New Mexico in Focus; 322; Harrison Schmitt

The moon is our little record. It's our library of that early part of Earth history down to about 3.8 billion years ago. Ahead this week, homegrown astronaut Harrison Schmidt talks about his historic moon mission and the race to get back to the lunar surface. I don't want to get into a tip with them, but I trust. Why lawmakers and the governor maybe had it for a courtroom showdown? Mexico in focus starts now. Our cell phones, the new enemy of education and discipline, ahead this week, how the high tech tools are changing the way schools do business, plus why the governor is also dialing up a new approach to handheld devices. Our round table panelists are ready to text their opinions on this week's segment of the line. Then, our lawmakers are ready to take their beef with the governor Richardson to a courtroom. Albuquerque's new mayor, Green Lights, a new study on those controversial red light cameras, and the grieving process

takes a backseat to progress on Albuquerque's west side. But at first, he's a true New Mexico living legend. Former NASA astronaut Harrison Schmidt is also a man who's not afraid to offer up his opinion on everything from the race to return to the moon to global warning. New Mexico and focus correspondent Peterson Sear gets to the heart of those issues and more in this week's Spotlight interview. This week marks the anniversary of Harrison Schmidt's journey to the moon as part of the 1972 Apollo 17 space mission. He's in the record books as being the last American to step foot on the moon. He's also considered the only non-military scientist to visit the lunar surface. And on top of that, he's also a former U.S. Senator who served in Washington DC in the late 70s and early 80s. We're thrilled to have him here in the studio with us today. Welcome. Great to be here. So this is the anniversary week of Apollo 17. How did it lad from Santa Rita, New Mexico that grew up around Silver City get on to Apollo 17?

Well that lad was very fortunate and deeply honored to have had the opportunity. It's a long path that took me through getting a good education which is always important both in the public school there and also in college. And then being physically qualified to be accepted as a scientist astronaut, qualifying as a pilot of jet pilot T-38s and then helicopters. H-13s for those people out there that like helicopters. And then finally being assigned to the crew of Apollo 17. NASA was looking for scientists and you were a geologist you had studied in California at Harvard and even in Oslo, Norway. How did you decide to step into the process and apply to be a part of NASA? Well the path to selecting scientist astronauts was a fairly complicated one and pressure had been brought on NASA by the National Academy of Sciences in particular Dr. Harry Hess who

was head of the Space Science Board to include scientists in the selection process. And finally with group four of the Apollo astronauts that was done. And the National Academy did the initial evaluation. They evaluated solely on scientific criteria. There was a little bit of preliminary screening on physical criteria but mostly it was scientific criteria. And engineering criteria because engineers were included. And then NASA, they recommended sixteen of these applicants to be considered by NASA. And then NASA took charge and gave us an eight day physical at the Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. Believe me if you've ever been poked and prodded for eight days you know what it's like to have a physical. And from that then NASA picked six for the original group of scientists astronauts. Four of whom flew. One had resigned early in pilot training because of a marital problem that

was not acceptable at the time. And another just decided that it was going to take too long to get a flight and went back to teaching at Rice. So the four of us though, I flew on Apollo 17. And then the other three, Gary at Gibson and Kerwin flew on the skylight missions. Great. So that was after the Apollo 17 missions. And so when you started the process you were working with the US Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona. And you were already actually looking at the mooner at the moon. You were helping to do some mapping of the year. I was employed in 1964 by Eugene Schumacher, the famous planetologist, the late Eugene Schumacher unfortunately. And the request for applicants for the scientist astronaut program was put on the bulletin board in Flagstaff while I was there just a few months after I arrived. And so I thought for about ten seconds and said, well,

that sounds like something I would regret not doing. And so I volunteered and got along with 1400 other scientists and engineers and got through the process as you know. Gene Schumacher happened to also chair the selection committee that did the scientific evaluation. Now, whether that had any influence on what happened, I don't know. I suspect no engine, it had no influence whatsoever. At least I hope it didn't. So once you finally get on to the Apollo 17, tell us, you know, we all go to Disney World and ride airplanes. And so we've been on the ticket rides and we've been on airplanes. Tell us about the thrust, you know, riding to the moon on a Saturn V rocket. Well, the Saturn V is the largest rocket, the most powerful rocket ever used to put human beings in space. And that will apparently be the case for some time. And once you have ignited the five engines in the first stage, which together developed seven and a half

million pounds of thrust, you have an extremely heavy vibration. Of course, the acceleration builds up more slowly, but this very, very heavy vibration. You probably shouldn't have done it, but if you've ever driven a pickup truck down a railroad track on the ties, you will have some idea of what that low frequency vibration is like. And then gradually the acceleration G's build up until we were four times gravity at two minutes and 45 seconds into the launch. And at that point, at four G's, the first stage rocket shuts down. You get a little bit of unloading of the entire stack, then the second stage engines start up. And you go in a little more than a second from four G's to a minus one and a half G's to a plus one and a half G's. And that's probably the most violent part of a whole launch on a Saturn V. From then on, it was smooth sailing. We're going to be showing video of the Apollo 17 mission. And what kind of recollections do you have here 37 years about your trip tomorrow or to the moon? I know that you spent

