August 7, 2019 1000 PM
Dear Editor,
This week, I am moving from Marfa to go to graduate school in Austin. I’ve lived here for four years, from ages 23 to 27. Formative years.
I realize how much I will miss friendly interactions at Stripes–how Gracie never fails to make me smile. How her husband, Robert, gives me a hug every time I walk into Stellina. Sometimes, I see Miss Linda at the bank, and Miss Lori at City Hall, and Kaci Flores at the Get Go–three generations of wonderful women, all in one day. I see my students from Chinati’s art classes on walks with my dog or at Dollar General. Mark Scott or Tyler Spurgin on motorcycles; Darby walking Sham; Bob and Leslie in their garden; Huck on a skateboard; Adam Bork at Porter’s; Michael Roch in line for a burrito; hailing Tim Johnson and Ian at the four-way stop; running into Ray Zubiate and him buying me a beer; Adeline cracking jokes behind the counter at the Get Go. Errands can be joyous here, among friends and neighbors. These interactions that, in a big city, might be trivial or a nuisance, are perhaps the things I will miss most about living here.
I’ve grown and changed so much in the past four years. I am so grateful–especially to the students of Marfa ISD, my colleagues at Chinati, and my friends in town. I’m lucky to have lived here.
Love always,
Adele Powers
Marfa
Dear Editor,
Thanks to Mr. Herbert who had the vision almost 70 years ago that baseball was a strong part of our values, a mainstay of our youth and an enjoyment for a lifetime. He built Kokernot field not for himself but for us and mostly for all those kids who dared dream that someday they too would be a major leaguer. A “field of dreams” I suppose, but what healthier dream is there for our youth?
To all who make the Alpine Cowboys a reality, I salute and thank you. You have offered many hours of sheer delight as I find my spot in the stands and watch the boys of summer. And these young men, they come to us from Ithaca, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Pumpkin Center, Louisiana and all points in between. They give up their summer, their families and their jobs, all to pursue that dream. I love every minute of following them. I admire their ability and hard work, but most of all their spirit. That incredible catch in center field, that head-long dive into second base, that come from behind victory in the bottom of the ninth, that unconquerable will to win.
This may not be the big leagues, but it is or big league. These playoffs may not be The World Series, but they are our world series! Mr. Herbert, I think your 06 folks and your Cowboys are doing you proud.
Bob Ward, without you, Cowboy baseball would be but a faint memory. We all owe you a huge debt of gratitude.
Alpine Cowboys, thanks again for sharing your summer, your talent, your spirit. We will always remember you and that you are our Major Leaguers.
Play ball,
Randy Jackson
Alpine
Dear Editor,
I grew up in Marfa, and returned here in 1995 with my husband and children. I care deeply about our community.
We are at a tipping point in Marfa. If we don’t set guidelines now, we will be overrun by those who want only to gain money and notoriety at the expense of those who live in Marfa and those who make a living from the land surrounding Marfa. If C3 can’t appreciate and honor the land, then they don’t honor and appreciate our community. Judge Guevara and Attorney Ponton, please work for the community of Marfa and not C3.
Allison Ryan Scott
Marfa
Dear Editor,
We get to wage ideological warfare on the daily. Carrying on about anything and everything that we think poses significance in social exchange because we “feel” a certain way about it.
Though, we don’t truly understand the topics at hand. The wars, the hate, the oppression, the insane, the grotesque display of some erect and walking human indignant that torments and is tormented. Much less do we truly perceive beauty, regeneration, redemption, glory, growth or the visceral sensations that come with the intimate realms of an inspired life. We dwell somewhere in between. Swinging from bias to banter, ideals marinating in justifications. A righteous foothold we keep. Everything in place for us to live just comfortably enough to remain adjacent. Furthered by these impositions, we are perpetually cast in the mold of the mundane.
Perhaps not purely trivial, there is certainly a bit of vitality that exists among us on this sphere.
However, muted by our chiefdom and heavy tongues. We cannot say for certain in regards to much. We have individual and class related perceptions, but often not a life that fronts raw and manifold existence. Leaving us with a tempered understanding of reality, though just enough to entitle our ignorance.
A note to myself.
Stephen Edward Lindemann
Marfa
Dear Editor,
Déjà Vu
Are you experiencing a sense of déjà vu or feeling numbed to gun-related violence? Numb may get us through the latest, but …
Good news is there will likely be fewer of these workplace or mall shootings. That’s because school is about to begin in before Labor Day for many children creating a vast array of targets.
“Excuse me?” Don’t like the graveyard humor but the uber-militant, pro-gun folks don’t have a problem with spilling the blood or filling graveyards with the innocents as opposed to implementing public supported, meaningful 2nd Amendment regulation?
That’s the real problem! A major change of attitudes is required yet I’m supposed to get real?
How about accepting reasonable gun regulations; per Scalia’s SCOTUS’s D.C. v Heller decision and looking at Section 2 of the site concerning ‘regulations’? How about militant 2nd Amendment folks caring more about what the law is than what they think it ought to be?
No?
Not while they can’t accept others having rights to life, liberty and happiness safe from and/or mitigating firearm violence. Not when ignoring the fact the recently arrived have much lower rates of violence than homegrown, often emotionally unstable younger white males primarily involved in the mass shootings.
That’s known as “American Exceptionalism-lite.” Oh how the mighty have fallen!
Sincerely yours,
Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah
Alpine, TX
Dear Editor,
The greatest threat to America today is racist white supremacists committing the majority of the mass shootings. Three occurred the past week and Saturday’s tragedy in El Paso that took 22 lives and injured 26 more by another bigoted white supremist racist is the worst against Hispanics in this country’s history.
