click to view Arts Alliance calendar online

Shelter Challenge & thoughts on cybercharity

Shelter reminder: are you keeping the momentum even in the absence of regular reports from the Shelter Project? Quick take: absence of report is no excuse (but a good reminder). You can check Mountainair's standing online anyway. Mountainair is still #2, although the Rio Rancho shelter in #1 may not be same as the one leading earlier.

Another question: are the weekly reports online cumulative or just for the week? Questions a report would answer. If your inquiring mind wants to know, email Jerry Melargno at <jerrymel@wildblue.net>

Mountainair Shelter now

Don't forget that there are other good deed clicks too. In my mind, these raise questions about the focus on clicking competition. Given limited time, slow connection or both, which is the more ethical choice? Do you game the system to win more points for the Mountainair Shelter and the "greater glory" of Mountainair, or do you, instead, use the time to click the other cause sites on the panel - hunger, breast cancer, child health, literacy, rain forest? All are part of the Greater Good Network.

To paraphrase Hillel, change, "if I am not for myself, then who am I for. If I am only for myself, then who am I?" to "If am not for a worthy local cause, then what am I for? If I am only for the competition and vicarious winning. then who am I?"

The GreaterGood Network of websites offer the public a unique opportunity to support causes they care about at no cost to them. Each person's daily click on the Click To Give™ sites displays sponsor advertising. One hundred percent (100%) of sponsor advertising is paid as a royalty to charity through the non-profit, tax-exempt GreaterGood.org.

Who are you?

If impersonally and from a distance at maximum convenience is the only way we are comfortable doing good, that raises other questions.

around the neighborhood

From around the neighborhood...

2009 is a BIG Reunion year for MHS. Reunion organizer Roger McNiel <RioMcNiel@peoplepc.com>, writes, "Would you please publicize the High School Reunion to be held this year during the Firecracker Jubilee. Events start Friday evening July 3rd with a reception at the Shaffer Hotel at 7pm, meeting will be July 4th at 2pm at the High School."

Did you know? Do you want to know? (Don't expect infotmation handed over on a silver plate with no effort on your part) Many records of public agencies at the city level are available for the asking, without even having to resort to a formal request. Transparency requirements for non-profit fall into a gray area. According to Ann Taylor Schwing's Open Meeting Laws 2d:

As a general matter, federal, state and local government bodies are subject to open meeting laws. Non-profit organizations typically do not fall under these categories. Some individuals, however, have argued that certain non-profit organizations do constitute government bodies because they receive substantial government funding and as a result, should be subject to open meeting laws.

Case law supports IRS withdrawal of tax-exempt status for practices incompatible with transparent, democratic processes.

Public documents are supposed to be accessible. Many communities, especially small ones like the Town of Mountainair, are putting not just meeting minutes and agendas online but municipal statutes as well. It's not just a convenience to the public but a cost saving strategy as well. The Town & its citizenry cannot just say we want more coutry policing and get it. There are channels and a process to follow. County policing does not fall like manna from the sky. As with all else bureaucratic, there are forms...

The Town has to file a MOU to request more county policing. What is a MOU? It is a Memo Of Understanding - makes requests public and puts them on record so to speak. Has the Town prepared / filed one for / with the county?

About George Hewett's short course for credit - turns out I misunderstood. It is not a course FOR credit; it is a course ABOUT credit and how to improve your credit rating. The course starts June 1. Contact George for more information - check WhisperingRange.com for contact information and if I get to it, a post on Announcements.

From Robin desJardins: photo (CDs and prints) and video services for family events, weddings, parties, reunions, etc. Professional qualitywork at neighborhood prices, including a "Recession Proof Wedding package" and no printing fees. Call Robin at 505-807-1312 or email at imagiosstudios@yahoo.com

materials for the mosaic mural

Nothing to report about the Community Mural project (mosaic this year), not for lack of asking. Oodles from iCreate (music program for Jubilee, community garden update, gardening & locavore links, music outreach program) but saving that for a separate post.

A few brief reports on the Fiber Arts Fiesta - mixed reviews. I've asked those reporting to post short reactions as comments to the original post or send longer reports for posting as submitted and with full "as submitted by" credits/ byline.

