A4 Saturday, January 7, 2012
OPINION
Just one more special favor for the spaceport
It’s all go for Spaceport America. According to Christine Armstrong, executive director of the Spaceport Authority, 500 people are already signed up to fly into space with Virgin Galactic, at a ticket price of $200,000 apiece. A grand visitor center is scheduled to open in 2013. Since the spaceport is several miles from I-25, two welcome centers will be constructed convenient to the highway, and shuttle buses will take visitors from those centers to the spaceport itself. After the current bond issues expire, the facility has a plan to be self-supporting. New Mexico has to do just one more little thing for the space industry. It’s not quite enough that we built them a spaceport with taxpayer money. The state has to guarantee that their passengers won’t sue them. Or, I
EDITORIAL
MERILEE
DANNEMANN TRIPLE SPACED
should say, their passengers’ heirs, if the passengers — since we’re speaking plainly — get killed on the trip, whether vaporized by a collision with an asteroid or whatever. It’s not the spaceship operators we have to protect. New Mexico has already done that. This next one is for the suppliers to the spaceship operators. New Mexico enacted the Space Flight Informed Consent Act in 2010. Under this law, the space flight operator is held harmless by the passenger for any accident in space. The passenger will have
Roswell Daily Record
signed an informed-consent document before boarding the flight. But three other states — Texas, Florida and Virginia — have extended this protection to suppliers, companies that provide products and services to the spaceship operators and could share liability in an accident. Armstrong said those companies will not locate in New Mexico unless we extend that protection to them, also. As she presented it, New Mexico has no choice. Enact the extended protection or else. We can expect to see this introduced in the 2012 legislative session. After spending $200 million building the darn thing, the sensible thing is to protect the state’s investment and pass the bill. To borrow a hackneyed phrase, since we built it, we want them to come. As hold-harmless protections go, this one is not unreasonable. After all, space flight is still in its
infancy and anybody who boards a commercial space flight is taking a big risk. But it does lead to some reflection. It’s yet another instance of the economic-development rivalry game, in which privileged industries play state and local governments against each other for special protections and benefits. In the competition for jobs and economic growth, governments fall all over themselves helping these industries. The recent move to reduce New Mexico’s incentives to the film industry was the rare exception, and we all know it remains wildly controversial. And it’s selective tort reform, again for the benefit of a privileged industry. When a hold harmless is in place, the protected industry is relieved of some worry and a great deal of potential expense, including a whole lot of insurance that will not be needed.
Wouldn’t we all love to have such a protection — except, of course, when we are the injured party? At the same time, the 2010 statute makes an exception to the exemption for gross negligence or wanton disregard of safety. Translation: There’s still potential for a personal injury suit if the wing falls off the spaceship, but it requires a legally sufficient demonstration of extreme carelessness. Armstrong noted, by the way, the law applies only to the fully informed passengers. If you are a mere earthling minding your own business on the ground and a piece of debris from the space ship tears through your house, you can still sue for damages. The hold harmless doesn’t apply to you. Take comfort. Contact Merilee Dannemann at www.triplespacedagain.com. © New Mexico News Services 2012
World Opinion U.S.-Saudi arms dealings
A massive arms deal clinched between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia has received surprisingly little attention at home. The U.S. finalized the sale of 84 top-ofthe-line F-15SA fighter jets to the Saudi air force. From the U.S.’s standpoint, the deal appears to achieve a number of goals. First, it provides a boost to relations with the Saudis, after a period of turbulence over America’s unwillingness to prop up autocratic regimes in the region in the face of popular uprisings. The arms deal is also a hedge against Iranian aggression. It comes during a week when Iran again threatened to block ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a main artery for the passage of oil — in response to international economic sanctions. Finally, the transaction is a major boon for a weak U.S. economy. But from an Israeli perspective, the deal appears somewhat problematic. Though Washington’s intention is to build the Saudis’ confidence in the face of an increasingly belligerent Iran, these fighter planes could, in theory, just as soon be used against the Jewish State as against the Islamic Republic. The present Saudi regime seems stable — but so did the Mubarak’s and Ben Ali’s. In what is euphemistically being called the “Arab Spring,” the U.S. needs to reevaluate its military ties in the region, not primarily out of a concern for Israeli interests, rather as a means of preventing religious extremists from imposing their radical policies with the aid of advanced U.S. arms. Guest Editorial The Jerusalem Post
North Korea’s future
