Discriminating? Against the crazy, perhaps, but not against the allergic. If they were to change their action to state that the city was discriminating against the mentally unstable, then they might have a case. They’re also discriminating against the blind by painting the building; the blind can’t appreciate the subtle colour contrasts of the trim. They’re also discriminating against agoraphobics by having city hall OUT THERE with all those people and that open sky…

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they’re allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings.

Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.

“I get chest pain and it doesn’t go away right away,” he said.

Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The city attorney is now checking to see if putting up Wi-Fi could be considered discrimination.

But City Councilor Ron Trujillo says the areas are already saturated with wireless Internet.

“It’s not 1692, it’s 2008. Santa Fe needs to embrace this technology, it’s not going away,” Trujillo said.

The city attorney hopes to have a legal recommendation by the end of the month.

– KOB New Mexico May 20, 2008

You’re not allergic to wireless internet.

Power lines are not (likely) causing cancer in your cat.

Microwaves are not genetically modifying your food.

The fluorescent bulbs are not beaming messages into your brain.

The aliens did not probe you.

Let’s do a simple allergy test; we’ll put you into a room in the bottom of a deep deep well where no outside “rays” can reach you, and then we’ll randomly turn on a wi-fi router. You’ll stay in the hole for 30 days, eating only non-microwaved, organic, vegan foods and reading Noam Chomsky and meditating. You tell us when the wi-fi is active, and we’ll only require that you hit 25% success rate.

Extremely sensitive to cell phones as well? Okay, tell me which box has a cell phone in it, and you should be able to do better than chance in identifying it; does it cause a burning sensation? Good.

Do these people not know how much radio and electromagnetic radiation courses through their bodies on a daily basis, even if they’re sequestered up at the cabin with no electricity for miles?

We should likely do this test with more than one person claiming to be allergic, and with a control set; just to make sure it’s not the organic diet or the meditation that’s causing whatever effect we’re seeing.

Wow; there are over 1500 comments on the story at the station’s website kob.com, and only a tiny fraction of the comments I saw (I didn’t exactly read a large number of them) were from the “yes, microwaves make my skull shiver” sort.

Thanks to a pointer from skepchick.org