After the uproar caused by the photo of the lynching that can still be viewed on this site, Facebook has sentenced me to another 30 days of hard labor. For a moment, I thought FB founder Mark Zuckerberg was going to order that I be hung from the nearest mesquite. When the United States was as bad as South Africa if not worse, racists used to send postcards of lynchings. Facebook has the right to censor as it pleases.
When I worked for various newspapers, editors frequently deleted some of my best quotes or passages. You can't always get what you want. Writing, if you have something worth while to say, is a rough and tumble business.
Just like there are individuals who would be willing to surrender their personal freedoms in exchange for the safety of a police state, there are many who would gladly compromise their First Amendment rights in order to avoid facing the brutality of the truth.
My blog, The McHale Report, faces fewer restrictions and I have freedoms that I can't exercise on Facebook. Nevertheless, blogs are subject to closure. The powerful will stop at nothing to silence the powerless if the latter become too much an inconvenience.
We win and lose battles, but the war never ceases.
Friday, July 31, 2020
DOWNTOWN'S DEATH
Since 1975 I have been getting drunk downtown. My first watering hole was the Barrel House around the corner from the Hotel Milner--now The Colonial--where I had found my first job in my new surroundings as the desk clerk working the swing shift. As part of my $1.35 an hour job, management provided me with a room including a hot plate and a small refrigerator, but I had no air-conditioning.
The Milner was home to both retired men and weathered prostitutes. I remember working behind the desk and watching Rick Barry's Warriors sweep Julius Irving's 76ers in four straight, one of the biggest NBA upsets. A California boy who never imagined he would be spending the rest of his life in Brownsville, I cheered each victory heartily.
The Barrel House predated The Palm Lounge. Johnny Quiroz managed the Barrel House and cooked his famous hamburgers. It was a popular establishment. Besides the singular burgers and the cold beers, the air-conditioning was an oasis for me. When a gringo wouldn't sell Quiroz the business, he took his waiters Beto, Servando and Toque with him and opened the Palm which promptly became downtown's top cantina.
During my first year on the border the Silver Dollar Club was a popular hangout. Located in the El Jardin Hotel caddy-corner from the Milner, a thick cloud of smoke hung over the varied crowd that drew a boisterous clientele because the joint was filled with barrio babes and Matamoros mamas. You stepped out of the club, entered the elevator immediately to the right before she had time to change her mind and shot to the fourth or fifth floor--there were at least seven, maybe eight floors--to a room where Gideon's Bible remained unopened on the night stand.
I have frequently lived downtown in the nearly half century I have resided in Brownville. I once lived in the vacant Samano building on the Corner of Elizabeth Street and Twelfth in an office with neither a bathroom nor a shower. I used to piss and shit out one of the many windows overlooking the alley. I had no sympathy for the bums below.
Twice I rented apartments at the Fort Brown; the Resaca Club across the street drew well. The same action unfolded at the Resaca Club as the Silver Dollar, but the patrons were powerful politicians and successful businessmen. The women abounded and the hotel rooms were a short walk from the action.
Besides the many good times and the countless meals as well as the various shelters from Palm Boulevard to International Boulevards that have provided me temporary addresses, downtown's architecture has captivated me as much as any señorita greeting me with a coquettish smile. I have insistently argued that renovating downtown--a living museum--should be the city's top priority, but the municipality has chosen to pursue this goal in a piecemeal fashion.
Nevertheless, prior to the Coronavirus pandemic, downtown was making strides and there was optimism that this renovation would gain momentum with Trey Mendez as mayor since he owned both a restaurant and historical buildings. We finally had someone in office who appreciated downtown's aesthetics.
Lighting was dramatically improved, cameras were placed at strategic corners and the police increased their presence. Most the ancient cantinas that attracted the dregs of society had closed and their patrons had exiled themselves to the 14th Street cantina strip.
Upscale bars, clubs and restaurants opened. A few prostitutes and transvestites remained to maintain the ambience, but cruising the historical streets became as safe as walking to one's mailbox. George Ramirez became the unofficial mayor of downtown, Commissioner Ben Neece allied with the mayor to promote downtown and the legendary bluesman "Delta" Dave Handelman ascended to poet laureate of the night life.
When Ramirez died, however, Dr. Tony Zavaleta, endowed with mystical powers, interpreted George's demise as a sign. With First Friday at the beginning of each month providing Market Square outdoor music venues, studios offering art shows and the restaurants, bars and clubs collaborating on promotions and entertainment, an insouciance still prevailed with the increasing numbers of pedestrians moving from hotpot to hotspot.
Then the Trump plague swept through the community. From Elizabeth Street to the northern reaches of Alton Gloor Road, everything began to close. City and county governments mandated stay-at-home and curfew orders to counter the mushrooming numbers of sick and hospitalizations. The politicians, ignoring medical advice that they were acting prematurely, chose to reopen and the community rushed from their homes like prisoners liberated from their cells as if COVID-19 were a sentence that had suddenly been commuted.
Painting the town red was the new mentality. As a result of ignoring masks, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings, Coronavirus found new life and, like Jesus Christ rising from the dead, recommenced its mission of assuring that its victims would remain permanently dead. These days we are painting the town black as the air has turned thick with the ashes of cremated humans.
And downtown? I remember the peso devaluations in the late seventies and early eighties as well as the openings of Amigoland and Sunrise malls that reduced downtown to a ghost town dependent on its barrio and Matamoros customers to keep the second-hand stores, the greasy spoons and the rundown shops with cheap merchandise open. The middle and upper classes would only know downtown existed on their excursions to dine across the bridge.
Downtown is dead. A few of the young pioneers have managed to keep their doors open, but they are doomed if vaccines aren't found soon to give the public confidence that it is safe to socialize. There are those who loved downtown who have no desire to permit close contact with anyone again. Many of these over fifty bon vivants have rediscovered their kitchens and have found that purchasing their own wines at HEB or Sams or Feldman's instead of paying two to three times their true value at over-priced restaurants is a much better deal. In fact, with the savings, they are purchasing more expensive reds. Let the fun flow as we pour another glass. These homebodies still fanaticize like young men and women on the prowl, but staying healthy is suddenly a more sexier option.
Coronavirus has been downtown's death knell. Unlike Our Savior, it may never rise from the dead. It certainly won't rise from the dead in the lives of the older population. The rejuvenation of downtown was a beautiful dream. We would be the New Orleans of the Rio Grande with our own French Quarter. Both the older and younger generations would mingle again. Old men had visions of young movidas. Those fantasies are over. With death comes decay. Will only the hollow edifices remain as a reminder of what might have been in the wake of the destruction?
I miss meeting my buddies at the Palm. I miss chugging a cold beer and bullshitting with my amigos that Trump is a fucking cocksucking piece of shit. But there are many things that I once missed that never enter my mind anymore because circumstances changed. Hell, there may come a day when I will miss these times when COVID-19 kept my existence simple and the little things like reconciling with the ex and enjoying my youngest son more than sufficed.
The Milner was home to both retired men and weathered prostitutes. I remember working behind the desk and watching Rick Barry's Warriors sweep Julius Irving's 76ers in four straight, one of the biggest NBA upsets. A California boy who never imagined he would be spending the rest of his life in Brownsville, I cheered each victory heartily.
The Barrel House predated The Palm Lounge. Johnny Quiroz managed the Barrel House and cooked his famous hamburgers. It was a popular establishment. Besides the singular burgers and the cold beers, the air-conditioning was an oasis for me. When a gringo wouldn't sell Quiroz the business, he took his waiters Beto, Servando and Toque with him and opened the Palm which promptly became downtown's top cantina.
During my first year on the border the Silver Dollar Club was a popular hangout. Located in the El Jardin Hotel caddy-corner from the Milner, a thick cloud of smoke hung over the varied crowd that drew a boisterous clientele because the joint was filled with barrio babes and Matamoros mamas. You stepped out of the club, entered the elevator immediately to the right before she had time to change her mind and shot to the fourth or fifth floor--there were at least seven, maybe eight floors--to a room where Gideon's Bible remained unopened on the night stand.
I have frequently lived downtown in the nearly half century I have resided in Brownville. I once lived in the vacant Samano building on the Corner of Elizabeth Street and Twelfth in an office with neither a bathroom nor a shower. I used to piss and shit out one of the many windows overlooking the alley. I had no sympathy for the bums below.
Twice I rented apartments at the Fort Brown; the Resaca Club across the street drew well. The same action unfolded at the Resaca Club as the Silver Dollar, but the patrons were powerful politicians and successful businessmen. The women abounded and the hotel rooms were a short walk from the action.
Besides the many good times and the countless meals as well as the various shelters from Palm Boulevard to International Boulevards that have provided me temporary addresses, downtown's architecture has captivated me as much as any señorita greeting me with a coquettish smile. I have insistently argued that renovating downtown--a living museum--should be the city's top priority, but the municipality has chosen to pursue this goal in a piecemeal fashion.
Nevertheless, prior to the Coronavirus pandemic, downtown was making strides and there was optimism that this renovation would gain momentum with Trey Mendez as mayor since he owned both a restaurant and historical buildings. We finally had someone in office who appreciated downtown's aesthetics.
Lighting was dramatically improved, cameras were placed at strategic corners and the police increased their presence. Most the ancient cantinas that attracted the dregs of society had closed and their patrons had exiled themselves to the 14th Street cantina strip.
Upscale bars, clubs and restaurants opened. A few prostitutes and transvestites remained to maintain the ambience, but cruising the historical streets became as safe as walking to one's mailbox. George Ramirez became the unofficial mayor of downtown, Commissioner Ben Neece allied with the mayor to promote downtown and the legendary bluesman "Delta" Dave Handelman ascended to poet laureate of the night life.
When Ramirez died, however, Dr. Tony Zavaleta, endowed with mystical powers, interpreted George's demise as a sign. With First Friday at the beginning of each month providing Market Square outdoor music venues, studios offering art shows and the restaurants, bars and clubs collaborating on promotions and entertainment, an insouciance still prevailed with the increasing numbers of pedestrians moving from hotpot to hotspot.
Then the Trump plague swept through the community. From Elizabeth Street to the northern reaches of Alton Gloor Road, everything began to close. City and county governments mandated stay-at-home and curfew orders to counter the mushrooming numbers of sick and hospitalizations. The politicians, ignoring medical advice that they were acting prematurely, chose to reopen and the community rushed from their homes like prisoners liberated from their cells as if COVID-19 were a sentence that had suddenly been commuted.
Painting the town red was the new mentality. As a result of ignoring masks, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings, Coronavirus found new life and, like Jesus Christ rising from the dead, recommenced its mission of assuring that its victims would remain permanently dead. These days we are painting the town black as the air has turned thick with the ashes of cremated humans.
And downtown? I remember the peso devaluations in the late seventies and early eighties as well as the openings of Amigoland and Sunrise malls that reduced downtown to a ghost town dependent on its barrio and Matamoros customers to keep the second-hand stores, the greasy spoons and the rundown shops with cheap merchandise open. The middle and upper classes would only know downtown existed on their excursions to dine across the bridge.
Downtown is dead. A few of the young pioneers have managed to keep their doors open, but they are doomed if vaccines aren't found soon to give the public confidence that it is safe to socialize. There are those who loved downtown who have no desire to permit close contact with anyone again. Many of these over fifty bon vivants have rediscovered their kitchens and have found that purchasing their own wines at HEB or Sams or Feldman's instead of paying two to three times their true value at over-priced restaurants is a much better deal. In fact, with the savings, they are purchasing more expensive reds. Let the fun flow as we pour another glass. These homebodies still fanaticize like young men and women on the prowl, but staying healthy is suddenly a more sexier option.
Coronavirus has been downtown's death knell. Unlike Our Savior, it may never rise from the dead. It certainly won't rise from the dead in the lives of the older population. The rejuvenation of downtown was a beautiful dream. We would be the New Orleans of the Rio Grande with our own French Quarter. Both the older and younger generations would mingle again. Old men had visions of young movidas. Those fantasies are over. With death comes decay. Will only the hollow edifices remain as a reminder of what might have been in the wake of the destruction?
I miss meeting my buddies at the Palm. I miss chugging a cold beer and bullshitting with my amigos that Trump is a fucking cocksucking piece of shit. But there are many things that I once missed that never enter my mind anymore because circumstances changed. Hell, there may come a day when I will miss these times when COVID-19 kept my existence simple and the little things like reconciling with the ex and enjoying my youngest son more than sufficed.
Thursday, July 30, 2020
I'M PRAYING, BUT...
I'm praying, but my own voice is drowned out by the gasping.
I'm praying, but my own voice is drowned out by the suffering.
I'm praying, but my own voice is drowned out by the weeping.
I'm praying, but my voice is drowned out by the dying.
I'm praying, but my voice is drowned out by the mourning.
I'm praying, but my voice is drowned out by the jackass Trump braying.
AIN'T RAISING CANE NO MO'
I have lived in Brownsville for 45 years. I have this huge social network from being the sports editor at The Brownsville Herald to writing as an independent journalist for the last 30 years, from teaching and coaching in the BISD to three marriages, from painting the streets red in Brownsville to hanging out in Matamoros. I know thousands of people. In fact, I've known so many people in our town that in my memories the dead outnumber the living.
That number has just grown. I'm adding three more to a long list. In the last two days a member from my first Brownsville family, a former colleague from the BISD and a pachanga pal have all passed. My Facebook feed has become one endless obit and there is no end in sight. From the local level to the national level, our leadership is failing us. And as incompetent as our county judge and president among many others have proven, our state wants to reopen the schools. Only isolation will thwart COVID-19's death march and Texas is choosing the opposite strategy. Either we social distance or each of us will soon be a distant memory.
This is no longer a disease that is ravaging the nursing homes or killing individuals with pre-existing conditions. The pandemic is wreaking havoc among the baby boomers, Generation X yuppies and the millennials. They are being cheated out of their longevity. I look at the photos of the recently departed in which they are brimming with health and I recall the family gatherings at Christmas, sitting in the stands at Sams Stadium cheering on our teams and driking in the Palm Lounge talking shit.
