In Harlingen, The Debate of The Century?:...Uh...No...Not Even Close...Woman Does Laundry...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - A much-ballyhooed debate here pitting Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos and opponent John Wood yielded little of any consequence and largely was a lame replay of every other political debate hosted in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas for the past century. Neither man brought anything new to the game. The event was so attractive to this struggling community that most people stayed away, choosing to watch the Texas Rangers eliminate the Tampa Bay Rays in the ongoing Major League Baseball playoffs.

So great was the disdain for the Tea Party-sponsored debate that many Harlingenites went about the business of worrying about bills, employment, drug dealing, drug gangs, downtown murders, debt and bad marriages. Elena Davila, shown above, opted to do her laundry.

"I can go, but what will it mean to me?" she said, without laughing. "Nothing, that's what. Both Cascos and Wood will bullshit everybody and everybody will go home thinking they know these guys a little better. But they won't."

The debate arrived in name only. Points were made by each candidate and softball questions were asked by the small mob in attendance. The morning-after writing followed suit: "Likely the stickiest question of the night and most certainly the most personal was asked for Wood to answer about the now publicized event he held at the Wood office that included wine being served," wrote Local Blogging Sensation Jerry Deal on MyLeaderNews.com. "Nora Castaneda, a Cascos supporter, asked about the party that was held at the Wood office that included wine. Wood responded that it was an after hours affair and that little wine was consumed. However, Cascos replied that what was done was illegal because by law no alcoholic beverages are allowed in the county facility."

Of such heady stuff is smalltown politics made. We thought of attending, but I am hosting a woman who follows The Tribune from her home in Austin. Being with her and no one else seemed to be the night's primo attraction...

- 30 -

GIMME THE NUMBER 3: Ever-Overweight Locals Eat Way Through Problems...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ   
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, TX. - Inside the claptrap eatery, Monica Molina played with her enchiladas, sliding her fork from the clump of salad on the right side of the large plate to the left, where she poked at a small mound of Guacamole before lifting some of it to her mouth. She was enjoying her dinner, a rare solo outing thanks to her husband working late, she said.

At a table nearby, an older couple yapped away while munching on nachos that seemed steeped in cheese. The small mountain of jagged delicacies looked more like a land mine than a meal. "I don't want to trade in my van," the man kept telling the woman, and she would shake her head ahead of her reply. In the mix, a chunky waitress with a strong sense of service bopped about the dining area with a pitcher of iced tea and one of hot coffee. Her eyes scanned the dining room, feet ready to move.

She waved-in a young woman who made her way to a table along the rear wall, her face the picture of recent break-up. "Coffee, hon?" the waitress asked in a motherly voice. The woman nodded and then played with her silverware, placing the table napkin in the middle, the knife to its left and the fork to its right, a smaller salad fork to the right of that. It was a nice touch, I thought. This woman knew her table settings.

They say people here are eating too much these days. A study by a national outfit says every Brownsville resident puts away an estimated 325 tacos a year, with strips of fajitas leading the fare at somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 offerings per adult. So, what's going on? "Bad economy," said Braulio Fanques, the cafe's owner. "People who suffer the problems of the day always get hungrier. That's what we have in town - a community of angst-disabled residents." And beyond that?

"Relationships here are always a freakin' nightmare," added the waitress, whose name was Angela, a refugee of a toxic movida herself. "They come here to cry after their dude leaves them, always in the front seat of the vehicle, which perhaps is telling. That one over there has been here many times. She'll ask for the chuleta plate, eat it like some starving lioness, then go home and cry herself to sleep."

- 30 -

The Needy Candidates:...Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos and Opponent John Wood Bend-Over For The Racist Tea Party Crowd...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - The photo shown above is that of a woman who arrived at a recent rally for President Barack Obama. She is old and she is white, so absolutely she identified herself as a member of the group calling itself the Tea Party. "Liar!" she would yell from the bottom of her ancient lungs with every word the president uttered. "Liar! Liar!" It went on and on and on, until, we hope, she keeled over and died, passing onto the country's racist past. Oh, well.

Tonight, this town's version of the Tea Party, a smaller, yet equally divisive group of far-right wingers, will host a debate at the city library here pitting Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, a Republican, against his electoral opponent, County Commissioner John Wood - a Democrat.

Why these two candidates agreed to the Tea Party gathering is the $64,000 question.

The Tea Party stands for thing no self-respecting politician would endorse. Is Carlos Cascos anti-Gay? Is John Wood? Do they support the silliness espoused by the national Tea Party? It is a party out to move the country farther to the right than even Ronald Reagan ever dreamed of doing. This is the party that is fronting candidates elsewhere such as the idiot Carl Paladino in New York, the moron Sharron Angle in Nevada and the admitted-witch Christine O'Donnell in Delaware.

Yeah, what are Cascos, shown above, and Wood, shown below, doing here?

Have they lost their minds? In race-whipped Harlingen, this splinter version of the national Tea Party may as well be the Ku Klux Klan. Anyone studying the Tea Party agenda would readily see that it is not a party for anyone residing in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Yes, there is a need for something else in our national political arena. But it is not these hate-filled people. Teabaggers stand for things no Valleyite would ever side by, endorse, or wish to know about.

