Book 1.indb

Lare DOS
A JOURNAL OF THE BORDERLANDS
FEBRUARY 2007
Est. 1994
Vol. XIII, No. 2
“Morality, like art, means
drawing a line someplace”
LOCALLY OWNED
—Oscar Wilde
88 PAGES
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| LareDO S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
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FROM DR. S.A. RAFATI:
What’s Making Us Sick Is an Epidemic of Diagnoses
For most Americans, the biggest health threat is not avian flu, West Nile or mad cow disease. It’s our health-care system.
You might think this is because doctors make mistakes (we do make mistakes). But you can’t be a victim of medical error if you
are not in the system. The larger threat posed by American medicine is that more and more of us are being drawn into the system
not because of an epidemic of disease, but because of an epidemic of diagnoses.
Americans live longer than ever, yet more of us are told we are sick.
How can this be? One reason is that we devote more resources to medical care than any other country. Some of this investment
is productive, curing disease and alleviating suffering. But it also leads to more diagnoses, a trend that has become an epidemic.
This epidemic is a threat to your health. It has two distinct sources. One is the medicalization of everyday life. Most of us experience physical or emotional sensations we don’t like, and in the past, this was considered a part of life. Increasingly, however,
such sensations are considered symptoms of disease. Everyday experiences like insomnia, sadness, twitchy legs and impaired sex
drive now become diagnoses: sleep disorder, depression, restless leg syndrome and sexual dysfunction.
Perhaps most worrisome is the medicalization of childhood. If children cough after exercising, they have asthma; if they have
trouble reading, they are dyslexic; if they are unhappy, they are depressed; and if they alternate between unhappiness and liveliness, they have bipolar disorder. While these diagnoses may benefit the few with severe symptoms, one has to wonder about the
effect on the many whose symptoms are mild, intermittent or transient.
The other source is the drive to find disease early. While diagnoses used to be reserved for serious illness, we now diagnose
illness in people who have no symptoms at all, those with so-called predisease or those “at risk.”
Two developments accelerate this process. First, advanced technology allows doctors to look really hard for things to be wrong.
We can detect trace molecules in the blood. We can direct fiber-optic devices into every orifice. And CT scans, ultrasounds, M.R.I.
and PET scans let doctors define subtle structural defects deep inside the body. These technologies make it possible to give a diagnosis to just about everybody: arthritis in people without joint pain, stomach damage in people without heartburn and prostate
cancer in over a million people who, but for testing, would have lived as long without being a cancer patient.
Second, the rules are changing. Expert panels constantly expand what constitutes disease: thresholds for diagnosing diabetes,
hypertension, osteoporosis and obesity have all fallen in the last few years. The criterion for normal cholesterol has dropped multiple times. With these changes, disease can now be diagnosed in more than half the population.
Most of us assume that all this additional diagnosis can only be beneficial. And some of it is. But at the extreme, the logic of
early detection is absurd. If more than half of us are sick, what does it mean to be normal? Many more of us harbor “pre-disease”
than will ever get disease, and all of us are “at risk.” The medicalization of everyday life is no less problematic. Exactly what are we
doing to our children when 40 percent of summer campers are on one or more chronic prescription medications?
No one should take the process of making people into patients lightly. There are real drawbacks. Simply labeling people as
diseased can make them feel anxious and vulnerable — a particular concern in children.
But the real problem with the epidemic of diagnoses is that it leads to an epidemic of treatments. Not all treatments have important benefits, but almost all can have harms. Sometimes the harms are known, but often the harms of new therapies take years
to emerge — after many have been exposed. For the severely ill, these harms generally pale relative to the potential benefits. But
for those experiencing mild symptoms, the harms become much more relevant. And for the many labeled as having predisease or
as being “at risk” but destined to remain healthy, treatment can only cause harm.
The epidemic of diagnoses has many causes. More diagnoses mean more money for drug manufacturers, hospitals, physicians
and disease advocacy groups. Researchers, and even the disease-based organization of the National Institutes of Health, secure
their stature (and financing) by promoting the detection of “their” disease. Medico-legal concerns also drive the epidemic. While
failing to make a diagnosis can result in lawsuits, there are no corresponding penalties for overdiagnosis. Thus, the path of least
resistance for clinicians is to diagnose liberally — even when we wonder if doing so really helps our patients.
As more of us are being told we are sick, fewer of us are being told we are well. People need to think hard about the benefits
and risks of increased diagnosis: the fundamental question they face is whether or not to become a patient. And doctors need to
remember the value of reassuring people that they are not sick. Perhaps someone should start monitoring a new health metric:
the proportion of the population not requiring medical care. And the National Institutes of Health could propose a new goal for
medical researchers: reduce the need for medical services, not increase it.
Copyright © 2007 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.
This article appeared in the Jan. 2, 2007 issue of the New York Times and is reprinted with permision. Dr. Welch is the author of
Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why (University of California Press). Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Woloshin are senior
research associates at the VA Outcomes Group in White River Junction, Vt.)
Radiology Clinics of Laredo
5401 Springfield Ave.
956-718-0092
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
LareDOS | JULY 2006 | 3
M
AILBOX
L
ETTERS TO THE PUBLISHER
M
eg, please take my hand. It is with such glee that I write this little
note and tell you “dale gas,” mi amor.
I was born in Laredo in 1948 tambien. I graduated from Saint Joe’s in ‘68
and went right into the Navy for los proximos 20 años. I have become a lost
soul, como que salte from that no man’s land and landed in the white sands
of lala land and now I am trapped with the peacocks. Buat today, you took
me home with your rhetoric and insight in what matters in any town in the
world. I thoroughly enjoyed reading LareDOS tonight. You have me now.
I will subscribe, although you are presente en la red. Just so that I can
help you continue telling it how it really is. Maybe someday, we can share
a poem of mine just so that you can see how the mind learns to set differently (almost) while tethered to the borderlands. Oh! In a recent visita to
Laredo I met with an old school chum que se llama Ricardo Saldaña. I will
find his email soon, I hope (let’s seee! I puet it here in my tchirt), and thank
him for hooking me up with LareDOS.
Gracias, Meg
Y dale gas hermanita...
Mi nombre es
José M. Guerrero
416 Peete Road
Mason,Tennessee
38049
Write a letter to the Editor
meg @laredosnews.com
I
s the United Independent School District board of trustees democratic,
or is it a political tool? “Democracy means government by discussion,”
and “politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs
which properly concern them.” These quotes from Clement Altee and Paul
Valery define a problem that is recurring at the United Independent School
District board meetings.
The on-going problem deals with public comments. Currently, the board
has public comments at the end of the board meeting. The board completes
its agenda, has a five or so minute recess, and then has public comments.
During the recess, the filming of the board meeting stops, and a majority
of the district administrators leave. Can the comments that follow be truly
called public, when there is very little or no public present?
Additionally, having the public comments at the end of board meetings,
where there is limited or no real chance for the public to voice their concerns about items to be discussed and acted on by the board, is recognized
by the public as being futile. Why discuss something when the board has
already voted and decided on an issue? An example of this would be at the
last regular board meeting when the public turned out to have their say on
the Dual Language Program. The majority of the people had left by the time
of the public comments, whether it was because the comments where at the
end of the board meeting will never be known, because the only person who
would know this is the person who left early and they left without saying.
This alienation of the public by the board is strange at a time when United
Independent School District is thinking about trying to get the public to
authorize another $400 million in bonds.
Moving the public comments to the beginning of the meeting and allowing the public to say what it feels before the board acts would demonstrate
that the board does pay attention to their constituents and not just their own
agendas.
Blanca Balboa, United TSTA President
Jim Squires, United TSTA Vice President
Lorraine Squires,United TSTA Treasurer
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| LareDO S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
EDITOR
María Eugenia Guerra
[email protected]
CONSULTING EDITOR
Tom Moore
[email protected]
STAFF WRITERS
Mike McIlvain
[email protected]
John Andrew Snyder
[email protected]
SALES MANAGER
Jerry Cardenas
[email protected]
CIRCULATION, BILLING
& SUBSCRIPTIONS
Jorge Medina
[email protected]
LAYOUT/DESIGN
Armando Saldaña
[email protected]
CONTRIBUTORS
Juan Alanis
Larry Bridgeman
Raul Casso
Bebe Fenstermaker
Sissy Fenstermaker
Candace Gorman
Pati Guajardo
Dr. Neo Gutierrez
Jenna Fisher
Henri Kahn
Randy Koch
Kari Lyderman
Tom Moore
Greg Moses
Richard Noriega
Jenny L. Reed
Elizabeth Sorrell
Penny Warren
Malia Watson
Kay Wavos
William Wisner
Read a pdf version of
at
www.laredosnews.com
ShuString Productions, Inc.
www.laredosnews.com
1812 Houston Street Laredo Texas 78040
Tel: (956) 791-9950 Fax: (956) 791-4737
Copyright @ 2006 by LareDOS
Write a Letter to the Publisher: [email protected]
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Santa María Journal
By MARÍA EUGENIA GUERRA
I
love any morning dedicated to
working cattle, and so you can
count on me waiting for the sun to come
up so that I can head outside to begin
the day. On this particular cool, damp
morning I get things ready well in advance, including coffee and sweet bread
for the men who will help me. It’s not
exactly jacket weather, but the only real
warmth of the day will emanate from
the fire we build to heat the branding
irons.
We’re working at two purposes today
-- one to have a USDA inspection for garrapata before we move the cattle to another pasture, and another to make sure every heifer, mama cow, and bull bears our
mark before turning them loose to the
hinterlands that border other ranches.
We’ve come to know the USDA crew
well over the last few years as we’ve
come in and out of tick quarantine -Mike Budro, Cesar Ramos, and Leroy
Gonzalez. Mike arrives first with his
beautiful horse and his hounds, and we
wait for the others to arrive.
Don Meme García, the cattleman
who can tell you a hundred things about
your herd that you didn’t know, arrives
last with his son Refugio. They are the
branding detail, the cowboys for hire
who will position the cattle for the sear
of the hot iron once the tick inspection
gets done.
We build a fire and heat the irons
while Mike on horseback and the others
a pie begin to move cattle into the chutes.
The new head gate we built last year is
a blessing, allowing a flow to the work
that in the past stopped at that stubborn
and ornery spring lever operated gate
whose handles you practically had to
hang from to liberate it from its jaws of
eternal and damned closure. I digress,
knowing only at the second of committing these thoughts to story how very
much over many years I loathed that
gate.
The morning has a wonderful quality to it, as much to do with temperature
and humidity as with the rich dapple of
colors in the hides of the healthy penned
animals and the collective smell of them
in the mix of mesquite smoke and damp
earth. It has to do, too, with the way
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sound carries on mornings like this -voices, birdsong, and cattle.
Don Meme leaves the brand on longer than I have ever seen anyone leave
a brand on a hide. Even as I think that I
understand we would not be re-branding some stock this morning had we left
the iron on a little longer last time, I still
feel such a twinge at the sear of the redhot glowing fierro.
Now and again while the branding
iron heats up, Don Meme steps back
from the chutes to tell me something
about a particular cow, and now and
again he talks about his own enterprise
down Hwy. 83. He tells me a story from
1952 or 1953, about the caliche that came
from his father’s ranch to lay the base
for 42 miles of the then-new Hwy. 83.
He talks about the scoundrels who sold
Zapata down the river when the town
was condemned for the building of the
Falcon Reservoir.
The work ends with an unexpected
ease in a pace that was never ratcheted
up too high. It’s wonderful luck to work
with individuals who know their trade
and move through it with uncomplicated grace. Even the cattle were in good
form -- no close calls, no frightened
beeves thundering through space, no
bent steel.
There’s the moment in which Don
Meme, who speaks no English, and
Mike, who knows no Spanish, have a
few exchanges that both and all the rest
of us understand implicitly, an oft told
story about an offering of hard boiled
eggs instead of real food after a hard
day’s work on Don Meme’s ranch. You
can tell by their banter the esteem these
two fellows hold for each other as horsemen. Except for the spread of years difference between them and their obvious
cultural, linguistic, and physical distinctions, they’re not so different, each of
them favoring a similar weathered felt
hat and comfortable old work boots.
Everyone clears out to return to their
own lives or to head to the next ranch
down the road. I shovel sand onto the
coals of our fire. I take the branding
irons, still warm to the touch, the irons
my grandfather registered in Zapata a
hundred years ago, and hang them with
near reverence onto the big rusty nail
where they belong.u
Photo by Maria Eugenia Guerra
Even the cattle were in good form -- no close calls,
no frightened beeves thundering through space, no bent steel
Don Meme García and Mike Budro reflect on the work.
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
5
Commentary
El Metro -- it’s everybody’s bus-mess:
It’s broke . . . fix it!
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
I
’m going to collapse -- that is, telescope
80 days of riding El Metro buses back
and forth to and from work five days a week
down to a manageable memory.
I only hope my mind’s engine doesn’t
break down and force me to abandon the
project before I have finished conveying the
cargo -- so like an El Metro bus -- of impressions I have picked up along the road to the
place where you are stationed. I promise to
be honest, discreet, a little corny, and somewhat dispassionate, for I don’t want y’all to
think that I‘m just “pulling your cordon.”
To be sure, it feels like I’ve been around
the world of our city bus line long enough to
take note of a kioskoful of trends and tendencies that may need to go to the repair shop
for an overhaul. For starters, let’s just say that
it’s been a long, hot winter if you’re a Metro
regular, although everybody knows that it
has been inordinately chilly down here on
our little sunbaked section of the MexicanAmerican frontier. It has to be considered a
good thing that the Metro buses are heated,
but I have to say that it ain’t so hot to burn
your buns inside an enclosed bakery oven
shaped like a loaf of bread. Some bus patrons,
like me, probably found it a smidge baffling
to get the automatic nix from all the bus drivers when you asked them to consider three
easily-employed alternatives to roasting the
patrons alive just to prove it could be done.
The three alternatives? I consulted a rocket
scientist and here’s what he came up with,
after some deep pondering, for the chauffer’s
consideration -- 1) turn the doggone heater
either off or down, 2) unlock some of the
windows so that the riders can open them
and take a shot at breathing, and 3) call up
that bakery that fired you for scorching the
two-row batch of gingerbread men and cuss
them out for keeping you too long.
Second, we all know that change is the
way of the universe, but come on, cacheton
-- who in heck mandated that every day
during the bitterly coldest, rainiest spell of
foul-weather Yuletide holidays on record
that, without a word of forewarning, you
should force many busloads of poor patrons
to vacate the cucaracha they’ve been riding
and step outside into the teeth of the Boreal
winter blast, and then oblige them to board
a second bus-shaped rattletrap that miraculously materializes like a gorilla in the mist
on a nondescript street corner somewhere
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along the route?
Third, we’ve all heard the bull-feathered
line from some of our would-be-macho brothers and sisters who vaingloriously boast that
they can perform some difficult, awkward,
or impossible feat “with one arm tied behind
my back!” But we never fall for it, though we
may just smile at the simpering snots and
shrug our shoulders in order to be shed of
them in an apparent effort to appease them
without indulging or encouraging them, as
if they were just so much dandruff. In other
words, most of us tend to shy away from or at
least avoid pointless and sure-to-be-fruitless
confrontations with our feckless brethren
whose legless egos need a shot in the arm.
Another way to state it is: we tend to avoid
certain kinds of people like the plague, particularly those who have an inferiority complex that they’ll stop at nothing to obfuscate
or disguise by such pathetic overt antics as
starting a war, picking a fight, or threatening
to do something humanly impossible while
one hand is picking their nose and the other
hand is tied behind their back! And, on the other
other hand, no one has ever seen anyone with
one hand tied behind their back, especially
not any specimens of the abovementioned
variety, who are universally recognized as
creatures who can’t even find the most obvious of things with both their hands.
Enter El Metro’s full-time part-time bus
driver, who works every day but only has
both hands on the steering wheel half of the
time. You must understand, he’s not literally a
handicapped person, and he’s not what any-
one would readily associate with the wouldbe-macho Neanderthal described above, but
somehow his wicked little habit has a way of
getting under a bus-rider’s skin. It’s just not a
comforting sight, if you know what I mean.
I’ve often wondered how the honest-to-God
one-armed man who rides every morning
on the same route with me feels about being
handicapped while the pensioned professional up front with a superfluous arm conducts a clinic in terror tactics and honks at
everybody he knows along the way with his
driving hand.
Personally, I just can’t look at this situation
on the bright side, for it doesn’t have one, and
I’m still in the dark as to how this incredible
chauffeur can choose to be so careless and
cocksure as he plays Russian roulette with
his company’s customers. He’s obviously not
a rookie, so he’s been getting away with it for
a while -- maybe his overseers haven’t spotted him in action, or they’ve spotted him and
don’t think that he’s doing anything wrong,
or maybe they have spotted him and no one
has reported him because they think he’s St.
Christopher. Or maybe, just maybe, everybody can see what he’s up to but they also
see that his other hand is not tied behind his
back, and that’s why they don’t complain. No,
on the contrary, his free arm is not immobilized, but it’s constantly flailing around like
a decapitated rattlesnake -- but always with
the palm of his hand facing upwards, as if
begging alms of Jehosaphat. Or maybe the
wriggling reptile works a Medusa effect on
the ridership, rendering them stone quiet.
But there’s still plenty of noise in the bus
-- the bumps that the voluntarily one-armed
bandit can’t avoid, the regular rattles that
you get on all overworked, undermaintained cheap vehicles, the unchecked, untrammeled noisome noises of small children
supervised by unconcerned parents who
might be too freaked out by the driver to
muzzle their screaming progeny, and the
noise pollution generated by Meduso himself, when he babbles back and forth with
one or more of the gabby old girls that are his
cackling comadres, and whose voices always
best the sound barrier and test the patience
of the poor rider who is getting too much unexpected bang for his buck.
To say that we have completely circumscribed the topic of my brief but challenging 80-day cha cha cha with Laredo’s El Metro bus lines would be disingenuous (a lie)
because there’s so much more to say that
the demands of space and time are keeping us from expressing at this time. So we’ll
conclude with a few admonitions that we
hope the bus company will consider acting upon, with an eye out for making the
whole system more user-friendly: seriously
consider scrapping the entire fleet if you
don’t plan to maintain the old warhorses
in a state of reasonable repair; tell the drivers who stop at the mall not to park the full
bus in front of the mall with the engine
running for 35 minutes without explanation while she goes into the building to
search for her sister that she dropped off
to do her Christmas shopping on the previous run, until she finds her and the two
finally emerge from the mall with about 50
packages divided equally between them;
tell a certain driver not to peel out with
squealing wheels when the little girl who
has just stepped out into the cold with her
mother has suddenly realized that she has
left behind her little pink coat and is crying
while her mother pounds on the double
exit doors with her frozen fists and shouts
in vain for the guy to stop; give the heaters
and riders a break so that mami at day’s end
doesn’t have to come to the door to warmly
greet her warmer spouse and turn around
in stunned horror to shout, “Honeys, they
shrunk your papi!” or, hold a séance and
call up Dean Martin to make it a proper
roast; and, if you really want to get on the
scoreboard with kids of all ages, come Holy
Week, have all your chauffers dress up like
La Coneja.u
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Opinion
The war of words -media watchdogs warn journalists
By JENNA FISHER
Utne.com
The latest political jargon to
come parachuting out of the Bush
administration and onto the front
pages of newspapers around the
country is the word “surge.” The
term has the advantage of seeming
unavoidable, forceful, and quick -like a power surge or a storm surge.
Yet it’s vague and fresh enough to
avoid conjuring past military rhetoric, such as the doomed “escalation” of the Vietnam War.
The phrase ‘’surge option’’ first
appeared in newsprint in November, when the New York Times quoted anonymous Pentagon officials
on Bush’s plans to send an addi-
tional 20,000 troops to Iraq. Since
then, “surge” has slipped comfortably into media coverage, sometimes shedding the quotes that put
it squarely in the administration’s
mouth.
That’s a troubling development,
say media watchers. In a political
culture where the slightest difference in terms can shift meaning
and determine support, the distinction between Bush’s “surge” and
the Democrat-favored “escalation”
is an important one. And it’s a distinction that even the so-called bastion of liberal media stands accused
of fumbling. The watchdog group
Media Matters recently chided the
New York Times for a piece citing
the Democrats’ motives for using
“escalation” -- i.e., presenting the
increase in troops in a “negative
light” -- but failing to similarly investigate the spin behind “surge.”
Of course, this isn’t a problem
unique to the New York Times. Nor
is it the first time the media have
found themselves caught in the
crossfire of Bush’s rhetoric. As Gal
Beckerman reminds readers (many
of them journalists) in a piece for
the Columbia Journalism Review’s
CJR Daily, the spin-infused “surge”
is the latest lingo to join an obfuscating vocabulary that includes
“the war on terror.”
It is imperative, Beckerman argues, that journalists avoid the
tendency to abridge the tricky
concepts wrapped up in these
phrases; their responsibility is to
sift through the partisan rhetoric.
“The press is the arbiter of our
public discourse, and as such must
take care to disentangle spin from
substance whenever it encounters
it -- as a service to the readers and
viewers who dip into and out of
this discourse,” he writes. “The
use of quotation marks around
words and phrases like ‘surge’ and
‘war on terror’ is the minimum
journalists can do to alert the public that what you see is rarely what
you get.”u
Reprinted with permission from the
January 18, 2007 Utne.com.
Opinion
Federal cuts to public broadcasting
are a form of censorship
BY MARÍA EUGENIA GUERRA
I
f there is any one thing I could
say is of incalculable value
about my daily 45-minute commute from San Ygnacio to Laredo,
and back, it’s being able to listen to
National Public Radio.
Fresh from listening to Jay St.
John at my house by using mojo
and paper clips and other metal
objects to make the reception better, I’m caught up on the local issues of the day, and in the pod of
my hybrid car as I turn onto the
tarmac of Hwy. 3169, I’m ready to
take on news of the world via Sirius satellite. No one delivers news
better than NPR. No one.
What can make a news item
less credible than its delivery by
a talking head who never learned
good grammar and correct tenses? You’ll hear no yahoos on NPR
trying to tell you a story they can
barely wrap their minds or their
syntax skills around. NPR is what
I listen to for un-spun news of the
world -- not the Fox version of frappéd news frosted with a patina of
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patriotism and neo-con morality,
and not CNN, a network that can
make the passing of presidential
gas sound like breaking news.
NPR is the gold standard for radio
news in this country. It is news
without bias, news that examines
all sides of an issue, news that provides enough information so that
the listener can think.
NPR is out of the realm of understanding of our national leader
(no one on NPR says “nuke-youler”), and since NPR is all about
the First Amendment and many
points of view and since it does
not lower its standards to disseminate White House propaganda, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which passes federal funds to
public television stations and NPR)
finds itself on the federal funding
chopping block -- a 25% reduction next year in its annual budget
from $400 million to $300 million.
In addition, the House proposes to
eliminate all federal funding for
the CPC, which was established in
1967 as a non-profit.
When I think that “Justice Talk-
ing,” “On the Media,” or the news
magazines “Morning Edition” and
the “Diane Rehm Show” could be
lost to funding cuts, I think those
cuts are nothing more than weighted acts of censorship to curb and
silence the likes of preeminent
news purveyors Carl Kassel, Sylvia Poggoli, Nina Totenberg, Daniel Pinkwater, Linda Wertheimer,
Terry Gross, Margot Adler, and
Brooke Gladstone.
Sadly, the cuts will also put
a dent in the budgets for Sesame
Street, Clifford, Dragontales, and
many of the educational offerings
of public television.
To petition our Senators and
Congressmen about the cuts to
public television and National
Public Radio, go to http://civic.
moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
?refer r i ng _ id = -79218274jFNkbbRTT0hr4pie7O2Ag.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
7
Opinion
Diary of a Guantánamo attorney
By H. CANDACE GORMAN
I
fell into the world of Guantánamo in October 2005. The Chicago
Council of Lawyers had organized a
luncheon discussion on the legal issues surrounding the infamous detention facility at the U.S. naval base
in eastern Cuba. I received an e-mail
thanking me for my attendance (I
should have gone but didn’t) and asking for volunteers to represent the
nearly 200 known unrepresented prisoners at the base.
I had assumed that I was well-informed about our criminal president
and his assault on the rule of law; it
never occurred to me that four years
after being captured (and more than
one year after the Supreme Court affirmed their right to hearing and counsel) individuals were still being held
without legal representation. I replied
to the e-mail, offering my services.
During a conference call for volunteer lawyers, I got a sense of what the
job might entail. For example, attorneys are required to turn their client
notes over to the government after visiting prisoners. I naively asked, “What
about attorney-client privilege?” This,
like so many other protections and legal principles, doesn’t apply to Guantánamo. Attorneys often return from
the base with urgent news, but have to
wait weeks for the government to clear
their notes. The government rarely, if
ever, classifies the content; this procedure simply delays and encumbers
our work.
At a workshop for volunteer lawyers
organized by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), I came to learn of
the horrific particulars of prisoner life
in Guantánamo: the hunger strikes,
the suicide attempts, and the dubious
circumstances under which prisoners
had been captured. The vast majority
of Guantánamo’s inmates were apprehended in Afghanistan and elsewhere
by third party forces, after the United
States promised enormous bounties
for “murderers and terrorists.”
That December, I was assigned a
detainee by CCR; his name was Abdul Al-Ghizzawi, a Libyan who had
been living in Afghanistan before his
capture. Another prisoner had written a letter identifying Al-Ghizzawi
as someone who desired an attorney.
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Because the government would not
release the names of detainees, prisoners often reached lawyers through
such indirect means. I got to work preparing a petition for a writ of habeas
corpus -- a petition that challenges the
legality of a prisoner’s detention and
requests that the court order the authorities to either release the individual or justify his imprisonment with
formal charges.
It has been a year since I filed the
petition, and Al-Ghizzawi is still languishing in Guantánamo. Initially, the
government did everything possible
to delay and obstruct access to my client. I knew only that my client was ill,
that he wanted an attorney and that
the government opposed entering the
protective order that would allow me
to visit and communicate with him.
Shortly after I filed the habeas petition, in a false gesture of munificence,
the government invited my input into
the Justice Department’s review of AlGhizzawi’s status. What could I possibly say? As I wrote the review board,
“Without knowing the reasons for Mr.
Al-Ghizzawi’s detention, it is impossible to address those reasons or the
factual basis for continuing to detain
him.” I added that I would supplement the submission once I had had a
chance to meet and interview him.
Eventually, after what then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
would call a “long hard slog,” the
protective order was entered. In July,
eight months after filing the habeas
petition, I was finally allowed to go to
Guantánamo and meet with my client,
a sick and visibly jaundiced man who
pined for his wife and young daughter.
Al-Ghizzawi was a shopkeeper who
sold bread, honey, and other goods
in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. When the
American bombs started falling, he
took his wife and daughter to the village where his in-laws lived. He then
became one of those unlucky foreigners captured and turned in for a bounty. According to the Bush administration, all of the detainees were apprehended “on the battlefield” -- in this
case, the quiet home of Al-Ghizzawi’s
in-laws.
My ultimate aim is to release AlGhizzawi and reunite him with his
family. However, my immediate goal
is to keep him alive. The medical
staff at Guantánamo have diagnosed
Al-Ghizzawi with tuberculosis and
hepatitis B but failed to inform or
treat him for either condition. I have
been fighting for access to Al-Ghizzawi’s medical records, but a D.C.
district judge ruled that we had not
demonstrated that he would suffer
“irreparable harm” in being denied
his records. Imagine, I need his records in order to prove that he will
suffer “irreparable harm,” but cannot access them without first proving
“irreparable harm.” (I have appealed
that ruling.)
This is just one example. There is no
rhyme or reason to the world of Guantánamo -- only a cruel inhumanity.u
Reprinted from In These Times, January 2007. Adrian Bleifuss Prados, the
author’s law clerk, contributed to this column. H. Candace Gorman is a civil rights
attorney in Chicago.