Are these days done? The people that made these moments special are done. Are we done? I don't leave my house anymore except to shop at HEB and pick up curb-side orders. Is this the new normal? I will be 70 at the end of this year. Have the good times come to an end? I can stay at home, write, exercise, walk, read, fuck, play the guitar, sip wine, watch movies and be perfectly content, but my four sons and one daughter aren't as easily satisfied. I have had my fun and in simplicity I find joy. The kids, however, are young and filled with vim and vigor. They want to live. They want to learn via their own mistakes, but with COVID-19 filling cemeteries, they aren't in a position to make mistakes. Not only could they pay the price for their errors, but they could be conduits of sickness and death for their family and friends.
I started this article late last night and I am finishing it in the early afternoon the following day. In that interim two acquaintances have lost their lives and two others are battling for their lives. These are four well-educated professionals. They are individuals who would have abided by the basic guidelines as articulated by the medical experts, but there is overwhelming evidence that letting down one's guard for a moment can precipitate a permanent knockout.
I am not saying that Trump is as bad as Hitler or Stalin, but because the people of Germany and Russia didn't stand up to these tyrants, millions upon millions died. We must go mano-a-mano with this despot in order to save our country from perdition. Why? Because Trump is evil with all the makings of a tyrant. He is talking of postponing the November 3 election as well as making voting more difficult. He is also saying that he won't necessarily accept the election's results. Nobody has contributed more to 150,000 dead Americans and 4,500,000 sick Americans than Trump. And nobody has been more responsible for our crashing economy or the civil unrest across the nation.
Herman Cain, a Republican presidential candidate in 2012, attended Trump's disastrous Trump rally on June 20. Disdaining a mask, social distancing and a large gathering, he died 50 days later of COVID-19. Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert, another Trump stooge, rejected using a mask. He tested positive a few days ago. Other prominent Republicans in both the political and business worlds have imitated Trump's juvenile behavior and have either followed Cain to the grave or Gohmert to a hospital. If the repercussions of COVID-19 continue to reap a gruesome toll, these enabling Republicans who have refused to keep Trump accountable will follow him to defeat.
A pair of Trump supporters told the press that they would rather be dead than wear masks. We're not surprised by this foolishness. Trump has condoned the worst behavior in millions of Americans. We wouldn't be opposed if Trump's Republicans adopted the same attitude. If they are willing to pay the price for their stubborn stupidity, so be it, but like Islamic suicide bombers they want to take Democrats with them. There is nothing they won't do or won't accept in their utter prostration five times daily before the Ayatollah Trumeini. And as to the virgins that Trump has promised his fanatical followers, they shouldn't be astonished if they spend eternity in hell with whores, their own wives passed from man to man who just grab them by their pussies and the rest is history.
That number has just grown. I'm adding three more to a long list. In the last two days a member from my first Brownsville family, a former colleague from the BISD and a pachanga pal have all passed. My Facebook feed has become one endless obit and there is no end in sight. From the local level to the national level, our leadership is failing us. And as incompetent as our county judge and president among many others have proven, our state wants to reopen the schools. Only isolation will thwart COVID-19's death march and Texas is choosing the opposite strategy. Either we social distance or each of us will soon be a distant memory.
This is no longer a disease that is ravaging the nursing homes or killing individuals with pre-existing conditions. The pandemic is wreaking havoc among the baby boomers, Generation X yuppies and the millennials. They are being cheated out of their longevity. I look at the photos of the recently departed in which they are brimming with health and I recall the family gatherings at Christmas, sitting in the stands at Sams Stadium cheering on our teams and driking in the Palm Lounge talking shit.
Are these days done? The people that made these moments special are done. Are we done? I don't leave my house anymore except to shop at HEB and pick up curb-side orders. Is this the new normal? I will be 70 at the end of this year. Have the good times come to an end? I can stay at home, write, exercise, walk, read, fuck, play the guitar, sip wine, watch movies and be perfectly content, but my four sons and one daughter aren't as easily satisfied. I have had my fun and in simplicity I find joy. The kids, however, are young and filled with vim and vigor. They want to live. They want to learn via their own mistakes, but with COVID-19 filling cemeteries, they aren't in a position to make mistakes. Not only could they pay the price for their errors, but they could be conduits of sickness and death for their family and friends.
I started this article late last night and I am finishing it in the early afternoon the following day. In that interim two acquaintances have lost their lives and two others are battling for their lives. These are four well-educated professionals. They are individuals who would have abided by the basic guidelines as articulated by the medical experts, but there is overwhelming evidence that letting down one's guard for a moment can precipitate a permanent knockout.
I am not saying that Trump is as bad as Hitler or Stalin, but because the people of Germany and Russia didn't stand up to these tyrants, millions upon millions died. We must go mano-a-mano with this despot in order to save our country from perdition. Why? Because Trump is evil with all the makings of a tyrant. He is talking of postponing the November 3 election as well as making voting more difficult. He is also saying that he won't necessarily accept the election's results. Nobody has contributed more to 150,000 dead Americans and 4,500,000 sick Americans than Trump. And nobody has been more responsible for our crashing economy or the civil unrest across the nation.
Herman Cain, a Republican presidential candidate in 2012, attended Trump's disastrous Trump rally on June 20. Disdaining a mask, social distancing and a large gathering, he died 50 days later of COVID-19. Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert, another Trump stooge, rejected using a mask. He tested positive a few days ago. Other prominent Republicans in both the political and business worlds have imitated Trump's juvenile behavior and have either followed Cain to the grave or Gohmert to a hospital. If the repercussions of COVID-19 continue to reap a gruesome toll, these enabling Republicans who have refused to keep Trump accountable will follow him to defeat.
A pair of Trump supporters told the press that they would rather be dead than wear masks. We're not surprised by this foolishness. Trump has condoned the worst behavior in millions of Americans. We wouldn't be opposed if Trump's Republicans adopted the same attitude. If they are willing to pay the price for their stubborn stupidity, so be it, but like Islamic suicide bombers they want to take Democrats with them. There is nothing they won't do or won't accept in their utter prostration five times daily before the Ayatollah Trumeini. And as to the virgins that Trump has promised his fanatical followers, they shouldn't be astonished if they spend eternity in hell with whores, their own wives passed from man to man who just grab them by their pussies and the rest is history.
JOE VALDEZ
Trump once again reaffirmed his greatness when the COVID-19 death toll surpassed 150,000. Will he reach his coveted 200,000 by November 3 when he hopes to retain the presidency by a difference between 150,000 and 200,000 votes?
What are his future goals? He has passed the 110,000 deaths in WWI. A megalomaniac of lofty ambitions, Trump believes that one more term in office will certainly assure that he surpasses the 400,000 deaths attributed to WWII. He admits that the approximately 675,000 dead from the Spanish Flu in 1918 and the 700,000 fatalities from the Civil War are longshots, but he reminds his fanatical followers that nobody thought Lou Gehrig's record of playing in 2,130 consecutive games would ever be broken until Cal Ripkin shattered the mark with his 2,632-game streak.
"I am claiming Muhammad Ali's title," Trump said via Zoom to a gathering of Klansmen, Neo-Nazis, racist Republicans and rednecks. "I am officially declaring that 'I am the Greatest.' The fascist press will lose their minds fulminating--I can use big words too if they are on the teleprompter--that I have put myself in the ranks of Washington and Lincoln, but if the haters would objectively study the facts, they would discover that I have done more for our nation than Washington and Lincoln combined."
In order to cement his reputation, Trump includes that Coronavirus has infected 4,500,000 Americans in less than six months. He is counting on this figure to significantly enhance his death toll numbers. To his delight, there is no end in sight with 1,000 dying daily. Of course, we can't blame all the pandemic on the perverted president. If certain citizens choose to follow his example and discard masks, hug and kiss everyone they meet and gather in large groups to either praise God or drink beer, then they have to take responsibility if they appear as figures in either of the two categories or excite Trump by appearing in both.
Joe Valdez, a BISD educator and coach, a law enforcement veteran and an entrepreneur specializing in the best Texas barbecue on the border, fed Trump's case figures when he found himself growing sicker and sicker each day. Three times he went to the hospital and three times he was sent home. Valley Regional Medical Center was overflowing with patients, space at such a premium that the lobby was packed with beds.
"First of all, glory to God and the power of prayer," said Valdez attached to an oxygen tube and breathing heavily in a riveting interview on Erasmo Castro and Frankie Olivo's Brownsville Calls.
"The Lord isn't done with me. I am a surviving testimony to this disease's lethalness. Our community needs to know. I lived through a nightmare during the nine days I was hospitalized. I shared a room with four other patients and during that time I heard my fellow patients gasping for air as they took their last breaths, I saw them placed in body bags and I estimate that 20 persons died in that same room. I thought I had seen everything in law enforcement, but nothing prepared me for this experience, particularly when I thought my number might be next."
The fourth time Valdez went to the hospital a former student recognized that his teacher wasn't just another Trump stat. He flagged down a doctor who took his vitals and immediately determined that Valdez needed prompt attention. Staff wheeled him down long corridors with patients lining the walls. Valdez could only compare the scene to a stark depiction of human misery in a horror movie that exceeded his ability to comprehend. He noted that a Hollywood production would be hard-pressed to capture the gruesome images he was experiencing firsthand. Besides testing positive for COVID-19, Alaniz was diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome.
"COVID-19 is vicious," continued Valdez. "The list is endless, but heart attacks and strokes are not uncommon and there can be permanent damage to a person's lungs or kidneys or other vital organs. In my particular malady, I noticed that I couldn't feel my feet and the numbness slowly crept up my body. I couldn't feel my abdomen as the paralysis continued to grow. If I hadn't received prompt help, I would have died because the condition will shut down your organs.
"The ordeal was terrible. The next three days took me to the edge. I have nothing but respect for the medical staff, but they are overwhelmed. There was only one nurse for the multiple patients in my room. One night I heard two nurses conversing that they were fearful the hospital was going to run out of its oxygen supply. For those who insist the pandemic is a hoax, this is real, folks. And for those who pass, they pass alone. I can't conceive of a more tragic end. I was lucky. My bed was next to a window and I could see my family and fiancée waving to me from the parking lot. Their support made a difference."
Valdez has been discharged, but he estimates that his rehabilitation may range from six to twelve months. He is only now slurring less. With Coronavirus raging, he can't imagine the schools reopening for person-to-person instruction. He can't conceive that there would be any fall sports or other extracurricular activities. He felt he had an obligation to appear on the popular podcast in order to send the message that all our lives are threatened if the community doesn't take the proper precautions. There are many Brownsville Herald readers who fault the dying daily for refusing keep a daily count of the pandemic as well as not featuring more individuals telling their stories so the city would awaken to the hardcore reality that we are the hottest spot in Texas in one of the hottest states in the country.
"We must respect this disease," emphasized Valdez. "It is virulently contagious and it knows no boundaries. I have a heart condition, so I had hunkered down at home since the outbreak. Between building a fence and constructing a stable, I had plenty to occupy myself. Except for grocery shopping, I wasn't leaving my house. How did I get infected? My 21-year-old daughter, who has severe asthma and was limiting compromising situations, is a TSC cadet and would meet with her fellow classmates. They abided by the proper protocol, but she was informed that two of the students had tested positive. My daughter took the test and her result was positive. That's my best determination for my fate. Regardless, this disease can come at you from a thousand angles. Without a vaccine, we have no idea the many months, perhaps years, we will have to deal with this grim reaper."
As bad as it is that Trump contributes to the pandemic's spread as president, we can only give thanks that he isn't our personal physician. Besides promoting that warm weather would kill the disease or that bleach would cleanse our bodies of its presence or a miracle was going to make everything right again among several other nutty nostrums, Trump has been insistent that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquin is a cure for COVID-19 despite his own medical experts debunking the assertion. Trump, refusing to accept that he knows nothing about medicine, retweeted a Nigerian educated doctor practicing in Houston that a cocktail of Trump's favorite drug with a dash of Zithromax and zinc knocked out Coronavirus. Donald Jr. also retweeted the doctor's magic potion whose critics contend via her outlandish statements that she is more qualified to practice voodoo than medicine.
When Twitter, Facebook and YouTube discovered that this quack--Dr. Stella Immanuel--was propagating that demon sperm was contaminating humanity, that scientists were testing an antibody that would make people immune to religious teachings, that the devil was responsible for venereal diseases and female infertility and that aliens' DNA was being introduced into medical studies among other crazy notions she regularly propagates, the three internet giants cut her off as they have been doing with Trump in recent weeks. She promptly responded that God and Jesus would cause computers to crash throughout the world if they didn't reinstate her expertise.
Apparently, God and Jesus are more preoccupied ridding the world of Trump and Immanuel before the faithful begin to question the Father and Son's competence. As much as both like to dump on humanity that the latter are responsible for their own plight, those of us who were created in the image and likeness of the pair aren't sharing in the blame for God and Jesus breathing life into Trump and the wackos who follow the Perverted Piper in hopes that they will experience Armageddon in their lifetimes and the dire prophecies of Revelations will prove self-fulfilling. To our chagrin we are discovering that like the deluded Jews there is irrefutable evidence that we aren't the Chosen People after all except when it comes to Coronavirus selecting its favorite victims.
And the Holy Ghost? Isn't he part of this sacred trinity? Apparently, he is the black sheep of the family who spends his days smoking dope and checking out the young babes who have made it past St. Peter's groping hands and are looking for a good time after enduring the agony of their own deaths. If they are COVID-19 victims, however, the Holy Ghost won't grab them by their pussies. He leaves them to the Islamic terrorists who believe they are being rewarded for their suicidal stupidity with virgins. Though the Holy Ghost enjoys eternal life, he doesn't want to spend his timeless time ill. His heavenly harem offers him plenty of variety and quality; he doesn't have to risk his health on a COVID chick.
What are his future goals? He has passed the 110,000 deaths in WWI. A megalomaniac of lofty ambitions, Trump believes that one more term in office will certainly assure that he surpasses the 400,000 deaths attributed to WWII. He admits that the approximately 675,000 dead from the Spanish Flu in 1918 and the 700,000 fatalities from the Civil War are longshots, but he reminds his fanatical followers that nobody thought Lou Gehrig's record of playing in 2,130 consecutive games would ever be broken until Cal Ripkin shattered the mark with his 2,632-game streak.
"I am claiming Muhammad Ali's title," Trump said via Zoom to a gathering of Klansmen, Neo-Nazis, racist Republicans and rednecks. "I am officially declaring that 'I am the Greatest.' The fascist press will lose their minds fulminating--I can use big words too if they are on the teleprompter--that I have put myself in the ranks of Washington and Lincoln, but if the haters would objectively study the facts, they would discover that I have done more for our nation than Washington and Lincoln combined."
