SEMPER FI: On This Memorial Day, A Brave Soldier's Story...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Special to The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - The story of Sgt. Rafael Peralta will drive you to tears - some out of total sympathy and most out of sheer anger. Sgt. Peralta, a native of Mexico and a resident of San Diego when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, was killed in November, 2004 during the Second Battle of Fallujah, Iraq following the U.S. invasion. He was 25 years old.

What followed was a request by Marines who had been in battle with him that he be awarded the Medal of Honor - the nation's highest military award. Peralta, they said, had fallen on a grenade and saved the lives of six or seven members of his squad. His story is well-known in Southern California and among Marines who say medals awarded for valor in Iraq have been slow in coming. The issue is taken up in a story included in this weekend's New York Times Magazine titled, "What Happened to Valor?"

Peralta, who gained citizenship while in the Marines, was buried at the National Cemetery in San Diego with full military honors. And then his mother, Rosa Peralta, was informed her son (shown in photo above) would be recommended for the Medal of Honor.

But a review ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that included autopsy reports by doctors assessing Peralta's wounds eliminated Peralta from the medal, with Gates telling Rosa Peralta that doctors could not verify the Marines' account. Instead, Gates said Sgt. Rafael Peralta would be receiving the Navy Cross, the second-highest American military award given to a Marine.

Rosa Peralta told Gates he could go to Hell.

Her anger: The Navy Cross citation had this written on it: "Without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Sergeant Peralta reached out and pulled the grenade to his body, absorbing the brunt of the blast and shielding fellow Marines only feet away."

George Sabga, Rosa Peralta's lawyer and himself a former Marine, said this to the magazine: "I asked the general, 'How can you say that there were doubts and yet you give us a Navy Cross that says that Sgt. Peralta did the exact same thing that the (fellow) Marines say he did?' "

For Rosa Peralta, a chance to bring better closure to her son's death ended in military bureaucracy not open to appeal. Lawyer Sabga nonetheless says he will continue the fight for Peralta's Medal of Honor, that Marines from across the country are coming to Sgt. Peralta's side.

No one disputes that Peralta served the United States with enthusiasm. There are other signs of his patriotism, examples that clearly showed he loved America. Three items hung on his bedroom walls inside his family's home: a copy of the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and his boot camp graduation certificate. And in the days before he shipped out for Iraq, he wrote this for his 14-year-old brother: "Be proud of me, bro...and be proud of being an American."

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When the Night Comes Calling: In Brownsville, One More Crazy Move...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - What is it about this town? Why some sort of idiocy every week? Where did it go wrong? Blame is a hydra-headed serpent for the 120,000 love-starved residents of this bordertown known for doing the Funky Chicken with one musical note that repeats itself for decades and decades.

Now comes the district attorney to muddle that civics lesson denizens of this burg carry in their skulls like a .22 caliber bullet doing its damndest to rip through still-evolving brains. D.A. Armando Villalobos, no relation to Luca Brasi, wants to remove Mayor Pat Ahumada from office. The reason is as clear as a second-day rain on one of those late-November deluges arriving in a cyclic gray, light-gray, dark-gray, gray, light-gray, dark-gray, gray.

This is what Villalobos wrote in a statement released to the press this weekend, after noting tht he had requested and been given police files related to a DWI arrest of the mayor last May 11th: "We additionally intend to look into the removal statutes. We are making inquiries into the procedures that (the city of) Brownsville has adopted for removal."

For Ahumada (shown in photo above), it was one more ride on the political merry-go-round that just won't let him get off. He had little to say yesterday when contacted by crackerjack reporter Emma Perez-Trevino of The Brownsville Herald.

"Mr. Villalobos is the DA and is at liberty to speak anyway he wants," said the Falstaffian mayor. "I am the defendant. As the defendant, I defer all comment to my attorney."

Being the defendant in the B-grade flick that is Brownsvile is nothing new for the mayor, which may be why Villalobos wishes to erase the mayor's election. Oddly, the mayor's attorney, the indefatigable Star Jones, declined to comment.

Prior to his most recent arrest, Ahumada had stood trial on charges of felony theft. Something about a $26,000 check written by the City of Brownsville for an East Coast vendor that somehow found itself into the mayor's bank account. Ahumada was found not guilty, however. The mayor does count two other DWI charges, one resulting in a conviction and the other a dismissal.

What may be motivating the DA is anybody's guess, although rumors run wild here that Villalobos has higher political ambitions. Taking down the popular mayor may be seen as a feather in his hat by his camp.

But can the DA render an election null and void? Can he overturn a vote for something as silly as a DWI? A DWI charge in the Rio Grande Valley is the equal of a jaywalking charge elsewhere. As Perez-Trevino deftly noted, Brownsville is a home-rule city governed by a charter, which specifically provides for recall elections to remove any member of the commission. A unilateral removal of the mayor may not sit well with the revolutionary types here. Ahumada, as well, has been known to take up a fight placed before him.

Still, the pudgy Villalobos is steadfast, saying he will study the state procedures for removal of the mayor, "then will proceed with the basic removal procedures set forth by the State of Texas that proscribe removal from office for public intoxication."

