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A mixed bag of closures for today's official celebration.
Though state offices are closed today marking Columbus Day, traditionally observed on Oct. 12, the New Mexico Legislature will continue in special session today at the State Capitol in Santa Fe. Originally expected to last just two or three days, the session which began last Thursday to deal with energy-cost relief measures and the possibility of impeaching state Treasurer Robert Vigil is now expected to last at least through Wednesday. In Albuquerque, city and county offices are open, but state and federal offices are closed. Albuquerque Public Schools are on their regular schedule, but Rio Rancho Public Schools are closed.
The Albuquerque offices of Sen. Pete Domenici, Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Heather Wilson are closed, and so are federal, state and Metro courts.
There is no mail collection or delivery today, and the banks are closed.
There is, however, regular trash collection in Albuquerque and regular bus service on ABQ Ride (call 843-9200 for more information on bus schedules).
Albuquerque TVI and UNM are open.
So are city and county community centers. City libraries are open, as are the Rio Grande Nature Center, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the Museum of Natural History, Petroglyph National Monument, National Atomic Museum, Lodestar Astronomy Center, the Rio Grande Zoo and the Albuquerque Aquarium and Rio Grande Botanic Garden.
But the Albuquerque Museum and the National Hispanic Cultural Center are closed.
If you want to jump in the car and head about 160 miles east, there actually is a living history program called "Surviving Columbus Day" from 2 to 4 p.m. today at the Fort Sumner State Monument, featuring speakers on native sovereignty, self-determination and cultural survival. Admission is $3, those 16 and under get in free. The monument is 3 miles east of Fort Sumner on U.S. 60/84, then 3 1/2 miles south of U.S. 60 on Billy the Kid Road. Call (505) 355-2573 for more information.
The revisionist makeover of Christopher Columbus' reputation began 13 years ago, with the 500th anniversary of his first historic voyage to "the Indies," with movies like "Christopher Columbus: The Discovery" (notable for what Roger Ebert called Marlon Brando's "worst performance in memory") and "1492: Conquest of Paradise."
New Mexico weighed in that year with an award-winning documentary called "Surviving Columbus." Co-produced by KNME and the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Conroy Chino-narrated film was a record of the Pueblo Indians 450-year struggle to retain their culture and religion in the face of European contact.
In one fell swoop, Columbus seemed to go from being the heroic "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" (the title of Samuel Eliot Morison's classic biography) to the bringer of disease and depredation and outright genocide to this hemisphere's native peoples.
But Columbus has been an equivocal, enigmatic figure almost from the beginning.
He was hauled back to Spain in chains after his third voyage to the Caribbean to face charges arising from complaints about his administration of the new colonies. He was cleared of those charges and returned to the Indies for a fourth and final time in 1502, where he was rebuffed and denied permission to enter the colony he founded at Hispaniola.
He died in 1506 unaware of the magnitude of his own explorations.
Saul Bellow wrote in his classic novel "The Adventures of Augie March" that his footloose hero was "a sort of Columbus of the near-at-hand."
In one of the great last lines in American fiction, Augie reflects: "Columbus too thought he was a flop, probably, when they sent him back in chains. Which didn't prove there wasn't an America."
For a somewhat more nuanced look at Columbus' checkered legacy, check out James Bennett's UPI piece (hat tip: Instapundit.com) from Columbus Day 2002.
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