On That Long List Of Bush-Era Memoirs, Donald Rumsfeld's Holds True To Seeing Things That Weren't There...A Dubious Effort...Ho-Hum...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense when the U.S. invaded Iraq. Now, he's written a book and, well, what we have learned about the lead-in into the war and the resulting mess is that these Bush guys never did get it. Rumsfeld has floated his "Known and Unknown" memoir to not only tremendous literary yawns, but also to an avalanache of criticism.

Like his boss George W. Bush, Rumsfeld glosses over major questions surrounding his role in the ill-advised attack. He lays wide blame on a  number of federal intelligence agencies, on his colleagues in the cabinet and on the news media. At no time does Rumsfeld acknowledge a scintilla of personal blame. Critics initially laughed at the dubious memoir and now they have blasted it as a useless 800-plus-page effort not worthy of the price or history. Why we should've expected more from the lifelong bureaucrat may be the biggest mystery here. Rumsfeld, shown at right in photo above with Dick "The Creep" Cheney and Bush, Jr., always looked the part of the polished and witty Bush aide. What he wasn't, it seems, was a man who could see his errant ways and, at least, acknowledge a mistake or two. He doesn't.

He especially blames Colin Powell, the much-decorated Army general who served young Bush as Secretary of State during the same lost era. It was Powell who addressed the United Nations Security Council in the days ahead of the invasion with seemingly convincing evidence and charts that pointed to Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, an address that was so full of falsehoods that it stained Powell's glowing career.

Rumsfeld's recollection of the war goes against everything that has come out in the ensuing years. Some critics have labeled the book "a fast a loose game of dodge ball." Others see it as a "self-serving" memoir out to free Rumsfeld of guilt or responsibility.

The title of the book comes from the war-time gobbledygook Rumsfeld would throw out during press conferences, bureaucratspeak that said and didn't say anything. It was this one, specifically: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are some known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."

You read that quote and you know what to expect from this idiot.

Rumsfeld's service to the country may have been lengthy; it just didn't mean as much as he thinks it did.

Once more, the Bush Administration comes across as a gang of selfish public servants who cared not one whit about their words or actions. Donald Rumsfeld is not the first to write this sort of memoir, nor will he be the last to wrap-up his career in laudatory fireworks and rainbows .

Something, however, tells us that Colin Powell's memoir will set things straight. Rumsfeld is not kind to Powell in his effort. The general is said to have the personality to not suffer fools. He has a big one in Donald Rumsfeld...

- 30 - 

For Americans, A Day For Football & Politics...Today From Coast-to-Coast...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - So, what's your taste going to be: rough, tough gang-tackling at the country's billion-dollar stadium for the pro football national championship or a looksee into the lavish celebration of former President Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday? Both take place today.

In the bedroom community of Arlington, tucked there between Dallas and Fort Worth, it'll be the hated Pittsburgh Steelers against the equally-hated Green Bay Packers at Cowboys Stadium only a 90-yard pass from Six Flags Over Texas. We say hated because both teams have been nightmares over the years for the local Dallas Cowboys.

In California's Simi Valley, Republicans will gather to honor a dead president they say stands for what conservatives believe in, nevermind that there have been a few other Republicans who have not seen their party throw such a spare-no-expense, multi-million dollar soiree on their behalf. As Democratic startegist Paul Begala put it in a story published by the New York Times yesterday, "Reagan holds unique status today because the Republicans don't have anyone else. They can't lionize Eisenhower because, by today's standards, he was a liberal. They can't lionize Nixon because he was a criminal. Who have they got left?"

According to write-ups, it'll be a Who's Who of GOPers attending that party, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry who has opted out of the football drama in Arlington. Expect most 2012 Republican Party presidential hopefuls to be seen and heard at the Reagan bash.

But for true-blue football fans, what will feed the late-afternoon adrenaline will be the bull-rushes of former Texas Longhorn Casey Hampton as he plows through the Packer offensive line to corral Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers and anyone he spots in the Packer backfield.

On offense, the black-clad Steelers will unleash controversial QB Ben Roethlisberger, he of the multiple rape accusations, and No. 86, receiver Hines Ward, said to be the dirtiest player in the National Football League. The Pack will counter with their own misfits, including hefty defensive lineman T.J. Raji, a 300-plus manmountain with the rushing speed of a crazed polar bear. Defensive End Clay Matthews, whose father and grandfather played in the NFL, is no slouch. He makes vicious Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher look like a Pachuco offspring lineman for the lowly Brownsville Porter high school squad.