301 hours and 51 minutes up in space. Well, you don't have time for all my recollections, but I principally it was a fantastic experience for me. Three and a half days to get to the moon gave me an opportunity to look back at the Earth and take photographs of the Earth on the way and try to forecast weather patterns in the southern hemisphere, which we were viewing. And then working for three days on the moon was an unbelievable experience, I think, for anybody, and particularly for a geologist that had studied the moon for many years, was a field geologist to begin with. That's my specialty. And to have the opportunity to try to test the then ideas about the origin and evolution of the moon against what one actually saw in the field on the moon. It was a fantastic opportunity. And I think we did an outstanding job, frankly. That's right. You brought back lunar rocks and meteorites from the surface of the moon and studied them later. Well, no meteorites. Meteors that hit the moon tend to vaporize. There's a very, very small fraction of the meteor that's actually retained on the moon

when it hits, but it makes a good size crater. They're hitting a very, very high velocity. A lot of energy. And it's an explosion when they hit. But we did bring back about 240 pounds of rock. And several of those rocks, or those materials, include soils as well, have turned out to be very, very important as we try to understand this origin and evolution of the moon, which in turn is very, very important to understanding the very early history of the Earth, that period of time when life was beginning here on the planet. And we know now it was beginning in an extremely violent period of Earth history. And the moon is our little record. It's our library, of that early part of Earth history, down to about 3.8 billion years ago. And that's with a B billion a long time ago. Right. And when you were on the moon, you hadn't discovered water, but just recently India and now the US have discovered water on the moon. What does that mean for future travel to the moon by humans? Well, the Indian spacecraft experiment was actually

a US experiment run by Carly Peters at Brown University that noted that the small amounts of water were being produced at this very surface of mineral grains and glass grains on the moon. And that, and then it disappears. It comes and goes and comes and goes. So very important thing, because later the so-called across impact experiment in a permanently shadowed part of the polar region of the moon, did apparently, we haven't seen the paper. So we'll say apparently here. But did apparently see a significant amount of water being released. Water almost certainly has to be as ice because the temperature is only 40 degrees above absolute zero in those permanently shadowed areas. And that water may have accumulated there over very, very long periods of time because of the migration of this small amount of water that's being produced at the surface. Another hypothesis is that some of that water may be from comets that have hit the moon. And there's a good

theoretical argument to say that a little bit of commentary water released at the surface of the moon will find its way into these permanently shadowed areas. So it's exciting. Now I have to qualify that, though, to say that from a development point of view, from settling the moon point of view, you can make water anywhere on the moon because there's a lot of hydrogen in the soils, a lot that comes from the sun in the former protons and is absorbed in the soils and can be converted to water anywhere you want it. And so what, you know, you walked around the moon and we've seen video of you, you know, running and jumping and also falling. What was it like to walk on the moon? Well walking on the moon is a lot walking on a giant trampoline if you can imagine that, one with no boundaries. You're only one six-year weight, mass is the same and your center of gravity is displaced a little bit towards your back because of the backpack. And so you have to, all the time, be thinking about where is that center of gravity and how do I move. But running across the moon is very much for me like across country skiing. And I learned

to do that in Norway and I enjoyed here in New Mexico. And it really is, I think, the most efficient way to move across the moon. I could never convince my pilot colleagues that it was. They like to hop or skip a little bit. But if you want to go any distance efficiently across country skiing technique, not of course sliding on the surface, but delighting in an arc just above the surface with a toe push that allows you to accelerate. And I think you can move at six to twelve miles an hour fairly easily across the surface of the moon just as across country skier. And of course you also had a land rover, a lunar rover, to help you cover, I think, over thirty-two miles in the area of the Tetris or the Taurus, the Taurus, the valley that you landed in. Yeah, we had a lunar roving vehicle, was extremely efficient way to travel. It would go about twelve, let's say about six or eight kilometers, miles per hour. I keep translating kilometers

to miles. And over the surface, and you didn't want to go much faster than that, because remember you only one six-year weight, and every time you hit a bump you're going to be off the surface for a while. And we headed up to, oh, probably, about twelve kilometers an hour, fourteen miles per hour coming downhill once. And I think even the test pilot Serninford regretted that a little bit. So he was the one that went to the lunar service with you. You had an awesome responsibility to get the challenger, which was your lunar module fired and to reconnect with the spacecraft to get back to Earth. What was it like firing that button at the exact right time and making sure that your trajectory was set? Our role was to back up the computer. We always let the, even in those days, you let the computer do something that it could do much more efficiently. And so we, we always hit the start button at the time at zero when the computer was going to start it anyway, just

so there were two signals going to start the engine. Now, there were many, many ways to start that engine. It was not a question of that or all of, or nothing. Oh, good. Guess I was worried about that. Oh, we, we even had a set of jumper cables. If we had to use them, I could go out, attach a jumper cables to a decent stage set of batteries, bring them back in. And we, and when we were ready, we would attach them to a set of circuit breakers in the cabin. And that would lock those valves open and the, what we call hypergolic fuels would come in contact and we'd be out of there. We've gathered a lot of other great video of Senator Schmidt's time on the moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission to watch those clips just head to canemy.org and look for the New Mexico and focus link. We've also got much more with the astronaut a little bit later in the show, including his somewhat controversial opinions about the race to return to the moon and mankind's role in global climate change. Now, here's just a taste of what he had to say. The human cause of global warming hypothesis is really a hypothesis to gain control over

