Weekend wrap-up: Gross taxes, mystery photos and UNM’s brain drain

Workers climb stairs to oil rig equipment. (Photo courtesy of Tony Bennett Photography)

In case you were, y’know, doing stuff this weekend, we’ve provided an easy-to-use compendium of everything you need to know to make all your work friends (we know they’re not your real friends) feel dumb for not paying attention.

Effect of oil and gas on flow of cash — As you may have heard, natural gas prices are not so hot lately, so Farmington’s budget planning has to take into account the effects that will have on the gross receipts tax. Though if you ask us, all taxes are gross, amirite? #HennyYoungman (Daily Times)

Cheaper than a milk carton  — The widow of the owner of a Farmington photography studio has been posting up nostalgic photos from the days of yore, including a couple framed photos of people without names. Well, they have names, it’s just that no one involved knows who it is. Do you? (Daily Times)

All about the Benjamins — As many as tens of faculty members at the University of New Mexico are being recruited by other institutions because UNM just won’t pony up the cash. Because who can scrape by on an average salary of $106,000 for professors? (ABQ Journal)

Mark that calendar —Bloomfield’s annual Bloomfield Days (yeah, the name’s not super original, but it’s definitely descriptive) are coming! It’s like the Bloomfield Days are the British, and I’m Paul Revere. Except Paul Revere didn’t have any rubber ducks winning him 500 large. (Daily Times)

Gettin’ fit — The Shiprock Marathon set records in how fast the people were running as well as how many of them there were. No word on if the number of marathon-runner-taunters were up as well, but we were definitely there in spirit, yelling, “Look out! There are hundreds of people chasing you!” to all the (literal) front-runners. (Daily Times)

Mother’s Day cometh — From down south comes a reminder that Mother’s Day is only a week away, so don’t forget to get her a decent gift. Though really, everyone should’ve known the Smurf gifts don’t play well with Mom — there’s like what, one female Smurf in existence? What mom can compete with Smurfette? (Las Cruces Sun-News)

Saluting the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch

Whether you listened to them standing in an awkward line along the gym wall, separated from the other gender by 20 or so feet; whether you used them to pump yourself up while hitting the free weights; whether you broke up the monotony of a long road trip to or from college, you’ve probably enjoyed at least one Beastie Boys song in your life. (Whether you did so regularly, ironically or nostalgically really depends on age.)

The lyrics were mildly insipid, the beats uninspired, but they hit us where it mattered the most: In our party gland. “You wake up late for school man you don’t wanna go” may not be Shakespeare, but it spoke to the sensibilities of preteens to late teens (and, quite possibly, college students, though they rarely needed mother’s permission). The long-haired-and-refusing-to-cut-it rebellion of Generation X found a voice, and while the clothes that voice chose to wear continue to be hilarious to this day (seriously, check the videos), it’s nonetheless a milestone, if not actually important.

With today’s death of co-founder Adam Yauch after a protracted fight with cancer, we scoured the YouTubes for some of the greatest hits most people of a certain age probably remember. More are included after the jump.


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Let’s talk tanning

Too much T, not enough G or L

Patricia Krentcil, 44, waits to be arraigned at the Essex County Superior Court on Wednesday (Julio Cortez/The Associated Press)

Maybe you’ve seen the woman to the right before? You know, either hanging on a rack inside a plastic pouch labeled “beef jerky,” or perhaps worn across a particular jaunty pilot’s shoulders as a bomber jacket, or maybe even in your nightmares after watching one or more iterations of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series?

Probably not, though. More likely you’ve seen her on TV, in the newspaper and splattered across the Internet as the Woman Who’s Dumb Enough to Let Her Daughter Get Burned From Staying In The Tanning Booth Too Long (Which Is Bad Enough, But It’s Illegal For Daughter To Be In There At All.) (We’re going to have to shorten that name if we want to make her a superheroine or the lead villain in her own horror movie.) As the police tell it, Ms. Patricia Krentcil is just so into tanning that when her family went to the tanning salon in Nutley, N.J. (of course it was New Jersey), her 6-year-old daughter hopped into a booth to give her skin that same melanoma-shine. They thought that, in addition to her “fresh out of the Egyptian pyramid” look, she should take home a child endangerment charge as well.

Krentcil disputes the account, saying that her daughter never entered the booth. The tanning salon owner is backing this up, as are Krentcil’s husband and son (Sidenote: The whole family goes to watch Mom tan? Isn’t there somewhere else they could be? At the gym, or perhaps doing the laundry?). This is good for Krentcil, as New Jersey state law doesn’t allow those under the age of 14 to bombard their skin with artificial cancer-causing UV rays; they have to stay outside and do it on the beach for free.
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ALA releases 2011′s most challenged books list

The three Hunger Games books

The American Library Association, as part of its 2012 State of America’s Libraries Report (which is theoretically supposed to be released today),  put together its annual tabulation of the books most often challenged at libraries (which were then reported to the ALA).