Night Watch, 26x35, Jude Mowris

Jude Mowris has several hundred tires for someone who would like to build an earthship/guest house/garage with them. On a very different subject, kudos are in order - Jude has been selling her altered couture / painted fabric creations in Firenza Gallery, Arroyo Seco (near Taos). The painted, embellished vests (including at least one featured in Altered Couture) are especially popular, with requests for more.

Dream Vest

In between times, there is readying the house for sale, reading Hemmingway and trying new forms - currently largeer canvases such as Night Watch above


And down the road...

More to come as well on the Church of the Nazarene's major June event. Firecracker Jubilee and the Poets & Writers Picnic / Sunflower Poetry Writing Workshop. In the absence of Sunflower Festival updates (not always reliably forthcoming), I'll extemporize, extrapolate, editorialize and update past Sunflower essays (Plato, Derrida, and the Mountainair Sunflower Festival ) to reflect its ongoing evolution.

What's my agenda? Consider it in the spirit of civil (or would that be institutional) disobedience & to reiterate the public's claim to a public event.

Community Mosaic Mural of the week

Community Mosaic, Hannibal Square in Winter Park, FL

celebrates community pride and heritage.

Fiber Arts Fiesta

Something for our many talented fiber artists (including those whose names must not be mentioned), whether weaving, quilting, altering recycled couture, beading, basketry, knitting, crocheting, making dolls, mixed media or other...

If any local fiber artists are exhibiting, please let me know so Mtair Arts can offer the appropriate kudos

The seventh annual Fiber Arts Fiesta opens tonight with an exhibit elected from more than 600 entries in categories such as dollmaking, wool manipulation, silk painting and more.

Pride and Joy Gourd Basket.
Mixed Media entry by Tricia Sutton

This year the Fiesta is also offering classes in fiber crafting as varied as the works on display. In addition to these classes and the juried show, don't miss the vintage lace on loan from The Lace Museum in Sunnydale, Calif

Special exhibits and features also include featured artist, Placitas silk painter Dorothy Bunny Bowen. Fiesta Fashion Shows, Vendor Mall, and “An Old Fashioned Christmas," a raffle of 3 large Christmas trees decorated with donated handmade ornaments to benefit Habitat for Humanity. The trees will be on display throughout the Fiesta, raffle tickets for sale on site. .

Rozome on Kimono Silk: God's Glory in the Morning (28 x 22 in)

Rozome artist, painter, art historian and teacher is the Fiesta's Dorothy Bunny Bowen, with her special exhibit, “Out of Time: Ten Thousand Days with a Brush,” is the Featured Artist. Rozome was used traditionally to decorate kimonos, and is valued in artwork for allowing subtle shading as well as precise edges and layers of color and imagery.To see more of her work and learn more about rozome, visit her website, http://www.db-bowen.com. Photos by Dorothy Bowen.

You can find this wealth of fiber art and traditional crafts at the Manuel Lujan Building at Expo New Mexico. Exhibit tickets are $5, class fees vary. Artwork is on display Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more info, visit fiberartsfiesta.org.

Albquerque Fiber Arts Council

PS did you know that significant scholarship supports the theory that Helen of Troy was abducted less for her beauty than for her knowledge of weaving? Fiber art matters...

Community Mosaic Mural, going on week 3

a blank wall + materials ...

+

pictures by Jude - from the 2nd workday/ workshop

The community mural will be a series of smaller individually created mosaic panels, presumably not tresselated, bolted onto the south facing exterior wall of the Alpine Alley coffeehouse (which seems to have morphed through usage from original Coffee Cup Court to current designation).

Tomas' panel will be a large coffee cup - steam rising from it - with a cutlery border. The coffe cup, in a bright sunflower yellow, is well under way. Celeste Simon was at work laying out pieces for a mosaic sunflower - not for the mural as it turned out but to raffle at the Sunflower Festival in August. Another mosaic builder, whose name I cannot vouchsafe remembrance, was working on a sunflower panel that would be part of the mural.

