In Harlingen, A Melancholic Mood Settles Over MyLeaderNews.Com - The City's Number 2 Blog...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - A rare calm moved across this noisy city's Old Guard sector all afternoon yesterday, hours after MyLeaderNews.com - Harlingen's uber-conservative Blog - lost to its chief rival, MyHarlingenNews.com, in The Tribune's Best Blog in Town poll.

"It's a graveyard scene over there, is what I hear," said one wag who'd supported Tony Chapa's MyHarlingenNews.com. "You can almost hear the life-sapping guttural swallows of Maalox on that side of town..."

On his Blog, MyLeaderNews.com's editor Jerry Deal posted this sobering note: "I am surprised that I received 60-plus votes since many of my readers did not know of the poll (I did not either until someone wrote me about it) and I did not ask them to vote for Myleadernews as Tony Chapa did for Myharlingennews."

The final tally was 85 to 63 in favor of Tony Chapa's blog.

"It's huge!" added another resident. "Tony's taken a lingering beating from the crazy neo-cons.  MyHarlingenNews.com is doing the people's bidding, while Jerry Deal works for the Old Guard in town, that small group of self-serving politicians and business suits who have run this community into the ground. The time has come for Jerry to dance his last waltz..."

Deal was not saying much more. Instead, as he often does when criticized, he buried his head in abstract stories he posted following release of the poll results. Indeed, his best journalistic efforts of late have been a Twilight Zone-angled story about mutilated cats and something about how business is done in McAllen - fluff pieces extraordinaire, as his readers might say.

How Deal rebounds from this mind-numbing defeat is what readers now await. There is no Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings game tonight and no Freak Show that was disgraced baseball player Jose Canseco to bail him out. There is no hurricane headed his way to write about. There is nothing new on new City Manager Carlos Yerena or controversial Police Chief Danny Castillo.

No, about all Jerry Deal can hope for is a new assault by Tony Chapa on his pet City Commissioner Kori Marra. When that happens, Deal will bolt from his doldrums like a crazed banshee in her defense, eyes ablaze, arms flailing, feet hoofing it to the computer, mind spinning tales of all-out support and thinning fingers ready to play the only song he knows to play when her name pops up on MyHarlingenNews.com - "You Are My Sunshine."

For the moment, his tires are flat and the only sound being emitted by MyLeaderNews.com readers is a cow-killing symphony of haunting, barnyard sobbing. Cue the battered wagon train pulling out of Tombstone...

- 30 -

THE KNOCKOUT: Tribune Poll Yields Stunning Last-Minute Victory for MyHarlingenNews.com...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - A stunning final push by his supporters carried Tony Chapa and his MyHarlingenNews.com to victory in The Tribune's weeklong poll asking readers to name their favorite local Blog. The final tally was MyHarlingenNews.com 85 to MyLeaderNews.com's 63.

It was Jerry Deal's MyLeaderNews carrying the load for most of the previous six days, in slim and wide leads, but MyHarlingen News saw a flurry of last-minute votes after Chapas rallied his many backers.

It is so: MyHarlingenNews.com is the city's Best Blog - by a respectable winning margin.

The defeat likely will be ill-received by rabid supporters of MyLeaderNews.com, many of whom believe it is Deal who brings the community better material. That may or may not be so, but Tony Chapa rests easy knowing crunch time always brings out the best in his Blog and in his supporters - all who believe wholeheartedly that MyLeaderNews.com pushes drug-using baseball players and perceive that it backs city officials interested in keeping the city tied to its segregationist past.

Of late, MyHarlingenNews.com has kept hammering at officials Deal endorses with an endless stream of fawning, supportive write-ups on MyLeaderNews.com.

"Deal is Old School," wrote one commenter in an Email to The Tribune. "He is writing about a town he remembers, from way back when things were different. Today's Harlingen is not Jerry Deal's Harlingen. He is backing the losing side..."

Wrote another, "Tony Chapa may not be a newsman, but he's the one on the right track if we want to look to the future, not the past. Jerry Deal? Not for me, nope."

The poll will be repeated in three months to see if the mood of the city has changed.

We were taken by Chapa's dogged approach to seek change in Harlingen. The town is seen elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas as a falling town, a community desperately needing - and seeking - change. In the writings we have seen on MyLeadernews.com, that progressive verve is simply not there. Perhaps it is the "Energy" aspect of the equation - Tony Chapa has it and the much-older Jerry Deal doesn't seem to have it.

The Tribune did not investigate reports that one of MyLeaderNews.com's backers had voted as many as 25 times. The final count made that allegation moot. We were given the name of that individual by a reliable source. Ultimately, we decided that the individual in question is a ten-percenter whose contributions to the city's future largely will be nil...

- 30 -

Unbridled Anticipation Grips Harlingen:...But First, The Story Before The Story...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - This is what I get for showing up early, yet another boring assignment. "Write the piece telling of the piece that's coming regarding our poll," wrote Tribune Editor Eliot Elcomedor in an overnight Email to this Gung-ho reporter.

So, excuse me for a few minutes while I go brew a pot of needed coffee.

Anyway, the much-awaited poll results will be tabulated about noon, with the story coming sometime soon after that. Voting continues for a few more hours yet in our search for the Best Blog in this high-energy, low-results community of 74,000 souls.

Man, it's early. And after last night's boozing, well, even my hair hurts...

- 30 -   

In McAllen, A Certain New Orleans Mood Arrives With Gusto In Tow...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - Some other town in the Valley dreams of one day finding itself wearing that Mardi Gras flavoring. You know, party, party, party. A Fun District where the booze and the music would never end. Well, if you find yourself in this western Rio Grande Valley of Texas city on a Friday or Saturday night...you may just get the feeling you're in the heart of the fabled Louisiana bayou.