This game looks to be a defensive battle, although sportswriters say they see a wide-open shootout, mainly because the game will be played indoors on the Cowboys Stadium's fast turf. Who knows, but the Packers have been lighting up the scoreboard on their way to the Big Game. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, storms in off a tight victory over the beloved New York Jets.

Whatever happens, it should be a wild, rolling cantina brawl between the lines.

Neither of these teams was on our Finals list, although, being die-hard pro football fans for decades, we have followed the two squads as they rolled through the playoffs. We won't predict a final score, as our prediction record is woeful this season. We had the Bears and Jets in the Super Bowl.

Still, the Big Game promises to bring viewers a better ending than will the Reagan gala, where things will dissolve into overly-emotional testimonials about how great Reagan was, endless huggings of frail Nancy Reagan and a speech by Mrs. Reagan about how much he did for America, and about how much she misses him.

Football fans really aren't into that stuff.

Not on Super Bowl Sunday...

- 30 -

The Mayor Speaks: Harlingen State of The City Address...To Benefit Rotarians...Town Aghast...It's Cash, Baby...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - In a part of the state where it is possible to eat three days straight without busting a $20 bill, this city's mayor will ask citizens to spend as much while listening to his State of The City speech, with the cash going to the local Rotary Club's coffers. The idea is not playing well.

Chris Boswell, shown in photo above, isn't saying why he opted to allow the benevolent Rotarians a shot at making money off a city function, but there it is. Some are asking why the mayor didn't go ahead and allow an entire panoply of local civic organizations to also join-in on the foodfest, outfits such as Loaves & Fishes, the Salvation Army, the Sur 13 Gang and anybody else wishing to cash in on Boswell's annual responsibility.

In his blog, MyLeaderNews.com, local resident Jerry Deal quickly took the mayor to task, noting that the speech and the food sale do not quite jibe with the community's expectations. Deal has promised to boycott the event, which unfolds tomorrow at the Casa De Amistad here.

It is a novel stab at energizing the local economy, and perhaps the mayor's move will lead to other equally creative ventures. We can envision the mayor charging residents $5 to see him throw out the first pitch at Opening Day of the next Rio Grande Valley Whitewings baseball season. Or maybe he will ask fans to chip-in $10 a head to watch him toss the coin at midfield in the Harlingen Cardinals'games next football season.

One wag believes Boswell should post himself outside the front entrance of City Hall and avail himself to photographs with tourists and Winter Texans for a fee that would go to the city's General Fund. Others say Boswell could spearhead the creation of a "Boswell 5K" run around La Placita, with runners paying a $15 entry fee.

For those wishing the mayor would chase bigger paydays, Boswell would stage a "Clunker Bashing" at the same Placita, where hammer-wielders would pay a $50-a-whack fee to destroy battered Buicks. And for $100, Harlingen residents would be able to dunk Boswell into a wide-berth water tank during halftime of the Cardinals' Homecoming Game.

Ideas apparently come easily and quickly to Boswell, so who knows - maybe he has more up his political sleeve. What? A Night of Tacos with the Mayor? Well, that'd work. It looks as if Boswell eats well, and taco joints are plentiful in town. But how much would he seek from the citizenry for that? Two tacos for $1, like Jack-in-the-Box?

Ah, Harlingen. It's always something or another with this not-quite-on-the-border bordertown. Its economy is in the pits, its workforce on the low give-up and its politics the obscene laughingstock of the entire Rio Grande Valley. Boswell should know that the last thing the city needs is something more hilarious. This one borders on the absurd.

As for the Rotarians, well, its rough these days on the fundraising front.

But $20 a plate? In the RGVofTexas?

These guys are blowing the imagery...

- 30 -

In The Case of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Another Episode of Ugly America...We Posture Them, Then Drop Them...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Perhaps it's the craggy faces, or maybe it's the fact that these are cruel dictators who abuse their powers and their people. But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, shown in photo above, has much in common with fajita-faced Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein - all three were once great allies of the United States and all three were thrown to the political wolves.

Mubarak, a tireless friend of the west, yesterday announced he will not seek re-election in his country's next general elections, which come in September. It will apparently mark the bitter end of a 30-year reign as president for the man who aptly replaced assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981. On TV, Mubarak's face looked not only worn (he's 82 years old), but it also looked defiant.

