In Brownsville, A Glut Of News And No Newspaper...The Mexican Border As Motherlode Of Stories...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It's been said by out-of-town reporters many times: If ever there was a place for mind-boggling news stories, that place would be the lawless Texas-Mexico border. But, as with fairy tales that become too-familiar, the tales of woe, of corruption, of malcontents, of under-achievers, of the excitable, of the criminals have innured the population and the region's press to the point of indifference. How many times can you read that the Three Mexican Bears were busted for dealing drugs?

Now, again, comes the renegade Blogger Jerry McHale, shown in photo above, to drag his dictionary across the harsh, dusty local geography in search of those very stories. It is the latest promise by the California transplant who's made a long-running, curbside career out of shaming this town's mediocre politicians and the local culture. McHale, a schoolteacher by day, has declared he will aim his blog - BrownsvilleLiteraryReview.blogspot.com - to higher ground. Gone, he promises, will be the pornography and alley lingo he has used for years. It's a wait-and-see moment for his targets and neighbors.

We have long contended that the existing mainstream press in the Rio Grande Valley has never been up to the job. Freedom Newspapers, Inc., which owns the Valley's three dailies, has turned its back on stories that should have made their newspaper here the national "go to" daily on all things to do with the region. Is there a Pulitzer Prize in coverage of the ongoing miserable drug war across the Rio Grande? One would think so. Merely taking second-hand info from the news outlets across the river has not worked for The Brownsville Herald, The McAllen Monitor and the ever-hapless Valley Morning Star in Harlingen. What stories they'd have told had reporters for those three dailies been sicced on the drug war; that is, had they been dispatched across the river to report firsthand.

McHale's declaration comes with a clear angst. He has the talent to undress any politician or city bureaucrat doing wrong, a species of which there are many in town. He has the contacts, having traded in comfort easily found elsewhere for a life of cheap laughs and booze in this hardscrabble town of a quarter-million residents unable to bridge into anything that could be labeled as being nice. Stray dogs and wild, booze-fueled driving got the attention of the town's previous mayor. The current one has so far ignored animals...and humans. It's a good time for crusading, for muckraking, for exposing all that is wrong with this depressing community, one more attuned to Mexico's ways than it is to anything American. McHale has mined that environment in the past for excellent reporting, although it's been awhile.

He should start with a lengthy essay on the State of Brownsville, noting its deficiencies, its horribleness and its recent failings, followed by some insightful profiles of the miscreants who continue to soil his homeown, and, then, perhaps he should simply hound those he knows are not serving the community. In all this, he should forget about those locals he has protected for so long. We suspect that McHale himself is aware of the criticism he has received for bailing on people who should have been exposed. And, of course, it goes without saying that he should not trade his objectivity and credibility for free food and booze, as is the practice of the town's other bloggers.

This is a great time to re-shape news in Brownsville. The local newspaper has ceded its claim to being the newspaper of record, ignoring a mountain of stories and covering others so topically as to be useless.

We encourage McHale to give this one his best shot.

As Elvis might say about here, it's now or never...

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News From The Front: Of Ron Paul, RGV Politics And Awful Minor League Baseball...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - There are those who say history repeats itself, in politics, sports, culture and everything else Man has his hands on. That is true. You can leave the comfort of your living room couch, take in dinner and a movie and come back to find little has changed. We are on the lip of something we've had or tasted before, already fully digested. Life is daily, the sun followed by the moon.

1.) National Politics - We like him cause he dissed Hollywood Republican Ronald Reagan enough to make us believe him on that front, but U.S. Rep. Ron Paul is simply not presidential material. The Texas Libertarian-Republican won the Republican Leadership Conference's straw poll over the weekend in New Orleans. It is, to be sure, only the latest poll, but the 75-year-old Paul keeps shaking the GOP's branches. We laud his presidential-aspiration efforts, which began as far back as 1988, but something about the lanky, high-throated Paul bothers us. He publishes a variety of political newsletters in which he damns much of what serves as our federal government. In one of those controversial newsletters, he wrote this: "Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day." That's bush league politics, and something we cannot overcome when thinking about his chances. Ron Paul speaks a lot of common sense. It just strikes us as being nothing more than self-serving noise. His true beliefs, whatever they are, are something to really worry about.

2.) Local Politics - In Brownsville, it is The Day of The Woman. And we don't mean in the sack, which is where they've been Queens for eons. No, this time, women now own the majority of the seats on the Brownsville City Commission following Saturday's run-off elections. Their names are not yet important; it is their deeds to come that will serve as gender grade. For too long, however, the poverty-stricken city at the end of the Rio Grande has lived a Stoned Macho existence, fending off an endless shower of political corruption, lack of brains and an environment that said chasing booze and broads was the order of the day at City Hall. This election's results are a major leap forward, perhaps allowing some residents to think the town has plunged into the 1980s.

