Rev. Susan Otey of Christ United Methodist Church, while advocating that Montana resettle Syrian refugees, invoked "compassion" four times in her March 29 opinion piece.
However, today's Syrian refugees to the U.S. are almost all Muslims, and Western societies' experiences in recent decades with Muslims of Middle Eastern origin or descent are anything but encouraging. Besides recent "spectacular" mass atrocities such as Paris in November, San Bernardino in December and Brussels in March, there are abundant other examples of fundamental incompatibility.
Recall last New Year's Eve's mass sexual assault in Cologne on German women by "migrant" men or the hushed-up, decade-long sexual exploitation of more than a thousand adolescent white girls in Rotherham, England, by Muslim men of Pakistani lineage. In December, the New York Times strongly implied that in Stavanger, Norway, 17 of 20 rapes during 2009-2011 were committed by Muslim immigrants.
In short, Otey should focus her "compassion" on a livable future for Americans.
The Smith River country is one of our blessings.
My great-grandfather, Tom Gordon, was a frequent fly fisherman on the Smith in the early decades of the 1900s. His daughter, my grandmother Jean (Gordon) Dunning spent much time on the Anderson Ranch with her best friend, Betty Anderson. I had roots in the Smith River country long before I married into a family with a Smith River cabin, built in the '60s. My husband and I have owned that cabin for 40 years as we raised our children and spent every summer with both sets of Great Falls grandparents.
We now live in Montana full-time and are greatly alarmed at the possibility of a mine — proposing many as yet untested methods and techniques — which drains into the Smith and Missouri rivers.
Thanks to the Department of Environmental Quality for requesting information absent from the Black Butte Mine permit. All should be concerned and take time to learn the facts. Meagher County commissioners need to look at tax dollars generated by property owners on the Smith and decreased property value when the river dies. The commissioners continue to present an infomercial for Tintina and are not responding to Montana's Smith River taxpayers.
Our family and many others will begin documenting our precious river and surrounding landscape this year with photographs and well-water tests of mineral content. Tintina is only required to test the water in Sheep Creek. We'll also continue working to educate and defeat this mine proposal.