Pending resolution of the mayor's last arrest, it would seem something of a cart-before-the-horse approach by DA Villalobos. The question hangs like a dark, foreboding cloud over the city: Will Villalobos undo the people's will?

He's been known to be a petulant public servant himself...

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For Rio Grande Valley Residents, A Wish For Physically-Fit Cops...

By JOHN MONTOYA
Special to The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Yes, of course we've heard about city cops who wake up screaming for a free donut, usually a jelly-filled. And, then, yeah there they are at the donut shop, or at the Tex-Mex eatery where the owner offers free coffee and as many tortillas as a cop'll eat. At noon, it's no doubt a tamale plate chased with a hefty bowl of menudo. Supper is a plate of six-eight chicken tacos with the family.

Police in the Rio Grande Valley will tell you they can't help but gain weight.

Well, their brethren in Mexico City have a few words for our heavyset fuzz: diets, as in required dieting ordered by city administrators tired of seeing portly, basketball-sized bellies on the men in blue (see photo above). Mexico City is checking calories and placing fat cops on notice that their jobs are at risk. Jeepers, creepers, it's gotta be Hell to live in a land where tacos and enchiladas rule. How can you talk calories when discussing Mexican food? Look around. Your cops are eating extremely well!

Here, in the lovely Rio Grande Valley's Most-Mexican town, citizens have long seen their officers puff-out as their tenure grows. "If they're not stopping for a snack, they're refusing to step out of their air-conditioned cruisers cause it's too hot," said one resident whose wild laughter belied his seriousness.

Not that things get better in nearby Harlingen or McAllen uprange. Cops in the Rio Grande Valley, spanning towns from Rio Grande City to the far west to South Padre Island barely miles northeast of here, get paid well and so they eat well. There was the story about the small Valley town where its police department had a designated "panson," a title speaking solely to gluttony.

So, which RGV community has the thinnest, in-shape cops?

That's a damned good question...

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In The Breezy City of Palms, A Blossoming Cry For More Palms...

By RON MEXICO

Staff Writer

McALLEN - Here, in the cradle of the Rio Grande Valley's forward-thinking philosophy, it is an age-old scrap that has the population branching out to take sides: McAllen's abandoned botanical gardens is doing its damndest to make a comeback worthy of Cleopatra's flings following Julius Caesar's assassination that fateful day in Rome.

At issue: This fast-growing city of 110,000 desperately wants a national tennis center where Big Time tournaments - college and otherwise - would bring tourist money to the City of Palms. Behind that push is Mayor Richard Cortez (shown in photo). Fighting against it is a new group of McAllenites apparently thinking that, yeah, there may just be enough concrete and asphalt anything in town already, and, sure, why not opt for a little grassy knoll here and there.

As reporter Sean Gaffney put in a recent edition of The Monitor: Victorious in their campaign to save McAllen’s Botanical Gardens from a tennis compound, eco-minded activists plotted strategy earlier this week for what could prove to be more difficult than swaying an election: persuading the city to reopen the long-neglected park. The group's name sounds neat: McAllen Parks and Habitat Preservation Coalition.

And then he quoted a local woman who put things in perspective: “The hardest thing for us to do now is to keep the ball rolling,” Marilyn LaMantia, a McAllen native, said in a meeting held by the group. “Now we need to be responsible and develop it.”

Botanical gardens are the rage across the country. In theory, they are supposed to be respites from the noise and hullabaloo of a city-on-the-move. You know, the traffic, the construction, the road rage, the neighborhood spats, the entire symphony of Life.

McAllen folks want a patch of Earth, and that is what they are telling the mayor. Tennis can go elsewhere, they say. Slapping of fuzzy-covered balls is a racket they do not wish for this burgeoning community now used to getting what it wants, whether it be new cafes, new stores, new coffee shops, new magazines, new people, new cars, new homes, new everything.

"There really is no place where a guy can go fall on a nice grassy hill under some tree shade and just flake-off for an hour or so," said another resident. "We need a nice, well-maintained park like that."

If the mayor is listening, he isn't saying...

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In Feisty Harlingen, Smalltown Hubbub Roils The Community...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - The Waffle House here is not exactly The Havana Cafe in Mexico City or The Palm Lounge in Brownsville, places where locals gather to coldly and unmercifully dissect politicians, especially the recalcitrant ones who would rather operate in the dark and with impunity.

Noise moving up and down city streets and cafe counters has it that the Harlingen City Commission is taking on the air of one of those Lebanese or Japanese government bodies where harsh words always lead to shoe-throwings and punches thrown willy-nilly. Here, you say with incredulity. In lonely, oft-ignored Harlingen? Here? Here in the town the rest of the Rio Grande Valley forgot? Here?

