JFK:...They Assassinated Him In Dallas 60 Years Ago Today ...We Know It...We Just Don't Know Them...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Sixty years is a long, long time to live with a freakin' mystery. Okay, so who killed President John F. Kennedy 60 years ago today in Dallas? Every prying swinging dick (detective) has an answer, only this one seems to have more answers than who really impregnated Mary Magdalene.

They say it was a patsy named Lee Harvey Oswald, only educated people aren't buying it.

Others say it was the Central Intelligence Agency, while still others say it was the Cubans in cahoots with the American Mafia. As my old and dear friend Melissa Zamora (pre-Landin) would say about here, "Quien sobby?"

Yeah, many will be recalling exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

And, of course, the word is that the federal government knows who did it. But, for a load of reasons, the many-faces government is not talking.

Should we care? At this so-down-the-road point?

I don't. Who's got time these days? Hell, we could reflect on a litany of things that remain unresolved in this grass-whorled country. Life here, I tell my foreign friends, is a moving TV show with an endless string of characters and a loose-legged plot.

America? Is it still Land of The Free & Home of The Brave?

Eh. Only, my friend, if you believe in lying bullshit, which, yes, forever finds its way into our National Story. Americans were meant to be rolled, as any self-respecting thug will tell you.

Kennedy was killed because someone said he had to be killed. Guns and bullets don't work alone. Some connected dude, more than likely, an organization perhaps. JFK was a problem for that someone, that something.

Movie Director Oliver Stone told one version of the assassination. I thought it was a good movie, although hardly convincing, which is the essence of mystery, isn't it? Books were written, all still there in bookstores and home libraries. Read one, read two, read three. Maybe the info will add up for you.

No, Maria, there is not one answer to who offed our young, popular president.

Too bad, I know. It's become part of our annual psyche wash, a day to remember and wonder about an event that is well-known to someone but not to all.

Bang the drum slowly, yes...

-30-

SUN BEAMS:...Evening At Lurleen's Bar...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas |...The next day was the day, a rainy Tuesday of all days, Lurleen Garcia opened the first sports bar in town. She was something of a known figure to locals, she being the great-great-granddaughter of the town's founder, Col. Epigmenio Garcia, himself a son of a landed something or another back in cold Mexico somewhere.

The bar was not needed in town. Some said it was just Lurleen's latest devilish dig at her dusty hometown.

"We'd rather have a goddamned dry-cleaning business, but why should we be so damned lucky," one resident had been driven to write in his letter to the newspaper.

What pulling for the Nebraska Cornhuskers had to do with life in Rio Grande City was anybody's guess. But there was Lurleen's bartender, Lucho Gomez, helping erect the bar's marquee along the face of the downtown building, there next to the bank and, directly across the street, a finance company.

Lurleen's name, of course, monopolized the marquee, yet everyone could see that the Huskers football logo seemed a bit much.

When ranch hand and family friend A.D. Ramirez strolled in for the first time, it was Lurleen who greeted him with a bottle of beer, one she'd been drinking. "Happy trails," she said, going western. Ramirez took the bottle and walked it to the jukebox, where he dropped a few coins on a string of songs by Phil Collins.

Shortly, he heard, "Su-su-sudio..."

-30-

WAR:...Ceasefire, Ceasefire!!! ...Israeli Hostages, Palestinian Prisoners Freed...Bombing Of Gaza To Resume After Four Day Halt...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Well, they should be home for the weekend. Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and leaders for the Hamas terrorist group have agreed on return of 50 Israeli hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a ceasefire in the monthlong war that has largely destroyed Gaza.

It was good news for Israel, a respite for Palestine.

The much-bombed Palestinians can use the break, but they know that the deal comes with a stipulation that the war will proceed after the ceasefire. Four days is the initial offer, but it could then be extended, according to the agreement.

This from axios.com: [ The Israeli government and Hamas announced separately on Tuesday they have agreed to a Qatar-mediated deal in which the militant group will free dozens of Israeli hostages in exchange for a four-day pause in fighting in Gaza and the release of dozens of Palestinians held in prisons in Israel.

The deal, once implemented, will be the biggest diplomatic breakthrough and the first major pause in fighting since the war began.

In the first phase of the two-phase deal, Hamas is expected to free at least 50 Israeli women and children held in Gaza, while Israel is expected to release about 150 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and children over the four-day pause.

Israel will allow around 300 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza from Egypt. More fuel will also be allowed in during the pause in fighting, according to an Israeli official.

In the second phase, Hamas could release dozens more women, children and elderly people. The Israeli government said it would extend the pause for every additional 10 hostages released. "The starting time of the pause will be announced within the next 24 hours and last for four days, subject to extension," Qatar's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Israeli Cabinet approved the deal after more than five hours of discussions. ]

Return of the hostages is a good thing. Perhaps it's even the beginning of the end of this crazy war.

One can hope...

-30-

TACO TUESDAY:...Blue Jeans Asses...Blogger Barton's Boring "Stormy Monday" Dies...Helen Of Trey...Ronnie Saenz...Eddie Trevino...The Budding Writer El Jerry McHale...Kunk Out...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | The Rio Grande Valley's unofficial taco test is not at all scientific, but local Pachucos and their parole officers swear they can tell which tacos local women eat just by looking at their ass. Could that ever be true? That would be one wild survey for local bloggers, if only they ever left the beaten paths that so strap them.

We say the gal in the far left in denim photo above is strictly, like always, "Barbacoa tacos." Second from the left is healthy chicken, one tortilla only. Next to her and second from right, well, that one is all-lengua, with some pico de gallo. The linebacker at far right has to be greasy beef all the way.

This, of course, goes to the tastes and wants of ever-starved local Hispanic chicks. White Babes like footlong hot dogs for the most part and area Filipinas are always scrounging for "dogmeat tacos," which, of course, are hard to find in the RGV, at least on menus.

