Here are some clippings from my newsroom floor before you jump back in the pool this Labor Day 2010 and get a final refresher before the campaigns kick into high gear tomorrow. We start off with jet fatigue...

The same press that gave us oodles of coverage of the purchase of a $5.5 million state jet and whose backsides were being comfortably ensconced in the plane are now complaining that the jet has dominated too much of the campaign for Governor which now has less than two months to go.

The Rio Grande Sun cries in its beer over the campaign jet coverage, saying it's time to move on to more substantive matters. But it was early in Big Bill's administration that the paper devoted reams of copy (and conspiracy theories) about the various state plane rides he took. And the ABQ Journal--previously jet-obsessed with front-pager after front-pager--now laments that the story it ran riot with is now nearly daily fodder on the campaign trail.
One hundred years ago a Mexican philosopher and education minister coined the phrase the "Cosmic Race" noting that Mexicans were the best of all groups because they were a mixture of all races. His perceptions were a reaction to the Spanish and French elite-class pressure to define the Mexican Culture. New Mexico was experiencing a similar pressure at the time as we bid to be a state. We were being defined in Washington DC as "mongrels" unable to speak English. Elite pretensions and expediency prevailed and our genetic roots were edited and most of us were accepted as full fledged citizens.

In the 1960s Reies Lopez Tijerina awakened many of us to the commonality of our genetics by referring to us as Indo-Hispanics as he attempted to created a "brown movement." He wasn't able to sustain a movement but he did raise our consciousness. And, of course, there was "push back" by those who preferred the "pure" Spanish myth. I have felt that it was a class-based myth, denying that we were Mexicans or Indians and leaving us with hard to explain physical characteristics. Those of us who are interested can trace our roots back four centuries but an honest accounting nearly always finds some Indian in the genealogical wood pile. We are proud of Estevan Rael-Galvez, his intellect and accomplishments. We need to lose our class pretensions and embrace our multi-genetic and multi-cultural reality.

Finally for today, here's ABQ's Louis Martinez with a quick take:

We need to check the Rael-Galvez DNA...Living on Venus has fried his brain. My family has records of their continuous habitation of the high desert upper Rio Grande Valley for four centuries and how they originally came from Spain and the Iberian Peninsula..

WE'RE HIGH ON THIS LIST

In times past we were first in the nation in this category, but we are still way up there, underlining the importance of the federal establishment here:

The state ranks fifth in the nation for the amount of money the federal government spent per resident in fiscal year 2009, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Direct federal per capita spending in New Mexico totaled a little less than $14,000 in FY09... Alaska topped the list with more than $20,000 in per capita federal spending.

New Mexico, the report said, received $27.4 billion in direct federal spending in the fiscal year. Direct spending includes federal salaries, retirement, disability payments, unemployment benefits, procurement spending and federal grants...

HUMOR WATCH

Sure, the Guv campaign has been dry as cactus, but there is some humor out there. One of our readers asks:

Have you seen the "No Tejana Susana" bumper stickers? I just saw one.

Well,the Martinez camp might find that too amusing but their El Paso born candidate will be taking much tougher hits than that should she be elected November 2.

And how about some tongue-in-cheek yard sign tips? We've got some from a wag in the Denish camp. Enjoy them. Happy Labor Day, New Mexico:

--Make sure you put them up in a well-lit area. Preferably shrouded in a halo of Christmas lights that you know you will be putting up in a month anyway. You don't want that yard sign walking away late at night as they have been known to do.

--Please do be sure to put your yard sign in the front yard. Backyard signs can usually only be seen by voters who have made up their minds (you), children with too much time on their hands, and of course Fido who may want to take a bite or leave his mark.

--The signs are designed to easily go into grass or dirt yards, so please no jackhammer rentals this year to install signs into your driveway, sidewalks or city streets. The excitement is appreciated, but probably not by your local municipality or your neighbors!

--We try to be very green here at the Denish-Colon campaign and re-use things as much as possible, but please keep in mind for after the election that these recycled yard signs are not edible, and no amount of red chile will change that.

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