Although the plan for now seems to be "let it grow like Topsy," not unpredictably, "scenes of Mountainair has been broached as a likely controlling trope.

More about muralling mosaically... links to a three part series on building a giant mosaic. Coincidentally, also with coffee cups and for another coffee house, although an interior not an exterior mural.

preliminary design

• Planning: design & materials
  
• Breaking and Creating
  
• Grout it & done!
• documenting the process of building the coffeeshop mosiac mural: 79 photos
  

finished mural

Blue Ridge Hospice Horses In New Mexico

After not showing up on the 12th, the Best of America by Horseback Mexico to Canada trail ride (MTC for short) finally arrived the next day around midday. Mayor Gilley and Kathy Anglin headed for the rodeo grounds to set up for the BBQ postponed from the day before. Town Clerk Suzan Brazil called the paper to come take pictures and do a story for the Town but they were not interested in coming here and would wait until the riders got to Moriarty.

I guess we'll read all about it in the East Mountain weeklies - surely a banal tale compared to our own comedy of errors, otherwise known as a Mountainair Moment. Did anyone notice if they also passed on covering Mountainair's strong statewide standing in the Shelter Challenge and miss out on another good story too? (speaking of which - have you clicked yet today?)

The reason MTC trail ride gave for being late was they were just late. Those most put out by the schedule & communication glitches seem satisfied. Not me. Never mind that they found time to send press releases to riders' home town papers the day before but not time to give us a holler. I emailed the home office to ask why & will let you know if I ever hear back.

Good deal for them too - charging riders $550-600/week, with riders still responsible for all trail ride related expenses - but free food in Mountainair for 50 people. Instead of the Jubilee Committee selling plates @ a reasonable $5 as planned to raise money to pay for 4th of July fireworks, the Mayor decided to just give it to them.

About 15 townspeople came out - might have been more with better notice and if so many had not already spent the day before waiting in vain. Richard Spencer played and sang a few songs around the campfire and everybody there had a real good time. Still, we should ask why so many will turn out to witness or participate in contentious public meetings but ignore something as basically community building as songs around a campfire. No doubt, it's a similar instinct to the one that draws gawkers to car crashes.

Here's story from Winchester VA that tells us more about two of the trail riders...

Blue Ridge Hospice Horses In New Mexico. Posted May 12, published May 13, Steven Glazier, steven.glazier@tv3winchester.com

Tammy Shoremount and Freda Jackson have hit the 300 mile mark Tuesday after reaching a small town (ed note: Please note that this story is dated the day riders were supposed to arrive here but did not. Where is this town and what is its name?) outside of Mountainair, New Mexico.

They are riding 1,800 miles on their horses to benefit the Blue Ridge Hospice. Shoremount says Jackson was ill today but she is doing okay and that has been the worst of their problems so far.

"It is unbelievable. It is so different from where we live," says Shoremount. "There is just nothing but wide open space and the nearest store is 45 minutes away and it's just a little small store that closes early," adds Shoremount.

(ed note: what store is she referring to? Is it the B St Market or another store?)

For more information about the two riders and their trip, check out the other Ride of a Lifetime stories on the Winchester VA Channel 3 web site.

Ride of a Lifetime - Getting Ready To Ride 1,800 Miles

• March 31, 2009
• April 10, 2009

Let's hope that Best of America by Horseback is waiving the weekly ride fees for these two riders so that everything they raise goes to the Blue Ridge Hospice.

cautionary trails, murals & other musings

A grey day today. Here's hoping for rain so that trimming flinty hooves will be less work. Sun tomorrow for Jude & Roy and for the Gymkhana Rodeo.Until then - rain or shine, today is a day for reading, listening to music, answering mail, following interesting links, writing posts and such.

"Trial by Trail Ride" (or some other title) is still in progress, a draft. I came across a reference to Mountainair & the BoA trail ride at a Virginia TV site. It makes an interesting sidebar for the trail ride sage recap, a cautionary tale. The very oldest stories are cautionary: avoid wolves when strolling through the dark woods; marry money (a prince or princess) when you can; clever beats dim but brawny if you are good at thinking on your feet, and so on. The story here? What else but that familiar line from Cool Hand Luke & Guns 'n Roses, "what we have here is a failure to communicate."

