LareDos July 2010 by Victor Flores

A JOURNAL OF THE BORDERLANDS

JULY

DOS

2010

Est. 1994

Vol. XVI, No. 7

RON RODRIGUEZ NAMED

If you want peace, work for justice”. Henry Louis Mencken

Locally Owned

64 PAGES

“Ron Rodriguez is a textbook case of perseverance and courage.” Arthur Bryant

Director Public Justice Foundation

2010 Trial Lawyer of the Year

| La r eDO S | J ULY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Trust only a Board CertiďŹ ed PERSONAL INJURY SPECIALIST with a Top Ten Verdict to handle your serious injury case.

At recent ceremonies in Vancouver, Canada Ron Rodriguez was named 2010 Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Public Justice Foundation for his work on the wrongful death case against the corporate private prison giant Wackenhut/GEO Group. The Public Justice Foundation presents this award each year to an attorney who has made the most outstanding contribution to public interest through precedent-setting or otherwise extraordinary litigation. With Arthur Bryant, E.D. Public Justice Foundation

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Photo by María Eugenia Guerra

A visit to the ranchería

Zapata Museum remains un-opened Despite a hefty price tag of over $2 million and a completion date of Dec. 2009, the 4,000 square-foot Zapata Museum remains un-staffed and unopened.

Alfonso and Sandra Varela and Bill and Cindy Rountree were recent visitors to the ranchland around San Ygnacio. An afternoon trek into the monte of Las Colinas de Santa María showcased high grasses, greenery, and stock tanks topped-off after the recent heavy rainfalls.

publisher

María Eugenia Guerra

meg@laredosnews.com Editor

Monica McGettrick

mcgettrick@laredosnews.com Staff Writer

John Andrew Snyder

editorial@laredosnews.com Intern

Read

Maegan Vazquez

vazquez@laredosnews.com

at www.laredosnews.com

Sales

María Eugenia Guerra

ads@laredosnews.com

Circulation, Billing & Subscriptions

Jorge Medina

circulation@laredosnews.com Layout/design

JM Design

design@laredosnews.com

Contributors

Alice Adams Cordelia Barrera Bebe Fenstermaker Sissy Fenstermaker Denise Ferguson Frontera Norte Sur Neo Gutierrez Steve Harmon

Tim Howell Henri Kahn Randy Koch Salo Otero Rosanne Palacios Lem Railsback Roger Sanchez Steve Treviño Jacob Walters

ShuString Productions, Inc. www.laredosnews.com

1812 Houston Street Laredo Texas 78040 Tel: (956) 791-9950 Fax: (956) 791-4737 Copyright @ 2009 by LareDOS

Write a Letter to the Editor meg@laredosnews.com

| La r eDO S | J ULY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Photo by Jacob Walters

Pet Pooch Parade To raise money for the animal shelter, the Laredo Animal Protective Society, along with Petland and KGNS, teamed up to host the first ever Pet Pooch Parade. Pets and their humans met at North Central Park to dress up and meet one another.

| La r eDO S | J ULY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

News

City Health Department revises animal ordinance to ensure pet owner responsibility and compliance

By MONICA MCGETTRICK

Photo by Jacob Walters

he City of Laredo Health Department has revised its Animal Fowl Ordinance to include the registration of all pets across the Gateway City. The aim is to ensure all animals are vaccinated, to increase pet owner responsibility, and to safeguard the health and welfare of citizens and animals alike. The ordinance now includes information on keeping practices, including updates on tethering. For example, animals cannot be tethered for more than three to five hours; they cannot be tethered in front of schools; they can only be tethered during certain hours of the day; and they cannot be tethered in a yard if it’s fenced in. Another hot button issue revolves around vaccination and keeping track of pet owners who do not vaccinate their animals. City of Laredo Health Department Director Hector Gonzalez emphasized the importance of rabies vacLily cination in Laredo. Because rabies is endemic to the area, the City currently requires that all animals be inoculated every year, even though the vaccine they receive is a three-year vaccine. Oral vaccines are distributed throughout rural areas in fish bait in order to inoculate and create immunity in the surrounding coyote population. Said Gonzalez, “The coyote is the most sensitive in the chain to infect domestic canines, which in turn affects all domestic pets. And of course, the virus mutates. Twenty years ago, rabies was spreading up to Travis County from South Texas, but yearly vaccination has helped prevent the spread, which is why we push it so hard.” Another rabies sources is bats. Of the two-dozen or so bats they test every year at least half are infected. “Not all are infected, but there are some. And they’re all in public areas, and even the schools get them,” said Gonzalez. The successful prevention of the spread of rabies is due mainly in part to the City’s efforts. They hold several vaccination clinics yearly, offering the vaccine for $15, and in the last four years none of the dogs they have collected have tested positive for the WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

the kitten receives her rabies vaccine disease. Gonzalez feels that perhaps after five years of negative test results, they can switch to vaccinating pets every three years. The other key component of the revised ordinance deals with pet registration. Registering pets means the City will know who needs to be held responsible if an animal is abandoned or if its unvaccinated and roaming the streets. It also will curb illegal selling of animals. Pet owners who wish to breed their animals are required to register and are only allowed to sell two litters a year. Even commercial establishments are required to register and comply. “We didn’t know officially what they were selling,” said Gonzalez. “Breeders need a license from the Department of Agriculture, but we had no way of knowing,” he added. “In commercial settings, they need to have a certain amount of space in the cages. It needs to be done soundly, responsibly, and safely.” He added, “Petland, for example, has cages that don’t meet the definitions, yet they have enough staff and cameras to make sure the animals are safe and well

cared for. There are also open areas where the animals can be made available to the public to pet or play with, and they also offer plenty of hand sanitizer, which is very important.” The license for commercial pet shops is $45, and they are inspected yearly. Illegal street vendors were also of concern. “It is totally illegal to sell at the right of way, at the flea market, or in a residential area without a permit. A permit costs $15, but the money is not the issue. We want to make sure all the animals are entered into a database so we know that if a female has a litter, we know if she’s vaccinated and who is breeding her,” said Gonzalez. The penalty for violating the ordinance is automatically $500. The minimum penalty for abandoning an animal is $100. “The aim is not to punish but make sure pet owners are responsible,” added Gonzalez. “We want to work with people.” The registration process involves implanting a microchip. Pet owners across the city have until August 2011 to register and microchip their pet. So far the City’s efforts have been successful. They have

received plenty of support from local veterinarians, and of the 600 microchips distributed by the Health Department, very few remain. They have ordered 1,000 more and will distribute them when received. The registration fee is $5, half of which goes to the veterinarian and the other half to the City to help purchase more. Aside from veterinarians, pet owners can visit the Laredo Animal Protective Society, as well as Petco and certain groomers. “We know that this is a learning process for the community. It’s about educating them about the responsibility of owning a pet, which includes spaying and neutering their pets. We have to euthanize over 10,000 animals a year. It would be nice to have a no-kill policy, but it’s just not possible. But we do want to cut that down. We’re trying new things with the shelter and talking to shelters in San Antonio to take pets to adopt there,” said Gonzalez. He continued, “The microchip will help with identifying dogs. We’ve had cases where people ‘borrow’ dogs and return them to their owners for a reward. It will also help the Laredo police department with neglect and cruelty cases. We’ve been working very closely with PD, including the recent case of the man doing illegal surgery on dogs. Our people uncovered that, and this new ordinance will clarify what neglect and cruelty means.” According to Gonzalez, Animal Control officers have received 80 hours of training on the new ordinance, and they are currently automating their system in order to increase productivity. The goal is to have the department fully automated, including equipping staff with laptops and a handheld device that acts as a cell phone, camera, and can even print citations. They will be able to receive information in the field, thus eliminating the necessity to return to the Health Department to receive instructions on where to go. Said Gonzalez, “With this, we won’t need new staff. Automating everything means we can become more self-sufficient. This will only enhance the workforce.” For more information on the ordinances or free, visit www.ci.laredo.tx.us/health/ health.htm.u LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Linda and Doug Howland and Maria Estela Gonzalez Piscareño discuss the Webb County Heritage Foundation and the Mexican Consulate of Laredo’s exhibit “Gen. Francisco L. Urquizo, La Espada y la Pluma.” The exhibit showcases the life and times of one of the Mexican Revolution’s most revered military and literary figures.

Photo by Jacob Walters

Photo by Eduardo García

Gen. Francisco L. Urquizo

Flood victim assistance

Photo by María Eugenia Guerra

Laredoans affected by the recent flood sort through clothes, cleaning supplies, food items, and other items. The collection was organized by Council member Jose A. Valdez Jr., Juan Caballero, Paul-Raymond Buitron, and Juan Avila.

Nye Elementary School achiever Carolina Guerra, a Nye Elementary fifth grader, was commended at recent school awards ceremonies for performance in math and reading. She is the daughter of Dolores and José Eduardo Guerra.

| La r eDO S | J ULY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Feature

By MAEGAN VAZQUEZ

s a soon-to-be high school senior and aspiring journalist, getting the chance to write for a newspaper in my hometown was both exciting and daunting. This summer, I had been searching for the perfect getaway when I realized that it was right in my backyard. When I found the summer internship at LareDOS, I knew I was going to have an eventful vacation, if even a vacation at all. In the few short weeks I have been working at LareDOS, I have learned more about journalism and writing than I have in my entire lifetime. I didn’t get paid (nor did I plan to), but that wasn’t the point. The knowledge from experiences I earned exceeded any dollar amount. From interviewing city socialites to hometown actresses, LareDOS has given me the opportunity to interview a diverse group of people, and it has also let me show my stuff, and let everyone in and out of town see it, too. Whether you like them or not, the staff at LareDOS has been helpful, warm, and even

(dare I say it) friendly. Instead of a competitive environment, I found myself in a very welcoming one. From day one I was assigned articles that challenged my abilities to write and understand my interview subjects. As I began to learn a few tricks of the trade, I also noticed a funny thing that seemed to happen every time I began a story. The difficult part of my job is not having to compose stories through writing. It is conveying my ideas with focus and to sacrifice my opinions for the benefit of the story. If there is one thing I will take from this experience, it is that when you write, your voice does not grow over the span of time. One day, it just comes to you. The time I’ve spent at LareDOS was anything but boring. Instead of rotting on my couch all summer, I earned an opportunity that I see no other high-schooler in Laredo doing. Thanks to the staff, I’ve now seen what it’s like to run a publication, and I will take my knowledge with me to my high school, where I am starting a newspaper at the beginning of this upcoming school year. u

Courtesy Photo

Interning at LareDOS

LPO Meet and Greet Committee The Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra Meet and Greet Committee recently met to plan the first Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra Celebrity Chef Gala to be held on September 17 at the Laredo Country Club. Pictured are board members Adriana McKendrick, Ardith Epstein, Hortense Offerle, Graciela Ramirez, Nancy De Anda, and Alicia V. Cantu

Nueva Vida Maternity Clinic Operated by Doctors Hospital, caring for the community since 1974. We’re ready to give your little one a strong start. Services

NOW OPEN

Office Hours

• Free pregnancy testing • Expectant mother care, including normal and high-risk pregnancy • Ultrasound • Pap smears • Fetal monitoring • Lab services

Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Call 956-727-0722 for more information.

801 Corpus Christi, Laredo Physicians are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Doctors Hospital of Laredo. The hospital shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians.

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

FYF_2010fall-miriam-fullpg-laredos.ai

7/13/2010

4:33:21 PM

Now through August 12 REGISTER ONLINE

Now through August 22 Miriam Hernandez ON CAMPUS REGISTRATION

2010 GED Graduate

August 17-19

PAYMENT DEADLINES

August 9

For students registered

April 12 through August 9

August 19

For students registered

August 10 - 19

Classes begin August 23

Laredo Community College West End Washington Street • 5500 South Zapata Hwy. • Laredo, TX

Ft. McIntosh956.721.5109 South956.794-4110

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

www.laredo.edu WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Profile

Consuelo F. López: A shining star of retired English and Spanish teachers; a commitment to schoolchildren by example and a deep belief in their betterment

By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

reat educators are immortal, even though each new generation and spike in the student population creates an education crisis and puts out the call for college graduates to consider the teaching field. Good teachers ensure an America that’s smart enough to protect itself and defend itself, and keep itself from sliding backward socially or stagnating culturally. Luckily for everyone in the Laredo area, such a call went out when the Baby Boomer phenomenon spread its wings in the early 1950s, and the call was answered by some pretty stalwart souls, including, fortunately, a young college graduate named Consuelo Flores, soon to be López. Consuelo López is a teaching immortal. Her career spanned 32 years, and her youngest daughter Cristina is currently a teacher at Holy Spirit Catholic Elementary School in San Antonio. All five of her children (she married iconic MHS band director Elmo Lopez in 1955) have received degrees from the University of Texas at Austin -- Elmo Jr. a B.B.A. and degree and is now the CEO of Doctors Hospital; Linda Lopez Howland is a real estate broker with Lula Morales Realty; her late daughter Ana Laura, who passed away at age 32 in 1993, had a law degree from St. Mary’s University Law School; and her son Beto is the sales manager at Arguindegui Oil. López readily beams with pride when contemplating the edu-

Elmo and Consuelo Lopez WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

cational and career accomplishments of her children. Undoubtedly, Elmo Sr. and Consuelo López have a family with high educational ideals, and a family portrait at the López’s home verifies a beautiful strain of intellectual alertness, happiness, and unity on all the faces from the grandparents right down to the grandchildren. It’s a truly remarkable and heartwarming vision of family togetherness. It’s not really much of a stretch to recall how that same togetherness is what López demanded and received with positive results in her language arts and Spanish classes. “The students were wonderful, so respectful at all times, and we really got a lot of teaching and learning done in those classes,” López said. But before she could begin her classroom career that would touch so many youthful lives positively, López graduated from Martin High School in 1947, the very year that Laredo Junior College (LJC) was opened. “I spent a happy two years at LJC before transferring to Texas State College for Women, where I got my degree in education after one-andone-half years, with majors in English and Spanish.” Having her degree in hand, López, just 21 years old, returned to Laredo and began teaching first grade at Buenos Aires Elementary School. During the summer months she

traveled to Austin to the University of Texas to do the coursework for a master’s in English, a feat she accomplished after only two summers. López said, “I enjoyed my two years at Buenos Aires immensely -- the children were lovely and always so polite. The parents were so cooperative and the teachers, students, parents, and administrators all got along very well. This made for an ideal situation.” When M.B. Lamar Jr. High School opened its doors in 1953, Lopez was invited to be a member of the original faculty as a seventh grade Language Arts teacher. After three years she was shifted over to teach eighth and ninth grade language arts, a job she performed until 1970, after 17 years at Lamar. She took a ten-year hiatus from teaching to help Elmo Sr. with his music business. “In those days the ninth grade school year was divided between grammar and literature, half a year each, “ Lopez said, adding, “I enjoyed it, and the kids enjoyed the interesting challenges involved with what I did, and I met with old and new challenges as best I could.” But by 1982 she was back on the education scene, this time at J.W. Nixon High School, where she taught the ninth grade Gifted and Talented classes, which she very much enjoyed doing. She was the cheerleader sponsor at Lamar, as well as the UIL Ready Writing and Spelling sponsor for several years, and the children she coached won numerous trophies and medals. “The kids were nice and were never rude -- this goes back to the home -- if students don’t respect their parents, they’re certainly not going to respect their teachers,” she said Both she and Elmo Sr. retired from education in 1997.

López said that she thinks that something has deteriorated in the home structure that results in kids coming to school with rude manners, determined not to study, learn proper English, or care about passing their subjects. “Moms and dads need to realize again that they need to be positive role models for their kids. Too many parents lead lax lifestyles, or are divided, and too many children must be raised by their grandparents,” she said. López is descended from Judge Brigido H, Flores of Laredo and Consuelo M. Martinez of Roma. Her mother’s family moved to Laredo to educate their children. Brigido Flores’s family came to Laredo fleeing the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The Floreses are all educated, following their father’s heartfelt advice -- “Education is the key to a successful life.” López’s three brothers have all been highly educated and successful members of the community. Brigido H. Flores Jr. graduated from the University of Texas and was the principal at Alma Pierce Elementary School. The late Roberto J. Flores attended St. Mary’s University on a basketball scholarship and was principal of Martin High School for 20 years, and Rafael Flores graduated from the University of Texas and the University of Texas Law School. Rafael, an attorney in McAllen, was valedictorian of the Martin High School Class of 1945. Lopez’s mother and namesake Consuelo was the valedictorian of Laredo High School’s Class of 1914, a class of nine in which Cullee Mann was the only male graduate. To future generations of students, López offers this advice: “It is impossible to overestimate the importance of finishing high school and getting a college education in this day and age if you hope to compete in a complicated workplace and earn enough money to raise a family and live a comfortable life.” She added, “Through higher education you can learn knowledge, values, and language that will keep you on the road to a better life.” In addition to being a member of several social and service clubs and organizations, López has been working out three times a week for the last five years at Latin Dance Classes at The Rock Fitness Center on Jacaman Rd., as a result of which she said, “My health has improved tremendously.” She and her husband were also on the original committee to organize the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), and both served as president at one time. u LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

News

UTHealth Children’s Learning Institute programs bridge early childhood literacy gaps from Texas to Harlem

By ALICE ADAMS

t was a wake-up call. In 2002, a national newspaper listing of “All-American Cities” ranked Laredo dead last in literacy. Not only was this revelation stunning, but to Laredo’s community leaders, the low literacy rate was unacceptable. Laredo’s State Sen. Judith Zaffirini met with community leaders to seek solutions, and as a result authored Senate Bill (S.B.) 76, which passed in 2003. The bill required early childhood programs in local communities to implement evidence-driven approaches toward achieving lasting school readiness outcomes for children. It created the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM), now known as the Texas School Ready! (TSR!) Project. “Higher education begins with early childhood,” Zaffirini said, “and I believe the TEEM model will ultimately decrease the number of high school drop-outs because children now begin school on a level playing field.” John Gasko, Ph.D., director of statewide initiatives for the Children’s Learning Institute at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), said S.B. 76 has been a win-win for Texas. “It encouraged partnerships among private childcare programs, government Head Start programs and school district-based programs. Now, seven years later, Laredo remains a major partner in these efforts along with more than 30 other communities across the state.” Susan H. Landry, Ph.D., founder and director of CLI, applauded the ongoing success of the Texas School Ready! Project in Laredo. “The unique strength in the border areas is the community spirit,” she said, “and when

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

we visit Laredo, it seems the entire community is aware of the program’s value. Many people -- the mayor, the superintendent, the president of the bank -- will stop and say, ‘We love the program. It’s changed our children’s ability to succeed.’” Currently, Laredo boasts more than 360 TSR!-certified classrooms -- among the highest in the state. As word of Laredo’s success with pre-schoolers spread, other Texas border towns began adopting the TSR! approach. Early adopters saw it as important in preparing pre-schoolers for kindergarten and for success throughout their K-12 experience, said Mary Capello, chief executive officer of Teaching and Mentoring Communities, the original lead agent for Laredo’s program. “By having the same tools, approaches, and the same level of professional development and mentoring for the teachers, every child in the community has access to a high-quality education. “The overall strengths lie in the integration model, where partners share resources and work together,” Capello continued. “This assures not only quality educational experiences but also potentially enhanced access to quality programs. If a school district doesn’t have the facilities to serve the need and a private daycare or Head Start has room but lacks crucial resources, the integration model eliminates barriers and extends the community’s capacity to serve children in high-quality ways. This saves dollars for all stakeholders and gives every child the opportunity to succeed.” Patti Flores-Cantu, a technical assistance specialist for the Children’s Learning Institute who oversees TSR! projects from Brownsville to El Paso, said before TSR!,

little professional development was available for pre-K teachers, and there were limited tools to monitor a child’s progress. “We knew there was a crisis but we had no data to determine whether children were ready for school. The children were entering kindergarten programs but no one knew if they were prepared. We did know that high-quality pre-K was a necessary foundation, so when TEEM came along, Brownsville became a pilot site.” “From a parent’s standpoint, it’s about educating the family and raising expectations,” she continued, “so we educated parents about what a successful pre-K classroom looks like, what questions they should ask, and what activities they should see.” Brownsville’s tracking of its TSR! Project graduates found more students going into Gifted and Talented programs, and there is also an increase in literacy scores in both Spanish and English. “Before TEEM and TSR!, when these kids reached kindergarten, some couldn’t write or even read their names,” said Sandra Morales, assistant director of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start for Teaching and Mentoring Communities. “Kindergarten teachers called them ‘raw beginners.’” Capello said, “Now our children don’t want to go home, and they’re so motivated to come to school in the morning. Their parents tell us, the minute they go into public kindergarten or first grade, teachers say, ‘My goodness, your child is so advanced!’” One TSR! Project teacher in Brownsville, Cindy Santos, said she now teaches her pre-K students what she once taught kindergartners. “The TSR! Project makes them extremely school ready,” she said. “My first group of children is now finishing elementary school,” Santos continued. “They’re passing their TAKS, they’re A and B honor roll students and they have a big advantage. I let my parents know -- your child is not here to play and take naps. We don’t have time for that. From Day 1, they get going -- and I’m in awe.” Gasko said, “What started in Laredo and 10 other communities in 2005 is now reaching more than 60,000 children in Texas, and it’s also earning significant national attention.” More than 1,700 miles away from Laredo, for example, in New York City’s Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), Children’s Learning

