TACO TUESDAY:.......In This Next Episode...Over Men And Horses, Hoops And Garters, Lastly Through A Hogshead Of Real Fire!...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | Adela Garza has her fans. Take it to her and see some of Brownsville's better-known residents light into you like trailer park fleas on an aging Anglo. She's that freakin' popular, that respected. The smiling gent in the photo with her above is celebrated Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez. Go ahead and pick a fight with her, Rube.

And good luck.

As local white-bread bloggers Jerry McHale and Jimmy "Blah, Blah" Barton discovered when they went after Texas Southmost College here recently, Ms. Garza, chair of the TSC Board of Trustees, does not even have to say one word to shut them up. It just happens.

Hear anymore from the quieted bloggers?

Of course not. They hit town like the first bowel movement after Thanksgiving and haven't been heard from since. So much for that TSC welding program scandal they promised but never wrapped-up. Loud and fat-sausaged, they posted story after story after story of what they perceived as firing material that went right up to the school president. None of it stuck. McHale (shown in photo above) and Barton, souls rented to darkness, have since gone away rather flaccidly.

Those who know her say Adela Garza has a disinclination for conflict, but it is not a weakness.

The silly, unarmed bloggers would peter out, was her feeling. Elderly dudes tend to head out for a cold beer hoping for something else, but they always slink home as if trained nursing home residents.

Peter out?

Of course, they did...

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Silly Los Fresnos Mayor Alejandro Flores is up for reelection on November 7th. He is a Brownsville dude, born and educated. Somehow, he found himself in Los Fresnos and in the job of mayor. Flores, shown in photo above, is smalltime to the max, but he has one obsession.

His co-pilot in politics is...God.

At least, that's what visitors to his activity-filled Facebook page get pretty much daily. It's God and God's glory for him all the way. If ever a public servant went all-out unabashedly with his religion, it is Flores.

His bent is rather corny, posts often totally about community-aimed projects for kids and families. We have not heard or come up on any opposition for his campaign, but Los Fresnos is a small town in every sense of the word, there on the highway that takes you to Port Isabel and South Padre Island if you're driving in from the Upper Valley.

Tiny Los Fresnos counts barely 8,000 or so residents, most of them not of the garish variety. Mayor Flores and his flashy style, dress and personal imagery, would lead one to believe he's the mayor of a much larger city.

The word is he's favored to win reelection.

His "look" of metropolitan pizazz seems somewhat overlearned, however...

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How 'bout them fancy-schmancy bus shelters? What - they're not there yet?! Ooopsie-roo. The City of Brownsville promised them, didn't it? I read that somewhere. Was it in the local blogs? Had to be. No one else is screaming Holy Hell about the lack of this basic civic need.

I mean, you judge a city by its bus shelters, right?

Uh, not here. Oh, well. Summer had the shelters front-center, man. Steady reminders for the air-conditioned bureaucrats at City Hall. And still nothing?

Well, no. Rains and cold winds will roll in and city bus riders will face the elements as they always have - without shelter from the storm, as the song says. When you live in a poor community, you endure the struggles with the lack of things. Civilization is here, only not in the realm of bus stop shelters.

Perhaps the next mayoral candidate will reframe the issue, define it differently. You know, say they are needed not for the poor riders but for the entry to that All-America City competition.

You think?...

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Well, they say he buys the Black Shinola by the box. To paint that bushy, worm-like mustache and give himself the Vicente Fernandez look. We speak of Cameron County Sheriff candidate Jesus Rosas Jr, shown with Mrs. Rosas in photo above.

Oh, well. We're told he actually is a very, very qualified dude, able to holster a gun and look the part of lawman, quick with the lingo of law enforcement and just an all-around good guy raised on meat.

We still believe incumbent Sheriff Eric Garza will be reelected in the upcoming next election. It's a hard row to hoe for newcomers challenging the guy with the office. Garza may have his faults, but he does wear the official badge his challengers want. Wears it every day, in fact.

Rosas Jr hangs in second place, behind Garza but comfortably ahead of third pretender Ronnie Saenz.

I dunno. Does Rosas Jr look any more sheriff-like than Sheriff Garza? No. They both look more like district clerks than the second coming of former, 84-year-old Sheriff Omar Lucio, he of the go-along on raids fame.

Rosas Jr seems to still be pushing his campaign via Jerry McHale's "Community Shithouse" blog, which keeps us from saying Rosas Jr has a brain.

Perhaps he'll surprise us - and himself! - by reconsidering the idea of throwing his campaign cash away...

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Border anthropologist Tony Zavaleta, a prominent trustee of Texas Southmost College, is over the recent, public dust-up he had with the aforementioned Blogger McHale, the 73-year-old clodhopper behind the recent went-nowhere attack on TSC's welding program.

We asked Dr. Zavaleta for comment to elderly McHale's feverish preoccupation with local welders, but Dr. Z asked to be let-off the controversy, citing a desire to ignore the sloppy blogger, this after saying that he'd never, ever speak to McHale again. As we reported earlier, the clash ended a 47-year friendship between the two. 

Mutual pal Ben Neece, the highly-regarded former municipal judge and city commissioner, did tell The McAllen Sun that he'd spoken to the self-aggrandizing blogger and that the pompous blogger had told him he'd be laying off Dr. Zavaleta but remain as TSC's primo archenemy.

Neece may be the one to smooth things out between these two once-tight amigos.

