Laredos Newspaper June 2011 by victor flores

Locally Owned

Denial ainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just a river in Egypt.

A JOURNAL OF THE BORDERLANDS

Mark Twain

june 2011

Est. 1994

Vol. XVII No. 6

64 PAGES

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LareDOS Newspaper

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Laredo Community College West End Washington Street • 5500 South Zapata Hwy. • Laredo, TX Ft. McIntosh956.721.5109

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OUR PRICE LIST Our philosophy at Radiology Clinics of Laredo is to practice medicine in a manner that involves complete disclosure of our opinion and our charges. In this spirit, I decided to publish my fee schedule, and I urge others to follow suit. Δ MRI Δ CAT SCAN Δ MAMMOGRAMS Δ BONE DENSITY Δ SONOGRAMS

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LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

M ailbox L E etters to the

ditor

María Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Dear editor,

Downtown stakeholders meet with P&Z committee member Webb County Heritage Foundation director Margarita Araiza and Jack Cruthirds of UETA listen to the newest member of the City Councilappointed Planning and Zoning Committee, Victor D. Treviño. The principal topic of discussion was the $395,000 downtown master plan for which the city paid the San Antonio firm Kell Muñoz to develop. Much to the surprise of the downtown stakeholders, the plan focused not on downtown redevelopment but on development of a new city-owned retail space called the Pan American Center.

publisher

María Eugenia Guerra

meg@laredosnews.com Editor

Cristina Herrera

cherrera@laredosnews.com Writer

Alexa Ura

alexazura@gmail.com

Read

Sales

María Eugenia Guerra

at www.laredosnews.com

meg@laredosnews.com

Circulation, Billing & Subscriptions

Jorge Medina

circulation@laredosnews.com Layout/design

JM Design

design@laredosnews.com

Contributors

Juan Alanis Bebe Fenstermaker Sandra Sanchez Gray Neo Gutierrez Beverly Herrera Steve Harmon Henri Kahn

Randy Koch Vicki Matustik Alex Mendoza Jesus Najar Salo Otero Roger Sanchez Jr. Steve Treviño Jr.

ShuString Productions, Inc. www.laredosnews.com

1812 Houston Street Laredo Texas 78040 Tel: (956) 791-9950 Fax: (956) 791-4737 Copyright @ 2011 by LareDOS

Write a Letter to the Editor cherrera@laredosnews.com

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What a crock! Years ago, the expression “talking head” meant little, if anything to me. Over the years, I have taken the phrase to refer to a television reporter, radio egomaniac, or similar entertainer who just keeps “rattling on” in talking, gesturing, making facial gymnastics to support the spiel — albeit shallow, and/or pumping up and down with the body rather than the traditional back and forth while flailing the arms about, and other similar hectic and sporadic actions with noises. I thought that some of the performances that I have witnessed were just plain silly, and, in several cases, rather suggestive and whorish. The most recently displayed talking head was the recent lawyer-type on TV who flamboyantly gushed her disappointment at the absence of “the rule of law” in the killing of Osama. She bemoaned the SEALs’ actions and asked whether or not Osama had been armed. I can only suspect that particular talking head has never been to war, has never even been on a battlefield, has never encountered a situation in which one party has to die in order for the other party to live, and so on and so on and so on. It is hard for me to believe that she even actually competed for her job, or that she even understands the dynamics of competition, whether it occurs in an athletic event, on a quiz show, on a race track, or, even, in a competitive, combat confrontation — e.g., a recon. Historically, if one goes to war, one has to be ready to kill or be killed. If your group kills more of the other group than that group kills of your group, then you win the war. For my own wonderings, I regarded

Osama as a mass murderer. I believe that the United States has been thrust into a global war with the multinational and stateless Al Qaeda. As a result, the entire world serves as a battlefield for the ongoing confrontations. In such case, I believe that the compound in Pakistan qualified as a battlefield. Besides, Osama was not an American citizen and, therefore, was not entitled nor deserving of the usual American legal protocols like “Do you understand your rights…If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed…” Without any evidence to the contrary, I had to view the complainer as either/ both a naïve or/and professional advocatefor-all-causes. With that in mind, I cannot recall a single time when I had witnessed the same professional advocate’s speaking out against the oppressive regime of Burma and their citizens’ suffering over the last several decades. Nor do I remember hearing/seeing her speak out against the grinding poverty of most of the world. Nor have I ever heard her take a stand on the multinational corporations who exploit that poverty for their own greater profits. In short, with so many worthwhile causes to participate actively and effectively and significantly in, for that particular advocate to worry whether that recon team “followed the law” when they finished Osama appears to me to finely illustrate just how “far out” of bounds and understanding of the real world some of our citizens really are. Finally, as I understand, nobody in the planes ever asked beforehand whether or not the 3,000-plus victims of 9/11 were armed. Signed, Lem Londos Railsback

Dear editor, I just read Cristina Herrera’s article on the bookstore. So glad to hear someone shout out our sentiments. While I am very pleased that a bookstore opened again, I must admit I was very frustrated when I kept hearing other media, city officials, and the general public says we didn’t have a bookstore. Fortunately, our bookstore is doing quite well. It seems we are the “half price” books of Laredo. We hope to continue providing a service to those who value reading, but can’t afford those high priced new books, magazines, DVDs, videos, etc. Thanks again for your support. Signed, Gabriel Castillo

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News

Address full of praise for city; Laredoans question event’s price tag

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

address. “Our work is still cut out for us though, whether it’s continuing to improve on our image in state and national media or working to overcome the financial challenges of this recession that all citizens and government entities are facing,” Salinas said. Of note was the city’s 8-percent unemployment rate, which stood below the national average of 9 percent and the Río Grande Valley’s 11.4 percent. The city has received $41,487,749 in grants and $101,065,000 in Certificate of Obligation bonds during 2011 alone. This money is added to the $109 million in stimulus funds the city received in 2009. “We have accomplished and achieved much, and we are continuing to work towards developing and completing more such projects that serve and better our community,” Salinas said. Salinas stressed the importance of visiting lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to lobby for funds. He detailed projects that were funded from these lobbying efforts: $20 million in federal grants for improvements to the airport; more than

Cristina Herrera/LareDOS

ayor Raul Salinas took the stage at the Laredo Country Club on Wednesday, June 16 to highlight the city’s accomplishments and discuss ongoing projects during the State of the City

Mayor at the State of the City address $11 million for the city health department; $8.1 million for the environmental services department; and about $250,000 for the fire department. Also of interest was the city’s 22-percent drop in overall crime during 2010, which Salinas attributed to “a solid relationship that the City of Laredo has developed between all of our local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.”

The City of Laredo and the Laredo Chamber of Commerce hosted the event, which also had corporate sponsors that donated up to $2,000 each. The city charged $35 per individual and $500 for a reserved table. All proceeds after expenses were paid went to the chamber, according to city public information officer Xochitl Mora García. The address’ price tag led some Laredoans to question why the city was charging money for information about the city. “I was so upset I unsubscribed from their e-mail list,” said Gladys Vazquez-Jimenez on the LareDOS Facebook page. Another Facebook comment from Rosario Hinojosa speculated, “Because they want a certain type of people to go.” However, García said that cities such as San Antonio, Austin, and Houston also held events similar to the address in conjunction with their local chambers of commerce. Ed Ramirez J r., chairman for the Chamber of Commerce, also emphasized this fact in his brief speech. The text of Salinas’ speech was made available to the media after he spoke. The local public access channel recorded the address, which will be broadcast at a later time, according to Laredo Morning Times reporter Andrew Kreighbaum. Mayor Salinas also incorporated into his speech the city’s new slogan “There is always a reason to celebrate in Laredo,” which was created by 10-year-old Isabella Mercado of Gutierrez Elementary. Salinas started and ended his speech with the slogan. u

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LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Opinion

Slogan to draw visitors: inviting company before emptying the litter box and putting all the dirty socks into the hamper

By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA Laredos Staff

take nothing away from Isabela N. Mercado — the creative and sweet Amparo Gutierrez Elementary fourth grader whose entry, “Always a Reason to Celebrate in Laredo!” was the winner in a citywide competition to come up with a phrase that embodies the spirit of our city. I laud Isabela’s hopeful outlook and thank her for the unfettered optimism she chose to share with the rest of us. The process of trying to generate interest in a contest that would capture what this city represents (or what represents the city) has perplexed me since it was first announced a few months ago. I’d been invited to be part of the brainstorming for the effort, but, alas, having chronicled environmental and preservation debacles at the hands of bad decision makers over the last couple of decades, I’d lost my rose-colored glasses and could not be part of a construct that would attempt

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to fashion a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Acknowledging that we are a city of many good and kind people and that history has evidenced a collective 250-year-old community character of determination and a will to survive in the most dire circumstances — revolutions, wars, floods, peso devaluations, and in more recent times, the actions of bad decision makers — and factoring in the un-enticing aspects of our cityscape, I had trouble putting together a way to say who we were, what this city is, and what we offered visitors. The transparency of sending out silkpurse slogans and press releases to lure visitors to a city that presents itself in so many negative ways is a cause for consternation. What positive, collective face do we think we can present, when we ourselves are so conflicted about it? Except for occasional pockets of green spaces, historic plazas, and some of the historical districts downtown, this city is neither pretty nor clean. It sprawls like a place

without a plan. It draws its municipal water from a dirty river, and someday it may run out of water. It is littered with discarded tires, garbage, mattresses, and tree branches. Its sidewalks are narrow and often cracked, overgrown with weeds, lacking ramps to street level, and sometimes replete with a utility pole that provides a solid obstacle to use by a handicapped person. With so many square miles of riparian habitat in and near the city and with so many fantastic bird-watching venues, easily we could have parlayed those already-in-place resources into our share of the billion-dollara-year birding tourism trade, as McAllen and other Río Grande Valley cities and towns have. And like McAllen and other forward thinking communities across Texas and the nation, we could have cashed in on the returns of historic preservation downtown and used the same incentives they’ve used to bring good tenants and to give the downtown business district the boost it needs to draw business. The environment as a valuable resource for tourism and downtown preservation — the backbone of McAllen’s thriving tourist trade — have never made the short list for priorities of city administrations for as long as I can remember. The shameful conditions along the river banks, how we treat our only source of drinking water, the neglect of cultural and historical resources, and a dirty cityscape is nothing less than a mirror for the priorities of city and county government. Instead of parlaying any of NAFTA’s manna from heaven into developing eco and heritage tourism (and downtown!) for future sustainability and profitability, our elected officials have fed like pigs at the trough of infrastructure. NAFTA dollars changed this place, and Laredo prospered, but we could have done a much better job giving order to our prosperity by making sure it had bearing on our quality of life. The Laredo Chamber of Commerce, with its long history of head-in-the-sand obtuse

thinking, hawks this city like it offers a quality of life of pristine water, an enviable business climate, fabulous schools, and a safe place to live and establish enterprise. They’ve never weighed in on water quality or the environment, never taken a position on quality of life issues, but that’s their job, to tout and to veneer. What a shock to discover the Chamber’s proactive hand in putting duct tape and black plastic (how very Zeta!) over the name of Nuevo Laredo on TxDOT’s signs. It’s a backhand to our most vital trading partner at every level of business, and a backhand to the cultural and historical ties that have bound families and both cities for centuries. The unfortunate reality that the gate in the Gateway to Mexico swings back open to us with millions upon millions of dollars worth of drugs cannot be masked with plastic and tape. The attempt to alter the perception of that reality — the bloody fruit of the dismal failure of the War on Drugs — is far beyond the Chamber’s purview, though trying to alter that perception fits like a mortised corner into the Chamber’s longstanding theme of denial. We don’t need a slogan. We need action to clean the cityscape, to rid it of its blight. We need to take ownership of the river and to care for it like the life-giving miracle that it is. We need to give historic downtown what it needs to come back to life as a shopping, dining, and entertainment venue, and we need to change its most unappealing aspects — broken sidewalks, broken streets, wafts of raw sewage. Coming up with a slogan and casting it like a net to bring visitors to the city doesn’t give the slogan the weight of truth. Inviting visitors before you clean the cityscape or give downtown what it needs to draw and keep visitors and shoppers is like welcoming company at the door before you tidied the house, emptied the litter box, and put all the dirty socks into the hamper. It’s premature. The work comes first, the slogan after it makes sense. u

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MarĂa Eugenia Guerra

Men at work

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While downtown merchants pay the price for torn-up streets, two construction workers on Flores Avenue make haste just after sunrise. Their two coworkers in the background chat things up before getting to work. Would not the work move more quickly if everyone was in motion?

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LAREDO MAIN STREET:

Working to Revitalize Downtown Laredo Arts & Entertainment District: Allowing for sidewalk cafes, weekend markets, and outdoor selling.

matching funds for store front, window, awning and building façade improvements.

New Business Incentives: Incentives to entice new

business investment into the historic downtown area.

2010 Small Business Summit: Support and networking as well as entrepreneurial workshops.

14th Annual Jamboozie Festival: Street festival

encompassing 12 blocks and 6 musical stages and various street performers, food vendors, and arts and crafts.

El Centro de Laredo Farmers Market: Held every third Saturday of the month, shoppers who visit the market often stay downtown and continue shopping in nearby stores. Rhythms on the Rio: Festival featuring Salsa music and

María Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

Façade Improvement Grant: Allowing for 50%

Sold out at the Farmers Market At mid-morning Cristina Alvarez was nearly sold out of the loaves of cornbread and zucchini bread she prepares for the Farmers Market. Fresh ingredients go into her products, which have become a favorite at the monthly market.

The best kept secret in Laredo

food and beverage vendors under the stars at El Portal.

National Recognition for Laredo Main Street: Exposure for our city on a national scale and acknowledgement from National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Preserve America City Designation: Benefits of

designation include White House recognition, eligibility to apply for Preserve America Grants, a Preserve America Community road sign, inclusion in national and regional press releases, and official notification of designation to state tourism offices and visitors bureaus.

956.523.8817 P.O. BOX 634 Laredo Texas 78042

Sandra Rocha-Taylor / Executive Director

laredo.mainstreet@att.net

www.LaredoMainStreet.org 8

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1, 2 and 3 bedroom ﬂoorplans available. Prices starting at $700 Town houses and corporate suites also available For more information, please contact: www.carmelapts.com Carmel Apartments Ofﬁce Hours 830 Fasken Blvd. Laredo, Texas M-F 8:30-5:30 956.753.6500, 956.753.6502 fax Sat. 10:00-5:00

Sit back, relax, and welcome home WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

From the Editor’s Desk

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

his issue of LareDOS contains a great piece Alexa Ura and Rafael Benavides did on why people shop downtown. And it’s a good question to ask, since the downtown area is the main cultural mecca for our town, and city officials are in the midst of planning for the area’s “revitalization.” I set out to show my mom and brother a toy store that sold collectible toys stocked up to the ceiling. The sounds, sights, and smells of downtown are fascinating. During the especially busy days, one almost experiences sensory overload. On a Saturday morning, we drove down Interstate 35 until we almost reached the end of the highway and began the arduous process of finding a parking spot downtown. The streets were filled with shoppers, and I naively wondered for a moment if the economy was that bad. Driving down the one-way streets became frustrating, but we finally settled on a city parking lot in the west side of downtown, very close to the Río Grande. As we made our way to the prominent shopping areas, the smell was familiar — it’s part sewer belch and part fajita meat being cooked at a nearby mom and pop restaurant, the kind where the menu is written in black marker on the wall. As I smelled the sewer, I remembered an anonymous comment on a Laredo blog that claimed the Laredo streets “literally smell like s**t.” Sadly, sometimes that’s true. The sewer smell wafted in and out of our range, but I was used to that smell downtown. We window-shopped. Behind the glass of a clothing store were cheap evening gowns and leopard-print purses dotted with rhinestones. Nothing we’d ever buy, but something to marvel at. I took in the whole street in front of me and for a brief moment, I really missed shopping in Nuevo Laredo. I missed the Mercado Maclovio Herrera, where we’d see elaborate marble chess sets, floral Mexican dresses, and other popular tourist items. The mercado isn’t there anymore. I remember when they told me it closed down — it was as if a part of my

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childhood had closed down. Downtown Laredo was a taste of what I was missing across the Río Grande. The search for the toy store continued, but all the shop fronts started looking similar as we traversed up and down streets multiple times without any luck. We walked in and out of areas where merchants blasted loud Tejano and Top 40 music, attempts to seduce customers into their stores. The hustle and bustle of downtown combined with the music created a party atmosphere; the hot, thick air seemed to make people a little crazier than normal. I noticed the misters weren’t being used anymore. Where are the misters? I kept asking myself, wiping some more sweat off my brow. It was 102 degrees already, and my mom stopped in front of a soda machine for cold drinks. I drank all of my bottled water within five minutes. The downtown shops are fascinating, but the shopping experience leaves much to be desired when it comes to warding off the Laredo heat. I would love to see more shade, more use of misters, and public water fountains with cold water for thirsty pedestrians. We passed the shop where I found a counterfeit Donna Karan (of DKNY fame) purse with cherries on its white fabric background. We also passed a load of perfumerias selling knockoff scents, and some selling the real deal for much cheaper than a perfume store in the mall. Perfume shops seem to be eternally popular in Laredo — everybody loves their scents here. Jarvis Plaza lay ahead, right in front of the bus station with the neat clock in front of its entrance. This is one of my favorite areas of Laredo. I am able to simply sit in that park and people-watch without becoming bored. Old friends catch up with each other on the plaza benches, and families let their young ones run around and play. This is a downtown worth saving, I think to myself as I sit in Jarvis. This place seemed to bring people together. My family and I never found the toy store, but I decided we’d save it for another downtown adventure. Whether you call it dirty or culturally vibrant, downtown Laredo is definitely an experience. u

Cristina Herrera/LareDOS

The sights, smells, and sounds of downtown

Summer Migrant Reading at the Beach Children participate in beach-themed activities during LISD’s first Summer Migrant Reading at the Beach event on Wednesday, May 25 at Bruni Elementary School. Each migrant student was given three to four books from Scholastic to read during the summer. The event was hosted by LISD’s Migrant Education Department and Reading Is Fundamental organization (RIF).

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Mark Your Calendar July 2011

Monthly book sale When: Saturday, July 2, 8:30 a.m.–1 p.m. Where: First United Methodist Church, 1220 McClellan St. More info: (956) 722-1674 Summer Exercise and Nutrition Camp Hosted by Girl Scouts When: July 5-15, 2:20-4:30 p.m. Where: Laredo Public Library, 1120 E. Calton Road More info: (956) 795-2400 Teen Advisory Board Meeting; Recycle project “Make this with that” with Keep Laredo Beautiful When: Thursday, July 7, 6-7:45 p.m. Where: Laredo Public Library, 1120 E. Calton Road More info: (956) 795-2400 Area Health Education Center Youth Heal Service Corp. Summer Camp When: Monday, July 11-12, 8 a.m.–3 p.m. Where: UTHSCSA, 1937 E. Bustamante St., D.D. Hachar Building More info: (956) 523-7473 STFB and Border Media radio drive When: July 12-15 (24/7) Stations: La Ley 100.5, Hot 106.1, Digital 107.3, The Works 94.9, ESPN 1490 AM More info: (956) 726-3120 Barney Live in Concert — Birthday Bash When: Wednesday, July 13, 10:30 a.m. Where: Laredo Energy Arena, 6700 Arena Blvd. More info: (956) 791-9192

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Musical production of Annie When: July 14-17 (8 p.m. ThursdaySaturday and 3 p.m. Sunday) Where: Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Fine Arts Center Theatre More info: (956) 319-8610 or laredotheaterguild.com El Centro de Laredo Farmers Market When: Saturday, July 16, 9 a.m.–noon Where: Jarvis Plaza, Downtown Laredo More info: laredomainstreet.org Collage Workshop When: July 19-21, Tues-Thurs, 10:30 a.m.noon. Where: Laredo Public Library, 1120 E. Calton Road More info: (956) 795-2400 Piñata Workshop When: July 19-21, TuesdayThursday, 2:30-4 p.m. Where: Laredo Public Library, 1120 E. Calton Road More info: (956) 795-2400 Library Art Splash — Color Chalk Art When: July 26-28, Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Where: Laredo Public Library, 1120 E. Calton Road More info: (956) 795-2400 Library Movie Madness When: July 26-28, Tuesday-Thursday, 2:30–4:30 p.m. Where: Laredo Public Library, 1120 E. Calton Road More info: (956) 795-2400

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News Brief

By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff

he Laredo chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) named Monica Salazar, of Hickey Peña Architects, their new executive director and announced their first executive board of directors. The Laredo AIA chapter was established in 2010 with 11 founding firms from the Laredo and South Texas area. It “serves as the voice of the architectural profession in Laredo and South Texas” and focuses on the advancement of architecture through improvements in the quality of the building industry, according to Laredo AIA. The chapter is also involved in the local community through educational seminars and conferences. According to newly installed president Mario Jasso, of Architects Plus, Inc., one of AIA’s goals is to “influence government practices that affect the practice of the profession and the quality of our American life.” AIA Laredo recently declared support for a Local Preference Criteria

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resolution, an initiative to help keep Laredo tax dollars employing Laredoans. “When you hire an out-of-town entity for any type of work, you are taking money out of the community because that entity is not going to reinvest in our local economy,” Jasso said. “Employing locals to do those jobs contributes to the vitality of the local community.” The resolution would help decrease the number of lost jobs in Laredo by reducing the amount of opportunities given to outof-town entities, according to Jasso. Laredo AIA has requested support from the City of Laredo officials in order to adopt the initiative. Jasso has been a member of the AIA for over 30 years and used to travel to McAllen for meetings with their chapter. He said he was excited to “get the ball rolling in Laredo” and work as a group for the community. “We want to identify the needs of our community and try to improve them through different initiatives,” he said. Their main goal was established as, fittingly, “A Better Laredo by Design.” u

Courtesy Photo

AIA names first director, Laredo chapter board

The ranch land abounds with beauty Doreen and Christo Peña enjoyed a late afternoon outing to San Ygancio in the company of good friends and good horses.

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

News Brief

Laredo cookie branch named Franchise of the Year

The Great American Cookie Company in Mall Del Norte

Cristina Herrera/LareDOS

he Great American Cookie Company has named Laredo’s Great American Cookie store the Franchise of the Year. Cesar and Gwen Garza, husband and wife, own the cookie stand within Mall Del Norte. “Very shocked,” Ms. Garza said of the honor. “We’re small. Most of the time this goes to someone with multiple stores. We’re out here in Laredo all by ourselves.” However, it is the second national recognition for the Garzas. Their business was named Rookies of the Year in 2006. A press release from the company noted that “the Franchise of the Year totally embraces the mission statement of ‘Share the Fun of Cookies’ and makes their location a great place to work.” All the cookies are baked in two ovens

on site. Gwen Garza says the busiest time for the store is during Valentine’s Day. The Garzas have 11 part-time employees, mostly students. “School is very important to us,” Gwen said. “About 90 percent of our employees are high school or college students, and we

work them around their schedule. We want them to stay in school. ” Garza is very much involved in the community, especially with St. Patrick’s Church and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The Garzas have owned the franchise

for five years under the name of Pengwen, Ltd. The announcement as Franchise of the Year came at a recent meeting in Dallas. The Great American Cookie Company, based in Atlanta, Ga., has more than 300 franchises in several states and foreign countries. — Salo Otero, LareDOS Contributor

About Work

A five-question survey A: Definitely not my problems. I bring a positive attitude, my heart, and a bright smile.

Employee: Linda Lee Ramón Employer: UISD Position: English teacher Start date: November 2004 Q: What brought you to this job? A: In reality, my parents needed financial help; they were my motivation. Q: What part of yourself do you bring to the job every day?

