laredos newspaper may 2010

2010 Est. 1994 Vol. XVI, No. 5 LOCALLY OWNED 64 PAGESA JOURNAL OF THE BORDERLANDSAnsel Adams

For 16 yearsthe Río GrandeInternationalStudy Centerhas stood upfor the river,for theenvironment,and for us.

It’s timeto returnthe favor.

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM2 | LareDOS | MAY 2010

The Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center functionsas a living laboratory for Laredo Community College students. It is

becoming an important center forscience education for theregion's students in Grades PK-12. Through its educational curricu-

lum and hands-on approach, the center is promoting an under-standing and respect for the relationship between man and envi-

ronment.The center is located on the northern edge of the LCC campus inclose proximity to the Rio Grande.Educational features include

hands-on demonstrations, water areas for live specimens native totheRioGrande ecosystem, growing areas for native vegetation,

wildlife diorama displays, a wetlands demonstration project, andthe adjacent Paso del Indio Nature Trail.

Summer Camp 2010

Summer Camp ScheduleTOTS 4-6 YOUTH 6-8

June 7-10 May 31-June 3June 21-24 June 14-17

June 28-July 1 June 28-July 1July 26-29 July 19-22REGULAR 9-11 ADVANCED 12-14June 7-10 July 26-29June 21-24July 12-15

Office (956) 764-5701Fax (956) 764-5929E-mail: [email protected]

Lamar Bruni VergaraEnvironmentalScience CenterTAYLOR RD.

WASHINGTON ST.OVERPASS

MAINCAMPUS

SHERMAN RD.

LEYENDECKER

VICTORIA ST.

LareDOS | MAY 2010 | 3

By MONICA MCGETTRICK

Former City Council member and formerCountyJudgeAndres“Andy” Ramosand

retiredbusinessmanDavid Cardwell haverecentlybeenworking to place a measure

on theballot oftheupcomingNovemberelection that would revise the City Charter

torestructure CityCouncil to include fourat-large districtmembers and four district

council members. Currently, the City Coun-cil is compromised of eight members elected

by district.Ramos, who served as a council member

from 1978 from 1988, was first elected whenmemberswereelected as at-large districtmembers.Continuing on thecouncil after

the City Charterwasrevised to allowforeight districts with a council member rep-

resenting each, Ramos believes it is time toreturn to the at-large format.

“Aldo Tatangelo appointed a City Char-ter commission to rewrite the charter. At thetime it was the right thing to do, to elect bydistrict not by large,” he said, adding, “Thedifference in how they dealt with city issueswas that the City Manager would ask Coun-cil what the pressing issues were. Decisionswere based on the overall needs of the City,

not just by district.”According to Ramos, thebenefit to the

current structure is that there is money allot-ted for districts, but conversely, there may bea need for other things in the district that thecouncil member may not have the money for.With the 4x4 structure, the four at-large canpool their money to help. He also said that

withthe currentformat, citizens only havetwo City representatives to take their issuesto – the mayor and the council member for

their respective district. Having four at-largemembers would give them six.

Both Ramos and Cardwell began workingon their proposal after having been selected

by Councilmembers Juan NarvaezandJohnny Rendon to serve on the City Charter

Revision Committee. Chargedwith recom-mending five or six topics that needed clari -

fication and presenting their findings to thecouncil, Ramos and Cardwell made a recom-

mendationto thecommittee to restructurethewaycounciliselected. Cardwell at thesametime suggested analternative -- add-

ing two at-large to the eight current districtcouncil members.

Five of themembersofthecommitteesaid they would have to take the issue back

to their respectivecouncil members. Theycameback and voted against the proposal,

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

News

Former Cit y Council member Andres Andy Ramos and retired businessmanDavid Cardwell propose change to the way voters elect Cit y Council members

whichpromptedCardwell andRamos topreparea minority report topresent to the

Council after the revision committees report.The issue was tabled for a later meeting.

Disappointed butundaunted, both mencontinue their struggle to press for the 4x4 at-large concept. “Ultimately, it’s up to Councilto reject or accept the issue,” said Cardwell,adding,“Weascitizenshavenumerousrights

and freedom to speak, to bring suggestionsforward that might be good or might be bad.However, the desire is to change from eightsingle districts to four districts and four at-

large council members. We’ve asked peopleon the streets, and we want people to be suretheir decisions are based on facts and merits.The overwhelming response from people isthat it’s a good idea.”

He continued, “Voters in the City ofLaredoare well informedandintelligent.

Although people might think they will votefor thecandidate with the largest funding,

voters are much smarter than that. They willvote for the best candidate.”

“We’relooking at the bigpicture, look-ing at thewholeCity,”saidCardwell.“It’s

been 30 years. It’s time the people be givenan option. People should be allowed to voteon the issue. Council members should allow

their constituents, thevoters, todecide tochange.”

Cardwelland RamosrecommendthatCity Council let their proposal or suggestionof a change be decided in the same manner

theywere elected to their position, by theballot. In their mind, City Council memberswouldbeexecutingtheirtruerolesasofficers

elected by the people for the people. “Theyshould allow it to go to the voters rather thanthrough the petition method,” said Ramos.Mayor Raul Salinas, when questionedabout the proposal, believes that the formatdoes not need to be changed. “Personally, I

donotbelieve that a change to the councilrepresentation is needed.I mean, if it’s not

broken, why fix it?” He does, however, agreethat if Laredoans want a change, they havea right to be heard and make every effort totry to bring the issue forward to the votersto decide. He said, “If that is the will of the

people, then we should respect their right tobe heard.”

BothCardwell and RamosbelievethatLaredoneeds to become more progressive,

and they feel that the time for change is now.Theypointed out that Section10.06 (C) of

the City Charter requires redistricting afterthe Census is completed. “This is the perfecttime for this to be on the ballot. We have the2010 Census and an election in November,”said Cardwell. “We are optimistic that Coun-

cil will do the right thing.”A benefit to their proposal,they argue,

is that the alteration will allow for a greaterdiversity in candidates. “It’s an open field aslong as they’re qualified. Let the voters heartheir platform and conduct a lot of debates,and voters will pick the right candidate. We

have faith in the voters of Laredo. Maybe thiswould encourage a different kind of person

to run.”Another benefit to a 4x4 at-large council

structure would be lower spending. Accord-ing to Ramos, capital improvement projects

arenotcurrentlybeingpaidforfrom Citymoney.Theyputforwardthatvoterswith

issuescan talk to their councilmember orthe mayor, a sentiment current City Councilmembers Michael Landeck and Cindy Lien-

do-Espinoza dispute.Landeckand Liendo-Espinoza both claim they receive calls fromcitizens across the City addressing concernsand that their work is for the City as a whole,

not simply their own district.Reactionsregarding theproposal are

mixed,althougha common objection thatarisesis thatdue tothe costofrunning a

citywide campaign, only certain members ofthe community would be able to afford run-

ning for office.Whenaskedhis opinionregardingthis

proposition, Landeck said, “I’m not comfort-able with the arrangementmainly because

the costof runninga citywidecampaignwouldmake itdifficult tofindcandidates

from the middle class level who can afford torun. A district campaign can cost anywhere

from $30,000 to $40,000. In the last mayoralelection, John Galo spent $900,000, and Tano