So, we wonder what went through these candidates' minds when they agreed to this debate. Perhaps they just wish to tussle against each other ahead of the November 2nd election. It's been a quiet race with little media fanfare. Maybe that's why these two agreed to meet this evening at the city library here. We can't imagine either of them seeing things as do the racist Teabaggers.

But it should be an interesting night, especially if Cascos arrives in a Nazi uniform and Wood in a black face. We cannot imagine anything good coming out of this mess. The Tea Party in the Valley? The Tea Party in a land largely inhabited by Hispanics who have seen firsthand the bigotry and racism Teabaggers roundly favor? Naaaah. Not here.

This Tea Party is so anti-government that we wonder why these local Teabaggers would use a community library for their silliness. But that's par for these losers - they'll rant against Medicaid and Medicare, but they'll apply for it; they'll rage against unemployment, but they'll take it; they'll scream against the government bailouts, but they'll avail of it.

What the Hell are Carlos Cascos and John Wood doing with these ten-percenters?...

- 30 -

The Comedy Of Mexico:...Government Apparently Plucks Two Thugs Off The Streets and Blames Them For Hartley Killing...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

FALCON LAKE, Texas - A funny thing happened last Friday after days of turgid high-publicity in the U.S.: stoic Mexican authorities announced the capture of two young thugs officials said were behind the alleged murder of American jet-ski aficionado David Hartley. No one is buying the news.

Hartley, a native of Colorado who had been working in Reynosa, Mexico and later living in McAllen just east of here, was reportedly gunned down earlier this month by "Mexican pirates" while on a recreational outing with his wife, Tiffany. Hartley's body and jet-ski have yet to be found, according to local authorities.

Mexico's response to the allegations came slowly. Cries for quick justice by the victim's grieving wife have been blared over American television screens for days, from CNN to excitable Fox. Suspicions surfaced early-on, however. Was this just another American involved in a drug deal gone wrong? Had David Hartley simply befriended the wrong Mexicans? Tiffany Hartley has said little about their activities in Mexico or in South Texas. At last report, Texas officials had taken possession of a life vest worn by Tiffany at the time of the alleged gunfight for testing of blood splatterings.

According to Tiffany Hartley, she and her husband were enjoying a day on the lake when out of the blue came a flotilla of Mexicans firing assault weapons in a scene that must have been remarkably like attacks on American PBRs along the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. It's a brain-freezer, but the tale of David Hartley's mysterious killing has yet to fully unfold.

Still, Mexico's quick detention of two young Mexicans seems awfully convenient and damned funny.

We ask: Did the troubled government to the south merely pluck a pair of shoeless thugs off the street and blame them for the killing? Just to please bellicose Americans?

We're not buying any of it...

- 30 -

THE SOFT TACO: A Sort Of Never-Ending Rio Grande Valley Love Story...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Consuelo had taken a job at a Tex-Mex cafe in Harlingen and so every day she would get up early, bathe, dress and hit the road in her battered 1978 VW. Behind, she left her boyfriend and father of her last two children. The fight about him getting a job had ended - what? - a year earlier. He was in bed as the day's first light cleared the bottom-half of their cracked bedroom window. She combed her hair into place, looked in the old mirror in the bathroom and turned to walk out. The front door needed new hinges and paint, but it kept the loose dogs out at night.

"Bye," she said in the direction of her man and got nothing in return.

By noon, she had worked most of her shift, and as the lunch crowd arrived, Consuelo thought it was great to be employed, to work, to have something to do. She had no idea how a man like her boyfriend, Emilio, could do nothing day after day after day. There was no way he was going to help around the house. He'd taken the kids to her mother's house and likely had the old lady make his breakfast. Emilio was one of several thousand Brownsville men doing nothing. "Huevones," is what the church called them. Consuelo's brothers called Emilio worse names, not that he gave a damn.

"I'm on unemployment, Mama," the uncouth Emilio would say to Consuelo. "I make more money than you by doing nothing!" He was right. A woman in a neighboring town had long-ago stopped trying to collect child-support from him. Emilio looked like the quintessential Mexican, fat and stocky, bearded, his cleanest dirty shirt always worn like some prideful ethnic flag.

At work, Consuelo again felt the glances from one of the cooks, a man some 15 years older who seemed to be a nice person. He'd said he was divorced and living alone. Once, she remembered, he'd made what she thought was a pass at her. But Consuelo had blown it off, thinking it best not to think about it. Here, he was bringing her a soda and a soft taco.

And then he'd said something about getting together after work for a drink. Consuelo had shaken her head. It had been years since she'd been asked out for a drink. This man seemed so nice. She smiled and said nothing. The cook went back to work and Consuelo floated out into the dining room to wait on an arriving couple. It was work. She felt good doing it. She enjoyed her job. Consuelo had not had a week off in 15 years. She took the couple's order and walked back to submit it. The cook smiled at her again. Well, she thought.

At shift's end, she walked out toward her car in the employee parking spaces behind the eatery and spotted the cook waiting by his car, which was alongside hers. "So," he said in a friendly voice, "...do we go?"