Institute programs are making a difference. “After hearing a group from Harvard present some of the latest research on brain development, we wanted to find ways to improve the lives of the children we serve and needed a partner to help us,” said Shana Broadnax, senior manager for HCZ’s early childhood programs. “We canvassed institutes and universities across the country, and we were repeatedly referred to Dr. Landry and CLI, so we called her and began the conversation,” Broadnax said. “As a result, CLI provided Play and Learning Strategies (PALS) training to coaches who work with parents who graduate from Baby College. They trained HCZ teachers on facilitating observation using the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale, which was developed at CLI to measure the quality of teaching in pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade. They also offered early literacy training for teachers and will provide training on an ongoing basis.” Broadnax said HCZ believes it is never too late to make a difference in the life of a child. “This training and information allows us to lift up our teachers and the quality of our services to families,” she said. The Harlem Children’s Zone strives for its students to have successes similar to those witnessed in TSR! Project classrooms along the Texas border. Maria Guardiola, Laredo ISD’s Early Childhood dean, said kindergarten teachers are seeing a big difference in children who graduate from TSR! Project classrooms. “Some are already reading and they are all ready to succeed in school.” As for positive impact? “During Laredo’s recent Day of the Child celebration, one company provided books in bags for each child,” Guardiola recalled. “Unfortunately, they ran out of books for the last three classes and substituted pencils and other supplies in the bags. “One child from a TSR! classroom came back and said, ‘I didn’t get a book.’ The person distributing the bags pointed out, ‘But we’ve given you pencils.’ “’I know,’ the 4-year-old insisted, ‘but I would rather have a book because I can learn from a book.’” Guardiola said the child made an impression. “A few weeks later, the book company went to that four-year-old’s school and presented every pre-K and kindergarten student with books. I think that incident says it all about the success of TEEM/TSR! Project in Laredo.” u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

News

Elizabeth De Razzo

HBO Series Eastbound and Down features Elizabeth De Razzo

By MAEGAN VAZQUEZ

ative Laredoan Elizabeth De Razzo, a J.B. Alexander High School alum now living in Los Angeles, has been cast in the role of María in the second season of the HBO series Eastbound and Down. She has previously landed parts on some of television’s most popular series, including Six Feet Under, Southland, The West Wing, and United States of Tara. Though she could not reveal much about the upcoming season and the mystery behind her new character, De Razzo said, “María is a recurring character on the series. I like to say that she is a pivotal force on the show. You’ll be seeing a lot of her!” In this series, De Razzo has worked on location in North Carolina as well as Puerto Rico and has even worked alongside actress Ana De La Reguera, who is most famous for her role as Sister Incarnación in the box office smash Nacho Libre. Before acting, De Razzo had aspirations to be a teacher. In fact, she wanted to be a teacher at her alma mater. She said when she saw Gillian Anderson performing, she knew she wanted to be an actress and went to an open casting call for The X-Files as an extra. Just after her first encounter with show biz, De Razzo moved to Los Angeles, the home of her father’s family, to chase a career in actWWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

ing. “I got my Screen Actors Guild card and started auditioning,” she said. As to pursuing dreams, De Razzo said, “Do it! There’s a whole other different, beautiful, and crazy world out there.” The former Laredoan said that after not seeing her hometown for 10 years, she finds the growth of the city “amazing. I mean have you seen the river?” In 2005, De Razzo started earning roles in popular television shows such as ER and Cold Case, but it was not until her encounter with Eastbound and Down that she gained a recurring role in a series. Thanks to her success, other family members are moving L.A. to join her. Her sister is moving to be closer to her and to become a makeup artist. “It can be lonely working by yourself,” said De Razzo. De Razzo, who is not a trained actor, has only a year left to graduate from college. Those plans were put on hold when her acting career took center stage. De Razzo is committed to taking online classes and getting a degree within the next few years. Looking to the future, De Razzo sees television acting as a major outlet for her career. “You’ll be seeing me in the third season of Eastbound and Down, and I have a few other projects I am working on as well,” she said. You can catch De Razzo in the premiere of the second season of Eastbound and Down on HBO on September 26. u LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

News

Bethany House fundraiser set for August 5

Mexico moves on BP

ethany House will hold its first Stomp out Hunger and Homelessness fundraiser August 5, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. at Hal’s Landing. The event will feature country band Belts & Buckles, and there will also be door prizes and a raffle. Event proceeds will go towards expansion of meal and shelter program services for homeless and at-risk homeless. Said Jerri Lynn Ortiz, executive director of Bethany House, “One of the fastest growing segments of the homeless population is families with children. With rising unemployment and increases in foreclosures still severely impacting many families, their losses cut very deep, often causing huge emotional and physical tolls. They become fearful and wonder how will they console their children.” Bethany House, founded by Father Charles McNaboe in 1982, has a 27-year history of providing critical, essential services to Laredo’s hungry and homeless. Over the years, Bethany House has continued to carry on the original mission of feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless. It is currently the only agency to serve three hot meals on site six days a week to any and all needy individuals, families, and children, as well

as delivering meals to homes for indigent elderly and disabled individuals. It is the only agency that prepares meals for children’s programs throughout the city, and provides the city’s only public emergency shelter and transitional housing for individuals and families. In 2009, Bethany House served over 300,000 meals to individuals, families and children; 1,500 unduplicated persons with shelter and supportive services; and 43 families with transitional housing. It also experienced an increase over 45% in requests for services. To address the community’s growing needs, Bethany House unveiled its newest project, Center for Hope, a third facility at 817 Hidalgo St., located between the existing dining facility at 819 Hidalgo and the Shelter Complex at 815 Hidalgo. The new facility will add an additional 11,000 square feet to the Shelter Complex and expand housing and supportive services to homeless and at-risk homeless to address the vital daily living needs and service gaps -- leading them into improved living conditions and self-sufficiency. For more information on Bethany House services and programs, call (956) 722-4152. u

s the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster approached its second month, high-ranking Mexican officials recently revealed they will seek money from British Petroleum. Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores, whose state bordering Texas is located to the southwest of the gushing Deepwater Horizon well operated by British Petroleum off the Louisiana coast, said his government is looking at suing the international energy giant for current and future damages resulting from the massive oil leak. “It should be pointed out that while the spill doesn’t reach the Mexican coast, the impacts and damages are already happening,” Hernandez said. “Among other things, these include the costs of environmental studies of a preventative character and the cancellation of investments.” Hernandez said government institutions, private businesses, fishing cooperatives, hotel investments, and endangered wildlife species are potentially affected by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Mexican Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada assumed a similar posture, telling reporters at a Mexico City press conference that the Calderon administration is considering asking British Petroleum to set aside money for a fund similar to the one agreed upon with the Obama administration or, alternatively, hauling the company into an international court. Elvira said Mexico would like to obtain an initial sum of $20 million to pay for ongoing coastal monitoring, testing, environmental studies, training, and personnel. According to the Calderon administration’s environmental point man, the federal government has been monitoring Mexican waters for a month, but stepped-up activity is now needed. “We can’t wait to see if a black patch comes on top of the water,” Elvira insisted. “We have to begin probing at 100, 200, 300 or 500 meters of depth to see exactly how the marine currents are moving.” Under the worst case scenarios, Elvira said, oil could reach Tamaulipas’ waters by December and the coasts of Veracruz and Yucatan state by early 2011. Quintana

Roo, home of the key international resort of Cancun, is not at risk, he said. Elvira assured the press that Mexico has an action plan to confront any possible oil contamination, including the construction of physical barriers to attempt blocking an oil flow. He added that the National Ecology Institute will spend about $4 million on intensified water monitoring in the coming days. Forcing Mexico to dig deep into its budget for such unanticipated expenses is not fair, Elvira argued. Elvira expressed specific concern that the oil could reach Tamaulipas’ Playa Nueva and ruin 40 years of efforts to save and restore the Atlantic Ridley sea turtle. He said the Mexican recovery program has succeeded in increasing the number of turtles in the region from 500 in the 1970s and 1980s to more than 8,000 today. Meanwhile, as part of a campaign for a faster conversion from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the environmental group Greenpeace Mexico staged a mock oil spill in Mexico City on June 17. The activist organization criticized the Calderon administration for promoting carbon reductions on the international stage while planning to increase the use of coal in the generation of electricity by 50 percent and ramp up oil production to 3.3 million barrels a day through 2024. According to the green group, the percentage of renewable energy sources used in Mexico’s electricity sector could amount to only 7.6 percent in 2009, compared with about 9 percent in 2007. A failure to reverse the course of energy policy, Greenpeace contended, “will accelerate climate change and put us at risk of suffering new disasters like the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico.” Sources: La Jornada, June 18, 2010. Article by Angelica Enciso L. El Universal, June 17, 2010. Article by Roberto Aguilar. Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources, June 17, 2010. Press release. Greenpeace Mexico, June 17, 2010. Press release. (Frontera NorteSur (FNS) is an on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news center for Latin American and Border Studies at New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico. For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu.) u

www.laredosnews.com 14

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Election 2010

Mayor Raul G. Salinas says he’s ready for a second term; says dedication to service is hallmark of his tenure

By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

ncumbent mayor Raul G. Salinas, speaking of his upcoming campaign for re-election, recently said, “My heart in the right place. I care about Laredo for all the right reasons, and I have an absolute dedication to service.” Of his background and experience, he said, “I come from a humble background, and have fought my way up through the ranks with hard work, experience, and integrity. I am a retired FBI agent, and I had a full and successful career, including Assistant Legal Attaché in Mexico City where

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

I made great contacts at all levels, which have helped me foster excellent relations, which were proven during this recent flooding crisis, in which a minimum of red tape got in the way of seeking solutions.” Salinas said, “There’s an advantage to talking directly to the sources; it makes bilateral relations run much more smoothly,” he said, adding, “As everyone knows, my administration has set a strong priority on Latin American trade, since our strongest trade partners are south of the border, and we’re constantly trying to build on that. The number of fine bridges we have over the mighty Río Grande are testament to our ongoing trade relations.” Regarding construction of new international bridges, Salinas said, “As for pursuing new presidential permits for the construction of even more possible bridges, my hat is definitely in the ring, but I caution everyone that giant steps and huge financial investments like these must be studied from multiple angles by multiple entities, governmental and otherwise, in order to meet current and projected future traffic and economic trends that may be looked on as still viable by our descendants 20, 30, or 40 years down the line.” Changing the subject somewhat, Salinas emphasized his “open-doorpolicy” with persons of all walks of life. “When those Minute Men came down here to intimidate our citizens and to harass and scare them, I made a stand ag a i n s t them and they left our city quickly,” he said, adding, “Laredo is good people, and I’m here to see that our people are respected. The Mayor’s office belongs to the people, not to special interests -- I adhere very much to that,” he said. Speaking of his accomplishments during his first term of office,

Salinas first mentioned the general fund balance of $31 million, “the most ever in history.” He is also particularly proud of his and City Council’s role in obtaining $140 million in Stimulus Monies devoted to the public sector which, the Mayor said, “We had to fight hard for in the halls of Congress which were crowded with mayors, city managers, city councilmen from around the state, and a good number of state representatives and state senators.” Salinas commended the persistent efforts of members of the Laredo City Council and city management team as well as the presence of State Rep. Richard Raymond and State Senator Judith Zaffirini in finally convincing the powers that be to release these monies to Laredo for infrastructure improvement that would increase mobility, traffic flow, and economic development to several parts of the city. “It all adds up to growth, when you consider the enhanced and availability of commendable features in our city -- like beauty and accessibility,” he said. Salinas continued, “We have enhanced mobility for commuters and commercial zones, and this always leads to development.” He added that the City is planning a $20 million improvement to three runways at Laredo International Airport and other alterations to convince Latin American countries to consider Laredo the hub of international air trade, a place that provides reliable, quick, and efficient service. “With improvements to the Jefferson Street Water Plant, we will be enhancing services for 200,000 people or 60,000 residential water accounts, delivering safe drinking water with state-of-the-art equip-

ment,” Salinas said, adding, “And we have another water plant in the works in the Mines Road area.” Speaking of security matters, he said, “I have led the charge on the COPS program, and have helped convince the federal government for more personnel and intervention on our border, to improve interrogation and search and seizure measures to capture money and arms from organized crime, and we have made 103 arrests and have seen a 13 percent decline in stolen cars.” He added, “We have purchased 135 new police cars and have provided our officers with high-powered weapons and training in their use in crime fighting. “The new cars,” the Salinas added, “are equipped with mobile communication terminals and the most up-to-date, stateof-the-art defensive technologies. In other words, we’ve provided our peace officers with the equipment they need to keep themselves safe. We have also brought on five new fire engines at the airport, where they were really needed,” he added. “In the works we have a request to the U.S. Council of Mayors for still more funding to meet our ever-growing safety needs,” he said, adding, “We have also paved or resurfaced more than 2,000 city streets, and there is $50 million of infrastructure ongoing.” Salinas concluded, “I would like to say that since day one I have sought a good working relationship with the county government, and I will continue to do so during my second term. Public service is my mission, I can’t be sidetracked.” Salinas will face City Council members Gene Belmares and José Valdez Jr. in the November elections. u

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Election 2010

Victor García launches grassroots campaign for City Council District II race

“I

’m not a politician, but running for City Council seems like the right thing to do,” said banker Victor García, a high-profile supporter of local community groups and non-profits for the last 20 years. García said that his five years on the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission and his work on the Parks Dedication Ordinance have provided him invaluable experience in teamwork and in understanding the workings of city business. “I also bring to the table my experience as a commercial loan officer for 28 years and an understanding of finance, budgets, and contracts,” he added. “The economic conditions of the last two years have really have hurt us, but you can see things going in the right direction -- forward,” he said, citing the City’s master plan for downtown redevelopment and the new Haynes Recreation Center on Clark Blvd. “What is happening downtown looks really promising. You can see an arts and entertainment district taking form. That is such a positive for Laredo,” he continued. Of the Haynes Recreation Center, García said it is a regional facility for all Laredoans, including those with special needs. “It still needs its outdoor amenities, which I hope to see to completion,” he said. “Street resurfacing projects in District II need to be finished,” he said, adding, “And we need to be ready for the completion of the Clark Blvd. overpass. It’s a state project, but we should be prepared for how our streets and roads interface with the overpass.” García said that while walking recently in Santo Niño he heard from an elderly resident that her chief concern was more security, more police patrols. “This seems to be at the top of everyone’s list. Growth, drugs, and desperate economic times have made the need for safety more pronounced,” he said, adding that the residents of District II have also expressed a desire to get more city services for their tax dollars. “We can’t grow without a secure secondary water

Victor Garcia source. We shouldn’t wait to plan for this necessity. It should be done now and not down the road” he said. As to the fifth bridge, García said, “The right time to be thinking about another bridge is after we bring the bridges we have up to capacity traffic.” The candidate continued, “We need to attract new

businesses to Laredo by offering attractive tax incentives and abatements and have them move slowly onto the tax rolls in increments. Those who want to invest in Laredo want to see unity on the Council and work for a common purpose.” He paused, and said thoughtfully, “I want to be part of all of those decisions that affect quality of life for Laredoans in all districts.” García reflected that he had been asked three times to run for the District II seat but had turned down the possibility until last Thanksgiving. The three-decade banker is a commercial loan officer at Falcon National Bank. He is married to Erica Benavides García, the vice-principal of LBJ High School. The two native Laredoans are well known for their work with non-profit organizations, she with the Laredo Center for the Arts, and he with the Jalapeño Festival, United Way, and the WBCA. “I have never worked on the political end of things. I’ve worked with non-profits,” García said, adding that volunteerism in the realm of the greater good has provided him lessons in teamwork and giving back to his community. “And it has been fun and satisfying to work at good causes,” he noted, adding that he follows his father’s example of charitable deeds. Victor García, the oldest of four siblings, is the son of Fara Navarro García and the late Juan Manuel García. García, who was named a Nixon High School Mustang Legend in 2001, said his grassroots campaign for City Council is staffed by family and friends. “Issues will define this race,” he said, “and so will the desire to work together as a team to move Laredo forward, to make it a better place to live. I love Laredo -- it’s a good place to live. The people are good people and they deserve good things. That is what I want to do in every aspect,” he said. For further information on García’s campaign, go to www.victorforlaredo.com or email the candidate at victor@victorforlaredo.com u

Parkinson’s Support Group Meeting Monday, August 2, 2010 at 7 p.m. Laredo Medical Center, Tower B, first floor, Community Center

call 723-8470 or 285-3126.

Alzheimer’s Support Group Meeting Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 7 p.m. Laredo Medical Center, Tower B, Meeting Room 2

call 723-1707 16

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Feature

Welcome to New Tijuana, California

hey call it New Tijuana. Located near Chula Vista, California, East Lake Terrace embraces Mexican immigrants who’ve fled across the border from nearby Tijuana to escape crime and violence. Surrounded by new businesses, pricey homes built by immigrant laborers, and a nice park with ample sports facilities, the neighborhood is one manifestation of the border’s new, largely silent migration. Christian Ramirez, coordinator of migration programs for the American Friends Service Committee, said the affluent immigrants differ from the workingclass migrants who have established roots in Logan Barrio and other parts of San Diego County. “You can see perfectly the confection of two different worlds in the Mexicans who escape because of the economic situation and those who come here looking to avoid a kidnapping,” Ramirez told a Mexican reporter. Maria Flores knows the story. The wife of a small trucking firm operator who was kidnapped back in 2006, Flores now runs the business by “remote control” from the safe quarters of Chula Vista. A video camera in a business situated across the street from Pedro Flores’ firm captured the man’s detention by a group of about 20 men wearing uniforms of the old Federal Agency for Investigations. Many residents suspect police of being behind numerous kidnappings in the Tijuana area. According to Flores, the owner of the neighboring business was likewise kidnapped and now lives “completely mutilated” in Chula Vista. For Flores, exile amid her husband’s continued disappearance has meant a life of anxiety and “spiritual death.” The migration of Tijuana’s well-todo took off after 2005, when kidnapping soared 300 percent in one year, according to one estimate. Coinciding with the municipal administration of Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon (2004-2007), the next few years wit-

nessed an escalation of narco-violence as well as the deployment of the Mexican army. At the same time, Tijuana’s tourism industry continued in a downward spiral, giving another impetus to migration. Considering the tightened US border security after 9-11 as the prelude to curtains, Juan Palombo Saucedo of the Tijuana Association of Tourism Merchants said subsequent security measures by the US and Mexican governments combined with media reports of violence sealed the last nails on the coffin of the Revolution Avenue tourist district. Overall, more than 13,000 Tijuana businesses have shuttered their doors since 2007, said Mario Escobedo, president of the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce. Tijuana’s famed tourist quarter experienced the same fate as another border town that once greeted US visitors, Ciudad Juarez, where a doomsday-like dialectic of economic crisis, public insecurity and tougher border crossings deprived many people of a means of making a living and encouraged middle and upper-class migration across the border. Ironically, the moneyed migration sprouted seeds of business activity in places like Chula Vista and El Paso, Texas, precisely at a time when the Great Recession was shriveling up the economic landscape elsewhere in the US. Mexican authorities like José Francisco Blake Mora, the Baja California state government secretary who was recently named the Calderon administration’s new Interior Minister, argue that the public safety situation in Tijuana is improving. Chamber of Commerce official Escobedo concurred with Blake to an extent, adding that no businessmen have been kidnapped in 2010. “That’s not to say things are resolved, because we can’t deny that many people emigrate for (violence-related) reasons,” Escobedo was recently quoted. “Nonetheless, I believe that things are getting better little by little and some of those who left are beginning to return.” General Alfonso Duarte Mugica, commander of the Second Military Zone, re-

cently contended that security forces have dismantled the major drug cartels that, with the collusion of Tijuana’s now-purged municipal police, strode about the border city like “Pedro in His House,” as the old Mexican saying goes. Case in point: the Baja California attorney general’s office announced this week the capture of six men linked to 32 murders allegedly committed at the behest of Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, a former lieutenant of the Arellano Felix organization who split off from the old cartel and is now detained by the Mexican government. General Duarte said the bigger syndicates have been replaced by smaller bands of delinquents from Guadalajara, Monterrey, and other places. Fernando Ocegueda Flores, secretarygeneral of the Citizens Association Against Impunity, a group that represents relatives of disappeared and kidnapped persons, challenged the notion of an improved public safety conditions. In an interview with the Mexican press, Ocegueda said kidnappers have grown

less picky and now snatch small business people and market vendors for ransoms ranging from $4,000 to $8,000. In addition to the San Diego area, Mexican families have fled north to Los Angeles and south to other parts of Mexico, the human rights activist added. Felix Velez, head of Mexico’s National Population Council (Conapo), said this week that the Mexican government does not know how many people have abandoned their homes for the US and other destinations because of narco or criminal violence. According to Conapo, 108.4 million people inhabited Mexico as of mid-2010. The number was up from 107.5 million in 2009. About 12 million persons born in Mexico now live in the US, Velez said. Sources: El Sol de Tijuana, July 14, 2010. Article by Manuel Cordero. Frontera, July 13 and 14, 2010. La Jornada/Notimex, July 12, 2010. El Universal, June 22, 2010 and July 13, 2010. Articles by Julieta Martinez, Ignacio Alvarado, Alberto Cuenca, Thelma Gomez, Juan Gerardo Mejia, Elena Michel, and Notimex. u

Write a letter to the editor editorial@laredosnews.com

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Election 2010

Attorney Madeline López Escoto in the run for Municipal Court Judge in a field of four

tion’s Trial Court Judicial Data Management System, she said, “The Municipal Courts of much smaller cities collect more than that because they have fulltime judges and better collection rates. You don’t need an outside law firm collecting fines when you could be doing it in-house with cross-trained staff members.” Additionally, López Escoto said, “We need to bring customer service up a notch. There are good models out there for efficiency and better service. We need a website that is more customer friendly and offers more options for paying fines online.” Beyond those improvements in the system, she said, “This community deserves respect, integrity, and fairness in the courts. I want to work to ensure that.” The native New Yorker of Dominican

origins said she offers unsurpassed experience, having served as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney. “I’ve represented clients from all walks of life. As an assistant attorney general, I’ve worked child support cases in Webb, Zapata, Duval, Brooks, and Jim Hogg counties. In the Webb County Attorney’s office I’ve worked juvenile cases and certification cases. I was also part of the Children’s Advocacy Center’s multi-discipline team. I have represented children in Child Protective Services hearings and have assisted the County Attorney with the Board of Judges and Commissioner’s Court,” López Escoto said. She said that her private practice, which she established in December 2004, has given her experience in all aspects of the law, from juvenile defense, guardianship, and mental commitment cases to criminal defense and personal injury cases. Licensed in state and federal court, López Escoto said she is experienced and well qualified for the job of Municipal Court judge. She spoke of the increased prominence of women in the Laredo legal community. “There are many more women attorneys coming in with skills and a desire to succeed. We are no longer patronized by judges. We can be adversarial in court, but Candidate Madeline López Escoto we do it with grace. All of this has changed the spectrum of women in law was herself looking for to practice law in Laredo,” López Escoto said. and to raise a family with her husband López Escoto earned a degree in po- Jimmy Escoto. lice science and criminal justice at the “This is home. This is where we will John Jay College of Criminal Justice at raise our children. I grew up in buildings the City University of New York in 1992 in New York. We love Laredo for the open and then began law studies in 1994 at spaces and for having the opportunity to the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at know so many wonderful people,” she Texas Southern University. She graduat- said. ed, however, from St. Mary’s University “My values as a person and a sense School of Law in San Antonio in 1997. of fairness are an asset I bring to the López Escoto’s parents, Angela and job,” the mother of three said, adding, “I Francisco López, moved to New York City am an experienced attorney. That is all during the murderous turmoil of the Do- I claim to be. I want to give back to my minican dictator Rafael Trujillo and later community.” moved to Laredo. “Laredo is the place López Escoto characterized her cammy Dad was looking for when he left the paign as a grass roots endeavor. “We’re Dominican Republic,” she said. And, as it knocking on doors. Friends and volunturns out, it’s also the place López Escoto teers are working with us,” she said. u

Photo by Jacob Walters

Photo by Monica McGettrick

ithout so much as a hint of criticism in her voice, Attorney Madeline López Escoto -- one of four candidates for Municipal Court Judge in the upcoming November 2010 elections -said she believes Laredo’s court needs to move into a new era. “We need a municipal court that emulates other jurisdictions in which you can pay all citations online -- and not just parking tickets -- and we need a court with a fulltime judge that imposes fines with an even hand,” she said, adding, “We need more compliance here, and we need a court that operates at all hours of the day to better serve all the people of Laredo.” López Escoto said that Laredo’s Municipal Court heard 68,000 cases last year and collected $4 million in fines. Citing the Texas Office of Court Administra-

Willy Wonka Jr. The children involved in Peggy’s Kids summer theatre program rehearse their choreography for their summer performance of Willy Wonka Jr. Under the direction of Peggy Phelps, the performance debuts July 23 at Lamar Middle School. Shows will run July 23 and 24 at 8 p.m., Sunday July 25 at 3 p.m., July 30 and July 31 at 8 p.m., and August 1 at 3 p.m. For more information, contact Teresa Walters at (956) 324-2186.

