A few years ago, I wrote a brief about the Doctor’s adventures in New Mexico, which pretty much boiled down to a short battle in 1957 with his arch-nemesis,  The Master, at a fictional Air Force base. That happened in one of the spin-off books and as far as I know, he’s never had a televised adventure in the Land of Enchantment (which is strange considering NM’s interstellar ambitions and extraterrestrial mania).

Well,  in Dreamtime, which ran in five parts last week, the Doctor did not visit New Mexico in the animated flesh. The adventure only starts there with a flying saucer getting shot down by other flying saucers and crashing into the desert outside of Roswell.

This isn’t the first time Roswell has come up in Doctor Who and it seems at odds with what Who-nerds call the “canon.” Previously, it was described as a cosmic “fender-bender” by the Doctor and later shrugged off by his companion, Sarah Jane, as only a minor event in human-alien history.

This go around, Doctor Who gets it wrong, big time, as illustrated by the above screen capture. The Roswell crash did not occur on June 13, 1947 but on July 8 of that year. Secondly, as anyone in New Mexico knows: though  I-25 bisects the state,  it doesn’t come nearly that close to Roswell. And let’s not even delve into the cave-dwelling, bows-and-arrows portrayal of Native Americans.

Spoiler Alert: The “little grays,” as Roswellians call them are from species that was nearly obliterated by a race of giant cockroaches called the Viperox; they had developed a genetic poison capable of exterminating the entire Viperox race from the universe. Obviously, the anti-genocidalist Doctor won’t let that happen, but he does help rescue the shot-down Grays from Area 51–with the help of a diner waitress and a Native American rockabilly–and uses their technology to chase the Viperox out of the solar system before they can savage the Earth.

Dreamland (which you can watch at Life, Universe and Combom),  is one of the last adventures of the 10th Doctor, played by David Tennant, who will meet his doom in the two-parter scheduled for Christmas and New Years. It’s a much lighter, kid-oriented serial, compared to the November special, the Waters of Mars (airing in the US on BBC America on Dec 1q), which saw the Doctor pull an Anakin Skywalker and that’s all  I’m gonna say.

In this week’s Reporter, our Indicators column looks at New Mexico’s video game industry. One of the more *exotic* shops, D-Dub Software, has developed what it calls the “World’s First Action Adventure Porno Video Game.” The game, Bonetown, features porn star Ron Jeremy and a cast of characters ranging from busty valley girls to Baptist preachers to crack whores with fake teeth. The above game trailer is absolutely NOT SAFE FOR WORK–SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT AND ADULT LANGUAGE THAT MAY BE OFFENSIVE.

I’m leaving you. I’m moving west and filling up my border state bingo card. It’s an economy thing, a weather thing, a move-close-to-close-friends thing. Lest you think I’ll forget you, I’ve put together this list of places, people, issues that will always stick with me. And I’ll also tell you what I never got to do, but wish I had and will haunt me until I return.

Things I’ll Miss:

1) Aztec Cafe. A great city, to me, requires a great coffee shop, a place with cheap cups of joe, free wireless and a pack of regulars who make it less a hangout and more a second home. When I first came to check out Santa Fe to decide whether I could live and work here, Julia had me meet her at Aztec. Two years later, a day doesn’t feel complete unless I’ve spent at least an hour in Sarah Flori’s sanctuary for the hip, the hard-up and the hopeful. I’ve given them a hard time in print over the years—when Aztec Street was called “no man’s land” by the city’s parking enforcers, when Corey discovered a gross bodily secretion in the sink during one of Aztec’s dance parties—but overall, the story of Aztec has been one of complete reassurance. Though I’ve seen the barista staff change many times over (some friendlier than others, some more transgendered than others), I’ve watched the shop expand incredibly during an economic recession. Since I’ve been here, they’ve started serving beer and gourmet breakfasts (not necessarily together) and picked up new business from the Rail Runner. If I could pick up the entire cafe and fit it into the back of the Penske truck, I’d reinstall it in the nearest empty space to my new office. I love you Aztec.

2) Frank Ortiz Dog Park. One of the clinchers in accepting this job in Santa Fe had nothing to do with news. Rather, my 7.5 pound terrier—in no uncertain combination of barks and whimpers—conveyed to me that the dog park was where she wanted to be, forever and ever and ever. For the first year, we spent an hour there every day at dusk. Unfortunately, when I moved to the other side of town, it became a weekend expedition, with Marlowe tucked all comfy into my “Outward Hound” dog pouch. Frank Ortiz isn’t so much a dog park as it is a dog reserve, huge open spaces with winding trails and a view second only to the Cross of the Martyrs. I’ve never seen my dog so full of liberated glee. She’s hands down the princess of the park and, frankly, probably achieved more notoriety for her adorable ninja moves, wiggling and head-first snaps than I have with my bylines.