Brownsville downriver has pined for a French Quarter district ever since Jesus Christ decided against a walkabout into town all those eons ago. It hasn't happened in Brownsville, and it likely never will happen. Such are the dreams of the God-abandoned.

But here - here in the City of Palms - a burgeoning Las Vegas-like strip of bars and restaurants sprouts as if to not do it is to die. Initially, the city's plan for an Entertainment District was to span a four-block stretch on 17th Street south of Business Highway 83. It has moved-on from that 4-block dream. Drive down the drag on a Friday or Saturday and be treated to that mood-changing red and blue and yellow and green and everything else neon that draws people like, yeah, flies.

Bars fill quickly. Music cascades from the rooftop bars, from the innards of expensive joints where the drinks begin at $15 a glass and the strolling vendor rakes in his $12-per rose. Somewhere up Highway 281 moves the tour bus bringing Fats Domino, maybe even Harry Connick, Jr. It'll happen.

We were at Alhambra's on Saturday night, the latest entry into high-dollar restauranting along the strip. It is a neat joint with outdoor and indoor seating, with an expansive layout that includes an air-conditioned bar lit by dark-blue neon. Life moves in to scarf on a full menu of grub and a respectable list of alcohol, wines included. The warm, humid night no doubt accounted for enough party action to satisfy those out for a good time.

I was blown-away by a more-pedestrian joint that just opened across the street from Alhambra - a lovely, diner-like eatery with the very-local name of Durango's Taqueria. I just wanted to stop at the corner, point toward the taqueria and say, "It don't get no better'n that." But I didn't.

We were and weren't in the flow of the geography. And it would have been so easy to sashay up the street toward any of some 30-odd bars to join the yelling, the dancing, the search for the missing biological link. We decided, instead, to go find some evening fare. There would be other forays into the city's Den of Sin. The Strip will grow. It's almost down to Houston Street and the only thing that'll stop it that far south may be old Roosevelt Elementary School.

But, then, if you look at it a certain way, and if you understand the language of the dollar, well, the old school would be one Helluva "Compound Club" - you know, a French Quarter all its own. I'd put together a band and play the ancient hallways of the old school, perhaps the musty auditorium...

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE: ...The photo above this story shows McAllen's Main Street back when it was the center of social life, back when the Palace Theater still offered Hollywood's best. The Palace is no longer there, btw...]

After Long Months of Wicked News, Pro Football Arrives To Renew the American Spirit...

By MELITON BROWN
Sports Editor

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Something neat happens when football season comes around. It is a moment for national renewal, a new beginning when all teams are undefeated and all teams promise the world, that long and rough road to the Super Bowl culminating in a prideful championship.

Yes, we know, the defending National Football League champs New Orleans Saints kicked it off last Thursday night by whipping the Minnesota Vikings 14-9 at the Louisiana Superdome. All but two teams set sail today, with the traveling Dallas Cowboys battling the Washington Redskins in the evening contest. San Diego meets Kansas City to wrap-up the NFL's first weekend tomorrow on Monday Night Football.

It's been a long, long off-season, with the country suffering through a series of crippling calamities on Wall Street and in the Gulf of Mexico. Inbetween came bad politics, bad state law, bad days in Afghanistan, bad news from the Mexican border and bad religion in Florida. Yesterday, the nation paid its ninth respects to the victims of the stunning terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York that morning on Sept. 11, 2001. A glance at the Good News/Bad News ledger would find us shaking our heads more than nodding in approval. It's been a wild & crazy ride that still has the last dash to crucial elections in November.

It'll wear on you.

But today - today! - it's about football. Texans and the Colts, Broncos and Jaguars, that sort of long-awaited stuff...

 - 30 -

NINE YEARS AGO:...A Bloody Moment That Stopped Time in America...Remembering Sept. 11...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - They, and that's historians, too, like to say that Americans no longer remember the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941 - the sneak aerial assault on our Navy base in Hawaii that threw us into World War II. Well, of course Americans remember that "date that will live in infamy," as then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it that fateful day. The sinking of the U.S.S. Arizona? Absolutely.

Saturday is the ninth anniversary of the horrible attack on New York City by terrorist bent on destroying iconic symbols of this great land - the World Trade Center Towers in southern Manhattan. It is a day few have forgotten, and with good reason. Prior to that bloody morning, the American homeland had never been attacked, regardless of what the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa believes happened a century earlier in Columbus, New Mexico. By nightfall on this particular day, both towers would be on the ground and more than 3,000 people killed in the brazen attack that included the use of two American Airlines jetliners flown into the landmark 100-story buildings.

Life changed for the country that morning in many, many ways.

Americans grew to feel wary of foreigners, Persians especially. And they grew to know that things would never, ever be the same again. For us, it was as if no one else could understand our grief, our pain, or anger. But Italians would have felt the exact same thing had terrorists bombed the Vatican into Kingdom Come, or had terrorists downed the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the Kremlin in Russia.

That is  precisely why it still hangs heavy in our national psyche.

America, the greatest country in the world, had taken one for no damned reason, had not been attacked by a foreign flag, but by 19 terrorists, most with ties to Saudi Arabia. Their reasons were as narrow as as is hate between neighbors. A few ventured to say that these terrorists were angry at our involvement in the Persian Gulf War a decade earlier, when American soldiers had liberated tiny Kuwait following the Iraqui bully Saddam Hussein's invasion of that country. The reasons did not fly with Americans. it was too extreme a reaction, too horrible, too barbaric.

It's now been nine years since that day in New York. The heart-tugging images remain as clear as if it all happened yesterday (see photo above).

Perhaps, it'll diminish in scope in 30 or 40 years, in the manner that the pain of Pearl Harbor diminished as the veterans of that era died and the imagery faded with every passing year. Maybe. But, as yet, no one is ready to see 9.11 pass onto the pages of history books. The wound is still open, and it should be...