3.) RGV Politics - Nothing entertains like a smalltown mayoral election. In tiny, dusty Donna along the Mexican border, it is as if a new shipment of khaki pants has hit town. Saturday's battle for the mayorship here had the incumbent, an Hispanic by the name of David Simmons, shown in photo above, treating his opponent, former Mayor Hector Casiano, as if a fly circling his beloved Guacamole. Casiano was said to be "Old School" in a part of the Rio Grande Valley where few go to school. He got off to a bad start, okaying a campaign poster with a misspelled word. Not that it was the reason he lost, because he lost handily. It was, says this observer, a good result if doing away with the past is a sign of progress. Too often, in the luckless Valley, residents are buffaloed by "names" of families who do little for the community, but act as if the Cartwrights on the Ponderosa. Casiano needed to be whipped, and, well, he was. Hopefully, it turns the page on poor Donna's patron past. Oddly, another former Mayor of Donna, one Rick Morales, is being ballyhooed as a potential candidate for mayor of Harlingen in that town's next election. Morales has had his shot. In western movies, he's the guy who should ride out of town at sunset, leaving the stage gracefully and not hanging on as if some punch-drunk boxer unable to reach for his laxative.

4.) Minor League Baseball - So, whatever became of the delinquent $40,000 utility bill owed to the City of Harlingen by the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings baseball team? The new season is underway and, already, the taco-fat players are getting fatter with every pitch in the dirt, fans are staying away in droves and nothing out of the ordinary has exhibited itself on the ballfield. If this is baseball, well, bring on softball. Minor league baseball always has been a crapshoot. The major leagues are underway and fights for the pennant are again exciting the nation. Minor league ball is the equivalent of, say, nine guys buying a big tent and then believing they can bring a circus to town. Things have been so mediocre for the North American Baseball League fronting this charade that, in Yuma, the team celebrated Memorial Day by hosting a Lady Gaga Night. In the Valley, teams from Edinburg, McAllen and Harlingen take turns beating the brains out of each other so often that it's easy to say all of these players are simply not very good players. Scoring 12, 14, 15 runs a game tells you the pitching is not up to par. Perhaps the concessions - soda, beer, hot dogs - are better this season. Let's hope the mustard and relish are free.

Paz out...

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On Father's Day, A Hope That The Lump In Your Throat Is About Love, Not About Regret...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - Somewhere out there, in expensive and humble homes from one end of the Rio Grande Valley to the other, is a dad extending his hand to receive a card or gift from his son or daughter. Let us hope that that father has no moment flashing across his brain of a time when he abused his kids, when he failed to provide, when he disrespected their mother in their presence, when he let the family down.

It's Father's Day across the nation.

This is the day to stare at the bottom of the family ledger and take a full accounting of a man's behavior toward his children. Pity the man whose actions have not been noble, whose words have hurt, whose role is a mess of infidelity, regret and personal pain. Today is the day all the chits come knocking on the soul's door for collection. This is the day a child's innocent eyes open wide to convey love. This is the day a son or daughter will offer his or her finest loving hug, his or her sugared words full of genuine pride. This is the day the wife, that sweetheart you chose to marry, takes a deep breadth and hopes that this day, this day, will bring out the best in her husband.

And that father, if he's been a father for any length of time, whether a day or decades, will inhale a world of oxygen and try his damndest to erase the little things he wishes he'd never done, the hard words he wishes he'd never aimed in the direction of his children, the failings he exhibited so openly to the woman who married him, him out of a billion men on the planet - him.

I wish my two daughters could be five years old again. They are seven years apart, one is married with a family, the other one interested in shining the entire sky in the biggest city in America. Both do their Old Man proud in their respective ways, in the heart-tugging things they say, the laughter we share when remembering a trip to Disneyworld, building a snowman in the front yard, travelling as a family. You can't bring back those ages. Children grow and they go...and the weeks turn to months and then to years and the next thing you know, well, too many memories will have faded.

I agonize when I see a parent being cruel to a child, the fathers especially. I have been known to approach a kid whose Dad has said no to candy at a convenience store and offered to buy it. It's not a smart thing to do, but my feelings for kids are singular - the children must be allowed to be children. It is the best age, and I am not the first to say that.

So, today, when you are honored as a father, think a bit about the family and ask yourself whether you have tried to be the best of fathers - not just today, or in the weeks leading up to Father's Day, but every day.

I miss my children more than I'll admit. They know it. I say it to them every chance I get, in writing and during telephone chats, most of those too short, but they're busy. I know they love me. They say it to me. I know they think of me often. I know they would like me to be with them more. I know that their mother tells them to stay in touch with me.

