Santa Fe New Mexican, November 24, 2014

Page 1

Injuries, lossess hurt Lobos at Puerto Rico tournament Sports, B-1

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Monday, November 24, 2014

www.santafenewmexican.com 75¢

Are 18 college applications too many? Scientists help fight Ebola from Santa Fe

Faced with an increasingly competitive landscape, students have begun applying to more colleges than anyone would have thought possible. EDUCATION, PAGE A-6

Texting bad for your spine

Free-speech limits on social media, Facebook tested

Constantly bending your neck to use your smartphone can cause “text neck.” LIFE, PAGE A-7

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether a man’s dark postings on Facebook were a threat to his wife or merely anger and a way to blow off steam. PAGE A-2

Donald Tripp,

TEACHER OF THE YEAR

expected to be the new House speaker, said he is supportive of all the Jobs Council initiatives.

Pojoaque music guru keeps students in tune

$50M sought to aid N.M. business

L

ast July, a group of scientists from eight research groups around the country began holding weekly meetings to develop a mathematical understanding of the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. This league of mathematicians, computer scientists, epidemiologists and biologists was unusual not only because of its members’ diverse scientific backgrounds, but also because it included five researchers from the Santa Fe InstiSamuel V. tute. Scarpino These institute Science in a scientists provide Complex World an important perspective on disease transmission — specifically, emphasizing the need to piece together how the various factors affecting disease transmission interact to cause a large outbreak. This approach, which we call complex systems science, already has improved our understanding of the spread of infectious diseases, from SARS to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. I was humbled to be asked to join the discussions and eager to be able to offer a complex systems perspective to what was quickly becoming a global emergency. At SFI, my colleagues and I are constructing mathematical models of Ebola transmission, incorporating many interacting factors that might be contributing to the outbreak. These models help inform the intervention decisions being made every day by public health officials. The first step in this process was to develop computer models of Ebola’s spread to look at its potential reach in West Africa and across the world. These models required us, as complexity scientists, to piece together

Please see EBOLA, Page A-4

Jobs Council seeks funds from Legislature to help state’s employment rate By Bruce Krasnow The New Mexican

like adults,’ but they don’t teach us how to be adults. She does. And she treats us like adults.” New Mexico’s Public Education Department named Minyard Teacher of the Year for 2015. She found out on a Saturday in late October when she got a vague email from an administrative assistant saying she was now eligible to become National Teacher of the Year. She put two and two together and then called her principal and superintendent to confirm the news. Principal Kathy McClendon nominated Minyard based on criteria for the award, which includes being a highly effective teacher,

Lawmakers looking to boost economic development in New Mexico are pushing for more money for a program that funds land, equipment and construction for new and expanding businesses. The Jobs Council, a consortium of business leaders, economists and lawmakers who have been meeting for the past 18 months, is lobbying for $50 million from the Legislature under the state Local Economic Development Act, or LEADA, to serve as a “closing fund” to pay for roads, sewers, water lines, buildings and other incentives for business expansion. The new money for LEADA is the top priority that will move through the Legislature in January from the Jobs Council as well as the state Economic Development Department. Other recommendations include more recruitment money to sell the advantages of New Mexico, an increase in job-training funds, money for a pilot project in forest restoration, as well as initiatives to help solo or independent contractors. The group is also seeking $4.5 million to provide economic development grants to smaller communities.

Please see YEAR, Page A-4

Please see JOBS, Page A-4

Teacher Debra Minyard of Pojoaque Valley High School, the New Mexico’s Teacher of the Year, stands with her concert band class in Pojoaque. CLYDE MUELLER/THE NEW MEXICAN

‘She treats you the way you want to be treated’ By Robert Nott The New Mexican

I

t’s just past noon on a Wednesday in the music class of Pojoaque Valley High School teacher Debra Minyard — and cacophony reigns. About 40 kids are coming into the room, picking up their instruments and starting to experiment with them as they move chairs into place for band practice. “They sound better once they get started,” Minyard says. Soon she has them seated and working on breathing exercises. “You’re cheating!” she tells one girl who is holding back on exhaling. As the students create a collective sound similar to the noise a tractor-

trailer tire might make while slowly losing air, Minyard keeps time by snapping her fingers. And then it’s time to focus and play a rendition of the gentle, soothing “Korean Folk Rhapsody.” Minyard commands her students’ attention as she conducts in theatrical fashion, shouting out specific instructions to students who are too loud, too fast, not loud enough or not fast enough. “Hunter, you’re perfectly in time and way too strong in approach,” she tells one percussionist. As far as her students are concerned, Minyard is always in time and never too strong in approach. “She treats you the way you want to be treated,” said junior Teresa Solano. “Teachers always say, ‘act

Islamic State exploits children

Obituary Arthur F. Lucero, 78, Santa Fe, Nov. 19 PAGE A-8

Kids guard checkpoints, carry guns, attend training camps

Pasapick

By Zeina Karam and Vivian Salama The Associated Press

BEIRUT — Teenagers carrying weapons stand at checkpoints and busy intersections in Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. Patched onto the left arms of their black uniforms are the logos of the Islamic Police. In Raqqa, the Islamic State group’s de facto capital in Syria, boys attend training camp and religious courses before heading off to fight. Others serve as cooks or guards at the extremists’ headquarters or as spies, informing on people in their neighborhoods. Across the vast region under Islamic State’s control, the group is actively conscripting children for battle and committing abuses against the most vulnerable at a young age, according to a growing body of evidence assembled from residents, activists, independent experts and human rights groups. In the northern Syrian town of Kobani, where ethnic Kurds have been resisting an ISIS onslaught for weeks, several activists told The

Index

Calendar A-2

Classifieds B-4

www.pasatiempomagazine.com

Southwest Seminars lecture

An Islamic militant group fighter stands with two children June 23 posing with weapons in Mosul, Iraq. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

Today

Associated Press they observed children fighting alongside the militants. Mustafa Bali, a Kobanibased activist, said he saw the bodies of four boys, two of them younger than 14. And at least one

Comics B-10

Main office: 983-3303 Late paper: 986-3010 News tips: 986-3035

Feeding the Spirits: The Ethnobotany of Combustible Plants in Northern New Mexico, by Richard I. Ford, 6 p.m., Hotel Santa Fe, 1501 Paseo de Peralta, $12 at the door, southwestseminars.org, 466-2775.

Partly sunny, cold. High 41, low 13.

Please see KIDS, Page A-8

Crosswords B-5, B-9

Lotteries A-2

Opinion A-9

Glacier Park’s identity melting By Michael Wines The New York Times

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont. — What will they call this place once the glaciers are gone? A century ago, this sweep of mountains on the Canadian border boasted some 150 ice sheets, many of them scores of feet thick, plastered across summits and tucked into rocky fissures high above parabolic valleys. Today, perhaps 25 survive. In 30 years, there may be none. A warming climate is melting Glacier’s glaciers, an icy retreat that promises to change not just tourists’ vistas, but also the mountains and everything around them. Streams fed by snowmelt are reaching peak spring flows weeks earlier than in the past, and low summer flows weeks before they used to. Some farmers who depend on irrigation in the parched days of late summer are no longer sure that enough water will be there. Bull trout, once pan-fried over anglers’ campfires,

PAGE A-10

Sports B-1

Time Out B-9

Health A-7

BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM

Please see GLACIER, Page A-8

Two sections, 20 pages 165th year, No. 328 Publication No. 596-440


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Santa Fe New Mexican, November 24, 2014 by The New Mexican - Issuu