 - 30 -

TATTOO ART:...Bright-Red Cherries On The Vajayjay...Willie Nelson For The Shrimpers...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Susan Navarro always wanted something colorful on her lower back, something beautiful, is how she put it as she sat inside a tattoo parlor here the other day. Her older brother had one on his upper left arm, but that one was what she called a plain 'Ol heart with an arrow and his girlfriend's cursived name forming a semi-circle under it. She wanted something special.

"My boyfriend's been raggin' me to get one for months," she was saying as the tattoo artist worked on a huge hydra-headed serpent some heavyset guy apparently needed across his back. "So, I'm here, waiting and nervous."

The 32-year-old hairstylist would wait another hour before the tattoo dude would motion over to his station. They talked about it a bit, before he asked her to climb atop a small table and lower her blue jeans. Susan Navarro looked at me, made an "Oh, well" face and proceeded to do something that, well, comes natural for women. Shortly, the inking began and I could see she was taking it well. The artist said something about the coloring of the design she had picked and she would answer in short replies.

The tatoo she wanted was a design she'd seen on the artist's booklet of possibilities. It seemed something like the pin Navy submariners get upon completion of their indoctrination tour, although there was something romantic about this one, perhaps because pink loomed as the primary color. I could see her boyfriend lining up behind it and saying something like, "Too cute..."

Young women in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas wear tattoos in the same way their mother's wore deep-red lipstick - bravely and out in the open. The booklet at this particular parlor included designs as basic as a bloody axe and as fancy as a full-back American bald eagle. It hit me that perhaps a spiderweb down my right leg might serve me well with the local chicks. It was something to think about.

As I left the place, another woman ambled in to ask about a tattoo for her privates. I'd not seen anything in the booklet about that, so I stayed to see what they'd tell her. "We can do it," said the tattoo parlor manager. "But you have to tell us what it is you want on there..."

"A pair of small cherries," she replied quickly. "...in bright-red."

"No problem," she was told as the appointment was made.

I had to ask: "So, what's the weirdest tattoo you've done?"

The guy tattooing Susan Navarro's naked lower back stopped working, looked over to where I was standing and said, matter-of-factly, "Willie Nelson on a shrimper's dick."

That one I could live without seeing. I split the joint, thinking there is a place for tattoos in this world. I just didn't get the Willie Nelson thing, although they say it gets damned lonely in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, and that, yeah, country music is big out there...

- 30 -    

The Other Side of Harlingen:...Where The Old Guard Goes For News...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - The war of words raging across the rolling geography here is pitting the old against the new, and, once more, residents and curious onlookers can only read and gauge, see and decide, feel and opine. It is a popular game in town, even more popular than Bingo.

So, just where does one go looking for news and information for the so-called Old Guard - a somewhat secretive group of phantom operatives reportedly keeping Harlingen down in the civic dumps? Here's where: MyLeaderNews.com. It is a website that portends something else, but clues indicating it rallies behind the Old Guard are all over its content.

Take for instance, its ongoing poll:

It asks: Do you believe the selection of Carlos Yerena as the new city manager was a good choice?

The results:

Yes
22.51%

No
37.07%

Unsure
40.43%

That is only a mere 23% in favor of Mr. Yerena, a man almost unanimously supported by the city's large Hispanic community. The other two numbers, votes cast by people not favoring Mr. Yerena, equal 77% - a whopping number that probably would be more foreboding if MyLeaderNews posted number of votes, rather than percentages.

It says this: The Old Guard reads MyLeaderNews.com.

And that says much about its editor, former Valley Morning Star honcho Jerry Deal, who would not necessarily enjoy being seen as a puppet of politicians and city leaders bent on keeping things as they are and have been for many of the years Harlingen has fallen from grace with success. It is, as they say in philosophy classes, something to think about.

It makes one wonder, sure. Is Jerry Deal now part of the clan of residents uninterested in change? Is he a mere shadow of the objective journalist he claims to be? Is he more attune to minor league baseball as shill for The Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings and the United Baseball League he represents than he is to the cacaphonous sounds of unrest moving across his hometown?

We can only wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder...

- 30 -         

In Florida, A Bonfire To Dishonor Those Who Died Sept. 11th...What's Next For These Racists - A Stomping of The Virgin of Guadalupe?...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - Something is terribly wrong with America. Or perhaps I should say, something terrible is wrong with a certain segment of America when the pastor of a tiny, tiny, tiny church in Central Florida calls out the billion-strong Muslim Nation by burning their Biblical book. This guy is a Nobody, a small-minded, hate-filled man who has a miniscule congregation of 50 lost souls. And he dares, he dares speak for an entire country.

Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, wants to honor the death of those 3,000-plus who died in the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers on Sept. 11, 2001 by staging a Koran bonfire. No one other than racists are happy about this. The White House has said it does not agree, as has the American general who leads our 140,000 soldiers battling the Taliban in Afghanistan. Still, Jones today said he will press onward with the burning.

What mind undertakes such a distorted definition of the word "honor?"

Mr Jones said this on MSNBC: "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats. It is time for America to return to being America." Really? Who is controlling me? Dominating me? From where? I don't feel his pain.

The church made some headlines last year after distributing T-shirts that said "Islam is of the Devil." Now, Jones says his plan has won thousands of followers on Facebook and has been widely reported in Muslim countries. If that is America, then we are doomed. What is it with White people? Why must they always pluck at the rest of the world? We are at war with the fringe element of Islam, yes. But so are we at war against people in this country who do not pay taxes. Jones is indifferent to the fact that many Muslims died in the attack on New York City. He chooses to ignore much about the attack, centering his Made-for-TV crusade on something as flimsy as his education, which is minimal.