I know it, yes... 'cause I never did anything bad or said anything stupid to them or to their mother when they were children. I'm kinda proud of that. 

Happy Father's Day...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...This story was written and posted last Father's Day, 2010. I still feel the same way about my two daughters. I know all of you do, as well, about your own kids...]

In Ditzy Michele Bachmann, The Republican Party Has Its Latest Clown...This One Is A Nut Case...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - Politics allows for the best and the brightest, the stupid and the dullest. That is so once more as the country dives into its season of presidential politics. Take a seat. It's all coming to you for the next year and a half. As a citizen, you've bought the ticket, now take the ride, as someone famous once wrote about life in these United States. Even God is coming.

We bring you daffy Michele Bachmann in this episode of Republicans Gone Nuts.

Yeah, that's Michele in the anachronistic Annette Funicello hairdo. Some throwback. Bachman and her politics go back to the Crusades, to a time on the planet when religion was the opium of the masses, to a time when being an atheist brought quick beheading, when being Gay brought even worse.

Bachmann is one of the GOP's brighter stars as the party of racism gets ready to pick its nominee for the 2012 presidential race against President Barack Obama. Think Sarah Palin is the dumbest on the block? Well, she is dumb. But Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, is dumb and on crack, if her fiery, Jesus-Is-Everything politics are any indication of drug abuse. She started out as a young woman working on Democrat Jimmy Carter's 1976 campaign, found religion and sailed on to become what she is today - the daughter of a broken marriage who has a Lesbian stepsister, but can't stand the thought her father left her mother and later married a man who brought the Lesbian into her life.

Of such life experiences are priests and white supremacists made. In fact, one of her professors at Oral Roberts University often speaks to supremacists groups. Bachmann says all she did was help him with preparation of one of his Born-Again books. Who knows, but it's ditzy.

In any case, her sudden rise has come thanks to the faddish Tea Party and its incessant rants against the federal government, and namely President Obama. Bachmann chimes-in with her soundbites against everything Obama proposes. Her doings in Congress are largely non-existent, although perhaps she was swayed by Palin's rise after the quitting-Alaskan governor's failed 2008 race alongside the erstwhile GOP foil John McCain.

Bachmann's chief anger is aimed at homosexuals.

This she said while a member of the Minnesota State Senate a few years back: "Any of you who have members of your family in the lifestyle, we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay."

Interestingly, her stepsister, Helen Lafave, was in the audience, trying, it seems, to somehow get Bachmann to see the other side of the issue, the one that allows for Americans to decide what they'll be even in the world of sexuality.

That blew a family relationship that had LaFave once playing a mentoring role for the younger sibling.

"Helen always liked Michele, always," says Linda Cielinski, one of Bachmann's other stepsisters. "They lived together as teenage girls. They were very close at that time." Bachmann's anti-gay activism, Cielinski says, "was a hit to the gut."

So far, Bachmann has played her acquired conservative role to the hilt. Indeed, she got high marks after her appearance at her party's first candidate's debate last Monday night, edging the shit-for-brains Newt Gingrich and her fellow Minnesotan, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty. But will it last? No.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Hunstman is saying he will enter the race early next week. Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani is said to be pondering a similar decision. There is the front-runner Mitt Romney, who served as governor of Massachusetts. In the men-only scrum that is nominee-selection, Bachmann will fade.

The mountain is a high mountain to climb.

But, then again, perhaps the religious zealot Bachmann is well aware of the Biblical events surrounding Mt. Ararat. Somebody famous beached his Ark there, and the question that still haunts scholars is whether it was a seminal moment in Man's ascent, or whether it was something that never happened at all.

Bachmann, it says here, will become the proverbial blip on the radar screen, forgotten in the long run, seen down the road as something that may have happened, only finding anyone who remembers may be hard. Religious fanatics have a tendency of dropping-in on Americans. More recently, televangelist Pat Robertson tried his hand at national politics and got zip. So did Mike Huckabee, the Born-Again former governor of backward Arkansas. And these heaven aficionados have their place, just not as leader of the entire damned experiment that is the U.S. of A.

The name of that Ark dude is still a name to be reckoned with, although perhaps not as much as it was, say, 50 years ago. Bachmann will come to find that many, many Americans hate having someone else shove religion down their throats. It seems to work for the God-abandoned Tea Party faithful she fronts, but the country also has a habit of pooh-poohing fairy tales, even those offerred on Sunday mornings...

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In Today's Republican Politics, No Homage To Bush...George Not In Party's Forefront...

"Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for - but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him..." - Hunter S. Thompson

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

FORT WORTH, Texas - Some national pundits writing about Monday's debate pitting Republicans interested in challenging President Barack Obama are wondering whatever became of former President George W. Bush. The War President's name did not come up during the rah-rah gathering in New Hampshire, an important primary state.

Presumed favorite Mitt Romney hopscotched himself away from anything to do with his party's recent past, focusing, as did his six other nattily-attired pretenders, on the doings of the current president. Romney and Gingrich and Paul and Santorum and Bachman and Cain and Pawlenty stood tall, as if seven high school kids posturing temselves for class president. If anything, only two of the lot has a reason for taking that stage. The others, especially the untrustworthy Newt Gingrich, should have been at home watching.

But Bush's name being ignored says much about this party.

Republicans forever wish to clean the slate of their messes. There was no mention of the cost of that Iraqi war lapped on Americans by George W. Bush, he of the questionable National Guard service. There was no mention of the huge federal treasury surplus left behind by Democrat Bill Clinton when Bush moved into the White House. There was no mention of the monster deficit Bush created. There was no mention of anything to do with the impish Bush.

It is a rare insight into the mind of the collective GOP. They are quick to blame and complain, but never to accept the same. Disgusting is too good a word to describe today's Republicans. It is a party of insular Americans out to strap on their boots and start stomping all that they dislike - from those of other religions, to those not their kind. That is the ugly side of America, a country now as divided as it was ahead of the Civil war in the 1860s. I reeled at seeing Black-American Herman Cain on that debate stage with those marshmallow Republicans. He has as much credibility with them as Billy the Kid had with his many women. They'll take him as a symbol of inclusion, but he has no shot at gaining any influential office within the party.

That Cain does not recognize that makes him either an idiot or some sort of full-bore believer in the Great American assimilation fairy tale. At least Jesse Jackson was on the side that welcomed him. Cain must think that his business success as a pizza mogul will grant him some sort of standing with the GOP. It hasn't happened for any Black yet. That's clear as all Hell is to Gingrich. Yet, Cain is going on. His is an exercise in something or another to do with ego, a campaign bent on feeling good and thinking things have changed in America. At that level, little has changed. Cain must not read the newspapers. He'll fold that small tent in a few weeks. Glib Alan Keyes, a Black-American with an intelligence Cain will never match, learned that lesson in 2008.

But it is Bush's lack of commercial legacy that haunts this new gang of wannabes. His currency, earned and devalued during eight horrible years endured by this country, is worthless.

No, Bush will not be at the Republican Party's nominating convention.

They'll flash his face on the Jumbotron and say a few words before moving on with the monumental task of unseating a president who has done more in two years than Bush would ever have done in 100 years. The story is there. Look it up.

It might have been a bit different had Jeb Bush decided to do the unimaginable and gone after this cycle's GOP nomination. Jeb would have thrown his brother's name out like confetti.

And that would have been good for the Democratic Party. Ah, Bush, what a card. Guy should have been Commissioner of Major League Baseball and nothing more. As for these hollow-suit Republicans, well, personnel managers will tell you that it's always a bitch hiring someone to replace a fuck-up...

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At GOP's First Debate, It's An Evening Of Laughs And Backslappings...Used Tires As Contenders...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - Southern Black Herman Cain said he was a "deep dish" pizza-lover kind of guy. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty sided with Coke over Pepsi. Defeated U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania went with Jay Leno over Conan O'Brien.

That's as deep as Republican presidential wannabes got during the polirical season's first presidential candidates debate in New Hampshire. Broadcast across the nation last night by Cable News Network (CNN), it turned out to be nothing more than an evening with six guys in suits and a noisy, annoying woman arriving to declare her candidacy for the highest office in the land.

This morning, pundits are saying that noisy one - Michelle Bachman, a congresswoman from Minnesota, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the debate. It was not a debate by any stretch of the imagination. It was, however, the first such gathering, and all of us know the "get real" fireworks won't start until the field narrows itself down to two or three.

Americans know the drill. Primaries will come after the telling Iowa caucus, and then after the primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Before long, some of these posers will lose favor and drop out. Newt Gingrich, he of the many wives and $500,000 jewelry revolving account at Tiffany's, will be the first to bid adieu. He arrived at the debate last night after his campaign manager and a host of senior aides deserted him last week. Bachman is going nowhere in national office, her claim to the Tea Party banner being contested by too many others even as she covers herself with it.

Cain, founder of the Godfather's Pizza chain, is out of sorts with the Republican base. Indeed, he seemed to be the only Black-American in the hall where last night's debate was held. He reminds us of Alan Keyes, another glib Black-American who tossed grenades at his Republican opponents, but got nowhere. Cain will be gone soon, as well. Ron Paul, the Libertarian-Republican, is simply too old and ornery. He wants to do away with the Internal Revenue Service and bring back the American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan "today." Not gonna happen, Ron.