In order to cement his reputation, Trump includes that Coronavirus has infected 4,500,000 Americans in less than six months. He is counting on this figure to significantly enhance his death toll numbers. To his delight, there is no end in sight with 1,000 dying daily. Of course, we can't blame all the pandemic on the perverted president. If certain citizens choose to follow his example and discard masks, hug and kiss everyone they meet and gather in large groups to either praise God or drink beer, then they have to take responsibility if they appear as figures in either of the two categories or excite Trump by appearing in both.
Joe Valdez, a BISD educator and coach, a law enforcement veteran and an entrepreneur specializing in the best Texas barbecue on the border, fed Trump's case figures when he found himself growing sicker and sicker each day. Three times he went to the hospital and three times he was sent home. Valley Regional Medical Center was overflowing with patients, space at such a premium that the lobby was packed with beds.
"First of all, glory to God and the power of prayer," said Valdez attached to an oxygen tube and breathing heavily in a riveting interview on Erasmo Castro and Frankie Olivo's Brownsville Calls.
"The Lord isn't done with me. I am a surviving testimony to this disease's lethalness. Our community needs to know. I lived through a nightmare during the nine days I was hospitalized. I shared a room with four other patients and during that time I heard my fellow patients gasping for air as they took their last breaths, I saw them placed in body bags and I estimate that 20 persons died in that same room. I thought I had seen everything in law enforcement, but nothing prepared me for this experience, particularly when I thought my number might be next."
The fourth time Valdez went to the hospital a former student recognized that his teacher wasn't just another Trump stat. He flagged down a doctor who took his vitals and immediately determined that Valdez needed prompt attention. Staff wheeled him down long corridors with patients lining the walls. Valdez could only compare the scene to a stark depiction of human misery in a horror movie that exceeded his ability to comprehend. He noted that a Hollywood production would be hard-pressed to capture the gruesome images he was experiencing firsthand. Besides testing positive for COVID-19, Alaniz was diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome.
"COVID-19 is vicious," continued Valdez. "The list is endless, but heart attacks and strokes are not uncommon and there can be permanent damage to a person's lungs or kidneys or other vital organs. In my particular malady, I noticed that I couldn't feel my feet and the numbness slowly crept up my body. I couldn't feel my abdomen as the paralysis continued to grow. If I hadn't received prompt help, I would have died because the condition will shut down your organs.
"The ordeal was terrible. The next three days took me to the edge. I have nothing but respect for the medical staff, but they are overwhelmed. There was only one nurse for the multiple patients in my room. One night I heard two nurses conversing that they were fearful the hospital was going to run out of its oxygen supply. For those who insist the pandemic is a hoax, this is real, folks. And for those who pass, they pass alone. I can't conceive of a more tragic end. I was lucky. My bed was next to a window and I could see my family and fiancée waving to me from the parking lot. Their support made a difference."
Valdez has been discharged, but he estimates that his rehabilitation may range from six to twelve months. He is only now slurring less. With Coronavirus raging, he can't imagine the schools reopening for person-to-person instruction. He can't conceive that there would be any fall sports or other extracurricular activities. He felt he had an obligation to appear on the popular podcast in order to send the message that all our lives are threatened if the community doesn't take the proper precautions. There are many Brownsville Herald readers who fault the dying daily for refusing keep a daily count of the pandemic as well as not featuring more individuals telling their stories so the city would awaken to the hardcore reality that we are the hottest spot in Texas in one of the hottest states in the country.
"We must respect this disease," emphasized Valdez. "It is virulently contagious and it knows no boundaries. I have a heart condition, so I had hunkered down at home since the outbreak. Between building a fence and constructing a stable, I had plenty to occupy myself. Except for grocery shopping, I wasn't leaving my house. How did I get infected? My 21-year-old daughter, who has severe asthma and was limiting compromising situations, is a TSC cadet and would meet with her fellow classmates. They abided by the proper protocol, but she was informed that two of the students had tested positive. My daughter took the test and her result was positive. That's my best determination for my fate. Regardless, this disease can come at you from a thousand angles. Without a vaccine, we have no idea the many months, perhaps years, we will have to deal with this grim reaper."
As bad as it is that Trump contributes to the pandemic's spread as president, we can only give thanks that he isn't our personal physician. Besides promoting that warm weather would kill the disease or that bleach would cleanse our bodies of its presence or a miracle was going to make everything right again among several other nutty nostrums, Trump has been insistent that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquin is a cure for COVID-19 despite his own medical experts debunking the assertion. Trump, refusing to accept that he knows nothing about medicine, retweeted a Nigerian educated doctor practicing in Houston that a cocktail of Trump's favorite drug with a dash of Zithromax and zinc knocked out Coronavirus. Donald Jr. also retweeted the doctor's magic potion whose critics contend via her outlandish statements that she is more qualified to practice voodoo than medicine.
When Twitter, Facebook and YouTube discovered that this quack--Dr. Stella Immanuel--was propagating that demon sperm was contaminating humanity, that scientists were testing an antibody that would make people immune to religious teachings, that the devil was responsible for venereal diseases and female infertility and that aliens' DNA was being introduced into medical studies among other crazy notions she regularly propagates, the three internet giants cut her off as they have been doing with Trump in recent weeks. She promptly responded that God and Jesus would cause computers to crash throughout the world if they didn't reinstate her expertise.
Apparently, God and Jesus are more preoccupied ridding the world of Trump and Immanuel before the faithful begin to question the Father and Son's competence. As much as both like to dump on humanity that the latter are responsible for their own plight, those of us who were created in the image and likeness of the pair aren't sharing in the blame for God and Jesus breathing life into Trump and the wackos who follow the Perverted Piper in hopes that they will experience Armageddon in their lifetimes and the dire prophecies of Revelations will prove self-fulfilling. To our chagrin we are discovering that like the deluded Jews there is irrefutable evidence that we aren't the Chosen People after all except when it comes to Coronavirus selecting its favorite victims.
And the Holy Ghost? Isn't he part of this sacred trinity? Apparently, he is the black sheep of the family who spends his days smoking dope and checking out the young babes who have made it past St. Peter's groping hands and are looking for a good time after enduring the agony of their own deaths. If they are COVID-19 victims, however, the Holy Ghost won't grab them by their pussies. He leaves them to the Islamic terrorists who believe they are being rewarded for their suicidal stupidity with virgins. Though the Holy Ghost enjoys eternal life, he doesn't want to spend his timeless time ill. His heavenly harem offers him plenty of variety and quality; he doesn't have to risk his health on a COVID chick.
AGING TENNIS PRO
Sometimes I wonder why I get drunk. I know that the next day I will have to pay a steep price that I hate paying, but the moment seems to poignant to compromise with a future that promises nothing better than this instant.
I am the product of cheap thrills and that's the reason I refuse to deny myself the excitement of self-indulgence. Retiring to my own thoughts, I seldom desire the company of others at a favorite cantina unless it's the product of a spontaneous occasion.
I prefer the solitariness of sitting alone in my backyard with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other and my favorite music playing in the background. Then I surrender myself to the memories and regret that the best of my past isn't with me in the present.
With each gulp and each puff I dissolve into a melancholy that brings me a passing peace. Filled with nostalgia, I am tranquil. My addictions were founded on pleasure, but now they offer me a blissful escape into a no-man's land where I wander without direction.
Finally, I have had enough. I toss my half-empty can and flick my still burning cigarette into the darkness. Another challenge awaits me tomorrow. I haven't dived off the deep end tonight. I won't require a Xanax to return me to the surface in the morning. I haven' added to the burdensome guilt.
I retire to the bedroom and my sleeping wife with hopes of pleasant dreams. I have walked this path many times and I am familiar with every bend in the road.
I prefer the solitariness of sitting alone in my backyard with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other and my favorite music playing in the background. Then I surrender myself to the memories and regret that the best of my past isn't with me in the present.
With each gulp and each puff I dissolve into a melancholy that brings me a passing peace. Filled with nostalgia, I am tranquil. My addictions were founded on pleasure, but now they offer me a blissful escape into a no-man's land where I wander without direction.
Finally, I have had enough. I toss my half-empty can and flick my still burning cigarette into the darkness. Another challenge awaits me tomorrow. I haven't dived off the deep end tonight. I won't require a Xanax to return me to the surface in the morning. I haven' added to the burdensome guilt.
I retire to the bedroom and my sleeping wife with hopes of pleasant dreams. I have walked this path many times and I am familiar with every bend in the road.
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
AUTHORITIES RELEASE BRAD
Brad "Boner" Doherty, the former Brownsville Herald photographer now residing in San Antonio, is a free man after spending a week in jail. Doherty gained his release via the laudable efforts of his attorney.
"I have defended artists in the past and I will defend artists until my dying breath," said Justo Leyes with a haggard Doherty standing at his side. "This man is not a pervert. This man isn't wasting his talents on pornography. I will not allow the religious fanatics to crush our country's creativity. We must defeat the Islamic and Christian madmen before they defeat us."
The authorities arrested Doherty at Ben Neece's Spanish Moon for a select audience during the opening of his show entitled "Baptism" in which he photographs naked women wading across the river from Matamoros to Brownsville. A Catholic relief organization asserted that some of the nubile figures were underage adolescents.
"This is scandalous," preached Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores who has never once condemned the pedophile priests that have found the easy pickings among an ignorant people on the border to their lascivious liking.
"The man is a voyeur and belongs behind bars," continued the cleric from the pulpit of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral during his Sunday homily. "He is raping innocent girls with his lens."
An infuriated Leyes denounced his client's critics in no uncertain terms.
"This incident evokes memories of Franco's forces snatching the poet Federico Garcia Lorca and summarily executing him during the Spanish Civil War. This is the United States of America. We don't live in a Taliban state!"
Yvette Vela, Doherty's former understudy who presently serves in Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz's office, rallied to her mentor's cause.
"I know my boss would never prosecute this artist of international fame whose intentions have never been anything less than honorable," fumed Vela. "I am outraged. I am a woman. Brad treated his subjects with the utmost respect. There is nothing more magnificent than the human body."
"I have defended artists in the past and I will defend artists until my dying breath," said Justo Leyes with a haggard Doherty standing at his side. "This man is not a pervert. This man isn't wasting his talents on pornography. I will not allow the religious fanatics to crush our country's creativity. We must defeat the Islamic and Christian madmen before they defeat us."
The authorities arrested Doherty at Ben Neece's Spanish Moon for a select audience during the opening of his show entitled "Baptism" in which he photographs naked women wading across the river from Matamoros to Brownsville. A Catholic relief organization asserted that some of the nubile figures were underage adolescents.
"This is scandalous," preached Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores who has never once condemned the pedophile priests that have found the easy pickings among an ignorant people on the border to their lascivious liking.
"The man is a voyeur and belongs behind bars," continued the cleric from the pulpit of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral during his Sunday homily. "He is raping innocent girls with his lens."
An infuriated Leyes denounced his client's critics in no uncertain terms.
"This incident evokes memories of Franco's forces snatching the poet Federico Garcia Lorca and summarily executing him during the Spanish Civil War. This is the United States of America. We don't live in a Taliban state!"
Yvette Vela, Doherty's former understudy who presently serves in Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz's office, rallied to her mentor's cause.
"I know my boss would never prosecute this artist of international fame whose intentions have never been anything less than honorable," fumed Vela. "I am outraged. I am a woman. Brad treated his subjects with the utmost respect. There is nothing more magnificent than the human body."
WE MUST MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN
The ability to appreciate black humor and biting satire is a sign of intelligence. Many of the comments that followed on Facebook THE GRINGOS HAVE SPOKEN: IT'S STILL OUR COUNTRY!!! reflect ignorance. In fact, I can imagine these words emanating from the smiling mouths of the gringos gathered below lynched African-Americans.
Approximately 90% of the African-Americans voted against Trump because they perceive him as a racist. He wants to bar Muslims from the country. He calls Mexicans rapists and insists on building the Great Trump Wall between the two nations. He believes women are toys. He mimics individuals with disabilities.
Trump prevailed by appealing to our worst instincts. He found a fanatical following among white blue-collar workers whose ancestors probably strung a black or two from an oak tree. This country was founded on racism and racism is alive and well.
In the wake of Trump's mindboggling victory, David Duke, the face of the KKK, couldn't contain his glee. He joyfully proclaimed:
"It's time to do the right thing. It's time to take America back. Donald Trump has the chance to become one of the greatest Americans to have lived. We have the high moral ground. Our people have played a huge role in electing Donald Trump. Make no mistake about it: Donald Trump owes this victory to the South."
I always find it sadly amusing when fellow Americans want to hang you from the nearest mesquite like the Texas Rangers disposing of Mexicans in days of yore for merely celebrating one's First Amendment rights. When you try to silence others, you are establishing the precedent for silencing yourself.
And a person without his or her voice is nothing more than a mindless human being inhabiting a hollow shell. On the other hand, I do appreciate the angry opinions because they are insights into the herd mentality that put Trump in office.
I am a writer. People have threatened my life because I am a writer. I have been sued on several occasions because I am a writer. BISD trustees tried to fire me because I am a writer. I faced losing my credential twice at TEA because I am a writer. And I am presently litigating a lawsuit against me because I am a writer.
If you are going to rant and rave about my postings because you can't read between the lines, you are obviously not a writer. Ignominiously, you expose yourself as a limited thinker. People who see life in black and white exhibit a stupidity for which there is little remedy. Life is lived in the gray. And when you arrive at my age, life is definitely lived in the gray.
Finally, we should show more graphic photos. Maybe there wouldn't be so many drunk drivers if we saw their dead victims. Maybe there wouldn't be so many wars if we saw the dead soldiers. Maybe we wouldn't be so quick to forget our history and how it still haunts us today if we saw more blacks dangling from branches.
Approximately 90% of the African-Americans voted against Trump because they perceive him as a racist. He wants to bar Muslims from the country. He calls Mexicans rapists and insists on building the Great Trump Wall between the two nations. He believes women are toys. He mimics individuals with disabilities.
Trump prevailed by appealing to our worst instincts. He found a fanatical following among white blue-collar workers whose ancestors probably strung a black or two from an oak tree. This country was founded on racism and racism is alive and well.