We're hip to the region's culinary trips, yes. Do we care? No, not in the least.

Everybody in the cheap-life Valley eats too damned much. This is a part of the country where the Big Ass resides unapologetically. Tacos de trompo, mi amor? Pos, si. Dale gas, cabrona. Tragatelos y despues hablamos. Like at divorce time.

We'll do fajita tacos in prime-time eateries from time to time, but never, ever, the two-tortilla kind.

That maize diet is a killer around here. One-tortilla tacos are bad enough, especially if you dare to eat them weekly. But we know some locals eat them daily. And, no, seafood tacos are not any better. Fish tacos are two words that should never be uttered together.

As for the big asses in women around here, well, it does help the all-around sale of blue jeans, but most beds are not made for the larger glutes. I've never been with a fat woman and I likely never will be, my tastes in Babes being so selective.

Next to horrible overbites, the large ass doesn't quite sell in the appearance-happy USA.

And from what we've seen in this bloated fish of a border town, things seem to be in Frito-pie order...

-0-

We say he felt ashamed to know the guy. Is that why Elderly-About-Town Blogger Jerry McHale dropped fellow under-achieving, white-boy blogger Jimmy "Little Hands" Barton? It's been two weeks since El Jerry posted any of Dairy Neck Barton's bad-grammar stories on his blog.

The breakup was bound to happen, we said weeks ago, after both of them failed mas-que-pinche-miserably on that nutty Texas Southmost College welding nothingness they threw at the city. Both El Jerry and Jimmy Boy typed like crazed WATERGATE WANNABES while hoping their stories featuring a pair of disgruntled welding program students and a misguided administrator would, well, do something.

The blogging they offered turned out to be rising marsh gas of the sort you see in polluted resacas here.  

We thought about contacting El Jerry to ask the pertinent question, but decided El Jerry had seen in Barton what we always saw in him - inferior news reporting, pathetic writing, a lard-ass guy forever chasing a relay of barking dogs down the street.

Oh, well. Butterball Jimmy Boy is back in Brownsville after losing his sense of smell in pig-shitting Iowa. As he has told his dwindling readership (another blogger told us Barton's blog is dead last in readership), his current wife split for Nevada after she put his boring ass on a plane to the Mexican border.

Methinks there is something more to this weird separation.

Unfortunately, eternally-insecure Barton will never admit Sweet Ana, his chubby, ever-smirking Filipina sweetheart, may be in the mood for a change of evening scenery. You think, Brownsville?

Inquiring idle minds want to know, but not us. As most know, we don't cater to people dressed as prairie chickens carrying pro-immigration signs. Theirs, to us, is like a dream without an obvious explanation. 

We don't give a shit about less-than-pretty Third World romance.

As for the Welding Recital disaster, we're told El Jerry and Loose-kneed Barty had a testy telephone conversation to discuss the sorry ending of their silly, kinda blown out-of-proportion reporting on Texas Southmost College this past Summer.

"I can't hear you," McHale said into the cellphone.

"Is this better?" came back from Barton.

He froze in anticipation of an angered El Jerry's next words: "Are you going to do something about it?"

"Yes, I am.

Well, Maria, neither of the two untrained stooge-newsmen wrote another word about TSC...

POSTSCRIPT:...Slothy, failed lifer Barton has shelved his weekly feature "STORMY MONDAY," the one he breathlessly introduced with gallons of spewed saliva and tuba-only symphony of fat jelly-belly laughter. Uh, it simply vanished, as most everything to do with this unaccomplished Dairy Neck Dude. Oh, he replaced it yesterday with two incoherent, 20-inch turds on Satan and Santa. He's heady.

Yeah, punk-savvy in the same manner of that high school drop-out Leon Spinks.

Spinks made it to the 10th grade - Did Jimmy Boy get that far?

He'll never say...      

-0-

He keeps disdaining the freakin' fake cowboy look favored by his opponents in that too-quiet Cameron County Sheriff's race. Ronnie Saenz (shown in photo above) is going with the conservative suit & tie look. Go to hell, he seems to be saying to candidates Jesus Rosas Jr and actual sitting Sheriff Eric Garza, both dime store, hat-adorned cowboys.

Mustachioed Saenz may be onto something, as he could be thinking Rosas is merely a silly & stupid Garza wannabe and Garza merely a laughable Wyatt Earp shadow.

Is there a public debate in this race?

We're not endorsing Ronnie, but he is standing apart from the other two Mexicans seeking the post.

Rosas, it says here, would only show his stuttering, mumbling diction and Eric Garza his staccato tone of unsure whimsy. Ronnie Saenz would be a literal Rhodes Scholar next to those two!

His only apparent bummer is that he for some damned weird is advertising his rookie campaign via Elderly-About-Town Blogger Jerry McHale's star-crossed blog. El Jerry hasn't actually helped very many local pols across the finish line.

It says here that Ronnie Saenz should save those $40 and use the cash to get a professional trim on that ranging, worm-like mustache. It's beginning to look very much like Tiny Tim's armpit hair.

Hey, it's the little things that often make the difference in a Three-Mexicans political race...

-0-

That's Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino in color photo above. Does he look comfy and happy to you, voter? Well, he is.

The Democrat is the best-known politician in the whole county, eclipsing the popularity of Grandma Sofia Benavides, the county commissioner who couldn't buy bad news about her if she had a million pesos to blow on going-nowhere blog publicity.

Trevino is both admired and hated.

He's been mayor of Brownsville and, well, county judge. Who knows what his legacy as a public servant will be, but know this: we couldn't tell you. Eddie's just been there, like the proverbial bump-on-a-log, the very essence of a hard-to-cure, itching boil on a part of the back hard to get to with either hand.

