Aggie Almanac; 125; African Art Collection and Spaceport Tax Vote; The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (Promo)

You I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm Hillary Floren and thanks for watching Aggie Almanac. You're weekly insight into some of the amazing things going on at New Mexico State University.

If you enjoy exotic art, we have a treat for you. You're about to enjoy NMSU's newest artistic collection, objects from Africa. But more than that, it's also the touching story of the late and much-loved NMSU professor who made the exhibit possible. I didn't know a whole lot about African art. I had seen some here and there, but I'm Steve's collection really opened my eyes to a lot of different ways that the African culture views art and what art is, and actually it's not art to them because everything that they produce has a function to it. It's an unusual collection left to New Mexico State University by a most unusual man, remembered at this ceremony with words from an African proverb. Man sometimes needs to know how to imitate the seed which agrees to die that the plant may grow.

I couldn't find more appropriate words to speak about someone whose acts and whose insight has followed him and still benefits and teaches us all. Dr. Steve Pasternak was a much-loved NMSU journalism professor who did a whole lot more than just teach and do research. He took his expertise in media law to places where it was needed most, Eastern Europe after the fall of communism, and later to a remote and troubled region of Central Africa. Many of you probably know that in 1994 there was a terrible genocide in Rwanda, and some of the biggest instigators of the genocide were channels of people in the media.

The media's role in the Rwanda genocide was very troubling to Steve Pasternak. He talked about it on a special program produced by KRWGTV with a grant from Frontline to mark the 10-year anniversary of the genocide. People who study the effects of media and the power of media have found a wonderful laboratory in Rwanda to study that the media say, do this and people go and do that. So it's an incredible circumstance, but it's not very surprising if you know Rwanda in culture because people there are very respecting of authority, and a radio station carries great authority in that culture. And so when the radio station said, kill, they killed.

Certain Rwanda newspapers and radio stations are accused of fanning the flames of hatred between the Hutus and the Tutsis that led to the killing of 800,000 people in 85 days in 1994. Once the genocide began, they started broadcasting things like, the graves are not yet full, let's get to work. The river is not yet red enough with blood, let's kill some more. And so as the genocide proceeded, the RTLM radio station continued to promote war and more hatred and actually encourage specific killings, and very often the people they told said needed to be killed that day were killed. Pasternak made 15 trips to the troubled country in part to help the government rewrite its media law in the aftermath of the genocide. I had a role in trying to help to write it. I was on this task force and things I suggested through my American prism were often looked at as being rather strange suggestions and trying to suggest certain areas that would be good ideas in the law, such as access to information or things like that. They just didn't buy, they felt we need to have a law, but we need to have a law that's going to be a Rwanda law.

And so the presence of an outsider, and I was the only outsider on this group, was not taken too kindly by some of the people on this group. He also spearheaded the formation of the first journalism program at the University of Rwanda. They wanted to make sure that what happened in 1994 never happens again, and one path to that was training journalists and producing professional journalists who would have a sense of ethics and understand what the power of communications and other things like that. It was on his latest trip home from Rwanda that Pastor Nak fell ill to a disease that quickly took his life, but not his spirit, his belief in media ethics, and his love of Africa, which remains alive in his collection of African artwork, which he left to an MSU. He loved absorbing culture from what I understand, from what I've researched of him, and his going to Africa and bringing all these objects back to me, I think, were more like bringing the objects back from mind of him of Africa, which was his second home. And so he made him feel more homey here, and it was probably a constant reminder of him to keep wanting to go back and help these people.

Bonnie Shetsky is an assistant curator at the NMSU Museum. It was her job to sift through the Pastor Nak collection and put together the exhibit. From picking up the collection and inspecting everything, you do accessioning, sort of thing gets numbered for the collections, and you just make sure you know what the condition of every object is, so you really inspect them. And then from there it came to just doing research on everything, and the culture, what certain objects are used for, and then writing up all the research for it, and pinpointing exactly where objects are coming from within Africa, what culture, or what tribes are making them. So that came up, and then the installation of everything, when it comes to the physical labor of picking exactly what pieces are going to be selected for the show, and then displaying everything. Along the way, Shetsky became something of an expert in African art.