That defiance may have something to do with his dispelasure at seeing America push him out the door. President Obama also took to the airwaves yesterday and suggested the idea that Mubarak leave office as soon as possible, something the millions of Egyptians who gathered in Cairo also insisted was the troubled president's next logical move.

It is something to see when the U.S. arrives at its decision to cut relations with leaders it has long supported for our selfish sake. The Shah of Iran, as western a Persian as there ever could be, also fled his country after that country's Ayatollah-led unrest forced his ouster. Noriega, long a backer of the U.S. involvement in Central America, also saw his reign end, his by way of a U.S. invasion that saw American stealth fighters descend over Panama skies. Noriega rotted in a Florida federal prison for decades before he was flown to France to complete his imprisonment.

We all know what became of Saddam Hussein, even after he fronted our war against Iran for years and allowed the U.S. military to base its covert operations against Tehran in his country. Who will forget the incident involving the U.S.S. Stark, when Iraqi jetfighters mistakenly strafed the American ship, killing more than a dozen sailors? As could be expected, the U.S. accepted the explanation that the Iraqi pilot had simply misidentified the ship. Hussein is dead, having been hanged after the most-recent U.S. invasion of his country.

No excuses need to be made for our handling of these foreign leaders. Our security needs to be uppermost in the minds of our government and military leaders. So, when revolutionary winds come as they have in Egypt, we measure the effects they will have on our future and act accordingly. Dropping allies such as Mubarak is cruel and cold, but happen it must.

Now, how our role in all this is seen by those with terrorist plans against us will surely play out in the coming weeks and months. Mubarak served his purpose. However, he was wrong to stifle internal criticism and he was wrong to ignore the freedom cries of his people.

For that, and perhaps much more, he is hated even more now than his predecessor Sadat was hated when he signed that Camp David agreement with Israel during the Jimmy Carter administration, angering Egyptian Muslims to no end. Who knows what Mubarak's fate will be? Noriega will likely never see another day of absolute freedom, and Hussein is dead. The Shah of Iran lived out his days in Paris.

It would be better justice if Mubarak also smelled the winds of change in his homeland and stepped aside gracefully. Yeah, the France enjoyed by the Shah is bettter than the prison being endured by Noriega and, well, the manner in which Hussein saw his last day.

America's role in all this is not something to feel good about. We fully endorsed Mubarak's leadership, and, without question, we fully knew of his strongman-style of governing...

- 30 -

Texas Public Schools Battle Looming Belt-Tightening... High Administrators' Pay Targeted... Teacher Layoffs A Done Deal..

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Yesterday's postcard scene from local protests against proposed school closings and massive teacher layoffs was a small lemonade stand in front of the State Capitol, where parents continue to insist state officials have been unwilling to look for alternatives. The kid-managed drink stand drew some attention from a small amount of customers, yet it seemed to serve as a symbolic stab at showing state legislators school funds could be found in a variety of ways, lemonade included.

At the heart of the matter is the state's $27 billion shortfall, a deficit playing havoc with budgets for everything from law enforcement to education. In the emotional war against school closings and teacher layoffs, parents here have rallied behind their respective schools and even called out some legislators they deem unresponsive. As one put it during a TV interview, "Texas is turning its back on our kids."

And it isn't just Austin.

Larger cities like Houston and Dallas and San Antonio also face wrenching decisions. As a region, the Rio Grande Valley stands to be hit harder proportionally, mainly because it draws from tax revenues paid by richer school districts such as Plano and the affluent Austin Westlake district. Parents of children in those school districts say they could weather the budget storm if they were allowed to cut into those funds being sent elsewhere by the state.

Austin school district officials expect a shortfall in 2011-12 of $94 million to $113 million of its $842 million in operating expenses. Last week, trustees unanimously voted to cut 485 jobs districtwide. The district has more than 86,000 students.

In Round Rock just miles north of here, the 2nd largest school district in Central Texas, Superintendent Jesus Chavez has told employees they should expect layoffs. Its 2011-12 budget estimates assume a revenue shortfall of at least $60 million, about 17 percent of the district’s budget.

And while teachers continue to be blamed for demanding annual increases, many of them point to fund-bloated programs. Said one during an interview with an Austin TV station: "Time to cut the huge salaries of the administrators and then ban all the overblown athletic spending too! Stadiums, artificial turf, Jumbotrons. When will the madness end?"

