Gallup Sun

Dear Editor,

In 1973 there two were events that shook “Native America” to its core. The U.S. Government/Military Siege of Wounded Knee, South Dakota and the cold-blooded murder of a young Diné (Navajo) warrior named Larry Casuse, co-founder of Indians Against Exploitation, in Gallup. There was no “Community Conversation” then and the silence of “leadership” is complicity now. Alcohol is still illegal on the Navajo reservation.

Gallup earned the moniker “Drunktown, U.S.A.” after the ABC News Segment showed the world the unholy trinity still exists even after the tragic events 50 years ago. The Liquor Establishment (that Larry fought against), “Law Enforcement” and...

Dear Editor,

Over the past 70 years, we’ve done a great deal to make childhood less dangerous.

In the 1950s, children were protected from the last of the dreaded child-killing diseases with the development of the polio vaccine. In 1970, childhood poisonings were decreased when Congress required child resistant packaging on medications. By 1986, all 50 states had enacted laws requiring child car seats to protect children from what was then the number one killer of kids: automobile accidents. And in 1994, Congress passed the Child Safety Protection Act to require labels on toys that have parts small enough to pose a choking hazard.

We even have laws regulating the flammability of...

Dear Editor,

We received news that the hospital, RMCH, will be applying for Critical Access designation.  We look forward to learning more about how this designation will impact our community and the care that RMCH provides.  Importantly, we would like to see how the community can support the hospital leadership in this transition.

We hope that CEO Whitaker will organize town halls with the community.  These would be an opportunity to encourage honest dialogue and questions.  The trust of the community has been badly worn, and dialogue can be a path to healing and understanding.

It is important to operate health care entities with standards of transparency and commitment to...

Talking about unpaired socks is like talking about the need to eat food — it happens to everyone. Anyone in the history of humanity who has ever done a load of laundry has ended up with a missing twin sock. This is what it means to be human. Death, taxes, missing socks.

Fortunately for my five-year-old daughter, this isn’t a problem. She purposefully mismatches her socks, matching her constantly imaginative personality. Maeve sees unpaired socks as an opportunity for self-expression.

There is a verbal equivalent of unpaired socks — unpaired words. And, just like missing socks, you’ve encountered them, thought about them… yearned for them, even.

Unpaired words are words...