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Election 2010

Orlando “Orli” Navarro announces candidacy for City Council, District VI

By MONICA MCGETTRICK

rlando “Orli” Navarro recently announced his candidacy for City Council, District VI, the City Council seat that will be vacated by Gene Belmares, who is running for Mayor. Navarro will face Fred Santos in the November race. A native Laredoan, Navarro graduated from St. Augustine High School in 1985. He graduated in 1994 from Texas A&M International University with a bachelors of business administration in marketing. He has 17 years experience in business operations in both retail and development, and has spent the last eight years as a member of the Planning and Zoning Committee. He is currently chairman of the commission. Navarro, an employee of B.P. Newman, is president of the Laredo Builders Association, chairman of the Developer Committee, and creator of the City of Laredo One Stop Shop developmental services department. He is also currently a member of the District VI advisory committee. Volunteering in his community is especially important to Navarro. He is active in the TAMIU Alumni Association and helped establish TAMIU’s Autmus Festival. He is a board member of Border Olympics and director of the varsity boy’s and girl’s basketball tournaments. He is also a founding member of Habit for Humanity’s Laredo chapter, and a member of the Blue Ribbon Committee currently researching a possible future bond election for United Independent School District. An avid runner and sports fan, Navarro served as a high school football color commentator on KHOY 88.1 and an Internet radio color commentator for TAMIU athletics. He is married to Kathy Hagy Navarro and has three daughters. Navarro started his career in politics by volunteering and helping current Council member for District VI Gene Belmares. Belmares appointed him to the Planning and Zoning commission, and Navarro said he has made it a point to learn as much as he can. He said, “As a first time candidate, the experience is overwhelming, but I’ve been worked hard to educate myself.” Of great importance to him is economic development. As a member of council, he hopes to work on helping Laredo’s youth to be ready for jobs, creating better infrastrucWWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

Orlando Navarro with daughter Angelica and niece Sarah Hagy ture, and attracting businesses to Laredo. While Laredo has grown rapidly, he believes there is still a lot of work to be done. “As a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, I’ve been able to see just how much Laredo has grown. Take for an example Loop 20. Funding came in and the City was able to build the Loop. However, it hasn’t really developed into a nice area. There hasn’t been much out of town investment brought in,” he said, adding, “Then there’s the Cuatro Vientos project. Stimulus money provided $50 million, and it is important that the project be planned correctly to ensure that it does its job of stimulating the economy. There has been some success, like the growth of residential developments, but we need to live up to our reputation as one of the fastest growing cities.” As he works for a development company, Navarro understands the work involved in developing a neighborhood. He would like to focus on the City’s development department. The concept of One Stop Shop was to help to bring all parties together as a form of checks and balances. He said, “A lot of departments oversee development and each has a different director. Since every director is involved in the planning, things sometimes get lost along the way. With One Stop Shop, the

aim was to bring all eyes together. It’s a more sure way to approach development, as there are less layers to process. Each department can cover their area.” Navarro also wants to work with the City Manager to work with inspectors. “Some are specific about what they do. Cross-training would mean instead of several inspectors being sent out with a specialty, one can be sent out to do the whole inspection,” he said. Maintaining Laredo’s reputation as one of the fastest growing cities is important to Navarro, although he sees the limitations, as well. He said, “The fact is, Laredo has grown into a linear city. We are a river community and an international boundary. I’ve found that that has been at the root of some of our problems. All of our needs are in one sector of town. Here, everything revolves around I-35. This can cause a lot of traffic problems. People from across the city gravitate towards the center.” He continued, “My vision is that one day, every section of the city will have the services they need in their area, to create a balance throughout the city. For example, I’d love to see a movie theatre on the south side of town, or a bowling alley in north Laredo.” As the father of three young daugh-

ters, Navarro wants them to have an even greater childhood than the one he had. He believes that this growth is possible and that once the economy recovers, Laredo will boom again. “City Council has created jobs through stimulus funds and bond money,” he said, adding, “We just have to keep pushing forward with the positive. It’s a waste to be negative about things.” While Navarro sees growth and development as the key to securing Laredo’s status as a booming city, protecting our local natural resources is also important to him. “There are areas outside the city we need to focus on and protect,” he said, adding, “Manadas Creek feeds into the Río Grande. We need to protect it and other creeks outside the city. We should purchase and hold on to it, not to develop, but to preserve it now.” Navarro also acknowledges that the Council needs to work to change the way outside markets see the Río Grande. “They don’t see it the same way we do, and this is an area we need to protect for our future.” Navarro, who assisted with the Green Space Ordinance, also hopes to increase the staff of the Parks Department. “We have all these beautiful new facilities, like North Central Park in District VI. Laredo inherited a more than 200-acre park, and we need to be sure to have enough maintenance and park patrols to make sure it remains safe. We want them to be friendly to families,” he said. With new recreational centers and regional parks, the budget is tight, and he worries about how the City will maintain the new facilities. He believes Council should remain actively involved in that and should take a proactive approach instead of waiting for something to happen before acting. While public perception of City Council is that communication is lacking, Navarro sees things differently. He has a good relationship with the current members and has made it a point to get involved, as evident by his time with the Planning and Zoning Commission. “I don’t want to come in bashing those who are there,” he said, choosing to focus on the good work they have done for the City as well as in cooperation with the County. However, he said, “We have a responsibility to look after the City.” Continued on page 21

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Profile

Meet the Reen

By MAEGAN VAZQUEZ

Navarro continued, “A good mix of ideologies is important. Simply because one person doesn’t agree doesn’t mean they all disagree. I’ve been very impressed with the projects bond money has brought to our community, especially when it comes to infrastructure.” As for the perception that Council members walk into meetings already having discussed and decided how they will vote, Navarro strongly believes that all council members should be privy to the same information. He also firmly believes that the public has a right to speak before council. “As a member of the Planning and Zoning Committee, I will look into any issues brought to me. Whatever information I receive must be shared with the other commissioners. In the past, people have come up to explain their side, and I encouraged them to come to the meeting to present the same information. If someone wants to talk about an issue, they should be given that right. Receiving the same information makes it fair when it comes

time to make a decision,” he said. As for his district, Navarro sees that traffic congestion, while alleviated some by recent street openings, is still a major problem. He also aims to work on obtaining more police patrols for both North Central Park, to prevent vandalism, and the streets of his district. As for “Little Sixth Street,” Navarro views the problem from the perspective as both a developer and a member of Planning and Zoning. “Some of the problems come from the design. As long as the businesses that apply apply properly and maintain the integrity of their application, there should not be a problem. If you open a restaurant, make it the restaurant you said you would make it. Inspectors also need to be sure to enforce the application.” For the landowners, he sees it as their responsibility to consider what businesses they want in their development. They also need to take into consideration the area. Too often, he said, construction happens and the developers did not consider these things ahead of time. u

Photo by Maegan Vazquez

usician Rene Mendez, a.k.a. The Reen, gave me a snapshot of what it’s like to be an artist in Laredo. From tunes of teen heartbreak to the sounds of emotional outcry, Reen instinctivelt emits appealing sounds from both his guitar and his voice. “It all started with Elvis,” he said, humorously recalling that when he was a kid, his father gave him a cassette filled with classic Elvis tunes. Reen was hooked. “I started listening to my mom’s vinyl records and Beatles CD’s.” He then began writing down his thoughts, which became lyrics. He got his first guitar on his 14th birthday. Not long after, Reen meshed lyrics and music to create his own musical persona. He joined his first band, Left Lane Closed, and soon after his first stint with musical performance, he went solo. The Reen was born. From the beginning, Reen’s attitude toward his musical success was Rene “The Reen” Mendez optimistic -- not because of his outlook on opportunity, but due to his high- what I am doing today without a ‘plan b.’ spirited view of the little things in life. I’m not a starving artist, but I work simply “I put ‘The’ in front of my stage name because I need to be able to fund my muso I could be cool, like The Fonz!” His hu- sic,” he said. morous charm is what makes Reen differIn recent years, Reen has performed at ent from cookie cutter musicians. “I guess venues in Dallas, Monterrey, Austin, San you could say I play emo, but unlike those Antonio, and Miami, and he has become guys, I like to think I don’t sound the same. well-known amongst Laredo musicians. To me, they all sound the same,” said Reen. When asked about his current musical enHe then began singing mockingly of what deavors, Reen replied, “I’m putting out an I believe was what all other emo bands/ EP of my first album.” He has scheduled musicians sound like...and it kind of did. meetings with Sony, Warner, and UniverBut the substance of those bands in com- sal executives in Miami to get his album parison to Reen is up for judgment. mass-produced. “I’m inspired by bands like Weezer, Looking toward the future, Reen talked Spoon, and of course Nirvana,” Reen about his plans to tour across the country stated. He’s written songs about failure, once he gets his album produced. “I really sadness, death, breakups, and strangely, want to go on a college tour on the East kittens. He’s inspired by things that move Coast,” he said. him. “Musicians are very emotional peoLastly, Reen said, “Music, acting, and ple, and I’m no exception.” my fans give me a natural high. I urge evFor Reen, his success is a product of his eryone to go after what they want to do, art. He has a degree in business admin- no matter what it is. It’s never too late to istration and currently works as a UISD start.” substitute teacher, but his first and foreYou can listen to The Reen at www.facemost love is music. “I would not be doing book.com/thereen. u

Continued from page 19

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Profile

Veterans serving veterans -José M. Soto: U.S.M.C. and Executive Director of Laredo Veterans Coalition

By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

a Nang, the DMZ, and Khe Sahn may be 14,000 miles away, but not if you carry them around with you every day, not if they were your college of life-and deathdecisions when you were an 18-year-old Mexican-American airdropped into a bloody jungle war in 1968 after you had just graduated from Martin High School and were a starting halfback on a memorable Tiger football team. José Mariano Soto stated, “I flew in with a planeload of replacements, and before I’d made my way down the ladder to the landing field, I had already seen at least 20 body bags. ‘I’m not going to die here,’ I told myself.” He added, “I made up my mind then and there that I wasn’t going to let this situation take me down -- I became very intense and determined, and all my thoughts of the outside world were suspended as I retreated into myself for full concentration on the task I had to perform. That’s the way I lived my life for two straight years while I was in Vietnam.” Today Soto, 62, belongs to the U.S Marine Corps Detachment 895, the Laredo Vietnam Veterans Association, both of which raise money for scholarships for deserving high school students, and is executive director of the Laredo Veterans Coalition, which seeks to help and unify veterans of the

José M. Soto

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Texas Army National Guard for purposes of humanitarian service and public project participation. “I volunteered for the service right after I graduated and knew I could make it as a Marine Rifleman,” Soto said, adding, “My father grew up around Encinal and was an excellent marksman with a rifle. He taught me to shoot a rifle when I was a very young kid, and I picked it up and became a good marksman myself. I was one of only seven expert marksmen in my platoon.” He continued, “But I’m not saying that I was already that good when I joined up because the training they gave us was the best. When we went through intensive training with the heavy, dependable M-14, later an M-16 when they were issued in 1968, which carried a 20-round magazine, they taught us how to break bad habits we might have learned while growing up. I learned to hit a target 200 to 500 meters away from the prone position. They taught us to tie our rifle to our elbow with the rifle strap to minimize recoil and any other type of motion that might affect accuracy,” he added. When Soto returned to Laredo he was issued a citation at the Veteran’s Day Ceremony held at Jarvis Plaza. The citation honored him for the number of patrols in which he participated. “I got to Vietnam during the Tet offensive of 1968, a year in which the National Liberation Front (NLF, or Viet Cong) joined with the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) of to fight against America and her allies,” Soto said, adding, “There were hot spots all over, especially along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). It was full monsoon season when I got there, and our jets couldn’t fly in that kind of rain to go out and hit the trouble spots. The job had to be done by troops on the ground. Even choppers could barely fly, and landing was out of the question because of the danger factors caused by ground conditions, weather conditions and incoming bombardment. “It was pouring rain. They didn’t tell us where they were taking us, but

each guy was loaded down with 60 pounds of gear, packed into a chopper, and flown in the blinding rain to a dropoff point somewhere on Khe Sahn, which was actually a mountaintop in northwestern Quang Ti Province where there had been a large U.S. base that had been pretty much leveled and cratered by the time we arrived. When they said, ‘OK, Everybody jump out,’ that’s exactly what they meant, and it was about a 10-foot drop -- right into the mud and enemy fire, and since Khe Sahn was really the top of a mountain, there was no level land, and it was hard to keep your balance. The killing field was anywhere you were; the enemy had José M. Soto zeroed in on us from the surrounding mountains and hills, some of which were high enough as ‘grunts,’ we carried our rifles, of course, that they could look down on us at all times one 60mm mortar round, one LAW (rocket-propelled grenade launcher), 200 rounds -- we were sitting ducks,” Soto said. He continued, “The only sort of dry and of M-60 machine gun ordnance, three ilsort of safe place for the troops was inside lumination pop-ups, one claymore mine our bunkers, which were completely in- with remote control, 14 days of C-Rations fested with rats. This was our world, and wrapped up in socks, and 30 magazines it was always damp during the monsoon for the M-16 in an empty claymore pouch. “We would go out on patrols by day and season, and it could often feel cold because of the water that soaked our clothing by night -- there were hot spots all over through and through, but it felt mostly hot Vietnam, especially along the DMZ. When we patrolled along the perimeter our main and muggy all the other time.” But Soto and the rest of the troops were job was to set up camps for surveillance by no means bunker potatoes who lived and look for motion and report back what underground 24/7 -- they were out there we saw to the main line,” Soto said. “We had to concentrate 100 percent on because there was a war to be fought, and their task was to “go for the kill,” as Soto what we were doing because our lives and phrased it. “The NVA’s could be anywhere the lives of our brothers were always on out there, and they knew their country the line, and when we weren’t doing pawell,” Soto said, adding, “And they were trols, we were out doing ambushes,” he fearless and they had spies and snipers ev- said, adding, “and when we went ‘for the erywhere. Their standard weapon was the kill,’ this was especially true, considering Russian-made AK-47 ‘banana clip’ assault the enemy’s fighting experience and how rifle, while others carried a Soviet semi-au- well they knew the lay of the land. After three months at Khe Sahn, Soto tomatic assault rifle, and they knew how to use them, including some of the younger had to be flown to a hospital by Medivac boys. They were experts in jungle warfare, due to the “jungle rot” that had become and they traveled lightly. They could strike infected and had spread all over his arms. at any time day or night. There were no Massive doses of penicillin proved to be Sundays for us, and we slept three to four the cure, and gangrene never took hold. hours per day at the most.” 4 Continued on next page 4 Soto continued, “As for our own gear WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Photo by Eduardo García

WCHF-Mexican Consulate open new exhibit Mexican consulate staff member Carla Tassinari, Vice Consul Eva Cristina Calderon, and Consul General Miguel Angel Isidro attend the WCHF’s reception for their joint exhibition of “Gen. Francisco L. Urquizo, La Espada y la Pluma.” Urquizo was a Mexican general, revolutionary, writer, and historian.

Continued from page 22 During the period of his convalescence, Soto became aware of the Combined Action Group (CAG), which consisted of a number of patrol squads that combed the countryside to reconnoiter and made good-will visits to the small villages to lessen the people’s fears and to look after some of their basic needs. After three weeks of training in the Vietnamese language and in the basics of Vietnamese social customs, Soto was assigned to a CAG group for the rest of his combat stay in Vietnam. When Soto was finally discharged in 1969, he was found to be 70 percent disabled, 50 percent due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and 20 percent due to hearing loss. Like many other Vietnam veterans, Soto has a certain sense of resentment towards the U. S. Government, not the U.S.M.C., he is quick to point out, for their use of Agent Orange powdered defoliant which has proven to be the cause of 16 different kinds of illnesses, many of them fatal. “They hadn’t adequately tested the stuff, and the people exposed to it were like guinea pigs and weren’t even moni-

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

tored at the time, and after the war Vietnam veterans were showing up with medical problems like diabetes, prostate cancer, skin cancer, lymphoma, and even heart problems, to name just a few,” he said It is largely the purpose of the Laredo Veterans Coalition to help these and other fellow veterans make it through their difficult postwar existence as civilians (many are indigent) by easing their burden whenever possible, specifically with assistance with payment of utility bills, rent fees, food needs, and travel expenses to the Audie Murphy Veterans Center in San Antonio. “We currently have 600 veterans on our list, and our fund limit per veteran is $300 per annum.” The Laredo Veterans Coalition headquarters is at Building P28 on the grounds of Laredo Community College. “It’s the first white building you see to the right when you have crossed over the overpass,” Soto said. The office of the Laredo Veterans Coalition is One West End of Washington Street P.28 Laredo TX 78040. The mailing address is P.O. Box 1375 Laredo, TX 78045. The telephone number is (956) 726-1008, and the FAX is (956) 523-0337. u

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Profile

Tío Blas Gibler: Navy veteran, ex-Ford exec., international translator, beloved Rotarian

By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

las Alonzo Gibler, known familiarly as “Tío Blas,” is a man of many talents who has tried his hand (successfully) at many careers during his long and busy life. His heart is as big as his smile, and his speaking voice runs neck and neck with his singing voice for tenor smoothness, true tone and timbre, proper inflection, and correct cadence both in English and in Spanish. Gibler traveled to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico on October 5, 2005 to receive the 21st annual Premio Muguerza-Garret from the Monterrey Chapter of the International Good Neighbor Council (IGNC), for whom he has been doing official translations for many years. The award reads, “In recognition of the important work carried out in an altruistic manner, internationally uniting the friendship and good neighbor relations of the Chapters of Mexico and the United States, reaching brilliant accomplishments and goals that have given significance to the life and transcendency of our Monterrey Chapter.” His professionalism, his bilingual expertise, his gentlemanly bearing, and his punctuality and dependability all round out his talent, which only begins with his God-given good looks and chromiumplated vocal chords. Through his membership in both IGNC and Rotary International, Tío Blas has revealed another aspect of his character that is so much a part of what he does and how he conducts himself -- his caring heart. Through these two organizations, Tío Blas has advocated and participated in the construction and operation of child and maternal health care centers in the Rio Grande Valley, the donation of health care equipment, the promotion of the teaching of English in Mexican schools and Spanish in American schools, assisting students to pursue a college education, and helping affected areas during times of natural disaster. Gibler was the second-ever recipient of the Muguerza-Garret Award, which was given for the first time to Dr. Carlos Canseco in 1993 for being a major player in the Rotary Polio Plus program, which had the goal of completely wiping out polio. Gibler was a close friend of Dr. Canseco. The IGNC announced that it was proud

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

Blas Alonzo Gibler to celebrate its own 51-year anniversary by honoring Tío Blas Gibler with the Muguerza- Garret Award. Gibler says he fits right into both organizations because they have similar goals - to promote social, cultural, youth, and educational exchanges between the U.S, and Mexico, and the principles of democracy based on constitutional authority. Gibler’s parental background seems to provide the kind of training ground for linguistic and international good-will endeavors that he has avidly pursued most of his life. Frank Gibler, his father, was the American Consul in Guadalajara, who married Concepción Ruiz Castillon of Guadalajara. They moved to Houston for seven years so that the elder Gibler could manage an electric company, during which Blas Alonzo Gibler was born on March 14, 1922. From 1930 to 1933 they owned a ranch in Nuevo Leon, but it was taken away by the government along with a great many other smaller ranches during the Agrarian Reform regime of Lázaro Cardenas.