In the wake of Trump's mindboggling victory, David Duke, the face of the KKK, couldn't contain his glee. He joyfully proclaimed:
"It's time to do the right thing. It's time to take America back. Donald Trump has the chance to become one of the greatest Americans to have lived. We have the high moral ground. Our people have played a huge role in electing Donald Trump. Make no mistake about it: Donald Trump owes this victory to the South."
I always find it sadly amusing when fellow Americans want to hang you from the nearest mesquite like the Texas Rangers disposing of Mexicans in days of yore for merely celebrating one's First Amendment rights. When you try to silence others, you are establishing the precedent for silencing yourself.
And a person without his or her voice is nothing more than a mindless human being inhabiting a hollow shell. On the other hand, I do appreciate the angry opinions because they are insights into the herd mentality that put Trump in office.
I am a writer. People have threatened my life because I am a writer. I have been sued on several occasions because I am a writer. BISD trustees tried to fire me because I am a writer. I faced losing my credential twice at TEA because I am a writer. And I am presently litigating a lawsuit against me because I am a writer.
If you are going to rant and rave about my postings because you can't read between the lines, you are obviously not a writer. Ignominiously, you expose yourself as a limited thinker. People who see life in black and white exhibit a stupidity for which there is little remedy. Life is lived in the gray. And when you arrive at my age, life is definitely lived in the gray.
Finally, we should show more graphic photos. Maybe there wouldn't be so many drunk drivers if we saw their dead victims. Maybe there wouldn't be so many wars if we saw the dead soldiers. Maybe we wouldn't be so quick to forget our history and how it still haunts us today if we saw more blacks dangling from branches.
ERNIE BANKS
I've been playing catch all my life. Baseball was my first belief. My father taught me my first truths. There are pictures of us pitching the ball back and forth as well as other photos of a proud father behind an adoring son with broad smiles adorning their faces and mitts hanging from their wrists.
I would count the seconds waiting for my father to come home from his eight-to-five job so we could toss the ball in the backyard.
I continued the tradition with my two younger brothers Mark and Matthew. I started a family later in life, but I maintained the ritual. I have four sons: Xavier (18), Guillermo (16), Francisco (8) and Jesus (2). Xavier and Guillermo are from my first marriage, Francisco is my step-son and Jesus is a product of my present marriage.
I haven't played catch with Xavier and Guillermo in several years since their mother and I divorced. I don't think a day passed when we were together that we didn't grab our mitts, a bat and ball.
Francisco is my partner these days. Of my four boys, he'll probably be the one most likely to heed my advice and emerge the best athlete of the quartet. We are compensated for our efforts in strange ways. Then these is Jesus who caught his first football the other night and is kicking the soccer ball with authority.
There is much to be said for Zen and meditation, but when I'm searching for peace and liberation, I'd just as soon play catch with one of my sons and remember my old man.
I would count the seconds waiting for my father to come home from his eight-to-five job so we could toss the ball in the backyard.
I continued the tradition with my two younger brothers Mark and Matthew. I started a family later in life, but I maintained the ritual. I have four sons: Xavier (18), Guillermo (16), Francisco (8) and Jesus (2). Xavier and Guillermo are from my first marriage, Francisco is my step-son and Jesus is a product of my present marriage.
I haven't played catch with Xavier and Guillermo in several years since their mother and I divorced. I don't think a day passed when we were together that we didn't grab our mitts, a bat and ball.
Francisco is my partner these days. Of my four boys, he'll probably be the one most likely to heed my advice and emerge the best athlete of the quartet. We are compensated for our efforts in strange ways. Then these is Jesus who caught his first football the other night and is kicking the soccer ball with authority.
There is much to be said for Zen and meditation, but when I'm searching for peace and liberation, I'd just as soon play catch with one of my sons and remember my old man.
I KNOW NOTHING
We only know that we die.
If those who mourn the departed
with copious tears
console themselves by saying
the deceased have parted
to a better place,
are they really weeping
because they fear loved ones
kept their many mortal sins
locked away in a closet
filled with other secrets
and are going to spend eternity in hell?
I've never understood the sorrow.
Why are they crying
if the dead are residing in a better place?
Or do the living know
in their heart of hearts
that there is nothing
and their father or mother
or husband or wife
or son or daughter
have disappeared forever
and they will never see, touch or hear
that person again?
I hark back to Socrates
who had no fear of death.
"I know nothing."
TRUMP IS A RACIST
I’m trying very hard
to find a silver lining,
some source of comfort
or consolation.
But I cannot.
Maybe I will.
But right now,
the idea that white people
are so possessed with clutching
and cultivating and elevating
white supremacy
that they will endanger
and outright sacrifice
their own fucking lives
to do so
blows my mind.
And if they feel that way
about their own lives,
why would they give
a damn about mine?
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
NOTHING PLUS NOTHING EQUALS SOMETHING
I have noting to write about. It is almost midnight on a Tuesday evening. I just fucked my wife, but she told me not to shoot a wad inside her because she didn't want to shower. I came on her belly. There's something to be said for quality, but I'll take quantity any day.
I've returned to my office and I'm staring at a blank screen that I am slowly filling with nonsense. I arrived in Brownsville after a drunk in Mexico City informed me that there was an opportunity for a bilingual person on the border. I had nothing better to do so I followed his advice. Why didn't he make the same recommendation for Miami or San Diego?
I'm just being difficult. I've enjoyed my life here. It's a singular place with easy-going people who in their heart of hearts don't give a shit. Everyone I know just wants to drink expensive wine, smoke good dope and poke young ass. Between reading a book and stroking a ball during those moments away from alcohol, drugs and pussy, life moves lazily from one experience to the next.
I like forgetful days. That means nothing traumatic or tragic happened. I'm not into the spectacular; I'm into the serene. I don't care for cocaine. I prefer Xanax. I'm at my happiest when I'm mellow yellow.
I have nearly accomplished my task writing about nothing. I'm staring at the screen. Nothing more comes to mind. I've arrived at my destination. It was a short but pleasant journey. Catch you on the return trip.
I've returned to my office and I'm staring at a blank screen that I am slowly filling with nonsense. I arrived in Brownsville after a drunk in Mexico City informed me that there was an opportunity for a bilingual person on the border. I had nothing better to do so I followed his advice. Why didn't he make the same recommendation for Miami or San Diego?
I'm just being difficult. I've enjoyed my life here. It's a singular place with easy-going people who in their heart of hearts don't give a shit. Everyone I know just wants to drink expensive wine, smoke good dope and poke young ass. Between reading a book and stroking a ball during those moments away from alcohol, drugs and pussy, life moves lazily from one experience to the next.
I like forgetful days. That means nothing traumatic or tragic happened. I'm not into the spectacular; I'm into the serene. I don't care for cocaine. I prefer Xanax. I'm at my happiest when I'm mellow yellow.
I have nearly accomplished my task writing about nothing. I'm staring at the screen. Nothing more comes to mind. I've arrived at my destination. It was a short but pleasant journey. Catch you on the return trip.
ELIZONDO'S WIFE LOSES REPUTATION
ANON Y. MOUS: "I have worked at Rivera for the last 13 years and I have never seen it this bad. Carlos Elizondo's wife Cindy shuts her door when she is there and doesn't let anyone in or she is simply not there and the principal, whom I think is just too pliant, doesn't tell her anything which means others can go missing and not be held accountable. People at Rivera don't support Carlos Elizondo. How can Carlos win when he slams Cindy's boss Rose Longoria who is there now? I don't think Longoria will let Cindy get away with her incompetence any longer because it hurts the students. Cindy's mom served at Rivera for many years and never abused her position. Nevertheless, Mary Lou is banking on Carlos and Erasmo winning so her daughter can stay the lazy, inept counselor at Rivera. Our students deserve more. That is the reason Rivera is the laughing stock of the district because we vote for incompetent leadership. The majority of the hard-working teachers and staff who actually work have left Rivera. Cindy likes to bully her way by harassing other counselors and staff. Principal Norma Jean Canales is a complete idiot who has some staff literally doing nothing and making up their own schedules so they don’t use a personal day. Canales needs to be removed and so does Cindy."
(EDITOR'S NOTE: At The McHale Report we have bought our popcorn and joined El Rrun Rrun's Juan Montoya and The Brownsville Republic's /DP-M at ringside. We hope that the combatants don't have AIDS. We are going to be so close to this street brawl that we have no doubts that the candidates for the Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees are going to splatter us with blood. Carlos Elizondo, the fired fire chief and pilloried politician, has already left his wife Cindy covered in gore. It seems his ambition has cost his wife her reputation. Anon Y. Mous, a frequent contributor to Montoya's blog, has moved Carlos to one side so he can place Cindy directly in the middle of the spotlight. Much like Carlos lost the respect of his fellow fire man for his shenanigans at their expense, Mous indicates that the Rivera faculty abhors Cindy because she is both indolent and incompetent and that dispirited Principal Norma Jean (She ain't no Marilyn Monroe!) Canales refuses to crack the whip on her dumpy derriere. The more that Carlos sticks with his smear strategy of depicting the superintendent as stupid and the trustees as corrupt, the more Mous and his colleagues will crucify Cindy. And the mother of three and wife of Mr. Eight Ball will only be one of many sideshows in this orgy of backstabbing and throatcutting in which no quarter will be given. More than a dozen individuals have indicated that they will step through the ropes in their quest for one of the five seats on the BISD board. How many more will decide to join the slugfest by the August 17th slugfest is anyone's guess? Will they contribute to the spread of Coronavirus there will be so many of them when they congregate to pick places on the ballot? And nobody will honor the six-feet social-distancing rule as they endeavor to choke each other to death. For Brownsville's best bloggers, they will have a difficult time characterizing the melee: Will they be watching a form of boxing or wrestling or karate or mixed martial arts? Or will it get so bad that two gangs meeting in a dark alley with guns and knives at their sides will seem like a pillow fight compared to the carnage in this school district donnybrook. Says Montoya: "Chingos de mole!" Says /DP-M: "Puros trancazos, bro!" Says Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully: "I hope it doesn't turn into a catfight in which someone tears off all of Minerva Peña's clothes. I'm not even sure a drunk shrimp who had just returned from 40 days and nights at sea could handle that sight."
(EDITOR'S NOTE: At The McHale Report we have bought our popcorn and joined El Rrun Rrun's Juan Montoya and The Brownsville Republic's /DP-M at ringside. We hope that the combatants don't have AIDS. We are going to be so close to this street brawl that we have no doubts that the candidates for the Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees are going to splatter us with blood. Carlos Elizondo, the fired fire chief and pilloried politician, has already left his wife Cindy covered in gore. It seems his ambition has cost his wife her reputation. Anon Y. Mous, a frequent contributor to Montoya's blog, has moved Carlos to one side so he can place Cindy directly in the middle of the spotlight. Much like Carlos lost the respect of his fellow fire man for his shenanigans at their expense, Mous indicates that the Rivera faculty abhors Cindy because she is both indolent and incompetent and that dispirited Principal Norma Jean (She ain't no Marilyn Monroe!) Canales refuses to crack the whip on her dumpy derriere. The more that Carlos sticks with his smear strategy of depicting the superintendent as stupid and the trustees as corrupt, the more Mous and his colleagues will crucify Cindy. And the mother of three and wife of Mr. Eight Ball will only be one of many sideshows in this orgy of backstabbing and throatcutting in which no quarter will be given. More than a dozen individuals have indicated that they will step through the ropes in their quest for one of the five seats on the BISD board. How many more will decide to join the slugfest by the August 17th slugfest is anyone's guess? Will they contribute to the spread of Coronavirus there will be so many of them when they congregate to pick places on the ballot? And nobody will honor the six-feet social-distancing rule as they endeavor to choke each other to death. For Brownsville's best bloggers, they will have a difficult time characterizing the melee: Will they be watching a form of boxing or wrestling or karate or mixed martial arts? Or will it get so bad that two gangs meeting in a dark alley with guns and knives at their sides will seem like a pillow fight compared to the carnage in this school district donnybrook. Says Montoya: "Chingos de mole!" Says /DP-M: "Puros trancazos, bro!" Says Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully: "I hope it doesn't turn into a catfight in which someone tears off all of Minerva Peña's clothes. I'm not even sure a drunk shrimp who had just returned from 40 days and nights at sea could handle that sight."
BULLSHIT
There is no reason to read any of this shit. These were pieces I started while sitting at my desk during and between classes. These are thoughts that didn't go anywhere. Because I have a need to write and on many occasions an empty sheet of paper combined with an empty mind--like two negatives making a positive--have resulted in an article, a poem or a short story--a work that met my standards and fulfilled by expectations. I am presenting these fragments because I have nothing to better to do. Unless you're ridiculously bored or insanely curious, I wouldn't waste my time with the following passages. It's a late Sunday night and I have nothing better to do but copy these random thoughts that I recorded while doing my best to survive another day in the BISD:
It was never my intention to live. I came into this world a sickly child and I almost exited without knowing myself. I staggered through childhood and early adolescence with no sense of self since no one seemed to have a sense of me. I was neither athletic nor attractive, but for reasons I don't understand to this day, I was never bullied. It was at the dawn of my teenage years that I first noticed the gnawing that eats away at me to this day. There was a blond cheerleader named Diana who introduced me to beauty and started me down a path...
Like Forrest Gump, I am running. I run and run and run, not literally but figuratively. I have to keep going forward because if I stop I start asking myself all these stupid questions these stupid questions to which there are no logical answers. Faith does not sustain me. I must correct myself. I physically do run. In reality, I do more walking than running, but anyone familiar with track understands the concept of intervals knows that...
I sit by the window and watch the rain fall. How many others have partaken of a similar moment and wished that the poetry of the drops pattering on the roof would never stop playing their music. Gripped by melancholy and nostalgia...
As my readers know ad nauseum, there are many times when I'm overwhelmed by the insignificance of my life. And there are times when I look at the night sky, which I don't often enough, and I can't help but
It was never my intention to live. I came into this world a sickly child and I almost exited without knowing myself. I staggered through childhood and early adolescence with no sense of self since no one seemed to have a sense of me. I was neither athletic nor attractive, but for reasons I don't understand to this day, I was never bullied. It was at the dawn of my teenage years that I first noticed the gnawing that eats away at me to this day. There was a blond cheerleader named Diana who introduced me to beauty and started me down a path...
