Letter to the Editor
Practice what you preach
Editor:
I have become increasingly disturbed by the daily bombardment of negative, fear-based rhetoric on the airwaves and in print.
Take, for instance, the current hoopla about building a Muslim community center within a few blocks of the 9/11 disaster site. This catches my attention because it says so much about who we are as Americans.
Fact checks: No. 1, the proposed building is to be a community center, which includes a mosque (much like YMCA community centers include a chapel) and will be open to people of all faiths. The Pentagon opened an interfaith chapel, in 2002, near its 9/11 impact site. Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces gather there for daily prayer and weekly worship services drawing no complaints. Other faiths also hold services there.
No. 2, families of 9/11 victims are not uniformly for or against the Islamic center and their opinions should not be lumped together for political purposes.
No. 3, U.S. citizens who practice Islam were not responsible for the disaster of 9/11; Muslims in the Twin Towers were also victims. Remember our national regret over the generalization and shabby treatment of all Japanese American citizens following Pearl Harbor?
These facts do not deny the horror of Islamic fanatics who misuse and misrepresent their faith (just as fanatics have done in the name of religion throughout history) nor the need for vigilance in this regard.
Our nation, however, was founded on principles of tolerance and religious freedom. Additionally, Christianity, Judaism and Islam all profess a love-your-neighbor ethic.
Perhaps those who promote fear and hatred on this and other issues could be challenged to uphold our national heritage and practice the tenants of their own religion.
Sandra Noll
Socorro
Do you hear what I hear?
Editor:
I am totally disgusted with the behavior of two of your beauty shops who hung up on a Relay Operator trying to put through my call to make an appointment for a haircut.
They hung up after she told them not to hang up because it was a customer calling!
Always nice to see such discourtesy and discrimination against a hearing impaired person.
Today, I phoned six beauty shops and three barbers trying to make an appointment. All but two were on answering machines.
Great, but it does no good to leave a message as I can’t hear a phone ring for call backs unless I sit for hours by the phone to see the light flash for an incoming call. I only have a caller I.D. to check.
Guess what? That means I have to return the call and here we go again — another answering machine!
It is too bad these people are supposed to be business people, who can’t put themselves in the same place hearing impaired or deaf people are in.
Would they like that treatment?
Carole Coleman
Socorro
Why prolong the inevitable?
Editor:
Mr. Don Wolberg: During the meeting you are on video, on the INFORMEDCYNIC.COM, and you seem to be defending the established “majority.”
Yet in the newspaper, you state that to prolong the outcome is futile. This is just a little bit contradictory to say the least!
The audit group, BKD, is on record as to how much they will charge, how long the audit will take and when the report will be available. Why would anyone do what, evidently, the old regime wants?
You are not involved, since you are one of the new “trustees,” so why defend them? Do they, the established majority, have something to hide? Otherwise they would bend over backwards to prove there is nothing wrong. Why, after more than three weeks of the letter from the “employees,” has the audit been canceled out by this majority? Why drag this, the inevitable, out any further?
The public voted in the majority back on April 17. Let’s move on. It is almost comical, how some of the trustees walked in late, (was this rehearsed?) therefore allowing the presiding president to postpone the vote!
The resolutions speak for themselves, open the records to the public, including the attorneys who represent the public. As my grandfather, Nickolas Rivera used to say, “give them all the rope they want” you are holding the other end!
James Padilla
San Antonio N.M.