Stacey Adams

A new Sandia study shows that a contaminant from the Mixed Waste Landfill could reach the Albuquerque aquifer as early as 2010

War is known for its potential to breed damage. Sometimes that damage is emotional, psychological, physical or political. Other times, it takes the form of pollution. The Cold War left behind a long trail of abandoned bombshells, nuclear reactors and fission products, and a fair amount of them ended up in our backyard.

Wes Naman

At the March 6 City Council meeting, Councilor Ken Sanchez moved a bill setting the Council's one-year budget priorities. Councilor Isaac Benton amended the bill to add pedestrian-friendly language. Councilor Michael Cadigan amended it to encourage walkways over the now four-lane, high-speed Montaño. Councilor Debbie O'Malley's bill requiring a stoplight at the intersection of Griegos and San Isidro passed 8-1, Sanchez opposed, despite the objection of the administration that traffic volume did not warrant a signal. But after a flurry of deferrals, most bills dealt with who gets to build what where.

A new book offers a fresh political perspective

I just read Rabbi Michael Lerner's book, The Left Hand of God, and it has me very excited about his upcoming appearance in Albuquerque at the UNM Continuing Education Center. Anyone interested in seeing American politics transformed from its current malaise should read the book—or at least come out to hear Lerner speak.

Scott Rickson

Dateline: South Carolina—Mere weeks after a Florida man beat his roommate to death with a sledgehammer over an argument about toilet paper comes word that two motel maids in South Carolina got into an armed duel with a plunger and a mop over the selfsame substance. The women accused one another of taking toilet rolls from each other's cleaning carts at a motel in Charleston. Police were called after the fight left one of the women, 52, with a welt requiring hospital treatment, reports the Post and Courier. The other maid, 47-year-old mop-slinger Deloris Smith, told police she was only defending herself from her plunger-wielding opponent. She was charged with assault and taken to jail.

Letters