Romney seems the safest of the lot, and perhaps that is why he leads in the early polls. "Any person on this stage would be a better president than President Obama," he told the crowd to no laughter. His biggest burden with the voters may be his religion. Romney is a Mormon. Santorum is unemployed after losing a re-election bid for his seat in the U.S. Senate. Why he thinks the country would elect such a recent political loser is the mystery. We suspect Santorum, an extremist of the Far Right, won't last the race.

It'll be interesting to follow the ascent of the GOP's favorite son, as it will be to see the fall of some of these unqualified pretenders. Part of our psyche rests in seeing these meaningless spectacles ahead of a presidential election. I found it hilarious that Paul looks like he's coming out of his economical suit every time he speaks. It, too, was funny to see Cain act as if he was being taken seriously.

But more amusing yet was Bachman's giddy announcement early in the show that she was running for president. The more she spoke, the more it looked like this woman, at best, was suited for the job of aide to Hillary Clinton...

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Reporter's Notebook: Of Balmy National and Local Politics...Pro Basketball...Perry...And Rope...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - News never sleeps. You can move out of town for a few days and return to see that little has changed. It's hotter than it was in May, but that's the summer scorch. Stuff has a way of working itself into your brain, whether you like it or not. It's part of the biological journey, taking the bad with the good, the ugly with the attractive, the horrible with the enlightening. We're in a vignette-state-of-mind this morning, so here goes something of a wrap-up.

1.) National Politics - New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner is still with us, even after his flirtation with sexless sex. He's been asked to resign his seat. Weiner is holding on. That sad episode with sexting photos of himself to women not his wife will fade. That's the nature of scandal. Eventually something else surfaces and the press moves on. Next up is an expected catfight between Republicans Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman. Already, the two darlings of the Tea Party are throwing darts at each other. Both want the GOP presidential nomination that would pit them against Democratic President Barack Obama. It's a losing proposition for both Republican molls, but the bitching between them should be entertaining.

2.) Pro Basketball - Last night's stunning victory by the Dallas Mavericks in Game 6 of the National Basketball Association's championship series brought the first pro basketball title to Big D. It was a shocker for Miami Heat fans, but there it was on national TV. The hero was a scrawny guard named Jason "Jet" Terry. Left to play the mpo-up role of suporter was Mavericks whiner Dirk Nowitzki. He'd been been the problem for that team for the past decade. The Big German made "gunning" his trademark, and he selfishly shoots at every opportunity. And when he's been off, the press has fallen for his claims of a fever, a bad hand and other health problems. When they compare him to Hall-of-Famer Larry Bird, well, that's the last straw. Bird led the Celtics to three championships, was league MVP three times and won a title as a coach. Nowitzki's accomplishments pale when compared to Boston's Number 33. Hopes spring eternal in Big D, but Dirty Dirk always finds a way to disappoint. Good thing he had the Jet...

3.) South Texas Politics - Success often comes when the wagon is stopped and turned in another direction. It's a moment-in-time for residents of Cameron County down by the ungovernable Mexican border. A new congressional district has been created and already a few road-tired pols have lined up at that trough. Residents of the poor district should look to a new face for representation. Voting for the same old do-nothings will get them just that - nothing. We offer the suggestion that a worthwhile candidate would be Brownsville City Commissioner Melissa Zamora. She's young and largely untainted. Ms. Zamora would be a breath of fresh air, and it would punish the politicians seeking the office just because they can. It's time for a new political chapter for this region. Well, it's been time for a long time, actually. Electing a Lucio, an Oliveira, a Villalobos, or an Ahumada only tells the world that dumb continues to be the best adjective for a part of the state forever characterized as being backward.

4.)  The Governor Of Nothing - Rick Perry has a closet problem. He is the elected governor of a passel of Texas Republicans. Perry is said to be considering a run for the presidency after yelling his desire to secede from the nation. Now, he wants to pray. The son of West Texas ground is hosting a prayer summit next month in which he plans to become Joel Osteen, Jimmy Swaggert, Billy Graham and Paulino Bernal. Who'll attend is anybody's guess, although some of the usual suspects can be counted on to arrive wearing their best black garb. Look for Republican John Cornyn to show up dressed as John The Baptist. Look for crazed Republican State Rep. Leo Berman of the English-only movement to waltz in as if he thinks he's in Jerusalem. And that's Tom DeLay in the flowing white robe looking kinda spiffy as a Bible-thumping Klansman. It's all for show, a bad one at that. Perry never was as religious during his days as a Democrat. But that was sometime back, before he got the opportunist bug in his blood. As for his chances at the presidency, well, it'll be a long time before a Texan gets that job after the mess left behind by one George W. Bush. Then there's that touchy closet problem for his guy. He'll have to come clean.