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Opinion
Kiko Martinez: watch listed for life
By KARI LYDERSEN
S
hortly after the 9/11 attacks, Francisco
“Kiko” Martinez, a Colorado civil
rights attorney and long-time Chicano activist, was flying home from visiting family in
Washington state. At the Salt Lake City airport, federal officials barred him from making his connecting flight back to Colorado.
After they questioned and prohibited him
from boarding his flight, he ended up taking
a bus home.
Turns out he was on the “no fly” list, a
shadowy roster of thousands of people the
government has identified as potentially
having links to terrorism. People can end up
on the list because of legal political activity or
membership in legal groups; or just because
they have the same name as someone the
government is keeping an eye on. Those erroneously listed have included an Air Force
sergeant, an attorney, a minister, and even
children.
Since November 2001, the Transportation
Security Administration has adhered to two
lists: a “no fly” list that prevents people from
boarding any commercial airliner and a “select list” that subjects them to extra screening
and questioning.
In 2003 a broader “U.S. master terror
watch list” combined 12 government lists
into a register of more than 100,000 people.
The list, officially called the FBI-CIA Terrorist Threat Integration Center, is meant to
“create a structure to institutionalize sharing
across agency lines of all terrorist threat intelligence,” according to a government fact
sheet.
Martinez likely made it onto these lists
because of 1973 charges related to package
bombs sent by Chicano activist groups. He
fled to Mexico from Colorado, saying he
feared for his life since local police officers
were out to get him. He eventually went to
trial in 1980 after crossing back into the United States. The charges were either dropped
or ended in acquittals.
On three other occasions while driving,
Martinez, 60, has also been detained by law
enforcement for no obvious reason beyond
his activist past. In July 2000, police held
him after he got a speeding ticket in Pueblo,
Colo., and in December 2004, in Morris, Ill.,
when he and his family were driving back
from a national cross-country meet his son
was competing in.
Most recently, he was detained on April
19, 2005. While driving back from giving
a speech at the University of New Mexico,
a state trooper and Pojoaque tribal officer
pulled Martinez over. He was held while the
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
officers called an FBI agent, who asked questions, then ordered his release. This summer
he filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in
Santa Fe challenging the detention.
And on Dec. 4, Martinez filed a lawsuit in
U.S. District Court in Chicago, charging that
Illinois state police and local FBI agents violated his Fourth Amendment rights against
unreasonable search and seizure during the
Morris traffic stop. Since Martinez can’t fly,
at a Chicago press conference about the lawsuit, attorney Jim Fennerty of the National
Lawyer’s Guild placed his photo on an empty chair with a phone broadcasting his voice
to media.
The next day, Martinez spoke with In
These Times.
How did you end up on the watch list?
I was placed on the Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File (VGTOF). Basically
the only guidelines for being placed on that
list are that a police officer nominates you.
That’s what we think happened to me. The
government won’t confirm or deny it. The
only way we figured it out is on the police
reports from Colorado and New Mexico it
mentions the VGTOF.
What effect has this had on your life
and work?
We supposedly have a constitutional
right to travel, but I can’t get on a plane. If I
drive, even the slightest infraction can result
in a detention of one to three hours or more.
I have to be careful who I travel with because
I don’t want to subject most people to what I
have to go through if I’m stopped.
And. of course, there’s the racial profiling that happens on most highways. The
time I was stopped in Colorado [in 2000], I
think it was racial profiling. I was driving an
Oldsmobile sedan fixed up nice, they probably thought a young gangster was driving it.
The world is a fast place these days, so this
has really slowed me
down, since I can’t fly or
drive long distances.
Do you truly feel you
are not able to fly?
I wasn’t allowed to
fly before. I don’t want
to subject myself to that
humiliation again.
How does the current surveillance and
monitoring of activists
or suspected dissidents
-- through things like
the watch list -- compare to the situation in
the 60s and 70s?
The current technology enables them to access and use that data
much quicker than in the 60s and 70s. Then,
the police would have contact cards they’d
keep on people. Now, they just type your information into a computer and it comes up.
Do you think the government intends
this watch list to have a chilling effect on
political speech or activity?
I’m sure they figured it would. It chills
people’s will to exercise their First Amendment rights. A lot of people are afraid they
will lose their job or it will affect their family
[if they get placed on a list like this].
I see this as the next generation of COINTELPRO [the infamous FBI program run
from 1956 to 1971 which tried to destabilize
dissident groups through harassment, surveillance and infiltration]. It’s set up to destroy and neutralize things.
After Watergate and the Nixon era, there
was a movement to prevent the government
from spying on people unless they really had
a reason to. But this so-called war on terror
has given them a pretext to increase spying
again. People are starting to speak out about
it, but who knows when the next terrorist attack will happen? Then that will mean they
can take away even more of our rights.
Along with activist histories like yours,
what current activities or affiliations do
you think are landing people on the list?
Environmentalists,
immigrant-rights
advocates, attorneys, and individuals who
speak out on behalf of those who are targeted, antiwar activists, media persons who are
not embedded with the government, black
nationalists, Puerto Rican independentistas,
indigenous nation advocates, and others
who struggle against corporations and the
government dominated by corporations [are
all at risk].
You were involved in radical movements tied to violence 30 years ago. Do you
think there’s a valid reason for having you
on a list like this?
The guidelines for the VGTOF say you
must be part of an “ongoing organization.”
But these things happened 25 or 30 years
ago. The state has such a long memory, even
if generations of agents have passed on, they
will keep you on the list.
But if they just followed their own guidelines, I wouldn’t be on it. Also it says you
can only be detained if they have reason
to believe you have or are about to commit
a crime. They had no reason to believe that
with me.
Do you think this list is at all effective
in preventing terrorism?
No, the way police usually find out something’s afoot is through informants -- being
there on the street. This is just random stops
and searches and seizures. Many people
don’t know their constitutional rights and
will agree to searches.
As a tactical matter, it’s hard to tell a policeman no. If you buck them a little, it gets
them mad. With police so aggressive, with
Tasers and steroid rages [refusing a search
could mean trouble]. Most of the country’s
interstates are considered drug routes, so an
officer could always use the pretext of the
war on drugs.
What do you hope to accomplish with
the lawsuits?
Something productive will come of it. At
least we are able to engage the government,
otherwise they would never talk to you
about it. We’re hoping by bringing more attention to this, more people will take steps to
find out if they are on the list.
What do you think will happen with the
cases filed in Chicago and New Mexico?
Well, they’ve assigned the Chicago case
to Judge Amy St. Eve, [a Bush II appointee]
who’s hearing the Muhammad Salah case
[a Chicago area grocer accused of financing
Hamas]. She’s made some terrible moves in
that case. In New Mexico, the government is
saying they don’t want their agents deposed,
they don’t want discovery; that the case involves state secrets and national security.
Not all judges are falling into lockstep
with the Department of Justice. Some judges
are ruling against the government, so the
Department of Justice is trying to settle cases
so the Bush gang can continue its imperial
presidency and be a secret government.
Are you hoping to get off the list?
I don’t think you can ever really get off the
list. They’ll always have another generation
of lists.u
Reprinted from In These Times, January
2007. www.inthesetimes.com
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007
11
Opinion
Vanishing America
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
I
t really isn’t a reason for celebration -- the wholesale disappearance of America’s natural resources.
The Big Takedown began when the
first people arrived in North America.
Going back a few thousand years
to the Asiatic “discovery” and arrival
from Russia and places further west
across the Bering Ice Bridge during
the last Ice Age, and by raft, kayak,
and Kon Tiki boat from Japan, Indonesia, Polynesia, and other Godforsaken land specks in and about
the Pacific and Indian Ocean littorals. Now, these initial discoverers
and their descendants were brave,
daring, resourceful, scared pioneering people who, although they live
millennia in the past, were just like
the wave of Europeans who came to
these shores from the east in and after 1492 -- they were constantly hungry, they needed something to wear,
somewhere to stay, and somebody to
love (it stands to reason). Their ingenuity was taxed to the utmost, as was
their will to adapt to new and often
harsh climes -- hot, cold, scorching,
freezing, humid, bone dry, stultifying, windswept, droughtstricken,
constantly rainy -- and physical surroundings -- mountains, forests, rain
forests, valleys, plains, deserts, and
everything betwixt and between.
Piece of cake -- or at least they managed and made themselves masters
of their environment. It wasn’t until the much-later appearance of
Pecos Bill on the mythological Texas
scene that someone could lasso the
tornado or change the course of the
mighty Río Grande.
But historians have truckloads of
evidence to verify that these beautiful, language-rich, rambunctious
first Americans had a slight propensity for inter-tribal hostilities and
wholesale bloodletting, or, rather,
there was hardly another thing they
would prefer to be doing at any given time than slitting a neighbor’s
throat or ripping off a neighbor’s
face and scalp, and wearing it Texas
Chainsaw Massacre style to the Sun-
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day pow-wow, where you dedicated
it to the gods.
Yet, centuries before the earliest
Native Americans had wiped each
other out, they had a done a pretty neat little number on the native
American horse, camel, mammoth,
mastodon, giant sloth, rhinoceros,
saber tooth tiger, dire wolf, giant
beaver, short-faced bear, musk ox,
and hundreds of other mammals
that were considered fair game to
those generations that we are not
attempting here to second guess for
what they did in the name of survival.
Yes, indeed, although Joe Camel
may be the only viable avatar on the
scene, but whose wrath tends to descend upon human respiratory systems and not on Buffalo Bill-type
Native Americans from the dim
vaults of the pasado.
One thing is crystal clear -- the
Native Americans can’t be blamed
for polluting airways and waterways, that much is as clear as America’s crystal air and pristine lakes,
rivers, and brooks were before the
advent of Europeans at Plymouth,
Massachusetts and Jamestown, Virginia, in the early 17th Century during historical times. Yet the mostlyCaucasoid invader from the east has
proven to be an even more callous
and greedy exploiter of nature than
were his swarthier counterparts of
yesteryear. They’ve chopped down
Longfellow’s
“forest
primeval,”
fished out Cape Cod, polluted every
harbor, major river, and once-limpid
stream from sea to once-shining sea.
Too close to home, even the storied
Río Grande, the mighty Río Bravo,
separating the American Republic
from the old, beloved Mexico of our
forefathers, is a river under siege
by the polluting forces of greedy
mankind on both sides of the river.
We’ve polluted the prairies with
pesticides and hunted, poisoned, or
dehabitated most of our signature
mammals to the brink of extinction,
along with them birds, reptiles, amphibians, marine mammals, and marine life period (both fresh and salt
water).
What else? Oh, yeah -- we exterminated nine out of ten bloodlines
of our Native American brothers,
deprived them of their lands and
traditional lifestyles, robbed their
subsoil wealth, and corralled and
driven them onto desolate, depressing, dehumanizing reservations
where hope is an unwelcome guest.
Nevertheless, the all-out merciless assault on the green earth is becoming universal these days, being
a gradual process that eats away the
pristine world like rust eats away a
dry ballbearing.
Just like we’re all pretty much resigned to living in a palimpsest of
panoramas that blend and wend with
the regularity of clouds that scud over
them in an afternoon heaven, we are
also privileged to enjoy 15 minutes of
sunlight, Mr. Warhol, in various set-
tings within the stage set.
Along these lines, I recently
drove through the neighborhood of
my youth, which I left for better or
worse over 30 years ago. It is bounded on the west side by Blessed Sacrament Church and on the east side by
Lamar Middle School. I’ve always appreciated the place, for in all the tumult of our turbulent times it seems
to have always held its own in outward appearance and peaceful performance. This demi-barrio is just a
small, quiet couple of blocks stocked
with fairly typical middle class
Americans, and everybody more or
less gets along with everybody else.
It is not identified by a name or a
number like many of the well-known
Laredo neighborhoods, but it is still
holding its own, in defiance of many
downhill trends.u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
At the Commanders Reception
Next year’s Society of Martha Washington debs Diana Cantu and Rebecca
Barrera model last year’s dresses at the Commanders Reception.
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007
13
Photo by George J. Altgelt
Adio$, little environmental treasure
If things go as developers wish, and they do in this city that loses its environmental conscience, this beautiful little wetland just below the site of the Laredo Town center
Mall and adjacent to Lake Casa Blanca will probably be filled with the three-story high mountain of soil you see in the foreground of the picture. The ever eager to please
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is morally bankrupt when it comes to the environment will only too gladly comply with granting the demise of the wetland that is home
to waterfowl and the migratory birds so pursued by visiting birders in Laredo. When the 88-acre pad of Laredo Town Center Mall is filled in with concrete and pavement,
a heavy rain will send torrents of oily parking lot drainage from the airport and the Mall’s parking lot into Lake Casa Blanca.
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WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Opinion
On the lamentable state of education
By MARÍA EUGENIA GUERRA
E
ducation in Laredo, a topic of much
relevance these days, is everywhere
being discussed and in many aspects -consolidation of school districts, testing results for LISD seniors, the new LISD interim
superintendent, the general disarray of that
district, the bond issue at United ISD, and
the actions of board members at both school
districts.
This much is true -- many high school
seniors can neither read nor write, nor can
they solve the simplest of math problems.
Many of them who will enroll in college
classes next fall will know, as their parents
will, just how badly their public education
has failed them as they sign up for remedial college classes that will make another
pass at preparing them to read, write, and
do math. Those hours, which will not count
toward a degree and will cost every bit as
much as regular college classes, will prolong the number of semesters it will take to
complete a four-year degree and may affect
financial aid benefits.
Where to begin unraveling this problem
that seems only to grow larger? For starters,
I would stop electing LISD trustees who are
illiterate and who themselves are in need of
remedial reading, writing, and math classes, trustees who cannot navigate through a
budget, trustees who cannot speak in complete sentences and using good grammar,
trustees who cannot put aside the love of
hearing their own voices in otiose (look it
up, Mr. Montalvo), long-winded soliloquies,
trustees who do not speak up in their own
true voices to take a stand on something,
trustees who drag their personal agendas
into every board meeting like a hardside set
of outdated American Tourister bags.
What kind of board of trustees has meetings on Friday nights and Sunday mornings? A board that can count to 72, 72 hours
forward from its last bad idea.
I would stop hiring wily, megalomaniac
administrators who curry favor with board
members to make incredible leaps across
pay grades. I would stop letting trustees
have a hand in who is hired, who is rewarded with handsome pay raises that outstrip
merit, and reassignments to reward or to
punish.
In the last several months we’ve heard
from many, many LISD educators and administrators. One thing is perfectly clear
throughout the district. Morale is at an all
time low.
“Our trustees have sold us out. We have
gone back to the days where teachers preWWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
tended to teach and students pretended
to learn and received worthless diplomas
based on a make-believe curriculum and
over-inflated grades,” one writer said.
Another lifetime instructor in the district, who did not wish to be named, told
LareDOS, “This board is crazy. What is the
TEA waiting for?”
CONSOLIDATION
If consolidation with United ISD is being
contemplated as a means to fix LISD, its proponents are likely getting a good idea that
it will not be a quick fix and that perhaps
it would be no fix at all. At the heart of the
argument for consolidation is the belief that
it is possible the stronger, solvent, and perhaps better-managed school district could
have a positive effect on the unraveled district. In the best scenario, once the work of
consolidation was completed and all personnel were working where they should
be in the newly restructured district, huge
savings could be reaped and resources allocated to correct that which ails the system
and that which will make better teachers
and students. Should the consolidation effort find success, its anticipated best case
scenario could end up contrasting sharply
with the reality that the absorption of a
school district in such disorder would have
adverse and devastating effects on United
ISD. The transitions that would have to take
place would be enormously unwieldly for
students, administrators, and teachers. The
surplus of duplicate administrators and
school personnel would present a daunting
scenario.
I don’t know enough about consolidation to wage an effort for or against it, and
so I’m listening and reading. There’s plenty
to pull up on the topic on the Internet. Mike
McIlvain’s story on page 26 provides a local
perspective. To read further of a possible
school district consolidation in Texas at this
time read a news account at http://www.
timesrecordnews.com/trn/local_news/
article/0,1891,TRN_5784_5336274,00.html.
LISD’S NEW INTERIM SUPER
Interim Superintendent Veronica Guerra
and public information officer Marco Alvarado met with LareDOS early one recent
morning to talk about her first three weeks
on the job and the work ahead.
Guerra is realistic about what she feels
needs to be addressed -- besides realigning curriculum and targeting six poorly
performing campuses. She said she wants
to establish a working relationship with a
board that did not ask her to serve by unanimous decision and with some downtown
administrators and campus administrators
who do not like her and who are suspicious
of her motives, judgment, and alliances.
Guerra, who will be paid $140,000 a year,
said her nearly three decades in the district
allow her an invaluable perspective about
how to determine what areas need the most
attention and how to get the work done.
She said establishing good lines of communication across the district and with
the board are key to her effort. “A stable
relationship with the board and with other
administrators will make a difference in
student performance,” Guerra said, adding,
“We all need to want the same thing -- accountability and teachers better equipped
to make a better environment for learning.”
She said, “I need seven board members to
believe I can make positive changes. I’m
no rookie. They need to give me a chance.”
Guerra said much of the instruction in the
district is “generic” and that the district
needs to use structured, prescriptive strategies to achieve success. She also spoke of
fostering a collaborative culture that would
encourage campus administrators who’ve
had successful outcomes to share strategies
with others.
Guerra said accountability is lax across
the district and that is something she wants
to address.
She relies, she said, on a core team, a cabinet, of administrators and personnel that
include PIO Alvarado, CFO Jesus Amezcua,
facilities and support services director Oscar Cartas, director of student services Elsa
Arce, interim director of human resources
Ernesto Guajardo, and secretary Mercedes
Santos.
Guerra spoke highly of the leadership
abilities of LISD board president John Peter
Montalvo.
She refuted the undercurrent of sentiment in the downtown school district offices that her leadership would be especially
influenced by the ideas of Dr. Oscar Cartas.
The trustees hired Guerra at a Feb. 2,
2007 board meeting, just a few days after
approving a $24,000 Texas Association of
School Boards (TASB) search for a superintendent at a specially called board meeting.
April 9 is the application deadline. After reviewing candidates on the TASB short list,
the board will vote to hire a superintendent
in early June. Guerra said she was unsure
she would apply for the position.
To read more about interim superintendent Guerra, read John Snyder’s story on
page 27.
THE RESISTANCE
Some of the recent calls and emails we
received were at first a veritable avalanche
of unpleasant speculations about interim
superintendent Veronica Guerra, personal
things. When that vein of vitriol was exhausted, the commentary gave way to
framing what Guerra’s selection means for
LISD. To a person, all who wrote or called
did not wish to attach their name to their
comments for fear of retaliation.
One educator told us, “There are those
who see her as the product of the collective
wisdom of idiots on the board, and that by
association is not good.”
Another wrote me, “Those who were
around here in the Vidal Era see her as just
a leftover icon of the Vidal Treviño Era, with
all the characteristics -- good or bad -- of
that period. If you think those were good
times, then she is good. If you see that era
as corrupt, then many of them still with the
district may be of that ilk.”
There is speculation Guerra has the blood
of former superintendents on her hands.
One lifetime educator wrote, “She along
with others undermined the tenures of Dr.
Barber, Ms. Bruni, and Dr. Daniel García.”
Of the interim superintendent one administrator wrote, “It is likely some administrators at the main office will be sent back
out into the field. The new super carries a
lot of baggage and has been told to make
peace, but only time will tell if she can. Morale is very bad.
“We have too many fresh out of college
teachers who are too young to know the
district’s history. There is a group of 20 who
form the base of her fan club and will fight
for her to stay, perhaps because they were
promised something lucrative. Then the
rest of us are just praying for consolidation
to bring an end to this frightful board and
to usher a new era for our district.”
“The district is bankrupt in more than
a financial way,” said a former superintendent. “At the leadership level there is
hardly anyone left who is truly committed to changing the state of the district.
Integrity is gone, the talent is gone from
leadership. There is no guidance. There
is no inspiration. Those who once spoke
up for constructive change, those are the
ones who will be hit hard with reassignments and ostracism. The lessons of the
past will be reiterated -- don’t speak up,
go with the flow. The new superintendent
has surrounded herself with people who
are like her. She has a great deal in common with some of the board members.
For those who made our lives in teaching,
it’s devastating to see LISD in this shape.”
u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007
15
News
The Government Blinks:
Freedom at Last for the Ibrahim Family
By GREG MOSES
or three painful months while his
brother’s family was imprisoned by
USA immigration authorities, Ahmad Ibrahim, a United States citizen of Palestinian
heritage, kept his faith that “the people of
America are good people.”
But Ahmad did not know that the one
good American who would finally orchestrate the dramatic release of the family had
himself been exiled by USA immigration
authorities to China. So Ahmad’s faith in
America had to hold strong from the beginning of November through the sacred Eid ulAdha season of early January, until the exiled
American could return.
On January 8, when Dallas real-estate
developer Ralph Isenberg landed in Dallas
from China with his wife and infant daughter, the wheels of the Ibrahim family release
were soon to roll.
On or about January 10, New York immigration attorney Theodore Cox sent Isenberg
an email, asking if he’d heard about children
imprisoned by the federal bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Essentially, I’d had my run-in with immigration,” explained Isenberg over the
telephone. “My wife had been detained at
the immigration prison in Haskell, Texas,
deported with our 3-month-old daughter
to China, and I had to leave my adopted 16year-old daughter in America in order to live
with them and fight for their re-entry.” That
fight lasted 14 months. “So I knew how lovely
ICE could be.”
Following up on the email from Cox, Isenberg says he “looked at pictures of the kids
in prison, found out it was in Texas, and I just
went berserk. You do not imprison kids in
Texas, the U.S., or anywhere. No, no, no, no,
no. Goodness gracious, kids in prison? Give
me a break!”
As a big-city real-estate developer, Isenberg knew the difference between wishing
and doing, so he got busy grinding out results. By Jan. 26, Ahmad Ibrahim had a brand
new friend and two new lawyers. How could
anyone know that because of these things,
release of his brother’s family was only one
week away?
On Feb. 1, attorney Cox and his colleague
Joshua Bardavid filed habeas corpus motions
in federal courts of Dallas and Austin, stating shocking facts about the treatment of
mother Hanan Ibrahim and her four children. The children sobbed uncontrollably
at times. Hanan had been denied pre-natal
F
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| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
vitamins for her pregnancy. Trips to the doctor were eight-hour ordeals during which the
children back at jail fretted and cried. Hanan
was placed in shackles for medical transport.
She was torn between her children and her
health care.
When Cox and Bardavid walked into the
federal court building in Dallas, accompanied by Ahmad Ibrahim and his tiny niece
Zahra -- who had been separated from her
family and placed into her uncle’s care -- they
were greeted by a half-dozen television cameras, a lobby full of reporters, and a phalanx
of federal marshals. Whatever went on next
between the legal professionals in those
closely-guarded chambers of the Dallas federal court changed everything very quickly.
Freedom for the Ibrahim family was only 48
hours away.
On Feb. 2, Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson sent out a jubilant email titled “Amazing
Grace.” The Bureau of Immigration Appeals
(BIA) had caved overnight. Suddenly, after
years and months of denying Gibson’s pleas
in behalf of the Ibrahims, the BIA reversed
course completely. Gibson’s November 2006
appeal for the family’s asylum would be considered. And if the family was now eligible
for asylum, then there could be no legal basis
for their imprisonment. “Now there is no excuse for the Gestapo to keep the children in
prison any longer,” wrote Gibson.
“I have never heard of the Board granting
such a motion for Palestinian asylum seekers before, even though many people have
tried,” wrote attorney Bardavid. “I believe
that the pressure put on the government
by the actions filed in the federal courts, the
media attention . . . and good work and thorough preparation of Mr. Gibson in his motion
on behalf of the Ibrahims resulted in this outcome.”
“It’s the Declaration of Independence for
the Palestinian people,” said Isenberg in a
giddy mood Friday night. “We got the American government to blink!” How can he help
but mention that he is proud of this achievement? How can he help but reflect that he is a
son of Holocaust survivors?
“Every group goes through that period
when they are treated with discrimination
and then one event breaks the pattern. From
now on the American government will no
longer treat Palestinians as terrorists, but as
humans. And I would hope that American
citizens are realizing that if we continue to
take away the rights of foreign nationals in
an indiscriminate fashion, we are next.”
Meanwhile this Friday night, Jay JohnsonCastro, faithful organizer of three vigils outside the Hutto prison, promises to send photos of three ugly walls that stand between the
USA and California: “I mean they are ugly
ugly.”
It is past dark now and he stands upon a
mass grave at the Holtville Cemetery near
San Diego, where border crossers are buried
who don’t make it over alive. “They are found
dead and turned over to be buried.” It’s not
the only mass grave at the border. There will
be more to visit as the Marcha Migrante II
Border Caravan begins its trek from San Diego to Brownsville and back.
“They say women are brought here in the
middle of the night to do the burying,” says
Johnson-Castro. “The federal government
contracts with Imperial County to pay the
city to bury these people, and nobody knows
who they are. These are totally anonymous
people who died as a result of our pathetic
immigration system. Nobody is thinking
of these people. The bodies are just thrown
into the ground and dirt is pushed over them
with a blade.”
From Holtville Cemetery, Johnson-Castro
caravanned along the border, through the cities of the Río Grande, making his way back
to Hutto prison for his fourth vigil on Feb.
12. The release of the Ibrahim family is great
news. But we know there are more Palestinian families in there along with anonymous
border crossers and their children.
“We’re going to shut that prison down,” is
something that Johnson-Castro and Isenberg
have both promised. In those merging voices,
the faith of Ahmad Ibrahim is redeemed.
“I’m just enjoying the day,” said Ahmad,
speaking by cell phone from a limousine that
is somewhere between home and Hutto prison. The voice of his little niece Zahra chatters
in the background. “It is a good day.”u
(This story first appeared in the Texas Civil
Rights Review. Greg Moses, editor of the Texas
Civil Rights Review, is also the author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr.
and the Philosophy of Nonviolence. His chapter on civil rights under Clinton and Bush appears
in Dime’s Worth of Difference, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be
reached at [email protected].)
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
News
Beleaguered LISD board names
Veronica F. Guerra interim superintendent
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
N
ow at the top of the Laredo Independent School District central office pecking order, the district’s new interim superintendent Veronica F. Guerra says
she’s ready for the challenges she faces. She
was named to her new post by the LISD
Board of Trustees Feb. 2. An educator for 28
years, Guerra has racked up a good deal of
experience in a varied palette of positions
within the LISD system.
“I’ve had a chance to learn pretty much
how the whole district operation works,”
she said. Starting off as a first grade teacher
for six years, she then worked developing
programs for Limited English Proficiency
(LEP) students for three years in connection with the federal projects. After this,
she served as vice principal of Farias Elementary for one year and Tomás Sanchez
Elementary for two. Next, she became
principal of Buenos Aires Elementary, after
which she headed Christen Middle School
for seven years and a half.
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ing almost on a yearly
basis over the past few
years, central office
personnel were also
moved up and down
and around like something out of a three-dimensional chess game.
At any rate, Guerra was
shifted over to become
Executive Director for
Instructional Support
Services, and after a
medium-length spell in
that position, she took
over as ED for Innovative Programs.
New LISD superintendent Veronica F. Guerra
Approx i mately
After both Buenos Aires and Christen
three weeks ago, LISD’s
were state recognized for their academic
beleaguered Board of Trustees named Veperformance, Guerra was named Adminisronica F. Guerra Interim Superintendent.
trative Assistant for Communications, and
“I want to restore stability and credibility
shortly afterwards she was made Executive
to the district and bring the graduation
Director of Curriculum and Instruction.
rate up and the dropout rate down,” she
With the superintendency at LISD changannounced during her first week on the
job. “We also want to improve the attendance rate in our schools and maintain a
good working relationship with the school
board,” she added.