Who are this guy's best friends? Rumors in English and rumores in Spanish chase him across the county damned near daily. Does he have a healthy life beyond presiding over the ever-sedated county commissioner's court?

There is no scandal brewing around him and the local bloggers seem to leave him alone (unlike Sheriff Eric Garza) most of the time. A charmed life? Well, yeah! Eddie Trevino is okay with his standing in politics. He's Da Judge and you're not.

The city's bloggers have apparently bought into Trevino's same-altitude-day-after-day-after-day incumbency, none dragging him across the Word Pusher coals.

To the bloggers, Eddie Trevino is as reliable as Kellogg's Rice Krispies in the morning. And it appears Trevino is buying it himself...

-0-

 

Once, she was referred to as Helen Of Trey, Trey as in former Mayor Juan "Trey" Mendez, who supported her rise to city manager and that outsized annual salary that would pay for an entire neighborhood's income over in poor Las Prietas.

Helen Ramirez, yes.

Well, the promotion from assistant city manager to the top post did not sit well with less-wealthy bloggers, all of whom jumped like trained chimps for days while writing critical stories about her. Not that she cared. The check was going into her bank account and, well, bloggers were to be tolerated like flies are tolerated here.

There's been nothing about Sweet Helen for weeks.

Has she now been accepted, and is everybody okay with her huge, huge salary, said to be about $300,000 annually?

Well, apparently.

We sort of picture her working her butt off daily, heading home with a briefcase full of papers, enjoying a spectacular dinner and then sipping on some fine wine before soaking in the bathtub for hours to ease the aches and pains and aggravations of hanging out at a border town's cheap City Hall. Yeah, soothing music in the background, just a bit of steam in the warm water rising to the tilted window from a growing number of scented bubbles.

Elsewhere in town, the little-shits bloggers worried about their next meal...

-0-

We've known plenty of news writers and a few writers of fiction in our time. Most of them have been genial dudes and women humbly going about their work. One, a friend of mine when I wrote for The New York Post, was the editor and novelist Pete Hamill, a real New Yorker.

Pete could regale you with stories about his craft as a reporter and editor. His book "A Drinking Life" about his days as a writer was a top seller. The memoir was published in 1994. Hamill also edited the English-language Mexico City News in the 1980s. Pete died in 2020 at age 85. A "Quintessential New York Journalist," is how the city's newspapers described him in obituaries.

I mention Hamill here because Brownsville has the Rio Grande Valley's Top Writer Wannabe - unaccomplished blogger Jerry McHale (wearing bowling shirt in photo above).

It's something rare for an accomplished, self-respecting writer to praise his own work, but this guy McHale is about as subtle as an exploding fart at a funeral. At least twice a month or so, McHale types a self-praising post on his blog. And every time, he tells the story about how he started writing at the lowly Brownsville Herald, and about how he caught the writing bug listing - check this out! - sports results agate.

"When you begin a writing career, there are constant challenges," he wrote yesterday, without laughing.

Then he gleefully tells his readers he has written 20 books, only not one has ever made it to a bookstore or even school/college library. McHale's "books" are self-published on Amazon, where such efforts go to die, which is why he never tells you how many he's sold.

We do wonder why he does it. But we too notice no one else ever mentions, much less praises, his blog offerings or his "20 books," a pile one mutual friend once told me is the same story 20 times over, McHale's bent on writing centers on the ragged Mexican border, loose women in menstrual pads, wanton sex, blackout drinking and mangled Spanish sprinkled throughout the text, as if to substantiate his side-door entry into cheap Border Life.

We, the press in the Big Apple, used to gather at a bar in Manhattan called The Lion's Head near Madison Square Garden. Hamill and renowned NY Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin held court for the young scribes pretty much nightly. I remember neither of the two ever throwing out their greatness, as Wannabe McHale does so cavalierly.

Indeed, Hamill and Breslin loved to talk about stories of the day by young reporters at the bar. I recall that clearly, as it sort of worked against their reputations of being hard-edged reporters forever out to sink the mayor or some other errant politician.

Real writers don't talk about their work.

Blogger McHale does it all the time...Big clue there, yes...

-0-

The worst candidate for anything in the Rio Grande Valley now has a photo of himself with Rick Perry. Big, useless endorsement there, Greg Kunkle! The Kunk is a candidate for the Republican Party's nomination in that 34th Congressional District seat held at present by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez.

Look at The Kunk's photo, 'cause it won't be long before he drops out of the race.

He's woefully behind Vato-At-Large Mauro Garza who is woefully behind favorite Mayra Flores. We long ago lost fourth candidate Dr. Laura E. Cisneros for a litany of good reasons, like that she has no clue if she advertises on lying local blogs.

The Kunk never had a winning spiel, it says here. Why he's running remains the mystery, only no one cares to find out what that reason may be. Vanity, yes. And dumbness, too. Sprinkled with idleness and lonesome whatevers. 

Fear not, 34th, The Kunk is gone...

-0- 

  Thanksgiving Turkey Taco out...

-30-

WAR:...Tiny Qatar Brokers Gaza Strip Ceasefire...13,000 Palestinians Killed In Israeli Invasion...U.S. Pushing Deal...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Okay, but when did tiny Qatar become a major player in geo-politics. It is now the main broker in that ceasefire being considered for war-torn Palestine. Really? Who knew? Qatar, yes. With the added backing of the real force behind the halt-the-killing push, the U.S.

Israel, attacked by Hamas terrorists based in the Gaza Strip, isn't all that into it, but it does answer to the whims of the Americans.

This from axios.com: [ A deal between Israel and Hamas to free dozens of hostages and declare a multi-day ceasefire is imminent and could be announced by the Qatari mediators as soon as today. If the deal materializes it will be the biggest diplomatic breakthrough since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks tell Axios that as part of the hostage deal Israel would release three Palestinian prisoners held in Israel for each Israeli hostage released by Hamas.

