What if the anti-antenna activists are right about Wi-Fi rotting our brains? Western, industrialized civilization with its banking scandals, factory farming, military industrial complexes, colonialism, energy consumption, spectacle-based society and technology fetishism would die a horrible, self-inflicted, tumor-riddled death. So, why are they opposing it?

We're told there are big issues at stake in our municipal elections: public safety, city budgets, jobs, crime, annexation, police and fire services, economic development, affordable housing, public education, family values, the integrity of neighborhoods, the future of the creative economy, and the soul of Santa Fe. But what really matters?

Like the state of New Mexico, I bank at Bank of America. I don’t know what the government’s excuse is, but I got fed up with faceless bureaucracy a long time ago and switched to a local bank. But then it was bought by a bigger bank which, in turn, was purchased by Bank of America. If I switch again, what's my guarantee? What's the state's guarantee?

I felt a calm feeling wash over me. I had nowhere to be, no students to win over for books void of sensational plots, no DSL hassles at home (damn you, Qwest!), no extended family members’ birthdays to remember (damn you, nieces and nephews!).

Once (and future?) land commissioner Ray Powell argues against putting New Mexico's White Peak under the control of private interests.

The giving spirit and the economic power of US citizens, as demonstrated in Haiti, is genuinely remarkable. The vast majority of us can give something in an emergency, if only a few dollars, and we should. That we are able to so rapidly deploy a commitment of wealth and resources is almost magical. But magical thinking is part of the problem.

I’m kind of a survival of the fittest advocate, so my solution to people stopping on the train tracks is to outfit the Rail Runner with deluxe, spike-riddled cowcatchers complete with saw blades and lasers. We'd eventually be whittled down to a population that’s smart enough to avoid stopping on the tracks and, with luck, the instinct would become part of our genetic code.

As the Jan. 19 start of the legislative session looms over us like an ugly, unstoppable avalanche, lawmakers appear to have signaled their distaste for at least one unappetizing budget fix: reinstating a tax on food. There are better ways to climb toward a balanced budget, all of which are going to opposed by forces that would rather put the burden on poor and working families.

After the Center for Contemporary Arts’ board of directors informed staff just before Christmas that the venerable nonprofit arts organization would shut its doors at the end of 2009, it hollered “punk’d!” Oh well, I suppose it wouldn’t be the holidays without CCA almost closing.

In New York visiting a sick friend (cliché but true), I told another friend, Drew, I’d be happy to pay to be a guest at his gym. “Only suckers pay,” he said. “Tell them you moved into the neighborhood and you want to try it out. They’ll wave you right through.”