A young Blas For a while they lived on a cattle ranch in the middle of the state of Mexico but moved back to Houston when the rumblings of world war began to make themselves heard. Shortly after the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, Gibler joined the Navy and

moved through promotion from seaman to boatswain, and then was sent to Officer Training School (OTS) to learn to be an engineer, and graduated as Lieutenant J.G. While on leave he went down to Guadalajara to marry his sweetheart Cleotilde (Lita) Alvarez Tostado. After spending some time in the Pacific Theater of Operations, Gibler was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1947. As the world settled down into the postwar period, Gibler went to work for the Charles Martin Company, an oil-affiliated company in Veracruz. His first son Blas Digogiah was born at this time. By 1948, Gibler was overseeing an airplane fuel refinery in Mexico City. “I tested the fuel for quality certification before going into business for myself in the communications field,” Gibler said. Gibler Communications focuses on public relations, public speaking, and conferencing, and continues to do so “with splendid results “from Torreón to Yucatan,” as he puts it. These business duties notwithstanding, Gibler made a foray into the insurance business for six years, beginning in 1957. When a compadre of his called him over to Tampico to help him run the Ford Agency, Gibler took to the new job like a duck to water and ended up managing the firm successfully for 20 years. Gibler is sure that his amazing language skills have had a lot to do with his successes through the years at so many different endeavors. “ I think I was born to translate,” he said, adding, “Since my mom didn’t understand English and my dad didn’t understand Spanish, I Gibler was translating all the time at home from a very early age.” Along with being universally admired for his translating skills and the high quality of both his King’s English and his Castellano, Tío Blas is liked and admired for his pleasant demeanor, friendliness, and gift for enjoying life and spreading joy wherever he goes. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

MAJOR EXPANSION MULTIPLE GENERAL OPENINGS +5 $9* $1' 83

$GYDQFHPHQW 2SSRUWXQLWLHV 1R ([SHULHQFH 5HTXLUHG )XOO 7UDLQLQJ 3URYLGHG

COME GROW WITH US

1-866-478-6979 w w w. l a r e d o s n e w s . c o m

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

Courtesy Photo

Sound of Music well received Melissa Barrera Gonzalez as Elsa von Schraeder, Joe Arciniega as Captain Georg von Trapp, and Alex López as Max Deitweiler were some of the actors who brought The Sound of Music to life onstage in the Laredo Theater Guild International’s (LTGI) production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein play.

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Feature

308.1 feet above sea level at Latitude: 26° 33’ 0 N, Longitude: 99° 10’ 0 W The water was a roar of velocity, a force that trembled beneath us, roiling green where it met the dam, moving with violent fury on the spillway

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA

he news that the Falcon Reservoir was at levels not seen since 1958 (308.1 feet above mean sea level) and that water releases from the dam were massive (60,000 cubic feet per second) prompted a quick trip through Zapata County and to the international dam in Starr County. Every arroyo that went under Hwy. 83 South after the Webb-Zapata county line was filled with water. The sandstone bed of the Dolores, which had spilled its banks and had easily sextupled its normal volume, was not visible. From the scenic overlook before San Ygnacio, the churning current of the river was evident as was its widened course that now covered the hayfield of the ranch across the way. The Arroyo San Francisco near San Ygnacio was an oddity to behold, so filled was it with the water of the rising Río Grande. The same was true for the Arroyo El Burro after Ramireño, its waters well to the east of the highway. The Veleño at Zapata had become a breathtakingly huge expanse of water, such as was last seen in the early 1990s. The Tigre near Lopeño now occupied pastureland, hid fences, and came under the Hwy. 83 bridge. The swollen tributaries and arroyos along the highway did not prepare us for the volume of water moving across the spillway of the dam in dense sheets of water or the vista of Falcon Lake filled to its 100,000-acre capacity, blue and vast as far as the eye could see. The water at the dam was a roar of velocity, a force that trembled beneath us, roiling green where it met the dam and a more clear color as it spilled violently to make its way to Roma, Río Grande City, the Valley, and the Gulf of Mexico. While it was beautiful to behold, it bore on its thunder an unmasked potential for danger and destruction. The dam was a brake, a place at

The reservoir spillway which the Río Grande barely slowed in its violent spill to the sea. I wondered, I had to wonder, how the ruins of our beloved Guerrero Viejo were faring at a reservoir level of almost 310 feet. I wondered, too, how this dam and the one at Amistad were holding up, each of them listed in a September 2007 International Boundary and Water Commission inspection report as DSAC III-High Priority (Conditionally Unsafe) and DSAC II-Urgent (Potentially Unsafe), respectively. (To view the spillway at 309 feet, go to http://iwitness. weather.com/_Falcon-Dam-2/VIDEO/1173784/148597. html To read the dam safety reports of the IBWC go to http://www.ibwc.state.gov and http://www.ibwc. state.gov/Files/NewsAllDamsDraftFINALWeb.pdf )

Carp on the dam gates

The river at San Ygnacio

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Feature

By MAEGAN VAZQUEZ

any consider that the motorcycle is little more than a casket on wheels -- a death sentence with a roaring engine. For others, the motorcycle is the only way to release their inner risk-taker -- a way to escape ordinary life. In all, the motorcycle lends itself to the iconic image of someone who dares to step outside of convention and who refuses to let go of that identity. For some, this risk is what drives most Harley Owners Group riders to purchase a motorcycle. The risk, for most, is the greatest reward. My first encounter with riding a Harley was coincidental. In fact, I did not want to sit on one, let alone ride one. One day my stepfather, who rode proudly with a Harley Owners Group embroidered leather vest and a consistent, unnecessary suntan, picked me up from school. Little did I know, the dirty HOG was coming instead of our F-150. As I saw the bike pull up, a feeling of pure agony marinated in my stomach. “Hop on,” he said.

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

So I did. And with a thrust of the engine, I zipped away on what would be my discovery of something greater than just a bike. We rode along, through the city where a 65-degree A/C was necessary in order to survive, and I had the ultimate foolproof air conditioner blowing in my face. The wind whirling against your body, pushing you away from where you’re trying to get to offers a sublime resistance that is difficult to tame. I admit that at first I was scared, but soon the rush, I learned, is why people love to ride motorcycles. My journey took me to the source at Harley-Davidson and Buell of Laredo. Every Saturday, the HOG gang gets together to down a few cold brews along with some traditional carne asada. I encountered former police officer Humberto “Tito” Gonzalez, who served in the 1970s and 80s, a man who selflessly sent used his retirement money to send his children to college. He likened his experience on his bike to “therapy.” Continued on page 35

Photo by Maegan Vazquez

The thrill of the motorcycle

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Photo by Mar铆a Eugenia Guerra

At the Falcon Reservoir Laredoan Emily Altgelt and Christopher Rinc贸n, executive director of the River Pierce Foundation in San Ygnacio, took in the spectacle of unprecedented water releases at Falcon Dam.

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Rodriguez named Public Justice Foundation’s 2010 Trial Lawyer of the Year

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA

ttorney Ron Rodriguez – just back from ceremonies in Vancouver, B.C. at which he was named 2010 Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Public Justice Foundation (PJF) – said he is all at once proud and humbled by the recognition for the law-making case he built and won against private prison operator Wackenhut Corrections (now the GEO Group) on behalf of the family of murdered inmate Gregorio de la Rosa. In 2006 a Willacy County jury verdict awarded $47.5 million in punitive and compensatory damages for malicious and wrongful death against Wackenhut and one of its wardens. Punitive damages against Wackenhut accounted for $20 million of the award. The Texas Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in 2009. “Before I came here tonight as a finalist I was already a winner,” he told guests and attorneys in attendance at the award event, the PJF’s annual fundraiser and gala. “Getting justice for my clients and holding those that do wrong accountable was already a huge victory. So was making ground breaking case law protecting public justice,” he continued. “I have traveled a long way from the day the De la Rosa family first came to see me, crying for their lost loved one. The struggle has taken me from two South Texas courtrooms to the Texas Courts of Appeals. With my clients I have testified before the Texas Senate, and have fought injustice before county commissioners and city councilmen. I fought over 30 attorneys on this case from over 10 different law firms,” he continued. “Today I walk among giants in our profession. I am truly honored to receive this very prestigious award. It’s like an Oscar, but even better, because we as lawyers deal in real life deal with life and death issues. We concern ourselves in everyday struggles in good against evil,” he told the attendees. Rodriguez received the national award accompanied by his wife Mari and their children Athena, Angelina, and Christian to an outpouring of applause at the ceremonies. He recalled the moment as “heartwarming and priceless to have my children see me recognized in a room full of legal giants.” He added, “My family and I will never forget the amazing dinner gala hosted in our honor. ” Public Justice Foundation Executive Director Arthur Bryant called Rodriguez’s work “a textbook case of perseverance and

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

courage,” adding, “Ronald Rodriguez makes us all proud of his outstanding accomplishments in socially significant litigation that so powerfully honor and uphold what the civil

Rodriguez, who has practiced law since 1993, was the only solo practitioner on the short list of five national finalists. The other finalists included a team of 16

Laredoan recognized nationally for precedent-setting case law

justice system is supposed to be about.” Rodriguez characterizes himself as the product of public schools -- “UISD to UTAustin and UT-Law.” He said one of most important components of his education was the one he got at home as the son of J.J. and Mary Rodriguez. “They taught me that if you work hard, honestly, and with integrity, that goodness will always prevail. They filled me with love, which was the foundation for all my values. We raise our children the same way,” he said. “It is an honor to be recognized as Trial Lawyer of the Year in the entire United States,” he reflected, evoking, too, the good fortune to be blessed with his wife Mari, to whom he refers as “his co-counsel” and their children.

attorneys who challenged California’s overcrowded prisons (Coleman v. Schwarzenegger, Plata v. Schwarzenegger, forced reduction of prison population by 40,000 over two years); a team of 20 attorneys from law schools, public interest groups, and private law firms who achieved a settlement with Royal Dutch Shell for its duplicity in the deaths or torture of Nigerian residents and activists who peacefully protested the oil industry’s environmental and human rights abuses in the oil-rich Niger delta (Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, settlement of $15.5 million); a team of six attorneys who won a significant settlement for Missouri residents affected by the stench and pollution of a pig farm (Owens v. ContiGroup Companies, jury award of $11 million); and

12 attorneys who won a jury verdict for the City of New York against Exxon, one of 22 oil companies that went to trial rather than settle for leaking methyl tertiary butyl ether into the Queens, NY water supply (City of New York v. Exxon Mobil Corp., jury award, $104.7 million). “The award represents many things to me,” Rodriguez said, adding. “I’m proud to be a native son of Laredo recognized nationally by so significant an organization, one that puts justice, human life, and human dignity before profit. I want Laredoans to know that they don’t have to look out of town to find the best legal representation. I’m here to serve my community.” The jury verdict for malicious wrongful death and destruction of evidence against Wackenhut, the $47.5 million jury award, and the case law that was made as a result of the Rodriguez’s relentless pursuit of justice for the De la Rosa family overshadow the additional personal efforts Rodriguez made to speak out against the practices of the private prison industry in hearings in the Texas Senate and as he took the Webb County Commissioners and the Laredo City Council to task for welcoming Wackenhut/GEO to Laredo. [Public Justice is America’s public interest law firm, supported by – and calling on – a nationwide network of more than 3,000 of the nation’s top lawyers to pursue precedent-setting and socially significant litigation. It has a wide ranging litigation docket in the areas of consumer rights, worker safety, civil rights and liberties, toxic torts, environmental protection, and access to the courts. Public Justice is the principal project of the Public Justice Foundation, a not-for-profit membership organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a West Coast office in Oakland, Ca. The Public Justice website address is www.publicjustice.net] u

SIDEBAR

As Ron Rodriguez and I talked about the Trial Lawyer of the Year award and this story, we remembered the words of GEO’s local counsel Carlos Zaffirini who scoffed in Commissioners Court at the $47.5 million jury verdict then under appeal, uttering with such certain disdain that the verdict would imminently be reversed and rendered. We didn’t chuckle or chortle. We just remembered, for the record.

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Opinion

Water, water, everywhere

By MONICA MCGETTRICK

Photos by Jacob Walters

here is a small bug that sits on my desktop that occasionally flashes a weather alert. It isn’t a real bug, obviously, but a weather bug application for my desktop that has turned out to be quite handy. I know before even leaving the office that my car is going to be this side of “on fire” or that maybe I should have thought to grab my umbrella before locking the door to the office. And over the last few weeks, the little bug has been chirping nonstop, feeding me reports about the flooding Río Grande. When the chirping began, I didn’t give it a second thought. Sure, Hurricane Alex brought us a little bit of rain, but it was nowhere near flood worthy. Twice this summer the river had been high, and twice my little bug chirped to warn me of a cresting river. It was only when I attempted to drive down along Los Dos Laredos Park to drop off a friend at the bridge did I realize that this time my bug was right. Over the next few days, I joined countless other Laredoans in watching the river rise. All those people hanging out in deck chairs or trying to sneak past police and Border Patrol who were guarding the streets in order to watch the real life drama unfolding reminded me of my brother mentioning his neighbors’ hurricane party during Hurricane Ike. Call it schadenfreude or call it curiosity, but we humans seem to be fascinated by the devastation that occurs when nature flexes her muscles, so much so that we’ll risk getting arrested just for a front row seats. That nature is a fearsome force not to be reckoned with is indisputable. Watching the river rise up and consume the land around it was amazing to watch, if not terrifying and heartbreaking when considering those who lost homes and property to the swirling mucky water. The river’s real might is more clearly visible now that the water is reced-

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

ing -- trees and poles were forced to their knees like penitents, the vegetation is dead and muddy, the fences surrounding the park have been washed away to parts unknown, and the streets stretching up to the former River Drive Mall are covered in dust and mud. Laredo always begs for rain, but this was a little out of our league. The lessons of history so often seem to be lost to us. Despite the massive damage from the last major flood in the 1950s, City planners still allow people to build their homes close the river, perhaps hoping or assuming that the river will not jump its banks again. Much to the dismay of residents of West Laredo, this has proven untrue. While some residents may not have been alive to experience the tragedy and loss of the last major flood, one might have hoped that their city leaders would have taken the past into con-

sideration on their behalf. Local media like KGNS and The Laredo Morning Times did a good job updating locals with news of flooding in West Laredo, but flooding along Hwy 359 went largely ignored. Local blogs like La Sanbe worked to get photos out when it could, but it’s a lot of work for one man. Natural disasters bring out both the good and the bad in even the best of people. While many Laredoans, like Council members Gene Belmares and José Valdez, as well as citizens like Paul-Raymond Buitron, rose to the occasion and organized collections of clothing, food stuffs, and cleaning items, others floundered amidst criticism lobbed against the City. While the City worked to warn citizens of flooding, issuing first voluntary and then mandatory evacuations, assuring Laredoans that the water was safe, and opening

shelters, some officials who shall remain nameless were incapable of handling angry citizens who demanded more and faster assistance. (The curious can visit http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=Cv8m4Io6eLs.) I don’t agree that City officials should have assisted citizens in removing items from personal property; however, one or two of them could have been more sensitive to the anger and worry that comes after a natural disaster. Likewise, citizens who live along the river should realize that living so close to a moving, natural body of water comes with risks. Like the homeowners along Galveston beaches who lost their homes and possessions during Hurricane Ike, people do need to take some responsibility for their own actions. Maybe the lesson we’ll finally learn from this is that nature will have her way, no matter how we try to tame her. In the meantime, Laredoans have showed their spirit. Thanks to local bloggers like La Sanbe and Que Fregados, and thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Laredoans have come out in force to organize and collect supplies for those in need, despite initial rumor-mongering regarding our water supply. My hope is that the generosity continues and that we don’t forget that the clean up might take longer than expected. Just because it’s out of sight doesn’t mean we should put it out of mind. u LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Concert Review

Deer in the Headlights -where are all the country music fans?

By MONICA MCGETTRICK

ountry music fandom in Laredo is a bit of a conundrum. You’ve got your cowboys walking around town in their Wranglers and boots, driving their giant work trucks like they’ve all just come in from a hard day at the ranch. There are the subtle cowgirls who wear their boots under their workpants or weekend denim. But finding admitted country music lovers is more complicated. The only place I’ve seen evidence of their existence is at the Casablanca Ballroom, where Texas bands like the Randy Rogers Band, Eli Young Band and Kevin Fowler have all recently played, and more often than not, you see the usual suspects. It’s a pity, actually, because these acts, played in such a close and intimate setting, are truly enjoyable experiences I would recommend to anyone who likes live music (and doesn’t mind the sound of a steel guitar or fiddle). You can sit back with your Bud Light or Crown and Coke and watch from the distance, move up close enough to get pelted by sweat droplets, or boogie the night away on the dance floor. From the tight and sweaty quarters of the jampacked ballroom, one would naturally assume country music is a hit in Laredo. So it was with considerable excitement that I attended the Laredo Energy Arena’s Deer in the Headlights Music Festival. Sponsored by KVTV-CBS 13 and Paul Young Family Chevrolet, the festival featured an outdoor and indoor stage. The outdoor stage was set up in front of the main entrance of the arena, the small concrete area cordoned off to form what they might have hoped felt like an “intimate area” but was actually more claustrophobic than anything else. The music was also incredibly loud (making it seem more like noise) for such an open area. The indoor stage, set up to accommodate a full arena, seemed tiny within the cavernous and almost entirely empty arena. I was heartbroken for country artist Clay Walker, who had to walk out to a tiny crowd, even if they were cheering con ganas. I guess here is where I admit to being a full-fledged country fan. I grew up listening to George Strait, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood, and Clay Walker, among others. Although I’m

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

Clay Walker wholly unfamiliar with newer country (college brought on some experimentation with Latin pop, rock, and plenty of alternative), I was completely excited to see a childhood favorite appear in Laredo, especially one known for being genuinely nice. He’s also a born and bred Texan (he’s from Beaumont). Thanks to the folks at the arena, I was also able to meet Walker, which was probably one of the most enjoyable moments of the night, but not for the reason you might think. Actually, it was because I met a young woman from San Ygnacio who, along with her mother, was both nervous and excited to meet her idol. As I got to talking with her and her mom, she told me that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when she was 15. Walker

was diagnosed with MS in 1996, so she felt an even closer draw to his music and activism. While I waited for my turn to meet and greet the singer, I watched as he took the time to talk to the young woman about her diagnoses and her experience with the disease. He was incredibly sweet, and both mother and daughter were misty-eyed as they eventually posed for their photo. I confess, I might have been a little, too. When my turn came, and he thanked me for being so patient, all I could sniffle out was, “No problem.” My only complaint regarding his performance is that he didn’t sing “Hypnotize the Moon.” Walker was energetic, and his songs are catchy and easy for a sing along. He sings about love, about life, and the

hope and heartbreak that accompany living a full life. In fact, he’s a better singer live than on disc, a rare trait in an industry filled with lip-synchers and phonies whose raw and untalented voices are hidden behind beats cleaned up using the newest technology (I’m looking at you, Britney). Concertgoers yelled along, danced happily, and generally had a good time. From the energy emitted by my fellow concertgoers, I was oblivious to just how empty the arena was until I turned around to leave. My fervent hope throughout the daylong festival was that people would at least come to see the main event. When I arrived at around 6 p.m., the arena was more than half-empty. Several of the bands had lead singers who caterwauled and whined, a common complaint from non-country fans. The available booths were mainly hawking t-shirts or western wear for weekend cowpokes (does anyone really need a rhinestone plaid shirt for working cattle?), gear you can find online or at Casa Raul or Mike’s Western Wear. There was the promise of food, but unless I completely missed it, there wasn’t much of an offer besides concession-stand junk food. The only perk was a mechanical bull ride that both children and adults enjoyed (I myself might have taken a quick ride in support of autism). While I can appreciate the time and effort that went into arranging the event, and the fact that most, if not all, the musicians were Texas country artists, including local artist Mick Cruz and the Diamondback, I was extremely disappointed by the low turnout. I find it hard to believe that there aren’t enough country fans in Laredo. How else would the Casablanca concerts do so well? So where did things go wrong? Was it the lack of more well known Texas country artists, like Kevin Fowler, Roger Creager, and Pat Green, all of whom participated in 2009’s better attended Texas Triple Threat concert at the arena? Was it simply too long and too hot? Were there a lot of country fans from Nuevo Laredo who couldn’t make the concert due to the flood? All I can hope for, though, is that this doesn’t affect how other country artists view Laredo. After all, how else are we going to get Texas King of Country George Strait to come to Laredo? Hint, hint, Laredo Energy Arena. Hint, hint. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Continued from page 28

Photo by Maegan Vazquez

“The diversity of this hobby is amazing. You see all kinds of people riding bikes nowadays,” said Harley-Davidson employee Albert Sandoval. He was right. In short order, I saw and spoke with doctors, lawyers, policemen, businessmen, and many women, all passionate about riding motorcycles. They all had unique stories to tell. Of course, many recalled trips to Sturgis, South Dakota,

where the motorcycle meet of all motorcycle meets happens. “It was the longest trip I’ve ever taken,” said Jerry Woods, a rider for over 50 years. Something riders often say is that they “ride to live and live to ride.” Their fascination with speed and risk provides a freedom no other sport, hobby, or friendship could bring. There is camaraderie, self-discovery, and peace found in every mile driven on a motorcycle. u

Murdock Alarcon, Charlie Martinez, Benny Perez, and Steve Weddle

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Feature

Lala’s in Mirando City: puffy taco mecca;

six decades of sabroso

By MARÍA EUGENIA GUERRA

mitations of puffy tacos and scratchmade enchiladas abound, but the real deal is at the end of a 40-minute drive along Hwy. 359 to Lala’s in Mirando

City. Established in 1953 by a young widow named Eduarda (Lala) Rodriguez, the unpretentious little restaurant has fared better in the cycles of the boom and bust of the oilfield than the peaceful little town of Mirando. The dining room and kitchen of Lala’s may be small, and the place may look in need of a paint job, but the food is legendary, and magazines like Texas Monthly often make note of the delicious Mexican dishes now prepared by Lala’s daughter Mariana Rodriguez and served by Lala’s granddaughters Noemi and María Teresa Jackson. There are no printed menus, and chips and salsa are not served before a meal. Patrons can help themselves to a soft drink from the cooler and ask for a glass of ice. Lala’s loyal clientele includes local residents, oil field workers, ranchers, hunters, and many residents of nearby Laredo and Hebbronville who bring their families and out-of-town company to enjoy a meal at a place known for its consistently good food. Writers and photographers from all over

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

María Teresa, Noemi, and Mariana the world have chanced upon Lala’s, most recently a photographer from the Netherlands who took part in the ongoing Images for Conservation contest. “We get to meet people from everywhere,” Rodriguez, 75, said. In the 50s and 60s, Lala’s was a favorite choice for airmen and officers stationed at

Laredo Air Force Base. Rodriguez learned her mother’s recipes well as she worked alongside her, and took over the operation when Lala died in 1974. “Everything is made here, everything is fresh. We grind our spices in a molcajete. We hand chop our vegetables, and we make our own masa. We don’t use tortillas.