How strange is this Jones guy? His estranged daughter gives a different view of why the pastor and his second wife Sylvia divorced. In an interview last year with The Gainesville Sun, Emma Jones said her old man left his previous church after members questioned his frequent dips into the church kitty for personal luxuries. In the report, she called the church a "cult," claiming that parishioners were persuaded to give up their belongings and work for the pastor's business, TS and Company.

But Jones is not the only loose cannon. America is tolerant of its fringe element, perhaps too much. If it isn't this guy, its the self-serving politicians who rag the president about his birth and birth site, who damn the opposition in a manner that shows little regard for the truth. Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi, has taken to tell interviewers the country knows "less" about President Barack Obama than it has known about every other president before him. Tell me, how much do you know about Millard Fillmore? It's games, and it's games that only soil our land and go to insane commentary that never comes to good.

The Fu-Manchued Pastor Jones should be arrested on the spot Saturday, for being unAmerican, for violating the one freedom no one disputes - the freedom to be free of idiots. Yes, we can tune him out. We can watch college football and not the news reports he'll generate Saturday afternoon. We can go to the flicks, to a bar, to the beach, etc., etc.

We all know blind obedience to religion does something to Human Beings. Believers are staunch believers. They're like hornets, forever eager to defend the nest. The religious fanatic knows no restraint. Pastor Jones, no doubt a zealot in his own mind, has no qualms about burning another Man's religious book, and no qualms about putting Americans abroad in danger, no qualms about going in front of television news cameras and spewing hate, no qualms about inciting still more hate.

The Muslims are not the problem. Criminal Muslims are, but we've always known that. Why not burn the much-publicized Al-Qaeda Training Manuals, Pastor Jones? I'd send a generous monetary contribution to your collection plate for that.

For what you're doing Saturday to honor the many innocents who died Sept. 11th, I wish I could send you to Hell...

- 30 -    

In Panama For Elaine's Burial, Former Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz Tries To Grieve...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Special to The Tribune

PANAMA CITY, Panama - I rang the doorbell at the home I'd only known for a few days. Elaine's frail grandmother opened it and let me in after a few slow-motioned seconds, her deep-brown eyes scanning my face in rapid-fashion, as if deciding whether to do it or not do it. I was back here for Elaine's funeral, and perhaps for a bit of reflection about all that had happened in the previous week. It comes late, but natural to a grieving man, this desire to look inward - even when it hasn't been a part of the rolling personality.

Elaine Benitez was gone and her killer, my friend Ron Mexico's kid, now languished in a Panamanian prison hellhole. How had it come to this? Could it have been, as everyone who knew everybody involved believed, simply because of my love for Elaine. Elaine was a widow at the time of our first flirtation! How could anyone take offense? Perhaps, I told myself, I just don't have the smarts to figure that one out.

I walked into the grandmother's home and she motioned me toward the small living room. I wasn't feeling very sociable, but figured this is what is expected of me at this time. Sometimes, I am good at that; other times I am not. We began a small, whispered conversation. I asked about the cemetery and she told me Elaine would go in alongside her dad. Her Mom had been buried next to her second husband, a military man, mainly because she had been married to him longer than she'd been married to Elaine's dad. I asked about the headstone and the grandmother went on and on, describing it in beautiful detail.

And then I inhaled deeply and said I had to go.

"Why?" she asked in a nice, but worried voice.

"I left the engine on," I said.

"But you don't even have a car!" she told me...

 - 30 -

THE HOP SING MOMENT:...Did Former Newsman Jerry Deal Really Say That?...Unbelievable!!!...

"There also are a number of people in this city who are too lazy to get off their butts and get off the welfare. I am not talking about those who can’t find jobs. There are jobs that some people can take, but they would rather get unemployment and welfare checks instead. This is not limited to anglos, Hispanics, blacks and yellows (although orientals seem to be the hardest workers)..." - Harlingen resident Jerry Deal

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - It's been decades since anyone we know used the terms "yellows" and "Orientals" when referring to Asians. Those words left the socially-acceptable lexicon in the late-1950s, or so we thought. But, then, this is Harlingen - a Rio Grande Valley of Texas community still fighting the American Civil War. The height of the surprise came when we saw that the person using the pejorative terminology was former newsman Jerry Deal. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.

Asians, of course, loathe the words "Yellows" and "Orientals." But perhaps Mssr. Deal, editor of MyLeaderNews.com and a former newsroom honcho for The Valley Morning Star, has been gone too long from outdoor American Life. Asian is the acceptable term, not "Yellow," not "Oriental," not "Coolie," not "Chink." One would think that a learned man such as Mssr. Deal would know that. It's anybbody's guess why he would use those terms in a "comment" published yesterday by his rival - MyHarlingenNews.com. Was it a heat-of-the-moment blast at something that perturbed Mssr. Deal? Was it really you, Jerry, or was it some dickless miscreant posting with your name? Inquiring minds want to know.

If it is the Jerry Deal we know, does he sincerely believe that "Yellows" and "Orientals" are descriptive words he can use at will, without consequence. Truth be told, we at The Tribune often use the term "Redneck," but, well, the Rednecks don't mind being referred to as such, do they? Asians, on the other hand, most certainly disdain the terms used by the person identifying himself as Jerry Deal. You won't find those words used in mainstream newspapers or other similarly-minded publications.

You do, however, find them used liberally on a myriad of racist websites.

So, we hope Mssr. Deal posts an apology posthaste.

And if he doesn't, then we'll know where he's coming from, as street-savvy kids like to say these days. This much is true: You can bury yourself in anti-ethnic holes quite easily. Getting out is the bitch...

- 30 -

In Panama, Ron Mexico, Jr. Prepares For A Long Stay In A Tough Prison...

