catheters, and even do the \nminor surgery. (They ran off the jive-ass urologist). But HCH charges an\n arm and a leg, several months later, three times the cost for one-third\n the expense (see UC Colorado Hospital for comparison above) for a \nrelatively minor operation. They stick it to us taxpayers and locals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile HCH has also run-off Hispanic native nurses to Espanola \nwhile paying RV travelers. Where hita and hito go, la Familia follows. \nSo, management whines and the county commissioners refuse to put out a \n\u201cRequest for Proposals\u201d from a bonafide New Mexico success story like \nPresbyterian or UNMH or even the clinic on Paseo del Pueblo Sur.  They \nstick us the way the errant aides stick our veins or dicks (truth be \nknown).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in the Town of Taos, I voted early, number 282 on Friday \nafternoon, flipping a coin to determine who would dance for the town \nmanager. We\u2019ve got an out-of-town mayor with a job in Santa Fe and home \nin Lower Las Colonias and a refugee from \u201cHomelessness\u201d for Town \nManager. (I guess he still rents from Dan and Della.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six-hundred Vacation Rentals in downtown Taos? No wonder I never see \nmy friends around. Some have fled south to I 25 on their way to the Duke\n City. Others elevated and are watching from above, shaking their heads \nat the Barrone-Bellis gentrification of Taos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I go up to ski on Kachina Peak, over 12,000 feet, where I  get \nhigh. I get a little closer, not to God but to Juma\u2019s Barber Shop and \nsee how the Witness Protection Program has transformed Geno and Arsenio \ninto angels (who look pretty silly with their wings).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I drive back down into the valley and deal with the man-made \ndevils from Los Alamos to Taos and for relief, bowl at Shelly\u2019s joint, \nGutters, with Walter and the Dude (Big Lebowski) against the nihilists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u2019was always thus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Commentary by: Bill Whaley1 March, 2020 Las Cucarachas y El Raton So, you thought you\u2019d retire to El Norte and enjoy your espresso with the pristine breeze from the west blowing cross the sage, punctuating the arid beauty of the high desert. You warm up in the golden morn as the sun emerges above… Read More »Trash Talkin\u2019 and Dirty Dancin\u2019 in El Norte<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[71,6,18,48,4,73,72],"class_list":["post-1153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-commentary","tag-el-norte","tag-greg-mello","tag-lanl","tag-los-alamos-national-laboratory","tag-los-alamos-study-group","tag-lujan-grisham","tag-taos"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ZtEt-iB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1153"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1156,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions\/1156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lasg.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}