In the first phase of the two-phase deal, Hamas is expected to release 50 Israeli women and children held in Gaza, while Israel is expected to release around 150 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and minors. Some of the Israeli hostages are dual citizens.

The release of hostages and prisoners in the first phase of the deal would take place over four days of ceasefire in Gaza.

As part of the deal, Israel would allow around 300 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza from Egypt.

In a second phase, Hamas could release up to another 50 Israeli hostages - women, children and elderly people - in return for extending the ceasefire by several more days. Israel would also release Palestinian prisoners at the same 3:1 ratio to the number of hostages freed.

More than 240 people, including several Americans, were abducted during the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack. ]

News reporting has the Palestinian death count at some 13,000.

Revenge-bent Israel continues its invasion...

-30- 

SUN RECORDS:...Newsroom Jukebox..."Hallelujah"...

ELECTIONS:...McAllen Sun Projects Mayra Flores Easily The Winner Of Republican Primary Vote...The Fiery 37-Year-Old Edges Out Weaker Trio...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | The noise is there. Her support has not waivered. She expects to win. Mayra Flores, the 37-year-old stunner on the Republican Party scene, is still there, still vigorously chasing a return to the nation's capital as a congresswoman for the 34th Congressional District.

We at The McAllen Sun confidently predict she will win her party's 2024 nomination handily.

No runoff for Mayra, is the rallying cry these days. And that alone will carry her to victory...and to a second brawl against Democrat Vicente Gonzalez in the General Election next November. There is little doubt among her troops.

Mayra Flores is being backed financially by the deep-pockets Republican National Committee. That is telling, as any first-year political science student would tell you. Headier pros go a step further and say she will win her primary and win her battle with Gonzalez, a formidable foe, but one vulnerable - if only because of their differences in public personality.

Miss Flores is a bar brawler; Gonzalez is a more-reserved, sort of Old School politician not quick to anger or to let-go some hellfire damnation, as the vociferous Miss Flores tends to do from time to time.

It says here that she will swamp party opponents Dr. Laura E. Cisneros (a lifelong Democrat until late last year), Vato-At-Large Mauro Garza (from Raymondville) and lackluster greenhorn Greg Kunkle, perhaps the weakest candidate in all Rio Grande Valley races.

Mayra Flores served a 6-month stint in Congress after winning a Special Election against unenthused Democrat Dan Sanchez in mid-2022. She lost the General Election vote later that same year to Democrat Gonzalez 

The party primary is scheduled for next Spring.

As for the eventual meaningful contest, we at this point rate the Flores vs. Gonzalez match a toss-up...

-30-

THE VISITOR:...Oft-Indicted Donald J. Trump Drops In On The Rio Grande Valley...Tough Guy Talk...Is Then Endorsed In Banal Remarks By Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

EDINBURG, Texas | An old man came to town on Sunday afternoon. He said he's running for president, but he didn't meet the people of the Rio Grande Valley - only fawning law enforcement types.

Yes, 77-year-old Donald John Trump, the same Trump under four indictments and the same one facing 91 felony charges in connection with a slew of events that include that insurrection at the nation's capital, his whisking away boxes of secret documents after he left the White House in defeat three years ago and, well, that juicy case in Georgia, where he is accused of doing his damndest to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

It was his fourth visit to the Rio Grande Valley and the umpteenth time he said he's going to go hard on illegal immigration.

At his side was Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Abbott would endorse Trump's 2024 campaign before the ex-New Yorker left town.

This on-spot bit from a report published in the McAllen Monitor: [ Trump is on stage circling through his usual talking points on the border while blaming Biden for just about everything, including wars going on around the world.]

The newspaper's coverage amounted to a reporter's observations of the goings-on. It was unclear why The Monitor reporter did not bother to ask Trump - or Abbott - any questions. Not one.

Abbott's endorsement was expected. He has been a Trumper for years now and, of course, has sort of patterned his governor's style after Trump's Talk Big schtick.

The visit was not open to the public.

It was just another staged event, as if that helps voters. But perhaps all they wanted was a "photo op," something shallow to make the morning newspapers...

-30-           

SOCIAL MEDIA:...Musk's "X," Formerly Known As Twitter, On The Ropes...His Dreams Of Killing It About Done...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Think the old Bird will fly? Well, it does look like Elon Musk's massive Starship indeed will fly, much higher than the experimental rocket flew on its second launch yesterday. Another of Elon's birds, however, may die on the launchpad.

We speak of X, the all-world social media platform once known as Twitter.

A steady stream of negative news reports have it that X is losing advertisers right and left, this because of his wild swing top far right politics - the last one being a dig at Jews.

This from axios.com. [ A growing number of X's biggest advertisers are pulling out, leaving the company's ad business in limbo. The move from several companies and organizations to pause ads on X, formerly Twitter, comes after owner Elon Musk backed an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Civil rights groups have also reported a rise in antisemitism and hate speech on the platform.

Media Matters for America, a left-leaning non-profit, recently published a report identifying multiple companies whose ads on X appeared next to far-right posts.

X's CEO Linda Yaccarino said the company has been "extremely clear" about its "efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination," per a statement Friday.

"There's absolutely no place for it anywhere in the world," Yaccarino added.

Yaccarino said X's "point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board," per an earlier statement Thursday.

An X executive told Axios on Thursday that the company "did a sweep on the accounts that Media Matters found and they will [no] longer be monetizable" and that the specific posts it highlighted will be labeled "Sensitive Media."

That hasn't stopped some of the site's major advertisers from pulling out.

Companies that have suspended their ads on X:

Apple: Sources told Axios' that the company was pausing its ads on X.