Who knows, however. McHale's attentiveness to the welding story has been like the savoring of a cannibal. What is that they say about an unwearying old goat:

"His teeth are loose, but he still wants sex"...

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Have they sold her a bum deal? What a cruel thing to do to a woman out on her first political campaign as a brand-new Republican! Laura E. Cisneros (shown in kinda old photo above) is her name and the 34th Congressional District brawl is her game.

She seems to have bought into Blogger Jerry McHale's promise that his blog will see her to victory.

What a crock!

McHale had her leading favorite Mayra Flores in a poll taken by something he calls STIJA, which does not exist and is nothing more than McHale lying one more time. No one is actually polled; McHale simply comes up with fake numbers to support his commentary.

That Dr. Laura E. Cisneros is paying for this is the season's laugher. Someone hand her a primer on McHale's history of posturing paying politicians as something they often are not. Ms. Cisneros was a Democrat up until last November, fer Chrissakes!

But it could just be that hers is a Vanity Campaign, one for the family scrapbook and not for actual accomplishment or winning results.

Sad...

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Yeah, whatever became of schoolteacher Julie Olvera, shown in photo above. The year was 2015 and she was busy helping boyfriend and City Commissioner Ricardo "Rick" Longoria with is reelection campaign.

I'd been writing about the election and befriended Julie along the way. Things between them seemed lovely, as in romance on the go, kissing & hugging, that stuff. Both were for BISD as teachers. One day, Julie headed for Rick's house in Southmost sort of unannounced and, when walking into the house, found Rick busy loving some other Babe, in the sack.

Julie was not amused. In fact, she was angered, shocked but damned angered.

The story here was Rick's unknown dilly-dallying, at least unknown to Julie. Suffice it to say that there was a quick split and, suddenly, Julie had a whole lot of free time in her hands. We would talk on the phone, which developed as I began to fill the breakup puzzle piece by piece as I covered Rick's campaign. I did invite her to dine with me in McAllen, and she drove over in her pickup.

I was driving my Audi TT sports car at the time, so we met at a Starbucks on N. 10th Street and then rode in my car to Mambo's a seafood restaurant on the city's West Side. We scarfed on the great seafood and talked at length about Rick and his escapades, most of it graphic and way off the political campaign. Photos surfaced of Rick naked and wielding a Jedi sword, some used in stories published by Brownsville's bloggers.

She was hurt, yes. But Julie also had decided to push Rick out of her life.

The last I heard, sweet Julie had moved to Michigan and was back teaching. She sent me a note once to my Facebook page saying she'd met a guy up there. I didn't chase that one.

So, who knows? She may be well-married and have a few kids by now.

Life is funny that way...

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Is he going for it again? Does once-supportive Blogger Juan Montoya know anything? We speak of 2020 sheriff candidate John Chambers, the Republican who was beaten by current Sheriff Eric Garza in a close, but not that close race.

There's not been a peep from Chambers.

Opportunistic Montoya did take his side (for cash, eh?) and posted numerous articles pushing his campaign and torpedoing Garza's. The backing struck some people odd, in that Montoya (shown in photo below, at left) could be said to be a die-hard Democrat. And his disdain for Garza has continued over the past three years, leading me to conclude that Monty will again back Chambers if Chambers brings his big, fat wallet around.

Hey, business is business, ese.

We'd like to see Chambers again in the contest. Two other candidates have announced, but neither has the sort of punching bag persona that Chambers brings to politics. He's a cowboy, too, though, which is a big downer for us. Chambers vs. Garza. Fifteen rounds of boxing.

Both have the sort of Bummer Charisma that makes for interesting Journalism.

Am I enjoying myself yet?...

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This is still the Main Event for the 34th Congressional District seat. Democrat and incumbent Vicente Gonzalez vs. Republican Mayra Flores.

Brownsville bloggers are pushing nobodies (Laura E. Cisneros, Greg Kunkle and Mauro Garza) in the Republican Primary, but those bloggers are just spreading free general garrulity. Yeah, why not a few laughs?

Gonzalez has the backing of the national party on his side and Flores hers on the right.

That's the next Battle of Palo Alto, Baby. Any other possibility is airborne shit. The bloggers know it, camps for Vinsanity Gonzalez and Frau Flores have known it. Yeah, there's Blogger Jerry McHale telling those arriving at his blog that greenhorn Laura E. Cisneros is leading All-Pro Flores in early polling. Ha ha ha.

That's Jerry, his bald pate allowing wrinkles of insincere surprise to travel all the way to the back of his head. To do its job, a good joke has to circle the skull's inner walls. I mean, if McHale had a dog its name would be "Scram." With one of these (!), for the correct effect.

We do expect Laura E. Cisneros to switch to the Independent Party minutes after she finishes last in the upcoming party primary.

We can already see her typing her announcement notes: "To Whom -"

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Minor league Blogger Jimmy "Blah, Blah" Barton is fast coming off his woeful performance in the now-forgotten TSC Welding Recital and back to pushing his boring Laundromat Bulletin Board blog. That's Jimmy in photo above with wife, Nenny, pre-2018.

Who knows why this guy thinks he's a credible newsman. Must be some lost self-esteem thing. He moved to Brownsville back when he was of draft age but never served in the military. To her great credit, Nenny did an Army stint, however.

Anyway, we monitor Jimmy's silliness only because, well, he can be hilarious with his bad grammar, skewed angles to serious news stories and the sort of stolen journalism valor brashness that always makes us laugh. He never went to college. By his own admission, his life has been one of working at grocery stores, at motels and at unloading shrimp boats at the Port of Brownsville.