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Q: Is there prestige or pride in your work? A: Certainly! I learned to love my job and give my 110 percent despite the hurdles. I love teaching the English language as well as the world of literature so my students can explore new horizons and think outside the box. I am proud to be a Panther! Q: Tell me something about your job that would surprise people. A: (Giggling) Here goes... (Oh the shame!) I pretend I’m putting on a show for an audience. I’m like a businessperson trying to sell their product. If I have to dance, I’ll dance! These are my magic tricks. That’s how I produce eager and enthusiastic learners. Q: Are there new hires in your career? A: Yes. WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Satire

ExpoLlanta! – the house that rubber built

By the CROSSEYED BEAR

he Laredo Seedy Council, working in conjunction with the Webb County Commisserators, has agreed to fund the construction of ExpoLlanta!, a museum that celebrates the tire by telling the story of early rubber plantation exploitation/production in the Amazon, the evolution of automobile tires from hard skinny things back to hard skinny things, the auto industry, NAFTA, rines, hub caps, and Dengue Fever. One of the museum’s most significant displays charts the trend (and the implied anti-social behavior) Laredoans have increasingly exhibited for dumping used tires of all makes and sizes on street corners and vacant lots. Holding true to the spirit of the project, the two local governmental entities have agreed to build the museum structure entirely of used tires, beer cans, and other found objects. “We’re not sure we can incorporate the old ranges and washing machines into the design, but at least we are going to get a couple of hundred thousand tires off the street corners,” said Mayor Raul Salinas. An Española, New Mexico firm, Electrical Banana, has been contracted to erect the stacked tire edifice, working with the Madrid, New Mexico architectural firm, Pipe’sFull. The project specs call for pails of Lysol disinfectant for the old colchones that will be recycled into auditorium seating for the screening of rubber-related stories, the history of Baby Moons, and how to build houses, commercial structures, yard art, and playground stations from used tires. “Or Fabuloso if it’s cheaper,” said Commisserator Frank Sciaraffa, who said he couldn’t help but give the project a thumbs up, but wants to be sure to be fiscally responsible. The auditorium, according to the mayor, will provide seating in the round and will also be available for free modern dance classes taught by lifetime instructor and longtime city employee Vulcanisadora Duncan, who has run the city tire shop for 35 years. “La Parche,” as the one-eyed Ms. Duncan is known, is an acclaimed dancer who has toured and competed with a troupe of other city employees called Los Lug Nuts. An interactive playground of tire swings and tunnels adjacent to the museum is certain to provide hours of fun for local children of all ages. The playground, which is called WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

“Wheels on the Bus,” is provided courtesy of El Metro. The bus authority’s director Feliciano García said children should wear only black, blue, or gray and never white when left at the playground. “Eventually we want the park to have a tire carousel, but we haven’t figured out how to make the tires look like ponies,” he added. The plans also call for an obstacle/endurance/fitness course that incorporates tires of every make and size, a track paved with

tire in South Laredo into the equation.” The mayor said that the museum itself would not resemble tires in any way, but that the stucco walls would be contoured the way snail shells are rounded. “You won’t even know the tires are there. This museum is a celebration of the tire and of our ingenuity and our ability to make something out of nothing,” he said, adding, “Think of the educational opportunities this place will provide children. This is where

asphalt and shredded tires. “If anyone falls on the track, they will bounce right off of it,” said Commisserator Wawi Tijerina. “If we can put a moratorium on the sweet deal contract we have with the guy to whom we sell used bus tires at such a good price, the guy whose brother owns all the used tire shops, UISD is at the ready to donate a fleetload of bus tires,” said Seedy Council Member and UISD administrator Mike Garza. “Ditto for the city shop,” said Seedy Council Member Esteban Rangel. “And if we fall short, just in the Rangel family alone, somos muchos, we can mobilize and bring every

the rubber meets the road. That’s what I’m talking about.” Reading from a crib list and looking madly for a camera to peer into, the mayor continued, “Did you know that Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber in 1844 that was later used for tires, and that in 1895 André Michelin was the first person to use pneumatic tires on an automobile, however, not successfully? Did you know that Robert William Thomson, the inventor of the fountain pen and a steam traction engine, invented the actual first vulcanized rubber pneumatic tire? So much to learn, so little time.”

Webb County Judge Danny Valdez threw his wholehearted support behind the project. “These are the things that count. You’re doing a good thing, while you’re doing a good thing. You know — getting tires off the streets and then using them to make a public building? It shows our commitment to the environment. Plus, it takes the spotlight off all the possibilities for how the CAA problems will end up. It will be raining chanclas when that thing gets resolved. It’s nice to take off the hard hat and get off the eggshells for a minute.” City manager Carlos Villarreal said the museum project would begin as soon as thousands of collected tires are sorted out by size. “They are stacked and filled with earth, and I know where there is a big pile of free dirt on the Mines Road.” Of the joint undertaking by Seedy Council and the Commisserators, Villarreal said, “Once they get an idea in their heads and are convinced they are doing something noble and selfless, they are so cute. They feel so purposeful when they think it was their idea. They just run with it. Oh, don’t ask them if they recycle at home You’ll be very disappointed.” Villarreal said, “Their involvement in this is markedly different from the usual vote swapping they do before the meetings, and it’s very different from how you have to bring them in one by one and put them on the carpet to ‘splain why it is in their best interest to vote a certain way. I love how their ears perk up when you say the words ‘your best interest.’” Council member Cindy Liendo Espinoza, the lone dissenter in the feel-good hysteria that hallmarked the vote on the museum, said, “I just couldn’t get behind the concept or any of the suggested locations — not one of the green space blocks approaching Bridge II, not on the riverbanks west of Bridge I, and not next to the Highway 359 landfill. Wouldn’t it be smarter to first address why people feel they can just dump something as non-biodegradable as tires on a street corner? Then we could begin an enforcement campaign. Tire dumping is illegal dumping. We could then do some kind of massive citywide tire amnesty in which we enlist volunteer manpower and the donated time of the trucks of the companies that haul for the city. Folks could put their tires curbside and volunteers could move them from the inner city to a collection point that the haulers could access. It would be a great deal of work, but I know many Laredoans want this kind of blight gone from the landscape.” u LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

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USDA ‘temporary’ livestock inspection stations: no immediate plans to return to Mexico amidst violence

By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff

year and a half ago, a USDA veterinarian would travel between 15 to 20 miles into Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, to a livestock inspection station, where feeder cattle would be examined before being shipped to the U.S. In March 2010, the USDA ordered livestock inspection facilities at Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and Nuevo Laredo to be moved out of Mexico temporarily and relocated to their U.S. counterparts in Pharr, Eagle Pass, and Laredo. According to a press release, “The USDA took this action to protect the safety of veterinary personnel who traveled into Mexico to inspect and clear shipments of cattle destined for the U.S.” Although the facilities are still considered “temporarily relocated,” USDA

spokeswoman Lyndsay Cole said that there are no immediate plans for the facilities to return to Mexico because of increased security concerns related to drug cartel violence along the border. According to Cole, the decision was based on several factors, including safety of USDA employees working in Mexico and information from the U.S. Department of State concerning reports of violence in the area and travel warnings. “There is a concern about personal safety,” said Dr. James Amend, Area Veterinarian in Charge for the Texas inspection ports, who added that the state department of agriculture also issued a safety warning to federal employees regarding escalated violence in Mexico. Prior to the relocations of facilities, cattle were inspected for disease-related issues and were dipped in pesticide for presence of fever ticks before being transported to the U.S. The USDA has now adopted a different set of protocols

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in which the Mexican National Competent Authority (SAGARPA) provides an initial visual inspection of all animals, including health certificates, individual identification, tick dip certificates, etc. Cole said that this is to reduce the number of potential rejected shipments. SAGARPA then seals the trucks used to transport cattle to the U.S. with identification numbers used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at border crossings to ensure that the seals match and are intact. After clearing a truck, CBP informs import facilities about the arrival of the truck. Once the cattle reach the inspection facility, USDA Veterinary Services perform entry inspections and decide which cattle are accepted or rejected. Depending on the reason for rejection — presence of ticks, for example — the entire truckload will be rejected because of one animal. Rejected animals travel back to Mexico

in trucks sealed by USDA Veterinary Services, while accepted cattle are shipped out to the U.S. in USDA trucks. After public concern regarding the quality of imported cattle, the USDA held public meetings with ranchers and others in the area to address such concerns. “We understand that ranchers are still concerned, and we have protocols in place to ensure that U.S. livestock are protected,” Cole said. The USDA is continuing to monitor the situation and determine long-term solutions, she added. Dr. Amend said he was not aware of future plans for the inspection stations or their temporary relocations. “I don’t have a crystal ball, and I don’t know what the future is for the inspection stations,” he said, adding that, in the meantime, veterinarians are inspecting and carrying out protocol in the U.S. just as they did in Mexico. u

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The Dream Stopped here: Undocumented high school graduate will return to Mexico for college By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff Editor’s note: The main subject of this article has been given another name, Andres, to protect his identity. en-year-old Andres traveled to the U.S. and Mexico border with his father and two older siblings from Guerrero, Tamaulipas. Although his father had told him they would live in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, his family made their way across the border into Laredo on traveler’s visas. After finding temporary housing, Andres enrolled in the sixth grade at a public middle school. He barely spoke English and found it difficult to make friends with the other students. Eight years later, Andres has just graduated from high school with a respectable grade point average, involvement in extracurricular activities, and a large group of friends. He’s now an average 18-year-old who wants to pursue a degree in the medical field. There is one main difference between him and other graduating students — he is undocumented and will return to Mexico because of this. He is not being deported. Andres decided to return to his country on his own terms. Growing up undocumented Andres is one of the countless undocumented students that have grown up and gone to school in Laredo. He has lived here for almost half his life and has a house to call home. He has grown accustomed to the culture of the city, but matters weren’t always this easy for him. For years, his family moved from house to house trying to find a place to live. At one point, Andres’s family was living in a single room they rented in someone’s house. “[My dad] got money from properties he sold in Mexico, but he now makes little businesses buying and reselling cars,” Andres said. Like him, his father is undocumented and cannot easily find employment in Laredo. He has also tried to find work in order to help his father but has faced challeng-

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Cristina Herrera/LareDOS

A visual representation of Andres es because he does not have a Social Security number. Andres said that because he cannot get hired at the usual places where a student his age would work, he makes some money by mowing the lawn for his neighbors and other homeowners in the area. Learning to speak English was one of the biggest challenges Andres said he faced when he first started school in the U.S. “It was hard in the beginning. You come from another country and everything is new,” he said. “It’s a different

language. I cried my first day of school out of desperation.” Andres said that it was important to him to continue to get good grades like he did in Mexico, and it was difficult to do so with the language barrier. He credits his teachers for pushing him to learn how to speak English with a “strong hand” by demanding Spanish-speaking students to only speak in English in class, but interacting with other students did not come easy, according to Andres. “The people who help me the most are

people that are like me from Mexico,” Andres said. “The people from here that are descendant from Mexico treat you worse and feel that they are better than you. They are racists of their own race.” ‘Camouflaging’ in school and out Like any average teenager his age, Andres likes going to the movies and Lake Casa Blanca, and, like many Lareodoans, he shops at H-E-B for his groceries. He enjoys country music and having carnitas asadas with his friends on the weekend, but only his closest friends know that he is undocumented. “It’s the same way of living,” Andres said about his daily life. “You don’t live differently, especially here in Laredo where it’s easy to camouflage.” According to Andres, adopting the “Tex-Mex” or “pocho” style of speaking that is common to Laredo helps him fit in. Still, he is careful about not putting himself out there more than any other average teenager. This is something Andres does not face in school. “In school, it’s not that scary. The school protects you from Customs within its system,” he said, adding that he can openly say he is from Mexico in school without fear of repercussion but does not easily disclose that he is undocumented to students or teachers. According to LISD public information officer Roberto Treviño, the district does not inquire about the citizenship status of students because of federal laws that do not permit it. Laredo attorney Armando Lopez said that students like Andres are indeed protected by federal laws that only require individuals to provide proof of residency within a public school district in order to attend the school. “[Such laws] have helped protect undocumented children living here innocently that may have been brought here by their parents,” Lopez said. What did frustrate Andres about school was that his fellow students that were U.S. citizens did not take advantage of the opportunities they had. “I know people that have a Social Security number and can apply for scholarships and financial aid. WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

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Andres explained that he has a better grade in his English class than students who have spoken English and lived in the U.S. their entire lives. ‘I do a better job because I want to prove that I can,’ he said.

review. With the end of the first congressional session of the year, the bill will sit in committee review until they reconvene. “When I heard about the bill, I thought that would be awesome because I could work and study for at least six years,” Andres said. “The DREAM Act would help you to continue to pursue your future without having to stop studying in the U.S.” Remaining hopeful Because of financial constraints and the inability to receive financial aid, Andres said that the completion of his medical degree could be more realistically achieved in Mexico. “College is less expensive over there,” he said. “If [the bill] would’ve passed, I could stay here, pay for school, and receive permanent residency.” For now, Andres plans to complete his degree in Mexico and eventually wants to come back to the U.S. as a licensed medical assistant. He said that he is interested in a career in medicine because it would allow him to give back and help others. Although he will soon be packing up to head back to Mexico with his father, Andres is determined to achieve his goals and remains hopeful about studying in the U.S. “In five years, I hope to have finished my degree — whether it’s in Mexico or here.” u

María Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

They can do something better for their future and they don’t,” he said. “They have low grades, they don’t work, and they do not continue with college.“ Andres explained that he has a better grade in his English class than students who have spoken English and lived in the U.S. their entire lives. “I do a better job because I want to prove that I can,” he said. A hopeful DREAM-er According to a study from the University of California, Los Angeles, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools each year. This year, Andres is one of those undocumented students who, like countless others, hoped the DREAM Act would pass in Congress before he would have to make his decision about college. The DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act would allow Andres to qualify for a sixyear-long legal conditional residency if he completed two years at a four-year institution of higher learning or two years in the military that could lead to a permanent residency. It would also allow him to qualify for federal student aid. A study on potential beneficiaries of the DREAM Act by the Migration Policy Institute estimated that about 825,000 people would likely obtain permanent legal status through the implementation of the bill. The study also indicated that more than 2.1 million youth and young adults could be eligible to apply for legal status through the DREAM Act, but “far fewer are likely to gain permanent (or even conditional) status, due primarily to the bill’s education attainment requirements.” The DREAM Act was first introduced as a legislative proposal in Congress in 2001 as bipartisan legislation between Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL). After President Obama called for immigrant reform, the bill was reintroduced in the U.S. Senate on May 11, 2011 and sent to committee for

Break a leg Where the water meter used to be located, this huge hole in the sidewalk at Iturbide and Main has lost its cover, posing a horrible risk to pedestrians.

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Frack talk: Why a Texas mayor was forced to leave his town By SABRINA ARTEL Alternet.org

hen the mayor leaves town, you know something is very wrong. When residents of a community need water delivered, that’s also an indication. Do the gas companies expect us all to move, to leave our homes and neighborhoods? It seems that this doesn’t bother them at all, in fact if you think about it, this makes the industrialization of the area more complete and grants even easier access to the shale gas operations. Major Calvin Tillman left his beloved community in the tiny town of 200 residents of Dish, Texas (that has 60 gas wells) to protect his family from the dangers of natural gas drilling. His two sons were getting sick from exposure to the shale gas industry in his community. They were waking up with nosebleeds and were having respiratory challenges among other adverse health impacts. So, like any responsible parent, in order to protect them and provide them with a better life, he left. How many people are being ousted from their communities by this industry, and what are the implications of these forced migrations by citizens throughout the country? A voice from the Barnett Shale to the Marcellus ... Dish mayor Calvin Tillman and Sabrina Artel traveled to Dimock, Penn. in the winter of ‘09, where Calvin was bringing fresh water to the homes of some of the residents who lost their water since the natural gas drilling operations began in their town. In Dish, where Calvin lives, the rapid spread of drilling and well sites has created unsafe polluted air, a massive industrial site where their homes are located, loud disturbing sounds, children with frequent bloody noses, sick horses and a complete loss of quality of life. Calvin Tillman wanted to meet the people throughout the region of the Catskills of New York and the adversely impacted areas in Dimock, PA to offer his support and share any knowledge he’s gained about fighting the gas companies. Since we traveled to Dimock, Calvin has sold his home and had offered any gas executive his home to live in for one year free of rent (no takers) if gas drilling is so safe and pleasant to live with in your neighborhood. Calvin recently co-founded Shale Test with Tim Ruggiero, of Decatur, who also knows what life is like when industry moves in. ShaleTest.org is a new national group that has a mission: “To provide lower income and

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Sabrina Artel: …So, Mayor Tillman, if you could share with me what brought you here into our neighborhood and to these communities, and what’s been happening in Dish, Texas, with the natural gas drilling? Calvin Tillman: Well, in Dish, Texas, we have every single aspect of the natural gas operations, from the drilling to the processing to the compression, to the odorizing. We have it all. And there’s a lot of negative side effects to that that isn’t always made clear in the beginning. And so, I’m hopeful to come up here to the Marcellus Shale and to be able to convey some of those negative side effects to the folks here, because here it hasn’t gotten started as much as it has in Texas, so there may be an opportunity for the folks here to do something about it before it starts, ‘cause if you wait too long, then you’re going to clean up a mess instead of fixing it from the beginning. It’s much easier if you can regulate it from the beginning and get some of the precursors in place. Artel: I’m from Texas originally. Still have a lot of my family living in Texas. It’s kind of in the blood, isn’t it, of the Texans? It’s something that you have to deal with. So, what is your relationship with it? What was your attitude initially when this began happening in your town? Tillman: Most of the folks ... Like you said, you live in Texas, you become accustomed to it, and it’s something that everybody has grown accustomed to. They’ve been drilling in Texas for 100 years, so essentially the laws were written 100 years ago as well, and a lot of those laws are dated, and they’re written for the Permian basin, where you’re out in the middle of nowhere -- not for into close-knit areas around people and civilization. Artel: Initially, were you open to the idea, then, of this drilling happening? Do you have drilling on your own land? Your town is a small one; if you could also share compromised individuals with environmental testing of their drinking water, air and soil that might have been impacted by natural gas development. Currently, Shale Test has testing volunteers in Texas, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, and is recruiting in other states. Calvin Tillman says, “I have seen a real weakness in the availability of quality environmental testing across the United States to all families, especially in lower income areas. Therefore, citizens must rely

with us the population. Tillman: We’re about 2 square miles and 180 citizens that live in the corporate limits of Dish. On my property, I do not have anything. What we do have is, we have the air quality and some of those issues that have come across the fence to us. To most people, initially, this looks like a very good benefit, especially on the economic side of things. It looks like it is just going to be an economic windfall, and the cost of that windfall don’t catch up with you for a little while. So, at first, it looked like everything was going great. Now the negative side effects are starting to catch up with us, and the costs for that windfall are starting to catch up with us. Artel: …So, you mentioned the noise pollution. You mentioned air quality that’s happening. Could you elaborate a bit about, then ... what’s happening, then, with the air that you’re breathing in Dish? Tillman: The gas at the well sites are not odorized, so you have a difficult time knowing that you’re getting emissions off of the well site ‘cause it’s just not odorized unless you’re right up on top of it. However, this massive site that they’ve allowed to be permitted is huge and there’s so many emission sources that can possibly come from. But what you have is, you have five independently permitted sites, and they’re all permitted under a “permit by rule” which means if you don’t reach a certain emissions threshold, then you just fill out an application, send it into the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and they’ll send you back a permit. And individually, each one of these sites qualify for that; however, collectively, they are well above it in some categories, and they’re double the limit in a very key category, and that is volatile organic compounds. Volatile organic compounds are your BTEX chemicals — your benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xyon poorly equipped and understaffed state agencies to protect them, Shale Test will level the playing field for these people.” Tillman and Tim Ruggiero are on a tour of the Marcellus (a fourth visit for Tillman) and are touring parts of Pennsylvania and New York this week being hosted by community groups, Chenango Community Action for Renewable Energy (C-CARE), Un-Natural Gas.org and NYRAD in New York, among other sponsoring groups.

lenes. Those are well-known carcinogens — well-documented carcinogens. So, the state has allowed them to install this right next to our community, and so there was an odor problem that was coming from this site, and we tried to get the state regulators to come out; we tried to get the operators to clean it up; and they refused for a long time. They refused to admit that they had any problems. And then they came to me, and I believe it was actually headed up by Chesapeake Energy to do a study, and that really made me feel good, ‘cause we had worked with them and tried to develop a reasonable relationship with them through this process, and they had told me that they were going to do an independent air study, and they were going to find the source of this odor. And so, their idea of an independent comprehensive air study was that they put a gas detection unit in the back of a vehicle very similar to the one we’re riding in right now, and drove around our town for a couple of hours, and then they declared that there was no problem. And so, not only did they assert that this was just a figment of our imagination, but they also tried to intentionally deceive us. The trust was severed at that point, and we moved forward and we had our own independent air study done, and we’re a very small town with a very small budget. But we spent 15 percent of that budget to perform an independent air study. Artel: So, what can we do? What can anyone do that is now dealing with the possibility and/or dealing with the gas drilling? Tillman: Well, in a lot of areas up here, you’re fortunate enough to not have started yet. And the best way to not have that is to fix it before it starts. Make these companies be responsible before they get in here because, otherwise like I stated before, you’re going to be cleaning up a mess somewhere down the line. So, that’s the best way… Here’s an excerpt of what Calvin Tillman shared with Sabrina during their travels to Dimock. (Sabrina Artel is the creator and host of Trailer Talk, stories from America’s kitchen table. Her weekly radio show explores community engagement through conversations about culture, politics, the arts and the environment. To find out more about Trailer Talk’s Frack Talk Marcellus Shale Water Project please visit Trailer Talk.) u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

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Love, struggle and memory in Ciudad Juarez By KENT PATERSON Frontera NorteSur Editor’s Note: This is the first of two articles on Mexico’s Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity that was in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso from June 9-11. ompleting an epic journey across Mexico, the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity arrived late last week to a tumultuous welcome in Ciudad Juarez, the beleaguered border city poet and caravan organizer Javier Sicilia calls Mexico’s “epicenter of pain.” Over the course of two hectic and memorable days, perhaps thousands of Juarenses turned out to different events to remember the dead of the so-called narco-war and other forms of violence, to demand justice for victims and, in a sweeping response to social, economic and political decay, to begin drafting the blueprint of a new nation. Leobardo Alvarado, organizer for the Juarez Assembly for Peace with Justice and Dignity, told Frontera NorteSur that more than 100 local groups coalesced to support the caravan and its message. “I think the most important thing is that we are together,” Alvarado said. “We have never seen this before.” The caravan rolled into Ciudad Juarez at a time when not only violence continued unabated, but when the earth itself was seemingly withering in anguish. As a blistering heat pounded the city, dust rose from a land sucked dry by months of unrelenting drought. Instead of life-giving water, clumps of trash littered the bed of the Río Grande; to the northwest a mammoth wildfire drove thousands of people from their homes in Arizona and sent dense smoke over New Mexico, coloring the normally blue skies more like the dull gray of the worst years of smoggy Los Angeles or Mexico City. On Friday, June 10, hundreds of people from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and the U.S. gathered at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ) to hack out a national citizens’ pact for peace, justice and social reform. Going into the meeting, six points — guided by a commitment to peace and non-violence — provided the framework for a more detailed national pact among civil society organizations. Activists with Chihuahua City’s new Citizen Movement for Peace and Dignified Life, sisters Alejandra and Ari Rico

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participated in the meeting. A day earlier, on Thursday, June 9, thousands of people staged a march in the Chihuahua state capital in support of the caravan. According to Alejandra, the march and rally in front of state government offices was a “marvelous event” that signaled the stirring of grassroots response to years of spiraling violence. In 2009 and 2010, the Rico sisters returned to their hometown after years away in the U.S. and other parts of Mexico. Alejandra worked as an educator in the Other Mexico, living in the “New Chihuahua” of the Colorado mountains, where Mexican immigrants toiled away in affluent tourist communities enjoying a then-thriving leisure economy. But the city the Rico sisters came back to was a far different one they left a decade before. Soon the returning siblings heard first-hand accounts of shoot-outs, robberies, auto thefts and kidnappings.

symbolic occupations of banks; expropriating illicitly-obtained businesses for the social good; naming a white-collar prosecutor; establishing a youth television network; and ensuring that the minimum wage, ground up by inflation, be sufficient to cover basic expenses as guaranteed by the Mexican constitution. Going beyond violence and justice issues per se, activists voiced strong support for labor and indigenous rights. The caravan participants demanded that Mexico live up to its national and international obligations to indigenous people under the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People and the 1995 San Andres Accords between the Mexican government and Zapatista National Liberation Army. The Ciudad Juarez meeting protested the criminal burnings of seven indigenous communities in Durango and Chihuahua;

The caravan rolled into Ciudad Juarez at a time when not only violence continued unabated, but when the earth itself was seemingly withering in anguish. As a blistering heat pounded the city, dust rose from a land sucked dry by months of unrelenting drought.