The full list, which you can view after the jump, includes books ranging from the “Internet Girls” series (ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r), which is written entirely in textspeak (example: “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had” might be written out as “ur mah bff”), to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a forward-looking novel that’s been terrorizing the gentility since its original publication in 1931.

Much like the MPAA’s sensitive sensibilities, most of the problems with the books on the list concern nudity, sexuality or some combination thereof. Though obvious exceptions, such as the pictured Hunger Games trilogy, manage to hold their own with good old-fashioned violence.

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Hitler’s parents’ headstone removed — and that’s not the strange part

This undated file photo shows the grave of Alois and Klara Hitler, the parents of German Nazi Dictator Adolf Hitler, in Leonding near Linz, Austria. (File photo)

So you know how sometimes your ancestors’ grave becomes a hangout for local skinheads and neo-Nazis, so you have no choice but to have the headstone removed?

Don’t you HATE that?

This is apparently the problem facing the descendants of one Adolf Hitler, at the grave of his parents, Alois and Klara Hitler, in Leonding, Austria. The grave had become a beacon of sorts for neo-Nazis who, sometimes in groups, would visit the grave and leave flowers or Nazi symbols on it.

Which is crazy, but that’s apparently the norm for Austria.

We’ll start with how graveyards seem to work in Austria, which is by lease. Essentially, from what I’ve been able to find, Austrian graves are leased for a certain amount of time (10-15 years), with the option of renewal. If you don’t feel like Grandma’s worth the upkeep, you can choose not to renew the lease and they’ll let someone else lease it out and plop them down on top of your dead relatives (though I’m sure they leave some dirt between the two coffins).

Which brings us to the priest who, ever the businessman, is looking for new clients.

Village priest Kurt Pitterschatscher said the rented grave was available for a new lease.

Strange enough, right? Not hardly.

Asked whether he would have trouble persuading people to let their loved ones share a grave with the parents of a man whose name is a universal epitome of evil, Pitterschatscher said, “I really haven’t thought about it.”

Well, location is supposed to be the most important quality in real estate. I guess he just figured nobody would really mind their progenitors lying on top of those who spawned Hitler, widely considered to be the Hitler of his time. Or maybe he’s thinking the market is ripe, as there will probably be a lot of neo-Nazis looking into the plot.

Somehow, the only person who comes out looking sane in the whole endeavor is the descendant.

He said he did not know the woman personally and did not identify her by name but cited her request for termination of the grave lease as saying she was too old to care for it and tired of it “being used for manifestations of sympathy” for Hitler.

Her, I like.

Dance drama: NMAA wronged Kelly Greens

The Piedra Vista Panteraz dance team at the state competition. (courtesy photo)

It’s kind of a mess.

In case you haven’t heard, the Farmington Kelly Greens won first place at the state dance competition in Albuquerque over the weekend.

Until about Monday night.

Under the cover of darkness, around 9:30 p.m. Monday night, the New Mexico Activities Association sent out a press release saying that they had made an unspecified error in tabulating points. As a result, the Kelly Greens would have to return their second-place trophy and accept a fourth-place finish. The former third- and fourth-place teams (Gallup and Piedra Vista Panteraz) each moved up a slot.

Great news for PV and Gallup. Not so much for Farmington.

All praise is due the teams that moved up to their rightful places. They competed hard enough and well enough to earn red and green trophies. Their accomplishments deserve to be honored.

“It is exciting to be awarded the trophy no matter what,” said PV head coach Daniele Crabtree. “The girls do wish they could have gotten the recognition they deserved on Saturday, but having everything straightened out is all that matters.”

But there’s still the matter of the Kelly Greens. They were at the same competition. They saw the other teams perform, then went out and gave their all. When all the scores were added up, they were told they were the second-best team at the competition.

I’m sure there were tears when the results were announced — tears of joy for the Kelly Greens, and tears of frustration for the other teams. And I’m sure there were protests — some vehement — that so-and-so team deserved to win more, that their routine was FAR better. These are typical reactions when you don’t do as well in a competition as you might’ve expected.

At that point, the Kelly Greens were the second-best team in the state. They should have stayed that way.

I’m not faulting the NMAA for double-checking their math (though you’d think they might’ve done that before handing out the trophies). Nor do I think it wrong they tried to rectify a bad situation created entirely of their own making.

But you don’t fix a situation like this by bringing someone else down. When the powers-that-be realized that another team deserved second place, they should have called up the teams and told them … and then had another second-place trophy made.

Because when those parents look back at the photos of that day, they’ll see the Kelly Greens holding the red trophy. In five, 10 or 15 years, when the young athletes look back on that day, the Kelly Greens are going to remember accepting it. You can’t take away the photos. You can’t take away the memories. You can try to take away the physical reminder, but to do so is petty and accomplishes almost nothing.

One team took first place that day. Two teams took second, and another took third. The rest of the competitors in that gym could stand tall, knowing they did their best.

The only losers were the suits.

© The Farmington Daily Times, MediaNews Group

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