the economy and a more control over our economy and the global economy. Time now to come back down earth literally with our round table panelists. Let's start with the introductions this week. Jim Scarentino, he's editor of the investigative website called New Mexico watch dog doing all kinds of good stuff. That's a project of the free market advocacy, advocacy group, the Rio Grande Foundation. Sophie Martin, she's our other regular. She's managing editor of Duke City Fix, one of my favorites and also heads up the social networking efforts of the journalism clearing house site called the faster times. Our guest this week, old friend Antoinette Cedillo Lopez. She's a law professor at the University of New Mexico and Trip Jennings, another old friend senior writer from the New Mexico independent part of my daily routine and should be yours too. Now, a group of lawmakers will decide any day now, tripping a start with you whether to not take the governor to court for allegedly overstepping his boundaries. We're talking about back in the special session. We've got a bit of a beef between a couple of specific legislators and how they were set their budget

cutting versus what the governor vetoed and decided to do his own. You've done some reporting on this and the independent. Back us up just a little bit and set the framework for what this argument's about. Yeah, actually, it's an involved separation of power, basically, where each branch of government has certain sets of responsibilities. These lawmakers are saying that basically the governor overstepped his role as an executive by legislating how the money should be spent. Right now, they're backing up with a couple of old Supreme Court rulings. It remains to be seen whether the lawmakers are going to be for real on this one, whether this is politics or they're actually going to actually sue the governor. But it's out in the air right now. It's a very interesting, for those people who like to follow this kind of stuff, this is maybe some answers to separation of power. Yeah, Jimmo was kind of a jolt. You don't hear about this kind of thing terribly often and for good reason. But Trip makes a good point. If they take this to the end game, what could we expect to happen here if they

in fact do sue? Well, as Trip said, there's precedent for it. It's not that old that happened during the administration of Governor Gary Johnson. It only takes one legislator. You don't need a resolution passed by both houses or even one house to go to court. They talked about suing the governor back in 2003 to 2004 when the governor grabbed about $60 million in federal funds that was coming to the state. It wasn't mandate. It wasn't going to any program and he was spending it and allocating it before they even knew about it. He backed them down and he went ahead and spent it and as a fate accompli, they ceded good portion of their powers over appropriations to him. John Arthur Smith back then was the one talking about needing to sue the governor. He's the guy leading the charge now. But now Lucky Barrella has jumped into. What the governor did was more than a line out of veto. As a line out of veto, you veto an appropriation for a million dollars to this program. What he did was actually go into the language of certain pieces of legislation and where it said some money would go or not go to rural schools, he struck the word rural so that he

amended the bill so it applies to all schools. And he says that's a line out of veto and the legislator says what you've done is tinker with the legislative intent. You've overstepped your ability on a line out of veto and now you're actually amending legislation and then he would issue proclamations as to how money should be spent once again appropriating money. We have a very aggressive, a very assertive governor when it comes to carving out his executive powers. Indeed, expanding them, the legislature I think is now at the point where they regret not suing him back in 2003 and 2004. Absolutely. The guys have mentioned precedence of the Johnson administration. I think the other one was back in 1961 somewhere around there. So there seems like there's some good legal standing here but the reality of the politics is difficult. I think that can be really complicated because they didn't do anything before and just as you said and so now it's kind of a little maybe too little too late. I don't know and I think it's actually

a little bit harder because one of his allegations was that they were micromanaging specifying exactly how many positions he had to cut and so they went pretty far to into his power. So I don't know. I think it's a little bit more complicated when they go to the end game. Let me ask you a question. Let's stay with you. The crux of it here is the bright white line between what the governor or the executive office, I should say, can or cannot do in the legislature. Is this a problem of one man's interpretation or are we not clear enough in the actual setting up of all this? I don't think it's such a white bright line as you said and that's what I think is because the governor obviously has to spend the money and he has to administer the money. That is his function. The legislature appropriates it and so the legislature in this case kind of got into the administration of the money and then he sort of responded by getting into the appropriation of the money. So it went

both ways. So it's kind of mushy gray. That's not a clear line. That's right. Ms. Mutten. Go to see you again. Thank you. Same here. Absolutely. And we've got this thing now potentially a specter hovering over the roundhouse coming. Like there weren't already like a host of them up there, right? Exactly. Yeah, we do and I think it's interesting. I sort of listened to our language and watching the language of the reporting and people on the street. It's interesting to think about how we have talked about this being the legislature suing the governor. But we're really at this point talking about individuals within the legislature. And I know for myself when I first thought I was like, well, but aren't they from the same party? How does that work? It's complicated right now because of the nature of who's involved and then also what's coming. Now, I have to believe that there is something in it for the folks who are raising these issues where they must see this as a focus that they can use in an upcoming session. How that will play out. It's hard to say.

Some of it definitely is a shot across the back for the upcoming session to send a signal to the governor that the Senate, at least particularly some senators who are strategically positioned in the committee's dealing with money, are simply not going to lie down. But they are going to be as aggressive in asserting their constitutional power to appropriate as the governor has been in grabbing those powers for himself. What do we stand now, Trip? Where's this thing headed? Any predictions on this? Well, I mean, I'm not sure that I could predict anything. I was about to say that I wouldn't be surprised that if there might be some people who really want to sue, but if this is used as leverage in January, basically saying, hey, you know what, we're going to sue you, but if you don't want us to sue us, back down. I mean, this is one of those things where you've got the political storyline as well as the legal storyline, and I think it is complicated. It's very complicated. There's also the timing. The chances of having a decision from the Supreme Court on this by the end of legislative session are nil, but

what it would do would be focus a light in another forum on this struggle between the legislators and executive branches. But don't think, guys, the two people in particular may be more coming on board, run the risk with their constituents of saying, look, this is really not the people's business. We're in a big fat hole here. Why don't we just take care of our business and solve all this stuff later? Well, the man's leaving anyways. You know, but I think, at least with respect to John Arthler Smith, I was down in Deming recently. There are 100% behind him because he's been the guy for two years saying we have serious problems. The governor's been underestimating the problems. If anything will add to his capital, I believe. Interesting. Antoinette, I mean, we have the typical. We have presidents. We have results of all that. Same question to you that way. I put the trip. Do you see this ending in any particular way? I don't expect the legislature to sue the governor, but I agree with you. There might be some backroom stuff going on about this.