Like Forrest Gump, I am running. I run and run and run, not literally but figuratively. I have to keep going forward because if I stop I start asking myself all these stupid questions these stupid questions to which there are no logical answers. Faith does not sustain me. I must correct myself. I physically do run. In reality, I do more walking than running, but anyone familiar with track understands the concept of intervals knows that...
I sit by the window and watch the rain fall. How many others have partaken of a similar moment and wished that the poetry of the drops pattering on the roof would never stop playing their music. Gripped by melancholy and nostalgia...
As my readers know ad nauseum, there are many times when I'm overwhelmed by the insignificance of my life. And there are times when I look at the night sky, which I don't often enough, and I can't help but
GOOD LUCK, TRUMP
I was going through the archives at The McHale Report when I came across this opinion piece I wrote on December 3, 2016. My opinion of Donald "Dick" Trump wasn't the same as it is today. With Coronavirus reducing our country to our sickest state since the Spanish Flu in 1918, with the economy the worse since the Great Depression, with civil unrest evoking the riots of the late 1960s and with little hope on the horizon with a president impaired by both ignorance and arrogance, he is from my perspective the worst president in the history of the United States and his shamelessness is etched in granite that will be his legacy forever. He is nothing less than a malignant tumor and it's possible four more years this mestastisizing cancer could prove fatal to our country.
When he took office, I wasn't anti-Trump. I thought his New York City upbringing would endow him with a rational approach to government that pulled from both the Democrats and Republicans. I perceived him as a businessman whose social platform would be a live-and-let-live mentality since he was hardly a paragon of virtue himself. I believed he could deliver an even-keel approach to the various challenges that would ineluctably arise. Sadly, he has failed time and time again and he has proved by his actions and decisions that he is incapable of success. He has irrevocably disappointed the person who penned the following article, but it's not like I didn't give him a chance. Pens a Christian soldier before he joined the crusade of toppling Satan from his demonic throne:
When he took office, I wasn't anti-Trump. I thought his New York City upbringing would endow him with a rational approach to government that pulled from both the Democrats and Republicans. I perceived him as a businessman whose social platform would be a live-and-let-live mentality since he was hardly a paragon of virtue himself. I believed he could deliver an even-keel approach to the various challenges that would ineluctably arise. Sadly, he has failed time and time again and he has proved by his actions and decisions that he is incapable of success. He has irrevocably disappointed the person who penned the following article, but it's not like I didn't give him a chance. Pens a Christian soldier before he joined the crusade of toppling Satan from his demonic throne:
The majority of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, Donald Trump won because our politicians have failed us at all three levels: Washington D.C., Austin & Brownsville.
My hope is that Trump is blessed with common sense and seeks practical solutions. If he wants to be successful, he steers clear of the social issues, improves the economy and proceeds cautiously internationally.
We don't want a macho who spews that he is going to make America great again. That's just bullshit. The Jews are allegedly God's chosen people. That distinction has brought them nothing but misery for centuries.
And we don't need an egomaniac who conceives of himself as a hero. We are not a bunch of rats in search of a Pied Piper.
Unlike my fellow Democrats, I am not depressed. The most corrupt Democrats reside in Cameron County and I have no confidence in them.
I have not lost hope with Trump's ascension. I have faith in our system. And I love my fellow Americans. With hope, faith and love still strong in me, I greet the future optimistically. Do I have any other choice?
Come January it will be President Donald Trump. In the name of all my brothers and sisters who put our country first, I wish him luck.
VOTERS BLAST ELIZONDO
Blogger extraordinaire Juan Montoya, the publisher of the award-winning El Rrun Rrun, was the first investigative journalist who outed Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a fraud. At The McHale Report we reprinted Montoya's article. Elizondo subsequently called The McHale Report screaming and shouting that this blog had betrayed him. "But you're a public figure," we countered. We concluded immediately that we were dealing with a thin-skinned public official who couldn't handle criticism.
This perception of Elizondo's volatile character was later confirmed when the hot-headed hombre threatened a McHale Report staff member in the parking lot at Denny's. Only a cool-headed Phil Cowen prevented an incident that could have devolved into a violent confrontation. For Cowen, however, it was an unexpected and rude introduction into Elizondo's vindictive mentality.
Montoya reposted a McHale Report story Monday in which the latter asserted that electing Elizondo to a second term on the BISD Board of Trustees would be worse than electing Donald "Dick" Trump to a second term as president. Montoya's many readers echoed the sentiments articulated in the searing piece.
At The McHale Report we have combined their denunciations into one BIG VOICE that not only drags Elizondo through the mire but splatters his wife's pretty white dress with mud. Unfortunately, Elizondo doesn't care if he embarrasses his family. It's only about his fame that inevitably mutates into infamy. El pueblo unleashes its condemnation unplugged:
Reading Carlos Elizondo's resume, I find he is crooked, corrupt, venal and despicable to the core. That makes him very qualified to sit on the BISD Board. Let's all get behind him and vote for him. He is our kind of guy! Seriously, Elizondo is both a coward and a criminal.
People are glad that Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully gave Elizondo the thumbs down. Only if he had done it several years ago when Elizondo first ran for the school board, things would perhaps be different in the BISD. A better candidate would have won and perhaps brought true leadership to the board. However, it's never too late to see the light and support those who are passionately in a position to support the community.
The real culprit in this sordid campaign is Elizondo's wife who cheated the kids and the district by not showing up to work when Carlos was in office. The principal allowed her to leave whenever she wanted and come back whenever she wanted. Rivera High School counselors are led by Carlos' wife Cindy and she is leading them down the wrong path.
Students at Rivera never have the right schedules and everyone knows there is chaos when placing students in the right classes. There are some young counselors who need the proper guidance because right now they all are the laughing stock of the district. As long as Cindy is there, sadly, the students will suffer.
The principal is to blame also for letting this happen. Rivera can never rise up when its lead counselor is incompetent. You hear Carlos pushing for better pay for counselors and now you know the reason.
Carlos, your wife follows your lead blindly. Because of her elite status in her own mind, most of the Rivera staff hates the special privileges everyone sees she receives. Principal Norma Canales is a nice person who gets run over by Carlos' wife, but at the end of the day she is at fault. Rose Longoria presently controls that cluster. Let's see how much she will allow Cindy to do as she pleases.
Carlos, stay out of politics. Stop listening to Joe Rod and Esperanza Zendejas. They already took millions from our kids as well as you did. You voted and benefited from that monstrosity of an outdated scoreboard you purchased without board approval.
Zendejas was let go because you all forced her to sign off on it instead of bringing it before the board and getting official approval. You cost her her job, pendejo!
Elizondo is also seeking a position on the BISD board because of all the kickbacks the members pocket from contractors. Elizondo doesn't know anything about education, doesn't care about the kids and has no ideas about the issues of the BISD. As a firefighter, he failed the city and proved to be dishonest. Not a good resume for anyone making policy for our children and controlling $500 million of our tax dollars. Can I say this loud enough: "SAY NO TO ELIZONDO!!!"
We are grateful to Dr. McHale-Scully and the rest of the bloggers who recognize that the cynical and diabolical Elizondo was an utter failure as a BISD board trustee. The voters threw him off the roof of the Glass Palace when he sought reelection. He was humiliated, finishing last in his group. Es una rata, este vato imbécil.
Dr. McHale-Scully is a great writer who drinks regularly with the border's finest writers--Juan Montoya and /DP-M. They save our community from being permanently branded the Third World Capital of the United States. Can you imagine if they ran The Brownsville Herald as publisher, managing editor and city editor as well as bringing back "Delta" Dave Handelman as sports editor!!! We would have our own New York Times in Brownsville.
I love Doc. He has created characters that sound realistic. And even at his fictional best, he couldn't have fashioned a villain more evil than Elizondo. El Macho Gabacho is a very handsome man, too. And nobody questions his love for Brownsville.
This perception of Elizondo's volatile character was later confirmed when the hot-headed hombre threatened a McHale Report staff member in the parking lot at Denny's. Only a cool-headed Phil Cowen prevented an incident that could have devolved into a violent confrontation. For Cowen, however, it was an unexpected and rude introduction into Elizondo's vindictive mentality.
Montoya reposted a McHale Report story Monday in which the latter asserted that electing Elizondo to a second term on the BISD Board of Trustees would be worse than electing Donald "Dick" Trump to a second term as president. Montoya's many readers echoed the sentiments articulated in the searing piece.
At The McHale Report we have combined their denunciations into one BIG VOICE that not only drags Elizondo through the mire but splatters his wife's pretty white dress with mud. Unfortunately, Elizondo doesn't care if he embarrasses his family. It's only about his fame that inevitably mutates into infamy. El pueblo unleashes its condemnation unplugged:
Reading Carlos Elizondo's resume, I find he is crooked, corrupt, venal and despicable to the core. That makes him very qualified to sit on the BISD Board. Let's all get behind him and vote for him. He is our kind of guy! Seriously, Elizondo is both a coward and a criminal.
People are glad that Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully gave Elizondo the thumbs down. Only if he had done it several years ago when Elizondo first ran for the school board, things would perhaps be different in the BISD. A better candidate would have won and perhaps brought true leadership to the board. However, it's never too late to see the light and support those who are passionately in a position to support the community.
The real culprit in this sordid campaign is Elizondo's wife who cheated the kids and the district by not showing up to work when Carlos was in office. The principal allowed her to leave whenever she wanted and come back whenever she wanted. Rivera High School counselors are led by Carlos' wife Cindy and she is leading them down the wrong path.
Students at Rivera never have the right schedules and everyone knows there is chaos when placing students in the right classes. There are some young counselors who need the proper guidance because right now they all are the laughing stock of the district. As long as Cindy is there, sadly, the students will suffer.
The principal is to blame also for letting this happen. Rivera can never rise up when its lead counselor is incompetent. You hear Carlos pushing for better pay for counselors and now you know the reason.
Carlos, your wife follows your lead blindly. Because of her elite status in her own mind, most of the Rivera staff hates the special privileges everyone sees she receives. Principal Norma Canales is a nice person who gets run over by Carlos' wife, but at the end of the day she is at fault. Rose Longoria presently controls that cluster. Let's see how much she will allow Cindy to do as she pleases.
Carlos, stay out of politics. Stop listening to Joe Rod and Esperanza Zendejas. They already took millions from our kids as well as you did. You voted and benefited from that monstrosity of an outdated scoreboard you purchased without board approval.
Zendejas was let go because you all forced her to sign off on it instead of bringing it before the board and getting official approval. You cost her her job, pendejo!
Elizondo is also seeking a position on the BISD board because of all the kickbacks the members pocket from contractors. Elizondo doesn't know anything about education, doesn't care about the kids and has no ideas about the issues of the BISD. As a firefighter, he failed the city and proved to be dishonest. Not a good resume for anyone making policy for our children and controlling $500 million of our tax dollars. Can I say this loud enough: "SAY NO TO ELIZONDO!!!"
We are grateful to Dr. McHale-Scully and the rest of the bloggers who recognize that the cynical and diabolical Elizondo was an utter failure as a BISD board trustee. The voters threw him off the roof of the Glass Palace when he sought reelection. He was humiliated, finishing last in his group. Es una rata, este vato imbécil.
Dr. McHale-Scully is a great writer who drinks regularly with the border's finest writers--Juan Montoya and /DP-M. They save our community from being permanently branded the Third World Capital of the United States. Can you imagine if they ran The Brownsville Herald as publisher, managing editor and city editor as well as bringing back "Delta" Dave Handelman as sports editor!!! We would have our own New York Times in Brownsville.
I love Doc. He has created characters that sound realistic. And even at his fictional best, he couldn't have fashioned a villain more evil than Elizondo. El Macho Gabacho is a very handsome man, too. And nobody questions his love for Brownsville.
Monday, July 27, 2020
TRUMP/ELIZONDO
If you love Donald "Dick" Trump as president, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you love Donald "Dick" Trump who puts his personal ambitions before anything else, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you love Donald "Dick" Trump because he places his family's interests ahead of the public's interests, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you believe Donald "Dick" Trump deserves a hundredth chance in the wake of failure after failure, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you believe that Donald "Dick" Trump is the victim of deep-state controversies, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you think that Donald "El Cobarde" Trump has the right to profit from the presidency, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you applaud Donald "Dick" Trump's bullying tactics, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you relate to Donald "Dick" Trump's arrogant attitude, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you support the way Donald "Dick" Trump treats people like shit, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" as a BISD trustee.
If you like the way Donald "Dick" Trump surrounds himself with sycophants, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you like the way Donald "Dick" Trump fires individuals, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you appreciate Donald "Dick" Trump's lying and cheating in order to achieve his nefarious ends, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you like Donald "Dick" Trump because he has no respect for his predecessors, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you savor Donald "Dick" Trump maliciously backstabbing his critics, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you extol Donald "Dick" Trump as he destroys our country, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you find it inexplicable that anyone in his right mind could endorse Donald "Dick" Trump for president, Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo is irrefutable evidence that an ignorant electorate will vote for an imbecile if the empty-headed candidate parrots that the sky is falling during desperate times.
Those who love the BISD would never choose anyone as hateful as Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo. He will take the BISD in the opposite direction that an intelligent person would choose as the proper path toward progress.
If you love Donald "Dick" Trump who puts his personal ambitions before anything else, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you love Donald "Dick" Trump because he places his family's interests ahead of the public's interests, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you believe Donald "Dick" Trump deserves a hundredth chance in the wake of failure after failure, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you believe that Donald "Dick" Trump is the victim of deep-state controversies, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you think that Donald "El Cobarde" Trump has the right to profit from the presidency, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you applaud Donald "Dick" Trump's bullying tactics, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you relate to Donald "Dick" Trump's arrogant attitude, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo as a BISD trustee.
If you support the way Donald "Dick" Trump treats people like shit, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" as a BISD trustee.
If you like the way Donald "Dick" Trump surrounds himself with sycophants, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you like the way Donald "Dick" Trump fires individuals, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you appreciate Donald "Dick" Trump's lying and cheating in order to achieve his nefarious ends, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you like Donald "Dick" Trump because he has no respect for his predecessors, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you savor Donald "Dick" Trump maliciously backstabbing his critics, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you extol Donald "Dick" Trump as he destroys our country, you will love Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo.
