Jambo Café and El Patio are local start-ups we love. These two eateries are waiting around for a remade St. Mike's to spice up the streets of central Santa Fe.

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?

Put your chocolate in my peanut butter

The Yes Men invade Santa Fe and help the art institute, show their movie, offer a primer on the threat of corporatocracy and prank everyone, including SFR, Intel, Qwest, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Bechtel, the Independent Petroleum Association and the City of Santa Fe. Also, they're going hiking.

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?

To take a fine, hot chile, stuff it with flavorful cheeses, batter it to perfection and fry it into a state of elegance requires uncommon skill. To then wrap that relleno in a moist, fluffy omelet, an aromatic avalanche of chile and more cheese requires uncommon cojones. To plate it with crack-laced potatoes and a tortilla requires Aldana’s.

For longer than anyone has believed in Aphrodite, much of the world has been obsessed with rhino horns and tiger testicles and toxic beetles—most have proven to be placebos at best. More recently, Western civilization has had to confront the inefficacy of cheap, mail-order Viagra.

We know that American teenagers have always under-reported on surveys that gauge sexual activity and drug use, so we can be pretty sure that what mainstream media has termed the “shocking frequency” of so-called sexting has been, so to speak, lowballed as well.

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?

A genuine sense of urbanity in Santa Fe isn’t found in museums or galleries. It isn’t found in capital city politics or at the opera or among top-ranked restaurants. It’s on the side of the road, in junky trucks, churning out chili dogs.