A cousin was injured by shattered glass from a stray bullet fired during a shootout he had nothing to do with. Alejandra’s parents warned her against walking at night. “This did not go on at all in my Chihuahua of my childhood, of my adolescence, of my youth,” Alejandra reflected. Conversely, last week’s pro-caravan mobilization indicated that the public is wearying of the violence and demanding genuine solutions, added Ari. “It is the hour that Mexico unites,” she said. “It’s time that we leave behind the north, the south and the center. We are one country.” Meeting in nine thematically assigned workshops, different groups at the UACJ discussed tactics and strategies of the sixpoint citizen pact. Reconvened for a popular assembly, they reviewed the proposals for later possible incorporation into the pact and agreed to them by consensus. A few of the proposals included holding an international conference against money laundering and arms trafficking;

backed the struggle of the Purepecha community of Cheran, Michoacan, against illegal logging; supported the right of autonomy for the Nahuatl community of Santa Maria Ostula, Michoacan; and endorsed the opposition of indigenous communities in San Luis Potosi and Guerrero to new mining concessions. After the university assembly, the caravan rambled over to the Benito Juarez Monument in the city’s downtown for a mass rally and pact signing. Erected in honor of one of Mexico’s most revered historic leaders, the monument was decked out with pictures of the murdered and disappeared, poems, messages and slogans. A remarkable cross section of Mexican society filed into the monument grounds — former braceros, small farmers, workers, professionals, students and housewives. A contingent from Justice without Borders marched across one of the international bridges from neighboring El Paso and into the unfolding demonstration. Holding banners and chanting “Miss

Ana, Miss Ana,” one vocal and well-organized group called for the freedom of respected El Paso elementary school teacher Ana Isela Martinez, who was jailed May 27 in Ciudad Juarez for allegedly possessing marijuana. Supporters contend she was set-up to transport a load of dope across the border without her knowledge. “We are going to continue with the public pressure, because any resident of Ciudad Juarez can be Miss Ana,” said Carlos Barragan, Martinez’s nephew. Standing out in their pink T-shirts, members of Mothers in Search of Justice milled around the quilt they are patching together that shows the pictures of murdered loved ones and features written remembrances. They call it the Blanket of Love. Vicky Caraveo, group coordinator, said the quilt is a work-in-progress that will be taken around the community so people can add photos and stories to the blanket. “We can display what is happening, but with love and respect,” Caraveo said. “So the world can understand that our kids are not a number.” According to the long-time women’s activist, who along with the late Esther Chavez Cano began protesting gender violence nearly two decades ago, the quilt will even be available for exhibition in the U.S. Guadalupe Ivonne Estrada is one of the people on the Blanket of Love. Found murdered in Chamizal Park in 1993, the 16-year-old was one of the first publicized victims of the Ciudad Juarez femicides. Estrada left behind an infant daughter who is now turning 19. The young woman stood at the edge of the quilt but declined to talk about a mother she never really knew. “All this is very difficult for her,” said Victoria Salas, the grandmother of the young woman and Estrada’s mother. According to the Ciudad Juarez resident, her teenage daughter disappeared from the Phillips plant where she worked. A company professional was implicated in the slaying but managed to wiggle his way out of punishment, Salas said. “We don’t have justice in Ciudad Juarez. There is none, and no explanation why (Guadalupe) disappeared,” Salas said. “We are in a lawless land.” In 2011 young girls keep disappearing, including three from her own neighborhood, she added. Continued on page 60

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Opinion

News

Medical examiners, coroners with flawed pasts often migrate was actually an obstetrician-gynecologist when he took office in 1974, according to a May 22 article by The uring a recent Frontline Times-Picayune. The Frontline docubinge on Netflix — a PBS mentary also highlights the poor creprogram that presents dentials and seedy backgrounds of investigative news-style the staff Minyard surrounds himself documentaries — I discovered an with, and argues that this is a comepisode called “Post Mortem,” which mon occurrence across the country. examined medical examiners and I could not resist doing some recoroners in the United States. search after watching the documenA collaborative effort with Front- tary, so I did a Google search of Dr. line, NPR, and ProPublica, this pro- Corinne Stern, the Webb County gram made the claim that the death medical examiner. I’m sure some investigation profession is riddled Laredoans remember hearing about with “few standards, little oversight Stern’s credentials (or lack thereof) and the mistakes are literally buried. before, but for those who are still in In state after state, reporters found the dark or want to learn more, here autopsies — our final physical exam is what I found. — conducted by doctors who lacked According to a 2008 Webb County certification and training.” Med Ed newsletter, Stern graduated One terrifyfrom the Uniing example the versity of North We’ll wait until program presents Texas Health is Orleans ParScience Center [Webb County ish coroner Frank in Fort Worth medical examiner] Stern Minyard. Minyard with a doctorate faced scrutiny for makes a mistake and of osteopathic a particular case then we’ll do something medicine (DO) in in New Orleans 1995. Osteopathic about it? That’s exactly after Hurricane doctors hold the Katrina. An offi- the type of attitude same rights and cer from the New that ruins lives. responsibilities of Orleans Police an MD, or doctor Department shot of medicine. Stern Henry Glover, 31, on Sept. 2, 2005, a is the highest paid county official, acfew days after Katrina struck. Glover’s cording to reports from Pro 8 News. remains were found in a burned car In the local media, I read some by the banks of the Mississippi River. stories on the Pro 8 News website Minyard’s office never indicated any from 2009 that do indeed question foul play in the case of Henry Glover, Stern’s credentials and experience even though the evidence was obvi- in other cities. What really struck ous, which may have left his case un- me was this quote from Commissolved until an FBI investigation be- sioner Jerry Garza in a September gan in 2009, according to a January 30 2009 report by Pro 8 News: “I think article from The Times-Picayune. And she’s done a very good job and ununfortunately for families in New til we have reason to question that Orleans, the list of botched autopsies I think that her credentials and her from Minyard’s office is frighteningly performance up to now speaks for long. itself.” Minyard has held the coroner ofContinued on page 29 4 4 fice for more than 30 years, but he By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

Alexa Ura/LareDOS

A literary escape Escape Again bookstore owner Eddie Cardenas poses in front of bookcases in his store. Cardenas is struggling to make his store steadily profitable.

Making ends meet book by book

By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff

ess than a year and half after first opening in April 2010, business is not as good as it once was for Escape Again bookstore owner Eddie Cardenas. He is just one more Laredo entrepreneur that is struggling with the local economy. Cardenas decided to open the bookstore after B. Dalton closed its doors at Mall del Norte. Although he originally wanted to open a bakery, Cardenas decided that what the community actually needed was a bookstore. He has also faced challenges in getting the word out. “A lot of people who come into the store say ‘I didn’t even know you were here,’” he said. An avid reader of science fiction, Cardenas filled the shelves of Escape Again with all sorts of literary genres, including kids’ books, romance, paranormal, mystery, and even Spanish novels. “I think it’s very important for people to have access to literature while growing up,” he said. “It opens up your mind and gives you that experience of reading a good story.” Escape Again carries mostly used books with a limited selection of new books availWWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

able in store, but they do offer book ordering to the store with no shipping fees. The bookstore also has a book-trading program that allows customers to receive trade money from used books in order to purchase a different title from the store. The bookstore also carries many of the titles used in the Accelerated Reader program that most local schools employ. Cardenas said he has established many loyal customers in the short time the bookstore has been open and hopes to continue providing books for the community. His average customer ranges from a parent bringing their child to pick out a book to an individual who heads straight to the old science fiction. The struggle to gain customers has been difficult especially when people aren’t even looking for a bookstore, he said. Cardenas’ bookstore must also compete with the Books-a-Million bookstore for customers. Escape Again has not provided as much profit as his investment in literature has, but Cardenas is still hopeful that business will pick up before he has to sell. “I estimated it would take about three years to develop a respectable collection,” he said. “I hope I get the chance to find out.” u

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Feature

‘You are Red Cross,’ says branch manager sela Sanchez looks through a photo album with scraps of faded newspaper clippings poking out. The album can barely contain all the memories — memories of Laredo’s own American Red Cross branch. There are sepia-toned photos of the female nurses who once volunteered for the nonprofit, obituary clippings of people who worked closely with the nonprofit throughout the years, and nurses marching in a Washington’s Birthday Celebration parade in the 1960s. Sanchez is the Laredo branch manager of the Red Cross, and she oversees five counties in South Texas. She has worked at the local Red Cross since 2009, but Sanchez hadn’t imagined she’d be where she is today. “I got into this profession by accident,” she says with an infectious laugh. One of Sanchez’s friends told her about the opening at the Red Cross. “I had sort of retired from my past life, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do,” she said. “A friend of mine called and said, “You know, they are looking for a branch manager. I said, ‘No, it sounds like a lot of work.’” The friend gave Sanchez a slip of paper with more details about the job opening, but she threw the paper away in her recycling bin. A week later, after some thinking, Sanchez took back that slip of paper from the recycling. A few months later, she had the job. “It’s very challenging and very stressful, because you wear multiple hats — your disaster hat, marketing hat, sales hat, fundraiser hat,” Sanchez said. “And you do community and governmental relations. I’m everywhere and I do everything. Literally. Sanchez is the only paid permanent staff member for the local branch, and she admits that volunteers can be a bit difficult to come by. The Red Cross in Laredo relies on donations and volunteer manpower. “Sometimes I have three volunteers a day, and sometimes I have nobody,” Sanchez said. “It just depends on the ebb and flow of people. It’s constant flux of volunteers.” Many of the monetary donations come from what might be a surprising source: elementary school children. “I have to give heads up to Dovalina Elementary, Amparo Gutierrez, and Alma Pierce,” Sanchez said. “Those kids are the first who want to donate whenever there’s a disaster in the world. They’re our major contributors for the Laredo branch.” The Red Cross has come a long way since its origins in the mid 1800s. It did not start out specifically as an organization, but rather a movement with basic principals that the current Red Cross and Red Crescent — a related movement founded in Geneva, Switzerland — organizations follow. The American Red Cross was founded in 1881 by famous army nurse Clara Barton, who expanded its focus outside of basic soldier care by adding on disaster relief to the its services. In 1916, the Red Cross officially established itself in

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Cristina Herrera/LareDOS

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

Red Cross memories Local Red Cross branch manager Isela Sanchez looks through an old scrapbook filled with photos and memories of the organization’s history. Laredo. The organization followed U.S. soldiers during the Mexican Revolution, giving aid to citizens on both sides of the border. When President Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. troops to the border in 1916 after 16 Americans were killed in the conflict, the Red Cross established a strong presence. Wherever conflict was, they were there. “With the army came the Red Cross,” Sanchez said. “Wherever Red Cross goes, we develop the community because Red Cross is the community, and that is something people need to understand.” The organization was first chartered as the Laredo chapter in May 1916. In December 1917, it was rechartered as the Webb County chapter. Sanchez said that these charters no longer apply — the five counties she serves are part of the San Antonio Area Chapter now. The Red Cross now provides five basic services, according to the organization’s literature: disaster preparedness and response, international services, volunteer and youth services, health and safety training, and service to the armed forces. In Laredo, Sanchez said home fires are a big part of what the Red Cross deals with. Sanchez is always there after a fire or any other disaster to provide relief to families. “It’s those incidents where we go to a single home fire, and people are sitting there beside their mobile home or their homes that are burnt all the way down to the ground,” Sanchez recounted. “They’re sitting outside, and when we come the next day they are still sitting there. We take them to a hotel, but they come back and are still sitting there.”

Sanchez related the story of one particular house fire in Bruni. The woman who lived at the home sat staring at the ruins of her home when Sanchez arrived. When Sanchez tried to offer help, the woman refused. “No, no — give it to someone who needs it more,” said the woman. “No, I really think you need it,” Sanchez replied, with disbelief. The woman would not take any aid, but Sanchez was persistent. Finally the woman asked Sanchez to meet her at the Wal-Mart in Laredo. The woman was wearing borrowed clothes because she had lost everything in the fire. When the woman saw Sanchez, she broke down and cried for the first time in two days. “I said, ‘Look, I can’t give you a lot, but this will help you buy a set of clothes and a new pair of shoes.’ Then I understood why we don’t accept used clothes, used blankets, etc.,” she said. ‘Think about it: There’s this woman who had lost everything, her memories, her pictures… Our ability to give her the economic assistance to go buy whatever she wanted was a way to empower her; to make her feel that she had value.” She also explained that the cost of storing used items was too much for the branch to bear; and any items they accepted for disasters in other areas, such as Haiti and Japan, cost too much to actually transport to those places. Currently, Sanchez is working toward expanding in the next five years: expansion of services, number of volunteers, and helping out neighbors south of the border. The Mexican Red Cross and the Red Cross on this side are trying to figure out a way to give aid to each other, Sanchez said. She noted that both sides working together would’ve been helpful during the floods on the Río Grande last summer. “We are in discussions to facilitate that, but it’s only a discussion now,” Sanchez said. The American side must wait until Mexico requests assistance from the international Red Cross before the organization can intercede in any way. Of course, Sanchez also can’t ignore the ongoing drug war in Mexico. She said the Red Cross never wants to put its volunteers in danger, but the organization has a history of being in areas of conflict. Sanchez also wants to build up the volunteer base so that she can start sending local Red Cross volunteers to disasters elsewhere. “I would like to be able to deploy 10 people form Laredo to Joplin, Missouri; to say that this is the Red Cross from Laredo ready to help,” Sanchez said. “That’s where we need to be in the five years, I think. Hopefully that’s where we can be.” A big part of the reason why it’s hard to recruit volunteers is a perception that the Red Cross comes into Laredo from other places, Sanchez said. “I’ve gone to meetings and they’ll tell me, ‘When is Red Cross coming?’ and I say, ‘Well, excuse me, but you are Red Cross. The community is Red Cross,’” she said. For more information on the Laredo branch of the American Red Cross, call their office at (956) 726-4778 or e-mail Isela Sanchez at sanchezi@saredcross.org. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Courtesty of Brenda Aikanoff MarĂa Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

A break before the big game Cubs teammates Ricardo Aguirre, Alonzo Luna, Andres Abrego, and Diego Alejandro take a break from all the action at a recent T-ball game.

Thanks for cleaning up your mess LULAC Council #12, after consistent editorial nagging by LareDOS, has finally cleaned up its rotten fascia and exposed plumbing. It was too much to ask that the missing sister column might be replaced on a building of much historical significance. Why canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t-cha follow the lead of the Knights of Columbus on Houston Street?

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News

Opportunity surges for employment in Eagle Ford Shale area, housing and business on the rise

By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff

ot long ago, driving north on Highway 83 meant passing up a couple of buzzing tractortrailers on the way and passing through a few sleepy, small towns. A handful of cows and horses would be grazing behind a barbwire fence. You’d stop to refill your tank at a lonely gasoline station and pick up something to eat through the drive-thru of a nearby fast-food restaurant in a town with a population of less than 6,000 individuals. Flash forward to a present day drive up 83 and you’re stuck in a caravan of container and cargo trucks carrying oilfield equipment and supplies. An open lot in Asherton has a “Coming Soon!” sign announcing the arrival of 200+ workforce housing company contracts. Impromptu RV parks now fill in the backyards of some enterprising homeowners. Handmade signs announcing the hordes of countless RV parks are stuck into the ground at stop lights and street corners off the highway. Welcome to the Eagle Ford Shale, an oil play that has allowed for the creation of thousands of jobs and is in great part responsible for the change of landscape of rural south Texas. All along Highway 83 north, the red earth is scarred with land clearing and tractor work over a grid of buried pipelines and pipelines under construction. Economic impact Drilling in the 400-mile-long formation, capable of producing more extensive amounts of gas and oil than other recently developed shale plays according to the Railroad Commission of Texas, encompasses 21 counties that include Webb, Mav-

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erick, Dimmit, and La Salle. In 2010, drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale produced almost $2.9 billion in revenue, according to a February study by the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Center for Community and Business Research (CCBR). With over 50 participating employers, the Eagle Ford play supported 12,601 fulltime jobs in the area last year. The CCBR estimates that employment could reach 67, 971 jobs and $21.6 billion in revenue generated by the Eagle Ford Shale by 2020. Landowners have also received millions in bonus money and royalties from well production. Parts of South Texas have been economically transformed by job creation, housing development, and local businesses that support the industry and those who work in it. “I’ve seen a lot of change in the region and an enormous migration of jobs. It’s like going from the Stone Age to the 20th century,” said Phillip Rimes, employment and business coordinator for the Workforce of Texas. Wally Paredes, a production flowback operator for Target Well Services, works in Carrizo Springs. With his home and family in San Ygnacio, Paredes travels back and forth from the Zapata area to Carrizo. “I’m usually working on location around the clock for days at a time. The longest I’ve been away is 52 days,” he said, adding that he is but one of many Zapata and San Ygnacio men in the Eagle Ford workforce. Permits spell demand for workers The surge of drilling permits issued by the Railroad Commission of Texas to oil and gas companies is the best indicator of what the industry’s expectations for the Eagle Ford Shale play are, according to the CCBR study. In 2009, the Railroad Commission is-

sued 94 drilling permits. By the end of 2010, they were up to over a 1,000 permits. As of June 2, 2011, the commission reports that 1,912 permits have been issued for drilling across the 21 counties exponentially increasing the demand for skilled workers in order to reach well completion. Petrohawk Energy Corporation, the first company to begin exploration in the Eagle Ford Shale in 2008, leases approximately 236,000 net acres and has 57 operating wells. They plan to drill about 145 additional wells in the area in 2011 and are actively seeking more employees to do so. Two of the most common jobs in the oil field are rig tool pushers and floor hands. A rig tool pusher, an experienced rig hand who oversees the rig’s crew, receive an average salary of more than $114,000 a year, according to a spokesperson for Chesapeake Energy. Floor hands are paid on an hourly basis and can earn over $52,000 yearly. Chesapeake Energy operates on a net acreage of more than 450,000 in the Eagle Ford Shale and has more than 200 employees in the area. The company plans to increase their workforce as their operations in the play increase. Experienced truck drivers are also in demand in the shale play and are required to hold a commercial driver’s license and a certification to transport hazardous materials. Most workers in the area work days at a time 12 hours on and then rest for another 12. “There has been a big increase in traffic but also in the amount of companies out in the area,” said Paredes. He has been working in the Eagle Ford Shale for a year. “The growth has been incredible.” According to Paredes, who used to work in oil fields in the Zapata-Laredo area,

work in the Eagle Ford play is very different than work along the border. “Hours are longer and wells are deeper. It’s very demanding,” he said. Indirect beneficiaries The CCBR study estimates the indirect economic impact of the Eagle Ford Shale at the regional level for 2010 was $76.2 million in revenue including housing, food services, and wholesale trade businesses amongst others and tallied 476 new jobs in such industries. While many employees of oil and gas companies live in surrounding areas near their work site and commute to work, countless acres of land in the area have been converted into RV and trailer parks, with acreage owners cashing in on the lack of housing for the thousands of employees that now reside within the Eagle Ford Shale play. Oilman’s Ranch RV and Trailer Park, one of over 20 new RV parks in the Carrizo Springs area, rents out 31 lots on two acres of land. The park charges between $475-$500 a month per lot and, even after opening in April, they only have 12 unoccupied lots. An employee for Oilman’s Ranch said that the park intends to increase its lot capacity to 61 lots on an additional four acres in the coming months. Local restaurants in the area have also seen a sharp increase in business since the Eagle Ford Shale took off. Don Pedro’s is a restaurant attached to the Balia Inn south of Carrizo Springs. The restaurant has now increased its former staff of 10 employees to 25 and tables are full to capacity during breakfast, lunch, and dinner hours. Waiters now make between $200-400 a week in tips alone. Continued on page 34

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News

RGISC board elects new slate of officers

he board of the Río Grande International Study Center (RGISC) has elected a new slate of officers. They are Fabiola Flores, president; Dr. Rodolfo Rincón, vice president; Victor Oliveros, treasurer; Dr. Alfonso Martinez, secretary; and Danny Gunn, parliamentarian and sergeant-at-arms. Elections took place at the nonprofit environmental foundation’s annual meeting on June 11 at the Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center. Attorney Fabiola Flores is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and a 2006 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. Since graduation, she has served on the staff of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, except for a leave of absence to work as legislative director for Rep. Richard Raymond during the 81st session of the Texas Legislature. Flores joined the RGISC board in December 2007 and served as secretary of the board from May 2010 until June 2011. Dr. Rodolfo Rincón, a faculty associate in family and community medicine at the Laredo campus of the University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio, is also a faculty associate for South Texas Environmental Education and Research (STEER). He is a former supervisor of the LISD Child Nutrition Program, a former health sanitarian with the City of Laredo Health Department, and former di-

rector of the Laredo Health Department’s HIV/ AIDS/STD Program. He has been a member of the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Association, Bi-national Health Council, Sociedad Interamericana de Infectologia, Sociedad Mexicana de Medicos Familiares, and the Texas Association of School Nutrition. Dr. Rincón received his medical degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), a Family Practice Specialty from the University of Tamaulipas, and his MPH from Texas A&M University, College Station. A native of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Victor Oliveros holds a bachelor of arts from Texas A&M International University. He has a 44-year record of service in public health and environmental health as the Texas Department of Health regional supervisor for the Aedes aegyptai Eradication Program; chief of the Health Education Division of the Laredo-Webb County Health Department; and as chief of Environmental Health for the City of Laredo Health Department. He is a former member of the USEPA Citizens Advisory Committee and former chairman of the TDH Sanitarian Advisory Committee. He was CEO of Pan American Imports and Exports and is currently the president of Straightline Carriers, LLC. Oliveros serves a second term as RGISC treasurer. Dr. G. Alfonso Martinez, M.D., is a tenured natural science instructor of microbiology, anatomy, and physiology at Laredo Communi-

ty College, where he has taught since 2001 and served as Faculty Assembly president since 2007. He earned a bachelor of science degree in biology at Southwest Texas State University in 1980 and holds a medical degree from Universidad Valle del Bravo, Mexico. Danny Gunn, retired after 36 years of service with CPL, has been a member of RGISC since 1996. He is a Master Gardener, a member of the Native Plant Society of Texas, and a regular vendor at downtown’s Farmers Market. He was instrumental in the development of El Paso Del Indio Nature Trail. At its annual meeting, the board heard from recently named executive director Tricia Cortez, who took the helm of the organization in late May, replacing RGISC co-founder Dr. Jim Earhart, who has stepped down as director and board officer to attend to out-of-town family and business interests. Dr. Earhart remains on the board, serving alongside TAMIU biology instructor Dr. Tom Vaughan, Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center director Dr. Tom Miller, attorney Israel Reyna, and journalist María Eugenia Guerra. Cortez summarized the organization’s funding endeavors and projects completed

over the last year, including annual Día del Río activities, the planting of four community gardens, a membership drive, and recent joint efforts with the Safe Fracking Coalition. RGISC was established at Laredo Community College in 1994 by Earhart, Dr. Vaughan, and Pamela Vaughan as an environmental advocate for the Río Grande and its watershed. Volunteers for the organization have tested the waters of the Río Grande monthly for the last 17 years, sharing its data for eight parameters at four sites with the City of Laredo, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the International Boundary and Water Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The nonprofit was instrumental in the writing of the City of Laredo’s Hazardous Materials Ordinance and the eventual establishment of the Environmental Services Department. RGISC members also assisted in drafting the city’s Greenspace Ordinance, and more recently worked with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid to stop the aerial spraying of the defoliant herbicide imazapyr for carrizo eradication on the banks of the river. — LareDOS Staff

News Brief

ConocoPhilips partners with Habitat for Humanity of Laredo

Editor’s note: See some photos from this Habitat build on the next page. onocoPhillips employees partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Laredo-Webb County this month to help build a home in the Habitat’s Tierra Prometida subdivision at Las Blancas. Fifteen employees volunteered their time on June 9 to build a home sponsored by the corporation. Volunteers worked side by side with other homeowners that are also receiving a home from Habitat for Humanity. ConocoPhillips, who has partnered with Habitat over five times before, gave $25,000 in sponsorship for the home. According to spokesperson Michelle Begwin, this is the largest sponsorship amount that Habitat has ever received. The Laredo affiliate of Habitat for

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Humanity International was established 16 years ago by a small group of volunteers. Since then, they have provided homes to families in Webb County that qualify to become a “partner family” because of their financial and housing need. They work with countless volunteers on an everyday basis and tally over 20,000 hours of volunteer service a year. “When strong companies take a day off of work and help push our mission of providing affordable housing to low income families, it shows the dedication they have for the community,” said Begwin. ConocoPhilips has also sponsored five other homes in Tierra Prometida and served as a partial sponsor on three homes located across Laredo. u -Alexa Ura

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ConocoPhillips employees build Habitat for Humanity home 505 Violette at Habitatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tierra Prometida Thursday, June 9

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News

National species endangerment not reflected in Laredo-area mussel population r. Tom Miller, executive director of the Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Sciences Center, hopes to find funding to get students involved in follow-up research of mussel populations in Laredo. Miller and eight other scientists surveyed such populations back in March. Lyubov Burlakova and Alexander Karatayev from Buffalo State College (BSC); David J. Berg and Kentaro Inoue of Miami University in Ohio; Dr. Yixin Zhang and Trey Noble from Texas State University; and Brian Land of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department (NMDGF) also collaborated with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department on the project. Mussels, a term used for several fami-

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Texas Hornshell Interim Report

By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff

A rare discovery Mexican fawnsfoot, or Truncilla cognata, is a regionally endemic species found in the Río Grande. The fawnsfoot is classified as critically endangered, and the mussel survey in March found the only known population in the Laredo area. lies of clams, have become a concern in the United States because of decline in species population. The USFWS reports that over

70 percent of the almost 300 mussel species in the U.S. are identified as either species of concern, threatened, endangered, or ex-

tinct. According to Dr. Miller, three of the nine species in the Laredo area have been proposed as threatened species. Among these are Popenaias popeii, the Texas hornshell, and Truncilla cognata, the Mexican fawnsfoot, Miller, who participated in a 2008 statewide survey of freshwater mollusks in Texas funded by the State Wildlife Grant Program, said that live Texas hornshell were found in the Río Grande at two sites. Miller found two more live Texas hornshell in the Devils River in 2009. In the early March 2011 study, Miller, Land (NMDGF), and Berg and Inoue (Miami) sampled the Devils River at five sites and found one live Texas hornshell after “30-person hours of search effort.” On the other hand, the biologists found a large population of live Texas hornshell in Laredo. Continued on next page

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

The Laredo area mussel population was first identified in a state-wide mussel survey 10 years ago. Since then, Webb County was listed as a “no take zone” by the state. This is a designation that requires monitoring in order to uphold its purpose, said Miller, who added that mussels have long been over-harvested for commercial trade of their pearls. The scientists recaptured the density of previously marked populations to compare their size to new, unmarked areas that reflect growth of their population. Specifically, they marked and captured a Texas hornshell population at a site along the lower Río Grande, where the species has an “abundance of lowflow refuges characterized by aggregations of mussels that occur under large boulders or beneath ledges of limestone conglomerates, where clay seams provide stable substrata for mussels in lowvelocity microhabitats.” In addition to this large population of Texas hornshell, the scientists found another “extremely rare regional endemic,” the Mexican fawnsfoot. According to Miller, this species has a NatureServe Rounded Global Status Critically Imper-

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iled status and is considered endangered by the American Fisheries Society. It was also recently added to the state’s list of threatened species. Miller said the March 2011 survey actually proved that some of the species populations found in the Laredo area were not as much of a concern as the threatened designations they received would make them. The survey yielded what is “potentially the largest known population of Texas hornshell” in Laredo, which is healthy and reproducing, and confirmed the only known population of the Mexican fawnsfoot in the area. “The findings of the study stress the necessity of conservation actions to protect these populations and their habitat,” said Miller. “There is a large, viable population in the area. The first significant step is to find population sizes, but we still need to protect them and their habitat.” Miller also said that the identification of mussel population locations could lead to eventual research of population densities, in which he would like undergraduate students to participate. He hopes that increased student research will expand into various aspects of the mussel populations, including their habitat in the river. u

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Continued from page 27

Summer reading The Laredo Public Library’s summer reading program for juniors (9 to 13 years old) runs on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. until July 7. For more information about the library’s summer programs, go to www.cityoflaredo.com/information/summer.pdf.