If you find it inexplicable that anyone in his right mind could endorse Donald "Dick" Trump for president, Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo is irrefutable evidence that an ignorant electorate will vote for an imbecile if the empty-headed candidate parrots that the sky is falling during desperate times.
Those who love the BISD would never choose anyone as hateful as Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo. He will take the BISD in the opposite direction that an intelligent person would choose as the proper path toward progress.
CARLOS ELIZONDO
Humiliated after being fired as Brownsville's fire chief for allegedly backstabbing his own colleagues and reportedly sticking his hand into the department's cookie job for political purposes, humbled after being thrown out of office by the voters disgusted by the many felony charges against him and hammered as a coward after tape-recording a fellow politician in order to blackmail him, Carlos "El Cobarde" Elizondo wants to return the Brownsville Independent School District to the good ol' compadre days when he sat on the board and brought nothing but dishonor to his office.
"His roots are in Matamoros," says Maclovio O'Malley, la Voz de los Vatos. "He is a thug. He is a bully. He threatens his critics. Does he have no shame? He is too blinded by ambition to see the evil of his ways. Does he think that by winning an election he can secure redemption for his sinful past? If we ever wanted evidence the reason Brownsville never progresses, nobody epitomizes our regressive mentality more aptly than Elizondo. He abused his power as a board member and now he wants to wreck his revenge with his candidacy. The bald-headed failure thinks he is el mero mero cue ball when he has all the credibility of an eight ball."
Elizondo, who finished last in his group when he ran for reelection, will face Eddie Garcia, once one of Brownsville's finest and the brother of newly elected state district judge Gabby Garcia, for Place VII, the seat held tenuously by Dr. Sylvia Atkinson.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The South Texas Independent Journalists Association (STIJA) held a poll in which the public voted on whom was more corrupt in their opinion between Elizondo and Atkinson. "Elizondo won hands down, 69% to 31%," said Anthony Starr, the STIJA's longtime president. "We often elect the lesser of two evils, but in this case Elizondo is easily the greater of two evils.")
Unlike Elizondo who believes that intimidating his detractors will further his self-interests beginning with promoting his family's fortunes in the district, Garcia is a consummate gentleman who learned the art of listening while Elizondo was shouting at the top of his voice to push his selfish agenda.
Running on the platform that the superintendent is stupid and that the board is corrupt, Elizondo, who doesn't think twice about the pot calling the kettle black, insists that the present board should pass a no-confidence vote regarding Superintendent Rene Gutierrez.
For the vengeful and hateful Elizondo, his return to politics is not about exacting a pound of flesh. It's about exacting a ton of flesh. No matter the number of times he is proved wrong, he will howl in your face with bad breath that could kill a cockroach that he is always right.
Like the perverted president, Elizondo was on Erasmo Castro and Frankie Olivo's Brownsville Calls pushing a lie because nobody doubts that his number one priority is firing the superintendent should a sufficient plurality of ignorant voters support him. He stated that Gutierrez was earning approximately $2,000 a day. If that were true, the superintendent would be banking $730,000 annually. This is almost twice the superintendent's salary.
"He doesn't care about us," ranted Elizondo in the Sunday night podcast. "He doesn't care if people die."
Elizondo knows that he can't prevail on his own. He is actively lobbying for Castro and Olivo to join him on a slate. Nothing could be more counter-productive for the pair. They need to out Elizondo and denounce him as a fraud recklessly bent on plunging the BISD into chaos. His record speaks for itself. He has deceived this community time and time again in order to attain power at any cost. The only outcome worse than reelecting Trump would be electing Elizondo to the school board.
We're sure much-loved City Commissioner "Judge" Ben Neece would agree with this characterization of Brownsville's most infamous black cat: Carlos Elizondo is a disgrace to the human race!!!
"His roots are in Matamoros," says Maclovio O'Malley, la Voz de los Vatos. "He is a thug. He is a bully. He threatens his critics. Does he have no shame? He is too blinded by ambition to see the evil of his ways. Does he think that by winning an election he can secure redemption for his sinful past? If we ever wanted evidence the reason Brownsville never progresses, nobody epitomizes our regressive mentality more aptly than Elizondo. He abused his power as a board member and now he wants to wreck his revenge with his candidacy. The bald-headed failure thinks he is el mero mero cue ball when he has all the credibility of an eight ball."
Elizondo, who finished last in his group when he ran for reelection, will face Eddie Garcia, once one of Brownsville's finest and the brother of newly elected state district judge Gabby Garcia, for Place VII, the seat held tenuously by Dr. Sylvia Atkinson.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The South Texas Independent Journalists Association (STIJA) held a poll in which the public voted on whom was more corrupt in their opinion between Elizondo and Atkinson. "Elizondo won hands down, 69% to 31%," said Anthony Starr, the STIJA's longtime president. "We often elect the lesser of two evils, but in this case Elizondo is easily the greater of two evils.")
Unlike Elizondo who believes that intimidating his detractors will further his self-interests beginning with promoting his family's fortunes in the district, Garcia is a consummate gentleman who learned the art of listening while Elizondo was shouting at the top of his voice to push his selfish agenda.
Running on the platform that the superintendent is stupid and that the board is corrupt, Elizondo, who doesn't think twice about the pot calling the kettle black, insists that the present board should pass a no-confidence vote regarding Superintendent Rene Gutierrez.
For the vengeful and hateful Elizondo, his return to politics is not about exacting a pound of flesh. It's about exacting a ton of flesh. No matter the number of times he is proved wrong, he will howl in your face with bad breath that could kill a cockroach that he is always right.
Like the perverted president, Elizondo was on Erasmo Castro and Frankie Olivo's Brownsville Calls pushing a lie because nobody doubts that his number one priority is firing the superintendent should a sufficient plurality of ignorant voters support him. He stated that Gutierrez was earning approximately $2,000 a day. If that were true, the superintendent would be banking $730,000 annually. This is almost twice the superintendent's salary.
"He doesn't care about us," ranted Elizondo in the Sunday night podcast. "He doesn't care if people die."
Elizondo knows that he can't prevail on his own. He is actively lobbying for Castro and Olivo to join him on a slate. Nothing could be more counter-productive for the pair. They need to out Elizondo and denounce him as a fraud recklessly bent on plunging the BISD into chaos. His record speaks for itself. He has deceived this community time and time again in order to attain power at any cost. The only outcome worse than reelecting Trump would be electing Elizondo to the school board.
We're sure much-loved City Commissioner "Judge" Ben Neece would agree with this characterization of Brownsville's most infamous black cat: Carlos Elizondo is a disgrace to the human race!!!
Sunday, July 26, 2020
SCHOOL MUST SUSPEND CLASSES FOR A YEAR
Our perverted president and his reactionary Republicans who are fearing for their political futures want to reopen schools. They hope to impress the public that everything is normal. If an enemy were bombing our cities, would our leaders attempt to convince us that we should go about with our daily business as if everything were normal?
Of course not! COVID-19 subjects the country to a daily bombardment that presently claims a thousand lives each day and many thousands more their health. Normalcy is impossible until millions in the U.S. and billions in the world are vaccinated.
The BISD faces historically its greatest challenge. What is the solution? First, the superintendent and the board must accept that trying to impose the semblance of normalcy is a formula for disaster. We live in a volatile situation in which predicting the future is beyond our powers.
We must reduce our operations that limit to the best of our capacities the deleterious effects from personal contact. The superintendent and the trustees are making life-and-death decisions. This reality isn't a hoax. This reality isn't fake news. This reality isn't bullshit. This reality defies a Trump lie.
Despite Trump's unwillingness to present one to the nation, Brownsville residents are demanding a plan from the district. There is no strategy that won't bring outrage from many quarters, but the BISD must plot a course that will allow the community to survive the year with the hope that a vaccine will rescue us from further perdition.
This is the plan: The BISD commits to distance learning for the year and eliminates all extracurricular activities. This will diminish social contact which is the prime source for the COVID-19 spread. Anyone who sympathizers with Trump's "science" that our youth aren't capable of spreading the disease are inhabiting a fantasy world. We have no alternative but to isolate as best we can indefinitely.
I hate the thought of suspending extracurricular activities for a year. My youngest son had a fabulous freshman football season at Veterans Memorial and was looking forward to starting as a receiver this year for the varsity team.
There is nothing more important in his life than playing football. There is nothing more enjoyable in my life than watching him play football, but with the district taxed to the max meeting our children's academic needs, extracurricular events will break a system that can only bend so much. By freeing the BISD of this burden, the district will narrow its focus and have more money to buy laptops and the other necessities essential for teaching and learning.
Everyone is going to be inconvenienced. Therefore, everyone is going to have to adapt. For those recalcitrant individuals who don't want to compromise, perhaps the district should provide them with a video depicting the controlled chaos at our local hospitals and patients choking to death as they gasp for their last breaths.
"It is not my job to teach my child," complained a mother.
"But it is your job to keep your child safe," countered a BISD educator.
In conclusion, the district must build a strategy around distance learning while ceasing extracurricular activities. This will prevent the COVID-19 spread. This has to be our number one priority or we will never know normalcy again. In order to achieve this goal, we must make the sacrifices. As a spoiled people, we aren't used to making sacrifices. Either we learn now or we will pay a mortal price.
Without our health, life is not worth living. Without our health, we may not have a life to live.
Of course not! COVID-19 subjects the country to a daily bombardment that presently claims a thousand lives each day and many thousands more their health. Normalcy is impossible until millions in the U.S. and billions in the world are vaccinated.
The BISD faces historically its greatest challenge. What is the solution? First, the superintendent and the board must accept that trying to impose the semblance of normalcy is a formula for disaster. We live in a volatile situation in which predicting the future is beyond our powers.
We must reduce our operations that limit to the best of our capacities the deleterious effects from personal contact. The superintendent and the trustees are making life-and-death decisions. This reality isn't a hoax. This reality isn't fake news. This reality isn't bullshit. This reality defies a Trump lie.
Despite Trump's unwillingness to present one to the nation, Brownsville residents are demanding a plan from the district. There is no strategy that won't bring outrage from many quarters, but the BISD must plot a course that will allow the community to survive the year with the hope that a vaccine will rescue us from further perdition.
This is the plan: The BISD commits to distance learning for the year and eliminates all extracurricular activities. This will diminish social contact which is the prime source for the COVID-19 spread. Anyone who sympathizers with Trump's "science" that our youth aren't capable of spreading the disease are inhabiting a fantasy world. We have no alternative but to isolate as best we can indefinitely.
I hate the thought of suspending extracurricular activities for a year. My youngest son had a fabulous freshman football season at Veterans Memorial and was looking forward to starting as a receiver this year for the varsity team.
There is nothing more important in his life than playing football. There is nothing more enjoyable in my life than watching him play football, but with the district taxed to the max meeting our children's academic needs, extracurricular events will break a system that can only bend so much. By freeing the BISD of this burden, the district will narrow its focus and have more money to buy laptops and the other necessities essential for teaching and learning.
Everyone is going to be inconvenienced. Therefore, everyone is going to have to adapt. For those recalcitrant individuals who don't want to compromise, perhaps the district should provide them with a video depicting the controlled chaos at our local hospitals and patients choking to death as they gasp for their last breaths.
"It is not my job to teach my child," complained a mother.
"But it is your job to keep your child safe," countered a BISD educator.
In conclusion, the district must build a strategy around distance learning while ceasing extracurricular activities. This will prevent the COVID-19 spread. This has to be our number one priority or we will never know normalcy again. In order to achieve this goal, we must make the sacrifices. As a spoiled people, we aren't used to making sacrifices. Either we learn now or we will pay a mortal price.
Without our health, life is not worth living. Without our health, we may not have a life to live.
DYING DAILY FAILS PUBLIC
Is the dying daily, known ignominiously as The Brownsville Herald, on a ventilator as COVID-19 reduces the paper to a few breathless articles while the plague decimates the community? Why aren't the reporters doing their jobs and printing the facts.
Why is the newspaper allowing Cameron County Judge Eddie "Panocha" Treviño to report false numbers day after day?
Why is the newspaper allowing Dr. Jaime Castillo, the county's health director, whine like a little bitch that the challenge is too overwhelming for him and accept his pusillanimous palaver as an acceptable excuse?
Why is the newspaper allowing City Hall to keep the citizenry in the dark by not reporting its own numbers when the Mayor and city commission are observing firsthand that the county is failing us miserably?
Why isn't the newspaper sending reporters to Valley Regional Medical Center and Valley Baptist Medical Center and detailing the sordid conditions at both hospitals that are adding rather than subtracting from the death total because the understaffed facilities are deluged by a tsunami of patients? Hurricane Hanna may have hit us yesterday, but Hurricane Coronavirus hit our hospitals weeks ago and no amount of sandbags is stopping the flood of cadavers.
Why isn't the newspaper sending reporters into Matamoros to ascertain the pandemic's widespread infections to further educate its readers on the extent and dangerousness of the lethal virus?
We're tired of the numbers. An unmasked President Trump reports more than 145,000 dead and more than four million cases and it's a meaningless number to him other than that the figures, not the deaths, are threatening his reelection.
We're tired of the numbers. Governor Abbott, who refuses to stand on his own two feet because the perverted president has put the fear of Satan in him, laments that almost 5,000 Texans are dead and approximately 500,000 have tested positive. He thinks mouthing his empty condolences are a sufficient response when he should be issuing common sense mandates to thwart the plague's spread.
In Brownsville we're coming face-to-face with the numbers. They are meaningless. The people we knew who are now dead were never numbers in our lives. They were family. They were friends. They were individuals whom we hugged and kissed. And though the president, the governor, county judge, the mayor and the Herald feel they escape responsibility by printing false deaths stats, we are left to cry, to suffer and to fear for our own well-being and that of our fellow humans.
We know the president has failed us by refusing to lead by example after his incompetency set us up for the kill. We know the governor has failed us by permitting Trump to intimidate him into reopening too early. But they are easy scapegoats.
Our county judge has failed us. Our mayor has failed us. And the dying daily has maintained its negligent tradition by failing us yet again with its usual dismissal of accountability and transparency because it fears angering its most important advertisers.
Brownsville is the Third World Capital of the United States because those in power have always treated us like fools. By keeping us ignorant, they have cost us millions and millions of our taxpayer dollars.
Now they are costing us our lives.