Consuelo said yes...

- 30 -  

THAT GIRL:...The Education of Melissa Zamora...Politics Is Painless...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Perhaps it was that tidbit we read in one of this city's second-row Blogs, the bit about local City Commissioner Melissa Zamora being a tragic figure - sad and graceless. Then someone sent us an Email saying she had left her Brownsville residence in favor of something called Arroyo City and that she would soon resign her position. This was followed by news, or rumors of news, that she had allied with Cameron County Judge candidate John Wood in his Quixotic bid against rock-solid incumbent Carlos Cascos.

Someone else noted that the alliance carried a certain irony, in that Zamora had once backed Cascos, and wasn't it Cascos who'd hired her early-on in his administration?

It was enough RGV "celebrity politics" to get us interested in wondering about a few things. The Texas-Mexico border does that to us every so often. If it isn't throwing us up against killer tacos at yet another taqueria, it's forcing us into another tale of low-rent border politics gone nutty. Zamora and John Wood? Isn't that sort of like Cher leaving Sonny for Jerry McHale? We've met Melissa Zamora, but we do not profess to know her. Once, we thought she would bring change to Brownsvile. But that feeling has passed, and now that we hear about her tie-in with aging John Wood, well, we are led to conclude that her reasons are likely too-personal and not at all to do with helping her community.

Time will tell.

For now, it's wait & see with Melissa Zamora.

But, then, it's always been that way with this daughter of Pleasanton. We can only hope that there remains an ounce of goodness in her public service. So, yeah, who really knows? We have not spoken with her in months, and likely never will again. Border politics tends to do that to its practitioners - force them under turtle shells, into holes only the ostrich can ever know.

John Wood, Melissa? John Wood!

Madre de Dios...

 - 30 -

Incident At Falcon Lake:...Was David Hartley Really Offed By Mexican Thugs?...Wonder Of Wonders...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

FALCON LAKE, Texas - It doesn't take very long once you near this lake before one gets the idea that, hey, something sure smells fishy. Tasty, fresh-water Bass draw many an angler out this far west of Rio Grande City, and many of them are day-outing people who often grill their catch right there on the banks of the expansive lake's many crooks and crannies. The aroma moves from campsite to campsite. It is an outdoor delicacy that comes largely free-of-charge. All you need is a fishing license.

But that allows you permission to fish on the U.S. side of the lake. The equally-bountiful Mexican side is something else altogether. Americans have long fished wherever they wanted to on this lake. Fish wardens patroll only the U.S. parks, dropping-in on people in the middle of a grilling to ask for fishing licenses. The Mexican side of the lake requires no official authorization, although other things come into play over there.

Apparently, a man named David Hartley found out the hard way that the Mexican side of Falcon Lake brings risk other than some gung-ho game warden pulling you over to ask for something or another. Hartley was reportedly jet-skiiing last week with his wife, Tiffany, when, as she tells it, the pair was attacked by Mexicans on speedboats firing automatic weapons. According to his wife, David Hartley was shot in the head and presumably killed. His body has not been found, nor has his jet ski.

It's an odd story. Much of it sounds believable, but much of it does not.

Tiffany Hartley, shown in photo above, says she managed to speed away from her attackers, that she heard and saw bullets splashing all around her, that blood coming from David's exploding head splattered on her life vest. That blood is now being analyzed, although, as any private investigator will tell you, it'll only matter if the blood of Tiffany's vest came from Hartley, and if someone can prove that it is as fresh as his killling - the latter being a bitch to prove.

As could have been expected, the Hartley family and a boatload of supporters have now damned border law enforcement - on both sides of the Rio Grande - while giving little info as to how Tiffany could have escaped the clutches of so-called heartless and cruel thugs not used to, well, letting witnesses go free. And, as someone else noted, where is that jet ski?

"Tiffany Hartley said she was seeing bullets hitting close to her in the water and realized that her husband had been hit behind the head," Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. told ABC News at week's end. "She went back trying to find, trying to help him. She went in the water trying to load up her husband to her Jet Ski ... trying to get his body and Jet Ski back to the U.S. side. She was being shot at so she finally had to let go of the body, climb back in her Jet Ski and head back over here to the United States."

If things did happen as Tiffany Hartley alleges they happened, well, that bloody jet ski is now in the hands of some teen cartel hooligan using it to impress chicks on some lake in the Mexican interior.

And if past history is any indication, David Hartley's body was recovered by the Mexicans and placed head-first inside a 55-gallon drum full of acid...

- 30 -  

Plunging Standards: In County Judge Race, It's The Pseudo-Republican Against The Most Boring Democrat Ever...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ

Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, TX - There was a time in Cameron County when the phrase "political experience" actually meant something, like accomplishment, progress and social betterment. These days, it doesn't mean squat, is what many here are saying openly and doing it loudly.

The race for Cameron County Judge is one often seen as being the maker-breaker for anyone having any sort of ambition. You win that job and you're the next kingmaker. In the hunt for that office are two men who really offer precious little in the way of differentiation. Incumbent incumbent Carlos Cascos says he's a Republican, but likely laughs deep inside every time he says it or hears it. Democratic opponent John Wood is a party loyalist from the Lyndon Baines Johnson era of glad-handing. How do we know? We believe he lived it.

