Recycling in Albuquerque

Global warming is scary, but it’s not the only reason you should recycle.

Who's responsible for human waste--citizens or the city?

James Burbank has a disgusting problem on his hands—literally. Luckily, he has his very own hazmat suit for his protection. For the past four years, homeless people have used the alleyway that faces his garage as a thoroughfare to Morningside Park (3899 Lead SE). Only for the people who hang-out in the park, there’s no place for them to do their business.

It's like being 30 and having your parents still make decisions for you as if you were in your single-digit years, says Mike Ciesielski.

Gross

I'm not one to care about whether a politician cheats on his or her spouse. Truly, I suspect lots of them do—along with all kinds of regular people.

The news just keeps on coming. Some days you pay attention. Some days you don't. Look here in every Alibi to refresh your memory about what's going on in your community. Don't worry if you don't know all the answers—there's a cheat sheet at the end.

At the Aug. 6 meeting, city councilors voted to schedule a recall election of District 9 Councilor Don Harris along with the regular Oct. 2 municipal voting. Combining the elections guarantees that the recall will receive the minimum number of votes necessary. But it also might dilute the sorehead vote, making it harder to reach the also-necessary 50 percent majority necessary to remove Harris from office.

Confronting our city’s criminal street gangs

According to the Albuquerque Police Department, our city has 7,800 “ranked in” members of some 200 criminal street gangs. That doesn’t include taggers, pee wees and wannabees. It’s the number of criminals who have satisfied minimum entrance requirements for street gang membership.

Rex Barron

Behold the burden of the autoless female in Albuquerque

I'm walking up Central at 5 p.m. against a cold wind. It's January, and dusk is quickly turning into night as I stride east, mall walker-style, toward my evening class at UNM. Only a block into the journey at Central and High Street, a man yells at me from a large, moving truck. I don't catch the particular crass flattery, but do get an earful of "Wooooo!" A loud honk follows and the vehicle speeds away. Humiliated and angry, I want gestured and spoken obscenities to flow forth and assault these degenerates, but for fear of retribution all I can do is seethe. As I continue walking—under I-25, past Presbyterian, by abandoned and defiled storefronts, passing hooker upon drug-addled hooker—I can now only see the city's ugliness and despair. Along the way I am heckled three more times.

Letters

DATELINE: RUSSIA--It was raining crocodiles in the Russian nuclear research town of Sarov last week. Pedestrians in the town east of Moscow were shocked when a 3-foot-long caiman crocodile landed on the sidewalk in front of them. As it turns out, the reptile was a pet, which had fallen from its owner’s 12th story apartment after leaning too far out the window. Frightened passersby called the emergency services and rescuers managed to lasso the stunned animal and take it to a shelter for stray pets. RIA Novosti news agency reported the animal was soon returned to its owner, unharmed apart from damage to one of its teeth.