The masa goes into the enchiladas, the tacos, and the chalupas,” she said. The restaurant’s signature salsa is a proprietary recipe. “It’s a family secret,” Rodriguez said, adding that it is not unusual for hunters to order three or four gallons at a time. A wooden plaque on the wall issues the admonition that diners should not take the salsa on their tables with them. Rodriguez said that experiments with the simple menu – such as adding a plate lunch of carne guisada – did not meet with success. “We ended up wasting food, so we’ve stuck with what has worked for us and what our customers want,” she said. The walls at Lala’s are covered with the business cards of diners, and in the corner there’s a shrine to Noemi’s daughter who died at the age of 16. In addition to photographs, the grotto includes the figures of frogs of all sizes. In lore, frogs are symbols of rebirth, metamorphosis, luck, purity and renewal. Other than Lala’s, Mirando City’s claims to fame include the phenomenal oil strikes of wildcatter O.W. Killam in the 1920s and the annual peyote ceremonies conducted by Native Americans who visit the area each February. The restaurant opens at 6:30 a.m. and closes at 7:45 in the evening. Lunch is ready just before noon. You can reach Lala’s at (361) 586-4224. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Fort Treviño:

a history articulated

stone by stone

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA SAN YGNACIO – Even as the Río Grande visibly grew to many times its size in early July, even as its swift waters roiled in a fast moving current of chocolate colored water and debris, there was a serenity to day’s end in the river end of town that is clustered with the historic buildings of Spanish colonial vernacular architecture. Normally you have to look for the river from the vestige of the vega, but today the Río Grande was a force that carried the weight of water – thousands of acre feet of water -- and today it filled the air on the edge of town with the distinct smell of wet earth. It is the river that for eons has, too, carried the weight of history along its course, riparian history before time, the history of the indigenes, the history of Spanish settlers, and the history of two nations, a republic, a state, and a pueblito called San Ygnacio. There was at this late hour of the day -as I walked around the 180 year-old walls of Fort Treviño and as the storied river made haste to the Gulf -- an ineluctable affirmation about who makes history, how it is recorded, why it persists even in the face of indifference and assault, who saves it, and how the river itself is so large a part of the story of this region. For the moment, thoughts of the lost country of Mexico and the cartel controlled frontera ebbed, and the river nearby ran its course of alluvial memory, eclipsing the corriente of drugs and blood soaked money. My thoughts went to the beauty of the

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

walls of the massive hand-cut stones of the fort, stones I’ve come to know hold in part the history of my own family. To shorten the great-greats of it all, my great-grandfather Manuel Benavides Treviño, was the grandson of the fort’s builder, Jesus Treviño. My steps along the fort’s banquetas and across its ancient thresholds echoed the steps of my antecedentes. This is a history shared by many in San Ygnacio. How fortunate we are that the safekeepers of that beautiful structure, and others, are in the stewardship of the River Pierce Foundation, Michael Tracy, and Christopher Rincón. We are fortunate, too, that they have seen to it that many of the buildings have the protection of National Landmark designations. In plan and execution, the fort and the buildings of San Ygnacio and Guerrero Viejo share many similarities – the quarried sandstone, massive wooden vigas, lintels, and corbels of cypress and mesquite, and kitchen hearths that even through the years of lapsed centuries radiate the still palpable intent to tame a wilderness into a home. As I am humbled by the high stone walls of the fort, by the beautiful long rooms, by the open courtyard, and by the effort to preserve this vessel of history for my grandchildren and the generations of us to come, I am appalled by the disregard of Zapata County government to this and other historic structures that so clearly articulate who we were two centuries ago, why we chose this spot on the river, and why, stone by stone, we made our lives here. u

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Photos by María Eugenia Guerra

TxDOT: future of scenic overlooks in Zapata County hands The state highway agency has advised Zapata County that it will need to assume maintenance of the county’s two scenic overlooks on Hwy. 83. The state has regularly cleaned up dumped debris, litter, and household garbage at the rest stops north of San Ygnacio and north of Zapata, and says it can no longer afford to keep the areas clean. Zapata County, itself in budgetary constraints, has indicated it will not pick up the tab for maintenance. Both sandstone block rest stops, which date to WPA construction in the 1930s, have offered travelers, area residents, and visiting birders spectacular panoramas of the Río Grande and its riparian habitat and the sprawling brush land of the Chihuahua Desert on the Mexican side of the river.

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Feature

Elvis was no surprise, but he was certainly great

By LEM LONDOS RAILSBACK

ne of my dorm mates in college earned cash as an entertainment agent. Buck would rent medium-sized halls with wide open doors and safe exit doors with metal bars, hire bands for a night, and sell dance tickets to college students. Sometimes, he would hold cookouts and dances for families. He once sponsored an all-male snooker and 9-ball tournament in the local pool hall for our college athletes and their friends, which was rather lavishly sponsored by a local rancher/politician/multimillionaire. I paid the entry fee and got through the first two rounds before losing to a baseballer from the Bronx. Buck was an untiring entrepreneur, and he always had cash. As he told us, he had learned his agent business when he was in the eighth grade. He found that since there were so many bands and entertainers -- magicians, singers, orators, and the like -- in his home metropolis, all he had to do was to find a cheap place to rent for the event, make arrangements with the performer/s, and sell tickets. And he had seven brothers and three sisters who helped sell tickets to their respective classmates. At one point, Buck was so successful that he was selling tickets through a ticketing agency. And, of course, his friends in both the local daily and the weekly newspapers offered free publicity in turn for free tickets. He thought that the radio stations and the one television station were simply too expensive -- too many employees -- to deal with. He claimed that he had once booked the young Elvis Presley for his high school for one of those “Friday Morning Assembly Specials,” so popular in the 1950s. I attended a segregated high school in the 1950s, but during the summers, I drove with friends to another village 40 miles away to play on our local team in the CenTex Black ‘N’ Tan Baseball League. In those days, a Black and tan league allowed players of color to play together in our own hardball league. After our games, we would be invited to go over to the Teen Canteen in the poorer section of town to enjoy sodas and chips and watch dancing. It was understood that none of us Tans was allowed to ask a Black girl to dance; WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

however, if the Black girl asked one of us to dance, it was all right, so long as we knew to sit back down directly after that dance. The dancing was amazing. I had never seen such movements! Some of the cross-swings didn’t even seem at first to be anatomically possible. And the music was amazing. None of Sinatra or Crosby’s crooning or the nice tunes by Doris Day was comparable to the faster beat, unusual themes, and raucous music of that Teen Canteen. So when Elvis Presley exploded on the television screen, sang “Love Me Tender” and other hits on the larger screen, and began his love affair with Las Vegas, I was not surprised. After all, I had been listening to and dancing to the very same kind of music after our hardball games. Only later did I finally realize that Presley, Bill Haley (Remember this Harlington, Texas artist’s “Rock Around the Clock” in the movie Blackboard Jungle?), Big Joe Turner, and a host of other rolling rockers essentially revolutionized American music. Over the years, however, as Presley grew artistically and as Colonel Parker’s entrepreneurship flourished, Elvis Presley evolved into, as the Beatles admitted, “The King.” A major contributor to that growth was the old International Hotel in Las Vegas. When it opened in 1969, it was the largest hotel in the world, and Barbara Streisand was the opening-night performer. Then, Elvis Presley sold out the house for 58 consecutive shows. Living in Room No. 3000 on the 30th floor, Presley performed over 800 times to bring in an estimated $300 million in 2010 dollars. He forged a bond with other performers, with the staff and crew of the International, with the City of Las Vegas, and with the American youth. In Las Vegas, Elvis lives on through his star on the Strip’s Las Vegas Walk of Stars, contributed by Viva Las Vegas!; in the Elvis Presley Fan Club; “Viva Elvis” by Cirque du Soleil; “Legends in Concert” at Harrah’s; King’s Ransom Museum at the Imperial Palace; Madame Tussauds’s wax version in black leather at the Venetian; the July 2010 “Heart of the King” Fans Festival at the Las Vegas Hilton; and dozens of other shows in which other performers impersonate him. And while Elvis lives on, so, too, does

the hotel that served as his mecca. In 1970, the International Hotel was purchased by Hilton Hotels Corporation and renamed in 1971 as the Las Vegas Hilton. The hotel headlined Liberace in the 1970s and hosted several famous fights like Leon Spinks versus Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson versus Tony Tucker, and Donald Curry versus Milton McCrory. Until 2008, the hotel hosted the Star Trek Experience. The world’s largest freestanding sign in the world announces the entrance to the Las Vegas Hilton, the largest Hilton hotel in the world. And, of course, as guests arrive daily, they are greeted by the lifesized bronze statue of The King. u

The King

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

News

Gladys Keene, M.D., appointed regional dean of UT Health Science Center’s Laredo campus

ladys C. Cronfel Keene, M.D., M.P.H., has been appointed the regional dean of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio’s Regional Campus in Laredo, a newly created position. “After an extensive national search, Dr. Keene was selected because of her experience, communication skills, and enthusiasm, and for her expertise and intimate understanding of Laredo and South Texas,” said Health Science Center President William L. Henrich, M.D., MACP. “I am confident that Dr. Keene will be an outstanding leader who will advance our Laredo campus and programs to new levels of achievement in academics, clinical care, research and service,” he added. Dr. Keene has served as executive director of the Area Health Education Center of the Mid Río Grande Border Area of Texas, Inc. since 1993. In that capacity, she has worked closely with UT Health Science Center programs to interest students in health careers, provide health professionals with resources, and educate area residents about healthy living. The program has served more than 50,000 program participants over 17 years. Her Health Science Center faculty posts include clinical associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics since 2000 and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Physician Assistant Studies since 2005. She has been chair of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Health Issues since 2007. Dr. Keene is a bilingual diplomate of the American Board of Pediatrics, the American Board of Allergy-Immunology Conjoint, and the American Board of Internal Medicine. She is a fellow of the American

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology. Dr. Keene has more than 35 years of experience providing care to patients with allergy and asthma disorders in Laredo and the surrounding communities. She and her husband, Roger H. Keene, M.D., who also is a bilingual boardcertified diplomate of the American Board of Otolaryngology, have practiced together in Laredo since 1975. Before entering private practice, Dr. Keene was a physician with the 97th General Army Hospital in Darmstadt, Germany; in the Maternity and Infant Care Division Clinic with the Harris County Health Department in Houston; and with the Gateway Community Health Center in Laredo. Dr. Keene earned her bachelor of arts in biology with honors from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio in 1960, her medical doctor degree with honors from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) in 1965, and her master of public health degree in community medicine from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 1994. She completed an internship at Robert B. Green Hospital in San Antonio in 1966, a pediatric residency at UTMB in Galveston in 1974, and a fellowship in child development and allergy at UTMB in 1975. Dr. Keene is an accomplished researcher of respiratory diseases and has published and presented her findings in asthma education and management. She is active in numerous community service, education, and healthrelated programs and has been honored by Laredo Community College, the Laredo City Council, and Our Lady of the Lake University. Dr. Keene and her husband have one son, Mark Alan Keene, J.D. u

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Movie Review

Despicable Me: It’s in all of us

By CORDELIA BARRERA

t’s nice to be the villain sometimes. Refreshing, you know? I mean, how many times have you been driving along minding your own little bubble of business only to have a half witted motorist with one of those dopey Baby on Board decals cut you off, slow down, and then brake abruptly at the stop light you most certainly would have made had you not been thwarted by his vehicular ineptitude? Wouldn’t it be cool to just bash them off the road? How about those bozos at Starbucks who perpetually stand in front of you when you have places to go and people to see? Wouldn’t it be nice to Freeze-Ray their indecisiveness into oblivion, if only for a little while? In Universal Pictures new 3-D CGI feature, Despicable Me (2010), we are invited to delight in all things wicked, as we follow one of the world’s great super villains -- Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell) -- plot the most audacious heist the world has ever known: He’s going to steal the moon. In order to execute his evil plan, he needs a Shrink Ray. His plot is to construct a rocket, hightail it toward the heavens, shrink the luminous orb, palm the softballsized moon in his pocket, and head back to the underworld basement of his tall, freakishly tapered coal and plum colored suburban home. Only then will the world will know the power of true fiendishness. Heh, Heh! Every great evil villain needs an equally diabolical assistant, an Igor if you will. For this, there is Dr. Nefario, Gru’s ever loyal, ever near-sighted, and only slightly deaf octogenarian staff inventor and right-hand evildoer. Nefario can build the rocket. But

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

first he needs cash, and lots of it. No problem, says Gru. He’ll take out a New Villain Loan. It’s not like he lacks experience or credentials. He’s been a politically incorrect buster of baby balloons all his adult life. He knows just where to go: The Bank of Evil (formerly Lehman Brothers). Not surprisingly, he makes his nefarious entrance into the Bank of Evil by way of a public urinal. One retinal scan and several trap doors later, he is admitted into the waiting room. There’s only one other evil villain there: Vector. We’ll see more of him and his orange jumpsuit later. He is, after all, Gru’s nerdy nemesis. The thing is, Gru seems to have lost his edge. At least that’s what the Evil Bank President seems to think. Gru’s sinister plots just aren’t turning a profit. Fine, thinks

Gru. He’ll just abscond with someone else’s Shrink Ray. He steals the Ray only to have Vector steal it right back from him. He tries in vain to infiltrate Vector’s evil creamsicle geodesic dome/lair. It’s impossible. There are, however, those three little orphan girls named Margo, Edith, and Agnes Gru sees selling cookies to Vector. It’s brilliant! Thinks Gru. He’ll adopt the girls from the equally evil Miss Hattie and slip some little cookie robots into Vector’s order. Will the cute little girls steal into Gru’s heart the way the little cookie robots slip into Vector’s lair? Will Gru grow a heart? For that matter, will his equally awful mother (voiced by Julie Andrews)? Finding out for yourself will make you smile. The odd triangles and elongated shapes that

make up the world of Despicable Me hold our attention the way the quirky juts and spikes of neo-eclectic architecture might. Also, it’s kind of audacious to ask an audience to take pleasure in the politically incorrect treatment of orphans and children in general. More to the point, though, I just couldn’t get over the way I felt after the film. It was just so sweet. Not syrupy sweet, but the kind of sweet that lasts. The kind of sweet you want to share. Despicable Me is fresh, quirky, and rides smoothly along a happy soundtrack. Plus, it has minions. Gru has his own minions. Lots of funny little goggle-eyed minions. The minions are hysterical. You just can’t help smiling at these little yellow capsule-like drones in blue overalls as they speak their chipmunk gibberish. Mostly, they cheer on Gru and his evil deeds, but they also do little minion errands like drive little minion cars in wigs and shop at Walmart, or control their own sinister Mission Control, or just float aimlessly into the atmosphere. Despicable Me is a silly parody of all those secret agent films that take tactics, sieges, weapons, cannons, projectiles, and secret agents in particular very seriously. It’s also, I think, about how we often take our personal goals, and, subsequently, ourselves too seriously. The evil genius rivals are so preoccupied as they try to outdo each other, but small things -- like the minions and little girls -- are the ones who effortlessly win in the end. Much of the fun of Despicable Me is the delight that the film takes in silly gestures. But we have to be willing; we have to be open to change. (Native Laredoan Cordy Barrera holds a PhD in English and teaches Literature at The University of Texas at San Antonio.) u

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Feature

Mexico’s “permanent” crises

lthough the Arizona immigration law and two recent US Border Patrol detentions that resulted in the deaths of two Mexican nationals have upset US-Mexico relations, close economic and political ties between Washington and Mexico City are unlikely to change in the near future. Under the policies of the Obama and Calderon administrations, the strategic thrusts of the bilateral partnership -- the North American Free Trade Agreement and anti-drug Merida Initiative -- are likely to deepen. Meeting in Cancun this month, Mexican and US Congressmen discounted any move to renegotiate NAFTA -- a long-standing demand of much of the US Democratic Party’s base as well as Mexican farm and labor groups -- and expressed renewed support for President Calderon’s so-called drug war. US delegates even proposed beefing up the Merida Initiative to the tune of $500 million annually, an amount about $200 million higher than the sum budgeted for 2011. “The support that we have for the armed forces and police of both countries to cut the flow of drugs is important,” retiring Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, was quoted. Yet even as Washington prepares to toss more golden eggs into Calderon’s basket, the growing political buzz in Mexico is that the Calderon presidency is essentially over, even though the country’s chief executive still has more than two years remaining in office. “Felipe Calderon has lost the reigns to the country,” wrote journalist and author Lydia Cacho in a recent El Universal editorial. “I write this without the least bit of exaggeration. Violence has acquired unimaginable proportions.” Evidence abounds to support Cacho’s thesis. From the dozens of narco victims who were recently recovered from mass graves outside the tourist centers of Cancun and Taxco to deadly prison disturbances that left scores more dead in different parts of the country, mass slaughter is a daily headline. Other examples of an ungovernable situation proliferate. The crown jewel of northern Mexico, Monterrey, was recently brought to a halt by armed gangs blockading public roads, while the governor of Nayarit dismissed public school weeks early because of fears of violence. Nation-

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

wide, the body count in the so-called narco war since President Calderon took office in December 2006 approaches 25,000 people. Mexico has not witnessed such levels of violence since the Taliban-like Cristero uprisings of the 1920s. On the economic front, the news for Mexican workers and consumers is not uplifting -- despite talk of recovery. While Mexican media trumpet the country’s World Cup triumphs, prices for gasoline, milk, beans, and other necessities keep creeping upward. Across the country, legions of youth, forming perhaps what might be called the NAFTA Generation, are without jobs or schooling. At least 12.5 million people, or 28.6 percent of the workforce, earn a living in the informal sector selling pirated products and other goods. Taking Cacho’s observations a step further, the current landscape resembles one of the periodic presidential succession crises that grip Mexico every few years, albeit this one comes slightly earlier and is much more violent. In certain ways, 2010 recalls the last year of the Salinas de Gotari era, when the slaying of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas, the Zapatista uprising, the assassination of ruling party presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, and other calamities unhinged Mexico. Factoring in the endless open season on journalists, the bloody siege of the indigenous town of San Juan Copala in Oaxaca and crackdowns on striking miners and electrical workers, this year’s turbulence is also reminiscent of the last days of the Fox presidency when labor-capital showdowns, the repression of the Oaxaca rebellion and an intensifying narco war all created a climate of crisis, which only worsened after a post-electoral conflict challenged Calderon’s claim to victory in the 2006 election. The Diego drama 2010 also resembles 1994 in another eerie way. In both years, a leading member of the Mexican elite was kidnapped. Sixteen years ago, prominent banker Alfredo Harp was snatched in action widely blamed on the leftist Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), which presumably used a multimillion dollar ransom to fund an uprising in eight Mexican states two years later. This year a leading figure of Mexico’s political elite, National Action Party (PAN) politician Diego “El Jefe” Fernandez de

Cevallos, is missing and said to be held against his will. Now heading into its second month, the presumed kidnapping has jolted Mexico’s political class. The disappearance has also resurrected other political ghosts from the past, and underscores how obscure but powerful forces continue shaping the destiny of a country where a modern democracy supposedly prevails. Ironically the PAN’s 1994 presidential candidate, Fernandez de Cevallos is no ordinary politician. A central figure in Mexico’s power structure, the 71-year-old lawyer has represented deep-pocketed clients of all stripes. Two of Fernandez de Cevallos’s former law partners are high-ranking members of the Calderon administration: Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont and Attorney General Arturo Chavez Chavez. Among Fernandez de Cevallos’ more controversial clients were the Mexico City hospital where Juarez drug cartel chieftain Amado Carrillo Fuentes was said to have died in a botched 1997 operation, and the old Anahuac Bank, an institution allegedly linked to cartel money laundering. A bridge between the erstwhile opposition PAN and former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Fernandez de Cevallos was an essential broker between his forces and the Salinas de Gortari and Zedillo administrations. He was considered a key player in the privatization of Mexico’s banks, the passage of NAFTA, and the establishment of FOBAPROA, the controversial bank bail out paid for by taxpayers. Fernandez de Cevallos later emerged together with Carlos Salinas de Gortari as one of the men behind the so-called “video scandals” of 2004. Choreographed by Argentine taxi driver-turned-tycoon Carlos Ahumada, the tapes showed members of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution accepting cash in return for presumed political favors. Ahumada declared the intention of the videos was to derail presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s 2006 bid, with the connivance of then-President Vicente Fox. Speculation swirls over who and what is behind Fernandez de Cevallos’ disappearance. The theories include the EPR, unknown political forces out to destabilize the country, drug cartel leaders seeking a prisoner exchange, audacious kidnappers simply out to make pay-dirt, and even a