IBM: The company said Thursday in a statement shared with Axios that it "has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination, and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation."

Disney: A source confirmed to Axios on Friday that it would be pausing ads on X.

Comcast/NBCUniversal: Axios confirmed on Friday evening that Comcast is also pausing advertising on X.

Lions Gate Entertainment: A spokesperson for Lions Gate Entertainment confirmed to Axios that it would be pulling all advertising from X.

Warner Bros. Discovery: The company is also pausing its presence on X, per Variety on Friday. ]

Musk, meanwhile, is promising "thermonuclear lawsuits" against these companies.

Disclaimer: We never joined Twitter and really have no interest in looking at X as a possibility. These social media outfits tend to eventually posture themselves as yet some more partisan political hacks. Facebook is doing it, plus it is now selling so-called "clearance badges" to - ahem - essentially prove you're a human and not some robotoid.

It bores us, yes...

-30-

SPACE FLIGHT:...Up, Up, Up, It Went. SpaceX's Rocket Ship Blasted-Off Nicely...Then, It Blew Up...Deemed A Success...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BOCA CHICA, Texas | Well, it went up, up and away. And then it blew up. SpaceX's massive, 33-engine rocket lifted off shortly after 8:00 AM, rose majestically and then, as it seemed to go into the beyond, was destroyed. No, it was not a manned flight.

Deemed a successful launch, the rocket ship nonetheless has its work still to be done before it can hope to fly American astronauts to the moon and to Mars, as promised.

This from the Associated Press: [ SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship but lost both the booster and the spacecraft in a pair of explosions minutes into Saturday’s test flight. The rocketship reached space following liftoff from South Texas, but communication suddenly was lost. SpaceX officials said it appears the ship’s self-destruct system blew it up over the Gulf of Mexico.

The flight came to an end as the ship’s engines were almost done firing to put it on an around-the-world path. The first test flight in April also ended in an explosion.

About three minutes into flight, the separated booster also exploded over the gulf. By then, though, its job was done. Despite the failure, the approximately eight-minute flight lasted twice as long as April’s test. At nearly 400 feet, Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, with the goal of ferrying people to the moon and Mars.

"The real topping on the cake today, that successful liftoff," said SpaceX commentator John Insprucker.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk watched from behind launch controllers at the southern tip of Texas near the Mexico border, near Boca Chica Beach. At company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, employees cheered as Starship finally soared at daybreak. The room grew quiet once it was clear that the spaceship had been destroyed and crashed into the gulf. The booster also ended up in the gulf.

SpaceX had been aiming for an altitude of 150 miles, just high enough to send the bullet-shaped spacecraft around the globe before ditching into the Pacific near Hawaii about 90 minutes after liftoff, short of a full orbit. ]

It's yet another step in the overall mission.

We'll see where it goes from here...

-30-

SPACE FLIGHT:...An Early Saturday Morning Blast-Off Awaits SpaceX's Launch...At About 8:00 AM...Woodstock-Like Crowd Expected...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BOCA CHICA, Texas | At 8:00 A.M or shortly thereafter today is when SpaceX plans to launch its powerful developmental rocket ship ahead of the company's plan to help land astronauts on the moon and on Mars.

Anticipation grows as a large, "Woodstock-like" crowd is expected to witness the liftoff.

If successful, the brief, unmanned flight will take the spaceship into sub-orbit and make a landing somewhere near Hawaii in the South Pacific, according to SpaceX honcho Elon Musk.

The experimental flight is one of many crucial tests in SpaceX's development campaign to build a fully reusable rocket capable of sending some 150 tons of satellites into space.

Originally scheduled for launch last September, the flight was delayed by a government review of SpaceX's launch last April, in which the rocket ship lifted off nicely, rose to several thousand feet and then was destroyed when it began to tumble end-over-end, portions of the rocket falling mostly into the Gulf of Mexico but also to areas inland.

A related problem came after that launch pretty much destroyed the launching pad, the ship's powerful 33 engines leaving major damage and a small debris field. SpaceX has said it has incorporated a water-spray mechanism that will help keep blast-off heat down this time.

At a hearing in Washington, D.C. recently, SpaceX administrators and engineers told the government it needed fast-track approval for this launch ASAP, as worries surfaced that Chinese plans for a base on the moon could succeed before the joint NASA/SpaceX mission set to ferry American astronauts to the moon's surface in early 2025 for the first time in 53 years.

Weather reports for the Saturday morning launch suggest the liftoff will likely occur on time...

-30-             

REPUBLICANS:...Fight City!!! ...Invited Witness Threatened With Punch-Out In Hallowed Halls Of U.S. Senate...We're A Third World Country Now...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Wow!!! Wild, dramatic threat of a fight in the U.S. Senate Chambers? Is this America, or what? An invited witness sat for testimony at a hearing this week in the hallowed venue and fiery, first-term U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma (shown in photo above) wanted to punch him out.

Hell-o, India.

Singapore. Panama. Venezuela. Places where political fisticuffs are expected.

Forget searching the Internet for crazy BBC and Reuters reports from abroad. We're getting the same drama live here now, thanks to the tempestuous national politics we seem to be favoring.

This from thehill.com: [ Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) weighed in on the near-fight in the Senate Tuesday, saying it "looked like a Third World country."

"When they’ve got to a fever pitch where they wanna fight, they’re calling each other names," Manchin said Thursday on Fox News. "It looked like a Third World country or a Banana Republic, and that’s not who we are."

Manchin was referencing a near-fight between Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, during a hearing Tuesday.

Mullin challenged O’Brien to a fight during the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing after he read aloud O’Brien’s posts calling him a "clown" and a "fraud."

"Sir, this is a time, this is place. You want to run your mouth; we can be two consenting adults; we can finish it here," Mullin said.

"You want to do it now? Stand your butt up then," Mullin said, in response to O’Brien’s acceptance.

