SantaFe.com

A bunch of us were sitting around shortly after the New Mexico caucus, talking about the state of Presidential politics.

Making sense of high-stakes national politics was relatively easy.

McCain: war hero, authentic guy, tells you what he thinks.

Obama: inspiring young leader, great speaker, full of hope, gives people reasons to aspire to more.

Clinton: first serious woman candidate for President, determined competitor, long years of political experience, loads of political i-owe-you’s from party regulars.

We went through the strengths and weaknesses of each of the candidates who’d dropped...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
by Alan M. Webber • SantaFe.com

Picture this: A handsome 28-year-old bachelor is transferred by his computer company in California to its Paris office, complete with a company-paid two bedroom penthouse overlooking the City of Lights. Good pay and plenty of time to enjoy French wine, French food, and yes, French female companionship. It’s the kind of job most young men would kill for and Taylor Selby felt pretty much the same way when he landed in Paris in 2000. But six months into this dream life Selby found himself channeling Peggy Lee, asking “Is That All There Is?”

“I was having a blast, but when the novelty...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
by Hal Wingo • SantaFe.com

The Case of the Coughing Cat sounds like a Perry Mason mystery from the 1930s. But it’s real, not fictional, and it’s now, not then.

The cat was coughing because it had the fearsome disease, plague. It may have sprayed droplets of its bacteria-laden saliva on a Santa Fe county family. If so, they were in mortal danger. When the sick cat was finally taken in January to a veterinarian, the disease was suspected, and a test by the New Mexico Department of Health confirmed it.

Plague comes in three versions: Bubonic strikes the lymph nodes in the groin, armpit or neck, and they become...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
by Richard B. Stolley • SantaFe.com

This month Hal Wingo delves into the world of mind-body connection and alternative health care with Dr. Larry Dossey, New York Times best-selling author, world traveling lecturer, and consultant. Hal joins our staff of monthly columnists after a career as editor of Life and People magazines.

Friday, February 29, 2008 at 3:10 AM
by Hal Wingo • SantaFe.com

In his March column, Dick Stolley examines why the Santa Fe River is a dry river bed and a proposal by the Santa Fe Watershed Association to bring it back to life. Dick is founding managing editor of People Magazine, author, and award-winning reporter and editor for Life magazine.

Friday, February 29, 2008 at 1:33 AM
by Richard B. Stolley • SantaFe.com

There comes a time in the life of every city—usually when it is at a critical cross-roads, when its future is at stake—when it has to decide which other city it doesn’t want to be.

That was true for Portland, Oregon in the early 1970s.

It’s true for Santa Fe now.

Back in the 1970s I was an assistant to the young mayor of Portland who had run for office on a campaign that said, “Ours is a city with much to cherish, much to save, and too much to lose to remain idle.” In fact, Portland was at an inflection point. San Francisco to the south was established as a sophisticated city; Seattle to...

Friday, February 29, 2008 at 1:28 AM
by Alan M. Webber • SantaFe.com

Every city likes to think there’s something special about it.

Boston, for example, likes to tout its combination of blue-collar toughness and Harvard intellectualism. New York will always be the place where, if you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. Chicago has big shoulders and Mid-Western pragmatism: it’s the city that works! Los Angeles, on the other hand, isn’t about working—it’s about glamour, glitz, and gold.

Look around America and you’ll see it’s true: Cities of all sizes, shapes, histories and heritages have something they can point to that let’s them say, We’re different.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
by Alan M. Webber • SantaFe.com

In Santa Fe, democracy in action is not always pretty to watch – like sausages being made, as the saying goes. An example is the controversy over traffic calming.

Traffic calming, for the uninitiated, is the weird term for trying to persuade or force motorists to obey the speed limit on city streets while also watching out for other cars, bikes, runners, hikers, children and pets.

It has become a big issue here, as vehicle congestion increases. Leroy Pacheco, city traffic engineer, recently listed 22 streets that have taken action on traffic calming or are considering it. In June, the...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
by Richard B. Stolley • SantaFe.com

My connection to the Santa Fe River begins with my birth in 1977, just a road’s width away from the bosque. It begins with a sky so blue it hurts the eyes, hills spotted with juniper and cactus, and green splashes of cottonwood along an intermittent stream. It begins in a land of contradictions, a high arid landscape stretched south beneath a sweep of rustling aspen in the mountains above. Through this landscape cuts the lifeblood of Santa Fe – its River – the reason for Santa Fe’s existence itself, and a potent part of my own personal history.

My earliest memories are interwoven with...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
by Eliza Kretzmann • SantaFe.com

Mayor David Coss’s city hall office looks more like the setting for a flamenco dancer. Sitting within its bright pink and yellow walls, the 53-year old Illinois native who grew up in Santa Fe speaks just above a whisper, as if by contrast with his surroundings, while reflecting on the fun and frustrations of his first term.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
by Hal Wingo • SantaFe.com