Why is the newspaper allowing Cameron County Judge Eddie "Panocha" Treviño to report false numbers day after day?
Why is the newspaper allowing Dr. Jaime Castillo, the county's health director, whine like a little bitch that the challenge is too overwhelming for him and accept his pusillanimous palaver as an acceptable excuse?
Why is the newspaper allowing City Hall to keep the citizenry in the dark by not reporting its own numbers when the Mayor and city commission are observing firsthand that the county is failing us miserably?
Why isn't the newspaper sending reporters to Valley Regional Medical Center and Valley Baptist Medical Center and detailing the sordid conditions at both hospitals that are adding rather than subtracting from the death total because the understaffed facilities are deluged by a tsunami of patients? Hurricane Hanna may have hit us yesterday, but Hurricane Coronavirus hit our hospitals weeks ago and no amount of sandbags is stopping the flood of cadavers.
Why isn't the newspaper sending reporters into Matamoros to ascertain the pandemic's widespread infections to further educate its readers on the extent and dangerousness of the lethal virus?
We're tired of the numbers. An unmasked President Trump reports more than 145,000 dead and more than four million cases and it's a meaningless number to him other than that the figures, not the deaths, are threatening his reelection.
We're tired of the numbers. Governor Abbott, who refuses to stand on his own two feet because the perverted president has put the fear of Satan in him, laments that almost 5,000 Texans are dead and approximately 500,000 have tested positive. He thinks mouthing his empty condolences are a sufficient response when he should be issuing common sense mandates to thwart the plague's spread.
In Brownsville we're coming face-to-face with the numbers. They are meaningless. The people we knew who are now dead were never numbers in our lives. They were family. They were friends. They were individuals whom we hugged and kissed. And though the president, the governor, county judge, the mayor and the Herald feel they escape responsibility by printing false deaths stats, we are left to cry, to suffer and to fear for our own well-being and that of our fellow humans.
We know the president has failed us by refusing to lead by example after his incompetency set us up for the kill. We know the governor has failed us by permitting Trump to intimidate him into reopening too early. But they are easy scapegoats.
Our county judge has failed us. Our mayor has failed us. And the dying daily has maintained its negligent tradition by failing us yet again with its usual dismissal of accountability and transparency because it fears angering its most important advertisers.
Brownsville is the Third World Capital of the United States because those in power have always treated us like fools. By keeping us ignorant, they have cost us millions and millions of our taxpayer dollars.
Now they are costing us our lives.
Saturday, July 25, 2020
NAZIS HAIL TRUMP
"Heil, Donald Trump," says Adolf Hitler. "You're a great Nazi."
"Heil, Hitler," answers Trump, his right arm stretched forward like an engorged penis.
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Eva Braun. "I'd love to fuck you."
"You're a great Nazi," answers Trump. "But your barely a five and I'm used to tens. Sorry, bitch."
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Heinrich Himmler. "We must establish a secret police and suspend habeus corpus like Lincoln during the Civil War in order to protect our people from their many enemies."
"You're a great Nazi," says Trump. "We must eliminate the terrorists and the dissidents with a Final Solution. And we must seal off our borders before our blood is sullied by inferior races."
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Joseph Goebbels. "We must think for the masses because they are incapable of thinking for themselves. We're depending on you to establish the Fourth Reich."
"You're a great Nazi," answers Trump. "Sean Hannity is leading Fox Television and together we have joined the Republican putsch. We are going to save our country from anyone who isn't white or who isn't Christian."
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Joseph Stalin. "But you could have been an even greater Communist."
"You could have been a great Nazi, Joseph," says Trump, "but you killed too many white people. We're sending the blacks back, we're burying the browns six-feet underground, we want the reds dead and I guess we can make jello out of the yellow."
While many pundits are worried that Trump may create an international furor if he moves the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, they are surprisingly silent on Trump's desire by executive order to change Washington D.C.'s name to Berlin.
"We are going to have such a great wall along the Mexican-United States border and for such an economic bargain that there will be enough material remaining to build a wall in New Berlin to separate the white from the black neighborhoods," tweets Trump.
"And this wall is going to be so high that even those blacks who brag about being great jumpers won't be able to leap over it. I mean it's going to be really huge. And really beautiful too."
"Heil, Hitler," answers Trump, his right arm stretched forward like an engorged penis.
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Eva Braun. "I'd love to fuck you."
"You're a great Nazi," answers Trump. "But your barely a five and I'm used to tens. Sorry, bitch."
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Heinrich Himmler. "We must establish a secret police and suspend habeus corpus like Lincoln during the Civil War in order to protect our people from their many enemies."
"You're a great Nazi," says Trump. "We must eliminate the terrorists and the dissidents with a Final Solution. And we must seal off our borders before our blood is sullied by inferior races."
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Joseph Goebbels. "We must think for the masses because they are incapable of thinking for themselves. We're depending on you to establish the Fourth Reich."
"You're a great Nazi," answers Trump. "Sean Hannity is leading Fox Television and together we have joined the Republican putsch. We are going to save our country from anyone who isn't white or who isn't Christian."
"You're a great Nazi, Donald Trump," says Joseph Stalin. "But you could have been an even greater Communist."
"You could have been a great Nazi, Joseph," says Trump, "but you killed too many white people. We're sending the blacks back, we're burying the browns six-feet underground, we want the reds dead and I guess we can make jello out of the yellow."
While many pundits are worried that Trump may create an international furor if he moves the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, they are surprisingly silent on Trump's desire by executive order to change Washington D.C.'s name to Berlin.
"We are going to have such a great wall along the Mexican-United States border and for such an economic bargain that there will be enough material remaining to build a wall in New Berlin to separate the white from the black neighborhoods," tweets Trump.
"And this wall is going to be so high that even those blacks who brag about being great jumpers won't be able to leap over it. I mean it's going to be really huge. And really beautiful too."
Friday, July 24, 2020
145,000 DEAD
The cell rang.
"What's up, bro?"
Same ol' shit, cabrón, only worse. I was watching CNN and the host reported that Starr County had 1700 cases in one day and critical patients were being sent home to die because there are no more hospital beds. Hidalgo County has been averaging 30 deaths a day the last week. As to Cameron County, we are living in the dark because the county judge and the health director are incompetent and can't keep simple stats.
"Are you staying home?"
I go to HEB. Other than grocery runs, I remain at home with the family, but there are chinks in the armor. My step-son attends a trade school two or three times a week with other young adults in the same classroom and my 15-year-old son visits his girlfriend once a week. I'm fighting with him right now because it has been a week since he has seen her and he's having a temper tantrum. He refuses to accept the threat he poses to the family. I understand the urge that controls him, but he needs to put more stock in the life urge. I try to convince him that we have this terrible problem because we don't adhere to wearing face masks and social distance, but his stubbornness forces me to come face to face with ignorance.
"Is your wife apprehensive about teaching this year?"
What do you think? Trump and his hordes of haters want to restart school to give this appearance of normalcy. He knows that as long as chaos and terror exist, he has no chance in November. He has no second thoughts about throwing the dice because he has nothing to lose. His only hope is that he gets lucky and the pandemic temporarily runs its course, but as long as there is no vaccine, we remain at risk indefinitely. On the other hand, if he rolls snake eyes, he will precipitate a renewed outbreak of death and sickness that will reduce his fortunes to a few electoral votes in a couple of racist Southern states. Kids are walking germs. They have germs that kill germs. They want to kiss you. They want to hug you. They want to touch you. And within your space, they are coughing and sneezing. They have colds, flu, sore throats, ear aches and any other number of afflictions. I remember when I taught, I would get sick at the beginning of the school year as well as many other teachers and students. We weren't used to being in clusters of people after summer vacation. Then the influenza season would hit and the schools were breeding grounds for viral and bacteria infections. Trump is operating on a pipe dream that if I were throwing the dice, I would wager on a nightmare.
"What's the solution?"
We have to hunker down and limit our interactions with other. We must accept that we may have to live in this manner, and I know you might find this hard to believe, in one form or another for the rest of our lives. For old farts like ourselves wearing masks and maintaining our distance from others will become the rule rather than the exception. That's if we'd rather die later than sooner.
"Did you have your fun?"
I had my fun, but I feel sorry for the younger generation. They can't party with others without fearing for your lives.
"Remember during the AIDS epidemic when fucking filled us with the fear of dying."
Of course.
"Did that reality stop us?"
No.
"COVID-19 won't top them either. We have too many cravings. When it comes to appeasing them, we become stupid and worry about the repercussions resulting from our behavior afterwards. When it comes to the moment, our lusts reign."
We passed 145,000 deaths and four million cases today. What will be the final numbers?
"As long as Trump sits in the Oval Office, the sky is the limit."
Chingao!
"What's up, bro?"
Same ol' shit, cabrón, only worse. I was watching CNN and the host reported that Starr County had 1700 cases in one day and critical patients were being sent home to die because there are no more hospital beds. Hidalgo County has been averaging 30 deaths a day the last week. As to Cameron County, we are living in the dark because the county judge and the health director are incompetent and can't keep simple stats.
"Are you staying home?"
I go to HEB. Other than grocery runs, I remain at home with the family, but there are chinks in the armor. My step-son attends a trade school two or three times a week with other young adults in the same classroom and my 15-year-old son visits his girlfriend once a week. I'm fighting with him right now because it has been a week since he has seen her and he's having a temper tantrum. He refuses to accept the threat he poses to the family. I understand the urge that controls him, but he needs to put more stock in the life urge. I try to convince him that we have this terrible problem because we don't adhere to wearing face masks and social distance, but his stubbornness forces me to come face to face with ignorance.
"Is your wife apprehensive about teaching this year?"
What do you think? Trump and his hordes of haters want to restart school to give this appearance of normalcy. He knows that as long as chaos and terror exist, he has no chance in November. He has no second thoughts about throwing the dice because he has nothing to lose. His only hope is that he gets lucky and the pandemic temporarily runs its course, but as long as there is no vaccine, we remain at risk indefinitely. On the other hand, if he rolls snake eyes, he will precipitate a renewed outbreak of death and sickness that will reduce his fortunes to a few electoral votes in a couple of racist Southern states. Kids are walking germs. They have germs that kill germs. They want to kiss you. They want to hug you. They want to touch you. And within your space, they are coughing and sneezing. They have colds, flu, sore throats, ear aches and any other number of afflictions. I remember when I taught, I would get sick at the beginning of the school year as well as many other teachers and students. We weren't used to being in clusters of people after summer vacation. Then the influenza season would hit and the schools were breeding grounds for viral and bacteria infections. Trump is operating on a pipe dream that if I were throwing the dice, I would wager on a nightmare.
"What's the solution?"
We have to hunker down and limit our interactions with other. We must accept that we may have to live in this manner, and I know you might find this hard to believe, in one form or another for the rest of our lives. For old farts like ourselves wearing masks and maintaining our distance from others will become the rule rather than the exception. That's if we'd rather die later than sooner.
"Did you have your fun?"
I had my fun, but I feel sorry for the younger generation. They can't party with others without fearing for your lives.
"Remember during the AIDS epidemic when fucking filled us with the fear of dying."
Of course.
"Did that reality stop us?"
No.
"COVID-19 won't top them either. We have too many cravings. When it comes to appeasing them, we become stupid and worry about the repercussions resulting from our behavior afterwards. When it comes to the moment, our lusts reign."
We passed 145,000 deaths and four million cases today. What will be the final numbers?
"As long as Trump sits in the Oval Office, the sky is the limit."
Chingao!
CHARLES MANSON
I read about Cameron County Judge Eddie "Panocha" Treviño and he excites my killer instincts. The man will do anything to advance his interests. In order to be a killer, you have to have the same mindset. I also like the fact that he has female followers who faint in his presence. They remind me of my girls. They are as crazy as him just as my bitches were as crazy as me.
When I read about the bloody mess he is leaving Brownsville and the region during his savage spree as county judge, I can't help but recall those two nights when we stabbed those people to death. I wish Eddie and his gals had been members of my gang. We could have killed dozens more. We could have swum in gore.
I relate to Eddie. Why? We're both monsters. In the fantasy worlds we inhabit, we rationalize any behavior, no matter how bizarre, as acceptable. When I'm lying on my cloud in heaven and speculating about Eddie's latest outrageous lie that leads to scores of deaths, I feel I'm in the company of a fellow madman. I ejaculate imagining the destruction we could have cause together.
Eddie is working his maniacal magic on Dr. Jaime Castillo and Dr. Eder Hernandez. If he convinces Brownsville and Cameron County's most prominent medical figures in regards to COVID-19 to help him paint the streets red with the blood of their fellow citizens, I will cut my hair to honor an individual crazier than me.
You can count on Eddie to do the most terrible things. He's blessed. He doesn't suffer from a guilty conscience. As he says to one of his groupies, "It's all about the money, honey."
When I read about the bloody mess he is leaving Brownsville and the region during his savage spree as county judge, I can't help but recall those two nights when we stabbed those people to death. I wish Eddie and his gals had been members of my gang. We could have killed dozens more. We could have swum in gore.
I relate to Eddie. Why? We're both monsters. In the fantasy worlds we inhabit, we rationalize any behavior, no matter how bizarre, as acceptable. When I'm lying on my cloud in heaven and speculating about Eddie's latest outrageous lie that leads to scores of deaths, I feel I'm in the company of a fellow madman. I ejaculate imagining the destruction we could have cause together.
Eddie is working his maniacal magic on Dr. Jaime Castillo and Dr. Eder Hernandez. If he convinces Brownsville and Cameron County's most prominent medical figures in regards to COVID-19 to help him paint the streets red with the blood of their fellow citizens, I will cut my hair to honor an individual crazier than me.
You can count on Eddie to do the most terrible things. He's blessed. He doesn't suffer from a guilty conscience. As he says to one of his groupies, "It's all about the money, honey."
GETTING OLD
You're feeling old and one day you notice in the mirror that you are old. We're such fools as we near our seventh decade. Nobody is taking a second look except those more desperate than ourselves. And where has it gone? And it's almost over. Is there any hope?
A grain of sand, a blade of grass, a wisp of air have as much significance as we do. When we die, it will be like we never existed. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by my insignificance, but it's only my ego bellyaching.
I could have everything--whatever everything might be--and I still wouldn't be content. If fact, I do have everything, yet every hour seems filled with dissatisfaction.