Lackluster fits both of these guys as the operative adjective.

It would be something if either of these two men had the heart of struggling Cameron County in mind. Politics, it seems, won't allow for serving the good of the whole and not the party in this poverty-stricken outpost. Cascos, one of those rare lost Mexicans in the party of racist Rush Limbaugh and anti-Mexican Tom Tancredo, has not distinguished himself in office. Naming a concrete accomplishment he has delivered is a tough task. He'll talk your ear off about minor advances such as making improvements to Adolph Thomae Park, but there is nothing anywhere near spectacular on this guy's ledger. There isn't, and there isn't.

Yet, Cascos, shown in photo above, appears to be the lesser of the two evils. We mean evil in a political way, as Wood is seen as some goofy, anachronistic dreamer. Wood, shown below, is said to have enlisted the cabal known formerly as the minions of one Gilberto Hinojosa, a former Cameron County Judge hardly the model for good public service. And much is being thrown-about regarding Wood's wheeling & dealing as commissioner, such as okaying time cards for people he should have questioned and issuing ridiculous statements such as one in which he expressed shock upon learning that wine contains alcohol. Such vagaries only serve to paint him as an amateur and not a public servant.

Wood's principal weakness is this failure to forge even the thinnest of can-do reputation. And perhaps his "forever-dour look" hurts him in the arena of public perception. We were tickled to hear the story of Wood's experience with Ms. Rebecca Gomez, the third candidate in the party primary who earlier this year fell out of the running. According to Gomez, she and Wood agreed to meet on a "lunch date" to talk about her backers, i.e. the 2,400 votes she received. Wood apparently thought Gomez would funnel those voters to his camp. As is the case with women, she changed her mind and didn't make the date. Wood, spurned to the point of who knows what, then drove to Gomez's home and began playing a doorbell symphony before rapping on the home's windows when Gomez did not answer. That, we shall note, is Ms. Gomez's side of the story.

And here's what she said after throwing her support behind then-Wood opponent Eddie Trevino, the former mayor of Brownsville:  "Sure, its easy to point the finger, but when we get our feet down on the ground of reality, its the integrity and record of a person who gives us the initiative to decide whether we want to support or not that person and I did not run to be judged as to how I would respond to an invitation for a lunch date with anyone, I ran as a candidate under the Democratic Party and 2,406 voters agreed with me, which is why I am asking voters who supported me, to support my endorsement of Mr. Eddie Trevino, because in the end, experience counts and Eddie Trevino is running on his record of experience and let me be very clear with the critics too ready to point the finger."

Wow! The crippled command of language is stunning. Who'd want her support? We are of the opinion that county voters would be better off looking for a stiff drink before last call on November 2nd. Wood never was the answer, and County Judge Cascos never really was a Republican.

He merely plays one in this B-movie...

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A version of this story was published here last March, during the party primary elections...]

RETURN OF SOMETHING OR ANOTHER:...Patrick Alcatraz Promises Nothing...It's One More Turn Around El Baile Grande...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Miss me yet? A guy can leave town for a few days, come back and find that not a goddamned thing has changed in this pitiful land of corrupt under-achievers. Yeah, we're back and say "Hell-o" to your ass, 'cause it'll be on full display here, Baby.

Take a letter, McHale. And exactly when are you going to get to the literary in the Review? Sleepy stories about Nobodies never have moved me.

And why is the town barrister Bobby Wightman-Cervantes tearing Montoya a new anus? Bobby's a savvy crafty dude compared to Pobre Juan. Too cute.

Get that caterer back online. Whoa! Howdy! Someone bring me a jumbo cup of burning black coffee. And turn that fuckin' Charro moaning on loud. I love the smell of tacos in the morning. I'm up for a little stomping across this dusty dance floor. Yeah, haste un lado, PENDEJO! We're decelerating from that great altitude out west, from somewhere better. So, yeah, I'm not all that happy about being back. Roll cameras! A-C-T-I-O-N!!

Here I am, The Most Interesting Man in Town.

Remember, we're not for everybody. But, then, you nopaleros already knew that...

- 30 -   

And Then It Was Over:...Sissy Was all Dressed Up And Everywhere To Go...You Could Wonder, Or You Could Go Ahead And Roll With It...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

COMBES, Texas - You can look at Life from behind a load of lenses, from clear ones and from darkened ones, from a wide world of perspectives, from every single prejudice moving along your veins, from every window, from every point on the ground. But what I always found in my travels and in my relationships with Human Beings is this - it's okay to want to see everything through those neat rose-colored glasses, the ones that paint over the bad, the worst, the cheap and the ugly.

It's late in the year, everybody's gone or dead or missing. Things are ending here today, and all I know is that I'm sticking with Sissy Estrada for as long as she'll have me. A case can now be made for believing that things at times end well. It'll be a trip, is what Sissy has told me. I'm okay with everything that may or may not mean.

