Ben Miller sent five separate entries to the Sam Adams LongShot competition, each of them brewed in a kit he built himself (including a keg with its top sawed off). Miller took great pains to package the beer, enveloping individual bottles in bubble wrap and then in a Ziploc bag. If postal workers noticed a leak, they would trash the entire package.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—They voted for change when they voted for Obama. Now, the LGBT community is making its growing impatience with the president heard. But calling for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act weren't the only reasons tens of thousands gathered in D.C. to put pressure on Washington. Unlike previous gay rights marches, the National Equality March on Oct. 10 and 11 was largely a grassroots effort, perhaps signaling a change in how the community—specifically the younger generation—will tackle equality issues.

He/she would be what and why?

Wait, wait, don't tell me. Something hot and spicy—green chile chicken enchiladas, perhaps, or, in far fewer cases, a tostada compuesta. (Furrows brow, scratches head, takes bite of sexy menudo, puzzles over six years of Albuquerque the Magazine asking "hot singles" to compare an imagined ideal lover to our regional foodstuffs. Sighs.)

An empty chair stood where outgoing City Councilor Michael Cadigan should have been during the Wednesday, Oct. 7 Council meeting. Cadigan took a thrashing from political newcomer Dan Lewis the day before, losing his Westside seat in the municipal election. The Build Unser Road Now group complained his absence meant the road project Cadigan championed is now dead.

Dateline: Afghanistan—A young girl became the first fatality in her country’s ongoing propaganda war when a crate containing public information leaflets fell on her. The crate was dropped from a British RAF transport aircraft over Helmand province on June 23. The crew of the RAF C-130 Hercules had been flying over rural parts of the province to try to reach local people with a leaflet campaign. The boxes of leaflets are supposed to open in midair, scattering the literature over a wide area. “But on this occasion, one of the boxes failed to open, and the young girl was hit,” an official with the U.K. Ministry of Defence admitted last week. The Ministry called the incident “highly regrettable” and is investigating. MoD officials weren’t sure what type of leaflets were involved, but typical topics include basic safety warnings about improvised explosive devices and “land mine awareness.”

I attracted some attention in Milton's this afternoon when I had to laugh out loud so hard I nearly choked on a french fry. I had been flipping through a copy of the Alibi (Oct. 1-7 issue) for something to look at while I ate my lunch and happened to turn to the 11th page, which featured a, thankfully short, article as inaccurate as it was self-congratulatory, ironically entitled, "Permission to Speak Freely." Apparently, the Alibi has been granted a "First Amendment Award" by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico for its (the Alibi's) efforts in defense of free speech. I can categorically state from personal experience, having been an active participant in the Alibi's online blog, that the editors of the Alibi will grant "permission to speak freely" only to those whose views mesh with their own. Those who offer opposing views will be shut off. Yes, for a while, my, often dissenting, views were tolerated, although I was subjected to personal attacks and childish name-calling, which went unnoticed by the editors until I was ultimately denied the ability to offer comment. The only reason given for my denial, by someone named "Jerry," was that I had committed the, apparently unpardonable, sin of claiming to be right. Let's face it, the Alibi is a shamelessly (or shamefully) liberal rag that will not tolerate opposing views and is about as committed to the First Amendment and "Permission to Speak Freely" as Attila the Hun might have been committed to sweetness, light and poetry.