Machiavellian melodrama hatched by the wealthy lawyer himself. Rumors stand that the old PAN stalwart is dead. On repeated occasions, the EPR has denied it had anything to do with Fernandez de Cevallos’s May 14 disappearance. Calling the charges “false and perverse,” the guerrilla group said in a statement posted on the Internet that the accusations are meant to “justify repression” against discontented sectors of Mexican society and isolate the EPR’s revolutionary struggle. Interestingly, only one day before Fernandez de Cevallos vanished from his Queretaro ranch, Mexican media ran a story based on an anonymous Colombian government source who alleged the EPR had been trained in kidnapping by the Colombian FARC. In terms of political timing, Fernandez de Cevallos disappeared only days before the PAN’s national assembly, an important meeting in the road to choose the conservative party’s 2012 presidential candidate; one of the possible contenders mentioned was none other than Fernandez de Cevallos. Going into the meeting, the party was marked by power jockeying between more moderate forces and El Yunque, a secret ultra-right organization rooted in the ashes of defeated Cristero rebels that reportedly enjoys influence within the PAN and seeks to establish a Catholic theocratic state in Mexico. “El Jefe’s” disappearance also coincided with turbulent and violent state and local election campaigns in 13 states. The Fernandez de Cevallos incident also brought another historic but largely enigmatic figure back into the public spotlight -- General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro. A veteran of Mexico’s Dirty War of the 1970s, Acosta Chaparro has long been implicated in the forced disappearances of scores of suspected guerrillas and supporters in the southern state of Guerrero. Later, his name popped up in connection with the narco graves unearthed on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez in November 1999, a discovery which presaged a whole new chapter in modern Mexican “archaeological” finds. In 2000, Acosta Chaparro was arrested along with the late General Humberto Quiroz Hermosillo and accused of collaborating with the Juarez drug cartel. Military prosecutors also probed Acosta Chaparro’s responsibility for the disappearance and WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

murder of 22 suspected guerrillas in Guerrero but later dropped their legal case. In 2007, Acosta Chaparro was absolved of the organized crime charges, released from confinement and later retired with full honors from 45 years of military service. On May 19, five days after Fernandez de Cevallos went missing, Acosta Chaparro was shot and wounded in Mexico City. Press accounts reported he was serving as an adviser to the Calderon administration and, in fact, investigating Fernandez de Cevallos’ disappearance. If reports of Acosta Chaparro’s involvement are accurate, another big question surrounds the affair: Why would an administration which has accepted the InterAmerican Court of Human rights ruling to resolve the 1974 disappearance of Rosendo Radilla, an activist and former mayor disappeared during the Dirty War in Guerrero, maintain a working relationship with a man long deemed central to the Dirty War in the Pacific state? All the President’s men and women close ranks A constant media diet of mass killings, high and low-profile kidnappings, and frequent political scandals has left much of Mexican society psychologically exhausted, morally disgusted, and politically cynical, with flashes of rebellion here and there. In a way, the country might be said to be experiencing a state of collective PostTraumatic Stress Syndrome. Designed with colorful graphics and photos, an e-mail circulating on the Internet shows the differences between 2006 and 2009 staple prices and compares the salaries of well-paid and fancily attired Bank of Mexico head Agustin Carstens, pictured chomping away at a snack, and an impoverished Chiapas laborer quoted as saying he “sometimes earns enough to eat.” Mocking Felipe Calderon’s 2006 campaign slogan, the e-mail asks, “And you? Do you live better?” In defense of his administration, President Felipe Calderon recently addressed the nation in an important televised talk. While he repeated earlier contentions that US drug consumption and gun-running had contributed a big share of Mexico’s problems, Calderon emphasized how the drug cartels had changed from being clandestine, mainly export-oriented enterprises into high profile, multi-product line outfits dedicated to conquering sections of the country and corrupting Mexican youth with drugs. Said Calderon: “Since the middle of the 1990s, (criminals) began to want to sell drugs here, among our children and MexiWWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

can youth…little by little, the violence began over controlling the local drug market and forcing away their rivals from those places they wanted to control…they began to fight among themselves, disputing the markets, and also trying to terrorize the government and citizenry. Their action stopped being low-profile and converted itself into an open and frank challenge to all.” Insisting that he inherited a putrid mess, Calderon vowed to stay the course with his anti-crime war. The president assured Mexicans his government had delivered “important blows” to all the cartels, without exception, and created divisions in criminal ranks. Calderon’s war was vindicated in the United Nations by Mexican Attorney General Arturo Chavez Chavez and Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa last week. “Mexico is strong,” Chavez told the international audience. “It can defend itself and end up controlling the violence and defeating the criminals.” Speaking to a domestic audience, the official in charge of human rights and victims’ rights issues for the federal attorney general’s office told students at the University of Guanajuato that the Calderon administration was close to checkmating organized crime. “More lives will be lost,” Juan de Dios Castro Lozano predicted. “The three (government) levels and society are needed. The federal government can’t do it alone.” Globalizing Mexico’s crises Increasingly, Mexico’s internal conflicts and troubles are spilling onto the international stage. In the 1990s, a huge international movement jelled in support of Chiapas’ Zapatista leaders. Later, the murder of women in Ciudad Juarez sparked an international mobilization. The globalization of Mexico’s crises continues-with an important difference. Largely unlike previous times, multiple issues are being raised in multiple places and at the same time. In May, US labor leaders staged a Washington march to support striking Mexican utility workers and miners, whose longrunning occupation of Grupo Mexico’s historic Cananea copper mine was broken by Federal Police only days after the US union representatives conveyed their Mexico concerns to Obama administration officials. In the face of international condemnation, Mexican Labor Minister Javier Lozano traveled to the International Labor Organization in Geneva last week to defend the eviction and strike-breaking. On June 28, while the World Cup is still in prime-time splendor, South African unionists plan a Cananea solidarity march.

Two days later, European lawmakers are expected to be in Mexico City to inquire about the April 27 murders of Mexican activist Beatriz Alberta Carino and Finnish human rights observer Tyri Jaakkola near San Juan Copala, Oaxaca. Appalled by the Mexican Supreme Court’s decision to exonerate high-ranking federal and state officials of any responsibility for the deaths of 49 children killed in a Sonora daycare center fire last year, parents of the victims plan to take the matter to the United Nations. Meanwhile, the mothers of three murdered young women in Ciudad Juarez and their legal representatives sent a preliminary report to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica, accusing the Mexican government of not complying with a December 2009 sentence ordering Mexico to clarify the killings, punish officials responsible for covering up the crimes, compensate family members and publicize the cases of other disappeared young women. Like the Radilla case in Guerrero, the Calderon government has agreed to follow the Court’s sentence. Surveying a crisis-ridden political, economic and social scene, La Jornada columnist Marco Rascon recently wrote that Mexico is saddled with a permanent crisis. Tracing the roots of contemporary troubles to the collapse of the post-war, growth-driven “Mexican Miracle,” which was interred by the 1976 peso devaluation, International Monetary Fund mandates, open trade and investment borders, and the virtual dismantlement of the old PRIdominated state, according to Rascon, the author contended that the ironic outcome of the turmoil is likely to be the 2012 restoration of the PRI-the same party once voted out of national office for causing multiple

crises. “After 34 years of living in a structural crisis…we have the richest man in the world (Carlos Slim), born from a country whose identity is crisis,” Rascon wrote. “The permanent imbalance has extended to all spheres: culture, security, politics, social cohesion, health, education, nutrition. Violence extends into politics, and justice experiences its severest crisis of credibility…” Additional Sources: El Diario de Juarez, June 16, 2010. Presidencia.gob.mx, June 15, 2010. Proceso/Apro, May 14, 18, 21, 25, 26, 2010; June 15, 17 and 18, 2010. Articles by Alvardo Delgado, Jenaro Villamil, Jorge Carrasco Araizaga, Carlos Acosta Cordova, Ricardo Ravelo, Gloria Leticia Diaz, Pedro Zamora Briseno, and editorial staff. La Jornada, May 14, 15, 16, 20, 23, 2010; June 8, 10, 14, 15, 18, 2010. Articles by Notimex, AFP, Reuters, Gabriel Leon, Georgina Saldierna, Andrea Becerril, Luis Javier Garrido, David Carrizales, Enrique Mendez, Hugo Martoccia, Javier Valdez Cardenas, Marco Rascon, Patricia Munoz Rios, and editorial staff. El Universal, May 13, 16 20, 22, 2010; June 14 and 18, 2010. Articles by Hilda Fernandez Valverde, Raymundo Rivapalacio, Jorge Medellin, Lydia Cacho, Adriana Varillas, EFE, Notimex, and editorial staff. John Ross (Mexico City), May 27 and June 18, 2010. Cimacnoticias, June 14 and 16, 2010. Articles by Gladis Torres Ruiz. El Sur, May 23, 2010; June 14 and 18, 2010. Articles by Proceso and Agencia Reforma. Commondreams.org, May 23, 2010. Article by David Macaray. (Frontera NorteSur (FNS) is an on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news center for Latin American and Border Studies at New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico. For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@ nmsu.edu.) u

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

South Texas Food Bank By salo otero

Salo Otero is the director of development for the South Texas Food Bank. He can be reached at sotero@ southexasfoodbank. org or by calling 956-726-3120.

Food bank programs help feed the hungry

he South Texas Food Bank mission of feeding the hungry has been in the forefront during recent months with one major fundraiser down and another one coming later this summer. The fifth annual Border Media-South Texas Food Bank radio drive aired over the five Border Media stations from June 28 to July 11. The Laredo Energy Arena-South Texas Food Bank Empty Bowls IV is set for Aug. 25 at the LEA. Senator Judith Zaffirini will be honored and Three Dog Night will perform. For ticket information, call the food bank at (956) 726-3102. More than 30 percent of Laredoans live below the poverty line -- almost 80,000 Laredo-Webb County residents are eligible for food assistance. The food bank serves 21,000 families per month, 6,500 elderly and 6,000-plus children. The Adopt-a-Family program could be one of the best-kept secrets in the STFB’s mission of feeding the hungry. A donation of $120 per year provides bag full of groceries per month to a family in need. The program is currently in its fifth year and was the brainchild food bank executive director Alfredo Castillo. Each bag of groceries, if purchased over the counter, would cost between $80 and $90. Among the items included are rice, beans, canned vegetables and fruits, pea-

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

nut butter, cooking oil, pasta, tuna, cereal, spaghetti sauce, fruit juices, bread, beef casserole, mashed potatoes, ground beef, and personal care kit. One observer noted, “I can go to just about any restaurant in town with my three children and five grandchildren and plop down $120 for one meal. Now, with a $120 donation, a family gets supplemental food to help them make it through the month. That’s just amazing.” At the monthly STFB board meeting in June, executive director Castillo reported, 670 families are Adopt-a-Family clients, and there is a waiting list of 393. Cindy Liendo-Espinoza is the Adopt-a-Family coordinator. Here are some innovative ways the food bank’s Adopt-a-Family program has received donations from the business community over the last few months: BBVA Compass seventh floor employees: Liz Gomez of BBVA Compass’ seventh floor organized their donation after Jim Moore, a bank executive on their floor saw a TV interview about the program and encouraged them to donate. Gomez in turn encouraged the group drop some change and a few bills into a jar every Friday, said colleague Susana Salinas. The group, from three departments, started collecting money, and over a threemonth period had $240 to adopt two fami-

lies. “We got nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar bills from this desk and that desk,” Gomez said, adding, “And we’re starting to collect money again.” CPA Ruben Soto Jr. and retired Laredo ISD educators John and Tirza Cox have been generously adopting a family each month. Retired school counselor JoAnn Pruski Piland is sending a $120 donation every two months. Clunkers for hunger Judge Hector Liendo, a longtime STFB advocate, is cleaning up our community and helping feed the hungry at the same time. He started a campaign asking Laredoans to donate their junked vehicles to help feed the hungry. These cars are being sold and proceeds are used to adopt families in need within the community. In the first month of the campaign, Judge Liendo has adopted six families. He will continue to run the campaign as long people call to donate their used cars. For more information call (956) 523-4299. Food instead of flowers A Laredo Noon Optimist Club member’s mother died recently. Instead of sending flowers, the Optimist Club adopted a family in memory of the deceased. Commodity Supplemental Food Program The USDA-sponsored Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) served more than 6,000 elderly residents in June. However, there are 1,300 still on a waiting list. A lot of the waiting list clients are

placed in Adopt-a-Family. Recipients must be age 60 and over. Eugenio Almendarez is the food bank CSFP director. When it comes to senior citizens, no one can take a back seat to two Laredoans served by the food bank’s CSFP. According Almendarez’s records, 102-year-old Ricardo Rodriguez, born Oct. 20, 1908, and 100 year-old Concepción B. Zuniga, born Sept. 16, 1909, are both members of the program. The CSFP program lost its oldest Laredo client, María Z. Cortez, born May 17, 1907, last month. She died at the age of 103. “My mom received help from the South Texas Food Bank for many years,” said Socorro Cortez Garza, Cortez’s daughter. Also, Modesto Luna hit the century mark in June. Soon to be 100 are Maria L. Rodriguez in July, Antonia P. Martinez in September, and Pedro Saavedra in October. Executive director Castillo noted that Ms. Martinez, who will be 100 in September, “volunteered here at the food bank until she was 96.” Castillo added, “The elderly have given so much, and in their golden years, it’s our turn to help them through programs like this.” The other two programs that help feed the hungry are SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) and the Kids Cafés. SNAP outreach qualifies individuals and families for stamps. Alma Blanco is the director of food stamp outreach. Kids Cafés have 12 sites that feed more than 600 children daily. Gloria Jackson is the director. u

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Mercy Ministries

A smile is the shortest distance between two people

By ROSANNE PALACIOS

smile is a most powerful communication tool. Some have called the smile the shortest distance between two people. Mercy Clinic’s dental program brings smiles through their dental program, which includes volunteer dentists and collaboration with dental students at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The Mercy Clinic dental program was founded three years ago when Dr. Carmen Rathmell and Dr. José Manuel Gonzalez asked Sr. Rosemary Welsh if Mercy patients had dental needs. “Was there a need? Sister María Luisa Vera (Mercy Ministry CEO) and our team had been talking about the lack of dental care for our patients, many of whom are diabetic,” said Sr. Rosemary. “We did cartwheels when we were told they could put together a team so that we could have a dentist here weekly.” Because dental care for children was

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

readily available elsewhere, Mercy leadership and the volunteer dentists agreed to care for uninsured, unfunded adults who were patients of the clinic. Mercy patients became the focus because diabetic patients have a greater need, and

“

therefore increasing their chances of controlling the disease and leading healthier lives. Sr. María Luisa commented that adding the program also helped solidify Mercy as a complete medical home. “Our

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. Mother Teresa

the dental program could become part of the overall diabetic program. Patients who are pending chemotherapy are also given priority to help prevent the side effects chemo may cause. Mercy patients are required to comply with the medical plan prescribed by the medical provider,

”

overriding goal is prevention through education and early detection with a strict focus on patient compliance,” said Sr. Maria Luisa. “Adding the dental program strengthened our program by connecting the importance of oral hygiene with ove all health. Many do not know of

the link between oral hygiene and diabetes and heart disease.” For the last three years, the program has also received support from students at UTHSC-SA. This year first and second year students came to work with community outreach workers to host platicas in colonias and community centers on oral hygiene. These students also assisted with cleanings for the patients, many of whom had never seen a dentist. The third and fourth year students work alongside dentists to provide fillings and extractions. “We are so proud to work with the students from San Antonio,” said Sr. María Luisa. “They help us serve our patients and we help them gain experience. In the end, every one has a reason to smile. “ (Rosanne Palacios is the director of development for Mercy Ministries of Laredo, which supports three missions -- Mercy Clinic, Casa de Misericordia, and the Lamar Bruni Vergara Education Center. To learn more about Mercy Ministries call 956-721-7408.) u

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

The Mystery Customer BY THE mystery Customer

Excelent service at TXDOT and Independence Day at the Imaginarium of South Texas

believe kudos are in order for the wonderful alternate July 4 experience provided by the Imaginarium of South Texas at the Mall del Norte. Congratulations to director Melissa Cigarroa, program director Lisa Chapa, Imaginarium employees, Mall del Norte administrators and employees, Target and HEB volunteers, and others who provided local children with a wonderful experience. On arrival, each child was provided with materials for producing his own patriotic headgear, while a volunteer or staff painted the guest’s face. Nearby, the Mall del Norte train was available for rides, and the photo stand could be used for family layouts. Local Boy Scouts in full dress bore the country and state flags while another majestic flag hoisted by an HEB representative pulled up the rear. After the “Pledge of Allegiance” was led by Mayor Salinas and the “Star Spangled Banner” was sung by a local school group, the parade of children and parents marched from Sears to the Imaginarium. Grand Marshall was Princess, Mayor and Mrs. Salinas’ pet dog. Upon arrival at the Imaginarium, the parade participants were provided with the ingredients to make their own ice cream sundaes. All parade participants were then invited to spend the remainder of the afternoon at the Imaginarium where there was a complete section filled with beach sand and pails and shovels that the children used to make sand castles and other structures. It was A very unique and family friendly experience indeed. As a non-native Texan, I recently had occasion to visit the local office of the DOT, specifically the licensing division on Bob Bullock Loop. My companion had accidentally allowed his license to lapse, and back in our native state, that would be cause to step into the licensing division with head hung low and in dreaded anticipation of the scornful looks and tongue lashings one might receive

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

from the clerks involved in resolving the issue. Not in Laredo (nor in Texas in general I believe). We were greeted with the utmost hospitality and cordiality, and the services required were dealt with in a respectful and courteous manner. We are also considerably impressed with the service provided at the local registry. Score one for the State of Texas and City of Laredo. Lowe’s and Home Depot and other plant vendors fill the need for shrubs, trees, vegetable plant starters, and annuals, but what is sorely lacking in Laredo is a real nursery, a place that if you are a plant maven on the prowl for a specimen plant you don’t have in your collection (Rex begonia, Peperomia, Scilla), would hit the spot. As I was tooling down Hildebrand on a recent trip to San Antonio, I found Evergreen Garden, which had some neat stuff and great organic fertilizers like bat guano. The service was good, too. At a recent lunch at Lala’s, my primas Arabella and Irene and their friend Gabriel and I reminisced about sodas we bought in tienditas when we were kiddos. Once Delaware Punch came to memory -- the un-carbonated grape elixir of our adolescence -- I was on a mission. I tracked it down at Central Market on Broadway in SA. Six bucks a 12-pack. Unfortunately, it comes in cans and not the wonderful little bottles we remembered. When the company van refused to move another block forward, the MC called Jorge Martinez Auto on Hwy. 83. A wrecker was quickly dispatched and the vehicle repaired. China Border is a downtown family restaurant that does not waver about how good their food is. They take great pains to please and always know that the youngster with the MC is a fan of fried rice with lots of baby corn in it. In need of a sauna? Go to one of the fitting rooms at Dillards. Need the assistance of a salesperson? Best of luck. u

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Feature

It’s a no-brainer; A refuge for bloodless, empty-headed spacemen on the blue planet

By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

dmonition to USO (Underwater Submerged Objects) astronauts headed this way: Bring lots of sliced bread and peanut butter -- you’re going to find a mess of jelly in Davy Jones’ locker. They’re icky, sticky, sometimes quite dangerous. Somewhere in the Bible someone says, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” They may have been referring to what’s happening now in the world’s oceans, which is alarming, and we’re not talking about all of the scary things mentioned in the August 2010 issue of Smithsonian Magazine in a section titled “Marine Advisory,” by noted marine biologist Nancy Knowlton. To wit: commercial fleets kill or fatally injure 16.1 billion pounds of fish before they discard them in the seas each year; it takes three pounds of wild mackerel or anchovies to produce one pound of farmed shrimp or salmon; since 1970, there has been an 82.4 percent decline in the western bluefin tuna spawning population; 33 percent of crude oil is produced

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

offshore; 0.7 parts per billion of concentrated weathered crude oil damages Pacific herring eggs; 2037 is the projected year when the Arctic will completely be free of summer sea ice due to melting; 2050 is the projected year when coral reefs worldwide will shrink because of increased ocean acidity as atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels dissolves in sea water. What we are referring to is to be found in the first section of the Smithsonian article, which bears the title “Jellyfish: The Next King of the Sea,” where it says, ‘All around the world jellyfish are behaving badly…and we are at the mercy of the jellyfish.” The report adds, “(Jellyfish are) reproducing in astonishing numbers and congregating where they’ve supposedly never been seen before.” Some of the facts about the havoc wreaked by the proliferation of jellyfish go a long way to bring the crisis home to the imagination. For example, jellyfish fossils in Utah reveal that these creatures evolved 500 million years ago, or 170 million years before fish; their dickering with undersea power lines caused a blackout in Manila and had people thinking that a civil war was underway; during their Norway-to Thailand invasion, they have managed to shut down nuclear power generators practically worldwide; their voracious appetites are contributing to the extinction of the Beluga Sturgeon, the source of the most coveted caviar, in the Caspian Sea;

mauve stinger jellyfish have wreaked an area of destruction in salmon fisheries off the coast of Ireland -- the swarm was reportedly 35 feet thick, covering 10 square miles; they’ve gummed up the sediment removal equipment used in Namibian seafloor diamond operations by clogging cooling equipment; jellyfish partially disabled the USS Ronald Reagan; a 10-ton fishing trawler off the coast of Japan capsized and sank while trying to haul a net bulging with 450-pound Nomura jellies. It’s obviously a tale of two yucky, boneless, bloodless, brainless, similar ancient species whose stomachs double as gonads and whose mouths double as anuses that are delivering the “beso negro” to our sea life and seaways, according to the Smithsonian article. It’s “a bad day for runcorn minnows,” anyway you look at it. For example, if you look out into the fabled Mediterranean from the French Riviera or the Costa Brava, you’re likely to see billows replete with eye-stinging sparkles of jellyfish in flotillas of mindless millions on their way to gum something up and multiply and foil the efforts of fishermen and to sting holiday bathers on beautiful beaches. Another admonition to future visitors to the third planet from the sun -- bring a blender, you can make a pretty tart salsa with a Portuguese man-of-war. You can sprinkle a little on your stingaree steaks. u

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Ceasar Botello and Geanna Marie Hernandez recently announced their engagement at a family gathering. Hernandez is the daughter of Jose Fidel Sr. and Ana Maria G. Hernandez, and Botello is the son of Robert and Lilian Rodriguez. Geanna Marie, a graduate of TAMIU, earned an MA in guidance counseling at UTSA. She is an academic counselor at Southwest High School in San Antonio. Botello is a graduate of J.W. Nixon High School and a former musician who currently works for a trucking company in Houston. They will be married August 14, 2010 at Assembly of God Church.

