Happy Hour for Haiti

5 pm
Wednesday, Jan. 20

No cover; donations accepted

Cowgirl
319 S. Guadalupe St.
982-2565

This week, in a last-minute fundraiser thrown together by some particularly charitable Santa Feans, a whole slew of local musicians will rock Cowgirl for a good cause. All donations from the cover-free evening are set to benefit Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross in the organizations’ efforts to help Haiti in the wake of a devastating earthquake on Jan. 12.

The lineup is set to include individuals Lydia Clark, CB McCarty, Cozy Ralston, Joe West, Matthew Andrae, Bill Hearne, David Manzanares, Josh Martin, Margaret Burke, Jim Almond, Felicia Quintana, John Kersweg, Susan Holmes and Michael Kott, plus bands The Rattlers, Venus Bogardus and Zenobia & Friends. According to event organizer CB McCarty, more are signing on every day, so by the time Wednesday rolls around, we’ll have quite a billing!

And yes, the evening does take place during Cowgirl’s award-winning happy hour, so if ever there was a reason to down a few margaritas, this would be it.

Santa Fe’s Red Cross Office tells me the best way folks can help people devastated by the earthquake in Haiti is by donation through the national office. Here’s the info:

For folks to donate to the Haiti earthquake, it is best to send financial (as opposed to ‘items’)

By mail: American Red Cross, PO Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013
By phone: 1-800-257-7575
Online: www.redcross.org

The American Red Cross will send donations to the International Committee of the Red Cross, so have people specify ‘Haiti Earthquake Relief’ on their donation.

Numerous media outlets also are reporting you also can contribute to the American Cross for Haiti relief via text: Text “HAITI” to “90999″ to make a $10 donation. Follow the Red Cross on twitter @RedCross for more info.

The Center for International Disaster Information also has info on how people can help.

Cnet also pointed me toward the San Francisco Chronicle’s list of organizations that are helping put together relief for Haiti.

If you hear about other relief efforts, feel free to share them here or let us know.

The New Mexico “Green Jobs Cabinet report” was released yesterday. It’s 98 pages of wonkery not intended for the casual reader.

Not to nitpick—or fearmonger—but there’s a word missing in the report. It’s kind of important. The word is earthquakes.

Although the report spends a good amount of space assessing New Mexico’s potential for geothermal energy—and exploring “Synergies with the Oil and Gas Industry”—it fails to mention, even in passing, one major potential downside of this particular “green” power source: It can cause earthquakes. Continue reading »

Why LANL’s latest media dust-up shouldn’t be taken lightly.

On Monday, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board released a damning report on the safety of the main plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The crux of the report is that in the case of a “seismic event,” or major earthquake, along the geologic fault that underlies the lab, the ensuing damage (think earthquake triggers fire triggers big radioactive explosion) would be more than 100 times the allowable federal standard.

Unfortunately, that’s not the worst of it. Continue reading »