Another fun little tidbit for January. And the only reason I say it is I think that in game, as you said, it's just too little too late. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, we're just getting warmed up here in the line. Still ahead cell phones have become an essential part of all of our lives, perhaps two essential in some cases. But right now, we have more with former astronaut Harrison Schmidt. Karstmann at Peter St. Sears starts off with a question about how one of Mr. Schmidt's unique discoveries from his time in the moon's surface came home with him. So the other thing that you found on the moon that I read in your book at Return to the Moon that was published in 2006 was Helium III. Tell us a little bit about that and how it might be able to be used in fusion energy here back on Earth. Helium III was found by several teams of investigators of the original Apollo samples. But they were investigators who were interested in the solar wind. Because the moon has no atmosphere and it absorbs the solar wind at the surface. And in the what we call the regolith, the

soils of the moon. It wasn't until about 13 years after those discoveries were made that a group of engineers at the University of Wisconsin realized that what they had found was Helium III. And there was enough Helium III to possibly make it of economic interest to those of us here on Earth who need power, electrical power. Helium III is nearly ideal fuel for fusion reactors. It produces no, potentially produces no radioactive waste. You can convert it to electricity at about twice the efficiency of other power plants that we're familiar with here on Earth. So it has a tremendous potential for as one of the alternatives and I emphasize one of the alternatives we're going to probably need in the future. Now are the economics there to bring it bringing Helium III back from the moon and develop fusion power plants that can use them? That's the open question. And the book that I've written looks at it from a business point of view and whether or not investors might be interested

and what it would take to get them interested in that kind of a project. But right now, you know, in America, the space shuttle is expiring and going to be taken out of service next year. And even your partner on the lunar mission, Eugene Surnah had written and said on the moon, I think, at one point during the mission that the challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. You're not so sure. You've talked in the past about America, it appears, is seeding the space race to countries like China, Russia, and India. How important is it that America continue to be involved in the space race and you contend that the space race is still viable today? There is a space race, whether we as a government in the United States want to recognize that or not, it's a geopolitical race. And it has very little to do with the science, with the resources and things like that. It has to do with perceptions. Just as Apollo was

primarily a geopolitical effort on the part of the Kennedy administration and the Johnson administration to Apollo, now we have to think in those terms. And I just ask you that if the United States does not return to the moon and is not competitive in the lunar and ultimately in the Martian environments, and the Chinese are, how is that going to play geopolitically here on earth? And I think it will play very badly for the United States and for the future of liberty and freedom on this planet. Well, with the challenge or with the shuttle out of play, you also express concern that we've read about that you don't want America's backup plan to get to the International Space Station to be catching ride with countries like Russia. Well, we are already into that backup plan. Because of the lack of funding by the Bush administration and by the Congress of the Constellation Program, which was President Bush's announced program to return to the moon and go on beyond, the funding was not there to

keep it on schedule. And so we now have at least a five-year hiatus when that United States would be able to take American astronauts and our allies to the space station. So we're having to buy rides on the Russians. But that means there's just one way to get there. And I don't have any problem with having the Russians as one way to get the space station. I do have a major problem that there is no other way and there certainly is not an American way to get there once the shuttle is retired. And so you know, when you got out of NASA after spending a couple of years as the Assistant Administrator for Energy Programs for NASA, you then moved back to New Mexico and ran for the Senate and spent one term there. With this geopolitical issues at the forefront of today's space race, are you advocating for more private space travel? Well I think there's a potential market for private tourism like travel into space. It's a little bit like the communications industry and that there's already a tourism infrastructure

that exists on the planet and it may be able to take off and do something. But that's a very, very different scale of operation than building Saturn V's class vehicles that can get you to the moon and begin to harvest the resources. I think we're about to see that perhaps in New Mexico with the spaceport and Richard Branson's group, the Virgin Galactic Group, they want to blast off from New Mexico and take tourists into low orbit here in 2010 or 2011. What do you think about the spaceport and Branson's program? Well most people probably don't realize that New Mexico was the runner up to the Kennedy Space Center or to Cape Canaveral as the launch site for Apollo. And the principal reason I would presume that New Mexico did not have that honor was that there's no large scale transportation infrastructure to bring those huge rockets here for launch. That would have been built. Well in the case of the Kennedy Space Center, you could barge your large rockets

from where they were built to the launch pad and get them there that way. But nevertheless, there are many advantages to New Mexico. High altitude, the climate, many, many more launch days than you have at the Kennedy Space Center and the light. In fact, the advantages are so great. I'm really am surprised that we didn't negotiate a better deal with Branson and others and that I still have to question why the New Mexico taxpayer is on the hook for what they're $225 million to build that spaceport when Branson could have built that by himself and taken advantage of the situation that he has for launches from the Mexico. This week in the newspaper we saw that they're going to be asking the state is asking for $7 million to build a road to get from up on to the space center. I risked my case. One of the cases that you've been looking at is climate changes. As a scientist, you in the past have called a man made global warming bunk. I think that