I'm (still!) trying to steer Arts away from publicserviceannouncedom onto more interesting tracks, so you'll need to click over to Announcements to see what's happening this weekend. Monday, "this week in Mountainair" moves there too - with, however, all the requisite reminder corss linking.

Yesterday, I blogged a "this weekend in Mountainair" on Announcements, then expanded it and posted to NM CultureNet email announcements list. I may make "this weekend in Mountainair" a regular feature. Please no comments about my taking up fiction. NaNoWriMo is not until November. Aggregating calendar and other attention worthy items adds up. It's also yet another exercise in bridging communication gaps, even if the venture is quixotic and gaps more like chasms. Better than the abyss that look back.

On other fronts, Tamra Hays (Hays Trevelogue), sometime Mountainair resident and informal Istanbul correspondent, awarded the plog, Poets & Writers Picnic, a Kreativ Blogger Award with the repsonsibility of passing it on to 4-7 more blogs. That was fun. Take a look for yourself.

Why the plog & not this blog? It's not the creative one anymore. that's why. There's my cautionary blogger's tale. A mid(blog)life crisis. Even chez plog, fighting the orcs and demons of publicserviceannouncementdom is an ongoing struggle, but apparently holding its own better there than here. Of course, I tagged Notes from Straw Mountain. How could I not? Such fun that I am considering adding a regular "around the blogosphere" feature. Mostly poetry for the plog. Maybe a broader menu for Arts: besides arts and NM blogs (especially local ones), perhaps blogs paralleling local interests and activities & best cross-over blogs.

Sunflower mosaic mural, Louisiana,
school art project directed by Jude's sister

I've already committed to a mosaic mural feature to complement the community mosaic mural project (workshop and workday every Wednesday @ Mountainair Clayworks), Remember: it's a community project: you do not have to be a member of the arts council or even an artist to participate. I'm looking forward to the mural feature and posting community mural updates like I did for the train mural. Who isn't looking forward to murals all over town?

In short: announce on Announcements; exposition & follow up pieces here on Arts; cross link madly - don't overlook the plog.

mosaic mural in progress, Chicago

Mosaic Mural at Bryn Mawr and Lake Shore Drive viaduct
Originally uploaded by boffo1234567

This mosaic mural at Bryn Mawr and Lake Shore Drive is first in a series of public art / community art projects focusing on murals and mosaics. I plan to post at least one new image of a different mosaic mural each week to complement the art council's current mosaic mural project.

Why? To inspire you to participate by making your own mosaic panel or panels to contribute to one or more of the mosaics being created on walls around town, Mural workshop / work days, which Jude and I will also be documenting and reporting on along with mural progress, are every Wednesday 9-12 at the Mountainair Clayworks across from Alpine Alley. Contact: wolff.clayworks@gmail.com

Open House - Earthsong Gallery

Open House, JoAn Dale's Earthsong Gallery, Manzano - all day (8:30am-8pm), Saturday May 16th.

Browse pottery, sculpture, jewelry, dream catchers and other handcrafted and unusual artwork and gifts. See the Earthsong online catalog for more examples.

Two miles north of Manzano, near mile marker 77, on the right hand side. Look for the "Gallery Open" sign.

Car pooling from Alpine Alley, 2pm. and 11am.

Flash Fiction Contest

DEADLINE: noon Friday, June 5

Send your best examples of prosaic brevity (no more than 119 words) to shorts@alibi.com or to The Alibi's Flash Fiction Contest, 2118 Central Ave SE, Suite 151, Albuquerque, NM 87106

Include your full name. Submit no more than two entries per person. The Flash Fiction Issue hits stands June 18.

So what is flash fiction anyway? Obviously, it’s short & concise – note the Alibi’s 119 word limit – but tells a complete story. Otherwise, the standard, generally accepted length of a flash fiction piece is 1000 words or less. What else do you need to know? A sure natural for tweeters & Facebook status updaters – predates them but their genre nonetheless.

