Dear Don

Get ready for Mayor Marty to bob and weave his way through the evidence room debacle. The mayor has been sucking up to the APD since he first ran for mayor over a decade ago he has made promises and delivered hefty pay raises and does not miss and chance to stand and be counted with the men in blue. He has got the force up to 1000 and of course now is pushing it even higher. There were some nasty rumors as to why he grew so close but nothing ever came of the stories.

Now Marty has a few other old rumors that will have to be faced. Like where the hell has his hand picked chief been the last few years while the evidence room was opened for business like the 25 cent box at the flea market down the street? The underlings are starting to come over the wall of silence that usually keeps all the nasty secrets of APD firmly in check. This scandal is going to the very top and that may start to singe the cape of the superhero mayor who is just getting his re-election bid started. Get ready, Marty's going bowling and heads are gonna roll.

[RE: Commentary, “Political Correctness in the Time of Global Warming,” March 10-16] Jim Scarantino is right about global warming–it is “a runaway train coming straight for us”. But he is wrong about nuclear power. Along with the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases humanity is pumping out is an increasingly less dilute cancerous stew of toxic chemicals which includes radioactive waste. This too is a runaway train. Calling it “politically correct” to be concerned about radiation is empty rhetoric, especially when wind power, hydrogen and bio-fuels are so promising. I wonder if Saint Pete Domenici is supporting the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act. We do know he is for drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a region which has already seen a temperature increase of four degrees F. with sea ice diminishing at nine percent per decade. And he supports a president who never says a word about the runaway train of global climate change. Some environmentalist.

[RE: Letters, “It's Past Your Bedtime,” March 17-23] I would like to correct Elly Cates when she states, concerning the all ages dispute, “the reason that they have limited options for night life is … because they (Jessica Housand and Crystal Lucero) are children.”

If you had actually read my editorial [“All Ages Shows,” March 3-9] all the way through, Ms. Cates, you would realize that I am not under 21. In fact, I am 23 years old, a student at UNM and as responsible a citizen as you. Does this mean, however, that I have to disregard the younger generation (who will catch up and determine our future someday) as being insignificant children who are only getting in the way? Although I am over 21, I can still relate to those younger than me and their wishes for music venues that play the kind of music they love. Their right to enjoy this music and the venues that bring bands into this city are as legitimate as mine or yours.

Children are people too, Ms. Cates. Should we pretend to be better than them because we can claim that time, which is not particular, has brought us a couple years closer to death than they? Some of these kids even have jobs, believe it or not, and pay for the tickets themselves that help bars supply the beer you drink. And if you despise being “trapped” in a cage and paying on an “overpriced ticket,” there are plenty of boring bars without live music in this city that you can escape to and leave the rest of us overagers who enjoy seeing the kiddies' fun, well-enough alone.

Mistakes show up in the food section of the alibi periodically, but one of your latest issues is way off. In “The Dish”, Gwyneth Doland reports that Relish is on Wyoming between Louisiana and Pennsylvania, streets that all parallel to each other. As you may know, Relish is on Menaul between Wyoming and Pennsylvania. This is a simple mistake that should have been easily caught.