I have sought refuge in the simple things. I read and I write. I haven't surrendered physically. I ride my bike, play tennis, hit the weights and do pushups. But there's something missing. But I suppose there will always be something missing.
A grain of sand, a blade of grass, a wisp of air have as much significance as we do. When we die, it will be like we never existed. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by my insignificance, but it's only my ego bellyaching.
I could have everything--whatever everything might be--and I still wouldn't be content. If fact, I do have everything, yet every hour seems filled with dissatisfaction.
I have sought refuge in the simple things. I read and I write. I haven't surrendered physically. I ride my bike, play tennis, hit the weights and do pushups. But there's something missing. But I suppose there will always be something missing.
ODE TO SUICIDE
Surfing the net in an attempt to master the French song
Le Temps d'Amour by Francoise Hardy,
I come across the chanteuse Dalida.
I listen to her rendition of La Mer.
I investigate her life.
For more than 30 years she ruled the French
with her voice and compositions
until she committed suicide at the apogee of her powers.
She wrote: "Life is insufferable. I'm sorry."
She ingested sufficient tranquilizers to embark
on that voyage of no-return a la Marilyn Monroe.
It would be simple and inexpensive with Xanax.
I would hike back into the wilderness
until I found an isolated spot
that only the bears and other wild animals would know.
I would lay out a picnic,
the more food the better to attract hungry beasts.
I would drain a bottle of red, strip to my natural state and overdose.
The animals, assisted by nature, would dispose of my remains.
Nobody would know my destination.
I'd find a place in the Sierras or Rockies.
I would tell everyone that I was going to Hawaii for two weeks.
I would also inform them that I was turning off my cell phone.
I would make arrangements to have letters
sent to my family and friends informing them of my real intention
but never telling them my destination.
I would be like the scurrilous writer Ambrose Bierce
who disappeared into Mexico during the Revolution
without leaving a trace of himself.
He wasn't interested in a final ceremony.
He wanted to die
without the inconveniences
that death engenders.
Le Temps d'Amour by Francoise Hardy,
I come across the chanteuse Dalida.
I listen to her rendition of La Mer.
I investigate her life.
For more than 30 years she ruled the French
with her voice and compositions
until she committed suicide at the apogee of her powers.
She wrote: "Life is insufferable. I'm sorry."
She ingested sufficient tranquilizers to embark
on that voyage of no-return a la Marilyn Monroe.
It would be simple and inexpensive with Xanax.
I would hike back into the wilderness
until I found an isolated spot
that only the bears and other wild animals would know.
I would lay out a picnic,
the more food the better to attract hungry beasts.
I would drain a bottle of red, strip to my natural state and overdose.
The animals, assisted by nature, would dispose of my remains.
Nobody would know my destination.
I'd find a place in the Sierras or Rockies.
I would tell everyone that I was going to Hawaii for two weeks.
I would also inform them that I was turning off my cell phone.
I would make arrangements to have letters
sent to my family and friends informing them of my real intention
but never telling them my destination.
I would be like the scurrilous writer Ambrose Bierce
who disappeared into Mexico during the Revolution
without leaving a trace of himself.
He wasn't interested in a final ceremony.
He wanted to die
without the inconveniences
that death engenders.
WEALTH VS. HEALTH
BOB PINKERTON: "Oh gosh, Jerry, you're so sharp. You write a report. That is supposed to be at least a form of journalism. As usual, you put your own statement and make it look like mine because you follow your own statement with my comments. Not very professional although you seem to think you are god's gift to journalism. Shabby at best. I take exception to your painting the Island as the sole problem regarding the spread of Covid-19. As if in the Valley people didn't go anywhere or did nothing except come to the Island! When the Governor opened up the state back May 1, you are implying that the spread of the virus was because of the Island. The people didn’t frequent bars, didn’t have parties and didn’t do any other socializing except come to the Island? Even in your brain, don’t you think that’s a bit of a stretch? So many bars, clubs and restaurants in the Upper Valley and to some degree in Brownsville, but you blame the Island? The only thing I did was rent the condos I manage for my owners. If the Island stayed shut down, people would have gone somewhere else. So go spread your stuff somewhere else as the Island doesn’t deserve all of the blame. Yes, some operators are not abiding by the rules. I agree with you on that. But the Island does not deserve the entire blame. And Jerry, a politician tells you what you want to hear. I give you my thoughts and opinions. Just because I was elected Mayor of SPI, a great honor, it doesn’t make me a politician."
(EDITOR'S NOTE: I specifically attributed it--FUCK YOUR HEALTH! IT'S ABOUT OUR WEALTH!--to the Chamber. The Island is not responsible for the breadth of the pandemic, but SPI has contributed to this false narrative that all is normal. I have just posted an article on Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño and his medical expert failing the community with their false figures on deaths and cases. Their numbers have been a criminal underestimation. They have given us a false sense of security. Therefore, thousands have been lax in wearing masks, maintaining social distance and avoiding large crowds. We live in an impoverished region with thousands packed in barrios. Coronavirus couldn't be more at home. Thousands more cross from Mexico where the pandemic is out-of-control. And like Treviño, we can never trust their government's numbers. Thus, our neighbors are dying by the score. As to journalism, what's that? It's performance art with journalism being one of the genres from which I derive the underpinnings for my one-man shows. When I write, it's bedtime for the children. Does Rush Limbaugh practice journalism? Does Sean Hannity practice journalism? Does CNN practice journalism? Does Fox practice journalism? We know The Brownsville Herald hasn't practiced journalism in decades. I'm a writer with my own perspective on a number of issues who loves entertaining with his poetic prose and his satirical sense of humor. I voted for Republicans Tony Garza and Carlos Cascos for county judge several times in the past, but I'm a Democrat when we're talking state or national politics and I'm dedicated to defeating Trump and destroying the party by exposing the rednecks, the racists, the religious right hypocrites and the right-wing rich who proudly wave the Confederate and cry about the demise of their culture. We liberals are fighting for the soul and the future of our nation and I'm committed to depositing this country's white trash on the trash heap of history. I make no apologies for my beliefs. For those who choose Trump and Republicans in 2020, you are exercising your rights. But it will be a cold day in hell before I consent to any more of the perverted president's wrongs. In regards to your self-image, you're entitled to classify yourself as you please, but in my book, if you run for public office, you are a politician. And I'm not anti-politician. Why would you have any second thoughts about being called a politician? Barack Obama was a politician from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. I'm sure he was proud of the path he took. Politicians are no different than professional athletes. You are praised when you hit a home run to win the game and you are blasted when you strike out with the bases loaded for the last out in the bottom of the ninth. As to you, you were a successful mayor, but, sadly as I shed my alligator tears, becoming a target is the result of becoming a politician. Those who don't agree with you can amuse themselves using you as a bullseye to pass the time while they're trapped at home during these dangerous times. In your case, I have admired your responses because you counter the criticism without trying to impugn the messenger because you don't agree with the message. Once you step into the center of the stage, however, you no longer control the limelight and argue that you are no longer a politico. Once you lose your virginity, there is no going back. For those who can't handle criticism, they should vote for Trump and maybe he will amend the Constitution to exclude free speech. As to you, Bob: Stop whimpering like a victim. I don't understand your defensiveness. Conservatives never stop balling that if they were only Democrats that God would smile on them too. Win or lose, either result gives you an excuse to uncork a bottle of wine. I have found from past experiences that the 60-year-old woman at your side suddenly looks 30 after that first bottle. But don't drink a second. Otherwise, you won't be able to rise to the occasion.)
(EDITOR'S NOTE: I specifically attributed it--FUCK YOUR HEALTH! IT'S ABOUT OUR WEALTH!--to the Chamber. The Island is not responsible for the breadth of the pandemic, but SPI has contributed to this false narrative that all is normal. I have just posted an article on Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño and his medical expert failing the community with their false figures on deaths and cases. Their numbers have been a criminal underestimation. They have given us a false sense of security. Therefore, thousands have been lax in wearing masks, maintaining social distance and avoiding large crowds. We live in an impoverished region with thousands packed in barrios. Coronavirus couldn't be more at home. Thousands more cross from Mexico where the pandemic is out-of-control. And like Treviño, we can never trust their government's numbers. Thus, our neighbors are dying by the score. As to journalism, what's that? It's performance art with journalism being one of the genres from which I derive the underpinnings for my one-man shows. When I write, it's bedtime for the children. Does Rush Limbaugh practice journalism? Does Sean Hannity practice journalism? Does CNN practice journalism? Does Fox practice journalism? We know The Brownsville Herald hasn't practiced journalism in decades. I'm a writer with my own perspective on a number of issues who loves entertaining with his poetic prose and his satirical sense of humor. I voted for Republicans Tony Garza and Carlos Cascos for county judge several times in the past, but I'm a Democrat when we're talking state or national politics and I'm dedicated to defeating Trump and destroying the party by exposing the rednecks, the racists, the religious right hypocrites and the right-wing rich who proudly wave the Confederate and cry about the demise of their culture. We liberals are fighting for the soul and the future of our nation and I'm committed to depositing this country's white trash on the trash heap of history. I make no apologies for my beliefs. For those who choose Trump and Republicans in 2020, you are exercising your rights. But it will be a cold day in hell before I consent to any more of the perverted president's wrongs. In regards to your self-image, you're entitled to classify yourself as you please, but in my book, if you run for public office, you are a politician. And I'm not anti-politician. Why would you have any second thoughts about being called a politician? Barack Obama was a politician from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. I'm sure he was proud of the path he took. Politicians are no different than professional athletes. You are praised when you hit a home run to win the game and you are blasted when you strike out with the bases loaded for the last out in the bottom of the ninth. As to you, you were a successful mayor, but, sadly as I shed my alligator tears, becoming a target is the result of becoming a politician. Those who don't agree with you can amuse themselves using you as a bullseye to pass the time while they're trapped at home during these dangerous times. In your case, I have admired your responses because you counter the criticism without trying to impugn the messenger because you don't agree with the message. Once you step into the center of the stage, however, you no longer control the limelight and argue that you are no longer a politico. Once you lose your virginity, there is no going back. For those who can't handle criticism, they should vote for Trump and maybe he will amend the Constitution to exclude free speech. As to you, Bob: Stop whimpering like a victim. I don't understand your defensiveness. Conservatives never stop balling that if they were only Democrats that God would smile on them too. Win or lose, either result gives you an excuse to uncork a bottle of wine. I have found from past experiences that the 60-year-old woman at your side suddenly looks 30 after that first bottle. But don't drink a second. Otherwise, you won't be able to rise to the occasion.)
Thursday, July 23, 2020
TRUMP & HITLER
The helicopter landed on the White House lawn. Donald Trump descended with his hand on his head to keep his hair in place as a brisk breeze blew. The press corps was waiting for him. The controversial news had been broken only hours earlier by The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
"What is your relationship Adolf Hitler, Mr. President?" began the onslaught.
"Adolf who?"
"Adolf Hitler, Mr. President."
"I know very little about him."
"He's the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews."
"Are they blaming him for the Coronavirus deaths, too? Those crazy left-wing Democrats are blaming me for killing 140,000 Americans. Is this more fake news?"
"Mr. President. He ordered his Nazis to execute six million Jews."
"Is this another hoax? I have said it before and I will say it again. There are some good people among the Nazis."
"He was not a good man, Mr. President."
"Like I said: I don't know the man and I've never met the man."
"But that's not true, Mr. President. There are several pictures of you and him together. Are you still going to claim that you have never met him on previous occasions?"
"I go to events. I attend functions. Everybody wants to take a picture with me. They want to know about the many great things that I have accomplished. I've even taken pictures with some of you. I have no recollection of taking a picture with this man. What did you say his name was?"
"Adolf Hitler, Mr. President. He was a truly evil man."
"Like I say...the name rings a bell, but I know very little about him. On the subject of evil, though, I don't think there has been anybody who has walked this earth more dastardly than Joe Biden. He wants to destroy our country. He wants to take away our liberties. He is a fascist anarchist. He wants to change our culture and rewrite our history. If you want to save America, you will vote for me in November. If you want mobs ruling the streets, death and destruction at every corner, people dying from unchecked diseases, rampant unemployment and China controlling our government, put a pistol to your temple, pull the trigger and vote for Biden. It's an easy choice. You can pick a genius who has made the United States of America the greatest country in the history of mankind or you can pick a mindless moron suffering from Alzheimer's. Thank-you. I will have several major announcements at my afternoon news conference. Excuse me. I'm having lunch with Ivanka. It's a shame she is my daughter. She has the most amazing cleavage."
"What is your relationship Adolf Hitler, Mr. President?" began the onslaught.
"Adolf who?"
"Adolf Hitler, Mr. President."
"I know very little about him."
"He's the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews."
"Are they blaming him for the Coronavirus deaths, too? Those crazy left-wing Democrats are blaming me for killing 140,000 Americans. Is this more fake news?"
"Mr. President. He ordered his Nazis to execute six million Jews."
"Is this another hoax? I have said it before and I will say it again. There are some good people among the Nazis."
"He was not a good man, Mr. President."
"Like I said: I don't know the man and I've never met the man."
"But that's not true, Mr. President. There are several pictures of you and him together. Are you still going to claim that you have never met him on previous occasions?"
"I go to events. I attend functions. Everybody wants to take a picture with me. They want to know about the many great things that I have accomplished. I've even taken pictures with some of you. I have no recollection of taking a picture with this man. What did you say his name was?"
"Adolf Hitler, Mr. President. He was a truly evil man."
"Like I say...the name rings a bell, but I know very little about him. On the subject of evil, though, I don't think there has been anybody who has walked this earth more dastardly than Joe Biden. He wants to destroy our country. He wants to take away our liberties. He is a fascist anarchist. He wants to change our culture and rewrite our history. If you want to save America, you will vote for me in November. If you want mobs ruling the streets, death and destruction at every corner, people dying from unchecked diseases, rampant unemployment and China controlling our government, put a pistol to your temple, pull the trigger and vote for Biden. It's an easy choice. You can pick a genius who has made the United States of America the greatest country in the history of mankind or you can pick a mindless moron suffering from Alzheimer's. Thank-you. I will have several major announcements at my afternoon news conference. Excuse me. I'm having lunch with Ivanka. It's a shame she is my daughter. She has the most amazing cleavage."
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