Melat Kiros has courage and love for all humanity
Re: “Kiros’ candidacy scares me as liberal Jewish woman,” June 25 guest commentary
As a Jewish woman, I was upset by Rabbi Rachel Kobrin’s use of her liberalism and womanhood to attack Melat Kiros because she supposedly thinks the state of Israel should not exist. I want to add that we fought the state of South Africa as an apartheid state that was violently and legally separating and killing its black native citizens.
In the same way, Israel cannot continue to exist as an apartheid state according to its own law. It has separate laws which do not protect other peoples that are native to its land, and from whom the formation of Israel became possible by emptying their villages.
This pain is the truth I, as a Jew, must actively try to repair. In three years, Israel has not just fought back against the attack on Oct. 7, but continues to kill Palestinian civilians. A recent UN report shows, knowing it is the source of the Palestinian people’s future.
Israel has destroyed food, water and other means of survival in Gaza. It has , teachers, the elderly and children. Reports of the conditions in the prisons are unspeakable. Israel does not respect the current ‘ceasefire’ in which.
Those who have not been killed by Israel’s bombs die of starvation and disease in even greater numbers. The houses, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches and rare irreplaceable artifacts of culture have been turned to dust. This is the very definition of genocide! It is immoral and against my religion of Judaism.
Melat speaks out against genocide because her family has experienced it in Ethiopia. We need people in Congress who will stop sending American bombs to do Israel’s dirty work. She is a woman, and more than a ‘liberal,’ she has courage and love for all humanity.
Vivian Weinstein, Denver
Pause autonomous vehicles in Colorado
Driverless cars are no longer a distant innovation; they are already operating on city streets across the U.S. The rapid deployment seems to be outpacing the evidence, regulation, and public trust needed to justify them.
Denver metro city leaders should act now; I encourage them to implement a ten-year moratorium on driverless vehicles in our urban environment. This is not a rejection of innovation but a demand for accountability.
Safety remains uncertain. While autonomous technology promises fewer crashes, experts warn that those benefits are still aspirational and not yet proven in real-world conditions. At the same time, crashes involving autonomous systems continue to occur, often linked to software failures, sensor limitations, and difficulty interpreting complex traffic environments. We have numerous stories of driverless vehicles impeding emergency vehicles or simply interfering with police and fire.
The risks extend beyond safety. Driverless vehicles threaten to displace large segments of the workforce, particularly in transportation and delivery sectors. These are not abstract jobs; they are livelihoods that sustain families and local economies.
A ten-year moratorium offers a sensible path forward. It allows time to: study real-world outcomes in early-adopting cities, establish clear and enforceable safety standards, prepare workers for economic transition and build public trust through transparency. Innovation should serve the public–not the other way around.
Before we permanently reshape our streets, we must ask: who benefits, who bears the risk, and who decides?
Until those answers are clear, the responsible choice is simple: pause, protect, and prepare.
Jeffrey Marquez, Thornton
America’s 250 should have brought us all together
Normally, I would be looking forward to the celebration, pageantry, and events surrounding the 250th birthday of our country. It should be a time for all of us together to commemorate our country — its history, its achievements and its hopes to strive to do better for all our people.
However, there is no sense of oneness and shared purpose in this year’s semiquincentennial. We are a divided people who, under the example and initiative of the current president, denigrate and demean whoever we consider to be the “other.” We are suspicious of one another, we are angry with each other, and we can’t tolerate the other’s position, nor give them the courtesy of listening to their opinion. We are right, and the other is wrong, and not a patriot of this country.
The presidency is a position of trust by and for all the people of this country, not just for those who think a certain way. A headline from today stated: “President says 250th celebration on July 4 will be a ‘Trump rally.’” This should be a time for all of us to celebrate who we are, and the president should be the one leading the way and bringing us together for that purpose, not to feed his narcissism and total disregard for the significance of this event.
I feel a real sense of loss for what this special July 4th could have been and meant for us all.
Francis Giuliano, Denver
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