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This statement outraged me. Unless the article misinterpreted statements from the commissioners, this leads me to believe that the 2009 Commissioners Court did not care to take a proactive stance about Stern’s position in Webb County. We’ll wait until Stern makes a mistake and then we’ll do something about it? That’s exactly the type of attitude that ruins lives. The first national article I found about Stern was from MSNBC in Birmingham, Ala., where her “bungled autopsy led to a murder charge that was dropped…” Stern stood by her work, but the Alabama Department of Forensic Science then investigated 100 other autopsies she did. Stern was eventually cleared in August 2009 and none of her other autopsy reports were changed, but a woman spent nine months in jail because of a botched autopsy. “Stern left another forensics job in Texas amid turmoil before coming to Alabama,” the article continues. According to a July 2005 article from Newspaper Tree, the El Paso Commissioners Court accepted a resignation from Stern for an undisclosed reason after she worked there for three years. The Tree reported “her lawyer John Wenke explained that she had complained about law enforcement interference in job duties, and as the interference took place over a long period of time, she was compelled to complain…” According to the Tree, the county agreed to pay Stern amounts of $67,965 and $11,327.50, minus deductions for taxes and FICA, by July 31, 2005. “These payments represent approximately seven months of Dr. Sterns salary,” the article states. “In turn, Dr. Stern releases the County, including Sheriff Leo Samaniego and District Attorney Jaime Esparza, of any claims she may have cause to bring forth.” Stern left for Alabama after El Paso, and then Laredo after Alabama. Jumping around from one city to the next is a common practice in the death investigation profession. According to the Frontline program, many medical exam-

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iners often jump from city to city because of their past misadventures. One medical examiner botched an autopsy in one city, got accepted for a position in another, did botched jobs in that city, and yet again was hired in another city. He migrated to three different cities — does this tell you what kind of background check these cities are doing on medical professions? And it’s even worse in cities where the coroner or medical examiner is elected. He/she does not even have to have medical credentials (just like you don’t need to be an attorney or even go to law school to be elected county judge). I’ll close with the infamous story of Fred Zain, who botched hundreds of autopsies as a forensics expert in West Virginia. In West Virginia he had become known as a “star” witness for hundreds of trials because he was a wonderful actor. He dressed well, presented a professional demeanor, and was often used to help prosecutors win tough cases. He was then offered a job in Bexar County — chief of physical evidence for the country medical examiner. In San Antonio he continued his streak of botched autopsies and lying during trials to reach lawyers’ desired outcomes. According to truthinjustice.org, Zain later defended himself by blaming inadequate facilities and “overwhelming caseloads.” However, when investigators and journalists dug deeper, they found that Zain was a poor student in college and that he was never actually qualified to be a forensics expert. Yet Zain contributed to many cases in Webb County when the county did not have its own medical examiner. How many cases went unsolved, how much expert testimony did he tailor to the needs and wishes of prosecutors, and how many innocent people were sent to jail because of one man’s inadequacies and lies? Don’t let Fred Zain happen again. Local government entities in Texas, Hawaii, and West Virginia, where Zain performed his autopsies, were forced to pay millions to people who had been wrongfully jailed. In the end, Zain not only damaged his own reputation, but also wasted millions of taxpayers’ money. Zain died in 2002 from colon cancer. I wonder if he got a proper autopsy. u

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Your serve Children at the Roberto and Beatriz Benavides Boys & Girls Club practice bouncing tennis balls on their rackets during the QuickStart Tennis festival on Friday, June 17. All three boys and girls clubs participated in the festival, which was sponsored by the club and the Laredo Tennis Association.

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

El Centro de Laredo Farmers Market is also Laredoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s small business incubator. We offer local products and an opportunity for families, individuals, and groups to generate an additional source of income while sharing their customs and traditions with the community. One of our first vendors, Blanca Davila, started her Natural Skin Care line, Vella Naturale, at home. Blanca came to the market to help promote and sample her products. She is now using ingredients from other vendors at the market like herbs, flower petals, and olive oils to create her soaps, lotions, body sprays, and massage oils. Her customer base has grown from attendance at the market, and she has expanded her line immensely! Shoppers who buy Vella Naturale products continue to shop downtown and help make local stores more sustainable. Laredo Main Street is working with the City of Laredo to improve our quality of life by improving our cultural and economic sustainability. Another success for downtown Laredo and Laredo Main Street! Congratulations Blanca!

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Arts & Culture

Why do you shop downtown Laredo? By ALEXA URA & RAFAEL BENAVIDES LareDOS Staff Librada Morales of Nuevo Laredo shops downtown for her son and other children who live with her at a medical care home for children. She shops downtown once a week for the bargainpriced toys and commodities and also at H-E-B for better prices. Morales enjoys shopping downtown and is accustomed to the atmosphere of the area.

Marla Castañeda and her mom, Mrs. Castañeda, hail from Monterrey and say they usually only stop in Laredo on their way to San Antonio and San Marcos; many times they drive straight through. They’ve come to downtown Laredo a few times a year and usually buy perfumes and party supplies. The Castañedas also said they avoided the McAllen and Río Grande Valley international crossings due to the violence crippling the border region. They said they felt safer coming through Nuevo Laredo.

María Guadalupe Durán shops downtown for lowpriced clothes for herself and her family and school supplies for her son studying in Monterrey, Mexico. She has shopped downtown for over 30 years and said she hasn’t seen much change regarding stores and pricing. Durán visits downtown about every two weeks.

Elizabeth Lopez, of Saltillo, Coahuila, travels to Laredo by bus once a month to buy groceries and necessities like shampoo, clothes, and certain bulk food items. Lopez, who has been shopping in Laredo for over 10 years, comes with her family, who appreciate the low prices in the downtown area. They also enjoy eating at downtown restaurants before heading back to Saltillo. Lopez noticed a decrease in downtown shoppers, which, she said, improves her shopping experience.

Heiby Guajardo, who lives in Nuevo Laredo and studies at Laredo Community College, says she crosses the bridge every day to and from school and often stops at the stores just to browse. Her favorite items are clothing, shoes, and jewelry, which she said are of great quality in comparison to the same items in Nuevo Laredo. She says that she feels safe and comfortable downtown during the day. Although she has noticed a small increase in prices, Guajardo said that items are still much less expensive than in Nuevo Laredo and the mall.

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Eric Hundsnurscher works downtown and shops mostly for dollarpriced items. He said he would appreciate an improvement in appearance of stores and parking in the area. He’s noticed that more Mexican shoppers are taking the extra 20 minutes to make their way to Wal-Mart and other competitors out of the downtown area, because prices have increased downtown. Hundsnursher said that the buses downtown increase traffic and aren’t safe for pedestrians.

Laredoan Veronica Chavez shops in the downtown area often and is usually accompanied by her daughter Miranda. She said she makes it a point to come extra early to find parking. A faithful downtown shopper for about 20 years, Chavez enjoys buying children’s toys and décor for her home and for her family. She shops downtown about twice a month and has noticed a minimal increase in prices. She enjoys the bargains and said the prices are “about 70 percent cheaper” than the prices at the mall or other stores.

Juan Antonio Guranzuay from Monclova, Coahuila travels with his family by bus to shop downtown. He usually shops for sandals, tennis shoes, and sneakers. Guranzuay said that downtown offers a variety of items that he cannot find in Monclova. He enjoys shopping in Laredo and said that his family likes to take small vacations to shop.

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

News & Commentary

When hallowed ground becomes a dumping site

n a trip to Habitat for Humanity’s Tierra Prometida, I noticed a small, dusty cemetery right past the San Carlos colonia called the Perpetual Care Cemetery. Curiosity got the best of me, so I went to investigate the cemetery, which couldn’t have had more than 50 plots. The first detail I noticed was the discarded tire in front of the gate, foreshadowing what I would see within the cemetery grounds. Snakes and lizards that came out of the parched ground marked the semi-arid desert land, and the cemetery’s gravel road was very bumpy. The shack by the entrance had broken windows and large cracks that you could see through. Pressing my luck, I opened one of the rusty metal doors. The door was open, but there wasn’t much in the room — just a chair and some old flower arrangements. I notice an entrance to a back room. It looked like squatters had made good use of the space, and there were beer cans, rags, and other trash littering the floor. When I took in the lay of the land, I noticed some trash that littered the ground here and there, and then I saw the west wall of the cemetery. By the wall there were more tires, an old plastic bucket that seemed to have held cleaning materials, abandoned irrigation pipes, and trashed flower arrangements. Behind the gate of the cemetery were two tires and some more trash. I imagined the cemetery that my grandfather was buried in — its well-kept lush lawn void of trash so family members do not have to see garbage when they visit their loved ones. I grew up thinking a cemetery was a place for reflection and peace, but the Perpetual Care Cemetery looks like something out of a Wild West film with some trash from our era carelessly thrown in. The edges of this cemetery seem to be dumping grounds, and my suspicions are confirmed by Elida Maldonado, whose name is on the sign facing the road. Maldonado and her family, the owners of Maldonado Fine Furniture on Highway 59, set up the trust fund in the name of Memorial Gardens of Laredo, Inc. with the International Bank of Commerce back in the 1980s. The first time I contacted Maldonado via phone, she told me that the land has been like that for years because of illegal dumping on the Maldonado’s property. She also said there were vandals who conducted brujerias,

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or witchcraft, at the cemetery. But I wondered: Doesn’t a perpetual care cemetery have to follow some type of health code? The answer: Yes. According to the Texas Department of Banking’s website on Perpetual Care Cemeteries, “a cemetery operated as a Perpetual Care or Endowment Care cemetery means that a perpetual care fund for its maintenance has been established in conformity with the laws of the State of Texas. Perpetual Care or Endowment Care means the maintenance, repair and care of the cemetery.” When I asked Elida Maldonado which company the family had contracted to care for the cemetery, she initially said “I don’t think I have to answer any more of your questions, and you can ask me in person if you have any more.” She hung up before I

me, there was a maintenance man working that day, so accompanied by LareDOS circulation desk manager Jorge Medina, I asked him about his job. This elderly man, Fidencio Cruz, told us that Agustín Maldonado — Elida’s husband, whose name is also on the cemetery’s sign as part of the directors and officers for the trust — paid him to take care of the cemetery every day. When I inquired about Mr. Maldonado with Elida, she said he is on bed rest and cannot speak to reporters. The trash along the western wall, Cruz told me, was left there purposefully because he could not dump anything until he had a full truckload for the dump. He also told us that the wall was a popular dumping spot. So maybe the Maldonados aren’t providing adequate care for the cemetery, but I then

Cristina Herrera/LareDOS

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

could ask where to find her. I took her advice and found her at the furniture store, where Maldonado told me again that the cemetery has always faced illegal dumping and vandals. She added that the state conducts a yearly inspection of the cemetery, and also said that when she recently visited the cemetery, it was clean. I was not able to contact the state as of press time. When I asked about the maintenance company again, she told me, “All I do is deal with furniture.” I couldn’t resist. I had to go check the cemetery again after speaking with her. The cleanliness she spoke of didn’t seem to apply to the long pile of trash by the western wall of the cemetery that I had found a week earlier. Someone had moved the tire by the gate to the back of the gate. Fortunately for

realized that this story was multi-faceted. There was plenty of blame to go around. Webb County attorney Ana Laura Cavazos Ramirez confirmed that illegal dumping in Laredo is a huge problem. “We don’t have authority to clean private property, unless it’s a nuisance; some sort of a health and safety violation,” Ramirez said. And there’s the rub — did the lack of cleanliness at this cemetery constitute a nuisance? Section 711.007 of the Texas Health and Safety Code states that “a district court of the county in which a cemetery is located may, by order, abate the cemetery as a nuisance and enjoin its continuance if the cemetery is… neglected so that is offensive to the inhabitants of the surrounding section.” Well, I certainly found it offensive, but was that enough?

Probably not, Ramirez told me. A few tires and some trash probably didn’t constitute a nuisance. Ramirez then related the story of a man in Río Bravo who had created a fence and corral completely out of tires. She thinks there were about 100 or more tires on the property, and that obviously was a violation of public health and safety. As she told me the story, I felt my case shrink in comparison. However, I still asked myself: Would I want my loved one buried in this cemetery? After my conversation with Ramirez, I also wondered what it would take to end illegal dumping in Laredo. This cemetery is in an area notorious for dumping. Area residents who do not want to pay dumping fees at the city’s Highway 359 landfill find other places to get rid of their trash. “There is a lot of dumping out there,” Ramirez said. “I’ve got a couple of investigators who pretty much patrolled for illegal dumping. They only do that now if somebody calls or complains because we don’t have the time or manpower to go patrolling for the stuff.” Webb County started collecting household garbage from the colonias “years ago” after officials noticed common household garbage in creeks and on private property, according to Ramirez. She said that sometimes property owners would leave or not check up on the land, come back, and discover piles of household garbage. “We would tell them, that’s your property and there’s really nothing we can do,” Ramirez said. “Unless you know who dumped it and have proof, we can’t do anything.” Ramirez said she has worked to cut down dumping from commercial entities as well. She said that even companies contracted by the city have been discovered illegally dumping their waste. The city then created provisions that stipulated that the city would pay companies the dumping fee for their waste, but Ramirez said that workers would pocket the money because the city would pay them before they actually dumped the materials. Ramirez does not know if the city has changed the conditions. She said her office was pushing the city to require that companies bring proof that they dumped their trash and then get paid for it. As of press time, I have sent my photos to Ramirez so she can inspect them. The photos might lead to a letter from the county to the Maldonados, but not much else. However, the real problem here is Laredo’s tradition of illegal dumping. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

In the old shack

Cemetery entrance

Irrigation pipes in disrepair

Perpetual care? Perpetual Care Cemetery on Highway 359

Tires amd junk

A pile of old coffee cans

West wall at the cemetery WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

Trash by the highway LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Continued from page 24

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“Last year, Dimmit County made over $7 million in revenue from dining out expenditures,” said Mario Chavez of the Middle Rio Grande Development Council. “We’ve already reached that amount in this year’s first quarter.” Wholesalers like McJunkin Red Man Corporation, distributor pipe, valve, and fitting products to oil and gas companies, have also doubled their staff in local, newly established field branches. They have hired individuals from all over Texas and even from out-of-state, according to an employee at the Asherton location. Finding balance While the impact of the Eagle Ford Shale has been noted as beneficial to the economy of surrounding cities, the CCBR indicates that projected impact of the shale play is also dependent on availability of suitable water, as each well requires 5 to 6 million gallons of water per frack. Increase in activity and the need for freshwater has led to water well drilling in the area as well, but not all outcomes of the drilling have been positive. Cotulla city manager Larry Dovalina, who owns property about 18 miles northwest

of Laredo, is dealing with the repercussions of drilling near his property. Last year, an oil and gas company drilled a water well near his property in order to extract and collect water for a frac well that would be drilled adjacent to his property. He noticed a decrease in the water level of a water well on his own property that had been in production for years. Dovalina was left with a dried up well, the concern that the horizontal drilling next to his property had reached his water source as well, and a monetary burden. “I don’t’ have the resources to fix the water problem especially to have someone come back and do it again,” he said. Dovalina does understand the benefits of the Eagle Ford Shale, though. He said that there are both advantages and disadvantages to the play including dealing with growth issues and implementing “sustainable growth.” “There has been all sorts of growth from increased business in restaurants as well as oil and gas companies bringing resources into the community,” Dovalina said. “But it’s a double edged sword and we need to have balance in order to be whole in the end.” u

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Opinion

El Cuatro’s architecture: The golden stain of time renders it all the more beautiful the yard of 417 Vidaurri Ave. — clothes, boxes, chairs, pails, tools, fans, bikes, car seats, a discarded refrigerator, a saddle blanket, plastic crates, a hot plate, and a cat. I’m thinking to rom the St. Peter’s neighborhood I walk west on myself that this household collection must surely violate an Houston Street and take Vidaurri Avenue south ordinance or two, not the least of which would be one that to catch Matamoros, west again, to Santa Isabel addressed rat harborage, feral cats, or mosquito habitat. Avenue, the street that fronts the old International On my way to El Cuatro Park, which I find to be a welland Great Northern train depot. Well-tended, the depot con- kept oasis of order, I come across a street-side dump of tires, trasts sharply with all the beat-up real estate plastics, paper goods, and a toilet bowl. that faces it, a bank of neglected centuryI walk on to Zaragoza Street and find old buildings that saw better days when little spots of heaven, tiny gardens that the railroad was king, and even just a few radiate greenery and nurturing, and decades ago when they were surveyed and now and again I come across American recorded by the General Services Adminisflags on homes and porch homages to tration in 1981. the Virgen de Guadalupe. The order of the depot’s two blue bags Making my way back to Houston of recyclables look out of place against the Street, I take Davis to Iturbide to look disarray of sidewalks I’ve traversed that are at the ruins of what had once been piled with refuse, tires, branches, and disthe Laredo Casino Association, a club carded mattresses. chartered in 1886. In the early morning When I turn onto Santa Isabel, the aclight, the main building’s ochre stucco rid waft of raw sewage slaps me across the — what’s left of it — rises golden from face, telling me without benefit of a compass the quarter block on which it sits at the that if I walk seven or eight blocks south to intersection of Main and Iturbide. It is in the the riverbank I will be directly across from A private enterprise, the club feagolden stain Nuevo Laredo’s 10-million-gallon-a-day tured a bowling alley and held occaof time, that we are cascade of shit into the Río Grande. sional gatherings like the fall “Hop and to look for the real Perhaps the next time we exchange cerLawn Party.” emonial back-thumping abrazos with our In 1886, the club’s membership conlight, and colour, and sister nation, we might point out that their sisted of 50 resident and 20 non-resident preciousness of arbacked-up toilet continues to course into members. With a reception parlor, a chitecture. our drinking water like a black plume in the reading room replete with the latest pecurrent of the river. riodicals and magazines, and a billiard John Ruskin, I do want to make a point of the neglect hall, the club touted itself as the only The Seven Lamps of of properties and accumulated debris that association in the city where strangers the city must know about in El Cuatro but and visitors could be properly enterArchitecture [1890] is either unwilling or unable to address. The tained. In 1900, its officers were presimess, very visible, is overwhelming. Public dent Joseph Netzer, vice president C.W. works, where are you? Westmoreland, treasurer A.A. LichtenEven as I start on so negative a tone stein, and secretary P.J. McMahon. about how El Cuatro looks and smells, I The grand old structure, believed want you to know that I see much that is to be one of the largest buildings in El beautiful there, too. It’s an inner city enclave Cuatro, has lost some of its porches. of so many representations of vernacular Much of its stucco has fallen off to rearchitecture and examples of exquisite patveal the Laredo-made brick that was terns of brickwork that form the cornices the building material of choice more and parapets of many old structures, some than a hundred years ago. Its doors occupied, some in abject abandonment and and windows have gone to rot. The distress. carriage house and the long building As I walk, I come across a beautiful that presumably housed the bowling horned ram in a fenced area adjacent to lanes exhibit the same advanced dethe two-story building that had once been terioration. the International Hotel. Santa Isabel is Despite all the evidence that this much less interesting after that point, and I turn back into structure is in great decline, the grandeur of the place perEl Cuatro and stop at a breathtakingly vast array of stuff in sists like some immovable truth. u

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By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Staff

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

News Brief

Duke University student interns at RGISC; research focus — fracking, antimony in Manadas Creek

By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff

aredoan Virginia Palacios of Duke University has joined the Río Grande International Study Center (RGISC), a local environmental nonprofit, as an intern this summer. Palacios will primarily conduct research hydraulic fracking and the presence of antimony in Manadas Creek. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Environmental Management at Duke’s Nicholas School of Environment with a concentration in global environment change. Palacios is also the philanthropy chair of the Working Group for Environment in Latin America and a member of the Environmental Market Student Group. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, she said she focused her career plans on a different industry — the environment. Palacios monitored the land in an “open space” in Prescott, Ariz., and canvassed for Clean Water Advocacy in California. She also worked for AmeriCorps in youth environment education as part of the Conservation Corps Northbay and was part of the Ecosystem Restoration Crew in Marin County, Calif. A volunteer for State Assembly member Jared Huffman of Marin County, Palacios worked with his

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constituents and raised awareness of the county’s environmental aspects. Palacios said that the interdisciplinary program at Duke is what most attracted her to the school. Her areas of interest are management, policy, and educational aspects of environmental management. u

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MarĂa Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

From Pharr and near Rey Greybill and son of Greybill Family Honey in Pharr were part of the June 18 Farmers Market, bringing with them a variety of honey and bee pollen products.

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LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

I’m tire-d of this

was barely into my morning walk when I e-spotted and espied the first of the 14 used tires I would encounter over the next 35 minutes. The second site just down the street from the tires at the old Episcopal Church, I believe, were in a pile adjacent to the mattress burned by a homeless woman

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trying to send smoke signals to Africa. In the early morning sun, the tires, steel belts all aglow, radiated flojera, complete disregard for the health and environment of the cityscape, and city government very slow on the draw to address this continuing mess. — María Eugenia Guerra

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3200 block of Convent Avenue

1100 block of Blair Street

3300 block of San Agustin Avenue

1100 block of Sherman Street

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2400 block of Pinder Avenue

Tires, tires, everywhere In some neighborhoods, a pile of tires can be found on every street block, posing an environmental and public health hazard.Tires have sat so long in some areas that plants have grown over them. The Anna Street truck route, which is littered with junk that has been illegally dumped, is adjacent to the banks of the RĂo Grande and its precious ecosystems.

