SHABBY BLOGS:...In Brownsville, Rumors & Damnations...The Lady Doesn't Protest Enough...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | Adela Garza has been around the political block enough to know that bad music will play until you grab the aging radio and bounce it off the nearest wall. A politician, she has been for many years. A dumped-on one not so much.

Until recently, that is.

This city's two Anglo bloggers have had a field day ragging on Ms. Garza and the Texas Southmost College (TSC) Board of Trustees she presently chairs. The issue is a semi-serious one, going to the school's welding program. It has been, so far, a minor tale of what seems to be a few disgruntled students and an administrator way out of his professional element (read "questionable" into that).

For days, bloggers El Jerry McHale and, to a lesser degree, Iowan Jimmy Barton have been going hot & heavy against the college, demanding answers to exaggerated scenarios only they could ever understand. Fairness in reporting has not been part of their junior high approach to news.

They have essentially been writing for themselves and not the audience they would wish to inform. Basic tenets known to real, educated journalists have gone by the wayside, in the case of no-college Barton because he does not know them. McHale simply hates these days. His bent is to perhaps leave the world on a bad note, age presently being his chief enemy.

McHale (shown in photo below) is about to turn 74; Barton (shown at left) is 75.

What they have sown with the welding recital is a bad crop of weeds. They have some facts, but, we would say, not enough to convict and hang Ms. Garza. They may eventually, although blog stories come and go here as if plates of crispy chicken tacos. Neither of these loose-wheeled bloggers should feel good about what they are doing, not when their stories arrive with so many holes that the reader ultimately nods and says, "Oh. Uh, okay..."

We do say that Ms. Garza should take the challenge and sit these boys down for an interview. They are both retired and have nothing else to do, so their blogs will keep pushing the mess until someone sets them straight. Ms. Garza - or boardmember Tony Zavaleta - is the one to do it, once and for all.

To simply take it day after day after day is no good.

We have not always been fans of the TSC, but, taken singularly, this silliness can be quickly resolved. The school has enough support in town to weather bad news. In fact, these same two bloggers have praised it in the past. The blame here goes mainly to McHale. Older Barton has been his so-called Second Banana for years, always lapping up to stories McHale offers by way of his own often-skewed or simplistic spin.

Barton can be excused for failing at this. He is not a college graduate, nor does he have any Real Journalism experience. Zero.

Perhaps the erudite Ms. Garza will consider our suggestion, although we also know that she does not suffer fools well. Indeed, she and the college have been somewhat defended by blogger Juan Montoya, a big fan of Ms. Garza and Mr. Zavaleta. It is Montoya who has shot back at these bloggers, but he could do more.

The welding program is not the principal candle on TSC's cake; it is just another program offered to students. That TSC would let this mini-brushfire interfere with its mission is, of course, laughable.

Just charge out of the conference room and nip it in the bud.

Brain wise, these goofin' bloggers are no match for Ms. Garza and Mr. Zavaleta, it says here...

-30-