He stood up to challenge O’Brien (shown at right in photo below, alongside Mullin) when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the panel, told the lawmaker to sit down and reminded him he was a U.S. senator.

Mullin, a former mixed martial arts fighter, later defended his conduct by saying, "every now and then, you need to get punched in the face."

Tensions also rose in the House Tuesday when Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) alleged that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) elbowed him in the back.

Manchin, referring to the Tuesday incidents, said he thinks the behavior reflects poorly on the U.S. as it attempts to handle several tense foreign relations issues across the globe.

"We are the superpower of the world," Manchin said. "People are looking to us for leadership." ]

Uh, maybe not, Joe.

We, the U.S., seem to be coming apart at the seams. A sitting U.S. Senator calling out a "witness," offering an on-the-spot fistfight beating? Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of The House going full-thug?

Geez, Louise. We used to see those brawling scenes out of India, the Far East and South America, always shaking our heads, laughing at the cheap theatrics of some politician - at times, a woman - getting slapped across the face or thrown to the floor.

Republicans have brought it here.

Fifty bucks says uncouth Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, she of the apparent white trash, trailer park DNA, is the next one to cold-cock a rival... 

-30- 

REPUBLICANS:...What Have They Done Lately?!...Angry Texas Congressman Chip Roy Wants To Know...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Well, he's asking. Republican Congressman Charles Eugene "Chip" Roy, representing District 21 encompassing some of both Austin and San Antonio, seemed way off his cloud yesterday.

The 51-year-old congressman asked the sentient question: What has the GOP done lately?

This from newrepublic.com: [ Representative Roy went scorched earth on his Republican colleagues on Wednesday, haranguing them for years wasted on inaction and chaos as opposed to doing their jobs.

The Texas Republican and Freedom Caucus member spent his time on the House floor on Wednesday shouting and wildly gesticulating at his caucus, condemning them for capitulating on promises by working with Democrats and lamenting the party’s transparently vacuous approach to building a border wall.

"One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing. One. That I can go campaign on and say we did," Roy said. "One!" ]

There was no immediate response.

It's a damned good question. Best one of the week, we say.

Republicans in Congress - and our locals - have been good yappers. Often, they have tossed that same question at Democrats. It'll be interesting to see if there is an answer at some point today.

Don't hold your breath...

-30-

VALLEY BUSINESS:...The City Of Palms Still Hustling For Dollars...It Is The Very Definition Of Progress For Mayor Javier Villalobos...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Yeah, leave it to the Rio Grande Valley's busiest mayor. Javier Villalobos, still in his first year as figurehead leader of The City of Palms, is always on the hunt for business. If it isn't Mexico next door, it's anywhere else in the world.

Here in the photo above, he is lauding the Asian connection.

From the mayor's busy Facebook page: [ Economic Development transcends our local region. Met with our friends from China, Tony Liu, MEDC far East Consultant, Zhi Li, President of China (Shenzhen) International Logistics and Supply Chain Fair, YanLing Zheng, General Secretary of Shenzhen Logisitics and Supply Chain Management Association, and of course our very own Keith Patridge and Laura Warren. #I❤️MCALLEN. ]

Villalobos has earned the title of Go-Getter.

Other valley mayors may be pushing local commerce, as is Harlingen Mayor Norma Sepulveda, or doing little, as is new Brownsville Mayor John Cowen, but Villalobos, a traditional Republican, has been on the bring-more-business trail non-stop.

It's getting to where a daily looksee at his activities via his Facebook postings always yields info on yet another effort at expanding the city's business map.

Nothing wrong with that...

-30-

SUN RECORDS:...Newsroom Jukebox..."Ice & Fire"...

SPORTS:...Texas A&M Fires Head Football Coach Jimbo Fisher...Agrees To Pay $75 Million In Obscene Buyout...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | He was the state's highest-paid employee with an annual salary of $9 million. Celebrated Jimbo Fisher is gone as head coach of Texas A&M, but he'll be fine.

Fired on Sunday, Fisher gets a $75 million buyout on his contract.

Not bad for a state employee at a state-funded university. The 58-year-old Fisher arrived at Aggieland with great promise six years ago. He leaves with an okay but mediocre 45-25 record during those half-dozen football campaigns.

By comparison, Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian's pay is listed this year at $5.6 million.

It does make you wonder where the Aggies will get the cash to pay Fisher off. Theoretically, head football coaches at major schools at times pay themselves by making it to and winning a major bowl game at season's end. A national championship will cover an annual salary, sometimes for several years.

This particular payout is obscene.

But the Aggies thought they had a winner when they hired Fisher off the same head coaching job at Florida State, where he had compiled an excellent 83-23 record.

Is there any blowback from the taxpaying citizenry?

Nope.

Hefty coach payoffs are common in the college sport, mostly because some schools get antsy about losing or annoying fans and boosters when not meeting winning expectations.

Texas legislators rarely mess with school sports, especially football. But they certainly could. They could set salary limits at state schools like the University of Texas or Texas A&M or Texas Tech. Texas and Texas A&M are wealthy schools in their own right, so perhaps they cover the payoffs.

It's still a hit when you have to pay a fired coach $75 million to get out of town.

There was some press coverage about the Fisher firing, and they did make mention of the large payoff. But nothing came from sheltered A&M administrators or regents. It was perhaps athletics business as usual, if an expensive day at the office/stadium.

Fisher's replacement has yet to be named.

Texas A&M will get a Big Time head football coach and pay him better than most. It will see about winning and if the next guy can't get it done, then that guy will also be fired.

Seventy-million dollars is a lot of cash. We're pretty sure coach Jimbo Fisher is okay with being fired.

Texas taxpayers should not be...