By JOSHUA COFFMAN
Special to The Tribune

PANAMA CITY, Panama - Authorities of this Central American country have jailed former Tribune writer Ron Mexico, Jr. in connection with the killing of acrobat Elaine Benitez last Sunday morning. "It'll be a few months before the case goes to trial," said state prosecutor Luis Cesar Nava. "He could be in prison for a long time before he gets his day in court. He knows he is no longer in America, yes."

The young American writer was arrested at the scene of former Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz's wedding to Ms. Benitez, a well-known Panamanian circus performer. Mr. Alcatraz was not injured in the shooting and those who know him say he is recovering from the traumatic killing at a 5-Star cabana in a coastal village in Guatemala. Ron  Mexico, Jr., said the prosecutor, has been thrown-in with the national prison's general population - a group consisting of muggers, rapists, back-stabbers, gossipers, drug-dealers and killers.

"He's holding up okay," added Nava. "He asked for a received a new toothbrush, but his request for a laptop computer has been denied."

Mexico, Jr. is the son of noted writer Ron Mexico, who himself was viciously murdered in Amsterdam last month soon after being fired by The Tribune. Ms. Benitez was the elder Mexico's widow, a fact many say is at the heart of why Ron Mexico, Jr. may have killed her. Few details have come out about the shooting, but a member of a musical group in attendance said a distraught Ron Mexico, Jr. burst in firing from two pistols while yelling an obscenity in Spanish.

"I saw her fall after being shot in the back and could hear her saying something to the groom," the musician said. "It was something like, 'I don't want to die, Patrick...' " According to the musician, Alcatraz threw his body over Elaine as a stream of bullets sped past his head. "You could see he was royally pissed," said another witness. Ron Mexico, Jr. was tackled by a group of waiters working the ceremony, with one of them tossing one of the guns to Alcatraz while saying, "You kill the sonofabitch!"

Alcatraz is said to have merely stared at Ron Mexico, Jr. and not uttered a single word. When ambulance attendants arrived, Patrick's mouth was on Elaine's mouth, according to wide-eyed witnesses.

"It's a bitch of an ending," said a family member. "Both Rons were great friends of Patrick Alcatraz. But I suppose it goes to show you that nothing - not a Goddamned thing - is ever as it seems. Of course, Patrick had a lot to do with Ronnie, Jr.'s anger..."

- 30 -      

In The Late Rounds of Summer, Harlingen Has No Idea How The Fight's Going...

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death..." - Revelation, 6.8

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - The moment is burned in the minds of many residents here: two young men slumped-over in the front seats of a sporty Mustang, shot and killed in a downtown street. Another frame: The husband of a high-ranking Harlingen Police Department officer accused of molesting children at his karate club, and he's nowhere to be found.

And then came mental scenes involving the case of an HPD captain's niece accused of driving while intoxicated and allegedly running over the body of a young man. The portrait has yet to fill the imagery canvas, as the investigation presumably continues. The fourth frame centered its cloudy crosshairs on City Hall and its long, hot summer of discontent.

In cafes, bars, barbershops, clubs, sewing circles and public laundromats, all agree that it's been one Helluva ride for Harlingen - a Rio Grande Valley of Texas community caught in a killer vice, caught in a range coyote trap, caught in a headlock, caught and unable to get loose. Bad politics plays here like Little League baseball games play elsewhere - crowds behind the respective dugouts eager to get at the others' throats. It is no exaggeration to say this is very much the City-On-The-Spot, for what happens here from now until the end of the year will determine whether anyone inte region gives it a chance to succeed, or whether everyone elsewhere in the area will write-off Harlingen as the next Rio Hondo, a town seemingly unable to bridge from imagery of a falling town to something better.

Citizens here wonder why they get so little from their elected officials, why these public servants dash out on the campaign trail as if world-beaters and then shrink like violets on a scorcher of an afternoon. Issues have surfaced all summer, and, as yet, no elected official has charged out to face the music. No, it is as if Harlingen wants Brownsville or McAllen, its larger neighbors, to come take care of things. Pride, it seems to this observer, does not live in the heart of any member of the Harlingen City Commission. News flashes across the local geography and you're more likely to find the Bloggers after any and all information. The mayor serves as Casper The Ghost might serve. The five commissioners may as well be The Rolling Stones. They're gathering no moss, those five, doing nothing. They're elected officials, elected to do the people's will, yet they have largely melted under the summer sunball.

So, what becomes of Harlingen?

Who will answer the bell for the next few rounds? It'll take some bold commissioner, one willing to mix it up, to throw punches and take blows to the gut, to weather the leather-pusher onslaughts, to be standing when the final bell rings. Is anyone on the City Commisison even up such a task? Which one will show the courage? Which one will bleed for Harlingen in the hard, latter rounds, when the local economy launches its uppercuts, when local unemployment's jabs will feel as if telephone poles smashing into the faces their faces, when hooks to the kidneys drop them to their knees for a standing 8-count? Will it be Mayor Chris Boswell? Can Boswell take the three minutes of Hell Marvin Hagler handed Tommy "Hit Man" Hearns in boxing's craziest round of All-Time?

Will it be Commissioner Robert Leftwich? Can Leftwich land the shocker, or is he Ringo Bonavena, maybe Chuck Wepner, or Leon Spinks - a pretender?

Could it be Commissioner Kori Marra? Does she know the difference between a mouthpiece and a protector cup? Is she heady enough to offer worthy solutions to the city's many problems, or will she bob and weave in the first round, before taking a soft, marshmallow shot to the belly for that convenient dive. Is Commissioner Joey Trevino a player or a chump? What would he bring into the ring - anything? Same for easy-going Commissioner Jerry Prepejchal. When is the last time he got into a tussle of any sort? And Commissioner Gus Ruiz? Perhaps he's the dark-horse, the surprise late-entry into the fray, although we cannot remember the last time Ruiz said or did anything to bring attention to his public service.