Tijerina spent close to a million running forCounty Judge.Thechange wouldmake it

unaffordable. I don’t think many people likemyselfcouldafford it. Thatautomatically

eliminates a lot of people.”LaredobloggerJesusQuiroz, oflasan-

be.com, addressed the idea that havingatlarge councilmembers wouldlead to a

greaterdiversityofcandidate.Hewrote,“I don’t know that the idea of four councilmembers representing the whole city is all

it’scrackedup tobe. Forsome reason,Idon’t think that system would give us bet-ter candidates.The whole point of having

at-large spots is to havemore diversity inthe makeup of the council or school board.But let’s take the city council, for instance.It’s made up of Hispanic-surnamed work-

ing classpeople. The samepeoplewhobrought usEl Portal, the non-existent re-

tail center acrossfrom the airport,andhigher bus fares.If a certain demographic

is under-represented here, it’s rich people.This community has spoken loudly against

thosecandidates(Louis Bruni,C.Y. Bena-vides, Tano Tijerina).”

Andy Ramos and David Cardwell

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CONTINUEDON p AGE16


By JOHN ANDREW SNYDER

Thefirst-evergraduationday forthe Laredo Early College HighSchool(ECHS)wasMay 28,2010on the Green at TAMIU. ECHS, a

partnership between the Laredo Indepen-dentSchoolDistrict and TAMIU,opened

its doorsto 102 freshmen in August 2006,and 80 seniors received high school diplo-mas at the graduation ceremony.

ECHS principalJoséCerda said,“I amdelighted to report that the success rate is

admirable -- 42 percent have 50+ collegecredit hours,53 percenthave45+hours,

and 70 percent have 40+ hours.” He added,“The mission of the ECHS is to provide stu-dents with the cognitive skills and subject

areaknowledgethattheyneedtomasterin order to succeed in today’s colleges anduniversities. We offer a rigorous academic

programwith a small,personalizedset-ting. Students who attend ECHS must havea strong ethic that will contribute to a suc-cessful college experience.”

Cerda said, “This class is calledthe

News

Early College High School holds first-ever graduation

Early College High School Class of 2010

Phoenix Class, and the studentscreatedtheir class motto -- ‘Where dreams are ig-

nited by the flamesof knowledge.’”Thelegendary phoenix, that rose from its own

ashes -- from nothing, so to speak -- hasmultiple connections to our unique school,

thefirst and only exemplaryhighschoolcampus in Laredo where students can both

fulfill all their high school course require -

ments and get college credit for studies ona higherlevel,focusingmainly on the42corehoursrequiredby four-yearstatein-

stitutions for transfer students,” he added.Cerda explainedthe motivatingcon-

ceptthatmadetheECHS at TAMIU a re-ality.“This schoolis based on a belief in

academic rigor and the motivational fac-tor of an opportunity to save money while

taking on seriousacademicchallenges,”he said, adding, “The members of the first

graduating class haveproven the validityof this concept.”LISD’s ECHS received an award for being

oneofthefirstandfinestschoolsofitstypeinthe state of Texas. May Christine Tumonongis the Valedictorian of the Class of 2010 and

Alexandra Reyes is the Salutatorian. u

PUbLISHERMaría Eugenia Guerra

[email protected]

EDITORMonica McGettrick

[email protected]

STAFF WRITERJohn Andrew Snyder

[email protected]

SALESMaría Eugenia Guerra

[email protected] CULATIO N , b ILLI N G

& S UbS CRIPTIO N SJorge Medina

[email protected] AYOUT/DESIGN

JM [email protected]

ShuString Productions, Inc.www.laredosnews.com

1812 Houston Street Laredo Texas 78040Tel: (956) 791-9950 Fax: (956) 791-4737

Copyright @2009 by LareDOS

Read

at www.laredosnews.com

Melissa del BosqueChristopher Dies

Bebe FenstermakerSissy Fenstermaker

Denise FergusonFrontera Nortesur

Neo GutierrezSteve Harmon

Tim HowellPaul Kaat

Henri KahnRandy Koch

Salo OteroLem RailsbackSteve TreviñoJacob Walters

CONTRIbUTORS

Write a Letter to the Editor [email protected]

LareDOS | MAY 2010 | 5WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM


Aftertwo and a half decadesofservice to many ofAmerica’sneglectedandabusedchildren,

Court Appointed Special Advo-catesforChildren(CASA))--the ideathat

Judge David Soukup of Seattle proposed 25years ago -- is still doing marvelous work

through its volunteers nationwide.There are 69 CASAcenters in Texas. Voz

de Niños is a local advocacy organization thatis a member of CASA and focuses on placing

children in safe foster homes. The organizationseeks to operate in the best interests of the chil-

dren in the court system through the trainingand support of community volunteers.

Edgar Ricalde, executive director of Vozde Niños, said, “We advocate for abused and

neglected children in order to safeguardtheir best interests by acting as their voice incourt and getting to know them on a one-to-one basis.” He added, “Our volunteers listento what the kids have to say, and get to knowthe members of their foster families as well

as their birth families. This helps ensure thatwe canmore positively influence the child

andkeepin touchwiththeir ongoingcon-cerns and needs.”

Ricaldcontinued,“As advocateswe areable to report to the judge directly and makerecommendations that are best for the childin relation to both of the families involved.”He added that the prospective volunteer ad-vocates should be possessed of the followingqualities -- a concern for children, a genuine

desire to help, the ability to remain objective,thematuritytodeal with emotionalsitua-

tions, the commitment to complete a 30-hourtrainingcourse, and sensitivity to people

who aredifferent fromthemselves.Theyalso need access to transportation and a flex -

ible schedule, and a willingness to devote atleast one year to a child’s case.

Ricalde added thatvolunteers must be atleast 21 years old, have a clear criminal record,successfully complete a 10-chapter pre-servicetraining course, submit references, and fill outan application before the screening process.