Anna Street

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Opinion

This building is not empty, it is full of opportunities

By JESUS NAJAR LareDOS Contributor

aredo has great redevelopment opportunities that have been overlooked for many years. Most new investment has been targeted in the northern section of town, where business and residential development thrive. However, an area of unique architectural beauty and redevelopment potential is the Depot District. Nestled between the western sections of St. Peter’s and El Cuatro neighborhoods and the railroad lines, the Depot District is a small but fascinating architectural enclave. The core of this area is the intersection of Hidalgo Street and Santa Isabel Avenue, where buildings such as the Exchange Hotel still give us as an idea of the bygone Railroad Era. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Laredoans never imagined that their city would grow exponentially after the arrival of the International and Great Northern Railroad. When the railroad extended from San Antonio to Laredo in 1881, it sparked one

of the largest economic and building booms in the city’s history. Due to its historical role as a gateway for people and goods, Laredo became an international railroad depot, and Anglo-Americans and other groups flocked to the town to take advantage of its inherent opportunities. In response to the growing population and proximity to the railroad, Laredo’s residential lots filled rapidly. Hidalgo and Lincoln streets naturally developed into a major commercial center since this corridor was the gateway through which all visitors coming from the north by train passed. Customs brokerage offices, hotels, saloons, and poolrooms populated the western edge of El Cuatro along Santa Isabel Avenue. The brick warehouses of José Montemayor and Roberto Zúñiga, successful customs brokers, were situated west of Santa Isabel. Later, those city lots along the railroad line became warehouses, yards, and garages. A small neighborhood business district sprang up along Lincoln and Hidalgo streets including those of a cobbler, barbershop,

The Exchange Hotel, 2000 Farragut St.

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grocery stores, confectionary, and a cigar factory. A second business area was centered around the Passenger Depot, constructed in 1898 featuring Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. The depot was remodeled in 1948 and a freight warehouse was added. Immigration to the city stimulated by the railroads brought cultural diversity to the Depot District. This cultural blending of AngloAmerican, Spanish-Mexican, and Gulf Coast influences created a unique, local tradition that today makes the historic neighborhoods of St. Peter’s, El Cuatro, and the Depot District so distinctive and enchanting. Architecture was also diverse, and the most popular styles utilized were Classical Revival, Late Victorian, Bungalow, and Border Vernacular, an architectural style typical of the South Texas Río Grande corridor in later 19th and early 20th centuries. Successful future revitalization approaches need to capitalize on the opportunities presented in the Depot District while addressing long-standing obstacles to their development. It is ex-

I &GN Depot, Santa Isabel Avenue

tremely important to reassure the residents that their neighborhood’s character will be preserved and that future potential neighborhood improvements will be made in a sensitive manner to enhance their quality of life. It is also important that future improvements contribute to maintain the residential character of adjacent neighborhoods by placing a strong emphasis on protecting residential structures from commercial and parking lot encroachment. New businesses established here should make use of alleys and backyards for access and parking purposes in order to avoid conversion of front yards for parking uses. Future plans can identify potential infill parcels throughout the area by increasing housing densities and promoting mixed-use development along the Arts & Entertainment District. In the meantime, the City of Laredo and residents can work to promote beautification throughout the area, through landscaping, streetscape, and other amenities. u

International Hotel, 2019 Farragut St. WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Feature

Celebrating a pharmacy graduation times 10 Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of an original article from the University of Texas’ College of Pharmacy. hen Debbie Ramirez crossed the stage on May 20 to receive her pharmacy degree, her cheering family may have had a sense of déjà vu — that they had been here before, and before — and yet again before. That’s because, as Debbie stepped up to receive her doctoral hood and diploma, she moved into the ranks of a virtual longhorn mortar and pestle dynasty as she became the 10th member of her family to earn a pharmacy degree from the University of Texas at Austin. In the audience to cheer her and her class of 2011 were many of her family of UT pharmacists, including mom Anita Laurel Ramirez (B.S. ‘78), dad Joe Ramirez (B.S. ’72); aunts Sylvia Laurel Vela (B.S. ‘64), Yolanda Laurel Swope (B.S. ‘68), and Nora Laurel Francis (B.S. ‘80). Other family members with UT pharmacy degrees include cousins and their spouses Arabela Benavides Stone (B.S. ‘70), Gerry Stone (B.S. ‘70), Debra Garcia De Laya (B.S. ‘77), and Ezequiel (Pete) Laurel (B.S. ‘79).

A father’s faith and University Acres Alonzo Laurel, a dairy rancher, and Esther Laurel, a housewife and teacher’s aide, taught their seven children to value education. Diana, their eldest child, was valedictorian of her class and thus had her tuition paid to attend a state university. She selected the University of Texas. Sylvia Laurel Vela, the second child in the Laurel brood, credits her parents’ devotion to education and a parcel of land for her success. Her venture into college life, and the subsequent paths of her younger siblings, became a family project, she recalled. “Grandmother gave me money to obtain residence at a boarding house and my parents provided support and money,” she recalled. To pay for Sylvia’s tuition, Alonzo mortgaged a portion of the ranch that had first been awarded to family heirs under a Spanish land grant. It was a move that carried financial risks for the family as the land supported Alonzo’s work in dairy ranching. But Alonzo had faith in his children, and Sylvia proved his instincts correct. WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

When Sylvia graduated and entered the work force, she helped her father pay off the mortgage in time to offer it back to the bank to cover college tuition for the next child in line. As each of the siblings completed their studies, they followed Sylvia’s example in helping to reclaim the family homestead. The family parcel of land is affectionately called “University Acres” among the six living siblings who jointly own the property today. The Laurel sisters — Sylvia, Yolanda, Anita and Nora — paid tribute to their parent’s faith and their beloved University Acres by continuing the tradition of supporting education. Together they have established two endowed scholarship programs within the College of Pharmacy — the Laurel Sisters Scholarship created in

attack that affected his health for the rest of his life. Her father died the summer before her final year of pharmacy school. Again the family rallied to assure her academic success. “Sylvia, Yolanda and our brother Alonzo, were in the work force so they were able to send me money,” she recalled. “My cousin, Debbie Garcia De Laya was two years ahead of me in pharmacy school so she saved her textbooks for me to use and helped me get through courses.” By the time Anita neared the conclusion of her studies, her sister Yolanda was in charge of institutional rotations in San Antonio. She selected Santa Rosa Hospital for Anita, not realizing that one of the pharmacy supervisors, Joe Ramirez, would become another pharmacist in the

Courtesy Photo

By Vicki Matustik UT College of Pharmacy

Continuing the legacy From left to right, Joe Ramirez (father), Sandra Ramirez (sister of Debbie), Debbie Ramirez (daughter of Joe and Anita), and Anita Laurel Ramirez (mother). 1994 and the Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Z. Laurel and Family Scholarship established in 1997. Anita’s story (class of 1978) By the time Anita was 10 years old, she knew three things: She was going to attend UT-Austin; she was going to be a pharmacist; and, she was going to live at Blanton Dorm. She was so convinced that she would follow her older sister’s path that she did not have a plan B. Despite the extremely competitive admissions process for the UT College of Pharmacy, she didn’t apply anywhere else. When Anita was a high school freshman, her father suffered a massive heart

family when he married Anita a few years later. Anita credits Yolanda for leading her into a career in hospital pharmacy. After a stint in retail pharmacy while the children were growing up, Anita returned to hospital pharmacy. She has been a director of pharmacy for LifeCare Hospitals of South Texas in McAllen for the last 12 years. Anita says her 29-year marriage to Joe has been strengthened by an understanding and respect of the pharmacy profession. Together they have two daughters, Debbie, the graduate, and Sandy, who has decided on a different area of health care for her career. During the course of her career, Anita says she has witnessed changes in the pro-

fession toward more patient and medication safety processes. “I believe in the important role the pharmacist has as a member of the healthcare team,” she said. With a family table filled with sibling pharmacists, in-law pharmacists, cousin pharmacists and, now a pharmacist daughter, she sees that role played out daily. As Anita prepares to watch her daughter follow in the family career path, she cannot help but think of her parents and their support of each of their children. “Our mother was very proud that all seven of her children graduated from UT,” Anita reminisced. “She would have been so proud of her granddaughter.” Debbie’s story: the graduate (class of 2011) “As a daughter of two pharmacists, pharmacy was often the topic of discussion around the household,” Debbie recalled. “Although pharmacy was regularly discussed, I never actually knew what a pharmacist did other than what any person observes when picking up outpatient prescriptions at a neighborhood pharmacy.” “My parents always encouraged me to look into pharmacy as a career, but what teenager thinks his/her parents actually know best,” she laughed. Debbie recognized, however, that she had inherited her parent’s love of science and healthcare. On spring break during her junior year at Texas A&M University, she visited her aunt Yolanda in San Antonio. Yolanda invited Debbie to visit her at work and arranged for her to shadow Conrad Gamboa, B.S. ’85, a clinical pharmacist in the Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit. “I spent half of the day with Mr. Gamboa, and that was all I needed to realize that I needed to seriously consider pharmacy as my future profession,” she said. “He allowed me to round with him and the health care team. If he knew that I didn’t understand something, he would pull me aside and explain the disease state, patient’s clinical course, or the team’s concerns. I had no idea that a pharmacist could make such an impact on patient care or be such an integral part of the healthcare team.” “My parents, my aunt, and Mr. Gamboa were all key players in my decision to pursue this profession, and I am so grateful to each of them.” The legacy continues. u LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Opinion

Gil Bujano, Marissa Perez

Valentín Ruiz

Calvin Tillman, Alex Iadapaolo

Dr. Reynaldo Godines, Dr. Mace

Larry Dovalina

Sharon Wilson, Austin Martinez

Tommy Rodriguez, City Utilities director

Rep. Raymond: a back-handed ‘Frack you!’ to Laredoans concerned with air and water quality in Eagle Ford Shale play By MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA LareDOS Staff

here was a moment as attendees of the Safe Fracking Coalition’s recent Town Hall meeting filled the UTHSCA auditorium that it seemed the meeting could move to some kind of a face-off between those who benefit from oil and gas production and environmentalists who don’t want to live with some of the high-impact, quality-of-life altering consequences that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking have had on water quality and quantity in north Texas and in other parts of the nation. Sponsored in part by State Rep. Richard Raymond — a no-show until the last 10 minutes of the meeting — the standingroom-only exchange between citizens, environmentalists, royalty owners and producers, and well-heeled ranchers was

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Writer’s note: Richard Raymond’s 10-minute don’t-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you admonishment was a backhand to individuals — taxpayers — who feel they have a right to speak up, to question regulating agencies, and to tell their elected officials of their priorities and concerns. It was a backhand to the two panelists who spoke of real experiences in the Barnett Shale as well as to Laredoans who have legitimate concerns that the oil and gas industry’s established pattern of environmental disregard in the Barnett, the Marcellus, and other shale fields could play out to the detriment of air and water quality and water quantity. While all of us recognize the role of petroleum in shaping Texas, Webb and Zapata and surrounding counties, and Laredo, not all of us are politically beholden to petro dollars. The hand that feeds Richard Raymond has oil all over it. orderly and informative, despite a couple of accusations about proliferating misinformation. Raymond was to have co-hosted the meeting with Tricia Cortez, director of the Río Grande International Study Center and a member of the Safe Fracking Coalition, who had assembled a panel with environmentalist Sharon Wilson of the Texas

Oil and Gas Accountability Project; former Dish Mayor Calvin Tillman; Gil Bujano, deputy director of the oil and gas division of the Texas Railroad Commission; and Dr. Robert Mace, a deputy executive administrator of the Texas Water Development Board. Both Tillman and Wilson addressed environmental problems as a result of drilling

in the Barnett Shale, a 5,000-square-mile oil and gas field that stretches across 20 counties in North Central Texas, including the cities of Fort Worth and Dallas. Tillman’s tiny municipality is at the epicenter of 2 square miles of producing wells, pipeline grids and massive gas compression stations, and dehydration and odorization units, all of which he said contributed to a marked drop in air quality. He said he was for “safe and sustainable” oil and gas production. “I am not opposed to the industry, but I am against being poisoned,” he said. Tillman said state regulatory agencies like the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Railroad Commission were non-responsive to the community’s exposure to carcinogens like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. Wilson noted that attendees at the WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Laredo Town Hall meeting were overwhelmingly concerned about the impact of drilling and hydraulic fracking on air and water quality. “Lawmakers listen to lobbyists and not to the people on the ground,” she said, adding that it is up to an informed citizenry to make decisions to protect themselves and their communities. She suggested local environmentalists read Flowback - How the Texas Natural Gas Boom Affects Health and Safety.” Wilson said that while the oil and gas industry is of great economic benefit to help communities develop and grow by providing jobs and contributing to the tax base, the downside, when serious air and water quality issues arise, is that “they are driving families from homes and communities, and people are moving to other states.” Wilson urged Laredoans to write and pass a drilling ordinance: “They are going to have to hurry with a drilling ordinance. If there are hydrocarbons under the City of Laredo, someone is going to try to capture them.” She said that Fort Worth has a drilling ordinance, but that it is “one of the weakest in the Barnett Shale.” She said that the towns of Dish, Flower Mound, and South Lake have strong drilling ordinances that are worthy of emulation. Panelist Gil Bujano spoke of the personnel and funding cuts that have rendered the Texas Railroad Commission unable to keep up with regulating an industry that has experienced such recent rapid growth — no doubt a blessing for a drilling industry operating at full throttle in the Eagle Ford Shale, and bad news for environmentalists who fear the possibilities of quick and dirty operators putting profit before compliance. Bujano was the object of many a pointed comment in the question-andanswer phase of the meeting. Dr. Robert Mace of the non-regulatory Texas Water Development Board fared far better than Bujano in his informative overview of fracking and its impact on water resources, providing information on the monitoring of test water wells and how much water it takes to frack a well. Raymond’s “what oil and gas has done for you” comments were perceived by some as chastisement for calling the industry onto the environmental carpet when it has provided so much. “What I don’t agree with is starting something without taking all facts into account,” he said almost dismissively of the two environmentalists on the panel and the many Laredoans who had come to the meeting with concerns about air and water quality. And as though speaking of himself as a bellwether legislator whose record WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

speaks to environmental stewardship, Raymond embellished his broad, vacuous generalities in defense of the petroleum industry with, “I’ve never moved back from trying to move forward.” Blogger Jesus Quiroz took issue with Raymond’s comments: “They were condescending. He stood up there and talked down to everybody. By asking if we liked the meeting hall that oil and gas built, by driving cars fueled by the petroleum industry, by driving on highways built by the industry, he wanted to make us feel that we were hypocritical in criticizing the oil and gas industry and yet taking advan-

Raymond embellished his broad, vacuous generalities in defense of the petroleum industry with, “I’ve never moved back from trying to move forward.”

tage of something that they built.” He added, “It didn’t work. We have legitimate concerns about air and water quality. Raymond wanted everyone to believe that the panel was not presenting a balanced view, and that really, people shouldn’t be causing alarms. His accusatory tone and his condescension tell us whom he represents. It’s not us, the people who elected him. The show of hands of those there for the environment gave everyone a real sense of what our concerns are. He was dismissive,” Quiroz continued. “I don’t think we should be told to shut the fuck up. He was throwing us the middle finger. Richard Raymond, Henry Cuellar, Jaime Canales, and every other commissioner and City Council member who was invited to this meeting and didn’t come, they are not going to be there for you when water wells start going dry or our water gets contaminated. You will be on your own. Just because we are told everything is OK does not make it so. To hear how cavalier Richard Raymond was, it tells me what his priorities are,” Quiroz said. María Moore, another attendee, said after the meeting, “It is very sad to me, that all politicians do not seem to really care about our environment because they are too busy fighting with each other. The Earth is our mother. She gives us our nourishment. America seems to only think about profit now. It may well be our downfall yet.” Environmentalist Cordelia Flores said, “This is quite overwhelming. The Río Grande basin, the watershed, our streams,

air, water wells, and aquifers — all our ecology — is being disturbed and compromised from all directions. It’s coming from upstream, underground, vertically, and horizontally,” she said, continuing, “All in the name of energy independence and economic growth. Our public health and access to good water and air, which are essential for our very survival, are taking so many hits that all of the towns that depend on this watershed stand a chance of becoming ghost towns in less than 50 years.” Flores said that according to physician Dr. Reynaldo Godines, there are studies that predict the Río Grande will dry up in 50 years. “So, our water source crisis may come sooner than we think,” she said. “How can our city pay millions for water studies, and studies on how to revitalize downtown and ignore the ‘elephant in the room’ — that water quantity and water quality are compromised?” Attendee Ricardo A. Soliz found the meeting informative and said such meetings place the responsibility and burden of proof on the [oil and gas] companies to explain their side of the issue. “What have they done for the counties that encompass the Eagle Ford Shale, other than job growth and expanding profit margins?” he asked. He said he wanted to know how the companies would handle a worse case scenario. “I would have them explain to us what they plan on doing in order to avoid it and how they would fix it,” Soliz said. “There

Laredo needs to show its character and show itself to be a ‘noble city.’ We need jobs and we need water. Where is Prudentius when you need him?” Sandra Sanchez Gray were a lot of people representing local business interests talking about disinformation and the spread of false panic, but at the end of the day, who gets stuck with the cleaning up of an environment/habitat that is in worse condition than when they arrived?” With the exception of Webb County attorney Anna Laura Cavazos Ramirez, other elected Webb County and City of Laredo officials were visibly missing from the Town Hall meeting, not surprising in a lo-

cal political culture that rarely attempts to find the balance between revenue streams and environmental and quality of life issues. City Environmental Services director Riazul Mia and Utilities director Tomás Rodriguez were at the meeting. Former Webb County Judge Mercurio Martinez Jr. and former Laredo City Manager Larry Dovalina were in attendance as private citizens and ranchers. “I would have liked to have seen a more balanced presentation, perhaps alternating the comments of the environmentalists on the panel with the agency representatives. At a future meeting, if there is one, it would be good to have industry representatives and producers talk about what they do to ensure environmental safety,” Martinez said. “As a landowner I have had the good luck over 40 years never to have faced an environmental cost for drilling on our family property, but I am present and I am vigilant, and I hold the rig foreman accountable for anything that looks questionable. We once had a natural gas pipeline rupture and we called the 1-800 number and got an immediate response to the problem.” Martinez said that a balance needs to be struck between environmental preservation and the economic benefits of oil and gas production. “The benefits are many,” he said, adding, “You have only to look at the generosity of the D.D. Hachar Foundation that has given over $20 million in oil and gas revenues to local education.” Dovalina, who operates a family livestock enterprise called Las Tiendas Ranch at the end of Las Tiendas Road in northern Webb County, said that for him the threat of water depletion far overshadows the issue of possible contamination from drilling and hydraulic fracking. He speaks from experience. “The well we have used since the early ‘60s went out of depth when a drilling company permitted part of our land to get access to our water, drilled a new well, put a 50 horsepower pump on it, ran it 24/7 for eight to 10 weeks, and stored it in an open pit for use for fracking on an adjacent ranch. When our well went out of depth, the motor on our pump burned up, and it cost me about $4,000 to go down another 100 feet and to install a new motor.” Dovalina said he was told he could use the water from the new well but would have to assume the expense of setting it up for use — about $8,000 to get electricity to the site and to install a reservoir. “That is cost prohibitive, and in the meantime I drive 18 miles twice a week to haul water from a water station. It has cost me time and gas, and it has been an inconvenience.” Continued on page 57

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

The Anonymous Teacher

Avoid the pink slip: Teachers should speak up

chool’s out. Nothing to do ‘til August. No worries. Sounds great, but that’s a recipe for educational disaster. With the special session “solving” budget problems, many educators feel there is nothing left to do except enjoy the time off or pick up a little extra money doing summer school. Disaster averted. But disaster is not averted — only postponed. No one in education, government, or business has solved the financial crises — they’ve only delayed it until after election year. Worldwide leaders are scrambling to delay the worst effects of the economy. No one wants to hit the hard issues during election years. Everyone across the world is postponing, which will make the eventual consequences so much direr. And teachers, who touch every young person, are waiting on someone else to solve the problems. We call ourselves experts. It’s time for us to show our expertise. Every teacher has at least one degree — in math, history, English, economics, etc. We teach others to solve problems. There’s nothing wrong with using our skills to solve some of the problems we’re having right now. The Legislature’s solution is to allow furloughs and less pay for teachers. I don’t know of any teacher making so much money that he or she can afford to take a pay cut while absorbing more of the health care expenses, yet that is the current attitude toward solving the problem. Get rid of teachers, pay them less, add more students per class and make it easier to evaluate them based on standardized scores. Another effect of the special session is the ability to fire experienced teachers

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based on the amount they make, not on how good they are or how much seniority they have. This will be great for intimidation. Usually, experienced teachers speak out for the mistreated, be they students or other teachers. Now an experienced teacher who speaks out risks being terminated to save money and shut up opposition. These bills have been in the works all year, but most teachers have buried our heads in the sand, pretending we are too busy teaching kids to focus on ourselves. The problem, though, is one of disaster for education. By ignoring ourselves, we have hurt every student who gets an overloaded, overworked, underpaid, scared teacher. We are afraid. Not only do teachers lose; all lose because it shows in the results. The first place for budget cuts is teachers. The first place for blame for poor education is teachers. The first place to point fingers for the lack of world economic dominance is teachers. So, the first place to look for a solution should be teachers. It is time for teachers to take the lead. Local education leaders lament the lack of leadership among teachers, but we are traditionally followers. The problem is we have followed the wrong people. We followed the Legislature to standardized testing. We followed them to lower standards and accepted a lack of respect with a hopeless what-can-I-do mentality that is killing the profession. As we’ve waited for someone to come along to solve the education problems, our schools have fallen deeper into chaos. It is time to heal our nation and ourselves. Wait, and we will receive a pink slip. Fix the problems and we will fix our nation. u

M ailbox L E etters to the

ditor

Dear Meg, I am writing to you about an article you published on the Internet in July 2010 that reviewed Lala’s in Mirando City. Wow! I was in Austin on business a few days ago and that got me to thinking about Lala’s so I starting surfing the web on my phone and came across your article. I just had to share it with my family members, so I sent them the link. In your article, you mentioned that in the 50s and 60s, Lala’s was a favorite of airmen and officers who at the time were stationed at Laredo Air Force Base. I am the son of one such officer, and my family frequented Lala’s about two or three times each month over the four years we lived in Laredo from 1968 to 1972. I was age 8 to 12. At that time, we really did not know of any other Mexican food to compare it to. But since then, after moving away to the East coast, there has not been a single occasion that I can recall when our family was together eating Mexican food that we didn’t talk about Lala’s. In fact, we reminisce about Lala’s even when we are not eating Mexican. We have never found any Mexican food, anywhere, that compares to what we experienced at Lala’s. Your piece hit on details that we remember so well. For example, getting a soda out of the cooler. As kids, my sisters and I thought that was so cool. Back then sodas cost 20 cents each. We used to count the empties at the end of the dinner. Also, your mention of the small size of the dining area brought back memories. I can remember sometimes waiting an hour and a half outside in our car to get a table on a Friday or Saturday night. I think they stayed open later back then. Honestly, if you had known us at the time you were writing your article and had interviewed us for the piece, we would have provided much of the same details of our experienc-

Prima Meg, great informative articles, as usual. I especially liked Jesús Najar’s article (and yours) on historic preservation. The I-35 article makes many of us wonder if pouring concrete and asphalt and razing dozens of historic homes were worth it. Dr. Farias’ letter regarding Laredo’s warriors being neglected by the office that’s supposed to help them is also an eye opener. Finally, please continue writing on the exposé of the greed and corruption of the private prison lobby. That issue would be a major scandal today, if we didn’t have all the other serious difficulties going on in our country. In short, it makes me sad to hear about the chamber of commerce of a South Texas town announcing the breaking of ground not for an assembly plant or university, but rather, a private prison operator building a prison in their community. Que lastima! Warm regards, Joe López es that you captured in your article. Meg, I just want to say thank you so much for your article! It really hit on specifics that I remember from being a kid. It was a positive, emotional experience to read. Unfortunately, none in my family have been able to get back there to Lala’s in over 40 years. I was close this past week, but just could not find the time, even from Austin. But your article brought it back. You also filled us in on Lala’s family history, which we never really knew about. That was great. Thank you very much. Charles Millard Hughesville, MD

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

The Mendoza Line By alex mendoza

Native Laredoan Dr. Alex Mendoza received his PhD from Texas Tech University and has written books and articles on various historical topics from war and memory to barrios and distance running. He can be reached at mxela@hotmail.com.