Summer's about gone and an ugly mood still hangs over the city. Outside, dark & stormy clouds move in. Is it tears I see, or is it rain?...

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Sunday Editorial:...A Bordertown With A Southern Problem...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - We don't know Tito Aguirre, but this is what he thinks about his community: "As, minorities we need to wake up and realize that a majority of our population is behind the eight-ball. We, as a group, lack family structure, education, money and political power at any level."

Well, no, Tito.

No!

What you and the lot of Hispanics calling Harlingen home these days need is to stop thinking of yourselves as "minority" anything. Minority? Minority! That is racial terminology, a way for them to separate you; them being the so-called Anglos, who really are Europeans from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Watch out for the German-Americans; they are the worst. They can be, well, stupid on things such as who is and isn't a true American.

These are strange and wicked times in Good 'Ol Harlingen. Things are changing and some in the sun-parched town do not like it. Segregationist minds live here, fester here, die here, die hard. Lately, a certain wind blows across town, one that has local Hispanics thinking bigger, thinking - some knowing - that the time to leave the subservient lane is now. At a recent meeting of the City Commission, much was made about the hiring of a Hispanic as the new city manager. Not that Carlos Yerena got the job; there have been other Hispanics in that thankless post before him. What was interesting was the notation by an attendee of that meeting who said he sensed one of the commissioners had seemed put-off by Mssr. Yerena's heavy Hispanic accent.

That commissioner? No surprise there, went the line in the streets. It was Kori Marra.

In soft unfoldings more suited to the spreading of a range bedroll, locals here have begun to take sides. The battle between the past and the present fuels letters-to-the-editor of the daily newspaper. But it rages in the community's blogs. The aforementioned Tito Aguirre's take on things appeared on MyHarlingenNews.com, an unapologetic rock-thrower against everything to do with the city's past. Its editor - Tony Chapa - has taken a beating on MyLeaderNews.com, a blog more aligned with the past than it is with anything other than minor-league baseball. Its grizzled editor, the ever-tricky Jerry Deal, waves-off the biting anti-Chapa comments, but he nonetheless approves them for posting, perhaps even gleefully.

One wonders what any self-respecting Hispanic is doing on MyLeaderNews.com. It claims to have addressed city problems whole-hog in its past, but lately it defends elected officials such as the aforementioned Marra and never says a word about the city's do-nothing mayor, Chris Boswell. If change is coming to this Mid-Valley community of 74,000 souls, it is going to have to come quickly. The status quo, as Chapa likes to note at every opportunity, is exactly what the Old Guard wants. The indomitable Chapa fires his pointed salvos daily, sometimes hourly. Jerry Deal, of MyLeaderNews.com, appears to have little interest in stoking the coals of change.

We forever gripe about neighboring Brownsville's cheap and unimaginative politics, but, there, at least the majority Hispanic population rules. Anachronistic residents of Harlingen, a city that desperately wants to be Peoria, Illinois, still drive that wedge between local Hispanics. That strategy will always work to dilute the Hispanic contribution, and, of course, they know it. What Harlingen needs -aside from a new name - is to see its Hispanic community take charge of their town. They must work as one, as does the Anglo, and they must rally behind their own, as does the Anglo, and they must vote for their own, as does the Anglo. It's wildly simplistic when you look at it as basic mathematics.

It's about playing the game, yes.

But it, too, is about flexing your political muscles. There is no credit card or hard cash needed to drop your vote in the ballot box. There is no reason to fear - or hate - someone like Tony Chapa. He's recognized the fight, and it's not about personalities or grudges or hurt feelings. He sees the Big Picture, the same one that is visible to every other Hispanic in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, the ones who look toward Harlingen and wonder how it still can be 1958 anywhere in the burgeoning region.

To Mr. Aguirre, we say: Hispanics are a minority only if they grant permission to the Anglo to label them as such.

Tony Chapa of MyHarlingenNews.com apparently doesn't.

Critics, such as the bloviating private investigator Joe Rubio who ceaselessly attacks Tony Chapa, are only doing the Anglo's yardwork...

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Alone With His Grief, Former Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz Gets A Pleasant Surprise...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The Tribune has learned that Jannat Mofarrahi, sister of former Tribune religion writer Rannah O'Donnell, is flying to Panama City to assist Patrick Alcatraz with his needs following the morning assassination of Elaine Benitez - his prospective bride.

Ms. Benitez was gunned down during a beach-front marriage ceremony. Panama authorities have taken Tribune reporter Ron Mexico, Jr. into custody. The younger Mexico is the son of former Tribune writer Ron Mexico, who himself was killed in Amsterdam, earlier last month. Police have given no official motive for the killing, but friends of young Mexico say he was opposed to his former stepmother's relationship with Patrick Alcatraz.

"Ronnie, Junior was crying himself to sleep," said a family friend. "He took his father's death hard, and then to have Elaine shack-up with Patrick, a longtime friend of his father. Well, it was too much. I'm not surprised that he killed Elaine, if he did it. I'm just surprised he didn't shoot Patrick while he was at it. Patrick has a way with people, however, so..."

The connection between Jannat Mofarrahi, an Iranian national shown in photo above, and Patrick Alcatraz is sketchy at this point. The Tribune is aware that her sister, Rannah, is currently staying with friends in Miami. Speculation that it would be Rannah jetting down to accompany Patrick through his grief has been a part of this story since news broke today of the stunning wedding shooting. In her unexpected letter of resignation, Ms. O'Donnell had alluded to a budding relationship with Alcatraz, and it was known in the Tribune Newsroom that Patrick's impending marriage to Elaine Benitez had crushed her.