This game comes from Africa, it's actually the oldest game in the world that has been played in our modern version as Mancala, and over in Africa they have an Olympics of knowledge to come, and they all play to see who can win the game, and it's a yearly event, a lot of people come to it. All the Tootsie baskets come from Africa, and the interesting story about them is, back in the 70s or so, there were women who got together, and they started making these piece baskets, and the main reason for doing it was just to make a little extra income for the women, because at that time only men were bringing in the incomes. And for them to gather, too, similar to something like we have like knitting circles or quilting circles in the US, so it was able to, away for the women to sit and socialize. And then when Rwanda of the war came about, the Civil War, and everything kind of got destroyed, the groups split up, and just the massacre that occurred over there.

One lady decided to start making these piece baskets again, and she just started making them on her own, and getting friends together, and a lot of the people that she was working with were victims, were orphans, and some were even the murderers who occurred in this. So today, all the people that make all these Tootsie baskets are working hand in hand, and I think it's just amazing that a culture after being so split up and broken now can sit next to each other. The mudcloth that we have here, you see all the patchwork on here, and how everything's sewn together, each individual block is stitched together. Originally, they started sewing on pieces of fabric, just to peel up holes in the tapestry, but then it became like a tradition to start making symbolism and turn it into a whole language that you see in these tapestries. African masks, if you look, you can see a variety that Steve had chosen. They all come from many different regions and tribes, and they all have their own unique meaning behind them.

We need, again, if it is of religious nature or preparation for war, or just to have a good harvest in the fall. Most of them are face masks, which are worn on their face, and then this one's very interesting here, the helmet mask, which is worn on the forehead of the dancer, so on the face. And we also have a shoulder mask here, the Damba mask, it's called. And if you see these in real life, they're huge masks that they wear on their shoulders, so like where the loop is on the side, that would rest on the dancer's shoulders, and they go up to 130 pounds. These are all sculpture wooden carvings made for the art market. And the reason I just put these three together was they have more of a ritual religious base behind them. Like the figure here on the right is for fertility in a couple. It's a little similar to something that they would have as a door post, just to bring like good energy into their house. And then this next one here is the ancestor king.

And this, I think, is just a phenomenal piece because of all the scarification that's on the body, which in the Congo, most of the tribes people have scarification is beauty, used as beauty, and representation of your status. This lady over here, I think, is one of our most beautiful sculptures that we had collected. And she's holding her basket in her lap, and what these sculptures were used for was they would have different shapes and objects that they would throw into the pot, and she's kind of like a fortune teller. And so when someone would come and have questions of what their future would lie, a priest status would come and put all the different symbols together until what their future was. It's a display that is now part of the permanent collection of NMSU, a way to celebrate African art, to remember the tragedy in Rwanda, and to keep alive the spirit of a man who continues to inspire us all.

Let us love our birth, our living, our dying. Nothingness does not exist. To me, that really said what Steve was about. He lived and enjoyed the moment. He was in the moment. The display of African art will remain at the NMSU Museum in Kent Hall until June 23rd. We'll be right back. How important is this vote on April 3rd? It's very important, but I think what's even more important is the dialogue. Welcome back. It's your turn to weigh in on the idea of a commercial spaceport in southern New Mexico. On April 3rd, area residents will vote on whether to hike the sales tax a quarter of a percent to pay a portion of the cost of that facility.

Plans for a commercial spaceport with its promise of new jobs and economic growth have been in the making for more than a decade now. The sales tax vote is the next major step in determining the fate of this space age project. But there are a very few times when something this important, when a decision this big, comes across to the voters of any community. It's an important vote, which is why one by one politicians who work to make a commercial spaceport a reality lined up at this podium at Vista Middle School to encourage residents to cast their ballots in favor of the project. This $300 million spaceport America is going to take a collaboration from many counties, all the cities in southern New Mexico, and it's important that every voter, so the question is when you go home and you meet tonight with your mother and your father, please tell them that the mayor of the city of Las Cruces, the county, all the leadership in southern New Mexico needs a yes vote on this spaceport America. I ask all of you in this room that are registered voters in the county, I ask all of you kids that are here, go home and talk to your parents, say that this is something important, say that you want to have the opportunity to stay here in Donia and at county and work when you get out of high school and you get out of college.

Many people think the idea of a commercial spaceport is fairly new, but in reality it's a concept that was born in the early 1990s and New Mexico State University was involved from the start. It was the late Lonnie Sumter who helped organize what was then called the Southwest Space Task Force, which charted the early course for New Mexico's commercial space business, but it's only recently all those early efforts began to pay off. The big boost came when billionaire Richard Branson announced his virgin galactic space tourism enterprise would be based at the New Mexico spaceport after it's completed in late 2009. The idea is to eventually launch as many as 5,000 tourists into space each year on flights lasting two and a half hours and costing $200,000 a ticket.

