Return to sender

Dear United States Post Office of Durango and associated parties:

Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your outstanding services, including these special moments that I have encountered the past month.

Thank you for losing my birthday card and package from my father. How kind of you to inform my father that all you found was a scrap piece of mail with his address on it. Did you find my birthday package? I hope you are having fun with my gift. I heard it was a good one.

Thank you for delivering a loose letter from my doctor with my Social Security number on it. How kind of you to remove the outside envelope and the first page for me. I still wonder what it said. I sure hope it wasn’t anything important.

Thank you for not delivering my original car title in the mail. It is now lost in snail mail land. Perhaps you can spare me the $15 so I can request a duplicate.

– With gratitude, Crystal Muzik, Durango

A big rat at Fort Lewis College

Dear Editors:

As former coordinator of the Honors Program at Fort Lewis and former teacher in the Writing Program and General Education, I want to write in support of my colleague and friend, Tina Evans. Without denigrating the work done by others to ensure its success, it was frankly Evans’ drive and passion that steered the Environmental Studies Program through countless hoops in order that it become a full-fledged major. In spite of its newcomer status, it has now enough majors to carry its weight from a financial and administrative end – and it is exactly the

full time; and she has never had anything but her students’ best interests at heart. If she is “unqualified” now, then why did the college let her teach classes in this field when she was still “just” an MA? If the college is interested at all in professional development, why not laud her for obtaining a PhD and carrying on with a program that has become a proven success? In any sensible corporation, government entity or nonprofit organization, managerial staff would be bending over backwards to accommodate someone like her. I smell a big rat, in other words, and it has nothing to do with Evans’ professionalism.

– Sincerely, Kate Niles, via e-mail

Never again

To whom it may concern:

I picked up one of your papers (never again!) and was sickened by the cartoon on page 6 of your Aug. 19, 2010, issue.

The problem with the mosque being built at ground zero has nothing to do with religion but it has everything to do with respect for the dead and their families from 9-11.  How can you be so unsympathetic to them?  If the Muslims are not wanting to cause a problem, then why are they so determined to hurt so many more with their insistence in building there?

Tea Party Republicans do not hate Muslims … God does not hate homosexuals … and the Klu Klux Klan does not represent either!

You are so busy being politically correct that you fail to have the TRUTH correct!

– X-reader of your rag, Sharon Harper, via e-mail

Tea loses its flavor

Dear Editors,

The witch hunt hysteria of 1692 returned to the whole country during this past election. The voters have shown no more logic than the religious fanatics of Salem, Mass. Don’t pay attention to truth, logic or good sense; just hang them or in this case, vote them out. The Tea Party hysteria won this time. But tea looses its flavor when it steeps too long, it actually starts to taste bad, and that is what will happen when these hysterics take office. It is scary how fickle our voters are, to the point of voting in J. Paul Brown. He is the man with so many sides to his face it is hard to know which side is talking. How much will he take now to protect his hoofed locusts? Watch out coyotes, J. Paul is going to get you. If Ken Buck had pulled out this close senatorial election, then the women of this fine state and country would have been set back to the same level of freedom of those poor wretches of 1692. Your rights would have been stripped if Ken (“I don’t wear high heels”) had won. I guess I can say the only good thing about this election is that Lieb’s obnoxious signs have been removed, and we can finally look at the scenery again. 2012 is not far away folks, start working now to bring sense, logic and reasoning back to politics.

– Frank Klein, via e-mail

Dennis’ big day

Dear Eds,

While the progressives that contribute regularly to the editorial pages of the Telegraph will probably blame Bush for the loss of control in the House of Representatives, I find it fascinating that La Plata County voters went for liberals at the state and national levels  and stuck with conservatives at the local level. Salazar was soundly defeated in District 3, yet carried a 53-45 margin in La Plata County. Hickenlooper and Bennet both carried La Plata County by wide margins, yet county residents sent two conservatives to the state house and senate. The BOCC is now two Republicans, and a single liberal. Republicans also took the county clerk’s position. Almost the same exact number of people in La Plata County voted for J. Paul Brown as voted for John Salazar. Salazar lost and Brown won.

One other thing: I forced myself to watch the election results on MSNBC. To all of those bleeding heart liberals out there that claim FOX News is biased, take your blinders off and ‘fess up that MSNBC is just as biased on the left. It was worth all on the angst to see  

Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., ask Chris Matthews if the “tingle was still running up his leg.” Matthews absolutely lost it!

– Dennis Pierce, Durango

An Election Day hangover

Dear Editors,

Last Tuesday’s election reminded me of the last really bad hangover I had. The party was way too long and the next day, I was sick and depressed. Thanks to high turnout from the Low Information Voters and low turnout from the Disenchanted Democrats, reasonable moderates were replaced with a new brand of conservative, the Tea Party. Now that the Republicans have real power and responsibility to actually govern rather than just say “NO,” how will the new House of Representatives Leader, John Boehner, deal with his new Tea Party partners?

One of the obstacles he’ll first have to deal with is the debt limit. Will the GOP cower to the Tea Party and block extending the debt ceiling, technically barring the government from borrowing more money? In effect, defaulting on all the U.S. Government’s financial obligations. This essentially looks about the same as a government shutdown, only on a global scale. As international investors and banks don’t get repaid, the result could trigger a global financial crisis. Just the loss of confidence in the U.S. temporarily defaulting could set off a major panic attack and lead to a massive crash. This could4 make the last disaster they created look like a bad day on the DOW.

The other little conundrum is the tiresome topic of the Bush tax cuts. How will the corporate crony lovin’ conservatives rationalize giving their millionaire and billionaire overlords a tax cut at a cost to taxpayers of about $800,000,000,000 (pronounced eight hundred billion dollars) and still suckle on the teat of the deficit hawk Tea Party? Straight from the Tea Party Patriots mission statement, “Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington, D.C., compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.” It’ll be amusing watching the spin masters navigate this apparent impasse.

Here’s a little teaser for the massive load of rubbish that will be bombarding the unquestioning public regarding this. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “You’re talking about current tax policy. Why did it all of a sudden become something that we, quote, ‘pay for?’” Really? That’s your response? My head hurts.

– Thanks, Bill Vana,

Durango

Atomic ambitions

To the Editors:

Although Iran continues to claim its nuclear development program is designed for peaceful purposes, U.S. intelligence services believe Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

A number of countries have nuclear weapons, but these countries are considered stable and they fall within the parameters of mutual deterrence and rational conduct, except for North Korea. We are currently working with Russia, China and other Asian countries to attempt to control North Korea’s nuclear threats.

Iran poses a significant risk to use nuclear weapons because of its unstable leadership.  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proclaimed that Israel, the U.S. and other Western countries are Iran’s enemies, and could come under attack by Iran depending on conditions in the region and the world. The Iranian Defense Ministry recently published information on a nuclear attack strategy to be used against the U.S. and Israel and possibly other countries.

Many Arab countries in the Middle East are wary of Iran’s intentions and are concerned with the regional dominance of a nuclear armed Iran.

Economic sanctions imposed on Iran have not deterred it from developing nuclear weapons. Time is running out and the options to neutralize the Iranian nuclear weapons program are becoming more limited.

– Donald A. Moskowitz, via e-mail