As for alternatives, parents and critics point to the unbridled rise in pay approved for school administrators, from principals to superintendents - pay that usually exceeds $100,000 annually, and some in the $250,000 range. In response to the state's cost-cutting measures, a large number of administrators were expected to arrive here today, all hoping to lobby their legislative representatives for more-creative, less-painful cutting.

It'll be a cold day in Austin, but all involved in the school budget action say they will keep putting the heat on the Legislature and on Republican Gov. Rick Perry, a politician many blame for his staunch desire to trim the tremendous state deficit by targeting school funding...

- 30 -

In The World Of Disabled Texans, A Time For Cracking Down On Parking Abusers...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Beginning tomorrow morning, anyone pulling into a public parking spot designated for the disabled better be disabled. Long a joke to most people who need these spaces, officials here have decided the laugh will now have a new punchline: a $511 fine.

On top of that, Austin is making it a criminal offense.

Until now, those ticketed for violating the law were allowed to merely pay a $278 fine and be done with it. But critics of the old law enforcement practice charged that the police department never made the law a priority, that its officers rarely busted anyone not disabled. That will change today, says Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

The law applies equally to anyone driving or riding a car or motorcycle or bicycle.

In communities elsewhere in Texas, the fine for parking in slots for the disabled can dip to as low as $100 for violators. Many communities do not assign officers the specific duty of eyeballing disabled parking spaces. Additionally, this city will also target those who use fake disabled parking stickers, also making it a criminal offense subject to the hefty fine. Those fines, say officials here, will escalate for second or third offenses, with community service also being an option for judges handing out penalties.

For beginners, Austin says its officers will use the coming weeks to vigorously monitor disabled parking...

- 30 -

Look Homeward, Angel: Yeah, We're Not Always In The RGV, But, Then, Of Course We Are...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - In New York, they would tell me that my living there meant that, try as I might, I'd never be able to leave the city behind. Gotham grabs you in a certain way, they said before noting that, yeah, I'd return sooner or later. Perhaps they referred to the city's verve, that feeling that comes over you when inspiration has found your veins and everything seems possible.

I have been back to New York several times, although much of that has to do with my daughter Gabrielle living there. The city that never sleeps is special, but there's another place that holds me just as dearly:

My hometown.

McAllen and I have had this ever-raging love/hate affair since I left the Rio Grande Valley to serve the military. I never came home. My time in the U.S. Navy was followed by my years at UT-Arlington and later my Journalism career in newspapers and magazines from Houston to Boston to New York. I love McAllen because it retains my roots and because it still affords me a few visuals of those days, when I was a teenager and when my lovely mother was alive. I hate it when I see what it's become, a hodge-podge of development that speaks to money mania and not a well-thought-out journey to something unique.

What is it about our native lands?

A drive down some old familiar byway like Houston Street in McAllen sends me back decades, like when I see a downed fence fronting property I still recall from my days at Travis Junior High. Or a view of a chain link fence separating two homes, such as the one in the photo above this story. Much of McAllen has fast-forwarded to 2011, its streets now lined by new and improved business fronts, much better residential neighborhoods, the entire however-burgeoning visual of what a city should look like in the Year 2011.

It's not like I get a knot in my throat as I drive my hometown when I'm there. Too much time has passed and too much has come to McAllen in the ensuing years. The Bulldog water tower is still there just south of McHi, my old school. The old convention center on S. 10th Street, where the prom came with the music of bands such as The Troggs and Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas (school officials we were told prohibited the playing of music by the Rolling Stones, however). Still, Prom Night back then meant you chased the comfort of air-conditioned dancing in McAllen and then sultry love across the Rio Grande in Reynosa, where the clubs never closed.

I don't know. I don't know. I worry that one of these days, I'll return to the Valley and see change of the sort that will shoot my memories down the tubes, buried like black & white photos in a dusty scrapbook. Not that I've seen much. Brownsville is still Brownsville and Harlingen is still Harlingen. With few exceptions, most valley communities look as they did in the 70s, newer cars and better roads replacing the battered Chevies and Buicks and Fords of yesteryear, modern blacktops replacing caliche streets and roads that flooded in the weakest of rains. Change is good. But it does mean unexpected goodbyes.