Korean War Tejanos: two men who answered the call

Historians largely regard the Korean conflict, 1950-1953, as a “forgotten war,” due to the fact that the public’s awareness of the war is more in tune with the television series M.A.S.H. than with bloody and savage fighting that actually took place on the Korean peninsula. Yet hundreds of Laredoans answered the call to serve in the nation’s armed forces during this era. They fought, flew, and served as advisers for the United Nations forces that were determined to stop the onslaught of Communism. The Jarvis Plaza Memorial honors the fallen, the 23 men who were killed and the 6 declared missing. In recent months, groups such as the Laredo Korean War Veterans Association and individuals such as James Rendon, Odie Arambula, and John Andrew Snydor, have all highlighted this previously neglected aspect of local and national history. Despite this resurgence, there are still missing elements to the narrative. The stories of Horacio Vela and Raúl Chavarría, two veterans of the Korean War era, add to our understanding of Tejanos and military service during this conflict. Both men were drafted. Both men served. But the notions of why they fought prove to be a little different than the public memorials that emphasize patriotism and national honor as the driving force behind military service. Nevertheless, the stories of these Tejano veterans remain important to understanding how Mexican Texans viewed the American military and how Laredoans maintained a bicultural identity, a concept that remains true to this day. To be sure, in Korea the patriotic fervor of World War II was lacking, despite the fact that nearly 148,000 Hispanics served in the military. During that period, Tejanos found themselves in an improved social, political, and economic climate. But despite these improvements, the Tejano community did not necessarily subscribe to the concept of American nationalism, but instead sometimes viewed military service as a way out poverty or as a testament of personal honor. Vela and Chavarría viewed their call to arms through these prisms. WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

Tejano veterans Raúl Chavarría, left, and Horacio Vela during the 1950s.

When Vela received his draft notice, he was tempted to flee into Mexico, something that several of his fellow Tejanos had done during the two world wars. But he chose not to. According to his son Ricardo, Horacio was an honorable man, brave almost to a fault. So, with an ambivalent regard for the United States government that had provided him a lifetime full of memories of discrimination in Texas, Vela was assigned to the Seventh Armored Division as a sharp shooter. At the conclusion of the war, Vela’s DD214 (military service record) indicated he had been awarded two medals, a United Nations Service Medal and a Korean Service Medal with three bronze stars. In his later years, Vela would lose these medals as well as the letters he wrote to his wife through negligence or neglect. Once he resumed his civilian life, he would work with the Texas Highway Department and at the Laredo Air Force base. Up until he passed away in 1978, Horacio proved hesitant to talk about his Korean War ex-

perience. “He was very reserved about his military service and spoke some of the stories of the war to my eldest brother and my mom,” Rick Vela recalled. “As a teenager, I wanted to hear some of the stories, but instead he would avoid the issue.” Vela desperately wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps but was always told to instead “attend college.” “I was baffled by his response,” Rick related, especially since his dad would not elaborate as to reasons why. When Vela passed away, his son lamented that his father did not leave a stronger historical record behind. But he is appreciative that he has something in the realm of photos and uniforms. Raúl Chavarría went through something similar in regards to answering the call to arms, yet for him, service in the U.S. armed forces proved something beyond the concepts of nationalism and patriotic fervor. It meant a chance for a better life for this Mexican immigrant from Tamau-

lipas who saw the federal government’s streamlined naturalization process for foreign-born soldiers as his way to improve his socioeconomic standing. Thus, originally arriving in Texas to search for work, the 24-year-old laborer had made his way to Chicago, where he received a summons to return to Texas and to report for military service. After training in El Paso, Chavarría left the state bound for Germany, much to his chagrin. “Yo pedí ir a Korea, pero me mandaron a Alemania,” he recalled. Later in the 1950s, Chavarría became a naturalized citizen, appreciating the opportunity that the military gave him and recognizing that it provided his family, which eventually included a son and two daughters, a better life. Chavarría realized that his military service allowed him a chance to purchase a home in San Antonio before he made his way to the Gateway City in the 1970s. But, like Vela before him, Chavarría was also never too enthused about making sure the historical record remembered his military service. By 2010, he only had a few mementos left, including a few photographs, his discharge papers, and his uniform to go along with his memories. Both men generally eschewed noting their accomplishments or their service. And therein lays the challenge for the historical record: how to chronicle the service of these men who do not fall under guise of a Hollywood screenplay, signing up to fight for love of country and the unconditional love of the stars and stripes. Vela and Chavarría fought for their own best interests at the time — personal honor and economic opportunity. And while the individuals who build the parks and memorials might not find the stories of these men too captivating to the narrative they create, these Tejano servicemen remain important to adding to the history of the city, state, and nation. More importantly, their stories and others underscore the significance of Hispanic military service as it pertains to citizenship, acculturation, and community. u LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

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.

Radio drive set for July; snack program may lead to Kids Café

he South Texas Food Bank and Border Media are in partnership again to help feed the hungry of Laredo and the surrounding area at the sixth annual radio drive. The event hits the airways from July 2 to 15 over the five Border Media stations — La Ley 100.5, Hot 106.1, Digital 107.3, The Works 94.9, and ESPN 1490 AM. Serving the community since 1989, the food bank’s scope of service has increased dramatically during difficult economic times. “We certainly believe in the food bank mission and have seen the need,” said Ana Rivera Soto, general sales manager of Border Media, noting “our trips to do remote broadcasts around town have exposed us to awareness of the need for food among our Laredoans. We are happy to continue as partners with the South Texas Food Bank in this mission beyond all missions.”

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South Texas Food Bank executive director Alfonso Casso Jr. praised Border Media. “We are truly grateful to Miguel Villarreal, Ana Rivera Soto, and all Border Media personnel for their continued support. Their efforts help the South Texas Food Bank raise hunger awareness,” Casso said.

Border Media and all its staff for what they have done to help us with this daunting task. We are blessed to have them on our side.” During the two-week radio drive, listeners can tune into BM stations 24 hours a day and call in donations and pledges to the STFB during office hours at (956)

What: STFB and Border Media radio drive When: July 2 to15 Stations: La Ley 100.5, Hot 106.1, Digital 107.3, The Works 94.9, ESPN 1490 AM More info: (956) 726-3120 “This in turn encourages support for our mission of feeding the hungry in our community. It is truly a daily mission.” “The need is great in Laredo,” said STFB president Kevin Romo. “We are grateful to

568-3673 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They can also call (956) 771-1781 or (956) 635-7678 after 5 p.m. Donations can be sent directly to the South Texas Food Bank, P.O. Box 2007, Laredo, Texas, 78044. All donations are tax deductible. This year’s radio drive has a new twist to maximize the funds raised. The City of Laredo’s Fourth of July festival at the Civic Center set for July 2 to 3 will charge a $1 admission. That $1 is to benefit the food bank. The STFB converts every dollar donated into seven meals, nine pounds of food, or $16 worth of groceries. Also, the STFB is selling radio sponsorships for donations of $1,500, $5,000 and $10,000. The sponsor’s name will be aired throughout the radio drive during 30-second promos. The $5,000 donor will also receive a personal interview during the radio drive. The $10,000 or more donors will have a two-hour radio remote broadcast from their place of business. Additionally, sponsors will receive $25 tickets to the Laredo Energy Arena-South Texas Food Bank Empty Bowls concert featuring Christoper Cross on August 11. The $1,500 sponsor gets four concert tickets, the $5,000 sponsor six tickets and the

$10,000 sponsor 10 tickets. Empty Bowls V is honoring the STFB’s founding board members Odie Arambula, Erasmo Villarreal, and Galo García. Summer Snack Program at Salinas Center At least 25 children from the central Laredo area will receive a snack this summer thanks to a $5,000 check from Webb County Precinct 3 Commissioner Jerry Garza for a summer snack program at the Fernando A. Salinas Community Center, formerly Buenos Aires Community Center. The snack program runs until September 29, Monday through Thursday from 1:30 to 4:30. A total of 25 children will be given a snack at the center, located at 2600 Cedar Ave., behind the City of Laredo Health Department. “In today’s society, it is extremely important to keep our youngsters off the streets and provide them with quality time,” Commissioner Garza said. “This program will serve a dual purpose: Not only will the participants receive a daily snack, they will also spend their afternoons in a learning environment, all under the supervision of trained staff.” Garza added, “We did research and there are some real needs for kids in that area. This is a way to chip away at the problem of hunger. We see it as a start and then will upgrade it to a Kids Café next year when the new center is built and we have more room.” The food bank operates 13 Kids Cafés in Laredo-Webb County, serving between 600 and 700 after school meals Monday through Friday. STFB executive director Alfonso Casso Jr. said, “We need help to help others. This is a great thing for the community there. We are hoping that eventually it will become a full-fledged Kids Café.” The biggest Kids Cafés are at the Benavides Boys and Girls Club downtown and at the Lamar Bruni Vergara Boys and Girls Club in south Laredo. u

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Keeping a Weather Eye By Juan Alanis

Alanis, former of Laredo, is currently a meteorology student at Mississippi State University. He is a member of the American Meteorology Society (AMS) and Webb County Coordinator for the CoCoRaHS/National Weather Service rainfall observer program

t is not unusual at all for a strong cold front to drop temperatures 15 to 20 degrees in one hour. During the spring and fall, television weather forecasters will sometimes refer to scenarios such as the one just mentioned as “temperature rollercoasters,” referring to temperatures that will be warm one day, then cold later in the day, then hot again a few days later. During the arctic blast back in February, Burnet dropped from 62 degrees at 2 a.m. on February 1st, to 35 degrees at 3 a.m.! At 3 p.m. on January 31st, Abilene had a temperature of 67 degrees with sunshine. The very next day at 3 p.m., the temperature was 17 degrees with blizzard conditions. If you think those temperature drops, or “rollercoasters,” are dramatic, read on, as several areas of the Great Plains have recorded very extreme temperature rollercoasters on the hour, almost as if mother nature turned the air conditioner on one hour and then the heat on the next hour, then back to air con the next hour! Imagine this: At 7:30 a.m., the temperature is -4 degrees. Two minutes later at 7:32 a.m., it is 45 degrees! Yes you read right, a warm up of 49 degrees in two minutes! At 9 a.m. it was up to 54 degrees! Oh, but wait, don’t take off those coats, because by 9:27 a.m. the same morning, it was back down to -4 degrees. Probably hard to picture such a swing in temperatures over only a two-hour period, but it actually happened at Spearfish, S.D., on Jan. 22, 1943! You are probably wondering how this is possible. According to Christopher Burt’s book, Extreme Weather, this occurred because of a frontal boundary that had stalled out over the Black Hills region of South Dakota. This region has numerous mountains and valleys, and as a result, the cold and warm pockets of air become trapped in the valleys and move back and forth like water in a shallow cereal bowl. On this same day, Rapid City, S.D., went through a similar temperature rollercoaster. At 9:20 a.m., it was 5 degrees; 25 minutes later at 9:45 a.m., it was 54 degrees; at 10:30 a.m. it was back down to 11 degrees; then back up to 55 degrees by about 10:50 a.m.; and at 11:30 a.m., down to 10 degrees. During the early afternoon, the temperature went back up to 56 degrees, then by 5:30 p.m., back down to 5 degrees! In fact, in some towns, the temperature swing was so dramatic and sudden WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

La Niña’s extremes: drought, deadly tornades, and wildfires Webb County Rainfall Report Station

Location

May

WB 23

Freer 29.5 WSW

1.02”

WB 2

Heights Garfield St

0.87”

WB 24

Trautmann MS area

1.83”

WB 4

Las Tiendas Ranch

2.23”

WB 25

United South MS area

0.40”

WB 5

Callaghan Ranch

0.97”

WB 26

Zaragoza St-downtown

0.66”

WB 6

McPherson/Chacon

0.52”

WB 27

Jacaman Rd/Saldana Ln

1.82”

WB 8

Juarez Lincoln Elem

1.07”

WB 28

Gutierrez Elementary area

1.72”

WB 9

Mangana Hein Rd 8E

1.42”

WB 29

Heights E. Lane St

0.51”

WB 12

Del Mar C

2.10”

WB 31

Laredo-Plantation

1.96”

WB 13

Del Mar North/Preston Ln

2.00”

WB 36

Del Mar/Inwood

2.15”

WB 14

Laredo 18.4 NE

1.77”

WB 39

E. Clark Blvd/Jarvis

0.78”

WB 17

S. Laredo-Riverhill

0.52”

Laredo

KGNS-TV Del Mar Blvd

1.75”

WB 18

Springfield/Hillside

1.52”

Laredo

International Airport

1.13”

WB 21

Shiloh/Woodridge

2.03”

Laredo

Colombia International Bridge 1.00”

WB 22

Laredo 23.7 ENE

1.18”

Source: CoCoRaHS/National Weather Service

that windows cracked. On this same January morning in 1943, the town of Lead, S.D., had a temperature of 52 degrees, yet only a mile and a half away at Deadwood, S.D., it was -16 degrees! South Dakota and the Great Plains region of the United States have actually experienced numerous rapid and dramatic temperature rollercoasters. Many are due to what are called “Chinook winds” or “snow eaters.” These very warm winds are the results of stationary fronts retreating northward, raising temperatures drastically along the east side of the Rocky Mountains. These winds are so warm that thick snow packs can be melted away in a single day. The examples cited in Burt’s book include: Kipp, Mont. on Dec. 1, 1896. The morning low was -33 degrees, then a Chinook wind kicked in and the afternoon temperature went up 50 degrees, a rise of 83 degrees! Loma, Mont. on Jan. 14-15, 1972: The temperature went from -54 degrees to 49 degrees, a warm-up of 103 degrees, which is recognized as the largest temperature change ever in a 24-hour period. Another amazing temperature swing was on Nov. 10, 1911 at Rapid City, S.D.: At 6 a.m. it was 62 degrees, then by 8 a.m., it had dropped to -13 degrees! Hope you bundled up your kids for that whopping 75-degree drop in temperature on the way to school. Dramatic temperature swings can also be caused by what are called “heat bursts”

or “heat thunderstorms.” Yes, Laredo is hot, but our heat is not a heat burst, even if it might feel like it when you step outside in the middle of July. According to the American Meteorological Society’s Glossary of Meteorology, a heat burst is a very localized, sudden increase in surface temperature associated with a thunderstorm, shower or a mesoscale convective system, often accompanied by extreme drying. They can occur with precipitation is driven downdrafts, penetrating a shallow surface stable layer and reaching the ground. These downdrafts temporarily displace raincooled air at the ground with hot air. Some documented heat bursts include: Midland on June 16, 2008. A wind gust of 62 mph at 11:25 p.m. caused the temperature to go from 71 degrees to 97 degrees in only a few minutes! In Kimberly, South Africa, a heat burst raised the temperature from 67 degrees to 110 degrees in only five minutes at 9 p.m. local time. This occurred during a thunderstorm squall. By 9:45 p.m., the tempera-

ture had fallen back down to 67 degrees. In Pierre, S.D. on June 20, 1989, the temperature suddenly shot up from 85 degrees at 1 a.m. to 104 degrees at 3 a.m.! In what many consider one of the world’s worst heat bursts ever recorded occurred at Kopperl on June 15, 1960. Due to the severity of the heat burst, locals referred to it as “Satan’s Storm”. According to archived information from Bill Murray, meteorologist at ABC 33 in Birmingham, Alabama, skies were clear at Kopperl prior to midnight, then some clouds rolled in at midnight, with the temperature at 70 degree. Then a wind gust of at least 75 mph occurred over the area, sending temperatures to near 140 degrees in a few minutes. Reports said cotton crops were destroyed as the winds “carbonized them”. Corn was cooked on the stalks and leaves on plants and trees were also burned. The mercury in many of the thermometers reported burst due to the rapid warm up in temperature. Power failed during the heat burst causing houses to become saunas in the middle of the night. While this event was well documented, the 140-degree temperature has never been recognized as Texas’ highest temperature due to questions related to thermometer accuracy. That honor goes to — no, not Laredo — but rather Seymour, as the town hit 120 degrees on Aug. 12, 1936. Some other heat bursts that have reportedly occurred include: a rise in temperature from 100 degrees to 158 degrees in two minutes at Lisbon, Portugal on July, 6, 1949; a reported temperature of 152 degrees at Antalya, Turkey on July 10, 1977; and a temperature of 188 degrees in Iran back in June 1967. It must be noted that the world’s “officially” recognized highest temperature is 136˚ at Al Aziziyah, Libya. The reported heat burst temperatures from Portugal, Iran and Turkey have never been confirmed, as there has been very little evidence or documentation of the actual event. u

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Texas A&M International University

Art gallery opens; TAMIU study examines female body image By STEVE HARMON LareDOS Contributor

Helen Richter Watson Art Gallery open at TAMIU home celebrating the art and life of the famed late Laredo artist Helen Richter Watson is now open in TAMIU’s Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library. The Helen Richter Watson Art Gallery is a light-filled aerie that embraces the spectrum of Watson’s (1926-2003) influence as both artist and teacher. It replicates her welcoming Houston Street studio, which mixed works of art within her home setting to create a gathering space that celebrated a life of art. Visitors will also find collected works by artists who were Watson’s artist colleagues or friends. The gallery is part of the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library. It is currently open Tuesdays to Thursdays from 10 a.m to noon and from 2 to 4 p.m. and by appointment. To make an appointment or coordinate visits by large groups, please contact (956) 326-4483. More information is available at the Gallery’s website, located at tamiu.edu/ WatsonGallery. Construction of the gallery was made possible by a gift of legacy and love from the Dolly Richter Watson Foundation. Affectionately known to family and friends as “Whitie,” Watson was the daughter of Helen Richter and Horace Watson. The Richter family was prolific in Laredo’s business and artistic heritage. Horace Watson, her father, was from New York and a

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Calvary officer stationed at Fort Macintosh when he and Helen Richter met. Young Helen was fond of harvesting mud from the banks of the Río Grande, footsteps from her home, to create clay pots of transitory beauty. This link with nature would only be strengthened with her art education and teaching career. She earned her bachelor of arts at California’s Scripps College and her master of fine arts at Claremont Graduate School. In addition to serving on the faculty at Chaffey College and Mount San Antonio College, she was chair of the Ceramics Department at the famed Otis Art Institute from 1958-1979. Watson became one of the nation’s most highly regarded ceramics artists and educators. She firmly believed that with determination, all students wishing to pursue a career in the arts could accomplish their dreams and make a contribution to the art world. Until her death in 2003, she maintained her studio home in Laredo, often welcoming young students and artists with special parties and eagerly anticipated dinners. Project architects were Frank Architects Inc. of Laredo and Pfluger Associates of San Antonio. Construction was by Alpha Construction of San Antonio. Gallery consultant was Ethel Shipton. For additional information, contact the Office for Institutional Advancement at (956) 326-GIVE (4483), e-mail vice president Candy Hein at candy.hein@tamiu. edu, or visit offices in the Killam Library, room 261.

TAMIU study finds peers influence female body image For females, being around pretty teen girls or young women reduces body satisfaction, according to research by two Texas A&M International University professors. The study, published in June/July volume of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, was conducted by Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson, TAMIU associate professor of psychology; Dr. Mónica E. Muñoz, assistant professor of psychology; Sandra Contreras, counseling psychology graduate student and Kristina Velasquez, counseling psychology graduate student. “Research on media influences on behavior and self-perception often over-emphasize the media’s influence. While the media may play a role in how we react to the world around us, peers and family have a more immediate influence on our everyday lives,” said Dr. Muñoz. The results, she added, have interesting implications for understanding how poor body image and eating disorders may develop. “Evidence that the media play a large role in eating disorders appears to be quite thin and conditions such as anorexia nervosa may even be motivated by things other than just body dissatisfaction,” Dr. Ferguson said. During the study, participants were exposed to females who could pose competition for them. “Overall we found that peer effects, the tendency for females to compare themselves to pretty women in their environment, were a strong predictor of body dissatisfaction,”

observed Ferguson. “The influence of peer competition, however, was moderated by body mass index, where females with a low body mass index (BMI) were most influenced by peer competition. Although we had few females with low BMI, this finding was surprising and is worthy of further exploration,” explained Muñoz. They also found that the presence of an attractive young male enhanced peer competition. “Women know they’re not really competing with women on TV; it’s the women in their neighborhood they have to worry about,” said Ferguson. “We need to explore situational influences other than media influences. Peer competition is one such situational influence that may have strong evolutionary explanations and very interesting implications for understanding how issues with poor body image and eating disorders may develop,” said Muñoz. Ferguson suggested encouraging girls and women to make fewer negative comments to each other about appearances. “Body dissatisfaction appears to relate to issues closer to home. Fewer negative comments to each other about appearance may bear more success than on our culture’s obsession with alleged media effects,” Ferguson concluded. For more information, contact Muñoz at mmunoz@tamiu.edu or 326.2618 or visit offices in Dr. F. M. Canseco Hall (CH), room 302D, or Ferguson at cferguson@tamiu.edu or 326.2636 or visit offices in CH 302C. u

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Laredo Community College

Fall registration launches; register now By ROGER SANCHEZ JR. & STEVE TREVIÑO JR. LareDOS Contributors

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

Courtesy Photo

t Laredo Community College, it’s never too early to find your future. Fall may be months away, but now is the time to lock in your classes and avoid the long lines with LCC’s fast and easy online registration system, which is available now to register for online, day or evening classes for the Fall 2011 semester at either the Fort McIntosh or South Campus. Anyone interested in taking fall classes can check out the available course listings by visiting the college website at laredo.edu and clicking on the PASPort icon. Register early for the best choice of classes and class times. Make sure to process your financial aid early. Deadline for payment of all tuition and fees is Thursday, June 30. The first day of class for the fall semester is Monday, August 29. New students Students new to LCC should visit the Student Success Center at the Fort McIntosh Campus or at the South Campus now through June 30. Both locations are open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. For the best service, prospective students should make an appointment for one-on-one advisement by calling the LCC Student Success Center at (956) 721-5135. Walk-ins are welcome, but scheduled appointments will take priority. Self-advised students Returning students who are self-advised can register online instantly through PASPort from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. To be considered self-advised, students must have a declared major, have completed all required remediation classes, have earned at least 30 collegelevel hours, and have a cumulative grade point average of 2.0 or higher. Returning students Students with a declared major who do not meet the criteria for self-advisement have two options to get advised. They can call to set up an appointment with the instructional office that corresponds to their major. They also can get advised at the Student Success Center Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. by appointment or as a walk-in. Scheduled appointments will take priority. For further assistance, call the LCC Student Success Center at the Fort McIntosh

The write stuff From left, Laredo Community College English instructor Leticia Spillane goes over an essay with LCC freshman Saul Perez inside the Manuel Blanco Writing Center. Since spring 2009, more than 3,000 LCC students have walked through the doors of the college’s two writing centers. Campus at (956) 721-5135 or at the South Campus at (956) 794-4135. Get the ‘write’ stuff at LCC Writing a speech or essay is dreaded by many, unless if you’re an LCC student who takes advantage of the two writing centers that have helped thousands of students with their writing concerns since spring 2009. The Manuel Blanco Writing Center, located on the Fort McIntosh Campus, or the South Campus’ Writing Center offer oneon-one instruction from experienced tutors: LCC English instructors. “For two years now, we’ve seen a tremendous interest from our students because they know for a fact that the help they get at the writing centers is coming from trained, professional staff,” said Laura Herrera, LCC’s writing center manager. “Both centers help all of LCC’s community to improve their writing, including improving their attitude and self-confidence about writing.” Herrera said that the tutors not only revise papers, but they help students from beginning to end. “We deal with a lot more than proofreading papers for grammar or spelling errors,” Herrera said. “Students get face-to-face help, whether they need assistance in brainstorm-

ing for a topic, developing an outline or rough draft, or revising and editing. Experienced and inexperienced writers benefit from the centers’ services.” Assistance in any subject related to writing, including government papers, speeches, journals, résumés, or cover letters, is available on a first-come, first-served basis or by appointment. The centers also have desktops and laptop computers available for students who need computer access. At the Manuel Blanco Writing Center, students can be more relaxed with their writing process, thanks to a new reading corner, where a mini-library is adorned with a small collection of books, comfortable seating, and a coffee table. To use any of the centers’ services, students must bring their Palomino ID, directions on their writing assignments, and textbook used in class. The Manuel Blanco Writing Center is located on the Fort McIntosh Campus’ Adkins Building, Room 212; and the South Campus’ Writing Center is located inside the Judith Zaffirini Library, Room B202. For more information on the writing centers or to make an appointment, contact