Yes, here. Seems, as they say in westerns, that schoolmarm - uh - Commissioner Kori Marra has riled a hornet's nest with her style of governing. Caustic, say critics. More than caustic, scream others. Talk has it that she disliked the Harlingen Post website. The Post is gone. We don't follow every word said or written about any RGV pol, but weird stuff about Madam Marra keeps, uh, coming up. Is it merely the idle work of her critics? She's a pleasant looking lady, from what we can see - sort of a cross between CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric and Brownsville City Commissioner Melissa Zamora. And, we're told, she's only been a commissioner for one (1) year, hardly enough time to ruffle even a dead bird's feathers.

Yet, there it is - a burgeoning catfight between what locals call the Old Guard (including Mayor Chris Boswell) and a new breed of city commissioner, those elected in the most recent races. So, who knows? All we hear is what we hear. In our effort to get to know Madam Marra a bit better, we engaged her in an Email chat to do with a few softball questions we wanted her to address. She declined, or at least did not respond following her decision to do it. It's just something we don't associate with a realtor, which we hear is her profession. Realtors are trained to consider requests of all kinds, at all hours.

We handed her five (5) questions. Five!

We're still waiting for her responses, even as sleepy, little Harlingen burns...

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[Editor's Note: We are told by a reliable source that Commissioner Marra's first campaign treasurer was the spouse of The  Harlingen Post's operator. As happened, says our source, it was when comments critical of her bid grew in number that the treasurer asked her husband to shut down the website. We're open to reading/posting Ms. Marra's version of this tidbit...]

In South Texas, An Annual Fight Against The Hot, Blistering Sun...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - Yeah, we know summer doesn't get here officially until June 21st. But, Hell, it's hot as, well, Hell already. I feel it. You feel it. We all feel it. Temps are in the 90s now, with humidity just as high, which spells discomfort and everything that comes with it, like anger in the kitchen, rage in the streets and prayer in the churches.

But it, too, is a time for slowing down. Yeah, amble over to the AC control and set it at 76 degrees in the daytime and 78 at night. Lose the polyester clothing. Get a freakin' haircut. Go slow on the booze. Don't get physical with the Old Lady in the afternoon. Breathe deeper. Have sex standing up.

Yes, this is the Season of The Sun.

Okay, so who is the woman in the photo atop this posting? If you looked at it hard and said, "Why, that's...that's my Old Lady!"...well, head for this Island of Weekend Sinning and throw some sand on both of yourselves. Find her, do the lost-little-puppy act she loves, then join her in a dash to the cool waters of the Gulf of Mexico for a soaking. She'll tell you it's cool to feel that certain wetness between your legs...

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In The Nooks & Crannies of The Rio Grande Valley's Backroads, A Man Finds His Palate in Birding...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

SAN JUAN, Texas - We were halfway through a late-afternoon snack at a place called La Mejicana when someone said the Rio Grande Valley just can't get past chicken tacos and nachos as the fare of choice. Tacos, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On weekends, often at 2 Ayem at one of those 24-hour taquerias where you see the dispossessed arrive in ragged khaki pants and the pretty people in fancy evening gowns. We are in a rut.

The other day, while driving up and down U.S. 83 like a moron and looking for a new place to stop and taste different grub, it hit me that perhaps it's time someone went goddamned wild and introduced some new dishes to Valley cooks and chefs. I could use some pheasant. Sure. And maybe some yak. Who knows? Crocodile nuggets could be The Next Big Thing in the RGV.

All I know this morning is that I must have eaten six-seven cows one fajita plate at a time. And maybe that's why my skin has turned leathery, although it has saved me from the wrinkling effects of the bright South Texas suns. I swear most women here look like they've been to the desert and back. Yeah, maybe more seafood would help. I mean, we're here on the lip of the Gulf of Mexico, so...

Tonight, I'm going for a new plate of something or another. Bird, yeah. Serve me a bird, honeybuns. Yeah, a whole one, head included. I wanna try something else. No, no salsa, no chips, no tortillas. Hand me the silverware and bring me the appropriate wine. I'm a new kind of freakin' birder, baby...

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In England, One Helluva Mess Offers Glimpse Into Grubby Royal Life...

By AMARANTE CORDOVA
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - A woman serving this city's government lately has become the punching bag of numerous pundits, including one who called City Commissioner Kori Marra a "Dragon Lady" after seeing her in action at Harlingen City Commission meetings. Headstrong lady this real estate woman, yes. But, really, eh...there are tough female cookies all across the rough & tumble Rio Grande Valley, a land where women, like their men, now sport the look of weathered saddles thrown atop range fencing that goes for miles and miles.

But it could be worse for our women.

They could go silly and take-on the business acumen of the Brit Sarah Ferguson (shown in photo above). The princess is in deep menudo over across the Atlantic, where the population now agonizes over Sarah's involvement in a plot to sell access to her former husband, Prince Andrew. The English cry: Sale of Royals! Wow and double wow. This morning, a remorseful Sarah is acknowledging the contents of a video taped by the scandal-happy Weekly News of The World - a publication owned by Gonzo Journalist Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame.

