State Rep. Terry McMillan, a freshman Republican from Doña Ana County, describes the future of health care in New Mexico in consumerist terms: “like a mall for health insurance plans.”

Members of the Santa Fe County Maternal and Child Health Planning Council are concerned the council will lose its funding under the county’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

There’s no getting around the need for New Mexico’s film incentive program to have better accounting. As SFR has pointed out, the program’s frequently touted profits are not always all they’re cracked up to be. But that doesn’t mean the program isn’t profitable and good for New Mexicans.

Last week’s so-called drug raid on an Española-area school made national headlines when the bust netted tomatoes instead of marijuana. What the stories didn’t say is that the operation wasn’t just another example of America’s fruitless (tomatoes not withstanding) War on Drugs. It was also an example of Your Stimulus Dollars at Work.

Santa Fe Music and Piano made its exit from the local music scene last month amid the latest in a long series of discordant notes.

This week’s merit badge for good government goes to City Councilor Carmichael Dominguez for his efforts to tackle quality of life improvements on Airport Road. The south side is Santa Fe’s bastard son, and is too often relegated to leftovers and afterthoughts, despite its youth, vitality and value to the city as a whole. But Dominguez’ plan ain’t exactly perfect.

Last week, Santa Feans found out just how menacing those spiky blue parentheses used to symbolize a cold front can be. The state was hit with a one-two punch when cold air traveled down from the northern states and a storm system came across from California, National Weather Service meteorologist Chuck Jones tells SFR.

Like other American geeks, idea junkies and proponents of innovation, creativity and the slim possibility of a future United States with meaningful, marketable skills, I was inspired and thrilled with the president’s State of the Union commitment to push wireless broadband out to 98 percent of the nation. Then I remembered I live in Santa Fe, where we’re determined to be in that SOL 2 percent.

If recent sales trends don’t reverse, the rest of the state may stop thinking of Santa Feans as Kombucha-chugging locavores with “coexist” stickers on their Priuses. Well, the Prius part, anyway.

At a recent convention in a large coastal city, I hopped in a cab with a colleague to cut across town with a little speed and convenience. My colleague turned out to be the kind of guy who can’t resist chatting up taxi drivers. And he turned out to be the kind of guy taxi drivers can’t resist.