By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
BROWNSVILLE, Texas | It's been one piss-ant fight after another here lately, here being the lower colon of the pliant Rio Grande. What is it about this God-abandoned town? Is the problem that even the lowest, uneducated resident fool believes he is something special. For most, the seriousness of all this goes beyond the pitiful ugliness, or the bitter irony that those who live with this oft-ravaged land get virtually no share in its beauty.
They'll never know, no.
They're people largely standing in the way of change and progress in town. Everybody knows it, but, hey, it's the biggest game in under-achieving Brownsville.
Some claim a Red Wave has swept into town under cover of night, bringing feelings in some that they are now Republicans. Brown Republicans are NOT Republicans, at least not MAGA Republicans (read Trump into that one).
Why, Maria, some of these newfangled Republicans would do what in town - go after food stamps recipients, of which there are thousands and thousands and thousands here, shut down the little college (as it is mostly Mexican students), stifle that blossoming LGBTQ uprising, erect a Border Wall that would place the predominantly Mexican neighborhood of La Southmost in Mexico, cut all Mexican history from local school curriculums, arrest any woman (and her husband or movida) looking for an abortion, ban Charro Days in favor of a red, white & blue celebration of the Battle of Gettysburg?
Well, hey, yeah!
A town in action is a beauty and a danger. Brownsville, home to some 200,000 legals and illegals, has been teetering on wholehog disaster for now going on two decades. Elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley, it is seen as a cesspool of low-rent politics and the picture of an entire city of self-aggrandizing Nobodies.
Believe it...
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What, pray tell, is going on in the darkened innards of little Texas Southmost College? Why, you'd think that the figureheads over there would have some sort of answer for Blogger Jerry "El Paya" McHale's fiery, obsessive attack on the tiny institution that, for all intents and purposes, is one of the few self-generated, still around businesses in Brownsville.
The effusive (some say duodenal) McHale has been lobbing pea-sized cannonballs at TSC for over a week now. Something to do with the college's welding program and graduate certificate. And as happens with these local bloggers, nothing has come back from the college's bunkered administration.
Porque no, we ask?
The next story from McHale should come after a personal visit (or at least a phone call) with TSC Board Chairwoman Adela Garza (shown holding cellphone in photo above) or TSC President Dr. Jesus Rodriguez (shown at right in photo above).
We're kinda sure dogged newsman McHale will do it, perhaps even today.
If he doesn't, well, we'll know McHale is, again, just blowing old Bugler smoke.
The bigger question for us is why McHale proceeds daily with his senseless mutilation of the place he knows and loves better than any other...Sometimes, what he writes about Brownsville is actually beyond belief, and sickening...
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Cameron County Sheriff Eric Garza, law west of the
Gulf of Mexico, isn't saying much these days. He has a covey of challengers who have boldly announced their candidacy for his job, but as
pro-Mexicans blogger
Juan Montoya would say about here, "
Los esta tirando a leones!"
No joke.
Garza might think twice about his standoffishness. Playing it cool has cost man a politician his or her gig. Will Sheriff Garza wake up one of these fine mornings and let-go a broadside salvo that will sink mustachioed candidate Jesus Rosas Jr and second underwhelming challenger Ronnie Saenz?
We believe Garza is waiting for his arch-enemy to enter the contest. That would be one John Chambers, the dude he beat in the last election, but also the dude who did not take defeat well. In fact, he shocked a load of Hispanics here when he was able to get Pro-Mexicans Blogger Montoya to shill for him. Montoya has been on Garza's back like a 60-some-year-old fly on day-old guacamole.
Garza has not exactly been Mr. I Get Crap Right All The Time, but, as he would likely note, who does in Cameron County politics? Mayor John Cowen? Nope. County Judge Eddie Trevino? No. Flighty City Commissioner Roy De Los Santos? Nyet. TSC Boardmember Tony Zavaleta? No, ese.
We could go on.
Come on, Eric, throw a punch...
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Where have you gone, Caty Presas-Garcia? It wasn't all that long ago that we weren't hearing something from you or about you. Yes, you've lost more than your share of local elections, but why give up.
Run for an office that requires less than 500 votes to win and win it!
You'd think Caty would know this by now. Once, she was a star as a trustee for the Brownsville Independent School District, there alongside the lovely Luci Longoria.
We cannot tell you what Caty is or isn't doing these days.
But what we would say is this: Man, we love her Debbie Harry hairstyle!
Someone sit this gal down and get her inspired for another run at some office. As writers, we need those "characters" to hang around (well, not Tad Hasse, who lost his last campaign by 29,000 votes to the irrepressible Ruben Cortez, of all people).
See ya 'round town, Caty!