Guerra describes herself as “a pro-active leader” and a “workaholic.” She said
that she has faith that things are going to
improve in every area of district endeavor,
but stressed that it is going to take a tremendous amount of effort and dedication
by every employee on every level. “The
principal on each campus is the academic
leader and has the responsibility to ensure
that successful teaching and learning are
taking place,” Guerra said. “And I mean
that they should see to it that the teachers
are planning for and connecting with all
students, because all students should be
afforded an equal opportunity to acquire
knowledge and cultivate their talent,” she
added. “Parents and the rest of the community expect the children to learn and
the schools to maintain high standards,
and I expect the principals and the teachers to work!” Guerra said.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007
17
Feature
LIFE recognizes rancher, educator,
land steward Johnny Mayers
By MARÍA EUGENIA GUERRA
T
estimony to the fact that Johnny
Mayers was one of the best science
teachers I ever had is that I remember all
these years later what he taught us about
the fundamentals of biology – one celled
creatures, botanical nomenclature, cell division, mitosis, paramecium, mitochondria.
Just out of the Army in 1964, Army Lt.
Mayers had about him a military correctness that let you know he was all business
and that he saw education as a two-way
proposition. If you wanted to learn, he
wanted to teach you. And that’s the way
it was in that classroom with its shiny lab
tabletops at the back of Lamar Junior High.
There were many of us who appreciated
his guidance with our science projects and
his clear communication on the blackboard
and in lectures.
The Laredo International Fair and Exposition (LIFE) has named Mayers 2007
Rancher of the Year, and he deserves the
recognition on so many fronts. There’s his
life in ranching with his father at Las Moritas Ranch in southeastern Webb County
and his own cattle enterprises all over the
county through the decades. There’s his life
in teaching not only physical science and
biology but also establishing the agriculture science program at Nixon High School
and later rebuilding the school district’s agriculture instruction program. There’s his
life as a land steward and conservationist,
and there’s his life in LIFE, one who was
there from the ground up to establish what
would become the event that draws student
participants from across the county.
“What students learned in my classroom
was science, but what they learned by raising a livestock project for the fair was character and responsibility,” said Mayers who
has been a mentor to many school children
over decades as a Future Farmers of America and 4-H sponsor.
Among those he named who shaped
his life as a student were science teacher
George Macdonald, language arts teacher Mrs. Margarita Newton, and English
teacher Mrs. Hal Winston. He also credited
Martin High School ROTC instructor Col.
Oscar Hein and ag teacher George McAllister, with inspiring him to be a better student and to realize his own potential. “They
opened countless doors for me, taught me
responsibility, and gave me leadership
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| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
skills,” he said.
The family ranch
offered a few lessons, too. “What I
learned from my
father was how to
be a rancher, how
to keep up with a
changing environment,” said Mayers,
the son of Pablo and
Bertha V. Mayers.
“I learned and am
still learning how
to change management strategies
for ranching in
drought. This has
been a great year
for rainfall, but this
could be the last
great year, and next
year we could be
feeding all the time
Johnny Mayers
or burning pear,
which has become cost prohibitive because
of the price. We are grass farmers – that’s
what Joe Finley, Sr, said about all the land
west of Alice and San Diego and everything
from George West to Del Rio. He foresaw
that land would return to wildlife habitat
and that there was good money in leasing
for hunting if you manage land well.”
Of cattle ranching, Mayers said, “We
feed not only our country, but others, too.
It keeps our economy going. But you can’t
do it without water. You have no business
ranching if you don’t have water to support
your herd or the wildlife.”
Mayers said he loved the challenge of
ranching, its solitude, and the independent
nature of it. “You know that whatever you
do on the ranch, it comes back to you and
the decisions you made.”
Mayers grew up in a family of five.
Brothers Pablo, Jr., and Anthony took degrees in agriculture. Sisters Virginia and
Patricia graduated as home economics
majors. Mayers is the father of Laredo firefighter trainer and instructor Joseph Mayers and Roberta Mayers, a registered nurse
in Houston. He is the grandfather of Krysta
Jo Mayers.
From 1960 to 1963 Mayers was stationed
was stationed at Ft. Benning, GA, Ft. Riley,
KS, and Ft. Monmouth, NJ, training parachutists and getting soldiers of the First In-
fantry Division
ready for combat
in Vietnam. He
retired as a captain in the Army
Reserve in 1968.
Of the recognition from
LIFE
Mayers
said, “Those are
big boots to fill.
There are better
people it could
have gone to, but
I am humbled
and very grateful
to have received
this honor.” He
said he’d had the
good fortune to
have been with
LIFE “from the
ground
up.”
He recounted
the 1964 trip
to Omaha that Finley, Sr. organized for a
handful of Laredoans who would become
the founding organizers of LIFE and who
would pattern the local event on what
they’d learned in Omaha. “We had a hard
time starting up, but we managed, and
over the years new blood came along and
added new ideas. It’s evolved,” he said. He
recalled the pre-LIFE fair and livestock
show of the 1940s, a small city of tents that
set up in the area between Leyendecker
School and where the Civic Center is now.
“It was called the Pan American Livestock
Show,” he recalled. Mayers said the fear of
spreading hoof and mouth disease killed
the annual event.
He also recalled working at the horse
track at LIFE. “Judge Roberto Benavides was
a real promoter of para-mutuel horse racing
in the 60s. He envisioned people coming to
the races in Laredo, so he got track specs
from Ruiodoso and had the dirt for the track
hauled in from La Bota. The weather here is
perfect for horse racing and training.”
Mayers has had a lifetime romance with
horses, a love that dates back to his youth.
“I ride with my son. It’s a form of therapy
and a wonderful way to see the world.” He
raises quarter horses and has a remuda of
10 brood mares. “It is time consuming and
labor intensive, but I love working with
them,” he said, adding, “I used to work
them to sell them as two year olds, but
now I sell them as yearlings.” Mayers was
excited about the recent addition of a horse
called Laredo Spook, a four year-old descendant of stallion Gray Starlight.
“I loved teaching,” Mayers said.
“I loved believing I could change one
child’s life. That I was teaching ag science and skills was the best of all
worlds. When I retired from teaching
in 1978, I thanked administration for
the opportunity to do what I liked to do
and being paid for it,” he said.u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
News
Smithsonian Exhibit on Latino Achievement
opens at TAMIU March 1 - May 12
A
national exhibition focusing on Latino achievement developed by the
Smithsonian Latino Center will make its
historic appearance at Texas A&M International University’s Student Center March
1 through May 12, 2007. The exhibition is
open to the public and free of charge.
“Our Journeys/Our Stories: Portraits of
Latino Achievement” presents narratives
and portraits of 24 individuals and one extended family that provide a look at the experiences of U.S. Latinos who have made
significant contributions to American life.
Dr. Ray Keck, TAMIU president, said
the bilingual exhibition’s appearance at
the University is historic.
“We are delighted to be the host of this
important exhibit that offers a remarkable
affirmation of the many Latino gifts to our
nation. This is a first for Laredo and a first
for TAMIU. We hope that every Laredoan
and member of our regional communities
will take advantage of this rare opportunity,” Dr. Keck said.
The exhibition, its national tour, and related programs are made possible by Ford
Motor Company Fund. Ford Motor Company Fund has also provided support for
the exhibition’s presentation in Laredo
and for related education programs scheduled.
Pilar O’Leary, director of the Smithsonian Latino Center, said the exhibition is
both compelling and inspirational.
“This exhibition is an anthology of compelling biographical portraits that evoke
the depth and breadth of Latino contributions to American society. There will be
well-known names in the exhibit as well
as people who may not be as famous, but
Mario J. Molina
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whose inspirational stories need to be
told,” O’Leary said.
Among the exhibition’s portraits are
astronaut Ellen Ochoa, athlete Rebecca
Lobo, artist Pepón Osorio, labor leader Dolores Huerta and folklorist Teodoro Vidal.
A biographical narrative that includes excerpts from recent oral history interviews
complements their portraits.
Nobel Prize-winning chemist Mario
Molina, for example, tells how he became
fascinated with science. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson describes the event
that led him to pursue a life of public service.
The exhibition includes personal stories,
photos, oral histories and dichos, or traditional sayings. The influential dichos pass
knowledge, experience, and values down
through the generations, including sayings
such as “Si no sabes de donde vienes, no sabes
a donde irás” (if you don’t know where you
are coming from, you don’t know where
you are going) and others.
Raquel “Rocky” Egusquiza, Director
of Community Development and International Strategy, Ford Motor Company
Fund, said the exhibition goes to the heart
of Latino success stories.
“These stories celebrate what’s at the
heart of so many Latino success stories
-- a desire to achieve and make a difference. Visitors to this Smithsonian exhibit
will have the opportunity to learn about
Latinos who have made varying, but very
important contributions to the American
fabric,” Egusquiza explained.
The mission of the Smithsonian Latino
Center is to foster understanding and appreciation of Latino history and culture
John M. Quiñones
using the vast resources
of the Smithsonian’s collections, research, and
public programs, both in
Washington and across
the United States. The
exhibition’s tour is coordinated by the Smithsonian
Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES),
which has been sharing
the wealth of the Smithsonian collections and
research programs with
millions of people outside
of Washington, D.C. for
more than 50 years.
The exhibition opened
in Washington at the
Smithsonian’s
National
Museum of American
History and has been to Bill Richardson
San José, Chicago, El Paso,
San Antonio, Ft. Wayne, IN,
and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
From Laredo, it will travel to
Charlotte, Detroit, and New
York.
For additional information, contact the TAMIU
Office of Public Relations,
Marketing and Information
Services at (956) 326-2180,
visit offices in the Sue and
Radcliffe Killam Library
room 268, click on tamiu.edu
or e-mail [email protected].
University office hours
are from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Antonia C. Novello
Monday-Friday.u
Dolores Huerta
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007
19
News
The road to Potholelandia
is paved with good intentions
By MIKE McILVAIN
T
his pothole problem is bigger
than we are.
That pothole on Jacaman Road,
McPherson, or anywhere else that
threatened to yank out your front axle,
all your teeth, and send your head
through the roof is a little cousin compared to the big ones. Potholes are all
over the world, crossing international
boundaries, cultural barriers, and economic differences.
Potholes are really big. One can sleep
in the Potholes State Park or fish in the
Potholes lakes in Washington state.
To the east, on Canada’s side of Lake
Huron along the top of some spectacular cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment in
Ontario, there are several places where
potholes occur. On the Bruce Peninsula,
a large pothole is exposed in the face of
the cliff -- known as the “Eagles’ Nest”
because of several rounded boulders
that remain in it -- visible from boats
on the lake.
So, that big hole imagined when
the last surprise rammed your head
through the roof was a little shortsighted. There really are huge potholes.
Those big city people up north in
Philadelphia say a pothole fits a form.
Online at http://potholes.phila.gov,
their description says potholes are
“bowl-shaped or irregular shaped holes
in the asphalt layer of the roadway.”
Those big ones elsewhere don’t
count?
San Antonians took a vigilante-style
approach a few years ago in their adopta-pothole program -- promoted by local
media who also had their brains jarred
out, driving to work, or when caught
off-guard semi-comatose on the way
home.
“Some of the streets are too old and
need to be resurfaced,” Laredo City
Public Works hand Santiago Ochoa told
LareDOS’ Armando Saldaña after plugging a series of potholes on a side street
a little off Del Mar Blvd. “Sprinklers
should not be on every day,” he said, attributing constant drainage from yards
as a factor in pothole formation.
Water is a great force in creating potholes with the flow from a downpour,
or collected drizzle, pushing its weight
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| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
into the hard surfaces, which often look
like they should be strong enough to
ever be blemished with a pothole.
Of course, some parts of the world
have less asphalt and cement, so filling a pothole is more of a regular community project with people improving
their soccer skills kicking rocks, bricks,
and wood into the holes between
cars with points awarded for the best
splash, or dust, depending on the time
of year. Countries given to baseball and
cricket see more skills development
by throwing rocks and sticks into the
holes with mostly the same unofficial
point standards for effective splash or
dust cloud.
Potholes have a habit of making their
biggest splash at City Hall. Anybody’s
city hall.
An abundance or perceived availability of those car-damaging, blood
pressure-raising holes have been
known to be a serious topic in local Santiago Ochoa works to fix Laredo’s pothole problem
elections for millennia and tip the vote
one way or another in numerous elections. The economy is a regular major
factor for many national elections, and
cities have their potholes doing much
the same.
Political careers have fallen into potholes, never to be seen again.
Even one scream-prompting pothole can be one too many in a volatile
community and the evidence is everywhere:
“The candidates wanted to talk
about each other’s ethics. The residents
of San Jose wanted them to talk about
potholes,” said a lead paragraph in an
Oct. 29, 2006 San Jose Mercury-News Pothole on Jacaman Road
story.
“Fix the potholes, yes, but the ‘whole’
needs attention, too, when it comes to
transportation planning,” screams a
Missippipolitics.com online editorial.
Potholes carry the same weight in
other accents, too.
“The Tories have accused the government of creating a ‘pothole Britain’
by cutting spending on road maintenance,” says an April 17, 2000 online
BBC story from London.
Potholes and their nasty damage are
everywhere -- going well beyond whatever a vehicle’s shock absorber failed to
cushion on the streets of Laredo.u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
News
Archdiocese of San Antonio recognizes
Catholic educator Alejandro Calderon
I
f you’re looking for Alejandro Calderon, the Director of Admissions for
St. Anthony Catholic High School and he’s
not in his office -- you might be running
around a whole lot.
If indeed you find yourself searching for
him, you might want to check the football
field (he’ll be coaching freshman football);
the cafeteria (he’ll be running a Rotary
Interact meeting that day); in the conference room (where he’s handling peer mediation); or on the soccer field (he’ll be the
tallest one at his son Matthew’s CYO soccer
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practice, as spectator and coach); and if you
still can’t find him -- he could be in a private meeting with state officials in Laredo,
where he volunteers at a local non-profit
called Americans Missing in Mexico.
When asked about his ability to manage time, he answered, “There’s 24 hours
in a day!” For these and many reasons, the
Catholic Schools Office of the Archdiocese
of San Antonio recently named Calderon
an Outstanding Leader in Catholic Education at the 2007 Hall of Fame and Outstanding Leaders in Catholic Education Awards
Banquet.
Calderon’s commitment to Catholic education led to his nomination and recognition as an Outstanding Leader in Catholic
Education: “You can learn math, English,
and science at any school for free, but what
you won’t receive is a spiritual foundation
to start your adult life,” said Calderon.
Five other local Catholic school leaders
were also honored as Outstanding Leaders
in Catholic education, including, Brother
James Burkholder, Joann Gawlik, Jannice
Jessen, Msgr. Enda McKenna, and Reverend Tony Vilano; in addition, Sr. Jane Ann
Slater was honored as the 2007 Hall of Fame
Honoree.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
23
News
Good Government League to Commissioners Court:
in whose backyard are we going to throw the dead cat?
By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA
t a recent meeting of the Webb
County Commissioners Court
Marissa Martinez of the Good Government League asked Judge Danny Valdez
and commissioners to direct Economic
Development Department (EDD) director
Juan Vargas and purchasing agent Eloy
Ramirez to comply with the Texas Property Code and the Texas Administrative
Code in the re-building and rehabilitation
of homes through county programs that
use state and federal funds.
Martinez, whose moment before the
court elicited little comment, said that contractors and builders for residential rehab
exceeding $20,000 must be licensed by the
Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC). She said that the Webb County practice of the issuance of contracts to
unlicensed contractors robs the poor of the
state’s minimum imposed warranties for
the construction.
Martinez has filed a formal complaint
with the TRCC that asks for enforcement
action against the unregistered, unlicensed
contractors.
She told the court that the use of unlicensed contractors was “morally and ethically incorrect” and precluded recourse
for faulty construction. “Are the poor of
Webb County any less entitled than any
other Texan to have these warranties?” she
asked as she advised the Court to ensure
that the County’s EDD adhered to state
and federal laws.
“In whose backyard are we going to
throw this dead cat?” Martinez, asked,
summoning the unspoken policy of some
county departments. “Will it be the contractor? The colonia resident? Or the local
taxpayers?” she continued.
Vargas said that the TRCC does not license contractors, but registers them for
two years with a $500 fee. Those contractors, he said, also have to register rehab
jobs at $35 each if that rehab job increases or decreases the total living space of a
home; if it is a job over $20,000; and if it is
new residential construction.
Vargas said that homeowners who
have had a home rehab completed do get
a warranty from the contractor. “After the
extensive process that is followed in order
to obtain eligibility for a homeowner, after
the extensive on-site inspections by a team
of local inspectors, department staff coordinators taking pictures at every stage in
A
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| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
order to document work performed and
pay contractors, and in some cases, inspection by state or federal staff, it would be a
tragedy if we failed to protect the improvements of a home by not obtaining a warranty for the work performed,” he added.
Martinez said that a warranty that is not
registered with the TRCC from a contractor who is not registered with the TRCC
is just a piece of paper from a builder or
carpenter to a homeowner. She said that
TRCC scrutiny for contractor applicants
includes a background check. The TRCC
aggressively pursues administrative actions against builders and remodelers who
fail to follow statutory and regulatory requirements.
Martinez said the construction guidelines from the federal and state agencies
who fund rehab projects are “pretty clear
cut.” The Texas Department of Housing
and Community Affairs (TDHCA) 24-page
Minimum Construction Specifications for
its HOME Investment Partnerships Program is just such a document and spells
out criteria for liability insurance, construction, materials, methods, and cleanup.
She said that Webb County’s use of several small contractors to complete rehabs
under $20,000 allows the county to bend
the rules and come in under the radar
with un-registered contractors. In those
instances, she said, the county -- not the
small contractor who got the bid -- is the
contractor. “Why isn’t Webb County registered with the TRCC as a not for profit
contractor like Habitat for Humanity of
Laredo, the Azteca Development Corporation, or the Laredo Webb County Housing
Authority?” she asked.
The County’s Economic Development
Department’s Projects and Programs web
page evidences that the EDD has plenty of
rehab projects at over $20,000 -- a $1 million HUD Neighborhood Initiatives grant
for indoor plumbing is underway for 32
homes in an area that does not yet have
water or sewage service. About $30,000 is
earmarked per home. A half-million dollar TDHCA HOME grant will rehab several homes at about $45,000 per home. An
additional $520,000 HOME project targets
16 homes at about $30,000 per home in unincorporated parts of Webb County with
existing water and sewage systems.
In addition to HOME funds from the
TDHCA, Webb’s EDD secures and administers grants from the U.S. Dept of
Agriculture, Rural Development Housing
Preservation grant (federal funds); Texas
Department of Housing and Community
Affairs, OCI, Self-Help Center program
(state funds); and Texas Department of
Housing and Community Affairs, Contract-for-Deed program (state funds).
LareDOS asked Vargas a few questions
to determine whether or not it was his department’s priority to use TRCC registered
contractors who could provide homeowners an enforceable warranty registered
with the state. His answers were obtuse
and at times disingenuous, particularly
considering the number of over $20,000 rehabs that have been completed or are underway with state and federal money.
Are all of the contractors that you use
registered with the TRCC?
The registration process that will cost
$500.00 for a two-year registration with
TRCC is a responsibility of the construction contractor. If the County was to use
a small construction contractor for either
new residential construction or a job that
increases or decreases the total living space
of a home or a job over $20,000 -- and this
does not include the cost of roof construction -- then the County would require the
construction contractor to be registered
with TRCC. Webb County is required by
one of its funding agencies to use a TRCC
registered contractor when and if any of the
factors listed above are part of the project.
Do any of the contractors that you use
not pay the $500 two-year registration,
that is to ask are some of those contractors not registered?
There may be some that are not registered. However, if the County had housing
rehabilitation jobs that exceeded $20,000
excluding the roof or increased or decreased the living space of a home, then all
bidders would be required to be registered
with TRCC. When the cost of roof repairs
is excluded, all of our work falls under
$20,000
What other than the $500 check do
these contractors have to present to the
TRCC?
Registering with TRCC is a construction contractor’s responsibility. To my
knowledge, Webb County and this department has had very little to do with TRCC
because they deal with residential construction only. Since I have not registered
or dealt with TRCC, I do not know but I
am sure there are various things that they
must submit in order to register the company. TRCC is making a concerted effort
to recognize these small contractors even
if they change company names. The TRCC
website includes several other items that
are part of the registration process.
Do you use only registered contractors?
As you know, Webb County is only involved with residential housing when it implements housing rehabilitation programs.
When roof costs are excluded, most housing
rehab work falls under $20,000. However,
the construction contracts are between the
homeowner and the construction contractor.
Webb County insures that all work is done
according to specs and all work is approved
by the homeowner before payment of any
amount. Payments are scheduled according
to work performed and after several inspections, the payment is made. The warranty
is included in the construction contract and
no additional work will be given to any contractor that does not meet their contractual
obligations in any job.
If the work is under $20,000 is some of
it done by non-registered contractors?
Remember, the $20,000 does not include the cost of roof construction or roof
repairs. In other words, the overall house
improvements may total $30,000 but if the
roof reconstruction is $14,000, the house
rehabilitation is only $16,000. The County
awards to the lowest bidder based on bids
submitted. The very small construction
contractors are probably not registered. The
County, through the Self-Help Center and
this department has encouraged all construction contractors to register because
there may come a day when all construction contractors in Texas will have to be
registered regardless of the size of the job
or the size of the company.
Is the use of several funding sources
for a rehab job a way to obviate having
to comply with using a TRCC registered
contractor?
Why in the world would that thought
even cross your mind? The size and type
of rehab work that the County carries out
does not require it but why would the
County not want to comply with this simple requirement if it had to.
What kind of worse case scenarios have
there been for botched contracting jobs?
CONTINUED ON PAGE 31
44
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
News
Texas Workforce Center delivers jobs and hope 24/7
Mario Tijerina helps Wal-Mart applicants with paperwork
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
H
ope and gainful employment go
together like natural partners,
and they seldom exist apart from one another. Employment restores a sense of self
worth and reclaimed dignity to a person
who is down on his luck and not able to
make a go of things since leaving or losing the last job. For others, since life and
work are practically synonymous terms,
finding a job where there was only need,
yearning, and despair before has the effect of instilling a feeling of belonging
in an individual who desires to make a
positive mark in the world and be a contributing force in society.
That’s where the Texas Workforce Center (TWC) comes into the picture. Employment is the byword at the TWC, and job
seekers won’t find a better source of job
opportunities, pre-gathered, culled, and
categorized for the taking by interested
and qualified applicants. To brighten the
picture even more, the TWC works closely in conjunction with approximately 120
employers at any given time in an effort
to fill specific job openings which they
have posted with the agency. “We have
two focused customers -- employers and
job seekers -- and we try to make both
happy by making quality matches,” said
project director Patricia J. Hall. “In addition, our automated system at WorkInTexas.com opens the door statewide
24/7,” she added. Job seekers who come
in and register at the agency are tracked
by an expert team of employment services specialists who continually monitor the latest job openings that become
available and seek to find matches to fill
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
those jobs from among the registered job
seekers, matching personal skills and
experience to job descriptions and preferred prerequisites. “We have an average of 3,500 job seekers per month and
700 job postings at any given time,” said
Sandra Cortez, customer service supervisor for business services, who oversees
this department. “We are open from 8 to
5, Monday through Friday, at which time
both our job specialists and computers
are accessible,” she added. “Our employment service specialists,” she pointed
out, “like helping people and are focused
on customer service. Everyone’s mission
is the same.”
Yet the scope and depth of the services
provided by the Texas Workforce Center
are even greater, always with employment as the central objective. “We have
our mobile unit, we hold job fairs which
are very well attended, and we work
with new large companies that come to
town,” said Larry Sanchez, public relations and marketing specialist. “For
example, we recently serviced 1,700 applicants who came in to interview for
positions with the new Wal-Mart store,
and we placed 380 individuals in new
jobs with that firm. And we have been
contacted by HEB regarding the new
superstore they’re bringing in, and their
job postings are already in our system,”
he added. “Our mobile workforce center
provides on site employment and training services plus 10 computers that provide online internet access to the WorkInTexas job website, and it services Webb,
Zapata, and Jim Hogg counties.”
Like its name implies, the mobile workforce center gets around quite a bit for the
Workforce mobile unit reaches out to public
convenience of parties that require ready
access to TWC services. “We station it
pretty much on a weekly basis at schools,
probation offices, the Webb County Justice Center, and other public venues of
easy access, for maximum utilization by
the citizens,” Sanchez pointed out. “Our
job fairs are held periodically throughout
the year, and they serve a good purpose.
They’re a rich source for direct contacts
by job seekers with employer representatives equipped with loads of good information about good jobs,” he said. These
job fairs are held in large facilities like the
Laredo Civic Center, whose ample indoor
space is strategically subdivided and utilized for individual information booths
that are set up side-by-side by individual
businesses. Each firm’s representatives
greet job seekers who present themselves
and answer questions for them, provide
them with relevant brochures, and often
make interview information available.
No effort is spared by fair hosts and hostesses or booth personnel in encouraging
enthusiastic participation by job seekers
in attendance.
Project director Hall pointed out that
the TWC further addresses personal
needs by partnering with major publicsensitive organizations like AARP. “We
assist in their older Worker Program in
helping older citizens locate meaningful
employment,” she said. “Also, we work
with the Small Business Development
Center in assisting people who want to
start their own businesses, we cooperate
with the Texas Veterans Commission in
efforts to accommodate the employment
needs of military veterans, and we’re involved in the Migrant Education Train-
ing program, helping address the special needs of seasonal farmworkers in a
number of ways, including returning to
school to widen their job horizons,” she
added.
Further education-related services
provided by the TWC address the needs
of many and diverse groups of citizens
intent on bettering their lives and advancing their careers.
Prime examples of these services are
literacy training to ensure that adults
have the basic skills for employment;
training for adults, dislocated workers, and youth, including GED services; training, support, and employment
for individuals affected by NAFTA;
training, job search, and relocation allowances to qualified individuals who
became unemployed due to increased
imports; training under the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families initiative
(TANF); access to area adult education
sources; training for Food Stamp recipients to assist them to become self-sufficient; and numerous vocational skills
training programs, year-round youth
programs, and a great variety of 40-minute job readiness sessions on a virtual
daily basis.
For years many unemployed Laredoans have perhaps thought of their local
Texas Workforce Center as solely a place
to become informed about applying for
unemployment benefits, and indeed it
still performs that important function.
However, a closer look at the TWC today
reveals a virtual mecca of golden opportunities for unemployed job seekers looking for a better lifestyle for themselves
and their families.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
25
News
Facts battle emotions
for local school districts’ futures
De la Viña, a teacher at Cigarroa High
School and an LCC trustee, is the local field
consultant for the TSTA. He noted that the
ducation leaders seem to be coming
“sacred cow” problem cut former LISD intogether and school districts could,
terim superintendent Sylvia Bruni’s term
too, but the clearest assessment of what’s
short and that he has warned new interim
needed might be from the outside.
superintendent Veronica Guerra about it,
United ISD board president John Bruce
too.
thinks it might be time for a consultant to
Guerra replaces former superintendent
come in -- without any local attachments,
Daniel García, who was in office only
or emotion -- and study the facts about
nine months into a three-year contract, reconsolidation of UISD and Laredo ISD.
signing on Dec. 31. García was the LISD’s
“Somebody that knows school finance.
fourth superintendent in five years, exiting
Somebody that’s not on a team,” Bruce
over a storm largely around adsaid. “If a bigger district is better ministrative reshuffling. LISD
- how? It takes a lot more time to
APPLES
ORANGES
trustees recently named Guerra
turn around an aircraft carrier than
interim super by a slim 4-3 marit does a small boat.”
LISD
UISD
gin.
Bruce can see a consolidated Enrollment
24,500
37,899
“There are many pressing isLaredo school district becoming Budget
$174,000,000
$289,772,480
sues, and consolidation is gainthe largest local public entity with Tax Base
ing momentum,” said Cavazos,
$1,799,970,416
$7,744,346,887
more clout than most county ofNet Appraised Value
who heads TSTA interests in
$8,592
$7,277
fices. Bruce also believes some in- Avg. spent for student
the LISD. “The community is
133
2,448
dividuals have financial interests Square Miles
saying enough is enough, and
in seeing one district, as that would
Willman says the state has strict guide- ing to improve Laredo education. He said two bankers support it -- especially Mr.
reduce the number of entities receiving
lines for consolidation, which requires ap- he is aware of the quality of the education (Dennis) Nixon.
their tax dollars.