Any woman who can look at the future and smile in love after her mobile home has burned down cannot be all bad. She is over boyfriend Junior Bonner in a Big Way. I wish he'd passed-on in a much different manner, but perhaps finding yourself at the bottom of the North Sea is a new way for a cowboy to say adios. Someone else will miss Ol' Junior. We're back from an early-morning jaunt to the beach east of here, and, yeah, that sunrise played nicely from behind those rose-colored glasses. Sissy is in the living room of my place, all dressed up and everywhere to go.

The Tribune is history. The offices were packed and shuttered last night. It's an ending, not the best in the eyes of a few, but an ending just the same.

I've told Sissy I'll do my dangest to be a good boy from here on out and what she said was, "Well, we'll pretty much have to wait and see..." Someone who knew me from way back once said that all that could ever hold me for any length of time was a killer snowstorm. Who knows about that? I doubt it, is what I'd say. But if we go simply on thoughts, well, that's somewhere in the ballpark of whatever it is that could hold me. I'm intrigued this time, however.

It's as I like to say, "Something has to end so that something new can begin..."

- 30 -

Former Tribune Reporter Junior Bonner Offed In Amsterdam...Cops Arrest Prostitute With Record of Servicing Goofy-Looking Dudes...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

COMBES, Texas - An Amsterdam prostitute with a history of abusing her customers has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of former Tribune reporter Junior Bonner, and authorities in The Netherlands say he may have been killed and dumped in the frigid North Sea.

"There was a row in her working space between them and something happened," said inspector Einar Gilkison in a long-distance telephone interview. "Our information, second-hand as it is, is that Mr. Bonner requested a series of sexual positions he had diagrammed for the prostitute, blanked-out near the end and then refused to pay for the services, reportedly telling the prostitute he could not recall even meeting her."

The prostitute's name was being withheld pending a court appearance, added Gilkison, a detective who also investigated the vicious killing of another Tribune reporter - Ron Mexico - a month or so earlier. Indeed, it was Mexico's murder that had drawn Bonner to Amsterdam, where, he had said, he was staying until he tracked down Mexico's killers.

Police said they found an inner tube-sized pool of blood on the prostitute's saggy bed and a trail of blood droppings that led first to the small kitchen and then to a dark alley behind the building. In the alley, police found a weathered cowboy boot and a belt buckle adorned with a map of Texas. A hundred feet up the alley, other police officers found a beat-up leather wallet shorn of cash or any sort of identification papers. Police said the wallet had brand markings and appeared to have been purchased at a JC Penney store.

Authorities released a photo of the prostitute in question (shown here).

It was not known whether Bonner was drawn to the woman because Ron Mexico may have visited with her  prior to his death. Police did acknowledge that she specialized in "weird, goofy-looking clients."

"We found four-five condoms at the foot of the bed, but we have no way of connecting them to Mr. Bonner," said Inspector Gilkison. "They are of the ribbed variety and red in color, if that means anything."

Reached in the living room, Bonner's former live-in girlfriend Sissy Estrada said, "The North Sea is not where a southwestern man like Junior Bonner goes to die. That is so bizarre..."

Bonner hailed from Colorado. A brother, Hargis Bonner, said this: "I blame the goddamned Rio Grande Valley for Junior's death. That place is no good, I tell you. It even smells of death. Junior was a good man, full of kindness and heart. To die in the North Sea says much about God. There is no God...All there is in Life is bullshit, one episode of bullshit after another. Goddammit! I'm in the mood to hit the road down Texas way and kill me somebody, yes sireeee.."

- 30 -

Tribune Religion Writer Rannah O'Donnell Splits...Says She's Had It With Editor Patrick Alcatraz...

By JOE DeVOLA
Special to The Tribune

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - In any other nacho-fueled tale of wheelhouse romance, the lovely Rannah O'Donnell would have been the gal the playboy gets at the end of the flick. Not in this moving cantina brawl pushed onward by border lust and disgust. O'Donnell, shown above as she sunned on the beach here this afternoon, is leaving town.

Why?

"It appears my dear Patrick has again chosen another woman over me, and a woman can only take two of those in one lifetime," she said, referring to on & off boyfriend Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz and his ongoing flirtation with former Tribune writer Junior Bonner's galpal - the intoxicating Sissy Estrada.

O'Donnell, The Tribune's religion writer for a portion of this summer, says she is moving to New York City, where she will work free-lance Journalism for a group of Middle East newspapers. "I'm not bitter at all," she said twice. "I'm just not the one for him. Too bad. But his eyes can only look at her..."

Alcatraz declined to comment on O'Donnell's surprise decision. It was less than two months ago that he chose former Tribune writer Ron Mexico's widow - the concupiscible Elaine Benitez - as his main squeeze. The two were minutes from marrying when Mexico's son shot and killed the bride at the beginning of the beach-front ceremony in Benitez's home country of Panama.

Late this afternoon, Alcatraz called this reporter to say: "That is one fine picture of Rannah. Print me a copy, willya?"

- 30 - 

In Combes, Sissy Estrada Waits On Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz...No Thoughts On Boyfriend Junior Bonner...