“In additionto meeting these require-ments,volunteersneed to be ableto visit

thechildren on evenings and weekends,and offer a uniqueperspectiveonevery

case. They are assigned to one case onlyand need to address the complexities of thecase and identify and recommend a socialservice agency that meets the needs of thechildren, parents, and family unit,” Rical-

de said, adding, “The meaningful supportandconsistent and friendlyinteraction

thatour volunteersprovide the childrenmake it less likely that the children will re-enter the child welfare system.”

Voz de Niños welcomed its first class ofvolunteer applicants for training on April 21,2008, and will welcome its seventh class of

volunteer trainees on June 21, 2010 at Voz deNiños headquarters at 902 E. Calton, Suite

106.At its recent specialfund-raising event,

the Voz de Niños Family Field Day at IBC’sLagodelRío, hundreds of children, volun-

teers, sponsors, and local citizens who madea $25 contribution enjoyed an afternoon offun thatfeatured a variety of enjoyable ac-

tivities such as arts and crafts, a petting zoo,tennis, basketball, and field games.

Chiefamongthesponsors,alongwithtitlesponsor IBC, were Treviño Eye Clinic, Trevi-ño, Valls, and Haynes law firm, the Khaledi

family, Trans-Maritime Custom Brokers,Southern Distributing,Arby’s, Pittsburgh

Paints, Armadillo Homes, and Lowe’s.The exciting event was topped off with

the raffleof two casitas , onewith a ‘boy’motif and the other with a ‘girl’ motif, built

by Armadillo Homes.

“The objectiveof the FamilyField Daywastocreatemoreawareness of the need

for volunteers to ‘speak’ for foster childrenin thecourtsystem.We wanttocontinue

the Voz mission to recruit, screen, and trainvolunteers, and that can only be achieved ifpeople are aware that these special, beauti-ful children ‘need a voice’ when the judge ismaking decisions about that child,” said Vozde Niños board member Tina Treviño.

“Wehave alsokicked off theyear-longfund raising project of 1,000 for $100, an effortto get 1,000 donations of $100 which will resultin thousands of Webb County children havingthe opportunity to have a voice in the court

system andsomeone to be their advocate torepresent them,” Treviño continued.

“Any one person or group of people candonate $100 and it can make a huge impact.Our office staff is coming together by eachdonating $5 and will make the donation as

a unit. This is a challenge to other business-es andorganizations to gather their staff,

friends, and family to come together to makea $100 donation. With 1,000 $100 donations,Voz de Niños will be able to focus on recruit-ing more volunteers to represent children,”

sheconcluded.Formore informationcall(956) 727-8691 u

News

Voz de Niños: Volunteerism that addresses the needs of foster children

likebiographies and history. “A lot ofpeopleherehave a distinct taste.About70to80percentof thepeoplewhoenter

the store know what they want, althougha few will ask for suggestions,” he said.

Forthose curiousabout thebookstoreor in need of a goodbedside or sum-

merreader,visit Cardenas and his sisterMarisol, who helps him out in thestore.Although it canbe tricky tosee theshop

from Calton Road heading west, just headtowardsEmperorGardenand you’llseethebrightyellow sign.The storeiswarm

and welcoming, and you’re guaranteed tofind a good book to read.

SaidCardenas, “Come and visit. Comeandbrowse,and maybestepoutsideyour

comfort zone. Maybe go into a section you’venever been before.”

EscapeAgainBookstore is open week-days(except Monday)from 12 to 9 p.m.,

Saturdays 12 to 8 p.m., andSundays 1 to 5p.m. Visit them on the web at www.escapea-

gainbookstore.com or check them out onFacebook. u

LareDOS | MAY 2010 | 7

that he would soon be the owner of one ofLaredo’s two secondhand bookstores.

“WhenI cametoLaredo, I heard aboutthe closing of the bookstore,” said Cardenas,adding that as an avid reader, the news dis-appointed him. However, where others sawloss, he saw opportunity.

“I’ve always wanted to open a bookstore.I moved from Salem, Oregon to Chicago, andI did the research on opening a store back in2003, but I put it on the side burner,” he said.

In Salem, the science fiction admirer usedto frequent a bookstore aptly named Escape

Again Fiction.Knowing he couldn’t use the same name,but wantingtopay homageto afavorite

bookstore, he decided to name his bookstoreEscape Again Bookstore, and he included

asmallrocketshipasthestore’slogo.Thestore, located at 608 W. Calton Road, across

the parkinglot from EmperorGarden,isan oasis in a literary desert. Faced with the

sparsely stockedshelves at Wal Mart andTarget, Laredoans hoping to find a good

book can browse Escape Again’s shelves andfind a book worth reading.

With over 5,000 books currently in stock,thestorehasawidevarietyoffiction,myster -

ies, romances, and, of course, science fiction.Cardenasalso stocks thebooks on UISD’s

summer reading lists, and he hopes to soonbe able to stock LISD’s as well.

“To start off, I bought 5,500 books. When Ifound the space to rent, I started by building

bookshelves,and fromthere I ordered 220boxesofbooks.Peoplehave donated about

300 to 400 books, and about 300 have beenpurchased, and about 100 to 200 books have

been traded,” said Cardenas.Theoption to tradebooksin is oneof

the bookstore’s perks. People who wish totradein booksreceive40 percentof what

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

By MONICA MCGETTRICK

When Edelmiro“Ed-Cardenasleftdie”

Chicago inDecem-ber 2009, he left with

the hope of opening a bakeryinLaredo.Originally from Chicago,

Cardenas moved to Laredo to becloser to his family, including sister

MarisolCardenas. He had recentlygraduated from culinary school, andwas prepared for the rigors of own-ing a bakery, including early morn-ings. What he didn’t anticipate was

he canresellthe bookfor. But insteadofcash, customers receive in-store credit. Hedoes offer a cash option, but it is much low-

er.Trade-insshouldbe ingood,resalablecondition,andhe acceptstrades up until

an hour before closing.Officiallyopened on April 8, with a

grand opening and ribbon cutting on April28,Cardenashasseen a steadystream of

customersduring his first monthin opera -tion. “Business is picking up,” he said, add-ing, “We’ve been doing really well this first

month, and I think that should business pickup about four percent, things will get even

better.”While Cardenas has done a little adver-tising, includingapageonFacebookandan ad in ElMercadito, muchof hisbusi-

nesscomes through word of mouth. Thisreporter discovered the store on a favorite

blogofhers, La Sanbe,aswell asseveralFacebookupdates from localreaders. For

the technologically savvy, the store’s Face-book page is a handy tool for keeping up todate with new stock and other tidbits.