So, what's this all about? Not much. It's just the latest do-nothing Royal mining the sentiments of the commoners for quick cash. In this case, the video shows Sarah asking for a half-million dollars in exchange for an introduction to the prince, a man who, according to reports, dabbles in helping bring Big Business to the island country. According to Sarah, she is being forced to live on a mere $21,000 in annual support awarded by a court following her divorce from Randy Andy.

A half-million smackeroos for access. Seems something, yeah. And, sure, it's sad that it took a news organization's juicy plot to bring her greed to light. But, then, she is a Royal, or a woman still aligned with the Queen of England. And, as Flapper-era novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald noted a few years back, the rich, well, the rich are different.

Something, however, tells me Prince Andrew was in on this cheap scam...Perhaps the flirty Queen, as well. Those Royals are used to getting cash for doing nothing...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE: We do not as yet know Harlingen City Commissioner Kori Marra. But we have extended an invitation that she answer a few questions for us, so that we can provide publicity for her philosophy on governing the sleepy municipality between McAllen and Brownsville.]

In The Hardluck Mayor's Hometown, A Rumbling of Posturings...

By RON MEXICO

Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The couple seated at a nearby table couldn't help but be loud. Thanks to the noisy joint, one had to raise one's voice to be heard, even across the dinner table. "I don't know," the man was saying in one one of those late-night flick voices. You know, deep and haunting, uttered as if from the gutter. I strained to listen, cause I hadn't heard the woman's question.

She repeated it.

"What will Brownsville be like after the mayor is kicked out of office?" she posed, eyebrows lifted to the low ceiling. This was thrown out seconds before she inhaled deeply and sat back on the table's chair. Her companion made a face and shook his head. "You don't know?!" asked the woman.

"No," he said tersely. "I don't know, and no one else knows, okay?"

The scene could have been one out of any political movie, one where the mayor finds himself in a world-class mess. Pat Ahumada, the mayor of this border town of some 120,000 love-starved souls, has been in some sort of mess or another during the last six-eight months. Booze grabbed him last, or so goes the allegation. Ahumada was arrested and the tale was that overweight city cops had nabbed him drunk behind the wheel of his vehicle. It was enough to bring out what locals call El Chisme.

Will the mayor serve out his term, which expires next year, or will he resign and bid farewell to a city he surely believes is snakebit? No one knows, and no one is talking.

WWAD: What will Ahumada do?...And what about the whispers on the Internet and the talk in the hair salons and bars? Candidates are said to be waiting on filing day. Two of them are the mayor's colleagues on the Brownsville City Commission. WWAD?...

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For Fabled New York Writers Room, It's The End of Typewriters...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Special to The Tribune

NEW YORK - The thing about Greenwich Village here is that its creative energy flows freely, from bars, to cafes, to musty hallways of the aging brownstone apartment buildings, to the streets. Great songs are written here, as are beautiful stories, for books and magazines, as are absolutely gorgeous love letters. Usually, it all begins with a beer or a glass of wine, perhaps a moment of sheer flirtation with some foreign woman in town for a few months.

Then there is the Writers Room in the heart of the Village not far from the White Horse Pub where Edgar Allen Poe used to drink himself silly. Writers using the facilities pay $29 a week for access to neat, private cubicles there on Broadway, near Astor Place. It's been here forever and is said to have attracted the likes of Bob Dylan and John Phillips of The Mamas and The Papas and the poet Ted Hughes. For the longest part of its existence, the Writers Room was somewhat noisy in the same way that newsrooms used to be noisy - that click-clack-clacking of typewriter keys dominating sound.

But no more.

The Writers Room recently let it be known that typewriters would no longer be allowed in the premises. The reason: laptop users complained that typewriters were too noisy, that they made it difficult to think and, thus, write. It's another sign of progress.

In any case, that is how this tale is being framed...

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For One Happy Man, Time Doesn't Stop, But It Does Wait...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Special to The Tribune

FORT WORTH, Texas - My daughter Gabrielle likes to call me from New York to ask me how things are going. She knows. She knows little changes in my life. She knows I still enjoy my black coffee in the morning in the company of my ragged coffee shop gang. She knows I still don't eat my veggies. She knows I still won't cut my hair. She knows I still don't have that one woman in my life. She knows I'm getting older.

"How old are you this year, Dad?" she asked on the morning of my most recent birthday.

I replied as I have replied for the past decade, "Hon, I'm still younger than Mick Jagger."

She laughs beautifully, as 24-year-old Kiddoes can do, tells me that's funny and soon goes to more serious topics, like have you been to the doctor, and have you bought new clothes, and have you thought about going Vegan, and have you made that haircut appointment, and have you bought new boots, and have you been nice to women. It is stuff a divorced father would expect to hear from a daughter.

This comes to you after watching Jagger on Larry King Live last night. As most of my friends know, I'm a huge Rolling Stones fan. My long hair has little to do with The Stones and more to do with a complete disdain of short hair. My dress is casual, faded jeans being a big part of my small wardrobe. Perhaps it has much to do with my younger days, when I enjoyed being what it was I was - a rebellious college student who morphed into a rebellious journalist. Do I feel old? Only when I think of it, which is never.