Indeed, his morning story today is about recalling ordering food for his motel guests back in the 1960s from a long-gone restaurant.

Yeah, real "investigative" stuff.

Heh heh...

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Finally, how are those Fish Tacos in Brownsville anyway? Do they pass prime seafood muster? I mean where can you get some that'll satisfy the taste?

We do like the ones served at two-three restaurants in McAllen, but, well, Brownsville's closer to the Gulf of Mexico, so we figure it ought to be somewhat better.

But is it?

We don't see much about Brownsville's restaurants in the Brownsville press. Bloggers don't seem to be into restaurant reviews. They should. Readers also eat, boys.

Oh, well. Perhaps we'll drop by some eatery and check out the local grub.

Who can ever forget lunch at noisy, busy-busy Leonardo's on Central Boulevard back in the day?...

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Taco Tuesday out...

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HALLOWEEN:...Tired Of Playing The Game..."Great Pumpkin" Lashes Out...

 

STAFF REPORT

McALLEN, Texas | It's been coming for years. As they say in fading love and old leather shoes, things have a nasty habit of catching up with reality. Love dies; shoes rot.

The pumpkin is tired of being carved up for cheap, not-even ghastly Halloween jokes. Take your knife to your own face.

"I was born for pumpkin pie, not for scaring anyone. The bullshit is over."

And so, humans began looking at the watermelon.

They knew they could always paint it orange and keep carving...

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SUN RECORDS:...Newsroom Jukebox..."Evangeline"...

OLD MAN WINTER:...Rio Grande Valley Temperatures Dip...Rare Mid-40s In The City Of Palms...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | A nice, crisp 45 degrees this morning at 8:00 AM. We won't get out of the blustery 50s today and tomorrow brings low-40s temperature readings all day for The City of Palms.

A cold, wild wind will blow.

Such a pleasant change after five long months of scorching Texas heat. It does feel good. Weatherboys have us at these cool temps through the rest of the week, with some low-80s daytime for the next one.

It's not quite Boston or New York, but we'll take it.

Somehow, morning coffee at the restaurant will taste and go down better today. We're outbound in a few minutes to rendezvous with some pals for breakfast and good conversation. Man, it has been one brutal Summer, as they say about June-Through-October around here. Subtropical, my ass. It was downright African, the large H-E-B parking lot surely a section of the Sahara Desert.

But we persevered, and, yeah, here we are...looking for that black, all-cotton Banana Republic sweater that serves as my uniform when the temperatures dip.

Enjoy the change.

It's one of life's annual treats...  

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...That's Harlingen Mayor Norma Sepulveda with her coffee in photo above. She does market her city's downtown businesses...]

WAR:...Are Americans Okay With Outright Destruction Of Palestine?...Israeli Invasion Has Only One Purpose...Killing...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Does any country really care whether Palestine lives or dies? No, there does not seem to be much - if any - sympathy for residents of the war-torn Gaza Strip currently under massive assault from Israel.

A reason is the violent attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli settlers three weeks ago, when Israel was caught off-guard. Its assault is part-revenge, yes. The other part is a bit more complicated.

But the United States is right there with Israel and no other western country has lifted a voice or finger to save Palestine. At least, not yet. Perhaps once the Gaza is nothing more than a pock-marked geography rendered useless by American-supplied bombs, or when the number of dead crosses the million mark, which would be most of Palestine's population.

Here, the war is being framed as between Israel and Hamas, only non-Hamas Palestinians are also being murdered without a second thought.

As could be expected, President Joe Biden has cautioned Israel to not do the unthinkable and start killing Palestinians at will in its ongoing military invasion. The gung-ho Israelis are not listening.

Troops are marching in to kill, and massive bombs are falling.

Will we be okay with Palestine's obliteration?

Is this how we hope to finally find peace in the ragged Middle East? Or are we just feeding the anti-West monster still there, still waiting for that one moment to light the entire region on fire? Terrorists are everywhere these days. The U.S. just bombed spots in Libya to protect our soldiers assigned to that beaten country. It's a bonfire just waiting to happen.

Israel can live with Palestinian children being murdered. That's who Israel is, a country fed up with being attacked by its neighbor, with living as if a hunted animal, with simply being Israel - the country we all know as America's aircraft carrier in the region, a loyal ally who will do our bidding in the region for an annual contribution of $3.1 billion in foreign aid. But only to a certain point.

Israel is not listening to the U.S. on this one.

It is hellbent on ending the strife it has known and dished out for almost seven decades, since it gained statehood in 1948. Jews will tell you they have taken it for all those years, and they are damned sick and tired of it. Palestine also says pretty much the same thing from its perspective about relations with its skittish neighbor. The solution, they seem to scream every so often, is for one or the other to be destroyed.

Revenge is revenge and we all understand that emotion. Hamas must be taught a lesson and if it means the end of Hamas, well, we're fine with it.

Only, don't expect all-out, no-questions-asked support from non-Jewish Americans. Unconditional sympathy on this matter does not live here. A country simply cannot be allowed to overwhelm and destroy another just because it has the most powerful weapons available. The U.S. put a stop to that thinking when it invaded Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait in the early 1990s.

As always, all we can say is, "Well, we'll see." We'll see how things go as we head into the end of the first month of a horrible war. The hate is real. For sure. Both sides in this fiery fray hate each other with an unbridled passion, so any expectation that it will end with a smile and a handshake is fantasy.