Whenasked why he opened abook-store, Cardenas admits that not only are

booksa passion of his, he firmly believesthat people should have the option of buy-

ing books at a lower cost. Most of the booksin his store cost an average of $4, but he also

keeps a fairly good supply of new bestsell-ers for folks who prefer the fresh smell of

an unread novel. On his new shelf, readerscanfind theTwilightbooksaswell asthe

ever-popular Stieg Larsson novels.For fansofsciencefiction,Cardenasis

an excellentresource, but the sci-fiaficio -nadoadmitsthatsinceopeningthestore,he’sbegunto readothergenresinorder

to betteranswercustomer questions or to

provide recommendations for thoseunabletodecidewhich sectiontochoose from.

“I love toreadsci-fi,mysteries,horror like StephenKing or theTony Hillermanmysteries.Grow-ing up myhero wasSherlockHol-

mes or the characters from theLordoftheRings books,and as a kid ImostlyreadbooksinSpanish.ButI’ve beenreadingmorespy-thrill-ers,like theBaldaccibooks,”said

Cardenas with a laugh.As for Laredoreaders, Carde-

nas is quick to defendthemfrombeing unfairly maligned. When askedhis opinion about the closingof B. Dal-ton Bookstoreandthe subsequentnega-

tive articlesin newspapers nearand far,Cardenas brushed off the criticisms.“Storesclosed all acrossthe country,”

he said, adding, “I think that there are alot of readers here, and their tastes aren’t

what I expected.” He’snoticed that hiscustomerslike to read non-fictionworks

Profile

Escape Again Bookstore: true to it ’s name,new bookstore of fers a literar y escape

Eddie Cardenas and Marisol Cardenas

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Actor Julia Vera, formerly of Laredo, is pictured with venerated news-man Odie Arambula at the unveiling of a state historical marker at the oldFarias Home at 413 San Bernardo, which will become the Juan FranciscoFarias Military Museum. Vera is in Laredo for the Laredo Theater Guild

International’s production ofThe Last Lists of My Mad Mother .

Old friends greet at historical marker unveiling


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Christina Castillon’sBirds and Paradise opens

June 11 at Center for the Arts

The LaredoCenter forthe Artswill host an

receptionopeningon Friday, June 11

for Birds andParadisefeaturing the art ofLaredoan ChristinaCastillon.

Castillon’s color-ful,vibrant,andspir-ited imagescapturethe beauty of floraandfauna as wellas

the people and placesshe hasencounteredwhile traveling.Herpassionfor coloranddetail is evidentin everybrushstroke

she applies to the canvas.She has exhibited her work at Gallery

201,Laredo Art LeagueGallery, and the LaredoCenterfor the Arts.Sheis amemberof theTexasWatercolorSociety and

the Laredo Art Spirits.Her work will be on

display throughoutthemonthof Juneinthe Ro-

salie Goodman Gallery.The Laredo Center for

the Arts coordinates, pro-motes, encourages,andsupportsthe arts in theLaredo and SouthTexasarea.TheCenter, an in-dependent non-profitorganization, receives

support from private andpublicsources includingmembers, the

City of Laredo, the County of Webb, andthe Texas Commission on the Arts.u

Gregorio (Goyo) Lopez Sr. is pictured at his induction into the Martin HighSchool Tiger Legends. Alongside him is fellow legend Agustin Dovalina Jr.

Tiger Legends Friends of the Laredo Center for the Arts recently gathered for the firstannual Tequila Mockingbird street party. Proceeds from the event benefitedthe LCA’s Book Nook Bookstore and their upcoming summer art programs.The event featured Mexican antojitos and tequila as well as music.

Tequila Mockingbird at the Laredo Center for the Arts

Four United Independent School District’s fifth graders were recently presentedwith college scholarships to Laredo Community College after competing in theacademic game show “Knowledge for College.” The winners are students fromCol. Santos Benavides Elementary, and each won a $1,000 scholarship. Therunners-up from Prada Elementaryeach won a $500 scholarship.On handto make the presentationwas Javier Santos from the Fernando A. SalinasCharitableTrust Fund and Dr. Ricardo Moreno, Director of FinancialAid for

Laredo Community College. Pictured sitting in front row are Prada Elementarystudents Ricardo Molina and David Blanquez and Col. Santos Benavides

Elementary students Jacob Abdallah and Greta Villarreal.

Fifth-graders awarded college scholarships

LareDOS | MAY 2010 | 9WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Pictured at the recent Villa San Agustín de Laredo Genealogical Society(VSALGS) meeting were José María Peña, VSALGS president Alfredo R.Gutierrez Jr., Dan Arellano, Patti Gutierrez (Library Assistant - UT HealthScience Center Laredo Branch), José A. Lopez; and Ricardo Palacios.Peña, Arellano, Lopez, and Palacios were speakers at the meeting that pre-sented information on the Battle of Medina.

Siblings Barbara Leyendecker, Tony Leyendecker, and Mary L. Quiros werepart of the recent Bethany House fundraiser that launched the shelter’sexpansion. Quiros, an accomplished watercolorist, was recognized for herservice to Bethany House.

VS ALGS meeting on Battle of Medina

A beautiful evening for a good cause

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N O WOPEN

Nueva Vida Maternity ClinicOperated by Doctors Hospital, caring for the community since 1974.

We’re ready to give your little one a strong start.

Services Office Hours• Free pregnancy testing Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.• Expectant mother care, including

normal and high-risk pregnancy• Ultrasound• Pap smears• Fetal monitoring• Lab services

Call 956-727-0722 formore information.