you told the Associated Press back in February. Have you been watching what's been going on in Copenhagen this week? Well I have, like everybody else on the evening news and reading the newspapers and it sounds like it's a bit of a shambles over there. That's not surprising because the science for undertaking a major restructuring of the world's economy or the United States economy just isn't there. It doesn't support doing that. You have to realize that the human cause, global warming hypothesis is really a hypothesis to gain control over the economy and more control over our economy and the global economy. I just don't think we need to do that. There is a warming trend. It's been going on since the depths of the little ice age back in 1660, about a half a degree centigrade per 100 years. That's continued and it's only been in recent times that we've seen an acceleration in

the production of carbon dioxide by human activities but there's also no scientific, clear scientific evidence at all that I can see and I've done quite a bit of study of this. That would link that CO2 rise to any kind of temperature rise. In fact, the temperature has been rising and then falling and rising and falling over decades and it correlates much more closely with solar activity than it does with anything caused by carbon dioxide. The problem has been, as I think we've talked before, is that the debate on the science has not occurred. As we have seen with the so-called climate gate, with the emails that were hacked and now are available to us to see that there was a concerted effort to keep the alternative hypotheses out of the scientific literature. My colleagues were, that I know who published in that area were having a very difficult time, if not impossible time, getting their papers published and now we know why. We know that there was concerted

effort to control the peer review process as well as the publication process. And they felt intimidated that if they published sure if they raised their voice that their funding might be cut. There's no question that that was happening as well, that the United States government as well as other governments had decided to fund only, mostly those papers, those research projects that had in them a crease proof of human cause global warming, whether it was there or not. And so what do you say needs to be done because there's these people that have very divergent viewpoints about this issue? Well, what needs to be done in climate as well as in healthcare and many other things is do nothing right now. Go ahead and start and work the science, have an honest debate and an honest comparison of various hypotheses and research to see who was right. But we don't have to panic. The healthcare system we have in this country right now is excellent. And we shouldn't take a chance in changing

that drastically. There's things that there were forms that ought to be made. There's no question about that. But we certainly don't need to change it to the point of where we don't have the world's best healthcare system. Same goes for climate. The rising carbon dioxide is not affecting us to the point that we can demonstrate, it is affecting us. And so let's back off. Let's don't change our economy. Let's don't tax the American people and American businesses to the point of where we start to damage ourselves competitively with the rest of the world. And one thing you have to remember and one point I try to make in the book is that the world needs more energy, not less. And if we aren't careful, we're going to deal with less rather than more. Very interesting stuff there would send it or smit. Now NASA technology has changed all of our lives over the years certainly, but has one piece of top technology turned into a liability. This week we learned APS is looking into new policies regarding students use of cell phones on campus. And we also discovered the governor will pursue a statewide ban on cell phone use while driving. That ban would include texting Sophie. And my first question

when I think about this, right? God help you. I have not a great idea. I could imagine. How are we blaming the device about people's personal behavior? Cell phones don't kill people, is that what you're saying? Right, exactly. You know, I think what we're talking about here is modifying people's behavior, not modifying the devices. If they wanted to do that, they'd put some sort of ignition interlock type thing on our phones and we'd all lose our minds. But I think there is some question about are there legitimate moments to use cell phones? I think the bigger issue is this. I think about towns like Springer, towns like Roy, towns, small towns or small police departments. The thought that this is actually going to be enforced and no cell phone or hands-free cell phone ban just seems so unlikely to me. And it's barely enforced. I hate to say it in Albuquerque.

You anticipated my point into that right there, Sophie, because anecdotally, you look around Albuquerque, it's like this law just doesn't even exist. Right, yeah, right. I wasn't even, until I was reading for this, I didn't realize it was illegal in Albuquerque. I didn't, I didn't, and it was like, oh my gosh, so because I just never seen it in force. Sure. But on the couple of towns that Sophie just mentioned, is it different in your minds? I mean, you've got a urban center, got red lights being run, all kinds of things that can happen when you're yacking on your cell phone. Is it different though if you're driving around Roy? Is it that big of a deal? Well, it probably isn't as important there because it just isn't as much to get involved with, but I think the confusing thing is having it be illegal in Santa Fe, illegal outside the city limits. So you just wait till you pass the city limits and you get on the phone. I think consistency would actually be a good thing. Sure. And Jim, the statewide ban is not an uncommon thing. I think Massachusetts just passed their statewide ban.

