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Local store earns praise

I like to buy local when I can find it here. I have found that the absence of shipping charges (on many, not all products) more than makes up for the higher price needed by a company that has brick-and-mortar overhead.

So, when I needed a new battery for my computer back-up I found one at a local firm and drove several miles, dreading a lengthy search through an unknown store.

At the counter I described the battery and asked if they might have it or something similar. Surprise, I was directed accurately to the battery shelves. Unfortunately none there.

I spied an employee and asked if they might have it anywhere else. She said yes, they are used for electric fences, grain dispensers and other farm equipment. Then she took me to each area where after three tries we found one.

Congratulations Tractor Supply for offering old-fashioned customer service.

Ned Sheats

Mission

Trump post addressed

Our esteemed former president has posted on Truth Social that “the same people that raided Israel” are “pouring into our once beautiful USA.”

Imagine that. An impoverished group of Hamas soldiers long tightly quarantined in the Gaza strip have undertaken a second front because the Israeli front is not a big enough challenge for them.

Having first crossed the broad Atlantic Ocean, this vast horde of soldiers perhaps landed in central Mexico, then trundled up alongside Guatemalan refugees for hundreds of miles to the American border carrying who knows what kinds of weapons. They are currently “pouring” into our country and “may be planning something very very bad,” Mr. Trump says.

Well, probably not as bad as what the former president planned for the U.S. in 2020 and what he is planning for the U.S. in 2024.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross

Shootings addressed

I remember the University of Texas sniper shooting in 1966 and it was considered unthinkable. The whole nation focused on this incident because it was considered rare.

That was the beginning of schools being targeted by people with mental health issues who spent time to prepare and follow through on their planned mayhem. What is common is that the shooters had similar mental issues and no one raised any red flags and if they did they were ignored, and they continue to be ignored to this day. After the fact they find that the signs were there, but the person had not committed a crime to be arrest for. So, we wait for the crime to be committed to write a report that sells newspapers, and to add insult to injury, we allow this to happen time after time, like there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Who gets blamed after a shooting? They may start by making false allegations against teachers, since they have to blame someone for the shooting. By this time, the criminal is out of picture altogether. It was because the teacher left the door open, they falsely allege. Now the teacher becomes the target of hate where she/he cannot leave his own home.

It does not stop here; now they blame school security; why did school security fail to stop the shooting?

It continues to go on and on, blaming one entity after another and by this time everyone forgot about the shooter and the reason he did it; and who was the shooter?

At the end, the field is left open for the next school shooting incident with no plan whatsoever to stop the next shooting. Back to square one.

Rafael Madrigal

Pharr


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