Stacey Adams

"There's a huge gap between ideas, good intentions and reality"

Tick. Tock. In case you're wondering, that's the sound ringing in the ears of more than 27,000 animals a year at the Albuquerque Animal Care Center, where progress seems to move about as quickly as the proverbial snail. Despite findings by the Humane Society of the United States five years ago that animal care practices at the two Albuquerque shelters were abysmal, and followed by promises by the city to improve said abysmal conditions, it seems that any real improvements in animal welfare have yet to begin. At least, that's what animal rights activists around the city are saying, who are irate over what they call "empty promises."

With no help from the Bush administration—but plenty from Europe, Japan, New York and California—solar power is edging into the mainstream

If you're like most Americans, you've spent your life invisibly attached to an electric meter. When you wake up and switch on the light, you nudge it forward a little faster. When you toast bread, watch TV, open the fridge, flick on the computer, you push its pace. For all practical purposes, it only goes one way.

Stacey Adams

Two hot button bills on the Jan. 19 City Council agenda—the Old Town missile bill and a Montaño restriping compromise—were deferred when Councilor Debbie O'Malley fell ill and left after the break. The recently passed quarter-cent public safety tax budgeted money for social services. Five resulting bills passed, funding programs for adolescent substance abuse treatment, services for victims of sexual assault, child witnesses of domestic violence, treatment for domestic violence offenders and DWI workplace education.

Public schools deserve voter support

It seems incredible, but the election to choose four Albuquerque Public School board positions and to decide the fate of a proposed $218 million bond issue and mill levy to pay for building new schools and repairing existing ones takes place on Feb. 1.

Scott Rickson

Dateline: England—A village in Cambridgeshire has decided to celebrate its history by erecting a five-foot-tall statue of dinosaur poo. According to London's Daily Telegraph, parish council members in Bassingbourn chose the $15,000 bronze sculpture in a competition. It beat rivals including a sculpture of one of the World War II bombers the flew from a local airfield. Fossilized dinosaur droppings, known as coprolite, brought wealth to the area late in the 19^th century. “It's an excellent idea; unusual and very imaginative,” said Jack White, the parish council chairman. “Something like a bomber, which used to fly out of here in the war, would have been too obvious.” The winning design came from David Billings, a former teacher at Bassingbourn Village College, who described his design thusly: “The idea is to have a heap of muck on top of a plinth.”

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