"Samuel Johnson defines the novel as a 'small tale, generally of love.' The French say, 'without adultery, there is no novel.' Who am I to disagree?..." - Patrick Alcatraz

By NICK YEMANA
Special to The Tribune

COMBES, Texas - Sissy Estrada was up for the attention. Patrick Alcatraz had gifted her with a day at the beauty spa and she had not only said yes, but happily looked forward to the make-over. Somewhere across the northern Atlantic Ocean, her beau - Junior Bonner - stayed on the trail of his friend Ron Mexico's killers, oblivious to his girlfriend's new flirattions. Amsterdam in late-September wasn't all that bad of a place to be; he had his furry Russian hat and gloves at the ready for the first snowfall. It ain't my homeland Western Colorado, but it sho 'nuff is purty, he told himself as evening fell.

In South Texas, Sissy looked at herself in the large mirror she'd purchased for her bedroom inside the doublewide mobile home she now, it seemed, shared with Tribune Editor Alcatraz, a man she said had the strength of a panther in the sack. "Not bad at all," she said, looking at herself from head to toe, stopping to focus on the new shoes and underclothing Patrick had purchased for her online from Victoria's Secret and some Parisian shoe store. Junior Bonner had never done such things, giving her only a blue jean jacket and three pairs of blue jeans with accompanying blouses he had bought for her on sale at Mervyn's Department Store in McAllen.

"Mervyn's," she said, "...Mervyn's? Oh, boy...Mervyn's!"

That cowboy Junior would fade, was her feeling as she sat back on the old couch and looked at herself on the mirror across the room once more. For effect, and really to know what it was Patrick would be seeing later that night, she lowered her black sports bra and scoped her breasts, nipples especially. Patrick could spend hours on her breasts, is what she knew. It had become clear to Sissy that Junior was no Patrick; that, although both were men, sex-explorer Patrick brought her a little more adventure in the sack. This, she said aloud, is not about faithfulness or any such rot. This is about a woman perhaps finding the one man that made life and all it entails worth living, battling.

Sissy rose sexily and stood in front of the mirror briefly before walking into the living room to conduct an interview with this reporter.

"I don't know if it's over with Junior," she said right-off. "Exactly how does a woman ever know things are done with a man? Short of being murdered, I mean..."

The telephone rang.

"Yes, I love the clothes," she cooed into the receiver. "...Yes, yes, yes, yes!"

She said something about keeping the fires burning and then hung up the phone.

"Any other questions?" she asked. "No, right? - I knew it. Gotta go bathe, but, anyway, thanks for coming by..."

Junior's latest photo had been of a new car he had purchased in Amsterdam, a big, American car he would use to hunt down Ron's killers. The color sucked, was what Sissy had thought at seeing it, not that she cared..

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In Amsterdam, Former Tribune Reporter Junior Bonner Buys European Clothes and Checks Out The Red Light District...

By JOE DeVOLA
Special to The Tribune

COMBES, Texas - Word comes that former Tribune reporter Junior Bonner has begun his investigation into the vicious murder of ex-colleague Ron Mexico in Amsterdam last July. The photograph shown above was handed-over to The Tribune by Bonner's former girlfriend, Sissy Estrada, who still resides in his mobile home here.

"It shows him wearing European clothes and walking away from a cheap Amsterdam floosie he likely sexed," Estrada said during an interview Sunday afternoon. "He says he's getting places with the investigation, but who really ever knows with Junior?"

Bonner was fired by Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz after Bonner confessed to taking free shrimp plates from a seafood mogul he'd befriended in Brownsville. Aggrieved, he left South Texas and announced he would fly to The Netherlands with the expressed purpose of solving Mexico's killing.

Ron Mexico, a reporter's reporter, was knifed and shot to death by wandering thugs while he moved across Amsterdam's fabled Red Light District. In fact, he had been living in a second-story flat with an unknown woman only blocks from the popular tourist attraction. Mexico also had been fired by The Tribune after violating the publication's No-Drinking-Whiskey-While-Covering-City-Hall policy.

"He was my friend and somebody has to bring his killers to justice," Bonner wrote in an Email to galpal Estrada. "I'm on the hunt, honey. And I'll get those boys, 'cause what they did and how they did it pisses me off. You know Ol' Junior. He ain't taking this sittin' down. I miss you, Sissy, and I hope you're being faithful to your cowboy..."

Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz, visiting the shorts-clad Sissy Estrada while this reporter interviewed her, said: "Bonner's a good, hard-nosed, no-nonsense reporter who blew it with the seafood plates, but he'll get his information before this story's over. Ron Mexico did not have a better friend on staff."

Asked about her relationship with Junior Bonner, Estrada said, "Long-distance relationships are hard on me. You know what they say...'Out of sight; out of mind,' so who knows? Maybe I'll just have to move on, huh?"

As this reporter departed her doublewide mobile home set between two scraggly mesquite trees, Alcatraz was on the couch, taking his harness boots off...

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Lawsuit Filed Against Tribune Writer Ricardo Klement By Man Who Alleges Ricardo Stole His Wife...

By SPEEDY AYALA
Special to The Tribune

EDINBURG, Texas - The irate husband of an attractive McAllen woman involved in a yearlong sexual affair with Tribune Writer Ricardo Klement has filed a hefty lawsuit alleging alienation of affection. "He took my wife from me and this lawsuit is one way to make that sonofabitch pay," said Henry Layton, a McAllen businessman who said he and his wife met Klement at a wine-tasting event in town.

