Senior dance to benefit rural New Mexicans

Esperanza de Joaquin is a faith-based, not-for-profit organization of professional volunteers dedicated to improving the lives of people in rural Mexico. On February 9, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., they will host a benefit Sweetheart Dance for seniors at the American Legion Hall, on Barbara Loop Road, in Rio Rancho.
Homemade Valentine refreshments and hors d’oeuvres will be served and live music by Sonrisas will be featured. Dance tickets double as raffle tickets for three drawings—one a 1981 framed print by Armado Piño. In addition, there will be door-prize drawings and a Chinese auction. For tickets, call Benny Medina, the director of Esperanza de Joaquin, at 896-3774.

Divine Mercy Clinic receives exempt status

The Board of Directors of Divine Mercy Clinic are pleased to announce we have received our 501(c)(3) status from the Internal Revenue Service. The mission of Divine Mercy is to serve financially disadvantaged individuals and families with quality alternative health care and psychological help in a compassionate and sensitive manner. The clinic provides free weekly glucose and blood pressure monitoring. Individuals and families need to provide proof of income. The clinic is at 160 Calle del Norte, in Bernalillo. For more information, please call Tomasita Navarro, at 867-8239.

Senior citizens lend an ear

Sandoval Senior Connection is offering training sessions for peer counselors from February 23 through April 6 at ten sites in Sandoval County. Sessions are held from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Peer counselors learn about aging issues, learn counseling skills, and make new friends. Graduates receive ongoing supervision, mileage reimbursement, and the satisfaction of lending an ear to a fellow senior citizen. There is no fee for training. For further information, call Cindy Anderson or Debbie Trujillo, at Outcomes, 243-2551 or 1-800-677-2947.

Peace Talks in February

Peace Talks—the monthly radio program on peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution strategies—airs on Friday, February 24, at 8:00 a.m., on KUNM (89.9FM), and is co-hosted by Paul Ingles and Suzanne Kryder. Their guest, Marshall Rosenberg will discuss Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a verbal technology for exchanging information and resolving differences peacefully. Marshall Rosenberg, who founded the NVC technique, is captured before a live Albuquerque audience talking about how this communication style helps to resolve conflict. He also helps members of the studio audience develop solutions to conflict scenarios using the principles of Nonviolent Communication. To hear all the programs in the series, visit www.peacetalksradio.com. The series is produced by the nonprofit organization Good Radio Shows, Inc.

Heard around the West

—BETSY MARSTON

OREGON
Bobby Henderson may be 25 years old and in between jobs, but the Oregon State University physics graduate is the founder and prophet of a wildly popular new religion. Henderson has it on good authority that a "Flying Spaghetti Monster" created mankind, along with everything else from dinosaurs to wombats. Therefore, he says, his religion deserves equal time in any public school system that takes up the Christian theory of Intelligent Design. Of course, Henderson has no proof that a spaghetti monster exists, but then again, he points out, proof has never been a problem for any religion. Science itself is suspect, Henderson adds, because "His Noodliness" messes with the carbon-14 system that dates artifacts: "What our scientist does not realize is that every time he takes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage." Like his counterparts on the religious right, Henderson doesn’t flinch from weighing in on things political, reports The Associated Press. He recently wrote to the Kansas Board of Education after he heard that it was considering mandating the teaching of Intelligent Design. Henderson threatened to sue the board if "Pastafarianism" wasn’t also taught, along with a third course emphasizing "logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable science." Some 30 million hits have been registered in recent months on Henderson’s Web site, venganza.org. It’s dedicated to the more esoteric aspects of his church, including the revelation that parishioners end prayers with the word "ramen."

CALIFORNIA
As the San Francisco Chronicle succinctly phrased it, "a Modesto man who thought he had struck a deer was hit by a deer himself." Robert Brooks was driving near Mount Diablo State Park when a deer leaped out in front of him. Not sure whether he’d hit the animal, Brooks pulled over and got out. He was inspecting the front end of his car when another vehicle approached, and suddenly, another deer — or perhaps the same one — jumped into the road. It was hit by the oncoming car and flung through the air until it struck Brooks, who fell and broke his ankle. The driver who hit the deer never stopped; the deer died on the spot.