Overdue bills. Car maintenance. Speeding tickets. Emergency medical services. A quick vacation. Unexpected needs arise and, sometimes, ends don't meet paycheck to paycheck. For some New Mexicans, living with little to no savings can make keeping up-to-date with expected expenses hard enough, without surprise monetary demands. A payday come early sounds like a financial savior—but could be a one-way ticket to the downward spiral of debt hell.

What will Albuquerque look like 100 years from now? Who knows? But whatever creatures are inhabiting our fine city in 2106 (assuming we haven’t all been obliterated by cyborgs) will have an opportunity to see what life was like a century before.

Let's start with domestic surveillance and talk specifically about how it plays out in New Mexico. What can citizens do about it?

The Good Race--When people whine about “the media,” they talk about it as though it's one thing, one voice, one man with a bullhorn and a huge distribution base at his disposal.

God help me, I don’t really feel like one of those crazed anti-war fanatics.

I mean, I’m not wearing my pajamas outside the house; not staying up into the wee hours of the morning painting protest signs with psychedelic poster paints; not shouting at passers-by in military uniforms.

I have always felt that prefacing a statement with the caution that “I’m not really crazy, but …” pretty much destroys the possibility of persuading anyone at all of the validity of whatever it is you are about to say.

Councilors plowed through piles of legislation at the June 19 meeting before recessing for July. Councilor Isaac Benton proclaimed July 1-7 Independents Week, honoring local independent businesses, and took up the challenge--along with fellow Councilors Martin Heinrich, Ken Sanchez and Debbie O'Malley--to see who could spend the greatest percentage of their weekly budget at local stores.

Why shouldn't I let the government spy on me? I haven't done anything wrong; I've got nothing to hide. It's an argument that's been voiced with increasing frequency in the last few months.

Dateline: Uganda—Police in the Ugandan city of Kampala have figured out a novel way of cutting the crime rate--by banning the playing of pool during the day. The game is very popular in the east African nation, where pool tables sit under canopies outside thousands of small bars. The game is a hit with bar owners, because it earns income and does not require electricity, which has become something of a luxury in the power-strapped country. Police, however, believe the game encourages crime, as it is often played by youths who drink illegal spirits and smoke drugs. “They also use this as a meeting place to make plans of robbing people of their property at night,” Kampala police Chief Grace Turyagumanawe warned the Daily Monitor newspaper. Turyagumanawe insisted he was not banning the sport, merely preventing its playing during daytime hours.

This is in response to the item in the Newscity section in the June 22 edition, about Heather Wilson being selected by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) as one of the Dirty Dozen federal officials least supportive of the environment [“La Docena Sucia”].