3) The Roundhouse. My first full-time job out of college was in a weekly newspaper covering exclusively state government and politics in Phoenix. I love legislatures, I love agencies, I love governors and over the years I’ve realized that daily American life is affected more by state government decisions than those of whomever we send to Congress and the White House. The 2008 legislative session will remain one of my fondest career adventures: all the energy and ideas and controversies and rumors from the entire state packed into one building on 60-day deadline. I watched New Mexico repeal the death penalty, kill domestic partnerships and quibble over the best way to keep our politicians honest. I’ll miss the competitive camaraderie of the Capitol press corp, the late night debates, the cheap sandwiches. The good news is thanks for Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, Sen. Mark Boitano and New Mexico’s fierce journalists and ethics watch dogs, I’ll be able to watch or listen (depending on the body) to webcasts from out there in Cali.

4) The Press. San Diego County’s population is 50 percent bigger than all of New Mexico’s and consequently the mediasphere is complicated, competitive and, to be honest, a little bit daunting. Over the years—and perhaps this has a lot to do with the sometimes incestuous flow of journalists from one New Mexican publication to another—I’ve felt like I toiled in a statewide, virtual newsroom. I’ll miss not only my coworkers here at SFR, but my friends and colleagues on the blogs and Twitter, at the dailies, the radio stations, the TV networks, and those in the emerging new media. (Thankfully, Matthew Reichbach of NMFBIHOP and the New Mexico Independent has agreed to ride with me in the moving truck.) I’ll also miss ribbing Joe Monahan. A couple months back, I initiated a few online meetings between the state’s more tech-savvy journalists in the hopes of creating an electronic press club and an web media awards competition. I conducted a survey, which filled me with hope for New Mexico, which still continues to lag behind the rest of the nation in Internet technology. I just hope that someone takes up the mantle and makes a club happen.

5) My office. I’ve worked in cubicles and behind counters, I’ve worked in large warehouse newsrooms and in closet-sized video libraries. Once David Alire Garcia left the Reporter in early 2008, I took over his space, a 10 foot by 10 foot (appx) enclosed space with a window and a comfy plaid couch, where I’ve spent many night in the midst of cover story deadlines. I meticulously taped up each of those covers on the wall (just beneath the entire text of the UN Declaration of Human Rights), hung all my press passed on a hook and no matter how messy it got, I only got a little bit of shit for it. I’ve been led to understand that I’ll have a bit less space in SD, and the office isn’t exactly climate controlled.

6) Snow. As a Phoenix native, I didn’t see snow fall until I was 21 years old and, before moving to Santa Fe, I’d never lived in a place with such defined seasons. Whenever snow fell on Santa Fe, you could catch me at least once a day marveling at the fact that something white and solid was falling from the heavens on the desert. Nothing suited me more than bundling up in my ratty trench coat and frayed hoodie and fingerless gloves and following the rail trail, on foot, into town. Then again, I’m also pretty glad to be getting out of here before winter descends.

7) Zozobra. Nuff said.

I’ve left a lot of people and places out, because I could go on forever and this post is already longer than most blog readers’ attention spans. You’re all irreplaceable.

Now, I’m not one for regrets but there are plenty of things I wish I’d done while I was here….

Things I Wish I’d Done:

1) Bill Richardson. In 2007, the election was on my mind and that’s one reason I jumped at the chance to cover the 2008 election from a swing state. As a bonus, the governor was running for president—and with his international endeavors, he seemed to be a man after mine own heart. In more than two years I was never given the opportunity to interview Bill Richardson. I sat in press conferences and I shook his hand at a pool party at the DNC. Now, regarding this pool party. Prior to the DNC, Richardson personally agreed to grant us a short interview in Denver. This never happened and while I could’ve posed a few questions at the party, I decided to respect press coordinator Caitlin Kelleher’s request to wait until a more opportune time. This was a mistake; had I known then that Richardson’s staff had no intention of granting an interview, I would’ve grilled him right there with my Flip Cam. Forevermore, Richardson will be in my books as a man who doesn’t keep promises. The first thing I’ll do in California is call up Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s staff and get in the queue…yeah right.

2) Blockgate. So, one of the proudest moments here was uncovering the long trail of lies left by Public Regulation Commissioner Jerome Block Jr—from covering up his criminal history to hiding the fact he reported spending thousands of dollars of public campaign money on a concert that never actually happened. Block and his father were indicted on a slew of criminal charges; I’m just sad that I won’t be here to cover the trial early next year.