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

Courtesy Photo

Engaged to be married

WBCA executive committee The Washington’s Birthday Celebration recently announced their new executive committee. Pictured left to right, standing, are Anselmo “Chemo” Castro, Jr. (WBCA Ex-Officio), Veronica Castillon, treasurer; Susan Foster, 2010-2011 president; and Pati G. Guajardo, second vice-president. Seated are J.R. Bob Weathers first vice-president; and José A. Palacios Jr., president-elect.

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Notes from LaLa Land By dr. neo gutierrez

Dr. Neo Gutierrez is a Ph.D. in Dance and Fine Arts, Meritorious Award in Laredo Fine Arts recipient 2009 from Webb Co. Heritage Foundation, Laredo Sr. Intâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;l 2008, Laredo MHS Tiger Legend 2002, and Sr. Intâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;l de Beverly Hills, 1997. Contact neodance@aol.com.

Soccer is the most popular world sport, but not in the USA

pain won the 2010 World Cup trophy earlier this month, and it seems unbelievable that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the first WC championship for Spain, a pre-tournament favorite. After defeating the Netherlands 1-0 in the final game, Spain became the eighth country to win the WC. After much extra-time play, Andres Iniesta became the star of the day when he scored the gamewinning goal in the final extra time minutes. So, the World Cup soccer games have come and gone, and the tortuous games reminded me of some truths. For one, soccer is the most popular sport in the world, yet itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably the least popular in the US. Why? Think of what poor kids need in order to play a soccer game -- a piece of open land and a ball, or substitute for a ball. Yet, in the US, American football, basketball, etc., are the most popular, and think of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needed for those games -- precisely measured football fields, gyms with polished floors, and expensive uniforms. Soccer has never picked up as a popular American sport. Some fun stuff about the World Cup games -- the Brazilians brought more than 500 journalists from home; the North Koreans, only in their second World Cup, brought two TV reporters, one writer, and two photographers. In the US, more than 136,000 World Cup tickets were sold, whereas in North Korea, their national federation distributed 1,400 tickets. But in South Africa, soccer is really a reason to sing, dance, scream, blow on vuvuzelas, stadium horns, for hours. I thought there was something wrong with my TV because of the piercing, humming noise I kept hearing while watching the beginning games. For sanityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sake, I kept the volume down, as I wondered how many people will have hearing problems after the World Cup ends. And I had no idea South Africa was so cold, with a wind chill of 24 degrees. No team in 80 years of the tournament has lost its first game and gone on to win the WC. The players, probably with almost zero percent body fat, are so svelte because in every game they run an average of six to seven miles. Not so obvious to the WC televised audience, however, were the feelings of unease and uncertainty felt in and around the stadiums, with the WC labor unrest, which resulted in police taking over security at the venues. Of course it involved money, WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

as the workers reported they were being paid a fraction of what was promised. It is ironic what huge amounts were spent to stage the WC. When South Africans ask for jobs, better education, and houses, the government tells them there is no money. Yet, they spent a billion rand to build stadiums. The WC easily brought in over half a million tourists, but South Africans believe the money will never trickle down. Someone said the WC is just for the elite. Mistrust and fear ran rampant due to the robberies and other criminal acts that are a daily occurrence in South African cities. But more on soccer being not just a sport. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really an entire mentality, involving resilience and neuroticism. You could say that soccer is many incidents of frustration leading up to heartbreak. If you watched the fansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; faces, they showed false hopes, discouragement, frustration, bitterness, rage, and despair. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face it -- you would experience the same sensations if it looked like something were about to happen, but then it almost never does. Outstanding player performance often does not result in victory -- goals are scarce, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possible for a team to be outplayed for 89 minutes, and due to a fluke goal, that team can win the game. Victory might not necessarily come to general superior performance. Some reasons why soccer isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as popular as American football, basketball, or baseball: soccer is originally not an American game, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a good TV sport, lasting 2 hours or more per game, and the US is not the best at soccer. Someone suggested that this is so because it is boring. In spite of people playing like crazy, no one scores. A note on the music involved in the World Cup. Every World Cup has an official WC song. Remember â&#x20AC;&#x153;La Copa de la Vidaâ&#x20AC;? by Ricky Martin, sung in France in 1998? This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s song, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Waka Waka: This Time for Africa,â&#x20AC;? didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hit a happy note with South Africans, many of whom were upset because FIFA selected a non-African, Colombian pop singer, Shakira, to write and perform the song. It seemed strange that for the FIFA kick-off concert, American music stars such as Alicia Keyes, the Black Eyed Peas, and John Legend joined her. Immediately after, the South Africans wanted to know why an African wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t chosen for the lead singing role. Their art-

istsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; union proclaimed that the concert was not an African event, and they called for a boycott. And if thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not an American-style reaction, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what is. Nevertheless, one thing I just canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget is the horrible, incessant noise from all the World Cup broadcasts: the sound of vuvuzelas that sound like a swarm of bees crossed with the whining of elephants. Who made and sold the vuvuzelas? China! It cost the Chinese about 30 cents a piece to make, and who knows how much they sold for to all the World

Cup tourists. Everyone hated the horrible sound; I, at least, was able to keep my TV volume down, to keep from going nuts with the sound. But teams complained that they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t communicate because of the noise. Vuvuzelas originally were a traditional African instrument called the kudu, and it was used to alert neighboring villagers of impending danger. Although China is a soccer-crazy nation, the country did not send a national team to participate at the World Cup. Time for -as Norma Adamo puts it -- TAN TAN! u

%H PRUH IHVWLYH

)URP WKH YHU\ KHDUW RI 0H[LFR FRPHV DQ H[FLWLQJ SHUIRUPDQFH VSHFLDO FHOHEUDWLQJ WKH YDVW GLYHUVLW\ RI 0H[LFRÂˇV PXVLF GDQFH DQG SHRSOH 6LQJHU 9LNNL &DUU KRVWV VKDULQJ SHUVRQDO PHPRULHV RI KHU 0H[LFDQ KHULWDJH ZKLOH LQWURGXFLQJ VRPH RI WKH QDWLRQÂˇV PRVW SRSXODU SHUIRUPHUV WR QHZ DXGLHQFHV QRUWK RI WKH ERUGHU

),(67$ 0(;,&$1$ 7KXUVGD\ $XJXVW 30

NOUQ RUJ VXSSRUW

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

News

Stop Wrangling and read a good Western, like The Rangeland Avenger by Max Brand (Frederick Schiller Faust)

By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

rederick Schiller Faust was killed by shrapnel from an artillery shell near a hilltop German town on May 12, 1944. He was an American war correspondent who traveled on the front lines with the troops. Writing under several pseudonyms, Faust was one of the most prolific writers of all time, writing chiefly in the Western genre. He is best known as Max Brand. Though his output was awesome -some 30 million words -- Faust’s books and stories have stood the test of time. The readership is rewarded for reading -- great plots and subplots, colorful, interesting characters, lots of Old West scenery, tons of action, high-level literary prose. Speaking somewhat fearfully to Riley Sinclair, the avenging hero of the Max Brand novel The Rangeland Avenger,

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

one of the other characters says, “You’re made for fighting. You make me think of that hawk. All beak and talons, made to tear, remorseless, crafty.” One can’t help but think about Faust and the fact that some people are made for fighting and other people are made for writing. Faust was proof of this both when he lived and when he died. The military turned him down when he tried to enlist during World War I, and his chronic heart disease kept him on the deferment list during the second war. But his patriotic feeling and star status got him into the army as a battlefield reporter. It wasn’t for lack of writing assignments that Faust joined up. All those books and stories, and he was also one of Hollywood’s hottest scriptwriters in the early 40s. His own writings were his material. In all, over 80 of Max Brand’s Western tales have been made into movies to this day. Obviously, at

Brand’s demise, other scriptwriters were probably thinking about a pot of gold eyeing that huge leftover pile of Max Brand Westerns that beckoned for screening. In fact, there are still a lot left in the pile for the taking should a new Western vogue sweep through Tinseltown and across the country. Rather than being a fighter, like the hawk in the story, “all beak and talons,” Faust was a dynamic writer, all creative energy and work ethic. In fact, there’s enough unharvested Max Brand material that appeared as serialized novels in magazines of the period to comprise another 100 novels. One man wrote them all, but it’s going to take a small army to put them together for publication. Then, and probably only then, will some new-generation Western screenwriter dip his or her ladle into the newly-melted ingots to mint some new film-reels for us to enjoy some forgotten Max Brand coin of the range realm. For the time being, there’s a loaded bookshelf of Max Brand Western masterpieces, like The Rangeland Avenger, to read and enjoy. Born in Seattle, Faust was orphaned at quite an early age after his family had moved to northern California. As a teenager he was hired on as a cowpuncher in the mountain country of the Far West, and later as Max Brand he used that general location, which he loved for its beauty, as the setting for many tales that he wrote, including The Rangeland Avenger, where “The mountain came down out of the sky in ragged, uneven steps. Here it dipped away into a lap of quite level ground. A stream of spring water flashed across the little tableland, dark in the shadow of the big trees, silver in the sunlight.” The lone rider who was approaching the mountain was the mysterious, twogunned, self-appointed justiciar Riley Sinclair. The author describes him in terms of his inner qualities, telling us, “He had something in the place of cour-

age, but just what that thing was, Sinclair could not tell.” This hints at the man, and it makes us anticipate anxiously for the action to unfold so that we can get to know him for ourselves. We are not let down when the hero speaks for himself, as in, “You’re as wrong as a yearling in a blizzard.” Riley Sinclair was a searching man -he was searching for the three men who had abandoned his injured younger brother in the desert and allowed him to die of thirst, but he also seemed to be searching for something to give meaning and direction to his restless, unfulfilled life as a one-man vigilante squad in a big, wild, wide-open, lonesome country. He himself felt as if “Purification waited for him among the summit snows.” That assumption turned out to be correct. Once Sinclair had cleaned up the mess regarding the death of his brother, he met his soulmate. “Such a voice Riley Sinclair had never heard. It walked into a man’s heart, breaking the lock,” the author tells us of Jig, Sinclair’s ladylove. During a heart-to-heart talk, he told her, “With a friend you let down the bars and let your mind loose like wild hosses. I take out my soul like a gun in the palm of my hand and show it to my friend.” She replied, “To a friend you give yourself away and get yourself back stronger and bigger.” Then the narrative reads, “He felt very oddly as if somebody had been prodding into the corners of his nature yet unknown even to himself.” The rough-hewn man becomes finetuned, and he finds himself when he finds her, and stops looking for trouble around every bend. The author tells us, “The last time he had glanced up, there had only been a few dim stars; now they had come down in multitudes, great yellow planets and rifts of steelblue stars.”u

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Movie Review

By TIM HOWELL

n a key sequence of 20th Century Fox’s The A-Team, Lt. Templeton “Face Man” Peck choreographs an elaborate plan to recover stolen money plates that were used for counterfeiting over a $1 billion. In his plan, Face Man reiterates the importance of three key elements that are absolutely necessary to pull off the heist -- distraction, diversion, and division. The three “D’s” are reminiscent of Michael Caine’s character’s explanation of the execution of a successful magic trick in the wonderful movie The Prestige. First, you have the “the Pledge,” then “the Turn,” and finally, “the Prestige.” The Pledge represents a pledge to the audience, showing a bird in the hand and letting them know it will disappear. The Turn is the bird’s magical disappearance to parts unknown. And, the Prestige is when the bird is brought back from thin air to its original spot. The movie The Prestige breaks down the steps to a successful magic trick, and in The A-Team, director Joe Carnahan pulls off the magic of a wonderful remake of a campy classic that was canned almost 25 years ago. No sorcery was involved in making The A-Team re-make, a thoroughly enjoyable and action packed flick. The success followed the basic tenets of Hollywood movie making -- good acting combined with a funny, wellwritten script and some good directing. The real secret to The A-Team working so well on the big screen had much to do with the likeability of the characters. Writer Stephen Cannel from the original television series did a great job adding some subtle twists to the characters he originally created. The series debuted in 1983, was nominated for three Emmys, and even took home a People’s Choice Award during its fiveyear run. The members of the A-Team were America’s favorite group of Vietnam veterans. Spearheaded by George Peppard as Lt. Smith and the iconic Mr. T as B. A. Barracus, this mercenary group had the dual purpose

of helping those who couldn’t help themselves and simultaneously trying to prove their own innocence. As a kid watching the A-Team, I often found myself up way past bedtime, paying close attention to the credits to find a hidden telephone number where I could contact the crew. I knew I’d be the hero of the homestead if the A-Team were to mow the yard and take out the trash. I could already see the “helping the wimpy white kid with the lawn” montage complete with 80s background music and some pointless steel welding. Of course, my montage ended with a feel good “thumbs up” from B.A. as we all gazed at the best damn yard on the block! Hey, not all of A-Team’s jobs had to be glamorous. Sometimes an undersized adolescent needs help with the lawn. Liam Neeson (Clash of the Titans) replaces the late Peppard in the lead role as Colonel Hannibal Smith. Neeson is an apt replacement, portraying Smith with enough cigar-chewing swagger to make Peppard proud. Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) plays Lt. Templeton “Face Man” Peck, pulling off the most rare of feats: his pretty-boy charm and frat-guy cockiness still can’t offset his extreme likeability. Believe me when I say that every man in the theater who has a wife, girlfriend, or significant other knows that their other half thinks Cooper is hot. And every man wants to hate Cooper; but he’s just too charming. Sharlto Copely (District 9) provides the most laughs in a movie that has plenty. His fresh take on “Mad Dog” Murdock has all the quirkiness of the original character (played by Dwight Schultz), but adds another layer of sardonic humor. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson does just fine as B.A. Barracus. Jackson had some large shoes to fill with this role; B.A. is by far the best-known character from the original television series. Despite an incoherent story line, the characters do a good enough job. The A-Team is a must see. u

Photo by Monica McGettrick

A-Team remake: a must-see summer blockbuster

UTHSC Summer Camp Laredo high school students explored the role of physician assistant at the University of Texas Health Science Center’s summer camp. The camp included lessons on how to conduct a medical interview, perform a cardiovascular exam and interpret rate and rhythm from an EKG report. Students used stethoscopes to listen to each other’s hearts as well as to conduct a cardiovascular exam. Carmen Cardona, a physician assistant and assistant professor and coordinator of the Physician Assistant Studies program, instructed the lesson.

FULL SERVICE QU ALITY PRINTING QUALITY •Letterheads •Envelopes •Business Forms •Fax Service •Business Cards

•Circulars •Wedding Invitations •Laminating •Decals •Bumper Stickers

"EARLY BIRD SPECIAL" 1/2 Price on all Copies 9:00am - 10:00am

ENGINEERING COPIES Large Document Scan to File or Print Full Color and Black & White Fast High Quality Digital Color & Black & White Copies

Wide Format Color Posters and Banners CONVENIENT WALK-UP COPIER (Fast, Collates, Staples ...Low Price)

Tel: 723-1367

616 W. Calton Rd., Suite 8 Calton Plaza

Fax: 723-5870

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M LaredosAD0310.p65

3/30/2010, 4:22 PM

Reflections of a New Texan By DENISE FERGUSON

Denise Ferguson is newly arrived in Laredo. A Rhode Islander by birth, she and her husband retired to Laredo to be near their family. She can be reached by email at denise291.1@juno.com.

ne of the most disconcerting vacations my husband and I have experienced was our wedding trip. We attended the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, Canada. The organizers of the fair set up a special unit to attend to the needs of the people from all over the world who wished to make hotel reservations. Having exchanged the required information and payment, my husband and I arrived at our assigned address in Montreal. The trouble was that, try as we might, we could not locate the lodging specified on the reservation slip after having walked back and forth along the block several times. Finally, we crossed the street to a pleasant looking hotel and explained our predicament. A clerk informed us that there was no such lodging as the one provided by the tourism agency and, unfortunately, her hotel was full for the night. She suggested that we backtrack about 20 miles to find a motel for the night and return the following evening when she would have a room available. In due time, the organizers of the Montreal World’s Fair did return our deposit. Not a great introduction to Montreal, but the World’s Fair was as fun as promised. During the intervening 43 years, as an Air Force veteran of the Korean War, my husband has visited museums containing antique warplanes and other artifacts of

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

Texas travel -- a city best seen in the rear view mirror that war and World Wars I and II. While I do not share his interest in historic airplanes, I enjoy tagging along on these excursions, as there is usually something nearby that is of interest to me. In Galveston we periodically visit the air museum where they have restored a considerable number of warplanes. After the visit, we can head down to the beach! We have visited an interesting air museum in Seattle and have checked out displays in Florida, Wisconsin, and the Smithsonian. But, lately, my husband has expressed a desire to see the famous air museum in Midland. He was under the impression from reading airplane magazines and other media that Midland had a particularly exquisite stock of restored warplanes. Upon our arrival in Midland we went straight to the Air Museum, which is adjacent to Midland Airport. The buildings were attractive and surrounded by nice gardens and touching memorials to veterans. But as we walked around inside, there seemed to be only a few relatively nondescript airplanes on display. Even I, in my ignorance asked, “Doesn’t Galveston have more planes than this?” We did find one room full of “Nose Art” from World Wars I and II displaying photos of half naked ladies that the old time Air Force pilots used to paint on their airplanes

for morale purposes (not officially approved). Rather surprising, I thought, that a naked display would be found in conservative Texas, albeit for the sake of history. Maybe it was R-rated. I certainly can recommend the Midland Air Museum for anyone who is studying history involving WWI, WWII, and the Korean and Vietnam wars. They have a complete repository of material covering them. Having noted the comprehensiveness of the displays, my husband finally approached the desk and asked the receptionist where the warplanes were. She answered, “Oh, they are out on loan. You may come back and see them at our air show on October 9 and 10.” Ooops! Who knew? After 43 years of trawling air museums, neither of us was aware that so many of these crates actually fly all over the country and/ or world. Do they send out the naked pictures too? I wonder which is worse: Arriving at a destination after an eight-hour drive to find that there is no lodging or to find out the attraction is somewhere else? Now we’ve done both. Anyway, with so much history apparently available on loan, it would be great if the Laredo Energy Arena or L.I.F.E. Downs could provide young people and vets with model airplane/train collector’s shows or antique airplane “fly-in” shows periodically as is common in many large cities. Having given up on the museum, we asked directions to our hotel. The receptionist amiably dialed the number of the hotel and mumbled to us, “I could hardly understand the manager because he has a thick accent. Maybe you should check out that area before registering.” I found it odd that an individual living in Texas would find it unusual for a fellow Texan to have an accent. Don’t y’all know that y’all have accents? Anyway, we eventually found the hotel. I might note that on short stays, we usually experience a city from its lowest common denominator -- motel price. It is a great test of the work ethic of the people of a city. This practice either results in a pleasant surprise or expected mediocrity. The America‘s Best Value hotel in Midland was advertised as having been built in 2009. Which it was; however, parts of it were not completed. And other parts were deteriorating. In the successful city of Midland?