There has been no comment about anything from Alcatraz, and nothing has surfaced about where he may be, or be headed. Efforts by this reporter to contact him at his hotel in Panama City were fruitless. A spokeswoman for the hotel where he has been staying said employees were not at liberty to "go bang on suite doors."

Asked if she'd seen police at the hotel, the woman said: "No comment, Mister..."

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Death In A Hellhole: Former Tribune Editor Juan Jones Murdered In Matamoros...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Staff Writer

MATAMOROS, Mexico - The big-hearted cat just never fell-in with life in the Valley. Juan Jones was at odds with the local mess, and, yesterday afternoon, it cost him his life.

The former editor of The Tribune was shot and killed as he left a government hospital a day after being admitted following a vicious beating he received at a local nighclub. Police here said Juan, a native of Houston, died at the scene, shot as many as twelve times by three men witnesses said accosted him while shouting a stream of profanities in Spanish.

It had been a day earlier that Juan Jones, 33, partied hard inside a popular Matamoros nightclub with a pretty Hispanic woman in a flowery, nylon dress, seemingly having a grand time dancing and boozing. As in most westerns and movies about the heartless Mexican drug trade, some in the crowd, however, did not take kindly to Juan kissing and fondling the woman in their presence. According to witnesses, three Mexican men jumped Juan and administered a whipping that left him with broken ribs and cracked skull.

He is survived by a sister and four brothers.

"It is the worst news of the month," said Tribune Editor Eliot Elcomedor. "No one is born to die in Matamoros, not in that pitiful hellhole better suited for snakes, scorpions, spiders and vultures. We are saddened, yes."

Juan Jones had been in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas barely a month...

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REDNECK JEOPARDY!:...How Well Do You Know - Or Don't Know - Your Lovely Harlingen?...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - Residents of the brain-challenged Rio Grande Valley of Texas rarely get a chance to exhibit their smarts. They like to argue that they are smarter than they're given credit for, which is not much. Around here, the word "dropout" is an adjective, goes the line. And so we wanted to avail a simple test to see just how smart - or dumb - Valleyites actually are, or something like that, with this sorta, kinda test. We'll use the Jeopardy model to frame our questions. Participants may use our "comments" featrure to submit answers and be graded.

1.) He is acknowledged as the Valley's only comatose mayor. Answer - Chris Boswell, Harlingen

2.) At one time, it was the aerial pride & joy of Harlingen. Answer - Confederate Air Force

3.) He is the Blogger who glorified disgraced baseball player Jose Canseco. Answer - Jerry Deal

4.) This local politician is generally regarded as specializing in temper tantrums. - Answer- Kori Marra

5.) It is the preferred nickname of pretty much every Harlingen Redneck. - Answer - "Unemployed"

6.) A Redneck orders this plate when at Luby's Cafeteria. - Answer - the one left at an adjacent table by departing customers 

7.) Name of country where Rednecks want all Mexicans to live. Answer - El Paso

8.) This is a Redneck's favorite sport. Answer - Incest

9.) The Redneck says this to his father at age 18. Answer - "You really my dad?"

10.) A Redneck's reply to questions about the abortion bill. Answer - "I'll pay it!"

Good luck! Let's see how many of you can dazzle us...

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On A Video-Conference From Panama, Former Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz Explains Himself...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Staff Writer

McALLEN, Texas - The shifty Patrick Alcatraz was not talking. He'd scheduled the video-conference with The Tribune's Newsroom staff to dispel rumors that he had abused his position as editor when he'd entered into a relationship with former Tribune religion writer Rannah O'Donnell. And he'd confirmed the relationship, but asked that details of the sexual affair not be published.

"I'm thinking about Rannah, boys," he said more than once during the half-hour conference call. "She's likely been through enough bullshit with the rumor mill at The Tribune to last her a lifetime. Let's remember those days as good days, days when we worked exemplary journalism for our many readers."

Alcatraz, in Panama to marry Tribune writer Ron Mexico's widow Elaine Benitez this weekend, declined to acknowledge an allegation made by O'Donnell that he treated her as "sloppy seconds," mainly, said Rannah, because he also was seeing Ms. Benitez at the time. According to Rannah, she and Alcatraz stayed overnight at a South Padre Island highrise on more than five occasions, on outings where he is said to have promised Rannah more than just an occasional romp in the sack. As she put it in a heartfelt, three-page letter of resignation to The Tribune, "Patrick led me to believe that I was the only woman in his life, that he loved me, and that he would always love me. He said he just loved my lips, my sexy sloping back - his words - and my personality. I believed him, perhaps because it's hard not to believe what Patrick says to you. He's charming and witty and a most interesting man."

At being read that sentence, Patrick Alcatraz coughed uncontrollably for several seconds before saying, "Those who know me know I never say such silliness to my women."

"Not even to Elaine?" he was asked tersely by Tribune reporter Eliot Elcomedor.

"Not saying that," Patrick shot back, adding that he would have to cut the chat short to open the door for the hotel's Room Service personnel.

Eliot: "What are you saying?"

"I'm sorry about the Rannah adventure, that's what I am addressing here - not Elaine," Patrick said next. "I want to apologize for actions during that brief relationship; that's all. And I hope everyone understands."

Told that Rannah O'Donnell had resigned her position at The Tribune, Patrick said: "That's too damned bad. Rannah is a singular talent. The Valley never got to see her depth of reporting. I was always impressed by her work, her work ethic and her complete faith in humanity."

At which point, an angry Eliot slammed a fist on the conference table and said, no screamed: "You shittin, Patrick! You note her complete faith in humanity after you soiled that kid? Goddamn you, man! Goddamn you!"

"Eliot, Eliot, Eliot. Rannah is 27 years old," Patrick fired back. "She's not a kid. She's an adult who knew what she was getting into. There was no rape. There was romance and sex, yes. But Rannah went willingly. And why am I having to fuckin' explain and justify myself to your ass, Eliot? You? Not you, Eliot? Shall we go over the crop of women you've had and bedded and lied to? You've had more broads than Warren Beatty, Eliot!"