This is the trend. This is what happens. And you can force it in Massachusetts to do that here for safety, you know? They have a better chance out there because they have a much more law enforcement crawling around. See, that's the difference. But is this the way to go? I mean, it just seems different. Well, look, the studies, and I'm just always surprised at the studies that came out that show that talking on a cell phone impairs you as much as driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. We're also driving while eating. Right. We're doing your makeup and doing other things, but things like that. Right, it distracts folks. And we're driving at high, I mean, one argument about applying the statewide is that in the rural areas, people are driving faster and faster and talking and, you know, a deer runs out, a rabbit runs out in the middle of nowhere. The fact of the matter is it doesn't pair your ability to react across the board in urban areas where there's much more going on. It's even worse. And we all have stories. I certainly do of almost getting an accident and saying, you look over and somebody's pulled into your lane, you know, and they don't even know they're in your lane and they're talking on the phone. So, you know, I had to throw my bike down and get away of a car, a woman drove straight

at me. She's on the cell phone. Didn't even see me. So, the governor's right in terms of the science and safety experts backing him up. The question of enforceability is something else. It's enforceable as to please want to make it. Sure. What trip? The science of this shows that the hands-free device is not exactly the panacea either. It's the conversation. It's not the device. Right. It's actually trying to curb behavior in any form that we're talking about, eating, putting makeup on, what not. We're talking about it, getting it some behavior behind the wheel. You know, it's interesting to see, I'm not sure that, you know, I have a, I had a Bluetooth and frankly, I had to like, punch a button to get it working so it's not like this really does actually get at when you mentioned it not being a panacea. The other thing that I wanted to say is that I noticed that the states that do have this, I came from a state that actually passed a Connecticut. And both on the coast, you know, is New Mexico going to be the first state in the interior to actually pass a ban?

I think that's, you know, there are other issues about which New Mexico is trying to become the first state to pass things. Are people going to go for this? I don't know. I mean, I don't know if they're going to actually get this through. That's a very interesting point. Now, let me bring up APS. We've had one public hearing into and at so far about this idea of banning cell phones and its entirety in schools and high school the plan is, you're going to use them at lunch before and after school. But, but, but, this is a critical communication device between kids and their parents setting up the rest of the day, the evening, all that kind of thing. Where's your gut feeling on where APS is trying to go with this? Well, I understand where they're trying to go. I know I get frustrated in when I'm teaching in the law school and people on their laptops or people are texting or whatever. So, I know some of my colleagues are banning laptops, banning cell phones. And so, I understand the frustration you're there for a purpose.

And just like you turn off the cell phone in church, you had to turn it off in school. So, I support APS and this. Is that practical? Not doubt about counting you too much there, but is that practical to expect kids to just when they walk on campus, it goes dark and then they read? It's probably as practical as all the other rules that we have on campus, you know, no chewing gum, no, whatever, whatever. I think it's a reasonable thing for APS to ask and I also think it's a reasonable thing for them to try to enforce. I suspect it'll be one of those things that every day they have to enforce it. It is interesting. When you, the issue of communication with parents, we have a blogger on the Duke City Fix who is, who would have to communicate with her daughter through TTY, I think I said that right, because she's a heart of hearing. And she has talked on the site about how important texting has been as a communication tool with her daughter. And you know, I would hate to see it totally gone from campuses, like you just can't bring it on.

And I hate to see them take that stuff, because I think it is important. But, you know, why should a parent be texting their child in the middle of algebra class? No, I think that's true, I know. And the thing is, I mean, how many generations went through, you know, of getting very good education and parents raising kids with a lot less resources before cell phones? It is not an essential tool. And the simple rule would be turn it off when you come on campus. And the first time that cell phone is confiscated, that message will be driven home. I mean, if somebody's, if it goes off in the back back in class, you know, if they're in the hall, and it has to be enforced, because it disrupts the learning environment, it disrupts discipline, and parents should know better than trying to interrupt their child's day at school. Well, parents can actually control it with parental control, so that you can actually turn it off. That's what we do with our daughter. Is we, you can actually, well, our text can go through, but she can't text out. And so that you can actually parents can have some control over this too. One little tidbit strip that caught my eye in the reporting on this is, no cell phones allowed in bathrooms, locker rooms, all these other places where you would expect people,

you know, have a moment, boot up their cell phone, dump the messages dump, you know what to respond to, you turn it back off. I mean, what, you know, if you're going to bend it in the classroom and allow it somewhere else for God's sake, you know. What's interesting to me is that, and I find this analogous coming out of a newspaper's newsrooms and how this younger generation actually is actually accepting the news, which is Twitter, micro blogging, text, stuff like this, this, it's out of the bag. This generation actually communicates this way, and I'm sitting here thinking, I don't understand it. I agree totally with you guys that it probably, you know, heck yeah, cut it off in class. Is it going to be practical? I just, it's a really interesting kind of societal kind of behavioral kind of thing here that I find out. I've had a student text me in class. How is that different than passing notes, remember? That raises a question about like, is this potentially something that becomes a technology we use in the class?

Because, I mean, you brought up laptops and there are many professors who require them, who require them. And so, I mean, I think, Trip, you bring up an interesting question. Are they likely to change in the long term? No. Is it possible that education changed? I don't, I can't conceive of that right now. It's interesting because, I mean, new operations are trying to actually co-op this new technology to this education. I don't know how it works. Sure. But how does uncontrolled cell phone or Twittering during the school day contribute or detract from the educational experience of that? That is the question. That is the question. You need to move on. Unfortunately, you know, plus what they're fighting up against, I mean, my kids can text behind their backs. Right? Right. Right. Exactly. So this is what they're up against. Now, this week we're also learning that New Albuquerque mayor Richard Berry has ordered an independent investigation of those controversial red light cameras. The goal of the audit is to try and find out if the cameras have actually made our roads safer. Jim, decide, hate some this side. Loves them. I got a pretty good feel for where you're at on this. But here's a question.