We were led to a room that did not have the layout I requested (due to my own computer error). It was labeled nonsmoking but I immediately detected smoke. The manager, who did actually have an Indian accent, courteously offered us a second room that had the correct layout -- and also smelled of smoke even though it was labeled “nonsmoking.” So we revved up the air conditioner and headed for the nearest thing to a “Mom and Pop” restaurant that we could find -- Denny’s. The waitresses had deep Texas drawls and called everybody “dear.” They always think I’m a dear, but they could be mistaken. Lots of women in Midland have the harsh, raspy voices of strong smokers and some restaurants have blatant signs outside which read “All smoking in this restaurant.” The men are quite a sight to be seen in some venues -- long, unkempt, dirty hair, and filthy clothes. Thank goodness their adopted native son President George W. Bush is clean cut. While we were eating at Denny’s, a young man pulled up with a large trailer containing a giant horse that was totally exposed to the elements. A black Labrador sat suspended on the hitch connecting the cab and trailer. The driver got out, patted the horse, and swaggered in to Denny’s for a cup of soda to go. An example of Midlanders living on the wild side? When we returned to the motel room, we found we could not open the motel door. The friendly manager opened it for us, but as we practiced opening it for each other, we still could not open it. So we left it open. Thieves could do what they wanted with my dirty laundry. The motel offered a continental breakfast -- at a nearby hotel. We didn’t mind the short walk, and the offering of waffles, bagels, Danish, muffins, coffee, juice, and cereal offered the most positive experience of the trip. Midland is the recipient of several commendations according to its Internet site -number six in nation for per capita income; top city in America for doing business; and put Midland, Texas at the top of your list of attractive sites for “Energy Cluster, Healthcare Services, Logistics, aviation and Business and Professional Services.” I’d like to add, “No. 1 city to see in Denise’s rear view mirror.” u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Texas A&M International University

Dusty Camp offers vital TAMIU orientation experience he fall semester at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) is just around the corner and new students and first-time freshmen are reminded of mandatory participation in new student orientation, Dusty Camp, scheduled for Aug. 5-6. The Dusty Camp experience focuses on giving students information that sets the stage for a timely and purposeful transition to university life, said Miguel Treviño, associate director of Student Affairs. “This is a required program for all firsttime entering TAMIU freshmen and is designed to give them the necessary tools to be successful as they begin their studies here,” he explained. “Students have the opportunity to meet their fellow classmates, learn about expectations, and spend the night at the Residential Learning Community to absorb university life to its fullest. The experience also enables them to interact with professors and students in a collaborative setting that provides valuable insight on success inside and outside the classroom,” Treviño noted. Among activities scheduled are private concert performances by TAMIU president Dr. Ray Keck and a special TAMIU-style Bar-B-Q. Dusty Camp is free to student participants and includes overnight accommodations and meals. Online registration is available at www. tamiu.edu/studentaffairs/orientation.shtml. The site also includes a gallery of 2009 Orientation photos and access to important student success resources. For more information, visit the TAMIU Office of Student Affairs, located in Student Center Suite 226, call (956) 326-2280, or e-mail student_activities@tamiu.edu. University summer hours are from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 12 noon on Fridays. Fall semester classes at TAMIU begin Monday, Aug. 23. Late registration continues through Aug. 27. Information is also posted to the University’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, and video information can be found on TAMIU’s YouTube Channel, all accessed at tamiu.edu. TAMIU students, faculty headed to Singapore for research Four TAMIU graduate students and their mentors, Dr. Ruby Ynalvez and Dr. Marcus Ynalvez, are preparing to travel to Singapore WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

Courtesy Photo

By steve harmon

Students travel to Singapore TAMIU students going on the trip to Singapore are Susan Aguilar, sociology graduate student, Arturo González, sociology graduate student, Claudia Garza-Gongora, biology graduate student, and Andrea Beattie, political science graduate student will be traveling to Singapore to research East Asian students and their mentors, as well as how they influence scientific innovation. Mentor Dr. Ruby Ynalvez will join them. later this month to study the relationships between East Asian graduate students and their mentors and how they influence scientific innovation. Students going on the trip are Susan Aguilar, sociology graduate student, Andrea Beattie, political science graduate student, Claudia Garza-Gongora, biology graduate student, and Arturo González, sociology graduate student. “While the United States has enjoyed a global status of leading the world in science and technology, many are concerned that the U.S. might be falling behind other nations, specifically the East Asian countries,” said Dr. Ynalvez, TAMIU assistant professor of sociology. He explained that the purpose of the study, “Transmission of Tacit Skills in East Asian Graduate Science Programs,” is to understand how tacit skills learned through close interaction with mentors are passed from mentors to mentees. The results will help them come up with science policies and best practices in doctoral science training. “They will also benefit from an enriching cultural experience that will assist them in their ability to better succeed as professionals in the global scientific community,” added Dr. Ynalvez, TAMIU assistant professor of biology. The project is funded by the

National Science Foundation (NSF) Science of Science and Innovation Policy Program (SciSIP). For more information, please contact Dr. Marcus Ynalvez at mynalvez@tamiu.edu or (956) 326-2621 or visit offices in Dr. F. M. Canseco Hall, room 313F.  TAMIU’s Mitchell installed as   president of Hawthorne Society   Dr. Tom Mitchell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was recently installed as the president of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society at its biennial conference in Concord, Mass. Dr. Mitchell, who also served as Conference planner, has been a member of the group’s Advisory Board for six years and president-elect for the past two years. He is a nationally recognized scholar on Hawthorne and wrote Hawthorne’s Fuller Mystery.  Mitchell said the Society, founded in 1974, is dedicated to the study and appreciation of the life and works of the American author and provides forums for scholars to share responses to Hawthorne’s achievements.  “The Society numbers almost 500 members from around the world and publishes the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review twice a year. Its conference is held every two years, and the group also sponsors sessions at annual meetings of the Modern Language Associa-

tion and the American Literature Association. Our next conference, in 2012, is in Florence, Italy,” Mitchell explained.   Hawthorne’s writing centers on New England and many works feature moral allegories with clear Puritan inspiration. Some works are typical of dark romanticism and include The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860).  Mitchell said the Conference site was especially appropriate.  “Concord, Massachusetts was the home of Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott. All are buried on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. These famed authors’ homes still exist and are open to the public. Concord is also, of course, the town where the first shot was fired in what would become the American Revolution. Finally, the lake made famous by Thoreau as ‘Walden Pond,’ its official name, is on the outskirts of town and is a park site,” Mitchell noted.   TAMIU named winner of CASE Award for fundraising TAMIU has been named the recipient of a 2010 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Wealth Engine Award for Educational Fundraising, the only university in Texas to receive the award. CASE President John Lippincott praised TAMIU, noting that by “demonstrating the highest levels of professionalism and best practice in its fundraising efforts, it has contributed to the betterment of educational advancement worldwide.” The award honors superior fundraising programs across the country. Of 1,005 higher education institutions eligible for consideration, only 253 institutions were selected based on blind and data-driven review. The award is a component of CASE’s Circle of Excellence program. TAMIU was also named to the Circle of Excellence with its selection as an Overall Improvement Award recipient in light of its fundraising success over the past three years. The University’s fundraising efforts are directed by its Office for Institutional Advancement, led by Candy Hein, vice-president. For more information on the University’s fundraising needs and ways to assist, contact Hein at (956) 3216-GIVE (4483), visit tamiu. edu, or email candy.hein@tamiu.edu. For more information on CASE visit www.case.org u LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Serving Sentences By randy koch Randy Koch earned his MFA at the University of Wyoming and teaches writing at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Courtesy Photo

O Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra fundraising campaign begins Mildred J. Reyna, who celebrated her 100 birthday this year and is pictured with Hortense Offerle, Ardith Epstein, Jeff Jones, and Carlos Luna, donated the first $100 towards the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra’s fundraising campaign. Reyna has been a supporter since the LPO began 31 years ago. All music lovers are encouraged to join the campaign and help support the orchestra.

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

My write hand

n a Friday in February 1999, when my daughter Mary was 14 and we’d lived in Laredo for a year and a half, we heard a story on the news about a successful hand transplant. Two days later I wrote in a notebook what then happened in the living room of our small apartment south of Saunders: Mary said to me, “Dad, I’ll give my organs away when I die.” I looked at her where she stood before the TV. “Good,” I said. “So will I. It’s on my license.” Then she sat next to me on the couch. “Where?” she said. So I pulled my wallet from my back pocket. “Here.” I handed it to her. And she reached with a thin, pale hand -- like the one mentioned on the radio tonight, one taken from a brain-dead patient and reattached to a young man’s arm -and flipped it open. “There,” I said and pointed. She looked -- I thought of her blue eyes, her corneas -- and she pulled the snapshot of her in seventh grade from behind the plastic and pressed it to her chest. I thought of her heart. “I love this picture,” she said. She leaned away and opened the mouth of the wallet as if she were gently breaking bread. “How much money do you have?” “Not much.” “What’s this?” she said and pulled two coupons out -- one for Subway, one for a free Coke at Chick-Fil-A. I thought of her kidneys. She went back to the cards. That’s all. It’s just a fragment, and even though I don’t remember it, can’t recall what Mary wore or how her hair was cut, I suspect it occurred much as I recorded it. I left out details, of course, things that seemed obvious or extraneous or which I’d mentioned in previous entries. And my thinking about Mary’s hand, eyes, heart, and kidneys probably happened not while we sat on the couch and she looked through my wallet but as I wrote out the scene a couple of days later. Those thoughts were more from the aspiring writer than from the father. But if I hadn’t written this, the exchange would be lost. A minor loss in the larger scheme of things, but it’s important to me to remember those days when Mary was barely a teen and I was still

learning how to be a father and endlessly trying to write. The evidence of those continual attempts is in a box in my basement here in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania: 22 notebooks, most containing 70 sheets of college-ruled paper, and all filled with my handwriting (and the occasional drawing by Mary when she was in grade school). Those pages, starting on 19 January 1993 and ending on 31 August 2001, contain approximately 850,000 words. A lot, I suppose, though still not enough to make me the writer I aspire to be. This is partly why I recently started writing in a notebook again, which I hadn’t done regularly since that August nine years ago. This decision to use pen and paper was also prompted by reading writers’ biographies this summer and rediscovering the importance many placed on the practice and discipline of keeping a journal or diary. Both words -- journal and diary, as well as journey and journalist -- come from the Latin diurnus, meaning “daily” and are related to diēs or “day,” which is also the source of deity. Some writers committed themselves to daily writing with a religious devotion. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, kept a journal for 60 years and wrote over three million words. Both Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe, primarily out of financial necessity but likely to their benefit as writers, worked for years as journalists. Virginia Woolf’s diary runs from 1915 until her death in 1941 and filled five published volumes. And Henry Thoreau, who wrote relentlessly, began his journal in 1837 and by late 1861, a few months before his premature death at age 44, had written over two million words. The goal, of course, isn’t simply volume, though I’m more likely to write something worth keeping if I write a lot. Neither is longevity the aim, though I want to believe (but won’t assume) that I’ll have years yet to write as much as Emerson and Thoreau. No, the objective here is simply writing -one word, one line, one page at a time -- in cheap notebooks and by hand, the pen or pencil scrolling steadily, physically across the page, like working a paint brush across a wall or moving up and down the rows of a bean field. And with luck and patience and perseverance, I might find a sentence or two worthy of transplanting in a poem or story, something memorable, valuable, like a conversation at home nine years ago. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Maverick Ranch Notes

By bebe & sissy fenstermaker

Dotsie Fenstermaker -- a true-blue cousin, friend, and supporter has taken wing

true-blue cousin, friend, and supporter of the Maverick Ranch-Fromme Farm has taken wing. Our first cousin Dotsie (aka Kelly) Fenstermaker died June 25 in Fort Davis,

Texas. Three brothers -- Clarence, Arthur, and Leslie -were sons of a bright, hard-working man from an Iowa farming family who knew enough to leave the farm when he became 21. He was a great fancier of horses, particularly driving horses and standardbreds, and four of his granddaughters inherited his love for horses. He met our grandmother in Seguin. She was Czechoslovakian and just arrived to keep house for her brother. They married in 1896, and soon came along Uncle Clarence, Uncle Arthur, and Papa. The three brothers stayed close all their lives. They had five daughters among them and encouraged us to be close, although our paths took us in different directions. In many ways we have been like five sisters. Arthur’s daughter was Dotsie. She was a writer and an excellent interviewer, and we directly benefited from her expertise. She came to help us when times were tough, encouraging us to rise above and charge ahead. She brought fresh thoughts to the situation. She made us write everything down, and then she edited and guided the outcome. She told us to try things we never had. Even though it meant wincing in embarrassment, we did what she said, and the rewards were more than we dreamed. As a child Dotsie spent time on a ranch on top of the Glass Mountains and was home-schooled by her mother. This experience was a major influence on her life. Later, after her family moved back to San Antonio, she attended elementary school at St. Mary’s Hall and then graduated from Alamo Heights High School. She then attended Greenbrier College for Women in West Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin. She was a duchess in the San Antonio Order of the Alamo’s Coronation, and then she joined the world famous Cypress Gardens Water Ski Show in Florida. This seemed logical to us since she appeared to be able to do anything. Dotsie moved to New York to attend the Parsons School of Design and became a professional fashion model. She was married for two years and lived in San Antonio, eventually returning to New York to attend the New York School of Interior Design and to try out television production. She moved to Houston to spend seven years in advertising and marketing. It was here her talent for writing developed into a lifelong career. She wrote for publications as a food and wine editor and covered the Houston art scene. WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

Dotsie left Texas for Northern California where she began working for a body awareness center, producing workshops and teaching yoga. All her life she was involved in health, being outdoors in nature, hiking, and exercise. She found opportunities to ride horses whenever possible. She was spiritually open to many views and could always talk about each. Dotsie bought a home

in Fairfax, Marin County. She worked for corporations, writing scripts for video, speeches for executives, and articles for corporate newsletters but eventually moved on to her successful freelance writing career. As a teenager she visited us in Ft. Davis, enjoying the country and horseback riding. These visits, along with her early life in the Glass Mountains, had a strong pull on her. Every young man in Ft. Davis dropped by our house because 16-year-old Dotsie was there. It was the first time we witnessed her immense magnetism.

Simply put, she was beautiful. There was always a man in her life, but none were able to keep up with her. Her friends, however, were eternal friends, whether male and female. After 22 years in Northern California and the deaths of both parents, Dotsie felt the call home to Texas, so she moved permanently to Ft. Davis. She quickly became involved in the Davis Mountains and Big Bend area. She wrote articles, edited the Big Bend Area Travel Guide, built a home, and traveled throughout the area to off the beaten track places. And she found her ideal Arabian horse, Rosie. We sisters participated in finding Rosie. Dotsie was considering an Arabian at a riding academy up the road from the Ranch. One day while she was out riding we looked at several horses in stalls. In one dark hole a sad, pretty sorrel Arabian mare peered out as if saying, “Please, look at me!” We took Dotsie to see her, and it was pretty much love at first sight. Rosie was the joy of her life, and she in turn saved Rosie’s life by moving her into the sunshine and a fantastic new life. Together they participated in dressage lessons, quadrilles, and trail riding with close friends. Rosie turned 29 last month and looks far younger. Good friends who love them have taken in Rosie and Dotsie’s three cats. Their good lives will continue. For more than 12 years Dotsie lived with lymphoma. She never gave in and she never complained; she thought that undignified. She had hard times with anxiety, but she never let it take life’s pleasures or beauties. Many whom she lived around never even knew. She demonstrated tremendous strength. She lived gracefully, kept spiritually sound, preferring to learn about new places and concepts. And she never told her age. Most people thought she was much younger and since she was lovely it was impossible to tell. To our chagrin, at least two people asked if she was our niece, which delighted her thoroughly when we told her. Under the name Kelly Fenstermaker, Dotsie wrote articles about the area’s natural wonders for regional and national publications. She contributed her time and support to the Ft. Davis Food Pantry, Humane Society, the library, Marfa Public Radio, and other organizations. She donated time to the radio station in its early days, produced two radio documentaries, and was a gifted interviewer on the “Talk at Ten” program. MPR thinks she did over 100 interviews for them. Leaving her home and Rosie and her cats a few days ago was hard for us. The glow from a life well-lived and knowing she loved us is our solace. Bebe and Sissy Fenstermaker LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Photos by George Altgelt

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Seguro Que Sí

Contact Henri D. Kahn with your insurance questions at (956) 725-3936, or by fax at (956) 791-0627, or by email at hkahn@ kahnins.com

Is that what’s bugging you about government? If I conducted my small business having 500 times more expenses than sales volume, I would have to resort to panhandling because, unlike the government, I can’t print legal tender at will. Party politics has become a no-holds-barred situation, and the differences among these power-hungry groups goes from loss of confidence, distrust, cynicism, and even to hatred. These days, political aspirants run against Washington central government power. The common political motto is change -- change what, how, or why is unclear, but change is definitely the buzzword. All politicians use polls even though they are nothing more than a quick shot at a moving target. These statistical marvels are skewed by the questions asked, as well as the age, sex, and circumstance of the people interviewed. We are evolving into a universal society of all sorts of people with problems, ideas, and decisions of what is happening in virtually every country and corner in the world. In essence, we have gone global. Ride with the waves and make the best of your world by keeping a positive and productive attitude God bless us all. u

Flood relief efforts Council member José Valdez, Juan Caballero, Paul-Raymond Buitron III, and Juan Avila organized a donation effort to assist victims of the recent flooding.

Photo by Jacob Walters

ell folks, we are witnessing a widespread loss of confidence in and dissatisfaction with government as it is currently functioning. I have done some research concerning why people don’t trust government, and I am gaining an insight into this sad and alarming situation. In the 1960s, 75 percent of the American public trusted the federal government to do the right thing most of the time. Currently, the trust in all levels of federal, state, and local government has plummeted to around 25 percent. Governments, besides squandering money on ridiculous things, are considered inefficient and wasteful. This lack of trust has even extended to universities, major corporations, medicine, and, of course, the media that enjoys the greatest percentage of public mistrust. Our federal budget, relative to the gross national product, which is what we as a nation produce, is more than 20 percent, which is absolutely horrible. Our negative trade balance, sales versus purchases, is light years worse than any other trading country in the world.

Photo by Jacob Walters

By Henri Kahn

Finale ultimo Veronica Ramirez as the Mother Abbess performs the finale of The Sound of Music. The Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra provided music, and members of the Laredo Philharmonic Chorale supported Ramirez. WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

Laredo Community College

LCC bookstore unveils new textbook rental program By STEVE TREVIÑO AND ROGER SANCHEZ JR.

eginning this fall, the Laredo Community College Bookstore will give students a new lease on their sometimes budget-focused, hectic lives by offering a new textbook rental program to deliver maximum savings and convenience. This innovative textbook rental program will allow students to rent their textbooks for less than 50 percent of the cost of purchasing a new printed textbook. Plus, as an added convenience, students will be able to rent their books either in the store at either the Fort McIntosh or South campus, or from the store’s website at www.laredo.bncollege.com. The initiative to offer a textbook rental program was a joint decision made by LCC and Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. “We are committed to providing students with the widest range of content options and price points available,” said Kim Otte, vice president at Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. “Whether students are interested in new books, used, digital, unbundled, or now rentals, they know they can find what they want at the Laredo Community College Bookstore.” There are several key features students should note about the program. Students can pay the rental fees using any form of payment currently accepted by the bookstore -including student financial aid and campus debit cards. For security purposes, a valid credit card must also be provided regardless of the payment used for the rental fee. Rented books can be highlighted or marked by students just as if they purchased a book and planned to sell it back to the bookstore. Rentals can be converted into a purchase during the first two weeks of class. The rental period is for the duration of the fall 2010 semester at LCC. Books are due back at the bookstore no later than 10 days after the last day of finals (December 10). Students can return the books in person or mail them to the bookstore. Courtesy emails will go out as the end of the semester approaches to remind students to return their books. Books not returned (or returned in unusable condition) will be subject to replacement and processing fees. Barnes & Noble began piloting their rental program earlier this year at 25 campus bookstores across the country. Re-

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010

LCC-Zapata initiative receives boost Trustees from the Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Foundation recently announced the donation of $120,000 to support the LCC Zapata Satellite Jump-Start Program. Officials from Laredo Community College, Zapata County Independent School District, and the City of Zapata were on hand for the announcement. sponse from students where the program was piloted was tremendous, according to officials. In particular, students like having the option of getting their books immediately, as opposed to waiting for a shipment to arrive. And, they appreciated knowing that the books they were renting were guaranteed to be the right books for their classes. More than 90 percent of the students surveyed said they would rent from their campus bookstore again. For more information, call the LCC Bookstore at 721-5250. Rare health care profession taught at LCC More than a year after its inception, LCC’s Coding Certificate Program is working to meet the needs of Laredo and surrounding communities as students earn certification for a growing health care demand for medical coders. Medical coders, or technicians, are trained professionals who assign a specific number or “code” to medical diagnosis and procedures performed by health care professionals, such as physicians. They work in the billing office of medical practices, clinics, or hospitals and help complete, re-

view, and process medical claims. “Medical coders are a rarity in Laredo,” Norma Moore, LCC’s Medical Assistant Program director, said. In spring 2009, Hugo Garcia, a Registered Health Information Technician, began teaching in the Coding Certificate Program at LCC and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to students. Garcia is one of a handful of professional coders in the area with more than 13 years of experience at various health care institutions throughout south Texas. “Many people don’t realize that medical coders are found in almost every hospital or doctor’s offices,” Garcia said, adding, “As soon as you walk into that emergency room or office, your disease or diagnosis has a numeric value. For example, if the doctor removes a cyst, a number is assigned to that. Every imaginable thing that is done to a person has a number.” He added, “Medical coders then compile those numbers for insurance and billing purposes.” LCC’s coding certificate is a 10.5-month program where students are introduced to pharmacology, medical insurance, and

pathophysiology, among others classes. The program also includes a practicum where the students serve as interns in a medical records department in a clinic or hospital. “These classes give students a competitive advantage because we expose them and help them understand the intricacies of medical records,” Moore added. The coding certificate also serves as an entry-level gateway into becoming a health care professional, such as a nurse, medical office manager, billing clerk, or medical assistant. Once students complete the program, they can sit for the Certified Coding Specialist exam and have entry-level billing and coding skills to work at a doctor’s office, hospital, or clinic. Seasoned coders can earn up to $70,000 a year. For more information on the Coding Certificate Program, contact Norma Moore at 721-5265 or email at nmoore@laredo.edu. Find your future this fall at LCC With more than 120 degree plans and certificate programs, LCC offers many ways to find your future this fall. New and returning students can plan their future now by locking in their classes for the fall semester at LCC. Registration for fall classes is available now for students who can self advise for classes or for those who take advantage of advisement. To be considered self-advised, students must have a declared major, have completed all required remediation classes, have earned at least 30 college-level hours, and have a cumulative grade point average of 2.0 or higher. Students can get advised Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Student Success Center at the Fort McIntosh Campus or at the Counseling Center at the South Campus. Advised and self-advised students can register for the fall semester by visiting PASPort, the college’s student account system, at https://pasport.laredo.edu, from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. from any computer with Internet access. Deadline for payment of all tuition and fees is Thursday, Aug. 19 for the fall semester. The first day of fall classes is Monday, Aug. 23. To view the fall class schedule, log on to www.laredo.edu and click on the PASPort icon. For further assistance, call the LCC Registration Center at 721-5109 or 794-4110. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

LareDOS | JU LY 2010 |

| L a r e DO S | JU LY 2010