“But if we are going to consolidate it
Bruce notes that there’s plenty of talk proval by voters in both districts and both of incoming high school graduates and the
remediation courses many of them must should be for the kids, parents, and teacharound a proposal to consolidate the two school boards.
Former Webb County Judge Mercu- first master before taking college math and ers, and we should get some bang for our
Laredo school districts, but little fact aidbucks, and probably save on overhead. But
rio Martinez served on the Laredo Junior English for credit.
ing anyone’s point.
LCC board resolutions aim to enhance we’ve got to have an open forum. We can’t
“The devil is in the details,” he said. College (LJC) board of trustees when it
“We hear a lot of rhetoric, but that might also oversaw Laredo ISD issues and has collaboration between boards and ad- keep the public out.”
Cavazos, a teacher at Martin High
returned to Laredo Community College’s ministrators, Texas A&M International
be personal.”
Bruce says the matter could come down board. LCC trustees are behind a pair of University leadership and the business School, credited former late LISD superto a local election and if voters decide for a resolutions aimed at getting local educa- and professional community. More intendent Vidal Treviño with having the
consolidated district, there would be little tors together -- to speak with each other specific goals include developing a lo- foresight to see the benefits of televised
cal education master plan, coordinating school board meetings, which air on publeft for board members to do. “I oppose and not at each other.
Martinez is not involved in LISD mat- curriculum, improving funding, helping lic access TV.
consolidation,” Bruce said. “I don’t think
“He saw into the future. LISD is ahead
ters, but is mindful of that district’s prob- new immigrants learn English and get
that’s right for our school district.”
Bruce says leaders need to know how lems and frequent superintendent turn- an education, and supporting employee on access. I think combined it would help
benefits and pay hikes for inflation and the telecommunications for all,” Cavazos
consolidation might effect the district and over.
said of consolidated facilities.
“Something has to be done,” Martinez rising costs.
its students.
Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA)
Balboa, TSTA’s UISD representative, and
Texas Education Agency funding con- said. “It is not looking good.”
Martinez said the much smaller, rural representatives and teachers Rene de la a teacher at Nye Elementary, said United
sultant Phu Nguyen said it is unlikely
that two large school districts would con- Webb Consolidated schools have been Viña, Blanca Balboa, and Hilario Cavazos board meetings are taped, but public comsolidate, noting that most consolidating mentioned in some consolidation dis- attribute the relationship beteween poli- ment portions are cut out and scheduled
cussions, but doesn’t believe they have a tics and administration problems in both at the end of the meetings when most of
involves smaller schools.
Nguyen said a recent exception was place in any potential merger with Laredo districts for doubling their membership to those attending have left.
some 2,500 in two years.
Balboa and de la Viña can’t attribute
when Wilmer-Hutchins schools were schools.
They say previous LISD superinten- the UISD’s bashful ways to anything more
Martinez is sure more discussion will
forced to join the Dallas school district by
be heard before any action is taken. “Let’s dents have lost their jobs for not respecting than a desire to hush dissent and not hear
court order.
any serious challenges to their authority.
Nguyen added that he hadn’t heard of hope something good comes out of all of the space of “sacred cow” administrators.
“And if you touch them, they’ll get you
“Rosie Cruz is at every meeting, and she
any proposal in Laredo, but said splitting this,” he said.
Martinez taught at LJC from 1959 to ’68 fired, or make your life so miserable and brings up a lot of tough questions,” Balboa
large districts is more common than putand is in his third term on the community make you want to quit,” de la Viña said. said of the frequent meeting attendee.
ting them together.
“What is there to hide?” asked de la
The word consolidated attached to a college’s board, having filled in after Har- “There are administrators you can’t touch,
Viña.u
old Yeary’s death in 1979 for a couple of criticize, or tell anything to.”
large district can be deceiving, however.
By MIKE McILVAIN
E
26
| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
The Lamar Consolidated Independent
School District (LCISD) in the Houston
suburbs has three large Class 5A high
schools in a growth area, but consolidation occurred there between 1946 and 1950
before the big city grew to and around it
in force.
LCISD spokesperson Christy Willman
says schools in Richmond and Rosenberg
consolidated that first year after World
War II and were joined by nine other local
community school districts in the following years.
years.*
LCC board vice president Cynthia
Mares said consolidation could get more
local academic scrutiny through the combined efforts of Laredo educators under
the resolutions.
“It could be a project,” she said of the
consolidation issue. “It could definitely be
a spinoff. The key is to get the leaders together.”
The resolutions are credited to LCC
board president Pete Saenz and aim beyond consolidation considerations, seek-
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
News
VIDA endorses Lake Casa Blanca
as secondary water source
By PENELOPE WARREN
W
ith new officers and new members, and its old passion for
social justice alive and kicking, Voices
in Democratic Action (VIDA) voted on
February 10 to support the Río Grande
International Study Center’s proposal
that Lake Casa Blanca be designated as
Laredo and Webb County’s secondary/
emergency water source. The proposal,
presented by Dr. Jim Earhart and Malia Watson, calls for cooperation with
the city and county in exploring the
feasibility of drawing on the resources
of the Lake in the event of a toxic spill
or terrorist action upstream of the Jefferson Street Water Treatment Plant intake, or in the less likely case of drought
severe enough to deplete the Amistad
Reservoir above Del Río. Possible components of the plan include dredging
the Lake, the construction of a wastewater treatment plant on the Chacón
watershed that would release treated
water into the Lake through a series of
constructed wetlands, and the combination of the Chacón and Zacate Creek
watersheds to insure sustainability of
the Lake. Dr. Earhart and Gerry Pinzón
had previously given the presentation
at a meeting of VIDA’s Social and Environmental Justice Committee, chaired
by Dr. Earhart. The Committee unanimously recommended that the organization support the proposal, and the
membership meeting passed the motion without exception.
In other business, VIDA heard Education Committee reports on Laredo
Independent School District’s attempts
at reorganization and the proposal being floated to combine LISD with the
United Independent School District. Hilario Cavazos, VIDA Vice-Chair, noted
that consolidation into a single superdistrict of about 65,000 students would
cut overhead while strengthening curricula. It is not, however, clear at this
point how school property taxes would
be affected. Rolando Hererra, Education
Committee Chair, presented information on developmental classes at Laredo
Community College, where enrollment
in remedial courses remains high. VIDA
will address these issues at the March
meeting.
VIDA has a long and distinguished
history in Laredo. Founded in the
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
1960s by Dr. Hector Farías and Richard
Geissler, Voices in Democratic Action
was instrumental in bringing minimum
wage to the city. The group picketed the
Southland Café and Deliganis Cafeteria, both on Salinas Street facing Jarvis
Plaza, and forced them to raise their
workers’ paychecks. Over the years,
VIDA has filed a number of lawsuits
against local politicians in both the city
and county, with fireworks resulting.
The organization has been especially
dogged in its pursuit of questionable
financial dealings in Laredo Independent School District and in demanding
transparency from the board of Laredo
Community College in its fiscal and educational practices.
Last fall, the group reorganized after
a year and a half of inaction. New officers were elected in November, and currently number Roberta Bobbie Morales
as organization chair, Hilario Cavazos
as vice-chair, Jesse Porras as treasurer,
Penelope Warren as secretary, George
Altgelt as parliamentarian, and José
Gomez as sergeant-at-arms. Committee
chairs include Dr. Earhart as head of the
Social and Environmental Justice Committee; Rolando Herrera and René de la
Viña as co-chairs of the Education Committee; George Altgelt as chair of the
Law Enforcement and Judiciary Committee; and Penelope Warren as chair of
the Communications Committee.
VIDA’s plans for the future include
the production of a non-partisan voters’ guide similar to that produced
by San Antonio’s League of Women
Voters. “We’re looking to bring a new
level of awareness and participation to
VIDA’s work,” said Morales. “VIDA is
seeking to be inclusive of all the people
of Laredo and Webb County -- all ethnicities, all income levels, all languages, all walks of life. We want to be at
the forefront of positive change for our
community, and we want to achieve
that by forging relationships with local
governments, educational institutions
and other agencies. Juntos podemos -- together we can achieve great things for
the benefit of the people of Laredo and
Webb County.”
VIDA’s next meeting is scheduled for
Saturday, March 10, at 9:30 AM in the
fifth-floor conference room of the Rialto
Hotel at 1219 Matamoros. The public is
invited.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
27
Entertainment
Grupo Fantasma making bigger,
louder, more visible tracks in music business
By MIKE McILVAIN
G
rupo Fantasma is very much alive
and flying high with an effective
manager in Mike Crowley and the attention
of the Prince.
“Laredo,” a corrido they sing on occasions, is printed in Hecho en Tejas -- An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature -- alongside
the works of other well-known Texas musicians Selena, Little Joe Hernandez, Freddy
Fender, Sunny Ozuna, Roberto Pulido,
Conjunto Atzlan, Laura Canales, Tish Hinojosa, Lydia Mendoza and Chingo Bling,
but Fantasma’s current streak could propel
them well past the rest in the book.
“They are a great band,” Crowley said by
phone from his home in Austin. “Nobody
ever accused the music business of being
fair, but hopefully we will get these guys
where they should be.”
Fantasma guitarist Adrian Quesada
credits Crowley, a longtime veteran of the
U.S. music scene, with taking the Laredoinfluenced Latin funk, cumbia, and hip hop
mix band to new heights in recent months.
Fantasma played with Prince in Florida
prior to the Super Bowl, played for CBS execs before the big game, and picked up several gigs in Las Vegas at Prince’s 3121 Club
and for a Golden Globes after party in Los
Angeles.
Austin-based Fantasma is so busy it only
plays about once a month in the capital city.
Fantasma’s visibility in Hecho is in a twopage spread with the corrido “Laredo,”
which the 11-member group usually plays
when it occasionally returns here.
Quesada, guitarist and cuatro player
Beto Martinez, bass man Greg Gonzalez,
and drummer Johnny Lopez III are all from
Laredo. The band’s traveling concessions
salesman Gilbert Mendoza is also from
Laredo.
Ironically, “Laredo” is one of their few
numbers that they didn’t write. Quesada
said it’s an old corrido, and they were published in newly printed Hecho because the
book’s editor, Dagoberto Gilb, knows them.
Gilb is the author of several books, teaches at Texas State in San Marcos, and lives in
Austin.
Quesada notes that Crowley helped author musical success for the Cars and Jimmie Dale Gilmore a number of years after
working on some of Elvis Presley’s tours
in the 1950s, which included several rural
dance hall appearances.
Quesada also credits Crowley with connecting them to Prince and possibilities of
28
| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
Grupo Fantasma Laredoans at the Jalapeno Festival.
recording with the well-known rock star.
“We were playing in Las Vegas every
Thursday night and backing up Prince,”
Quesada said. “Thank God we flew to Vegas. We are still busy without him, and
we’ve been talking about working on an album with him.”
either of their two 15-seat vans. And those
who volunteer to drive generally decide
what music plays on the radio, which can
be as varied as the music Fantasma plays
on stage.
Fantasma fans seldom ever hear them on
radio because they don’t cater to that media.
Grupo Fantasma returns to Laredo on March 9 at Las Cananas.
One of Fantasma’s rare recent Austin gigs
was a charity event for Las Manitas restaurant, which is being moved out of its Congress Avenue site in a property takeover.
Fantasma was interviewed on Austin’s ME Television on Feb. 9 and said
they expect touring to return them to
Canada, where they played last year, too.
Fantasma’s other recent gigs have been in
Georgia, Mississippi, and New York, frequently leaving group members to drive
“We don’t write to get on radio,” Quesada said. “We do what we do. We’re into
the band being ourselves. If something gets
picked up it’s OK, if not that’s OK, too.”
Crowley says getting a band’s music
heard on radio is not nearly as important
as it was with so many other ways for fans
to download music now. Getting on radio
is good, but not the key to success it once
was, and Crowley says Fantasma is already
gaining the notoriety radio-successful
bands have had in evidence through recent
events.
Crowley would know. His resumé includes work with famed musicians such as
John Denver, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, the
Pointer Sisters, and Joe Ely. He also worked
for Concerts West in Seattle, Wash. and in
California until moving to Austin with his
wife in the 1980s.
Crowley says Fantasma puts itself in position to be successful because the 11 parts
all fit together so very well -- and practice,
practice, practice.
“They are a great live band and they
practice every Tuesday,” Crowley said. “It’s
something like a very exceptional football
team. They practice and practice.
“You see it when they are playing. There
are not any surprises. They all know what
each other is doing.”
Crowley likes listening to Fantasma for
that fine, natural, professional touch and its
fusion of styles.
“It all comes together in their own way,”
he said.
Crowley says Fantasma will be back in
the recording studio soon and new songs
like “Revoltar,” which was played for the
200 or so braving temperatures in the low
50s at the Jalapeño Festival, are expected
to be on the next CD. “Revoltar” carried a
sound and time like one that could go to radio stations, but that media is only one consideration nowadays.
Crowley isn’t sure where all of the group’s
successes could take them, but doesn’t see
any barriers -- other than the group’s size
-- getting in their way. Airfare for 11 is considerably more than it is for the typical band
roughly half that size.
Crowley would like to take the band to
the Montreux music festival held each year
in July on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, but taking the 11 usually means 13
or 14 make the trip when summer airfares
and hotels are at their highest. Switzerland
isn’t cheap, either.
Montreux was a milestone in Texas guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan’s career -- booed
off the stage one year before returning to
thunderous approval the next.
“I’d love to go to Montreux, but we need
someone who’ll pay for it,” Crowley said,
whose confidence in Fantasma isn’t based
on his own viewpoint.
Crowley recalls another musician at the
Montreal festival in Canada saying “that
band dominates.”
And it’s true,” Crowley said. “It’s going to
happen.”u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Entertainment
Primer Impacto’s Dandrades –
man in motion
By MIKE McILVAIN
Primer Impacto’s Tony Dandrades jumped off his man-in-motion life for an
instant to represent KLDO-TV in the George Washington’s Birthday parade,
but he says he wasn’t just floating by.
Dandrades covers entertainment, sports, and is the backpacker who visits
cities, mostly in the Americas, for the Univision show, which carries the top
local television ratings for the 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. slot on Saturday and Sunday.
Dandrades talks to Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, and usually handles “happy” news for his Univision show, but it can swing the other direction when
things go bad for such stars.
Dandrades credits Univision producer Mabel Dieppa with giving him the
flexibility to use his training and talents, which make covering any type of
news thrown at him.
“She is a good producer. She helps me with everything,” Dandrades said,
but notes that Dieppa also knows when to step back and let him handle the
fine details.
Unlike many other TV journalists at the network level, Dandrades can
also edit video, which he learned in his university days at Inter-American in
Puerto Rico when he interned with local commercial stations.
The 38-year-old Dominican Republic native and married father of an 18month-old girl lives in Miami, Fla. when home, but he often includes the
wife and daughter in his worldly treks. He was joined by family for a month
when covering last year’s World Cup in Germany.
But Dandrades liked what he saw in his parade visit to Laredo and says
he is considering doing a backpack show here. He’s gone to hotter spots -- or
those Laredo’s equal -- in trips to places like Yuma, Arizona.
Dandrades notes some light acting and stunt work in some of his backpack shows, and one or two can be a bit scary, but he is happy doing what he
does despite the drawbacks.
“I love what I am doing. I have wanted to do this since I was a kid,” he
said when visiting KLDO’s studios for the first time on the day of the parade.
“He’s not just here for work. It’s beautiful that he came. Usually, it takes
nine months to get someone down from the network,” KLDO manager Terry
Ordaz said. “But we just called and it was OK.
“It shows how dedicated he is to the viewers.”
Marketron says Dandrades’ Primer Impacto has a healthy 11.7 rating and
29.3 audience share in Laredo for the last year in its time slot.
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
29
At the dedication of the WBCA plaque downtown are from left to right
Amando Chapa, LULAC #12; Cristy B. Alexander, 2007 WBCA Poster Artist;
James A. Notzon, 2007’s George Washington: Adrienne Treviño, 2007’s
Martha Washington; Luke Bentley Lamberth, US Abrazo Child; Richard R.
Valls, Jr., WBCA President; Raquel Irene Barrientos Cardenas, US Abrazo
Child; Dariela Maria Gomez Lozano, Mexican Abrazo Child; Maximiliano
Arguindegui Mounetou, Mexican Abrazo Child; Dr. Roberto Juarez of the
Webb County Historical Society; Kristian Denise Martinez, 2007 Princess
Pocahontas; Brian Moreno, 2007 Chief; and Maria Cristina Dovalina of the
Princess Pocahontas Council.
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Photo by Armando Saldaña
WBCA plaque dedication
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Entertainment
Taste of Laredo: savory, user friendly,
enjoyed by hordes of hungry attendees
By MIKE McILVAIN
B
esides the pitter-patter of savory
food tap dancing upon your taste
buds, the annual Taste of Laredo has
become one of the best places to watch
people.
The surges of humanity rolling along
the Laredo Entertainment Center floor,
taking helpless but eventually full and
smiling tasters along with them of
past years, are gone. This year’s event
showed a more direct, already decided
and patient motion, leading to more
lines. Most lines moved quickly and
just enough adequate standing room
made eating more possible without any
embarrassing spills all over clothing,
friends, and family.
The eyes said “I’m hungry,” and the
faces said “I know where I’m going” - all moving to the largely rock and
country tunes of Little Sister up above
on stage.
Staying out of their way is the best
move. Watching from above where barCONTINUED FROM PAGE 24
As of today, only one construction
contractor has abandoned the job and
that occurred when Hurricane Katrina pulled as many of the small contractors as possible to New Orleans.
With dreams that they would be paid
three to four times more for the same
amount of work, one small company
left the job here with the job only 40%
completed. Since the County only pays
for work completed and then holds an
additional 10% retainage off of each
payment, the County was able to select another small contractor to come
in and finish the job without any additional funds or problems.
What role does the county play
in making a contractor honor a warranty?
At the present time, the one-year
warranty is included in their construction contract and Webb County
self monitors these situations. The
County will not award a construction
contractor any work to any contractor
that has not completely met their contractual responsibilities in previous
jobs. However, this is a good question
for the County Attorney’s office. As of
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tenders dared to battle each other was
the safest place and a good observation
point to see the currents of humanity
run about the concrete-based oblong,
but unlike the past, this year’s event saw
more straight ahead intention than gowith-the-flow as established, popular
restaurants drew the more visible lines.
Even Bucks hockey players, leading their league and available for autographs, seemed to go unseen near
the LEC entrance as taste buds were in
control, moving the crowd’s palettes to
their plates.
Newcomer sushi restaurant Posh,
working with an aggressive team of
helpers, managed to pass out plenty of
cards and samples from its side midway
position to take top honors from the
voting public and judges for taste. It was
hard to get past Posh without something
falling into hand or mouth.
Posh might look like a small place
when passing by on Shiloh, but it obviously has a large appeal.
Asian fare was otherwise not as vis-
ible as in past years with Emperor Garden, which won several honors, not participating.
La India’s small but very savory offerings were a smooth and pleasuring good
early stop. Energy drink Bomba proved
tastier in the light color than dark, and
both Italian restaurants offered good
stop-and-absorb-the-moment tastes. The
various Mexican restaurants played to
their loyal followings, capturing much
of those visible lines, which made getting there early the most recommended
move. The second was consciously walking off those calories right away, watching latecomers catch up while hearing
their comments.
The chefs and bartenders provided
good side shows, but this year’s bartending competitors were a bit more
conservative than last year’s, opting
for a less ostentatious effort with very
little canister tossing when mixing ingredients. Club Eros’ runners-up crew
of David Valdez and Eric Perales went
over the top -- literally -- when Pera-
les stood on the bar to pour samples to
thirsty, cheering fans. Coyote Creek’s
Carmina Aguilar and Virginia Hutto
took bartending competition, mixing
up drinks that drew praise for a userfriendly taste.
Valdez and Perales did well, too, but
were hit with a 10 second time penalty.
Italian restaurants finished first and
third with Bernard Rodriguez of Johnny Carino’s on top. La Posada’s Steven
Ginsburg was the runner-up and Olive
Garden’s Raul García third.
Teocalli’s colorful exhibit, with smiling Dinorah Perez catching the eye in
a detail-oriented imitation of famed
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo at work on
her self-portrait, was the Best Decorated, followed by relative newcomers
Embassy Suites and the Laredo Taco
Company.
This year’s early February event added and subtracted wrinkles and sprinkles of taste from its predecessors, but
always proves to be a good one for eye
and tongue.u
today, this situation has never come
up.
If the contractor doesn’t make good
on a warranty, does Webb County
pick up the bill?
Another good question for the
County Attorney’s office. Since this
has never happened, I am not sure.
However, since the contract is between
the homeowner and the construction
contractor, and the warranty is in the
contract, I believe a lawsuit would be
in order.
How many homeowners have come
back with allegations of faulty construction?
As of today, none and none have
been filed with the State or our funding agencies. The checks and balances, constant on-site inspections and
the payment method of payment for
only work performed are in place to
address most issues before they become a problem. There have been issues where a color selected by the
homeowner looks “different” once it
is on the wall or issues with “I said,
he said” but very minor and all have
been resolved to the satisfaction of the
homeowner, the construction contractor, and the County.u
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
33
T
Business
Feature
Sames’ Tires for Life program
makes customers for life
Observing Black History Month
ires for life? That doesn’t seem like a
concept you’d put much store in, except that the offer for replacement tires for the
life of your car is coming from Sames Motor
Company, the city and the state’s oldest auto
dealership.
Is there a catch? Only that you run the routine factory maintenance of your Sames-purchased Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, or
Honda through the Quick Lane facility across
the street from the dealership -- maintenance
that includes oil changes, filter changes, transmission service, and tire rotation.
CEO Hank Sames called the Tires for
Life program a “win-win proposition” for
the dealership’s customers. “Customers will
get free tires as long as they own their vehicle in return for bringing their vehicle to
Sames for maintenance. By keeping up with
regular maintenance, their car will perform
better, last longer, and because we have the
maintenance records, will be worth more
when they are ready to trade. We want to
keep customers coming back. Tires for Life to
us really means customers for life,” he said,
adding that the agency’s service department
is highly competitive with other dealerships
and small oil and lube shops.
Sames said Quick Lube technicians will
measure the tires every time the customer
comes in, and when the tread reaches 8/32”,
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the tires will be replaced with the original
factory tire. He noted that 3/32” tread is required to pass state inspection. “Tires can be
replaced up to once a year,” Sames said.
The Tires for Life program honors the
original tire or vehicle manufacture’s road
hazard policy; however, no additional road
hazard coverage is added. Commuters or
those who incur high mileage will benefit
from the program.
The new business model has received
a good deal of feedback and obviously a
number of questions because the program
is unordinary. “Once customers realize that
there’s no hook here, and that it’s as simple
as doing basic maintenance on the vehicle
you purchased from us, it’s pretty simple
to get behind the idea, which we think reflects our commitment to our customers
at Sames and getting Tires for Life from
Sames, it’s our commitment to our customers,” said Mike Cortez, General Manager
of Sames Motor Company. “We want to
reward our customers for being loyal to us,
whether it’s buying a new vehicle, maintaining your vehicle, or having a shiny new
set of tires placed on your car for free,” Cortez said. For more information, call Sames
Motor Company at (956) 721-4700 or visit
their showrooms at I-35 at the Mann Road
exit in Laredo.u
Curt Flood: THE MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
T
he late Curt Flood (1938–1997) is
undoubtedly is one of the most
important and influential athletes in
the history of professional sports. He
belongs on a short list of watershed
performers along with Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Tiger Woods. Flood
an All-Star center fielder and leadoff
hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals, led
the National League in hits (211) in
1964, batted over .300 six times, won
seven Gold Gloves for his fielding, and
helped the Cardinals win three World
Series titles.
But he is best remembered for earning upwards of a billion dollars -- for
other people, not for himself. For it was
the 5’7” Curt Flood who in 1970 coined
the expression “free agent” in a bid to
challenge the vise grip of management
on player freedom, while owners grew
insanely rich and the players, who did
all the work, labored for peanuts. That
vise grip, courtesy of the infamous
“reserve clause” in the Major League
charter, limited players to one team for
life, and deprived them of any say-so
on matters of salary, which the owners conspired to keep deflated. Flood
lost the suit when the Supreme Court
decided in favor of ownership “for the
good of the game.”
Flood retired in 1971, having never
been paid more than $90,000 for a baseball season, but the reserve clause was
stricken down in Congress in 1975,
opening the game up to free agency
and enabling players to negotiate
their salaries and choose the team for
whom they would play. In today’s Major Leagues, 47 different players make
$300,000 per year, baseball’s minimum
salary. The median salary is $1.4 million and Ken Griffey, Jr., is playing on
a 9-year, $116,000,000 contract. Fortunately for professional basketball
and football players, and all other pro
athletes worldwide, their own unions,
motivated by the “Curt Flood Rule,”
stepped up to the plate and hit the long
ball for their clients, making Curt Flood
all professional athletes’ primary benefactor.
Curtis Charles Flood, born in Houston and raised in Oakland, died of
throat cancer in Los Angeles at the age
of 59 in 1978. Countless athletes, fans,
franchise owners, coaches, trainers,
publicity agents, television networks
and outlets, host cities, and stadium
owners and concessions personnel,
and wholesale and retail firms and facilities dealing in sports-related products and parphernalia the world over,
will forever be in this great African
American’s debt.u
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Photo by Armando Saldaña
The Imaginarium of South Texas opens its doors
Director Sylvia Bruni cuts the ribbon on The Imaginarium of South Texas at Mall del Norte. A name change for the Laredo Children’s Museum and a move to the Mall
bode well for the non-profit dedicated to learning through play.
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
37
Literary Classics V
“Fern Hill” - by Dylan Thomas
The best poem my teacher never covered
them all make a bundle.
Fern Hill
by Dylan Thomas
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
B
ob Dylan once angrily quipped at
a 1965 press conference, “I’ve done
more for Dylan Thomas than he ever did
for me!” Time is apparently proving him
right, although his brash, egocentric statement of 1965 seemed peevish and self-serving at the time. The American Nobel Prize
nominee for 2006 has always readily admitted to having changed his name from
Zimmerman to Dylan in honor of Welsh
poet Dylan Thomas (1917-1953), the first
Dylan on the literary scene; however, the
legendary songwriter’s success and namefame have proven to be the coattails that
carried the obscure Welshman onto the
literary radar screen. But it has been the
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merits of Thomas’s poetic legacy that have
made him a modern-day superstar of the
first magnitude. And “Fern Hill” is arguably the most famous and well-loved poem
he ever wrote.
The rise to prominence of Dylan
Thomas is a universal phenomenon, even
though as late as the late 1960s his reputation even in his native Wales was in doubt.
Not even his home-grown Celtic compatriots could make up their minds whether
to claim him or blame him -- claim him
for his Gaelic genius or blame him for his
“Welsh wino” image in the public’s perception. Maybe the last few decades have
made people more accepting of demigods
with feet of clay, in a manner of speaking. Thomas’ meteoric rise from outhouse
to penthouse has been of mythical proportions, I say, and I make this claim as
a Janus-headed eyewitness to the man’s
metamorphosis. I mean, a young man
just as 20-years-old to the nanosecond as I
was in late June 1969, made a sort of Dylan
Thomas pilgrimage to picture postcardesque Swansea, Wales, and could hardly
find a soul who let on to even know who
Dylan Thomas was, much less who would
admit that the blue-collar, Nazi-bombarded burg was notable or notorious for
anything other than as a company town
run by and for the famous firm that made
Wilkinson Sword Blades. Compare that
with this morning when I checked out the
Dylan Thomas website and found:
City and County of Swansea –
“Swansea is proud of being the birthplace of Dylan Marlais Thomas and also
proud to host an annual Dylan Thomas
Festival.”
All levity aside, it seems obvious that the
Thomas heirs have persuaded the Swansea
Chamber of Commerce to “see” there was
once a “swan” in their midst who can help
Now as I was young and
easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and
happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons
I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of
the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on
the hill barked clear and cold,
And the Sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as high as the house, the
tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls
were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed
among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the
farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the
cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew
round that very day.