Backward glances are said to be good for the soul. Who knows? I look back and see my back pages have turned a certain yellow in color. And while it's been a good life, I wonder how many of us wouldn't trade one year of whatever time we have left for one long weekend from back then?

I remember.

And, well, I'm grateful for that. And I appreciate being able to move down New York's crowded sidewalks and believe I belong, as I also appreciate cruising 17th Street in McAllen while knowing that I came from a few blocks over...

- 30 -

For Texas Voter ID Legislation, There Is Still A Long Way To Go...South Texas Against It Except For One Guy...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - The former mayor of this city, now a state senator, says he has a better idea on how to protect the integrity of the voting booth: make fraud a felony. That's State Sen. Kirk Watson's idea, and it sounds good. The Democrat, however, has little clout in the battle now being waged by legislators here, most of whom are Republicans who want the state to better-monitor its voting practices.

While it was entertained by his colleagues, Watson's plan went nowhere. The bill was approved by the state senate yesterday and now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to face a little tougher fight. At best, they say, it'll be a month before things are ironed-out there. Not that the crowing is lessening.

State Sen. Mario Gallegos, a Democrat from Houston, sees it as a misguided case of nonsense. Where some Reopublicans would like all Texas voters to flash a state-approved identification card when entering the voting precincts, Gallegos thinks it will only create a legal mess of astral proportions. When a state senator from North Texas noted that Mexico has a national ID card (shown above) it requires from its voters, Gallegos said Texas is not Mexico, or as he put it, "There are a lot of other things Mexico does not do when it sanctions voting. Mexico does not require a birth certificate and it does not register its voters."

And while the larger portion of the South Texas senate delegation voted against the Voter ID Bill, there was one exception.

"Where I live, there is a long history of voter fraud and the bill really wouldn't address the kind of fraud that occurs there," said Rep. Aaron Peña, R-Edinburg, who bizarrely noted polls show voters in his legislative district support the measure. "Political bosses have people taken to the polls, and people who take them tell them who to vote for. Voter assistance, it's called." Pena is shown in photo atop this story.

It is true that the border counties have long suffered from questionable practices, such as the enlistment of politiqueras whose for-hire help brings out the voter who likely wouldn't vote without the added incentive of a free ride to the polls or a few bucks here and there for their effort. If anything, it is the South Texas way of voting that forever shines the light on voter fraud.

Pena should know the voter fraud ropes. Until recently, when he changed political parties, he was a Democrat quite familiar with the ways things are done along the Mexican border.

Still to be decided are a few issues related to the ID itself. For one, what about voters who may have had their driver's licenses suspended? A Texas ID Card would do for them, say the Republicans. That may or may not serve the purpose, however. Precinct overseers would have the last say, is what critics counter.

What is also part of the Bill is the inclusion of a clause that says all Texans over the age of 70 would be excluded from the ID Card requirement.

So, who knows how that would affect South Texas, where the politiqueras generally roust senior citizens from the comfort of their nursing homes for a quick drive to the voting stations...

- 30 -

Kingdom Of Fear: Life & Death In The Sleepy Rio Grande Valley of Texas...Blood Will Flow...

By VINCE VALDEZ
Special to The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Hey, don't talk about that shit. Could get you killed. Eyes and ears everywhere. They'll come get you in the middle of the night. Take you out to some vacant lot and rip your guts out. Then they'll get in their massive machine and run over your ass. Don't talk about that shit.

The Rio Grande Valley is scared.

Its thousands of residents go about their days as if living on the demarcation line of a raging drug war, as if to stay there is to avoid the killing, as if that alone can ever save them. It is a lie they live. The blood flows downriver daily, butchered bodies bloat in the weed-filled fields and then explode, like bloodied popcorn, scaring the Hell out of rabbits and snakes and scorpions and lizards. In the Valley, a once-passive shank of land on the northern banks of the Rio Grande, life is now a film frame on pause, ghosts and shadows frozen along darkened streets and alleys. The world has stopped turning here. It is as if one of those six-month nights has descended on the land, geography somewhat used to pain and suffering.

How to make sense of it?

Can a peoples merely rise with the new day's sun and walkabout as if that war across the border in neighboring Mexico is someone else's problem, as if to simply bank on three squares and call it a day? What day is this anyway? What problem?