Herrera at the Blanco Writing Center at (956) 764-5917 or by email at laura.herrera@laredo. edu. For information at the South Campus’ Writing Center, contact Romeo Palacios at (956) 794-4340 or by email at romeo.palacios@laredo.edu. Not too late for summer learning The first summer session is in full swing at LCC, but it’s not too late to enjoy a summer smart experience at Laredo’s hometown college. Get a jumpstart on your education this summer by enrolling now for the second summer session at LCC. Anyone interested in taking summer classes can log on to the PASPort system available at laredo.edu. Register early for the best choice of classes and class times, and the deadline for payment of all tuition and fees is Thursday, June 23. A limited number of special summer scholarships are available to help pay for classes. The first day of class for Summer Session 2 is Thursday, July 7. For further assistance, call the LCC Student Success Center at the Fort McIntosh Campus at (956) 721-5135 or at the South Campus at (956) 794-4135. u LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Seguro Que Sí By Henri Kahn

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

Thunderstruck by sexuality

hroughout most of my adult life I have thought of sexuality as intimacy primarily with the sex organs. Currently and for the past 10 years, I have been slowly, but surely thunderstruck by the bizarre and multiple manifestations of this incredibly crucial aspect of life. Virtual reality sex has captured people of all social, economic, political, athletic, and religious persuasions as well as professionals from every sort of career path. Phone sex, sexting, tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing, blogging, and porn movies have induced orgasmic experiences to a level of absolute craze. I found 39 references to different types and nomenclatures of sexuality in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Wikipedia, the common person’s reference source of autoeducation, describes and illustrates Sex Rouge Mountain in a region of the Swiss Alps and words like pan, poly, and pomo sexuality? My take on the reasons for all this folderol is what

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comes to us via any and all forms of public communication sources. There is Sex and the City, the invasion of reality shows like The Kardashians and Housewives from Whereever; Howard Stern from Sirius; mostly naked sexy performers like Shakira, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga; comedians and comediennes talking dirty; tell-all books by stellar performers like Cher revealing details about her bedroom experiences with a legion of infamous men. How about Victoria’s Secret models strutting down the runway with little or nothing stuck to their breasts and pubic area? So you see, we can’t really blame New York political office holder Anthony Weiner for stripping down to his skivvies to tweet his bulging privates to as many women as possible. He’s OK — just bizarre like the current sexuality trend of the day! Have a great summer and don’t tweet any more than a photo of your face. u

Maverick Ranch Notes

By bebe & sissy fenstermaker

Another West Texas fire with no end to drought in sight

eat, unrelenting drought, groundwater level under stress, wildlife under stress, livestock under stress, land and vegetation under stress, landowners under stress, incessant wind. That about sums it up from here. We hear there won’t be relief of any kind until fall, maybe. Local weather reporters stir listeners up every day with predictions of 10 to 20 percent chances of a shower. Papa always laughed at those kinds of predictions, suggesting we notice the percentage of chance not to have rain. That always brings things into perspective. The vegetable garden is finally planted so now the battle for the veggies begins. Someone already ate all the small bean plants under the bean tower. Sissy and I then wrapped the other bean site in chicken wire. Now “it” can’t get in there and neither can we. I noticed some wavering tendrils inching toward the chicken wire instead of the right place to twine. We set up a dripper for the birds in hopes they will linger longer and nail some grasshoppers and such. Using a gallon juice carton and Sissy’s nice hanging birdbath, I cobbled together something that doesn’t look too tacky. I hope the birds like it. It may have to come down when the tomatoes get ripe. This morning was vet morning. We accomplished a bit of steering, vaccinating and worming, and although it’s a month late, it’s done. Lots of dust, boo-hooing, and reuniting of mamas and babies. West Texas is on fire again. Now there’s

a wildfire between Davis Mountain Resort (a subdivision) and McDonald Observatory. The only remaining part of the Davis Mountains that didn’t burn in the Rockhouse fire a month ago is in the current fire. One of the cats has escaped from the house. Five years ago I “took in” a feral mother and three kittens, meaning I trapped three of them and hand-raised the one they abandoned. To this day the trapped three will not let me touch them, running away anytime I come near them — in the house. After five years of my complete care this behavior rides pretty low. Of course it was one of the spooky ones who got out. She feeds herself on who-knows-which of all the little critters that come into the yard for water. I’ve seen her several times and had a couple of clenched teeth one-way conversations but, hey, she’s not into listening. She’s just pleased as punch with herself. I’m not pleased; I’ve tried three times to trap her, getting the yard coon each time. She’s slick and wily so there’s some real thinking and fiddling ahead. Here’s hoping for some sheer flat-out luck. Our historic roads bill made it through the Legislature successfully and is waiting for the governor’s signature. It seems we dodged some of the worst landscape - wrecking bills, but now they’re in special session doing other “interesting” things. We just got an article via e-mail saying the disease typhus is now endemic in Austin. Does it ever stop over there? Bebe Fenstermaker

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

A confession: Sunday mornings marked by hard pews, long sermons

ver the past 20 years I’ve attended only two church services. I am what my mom called a heathen, a term she used to make my brother Ken and me feel guilty when on Sunday mornings we grumbled about putting on our good clothes for early church. Dad was still in the barn and seemed to take longer than usual milking the cows. Though he may have simply been hung over, I suspected his slowness was designed to avoid what Ken and I complained about: the hard pews, the endless sermon, singing all five stanzas of the closing hymn, and, if it was the first Sunday of the month, enduring an additional 30 minutes because of Communion. However, on those occasions when we all went, I rode in the backseat between Ken and my older sister Darla. As Dad drove the 11 miles from our farm to St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sleepy Eye, Minn., he held a Winston between two fingers of his left hand and steered with his right wrist on the wheel, his calloused palm dangling in front of the speedometer. He stared morosely out the window at the flat fields of soybeans and corn, said to no one in particular that the alfalfa was ready to be cut, and declared a low wet spot in a field in need of tile. When Mom tsk-tsked a farmer cultivating corn or baling hay on the Sabbath, Dad sneered that he was probably a “mackerel-snapper,” a Catholic who, of course, went to Mass on Saturday night. Despite his sarcasm, I suspect that Dad, if given the chance, would have confessed to wanting to change places with him, at least on Sunday mornings. The trials of attending church when I was a boy were worse than my after-school chores: carrying plastic ice cream pails filled with ground feed from the granary up the hill to the barn for the milk cows, climbing up the silo and pitching silage into a wagon and then scooping it into the manger for the stock cows, and filling 5-gallon pails with ear corn from the crib and lugging them to the hogs and slinging them across the fence. At least then I was outside and mostly free to do chores as I pleased, even making a game of them and daydreaming, so long as they got done. However, I don’t recall ever associating church with joy or pleasure or “the WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

peace that passeth all understanding.” If anything was beyond my understanding, it was why they made those pews so damned hard. Instead, I always associated church with recitation, recall, and repetition. In a word, boredom. And that’s why now after more than 40 years — itself a time span of Biblical proportions — I can still recite large parts of Luther’s Small Catechism and some of the

congregations’ responses during the traditional church service. I can rattle off The Apostles’ Creed, The Lord’s Prayer, and the Twenty-third Psalm. I can enumerate the Ten Commandments and list in order most of the books of both testaments of the Bible. I was so thoroughly indoctrinated that I could even silently say the benediction in my head before the minister slowly intoned, “May the Lord look down upon

you and grant you His peace.” My ability to memorize and recite, however, had almost nothing to do with sincerity or devotion; in fact, they represented little more than my young, fresh brain’s pliability and absorbance. This, I eventually realized, combined with the fundamental contradiction between what occurs during a worship service and whom we worship explains why I now spend most Sunday mornings writing. As a Lutheran (and I imagine the same is true for Catholics) I was raised to believe that “God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth,” “made man in His own image.” The God of Genesis is a creative force, the “maker” who made “makers,” not imitators and not reciters. And though I have the ability to memorize, I’m not convinced that the monotonous, unthinking recitation of remembered texts is really what God had in mind for or from us. All of which makes me think that He shouldn’t be too upset if I spend the Sabbath trying to do what I was created to do. I might be rationalizing, but it’s more interesting than memorizing. Plus, my chair at home is softer. Even though I felt the morning was wasted, the 11-mile drive from Sleepy Eye back to the farm always passed more cheerfully. I couldn’t wait to get home, and Dad seemed to feel the same. Instead of singing “Amazing Grace” or “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” he sang songs from his youth — “You Are My Sunshine” or “This Land Is My Land” or “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” Finally we reached the end of the paved highway, a couple miles later we turned off the gravel road and into our long driveway, and then Dad stopped the car in the shade of the big elm in front of the house. I leaped out of the back seat, shouted to our collie Rex tied to the east porch, and flew up the wooden steps to our bedroom. I pulled off the clip-on tie, peeled off my shirt, yanked on jeans, and whooped back out the door, my conversion to a boy in a world ready to be imagined happily complete. At least until next Sunday. u

Read an interview with Koch about his new book, This Splintered Horse, on page 55.

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Arts & Culture

Laredo Theater Guild International presents ‘Annie’ for season finale

By ALEXA URA LareDOS Staff

Courtesy Photo

he Laredo Theatre Guild International (LTGI) and Laredo Community College (LCC) will close out their second season with the musical Annie opening Thursday, July 14 at the Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Fine Arts Center Theatre. LTGI’s Annie is directed by Vernon Carroll and stars Andrea “Andy” Diaz as Annie. The play consists of a cast of over 50 local and surrounding area individuals from ages 6 to 76. Sponsored by a grant from the Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Foundation, the production will also include a full orchestra conducted by Maestro Brendan Townsend and dance choreographed by Cristina Greco. “Given we have our largest and most diverse cast ever, I fully expect it to match, if even outdo, the production value and artistry of some of our previous musicals,” said Joe Arciniega, producer

of the LTGI’s rendition of the musical. Annie is a Broadway musical that ran on Broadway for six years and received a Tony Award for Best Musical in 1977. It tells the story of an abandoned orphan’s fantasy of being adopted and moved into a Park Avenue mansion by billionaire Daddy Warbucks. “Musical or not, [the LTGI] doesn’t do one-dimensional productions,” said director Vernon Carroll who intends to weave into the reality of New York during the Great Depression. “The realities of the situations ground the lighter elements, making the prettier parts more powerful, and the powerful parts more potent.” Tickets are currently available for advance purchase at Foster’s, Blue Top, and Oliveira Audiology & Hearing Center. General admission will also be available at the box office before each show. The play will run until Sunday, July 24. For more information, call (956) 319-8610 or visit laredotheaterguild.com u

Rent’s players

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The cast of Rent is shown here at the Laredo Center for the Arts where, in conjunction with the Laredo Institute For Theatrical Education D/B/A LITE Productions, the cast will bring the Tony Award-winning coming-of-age musical to the Laredo Center for the Arts on August 5,6,7, 12,13 and 14. For more information, contact Danny Villarreal at (956) 286-9966 and Gabriel Castillo at the Center for the Arts at (956) 725-1715.

LTGI’s production of Little Orphan Annie in rehearsals Victoria Young (Grace) inquires of Melissa Barrera Gonzalez (Mrs. Hannigan) if she has a red-headed orphan (Annie, portrayed by Andy Diaz) available to visit at the Warbucks residence.

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Notes from LaLa Land

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. Int’l 2008, Laredo MHS Tiger Legend 2002, and Sr. Int’l de Beverly Hills, 1997. Contact neodance@aol.com.

Spotlight deservedly on Intocable, Julia Vera, & Nick Mayo

aredo and South Texas artists were in the news last month. Zapata-based Grammy winning Intocable has just released Intocable 2011, a return to its original sound. grupointocable.com tells of the band’s origins in Zapata by founders Ricky Muñoz and Rene Martinez, who spent their days rehearsing, creating an unmistakable and now often emulated style, and daydreaming about success. The band’s albums have sold millions of copies and have earned them countless awards from Grammys to gold and platinum records. Houses where they perform always sell out, as they did in Auditorio Nacional de Mexico DF with six sold-out shows, as well as the Houston Astrodome and other major venues. Other members of the group include Sergio Serna, Felix Martinez, Sergio Serna, Felix Salinas, Juan Hernandez, Johnny Lee Rosas, and Daniel Sanchez. I turned on the TV one Saturday last month to find Laredo’s own Julia Vera in the Virgin of Juarez. I was riveted to the screen with her incredible portrayal. What an actress this lady is. If you go to YouTube.com you will see Julia in almost five minutes of scenes in movies with stars such as Harrison Ford, Minnie Driver, Johnny Depp, and Penelope Cruz, among others. More recently, ex-Laredoan Bill Mayo of New Braunfels sent a note reminder to watch on his son Nick on TV. Nick is in the current Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I saw Nick perform beautifully on the David Letterman Show on a Thursday night. The next morning, Nick and the show company did another number on The View, which is Barbara Walters’ baby on ABC-TV. So besides being on Broadway, Nick was on national TV twice within 12 hours! The stars of the show are Daniel Radcliffe (of Harry Potter fame) and John Larroquette. At 27 Nick is a graduate of the world-famous Juilliard School in New York City, and he has been in three Broadway shows — The Ritz, South Pacific, and now How to Succeed. Nick is the grandson of octogenarian Suzy Mayo of Laredo and the nephew of George and Ann Neel, also of Laredo. Nick recently hosted his faWWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

ther and 26 of his friends for Bill’s 60th birthday bash in New York City. And finally the end of Season 12 of Dancing With the Stars, in which Mark Ballas and partner came in third. Mark, of course, is a grandson of Laredo dance great in the ‘50s, Maria Luisa Marulanda Ballas, now of Houston. Pro-footballer Hines Ward was too much to handle, with his Super Bowl MVP title and two-time Super Bowl champion title. That’s called a built-in audience base, who made sure their champ won by calling in their votes. Of course, Kirstie Alley was a character study all in herself, assuring the sympathy vote for the overweight gal who fell, dusted herself off, and kept on dancing very well, as she lost many pounds of weight in the process. Mark with his unknown partner didn’t have a chance, although his dancing and choreography were the best in the show. And DWTS averaged almost 21 million viewers over the finale, the best rating season ever. Here’s some good Arnold chisme that came to me from a dear lifetime teacher friend from Beverly Hills HS, where I worked and she taught in the room next to me. She has a signed photo from Arnold Schwartzenneger. She writes, “Back in the late 80’s or early 90’s, before I went to teach at the high school, one of the parents helped organize Arnold’s visit to the Beverly Hills elementary school where I was assigned. The purpose of the visit was so that he could promote physical fitness to the students. This was done at an assembly. After the assembly, the parent in charge, who knew Arnold very well, took me up to shake his hand. He wasn’t as impressive as I thought he might be...he actually looked short to me. I guess I expected a greater than life exterminator figure. Nonetheless, he was extremely charming and very accessible. The parent promised to have him send me an 8x10 picture, which he did, and the dedication said: Dear Virginia...Hasta la vista....Arnold.” Today my sweet friend, who is a gorgeous blonde, by the way, has that photo in her scrapbook at home. I must remember to tell her that she would probably get a big wad of money if she auctioned the photo on the web. And on that note, it’s time for — as Norma Adamo says: TAN TAN! u

María Eugenia Guerra/LareDOS

By dr. neo gutierrez

Lots of fresh produce Mark and Isabel Ochoa’s puesto at the Farmers Market offered Laredoans fresh beets, corn, new potatoes, green beans, several varieties of squash, and tomatoes — much to the delight of many Laredo cooks who look for fresh ingredients.

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Luciano Guajardo Award for promoting awareness of the history of the region:

Dr. Carlos Cuellar

Ma. De la Luz Cardenas

Ricardo Hernandez

Dr. Stan Green

President of the Republic of the Río Grande Annabelle Uribe Hall with her cabinet, Minita Ramirez, Annie Zuñiga Dodier, Leticia U. Martinez, José Moreno, Lauraine W. Laurel, and Toni Longoria Ruiz

Manuel Ceballos

Ricardo Martinez, Volunteer Service Award

Gary Jacobs, Bill Luft, Hank and Elizabeth Sames – Historic Rehabilitation Award

Dr. José Roberto Juarez

Ismael Cuellar, Laredo Paranormal Research Society – Preservation of Folklore/ Customs/ Traditions

Guadalupe A. Martinez and George Farias – the Jim Parish Award

Local History Curriculum Development Committee – Meritorious Service Award

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Arts & Culture

LareDOS columnist debuts collection of poetry based on conquest of Mexico

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

andy Koch is a regular contributor to LareDOS with his Serving Sentences column, which chronicles his thoughts on writing, teaching, and lessons from growing up in Minnesota on a farm. Now the Bloomsburg University — in Bloomsburg, Penn. — professor has written a collection of poems that will be released in September. This Splintered Horse offers dramatic monologues written from the perspective of Spanish conquistadors. Each poem is the voice of a different conquistador. Though this is not Koch’s first published work, this is his debut collection of poems. Koch used to teach writing at Laredo Community College, and he wrote some of his poems while he was still teaching in Laredo. He also served as the director of the Writing Center at Texas A&M International University. Prepublication sale of This Splintered Horse runs until July 6, and the book will be shipped from the publisher around September 2. The retail price from Finishing Line Press is $12, plus $1.49 for shipping and handling. To order the book, visit finishinglinepress.com and click on “Preorder Forthcoming Books.” Koch answered a few questions about his book and the writing craft for LareDOS. Q: What was the initial inspiration for your book? A: My own ignorance. When my daughter Mary and I moved from Minnesota to Laredo in 1997, I quickly discovered how much I didn’t know about South Texas and Mexico, especially the history of this part of the country. So I started reading. Once I better understood the major historical events, particularly the conquest of Mexico, I became even more intrigued by the people involved — both Spaniards and Méxica. And the more I explored, the more I also realized that my ignorance wasn’t unusual, that, unfortunately, many people are oblivious not only to this history but to how this history is echoed by current events. What happens everyday on this border is a direct consequence of what happened 500 years ago. That’s what I needed to understand. Q: How long has This Splintered Horse been in the works? A: More than 10 years. I drafted the first poem in February 2001, when I gave an assignment to a poetry-writing class at LCC. Then, over the next few years — especially during the summer when I wasn’t teaching — I added about 20 more poems while I was still in Laredo. During that time I was trying not only to understand the history of the conquest but also to identify specific Spaniards who would make good subjects for poems and figure out how to create believable and distinctly different voices for them even though I was writing in English. I was extremely forWWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

tunate that other Laredo writers were so generous with their time and feedback on drafts of those early poems, especially Toni Howell, Elsa Gonzalez, Lucinda Farrokh, Chris Morgan, Carlos and Dora Flores, Jan Earle, and Sue Bishop. Their comments helped me strengthen and expand the project, and their enthusiasm and encouragement suggested there might be a broader audience for the poems. Then, from 2007 to 2009 when I was working on an MFA at the University of Wyoming, I added 16 more poems to the collection. Finally, when I moved to Pennsylvania, I changed the book’s title, restructured the manuscript, and continued drafting some new material. Currently the entire project consists of 42 poems, but many of those still need work, so This Splintered Horse contains 19 of the strongest poems. Q: Could you give us your idea of what the collection is about? A: Literally it’s about the Spanish conquest of the Americas. It’s about the violence and brutality that human beings visited on each other in the name of Crown and Christ and out of greed for wealth and power. I’m certainly not trying to romanticize or memorialize the conquistadors. I simply tried to understand them and the earth-shattering events they initiated by considering the psychological, spiritual,

economic, cultural, and emotional circumstances of both the conquerors and the conquered and then try to bring them to life. Of course, good poems are always about more than just what’s on the surface, so I hope readers will find more than meets the eye, that they’ll look beyond the history and find people, evidence of the living in those who are long dead, and maybe even something that moves them or makes them see this world in a way they hadn’t seen it before, whether during the 1500s in the Americas or in the 1800s across the western U.S. or in present-day Afghanistan or Syria or Mexico. Q: What authors influence you? Did any of these authors influence and/or show through in This Splintered Horse? A: I’ve always loved Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” which, like the poems in This Splintered Horse, is a dramatic monologue. What impresses me about Browning’s poem is that the carefully selected details and the very formal structure--strict rhyme scheme and syllabic meter — both imply and reveal the Duke’s character and what is likely to happen to his next duchess. Browning doesn’t explain or lecture; he dramatizes by letting the Duke do the talking and allowing readers to eavesdrop and then interpret what he says and does. But in his poem, as in so much good writing, it’s what the Duke doesn’t say, what he talks around, that most reveals him and moves us. That’s what I tried to do in these poems. I know I’m endlessly influenced by other writers, even though I’m not always aware of it while it happens. It’s like eating something unfamiliar for the first time — Indian food, for example, or jalapeños. I may not find out how my body will respond to it until hours later when I’ve digested it. Reading other writers is like that. They inevitably affect me, but I’m often unaware of exactly when or how that effect appears in my writing. Of course, over the years I keep returning to some of them and, as a result, I’ve gradually pinpointed what caused me to fall in love with their work: Thoreau’s faith in detail, Frost’s drama, Raymond Carver’s compression, Dickinson’s language and punctuation, Carolyn Forché’s understated violence, Cormac McCarthy’s terse dialogue, Annie Proulx’s figurative language, or Joan Didion’s detachment. And when other newer voices influence me — like Jane Hirshfield, Kate Greenstreet, Bob Hicok, or Dean Young — it’s because finally I’m ready to hear what they say or how they say it and because their voice is different—sometimes in only very small ways — from those of other writers I’ve known for a long time. I don’t know if any of those writers’ voices are apparent in my poems. I hope not, but you can be certain I’ve felt and continue to feel their effects in whatever I’m writing. That’s just an inevitable consequence of reading regularly and then writing and revising. Continued on page 60

LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Arts & Culture

The List: Exploring the ethereal sound of dream pop “Norway” by Beach House from Teen Dream (2010) “We Own the Sky” by M83 from Saturdays = Youth (2008)

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Four-Calendar Café (1993) Cocteau Twins’ ambient sound and lead singer Elizabeth Frasher’s ethereal vocals directly contributed to the dream pop.

“Know Who You Are At Every Age” by Cocteau Twins from Four-Calendar Café (1993)

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

love how music genres can be so loosely defined sometimes. Genres give way to subgenres, while subgenres form their own little subgenres, and so on. Dream pop came about in the 1980s at a time when the music scene was undergoing another major shift by incorporating new technologies and exploring whole new genres such as hip hop, which gained

Loveless (1983) My Bloody Valentine’s album Loveless incorporated sounds that would later be known as shoegazing, a subgenre of alternative rock that had origins in dream pop.

huge popularity in the ‘80s. Dream pop has had major influence in today’s music scene with the return of synth-heavy pop and the emergence of chillwave, a genre that clearly owes its ethereal, nostalgic sound, pop melodies, and breathy vocals to dream pop of the ‘80s. Look up the combined phrase “dreamwave” on Last.fm, a music radio website that tracks what people listen to: “Dreamwave is about nostalgia. It’s about hearing something that makes you think of the last day of school, getting off the school bus and running through bright green lawns that’ll be your playground for the rest of summer. It just so happens that we’re all kids of the 80’s.” Here are my top 10 dream pop and dream pop-influenced songs, in no particular order. However, if I have to choose a number one, “Know Who You Are At Every Age” by Cocteau Twins would be it. u

“Cherry-Coloured Funk” by Cocteau Twins from Heaven or Las Vegas (1990)

“Things Will Never Be the Same Again” by jj from jj n° 2

“Lately (Deuxième)” by Memoryhouse from The Years E.P. “Untitled” by Sigur Rós from ( ) (2002) “Kettering” by The Antlers from Hospice (2009) “Sometimes” by My Bloody Valentine from Loveless (1991)

Arts & Culture

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

ay Asher received 12 rejection letters from book publishers for a book he had written about suicide called Baker’s Dozen, a pun on the 13 cassette tapes his character Hannah Baker leaves after she dies by suicide (a baker’s dozen equals 13, get it?). It was until his 13th attempt that Asher finally struck gold. This book — the publishers eventually decided the title should be Thirteen Reasons Why — was Asher’s lucky number 13. About 100 people attended Asher’s talk at the Laredo Public Library on Thursday, June 9, where he discussed the 12-year-long process of writing Thirteen Reasons Why, teen suicide, and his expe-

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riences after the book was published. “Some of the issues in my book — suicide, sexual harassment, and bullying — are uncomfortable to talk about,” Asher said during his presentation. “You don’t know if a person’s needs are being met. Because society does a really poor job of talking about these issues, when you’re dealing with these issues, it can be really hard.” Asher was inspired to write the book after he had conversations with a family member who had attempted suicide. Many members of the audience were teens who had attended a book discussion and the anti-bullying/suicide awareness rally on June 1. Teens who had attended both the discussion and the rally were allowed entrance to a special meet-and-greet with the author beforehand.