According to the filing, Layton seeks $12 million from Klement as compensation for entering into the torrid sexual affair that ultimately led Janet Layton to leave her husband. The affair began as afternoon meetings in area motels where the two hilariously registered as Mr. and Mrs. Adolf Eichmann, but later segued into Mrs. Layton practically living in Klement's houseboat on the Laguna Madre east of Port Isabel.

The filing is wrought with details of the meetings and includes a video submitted by Mr. Layton to the court depicting Klement and Mrs. Layton, who is 34, inside a Brownsville motel. "You can see it all right there," said Henry Layton. "The guy even falls off the bed while they're changing positions. Outrageous! He can have her, but it's gonna cost him."

Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz, a man who does not tolerate immoral shenanigans from staff reporters, said Klement would be suspended immediately and likely would be fired. "Our policy is clear on our reporters engaging married women in sexual adventures," said Alcatraz. "Ricardo Klement knew that policy and signed-off on it upon being hired. It's too bad, because Klement has done remarkable work for The Tribune."

Reached at his houseboat, Klement said, "Love will make you do strange things, man. It just happened. What can I tell you? Yeah, Janet is here with me right now. She's in the shower..."

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Sept. 24, 2010: Harlingen Terrorized by Attacking Mosquitoes...A Date That Will Live In Infamy...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - In the city at the end of a popsicle stick, the burning issue today centered on Lame Duck Mayor Chris Boswell and whether his toney neighborhood was the only one sprayed with mosquito pesticide while the rest of the meatless sandwich that is Harlingen saw no relief.

That would be local celebrity private dick Joe Rubio's take. Today, The Rubester penned a story for the nascent Blog MyLeaderNews.com in which he says that is exactly what happened in town.

"The tropical storm Hermine brought us some heavy showers and both the county and the City of Harlingen waited for mosquito spraying from the State of Texas - Gov. Rick Perry," Rubio began in his breathless, soul-sapping tale of annoying bug woe.

Boswell apparently was busy studying - and framing, we presume - the city's proposed budget and, well, he seemed incredulous that anyone would raise the topic of mosquitoes when he's dealing with bigger, more-menacing financial monsters.

“I am in a budget meeting and this subject comes up?" he asks in Rubio's story.

But Joe Rubio, a seemingly tireless gumshoe, goes on: "The first area that was sprayed by the city of Harlingen was Mayor Boswell’s residential area. It started to rain afterward and there was no more mosquito spraying. The budget cuts had forced the director of this department to minimize mosquito-spraying because he was down to $150 left in the budget. Therefore, no one got sprayed except the mayor’s area."

Buggy stuff.

Rubio hangs it on Boswell like a towering Shaquille O'Neill dunk on George W. Bush: "Message - take care of the Boss first and the hell with the peasants. Seven days left for the new budget (to take effect), and I guess we can spray for mosquitoes once again if Mr. Boswell suffers the first bite. Sixty-seven-million-dollar budget and we allow city govenment leaders to play the blame game."

In the history of local complaints against city government, MosquitoGate ranks somewhere between residents lining up for the opening of Chick-fil-A and the heart-breaking ousting of the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings from the recent United Baseball League playoffs.

Breathing just ain't ever easy here, as Rocker Bill Haley used to say when he called Harlingen home...

- 30 -

Two Days After His Firing, Former Tribune Reporter Junior Bonner Takes a Naked Flight to Amsterdam...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - You can say what you want about former Tribune writer Junior Bonner, but that he is boring would not be one of those things. Junior took a flight out of the country late last night, bound for Amsterdam, and he sent us this photo from inside the charter flight he caught in New York.

"They call it the Naked Flight," he said in a text message from aboard the airliner. "That's me to the right of the woman's nalga, the one on the aisle. I kinda look funny without muh cowboy hat, huh? Oh, well, whatever..."

Bonner, fired from The Tribune this past week for accepting free shrimp plates from a Brownsville seafood joint, promised to send updates on his European doings, among those would be a report on the killing of former Tribune writer Ron Mexico in Amsterdam last July.

"I wanna see that Red Light district where they shot him for muhself," Junior went on. "Gonna get the official police report and go to the exact scene of the murder. Don't know that The Netherlands has ever seen a cowboy investigative reporter like me. I'm free-lancing, so if someone throws a plate of free shrimp at me, I'm a-gonna eat the damned thing, without worryin' my little head about it."

Bonner is traveling alone. His girlfriend of three months, Sissy Estrada, is staying at Junior's doublewide trailer home in Combes. The Tribune was unable to reach her for comment about Junior's flight aboard an airplane full of naked passengers...

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GREAT SCOTT!!!:..Three Matamoros Thugs Caught Trying To Steal The Body of Former Tribune Editor Juan Jones...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

HOUSTON, Texas - Police here have arrested three Matamoros, Mexico thugs who were caught trying to steal the body of former Tribune editor Juan Jones from his gravesite at an all-Black cemetery. "Those boys are sick," said one of Juan's relatives. "It was beyond ghoulish. To take a man out of a hole in the ground. What is this world coming to?"