-30-

TACO TUESDAY:...Grub At The Lonely Airport...Who is Zamir?... Melly...Little Hands Blogger Jimmy Barton...Fast Eddie Garcia...Letty Perez-Garzoria...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

BROWNSVILLE, Texas | Okay, how many of you farmworkers know that Brownsville has an airport? Raise your skinny arms and show me your hands, even if they're Trump-like "little hands," like secondhand information specialist Blogger Jim Barton's. Come on. Come on now. What - no hands?

Geez, Louise. What if you built an airport for commercial travel and nobody came?

Well, that's Brownsville, the most populated city in the Rio Grande Valley. It counts almost 200,000 fun-starved residents. Smaller Harlingen, a few miles to the west, has the region's busiest airport. Its population is barely 77,000.

What's wrong with that picture?

Everything. El Brownsville once served major airlines like Pan Am and Braniff. Today, it has a sprinkling of daily flights, but no damned rush by anyone to get out of town, which is what every taxpaying resident of this border town ought to do. How much has the city spent on improvements? Ands still no flights to major destinations, like Cancun? Paris? Rome? Laredo?

The photo you see above is of an empty space inside the renovated Brownsville airport terminal. It is being marketed to anyone wishing to open a restaurant at the local airport. Will a major eatery amble in? Will some local entrepreneur go for it?

I mean, hey, you'd have the overweight airport employees as steady customers.

The depressing space's deal is being promoted by slack-jaw District 2 City Commissioner Linda Macias, who opens her Youtube spiel on the deal with a very long-winded, totally-Border "Ahhhhlooooo-OH" before noting the positive, possibly money-making side of the empty space. Good luck, Linda.

This latest Casa De Nylon bun crib just doesn't do anything for the appetite, honeybun.

Burning Tacos at the airport may sound like a needed novelty to the thousands here who weekly flock to their neighborhood taquerias but would maybe want a change of scenery and different accompanying noise. Eh, Vatos Locos, let's trade gunfire for take-off noise!

"Three crispy tacos de pollo," you say as engines rev-out out on the tarmac.

Que wild!

Plus, Linda Lou, why name the street leading into and out of the airport after Amelia Earhart? I mean, homely cockpit hack Amelia got lost in the South Pacific and was never found! John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California is located on "Airport Way".

Paging Linda "Raton" Macias.

You have a call from Whataburger on Line 3...

-0-

I miss Melissa Zamora. She was the only one who could summon me to Brownsville, and I'd be there in a jiffy. Sweet Melly was no artist or even "caricaturist," but she was a city commissioner and that meant for something in our Big Fat Book about Brownsville people.

Once, likely while extremely bored, the amateur caricaturist Nenny Barton, now dead 5 years, drew a cartoon of Melly and Melly did not like it. Nenny, no Basquiat, had drawn a wilting red flower in Melly's beautiful hair.

Melly being Melly, well, she drew the one you see above of Nenny, and signed it.

Wow, that almost sounds like the intro to Wooly Bully: Melly told Nenny, about a thing she saw...

You get it.

In any case, wouldn't it be just more wunnerful if we had both Melly and Nenny back with us? Yeah, what a wonderful world it would be, as aging-and-about-dead Peter Noone might say about here.

Nenny's death was followed by weird news that her husband, Jimmy Barton, had donated her body to science, and the last we heard, the beautiful Melissa was working for a public utilities company in San Antonio.

So, you see. I have nothing currently drawing me to the border town at the Gaping Sphincter of the Rio Grande.

I remember Melly asking a string of questions when we first met in Browntown. One was about whether I was working for a newspaper.

"No, I'm in citrus now," I told her, adding I was living in The City of Palms, known for its many, many, many, many orchards.

She wriggled in the manner pretty women wriggle, with all-out romantic abandon... 

-0-

Who, pray tell is Dr. Asim Zamir (fleshy dude in red tie above), the medical man often featured but never explained on Elderly-About-Town Blogger Jerry McHale's "A Day With Missing Pieces" blog? Zamir can be found there on the Discount Blog alongside such neighborhood luminaries as Laura E. Cisneros, Tito Mata, Erasmo Castro, Ronnie Saenz, Bob Sanchez, Abelardo Gomez and, yesterday, even dead Omar Lucio, the former sheriff.

Jerry's geriatric absurdities are, of course, well-known and even expected.

This doesn't seem that absurd, but what's the connection with Zamir, or Zamir's connection with the blog, the city and the readership? We would venture to say that this obscure doctor is not a public figure, yet there he is included amongst a veritable who's who of local yokel politicians.

To us, Zamir actually looks like what we would envision Rigo Tovar to look like today were he still alive. Yes, the sadly deceased Matamoros crooner. This guy kinda, sorta looks like Rigo. Rigo with a bad haircut.

Perhaps El Paya Jerry (shown wearing bowling shirt in photo at right) will flesh Zamir out and tell us what the roadside attraction is with this dude. If only El Paya would fall out of his motel bed, bounce his head and shake the cobwebs off his lunch-bucket brain. He's 74 next month, btw - older than most horses and cars.

At his cemetery-ready age, McHale can be excused for whimsically believing that a literal smorgasbord of widows lay before him this entire year. Surprisingly hale, a few of those wrinkled Babes had undergone spiritual tune-ups with the departure of their husbands and, according to El Paya Jerry, had become wonderful, even sexually creative company. We'll leave the imagery to your imagination.

As for Dr. Zamir, well, there has to be a story there, Paya.

Tell it, son. Is he your doctor, your ex-wife's doctor, your son's doctor. Every however-small character fills a place in any given story.

Fans in the balcony are asking: Quien es Zamir?...

-0-

 

Ah, ese Eddie Garcia! The schoolboard trustee may only look like a "Loser At Love," for rumors move across town and the blogs that he has had more than his share of what we used to call "winter clothing" during our frigid Fall Semesters in college.