Life gives you chronology, but you don't get a road map. You are here only for a certain time, but time is defined in part by you. The road is long, is what I like to say. And one is free to get on and off it at anytime. For me, life is daily; that is, I make certain that something happens every day, something new & different, whether a drive to a new breakfast eatery or chat with a woman I've never seen before. Who knows? Maybe I should look and act my age.

Maybe...yeah, maybe...

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For Politicians, The Mood of A Nation Begins To Unfold Today...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - For savvy local political junkies, and for Americans who give a damn about the country, today is one of those glimpses into the living room of the national spirit. Races of Congressional note play out today in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Arkansas. These primary contests, it is said, are a precursor of what will come in November.

And in no other race is the mood of the country expected to manifest itself as it will in Pennsylvania, where U.S. Senator Arlen Specter will try to win his first race as a Democrat. He goes up against U.S. Congressman Joe Sestak. Endorsed wholeheartedly by his new party, including President Obama, Specter's bid is nonetheless iffy at best. Sestak, who deferred a request by the party to quit the race, has continued to brand Specter as a long-time Republican who switched parties only when it became convenient. The Republican Party long-ago opted for the candidacy of Pat Toomey, a candidate many said would have defeated Specter had he stayed in his party.

It is the result of today's vote (Super Tuesday) many say will be significant for the Obama Administration. If Specter wins, the White House can count on his full support. A Sestak victory, today and in November when he'd challenge Republican Toomey, would bring the Democrats another independent-thinking, unreliable Joe Lieberman-type.

The voting also is being seen as a measure of just how angry the country is at its politicians, results both parties will use to frame the remainder of their contests...

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For John McCain, Memories Of A Lonely Hanoi Prison...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Special to The Tribune

PHOENIX - Not even the hollow silliness of Sarah Palin can help Republican John McCain. Already, the senior U.S. senator from Arizona is hearing a biting version of Las Golondrinas, traditionally a Mexican goodbye song. Say Adios, John.

Yesterday, campaign manager Shiree Verdone announced she is leaving Johnny to join a 2010 "Republican Victory" fundraising operation. Mike Hellon, a former Arizona Republican Party chairman who had a part-time role as deputy campaign manager, will join her there. According to The Arizona Republic, neither Verdone nor Hellon was fired, said Brian Rogers, McCain's campaign spokesman, who confirmed the staff changes.

It is the latest setback for McCain, a veteran lawmaker who has seen his career fall dizzily to the bottom of his own party's barrel. The 2008 party standard-bearer now plays second-banana to Palin, the resigned governor of Alaska who has turned her role as McCain's Veep in the last presidential race into a veritable gold mine, her life now defined by high-dollar appearances before some of the most insipid national zealots. 

Speaking to staunch Republicans, Palin launched invectives against opponents of Arizona's new anti-immigrant law, saying, somewhat cryptically, "We are all Arizonans now." The cheap, low-brow comment is not being lost on Americans who do not adhere to her segregationist philosophy. In circles not her own, the phrase has been changed to: "We are all idiots now." Palin nonetheless keeps dancing a racist tune that plays well among the less-educated and the more-fearful.

For McCain, this political swansong has to be a bitter pill. He had his chances at being an honorable politicians with ethics and morals. Instead, he chose to play to the Palin crowd in seeking re-election. The thing is: Nothing can help Johnny now. Much of Politician McCain's early image came by way of sympathy expressed by his fellow Americans following his 5-year stint in a Hanoi prison during the Vietnam War. For that suffering, he got his due of national gratitude. But now, as they say in dissolved marriages, McCain is...Gone!...

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In Brownsville, The Mayor Is Tainted By A Crippling Cultural Cocktail...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Tx. - Perhaps it's time for a change-of-pace. Maybe what Mayor Pat Ahumada ought to do is find himself an Argentine bombshell, as did South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. It changed his life forever. And we're pretty sure Ahumada is thinking hard these days about all those Kodak Moments he's experienced at the police station's photo studio.

The jury is still out on whether the mayor actually was legally tipsy when arrested last week, and good arguments have been offered on the Blogs Brownsville Voice and El Rocinante speaking to the conduct of the local Peedee. But was-he-or-wasn't-he is not what this is about. No, many in this love-starved border town of some 120,000 much-whipped souls would like to re-direct the mayor away from his usual diet of scandalous trials and adventures with the city's Boys In Blue.

So, aside from his fishing for a love interest along the lines of Sanford's tastes, exactly what might be able to deliver Ahumada from his God-awful public relations nightmares? If not a hot woman from a faraway land, then what? Is Ahumada a golfer? Does he play shuffleboard? Is he into karaoke? Is analysis the answer? Is the theater really dead?

I dunno, I dunno. But this Falstaffian mayor, seemingly having the time of his life while leading the city, has to make a turn for the better somewhere sometime soon. His wagon is rolling toward the cliff, at least that is the perception left by the many clouds of wonderment that seem to follow him. We are reminded of a line from the movie Goin' South in which Jack Nicholson responds to a query about his inability to gain success by saying: "I know 'bout dreams, Julia. Didn't I wanna ride with the Younger Gang but they wouldn't have me? Muh feelings were hurt...but ah 'cepted it."