Looked at from afar, it would seem that some would get the idea that these are captive people, prisoners of something they do not feel. Studied a bit closer, it is clear that the Valley is merely going through its paces, ignoring the obvious disarray, focusing on the little things, lamenting the lament in its own what-me-worry way.

Hundreds are being killed along the Mexican bordertowns barely miles away, blocks in the case of this falling town, hundreds added to the hundreds that came before that and the hundreds before that. The price of bullets and grenades is inconsequential. Blood will flow. Heads will roll. Moms will mourn. The sky will darken and the gravediggers will dig. There is no psychology; the brain is in tatters.

How to rationalize it all?

Some joke about it. They can't kill me, they say.Why me? What'd I do? Me? I'm just a schoolteacher, a graphics artist, a Blogger. Why should I die? Why should they come after me? I'm a nobody, a guy just doing his best, his Life Impulse. Leave me alone. Go fuck with someone else. Don't make me mad. I'm all I've got, vato.

And so they wait. They hope today is not their day. Residents living in half-fears, believing it's the other guy who'll catch a bullet in the back, thinking I'm not in that fight, gambling on the idea that the war will soon end. They've done nothing to stop it. They've done nothing to keep the battles on that side of the river. They've done nothing, nothing.

Life does go on. Life asks for no ticket to the circus. Life wants no responsibility. Life is here, and that's enough. He doesn't want to die yet. Barbacoa must be eaten on Sundays. She doesn't want to die yet. There's that fleamarket to go to, to enjoy, brats in tow. They don't want to die, not for those people over there. Fuck that.

Hey, don't talk about that shit...

- 30 -

In Down-And-Out Harlingen, A New Poke At Life...Trusted Booty Comes Calling...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - It is a pretty succinct statement, as clear as someone saying there are tacos in the Rio Grande Valley, as dead-on as someone else saying drugs run rampant from Rio Grande City to Brownsville. Yeah, there it was on the website bootycall.net:

Harlingen is a mecca for booty calls, everyone knows that. Casual Sex is going down in all corners of Harlingen right this second. How are you missing out? Too lazy? Awesome, because now you can find a casual sex partner in Harlingen right from your computer. You don't have to get up, get out to find a booty call in Harlingen. Browse sexy singles down for casual sex in Harlingen right from your chair, and find yourself a booty call to call your own. :)

Well, we'd heard mostly bad things to do with Harlingen. We'd heard the silliness surrounding the recent resignation of the city's police chief and wondered why any community would go nuts about such a decision. It happens across the world so often that it is no longer anything to wring your hands about; not that, no. Maybe news that the city was being de-incorporated, that perhaps being the result of lousy management and a desire to simply die-off.

But booty being available in Harlingen struck us as being something sort of against the Bad News grain we'd associated with Harlingen all these months. What, is every swinging stud and Lesbo turning their attention to those lovely, roundish, Aztec-brown female butts? Has the trip to the unemployment office now dropped on the things-to-do list? Has the entire town decided it will chase wanton sex instead of jobs?

That would be something to cheer about in a falling town, wouldn't it?

Life is funny that way, is what we like to say...

- 30 -    

For Texas' Death Row, A Lethal Injection Supply Problem...Drug Manufacturer Bails...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Back when I wrote for The Houston Post's State Desk, a job that had me cutting a newshound trail across the Lone Star State, the road sometimes took me to Huntsville, where I'd sit-in on an execution at the state's Death Row Unit. It was sort of dramatic, especially when watching some tough guy fade into the beyond with either a sigh or a kick of the leg. But it also was boring, the chemicals used to kill them doing their job without a sound, without exacting any pain.

The end, it is said in crime, comes too quickly.

Well, maybe not now.

Officials with the Texas Department of Corrections are not saying it's the end of death-by-lethal-injection, but their supplier has said it will no longer produce the drug used to kill the state's most vicious criminals.

Texas, say officials, has a supply that'll last only until May.

The drug is sodium thiopental, one of three in the chemcial cocktail that relaxes a Death Row convict and anesthesizes him before the combination stops his/her heart. The maker of sodium thiopental, Hospira, Inc. of Lake Forest, Illinois, had recently stopped manufacturing the drug and was planning to turn the operation over to a company in Italy. Itlay, however, eventually said it could not export any drug that would be used to kill anyone, prisoners especially.