Palestinians will again be bombed and killed today.

And, apparently, we'll be okay with it...

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REPUBLICANS:...Mike Pence Out Of Presidential Race...He Never Really Got Going, In Fact...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | He's out. Former Vice President Mike Pence threw in the towel on Saturday, saying his campaign for president is over. The 64-year-old Indianan was fast running out of campaign cash and support from his Republican Party.

This excerpt from axios.com: [ Pence announced hat he is ending his 2024 presidential campaign. The announcement comes after the former vice president struggled to gain traction in the crowded Republican primary, and less than two weeks before the third GOP debate.

Pence announced that he was suspending his campaign at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual gathering in Las Vegas.

"It's become clear to me, this is not my time," Pence said in a speech. "So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today."

"I'm leaving this campaign, but let me promise you, I will never leave the fight for conservative values and I will never stop fighting to elect principled Republican leaders to every office in the land." ]

Traditional conservative values, however, went out the window when Donald J. Trump walked into national politics in 2015. It's been a wild carnival ride for old school Republicans like Pence.

He's held on to the ever-plunging roller coaster, but he gets off it with little to show...

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WEATHER:...Them Long-Awaited Cool Temps Almost Here...Low-60s On Monday ...We're Thinking Road Trip...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Perhaps it's time to head up Fort Worth way for the weekend rodeo over at the fabled Stockyards. That's exactly where the photo above of yours truly was taken pre-Covid-19.

I hear boisterous Cowtown is back in stir, crowds and brats mobbing the city's North Side.

Again, I've fought the good fight against our always warm subtropical climate down here in the Rio Grande Valley, and, sure, it's nice to go out the front door and feel the cold, wild wind slap you on the face. But who knows if I'll hang around one more year. I said that - what? - three years ago.

The thing is the temps here are beyond great between December and late-April. They just are, and it always makes you believe the Texas Summer Scorch is not as hellish as it is.

But of course, it is.

Still, the weatherboys are saying our temps will drop into the low-60s daytime on Monday, with overnight lows in the upper-40s...and stay nice into the first week of November.

Yeah, make your reservations at your favorite restaurants...

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TRIALS:...Ivanka Trump To Testify...NY Judge Orders Her To Appear At Father's Fraud Trial...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...She's all of 41 years old, so she knows right from wrong. That's the court's motivation in ordering Ivanka Trump to testify in that fraud trail that's ensnared her father, Donald Trump. This comes after she was dismissed from the original case, and that's likely because the district attorney gave her a sweet deal in exchange for her testimony.

The rest of the Trump family is on trial.

This excerpt from axios.com: [ A New York judge on Friday ordered Trump's daughter, Ivanka, to testify in his ongoing civil fraud trial. The ruling means that Ivanka Trump will likely have to take the stand and give testimony about members of her family and their business empire.

Judge Arthur Engoron denied a request to quash the subpoena for her to testify, but said that she would not be called to the stand before Nov. 1 to allow her time to appeal the decision.

Ivanka Trump in June was dismissed from the $250 million lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump, her brothers and the Trump Organization.

A New York appeals court said that James' claims against Ivanka Trump were outdated because she left the Trump Organization to join her father in the White House in 2017.

However, James still sought Ivanka Trump's testimony, arguing that "she indisputably has personal knowledge of facts relevant to the claims against the remaining individual and entity Defendants," per NBC.

". . .Ms. Trump remains financially and professionally intertwined with the Trump Organization and other Defendants and can be called as a person still under their control," the AG contended in a court filing," James wrote in a court filing. ]

It'll be interesting to see her take the witness stand in court, and especially if Donald decides to attend on the day(s) she testifies, like he did when former "fixer" lawyer Michael Cohen testified earlier this week.

The trial is really about how much it will cost Donald Trump to make monetary amends with the State of New York, as he has already been found guilty of committing fraud by exaggerating the value of his properties for bank loans and lowering them for taxing purposes.

A report in Friday's New York Times had it that Ivanka and her two brothers, Don Jr and Eric, are now scheduled to testify next week.

The trial is expected to wrap-up in early-December...

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ISSUES:...Really, The Only Story That Matters...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas |...Climate change in this country is either a threatening pair of words or two to be laughed at, depending on how you feel about the planet's weather. They say it is getting hotter, only it has always been hot, at least for humans, since the end of the Ice Age, when the turtleneck was invented.

I dunno how I feel about this one as a national issue.

We're not burning anytime soon, although likely soon enough. The fearmongering is very much like fast-spreading neighborhood news of the occasional barren shelf at the grocery store. Some say that is a sign of the coming apocalypse. Weather where I live is subtropical.

It was 91 degrees today, here a week before winter's November. No climate change there, simply the historical climate of the region.

But of course, it's true that we should pay a bit more attention to what we as humans contribute to our climes. How many vehicles on Earth, most of the emitting carbon gases? Some four or five billion.

Plus, there is a whole cornucopia of other villains, from powerful, high-flying airliners, to huge sugar cane field burnings, to electricity-supplying power stations to - how many? - BBQ grills across the country, especially Texas.

Scientists and climate-conscious people can list you many, many more villains, but you get my drift. Horrible national politics and worse-than that politicians come and go.

Same went for the gas-guzzling V-8 cars of the 1960s.

Our fragile weather, however, isn't something to control. It'll kick our ass one of these days, perhaps forever...

