April 25, 2019 500 AM
Dear editor,
The City of Presidio Library and staff hosted the annual community Easter Egg Hunt for the children and their parents to enjoy on Wednesday, April 17.
We had special guests volunteering to read to the children, Mr. Brian Rotell with U.S Customs and Border Protection; Mr. Omar Morales, Supervisor U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Mr. David Rios with the Texas National Guard.
I would like to acknowledge Master Sgt. Albert Nava and his staff with the Texas National Guard for volunteering to assist with supervision of the children during the event. We had a very successful program thanks to all the parents for bringing the children to the library. I would like to acknowledge Mrs. Vi Dotter and her family for donating the pink lemonade and the following individuals for their donations of Easter candy and Easter baskets: Mr. Dennis McEntire, Robert and Zoila Granado from Dos Compadres restaurant in Midland, Big Bend Banks in Presidio, Mr. Ramon Carrasco of Kleinman Consultants in Presidio, Fort Davis State Bank-Presidio, Santa Fe Cabinet Presidio, Mr. Terry Bishop and Ms. Brenda Witty, Glorissel Muñiz, Jesus Flores, Francis Hernandez, Olivia Ortiz, and Mercy Ornelas.
Carmen Elguezabal, Librarian
City of Presidio Library
Dear editor,
Planet Earth—real or www
Reading the Sentinel’s guest commentary on climate change a couple of weeks ago made me wonder if I live on the same planet as the Democrat who wrote it.
“Gullible’s Travels,” the classic story of how a thousand little websites started by a thousand little people rendered a giant intellect immobile by staking it to the earth, is rapidly becoming the Democrat manual for tying the political clock’s pendulum to the extreme left and not letting it seek equilibrium.
Every major piece of environmental legislation was put into place during Republican administrations, specifically those of Eisenhower, Nixon and the oil man, George H W Bush. Because I have always been an avid reader, and because I set the mile record for my rural high school in 1967, I know that a miler in Los Angeles in that era, if science had played a hand, would have been allowed a 20-second handicap compared to a country boy, due to the difference in air quality. Today, the USA is among the 10 best air quality countries in the world, and that is something to be proud of.
I am planning a trip that will include China’s Three Gorges Dam, the biggest hydroelectric plant on earth. As I pedal along (bicycle) I will be breathing through a carbon filter much of the time, so bad is the air quality in so much of Asia. For the Chinese who are also planning nuclear power plants, it is a question of economics—how to improve the air quality without starving hundreds of millions of their citizens during the expensive transition from coal. Slow and steady wins the race.
Increasing clean nuclear power in the USA (it works in France) was taken off the table during the Obama administration by then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, who nixed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository after 15 billion dollars was spent on its preparation in his home state (typical Democrat economics). President Trump, to his credit, is trying to restore the Yucca Mountain project. By backing an economically feasible clean air solution, he may yet become the clean air president.
www.idiots-in-the-making.com is a probable website for people who take their climate science education from politicians and websites. Mr. Climate Change, Al Gore, is inconveniently not a scientist. Former Secretary of State John Kerry (Obama administration) testified that 98% of all scientists agree that human activities cause climate change. John Kerry is a liar. For every one of the 15,000 climate scientists who pass theories back and forth, there are another 15,000 who don’t. There are 7.8 million full-time research scientists worldwide who seek proof for theories (science), not consensus from computer modelling (politics).
Regarding the lauding of Ocasio(nally lucid) – Cortez, D-NY, based on her cum laude status in earning her undergraduate degree, that does not place her in the 99th percentile, as stated by Mr. Bias, but in the 85th percentile. The top one-percent status goes with summa cum laude, and not always. Factoring in grade inflation and the tendency for professors to reward students who agree with them, let’s not celebrate mediocrity.
The world is not going to end or be irreversibly damaged in 2030 as AOC says, any more than the sky fell on Chicken Licken or a spaceship transported the deader-than-doornails Heaven’s Gate eunuch cult behind the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet.
The earth will continue to be variably heated by the sun in cycles that last tens of thousands of years. A 29-year-old mouthpiece who represents Democrat desperation to find relevancy before the 2020 election will not change that.
Definitions (mine) of why that is: Politics—the art of distorting science, bending logic and misusing statistics to match a theory of why people (and now the planet) behave as they do. Politician—a person who charms, manipulates and converts people to join a party and blindly profess to its theory. Statesman—a person who can accept his country for what it is and promote it as such, without apology, while reinforcing its good qualities and eliminating its bad ones.
In lieu of a statesman, and according to the brilliant Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a great writer working alone can provide his country with the vision of an alternate government.
A Democrat party ideologue can provide guest commentary.
Rex Redden
South Brewster County
Dear editor,
On farms and ranches, every day is Earth Day
At the USDA, we celebrate Earth Day 2019 by offering a big thank-you to farmers and ranchers here in Texas for all they do. Every day we see their efforts to conserve natural resources while producing food, fiber and fuel for people in their communities and around the world. They are doing what needs to be done to make sure we all enjoy the benefits of clean and plentiful water and healthy soils, ecosystems and wildlife habitat.
This year’s Earth Day theme, “Protect Our Species,” highlights the responsibility we share in supporting wildlife. Two-thirds of the land in the continental United States is privately owned, and the decisions that farmers and ranchers make for their land can impact wildlife.
We at USDA believe people and wildlife can thrive together. USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) assist agricultural producers with adopting conservation practices that benefit not only farms, ranches and forest lands but wildlife species.
Producers across the nation have played and continue to play important roles in helping wildlife species flourish, rebound or recover. Through better grazing practices, for example, ranchers in the West are part of the public-private effort to support the greater sage-grouse and Bi-state sage-grouse. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2015 that neither species needed protections under the Endangered Species Act because of the successful conservation efforts underway.
In Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, the small songbird, the black-capped vireo was nearly extinct. Today thanks to private landowners, the U.S. Army and other conservation partners such as USDA, there are more than 14,000 birds, and the black-capped vireo has been removed from the list of endangered and threatened species. Similarly, in New England, forest landowners managing for diverse forests have helped the New England cottontail rebound. In the Southeast, the Louisiana black bear, once in population peril, fully recovered because of farmers who returned marginal croplands to bottomland hardwood forests. And in the Willamette River Valley of Oregon, the Oregon chub benefitted from conservation easements that protected much-needed habitat. This fish became the first fish in the history of the Endangered Species Act to recover.
USDA offers a wide array of Farm Bill programs to help Texas producers make wildlife-friendly improvements to croplands, grazing lands and working forests, as well as benefit agricultural operations. Programs include the Conservation Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. USDA also offers free conservation advice as well and financial assistance to help implement conservation practices.
If you farm or ranch, we encourage you to reach out to your local FSA and NRCS representatives at your nearest USDA service center to see if there is a program right for your operation. Find your nearest office at farmers.gov/service-locator.
If you’re not a farmer or rancher, on this Earth Day please thank one for the work he or she does to put food on our tables and to conserve our natural resources and support our nation’s wildlife.
Gary Six, State Executive Director, Texas Farm Service Agency,
and Salvador Salinas, Texas State Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service