But before that happens, the spaceport needs to be constructed at this site 45 miles north of Los Cruces. There's already a temporary launch pad set up and a firm called Up Arrow Space launched the first rocket from the site last September. Though it did fail to reach suborbital space, building the permanent spaceport is expected to cost $225 million. The state has about $115 million in hand and hopes to get $50 million more from the state and federal governments. The rest about $60 million would come from taxpayers, with a quarter of a percent hike in the sales tax in Donia, Anna, and Sierra counties, and an eighth of a percent hike in Otero County. 75 percent of the money raised over 20 years would be used for the spaceport, 25 percent would go toward local spaceport-related projects.

The spaceport is about creating opportunity. New Mexico's governor has been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the spaceport. At this enthusiastic rally designed to drum up support for the spaceport tax, he called it an investment in ourselves. So it's important for this project that local people and local communities partner with the state to pay for the basic infrastructure. The state has invested in the future. The state has invested because our resources are good, because our economy is good, we have decided to make investments in our people, in better schools, in infrastructure for schools, in science and math programs, but also in jobs for the future. And that is the spaceport.

And what will bring with the spaceport is new companies, new jobs, and a tax base, a stronger tax base that will fund education, health care, and other social needs here in New Mexico. No new taxes! No new taxes! But just outside the school was a group who are not convinced residents should be flipping the bill for the project. We don't think that the three different counties in the states, the most indigenous counties in the state, should be supporting a spaceport that really does not impact us in a positive way. We think that the priority is a lot greater. In our communities we need flood control, we need volunteer fire department people paid, and we need paid law enforcement. We have crimes in our school that is almost out of control, because there is not enough police officers, because there is not enough money. That $7.5 million a year that this tax will generate for the spaceport can fund every party in our county, as well as increase our law enforcement. We think that the governor and our county commissioner has their priorities completely off.

We are for the spaceport, but let the private industry fund it. But New Mexico's economic development secretary sees it differently, noting an NMSU study predicting that by 2020 the spaceport will generate 5,000 new jobs and inject a billion dollars into the state economy. It's why county commissioner Kent Evans said he voted to put the spaceport tax up for a vote. We are investing in something real and something magnificent. The spaceport is a complicated project, and few people understand it better than Patricia Hines. She is director of the New Mexico spacecraft consortium. NMSU is the lead institution for the organization, which is set up to encourage residents to participate in the economic education and scientific benefits of space, and encourage aerospace related math, science, engineering, and technology careers. She has been involved with her in our studio as Bill Gutman, a technical advisor for NMSU's physical science lab. He has been involved in the spaceport concept from the very beginning, back in the early 1990s.

So it's been a while. This isn't some sudden thing that happened overnight, right? Oh, absolutely correct. Unfortunately, Bill and I have been involved in this together, and so is NMSU been involved since the beginning. NMSU people who were there at the very beginning, avatones that you might remember, and a number of other people, Bernie McEun from the physical science lab. They were all there in the beginning and helping to get this thing off and rolling. And finally, we're ready for a vote. How important is this vote on April 3rd? It's very important, but I think what's even more important is the dialogue that's leading up to the dissemination of information. What is the spaceport? What's it going to take to keep it viable? Yeah, this is important because it's an opportunity, a once in a lifetime opportunity for us, really, to say that we're committed to the future. And we're really going to move forward and do the things that we need to ensure the future of our kids. Well, let's talk about the proposed tax right now because we just heard the pros and cons in that piece that we just came out of. Some people are a little upset, but we're talking about 25 cents on every hundred dollars, which doesn't seem like very much at all. It's not.

So what are some of the other pros and cons that you all have heard in the different meetings that you've gone to? Well, a lot of the pros have to do with the fact that this is going to be a source for high-tech employment, for the graduates from NMSU. It's going to raise the overall economic level of the entire area. Those are the kinds of pros that we all know about. It's going to bring a lot of national attention to this part of the state as well. The cons people are always concerned about how we spend the money for this project as opposed to some of our obvious immediate needs. And that's really what the bait comes down to. Some of the other cons that people have raised, is it just strictly the money? The 25 cents on the hundred dollars? Well, there's one other one. One other one that people have objected to, I think, is that there is some concern about an effect on the historic trail that's out in that area. That's one other issue that is sometimes brought. But again, I think all those things are, that one in particular, is very manageable. Well, let's talk about the pros then. We're not talking about economic benefits touted up to 5,000 new jobs and a billion dollars for the economy. Billion dollars, that's a lot of money.