So it must have been after
the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the
spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes
and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and
happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through
the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky
blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so
few and such morning songs
Before the children
green and golden
Follow him out of grace,
Nothing cared, in the lamb white
days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged
loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly
with the hay fields
And wake to the farm forever
fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy
in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my
chains like the sea.
Childhood Viewed as Life’s Eden
I still consider my first, youthful reading of “Fern Hill” my favorite.
But if you’re not particularly young
when you read it for the first or the
hundredth time, you’ll feel like you
still were, or realize that you’re young
at heart, just like the poet when he
wrote it. For how basic and elemental are the poem’s most fetching features -- an extended comparison of
childhood to an Edenic yesterday that
never fades if the heart is receptive;
vivid, original, surprising phraseology that delights the inner animal; and
animals, and Nature’s other simple
staples -- her sky, her sun, her sea, her
rainbow of colors, and her ineluctable
changing! And how convincing and
persuasive are the poet’s acceptance
and celebration of Nature’s wondrous
ways! And, of course, what a feast of
fabulous, fascinating language!u
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Literature
The canon to the right of us
“
BY WILLIAM H. WISNER
he peerless literary critic
Northrop Frye once termed
the Bible, “this great, sprawling,
tactless book” that lay in middle
of the Western literary tradition,
confounding complete understanding, yet still immoveable. The same
is true of the Western literary tradition itself and its great books - a much-maligned animal these days in
both feminist and ethnic studies circles.
The latter groups managed to co-opt the
reign of deconstruction and postmodern
literary theory extant in the past 20 years
and spin it to their own ends: to attempt
to destroy the white, European, male hegemony called the “canon” of literature, a
corpus of the finest works in the Western
tradition from Homer to at least Kafka and
Joyce. There aren’t more than a hundred or
so monumental works of this type, and it
can seem like a pretty exclusive enterprise
-- but the criteria for getting into it are not
based on anything more radical than being a genius, a rare enough phenomena in
any generation. And the canon certainly
has expanded to include women, including the Bronte sisters and the absolutely incomparable Emily Dickinson, an intellect
so formidable you can have nightmares
about meeting her in a dark alley.
If, as Harold Bloom has insisted, entrance into the canon is based on unmatched and vivacious originality, we can
expect that more women and minorities
will enter it as a matter of course, now
that political constraints on these groups
have been relaxed -- but talent of this kind
cannot just be summoned up for reasons
T
William Shakespeare
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And the canon certainly has expanded to include wom-
en, including the Bronte sisters and the absolutely incomparable Emily Dickinson, an intellect so formidable you
can have nightmares about meeting her in a dark alley.
on tragedy, a work that affected the
entire Western perception of this
form, his companion work on comedy has never been found. Perhaps
it exists, in an Arabic translation in
some tiny scriptoria in the Middle
East. If it ever were found, it would be
like discovering a lost monumental
marble by Michelangelo, as large and
important as the David or the Pieta.
The resenters seem to harbor more
ethnic hostility than their white counterparts ever did. White European males like
Plato, Descartes, and Kafka have nothing
to apologize for in being products of their
times, just as those who have made history are hardly expected to apologize for
how history operates to perpetuate their
memory. It is intellectually adolescent to
think that history is not a record of the
conquerors. When wasn’t it? A canon of
African American literature, and women’s
literature, will certainly evolve on its own
-- using Bloom’s identical criteria -- as time
passes, assuming that the political and
legal reforms which have liberated these
groups remain in place. What is facile
in the feminist and ethnic attacks on the
canon is their smug presumption that’s it
is somehow easy to get into the canon at
all, even for white males. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The geniuses who
inhabit the canon’s rarified air were often
driven, manic personalities who endured
incredible neglect and personal hardship
to make their contribution. The prevailing
patronage systems of the day were often
ruthless in shutting out new talent -- not
”
of political correctness, certainly not in a
generation or two. Maya Angelou and Alice Walker are not Cervantes or Dickinson,
or even Dickens, although we might like
their works a very great deal. Literary canons get built out of peoples’ natural desire
to read, and, as Bloom also suggests, the
problem of what we should read -- what
is the best of its kind -- is a perennial, but
still joyful, difficulty. Canonical works like
Don Quixote or “Romeo and Juliet” have
appealed to people ever since they became
extant, and they have endured because
they keep moving us in ways we find we
cannot do without. Such a process of repetition results, over the centuries, in a radical weeding effect, a kind of aesthetic selection process every bit as ruthless as that
found in nature. Contrary to allegations
from the schools of resentment (Bloom’s
phrase again), canons are not immutable
or fixed: they obviously do change, within
slowly-evolving limits. While nothing can
dislodge Homer or Dante, new works,
as they enter, change our perception of
every other work in the canonical structure, reaching all the way back to Homer
and Dante. The most recent additions (we
might think here of Faulkner, Hemingway,
or T. S. Eliot) may seem canonical to us -- it
is hard to imagine a literary universe without them; but the truth is, their contributions have only been made in the last hundred years. Of the three authors I have just
cited, Hemingway is without question the
weakest; he is unlikely to survive much
longer. Time is no healer -- and in the case
of recent works, one can never be sure who
will really be around in, say, another 500
years. Just as important, we cannot even be
certain that the most important twentieth
century author has even been discovered
yet. Dickinson’s poetry was almost burned
by her sister Lavinia after her death; Lavinia had no idea her sister Emily had written
poetry, even though they lived in the same
house all their lives. It was only Lavinia’s
last-minute decision to get a second opinion about the several mysterious, tied bundles of paper in her hands that saved Emily’s precious work from the fire. In the last
century, some entirely unknown author,
burrowed away, may have been quietly at
work turning out book after book, with no
interest in publishing a thing until, after
her death, she was discovered.
The canon, in short, far from being “inevitable,” is oftentimes the result of pure
contingency. Parts of it are famously missing: although we have Aristotle’s treatise
Miguel de Cervantes
Emily Dickinson
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
44
Homer
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39
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39
even Mozart, the most effortless musical
prodigy in history, could break through
the stupidity of the Viennese court and the
politics cushioning its own favored musicians. Time and again, from Marx to Van
Gogh, we read biographies of men racked
by economic hardship, poverty, class prejudice, or just plain mental illness. What
sort of conspiracy is that? Entrance into the
canon was always a lonely, unforgiving,
misunderstood, punishing lesson in
aesthetic neglect and public humiliation. No one with any sense would
go there; but to the credit of the West,
white, European men did so again and
again, and in the process they shaped
the Western identity and made it like
no other -- the most supple and articulate unfolding of human intellect
the world has ever known. These authors
and artists are the chief pride of the West,
and our true heroes. They will be joined in
the future by people of every gender and
race, so long as humanity keeps writing,
so long as we keep crucifying ourselves in
the name of something like the truth.
Feminist and ethnic studies critics are
certainly taking a chance sleeping with deconstruction as a means of gaining validity. It’s like dancing the tango with a white
shark who claims to be misunderstood.
Certainly deconstruction is hostile to traditional critical norms and to the canon
of literature itself -- but then it is hostile
toward all literary forms of whatever origin. Deconstruction substitutes the local
and the relative for universal and truthbased forms of knowing. It is an assault on
epistemology as an idea. If Shakespeare is
meaningless -- or, at least, of interchangeable value with an Archie comic book - who can doubt that Charlotte Bronte or
“
tions.” And who on earth ever didn’t think
language was inherently imprecise, as the
deconstructionists have claimed? Linguistic imprecision is the basis for all poetic
resonance, down through the ages. The
re-statement of old questions in new dissertations designed to augment ambitious
little graduate students seeking careers -that is what deconstruction became when
it arrived in America from France, trailing
its over-adulation of a few thin thinkers
like Derrida and Foucault, and repeating
The geniuses who inhabit the canon’s rarified air were
often driven, manic personalities who endured incredible
neglect and personal hardship to make their contribution.
Ralph Ellison cannot suffer the same fate?
The problem with deconstruction from the
beginning is that it never said anything
new -- it only said it in terms more vague,
vulgar, and pseudo-scholarly. Deconstructionists are the great sophists of academe
precisely because they evade answering
questions directly. It’s actually part of their
method. Relativism, hardly an original
idea, is at least as old as Nietzsche, who
said, “there are no facts, only interpreta-
they do not become fossilized. The literary canon, viewed rightly, is not some
exclusive and unchanging hierarchy, but
a tapestry of influences and cross-questionings. The West, as Maynard Hutchins
points out, is the only tradition in which
great minds talk to one another in a kind
of evolving, back and forth conversation,
which we, as readers, are privileged to
overhear, and even contribute to through
dialogue with our intellectual friends. The
women and minorities who now malign
the West’s conversation forget that
their own political rights were won
through the application of the canon’s political treatises in their favor.
With wondrous irony, they have inherited Bloom’s concept of the anxiety of influence, a conscious sense
of resented influence. The canon is
much larger than temporal political agendas, however, and incomparably
stronger than the resenters could ever be.
Make no mistake. The canon’s validity is
so robust and so self-evident only graduate
students, or many of their professors, may
still dispute it. Even in an age as disintegrated as ours, the West still recognizes itself in timeless wonder. It is unimaginable
that it will ever lose that identity, despite
the unkind and thoughtless challenges
which have appeared in its path.u
”
their names with tiresome regularity like
a ring tone you can’t turn off. Postmodernism resembled a pretentious New York art
opening gone berserk, a party which, for
20 years, never closed its doors or stopped
serving warm white wine. The young are
especially vulnerable to professorial hooha like this, and, alas, deconstruction seduced a generation.
Cultures require centering, just as they
require some degree of flexibility so that
Alzheimer’s Support Group Meeting
Tuesday, March 6, 2007 at 7 p.m.
Laredo Medical Center, Tower B, Meeting Room 1
call 723-1707
Parkinson’s Support Group Meeting
Monday, March 12, 2007 at 7 p.m.
Laredo Medical Center, Tower B, first floor, Community Center
call 723-8470 or 285-3126.
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Entertainment
Hecho en Tejas anthology premiers
at TSU’s Alkek Library
By MIKE McILVAIN
S
AN MARCOS - Hecho en Tejas was
printed in New Mexico, but authors,
contributors, and several behind the 522page anthology want to see it bridging understanding in Texas classrooms.
“This should have been on paper a lot
sooner and help link us to all the voices left
to be unleashed,” Tony Diaz, a panel member and Houston-based media boss, said at
the book’s launch on the campus of Texas
State University.
“Much as I want Hecho en Tejas to be a
book that lands in as many high schools and
colleges as it can -- and should! -- or touches
as many Michaels and Jennifers, Miguels,
and Raquels as possible, I also want it to
reach everyday readers of all kinds who
love Texas,” wrote editor Dagoberto Gilb in
the introduction. “I want it to be a book that
so many can learn from, both the young
who don’t know and the old who do but
want it remembered, both those inside the
culture and outside.
“I want this book to overwhelm the ignorance -- and I emphasize the ‘ignore’ root
of that word as much as its dumb or mean
or nasty connotation -- about Raza here in
Texas, the people who settled and were
settled and still remain in Texas, who will
soon be the largest population group in the
state, not to mention the region beyond.”
Hecho en Tejas -- an anthology of Texas
Mexican literature -- is loaded with wellwritten and edited short stories, poems, and
songs from a variety of writers with direct,
visible Texas connections. Author and Texas
State English instructor Gilb, sitting on one of
two panels in the Feb. 10 event in the school’s
Alkek Library, said he had to draw a line
somewhere or the book would have been
much longer. He said he later discovered that
some Hispanic, or Chicano, writers considered appeared to be from out-of-state, but he
later found out some of them were Texans.
Gathered literary heads said Hecho en
Tejas seeks to connect the writers’ neighborhood and background with the rest of the
world.
San Antonio author and contributor
Carmen Tafolla saw a similarity between
Hecho’s frequent bilingual presentation
with Spanish on one page and English on
the opposite to the works of Chaucer when
Germanic Saxon and Norman French languages were joined in England to form
English. Some of Hecho’s works are entirely
in English, others in Spanish, and some ofWWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
Conjunto Atzlan performs in the launch for Hecho en Tejas
fer both.
“I will write, speak in two languages,”
she said. “It is a testament to our history,
roots.”
Tafolla also noted that Hecho has numerous commonalities, which readers in either
language will understand equally.
“We are all created in the most basic
ways. This says we are all related. We all
belong,” she said.
The late Jovita Gonzalez’s “Los Mexicanos que hablan inglés,” or “The Mexicans
Who Speak English” reads and sounds well
in both languages.
“En Texas es terrible
por la revoltura que hay,
no hay quien diga ‘hasta mañana,’
nomas puro goodbye,” it reads in Spanish
on p. 106.
Its rhythm is little different in English.
“In Texas it is terrible
how things are all mixed up;
no one says ‘hasta mañana,’
it’s nothing but ‘goodbye,” reads the
same paragraph on p. 107.
After opening acknowledgements and
introduction, Hecho is led by the story of
one of the world’s great survivors -- Alvar
Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. Cabeza de Vaca, as
he preferred to be called, was one of four to
survive an ill-fated Spanish expedition to
Florida in 1528, turning up eight years later
on the Mexican Pacific Coast.
Hecho follows with the ironic story of
Juan Seguín -- an early San Antonio mayor
who fought against Santa Ana, but racial
tensions forced him to flee to Mexico where
he helped to found Nuevo Laredo.
Hecho follows literary and musical voices
through most of the last seven decades of
the 20th century with many poetic and artfully worded works.
Laredo-related entries help the overall
quality of Hecho. Laredo’s Fermina Guerra,
Cecilio García-Camarillo, Roberta Fernandez, and Norma Cantu add their talents to
the collection. Other South Texas writers
include San Diego’s Servando Cardenas,
Jose Angel Gutierrez, and Tomás Rivera of
Crystal City.
The lyrics of songs written by Selena,
Freddy Fender, and Grupo Fantasma are
printed, as is “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” -- a socially important true event,
which eventually became a movie starring
Edward James Olmos. Historically important stories on soldiers Roy Benavidez and
Felix Longoria are included, too.
Tafolla is listed as being from Laredo,
but no reference is made to confirm that.
Such questions and a few visible scattered
errors like letters missing on p. 60 and p. 166
and no captions for any of Gregorio Barrios’
black and white photos will make it hard
for this first printing of Hechos to get past
some picky school boards to the classroom,
but secondary and college students might
find some of its content useful in some English, or Spanish class assignments.
Dallas Morning News reporter and Hecho
contributor Macarena Hernandez taught
school in her hometown of La Joya for a
year and believes the book has a chance to
succeed because people will see themselves
in the literature.
“If they would have brought in Latino
literature books when we were kids we
would have fought over them,” Hernandez
said. “I read Shakespeare and all the usual
when growing up, but at Baylor I finally
read Sandra Cisneros and others and saw
that it was I in these books.”
Cisneros, who is from Chicago and now
resides in San Antonio, was the best-known
author attending the launch of Hecho. She
was enthusiastic about promoting the
book, noting that English teachers attend
conferences where potential textbooks are
introduced and Hecho could be exhibited.
She also advocated sending a copy to First
Lady Laura Bush, but spoke to the need for
detailed editing for errors.
Cisneros holds her Macondo workshop
in San Antonio each year, aiming to improve the craft of young Latino or Latina
writers.
“It’s a non-academic kind of Latino Sundance,” she said, noting Robert Redford’s
annual independent film festival in Utah.
“It’s where we can tell you don’t publish
yet. Let us edit it and then send it on with
our blessings. We can’t afford mediocre. We
have to be excellent.”
Connie Todd, curator of the Texas Statebased Southwestern Writers Collection,
said the University of Texas Press offered
to print Hecho, but it was taken to the University of New Mexico Press because of an
already established relationship with them.
Todd credited her assistant Steve Davis
with the idea for Hecho.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
41
Mystery Customer
In-love gas monkey is phone jock first;
Alas and a-Lack’s, where’s my baker’s rack?
BY
THE
MYSTERY
CUSTOMER
I
guess as long as everybody’s going
to be talking on the phone while
carelessly driving a vehicle, including
one bus driver I saw last week, the basketball-headed Thursday evening gas
clerk at the northwest corner of McPherson and Calton who handles gas sales
for a government-approved inflated
price thinks that he may as well do the
same, even though he also has convenience store duties which require him to
attend to the paying customers.
Although he’s by no means unique
within the gas clerk fraternity, this particular peckerwood got on the wrong
side of the Mystery Customer. I like to be
waited on properly when I blow $30 at
one pop for emergency gas and a lousy
gallon of milk. I don’t like the looks of a
portly hooligan crooking his neck like a
crook on a cross to hold a dingy white
store-phone receiver between his chubby cheek and lifted right shoulder while
ignoring me while taking my money.
Aside from not gunning for a promotion, this working class hero was doing
two other bad things at the same time,
looking as proud of himself as a blind
seal juggling three sticks of dynamite.
First, this no-look, no-talk personal representative of the multi-billion dollar
Shell Oil Corporation desultorily went
through the motions of waiting on the
money-proffering Mystery Customer
and at first slid the gallon jug of milk
back across the counter at me without
bagging it while cooing a blue streak of
mushy Spanish nothings to the lucky
little señorita on the other end of the
line. Then, when the mysterious shopper protested, the conscientious attendant grabbed a handful of plastic bags
that hung in a bunch from one of those
metal rings, and ripped one right off its
hinge without making eye contact with
the bags or the metal ring. He then proceeded not to put but to throw my gal-
lon of the pasteurized into the plastic
bag. I thanked the jerk out of habit and
made for the exit door about three feet
away, but crash! down to the floor went
the dairy product when the bag’s carryloops gave way. -D---! I uttered almost
inaudibly, and the phone jockey behind
the counter with a sideways neck like
plump Peking duck responded to the
crisis by securing the once-white phone
receiver into a greasy sub-earring blubber-fold that readily made itself serviceable, and told his sweetie, “Espere un
minuto, un cliente está alegando.” “No estoy
alegando, buey!” said the Mystery Customer on his way out the door, gallon
jug of milk in his hand.
Note: The economics textbook I used
in college says: “Pleasing the customer
is the most important thing in retail
sales.”
The MC would have liked a serving
utensil for a shared dish at Tacolare on
San Bernardo, but it was too much to
ask for. The waitress handed the MC another diner’s fork! And with a bit of attitude. The lamentable service is a mirror
image opposite of the really good food
the restaurant prepares.
A Lack’s customer reported some
pretty messy customer service on an order for a baker’s rack. There’s probably
a good corporate reason for why the
company stocks nothing locally and you
have to wait for the schlep from Greater
Lacklandia to this outpost on the frontera, but it’s the one thing we don’t like
about doing business there.
The MC wants City Hall to know
what a great thing it is that real people
answer the phones for city government,
and not just real people, but mannered,
good, competent, smart people. And
speaking of phone answering, what a
sad thing that the Laredo Public Library
has implemented a not-user-friendly
system.
Though they were backed up with
lots of repairs, the diesel experts at
Sames Motor Company had the MC’s
utility vehicle ready before the time it
was promised.
What great service the small staff at
China Border offers its patrons. It’s an
unpretentious place to eat, but the food
is very good.u
Television
CW – try it; you’ll like it
By MIKE McILVAIN
“P
eople want to be heard,” CW
Network affiliate sales director
Kim Wilcox said in a visit to KGNS-TV,
which also houses her channel’s local connections.
The CW, combining programming
from CBS and the WB, has been on in
Laredo for several months through the
shared facilities on Del Mar, but is beginning to find its own traction and looks
ahead, expecting big name entertainers to
join the fold -- without naming any now.
Actresses Kelly Bishop, Lauren Graham, and Alexis Bledel lead CW’s more
popular Gilmore Girls show with Tom
Welling, Annette O’Toole, and John Schneider guiding Smallville. Chris Benoit,
Gregory Helms, and Rey Mysterio are
three of Smackdown’s stars with names off
the police blotter and uniformed patrol
officers starring in Cops, but CW wants to
do better.
Wilcox notes that viewer ideas, issues,
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and opinions come through e-mail and
voice mail nowadays.
“I have two teen daughters and they
like America’s Next Top Model and my
husband’s a Smackdown fan, and there are
shows that appeal to others,” Wilcox said.
Television isn’t always correct in its
decisions to cancel shows, which might
have missed ratings points, but still carry
strong followings. Public input has come
a long way since someone at NBC decided
to cancel Star Trek after only three seasons
back in the 1960s, saving several shows at
various networks in recent years.
Wilcox, who meets with network affiliates all over the country, says CW is
fighting an image misconception that it is
a teenager network.
“Our median age is 33,” she said. “We
gear toward the 20s and 30s.” In the 1849 and especially in the 18-34 age bracket
there are a lot of first timers out to own a
car, a house, and a lot in that demographic
watch CW.”
Wilcox says CW does not plan to bid
for NFL games or other sports, but wants
to further develop programming with
“high profile talent.”
KGNS General Manager Carlos Salinas notes that advertisers benefit from the
unique dual offering from his station and
the CW.
“It is substantially less than the NBC
affiliate,” he said of advertising rates.
Salinas ads that while there is no consistency in television rates, differing widely from time slot to time slot and from
show to show, but a $20 bill could allow a
small business person to make a first time
experiment in television advertising.
CW advertising time is based on 30
second segments, increasing up to 120
seconds. The shortest spot on KGNS is 5
seconds.
“For a salesman, wow. Now I can offer two things,” KGNS’ Arturo “Bubba”
Moore said.
Moore said he’s heard positive comments from the public on CW programs
Smallville, Smackdown, Top Model, and 7th
Heaven as well as reruns of “established
shows” Will and Grace and King of Queens.
“Sometimes people like to catch something they might have missed before and
some are learning about it. It is the CW
and it ain’t Country and Western,” Moore
said. “CW is making it easier for people to
get on board. If their budget is tight, we
can also offer the CW. It’s the old ‘try it,
you’ll like it.’”
Moore says Smackdown is the No. 1 show,
attracting viewers from all parts of the family -- even mom when not cooking supper.
“A lot of older men watch Tyra Banks and
the models, but all types watch wrestling,
and it’s No. 1 in Texas, California,” Moore
said. “You just can’t put it to one area.”
Anyone wanting to contact CW about
programs, or other matters, can find
them online at www. cwtv.com, or if
they prefer, the new cable network accepts old fashion letters and post cards
at: The CW, 3500 West Olive Ave., 5th
Floor, Burbank, Calif. 91505. The CW is
seen on cable channel 19u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
News
he World Affairs Council of
San Antonio has named Dennis
E. Nixon, chairman of International
Bancshares Corporation, the organization’s 2008 International Citizen of
the Year.
Barbara Schneider, president of the
World Affairs Council of San Antonio, said Nixon was recognized as “a
major player in the effort to involve
citizens in the critical international
issues of our time.” She said Nixon
epitomized leadership in that area.
Each year the Council honors a
South Texan for his or her leadership
in international affairs, diplomacy, or
business with this distinction. The
mission of the Council is to promote
public understanding of world affairs
and United States foreign policy, and
to enhance the ability of its citizens
and future leaders to participate in a
global community.
“I am humbled to be selected for
such a prestigious honor and to have
the trust of this community to serve
as an advocate on issues that will
benefit not only San Antonio and Texas, but our nation as a whole,” said
Nixon.
Nixon has served as IBC chairman,
president, and CEO throughout 30 of
the bank’s 40 years of operation and
has helped secure the bank’s place
as one of the largest Texas-based financial institutions and the largest
minority-owned bank in the continental United States. Additionally, he
has steered the financial institution
through acquisitions and expansion
to elevate it from a $45.6 million bank
to its current status as a $10.7 billion
bank with a large branch network that
stretches from Texas’ border region
and upper Gulf Coast northward into
Oklahoma.
Nixon has long been a leader in advocating for policies that will benefit
Texas as well as the entire country.
Because of IBC’s extensive branch network along the strategic IH-35 NAFTA
corridor and the bank’s Laredo base,
IBC is acutely aware that the preservation of key international trade relationships are integral to maintaining
economic prosperity. Additionally,
Nixon was a leading proponent of the
North American Free Trade Agreement and was instrumental in its passage. IBC has also been involved in
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
helping promote the Trans-Texas Corridor initiative which seeks to widen
and expand IH-35 into a mega-trade
passageway and has actively supported IH-69.
Nixon’s support of continued economic development and trade opportunities between the United States
and Mexico has made him an authority on the necessity of maintaining
the integrity of current economic relationships with Mexico, especially in
light of US-VISIT implementation and
the current immigration reform debate. Nixon is one of many public and
private sector leaders who are concerned that US-VISIT and tougher immigration enforcement will inadvertently and negatively impact crucial
North American border economies,
and undermine the nation’s GDP and
workforce. Nixon is a founding member of the Association of South Texas
Communities and chairman of the
Alliance for Security and Trade. Both
are coalitions of public- and privatesector organizations and other stakeholders that are focused on raising
awareness of issues such as US-VISIT
and immigration reform and their
potential impact on economic development in South Texas and throughout the United States.
Nixon’s commitment to South Texas extends beyond economics, as he is
a strong advocate of corporate social
responsibility, service, and charitable
outreach. By instilling IBC’s “We Do
More” philosophy of communityminded leadership into the bank’s
corporate culture, Nixon has shaped
and developed IBC’s strong reputation for philanthropy and active community partnership. In 2005, IBC was
named a finalist for the United States
Chamber of Commerce’s Corporate
Citizenship Award in the Corporate
Stewardship, Small/Mid-size Business category. Last year, IBC was also
awarded the Texas Bankers Foundation Cornerstone Award for its active
community involvement and dedication to service on a corporate-wide
scale. In 2001, IBC received the Governor’s Volunteer Award in the corporate-business category for the state
of Texas.
In recognition of his own personal civic and community involvement, Nixon has received numerous
national and international awards.
Last year, Nixon was inducted into
the 2006 Texas Business Hall of
Fame, which identifies top-notch
Texas business leaders and honors
them for their contributions to their
community and state. Few inductees
are chosen each year, and this elite
group represents the most influential visionaries in Texas business. He
has also received the United Way’s
Platinum Corazón Award, the Junior
Achievement Business Hall of Fame’s
Distinguished Citizen Award, Rotary International’s Paul Harris Fellow
Award, and the State of Israel’s Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award.
As an indication of his commitment
to Laredo, Texas, where IBC has
its roots, Nixon has served as past
president of the Laredo Chamber
of Commerce, past chairman of the
Laredo Bridge Committee, and past
president of the Laredo Development Foundation.
About the World Affairs
Council of San Antonio
The World Affairs Council of San
Antonio is a non-profit, non-partisan
organization, dedicated to increasing public awareness about issues of
global concern by organizing forums
and lectures on current international
issues.u
Photo by Armando X. Saldaña
T
Dennis E. Nixon named 2008 International Citizen
of the Year by the World Affairs Council of San Antonio
At the WBCA VIP luncheon
Olga and Jorge Verduzco are pictured at the recent 13th Annual WBCA VIP
Luncheon hosted by La Posada Hotel Suites.
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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Photo by María Eugenia Guerra
color
Head ‘em up, move ‘em out
The Border Patrol road revisited
Photo by George J. Altgelt
Cattleman Meme García of Zapata lends a hand at a recent San Ygnacio roundup. Cool weather and cooperative cattle made the day’s work a pleasant and
rewarding experience. He was assisted by his son Refugio. USDA inspectors
Cesar Ramos and Leroy Gonzalez look on.
How many times does a road have to wash out before it is understood that the
fragile riparian habitat of the Río Grande is not a good place for a road? Dr.
Jim Earhart and talk show host Jay St. John look at the thick silt of the eroded,
washed out roadway, on which the City will likely build a high impact road that will
have serious consequences for wildlife habitat and the general health of the river
banks. We invite City Council members to tour the riverbanks with us.