North Korea held a state funeral on Dec. 28 and a memorial ceremony on Dec. 29 in Pyongyang for its leader Kim Jong Il, who died on Dec. 17 at age 69. Representatives of every field of endeavor voiced ardent support for the deceased leader’s third son, Kim Jong Un, as their new leader and called on the young Kim to “carry on the great undertaking of the revolution.” The new Kim Jong Un regime has started in North Korea with the world watching anxiously, wondering in what direction the hermetic country will move now. Kim will have no choice but to depend on a coterie of close aides, at least for the time being. But there will be few fresh faces among his advisers. The country’s negotiations over its nuclear arms programs and talks to establish a diplomatic relationship with the United States have been led effectively by the same officials for nearly two decades. But North Korea cannot map out a better future if the new regime, under the control of a hidden and privileged elite, just keeps avoiding changes and continues the dictatorship that has ruled the nation for decades. North Korea should first change such an attitude. The North should join the international community as a respectable member and use its new relations with other countries to begin effective efforts to revive its dilapidated economy and raise the people’s living standards. The country should realize that it cannot hope to carve out a decent future for itself unless it switches to realistic policies and builds friendly and cooperative ties with the rest of the world. We have already lear ned a lot from Pyongyang’s “brinkmanship diplomacy.” The secluded regime will no longer be able to change the situation it is in by conducting nuclear and missile tests. Guest Editorial The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo
‘The Lone Ranger’ filming in New Mexico
The Lone Ranger is galloping into New Mexico and he just can’t get here quickly enough. He’ll bring Johnny Depp who will portray his Native American sidekick, Tonto. One might wonder why they couldn’t have found a Native American to play Tonto, but that is an argument for another day. Johnny Depp is a hugely gifted actor of unlimited character versatility. I was disappointed he passed on the Christmas season blockbuster I attended, “The Chipmunks Chipwrecked.” Depp reportedly took a 20 percent salary cut to star in “The Lone Ranger,”
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CANTWELL LOOKING ASKANCE
and that is good. We all have to sacrifice in these tough times. Many of us first saw The Lone Ranger in the 1940s where we went to a theater maybe called The Globe, paid 9 cents to get in, saw two movies, a newsreel and a
Doonesbury Flashback
Question: My father was recently diagnosed with carotid stenosis. I’d like to learn more about the condition. In particular, how can I prevent developing it myself? Answer: The carotid arteries in your neck play an important role in keeping your brain healthy and functioning properly. Your brain must receive an uninterrupted supply of blood because nerve cells require a constant supply of oxygen. Even a brief disruption stuns nerve cells, impairing their function. More prolonged oxygen deprivation kills the cells. Carotid artery stenosis is the narrowing of these arteries due to the buildup of cholesterol-rich plaques. When the narrowing is moderate or severe, clots can form on the plaques and then break off and travel to the brain, where they may interfere with blood flow. Brief or partial interruptions of blood flow cause transient ischemic attacks
bunch of cartoons. Mom gave us an extra nickel to munch on Necco Wafers. The movie is based on a masked fictional ex-Texas Ranger who trots around the Old West fighting injustice, Tonto always at his side. Well, bring it on! We’ve got plenty of injustice to battle in New Mexico, and I am not just referring to the rip-off retirement plan our legislators granted themselves in one of those rare moments of political greed. There is another reason we should all shout “Hi-yo Silver! Away!” to the filming of “The Lone Ranger” in our Land of Enchantment. Previous New
Mexico cowboy shoot ’em ups haven’t all been cinematic classics. One in particular, “The Righteous and the Wicked,” was so bad as to be funny from beginning to closing credits. Check this one out on at your local Redbox, sit back and enjoy. Some Westerns are designed to be funny. Remember Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles”? This was generally a guy flick mostly remembered for its flatulence humor appealing to us guys who go through a certain juvenile stage generally ending when we turn 87. No
See CANTWELL, Page A5
25 YEARS AGO
(TIAs). But prolonged or complete blockages cause strokes. If only a small, noncritical area of your brain is affected, you may not notice the damage. Unfortunately, however, the damage is often very noticeable indeed, as we’ll discuss. Nearly nine of every 10 strokes are caused by a blocked artery (ischemic stroke). The blockage can occur right in an artery in the brain (thrombotic stroke), but it is more commonly caused by blood clots that break off from the heart or from an artery that carries blood to the brain (embolic stroke). That’s where the carotid arteries come See HARVARD, Page A5
Jan. 7, 1987 • Capt. Wayne R. Hudry, formerly of Roswell, recently received a master’s of science degree during fall commencement ceremonies at New Mexico State University. Hudry, son of Mr. and Mrs. L.C. Hudry of Roswell, is currently assigned to Fort George G. Meade in Baltimore, Md. He had been an Ar my Student Exchange from Fort Ben Harrison in Indiana. A 1974 graduate of Goddard High School, Hudry is also a 1978 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and has a master’s degree in business from Central Michigan University at Mount Pleasant. He has been on active duty in the Army for eight years.