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

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM1 0 | LareDOS | MAY 2010

Grow your own:contemplations from head bent to soil

ByMARÍA E U GENIA G U ERRA

don’t know of anything that more quickly restoresyour personalevenkeel than work in your owngarden.Mine, a modest 10x10-foot raised bed filled withI

an organic soil mix, is located in a patch of green spacebehind my office. It is both safe haven and respite, reju -

venatorandrecipient ofwhat my handsand myheartcan minister to soil and a handful of tomato and pepperplants, eggplants, Swiss chard, cucumbers, and a vari-

ety of squash plants.Mygranddaughtershelpedmeplant thegarden

in early March, and they delight in eatingtomatitosoff the vine. The vegetablestarterplantsand thevibrant marigoldsand Dianthus they laid into the

ground has given them a sense of ownership aboutthe small backyard.Somewhere in them have been

planted the first notions about photosynthesis and therelationshipbetween sun and water and plants. Too,

they’ve taken a lesson about nurturing.Increasingly I taketime to tend to the gardenas

breaks from writing and sitting at my desk. It has suchvalueas a way to clearmy head. I love thesurprises

-- a Tatume squash here, a pattypan squash there -- and

the contemplations afforded by hands in earth and head When the eggplants appeared to have large chomps outbent to soil. of their broadleaves, I hosed off theundersides of the

With greater frequency lunch and supper come from leaves and the problem abated. Healthy plants tend notthe garden, which I have managedto keeporganic. to attract pests. My soil mix is a third compost to a third

sandy loam and a third peat moss (nutrients, drainage,organicmatterfor aeration).I addeda bacteriaactiva-tor Iordered fromGardens Alive! on-line,and I’ve fer-tilized with a coupleof the organic fertilizers now so

readily available at Lowe’s.Not everything has been a success, and my tomatoesdon’thavetheperfect sizeand patina of HEB’s; waxy

tomatoes.The taste, however, isphenomenal. The peaswere a dismal failure and did not as I had hoped climb

up thepiece of livestockpanel wire I had setbehindthem against the wall. The cukes, however, ran with the

idea.I’mdiscovering thatmoreand morefolksare grow-

ing their own produce in backyard and raised bed gar-dens. Gardens,gardenwork, andtechniques we can

share have become the center of several recent conver-sations, which of course, go beyond putting organ-

ic produce on the table. It’s about how rewardinggardentending is individually and as a family,

that there’s a spiritual aspect to it, that it is enjoyablework of meaningful consequence.u

backyard News

LareDOS | MAY 2010 | 1 1WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM


The Killam DuvalCountyRanchhas been recognizedwith the

Texas Parks and Wildlife Depart-ment’sLone StarLandSteward

Award. The nod from TPWDrecognizesprivate landowners for excellence in habi-

tatmanagementand wildlifeconserva-tion. The awardsserve to publicizethe

bestexamples of sound natural resourcemanagementpractices andpromote long-termconservationof uniquenatural and

cultural resources.The conditionof theranchtoday asa

teemingecosystemisa night to dayre-versalof theovergrazed, rundown ranch

acquired by the Killams from bankruptcycourt in 1993. The road to becoming a con-servation award-winning ranch has been along one, one that followed a plan formu-lated by ranch owner David Killam, ranchmanager David Kitner, and TPWD.

When David Kitner began working theDuvalCounty RanchinSeptember2001,

he saw that scant ranchland resources andwildlife habitat were clearly scarred by de-cades of overuse and neglect.

Theplantorevive pastures,accordingto Kitner, included the removal of all live-

stock, a process that took him over a year.The otherstepswererollerchoppingthe

pasturesanddeveloping a wildlife man-agement plan with TPWD biologists.

A major componentof the restora-tion plan was to move water where it was

needed. “Right after the water develop-ment came pasture restoration, which we

implementedwith grazingdeferment,grazingrotation,andbrushcontrolprac-tices.In order to accomplishthesegoals

we started an extensive fencing program,”

said Killam.AccordingtoKillam, improvingwater

resources on the ranch “was no easy fix inthis partof Duval County.”He saidthatstocktanks in thesandyDuval soilheld

water only through normal rainfall condi-tions and that there were few sites on theranch where water wells could be dug.

“Theranch remained vacated of cattlefor approximately five years, and then westarted grazing with stockers in a rotation-al program which has helped with the re-

covery of the range land and also providedmuch needed income for further improve-ments,” Kitner said.

He added that despiteprolongeddrought, range and wildlife conditions on

theDuval CountyRanch improveddra-matically over the last nine years.

Kitner said that the development of a de-pendablewater supply that encompassed

the entire ranch was key to restoring pas-tures.“The planning for this wasdone

using GIS technology to determine whereexistingwaterwas,and toplanpipelines

and troughs to supplement the minimallyexisting system. Over 100 miles of new wa-

ter lines andover70 watertroughshavebeeninstalled to date. All of this was ac-

complished using our own equipment andmanpower. We have approximately anoth-

er40 milesof pipelineand50troughs togo to complete this project. We also drilledtwo new water wells to supplement the ex-isting supply,” Kitner continued.

The wildlifeconservationplandevel-opedwith TPWD has reapedrewardsinthe quality of whitetaildeer. “Wehavegonefromnot havingproducedanydeer

over 160 BC in the nine years prior to my

F eature

T p WD recognizes Duval Count y Ranchwith2010LoneStarLandStewardAward

arrival to producing several deer over 200BC with thelargestscoring232BCsince

the managementplan was implemented.This waspossibledue tothecooperation

of TPWD personnel and programs such asMLDP (Managed Lands Deer Permit) andTTT (TrapTransportandTransplant),”hecontinued.

MLDP allowslandowners involvedina formalmanagementprogramto havethestate’smostflexibleseasonsandbag

limits. TTT allowedthe transport of deerfrom other of the Killam ranches to DuvalCounty Ranch.

“Mostof the ranchis leased to hunterswho have year-round access to the property.All of our leases are family oriented leases,

and we haveavoided leasing to corpora-tions, even though we know they are willingto pay more. We feel it is important to keep

a family atmosphere andhopefully keepfuture generations of hunters involved in a

historic Texas tradition,” Kitner said, adding,

“Besidesour lease pastures,the ranch pro-videspackage huntingopportunities. Even

in this down economy, we have a waiting listof people wanting either lease opportunities

or package hunts.”Huntersare expected to follow strin-

gentguidelines for hunting on the DuvalCounty Ranch. Kitner has developed a pro-

tocolfor allharvesteddeerto bebroughtto a centrallocationso that accuratere-cordscan be kept.Eachdeer is agedandweighed,and the bucksare alsoscoredandphotographed.“All of this informa-

tion is entered into a database that is usedto track the condition of the herd. This in-

formation isdisseminatedto our huntersduring two or three seminars that are heldin the fall before deer season starts. DanielKunz, the local TPWD biologist, producescharts and graphs with this information topresent at these seminars,“ he said.

CONTINU ED ON p AGE 16


S anta María Journal

I. Home on the range: there’s nomore precious commodity than waterBy MARÍA

EUG E NIA GU E RRA

W ithout my permission,a memberof lastyear’shunting party gave afriend his key to our

ranch to retrieve a piece of equipment.Thatstranger left agate open to thesmall, fenced hunting camp. Cattlegot in and had their way with a waterfaucet. Our 20,000-gallonwater stor-

age tank emptied through that spigot,and our submersible pump ran until itcouldn’t anymore.