More about …

• Flash What? A Quick Look at Flash Fiction
• Flash Fiction Online

Spring Fling 2009

Bingo details courtesy Dennis Fulfer, Scott Remmich and Kristine Lauritsen. Pictures by Kristine. Ditto Clean-up Day & Community Yard Sale report:

Callers: Dennis Fulfer & Kevin Turner

Spring Fling Bingo made close to $900 - $100 more than last year even though cards were $10 last year and $5 this year: more players playing more rounds. Awesome. as Dennis puts it. Kristine Lauritsen reports that 84 were in attendance for Spring Fling Bingo; she thinks the number last year was about 70 - the crowd had a good time!

Dennis adds, "Yes, it was good. I loved the cross section of folks that showed up. I loved the venue, too... more intimate and better acoustics...didn't have to put the tables away." (Setting up: Kristine Lauritsen, Scott Remmich, Vanessa Vaile, Ruth Ballen, Marvin Fulfer, Dennis & Kristy Fulfer)

among the flowers

Thanks all the way around to donors of garden & gardening themed bingo prizes (not all donors were Chamber members: not all Chamber members were donors):

Salinas Puebleo National Monument; Moni's Greens; Claunch Pinto Soil/Water Conservation District; Town of Mountainair; Stonehouse Gallery; Turner Inn; iCreate; B Street Market; Abo Trading Company; Walmart, Edgewood; Mountainair Concrete; The Rock Motel; Troy's Plumbing/Heating,

Kristine's report on Clean up day & community yard sale:

Saturday was very successful, I have $110. from the sale spaces, lots of strollers and shoppers until about 2pm, 16 vendors, more had signed up but didn't show, we made $110 because some had multiple booths, only 3 stayed for Sunday but we had more garbage dumping going on Sunday, I was there from 9-12, then we wrapped, all 4 dumpsters are full! Dumping went on until 5pm when I finally closed down - Sunday 3 vendors returned and dumping continued from 9-12, all 4 are full - good job everybody!

Next year I suggest we solicit food vendors, not just chips, candy, soda (which sold well for the booster club), everyone there wanted lunch!

(Set up & closing down: Kristine Lauritsen & Pam Pettingill. Let me know who else...)

May 11-17: This Is The Week That Is

A quick word about TWTWTW (the week that was): our 2nd Annual Spring Fling (bingo, clean-up day & community yard sale) was a huge success - great time to be had by all. More to come...but now to the week at hand.

Monday, May 11
Some time today the RFD Mexico to Canada Trail Ride arrives @ Rodeo grounds from Gran Quivira where they made camp Sunday night. Today's blogquest is tracking down and confirming details for Tuesday activities before it's too late for the information to help either organizers of said activities or potential participants.

Tuesday, May 12
4:00 PM - 6:30 PM RFD-TV: RFD Mexico to Canada Trail Ride Farewell BBQ & Dessert Auction, live music by America by Horseback Musicians. Rodeo Grounds off NM 55 S, Mountainair. Watch for more information on Mountainair Announcements, presumably forthcoming before events take place...

Wednesday, May 13
Early morning: RFD Mexico to Canada Trail Ride departs for Estancia
9:00 am Mural Mosaic Workshop @ Mountainair Clayworks
9:00 am Torrance County Commission meeting, Estancia

Thursday & Friday, May 14 & 15
Nothing local on my calendar, but the week is young yet...

Saturday, May 16
All day event, Earthsong Gallery Open House (Manzano, NM 55, mile marker 77)
All day event, Tijeras Open Air Arts Market (Tijeras)
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Voices in the Wind (Gran Quivira)
4:30 PM - 9:00 PM Spring Poetry Festival ( Bosque NM)

Sunday, May 17
All day event Mountainair Gymkhana Rodeo
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM Clay Show (Cibola Art Gallery )
1:00 PM - 1:30 PM Voices in the Wind (Gran Quivira)

Ongoing:
Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM Clay Show (Cibola Art Gallery )

notes, chamber & other (music)

Music!

iCreate will host a local music stage July 4 at Firecracker Jubilee. At present, plans include music by the iCreate group, "weCreate" along with other local groups and individual musicians, open mic and DJ backup. Want to come play, whether with your own group, sitting in with another or on your own, or get in on the ground floor as an authentic Mountainair music groupie by helping with equipment and set up? Contact Dennis Fulfer, webaab@aol.com

And before Jubilee, there's another community event with more music to look forward to. The Nazerene Church's BIG EVENT (stay tuned for more tantalizing details), June 18-21, features music 6pm every night (among other attractions). Dennis Fulfer is donating PA/stage lights/stage services to support their community cause.

