Church plans renovation of four-story, 50,000-square-foot building
By Marisa Demarco
The night clubs, shops and lunch spots of downtown Albuquerque are about to get a new neighbor. The Church of Scientology is in the process of purchasing the Gizmo's building at 410 Central SE near Fourth Street, says Gabriel Rivera, a redevelopment planner with City Planning. "From what I've heard, in other places and other cities, [Scientologists] usually locate in the Downtown areas," Rivera says. Local Scientologists confirmed the deal.
Robert Gilkeson has a lot in common with the 73 cubic yards of transuranic waste festering in Sandia National Labs’ Mixed Waste Landfill. Both are homeless. Both are situated in dangerous locations. And both are waiting for the day when a bunch of scientists will make a decision that will allow them to move on.
How many citizens pack heat in New Mexico? Which schoolyard barb did APD use on war protesters? What drama began unfolding for UNM's football team? How's the economy faring in Santa Fe with a $9.50 minimum wage?
"What's driving this desire for disclosure? So-called citizen groups and the media that says we want this information. I don't think anyone except people belonging to these organizations would say, ‘We want this [campaign finance] information.'"
Seldom does an issue move me to drop the newspaper and pen a commentary on-the-spot. But after reading Michael Orick's letter in support of armed security guards on APS campuses [Re: "Armed Education," Sept. 13-19], I felt compelled to write—and swat Orick with my ruler.
DATELINE: RUSSIA—Officials in the province of Ulyanovsk are giving away prizes, including a refrigerator and an all-terrain vehicle, for its most fertile couples. Sept. 12 was officially “Family Contact Day” and was designed by Gov. Sergei Morozov as a way of “encouraging procreation.” A series of concerts and exhibitions were organized to promote family values and employers were encouraged to give workers a discretionary day off in order to, well, procreate their brains out. The event was timed precisely nine months ahead of next year’s Constitution Day so that mothers “ideally should give birth on June 12,” a spokesperson for the administration told England’s The Sun. Mothers who pop buns out of their ovens on the magic date will be included in a drawing for fabulous free prizes. Not all the locals were enthusiastic about the idea, though. Human rights activist Alexander Bragin complained, “We’ve already sunk to the level where the governor is ordering us on what day to conceive a child and on what day to give birth.”