Cristina Herrera/LareDOS

Author talks about teen suicide, writing Thirteen Reasons Why

The author speaks Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why, speaks to an audience at the Laredo Public Library on Thursday, June 9. Asher presented a PowerPoint slideshow that included details of the writing process, his research on teen suicide, and meeting Disney star Selena Gomez in Hollywood for the first time. “You don’t know what’s going on with anybody’s life except your own,” Asher said, emphasizing that this was one of the messages he wanted readers to take from the book. “And so when you tease

somebody or do something, you really have no control over how that person takes it.” For more information on Thirteen Reasons Why, visit thirteenreasonswhy.com. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Arts & Culture

By CRISTINA HERRERA LareDOS Staff

ancy Black Sagafi-Nejad became a “convinced” Quaker in the 1970s, during the Vietnam War, after deciding that she was a pacifist. “Instead of saying ‘converted,’ they say you’re ‘convinced,’” Sagafi-Nejad told LareDOS in an interview. Sagafi-Nejad’s debut book, Friends at the Bar: A Quaker View of Law, Conflict Resolution, and Legal Reform, was published in February by SUNY Press. The author and her husband, a Radcliff Killiam Distinguished professor at Texas A&M International University, have lived in Laredo since 2003. SUNY Press showed interest in publishing Sagafi-Nejad’s manuscript shortly after her family moved to Laredo. Friends at the Bar was inspired by Sagafi-Nejad’s own struggles with balancing her career as a civil law attorney, which sometimes involved using deceptive means to win cases, with the morals of the Quaker religion. “Quakers tend to be kind of open and truthful — that’s not to say other people aren’t, but that’s what they aspire to,” Sagafi-Nejad said. “Practicing law doesn’t really allow for that kind of thing. You need to hold your heart really close to your chest and make things seem differently then Continued from page 43 Dovalina, who established the City of Laredo’s Environmental Services Department in his tenure as city manager, said that the Railroad Commission, even when it was staffed to capacity, was incapable of keeping up with problems surrounding drilling and the operation of well sites. “We’ve had all the usual problems with their lack of will and their lack of vigilance,” he said. “They don’t apply their own rules to the open pits that drilling fluids go into. They don’t make sure the pits are fenced, and they don’t apply RRC rules on the remediation of those sites.” Dovalina said that he regularly traverses an above-ground gas transmission pipeline

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what they are sometimes.” Sagafi-Nejad had worked on the book off and on since 1991, when she became the 1991-1992 Henry J. Cadbury Scholar at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center in Wallingford, Penn. The book relies on research Sagai-Nejad conducted at the Quaker archives in Swathmore College Library’s Friends Collection. The author also sent out her own 33-question survey to 100 Quaker lawyers across the country after wondering if others experienced similar tensions to her own. Overwhelmingly, the lawyers replied that balancing truth with their profession was also a major struggle. “I found with my 100 Quaker lawyers that that was the thing that bothered them a lot, and the fact that you weren’t really focusing on getting people to get together and solve their dispute, but that you were kind of polarizing positions and driving them more apart by the legal process,” Sagafi-Nejad said. Friends at the Bar introduces Quakerism and its principles to readers who may know little about the religion and its early history. For example, Quakerism is a non-creedal religion, unlike mainstream Christianity. “They kind of see life as an evolving religious journey,” Sagafi-Nejad said. “There’s not ‘You do this, and you do this.’” In her book, Sagafi-Nejad proposes that Quakers resurrect an old procedure where some disputes are solved via mediation at Quaker Friends Meetings instead of within the court system. She also recommends that Quaker lawyers lead an effort to have “comprehensive conversations” about legal reform. “I think that a lot of people — doesn’t matter if they are Quaker or not — think that the legal system is flawed,” Sagfi-Nejad said. “It would have to involve every kind of stakeholder in the legal profession in trying to make

on his ranch. “It is dangerous and negligent. A tractor implement going across it could cause a spark and a disaster,” he said, adding, “Where is the Railroad Commission?” Now the city manager of Cotulla, Dovalina said that rural communities will benefit from the Eagle Ford Shale boom. “More jobs, more money moving through the community — that’s all good,” he said “But you will also see non-mineral owners — ranchers and homeowners who depend on their water wells — start to experience the loss of their water as the aquifer levels drop. How do you ranch without water? How do you run a household?” “I attended the Town Hall meeting on fracking because I wanted to observe how

Denisse Ferguson

Author examines conflict between law, Quaker religion

Nancy Black Sagafi-Nejad changes to the rules.” Sagafi-Nejad ultimately hopes the book will be read by influential law figures who will start a conversation about reforming the legal system. The author graduated from the law school at the University of Texas at Austin in 1982, after she had gone off to the Peace Corp and decided to practice civil law. Before Sagafi-Nejad went back to school, she had developed her own ideas about religion and law, which would eventually inspire her to write the book, she said. “I didn’t go [to law school] straight out of college, and I think people who go to law school right after college haven’t really had any life experience and they are going to do what they’re told to do,” Sagafi-Nejad said. Friends at the Bar is $75.00 for a hardback copy on Amazon, while the Kindle edition is $60.00. Sagafi-Nejad speculated that the book’s price tag has resulted in little feedback from readers. Copies of the book can be checked out at the Laredo Public Library. — Additional reporting by LareDOS contributor Denise Ferguson

a group of concerned citizens could come together to work on problems facing their community,” said college sociology instructor Sandra Sanchez Gray. “Basically the issue comes down to the balance between the need for jobs in an economically depressed area and the future of the same area’s water resources. I was hopeful that with the information offered, different factions could have an honest discussion about the concerns of not only impacted landowners, but impacted citizens of Laredo and those advocating for exploration profits and jobs,” she said. “The speakers made their pronouncements and everyone listened politely,” Gray continued. “I looked forward to exploring solutions during the question-and-

answer sessions. This was not to happen at this meeting, albeit it was only the first of more to come, I add hopefully. According to everybody’s go-to for information, Wikipedia, a civil society ‘is composed of the totality of voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society… including the commercial institutions of the market. Together, state, market, and civil society constitute the entirety of a society, and the relations between these three components determine the character of a society and its structure.’ Laredo needs to show its character and show itself to be a ‘noble city.’ We need jobs and we need water. Where is Prudentius when you need him?” she asked. u

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Laredo Eats

Haciendo pueblo — Vivir, llorar, y reir en MexAmerica

By SANDRA SANCHEZ GRAY LareDOS Contributor Fonda Don Martin 2180 South Zapata Highway #100

am not like my sister. She has the gift of gab. But today I’ve got something to talk about, from the delicious refried beans, to the slightly annoying José José imitation, to Cristian Castro echoing from every corner speaker in the restaurant. I didn’t expect to speak to anyone. I enjoy eating by myself with only my Kindle for company, even if I’m firing extra neurons in an effort to understand Carlos Fuentes’ Christopher Unborn. But as they say, “that’s another story for another day.” The friendly waitress asked me for my order, and I knew what I wanted — the savory Tlapeño soup, large portion please. She served me the ever-present Laredo staple of tostadas and chips, but this restaurant adds a little punch to your entree: refried beans with a touch of crumbled Oaxacan cheese. I am a bean eater and a bean cooker from way back and I know my beans. These were some of the best I had ever tasted and I said so to every waiter/ ess that approached my table. And there were many; it seems they wanted to make sure I was happy and I was, really happy. At the end of my meal, I was so pleased with the results (I am officially researching the eating habits of Laredoans, at least that’s what I tell my doctor) that I told the cashier about my bean experience and how the northside restaurant by the same name did not come close to offering such a great dining experience. I raved about the freshness and even the symmetrical dicing of the vegetables in the soup, the crispiness of the tostadas, the texture of the aguacates and so on. I thought I was just expressing my gratitude for good service and good food to the lone representative of a restaurant customers generally interact with as they leave, but this conversation turned out to be much more than just a friendly compliment. The cashier called the manager, and I felt obligated to repeat my hosannas to him. He disappeared into the kitchen and WWW. L A R E D O S NE W S . C O M

brought out a Xochitl Najera de García, whom he introduced as the object of my gratitude, the woman who had lovingly chopped, seasoned, and cooked my food. How many times, I thought later, have I eaten out and been asked, “Was everything okay?” Sometimes I nodded yes between mouthfuls, and sometimes I lied with a half-smile, but never did I send a message to the cooks. I didn’t realize until today that they had been sending messages to me — every time. I had taken those messages and received them by either rubbing my tummy contentedly or making a mental note to never return. Today was different. I met the messenger and told her I had received her gift of a job well done, and I thanked her for it. She accepted my effusive acknowledgment of her talent for making my taste buds sing (she really didn’t say that) and she told me that she is very careful about what she does, creating and recreating all the dishes fresh each morning. The manager added that she wouldn’t let anyone else cut the vegetables because she felt each dish required a different size and shape of dicing. Without me asking where she got her expertise, she mentioned how she remembered her grandmother cooking for the family, using fresh herbs from the garden — again, each herb chosen for a specific dish that would be created to nudge the diner into a specific experience. I thought, how novel, cooking as communication. This soup needs small vegetables so people can taste everything at the same time and understand that one can enjoy the good news all at once, and this other soup allows you to tell the customer that each flavor stands on its own and one can delight in different textures and flavors either alone or simultaneously. She said these messages, these recipes, had traveled a long way and through many generations. I was proud she shared them with me. As Oprah’s gal pal, Gayle King says, “I lik-ed her.” I liked her because while it may be presumptuous of me to say that she may not have grown up planning to be a chef, she became one and took it seriously, applying her positive intent to her work. I thought of her as a working warrior, someone thinking to herself, “Maybe I didn’t

Courtesy Photo

Working warriors: They are talking to you. Are you listening?

Xochitl Najera de García plan for my life to be this way, but I am going to give it all I’ve got — all my skills, all my knowledge of what flavors go together, and all my memories of my grandmother.” In other words, she brings all of herself to the workplace. She knows what she can do and does it the best way she knows how. Every day she fights weariness, loneliness, and not to mention the fact that combat pay for the kitchen is not what it could be; and not to mention another fact that it’s the owners, managers, and cashiers that get to hear the “good job” messages from customers — the faceless warrior that literally in every case, takes the heat, never gets the honor, never gets celebrated, and yet, goes to work every day, does her job and does it well. Initially, I didn’t like the military metaphor when I thought of her as a warrior, but one takes up many instruments in life’s battles and hers, just like so many heroes’, are the ones that offer others the opportunity to enjoy their own lives. For many, the word warrior brings to mind a person skilled in combat or warfare. To me, it’s a person who bravely battles with the universal enemy, self-ignorance (avidya), the

ultimate source of suffering according to dharmic philosophies. Xochitl Najera de García is not ignorant of who she is, what she can do, and what she offers to others, the strangers who eat her food. She sheds any suffering she may be experiencing once she enters her kitchen because she has a mission; she sends her blessed substance through her meals. Her type of warrior can be described as an archetype character on a journey to self-discovery to benefit others. What a meaningful message to send the world: “I am doing the best I can, and I hope you appreciate it.” This is the working warrior I found at Fonda Don Martin South. Her call to us is a call to all workers. Always do your best. Working warriors bring their best to their work regardless of appreciation, monetary or otherwise. This is what the dharmic philosophers says prevents us from suffering, recognizing that we can shine in any setting and bring our inherent goodness to the world. Individuals, through mindfulness, believe anything is possible and strive to create their own ideal, with or without an audience. I am not trying to say, “Perfect beans, perfect life,” but after all, the mind is where the most fundamental struggles take place, and this warrior offers her mind, intent, and behavior to tell us how she feels about herself and food. How many more of these warriors are out there shouting quietly through their everyday activities, “This is what I do for myself, this is what I do for you.” According to beliefnet.com: Inspiration, Spirituality and Faith, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Circles”, discusses how “all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and organizing itself.” The blogger continues, “Emerson’s work evokes the kind of hope and faith and vision in the possibility of an enlightened society.” Today I was enlightened, enlightened about the possibility of becoming aware of how others affect our lives in meaningful ways every day. I saw how we are disconnected from them and felt that if we are not mindful, our own nature becomes disjointed. Today, I caught a small glimpse of how unacknowledged working warriors are sharing their goodness with us. Are we listening? u LareDOS | JU NE 2011 |

Continued from page 19 As the event kicked into high gear, spokespeople for the movement gathered on the stage — Javier Sicilia; Olga Reyes, member of the exiled Juarez Valley family devastated by homicides and violence; Julian Lebaron, brother of slain anti-kidnapping activist and Chihuahua Mormon community leader Benjamin Lebaron; and Luz Maria Davila, mother of two young men shot down in the infamous Villas de Salvarcar house party massacre last year. They were joined by other victims’ relatives from across Mexico. A speaker reminded the crowd that this day, June 10, was chosen for the signing of the citizen pact to honor the students who were massacred by government paramilitary squads on the same date in Mexico City in 1971. Magdalena Garcia, widow of architect Ricardo Gatica, told how her husband disappeared and was then found murdered in 2009. Garcia recounted how she conducted her own investigation, tracing the car in which Garcia vanished. Despite informing the authorities of the lead, no justice has been achieved in the case, she said. “I want justice!” Garcia shouted. “It’s not fair that they left my children without their father. I will continue until the end!” “You are not alone!” the crowd roared back. Buckets of tears, pent-up emotions and oodles of anger burst and flowed from the stage and from the large crowd-almost as a cancerous bubble of violence, corruption and impunity that had been building up for 20 years suddenly popped just like Wall Street did in 2008. “We are fed up!” shouted the crowd. More chants followed: “Up with Juarez!” “Long Live Mexico!” “Long Live Spain!” “Long Live Egypt!” “The People United Will Never be Defeated!” Beaming from the stage, the portraits of Mexican army officer Orlando Munoz Guzman, disappeared in Ciudad Juarez in 1993, and a more recent group of men from Guerrero rounded out the scene. Looking visibly exhausted, Javier Sicilia stood on the stage with a Mexican flag. The poet, whose trademark floppy hat has some comparing him to Indiana Jones and who could easily pass for a botanist or a fly fisherman, is the anti-thesis of the traditional macho leader. Arguably, however, he is Mexico’s man of the moment. Sicilia’s uncompromising stance in protesting the murder of his son Juan Francisco in Morelos state earlier this year, inspired tens of thousands of Mexicans to join a still young but growing movement against violence and for deep-seated change. In a subdued but firm voice, Sicilia said the caravan’s laying of a plaque in memory of Marisela Escobedo, the Ciudad Juarez

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activist mother brazenly murdered in Chihuahua City last December, is an example of how Mexicans need to recover the memories of violence victims. “We have to fill the country with the names of the dead, so that the authorities remember the obligation they have,” Sicilia declared. He then read Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy’s “Ithaca.” “In the history of tragedy and pain that this country is going through, the Mexican government did not count on the strength and the consistency of a poet,” observed Ciudad Juarez writer and activist Juan Carlos Martinez. On one side of the stage, a man with sad, protruding eyes held up a large poster of a young girl with big and happy eyes. The man was Jose Rayas, father of Marcela Viviana “Bibis” Rayas, a 16-year-old girl murdered in Chihuahua City in 2003. In comments to Frontera NorteSur, Rayas told how Chihuahua state law enforcement authorities tried to get him to go along with pushing “an absurd story” that pinned the murder on two former Chihuahua City residents, U.S. citizen Cynthia Kiecker and her Mexican husband Ulises Perzabal. Tortured into making a false confession, Kiecker and Perzabal were later acquitted by a judge after an international campaign for their freedom made the case a diplomatic issue between Mexico and the U.S. in 2004. More than eight years after his daughter’s slaying, Rayas said there has been no movement in the halls of justice. Different justice officials come and go, he said, promising to reopen the murder investigation but always producing the same null results. Rayas added that he’s lost faith in the justice system, but found inspiration with Javier Sicilia’s movement. The caravan, he said, gave birth to a nationwide “union of victims.” On his poster, Rayas introduces the public to his slain daughter. Biographical tid-bits reveal a Chihuahua City teen who liked the color green and dreamed of becoming a psychologist. A lover of rock and trova music, she also liked to eat spareribs. As the caravan wound through Mexico, Rayas said he added a few more words to the poster of the girl he calls “his little swallow,” the beautiful who abruptly left the world “without even a kiss”: Bibis: Although you are not with us now, You will always be in our hearts We miss that look, that smile you gave us We miss all of you We miss you a lot Remember that we love you a lot Don’t forget it. In Ciudad Juarez and Mexico, even as violence continues rage away, many question what impact — if any — the caravan and the citizen

Continued from page 55 Q: Why did you choose these historic personae — conquistadors — to convey your art? A: I was attracted by the challenge of trying get inside people who lived in another place and time, to figure out what they were thinking, what they feared, in what ways they might think or feel or act that made them human, no matter how inhumane their historical actions and motives. And just as the specific details of our lives distinguish us from each other, the conquistadors were also individuals. That’s where they and we get interesting — in the particulars. And it’s in those distinct details and circumstances that the truth waits for us. Or at least waits for me. Q: Why did you choose the poetry medium instead of maybe prose? A: The practical reason is that when I started this project, writing poems seemed more possible for me than writing prose. In 2001, I was teaching four classes each semester at LCC and editing the literary magazine La Frontera; plus, my daughter Mary was still in high school, so I didn’t have a lot of spare time. However, because poems could be short, I often worked out lines in my head as I drove I-35 to LCC or down Del Mar to one of Mary’s volleyball matches. Then when I got home, I could usually write a fairly complete draft in a single sitting. It might be pretty rough, but at least I had something on the page and then little by little I could tinker with it and revise it. To work on prose, I always felt the need for larger, uninterrupted blocks of time, which I rarely had, but poetry didn’t require that. The other reason for choosing poetry is that nearly everything written both about and by the conquistadors and about the conquest of the Americas is in prose — histories, letters, narratives, government records, dissertations, genealogies, etc. — so in order to do something different, poetry seemed a natural choice. Plus, poetry gives me the space and freedom to imagine, to go beyond and maybe below the factual, historical record. Poetry frees me in some ways but also demands greater discipline in others — particularly in terms of form and focus. I like that challenge. Q: Where is the meaning of the title, This Splintered Horse? pact will have on the course of history. While future developments are increasingly difficult to predict in an age of social, environmental and economic upheaval, it’s probably a safe bet to conclude that Javier Sicilia and the Caravan for Peace with Justice

A: I prefer to think of the title as image or motif, not meaning. Because it’s from a poem in the middle of the collection, whatever meaning I may have intended wasn’t really mine but that of a Spaniard drowning during the siege of Tenochtitlan. I tried to imagine what he might have seen in the water below that horrific battle, how he might have thought of or sensed that watery world, especially knowing he’d never see what was familiar to him, never see his home, again. I could explain what the title means to me, but I’d rather let readers decide for themselves. Q: Do you have other projects in mind for another book, or are you going to take some time out before you concentrate on future projects? A: I haven’t thought in terms of another project yet mostly because I still need to rework some of the conquistador poems and bring some closure to this project. Over the past few years I drafted poems on other subjects which might be the beginnings of a new collection, but I haven’t had time to explore where those poems might lead me. The only thing that’s certain is that I’ll keep writing. If I keep writing, I’ll eventually discover what I still need to say and what form the next project might take. Q: What would you tell an aspiring author or poet who is trying to get published? A: Don’t let rejection discourage you. Everyone’s work gets rejected and not just because the work is bad. Of course, it could be bad — we all write crap now and then — but there are plenty of other reasons editors reject work, many of which have little if anything to do with you or your writing. Write regularly, get feedback from other serious writers, revise, be patient, and don’t take rejection personally. Remember: Criticism or rejection of the writing does not mean criticism or rejection of the writer. Sometimes that’s a tough distinction to make, to remember, and to accept, especially when you’re invested in your work and it keeps getting returned to you with a form letter that starts, “Thanks for letting us consider your work, but…” However, in order to get published, you have to keep writing, submitting, revising, and resubmitting work. If your primary focus is on writing better, publication will eventually come. u and Dignity have added a new, unforeseen force in the political and social landscape of the country. “We are going to continue with this,” Jose Rayas vowed. “I think it is time to stop this violence.” u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Maru Alexander Portillo celebrates 15-years of art instruction

he accomplished artist Maru Alexander Portillo celebrated the 15th anniversary of her instructional art studio with an exhibit of the work of her students. The exhibit was hosted by Jorge Vega in the beautiful gardens of Vega’s import store on San Bernardo Avenue. Alexander Portillo was introduced by Miguel Angel Isidro Rodriguez, consul general of Mexico in Laredo, and she and Vega welcomed students and guests to the exhibit. The instructor recognized her father Raul Alexander, a lifetime artist and her mentor, and her mother María Teresa Alexander. She was accompanied by her husband Rodolfo Portillo and their daughter Lorena, also an artist. The exhibit offered a view of the work of some accomplished young artists and many developing artists.

- María Eugenia Guerra

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The Mystery Customer BY THE mystery Customer

Green Mountain rep makes giant personal carbon footprint while promising to diminish yours and save you money

Green Mountain Energy H-E-B @ Del Mar Boulevard This one is up there with the texting bank security guard who would have been too busy to catch a robber or even a description of him. A blue-shirted representative of Green Mountain Energy — the save-energy guys, the like us ‘cause we’re green guys — stood in the automatic doorway of the H-E-B at Del Mar North Creek, keeping the door from shutting and keeping himself cool while he hawked his company’s promise to save you money and save the earth at the same time. The air-conditioned dollars that must have flowed out that open door! When the MC called him on the awful irony of super-sizing his personal carbon footprint while selling his company’s philosophy and product, the fellow answered lamely, “I just need a little fresh air.” Well, let a little into your head, payaso! It was 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 25. H-E-B 4801 San Dario Ave. This H-E-B offers the best and almost always the freshest selection of fruits and vegetables. The high traffic store is constantly restocking its bins and inventory of saran-wrapped papaya halves, melons, and piña. Hands down, the fresh nopalito pads are indeed the freshest in town. The aguas frescas bar is awesome. The downside to the shopping experience, however, is that the store stocks no organic produce and the exit experience, the checkout lines, are usually long and unpleasant, something akin to cattle in a chute. Shiloh Automotive 204 Shiloh Drive The MC found quick, reliable service for an AC checkup and a Freon charge. The service is good there even when the boss has left the premises. Zaragoza Grill La Posada Hotel 1000 Zaragoza St. Even if the dining room is full, as it often is, this is a place for a good breakfast and a place to gather your thoughts or do a little editing on the paperwork you brought with you. Wait staff appears when you need more coffee and seems to know when you are ready to move on. Tack Room La Posada Hotel

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1000 Zaragoza St. This MC experienced La Posada’s elegant Tack Room for the first time during a relative’s birthday dinner. I was first a bit surprised by the smallness of the restaurant, but it served as a comfortable and intimate setting for our celebration. The wine selection is amazing and the steaks never failed to live up to the hype. I tried the wild Atlantic salmon and it was perfectly flaky and not too fishy. The buttery rice that came with my meal had saffron (the world’s most expensive spice) in it, which was a wonderful treat for my taste buds. We even tried escargot, but I wasn’t a big fan. Our butler-looking waiter was quite gracious and polite as he took our complicated orders like a pro. We later watched him make Bananas Foster in a portable grill, and he didn’t even sweat as the flames came dangerously close to him. My party marveled as he hustled up and down the stairs without seeming out of breath. He brought us fresh drinks that were mixed just right. Every aspect of our dining experience smacked of professionalism. Kudos to La Posada for giving us a memorable experience. Pizza Hut 5303 McPherson Ave. The Pizza Hut on McPherson showed what not to do during lunch. A group of us walked in, were given one menu for seven people, seated in a corner, and then ignored for 15 minutes. After we ordered, we were left alone until the food was ready. That’s when I was told that they did not have what I had ordered. Don’t know why they waited until everything else was ready before deciding there were no meatballs, but the next step for them was to ask me if I wanted to order something else. I asked for a menu and ordered potato soup because it seemed fast. I got broccoli soup, and it was not fast. To their credit, they took off the charge for the soup, but charged me for everything else. And we were late getting back to our workshop. I could have understood this if the place had been busy, but there was only one other group there. It seemed like they were waiting for the official lunch start time before waiting on us. I’ve been there before and haven’t been overly impressed. I won’t be going there again because there are other places to get a fast lunch with much less hassle. u WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

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