It is. And that's very realistic. If we look at the history, I had a wonderful conversation with our mayor, Bill Matisse, and he said, Pat, if we think about what the dialogue was when we first started the missile range, people didn't think it was a good idea. I thought it was dangerous. Missiles, are you people crazy, rockets? But if we look now, there's 6,000 employees at White Sands missile range. The money they bring into the economy is one thing. But they also bring a great vitality into the community. There's a great deal of vitality at the missile range. Furthermore, when we talk about the missile range and the spaceport, we talk about keeping the missile range viable into the very far future. We just went through the base realignment process, and White Sands missile range is a very strategic importance for this community, for our country, and Bill can get into that more than those discussions. But having the spaceport a component of and collaborating with White Sands missile range also keeps it viable for us. Yeah, as we know, White Sands missile range is there to test military missile programs, and there are fewer and fewer of those as we go on.

And so other uses for their instrumentation and their expertise help maintain that vitality that she was talking about. And so the spaceport brings exactly that to the area. So we talk about the economic benefits. Now how about the educational benefits? How would NMSU be involved and how might this help NMSU? Imagine it would be helpful. That's great. Well, fortunately, New Mexico space grant has been funding education programs, workforce development programs throughout the state of New Mexico. So we fund students in El Magordo and Farmington, New Mexico, Czech, and University of New Mexico. All of these students are working on the ones that we work with. Our interested in space from multiple perspectives. We have students flying microgravity experiments. We have students who are well trained to work at the spaceport through the surveying engineering program. We're developing the aerospace engineering program. PSL has employed students since the time of Vernon von Braun and training them in this business. So we have a great deal of education capability and capacity here in Mexico state for this business.

And another very important thing here is we always hear about the brain drain. Our graduates from NMSU go to Denver. They go to Los Angeles. We need some good jobs here. And this is the kind of job that is going to be coming here. So we have this new aerospace engineering program. And this is going to be a place where they're going to have opportunities to work. And then in addition to that, I think, we have the fact that these companies coming in, they're going to bring in vitality as well. And so it's going to, I think, improve the overall economic outlook in many, many ways in the educational one as well. All right. Or just about out of time. But how about a spate, I mean, a timeline for this project? I'm going to defer to Bill on this one. Well, the timeline is right now in contrary to what you may have heard. There is every expectation that the environmental impact statement and the license will be completed by the end of this year. And we would expect ground to be broken for the Virgin Galactic part of the facility. The horizontal takeoff part of the facility is early as a year from now, less than a year from now, in fact, early next year.

And flights beginning as early as 2009. Wow. That does seem very quick. And Pat, real quickly, the ex-price, star chase, rocket racing league, how's all this going to tie in? Well, the very first customer in one of the jumpstart companies that got us going to where we could bring spaceport to fruition is the ex-price foundation. And the ex-price cup. And the first launch director at the ex-price cup is our good friend Lonnie Sumter. And we're going to continue on working his work and our good friend Lynn Sugarman too. So we can bring this into the future as we promise both of them. Of course, it'll all be just so tied in together. It will. Well, we appreciate you both coming in. We have so many more questions on our list, but we're out of time. Thank you. So much. And time now for our amazing Aggie of the Week when we honor someone on campus involved in something that we think is amazing. Stephanie Taylor is an art history professor whose research is, well, attracting attention. It was standing room only at this lecture. No wonder, the topic, how Playboy Magazine represented women in their centerfolds in the 1950s.

Taylor's research has aimed at finding out why the centerfold images tended to defocus the female breast. And she says she doesn't think it's about censorship or morality. In my presentation, I'll argue that the repeated and bizarre act of nipple illusion signals a reaction to the specific types of women who represented a threat to the shaky egos of the male readership of Playboy Magazine. Taylor began her research into this topic at the Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana, and she continues to explore it at NMSU. If you'd like to nominate an amazing Aggie or have any comment about the show, you can call us at 646-2818 or send an email to AggieAlmanac at Yahoo.com. And that is our show for this week. Thank you for watching. I'm Hillary Floren. Have a great weekend. Thanks for watching.

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I'm Jim Lara. Today's news, the North Korea nuclear deal, home again to New Orleans and Carter and Baker on elections. All tonight on the news hour. You You You

You Good evening. I'm Jim Lara. On the news hour tonight, the news of this Monday, then full coverage and analysis of today's North Korea nuclear agreement.

Reports and discussion of coming home to New Orleans and an election reform conversation with former president, Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state, Jim Baker. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara has been provided. You

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