At that point, Eliot Elcomedor kicked himself away from the table and stormed out of the room. "See ya, Eliot," Patrick was heard to say on the large video screen on The Tribune conference room wall. Patrick went on a bit longer, said he and Rannah had seen each other for a week and that Rannah had known about Elaine Benitez all along.

"I just want to give my all with Elaine," he said near the end. "That's it right there..."

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HUH?:...In The Valley, Nothing Looms As Commemoration Of Sept. 11th Horror in New York City...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Staff Writer

McALLEN, Texas - It's not as if this part of the world is known for celebrating anything to do with the American Way, but one would think that the ninth anniversary of the attack on New York - Sept. 11, 2001 - might be cause for rallies and remembrances.

Not happening.

A check with overseers of cities in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas reveals not one has anything special scheduled for that day, which is a week from tomorrow. And no veterans group, guys forever whining about their needs, has up-and-called for a commemoration of sorts. No, Betsy, it appears Sept. 11th will be just another day in the always-apathetic Valley.

"I'm absolutely stunned," said a patron of one of the city's Starbucks coffee shops here this morning. "You'd think there would be something, but no, it appears there will be nothing held anywhere."

Flashing all across town, in posters taped to storefronts, is the upcoming appearance here of world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino backing a night of boxing at the State Farm Arena on Sept. 18th. But nothing about 9.11. Nothing. Not a moment of silence. Not even a low flyover by one of the commercial jets flying into and out of McAllen International Airport on S. 10th Street.

Nothing.

Perhaps it is as a tallish woman buying her morning Mocha put it: "I'd forgotten all about it, actually. - sorry." She smiled sheepishly, shrugged her broad shoulders and turned to walk out of the coffee shop. A nattily-attired gent, wearing a fancy straw hat and red bowtie, asked: "Is there a parade in town, something like the firing of cannons?"

Nope. Nothing. Not a 21-gun salute. Not a gathering at popular Archer Park, where the anti-Arizona immigrant law crowd gathered a few months back to raise Chicano Hell, and where every presidential candidate who visits the Valley speaks to wild throngs of Guayabera-clad locals. Nothing. Nine-eleven has no fans in town. It would be easy to say, "Que lastima," or "Que raro," or "Que loco." But perhaps there are other things to do on that day.

It's a Saturday, a family day, a day for barbecueing, for taking to the backyard hammock for afternoon zzzzzs, for blowing off the stresses of the job and life in general, for watching college football. What are you going to do?

Nothing?...

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The Mother Tongue:..."El Pinche Guy Split With My Wifa" & Other Tales From A Strange Language...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It is often said that the Texas-Mexico border has its own language. Well, it's true, but what exactly that language may be is anybody's guess. There is English and there is Spanish and there is a mixture of English and Spanish and there is a mixture of English profanity and Spanish profanity and there is a mixture of invented English and invented Spanish.

So, we ask: Is that why grammar comes so hard for residents of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas?

Is that why mastering the comma is an impossibility even for a Valley college graduate? And don't dare mention the lovely semi-colon; these people never have used it corrrectly, not that they care. Language in the Valley is an afterthought, outright bastardizations of established languages, the dominant being English and Spanish. So when a Valleyite says, "El pinche guy split with my wifa," he is telling you some other man took his woman. But he's doing it in romantic Spanish that almost sounds musical, as if he's singing to the Gods for forgiveness to do with self-imposed guilt. Mexicans here have no talent for letting their women go. They're stuck on knifings, and so they move toward the "guy."

If you listen closely, you'll soon note a pattern that has Valleyites using street lingo such as "orale" and "buey" in one out every two sentences. Both words mean more in real life than they do in real dictionaries. Is it a bad thing? No, not if everybody else is bastardizing the language. That, then, becomes local communication. In Cuba, the word for orange is "china;" in Mexico it is "naranja." China or naranja will bring you the citrus fruit, yes, although use "una china" for orange in the Valley and you will certainly get a frown or a stretched-out arm pointing you in the direction of the nearest bordello.

In order to converse here, one need only know the basics of English and Spanish. Vocabulary is of the elementary variety, so much so that when a Valleyite chances to use a heady word he generally uses it incorrectly. So they muddle about, not lost because, as we said, everyone else is muddling about. For an outsider, the experience is a moving migraine headache. Dumbing-down becomes the exercise of the day when hitting the coffee shops or cafes. And you can't get a clue from locals; they are indifferent to everything serious. Discuss language? They'll look at you as if facing a high school English test and say, "Otra vez con ese pedo?" It is a sort of verbal ballet where the dancers wear khakis and bright shirts from, say, Mervyn's Department Store - economic and run-of-the-mill fashion, in other words. The stumbling dance is fine, if you like stumbling dances that go on forever.

The Mother Tongue is at fault, although who really knows what language these people claim as their own. It is one language, mainly loud & bold Spanish in the cantinas (Eh, cabron. Pasame la pinche botella, buey!), and rough-edged, broken English at the unemployment office ("Jes, I worked two days in 2008..."). You'd have to hear it. There is something cute about it, cute in the same way that a clumsy dwarf dances that stumbling ballet.

It all goes to the thought-process. And when one is looking to make sense of the Valley Brain, well, language is the key. Action speaks louder than words, especially so when words make no sense. It's no different for an outsider ambling into this lingusitic cesspool than it would be for a Valleyite waltzing into a Zulu village in Africa. That would not be good for the ever-handy use of "orale" and "buey," but it would show that Valleyite how pathetically small his world is back home.

Something is amiss when the most popular phrase in the region is this one: "Por favor, mas chips..."

- 30 -