"There are currently four executions scheduled in Texas - two in February, one in May and one in July," Michelle Lyons, communications director at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told the New York Times in a story published in Saturday's edition. "At this time, we have enough sodium thiopental on hand to carry out the two executions scheduled in February. In March, our supply of this particular drug is set to expire."

Texas, she went on, will explore the use of other drugs. Officials in Ohio and Washington face the same problem, as do their counterparts in Arizona, where 134 people are on that state's Death Row. Arizona reported a supply for five executions, although a spokesman there said no executions are scheduled anytime soon.

Pentobarbital, a drug used by veterinarians to put animals to sleep, is being considered as an alternative to sodium thiopental. Pentobarbital has been used in cases of euthanasia in Oregon, but has been described as being too strong - cruel - by opponents of the Death Penalty.

It is these objections to the killing that forced Hospira, Inc. to stop providing the needed drug. Officials for the company cited pressure from civic and activist organizations. Texas, which ranks atop the list of states using lethal injection, executes its Death Row inmates in Huntsville, north of Houston.

Hospira no longer has a facility in the U.S. to manufacture the drug, said spokesman Daniel Rosenberg. The company acknowledged that it produced the drug primarily for medical purposes, but was unable to stop states from using it to kill prisoners. The plan to import it was quashed by Italy, when that government denied an export permit to the company that would have provided it to Hospira, Inc.

According to the U.S. government, 34 of the 35 states that use the death-by-lethal-injection method had been using sodium thiopentol. On average, some 56 inmates are put to death every year. The lack of sodium thiopental delayed scheduled executions in Oklahoma and California last year.

As the shortage was announced early last year, California and Arizona began importing sodium thiopentol from England, but the Brits later halted export of the drug, also citing their desire to not export drugs to be used in lethal injections.

To date, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who has roundly endorsed the Death Penalty, has said nothing about what Texas might do if it is unable to find an acceptable substitute...

- 30 -

News: The Battle Between Offering A Useful Product And Pleasing Local Politicians, Business...Readers Always Lose...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - So, where do you get your daily dose of news? It is a question voiced from coast-to-coast these days, from discussions in the bowels of our more illustrious news companies, to the offices of any aspiring politician, to the living room of every Tom, Dick and Harry wishing to know the goings-on of the nation and the world. With the advent and growth of the Internet, the choices are now not only many, but also expanding by the day.

Blogs have risen and found a place on the national news platform. They now number in the millions, according to surveys. Blogs - usually small operations, at times one person at the family keyboard - vary in scope and value. You can find a Blog for practically every topic under or behind the sun. Somehow, they have slowly merged into the country's psyche as veritable places of news & information - not always credible or reliable, but in the ballpark.

You can look around your own community and find Blogs right and left, and we do not say that solely in a political vein. Most of them are elementary in approach; that is, they offer little research and exist largely on opinion-writing. For straight-news junkies, that is a red flag. What they do, however, is draw a crowd of readers who think as they think, who rant as they rant, who bitch as they bitch. Those Blogs do little for any community.

Conversely, there are Blogs that try to stay with the facts, the truth and the useful. To many critics, the fact that Blogs take the unethical road is what demeans their effort and value. Porno on a community-oriented Blog is a credibility killer, they say. Rumor and innuendo also cripple a Blog's desire to be meaningful. What readers want is to be either educated - on news matters - or entertained. That is why mainstream newspapers still carry a Comics page in these, their most trying economic times.

So, should readers depend simply on Blogs?

They could on certain issues, always local, always of the neighborhood variety. A Big City newspaper will not bother with your local debate on, say, the firing of your police chief. A local Blog can go to town on that story and do its community a great service, but only if it stays away from the emotional tuggings of those for or against the firing. Report the news. An "Opinion" piece is acceptable, but only when labeled as such. A Blog without self-policing is a lame amateur effort, and readers will soon see it.

Bloggers should also get out and do their own reporting. Many scold the mainstream media as being behind the times, yet they are quick to steal material from their stories. In the case of the fired police chief, a good Blogger would try for an interview with the main players and then offer his/her readers that interview as a story. It is the words of those in the fight that are important. Do that and find readers who not only seek your Blog for good info, but who respect you. Don't do it and be labeled a wannabe, a puppet or a waste of time.

It happens. Critics are everywhere. As Blogging has evolved, so have commenters. It is a sport for the idle-hands cyber-punks. Know that and know that they can only soil your product, the Blog.