What if it turns out in the study that there's no appreciable drop in, you know, accidents and all that kind of thing? What does the mayor do then? Well, I think you've got to get credible studies to find out if red light cameras are saving lives or making the roads any bit safer. If they are, then as I've said on this show before and my libertarian friends get all I rate at me is I support red light cameras. I know they affect my behavior when I'm driving. If I know that's that intersection, I am very careful. I don't go through it. I'm sure there are other people who do that too. But if the studies come back and show and I don't think they will because it's just counterintuitive show that they are having no impact, well, other than the people ramming into the people from behind, I always love that one. So we're going to get rid of these because some people are being the law and others aren't. Well, after a while, that'll adjust. But if they show that there is no appreciable improvement in safety, then you should, there's no reason to have it because then all they are doing is feeding into the arguments of the critics, which is just a way to shake down the public and generate money from municipal

governments that are cash-strapped. Well, I was going to say, I mean, I was sort of under the impression that they were going to be looking at both, do they save lives, and are they a good investment for us? And so the question then, in my mind, becomes, so let's say it's neutral in terms of public safety, but it's awesome in terms of revenue generation. If it's actually neutral, but we're making more money, so what do we think of that? Sure. You know? I don't like it. And I don't like it because it's not just the city that's making money. It's a private company. Oh, it's true. And I'm really concerned about how much of what used to be a city function or municipal function or government function is now being privatized. And so that concerns me because the interest is so different. The city, the municipalities interested in the public good. You think about it? Red Flex is interesting. Red Flex, Antoinette brings up a trip that the company that's running this thing, they're making some pretty big dough around the world from this thing.

And there's been a lot of questions about how this, it's very hard to follow the trail. See, that's the problem with this private company. Right, right. And you know, a great point because frankly, this company is for profit. I mean, they're going to be wanting to make the bottom line. That's part of the public policy debate that has to be had. I know that I've covered this debate, not in Albuquerque, but in Santa Fe every year, where lawmakers, certain lawmakers push to limit it or to, you know, attach state dollars, take money from these tickets, you know, the DY, what is the DWI program that actually would lose money if this goes away. There's so much to consider about this, but the privatization is an interesting issue. And how do we function as a society and what do we give? What do we weigh the private company versus the public good, that kind of thing? I'd say this though, I mean, if you had somebody in the business that's standing at the intersection of San Mateo and Montgomery, and they were in the business of making that

a safer intersection, and they did make it a safer intersection, and they were, I wouldn't care because they're accomplishing something we haven't been able to accomplish through the city government. I think it's great that Mayor Barry's starting this analysis anew, because this is one of the problems that everybody had with this under the prior administration. There was a great amount of distrust because of this company making this and the mayor's agenda of that, and I think maybe there can be a breath of fresh air and we can start on a clean slate and really figure out whether this is good for the community or not. Actually, that's a wonderful point that you bring up, which is basically, you know, if the results are good, regardless of who's doing it, if the results are good, then does that make your decision for you? And in some ways, if the results are good, yeah, if the results are good and we think they're good enough, we are potentially putting resources toward it and automated, I mean, what's this is what we're doing? We're putting resources toward an automated solution instead of having our cops sit there with speed guns or, you know, resources.

Exactly. Exactly. It goes one of the arguments when this first started into it, but also how we started when, I think it was 150 bucks, was the first to end, so it was going down this hack and we had to bring it down in the whole bit. So this goes to Jim's point about the heartburn that we still, that's still lingering about this program. So I ask again, if it turns out that the mayor's research shows that there's no appreciable job, and by the way, might I add, one of the issues is always, you either do this for all the major intersections, so you get a really good feel for what's going on around the city or you don't. So I'm not sure we can get to a real good result on this study, you know. It's going to be interesting to see what the study shows, but I think if there were no difference, I don't see why do, you know, if it's just making money, raise a tax, put a tax, be transparent about what you're doing. Sure. Um, instead of just sort of playing like it's making us more safe, I just don't think it is. But Tucson has mobile red light cameras on the interstates where they have a van and

it pull goes up and there's red light, this radar that picks everybody up coming and I was driving Tucson, there were 30 police cars, chase vehicles behind it. And I can tell you, everybody within Arizona plate slowed down before we got there because it said mobile enforcement area and out of state, we're going to heck is that, you know, and all the out of state plates were pulled, cars were pulled over and the Arizona plates were driving at 65 period, you know, right through it. And it worked on the behavior Pavlov's commuter. Well, we have a minute left, one of the issues that's still hanging out there is this idea of due process and the hearing officer, this is a bit off the study certainly, but this is a big problem for a lot of people that you don't feel like you're getting your just due in court with this. No, I, you know, that's the common complaint that people talk about, that they go before the hearing officer and basically they're slap of the fine and that's it, that there's no way of actually proving that you did or didn't do it. I have never, I haven't been in, in the process, but I have heard people complain, especially before lawmakers in Santa Fe, they're talking about this kind of stuff.

So if Mayor Barry wants to get after something, go on that and debate, and then come back around to the cameras, that's the problem now, we're going to give our line panelists a minute to catch their breath before we put them on the clock. Here now is a preview of what's in store for next week on the Mexico one focus. We get charged here every day, every day, just to get some good feeling. It's a lot of good, it comes out, I tell people, I see a miracle every day. All right, here we go, four topics to tackle on the clock, but the group will have just one minute as the group will talk about each. So up first, Governor Richardson is squaring off with local media over his money saving layoffs. Richardson is eliminating positions, six, 59, excuse me, positions in an effort to save about $8 million, but he's refusing to say who's being a let go trip, what the positions are to being eliminated, and we've got a lot of your peers and possibly yourself asking the governor to cough up this information, but there's got to be something else going on here, because this seems pretty simple.