Ha ha...
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Still out there is sheriff candidate Ronnie Saenz.
Why?
He's said nothing remotely interesting to catapult him into a dangerous opponent for Sheriff Eric Garza. So, a pair of shades in the latest friendly-blogger photo is going to do it, Ron?
Uh, no. This guy is toast already. Someone hand him the crying towel. The Optic Vote is in, and he didn't move the needle. Maybe next time, eh, Ronnie?
Candidates these days need to be loud & proud. Cagey Erasmo Castro gets it. He's the loudest guy in the room when he runs for office, any office!
It says here that Ronnie Saenz likely - perhaps - accidentally announced his candidacy and maybe could not draw on inner strength to withdraw it. Regret is never a friend in politics.
He will now face sure defeat at the polls.
Lack of fire, will read his political obituary...Que lastima... In the end, Saenz will be of no particular historical significance...
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This guy, John Rourke from Florida, is scheduled to address the Cameron County Commissioner's Court this morning. What's it about: Seems John and his Merry Pranksters want to hand $15,000 to constable Norman Esquivel.
Well, he is back before the court, we might add.
Earlier, Rourke had been angered when County Judge Eddie Trevino told him the court would have to review his donation. Trevino may have an answer for Rourke at today's meeting. Of course, we know that Rourke took his case to pretty much every Far Right-Wing cable talk show to blast Trevino, labelling him, in essence, a party-pooper.
A Republican party-pooper, we should add.
Uber Democrat Trevino likely wonders what a political dude from the Sunshine State currently led by lost missile Ron DeSantis is doing in the Rio Grande Valley, and perhaps why Rourke selected only Esquivel (A Republican?) as recipient of his cash.
Good questions, we say.
Next thing you know some tough-ass Mexican cartel honcho will bop into the court's meeting pushing a wheelbarrow full of cash for those he seeks to, well, influence.
Trevino will hold his ground, we're sure. And there is probably so much more going on here. Yeah, these days everything takes long explanations.
Yeah, tell Rourke to take his cash back to Florida, where it is also very much needed...
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Most cities and towns always need something or another. There is not one that has all it needs to serve its residents. Some places, it is paved streets. In others, it is commerce.
Here, in the Cradle of Brutal Poverty, it is bus shelters.
There are not enough, or, more correctly, there are not any. The photo you see above was posted initially by a local blogger who's made it his business to rag City Hall about the city's lack of bus shelters. A pro-Mexicans blogger, Juan Montoya, sees old women and children standing alongside bus stop signs in the dead of summer and he goes nuts.
Who knows how many posts he's had on bus shelters, but we'd say it's a number in the thousands, just a few more than he'd posted against Cameron County Sheriff Eric Garza.
And what's he harvested? Nothing. Bus shelters here may as well be beach cabanas - you won't see them anytime soon. Montoya threatens to become library upholstery on this issue. Still, insistent Juan works this story as if he had 40 children to support.
The cute photo (we say it was staged) was then posted by a lesser blogger known for sheer, absolute donkey work and for lapping-up to Montoya at pretty much every turn, his lack of Journalism degree and credentials likely the crippling reason.
We don't really care about buses or bus drivers or bus routes or bus shelters.
That's wanton socialism, and who needs that in a capitalistic society where everyone can become more than just a bus rider...
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What is he doing?
We hear that about Brownsville Mayor John Cowen every time we get within 40 miles of the city. Our answer is always a shrug and a "Who knows?" Nobody knows. For the first time in decades, local bloggers are taking a hands-off approach to the city's figurehead political leader.
Yeah, porque?
Is it because it's also been decades since Brownsville last had an Anglo mayor? With a population dominated by Hispanics (94%!), well, it may just be the ethnic group's historical subservient mentality at play.
You think?
Cornpone Cowen, altogether humorless, has never been Ralph Cowen, his gregarious uncle. But there is so much going on & not going on in poor Brownsville that Cowen ought to be more, uh, public, like the new mayors of Harlingen and McAllen, both go-getters of the First Order.
Is Cowen's sheltered persona an act, one not at all mysterious but devious? What's he got up his sleeve? Say it, Johnny. Let it out, lad. You wish to offer the phonetic apparatus of the cricket, but the day of reckoning is coming.
He ran a nice, hardly-excitable campaign to beat popular City Commissioner Jessica Tetreau, promising to look into serious problems such as ridiculously-high utility bills and to go after resolution of the multi-million-dollar sham that was the infamous Brownsville Public Utilities Board's doomed Tenaska project.
Has any of that happened? Is every resident cool with their monthly utilities bill now? Is Tenaska about to be resolved. Is there any freaking movement in either!!!
John Cowen is not talking...
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