With the storage tank nearlyempty, there was nohouseholdwater, and our network of smallerplastic

and concrete tanks quickly emptied as the cattle suckedin their daily water needs (25 to 50 gallons each).

Over a two-dayperiod I hadfranticallychecked allthe other water tanks and spigots,and Jorgewalked

PVC routes looking for a major leak. The hunter’s campwas the last place I looked for a water debacle. The cat-tle had made a wallow of the area.

The uncertainty of being able to deliver water, eventhis brackish, briny water, bore animmense weight,

one that could have had awful consequences if it wasnot resolvedquickly. Those few days of worry about

water made us calibrate carefully how we worked.Weopenedeverypasture gateon the ranch togive

our cattle access to either of two fresh water ponds, and

with greatpleasure I snapped thehunter’s lock with apair of bolt cutters.

My sister made calls to set up an appointment withthe pump repair companyin Hebbronville, and I ar-rangedto rent a pump tomove what was left of the

water and algae in the storage tank and an 18-foot di-ameter concretebebedero.True to the rental company’s

assertion, thepump effortlessly moved 3,500gallonsan hour on power from our gasoline generator.

I spedthings up a bit by plugging a smallerpumpinto my Escape Hybrid. It was inspiring to use the lit-tle SUV’s current while listening toCarmen onsatel-

lite radio an hour past dark: thirty, the hour in whichsquadrons of dime-sized mosquitoes droned throughthe cool night air to bite through our cottonclothes.

Though the Escape ran for a couple of hours to operate

the pump, the gas gauge barely moved.I forgot to mention that while I was on

my cell phone on a caliche road earlierin theday, Jorge, who was nearby, was

sending me hand signals I didn’t exactlyunderstand, so I waved back all friendly-like. Finally my eyes locked on the six-foot rattler he had been trying to warn

me was crossing the road a few feet fromme. The heart-stopping moment rakedme with fear and a greatdeal ofrespectfor who really rules the monteecosys-

tem.A little bitlater when Istepped from thepassenger

side of the truck I had yetanother close reptilian en-counter, this time with asmaller snake that shot away

from melike acartoon versionof asnake moving likea rubberband at warp speed, a moment that left me tap

dancing and spewing uncontrollableadrenaline-pow-ered expletives until the scare had left me.

With the sustos behind us and the concrete tanksempty, it was easy to assess the need for repairs, so we

called an enjarre expert from San Ygnacio and a plumb-er from Laredo who both made short work of restoringour water delivery system.

We’ll begood for a while,and in themeantimeweare prayingfor a gully washerto pound us with good

luck, keep the grass green, and fill the ponds.

It wasn’ta gully washer we got, but it wasenoughof a stormto whip the lush greenmesquites aroundand drop thetemperature by a fewdegrees,enoughrain topostpone the inevitable toasting and scorch-ing of the last of the wildflowers on the montefloor,

enough to wash the dust from rooftops and to fillrain barrels with exuberant, splashing chorros of cool,

clean water.No matter whatthe dark the skyportends (even if I

am dizzy with the fragrance of ozone in the atmosphere),

I never count on rain. That would convey the wrong mes-sage to the gods of the monte , but I am so happy when the

grace of it arrives. This time the news of it was heraldedby the shapes of dark raindrops on the tawny coat of the

Buckskin outside my window. u

II. The arrival of the rain was heraldedby raindrops on the tawny coat of the Buckskin

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beatupon your head with silver liquid drops.Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Langston Hughes

“”


Cou

rtesy

Pho

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TLU graduate Jonathan Edward Leyendecker is pictured (left to right) withKarina Nava, his mother Elizabeth Leyendecker, and his proud grandparents,

Lucia and Frank Leyendecker. Leyendecker graduated with a Bachelors ofBusiness Administration.

At Texas Lutheran University commencement ceremonies


He continued, “Most people who run foroffice here arestrapped for cash. It would

get tougher for most to have to reach morepeople. As it is, ourrepresentativesdoa

poor job of going out to meet their constitu-ents.Oh sure, they’re out at churchjamaicas ,

5K races, and dances, but it’s more of a so-cial call than anything.We don’t get to dis-

cuss the issues facing the community. Howaretheygoingto know what’sbest for the

communitywhen theydon’tget out thereto hear our concerns?Dr. Landeck has had

one town hall meeting in the Chacon duringthe last three years.Making time for more

people doesn’t seem practical.”Quiroztemperedhis skepticism,how-

ever, by stating that,“At-largedistrictscouldbe good for Laredo. Morepeople

would have a say over who gets elected. Ijust don’t think we would get a better cropof reps that would be up to the challenge ofoverseeing the bigger picture.”

Councilmemberfor District8, CindyLiendo-Espinoza, disagrees with the change

to 4x4 at-large. She wrote, “In reference tothe 4x4 proposal, I feel that this idea couldhurtthe economicallydisadvantagedareas

likeDistrict8. Theat-large members mightbe inclined to support more projects and im-provements for the areas of town where af-

fluent citizens reside because of the financialinfluence it could have on their campaigns,

thus leavingtheolderareasunattended. Ialso have to disagree with the idea that this

new plan will allow citizens to have morerepresentation by being able to contact morethan one official on the council. Many of the

people behind this measure themselves havecontacted myself and other council membersthat do not represent them when they have

anissue coming up. I don’tthink this hasever been a concern. I personally help or tryto help anyone who contacts me regardless

of wheretheylive.MostCouncilmembersdo the same and I feel we always base ourdecisions on what we believe is best for the

city as a whole.”

Landeckstated thatcouncilmembersneedtoredefinethe waytheysee them-selves.Tohim theywork for theCitybutareelectedby their districts.And while

he believes thatchange, with time, mightnot be a bad idea, this might be too much,

too quick.Hesaid, “My thoughts were toadd two at-large to the eight we already

have. Make them like two deputy mayors.A good beginning and a less controversial

onewould be toadd twoat-largecouncilmembers.Divide thecitybyeast/west or

north/south or by district.”Landeck did say, however, that in prin-

ciple he likes the idea ofhavingat-largecouncilmembers. However,hebelievesthechange would be too harsh and tooquick. He tooproposed theidea ofadd-

ing two at-large council members, perhapsmaking them deputy mayors. “It would be

a goodbeginning andwould be less con-troversial,” he said.

The issue of single district councilmembersisamajor issuefor localbusi-

nessman Drew Claes. “This is one our big-gest problems. Having four at-large coun-

cilmembersmightattractthe most quali-fiedpeoplewhoare interestedinthecityas awhole,”he said.“This would open it

up to a much larger pool to select qualifiedpeople to run.”