Truth: white racist American men are killing Americans solely because of the color of our skin. When are we going to wake up and stop these hateful, ignorant men and those who embolden and encourage them? The time is now.
It took a world war before Hitler and the Nazis were stopped, but not before six million Jews were murdered. Wake up America, stop these hateful racist men. Replace elected officials who support them and embolden them and who do nothing to stop the carnage.
I am grieving for my country and El Paso, but I’m emboldened to speak up, emboldened to work and help elect people who will do something to stop this government-sanctioned racism. This is a call to political action. Let 2020 be the year of change. Let’s take our country back, restore law and order, uphold the Constitution and what the founding fathers meant it to be, a strong democracy where the rule of law reigns and where all people are created equal.
Rosario Salgado Halpern
Marfa
Dear Editor,
We learned today that the Diocese of the Rio Grande today joined the ranks of those other dioceses in the Episcopal Church that have experienced the horror of a mass shooting. Over nineteen people lost their lives today in El Paso, Texas, and over forty more were injured. And so I want to stop and take a moment to talk about three things.
I want to talk about guns. And I want to talk about violence. And I want to talk about hope. We in the United States have got to figure out what we are going to do about guns. Too often the debate is framed as if it’s about everybody having guns or nobody having guns. But we in the Anglican tradition and in the Episcopal Church we are a people of the middle way, of the via media, and we have got to come together, conservative and liberal, in order to find a way to both preserve our Second Amendment rights while also preserving the safety of our public spaces in this country. We should be able to go to the movies or to the mall or to a restaurant or to school without the fear that we might get shot.
As the Bishop of a Southwestern diocese let me be clear that I don’t feel safer personally if everybody in a movie theater has a gun, and I don’t feel safer if everyone in the restaurant is carrying, and I don’t feel safer if the teachers have to carry in order to keep the students safe. I don’t feel safer if I have to carry a gun in order to feel safe walking the streets of my town or my neighborhood. So let’s come up with a solution that’s better than that.
I’m also pondering this afternoon the nature of violence itself. We know that violence is primarily caused by pain. And I have pain that is deeply buried in my heart and I don’t have any hope for what happens with that pain, sometimes that pain gets swallowed and becomes self-destruction, sometimes that pain gets projected out to try to make other people suffer. We all experience that in our day to day lives on a very minor scale. When I feel hurt I might say something to hurt somebody else. When I feel hurt I might swallow that hurt where it builds up until it explodes. So just imagine the kind of pain a person must feel for so long, their lack of self-worth, that they might feel that they can somehow improve their self-worth or improve their life by destroying and damaging other people. What we are witnessing is pain, horrible pain, expressed in the form of violence.
We in the church understand how God came to heal the world. How God came to heal our souls. And how God came in order that we might have life and have that life abundantly. So those of us in the churches can work together to make sure to reach out to young people, particularly to young men, to make sure that they understand the value and worth of their life and if they are feeling pain that we help them understand that their community is there to help heal that pain. And that God loves and values them. Healing can come through Jesus Christ. And we in the church can reach out to help young people in this country understand and know that first hand.
And finally I want to say something about hope. Frequently we have heard that those who have perpetrated mass shootings were at least partly interested in the fame that might result from them making a name for themselves through this kind of violence. We in the church understand how God loves and values each human being. Imagine a person whose self-worth is so damaged and they are in so need of recognition that they are willing to perpetrate great violence in order to find that other people think of them or know their names. We know that God loves and values every single human being. And so in the church we can do perhaps more to reach out to help young people know that God loves and values them. To let them know we love and value them. To provide a way of hope so that people don’t feel like the only way they can make a name for themselves is by perpetrating some horrible crime. Jesus said “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” And we in the church are called to make peace in our neighborhoods and with our young people. So let’s redouble our efforts to reach out to the young people. Not just those who attend our churches, but those in our neighborhoods and those in our schools who may be feeling hurt, who may be feeling hopeless, who may be feeling that are willing to risk their life to inflict pain on other people.
Let us pray for those who lost their lives today. And let us pray for their families that they might know the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And let us pray for the wounded and for all of those who are caring for them to meet their medical needs and bring about the healing that God promises for us all.
God is a God of Love. And we in the church are called to bear that love into the world. So let us not just pray for the victims: for the nineteen people who died today, the forty or more people who were injured today. Let us also roll up our sleeves and get to work to make neighborhoods places that are safe; where everyone understands their worth as a human being, and where no one is so hurt that they feel they must inflict violence on other people.
God love you. God bless you. Let us pray and work together and let us together keep the faith.
The Rt. Rev. Michael Buerkel Hunn
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande
Dear Editor,
I would like to acknowledge the following presenters for our summer reading program held the week of July 26 through August 2, 2019 from 11:00pm to 12:00pm. Presidio US Border Patrol Mr. Joshua Guerrero, Mr. Mario Nevarez of horse patrol and Mr. Mustafa Joseph with the Border Patrol k-9 unit.
City of Presidio Community Volunteer Mr. Jeffrey Roberts, SRSU Assistant Professor and Reading Specialist Coordinator Ms. Jennifer Miller, Ph. D. and Mrs. Arian Ornelas with Ft. Leaton State Historic Site.
These individuals volunteered to make our summer weekly program a great success. I would like to thank the parents for taking the time to bring the children to our program and my staff Mr. Jesus Flores, Mr. Matilde Hernandez, Mrs. Gloria Muniz, Mr. Saul Pardo and Mr. David Rivero with the student workforce program.
I would like to acknowledge Big Bend Telephone Company, the City of Presidio and Dollar Tree for donating school supplies. Thanks to everyone, we had a very successful program.
Carmen Elquezabal
City of Presidio Library Director