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
47
News
Six Cultura de Oro recipients
awarded scholarships
L
as Damas de la Cultura de Oro,
which promotes Latina culture
and heritage, recently awarded six
scholarships at a reception at the Laredo
National Bank Plaza. Recipients of the
$250 scholarships are Kathleen Klarissa Hein of United High School, Denize
Dyan Solis of Nixon High School, Karina Cruz of Laredo Community College,
Sara Herrera of Laredo Community
College, Amanda M. Rendon of Alexander High School, and Melissa Ann
Cavazos of Northwood University.
The recipients were participants in
a gala event sponsored by the Damas
on September 16, 2006, Mexican Independence Day. At that event, its participants were presented as “Princesas”
representing different states in Mexico.
Each wore a traditional costume from
their respective state and highlighted
the contributions of that state to the
culture of the United States.
Diana Rendon-Gutierrez, director
of the organization, noted that as initial participants in the first Damas de
la Cultura de Oro presentation, these
girls lead the way by educating others about the richness of Hispanic
culture.
Las Damas de la Cultura de Oro is
dedicated to supporting the success of
all Latina women, and its scholarships
are a step in that direction. In its first
year of existence, the organization aspires to make a difference in the Laredo
community through scholarships and
education.u
Congratulations,
John Mayers
Photo by Armando Saldaña
2007 Rancher of the Year
TARGET
LAND
Las Damas de la Cultura de Oro scholarship recipients
Recipients of the $250 Damas de la Cultura de Oro scholarships are Kathleen
Klarissa Hein of United High School, Denize Dyan Solis of Nixon High School,
Karina Cruz of Laredo Community College, Sara Herrera of Laredo Community
College, and Amanda M. Rendon of Alexander High School. Melissa Ann
Cavazos of Northwood University is not pictured.
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| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
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Movie Review
Notes from A Scandal:
no heroines in this dirty,
nasty psychodrama
Terror wears a kilt
in The Last King of Scotland
By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA
By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA
A
n afternoon at the Bijou Crossroads
Theatre in San Antonio watching
back-to-back Oscar nominated Notes from
A Scandal and The Last King of Scotland,
with their scorched earth plots of psychodrama and emotional violence, were quite
enough to obliterate any concerns I may
have entertained that day.
Both were high-pitched thrillers that
prompted asking along the way, is it really possible the drama could be cranked
up any higher -- the drama of Notes inside
the hearts and heads of its mundane and
seemingly civil, domesticated characters;
the drama of The Last king of Scotland making much of the love and loyalty in the life
of the heinous Ugandan leader Idi Amin
contrasted with the vile wrath he exacted
in general on his country and in particular
on those he called traitor.
In Notes from A Scandal Dame Judy
Dench portrays the pitiful, bitter control
freak Barbara Covett to Cate Blanchett’s
Sheba Hart, both teachers at a London
boys’ school, Covett a history teacher for
far too many years and Hart newly arrived as an art instructor.
The differences between the two women build and build -- Covett’s dour beige
and brown persona in a monomaniacal
life, Hart’s beauty cloaked in dissheveled
sophistication as wife and mother. Even as
they are presented as near polar opposites,
author Zoe Heller brings them together as
Covett discovers Hart’s sexual trysts with
a 15 year-old student. It would seem the
proper Covett would run to school authorities, but she does not, opting instead
to use the information as a means to bring
Hart, the object of her desire, closer to her.
Get it, Covett-Hart, covet heart.
As if the sick, chilling drama wasn’t
unfolding succinctly enough, it is Covett’s
voice-over narrative and diary entries in
meticulous penmanship about the glamorous art teacher that heightens the pitch
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
of the story. Covett’s journal does not mirror real life; it is filled with the penned
vain hopes that Hart will come hither
to friendship, to something more than
friendship, indeed to the lifelong companionship Covett seeks so as not to die
alone. Dench’s convincing immersion into
the eerie, unhinged obsessive life Covett
lives in her head is riveting, not unlike her
portrayal of the writer Iris Murdoch in
Iris, which like Notes was directed by Sir
Richard Eyre.
The jilted Covett hits overdrive with
a methodically orchestrated blackmail
maneuver that signals the end of Sheba
Hart’s teaching career and detours her life
and the life of her family in nothing less
than a train wreck. Covett, far more than
a curious witness to Hart’s affair with her
student, is also taken out, exposed as a
stalker in an earlier affair of her distorted
heart, and losing her job for not reporting
Hart’s criminal dalliance to school authorities.
There are no heroines in this dirty, nasty story so well told.u
T
he Last King of Scotland -- this,
too, is a movie hard pressed to
find heroics in the behavior of its protagonists, the famously brutal Ugandan
dictator Idi Amin or the naive young
Scottish physician Nicholas Garrigan,
who is sucked into the drama of becoming Amin’s doctor and confidante
and later a person of significance to
many of Amin’s decisions.
Though it is fiction we are watching
and though Garrigan (portrayed by
James McAvoy) is actually a composite
of several individuals close to Amin,
Forest Whitaker breathes life into the
charming and joshing though deadly
Amin, who accorded himself such bizarre titles as “The Last King of Scotland” and “Lord of All the Beasts of
the Earth and Fishes of the Sea.”
Even in so black a story about so vile
and murderous a man, the film offers
little nuggets of humor, as Whitaker’s
self-important Amin fairly jangles in
three-foot square shirtfronts ablaze
with gold buttons, medals, and decorations. There is also Amin the Scotophile -- kilt and bagpipes and all.
Garrigan’s head-spinning tenure in
Amin’s favor is every bit as dizzying
as his fall from grace, the long, slow
moment he decides he can no longer
bear the sin of complicity in Amin’s
murderous reign of sectarian violence.
Garrigan is doomed by his own stupidity to death at the hands of Amin’s
goons, and it looks as though he will
die hanging from his own flesh in the
gift shop of the airport at Entebbe on
the June 1976 day an Air France Airbus
has been hijacked from Athens by Palestenian hijackers. He is saved, however, as he escapes into the crowd of
the released hostages who board their
flight to France.
The Last King of Scotland is based on
a novel written by Giles Foden.u
TMC, Women’s City Club sponsor
essay writing contest
T
he Texas Migrant Council,
Inc. (TMC) and the Women’s
City Club announce this year’s
El Dia de los Niños Essay Writing Contest. The contest’s theme
is “College and My Future Life.”
Trust fund scholarships will be
awarded for first, second, and
third place for each grade of high
school.
Additionally the contest will
include an award for the best “Migrant Family Aspirations Essay”
by a high school student who is
the child of a migrant family.
Each essay must be three to four
paragraphs in length and must be
written in the classroom and identify the name, school, and grade
level of the student.
Classroom teachers, counselors, or school administrators will
collect the essays.
The contest deadline is March
30. Winners in each grade category will be notified in advance of
the Monday, April 30, El Dia de
los Niños Celebration.
For more information on the essay contest, call (956) 722-5174.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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Movie Review
Apocalypto: despite well-worn box office-friendly craft
and stretches of history, it’s a story well told
By MIKE McILVAIN
A
t the instant when it looked safe
to assume Mel Gibson had finally
worked the family-in-crisis formula too
many times, he sprints out of the jungle
with success in Apocalypto.
Gibson hit the talk show circuit peddling the movie last year before he hit the
bottle too many times in a Los Angeles
party and slurred his infamous anti-Jewish comments, making Apocalypto sound
too much like The Patriot, We Were Soldiers,
Signs, and, to an extent, Braveheart -- all
pretty good movies, but we’ve seen them
and their common theme.
It was the same moviemaker, and some
of that well-worn box office-friendly craft
was in Apocalypto’s script, but it was well
connected to the climaxing action in which
25-year-old former Belton, Texas track runner and amateur boxer Rudy Youngblood,
as Jaguar Paw, outran and fought off Mayan empire slavers to return to his floodendangered son and wife as she gave a water birth to their second child.
Youngblood, whose real surname is
Gonzalez and got the role auditioning to
be a mere lowly extra, handles his surprise
starring role well, as do the rest of the cast,
including those evil slavers and those in
the big Mayan city where captives show a
lot of heart -- at the hands of the blood lusting high priest. Jaguar Paw is spared by the
miracle of a solar eclipse passing overhead
just as he is about to lose his heart.
It isn’t over there, as he is wounded trying to escape through a cornfield into a
jungle and home, and forced to kill the slaver’s warrior son in exit. That sets the chase
scene in motion, which includes a black
jaguar running after him only to grab an
intercepting slaver instead. Other pursuing
slavers kill the jaguar, but its corpse casts
an evil eye on them before they resume the
deadly chase.
Jaguar Paw loses or bumps off all but
two who could have whacked him when
he sat stunned, exhausted, and wounded
on the beach -- sitting much like Gibson’s
hero Benjamin Martin did in The Patriot in
the instant before he turned around and
surprised his British counterpart at the
Battle of Cowpens -- but the sight of ships
and approaching white men that they have
never seen stops everything. The wise Jaguar Paw opts to bolt from the beach and get
to his endangered family who needs some
serious help rather than meet the newcomWWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
ers.
“Should we go to them?” Jaguar Paw’s
wife, Seven, played by Dalia Hernandez,
asks, looking toward the sailing ships.
“No, we should go to the forest,” JP replies in a slight ironic twist.
History books say Mayan civilization
had already gone to the forests by the time
the Spaniards showed up in their territories
after Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas in 1492. It was the latter-day Aztecs who
met the Spaniards only to see their empire
crumble before its then high tech weaponry and horseback attacks.
JP and his captive neighbors saw massive construction going on around them
when brought into the city to be sold or
sacrificed, but that probably wouldn’t have
been the case in any Mayan lands at that
time.
The Mayan language, with English subtitles, was used throughout the movie, adding a feeling of immersion, and it helped for
those who have been there, or nearby, that
it was filmed close to Mayan turf. Gibson’s
cameras captured the action, wildlife, and
scenery on Mexico’s Gulf Coast inland in
the states of Veracruz, Campeche, and farther south in Costa Rica. Most of the Mayan
culture and cities were situated between
those areas.
But it’s a Hollywood movie, so truth and
fact have their place somewhere aside from
get-them-in-the-theater-style
entertainment and screenwriting.
Humor has its place as does the art of
storytelling in several high points.
One of JP’s village mates and hunting
companions has yet to have children with
his wife and his plight is deepened by
pranks played on him and a demanding
mother-in-law who wants grandchildren
and lets him know he’s a failure for not
having done so.
A one-armed old man storyteller makes
the nighttime campfire a worthwhile event
by reciting a tale using the jungle animals
they all know. The storytelling casts the
village into a sense of comfort, making the
following morning’s attack by slavers that
much more out of place.
A young diseased girl on the trail between JP’s destroyed village and the big
Mayan city puts the evil eye and word on
the “vile” slavers, telling them that their
end would come through the “Jaguar
man” who is already among them. Special
effects are lightly applied and nicely done
in this scene, which stands out further with
the girl’s piercing eyes and slight inconsistencies in her facial sores. The stares and
fear seen in the slavers’ faces enhances this
scene, too.
Apocalypto’s violence is noted by many
critics, but nobody ever said slavery was
nice, and the movie appears to have some
staying power. The sequential segments of
hunting, village life, capture, transport, the
big city, escape, and the ending could serve
as mini-movies years from now when time
permits only partial re-watching on some
cable network when one would be better
served by going to bed and getting some
sleep. Scenes like the trail girl’s warning,
the old storyteller’s campfire talk, or the
lifesaving solar eclipse could show a veteran Mel Gibson movie viewer something
new each time. No matter how many times
it might be seen.
By that time, several years from now,
we might be familiar with more of these
numerous unknowns in Apocalypto, which
rates a good 7-plus habaneros here.
And somewhere up Interstate 35 it is
almost certain that someone is saying it’s
only appropriate and expected that Youngblood should succeed in a jungle movie -he is a former Belton Tiger.u
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IBC Brush Country President Renato Ramirez of Zapata is pictured with Dr. Kitty
Sue Quinn and Ann Pargac of the Texas Land and Mineral Owners Association,
a non-profit advocacy group that protects and enhances the property rights of the
surface and mineral owners. They are pictured at a recent reception in Zapata
at which Quinn, executive director of the TLMA, met with Zapata County landowners to identify the scope of TLMA’s efforts to protect groundwater resources,
reduce litigation, and to pressure the Texas Railroad Commission to use Oil Field
Clean-Up Funds for environmental purposes.
Photo by María Eugenia Guerra
Zapata landowners hear of valuable resources of TLMA
Photo by María Eugenia Guerra
2
Zapata inspectors
Livestock inspectors Cesar Ramos, Leroy Gonzalez, and Mike Budro are part
of the USDA’s Zapata County team for tick eradication. They are pictured after
making short work of “scratching” a herd of cattle near San Ygnacio.
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
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53
Entertainment
sets the mood for Jamboozie festivities
J
amboozie 2007 featured one of
laredo’s new cover bands, Bucket of Six, which pleased the crowd
with songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s,
90s and current music.
Bucket of Six was first created in
2005 and has been on a short hiatus after the replacement of their
drummer. BO6 is preparing to play
at various local bars and venues including The Old Number 2, TKO,
Medusa’s, Average Joe’s, and other
locations.
Members of BO6 include Armando Saldaña on guitar and vocals, EJ
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Laurel on bass and vocals, and Curly
Castillo on drums.
The Jamboozie setlist began with a
crowd-pleasing rendition of the Beatles “Come Together” and then to an
electrified version of “Black Dog” by
Led Zeppellin. They moved forward
to the 80s with music from The Cure.
The 90s jams were filled with STP,
Foo Fighters, Cake, and 311. Current
songs were from Tool, The Gorrillaz,
and System of a Down.
The Bucket looks forward to playing for Laredo fans in the near future. Come out and support them.u
Bucket of Six at Jamboozie 2007
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LC4A seeks
Martinez intern
The Laredo Center for the Arts is
looking for someone who has a deep interest in the arts and wants to live and
work in them.
The LCA is accepting applicants for
a graduate nine-month internship program supported by the Guadalupe and
Lilia G. Martinez Foundation.
The Laredo Center for the Arts hosts
the internship each year with the goal of
providing a college graduate the opportunity to learn and work in a museum
setting and pursue a career in the arts.
The internship is designed seek to
provide significant specialization experiences, which include working with
outreach educational programs and
temporary exhibitions.
Applicants are required to submit a
resume, college transcripts, one letter of
recommendation, and a letter of interest
with a focus statement.
Applicants should have a bachelor’s
in art, studio art, art history, or a related
field.
There is one full-time position available. The selected applicant will receive
a $10,800 stipend.
Application deadline is March 2 and
will be filled by March 22.
The Laredo Center for the Arts, located at 500 San Agustin Ave. in the old
Mercado, coordinates, promotes, encourages, and supports the arts in Laredo
and South Texas.
The Center, an independent nonprofit organization, receives support
from private and public sources including members, the City of Laredo, Webb
County, and the Texas Commission on
the Arts.
For more information please call
956.725.1715 or visit
www.laredoartcenter.org for the latest updates.u
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Mayor gears up
for D.C. talks
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
Mayor Raul Salinas addressed
the Feb. 13 Kiwanis meeting to cue
in the Laredo business and professional community on how he
intends to approach Washington
movers and shakers at meetings
that are on the immediate event
horizon. “I get a lot of negative emails from people who are antiMexican and pro-wall, but they
don’t phase me,” he said. “I stand
tall as a Mexican-American, and
that’s what I’m going to tell the Secretary of Homeland Security when
he comes down to the border on the
21st to meet with me and nine other
mayors of cities along the border,”
he added. “I’m going to be adamant
about stressing that the $49 million
for a dividing wall should be spent
on building bridges of friendship,”
said Laredo’s new presidente municipal.
“As for my trip to Washington
coming up in March, believe me,
I’m going to see to it that we get
every dime that we have coming - we don’t want crumbs, we want
our fair share of the pie,” Salinas
said. “We have a true friend in office in Congressman Henry Cuellar, and I’m sure he’ll be receptive
and listen to our concerns.”
Touching on more quotidian matters, the mayor said of the
City Council, “They’re eight good
people, and we work together and
negotiate with open minds -- we
have a good team. I’ve let them
know that I want to make our city
the greatest city in the country.”
He added, “We can start by being
thrifty and economically sound.”
After passing along some enthusiastic news about multiple new jobcreating firms heading Laredo’s
way and city-county cooperation,
Salinas reminded the members of
Kiwanis, “I’ll do everything I can
to support Laredo.”u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
55
Celebrating the New Year in Taos
Unfettered by the biggest ice storm in Taos in 50 years, Zapatan Patricia Ramirez
enjoyed a New Year’s vacation with her children and grandchildren. She is pictured
with her five granddaughters -- Abigail, Kaitlyn, Kathryn, Kristin, and Erika.
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Photo by George J. Altgelt
Pounding out policy over coffee
Over coffee at the Rialto Hotel dining room Mayor Raul Salinas hears from
Laredoans Mario Perez, Ale Arreguín, and Jorge O, Gutierrez about their concerns over city services.
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
57
Photo by George J. Altgelt
Flores law office opening
Attorneys Russell Jordan and Rene Barrientos and Mayor Raul Salinas are
pictured at the recent opening of the law offices of Christina Flores and former
district judge Manuel Flores. Also pictured is baby Gianna Vela.
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
59
Music
Jamboozie’s musicians love the venue
By MIKE McILVAIN
J
amboozie has started billing itself as
South Texas’ largest music festival
and edges closer to being a fan-friendly
efficient one, too.
The five-stage band arrangement allowed for ambitious music fans to catch
up to five bands playing in the same general time sets, ranging between an hour
and two hours. Music genres seem to
vary more and more each year with some
bands exhibiting such variety that they
might be moving into uncharted areas.
The event’s musicians enjoy the tasty
buffet of sounds, too, when not on stage
themselves.
“We all loved the eclectic focus of Jamboozie,” Brave Combo’s Carl Finch said.
“Before we performed I had a blast just
circling the site and hanging out at each
stage for a few minutes. It’s obviously an
ambitious endeavor, and my hats are off
to the people that make it happen.
“The variety of music and openness
of the audience was refreshing, and we
were surprised to find such a colorful
music palette available. The town people
really turn out and that’s what really
matters. We’ll come back anytime. Let’s
polka!”
Denton-based Brave Combo bills itself
as a contemporary polka band, but dishes out such a wide variety of rock, pop,
waltzes, sarcasm, and comedy that their
polkas seem to be simply part of the mix.
“La Paloma Blanca,” “Cielito Lindo,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “In the Mood,” and “Woolly Bully” were among their first numbers
to close out the evening on Stage 3 at the
intersection of Flores and Lincoln.
Twenty bands, juggler Kaj Fjelstad,
and a small troupe of belly dancers entertained thousands of walking and standing fans in this year’s cool but dry Jamboozie. Two previous moist Jamboozies
weren’t as enjoyable.
Laredo doesn’t get much rain, but no
one complained that recent rains and
drizzle took a break for Jamboozie.
George Barrera, of the Zydeco Angels,
is a Jamboozie regular, returning home
to play every year, despite challenges the
weather or getting a band together throw
at him.
Barreras’ Angels closed out action
at the intersection of Hidalgo and San
Agustín on Stage 1 where Fjelstad’s energetic fiery show followed Joe Guerra’s
Jazz Trio, playing like they’ve played to-
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gether for many years, despite members
living in both Laredo and San Antonio.
San Antonio experimental jazz group
Geisha kept a Stage 1 audience with its
smooth mix of sound and voice after
the Mt. Olive Baptist Choir opened that
venue.
“I would love to see us perform in
Laredo, at the Jamboozie in the coming
years,” Barrera said. “The music we do is
rare in these parts of Texas. Even in Austin, ‘The Live Music Capitol of the World.’
Austin does have a festival every year,
in its downtown area called the Cajun
Crawfish Fest. Bands from the East Coast,
Texas up to Louisiana perform. Draws
thousands of folks.”
Barrera notes Jamboozie crowds are
growing every year.
“We want word of mouth to spread
and let people know that we indeed
would love to do this any time,” Barrera said, adding that perfection has not
yet been reached. “Two of the five years
we performed, the last event, it rained.
Turnout was not as jam-packed, but the
crowds that came out were great. I’ve noticed that security has its flaws, especially
at most of the gated areas.”
There is more to that upbeat music Barrera and his band mates play than meets
the naked ear.
People might say they play Cajun or
Zydeco music, but an unseen division
greets the ears. “Zydeco and Cajun music
are actually two different styles of music, in which Cajun is an older form,” He
said. “Its ancestry is of over a hundredplus years with very strong influences of
French and Creole, though we do mix it
a dash.
“Instrumentation is very different as
well. Zydeco is very upbeat.”
There is also an unseen battle to make
it to the bandstand on time.
Barrera said getting the talent of players who can play these styles of music is
not easy due to other engagements, last
minute bookings, and those other bands
demanding their talents.
“I have to have plenty of time, two
months tops, just so I can save my hair
from falling off,” Barrera said. “For me, I
love to perform! I have a day job and my
music is a priority. I will do as many as
three different events in one day. I work
with as many as six bands. Many musicians do this to stay busy and keep their
chops up. Of course, this stops when you
are under contract with a big record la-
bel.
“The Zydeco Angels did not rehearse.
We ooze Zydeco from our blood, sweat,
and heart. It’s a connection.”
San Antonio’s nine-piece Bombasta
entertained a strong following with its
brass, strings, and percussion sounds,
closing out Stage 5 at San Agustin and
Iturbide. Several followers danced to their
Latin funk and Caribbean sounds. Fans
included Josh Gonzalez and some of the
Laredo-based Supa Phat band, whose 10piece hip-hop and funk sound had their
own crowd jumping only a few minutes
earlier over at Stage 3.
Other bands turning out good stuff
were Bucket of Six, Grupo Eterno, and
Los Conquistadores de la Cumbia.
Jerry G. and the Badd Boyz Band,
Tribal, Laredo-based singer Phoebe
Marie, The Y’Alls, Jus-B-Cuz, Bordertown Entertainment, 3 Ft. III, The Reen,
and Kash Kasanova all also played on
the five stages.
The Chain Gang, a Dixieland Swing
band, played in various clearings in
the always moving crowd and participated in the Mayor’s March with new
City Hall boss Raul Salinas and wife
Yolanda along with Samba Vida, Los
Taquilleros Mariachis, the Laredo Independent (motorcycle) Riders, Bucky and
the Laredo Bucks Dance Team, and the
Belly Dancers.
Note: This year’s Jamboozie ended
on a sour note for a few who found the
advertised free parking in the nearby El
Metro building to not be free after midnight.
The last five bands didn’t quit playing until midnight, and anyone lingering to buy a CD, eat something on the
way out, talk to a friend or musician
found themselves facing an unexpected
charge of up to $10.
El Metro was refunding those receipts for a week after Jamboozie. El
Metro’s Danny Gonzalez offered apologies and attributed the error to a misunderstanding with security, saying
free parking was supposed to end at 1
a.m. The 1 a.m. cap wasn’t advertised
either, but Gonzalez said such times
will be more correctly advertised in
the future.u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Courtesy Photo
Courtesy Photo
Look like a Soldier, Act like a Gentleman, Study like a Scholar
Pvt. Carlos Mariano Guerra, the son of Bertha and Armengol Guerra, is a freshman at Missourri Military Academy in Mexico, MO. He is pictured after moving
up in rank from cadet to private.
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At the WBCA’s VIP luncheon
WBCA president Rick Valls, Norbert Dickman of Fasken, Ltd. Bishop James
Tamayo, Dedra Dickman, and James Notzon were among the many who
enjoyed good company and a delicious meal at the luncheon hosted by La
Posada Hotel Suites.
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
61
Feature
BLIND FAITH - shot in the dark hits the bullseye
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
S
ometimes one can get to feeling isolated and out of touch living way down
here scrunched up against the boundary
banks of a fabled frontier flood of legend
and lore. That flood being, of course, the
raucous Río Grande. Isolated, because these
thorny, scrub-desert hinterlands can dust
off your line of sight until it is clear that you
can’t see your own shadow blowing away
in the searing sirocco. Out of touch, because
San Antonio and Padre Island are both situated at a three hour remove from Laredo.
But, on the other hand, “Why are we
here?” as the existential philosopher always
asks.
“Because we’re not somewhere else!”
answers the homey in his/her homily. The
point is, I would point out, that isolation,
physical and spiritual, is a relative, often interchangeable duality of reality. Downtown
Manhattan can seem like mid-Sahara, they
say, if there’s no corresponsive communication, and by the same token, one might
converse with a billion souls at a time
while walking on the surface of the moon.
These are utterly pedestrian realities in this
spaced-out modern world. Technologcal
contraptions can practically put anyone in
touch with anyone else, will one, nil one. In
fact, in the late 20th Century, many worldshrinking transportation and communication systems included Laredo on their grid,
and some pretty well-known celebrities
made publicity pit stops in the Border City.
Many fellow citizens of the two Laredos
and I saw President Dwight D. Eisenhower
cruise by standing in an open Cadillac in
front of White’s Landing just west of Arkansas Ave. on Hwy 59; at Washington Park,
Laredo’s beautiful and wonderful baseball
stadium that disappeared without a trace
in1964 under the inadequate-from-day-one
Laredo Civic Center, my grandfather, my
brother, and I saw future Cincinnati Reds
superstar and National League All-Star
Vada Pinson, a Reds farm system star at
the time, who batted .343 in the majors in
1961 and is known as “The greatest player
who was considered for the Hall of Fame
but never got in,” and was signed by the
Reds right out of McClymonds High School
in Oakland along with legendary Hall of
Famers Frank Robinson and Curt Flood;
at Martin High Gymnasium, my fellow
Laredoans and I saw Harlem Globtrotters
originals Goose Tatum and Meadow Lark
Lemon, and theit special guest, Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige, “perhaps the greatest
pitcher in baseball history”, who was forced
by the color barrier to spend most of his career in the Negro Leagues, playing with several teams, among them the Birmingham
Barons (Michael Jordan’s future team), the
Kansas City Monarchs, and the New York
Black Yankees; he became the oldest Major
League rookie ever in 1948, at the age of 42,
when he helped the Cleveland Indians win
the American League pennant; Paige was
also known as “baseball’s greatest storyteller,” and entertained audiences throughout
the Americas, including in Laredo, appearing at Martin Gym seated in a rocking chair;
also, at Casa Blanca Golf Course many fellow Lardoans and I saw: golf Hall of Fame
member Julius Boros, known as “the slowest
man getting to the ball and the fastest once
he got to it, and winner of the ’52 and ’53 U.
S. Opens and ’58 PGA Championship; Luis
Aparicio, Venezuela-born Chicago White
Sox All-Star second baseman, nine-time
Gold Glove winner and Hall of Famer; and
University of Houston golfing sensations
Marty Fleckman, and Homero Blancas,
who once shot at 55, the lowest competitive
round in tournament history. At San Antonio’s Brackenridge Golf Course, my grandfather Roberto Rosenbaum, brother Robbie
and I witnessed hot-tempered Tommy Bolt
in the 1956 Texas Open, who went on to win
the U.S. Open in 1958, cursing out loud and
Meadowlark Lemon
Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige
Julius Boros
Tommy Bolt
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then angrily throwing a short iron a long
way straight down the fairway and onto the
elevated green, where the ball he had just
sliced into the right rough should have gone;
and, of course, we also saw The 1956 Texas
Open winner Gene “the Machine” Littler,
who also won the 1961 U.S. Open.Admittedly, most of these close encounters close
to home with people of notoriety involved
sports personalities. But I assure you, if you
were ‘into’ baseball and golf in the 1950’s as
much as Robbie and Johnny Snyder were,
these were nice encounters.
But sports heroes don’t usually persevere like the ageless Satchel Paige, who was
finally persuaded to retire from organized
baseball when he was 59. And along with
most other sports-silly-in-the-‘50s kids,
I graduated in the mid-1960s from baseball heroes to rock and roll rebels. We had
Beatles going into and coming out of our
ears, and most teen ears began to disappear
behind Beatle locks. Things British were in
vogue like no time before or since. Among
these ‘things British’ was Great Britain itself, and my mostly Scottish dad gave me
his blessing to go and bought me a ticket to
fly. What a ride!