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WORTHLESS:...Two Pathetic Brownsville Bloggers Don't Innovate; They Imitate...And Then Claim...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | A little more than a month ago, The McAllen Sun began publishing its weekly Taco Tuesday feature in which we take a biting looksee at local celebrities and politicians. We actually got better-than-expected response from our growing readership.

Now comes perhaps the Rio Grande Valley's lamest blogger - Jerry McHale, shown in photo above - to steal that same premise and claim it as his own. Not that we're surprised as he has NOT ONE creative bone in his lifeless, 73-year-old physically-eccentric body. He is shown in photo above. 

There it was on his dying blog: "Taco Tuesday"...and Throwback Thursday, as the obligatory repetitive slice of nothingness he believes is something special. His blog has no style, so his style is to steal from others.

But he did type this pitiful description to accompany his ripped-off offering: "McHale likes to be in the vanguard as part of his evolutionary presentation in the blogosphere." Big Lie. He'd stolen the idea from us.

Oft-loser in marriage and capitalism, McHale wants everyone to see him as some sort of avant garde writer, only if he's not writing the same plot over & over & over in his so-called Internet books, he's ripping off ideas off other bloggers. When he saw his old buddy Bob Rivard's blog (The Rivard Report) in San Antonio, McHale re-named his blog, The McHale Report.

He does it without laughing, which is the funny part of all of this. Stealing is so much a part of his writing life that to stop and review his work would be reviewing the same thing over & over & over. As one of our mutual friends once told us, "Jerry has written the same book 20 times. It's always about vatos, broads, booze, the border and some Spanish."

We've never actually read any of his so-called novels. Once, when we asked him to send us a copy of one of his efforts, he promised to do it but never did.

Why he would look our way for ideas is another mystery. We had a falling-out a few weeks back after I criticized one of his advertisers, a well-known politician who apparently complained. Whatever. His friendship is - like Trump - is always one-way, as his former pal Tony Zavaleta recently found out. He and McHale had been good friends for 47 years, but McHale burned him without giving it a second thought.

He did the same thing to fellow Blogger Juan Montoya, who was kinda pissed-off when McHale called him the "third-best writer" in local blogging, presumably behind him and forlorn, non-college-educated Jimmy Barton.

We never needed McHale, and we never used even one of his stories. Twice - on two different blogs - we asked him to stop using our stories on his blog, once because we thought his presentation was woeful and this latest time after he blocked us on Facebook for criticizing the politician he was promoting.

In that way, he mimics a horrendously desperate loser.

To date, his only friend appears to be third-tier, 75-year-old blogger Barton, who praises McHale with vigor, as if afraid that McHale will drop his ass, too.

Barton was also the one who copied our bold face/italics style in the text of our stories. He did it and still does it. Innovation is not their strength. Both of their blogs look like they looked 5-10 years ago.

We'll keep them on their toes. It's rather easy, since both McHale and Barton are NOT REAL NEWSWRITERS, but whole hog wannabes. Often, we can spot the many holes in their stories, as we did during their recent apoplectic Welding Recital they quickly abandoned without comment.

Barton is a Big Zero as a newsman. He, however, is not even a college graduate, nor does he have any published work at all. McHale worked one year as a sportswriter at lowly The Brownsville Herald and then went on to work 35 years as an ESL teacher with the local school district - not exactly something to denote you as a writer.

Unaccomplished McHale will keep praising his own hollow stabs at writing novels. He's never had an editor, and he likely would never want one, as it would then show his typing to be just that - dumbass typing, and nothing more.  

Perhaps he'll hit the Big Time when Barnes & Noble opens an aisle for "Dumbass Writing" at present not worthy of a place on its shelves.

Until then, he'll keep stealing innovations from The McAllen Sun, like our writing student Jimmy Boy Barton...

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KEEP THE CHANGE:...How Blogger Jerry McHale Dusted-Off 47 Years Of Good Vibes With Tony Zavaleta...Ended It Over A Misguided Blog Story...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | How do you measure true friendship? It isn't what it used to be, that's for sure. Friends come and go in our hurry-up, throwaway society. Once, friends were for life. I still have a few from my high school days in McAllen, the City of Palms. We hang out at bars and restaurants somewhat often. My trusted pals in college and the military stay in touch.

Then there's the weird, inexplicable ending to Dr. Tony Zavaleta's 47-year-long friendship with local Blogger Jerry McHale. It ended roughly two weeks ago.

"He burned me for no good reason," Zavaleta told The McAllen Sun on Wednesday. "We have been friends for 40 years. I will never talk to him again. Never."

Asked if he remembered the first time they met, Zavaleta recalled it was sometime in 1976, when McHale was covering local sports for The Brownsville Herald and Jerry's then-wife Leticia was a student in one of Zavaleta's classes at Texas Southmost College.

At the heart of the stunning demise was sloppy reporting by McHale (shown in photo at left) and spare wheel blogger Jimmy Barton (shown in photo below) to do with disgruntled students and the TSC welding program. Zavaleta is a TSC trustee.

For days on end during a two-week period, McHale posted blaring stories about the college's ITEC stewardship, or lack of it, hanging stories on former Director Tom Tynan, who labeled a senior TSC administrator as being a "crook," has since left the college. In all, the two hellbent bloggers did nothing more than chase a rumor, feed off of it like starving, retarded sharks and settle nothing.