Brownsville's mayor needs to lead by example and not, if the many, many rumors are true, merely be the last one out the bar's door...

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For 'Zona, A Man Named Chapo Guzman Is Bad News...

By PAUL HARASIM
Special to The Tribune

PHOENIX - Lost in the debate over this state's new anti-immigrant law - the one that places the hot and bright klieg light of enforcement on Mexicans - is the mess that is this state's battle against the unbridled flow of drugs moving north from Mexico.

Now comes word that Arizona is considered "territory" of the Sinaloa Cartel, the cartel run by Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. According to the current issue of Proceso Magazine, a respected Mexican weekly, El Chapo lays claim to the American drug sieve without apology. "It's wide-open out there," one American federal agent is quoted as saying in the magazine article. "That is one reason why some people in Arizona are angry."

Indeed, Arizona is a desert. Rough, broken geography stretches along its southern border west of Tucson and Nogales. The photo accompanying this story is a reflection of the land that stretches toward Yuma and Southern California. According to the magazine, California's initiative in stopping drug-flow via Tijuana drove the cartels east, to Arizona, which at present battles the illicit trade a lot more than does neighboring New Mexico or Texas.

Drug enforcement officials bemoan the lay of the land, saying they cannot possibly patrol such an expanse of harsh desert; that, yes, the drug dealers look for holes in the enforcement umbrella, that they likely know the ways of the desert better than federal agents used to air-conditioned jeeps and offices....

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In Reynosa, A Public Works Bureaucrat is Gunned Down...

By SEYMOUR HERSH
Special to The Tribune

REYNOSA, Mexico - It goes on. Another day, another killing. This time it was a public official. Who know who it'll be today? 

Yesterday afternoon, crime-weary authorities found the body of Reynosa Public Works Director Roberto Arechandieta Ramos seated in a white Chevrolet Cheyenne, his bloodied body full of bullet holes, said a spokesman for Mexico’s attorney general.

Arechandieta's end came after years of work in law enforcement that included stints as a federal agent with the now-defunct Federal Judicial Police, as a high-ranking Tamaulipas state police officer and as a supervisor under Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Security.

Cops here declined to speculate on a motive for the killing or to lay blame on any individual or group. Reynosa, like other Northern Mexico bordertowns, has been the scene of numerous wanton killings associated with drug cartel territorial warfare. The solution appears to be as elusive as a border woman's hunt for a non-abusive husband. Hopeless, in other words...

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In Brownsville, Honor Has No Home...Mayor Should Resign, Cisneros Should Fade...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The star-crossed mayor here was busted on a charge of driving while intoxicated, while a former city commissioner was arrested in connection with alleged spousal abuse. So, how exactly did that go down in this honor-starved town of 120,000 oft-whipped souls?

Who knows?

A new day came following the shenanigans involving Mayor Pat Ahumada and ex-City Commissioner Carlos Cisneros and...nothing happened. No rioting in the streets, no hellfire voices raised in alarm. As a patron of  a downtown cafe put it, "We're used to it. We're used to Brownsville men drinking and whipping on their wives."

The mayor, no stranger to controversy during his public service journey, quickly declared he would not be resigning. Cisneros reportedly resigned, but his post was that of cohort for County Judge Candidate John Wood, who it is said wasted no time in ridding his ascending campaign of a man characterized in the press as someone who took out his mysterious frustrations on his defenseless wife.

Odd as it may sound, booze and wife-as-punching bag lags low on the community shame ledger, there below kicking and gutting puppies and working as sheriff and then going to prison. Nothing came from any of the mayor's colleagues on the Brownsville City Commission. Not one voice rose to challenge him on his decision to stay as figurehead leader of the community. Booze, then, has a friend in town - as apparently does whomping on the little woman. Cisneros has not gone public with why things went south on lovely South Padre Island between him and his wife. Que lastima.

Ahumada called his arrest an unfortunate incident. But how can that be? The mayor knows full-well what he drank and how much. Why not own-up, ask for forgiveness and at the very least know that you'll take it like a man. Cisneros has no ground to stand on if, indeed, he beat-up his wife. Who knows about these guys? They merely fall into that long line of alcohol-fueled Bad Boys willing to do the Perp Walk while wholly believing there just cannot be anything wrong with violating the law. That's Life in Brownsville for the soiled Macho Community.

Mayor Pat Ahumada should resign immediately.

That would be the honorable thing to do. Cisneros should take his legal lumps and willingly fade from the public eye. Photos taken at the police station should be shame enough. But we doubt that these two social acrobats will change their habits. They are All-Border, All-The-Time, merely the latest foot soldiers in an army of pathetic Brownsville men who do not know the meaning of the word.

Pity...

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For RGV Health Care Industry, It's Time To Pay The Mariachi...

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

WESLACO, Texas - Medicare and Medicaid have been good to the Rio Grande Valley, for patients and businesses, but now it appears the jig may be up. The federal government is shutting down the cash spigot. Abusers of the system are now on notice.