On the night that followed the day of my
arrival in London, June 5, 1969, I bought a
music tabloid off the rack in the hotel lobby
and read about a “unique, free” rock concert
to be held in London’s famous Hyde Park
on Saturday, June 7. The featured group was
called Blind Faith -- the “world’s first super
group, comprised of the stellar remnants
of Cream – Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker,
Traffic -- Steve Winwood, and Londonbased progressive rock group Family -- Ric
Grech. You might say my sense of blind
faith was awoken or aroused, for I decided
that I would attend, even though, to be honest with you, pretty much all I knew about
any of these musical chaps was what I had
seen spray painted on a downtown London
wall while riding the bus from Heathrow
Airport to my hotel. Someone had spray
painted “Clapton is God.” It looked very
much like I was on a collision course with
an epiphany. “What a trip!” was my double-barreled thought at the prospect.
London was the center of the world in
the decade of the ‘60s, in a sense, and its incredibly well laid out web of Underground
lines and stations made it an easy place to
feel right at home in, even for a rip-roaring Río Grande rover. Getting to the mysteRíous concert was somehow easy for this
mystified stranger - perhaps because I remembered to touch all the bases - Trafalgar
Square, Picadilly Circus, Hyde Park. Believe
me, the panoramic scene I witnessed at the
park, more than the concert itself, was one
for the books. I mean, it was what you might
call historic, and I can’t say whose mind was
more blown at the monde bizarre flowering
of the grassy lawns with 100,000 Beautiful
People from all over Europe -- Blind Faith’s
or mine. Winwood later commented, “It
was our first gig, and to do that if front of
100,000 people was… very daunting.” Clapton said, “I came offstage at the Hyde Park
concert shaking like a leaf…”
Unforgettable, the whole ball of wax –
the ‘60s London fashions, the beauty of the
flower children, the spirit of the European
Hour and the British Moment, the hair everywhere, the Babel of languages rippling
through the clouds of cannabis vapors,
the collective sense of awe, glee and gratitiude! Not to mention the amazing fact that
I was there to witness it! Since British blues
weren’t and aren’t my cup of tea, begging
your pardon, I remember more of what I
saw than what I heard, begging your indulgence. Perhaps “You would gaze and gape
too, if it happened to you.” My apologies to
Miss Gore on that score. It was what came
to be known as a “happening,” and I happened to have enjoyed it ‘to the max,’ in the
parlance of the day.
The one and only Blind Faith album features the original songs they performed at
Hyde Park on that memorable day, and it
is rightfully considered a rare and coveted
classic. Later that summer, the stellar group
toured Scandinavia, stopping at small venues, and then made an abbreviated American tour mostly for publicity purposes.
Blind Faith did not outlast the golden age of
the supergroups, but three of its elements,
Clapton, Winwood, and Baker have all continued to be busy and in demand, and all
three are still avid experimenters and consummate musicians. Clapton is still considered a deity by any member of any generation who has heard him play the guitar.
Sadly, ace bass guitarist Ric Grech passed
away in 1990.
Aside from a pocketful of memories of a
unique event in a bygone age in the faraway
Oz that was Londontown of the 1960s, I still
have an experience-sharpened sense of perspective on who and where I am in the lonely
drift of time. The Blind Faith interlude, like
the whispered whine of the winds through
the weathering cliffs that writhe along the
Ríoside, is an object lesson that reminds one
to reminisce respectfully, and acquiesce attentively to the often patternless Providence
that brings us into the world and brings the
world to us on a delightful daily basis.u
Review 25 years of eye-opening images
and exciting adventures in the wild
Be more surprised
THE BEST OF NATURE
— 25 YEARS
Sunday, March 4, 5:00 p.m.
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
klrn.org
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
63
By The Way
A lovely trip to D.C. and a return home
to prepare for whirlwind of WBCA festivities
BY JENNIE
REED
By The Way
appears monthly
in Greater Laredo
Magazine. It is
reprinted here
with permission.
W
here to start? Our wonderful
month began with a trip to Washington D.C. to view our friends Joyce and
Frank Early’s daughter Kathleen perform
in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the
Eisenhower Theater of the Kennedy Center.
Quite an entourage of Laredoans, present
and past, plus over a hundred of the Early
family and friends were there.
Starring in the play were Kathleen Turner, _____, our own Kathleen Early and __.
The play has been receiving rave reviews
and is currently in Los Angeles for a several
weeks run.
Following the performance, Joyce and
Frank hosted the cast and crew and friends
at a beautiful reception at the historic Willard Hotel, where many of the guests were
staying.
Among those attending, were Joyce’s
sisters Nella Saldaña, her husband Dr. Tony
Saldaña, Lucile Earls and her daughter Diedra and son Tommy; Linda Farias, her children Leticia and Carlos as well as Joyce’s
nephew Mark Johnson. Joyce and Frank’s
daughter Patricia and husband and several
of their children joined the group as well.
Long-time friend and former Laredoan
Pat Yates also made the trip.
The following morning, Joyce had arranged for a tour of the White House,
through the offices of Senator Kay Bailey
Hutchison. It had snowed, and in the very
cold weather, we walked the short distance
from the hotel to the White House. The President was rehearsing his State of the Union
address, and we were directed by another
hallway on our tour. To see the inside of
the historic national treasure is amazing,
whether for the first time or on repeated visits. Security was very tight, as it should be,
but we were treated courteously and made
to feel welcome.
We visited the Corcoran Gallery and the
National Portrait Gallery, another treasure!
We watched from our hotel windows as ice
skaters performed on the rink below.
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Joyce arranged for a moonlight guided
tour for some of our group. To see the huge,
magnificent monuments, lit so well, with a
gentle snow falling, was a sight we shall not
soon forget.
To say that we had to catch up on lost
sleep on our return home, is an understatement. Our suite at the historic Willard was
filled with well-wishers and old friends till
the very wee hours every night!
Two of our Laredo group were unable to
make the trip and we promised to catch the
tour in Tucson with them.
This month has been filled with more
Washington activities, this time our local
and wonderful Washington’s Birthday Celebration. The calendar for the 110th celebration has been full to over-flowing.
The Webb County Historical Commission unveiled a historical marker in honor of
the Celebration that began at the very site in
1898.
Penny de los Santos was honored with
an exhibit of her photographs at TAMIU’s
Center for the Fine and Performing Arts
Gallery. Her project is called The Tejano
Project. She said she set out to define what
a Tejano was, with camera in hand and list
of ideas that intrigued her about Latinos in
Texas. She talked to Latinos from all walks
of life and photographer the land and culture that embody South Texas.
Our own George and Martha, James
Notzon, better know as Jimmy, and Adrienne Goodman Treviño, are enjoying every single minute. They have made visits to
several schools and locations around town,
welcoming all to share in the Celebration by
attended some of the many events and especially the Grand International Parade.
The Sons and Daughters of Liberty, a
group sponsored by the Society of Martha
Washington, have accompanied them that
depict historical characters who lived in colonial times.
Thanks to the WBCA for bringing another special guest, in the person of Dean
Malissa, portraying General George Washington. Malissa is part of the American Historical Theatre, a non-profit organization devoted to the dissemination of history in an
entertaining yet educational manner. Malissa regularly performs as General George
Washington at venues including Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, the
Smithsonian Institution and the National
Constitution Center. He is an accomplished
performer and has appeared in films, commercials, and TV shows. He is only the sec-
Actors Kathleen Early and Kathleen Turner, center, with Joyce and Frank Early
following the performance of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In Washington, D.C.
ond actor approved to portray Washington
at his estate, Mount Vernon.
He made several presentations to schoolchildren who were bussed to the TAMIU
Fine and Performing Arts Center. Each time,
the auditorium was filled to capacity with
children who were held spellbound by the
sight of the 6’5” General in his military uniform, black boots, saber at his side, with his
shock of white hair, combed in the colonial
fashion, tied to the nape of his neck with a
black ribbon. He patiently or sometimes
dramatically led them through a very realistic picture of life as he saw it growing up
in colonial America. They were literally with
him as the young boy that he was ran freely
down to the wharf to smell the mysterious
and delicious odors of cargo brought from
foreign lands. They heard him describe the
dance his brother Lawrence arranged for
surrounding youngsters who were taught
the minuet by a Belgian dance master, and
laughed at the mischief he and his young
friends got into.
His final performance was at night and
geared to a more adult audience. A fascinating tale unwound as the listeners were
made to feel they were actually there for the
events he described. Plaudits to the WBCA
for initiating this fascinating glimpse of living history.
Each student was given a large poster of
Washington as painted by Gilbert Stuart,
that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution. These educational
materials were produced in conjunction with
“George Washington: A National Treasure,”
an exhibition organized by the National
Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,
and made possible through the generosity
of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.
The packet also included a teacher resource guide.
All of the excitement of the annual Celebration that brings thousands to participate
in or view the many events that are geared
at appealing to all ages includes the Jalapeño
Festival, the Air Show, Youth Dance Festival, Jamboozie, Taste of Laredo, Princess
Pocahontas Presentation and Ball, Society of
Martha Washington Colonial Pageant and
Ball, Noche Mexicana and other head-spinning exciting events.
The Abrazo Children and the International Bridge Ceremony and the two parades,
add to the excitement. Our two Parade Marshals will be Congressman Henry Cuellar
for the 2007 Anheuser-Busch Washington
Birthday Parade and Terry Ruskowski,
head coach for the Laredo Bucks, will be
Parade Marshal for the IBC Youth Parade
Under the Stars.
LULAC –sponsored Señor and Señora
Internacional 2007 honors Long-time actress
and comedian Carmen Salinas and Latino
comedic personality Paul Rodriguez.
The WBCA Carnival will again take
place at the Laredo Entertainment Center,
with rides and entertainment for the whole
family.
A host of other activities will fill the calendar, culminating with the giant fireworks
display, and then it begins again. The day
the Celebration is finished, plans begin for
next year!
Until next month, take care.u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Street-Wise
FARRAGUT, Hispanic first admiral of the Navy
BURNSIDE, Leader of the Mud March
By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER
F
David Farragut
Ambrose Burnside
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
arragut Street in old downtown
Laredo is named after David
Glasgow Farragut, first admiral of the
Navy and son of Spanish immigrant
Jorge Farragut Mesquida, who served his
adoptive country in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. David Farragut is remembered for his brilliant and
gallant naval exploits in the Civil War. To
him we owe the proud wartime exclamation, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed
ahead!”
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on July
6, 1801, Farragut was appointed a Navy
midshipman when he was only nine
years old, saw his first combat at 11, and
got his first command of a ship at 12. Fifty
years later when the Civil War broke out,
the southern native remained staunchly
loyal to the United States and moved his
family north from Norfolk, Virginia, to
Hastings-on-the-Hudson, New York, and
soon accepted the post of Flag Officer in
command of the West Gulf Blockading
Squadron in January 1862.
His first orders were tall ones -- capture the city and port of New Orleans, a
feat he accomplished by April 28, 1862.
The dangerous but successful deed was
brought off by Farragut and his complement of 700 men aboard 18 wooden ships
and a good number of mortar boats. The
always-thinking commander had the
hulls of his flagship Hartford wrapped in
chains and daubed with Mississippi mud
for reinforced strength and camouflage.
His main strategic move was to bypass
Fort Jackson, Fort St. Phillip, and the
Chalmette, Louisiana, batteries by night
en route to New Orleans. The strategy
was effective, and the action was intense.
“The smoke was so dense that it was only
now and then we could see anything but
the flash of the cannon,” he commented
after the running of the gauntlet and the
taking of the Crescent City. Farragut’s
brother-in-law, David Dixon Porter, who
directed the mortar flotilla, had been
skeptical about Farragut’s strategy before the action was commenced. Union
soldiers under Gen. Benjamin F. Butler
occupied and secured the city and port
on May 1.
Inspired by his success at New Orleans, Farragut decided on June 28 to
take his fleet upriver to Vicksburg, Mississippi, the “Gibraltar of the West,” pro-
tected by 200-foot bluffs and defended by
29 heavy artillery pieces. The “Father of
Waters” runs just south of the city, and
the beetling bluffs gave the well-positioned Rebel defenders an ideal vantage
point, but Farragut snatched victory out
of the jaws of defeat. Attempting to repeat the strategy that worked at New Orleans, he raised two red lanterns on the
Hartford’s mast as a signal to his fleet,
and set off upriver under and past the
bluffs. Farragut lost only three ships, and
his mortar reply wreaked havoc on the
Rebel position atop the bluffs. Abraham
Lincoln’s government created the rank of
rear admiral for Farragut on July 16, 1862,
out of gratitude for its premier sailor’s
feats of heroism and deeds of military
importance in wresting control of the
lower Mississippi from Rebel hands, thus
quashing Confederate dreams of blockade-running in the Gulf of Mexico.
BURNSIDE
‘Sideburns’ were named after
the leader of the Mud March
Union General Ambrose Everett Burnside did not distinguish himself as a
military strategist and leader of fighting
men as did Admiral David Farragut. In
a slightly irreverent manner of speaking,
Farragut walked on water between New
Orleans and Vicksburg, and Burnside
sank in the mud at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
Before having important infantry commands thrust upon him in the early Civil
War, this reluctant West Point graduate
had participated in the occupation of
Mexico City in 1848 in the Mexican War
and had been wounded by Apaches in
1849 in New Mexico Territory. Resigning
from the military in 1853, the inventive
and enterprising Burnside spent the interval between 1853 and the outbreak of
hostilities in 1861 seeking unsuccessfully
to garner a government contract for an
improved breech-loading carbine that he
had been promoting. While involved in
this business venture, he served as a major in the Rhode Island state militia. He
was granted brigadier general status and
rank in mid-1861 when he rejoined the
United States Army to fight against the
rebellious southern Confederacy. Right
off the bat when the war started, Burnside
led union troops indifferently at the first
Bull Run, and participated with some of
his troops at the second Bull Run. Soon
afterwards he bungled his command at
Antietam, the bloodiest battle of the Civil
War. His hesitancy to lead his men across
a narrow bridge proved disastrous, and
still today the bridge is pointed out to
tourists and curiosity seekers as Burnside’s Bridge.
Sensing his own inadequacy as a
commander, Burnside only reluctantly
accepted a promotion to the position of
commander of the Army of the Potomac,
after McLellan, Lincoln’s first commander, put together a gaudy string of fiascos
that left the Union reeling and the outcome of the war in serious doubt. So the
beleaguered Burnside plodded on at Lincoln’s urging. Next, employing tiresome
tactics like frontal assaults that guaranteed the slaughter of countless Union
troops at Fredericksburg On September
13, 1862, when 12,653 Union troops fell.
Feeling despondent and guilty, Burnside
attempted to lead an assault with him at
the head of his troops, which dismayed
his subordinates to no end. On top of
this, when January, 1863 rolled around,
he ordered a second assault against Lee
in relentless winter rains, and got bogged
down to the point that the fruitless offensive is referred to in textbooks and by
tourist guides as the Mud March.
General Burnside’s Civil War portfolio
still had room for one final faux pas -- the
infamous Battle of the Crater. This was
one of the most bizzare battles in the history of civilized warfare. In Pennsylvania
coal country Union soldiers dug a tunnel
toward the Confederate bivouac near a
crater and packed loads of explosives under the Rebel encampment. The dynamite
was to be ignited at a given hour. The plan
was well conceived and success was feasible until General Meade interfered and
ordered Burnside not to use the black soldiers who were trained for the mission.
The ill-prepared white troops entered the
crater instead of skirting it, and when the
explosives detonated, the alerted Rebels
cut the Union soldiers down mercilessly
with rifle fire. Burnside was wrongfully
blamed.
Happily for Ambrose Burnside, his
post-Civil War career was an extraordinary success. He was president of several
corporations and was twice elected to the
governorship of Rhode Island. In 1874 he
was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he
served until his death in 1881.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
67
Notes From La La Land
Golden Globes showcase Mexican film genius
BY DR. NEO
GUTIERREZ
(Dr. Neo is a Ph.D.
in Dance, Señor Internacional de Beverly Hills
1997, and MHS Tiger
Legend 2002. Contact
[email protected])
I
f you want to know what the world
thinks of American and worldwide films in general, watch the Golden
Globes Awards, sponsored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. If you
want to know what Americans think of
the same topic, watch for the Academy
Awards, the Oscars.
And shine Mexico did at this past January’s Golden Globes ceremony at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel. Not only did Latinas America Ferrera and Selma Hayek
fare very well for their work in TV’s new
hit, Ugly Betty, but the best film of the
year honors went to Mexican director
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, for his incredible job in the movie Babel, starring
Brad Pitt.
I remember watching the movie a few
months back, wondering for the first two
hours how Iñárritu was going to pull
it all together, to end the film. Made in
five languages and shot on three continents, the film consists of what seems
a hodge-podge of unrelated stories in
different parts of the world, about unrelated people. But with the stroke of true
genius, Iñárritu pulls it all together, and
the movie makes perfect sense. The film
received the most nominations at the
Golden Globes, a total of seven, including best dramatic picture, best director, and best screenplay by Guillermo
Arriaga. The international nature of the
movie really appealed to the Hollywood
Foreign Press. The film is about globalization and the world we live in. Babel
is a perfect example of multinational
movie productions, a perfect example of
the movie business today. The Golden
Globes celebrates Hollywood’s borderless production frontier. Iñárritu said,
“I think culturally the world is getting
bigger. Now we are living in the world,
we are not living anymore in a country
or a society. We are part of the whole.
We have a lot in common beyond the
borders, beyond the ideologies. We are
getting the sense that we are truly one
world.”
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Never mind that Iñárritu also provided the best one-liner of the whole night
of Golden Globes celebration, when his
first sentence in his acceptance speech
was directed at Califas Governator Ahhnold -- “I want to assure the Governor
that my papers are in order.”
Known by the nickname of “el negro”
to his close friends, Iñárritu is over six feet
tall and posseses movie star good looks.
From his biography, we learn that he was
born in México City in 1963. Alejandro
González Iñárritu started his show-business career in 1984 as a DJ at top-rated
Mexican radio station WFM. At the same
time he studied filmmaking and theater.
From 1988 to 1990 he composed music for
six Mexican features, including Garra de
tigre (1989). In the 1990s he became one of
the youngest producers in Mexican TV
when he was in charge of the production
of Televisa, Mexico’s most important TV
company. After leaving Televisa he started Zeta Films, his own company. He began writing and shooting TV advertising
for Mexican television (some of them can
be seen in his first feature, Amores perros
(2000)). However, for him those commercials were just rehearsals for a future
movie. At the same time he continued
his studies of filmmaking in Maine and
Los Angeles, under Polish director Ludwik Margules. His first half-length feature, Detrás del dinero, was produced in
1995 for Televisa and starred Spanish actor Miguel Bosé.
Looking for good stories, he read a lot
of scripts and one day was introduced to
Guillermo Arriaga, a screenwriter, and
they planned to make 11 shorts to show
the contradictory nature of Mexico City.
After three years and 36 drafts, they ended up settling on only three stories and
expanding them. That movie, Amores
Perros, became a major hit at its release
at the Festival de Cannes 2000, where it
received the award of the best film by the
Semaine de la Critique, and went on to
huge worldwide success. It also earned
an Oscar nomination for best foreign
movie.
In 2002 Iñárritu was one of the directors involved in the making of 11’09’’01
- September 11 (2002), a film about the influence of the terrorist attack of 9/11 on
the world. Also participating in the film
were such major filmmakers as Wim
Wenders, Ken Loach, Mira Nair, Amos
Gitai, and Sean Penn.
The success of those films opened the
doors of Hollywood to Iñárritu. His sec-
ond feature, 21 Grams (2003), was also
written by Arriaga, was shot in English
and starred Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro,
and Naomi Watts. All received Academy
Award nominations for their participation.
At present Iñárritu is collaborating
with Arriaga in the writing of a third
movie that will form a trilogy about
death with his other two first pictures.
Almost by divine coincidence, as Hollywood celebrates Iñárritu, the Oscars
org, known as the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, is celebrating
100 years of Mexican film. Mexican movies have really come a long way since,
as a kid, I used to religiously go to the
old Royal Theater in Laredo, where I
would watch Mexico’s best for nine cents
admission price, one penny for candy,
and 15 cents for three bags of popcorn.
There went the 25 cents allowance for the
week.
Upon visiting the Academy’s beautiful headquarters near where I live now, I
learned that the important role of Mexican
filmmakers working in Hollywood and
the influence of international filmmakers working in Mexico are all explored
in the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery
exhibition “Made in Mexico: The Legacy
of Mexican Cinema.” This remarkable
history is brought to life through movie
posters, behind-the-scenes photographs
and star portraits, costumes and costume design sketches, fan magazines,
original scripts, letters, documents, and
other artifacts pertaining to the Mexican
film industry’s vibrant past and compelling present. Also on display are video
clips showcasing key performances and
productions from a century of Mexican
film.
Since the advent of public film projection in the late 1890s, Mexican audiences
have proved enthusiastic, and Mexican
filmmakers have been actively involved
in documenting their country’s history
and culture. As narrative filmmaking
in the silent era gave way to the early
sound era of the 1930s, stories that spoke
to audiences from Spanish-speaking cultures literally found their voice. At the
same time, Mexican performers became
popular Hollywood stars, and important
international filmmakers such as Sergei
Eisenstein (and later Luis Buñuel, Fred
Zinnemann, and John Huston) traveled
to Mexico to make films. Mexican cinema enjoyed a “Golden Age” in the 1940s,
widespread commercial success in the
1950s, and a remarkable string of three
consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film in
1960, ‘61, and ‘62. The international profile of Mexican cinema has recently been
raised once again by the Oscar-nominated films Amores Perros and El Crimen Del
Padre Amaro, directed by Carlos Carrera.
Exhibition highlights include costume
design sketches for stars Dolores del Río
and Ramón Novarro, documents and
photographs relating to the early sound
recording system invented by the Rodríguez brothers for use on the groundbreaking film Santa (1932), and marketing materials for some of the Golden
Age’s biggest hits, including the films of
Mario Moreno, better known as “Cantinflas.” Complemented by items related to
the most current Mexican releases, the
displays feature, for the first time, captions and explanatory text in both English and Spanish. For more information,
visit www.oscars.org/events/past/2006/
madeinmexico.
Every year when I watch the Golden Globes, housed at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, I always remember the year
that Laredo’s Golden Spurs stayed at
the Beverly Hilton Hotel when they
came on a dance tour to Califas with
their director Estella Zamora Kramer.
That year they danced at BevHillsHS,
Dodger Stadium, Disneyland, and
Universal Studios. I also remember
I managed to get the Beverly Hilton room cost down to about $15 per
night per student, four in a room. And
when a group of four was assigned to
a poolside cabana, so the girls could
have access to a room right by the
swimming pool, the girls turned it
down because they wanted to be together with the rest of the group. And
this is when room rates were at about
$500-plus per night. Asi como lo oyen.
And all of this came back to me because of all the Golden Globes action
on TV . . . que recuerdos tan sabrosos.
Upon closing, I must send happy
birthday greetings to our beloved MHS
English teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth Nye Sorrell, who is 98 and living happily and
still writing in San Antonio. Don’t forget the Oscars Feb. 25, and I promise to
try not to hate Simon Cowell of American Idol, for the way he exploits disadvantaged American youth, as he laughs
with million$ all the way to the bank.
And with that it’s time for, as Norma
Adamo would say: TAN TAN!u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Laredo Area Community Foundation
The benefits of strategic philanthropy;
grant applications available -- March 9 deadline
BY PATI
GUAJARDO
Pati Guajardo is
executice
director of the
Laredo Area
Community
Foundation
she can be reached
at pguajardo@lare
dofoundation.org
S
trategic philanthropy is defined
best by The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. as “effective giving which is
designed around focused research,
creative planning, proven strategies,
careful execution and thorough follow-up in order to achieve the intended results. To be truly effective and rewarding, strategic philanthropy must
also reflect and be driven by your
core values and concerns.” To define it
simply, strategic philanthropy aligns
your charitable giving with your vision of the future in order to get the
most from philanthropic efforts.
So, how do you establish strategic
philanthropy for your family or even
within your company? The first step
is to clarify your values and establish
your areas of charitable interest. Next,
you create a vision for your community
or a particular cause. You then need
to determine the best way to achieve the
intended results. This means making
decisions as to the funding of projects
based on their research, planning,
careful execution and follow through.
It is critical to stay focused and align
your resources (social networking and
leveraging your expertise might be
as useful as your monetary contribution). How do you know if you have
achieved strategic philanthropy? The
following checklist can assist. If you
review your strategy and find the following to be true, then you have succeeded.
1. It meets personal and/or corporate charitable interests.
2. It defines an essential mission,
purpose and/or priority
3. It addresses/responds to real
needs in the local community.
4. It incorporates clear, established
rationale and operational procedures.
5. It integrates an ongoing evaluaWWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
tive component
that is meaningful, flexible, and
accessible to all
involved.
6. It benefits
from, and contributes to, the
experiences of
others by connecting to the larger philanthropic
community.
7. It serves as a journey of learning
and listening.
8. Most importantly, it is fun and
deeply fulfilling.
If the idea of establishing a strategy
for your family’s philanthropic endeavors sounds overwhelming, contact us at the foundation office. We
can assist in strategic philanthropy
due to the flexibility that is inherent
in community foundations.
2007 Grant Applications are Available this Month
It’s that time again, when we are
accepting applications for our annual
grant funding cycle. This is made possible by a grant from The Houston Endowment, Inc. Application guidelines
are as follows:
Grants are made only to organizations recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as 501(c)3 tax exempt
organizations. Applicants must demonstrate fiscal responsibility and accountability. The organization should
have a committed volunteer board
and should be based in the Laredo
area. Projects funded should benefit
residents of the Laredo area.
In awarding grants, particular consideration is given to established, ongoing programs as well as new, innovative proposals. Collaborative initiatives are encouraged. Projects should
address root causes and work on long
term solutions of identified societal
problems. Priorities have been developed for the following five sectors:
•Social Service (children, youth,
adult and seniors)
•Health
•Education
•Arts and Culture
•Environment
The following requests are not eligible for funding:
•Fu nd ra i si ng
events or campaigns
•Endowments
•Debt reduction
•Operating deficits
•Political activities, organizations
or lobbying
•Individuals
Applications are carefully reviewed by the Grants Committee,
which is comprised of community
representatives who volunteer their
time to the foundation. Once the
Committee has evaluated the ap-
plications, recommendations are
submitted to the Board of Directors
for approval. The Board awards the
grants within the limitations of the
available funds. Foundation staff
cannot assess applicants’ chances for
approval. Applicants are notified in
writing shortly following the Board’s
decision.
The grant application deadline is
March 9, 2007. Applications must be
delivered to the Foundation office no
later than 5 p.m. on that date.
Applications may be obtained by
contacting the Foundation office at
(956) 796-1700 or via e-mail to pguajar
[email protected]
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
69
Keeping A Weather Eye
Panel on climate change:
global warming real, worsening, and man-made
BY JUAN
ALANIS
Juan Alanis is an
Associate Member
of The American
Meteorological
Society (AMS) and is
currently employed
as a teacher at United
Middle School.
C
limate change due to global
warming has been in the spotlight again as nations from across the
globe met in Paris earlier this month to
issue a report on this topic.
According to the report issued by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), global warming is real,
worsening, and man-made. The group
says the signs of this warming are already here with rising sea levels, worsening droughts, and stronger hurricanes.
Some of their conclusions include:
• The significant increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such as
carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous
oxide since 1750 is due to human activities.
• If levels of greenhouse gasses double as compared to the pre-industrial era,
then the planet could see temperatures
rise from 3.6 to 8.1°F over the next century.
• Sea levels could rise up to 1 meter
(about three feet), by the year 2100 if the
polar ice caps and glaciers continue to
melt as the temperatures rise.
• Snow cover has decreased in many
regions. The maximum extent of frozen
ground has decreased by 7% over the
Northern Hemisphere over the latter
half of the 20th century.
These are just a few of the findings
from the IPCC. The group will be issuing three more parts of this climate report later this year.