It was during the rackety, barnyard heyday of the junior high mess - characterized as the off-off-Broadway "Welding Recital" by The Sun - that an inquisitive McHale stumbled into Zavaleta at the popular bar/eatery Cobbleheads. When McHale attempted to join his old friend and TSC Chair Adela Garza for what he later wrote was a chance at an interview of the two, Zavaleta told him to get lost.

"I aggressively asked him to leave us alone," Zavaleta said. "We were discussing TSC business. I probably overdid it. All I said was, 'Largate, Jerry!' "

Zavaleta said he was further "hurt" when McHale wrote about the encounter as if someone had attacked him. Zavaleta added that McHale also kept making fun of his disabilities.

Not much new has come down the Blogger Pike about the issue magnified ridiculously by McHale and his ever-fawning shadow, house husband Barton.

Zavaleta says he wants peace in his life, even at one point asking that we not make things worse for him, this perhaps because he knows how cruel McHale can be when posting to his blog. It's a shame, 'cause these two were ascloseasthis for almost 5 decades!

Not that it is anything new for McHale.

The 73-year-old blogger also burned ex-drinking pal Juan Montoya, another blogger. For some unknown reason, McHale wrote that Montoya was the third-best writer in local blogging, placing him, presumably, behind himself and the non-college-educated, non-journalist Barton.

As could be expected, Montoya quickly distanced himself from McHale, demanding that Jerry no longer use his stories for his blog - something The McAllen Sun also did earlier this summer. McHale and Montoya once socialized like crazy, but that was then. When we would ask about Juan during our phone conversations with untrustworthy McHale, all he would say is that it had been long months since the two had had a beer.

Who knows how McHale has digested all of this? He writes about living a solo life as if a homeless dude. His dying blog seems to be the heart of his breathing, that including selling ridiculous advertising dreams to uninitiated political candidates in need of some publicity.

Not quite the accomplished journalist (he never challenged himself in larger markets), McHale full-well knows the stories on the welding debacle he imagined were just as major a debacle for him personally. He - and the 75-year-old vocabulary-deficient Barton - never, ever bothered to contact any of the particulars - not TSC Chair Garza, not Zavaleta and not even Tynan. Like gossipers more than journalists, they simply went with what they were being told by a few disgruntled students.

But, like we said, neither McHale or Barton ever worked for a newspaper, McHale's sportswriting for The Herald was not in a serious, investigative news vein. Here is where McHale and lesser blogger Barton might've used a meeting with Blogger Montoya, who does have extensive newswriting experience.

But McHale burned him, too.

It'll be interesting to see if McHale approaches Zavaleta with a full apology. He should.

McHale was wrong, and we say he likely knows it...

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SUN OBIT:..."Shaft" Actor Richard Roundtree Dead At 81...

WAR:...19th Day Of Wanton Killing...Palestine Still Under The Gun...More Than 5,000 Palestinians Killed...So Far...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | It continues. Like a TV drama series, Day 19 in the Israeli war with Palestine brings a certain halt in the story. It is a temporary halt, as some aid is allowed into Gaza and while the world awaits the threatened all-out invasion by the Israelis following that horrendous attack by Hamas terrorists on its settlers.

Images from the scene tell a sad and disgusting story of wanton killing.

This from axios.com: [ Palestinians in Gaza tell Axios they are not certain they will survive this war as Israel intensifies its air raids and prepares for a ground invasion.

More than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israel-Palestine war began, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health of the Hamas-run government. The besieged enclave has been under heavy bombardment in the two weeks since Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israelis in the worst attack against Israel in decades.

U.S.-backed Israel has also imposed a "complete siege" of Gaza, cutting electricity and largely blocking food, fuel and other supplies from entering the enclave, which is home to more than 2.2 million Palestinians.

Three convoys of trucks carrying assistance have been allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt since Saturday, but aid groups say this is only a small fraction of what Gaza needs. The assistance also doesn't include fuel, which hospitals in Gaza say they desperately need in order to keep their backup generators running.

The border crossing remains closed to Palestinians who may wish to leave. Even before the latest fighting, Palestinians had to get special permission from Israel or Egypt to leave the enclave, which was often difficult to receive.

About 1.4 million people have been displaced in the 140-square-mile Palestinian territory, which is about the size of Detroit. ]

There is no one official number as to how many children have been killed, numbers in the world press ranging from 1,500 to 4,000 - most of them in Palestine. The United Nations is condemning the ever-blooming war. Israel has said its invasion will not be deterred.

And it isn't all Israel as the aggressor. It has a right to avenge the murder of its citizens, but that is coming at a price. In the Jerusalem Post, it was reported that there has been a 400% increase in antisemitic attacks in the United States alone.

In these things, well, nobody wins...

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TACO TUESDAY:...Quem é Quem In Politics...Kid Kunkle Down...Dr. Laura's Old, Old Photo...Rosas Jr's Roosting ...Ronnie Chooglin'...Shitty Welding Recital Bloggers...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | We've always ragged our local politicians for using 20-year-old photos of themselves in campaign posters and literature. It's dishonest and wrong. Be yourself, we say. Even 84-year-old Omar Lucio (now dead) used a photo of himself that surely had to be 35 years old!

I know: They all do it.

The lady seen in photo above is Dr. Laura E. Cisneros, a thousand-to-one candidate for the 34th Congressional District seat now held by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez. Ms. Cisneros is a NEW REPUBLICAN (less than 1 year!); that is, a cheap opportunist apparently dying to belong. She'll go nowhere with this campaign, and we would further suggest that she stop paying those $20 to a local blogger selling her dreams.