The leader of the grave robbers was identified as Tipurcio Goma Garces, 33, a bus mechanic. Cops said the second man was 33-year-old Ramon Quick-Frito, a street vendor dealing in tacos, wrestler masks, belts and candies who is said to have lugged two shovels to the cemetery. The third thug was id'd as 47-year-old Raymundo Plundo Lozano, an unemployed Internet graphics artist.

"We had a patrol out here and that is the only reason we got these miscreants," said a spokesman for the police department. "We're unclear on the motive. But I will tell you that the Black community here is not happy. Those guys are lucky we got them and not the neighborhood chapter of the Black Panthers."

Jones was shot dead in Matamoros last month after spending a day in a hospital following a vicious beating at a Matamoros nightclub. Mexican police told Alarma! magazine that three Mexicans also partying at the club - El Last Trago Bar - took offense at seeing Juan Jones passionately kissing and fondling a young Mexican woman. He was shot as he walked toward the international bridge that would have taken him into Brownsville.

A family member said Jones would be re-buried sometime today.

"It's been raining and raining, so the ground is not right," said Taquanda Monique Jones. An attractive Asian woman who said she was Juan's last girlfriend arrived from New Orleans at mid-afternoon and was seen praying at the gravesite, which, from my perspective outside the main gate, looked like a mound of dirt that had been worked-over by a billion ants. Asked to comment on the bizarre attempted heist, the woman, who gave her name as Amy Luong Tseng, said: "Juan's soul is now out of the bottle and we have to put him back as soon as possible..."

Police said the three Mexican grave-robbers would be arraigned today and likely be deported over the weekend. "Two of them began crying as soon as the other jail prisoners began hooting & hollering," said a jail guard at the Harris County Jail. "The third one looked like he'd just seen the Virgin of Guadalupe. He wouldn't uncross his arms and kept them over his chest the whole time while being booked..."

- 30 -         

At The Tribune, Romance Blooms & Word Comes Of A Late-Night Dinner Date In McAllen...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

McALLEN, Texas - You'd have to know about Life in the American Newsroom. You'd have to know something about how romance just crawls through such environments to understand the scene at The Tribune this morning, when reporter Rannah O'Donnell arrived to begin her second stint at the online publication.

Just watching Editor Patrick Alcatraz scoping-out Rannah said it all (see photo above). We are welcoming more than just a much-needed religion writer; she will be his pet. Undoubtedly, there will be sexual fireworks around here. For sure.

This is not one of our usual news stories, but Alcatraz is one of those picky guys who believes a news organization should be transparent - even if it means the staff is thrown into the mix. O'Donnell was here earlier this year, back when Alcatraz began dating former Tribune writer Ron Mexico's widow following Mexico's vicious murder in Amsterdam. Some staffers said Alcatraz was crazy to choose Elaine Benitez over Rannah, but perhaps he is right about his Even-Steven approach to life. Benitez was gunned down in Panama by Ron Mexico's angry son, who did not fancy seeing Alcatraz having his ex-step-mom in the sack. Alcatraz was not hurt in the wild shooting. Ron Mexico, Jr. remains in solitary confinement inside a roach-infested Panamanian prison while awaiting trial.

The word in the Newsroom this afternoon is that Rannah told someone who told someone else that she and Patrick Alcatraz are dining-out in McAllen later tonight...

- 30 -

Tribune Reporter Junior Bonner is Fired... He Took Free Shrimp From Seafood Restaurant...

By VINCE VALDEZ
Staff Writer

McALLEN, Texas - Reporter Junior Bonner has been fired after allegations surfaced that he has been taking free shrimp plates for the past six months from a seafood restaurant in Brownsville. The surprise dismissal was announced this morning by Tribune Editor Patrick Alcatraz, who said, "If there is something I abhor it is reporters taking free food from anyone. Our policy is simple - you take free food; you're fired."

Bonner, a native of Colorado, had been with the online publication less than a year. It was not known who fingered Junior, but rumors surfaced as early as last month. Reached at his mobile home in Combes, Bonner said: "I'm guilty, yep. I took those shrimp plates without paying for them. Was it wrong? Absolutely. Does it taint my reporting for The Tribune? Yes, I suppose it does. Should anyone believe what I write? Perhaps not..."

Bonner said he would be taking a few days off and then fly to Amsterdam for a little vacation time. He would not say whether his local girlfriend, Sissy Estrada, would be going with him.

Alcatraz, who only yesterday returned to the editorship of The Tribune, said he takes a hard line against any reporter receiving anything gratis. "Taking freebies soils the profession," he said. "A reporter trading in his ethics for a plate of shrimp? That is not a reporter. That is a freeloader. Junior Bonner knew our employment policies..."

Reporter Ricardo Klement, the senior staffer in the newsroom, said this: "What Junior did is unforgivable. And I agree that his cowboy ass should have been fired. People without morals don't belong in Journalism. I wish him luck, but know that he's a rotten dude, as they say in his world. What man takes free food anyway? It's not something a man ought to be doing..."

- 30 -