Well, I mean, the truth of the matter is, is that, you know, as a reporter, one learns pretty quickly, not particular official, but you just don't take someone's word for it. You want to see the documents. I don't want to dance on people's graves about whosters and jobs, but you learn after a while that sometimes the answers aren't always what you expect them to be. Is it the people or the positions? What's the point here? Well, one may be that there may not be 59 positions that are being eliminated. There could be some game playing. If these people will find out through the media they've been laid off, I stand behind the governor and stonewalling the media, but I don't think that's the case. What he's doing is simply thumbing his nose at the inspection of public records act. Period. It's wrong. Sure. What do you think lurking behind this? I don't know what's lurking behind it, but I know what the legal argument is, and that is that this is a personnel matter, but the fact of employment is not a personnel matter. So I think that the names or at least the identity of the positions are something that should be.

Today's, as well, we should know soon what the governor is going to do about it. That's true, the bill is going off, going to hold you off on that one, Sophie. Now, the governor has also announced changes this week for his plan for mandatory for lows. For some state workers, employees have to take five days off work without pay originally the plan was to have them take them around the holidays, that Friday before for the long weekend, Sophie. But it turned out that like three or four of them were all banged up together, so it was a big financial hit. And this could be a crisis for our state in terms of the ability to manage the business of New Mexico. And so there was some real concern about that. I don't know that I think the new, what they're talking about, the new plan is perfect. But it's, at least reassuring to me to see that there's some flexibility. Sure. That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think about this new idea of same old thing to sideways? Well, yeah. Just sort of responding to the needs of the state, I agree. Yeah, Jim. You've sort of got the union doing everything they can to get in the way of the furloughs and the eventual layoffs that are coming.

And I know there are a lot of New Mexicans out there watching this who lost their jobs and are saying to themselves, these state workers should simply be happy. They still have a job. Interesting. Triplely of thing. I'm, you know, I noticed that the unions filed a complaint, you know, and that they weren't allowed in. This is going to be an interesting back and forth to see what happens. You know, the governor may need the unions during the legislative session and what happens. I mean, I'll bet you're off. There's the bill and there's a really good point right there. He does need those unions. There's no question. Now, a new plan to split the APS Albuquerque Public School District is now being floated the newest proposal will involve creating a new district in Northwest Albuquerque that would include C.B.A.L.A., Volcano Vista, where my kids go. West Mesa High School. Now, Sophie, any reason to think this plan of carving out this sort of Northwest Crogerant is all that- Could we call Sharon Andrean? Can we call Sharon Andrean? Absolutely. That's an additional perspective. I think there are concerns around it. Obviously, the community needs to really walk to what's happening here. There are, I think, some legitimate complaints about the size of APS, one of the biggest

public school systems in the country. And at the same time, I think there needs to be real care that we don't create a super system in one area and kind of push some of the more challenges, challenge schools into another area. And into a net, that's a really good point there because the old plan and whatever that was had some of those challenges in the Southwest corridor were part of that split-off plan. So to split them off and create this super district of achievement- Yeah. I think the resources need to be directed into addressing the achievement gap and really focusing on that, instead of creating a whole other bureaucracy with really high-performing schools. I think it's such a bad idea. The problem may not be as much a large school district as large schools, and I'd much rather see the energy of putting into creating smaller schools since we do know. That children do better in terms of discipline, safety, and learning in smaller schools. In those West Side schools are enormous. Yes, they are. I mean, fall cannabis is like a college campus in most cities. Now, the end may be near for a makeshift memorial on the West Side.

Marking the site where the bodies of those 11 murdered women were buried. The developer, who was KB Holmes, has asked the families of the victims to remove all personal items from the site. And Trip, this is hitting a lot of people with a certain dose of insensitivity. I will say this, though. I seem to remember the same request was made in London when all the stuff had to come down. Following Lady Dye's death. So this is common. At some point, this stuff has to go, but a lot of folks are just not ready for this yet. It's a head situation. At the same time, it's a winter. There's been some time that Memorial has, I guess, been weather beaten and whatnot as well, and there's that thing. I think it's a no-win scenario for KB Holmes here. There's not going to be any good time for the families into him. It's just like taking down the crosses by the side of the road where an accident occurred. But I think the more appropriate place for the memorial, I don't mean to be sarcastic about it, would be essential, because these women were in the life of prostitution and

drugs, and that tragedy is out there every day still in our city, and that's where we should have the memorial. Sure. I'd like to see you remembered in the media and in the newspapers and, like, for people that keep focusing on this, the memorial isn't as important as the focus. Interesting. Sophie, what do you think? You know, I have to agree that there isn't a good time or a good way to make this request. I do know that the developer has been in conversation and extending conversation with the families. They are planning a memorial within the park there. Three acres. Oh, interesting. So, and so, in some ways in my mind, it's that they're changing perhaps with how it'll be handled. Well done. Now, that's all the time we have for this week's show. Please let us know what you think about in the topics we talked about this week. You can send us an email at infocusatcantemy.org or drop us a line on our blog. Go ahead next week on the Mexico and Focus. We start our yearly countdown of the top 10 stories of the year. You won't want to miss that.

We'll see you next time on the show that's involved, informed, and in depth.