New enforcement efforts indicate the government recovered $2.5 billion in overpayments for the Medicare trust fund last year. it comes after the Obama administration decided to focus attention on fraud enforcement efforts in the health care industry.

Here, in the mid-valley, owners and operators of health care clinics and services have begun to feel the pinch. "I'm looking over my records twice," said one clinic manager. "Jail is a distinct possibility, is what they're telling us."

The Rio Grande Valley is dotted with enterprises geared toward helping the poor and elderly. Medical clinics and hospitals have blossomed like wild mushrooms in the many citties and towns that straddle U.S. 83.

"We've been living high on the hog," said another provider. "You might say we're on the clock now..."

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In Food, You Give Companies An Inch And They Take A Foot...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

McALLEN, Texas - And now this: Subway is threatening anyone making - and selling - a footlong anything with infringement of trademark. The Subway restaurant chain has mailed cease-and-desist letters to mom-and-pop eateries nationwide that use the term "footlong" to describe menu items.

"I saw that and I said, 'Get outta here!'" said Tom Rodriguez, owner of a designer hot dog eatery in town, who received one. He said his shop has been advertising footlong hot dogs since 2005.

Subway counters that the company has applied for trademark protection related to the term "footlong."

Word is Subway may not be interested in small-time hot dog eateries, but a spokesman for the sandwich giant said the company is still targeting shops advertising footlong sandwiches.

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Along The Banks of The Rio Grande: In Northern New Mexico, That Is...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Special to The Tribune

SANTA FE, New Mexico - The word in the streets here is not about drunken mayors or abusive husbands. Not even close. Here, no doubt, some wayward cowboy is likely guzzling a beer over at Tiny's Lounge, readying his lies for the little woman doing her best with her adobe life. Yeah, there are hardluck stories everywhere these days. It's almost Summer and again the town agonizes over its up & down water supply. Some woman was in the paper the other day with her soft-moaning tale of errant prairie dogs hassling her squirrels. Another called the night editor of The Santa Fe New Mexican to say she'd found a ragged copy of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel she thought someone would want returned.

Elsewhere in town, it was just another nice early weekday, winds sloping down from the Sangre De Cristo Mountains and the people over at 10,000 Waves Japanese Spa busy readying their lovely, lovely joint. I enjoy going there. For 50 bucks, you get a private hot tub and two towels. A requisite: nudity.

You stay there an hour, jumping from the cold-water tub to the hot one while angling meaningful body parts at one another and pretty soon the little lady says she's working up an appetite. I eat better after sex. It's just who I am. New Mexico venerates me in many ways. I am somewhat known around here, especially over at The Coyote Cafe, where I always reserve a table in the rooftop dining area, there alongside the open-air bar.

Darlene's still living here. She and some other woman own a real estate outfit catering to big-pocket Easterners. She smiles whenever a few years roll by and, one day, I'm back in town. Her dog - Zuleika - forgets about me, but the barking stops at midnight. Darlene keeps my document files in her computer, even a few unfinished stories from the early 1990s. We're close, or as close as the road allows. She's from Canada, although that's so far back in her past she claims New Mexico as her homeland. We used to spend long Saturdays and Sundays together, over at Nambe Falls, where we threw rocks into the creeks between fish kisses, and up in Taos, where we hung out at some plaza hotel bar until closing. Along the way, she liked to stop at Embudo Station on the banks of the passing Rio Grande, where we sat at a patio table in the place's only eatery. Chili pie, baby, is what I'd say to the waitress. Then came Darlene's line: "You like her, don't you?"

"I do," I'd say, and that would serve as the agreed-upon demarcation line in our relationship.

I'd marry Darlene, but it's too late for that. We enjoy each other, crazy-love flashbacks especially...

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For Valleyites, Another Charming Moment From The World of Border Marriage...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND - They say he seemed drunk out of his gourd, that he smelled like week-old, rotgut liquor, that he steadfastly declined to take a breathalyzer and blood test for the beach cops and that he had been, well, horribly mean to his defenseless wife. Carlos Cisneros, shown in photo above, thus joined the litany of Rio Grande Valley men accused of abusing women.

This from The Brownsville Herald: Former Brownsville City Commissioner Carlos A. Cisneros was arrested Sunday on charges of driving while intoxicated and assault-family violence. The arrest occurred about 12:45 a.m...He was released...on a personal recognizance bond. South Padre Island police received a call regarding a disturbance in progress at the Padre Grand resort...Cisneros allegedly assaulted his wife while at the resort...She left the resort in a taxi and Cisneros reportedly followed her in another vehicle...An SPI police officer patrolling Gulf Boulevard saw the taxi being followed by another vehicle and stopped both vehicles. After interviewing Cisneros and his wife, the officer noticed that Cisneros displayed signs of intoxication, so the officer administered a field sobriety test...After the test, Cisneros was arrested on the DWI charge and the assault charge...Cisneros refused to take a breathalyzer exam and also refused a blood exam...Precinct 2 Commissioner John Wood met with Cisneros this morning and that Cisneros tendered his resignation, which Wood accepted.

