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.
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...
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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.
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...
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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...
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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...
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