5.)  Rope - Writing long-form fiction is my last addiction. I'm into my next novel, and, well, it keeps me in coffee and out of trouble. My blogging takes up about 20 minutes of my morning once I settle on a topic. The rest of the day, for the most part, is me in my made-up world, me messing with a plot, the plot's characters and me fighting with it all. As most who know me know, my bent is in writing contemporary westerns. Not cowboy tales, but modern fiction set out west. This one follows a bit of my earlier novel Half The Town, but not entirely. It concerns a rural vet treating his animals and his romantic interest as if passing fancies. Love finds its altitude, only it is his Big City dog creating the drama. They say pets will adjust to whatever setting you place them in, so long as you nurture then. Uh, no. Big City dogs hate the smalltowns. This one does. This one doesn't give a damn about the smell of bacon & eggs in the morning, or about the quiet of the rural evening, or about the girlfriend coming over and staying overnight. Big City dogs hate that. They want their space. They demand attention. They bark at ghosts, and they kick ass at every opportunity. As Chapter 5 ends, a reputation has been made. Neighborhood dogs know the score. And Evelyn, the hard-headed girlfriend in the story, has announced she damned straight is taking that waitress job at the Nuclear Club in town...

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Trafficking In Sex: Threats, But No War Yet Against This Shame...U.S. Looks The Other Way...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - It is the one crime used by television to sell police shows like NYPD Blue, Law & Order and Cold Case. Glossy national magazines find the topic always yields a high readership. True Crime books invariably find one or two of these sad and sordid stories as grist for the idle mind. Cops note it as a growing problem and politicians carp endlessly about its coming to America.

Sex trafficking is here, and it is taking young lives for a horrible ride.

Here's a testimonial from a young victim, a woman who came forward amid threats from her pimp: "He called me a stupid bitch…a worthless piece of shit. I had to tell people I fell off stage because I had so many bruises on my ribs face and legs. I have a permanent twitch in my eye from him hitting me in my face so much. I have none of my irreplaceable things from my youth."

Her name was Felicia, a minor prostitute-stripper enslaved by a trafficker at a very young age.

It's a painful lifestyle usually lived by runaway girls and poor women. Their story is well-known; pimps and other abusers have used them since time immemorial. In Texas, the crime is everywhere, in Dallas and Austin and Houston and San Antonio. Lately, it has arrived in small towns along the Texas-Mexico border, where young girls are kidnapped in Mexico and delivered like sacks of drugs to bars and strip clubs in places such as Laredo, Starr County and other spots along the Rio Grande Valley.

Not much was heard about the trend during the state's recent legislative session, where budget deficits and partisan politics stole the day. No state politician made a big deal out of sex trafficking, although they know it's there.

The problem remains. Prostitution lives around every darkened street corner in the urban centers. Every now and then, the rural areas are scenes of wanton sex offered in mobile homes and other out-of-the-way buildings, stories exposed in after-the-fact newspaper stories. It is a profitable trade. As one pimp put it sometime back, perhaps using language addressing the female genitalia as coldly as it can possibly be used: "Once you wash it, it's as good as new."

That sad photography atop this sory comes from a lengthy report in the current edition of Vanity Fair magazine, which offers a tapeworm of a story about sex trafficking in America. The report is at once insightful and alarming.

There are no bordellos in the U.S., other than the legalized sprinkling of whorehouses in Nevada.

But there are those who say they absolutely can be found in the many cheap motels that dot the American landscape. According to the magazine, it's the usual threat of violence and offer of drugs that enslaves the women. That is not news; it's been the method of operation for pimps seemingly forever.

Americans like to see this as something to be found only in the outs of Bangkok or Manila or Mexico City, where young girls are traded as if baseball cards, where they are forced to serve sex-starved foreigners and where the unsympathetic governments look the other way.

All of that has landed on America's shores, in places such as Philadelphia, New York and Chicago.

Look for it and find it in Smalltown, USA.

It's there, too...

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In Texas, The Big Gun State, Few Signs Of Lurid Political Sex Scandals...Well, There's One...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - A few years back, in a "Naked City" column published by the Austin Chronicle, hay was made about rumors moving across this city regarding Republican Gov. Rick Perry's sexuality, namely asking the question: Is he Gay?

Local bloggers went wild with the story, leading Perry to seek an interview with the mainstream Austin American-Statesman in which he stayed on topic and said he was not Gay. The tales told about Perry's alleged dalliances were lurid in nature, although little came from his wife when some reported that she'd caught him with another man in a somewhat compromising position. In town, pro-Gay groups marched to the governor's mansion and held a rally, loudly informing Perry that it was okay to be Gay, urging him to come out of the closet.

