PASO DEL NORTE-CENTRIC NEWS
DON’T FORGET TO BUY LOCAL. IT’S ALWAYS BETTER TO SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES, BUT IT’S ESSENTIAL TO DO IT NOW DURING THE PANDEMIC – The Better Business Bureau Paso Del Norte has started a “Buy El Paso” campaign and we would just like to echo the sentiment and make sure as many people as possible take up the cause. The coronavirus pandemic has had a big impact on some businesses and it is times like these that we must support local businesses. The pandemic and shutdowns won’t destroy strong businesses, but it’s important to make sure that our locally-owned businesses are strong through these tough times. (elpasoheraldpost.com)
DUE TO THE PANDEMIC, TONS OF CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS ARE SHUT DOWN. BUT THAT’S NOT STOPPING LAS CRUCES’ TOP MUSEUM FROM BRING CULTURE AND HISTORY TO THE MASSES – The New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum is a jewel in the Las Cruces cultural landscape and everyone should visit it when they get the chance and they feel safe. But if you are wisely hunkering down due to the pandemic, the museum is posting most of its collection online for the public to view. So if you can’t (or don’t) want to go out, you can visit the virtual version of the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum and learn something in the process. Also, don’t forget to donate to the museum and other cultural organizations in the region. The pandemic is hitting many industries pretty hard and we don’t want to lose any art and culture in the process. (elpasoheraldpost.com)
EVEN COVID-19 CAN’T STOP THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT – The 16th Annual Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta went virtual this year as a precaution against the coronavirus pandemic. The festival is normally held at Franklin Mountains State Park near the El Paso Museum of Archaeology, but this year the even went online with tons of great presentations on our native Chihuahuan Desert. One of the highlights was a virtual tour of the El Paso Zoo’s Chihuahuan Desert exhibit and all the neat stuff they have to offer. We should all respect and know more about our native land, and the Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition is encouraging that with the fiesta and all the outreach they do. So please add them to your list of things to support during the pandemic. We all need to help each other out during these tough times. (elpasoheraldpost.com)
HAPPY TRAILS TO OUR GREATER MOGOLLON FRIENDS LOST IN SEPTEMBER – This hasn’t been a good year for big cats at the El Paso Zoo. Ivan the Amur Leopard passed away this month at the zoo after living for over 21 years, which is very old by leopard standards. His medical conditions were exacerbated by his old age and the zoo medical staff decided to euthanize him to spare his suffering. He is survived by a widow leopard and leopard children he sired while at the zoo. Rest in peace, Ivan. (elpasoheraldpost.com)
REST OF THE WORLD-CENTRIC NEWS
FREEDOM FOR THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH – Because greed and land-grabbing know no bounds, Azerbaijan has once again decided to invade and attack the Republic of Artsakh (which should have already been recognized as an independent nation by now). Armenia has been drawn into the conflict to protect the people – because Artsakh is mainly ethnic Armenians – and this decades long conflict sees no sign of ending peacefully. The region is known as Nagorno-Karabakh by politically correct entities that want to sound neutral and by the Azerbaijanis who (obsessed like a creepy ex-boyfriend who just can’t let things go) want to keep the entire thing for themselves. Artsakh should have been an independent nation after the fall of the Soviet Union in the ’90s, but a greedy neighbor just couldn’t’ resist stealing land and subjugating smaller minorities around them. FREEDOM FOR ARTSAKH! (bbc.com)
FUN WITH MONEY LAUNDERING! TURNS OUT BIG BANKS NEVER GET PROPERLY PUNISHED FOR BREAKING THE LAW – Thousands of FinCEN files have been leaked to Buzzfeed and other journalists and the information that has been ascertained from the documents paint a picture of complicity by major banks to help drug lords, oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals in laundering money. Banks around the world are required to submit financial documents to U.S. authorities when suspicious transactions of large amounts of money go through their system. This is where the bulk of the FinCEN documents come from and they show that trillions of dollars (trillions with a ‘T’) have moved between banks and sketchy hands over the last two decades. You’d think they would be able to catch criminals with this sort of information, but what’s good for the banks is good for the government apparently. The information released is massive and requires quite a bit of reading, so please go out and read all the information you can about this massive story. We can’t let a story like this go under the radar. (bbc.com)
PEOPLE LAUGHED AT ME WHEN IS SAID THE VENUTIANS WERE THE ONES THAT WOULD GET US AND NOT THE MARTIANS. WHO’S LAUGHING NOW? – Scientists have discovered that the chemical compound Phosphine is found in the clouds of Venus. Phosphine is made up of one atom of phosphorus and three atoms of hydrogen and is important because it has only been found on Jupiter, Saturn, Earth and Venus. So either Venus has secretly been a gas giant all this time or it might harbor life like on Earth. The information and analysis is still fresh, but this might be a sign that Venus has microbes on it. We’ll know more once Elon Musk reads the headlines and decides that he now wants to go to Venus instead of Mars like some unsupervised kid with ADD. Onward to Venus! (space.com)
COVID-19 UPDATE – Yup, the coronavirus is still around and no one seems to care about precautions. More than likely, it’s going to get a lot worse this coming winter. Stay tuned.