So, is that it? Again? Do we merely shake our heads and say something about boys being boys? Do we let the Macho Hispanic culture win-out one more time? Do we care that another local woman had to endure the stupidities of a Fronterizo? When will it end?...

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In McAllen, A Tame Morning Protest...

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

McALLEN, TX - The mayor of this city stayed all of ten minutes, the county judge even less. And the Hispanic U.S. Congressman who represents the area did his best to mangle the Spanish language. It was billed as a protest rally against the new and harsh Arizona anti-immigrant law, but it may as well have been one of those political pachangas that amount to nothing more than portraits of shallow ethnic pride.

Not more than 200 supporters arrived to have their say on a measure that likely will affect every Hispanic citizen in the country. Arizona has authorized its police officers to stop and question any suspicious person for the expressed purpose of asking whether they are citizens of the U.S. or not. Arrest will follow immediately for those who are not American citizens.

Here, the rally took on the atmosphere of an alegre Cinco De Mayo. T-shirts sold for $5. Someone had been given the job of passing out posters to every attendee, presumably to be waved as the speeches droned-on, or when folks from the press aimed their cameras. If there was any sort of fire within this group, well, it never surfaced in the two-plus hours of this sun-splashed Saturday morning.

McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez broke-out his Spanish and ran through the history of Hispanic contributions to the country's society. County Judge Rene Ramirez, a heavyset Hispanic-looking dude, begged off at first, saying his Spanish was weak at best. It was worse than weak; it was shameful for a public servant of this particular region.

But it was U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa who spoke the longest and said the least. He rolled through the mood of Washington, D.C., regurtitating the words of President Obama in saying he thought Congress did not have the appetite to take-on immigration reform. He criticized the Arizona initiative, but did it in less-than-fiery terms. And when he tried to say the same thing in Spanish, he sounded more like a retard than a politician of some intelligence.

In all, it was a third-rate effort, woefully lacking in the fire needed to combat racism.

And, perhaps worse, a series of Mexican-themed dances by young kids stole whatever urgency the sponsoring group may have had in calling the rally. It was a pathetic backdrop to the real fire-and-brimstone rallies taking place in Los Angeles and Chicago and Houston and Dallas. Too bad. The faces of children tagging along with parents seemed to say they wanted a better fight...

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How Arizona Seceded From The Union, Chapter Two, Verse 11...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief 

PORT ISABEL, TX - On the third day, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio sicced his heavy-booted troops on a section of Phoenix known as home to a large number of Hispanics. By sundown, his blitzkrieg had arrested 89 individuals, with 61 of them deemed to be undocumented immigrants. 

That same morning, the Wall Street Journal published a story saying the Arizona State Board of Education had sent out directives aimed at ridding school districts of teachers whose accent was not English enough, this after word also leaked that the state was wanting to end the Tucson Unified School District's popular Mexican-American studies department. According to the state superintendent, the program exhibits "ethnic chauvinism."

Worse yet was news that Arizona-based Peter Piper Pizza, a staple for kids and parents in the Rio Grande Valley, had declined to say it would oppose the state's anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. Also not wishing to go against Arizona were these popular entities, all with national followings: PF Chang's, Discount Tire Company, Best Western Motels, as well as the state's professional teams that include the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League, Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball and the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association. 

Indeed, protests loom as the month ends and the long, hot summer begins. Already, a jillion people are expected to march in protest tomorrow in Los Angeles, where U.S. Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, have fired-off letters to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to fast-track a review of Arizona's new law.

Conversely, supporters of the law, many of them alerted of Strongman Sheriff Arpaio's raids lined the major thoroughfares heading into Phoenix's East Side, applauding the passing of law enforcement vehicles into the neighborhood and as they left with the arrestees in tow. 

"We're a country at war," one of them told a local TV reporter, sounding too much like a foreigner in a foreign land and not like any would-be citizen at all concerned with the fact that Arizona remains part of a union. Yet, it is a war. It is a war being fought as if on a far-off asteroid, with proponents fully believing the state can do what it wishes when it wishes. 

The backlash, however, will be something to see. 

If this is a portrait of secession, then perhaps we should let it be. I'm pretty sure some neighboring state or country would invade Arizona and quickly bring it to its knees. Perhaps Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the man for that job. If you know Arizona's Anglo population, like I know it, well, many of them could be mistaken for coyotes. It's one jumpy, high-throated sodbuster after another out there. 

Arizona has seceded. What the state now wants is acceptance into the world community. That failing, it will come back into the fold with its coyote tail between its legs, whimpering something or another about how perhaps everything had been a bad idea and the sole, brain-washing work of stupid Republicans. For the moment, it retains The Grand Canyon State as its moniker. But wait too long and some creative soul may change that to The Grand Asshole State. As residents of the world's freest country, we're good at humoring the worst in us. Anyone remember that manufactured cowboy town once known far & wide as Crawford, Texas? 

Yeah, whatever became of that little ball of dust west of Waco?...

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