3) Medical Cannabis. I’ve taken a lot of heat ever since I started covering medical cannabis, but I also get calls at least a few times a week from patients desperate to  a) find a doctor who will “recommend” it for them, b) find a way to actually score some pot or c) learn what it takes to start up their own growhouse/dispensary. I’ve been able to help where I can with sharing phone numbers, but really there’s not a lot I can do but report. New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil has clearly dropped the ball on the state’s medical cannabis program: by rejecting most of the recommendations for approved condititions, by passing overly strict regulations for nonprofit dispensaries, by refusing to approve a second cannabis producer….Most patients are still acquiring pot illegally, which is exactly what the Lynn & Erin Compassionate Use Act was supposed to address. Recently, the only approved nonprofit grower, Santa Fe Institute for Natural Medicine, began telling its clients that DOH would soon approve a second grower. This hasn’t happened and DOH has refused to respond to my inquiries. While San Diego will need me to cover its medical cannabis issues (including a series of busts a few weeks ago), I’m disappointed that DOH won’t get its shit together before I drive out.

4) Radio Theater. So, anyone who knows me knows how obsessed I am with radio theater, particularly of the sci-fi genre. I had a brilliant, BRILLIANT, idea for a detective noir series set in Santa Fe…and I got as far as writing up a treatment but I never put down a single word of script.

A few more short ones.

I’ll regret not sticking out the 2010 election.

I regret never writing a cover on Santa Fe gang violence.

I regret never getting to the bottom of why the Department of Defense is paying Indian Affairs employees in Gallup.

I regret never touring LANL, visiting the O’Keeffe Museum or seeing a film at The Screen.

And I regret never sitting in with Chris Diestler on one of his radio shows.

OK, I’ll end this here. Santa Fe, I’ll miss you. And please, in the words of Christian Bale, swear you won’t forget me.

With Love,
Dave Maass

Staff Writer

September 2007 – October 2009

For those of you who follow the death penalty just as closely, the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty is hosting a must-see capital punishment event this weekend. Here are the details:

Witness to Innocence
America’s only national organization led by exonerated death-row survivors
Saturday, October 10, 2009
4 – 6 pm
At the home of Ms. Trish Steindler
10 Hondo Lane, Santa Fe

Hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be served

Featuring brief presentations by
Ray Krone, Exonerated Death Row Survivor
Juan Melendez, Exonerated Death Row Survivor
Kurt Rosenberg, Executive Director, Witness to Innocence
Gail Chasey, New Mexico State Representative

The event is free.

For the search engine crawlers, here’s the text of Mayor Marty Chavez’s 10pm, election eve tweet:

I humbly ask u 4 ur vote tomorrow & ur help keeping ABQ moving forward. Click here 2 find your polling place tomorrow: http://bit.ly/138s6h

OK, so set aside for a moment that the Mayor of Albuquerque is writing messages to us as if we were 15 year olds. That’s just annoying and a little bit pathetic. One could even argue it encourages illiteracy. But, no, let’s not go there. Let’s analyze.

Mayor Chavez spells out “tomorrow” not once, but twice, a totally of 16 characters. In order to pay for his double helping of tomorrow, he steals six letters from you and yours. He collects another eight letters by gutting Albuquerque. Then he cuts corners with the prepositions and leaves a single unspent character. Technically, he can claim he’s a pay-as-you-go type of Tweeter, who can come in under budget to boot.

Call me capricious, but if I was a voter teetering between Chavez and challenger Richard Romero, this slimy tweet the night before would’ve pushed me over. But maybe I’m reading too much into it…. (ba-dum-dum).

Based on the flyer (click to enlarge) it doesn’t look like Icke will be discussing the Illuminati directly, which is often described as an anti-Semitic theory by his critics for its link to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. No, this time Icke will make the argument that the world shouldn’t be worried about swine flu, but the forthcoming swine flu vaccine instead. Other issues: a single North American currency, the Federal Reserve, the NAFTA Superhighway and eugenics.

The event will also include a fundraiser for A Child’s Miracle Mind, a 501c3 raising money to create “The School of Now,” which would be an institution somewhere in New Mexico or Texas for children with ADD/ADHD disorders. The school does not believe in using medication to treat their conditions.

The live-in school is described as an “alternative educational environment for these children so that their purpose can be better discovered, understood and fulfilled.”

Sounds kinda like an evil Hogwarts, doesn’t it?

Obama has tapped New Mexico Human Services Department Secretary Pam Hyde to be the administrator of the US Health and Human Services Department’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Now, this isn’t to smear Hyde personally, but New Mexico’s mental health system (and Hyde headed up the New Mexico Behavioral Health Collaborative) has been controversial at best, suspicious at worst. If you remember, the state’s previous mental health contractor, Value Options, hired former Gov. Bill Richardson Chief of Staff Dave Contarino to help craft its bid renewal. The bid was rejected in favor of OptumHealth’s proposal, which was in turn crafted with the help of a consultant formerly of Richardson’s inner circle, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Both companies donated large sums to Richardson campaign.

