Dear Sentinel,
I’ve lived in Marfa for almost 10 years, and I walk my dog through the center of town, and often I look at the monument on the side of the courthouse that honors Marfans who died in foreign wars. My dad was a World War II veteran and I went to high school during Vietnam, and friends of mine went to war after high school and some of them died. Whether we like it or not, the amount of money the state of Texas and the U.S. government sends Israel means that we are at war. Young people from Marfa won’t be dying in Gaza, but when I went to Palestine for work in 2017, I saw a situation comparable but even tougher than what’s happening on our border (and the same Israeli-made towers and drones are used in both places), and I more than care about what’s happening there.
Saying this out loud in a resolution very much is in Marfa’s “wheelhouse.” I look at my phone most mornings and our friends in Gaza are begging us to help. I read Tony Georges’ letter to the editor last week, scoffing at our desire for the City of Marfa to adopt a ceasefire resolution, that trash and pools and toilets are all the City Council can and should want to handle. That’s demeaning to say the least and simply not true. One can like and care about pools, toilets, trash AND feel passionately about people just like us being slaughtered in Gaza with our tax dollars. We need so much in Texas. We don’t need to be funding slaughter 7,000 miles away. Some of us have been doing Read Marfa and the beautiful kids we meet are really just the same as the kids who are being blown to bits in Gaza today. We’ve been out in front of the post office all week and 400 Marfans have already signed on to this resolution. We think we’ll have a couple of hundred more by the time the council meets and that’s half the people who vote here. Maybe more. We’ve gotten signatures from Marfa teachers, veterans, Marfa business owners, Marfa elders. People want this.
And we’ve done our research: It says right there in the legal description of a General Law City that a city council can pass resolutions on many kinds of things, including as a reflection of public expression, “on matters of public concern.” We’re not asking for foreign policy. And meanwhile, two council members have outright refused to meet with us, one even told us that whatever the mayor wants the council does. We know Tony Georges is wrong about what the City Council is capable of and empowered to do and the importance of small towns getting to say what matters to us. His letter was a pot shot at Mark Morrison, who has been open and friendly and welcoming of the hundreds of us who have been expressing concern. We hope the council will vote yes on this basic humanitarian resolution and not silence a significant number of Marfans who will be voting in the next City Council elections. And we want to join with all the other towns across the U.S. to stop the bombing of Gaza and put the money back into the communities that deserve them. We hope to meet Thursday with five compassionate men (and the mayor makes six) who are big-hearted enough to admit that people being bombed is as least as important as the very human need for adequate public toilets.
Tony Georges’ letter deserves a big flush.
Thank you!
Eileen Myles
Marfa
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Hello,
I’m an Israeli man, living in Houston, traveling through Marfa and Fort Davis, and I wanted to see what folks here in the small towns of the West Texas desert are up to, so I bought a local paper.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Folks are trying to get the council of Marfa to call for a ceasefire … in Gaza? I know it’s a long shot for this to be posted, but I wanted to try and make a difference here.
My mama always told me: “If you ain’t got something smart to say, best you don’t say it.” Now, I’m sure folks out here are smart and good people and therefore have smart things to say, but there is so much nuance that’s difficult even for me to follow, as someone who has family back in Israel, served in the military and follows multiple sources.
One lady was explaining how the voice of the community must speak against a “plausible genocide.” That sentence is objectively true in human history, only it’s completely miscalculated, because she’s probably missing a lot of information to think it applies here, as do most folks who don’t have first-hand knowledge and sources.
To summarize –– if you want your opinion to matter on a conflict thousands of miles away that’s been running for over a century, you need to know a lot of things. A lot. I actually compiled a whole file of the Israeli perspective, for those curious Americans wanting to learn from a place that isn’t the media, and even then, you would still get a partial perspective. Consider visiting the area and seeing it all for yourself, if you truly seek this knowledge. You might be surprised by what you find out, just as I was about West Texas.
Tom
Houston
P.S. – I envy the people of West Texas. You got the climate of the Israeli desert, with more plants, and less rockets and war. Might move here someday.
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Dear Editor,
This is a response to the Gaza petition presented by four Marfa residents at a recent City Council meeting. The war was started by a cross-border rampage by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Hamas captured 250 hostages. Israel wants them all back. I suggest you send your petition to the man in charge. Maybe he will listen to you.
Ismail Haniyeh c/o Hamas
Al Mirqab Tower
Ambassadors St.
Doha, Qatar
I don’t think Mr. Haniyeh has an interest in peace. The war in Gaza would have stopped the day all the hostages returned home. Hamas has had 145-plus days to stop this war.
If you drive from Marfa to Lubbock, you will know the number of miles in the Gaza underground tunnel /bomb shelter complex. How many women and children can be protected with 300 miles of tunnels/bomb shelters? Hamas doesn’t care about civilian casualties. That is the reason Hamas does not let civilians in the tunnels. There is an exception, of course, the families of the Hamas leadership. If you want to end the death and destruction please direct your petition to Hamas and ask them to release the hostages.
Stuart Isgur
Fort Worth
(Marfa from 2000-2021)
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Dear Editor,
As a Native person from out here, I know what it is to lose your culture and your identity and your home and your land. I know what it is to have your history whitewashed and your community gentrified. After all, West Texas was all Indigenous territory. Our people stewarded and shared and managed and took care of the land, in harmony with nature. Settlers used the idea that the land was untouched and no one was living here to steal it. They called Native people savages for fighting back and almost completely wiped us out. They put up barbed wire fences and borders and said you cannot cross. When I look at what is happening to Palestinian people, to Gaza, I am painfully reminded of this history. I know genocide when I see it. I have always wondered how a people could wipe out another people with no care, and now I’m witnessing it. The war machine is perfected, the weapons destroying people, agriculture, architecture, culture.
Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the past four months. Imagine all of Marfa, Alpine, Ft. Davis, Presidio, Valentine, and so much more –– destroyed, wiped out. The amount of lost life is incomprehensible. We cannot become desensitized. We cannot get used to war. The people of Gaza will never be the same, but we won’t either. We have so much complicity in this –– our tax dollars, our silence, our bombs, our weapons.
Calling for a ceasefire is one small thing we can do to stand for life, for peace, and for justice. It is uncomfortable to acknowledge the violence Israel is carrying out against the people of Gaza. It is uncomfortable to acknowledge that our tax dollars are funding it. It is uncomfortable to acknowledge the history of genocide and colonialism and gentrification right here in Marfa. It is uncomfortable to connect the dots between here and there. But it is our responsibility to do so, and our first step towards healing. Towards being in the right relationship with one another and with the land.
I call on everyone in Marfa –– including those of us whose families were forced to stop speaking Spanish at Blackwell, who know what it is to lose our homes and our land and our culture –– to sign the petition for a ceasefire resolution and show up to the city council meeting on February 29.
Calletana Vargas
Marfa
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Bordo Dinner
Marfa, Texas
02/25/2024
Torn bread rolled in seeds
And a loose pinch of salty butter
A hard shell held eye level
Carries the ocean to the desert
Rolled pasta wraps a pillow of sheep’s cheese
Pine nuts and butter
Chamomile-infused lamb,
Sweet like honey,
And a braised grape
Joined on fork,
burst on bite
Pink Radicchio, two-ways
Bold.
and a creamy dressing
Your teeth, black from
coffee dusted tiramisu,
Smiles across the table
“He needs to get it out”
She says on the chef
His ensemble ends
With a sweet, round, ring
Katrina Cano
Alpine
