Death of a Rancher

Jewish World Review ^ | 4/29/10 | Paul Greenberg

[rhema]

Climate can shape character. As anyone who's driven west past the 98th meridian knows. That's where the rains stop, as the first wave of settlers discovered. After a deceptively wet season or two, they beat a hasty retreat. Out there creek beds run dry, except when a flash flood turns them into a raging menace. The trees grow stunted, the people tall, and the conversation as sparse as the vegetation. People may not use many words, but what they say you can usually trust.

I've known a few Texans like that. They were rare even by the time we used to take the kids to Waco to visit their grandparents. But they were prized, the way folks will save daguerreotypes of pioneer ancestors, or the way nouveau types in Dallas prize Fort Worth — just to remind themselves of what character was.

One such type I knew was a newspaper editor who spoke in the same economical style he wrote — to the point and no more. He saw no need to elaborate, and would as soon kill an adjective as look at it. He once refused to carry out the publisher's order to run a story puffing a big new advertiser, but he wouldn't resign over it. He insisted on being fired. And he was.

Not one to leave anything undone, he told his now former boss, "Now that you've done this deed…" and proceeded to explain why it is the essence of a newspaper's integrity to separate news from opinion. And both from advertising. Then, having said his piece without rancor, he left, straight as an arrow.

By all descriptions, Rob Krentz was such a man. The 58-year-old third-generation rancher was a peacemaker, respected by all who knew him. They say his very presence could calm.

[HiJinx]

Ping!

Rob Krentz’s murder was most assuredly a factor in Governor Brewer’s decision to sign SB1070.

Many of us down here are quietly furious that it took his murder to see action taken at the Federal level. Even then, it was more rhetoric than anything else...just as it has always been.

[ezfindit]

This rancher was a true Christian who was martyred for daring to help others. No wonder Arizona acted!

[AngelesCrestHighway]

The straw that broke the camels back.....

[Major Matt Mason]

And, as I stated on a different thread and subject, the media has been virtually silent about this man's murder. This, in spite of the fact that he was apparently helping those that ended up taking his life. And really, they've been covering up much of the violence taking place around the border because they don't want Obama's amnesty agenda to be derailed.