Thursday, February 10, 2011

A Cautionary Tale

Bill Gates started his great computer revolution in Albuquerque, New Mexico near the house I grew up in near San Mateo and Central.  Because of small thinkers and fate he found it necessary to leave the Duke City when his local lawyers demanded payments in cash rather than shares of stock.  Gates went home to Seattle and the rest is history.

Is this what Governor Martinez's administration is getting ready to do once again?  I am not sure that the space port will be a great success.  No one was sure Bill Gates would be either.  But both the space port and Microsoft share cutting edge ideas that requires some risk and vision.  And it appears the Governor just wants to dump one of them because it wasn't her idea and Bill Richardson started it.

This is sad because one thing Bill Richardson had was a bigger than life vision for what could be.  Now we have an ultra right wing administration that wants only to please the oil and gas industry.

I finally got around to reading Martinez's state of the state speech.  It was incredibly shallow and not much more than a political hack speech written by a second rate writer.  Read it to believe it.

I am off to Salt Lake City for a board meeting.  I hope the sun is shining.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that politicians who get co-opted by the system never change their political slants no matter how bad things go on their side - and that goes for all sides.

Richardson's vision was driven by ego and a desire to captivate a national audience. Then look what happened.

The spaceport was a bad idea from the start and others are farther ahead than NM's.

As far as Gov. Martinez goes, I think she's doing okay so far, but I don't always agree with her actions or stances.

Anonymous said...

Yes. Exactly. You have also talked about the Rail Runner. Every time I pass one of those attractive Rail Runner stations it saddens me to think that Susana Martinez, in her arrogance, would include it on a list of things she would make go away. Like the Space Port, that is of the future. Like the Space Port, people with vision made it happen. Those are things we should be proud of. Rail Runner is the way transit will be. The way it's already done in Europe and Asia. With the Republican, Conservative ethic, where we do away with government and all it does, privatizing everything, there would be no Hoover Dam, no Eiffel Tower, no Colosseum, no Golden Gate Bridge, no Statue of Liberty, no Pyramids, no Brooklyn Bridge, no Taj Mahal, no Panama Canal, no Great Wall of China.

People will say, Oh, the private sector could do those things. No, it couldn't. Even if it would, it couldn't. The private sector gives us big box buildings and golden arches. Stacks of cement blocks and plastic. Government gives us Mount Rushmore, the White House, the US Capital, the statue of Lincoln sitting in his chair on the Washington mall. The private sector gives us that guy in front of Blake's Lotaburger with poles for legs.