Chamber short takes: truly the soul of brevity...

All's well, volunteers enlisted for everything Spring Fling from Bingo to Clean-up Day & Community Yard Sale; funding request for rodeo and booster club (banner) approved; new committee established to promote non-tourism oriented member businesses; Mayor Vel Gilley reported on Town street sign and house numbering project (sorry, no details - apply to City Hall or wait for meeting minutes). A huge cheer & round of applause - all virtual - to Kathleen Littlefield (Mountainair School District, Superintendent's Office) for taking over recording secretary responsibilities. Now I have someone to bug for minutes... online archiving of which has been approved (none forthcoming to date).

As for yesterday's Town Council Meeting - I have informal notes courtesy of Dennis Fulfer, who commented that the meeting was “interesting ...LONG ...no major heated debates but definitely some action planning going on,” that I will post separately after he reviews the draft, just to make sure we get it right. Please bear in mind that these are informal notes, not official minutes. To keep truly current - show up and take your own notes.

Cinco de Mayo

Perhaps a bit of a cliché - but no more than St Patrick's Day or National Poetry Month - here's the annual Cinco de Mayo offering. Most delectable graphics though are for Day of the Dead, which is right up there with that other great but not quite All American holiday, Mardi Gras. Did you know that the historical French Quarter as we know it today was actually built by the Spanish?

Mountainair needs a Hispanic oriented event, but would it have to be Cinco de Mayo? The ancestors of many area Hispanics settled here before there was a Mexico. They came here from Nueva España, not Mexico. Still, a "why no 5 de mayo" question that this comment answers also reminded me that something is in order if only offset the absence of whatever should be.

The usual:

• Wikipedia
• History & pictures
• News (from google search)
  

!Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Seattle-area fiestas‎ - Five Days of Cinco de Mayo: The Lost Lady American Cantina started celebrating Cinco de Mayo last week and will conclude its five days of fun today. - Seattle Times Cinco de Mayo: A family's celebration - The Star-Ledger, NJ ‎ Crowds brave rain for Cinco de Mayo festivities‎ - San Francisco Chronicle

• Mexico Online - history & significance of holiday
• The Cinco de Mayo website from San Marcos, Texas has a more in-depth article on the history of the holiday.
• Huffinton Post - 5 fun ways to celebrate Cinco de Mayo (which does NOT refer to a jar of mayo sitting in the sink), with pictures
  

Sounding a critical note:
Does Anybody Know What Cinco de Mayo Is All About?

Mexican celebrating Cinco de Mayo is like Americans celebrating the battle of 1812... (actually, we do just that in Francophone South Louisiana) If everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day (another ethnic-based celebration featuring lots of alcohol), is everyone Mexican on Cinco de Mayo?

Battle of Puebla

Cinco de Mayo ‘means nothing to us’ say other Hispanic immigrant groups

And an intriguing historical morsel:

"On Cinco de Mayo . . . New Mexico historian unearths Spain's role in the American Revolution," Bill Dupuy, Los Alamos Public Affairs Office

Spain that played a major role in the war that won the United States its independence from Britain, according to noted New Mexico historian Tom Chavez, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. Based on extensive research Chavez conducted in Spain, his book "Spain and the Independence of the United States," chronicles a history rarely if ever discussed or written about in the United States.

The Archives of the Indies in Seville include tributes written by George Washington, Patrick Henry and others who were close enough to the strategies to know. "Without Spain, this nation would not have been successful," Chavez quoted one letter as saying. Spain and its colonies contributed more money to the American cause than France. Of course, Spain's motives were not exactly altruistic. In the end, it got virtually everything it wanted. It retained important trading ports in the Indies and it stopped major British incursions into Central America.