That was the last Texas sex scandal.

Perry remains in office and is said to be a contender for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in the 2012 race against sitting President Barack Obama. It's too early - and he has yet to announce - to wonder about whether the Gay rumors will re-surface. They will, of course. Perry has made much of his public morality the centerpiece of his governorship, a posture that of late has included his zealous pursuit of the Sonogram Bill as a requirement for Texas women getting abortions.

The governor's rumors are in sharp contrast to the volcanic roiling going on within the scandal involving U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York's 9th District whose life has been turned upside down by his admission to sexting racy photos of himself to a variety of women not his wife.

It's all part of American Society. Freedom also allows for citizens to be free to be stupid. Weiner's fate is still up in the air. He has said he won't resign and his colleagues in Congress wish he would. Life in the National Fishbowl always brings out the best in scandal and hypocrisy. Remember Wilbur Mills, Rita Jenrette, Donna Rice, John Ensign, Gary Hart, Mark Foley?

Perhaps that is why those many Texans who chase Rick Perry's private life, who want to unmask his true sexuality, are chomping at the bit, hoping he does seek the presidency and is forced to throw open his closet.

It's too juicy of a story for Texans to merely let it go...

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National Affairs: Angst In The Nation's Capital...No Sex Equals Scandal...Scandal Lite...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas - It's been a wild and turbulent week for Democratic U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner, what public relations handlers call his naked moment in the "Nuclear Winter." Weiner being caught in a sexting scandal is not the worst side of the mess; he's a married man with a rather exotic-looking woman most men would say was enough to go straight forever.

Huma Abedin is her name. She is the woman in the photo atop this story, standing alongside her husband in what had to be better days.

Weiner's story of absolute stupidity has played across the national geography since late last week, when news surfaced that he'd been sending lewd photographs of himself to 21-year-old Genette Nicole Cordova, a college student across the country in Seattle, via his cellular telephone. She is shown wearing a striped top in photo above.

According to Weiner and the young student, nothing actually happened between them, but that did nothing to save him from the humiliation of a press conference he held yesterday in which he admitted being part of the the playful game after denying it for days.

Weiner is not alone in any of this. America's politicians have made extra-curricular sexual flirtations and couplings a national art. Former Republican U.S. Senator John Ensign of Nevada took his obsession with a married female staffer all the way to the bedroom, even as he also employed her husband. To wriggle out of it, Ensign had his wealthy parents slip a check for $96,000 to the woman. It didn't play as he expected. Ensign resigned ahead of a Justice Department investigation and he still lives under a cloud of the coming indictment.

Weiner wil survive if his party colleagues wish him to survive. He won't if they don't.

A respected politician from New York's 9th District, he represents a section of New York City that includes the Queens borough. In his plans, say those who know him, was a run at the New York City mayorship in 2013, when current Mayor Mike Bloomberg presumably would step down.

Who knows what will become of Anthony Weiner. Literary giant F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that there are no Second Acts in America, referring to the stage and to the country's distaste for re-runs. It'll be interesting to see how the next few weeks unfold for the congressman. Much will depend on other news hitting the airaves and newspapers. Democratic Congressman Gary Condit endured a few years in office following the disapearance - and murder - of his young aide, Chandra Levy. But he lost the ensuing election, after what many agreed was a positive career in Washington, D.C. Condit did acknowledge he'd had an affair with the young woman, however.

Weiner says nothing happened in his case, although one is led to conclude that perhaps that was his mission all along, his goal, his wanton desire, which is too bad for his wife of barely one year.

The list could go on and on about these guys. Both major political parties have had their scandal stars. Both parties have for the most part found ways to ease them out of office. It'll come for Weiner, but that could be the last of his worries. His wife is a former aide of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a woman who herself went through a mess of her own with her husband, the former president, and his dalliance with a bubbly young intern, Monica Lewinsky. Clinton stayed with her man in a however-guarded manner. Perhaps she is counseling Mrs. Weiner.

The story will have its legs for the next few days, fall off the national psyche, and ultimately re-surface when either Weiner resigns or is served divorce papers.

That's the Second Act we've come to know in these matters...

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In The Nation's Breadbasket, Cool Mornings And Hard Work...It Only Looks Quiet...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

FRIEND, Nebraska - A blue-gray morning blooms ever-so-slowly as you move west on Highway 6 past this small town of some 1,100 sleeping residents. Sunday morning is for rest, especially the early hour of 7 ayem, when all you hear is the sound of your car's rolling wheels and all you see is shuttered homes and farm equipment parked neatly alongside vehicles that speak of farming. Friend has many such neighbors. Move down Highway 81, the road south to Kansas, and you see enough portraits of the American farmer to make you believe all is well in the grain fields.