Republican spitfire Mayra Flores is still the one to beat and we don't see anyone doing it in the party's upcoming primary. Comfortable Laura E. Cisneros isn't even the one we're picking for a second-place finish in the intraparty brawl. Not third place, either in the four-person race.

A four-cycle engine has four features: intake, compression, power and exhaust.

Laura E. Cisneros has intake and that's all.

But, yeah, buena suerte.

Whatever. There ought to be a Winnowing Day for weak/lame political candidates going nowhere...

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Annoying novice Greg Kunkel is still around, ladies and gentlemen. Why? Yeah, that's the question for the male version candidacy of the Laura E. Cisneros effort. Kunkle is a young man with perhaps precious little knowledge of American politics. He's not done much in that vein.

His political experience is a Big Fat Zero. He is El Peor-Es-Nada!

But there he is, campaigning as if he's more than the obvious, speaking here and there, his speeches nothing more than road-tired platitudes. He's going to "Save America," bring families back together and gift Washington, D.C. with his words and actions. Big promises from an empty toilet tank, we know.

He, too, is a Republican. And he, too, will be destroyed at the polls by fellow GOPer Mayra Flores, who has a way with words and with her opponents. Reports in the mainstream press have it that fiery Mayra shouted sheltered Kunkle down at a public appearance, yelling, no, screaming at him that he was "not at my level!"

Well, she's right. We were left with the image of Kunkle throating a knot of full hatred and the pale ocher eyes of a sick Weimaraner. Believe it, kids.

If anything, Kunkle should be running for city commissioner or somesuch position. His entry into congressional politics is pure silliness. The campaign trail is still long ahead of him, crunch time coming next Spring, but, already, we see dogged Kunkle ending his days by heading for the Milk of Magnesia...

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So, the Welding Recital guy quit or left or resigned his job at Texas Southmost College. It is something of a follow-up to the pitiful Trail of Tears "reporting" not-quite-interested residents of Brownsville got from non-Journalism-trained Blogger Jerry McHale and Jimmy Barton.

Tom Tynan is the dude's name (photo above).

If he's gone, as the Breathless Welding Recital Bloggers now say, well, the college hasn't said a word about it. And the lazy, unqualified bloggers again have disdained either going by the school or taking officialdom comment by way of the phone. It is the town's lingering crotch irritation.

Not much else has been reported by these pair of rudderless bloggers, Turkey Lurkey and Henny Penny to the laughing masses.

The shallow Tynan-is-gone story with more holes than Swiss Cheese was posted by unemployed, house husband Barton and then taken by retired elderly-about town McHale for his blog. But then that's their M.O. - post something - anything! - about someone in town and let the chips fall where they may, getting to the bottom of a controversy the least of their worries. It is minor league writing, if that.

But neither Barton nor McHale (shown in photo at left) has any serious newsroom/newswriting experience. They just have a blog.

McHale, 73, cites credits in several "publications," but never names them. From what we know, his one year as a sportswriter at the lowly Brownsville Herald is it for him. Barton, 75, does not have a college degree, hence, he couldn't possibly have even one news story in any RGV newspaper, much less in the Journalism Big Time.

We'll keep watching these two zero-sum-game writing flakes.

Theirs is more comedy than news reporting. Laughter is what I get with each and every offering I see from them. 

Oh, but they also praise each other!

Because no one else does it, of course. 

McHale dares to call balding Barton (shown in photo at right) a "journalist" without drinking and Barton's quick response is to post a fawning, ass-kissing piece on McHale's value to - wait on it! - local history (seems he deleted it overnight, perhaps because it read "too-Gay"). McHale says it full-well knowing that Barton always has been an hourly-wage employee, at least if he tells the truth in saying he worked many years for a local grocery store, for a motel and for shrimp boat captains looking for unloaders.

Barton's also the Stolen Valor Journalist who would wear a homemade PRESS badge strung around his neck at Brownsville political pachangas.

We got a message saying this: "Barton is on wife support."

I said, "You mean, Life support?"

"No," the caller went on. "His wife is a breadwinner in the household. Jim does not work."

Let's not take our eyes off the Applause Meter, people!

They do prove that there is synergy even in failure. Next will come - for sure! - the "tally me banana" part. Psychobabble is their game. Physically-eccentric Barton has won the toss and elected to be kicked in the ass.

Emotional hegira; that's what it is.

Both of these boys arrive unarmed, is what we used to say about interns in the Big City newsroom...

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Ronnie Saenz is still in it. Rumors that he'd dropped out of the race for Cameron County Sheriff were short-lived and lies. He's in the dressing room, getting a massage and waiting for the call from Bruce Buffer inside the ring.

Does he have the punching power to knock out his opponents, either 4-round chump Jesus Rosas Jr or incumbent Sheriff Eric Garza?

No, of course not.

Saenz has nothing. Well, other than a lying blogger who may have convinced him to pay for a little useless publicity. You know, like well-fed Abel Gomez, the Unknown Constable seeking reelection? Yeah, poor Ronnie. He's being taken for a dud by a blogger with something of a losing record. He's the blogger who worked that now-forgotten Sergio Zarate campaign. Yeah, Ronnie, do get your wallet back in your pocket.

You have no chance.

We hear that everywhere we go: "Ronnie has no chance...Ronnie has no chance...Ronnie has no chance."

Plus, Taco Tuesday is getting tired of you.