As for the United States, Spain's contribution seems to have been forgotten. Few school children can read about it in textbooks, said Chavez. Only the symbol for the American dollar remains as a reminder, he said, and only for those who know it is a derivation of nomenclature signifying the Spanish peso.

Now to hunt up appropriate Mexican poets for the plog - Octavio Paz is always a good choice, among so many others. Let's not overlook Native American culture and history either. Another day to celebrate and honor that too.

Shelter Challenge Update

from Jerry Melargno, more about Mountainair's fab standing statewide in the shelter challenge - and how we can boost it.

Mountainair Starts Strong in Shelter Challenge

Internet voting for the Shelter+ Challenge on The Animal Rescue Site began April 13 and will continue through July 26. Some of you might recall there was a Shelter Challenge contest at the end of 2008 in which the Mountainair Animal Shelter finished second in NM (out of 70 NM shelters) and around 350th nationally - and we only learned about the contest after it had been running for several weeks. We made a strong late surge, but unfortunately finished out of the money.

This spring we began recruiting voters before the start and have been holding in second place in NM (and currently 55th nationally). The obstacle to a $1,000 grant for first in NM is a Rio Rancho shelter that had a great start, quickly rising to fourth nationally. Recently, as hundreds of shelters throughout the US and Canada become more focused on the contest, Rio Rancho has fallen out of the top ten. Now is the time for Mountainair to strengthen its efforts and begin a three month push. If we can finish with the momentum we had last year, there is a good chance we can pass Rio Rancho for the prize.

You can help by voting EVERY DAY on every computer you can access until July 26. If you have already been voting, thank you and please do your best to recruit additional voters from among your animal-loving friends and relatives anywhere in the world. If you haven't been voting, please start today and help us spread the word. It's absolutely free and takes about a minute. Your help is vital to getting Mountainair to the top! Follow the procedure below.

1. Go to www.animalrescuesite.com. Click on the “click to give” box near the top of the page. You will be helping to feed needy animals and it’s free, with no obligation.
2. Click on Shelter+ Challenge “vote now” box near the top right of the page (or the Shelter+ Challenge tab along the right margin).
3. Enter NM (state) and Mountainair (city) and click search (scroll down if needed).
4. Click vote just below where you clicked search in step 3 (scroll down if needed).
5. Confirm your vote by entering the name of the animal in the photo.

(April 13 - July 26: I should add that to the calendar for This is the week that is - and so should you...

pathway to wisdom in brain circuitry?

SOURCE: University of California, San Diego, news release, April 6, 2009

common traits of wisdom appear to follow a universal path in the brain

(HealthDay News) -- Wisdom appears to be more than a subjective concept, it may actually be contained in certain brain circuits and pathways, suggest U.S. researchers who compiled the first-ever review of the neurobiology of wisdom. They said this type of research could potentially lead to interventions for enhancing wisdom.

It's widely agreed that wisdom includes six traits: empathy, compassion, altruism, self-understanding, emotional stability and pro-social attitudes, such as a tolerance for others' values, according to background information in a news release about the study.

But many questions about wisdom remain. Is it universal or culturally based? Is it uniquely human? Is it related to age and experience? Can it be taught?

"Defining wisdom is rather subjective, though there are many similarities in definition across time and cultures. However, our research suggests that there may be a basis in neurobiology for wisdom's most universal traits," study author Dr. Dilip V. Jeste of the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, said in the news release.

Jeste and his colleague, Dr. Thomas W. Meeks, studied existing articles, publications and other documents for the six attributes most commonly associated with wisdom and for the brain circuitry associated with those attributes.

They found that these six traits are associated with heightened activity in several different areas of the brain. It appears that the neurobiology of wisdom involves an "optimal balance" between more primitive brain systems (the limbic system) and the more developed areas of the brain, the researchers said.

"Understanding the neurobiology of wisdom may have considerable clinical significance, for example, in studying how certain disorders or traumatic brain injuries can affect traits related to wisdom," Jeste said.

The study appears in the April 6 issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.-- Robert Preidt

More information

The American Academy of Neurology Foundation offers some more information on the amazing brain.