Category Archives: alBAHquerque

Good for whom,

Albuquerque?

Cell Hell

We’ve probably all witnessed behavior similar to that which is described below: people being oblivious because of their cell phone addiction.

Of all the many bad examples, the ones that disturb me the most are like what I saw in the grocery today. A mother was on her cell phone. Her son pointed to a product and said something. His mom responded with “I’m on the phone!” Nice lady. God forbid you spend a moment in real contact with your child.

A few months ago, I saw a father pushing a cart around the store with his daughter riding facing him. He was glued to the phone. She was staring dully. Think she’ll remember fondly those trips to the store with dad?

If your kids hate you, won’t talk to you, or won’t get off the god-damned phone themselves, you only have yourself to blame. mjh

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
Locals Worship Their Cell Phones

CELL PHONES have officially taken over the world, and nobody has even noticed yet. Mostly because they are all too busy talking on their cell phones. If only they could see the irony of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” playing as their ring tone.

I work at a local retail store, and the ratio of people that I check out who are on their cell phones during the entire transaction is two-to-one. I feel as if I need to call them in order to ask to see their identification when they hand me their credit card.

I drive home from work, which is only a few blocks from my house, and someone who is busy yakking away at their cell phones cuts me off at least twice a night. The obscene amount of cell-phone usage has reached the point of becoming an epidemic.

When people are having a conversation with an actual human being, they should have the decency to unglue their cell phone from the side of their face for five seconds.

When they get in their car, they should have courtesy and respect for others’ lives and call them back later. They are not the center of the universe. Their cell phone is not God. If they don’t answer it, but rather call the person back later at a more convenient (time), the cell phone will not smite them. They will not die. I promise.

ANGELA BINGHAM
Albuquerque

I oppose cell phone towers as dreadful visual pollution. I oppose most public cell phone use as auditory pollution. I oppose most public cell phone users as selfish loud-mouths.

Wireless Action Network, NM concerns itself more with the ill health effects of cell phones. If you want to give yourself a brain tumor, fine. But those nasty towers may be spewing poison to all of us.

Gotta go — phone’s ringing. [Kidding — everyone knows I hate all phones.] mjh

Lost Forever

Nothing could have prepared me for the nauseating shock. I knew this day was

coming for nearly 20 years and still, it was like a kick in the teeth. We’ve lost something irreplaceable, something no other place had.

Worse, we sold it, gave it away for the profit of people who have no clue the wrong they have committed.

The next time you drive

east on Indian School and stop at the intersection with Louisiana, just north of I-40, you’ll see what I mean. That grand vista is gone

— forever. The building that destroys that view could house the cure for cancer and AIDS and the end of poverty — I still curse it. And

us for letting it happen.

More likely, it’s a Pottery Barn or some corporate crap that will soon be packed with soulless drones

looking for bargains on mass-produced trendiness. Enjoy your cheap shit. Don’t bother to look up when you get out of your car. It

doesn’t matter where you are.

What could have been our Central Park is now barely a step above a strip mall anywhere. Its feeble

attempt to look “cool” is like a well-dressed child molester.

When you hear people talk about the tragic loss of the Alvarado

Hotel downtown 30 years ago, this is what they’re talking about. It’s what happens when we neglect those things most precious and

unique to us. Now, one of the greatest vistas of the city has been destroyed in order to box in one of the already most polluted

intersections in the state. This ugliness is what you wanted, isn’t it? No? Tough shit — it’s what people with money and power want

that counts. mjh

Lost 

Vista

Worse Than Weeds

good for who, AlbuquerqueCell Phone Towers – Albuquerque, NM

These are cell phone towers for Albuquerque, NM. Information is compiled from the FCC, and may not be all the towers in the area. Carriers are not known for 3rd party towers.

There seem to be 212 towers listed on these pages for the Albuquerque area alone. The first one is over 240 feet tall! Links to maps are conveniently provided for sightseers. Ugh. mjh

NIMBY (I don’t own a cellphone)

ABQjournal: Ruling on Tower Upsets Neighbors By Martin Salazar, Journal Staff Writer

Arroyo Seco residents who waged a legal battle to bring down a 198-foot telecommunications tower near their homes expressed dismay at a state Supreme Court ruling last week that allows the tower to remain. …

The variance was needed because Skyhigh was trying to erect a 198-foot tower when the county code limited the height of structures to 24 feet. The commission voted 2-to-1 in favor of granting the variance.

Several Arroyo Seco residents then took the county to court, and a district judge ruled in 2001 that the commission had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in granting a height variance for the tower.

Skyhigh filed an appeal with the state Court of Appeals, which refused to hear the case. Skyhigh then asked the Supreme Court to take up the matter.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court states that Santa Fe County acted according to its own rules when it approved the variance for the tower. The court also emphasized that Santa Fe County code allows telecommunications facilities anywhere in the county.

Copter Cacophony

At 2:53am,

we awoke suddenly to what sounded like machine gun fire strafing our backyard. Instead, it was the Albuquerque Police Department’s

helicopter coming in very low over our house before circling back again and again. This is the helicopter that cost the city millions

because it was supposed to be extra quiet. In fact, it is much louder than any other copter in a city with a lot of copters (Abq has 3,

Bernalillo has 2 or 3, TV stations have 2, Fed has god-knows-how-many).

Keep in mind, this is not UNMH Lifeguard. This is the

police swooping in in the middle of the night terrorizing sleeping citizens. Why? Was there a slowdown in traffic on the Interstate? It

doesn’t matter. If you ask the cops, every second they are in the air, they are saving lives. The truth is they are pissing away money

and disturbing the peace every second they are in the air.

After 10 dreadful minutes, the copter drifted on, looking for some

other place to kill time. And a few blocks away, another citizen was jarred out of his bed. mjh