"One farmer feeds 128 people," reads one particularly-insightful and prideful sign.

For miles and miles, the landscape is of fields, grain being the most common. It is tall grain silos that stand as the symbol of the American midwest, the so-called breadbasket of the world. It is the tractor moving easily across large fields that bring it to life. An assortment of gear and equipment, tractors, balers, mowers, flows among them, stand at the ready. This is not a place where one sees idle men; work is a daily need and requirement. The fields will burst with bounty, but they have to be worked, and time is as demanding as the mortgage company and the banker overseeing the purchase of farm equipment.

Odd as it may sound to most, the life of a farmer is a sun-up to sundown undertaking that does not come with a quick jaunt to the corner convenience store for a Coca-Cola or a bag of chips. You may see one or two such businesses as you move down the highway, but they're always miles from the fields, in town.

It would take an outsider a good year to learn the ins and outs of farming, to understand the ways of the successful farmer and to perhaps appreciate the work someone else undertook to get that loaf of bread to the dinner table. Here, a good pair of denim overalls is as good as is a tie-and-suit in the city. Fashion is simple; the boots always weathered. You can spot a farmer in ways more than just how he speaks and walks. They can dazzle you with statistics and commentary to do with crop prices and geo-politics that brings sleep-less nights to the family. America may import 84 percent of its seafood, but it feeds the world with grain that becomes flour. That loaf of wheat bread came from here. So did the contents of that box of corn flakes.

No, the American farmer is not dead or lazy. Corporate farms may own the cattle and the pigs and the horses and the chickens, but much of the the land around here is family-owned. Down the highway to the east, a daily symphony of trucking moving into and out of the grain mills attests to the region's energetic farming lifestyle. Trains run a daily schedule, as well.

It would be easy, a throwaway line, to simply say that there is no problem with the American farm or farmer. That would be true and untrue. Farmers worry about the staples in their business: good seed, weather, prices at the market, government involvement in foreign trade, etc., etc.

But it also is true that what you see in this part of the nation is a certain pride in the hard work it takes to see one day lap onto another.

It is something to be admired...

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In Rural America, A Neat Mood For Living And For Writing...Not Much Going On...That's Okay...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor of The Tribune

WILBER, Nebraska - At some early point in any writer's young career, someone throws out the idea that writing is fighting, and that the best writing comes after you've been around the block a time or two or three. Some writers love the sounds of the Big City; others run for the outs of civilization.

There are, of course, cases to be made for both.

Journalism is about the lightning story of the day. You want that, well, you head for the Big City, where electric stories come out of nowhere, where the creativity of the large population offers stories that both stun and excite. New York is like that, as is Boston and Los Angeles and Miami and Dallas - great places for news reporting.

If your bent is writing fiction, the best inspiration comes from leaving all that behind, from abandoning the rat race and from decelerating to a lifestyle of corn bread and beef hash and home-grown vegetables and sun-ups that come as if on Valium. Sunsets are for closing the chapter of the day, for ending the day's writing output, for ditching the favorite, ragged cowboy shirt and looking for the best one in the dirty pile. Nothing is important in the small towns, like this one. And everything has meaning.

The morning coffee and the small, unassuming cafe comes in that steady flavor known only to those who brew it in the small owns. You can have your Starbucks in New York and it'll be fine. In another way of equal value, that cup of coffee here brings its own attitude, its own slap on the unshaven morning face. Hit me again, Darlene. That's your best cup yet, sweetheart.

Writing fiction in book-form is a long sonofabitch of a journey, one that energizes you at dawn and pisses you off at noon. And don't bother with the telephone. Stash that bastard away until the weekend. Don't bother me, not even if the damned building's on fire. Catch up with me in Texas, baby. I'll be here a spell.

The words roll, like tiny, clean pebbles pushed forward in a clear-water stream, nouns and verbs as minnows below, adjectives as dragon flies above. In the story, the lead character coughs himself awake before sliding off the saggy bed as if an overweight drunk. He heads for the wash sink and throws handfuls of water at his face, missing it. The mirror shoots back the craggy face of some wasted cowboy looking for a beer, saliva moving south, hair as if abandoned hay. It is another day in the slow lane.

Motel television has it some other guy wants to be president. A tornado has ravaged Massachusetts. The Dallas Mavericks have beaten the Miami Heat in pro basketball. Summer is scorching the land from Wyoming to Manhattan. One hundred degrees in Columbus, Ohio. The usual noise is out there if you want or need it. Days can be planned or allowed to go to Hell. You decide.

Outside, the town looks as it has looked for the past 100 years...

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