Still, it is worthwhile undertaking when Bloggers set parameters, when they decide on being something with a seriousness of purpose, or something just throwing out juvenile bullshit...

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We have included two silly photographs with the above story to make our point. We can add a ton of silly, stupid features to this Blog, but what exactly does it add? Nothing. It just makes us look stupid...]

Baring The Lance Armstrong Doping Story: Government Probe May Yield Answers...Armstrong Denies Using Steroids...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Among the many celebrities cruising this capital city's streets and social scene is one Lance Armstrong - the 7-time winner of the annual Tour de France bicycle marathon. Armstrong cuts a very public trail here. He can be seen at this and that function to do with cancer, breast and testicular, the latter his recent nemesis.

But now comes news of an investigation into something Armstrong has battled - and denied - for years, namely allegations that he has used steroids and other performance enhancement drugs while competing domesticallly and overseas.

Chasing confirmation of the serpentine rumors is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the dederal agency whose agents previously investigated baseball player Barry Bonds and track star Marion Jones. On the story is the national magazine Sports Illustrated. The magazine is reporting that the feds have focused on whether Armstrong "was involved in an organized doping operation as a member of the team sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service from 1999 to 2004, and since August the grand jury has been hearing testimony from Armstrong's associates and confidants." The sensational story will be featured in the magazine's Jan. 24 issue, which hits the newsstands Wednesday.

Sports Illustrated lists anecdotal info from other bicyclists familiar with Armstrong's pre-race practices and what they say is his way of skirting doping urine tests. Some members of his own racing team go so far as to say Armstrong encouraged them to take the drugs. Victories, they say, were needed to justify the U.S. Postal Service's $30 million investment in backing of the team.

A quote of note in the magazine: "If a court finds that Armstrong won his titles while taking performance-enhancing drugs, his entourage may come to be known as the domestiques of the saddest deception in sports history."

This has been going for years, with most of the accusations coming from European riders. Armstrong has fielded every allegation by issuing vigorous denials, and at all times blaming jealousy as the motivation behind the rumors.

He's been gone a bit from competition, but it appears the stain on his victories remains on a fast downhill roll...

- 30 -

How To Play At Life: It's Not Always About Going Along With The Herd...That Herd Is Lost...

“Don't play what's there, play what's not there...” - Miles Davis

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

DRIFTWOOD, Texas - We're headed here today just because. No real reason, other than it's on our run-around map these days. The Texas Hill Country does that to you, throws rural America and the country way at you every few miles down the road. New places and new faces; that's the ticket.

But, beyond that, it's about play, about doing things that won't shake anybody up, won't disturb the hustle and flow of the city, won't mean anything to anyone other than yourself. Some call it escapism, or simply getting away from it all. Yet, there's more to it. A drive into a new scene always does something to the soul. A hell-o to someone you've never seen before brings a certain joy. Tasting a local culinary specialty is equally as enjoyable. It could be this little town only miles from Austin, or it could be candy stores of Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast, or it could be the beaches of the Florida Keys, or the lodges of the Rocky Mountains.

What's important is that those places are there, waiting. At times, we ask ourselves why they are there, but there they are, doing their life impulse. Why does Driftwood exist? Dripping Springs up the road has a blooming artist colony, and shops and galleries abound. Invariably, people who own or operate them tell you they lived in the city most of their lives, got tired of the rat race and, yeah, drifted off.

We've made these day outings a mission of sorts, although hitting the trail always has been an interest that must be attended to, like showering for long, long minutes, like walking into a hair salon, making an appointment for months down the road and never keeping it. It's fun; it's play.

Perhaps it has much to do with the idea that we believe there are few serious issues left to resolve. Who was it that said, "There is only one serious question in life, and that is whether to kill yourself." Kafka? Freud? Sonny Corleone? Ah, does it matter?

It's a cool, sunny day here this morning, but weatherfolks are saying a cold blast is headed in. You know the kind, sleet and frigid winds - the sort of temperatures that add to the pleasure of driving the backroads of this neat part of the state. From what we've seen, there is coffee being brewed in most of these little towns, hot chocolate also part of the offerings.

So, we'll play. We'll take whatever the day brings. It's bright, light-sweater weather. It's calling me out, bringing its A-game.

Play. I love that word. It's one of the most under-rated words in the English language, and a word people generally assign to children. I don't. I never have...

- 30 -