Eddie was postured front-center by Pro-Mexicans Blogger Juan Montoya this week on grounds that the BISD Trustee had for some damned-crazy reason men know as pussy promised a woman a job in exchange for, well, Juan didn't quiet say. A job, maybe?

But, as with all cheap-ass mystery novels, Eddie Garcia reportedly fell back on his promise and the unidentified woman first balked and them neighed. All who heard her heard the beginnings of a ribald tale of sorts. Perhaps we'll get to the finer, more-scintillating details next, eh, Juan?

Anyway, Fast Eddie Garcia is a candidate for the job of county tax assessor, only it may just be that he'll bail on that one too, if bad-shitty publicity still makes a real man reassess his political ass and seek redemption from the church.

We cannot tell you who the woman with Eddie in the photo above is, however. If fleshy, jowlsy Dairy Necks are a clue, Eddie Garcia looks happy to be with this pleasant-looking sweetheart, yes.

The long, hard history of Brownsville tells us it is dudes who have mistreated, hit, abused, lied to and in general been assholes to women that are the real fucked-up Border Bandits - Not Juan N. Cortina, a man who alternative border lore has it knew how to treat his big nalgas Babes.

Mexican-looking, high school hallway lothario Eddie "Soy De San Luis" Garcia appears to be one of those gents not exactly in the Best-of-Vatos molds, but still excellent at remorseless repartee...

-0-

 

Alex Dominguez seems to be back in the political arena (...I almost wrote political enema). Why, is the question. He wants to be a state rep once again, after being one for a few years not that long ago and leaving the job for a failed run at the Texas Senate.

Get lost, Dominguez! You give politics a bad name, to paraphrase Jon Bon Jovi.

You bald quitter. Quit your quitting and quit your stupid personal games. What - being a Nobody saddened you? What did you ever do the first time you found yourself at the State Legislature in Austin? Why, some of the local bloggers were labeling you a wildly-successful rep! If only!! Oh, there were a few pieces of minor legislation you got across the line, but nothing freakin' half-ass memorable.

Go back to La Feria, lad.

You've miscalculated: This is not the Era of Rethreads.    

We need do'ers and representatives out to aid the valley and not themselves. We need loud voices and dudes able to arm tackle and horse collar the strong Republican opposition upstate. We need rough play, ese. Targeting specialists, yes.

Sorry, cowboy.

But you don't fit the prototype for today's game, Alex. And don't do the pathetic, totally expected and sign-on with the starving bloggers to push your unwanted, unnecessary campaign, for that will identify you even more as being nothing but a Barrio Patsy. We've had it with candidates who bring their campaigns personalized with the smells of chicken plates and rice & beans.

You are the sort of politician arriving in unsurpassed bleakness, at a time when the landscape of your failures seems almost to afford politics a dismal glamour...

-0- 

He's supposedly headed back to Brownsville after a time in pig-smelling Iowa. That would be one Jimmy Boy Barton, shown in photo above with wife Nenny. "Little Hands" Barton rode Texas Southmost College pretty hard all summer.

Something dark and foreboding and still unresolved about the college's welding program was at the lower colon of his blog almost daily. Joined at the hip by feller Blogger Jerry "El Paya" McHale, Barton typed away like a drug-addled woodpecker for weeks, only to see the story fizzle in the humiliating manner of an old man's premature ejaculation.

Both of them, it is said, tinkled with excitement...in the same cracked cantina urinal.

There's been not a word about the college since these two Word Pushers petered out a month ago. But, man, they were like crazed fire ants evicted from the mound. TSC, its welding program and administrators were hounded for weeks by unemployed, house husband Barton.

Then, his story went whoooooooooooosh. Neighbors heard it blast out of the proverbial outhouse like a fattened avocado sandwich fart, right through the half-moon-shaped window, never to be heard from again. Little Hands Barton (He ragged Trump about his little hands, btw) stopped typing. He'd failed at bringing down the popular little city college and again felt the old familiar pain of working the graveyard shift at that cheap motel.

Recently, Barty changed his blog's slogan from the "human nature" behind the news to "Have Nurse Wife, Will Travel." Of course, we sent him a note, changing it to its rightful place: "Have Nurse Wife, Will Eat." 

Then, Maria, the girthy, Dairy Neck Barton attempted to include dummy conscientious objectors in the honoring of veterans on our annual Veterans Day last week. Talk about a tone-deaf fucker.

We bitched back at him in several of our stories, our anger rising out of knowledge that Sad Sack Barton did not serve in the military, and we suspect he actually was a conscientious objector himself.

That misguided lunkhead won't say, but he should...

-0-

 

We have been repeatedly asked about a possible worthy opponent for head-strong Republican Mayra Flores in the upcoming, much-anticipated 34th Congressional District race...and we have a name!

Letty Perez-Garzoria.

A Mayra vs. Letty knockdown/drag out would be malarious!

We all know Letty also is a pro-Trump backer, and we know of her vigorous style on the campaign trail, and we know there's an age-difference there, and we know age-differences between Mexican women always bring on some real brawling lulus.

Let's get it on! En esta esquina!!!

But we're only dreaming on this one. Mayra is pretty much holding the Republican nomination in her itching hands, and Letty is likely not even interested. What a pity.

Mayra has three opponents in the party primary, only all three of them are Losers At The Starting Blocks - raw rookie Laura E. Cisneros, The Big Nothing Greg Kunkle and Vato-at-Large Mauro Garza, all just another cover band Peter, Paul and Almond Trio.

But, hey, if any of you get word that Perez-Garzoria has entered the fray, well, do let us know and there'll be a quick $10 gift card to Taco Bell for you and your girlfriend. Posthaste, yes.

Rapido, rapido!!!...

-0- 

Taco Tuesday out...

-30-