Columns

Williams: It’s School Budget Time Again

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By MATT WILLIAMS, Secretary
Los Alamos Board of Education

Well it’s that time to begin preparing for the 2015-2016 budget. The Budget Steering committee is beginning to meet in preparations to brief the Board at the February meeting.

So what does this mean to all of you? Two things that I will discuss here, the first is what the process may look like and how you might be involved; the second is a more informative narrative about what this process really is (hint – it’s not a budget!).

So what do you as a community member probably want to know right now? The Board will be putting forth Read More

This Week At The Reel Deal

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Column By JIM O’DONNELL 
REEL DEAL  

This Friday we are opening The Imitation Game and The Homesman starring Hillary Swank, Tommy Lee Jones, and Meryl Streep. It’s not been well advertised but has great reviews and looks like a poignant film of the old west. We will  be showing it for one week only.

Again thanks to all of you who waited to see The Imitation Game at the Reel Deal. It means a lot to us. We are holding American Sniper, Mortdecai, and Strange Magic for another week. Paddington will end this Thursday.

We are having a special screening of Bag-It, at 7 p.m. this Thursday, Read More

How the Hen House Turns: Chickens, Dogs and Retirement

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How the Hen House Turns:
Chickens, Dogs and Retirement
By Carolyn A. (Cary) Neeper, Ph. D.

In retirement communities, residents are usually encouraged to have pets, but they must weigh no more than 25 pounds. Guinea pigs and chinchillas are nice, friendly choices. They don’t have to be walked, nor let out like cats, but they do add to one’s housekeeping chores.

Gwendolyn, my Americauna hen, weighed less than 25 pounds, and our kind director said I could bring her here to California. However, a little thoughtful consideration made me realize she would have to be caged–not a happy option for Read More

Meet UNM-LA Advisory Board Candidate Troy Hughes

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By TROY HUGHES, Candidate
UNM-LA Advisory Board Position 3

Our college, the University of New Mexico at Los Alamos (UNMLA), is a vital part of our community that deserves more attention. I submitted my name as a candidate for the UNMLA Advisory Board so that I can be one that makes a difference and brings UMNLA the attention it deserves. 

My association with community colleges started many years ago when I led an effort to create a cooperative agreement between two community colleges that allowed a fire science degree program to be taught in my hometown. My first degree was an associate’s degree Read More

Food on the Hill: Burns Night and Scotch Eggs

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Food on the Hill
By FELICIA ORTH
 
This Week’s Recipe: Scotch Eggs
 
 
 
 
Photo by Felicia Orth

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin-race!

Aboon them a’ ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm:

Weel are ye wordy of a grace As lang’s my arm.”

The national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns, wrote these words as part of an ode to a haggis in 1786. Haggis is a seasoned pudding of sheep or beef organ meats, onions and oatmeal boiled in a stomach casing. The piercing of that casing with a shiny dagger (sgian-dubh) while Read More

Yang: Scapegoat and Messiah

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Scapegoat and Messiah
 
By ELENA YANG
Los Alamos

A friend of mine once said, “My goal is to make my position irrelevant.” She was at the time a semi-reluctant VP in a 15,000-employee organization, and she thought all the functions of her cohort were trite.

Further, she has always believed that a good manager would ultimately render his/her position unnecessary. I sympathized with her philosophy, akin to Lao Zi’s Zen teaching, but always teased her that she was born in the wrong era, though I wouldn’t know what the right era would be. 

One of my favorite quotes from Lao Zi (perhaps better Read More

Cinema Cindy Reviews ‘Selma’

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By CYNTHIA BIDDLECOMB
Los Alamos

“Selma” is the new feature film about the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to force southern states to adapt to the 1964 Voting Rights Act.

Selma is not a documentary. It is a film meant to remind us what folks sacrificed to get a universal right to vote not only enacted but respected throughout this country.

Movie poster of  ‘Selma.’ Courtesy/rottentomatoes.com

David Oyelowo (Interstellar, The Butler) plays Dr. King with the depth of faith, sensitivity and gravitas necessary to be convincing. Read More

Smart Design With Suzette: 2015 Color of the Year

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Smart Design with Suzette
2015 Color of the Year
By SUZETTE FOX

Pantone LLC, a subsidiary of X-Rite, announced Marsala, an earthy wine red, as the Color of the Year for 2015. X-Rite is a global leader in color science and technology.

What does this mean? This means you will see this hue everywhere, from the runways, to make up, to interior design.

 

Courtesy photo
 
“Marsala is a subtly seductive shade, one that draws us in to its embracing warmth,” said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of Pantone Color Institute. “Nurturing and fulfilling, Marsala is a natural fit for the kitchen
Read More

Hannemann’s Music Corner: Tone, Pitch, Note & Timbre

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By RICHARD HANNEMANN
Los Alamos

In music, there are four fundamental terms you need to know and understand including tone, pitch, note and timbre.

TONE: A musical sound, which repeats at regular intervals, higher or lower.

PITCH: The placement of a tone, high or low, within the range of tones and relative to, high or low, other and all of those tones.

NOTE: The symbolic representation of a given tone, at a specified pitch, with specified time duration.

TIMBRE: The quality and/or character of a note (the sound of a sound).

These four terms are often confused with one another and often thought Read More

Time To Reach Across Aisle And Talk About Science

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By CHRISTINE MCENTEE
AGU Executive Director/CEO

  • American Geophysical Union Applauds President Obama’s Acknowledgement of the Role Science Plays in America’s Economy; Calls for Bipartisan Funding Support from Congress

As President Obama said in his State of the Union address tonight, you don’t have to be a scientist to understand why science matters. You also don’t have to be a scientist to understand why bipartisan support for research funding should be a no-brainer.

Issues such as energy innovation and the impacts of our changing climate aren’t limited to red states or blue states. And Read More