We need new and more-qualified faces, yes...

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Eddie Garcia, another of the lackluster candidates (shown at left in photo above) being sold down the river by a city blogger offering mediocre publicity for cash. Garcia, a Brownsville Independent School District trustee and former city cop, wants the job of tax assessor. He's about as qualified for it as some of the kids in the blogger-damaged Texas Southmost College welding program. A striver he is, your honor.

Garcia is a veteran, his only plus as a candidate.

Well, why he wants to be the local taxman is the mystery. His smirking supportive blogger isn't asking, and Eddie Garcia is not telling.

It's a good-paying job, so we say that's it. Yes, he follows in the footsteps of another former BISD trustee who hopscotched from that job to one with the county. That would be one Laura Perez Reyes, who is now the well-paid District Clerk.

It says here that Eddie Garcia's devious political ambition is showing.

What's next - a run against Republican Mayra Flores? Just to show that he can be a tough guy, too.

Mayra would horse-collar this chubby guy and wouldn't let-go until he said, "Mama."

You know it...

-0-

A woman was found dead at the county jail over the weekend and another along the 600 block of West Fifth Street in town. Guess which one the blogs covered? Yeah, you get a dozen Lopez tamales if you guessed the inmate. Pro-Mexicans Blogger Juan Montoya never lets bad news for the sheriff's office go unreported.

Updated today by Montoya, the dead woman was identified. And facts-lax Montoya went ahead and blamed Mexico for the alleged drugs the woman may have taken while a prisoner.

Silly Montoya (shown in photo at left) didn't quite slam Sheriff Eric Garza, but he posted the story even as it lacked a load of facts. In his follow-up story, Montoya had no confirmation but hoped that the Texas Rangers would investigate the death. He's been starving for something he can pin on the sheriff for now going on four years, yes.  

The unidentified female found dead in the middle of the city street?

Who knows about her?

Valleycentral.com noted it, but it was almost as if in passing. A day later, it had not updated the story.

Kids, facts make the tale in news. Repeat after me: Facts make the tale...

-0-

There he is in the unMacho photo above, at right. Dayum! We'd almost forgotten the candidate from Da Barrio - sheriff aspirant Jesus Rosas Jr. He's not backing down, not dropping his ill-fated campaign. He has $20 to blow weekly on useless Blogger publicity.

So, what the hey, eh?

Rosas, no relation to Untouchable Elliot Ness, is up against another green candidate - the aforementioned Ronnie Saenz. But he'd like to go mano-a-mano, cumbia-a-cumbia, taco-a-taco with incumbent Sheriff Eric Garza.

It says here that Rosas is gone, as they say in tourists falling at the Grand Canyon. He can't and won't win. But it'll be fun & games and maybe that's all bored Rosas is after.

I mean, when you don't even know where to advertise your campaign, well you deserve to lose.

Rosas Jr will lose big.

Like that one election for the Texas State Board of Education, when incumbent Ruben Cortez routed candidate Tad Hasse by 29,000 votes. Ouch!

The cowboy hat seems more a crutch for Rosas Jr than a symbol of rugged individualism...

-0-

  

Wildly-popular Delia's Tamales is in legal trouble. You thought I was going to say something about its bean tamales, right? Well, no. My bent is pork, but bean tamales are just as yummy, I'm told.

Anyway, the Valley's premier tamales retailer is in court after allegations from former employees surfaced to throw the eatery's reputation into the streets. They say Delia's management obtained fake social security numbers for some their employees, paid the SSN portion off their paychecks and then saw any possibility of employee claims go down the drain - the money then returned to Delia's.

Geez, Louise. It's getting to where everything's a racket.

The story in the McAllen Monitor did not say how many employees are party to the lawsuit, but it did say that the employees claimed it went back many, many years.

We are really indifferent to this, but we know tamales are big for fat people all across the Rio Grande Valley. When he posted a link to this story on his Facebook page, former Cameron County Judge and ex-Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos opined that he preferred "Lopez tamales," a delicacy we have yet to taste for our own culinary assessment.

Whatever.

We'll await the court proceedings and will dutifully report the testimony/findings here when that happens. Until then, go with the red salsa.

I always do...

-0-

Happy Halloween, all!

Weather forecast calls for a cold front sweeping the RGV, with the possibility of scattered thunderstorms. I mean, scary weather would be fitting, right?

Right...

-30-

SUN VIDEOS:..."A DAY IN THE LIFE"...

SUN SPOTS:..."Taco Salad Perfume"...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...You could waste away just like an old package of popsicles left in the fridge for more than eight years. Melissa had read that fact in the packaging, although no else had done that to confirm.

Groceries were known for fake expiration dates, like milk and sliced bread. To Melissa all that was just color in an otherwise black & gray life.

Her decision to become a Happy Hour addict after being dumped by a mediocre club musician had come hard, yet expected. Twenty-nine-year-old Melissa Hernandez's existence these days was wrapped up in bad scenes and ever-diminishing hopes. Any possibility of marriage now seemed so distant as to be, well, damned non-existent.

Her still-hot mother, super sexy uptop Juana Robledo, never did find marital happiness, even after meeting, dating and marrying five men, all as different as five distinct M&Ms.

In the bars, Melissa made no quick moves, yet she liked to think that no other woman on Earth could play erotically with a drink, the glass of a highball taking on another imagery every time she slowly lifted it up to her painted mouth.

Men would come. They always did...

-30-