The Short

The Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board opines on the high incidence of pedestrian injury/death in New Mexico. One way to look at the editorial is to see it as progress in terms of addressing the issue. Then there’s the reality of how deeply the editorial covers the issue. Namely:

Tanner Tixier, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, says “the majority of our pedestrian fatalities are a result of intoxicated pedestrians walking outside of safety areas.”

Posts to the Journal online overwhelmingly call this “blaming the victim.” Maybe. But if you walk into traffic when it’s dark and you’re drunk, or conversely if you have one too many and plow down a pedestrian, then even beer goggles can’t obscure where blame should lie.

In keeping this “The Short,” we’ll just note that this is a highly simplistic and unhelpful way of looking at the problem. At least they admit they’re just blaming the victim. There is that “progress.”

If one is interested in a very slightly deeper look at the problem and ways to mitigate it, they might read a few more posts here at BetterBurque. Better yet, you could write something about the issue (or any issue) and send it to BB. We’ll publish it. If you’re a bit shy about it, just remind yourself you only have the Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board as a comparative logical and analytical baseline.

It would almost be impossible to not go up in terms of depth from that low, low standard.

The Long

“The Long” is actually even shorter this morning. Here’s a little piece written yesterday for Duke City Fix about adventures Monday evening on the middle floors of the City/County Building. To overcome inadequacies in the writing, try to put yourself there by drinking three or four iced teas and reading it really, really, really slow. Four hours later you’ll have a better sense of what it was like.