Claes,however, does not agreewiththe ideathatbecause a candidate is from

a certain neighborhood,or socio-econom-icbackground, meanstheir singlefocus

would be that neighborhood.Whilehebelievesthatthe decisionfor

change shouldultimately lie with voters,Salinas stated,“Countless civil rights orga-

nizationshavegoneto courttochallengeat-large elections,because that usually di-

lutes minority voting rights strength.In thiscase, the minority is not racial, but economi-

cal. Thosewithless moneywillprobablylose, because they will probably not have the

moneyto competeinacity-wideelection,which meansthat again, oneside of town

will inevitably end up with more representa-tion than another.” u

CONTINU ED FROM p AGE 3CONTINUED F ROMpAGE 13

“Ourhuntersare not required to at-tend, but they’re usually standing roomonly affairs with 60 to 75 people at eachof them,” he said.

The ranch has employed under-graduate students in range and wild-life programs, providing them withhands-on training in deercaptures,game surveys, and guiding hunt-ers. They are trained to work at thecheck station, where they learn toage,weigh, score,and keepaccuraterecords of deer brought in. “Theyreceive training in operating equip-

ment, such as roller choppers, dozers,and disking and planting food plots.

They also learn to use GIS mapping,”Kitner continued.

Duval County Ranch provides hunt-ing opportunities for youththroughthe Texas Wildlife Association, and

alsotheWounded Warriors, U.S. veter-ans.ThroughcooperationwithCounty

Commissioner GilbertUribe,the ranchhas beenable to donatethousandsof

pounds of venison to the needy and el-derly of Duval County each year.

The Lone Star Land Steward Awardsare sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wild-life Service, Partners for Fish and Wild-

lifeProgram,H. Yturria LandandCat-tle, Texas Wildlife Association, U.S.D.A.

Natural Resources Conservation Service,Lower Colorado RiverAuthority, Texas

FarmBureau,TexasandSouthwesternCattleRaisersAssociation,TexasAgri-culturalLandTrust, andLlanoSpringsRanch, Ltd.Other TPWD 2010 ecoregion winners

of the Lone Star Land Steward RegionalAward areBlackland Prairie --QuebeFarm, Brenham,WashingtonCounty,CharlottevonRosenberg, Owner/Op-erator;Cross Timbers and Prairies --

Rocosa Ridge Ranch,Meridian, BosqueCounty,BruceBerg,Owner/Operator;

EdwardsPlateau -- FlaglerRanch, Ed-wards/Real Counties,George G. Mat-thews, Owner, LouisScherer III, Op-

erator; Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes-- Lone Oak Ranch, Anahuac, ChambersCounty, Dave Wilcox and Oliver Smart,Owners/Operators; High Plains -- Run-

ning RRanch, Muleshoe, Bailey Coun-ty; Dr. RobertLepard,Owner,ReggieJohnson,Operator;Pineywoods-- Ew-ing Mound, Lufkin, AngelinaCounty,

Simon W. Henderson III, Owner/Opera-tor; Rolling Plains -- Mott Creek Ranch,Matador, Motley County, Marisue Potts

Powell,Owner/Operator; Trans Pe-cos -- Brite Ranch,Valentine,Presidio

County; Jane Brite, White Trust, Owner,Jim White III, Operator;WildlifeMan-

agement Association -- Edwards Pla-teauPrescribed BurningAssociation,Inc.,20counties,Dr.CharlesA.Taylor,Administrator;Corporation -- Mata-dor Ranch,Matador,Motley,Dickens,Cottle,CrosbyandFloydCountiesThe

Matador Cattle Company, Koch Compa-nies Public Sector, LLC, Bob Kilmer, Op-

erator; Special Recognition -- Fort SamHouston/Camp Bullis Training Site,

U.S. Army, Bexar County; Colonel MaryGarr,Commander,Lucas Cooksey,Bi-

ologist; Special Recognition -- EducationandOutreach-- BearSpringsBlossom,

Pipe Creek(Bandera), Bandera County,Peter and Marianne Bonenberger.u

outreachinitiatives, including the “GoGreen” campaign to promote the City’s

own effort tobecomemore environ-mentally responsible. He most recentlywas selected as co-chair of the Unity inCommittee for the City of Laredo, with

volunteers cleaningover 80city blocksand painting homes identified by Com -

munity Development as homes in need,in particularthehomesofelderlyand

special needs residents.He is committee chair of the Images

forConservation2010ProTour,whichpromoteswildlife conservation,sus-tainabledevelopment,arteducation,and naturalhistory throughphotogra-phy.A supporter of educational advance-

ment, Santos is involved in activities ofthe St. Augustine School Board, United

I.S.D Alumni, and TAMIU Alumni,includingdeveloping youth lead-

ers who are interested in givingbacktothe community.He is

president of Regency Park Ho-meowners Assn.

Heserves SCAN and Vozde Ninos as treasurer. He is anactivevolunteerfor EarthDay,

One City OneBook, and theRedRibbonCoalition. He is a 4-H Gold

Star recipient and adult leader of Phi Al-pha Delta Law Fraternity. He is a mem-ber of Laredo Gateway Rotary, Jalapeño

Festival,WebbCounty Building Com-mittee, TAMIU President’s Cabinet,

TAMIU StrategicPlanningCommittee,WBCA, LaredoRíoFest, and Día Del

Río He wasrecentlynamed as amem-berofincorporationintothe BoysandGirls Club of Laredoand asamember

of Doctors without Borders.“Wecan worktogetherto becomea

cleaner, better looking cityand to be acitythat workstoimprove thequality

of life for every resident. No one shouldbe left out of the loop, not poverty level

families, not theelderly, andnot thosewith specialneeds,” Santossaid, add-

ing, “There’s a way to fostereconomicdevelopment while judiciouslytaking

careof the businessof thetaxpayers’concerns forinfrastructure, growth,

and the environment.” u

LareDOS | MAY2010 | 1 7

have integrity and offeraccountability.“That is what I offer,” Santos said.

“A city’s primary duty to its citi-zensis toprovide thebasicmunicipalservicesin themost efficientmanner

possible while looking ahead to our col-lectivefuture,”he continued,adding,

“I believe we can achieve success by fo-cusing on four areas -- tax relief, public

safety,economic development, and in-frastructure.”

Santos said that tax relief wouldcome in the form of more accurate valu-ations of homes and all taxable proper-ty. “This would spell relief for qualified

seniors and the disabled.We shouldenforce ‘RealTruth’ in taxation, so

that when taxpayers are told theirtaxes have not increased, the City

doesnotcollect one morecentfromthe citizens.Taxesshouldnot increaseunlessthecitizens

have approved the increase,” hesaid.

