50 shades of vacation rentals

To the editor,
In regards to an op-ed in the Durango Herald, July 23, with the heading, “City should rethink pot, vacation-rental rules,” and written/signed by East Third Avenue residents, my views differ, as seen in the Herald the day before, July 22.

First of all,  I believe the two members of Durango City Council should have recused themselves anytime votes were tallied for decisions about vacation rentals because of their personal association in that market. I feel one of the two members was caught in a gotcha death grip, by the exposure of his illegal vacation rental. Opponents are taking this “gotcha” and other ammo in their campaign to get people like me to not rent a room or a house to the tourists.

After a June 26 East Third Avenue Neighborhood meeting, I decided that applying for a summer-only vacation rental permit was not a good idea after all the negativity most of the members expressed to me. I felt intimidated at the time. Not now.

The romantic place I have above my East Third Avenue Victorian house is a perfect and private place for lovers, and they would be able to walk two blocks to enjoy champagne, without fear of a DUI. Trust me, hotel and motel owners, no matter how thick the walls are between their rooms, would rather a couple I described, be in a place like mine.

A vacation rental house, usually kids in the mix and a dog, is a much better option, and again, hotel/motels have seen enough wreckage, especially from an insecure animal left alone at dinner time.  The back yard of a vacation rental is easier to repair then the insides.

The fuss the residents have in my neighborhood is about a current 3 percent to 5 percent increase in vacation rentals.  At 3 percent, I am not allowed to have my romantic rental and that is the number I hope will slightly increase. If a communitywide vote comes up, please relate as if you were an out-of-towner and say yes to a few more vacation rentals downtown.
– Sally Florence, Durango

Dear lady who almost ran me over

You were driving a Jaguar, such a fancy car.

Obviously not a local, probably from afar.

(Your license plate explained it, when I saw that Texas star.)

Speeding down 3rd Avenue without a care,

Did you think I dropped out of thin air?

In my uniform, plain as day,

I was in the crosswalk, about half way.

Holding your phone up to your ear,

You actually let go of the wheel you steer.

With catlike reflexes, I was on my toes,

Thankfully you missed me by the skin on my nose.

You brazenly waved with your empty hand

As you sped by, leaving me where I stand.

The other car had stopped, waiting for me,

They are my witnesses for this even you see.

Perhaps you don’t know it’s a federal offense,

Besides running over the mail lady would make no sense.

So maybe the next time you drive through our town,

You will pay closer attention to those around.

– Seana Brandon, Durango

U.S. key to Middle East peace

 To the editor,
More than any other time in the history of the conflict over the tiny ancient land we call Israel and Palestine, voters from a land across the sea hold unused power to change the basic course and outcomes of that conflict. At this time, those voters, who are also largely taxpayers, are keeping the conflict hotter and more bloody by their failure to prioritize the issue.

 Polls are interesting to politicians. As of July 18-20, according to a CNN poll, 57 percent of Americans side with Israel in the conflict, calling Israel’s efforts to root out and destroy Hamas “justified.”

Four days later, Israel knowingly bombed one of the rare sanctuaries from its missiles, a UN school in Gaza packed with women and children. The UN had been forthcoming with precise coordinates of the school in an effort to be sure the sophisticated, precision Israeli Defense Force missiles would never hit the school. Instead, the IDF apparently programmed those specific coordinates into multiple missiles and struck the UN school. The IDF has also cravenly bombed several hospitals in Gaza, with tired claims about Hamas storing weapons “nearby.” 

When Hamas and other terrorist organizations were sending suicide bombers into Israeli pizza parlors or onto campuses to inflict damage on young Israeli civilians, the world, including America, reacted with horror and disgust, and rightly so. This level of blind hatred is absolutely morally bankrupt. Hamas fires impotent rockets insanely straight into Israel’s missile-destroying Iron Dome, stupidly targeting civilians and giving Israel a military justification for attacking. But nothing can justify what Israel has done to hospitals and the UN school.

So Israel has officially joined this bloody dive into the moral cesspool, and American voters hold a huge piece of the responsibility, supplying the IDF with much of its war materiel and a massive amount of military aid every year, $121 billion to date, according to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report in April. No other country gets this much, and no other country gets the “no strings attached” afforded Israel, even for huge outlays of our money that goes straight to Israel’s war profiteering corporations to use as they see fit. This means Israel is funded to do military research that puts it ahead of U.S. war profiteering corporations and the U.S. military in some respects. Wow. And there are no human rights expectations on that money, nor is it required that Israel follow internationally accepted rules of engagement, war or crimes against humanity.

Seriously. It is time to help Israel decide to negotiate with its adversaries in good faith, something it has failed to do again and again. Stop all aid from you to them, from the U.S. treasury to the Israeli government, from the Pentagon to the IDF.

Obviously Israel has stockpiled enough weapons to wreak hellfire for a long time, but they expect and assume entitlement to this free military support, which enables their increasingly rotten, inhumane conduct. They commit war crimes and know that it doesn’t matter because their tsunami of war arsenals and huge amounts of unrestricted funds is never going to stop.

 Let’s help Israel. Stop all aid. They would become much better neighbors and world citizens. Start with our U.S. senators, who passed a unanimous resolution supporting Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Sen. Rand Paul even called for further action to cease the small amount of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until they kicked Hamas out of the unity government. Perhaps Paul has a small point, but the larger point, by far, is to end all U.S. aid to the IDF. That is the single biggest step toward peace anyone could take right now, and if you are an American, you have a say in this. Let’s start saying so.
– Tom H. Hastings, director, Oregon Peace Institute