The idea that global warming is causing stronger hurricanes is still debatable
among many in the world of meteorology. The World Meteorological Organization’s 6th International Workshop
on Tropical Cyclones (WMO-IWTC)
was held recently in Costa Rica. The
group of 125 tropical weather experts
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| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7
from around the globe issued a statement that said, “No firm link can yet be
drawn between human-induced climate
change and variations in the intensity
and frequency of tropical cyclones.” This
statement was issued in response to numerous high profile events including
Hurricane Katrina; the record breaking
2005 hurricane season; and a record 10
typhoons (hurricanes) hitting Japan in
2004, among others.
And while this may sound like the
WMO-IWTC is denying any existence
of global warming, they are not. This
group of tropical weather experts is simply saying more research is needed before a definite link, if any, can be made to
global warming.
One of the reasons cited for by the
scientists is the same one that Dr. Neil
Frank, former director of the National
Hurricane Center, now Chief Meteorologist at KHOU-TV in Houston, has always
stressed during my numerous conversations with him, that global warming is
not the cause of increased tropical activity, but rather the variations of sea-surface temperatures every few decades, officially called the Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation in this part of the globe.
About every 30 to 40 years, sea surface
temperatures warm, then cool, in a naturally occurring cycle.
Hurricane archives from Dr. Frank
and the National Hurricane Center in
Miami point out that from 1870 to 1900 it
was a warm water era, with very active
hurricane seasons, then from the early
1900s to late 1920s, a cool water period,
with less tropical activity. From 1930s
to 1960s, warm and active, mid-1960s
to mid-1990s, cool and quiet, and since
1995, warmer sea temps and very active.
Based on this pattern, the Atlantic will
be active for another 20 to 30 years and
then quiet down. Researchers and tropical meteorologists will now try to determine if this pattern occurs in the tropical
areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The problem with trying to determine
sea-temperature changes and other historical patterns of tropical activity is the
lack of or inconsistent archives, equipment, and measurement techniques
across the globe. The report from the
WMO-IWTC stated, “There are large
regional variations on how hurricane in-
tensities are recorded.” The group points
out that while the accuracy of tropical cyclone monitoring has greatly improved
over time, there are some regions of the
world that do not have equipment such
as aircraft, buoys, and radars to take
specialized readings of tropical systems.
The United States uses “hurricane hunter” aircraft to investigate storms at sea,
while Japan and many Asian rim nations
do not. As a result, measuring a storm’s
true structure and intensity (air pressure, wind speed, movement, etc.) while
at sea in these regions is difficult at best.
These nations simply rely on satellites to
estimate a storm’s strength.
Chris Landsea, Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane
Center in Miami, admits tracking historical trends is hard due to the lack of tools
prior to the 1960s. “This comparison is
complicated as we observe hurricanes
much more accurately today than was
possible several decades ago,” he said.
The use of satellites is now a very important tool as well.
Until mid-century, the only way a
tropical cyclone was known to exist was
by an actual human observation on land
or on a ship at sea. Wes Browning, Science and Operations officer at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Hawaii
said, “There were no satellites [until the
late 1960s], so it is likely some tropical cyclones were not detected.”
What does this mean? There may
have been many more busy tropical seasons, dating back to the 1800s, but storms
were undetected if they did not actually
hit land. So, there may have actually
been several more category 4 or 5 hur-
ricanes in the Atlantic during the early
20th century, but could not be detected
or accurately measured due to lack of
equipment and since they remained out
at sea.
As for the future of hurricanes, meteorologists are still debating this as well.
Will they be stronger and more frequent
due to so called global warming?
Landsea points out that a study
conducted by the Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory says hurricanes
will get stronger by about 2% per degree F. “If this is in the right ballpark,
then hurricanes today (versus previous
century) may be about 1 to 2% stronger
due to manmade global warming,” he
said. At the present time he said, such
a small increase is too small to detect due to limitations in measuring a
storm’s peak wind speed. Research will
continue on this and other issues and
patterns for years to come in an effort
to find any link to tropical activity and
global warming.
And why do hurricanes seem to cause
more damage each year? The WMOIWTC states that the main reason is due
to a booming population in coastal areas, not necessarily because storms are
stronger.
As for the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane
Season, the National Hurricane Center
will issue its outlook in May. Landsea
said, “Historically, hurricane forecasts
issued this early in the year have shown
little skill.” The NHC is monitoring several factors, such as El Niño, and weather
patterns over the United States in order
to try to make an accurate outlook for the
season.u
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Seguro Que Sí
Congratulations to all the kids who survived
the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s
BY HENRI
KAHN
Contact Henri
D. Kahn with your
insurance questions
at (956) 725-3936,
or by fax at
(956) 791-0627,
or by email at
[email protected]
T
hey took aspirin, ate tuna from a
can, and didn’t get tested for every
childhood disease known to man.
Then after God’s plan of childbirth, we
were put to sleep on our tummies in baby
cribs covered with bright colored leadbased paint.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and never
wore helmets when we went bike riding,
not to mention the risks of hitchhiking.
As infants and children, we would
ride in cars without car seats, booster
seats, seat belts, or airbags.
We drank water from the garden hose
and not from a 70-cent bottle of water.
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
We shared one soda with four friends
drinking from the same bottle, and no
one died or even got sick.
We ate lots of flour tortillas, white
bread with real butter, candy bars, drank
Koolaid with sugar, but we weren’t overweight, because we were always outside
playing.
We would leave home in the morning,
report home for lunch, and head out the
rest of the day to return home just before
suppertime.
Our mothers, at home, didn’t panic,
and when we came home, we were okay.
We would spend hours building our
go-carts out of scrap and then ride down
a hill on Mier Street, only to find out we
forgot about brakes. After running into
the bushes a few times trying to slowdown with our feet or hands we got
smart and made a 2x4 trail brake.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendos, X-Boxes, or video games.
Not a single cable channel, video movie, DVD, Gameboy, cell phone, personal
computer, or chat room.
We had friends, went outside, found
them and played all sorts of games like
tag, hide and seek, marbles, stick ball,
catch.
We ate mud pies, mesquite beans,
prickly pear atunas, even earthworms,
and they did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns on our tenth
birthday, played war shooting at each
other using homemade guns armed with
strips of rubber we had cut from old bicycle tire tubes without putting out any
eyes.
We rode our bikes, or walked, to a
friend’s house, knocked on the door or
rang the doorbell, walked in, and talked
directly to them.
We puffed on cedar post bark and
never moved on to marijuana.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t
make it learned to deal with disappointment and only the winning team received
trophies. Imagine that! The idea of a parent siding with us against a schoolteacher
or immediately bailing us out if we broke
the law was out of the question!
Respect for our elders was expected
and practiced as a matter of natural consequence. Ma’am and Sir were the order
of the day!
These generations have produced
some of the finest business persons and
creative thinkers ever! The past 50 years
have been a continuous eruption of innovation and new ideas.
In spite of all the changes in our life
we have achieved success in grand style.
If you are part of the five generations
covered here, congratulations!
Share this treatise with others who
grew up as kids during these long ago
times -- an era before our justice system and government leaders regulated,
changed, and politicized our every word
or action for our own good.
I exercised editorial privilege in this
article by making changes based on my
personal experiences.
The original premise for this article
was circulated via the internet and comes
from only God knows where!
Pray for George W. Bush to bridle his
megalomaniac ego.u
Henri D. Kahn
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LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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Maverick Ranch Notes
Enjoying the same vista my mother photographed
BY BEBE & SISSY
FENSTERMAKER
F
rom my mother’s photograph album, I’m looking at a small photograph from the pages labeled 1921. Mama
was 15 that year, and much of her album
shows her with her friends and siblings
doing things girls of that age did then.
Later we knew many of those faces as
older and very interesting women important in our lives.
But the photograph I’m looking at is a
shot taken from the road which passes by
our gate. The camera was aimed toward
the Ranch house far away, barely appearing as a light streak on a hillside. The distance in the photo is considerable and the
simple camera doesn’t give a good feel for
the height of the hills. Rising up behind
the house is Renaberg, a hill named for
our grandmother Rena Maverick Green.
It lies behind the Cottage and corrals and
is wooded with superb Spanish and live
oaks and native cherry trees. Visible in
the middle of the photograph is the creek
that runs between Maverick Ranch and
Fromme Farm. A field of deep soil we
call the Middle Field is on the Maverick
Ranch side. Part of our Black-capped Vireo habitat project is in that field. The hill
in back of the Middle Field is steep, heavily wooded with large oaks, and there is
a beautiful rock wall midway up. To the
right of the field the gray tops of the pecan trees can be seen above the Fromme
oaks. That is where the best summer
breezes on the Ranch always blow.
In the photograph’s foreground two
Fromme Farm mules stand at the bottom
of the slope from the road. Mr. Fromme’s
rock-walled haymow is behind them.
Since the mules are loose and the field
is bare the season must be late winter.
The haymow has a long north side with
shorter sides on each end and the whole
thing is over six feet tall, a building feat
for a man who only stood four-foot-ten. I
see there was a roof of some kind on the
haymow; I never knew it with a roof. It is
enclosed by a wire fence and must have
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| LareD O S | F E B R U A RY 2 0 07
been where Mr. Fromme fed his cattle on
cold nights. The ground inside that pen
looks smooth in the photograph, but today big rocks jut up out of the ground,
the result of years of penned livestock.
The photograph captures serene
smoothness of Fromme fields with a jagged tree line along the creek, all backed
by rugged hills, a pretty early Texas Hill
Country ranch and farm scene, now fast
disappearing from our state. We grew up
with these views, but never took them
for granted. I remember many evening
automobile drives “just to see what there
is to see,” as our parents would say. These
days I stay at home in order to be able to
go out and see something beautiful in
the country. Thanks to my family’s care
for this place I am able to enjoy the very
same view my mother photographed 86
years ago. The mules are gone but good
Texas Longhorns stand in their stead.
BEBE FENSTERMAKER
The ice storm of 2007 left us with many
broken limbs and a number of large
trunked trees snapped in two. Of particular concern were the old oaks in the
cottage yard that leaned over buildings
or had lost big limbs, one of which had
fallen on a shed roof. We called a tree service in our area, and one of their arborists
came to assess the damage and give us
an estimate on the most pressing problems. The assessment also included lightening the load of a big oak whose trunk
is right next to the schoolhouse. One of
its large limbs leaned over the roof and
caused Bebe enough concern to check it
daily during the storm.
Several days later a crew of three
men arrived with the arborist. It was a
chilly, misty day, not the best conditions
for climbing around in the tops of trees.
The arborist soon left to attend a meeting
elsewhere and the crew got right to work.
They unloaded their climbing gear and
chain saws from the truck. Neatly coiled
and tied ropes were unwound, and the
weighted end was expertly thrown way
up and over a sturdy limb. Belts were
buckled around their waists on which
shorter ropes with large metal clasps
were attached as well as a hook that held
the chain saw when not in use.
Then away they went, pulling themselves up with long ropes, walking up
the trunks into the treetops. The jagged
stumps of broken limbs were cleanly cut
and spraypainted to protect against oak
wilt/decline. Bebe and I were in awe of
the ease with which the three men moved
through the trees. There was no wasted
movement. Limbs or bits of a limb were
used to stand on to reach others to be
removed. Later some of those that were
stood upon would be removed as the men
worked down through the trees. At one
point I likened all the activity and noise
of the saws to a hive of yellowjackets.
The foreman worked on a big, old oak
at the back of the cottage. One of its large
limbs bent out over the roof and had been
a concern of ours for some time. He removed dead wood as well as some live
branches to lighten the load the branch.
In order not to let what he cut drop onto
the roof, he would saw just so far through
the wood, then cut the saw motor, and
snap the branch off, throwing it to a spot
on the ground. Over and over again this
would happen, and each time he threw
what had been cut right down to the
same spot.
Thankfully there was a pause for lunch.
I was worn out just watching them. After
lunch the foreman remained at the cottage to grind up the small stuff from the
morning’s work. The larger pieces were
neatly stacked in several piles. The other
two men began work on the tree next
to the schoolhouse. The large limb that
stretched over the roof was trimmed of all
its smaller branches. Everything that was
removed had to be held onto and thrown
to the ground. Eventually, removal of the
big limb was begun. One of the climbing
ropes was thrown over higher limbs and
attached to each piece of limb being cut.
The man on the ground anchored the
other end of the rope and was in charge
of each large chunk cut, waiting until
its wild swinging had slowed and then
expertly using a swing to clear the roof
and let it fall to the ground. Bebe and I
marveled at the ease with which the men
seemed to do their work. They were as at
ease in the trees as on the ground. It was
work for those men, but for us it had been
a fascinating day.
After the crew had left we looked up
towards the cottage and Bebe commented on how light the yard appeared. It was
also a relief to have the havoc left by the
storm removed and replaced by a certain
amount of order.
SISSY FENSTERMAKER
Spring Into Art this Year
at the
Laredo Center for the Arts
Saturday Art Class
Saturdays 10:30 - 12:30 PM
Ages: 6 - 13
Registration Fee: $10 per class
Advanced Visual Art Workshops for Children
Saturdays 1:00 - 3:00 PM
Mar. 24 - May. 5
Ages: 6 - 15
Registration Fee: $100
Basic Acrylic Painting for Adults
Thursdays 5:30 - 8:30 PM
Mar. 22 - May. 3
Ages: 16 and up
Registration Fee: $ 150
500 San Agustin Ave. 956.725.1715
www.laredoartcenter.org
WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM
Lamar Middle School eighth grader Alex Lopez takes a bow after being named
Best Actor in UIL middle school competition for one-act plays. He has performed
and competed in UIL since sixth grade under the direction of Peggy Phelps. A
veteran performer in numerous Laredo Institute for Theatrical Education (L.I.T.E.)
productions, including Aladdin Kids, The Wizard of Oz, Annie, and Music Man
Jr., Alex won district best actor awards last year for his portrayal of the baker in
the district championship play Into the Woods. He performed in the LCC opera
workshop production of Camelot and Fiddler on The Roof. His sister Mara
and brother Armando Manuel are also accomplished actors. Alex is the son of
Armando and Mary Lou M. Lopez.
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
Courtesy Photos
Best actor Alex Lopez
Donations for Cd. Miguel Alemán Women’s Clinic
An effort by Zapata banker Renato Ramirez to establish a women’s breast and
cervical cancer center in Cd. Miguel Alemán, will become a reality as donations
continue to come in. His own donation of $5,000 from R&P Ramirez, Ltd., IBC’s
contribution of $5,000, Alice Rotary Club’s donation of $10,000 and Rotary
International’s donation of $20,000, and other contributions -- plus equipment
and furniture from the closed Freer Spohn Hospital -- will go to the Miguel Alemán
Women’s Clinic. Ramirez, CEO of IBC Brush Country and his son Ricardo, also
a banker, are pictured with Benito Barrera Ramirez and Marcos Moreno Leal of
the Cd. Alemán Rotary Club.
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
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Rincon Del Diablo
Disciples dispute date of Jesus’ Ascension
by raul casso
Raul Casso,
an attorney,
is a regular
contributor to
LareDOS.
A
ccording to the Catholic Encyclopedia (CE), Jesus’ ascension
is “the elevation of Christ into heaven by His own power in the presence
of his disciples the fortieth day after
his resurrection” (Catholic Encyclopedia). The CE further tell us that the
ascension “is narrated in Mark 16:19,
Luke 24:51, and in the first chapter
of the Acts of the Apostles” (ibid.).
Imagine: you’re standing there
with Jesus, and suddenly He floats
up to the sky and disappears into
the clouds. You would be guilty of
understatement if you were to refer
to such an event as “memorable.” Indeed, what could be more astonishing? How could anyone witnessing
such a mind-boggling event ever forget it? After seeing something like
that, one would be thunderstruck
for the rest of his life. Would it be
too much to ask that the disciples,
who were supposedly there, at least
agree on when the miracle of the ascension occurred? Well, it is asking
too much because the disciples do
not agree even as to this extraordinary event.
The CE tells us that the Ascension
occurred 40 days after the resurrection. Although the CE cites a verse
from each of Mark and Luke, the CE
gets its time frame from the Book of
Acts, the fifth book in the New Testament supposedly authored by Luke
(the author of the Gospel of Luke).
In the first chapter of Acts it says:
“Until the day which [Jesus] was
taken up . . . he shewed himself
alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen by them
forty days, and speaking of the
things pertaining to the kingdom
of God . . . and when he had spoken
these things, while they beheld, he
was taken up; and a cloud received
him out of their sight” (Acts 1:2-3,9;
KJV).
WWW. L A R E D O S N E W S . C O M
Now we know where the CE gets
its 40 days. Reading further in chapter 13 of Acts, however, we find another passage that is not so definite
as to when the Ascension occurred.
Chapter 13 says “but God raised
him from the dead: and he was seen
many days of them which came up
with him from Galilee to Jerusalem”
(Acts 13:30; KJV).
Admittedly, “many days” could
mean anything. It could mean a few
days or 40 days. But why would Luke,
the writer of Acts, write in Ch.1 about
the ascension occurring 40 days after the resurrection, and then, a few
chapters later, refer to the time lapse
so vaguely? Why would Luke say
“many days” when he knew it was
exactly 40, and had probably not yet
gotten over the shock? If you think
I’m quibbling with minor details,
keep reading -- it gets better.
John, in his Gospel, has something to say about when the Ascension occurred, and he does not say
40 days. Chapter 20 of the Gospel
of John begins with the story of the
resurrection. It describes how the ladies went to the tomb and found it
empty. Later, the resurrected Jesus
appeared to the disciples, showed
them his wounds, and put Doubting
Thomas in his place. At that point,
John tells us, “and after eight days
again his disciples were within and
Thomas with them: then came Jesus
. . . and stood in the midst” (J. 20:126;KJV).
John says nothing about 40 days.
In fact, he says nothing about the
Ascension. He assures us, however,
that there were, “many other signs
[that] truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples that are not in
this book.” (20:30). Perhaps John was
referring to the Ascension among
those “many other signs.” What John
does say is that Jesus was with them
for at least eight days.
One might argue that the eight
days John refers to are a subset of
the 40. If that is true, however, why
would John not mention that Jesus ascended on the 40th day? Why
would John mention eight days, specifically but for not special reason,
apparently, and leave the all-important 40th day out? Very strange,
indeed. Turning now to Mark and
Luke, however, the story gets even
stranger.
The CE makes reference to Mark
16:19 and Luke 24:51 as providing
narratives of the Ascension. If one
didn’t bother to look up those passages, one might think that Mark
and Luke agree with the 40 day
time frame -- especially in light of
how the CE cites those passages as
though corroborative of the claim
that the Ascension occurred 40 days
after the resurrection. The problem
is that those passages say nothing
about 40 days. In fact, those passages are taken out of context. A reading of the entire chapter they were
taken from reveals a dramatic contradiction of the 40 day time frame
for the Ascension.
Mark 16:19 says, “So then, after
the Lord had spoken unto them, he
was received up into heaven, and sat
on the right had of God” (Mk. 16:19;
KJV). Nothing is said in this passage
about when the Ascension occurred.
Now consider the rest of Mark chapter 16:
In Mark 16:9-19 (summarized)
we are told, “Now when Jesus was
risen early the first day of the week,
he appeared first to Mary Magdalene out of whom he had cast seven
devils . . . after that he appeared in
another form unto two of them, as
they walked and went into the country . . . afterward he appeared unto
the eleven as they sat at meat, and
upbraided them with their unbelief
and hardness of heart because they
believed not them which had seen
him after he was risen . . . so then
after the lord had spoken unto them,
he was received up into heaven and
sat on the right hand of God” (Mk.
16:9-19; KJV).
Clearly, Mark does not say that Jesus ascended on the 40th day after
the resurrection. Instead, Mark says
that Jesus ascended on the day of his
resurrection. This is a major contradiction. Now, let’s look at what Luke
says.
The CE cites Luke 24:51 which
reads, “And it came to pass, while
he blessed them, he was parted from
them, and carried up into heaven.”
Just as with Mark 16:19, there is no
mention of any time frame here - but now have a look at the rest of
Luke chapter 24 (summarized):
“Now upon the first day of the
week, very early in the morning,
they came unto the sepulcher . .
. and they found the stone rolled
away . . . and returned from the
sepulcher, and told all these things
unto the eleven . . . and behold, two
of them went that same day to a village . . . which was from Jerusalem
about three furlongs . . . and it came
to pass that while they communed
together, Jesus . . . drew near . . .
and they drew nigh unto the village
. . . and [Jesus] made as though he
would have gone further . . . but they
constrained him, saying, Abide with
us: for it is toward evening . . . and
they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the
eleven gathered together . . . and as
they thus spake, Jesus himself stood
in the midst . . . and they gave him
a piece of broiled fish . . . and he .
. . did eat before them . . . and he
led them out as far as to Bethany .
. . and blessed them . . . and while
he blessed them, he was parted from
them, an carried up into heaven”
(Lk. 24:1-51; KJV) (emphasis mine).
Luke, as does Mark, claims that
the ascension occurred on the day of
the resurrection -- not 40 days later.
What discrepancy. On the one
hand, we have Mark and Luke telling
us that Jesus ascended into heaven on
the day of his resurrection. On the
other hand, we have Acts (supposedly
written by Luke who must have forgotten what he wrote in his Gospel),
John, and the CE telling us the ascension happened many days, at least
eight days, or, 40 days later. The Book
of Acts tells us one thing; John tells us
another; and, Mark and Luke tell us
yet another story. Which one should
we believe? Why should such a choice
be put to us to begin with? The Bible
is supposed to be infallible; the Catholic Encyclopedia is supposed to know
its stuff; Luke’s Gospel should not be
contradicting the Book of Acts, which,
supposedly, Luke also wrote. What a
confused mess. And then the New
Testament has the gall to tell us that,
‘God is not the author of confusion”
(I Cor. 14:33). If that’s true, then one
must conclude that God did not author the New Testament. Either that,
or it is all one big hoax.u
LareDOS | FEBRUARY 2007 |
79
Otro Punto De Vista
As a country, as a spiritual group, as individuals –
we are but a shadow of our original intent
Dear Raul,
on’t give accuracy the center
stage when reading the Bible. The
stories and their characters are meant
to reflect the concepts and thoughts of
their authors at the time they were documenting their experiences. “Authenticity” and “without error” are attributes
maintained by the Catholic Encyclopedia
and are legitimate only to the Catholics
who choose to believe it. This is true for
all belief systems including yours and
mine.
When god was a woman thousands
of years ago, the privileged Mayans,
men and women, would travel great
distances to the Island of the Swallows,
the Golondrinas. it was called Cozumel.
Upon arriving at the Island, they would
look for the stone road that would lead
them to the center of the island, the
highest elevation, the temples of Ix-chtel. There they would ask for a husband,
a wife, or a child. Children of marriageable age were also taken to be paired off
with a suitable mate as selected by their
parents and the high priests. The young
men and women were separated in different temples, each receiving instruction as to the duties and responsibilities
of marriage and parenthood. Once the
training was completed the marriages
would take place and the new couples
were observed by the elders and priests
for 30 days to insure the lessons had
been well learned, the rituals of respect
and service were in practice.
When god was a man thousands of
years ago, the privileged of the Jewish community would also take their
children to a temple. These children
D
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were separated into different groups.
The groups separated by gender were
housed in different temples. The girls
were trained as to the protocol of their
gender within their religious beliefs.
The young men were taught to read and
understand their holy scriptures. They
were ordained into the rituals of their
religious society. The high priests were
also assigned the responsibilities of selecting the appropriate spouse for these
young men and women. Once betrothed
and presented to the public, they would
continue in their responsibilities and
tasks as mandated by the Rabbis and
would await the designated date for their
marriage as required by Jewish law.
What do these different religious cultures have in common? They have followers with a will submissive to the authority of their religious leadership. Religions have been formed, shaped, and
made visible by the authority of those
the people, their believers, have trusted.
The success or demise of any relationship whether of people within a group
such as a religion, the government of
a country, or the unity in a family or a
friendship is based on the strength of
this trust. Trust is a well-worn word
with good intentions. It proposes to
unite with confidence in an outcome
that is acceptable to all involved. It assumes that all involved are of the same
mind and direction and will accept the
will of the leaders. It nullifies ego and its
muscle with the gentle submission of its
presence as an individual to another’s
decision. But trust no longer carries the
original concept on its shoulders; it cannot.
We have bent, mutilated, and tortured it. Trust now holds our attention
in relation to the insurance it carries, so
it isn’t trust at all. What is it, this modified concept of an element that is considered a virtue to be sought, upheld,
and honored? It is a reflection of who we
have become, a people trustworthy and
trusting only contingent on outcome.
We trust only if the outcomes are
agreeable within the scope of our expectations. We trust our leadership until it
becomes evident that their erred decisions are costing us more than money.
We trust our religious leaders until we
read that their opinion of other religions
is flawed with their spiritual ego.
We trust our friends and family until
we perceive that their interpretations of
our goals is misunderstood, and therefore it is best not to reveal ourselves.
So what have we become as a country, as a spiritual group, as individuals?
We are but a shadow of our original intent. This intent is still strong enough to
merit modification by governments, the
early church, and individuals as they
assemble their score sheet of life and its
obligations to the matter. In this modification we have rewritten the code of
ethics by which trust is interpreted. We
try to maintain the original meaning but
we have modified the journey of trust.
We have streamlined it to answer to our
age of technology where the merits must
be well selected so there is no chaos in
failure. What are the merits? Where does
the new journey take us? We travel to a
place where all is superficial, where exterior appearances are valued, where the
matter is held in high esteem and where
trust is a five letter word recently graduated as important on the list of what to
do and be. However, the journey to become is treacherous with distractions
from its neighboring predecessors ego
and self-indulgence. Try it. Take a leap
of faith and check out where you have
landed. To trust is not an easy task.
The benefits can seem of little consequence in a world where the appearence
of winning is preferable. In the greater
scheme of opportunity and action, trust
becomes the mantra of the follower, the
brass ring of the leader. It benefits from
those that choose to acknowledge it as
desirable; it fails when it is overridden
by the ambitious as a hollow sound in
their effort to be manipulative leaders.
The Bible stories and their authors were
all trying to say the same thing. Once
upon a time there came a man to this
earth plane that trusted his beliefs, his
heart and his God so much that he released his spirit from his matter to prove
that the Divine within us was most
trustworthy, dependable, and eternal.
He proved it. Today the message of Jesus
the Christed prevails over all interpretations of his life by his authors. The greatest gift anyone can give or receive is love,
and this precious gift is built with trust.
If we could really understand this, there
would be no dissention, no conflicts, no
wars. Battles would reflect struggles of
grace, running to a finish line where
everyone was a winner. Measure the
love in your life by the trust within you.
Don’t be surprised if you find out you
have never loved at all.u
MAEGC
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Social Notes
Kathryne Elyse Williams
celebrates quinceañera
K
Katie Jarzombek, escorted by Michael
Elizondo; Kristian Regalado, escorted
by David Oliva; Ashley Gutierrez,
escorted by Nick Ramirez; Kathleen
Pike, escorted by Tyler Garibay; Cynthia Vela, escorted by Chris Soliz; and
Amanda Montemayor, escorted by Oscar Lira.
Kathryne is a freshman at United
High School. She is a member of the
United High School FFA Program,
LIFE Jr. Board of Director, Texican
Jr. Cattlewomen, and her local youth
group. She plans to pursue a career in
education after high school.
Kathryne is the daughter of Claudia
Williams and Billy Paul Williams.u
Courtesy Photo
athryne Elyse Williams celebrated her 15th birthday Saturday, February 24, with a mass offered
by her family at the Laredo First Assembly of God Church. A reception at the
Monte Carlo Hall followed. Celebrating with her were damas and escorts
Monsie Bedolla, escorted by Armando
Gonzalez; Amanda Johnson, escorted
by Patrick Castañeda; Brianna García,
escorted by Michael Martinez; Ashley
Light, escorted by Jonathan Cortazzo;
Anahi Torres, escorted by Jonathan
Galvan; Carissa Gutierrez, escorted by
Christian Bowles, Stephanie Balderas,
escorted by David Ballesteros, Alyssa
Martinez, escorted by Rick Velasquez;
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