Dear editor, Good job on the Rugged West this weekend, good music and I can’t believe the options we had for food it felt weird getting the opportunity to pick. I loved Josies Burgers.
I just had to say thank you for the event, this was the most fun I had in a long time.
Mr. Henry Meyer
Protect Yourself on the Road
Dear editor, Having to go daily for cancer treatment for a family member in Gallup for the last month, I have seen more wrecks in the last few weeks than I believed possible.
Three wrecks closed the freeway down, so we had to take back roads on the Navajo Nation. The last wreck involved a female driver who struck a vehicle next to us as the traffic was backing up the hill at the Flying J Truck Stop. The driver fled the scene as she turned around and headed back to Gallup. I followed the driver from a safe distance, giving the license plate to the 911 dispatch center in Gallup. The driver stopped for 20 minutes on the frontage road, then fled onto the reservation into the Iyanbtio Chapter House area, where she wrecked again into a ditch. For more than 45 minutes, I asked for an officer to be dispatched to keep her from leaving and hurting someone else, with no success. Going back to the scene of the accident, I contacted a McKinley Sheriff Deputy who had taken the report to give him my contact information. I told the deputy I had the accident on my car camera and the license plate of the vehicle, but he did not seem too interested. Of course, I cannot blame him. I have always said the freeway should be taken care of by the NM State Police.
Before leaving the area, I went to the Flying J Truck Stop, where I ran into the victim of the hitand- run driver who introduced himself as a USAF Veteran and Ham Radio Operator just like me. We exchanged information, and I agreed to send him a statement, my dash camera recordings, and a background check on the owner of the vehicle to his email. The owner of the hit-and-run vehicle had a criminal history of 25 charges, many of which were traffic related. The picture of the owner looked just like the driver I had seen leave the accident with her driver's side window rolled down.
With the shortage of officers everywhere, I cannot stress how important it is to have a camera in your vehicle and uninsured motorist coverage. These kinds of people have no problem running away to avoid the consequences, knowing that the shortage of officers is everywhere.
Signed, Mr. Harry L. Hall USAF Veteran Retired Police/Sheriff Lt 38 Years
Charlie Kirk
Dear editor, I had barely heard of Charlie Kirk until he was murdered. I was visiting my family back east when he was killed and my family are strong supporters of Trump and of Charlie Kirk. Because we love each other, we generally do not discuss politics. But we did watch a talk between Kirk and Bill Maher. He and Kirk had an admirable exchange of ideas and I said to my brother, I think Charlie is the conservative equivalent of Ezra Klein, my favorite writer for the New York Times who constantly tries to see things from both sides. In fact he wrote a piece commending Charlie Kirk after his death, for which he has been criticized.
After some research, I wonder if Klein is aware of some of the things that Kirk has allegedly said. I can hardly believe that the man I saw talking with Maher was the same man who said things like, Democrats are 'vermin, maggots and swine.' This is one of many horrendous things attributed to him according to a number of U.S websites, as well as the Times of Israel which is purported to be a centrist newspaper based in Israel.
When I read his remark about Democrats being maggots, I immediately thought of the slaughter in Rwanda, after the Hutu went on air and for weeks called the Tutsi cockroaches. And then they slaughtered 800,000 Tutsi over 100 days. Anyone who has read the book Left to Tell, about the Christian author's nightmare during that time, will know what I'm talking about. When I told my brother what Charlie had allegedly said, he responded that he just cannot believe he would say such a thing.
Except in the most extreme circumstances, such as the lives of Hitler and Pol Pot, I condemn violence in any form or for any reason. This letter is not to condone the murder of anyone or to dismiss the grieving of Kirk's wife and children. It is to consider the whole truth and to call attention to the fact that though he is being presented as a hero, he has apparently said many bone chilling things about the opposition. And if the reports I have read about him are correct, he was certainly not the person he portrayed himself to be when he spoke that day with Bill Maher. Or at most, that was only a part of who he was.
Sincerely, Judith Andreica