The press weren’t the only ones suspicious of this whole deal; a federal grand jury subpoenaed the documents related to the statewide mental health contract in May. For more information, read Trip Jennings comprehensive piece from back in May.

Of Hyde, Richardson says in a congratulatory press release: “She not only improved the services available through the Human Services Department but took on the task of improving and streamlining the way behavioral health services are administered in our state, something no other state has tried, much less accomplished.”

That may be true and Hyde certainly deserves congratulations as a visionary. Let’s just hope that this mess doesn’t follow her and infect the nation’s mental health system.

This time, however, SFINM says the Department of Health is doing something about it.

“The Department of Health is aware of this urgent situation and is working to issue a second producer license,” SFINM’s site tells its clients.

SFR received a screen capture of SFINM’s password-protected site from an anonymous client late Thursday evening. We have not yet received confirmation of this information from the health department. (Update, Oct 2: Acting program coordinator is out until Oct 6, so we probably won’t see movement *that* soon.)

In August, SFINM was completely out of stock and told clients it would resume distribution (with a new strain, “Big Buddha’s Cheese,” no less) in October. Now October’s here and some Santa Fe patients will wait until November.

Citing “overwhelming demand,” SFINM has stopped accepting orders and canceled most of its October delivery schedule:

The Albuquerque delivery scheduled for October 17 has been pushed back to October 31.

The Santa Fe delivery scheduled for October 24 has been pushed back to November 7.

The Alamogordo delivery also scheduled for October 24 is “expected” to arrive on schedule.

Here’s SFINM’s big caveat and finger-point: “Unfortunately there may be many times that all items are out of stock. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but the law limits the amount we can produce.”

In 2007, the New Mexico Legislature passed a law allowing the DOH to set up a medical cannabis program. For the dispensary aspect, DOH decided to go with a non-profit licensing system, limiting each producer to 95 plants.

So far, the DOH has only approved one producer of the 21 producer applications it has received. There are more than 540 card-carrying medical cannabis patients in New Mexico, only a fraction of which are permitted to grow for themselves.

The investigation identified outside lobbyists that donated to the same members of Congress as their clients, and strongly suggests that special interest giving is enhanced by the K Street contributors they hire…

There is no indication that the extra giving by lobbyists was part of a planned effort by the healthcare firms to solidify their support among key members of Congress. But whether coordinated or not, the newly-found clusters of lobbyist giving clearly illustrate the intensity of the full-court press that the industry is currently waging on Capitol Hill.

In all, 61 members of Congress—39 in the Senate, 22 in the House, 38 Democrats and 23 Republicans—got money from 10 or more outside lobbyists whose healthcare or health insurance industry clients also contributed to their campaigns.

Sen. Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee chairman who recently voted down two public-option amendments, was the third largest recipient after Republicans Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitch McConnell. (click the chart to enlarge). Of the 61 members, only two New Mexican names turn up: Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Martin Heinrich, both Democrats.

According to the research, Udall accepted $2,250 from two health-related organizations—Roche Holdings and UnitedHealth—which was then “enhanced”  ten-fold by $22,700 in donations from 21 lobbyists. Heinrich accepted $2,250 from Amgen, which was then amplified by $9,850 from 11 lobbyists.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, one of the original “gang of six” assigned to hash out a health reform bill and one of the eight Senate Finance members to vote for both public option amendments, was not one of the 61 Congressmen. Nor was Rep. Ben R. Lujan or Rep. Harry Teague.

Previously, Journal North reported that the state police planned to review the case following the testimony. Now, Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson says that the citations will stand.

“We reviewed the file supporting the initial the two citations–one to the bartender, one to the liquor license holder–and determined there was sufficient information and evidence in our case in the file to proceed with the hearings on the two administrative citation,” Olson says.

Fierro is accused of killing William Tenorio with his car while driving drunk. Since the state did not cite Rio Chama, a bar where Fierro was at earlier that night in November, SFR asked whether DPS’ position was that Fierro committed perjury in his testimony.

“All I can say is that based on our investigation at the time, we feel that there was enough evidence then to issue those citations and, after review of the file, to continue,” Olson reiterated.

SFR has left a message with First Judicial District Attorney Angela “Spence” Pacheco’s office to see whether, regardless of the jury’s verdict (expected soon), she will file perjury charges against Fierro.

Updated, Oct 1, 10:20am: Pacheco says she can’t comment on the case. She said to call back once there’s a verdict.