To the Editor: I was so pleased to see the letter last week from Fayette County Republican Chairwoman Deborah Frank. She is certainly correct, the people who staffed the voting locations in the July 14 Democratic Party primary runoff deserve thanks and recognition.

To the Editor: In her letter last week, “Republicans Saved the Day,” Deborah Frank called me out (the Democratic Party Chair) for not acknowledging the Republican’s participation in the May 14 Runoff election. I was not contacted by the FCR to provide information for an article about the election.

To the Editor: During the months of this pandemic, my husband and I, who are in that stage of life known as “high risk’” have obediently stayed home. But once a week we drive around this beautiful county to explore unfamiliar roads.

Three white peacemakers nervously waited for the Comanche council to decide whether they lived or died on Aug. 10, 1843.

“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straitforward pathway had been lost.” -opening lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Longfellow’s translation) At the outset of the Divine Comedy careful readers are presented with questions. Where did this story start? How did he get off the strait pathway? Did he not realize he was entering a creepy forest? Dante teases our curiosity by beginning in medias res…in the middle of things.

Agriculture, oil, education and health care top the list so far, but please keep the conversation going about what’s happening in your corner of our big state and what is of highest interest to you.

We’ve been self-isolating for nearly five full months now. We feel blessed to be here, away from the congestion of the city. Away from people pressing close, masked or unmasked. Away from elevators and crowded lobbies.

Watching I watch. I watch from my isolation chamber: cozy, confined, comfortable, constricted.

We used to be a nation of imperfect humans organized around the idealism of personal freedom and boundless opportunity. But now the pursuit of these ideals is being attacked by a new malady that is grinding down all that once served the nation and its citizens so well. Perhaps this can be better understood by comparing it to an auto-immune disease where the biological systems designed to protect ultimately become the agents of our destruction. If this sounds complicated, it

The pandemic remained the theme of the news in July, much of it centering on the economy and education. The week opened with Comptroller Glenn Hegar’s forecast that Texas faces a $ 4.6 billion budget deficit and closed with the first hurricane of the season, Hanna, making landfall Saturday night near Port Mansfield.