Santos said publicsafety couldbe ensured by providing effectivetraining and equipmenttoall law en-

forcement, fire, and emergency servicesproviders.He said that city leaders need a “Seize

the Day” focus to plan well for growthandeconomicdevelopment. “Wemust

work togethertotakeadvantageofallavailable opportunities.Effective plan-

ning, focused policies, and capitalizingon our ‘home-grown’ resourceswill

prepareus for theemergingmarkets,which will benefit our citizens now and

well into thefuture,”Santos said,add-ing,“We must maximize the return-on-investment of every tax dollar invested

ininfrastructure.Our agingroadsandhighways, water, sewer,electricity, gas

and telecommunications systems all de-mandourattention.”Santos said, “We

must initiate and implementa solidplan,which includesleveragedfinanc -

ing, in the mostaffordablemannerasapproved by our citizens.”

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

A lfredo (Fred) Santos IV,candidate for City Council

District VI, believes thatthe city’s progressand its

futureare in thehandsof leaderswho

Santos said he plans to earn the sup-port andrespectof thevoters by run-

ning a campaign that sticks to the issuesthat matter most to Laredoans.

“I will always do my best for the citi-zens of District VI and the City of Lare-do. Ipledge accountability,honor,andintegritytomy workas a City Council

member,” he said.Santos, a lifelong resident of Laredo,

is the son of the late Alfredo Santos IIIandMartha B. Santos. Hesaidhefol-lows the family tradition of community

service,heeding theexamples of hisfather, grandfather, andgreat-grandfa-

ther. His fathesr Alfredo III and grand-father Alfredo Jr. established the Good-

yearTire store,Santos Oil andPhillips

66,oneof the firstgasolinevendorstoWebbCounty in the 70sand 80s.His

great-grandfather AlfredoSantos Sr.established the Alfredo Santos Grocery

Storeon SantaMaria, a fixture in thememories of many Laredoans.

Santosis anactivecommunityvol-unteer and serves on the boards ofvarious organizations whose prior-ity is helping people. ThroughKeepLaredo Beautiful(KLB), as amemberand ascurrentboard president,hehasbeen an advocatefor improvingthequality of life throughoutthecity.As

a KLB member, he was part of the 2009RioFestriverfrontcleanup. Hewasan

activeparticipant in promotingthe2008-2010City of LaredoAdopta Park

program.He served on the Make-a-Difference committee and worked with

City Council memberson numerous

Election 2010

Alfredo (Fred) Santos IV announcescandidacy for Cit y Council District VI


Cou

rtesy

Pho

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Tsioné Walters, center, celebrated her graduation from Apple Bee LearningCenter with her grandmother Teresa Walters, father Jacob Walters, andaunts Taryn and Tanyn Walters.

Pre-kindergarten graduation

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

can capital.For the rich,weekendhomesand estates in and around Cuernavaca andon the beaches of Acapulco stood as statussymbols of class privilege, economic might,

and political power.Forthemiddle classes,a weekend jaunt

to an Acapulco hotel or an appearance at thehip, outdoor bars in downtown Cuernavaca

delivered relief to a hectic weekday schedule.And even for the poor, a low-budget splash

with a crackedtinof tunaon thesandsoftheBayof SantaLucia represented a ritual

escape from reality.Nowadays, though, the mythic nirvana

of the resort destinations just south of Mexi-co City is becoming part of a fabled past. In

recent months, episodes of murder, decapita-tion, and chaos blamed on organized crimehave shaken Cuernavaca and Acapulco.

EfrenLeyva, presidentoftheGuerrerostate branch of the Institutional Revolution-

aryParty (PRI),calledthe violenceinhishome turf ground nearly “uncontrollable.”

As in Chihuahua and Tamaulipas to thenorth,the killing spreein Guerrerocoin-

cides with an election campaign. Since thebeginningof the year,severalprominentpoliticiansassociatedwiththe PRI, PRD,and PT parties have beenmurdered inGuerrero.

Thebreak-up of theBeltrán-Leyva drugcartel, also known as “The Enterprise,” into

two warringfactionsisblameformuchofthe violence. Since last year, authorities haveattributed more than 300 killings to the con-

flict,with at least 57 of themoccurring inCuernavaca alone. On one especially violent

weekend last March, more than 30 bodieswere tossed around Acapulco as the Pacificresort geared up for the springtime holiday

season. As in Ciudad Juárez and other north-ern hot spots, many if not most of the war’svictims have been very young.

Policemen and other officials have madethelist of the victims, including Acapulco

city water department official Alejandro Lo -pez, a half-brother of former Mayor AlbertoLopez Rosas of the center-left PRD party.

Thefatherof thetwo men,Alfredo“ElRey Lopitos,” Lopez Cisneros, was a legend-

ary landsquatterorganizerandpoliticalleader gunned down back in 1967 .

Barbie and Hector call it quitsRising tensions inside the Beltrán-Leyva or-

ganizationexploded after kingpin Arturo

2 0 | LareDOS | MAY 2010

Fromthebustling,smoggyinnardsof Mexico City, the cities of Cuerna-vaca, Morelos, and Acapulco, Guer-

rero,longloomedas tranquilget-aways for the harried residents of the Mexi-

Beltrán Leyva was slain by Mexican marinesin a Cuernavaca shootout last December 16.

Known as “El Barbas”and“El Jefedelos Jefes,” or “Boss of Bosses,” Beltrán’s vio-

lentdeath in a high-rise luxury apartmentcomplex located in the center of the Morelosstate capital symbolized how drug lords hadclimbed the social ladder to live alongside ifnot replace the old, well-heeled bourgeoisie

that long claimed the “City of Eternal Spring”as its garden of diamonds and delight.

The capo’s death set the stage for a bloodypowerstruggle between his brother Hec-

tor Beltrán Leyva and the Texas-born EdgarValdez Villareal, a blue-eyed blonde widely

known as “La Barbie.” Considered a veteranof the narco war that rocked Nuevo Laredo,

Tamaulipas, between 2003 and 2007, Valdezreportedly had been the chief of Arturo Bel-

trán’sprivatearmyofgunmen known as“Los Pelones,” or the “Baldies.”

Facingindictments on thisside of theborder, theUS Departmentof State is of-

feringtwomillion dollarsforinformationleading to the apprehension of a US citizen

whosomehow emerged as a keyplayer inMexico’s narco wars.

BackingHectorBeltrán in thecurrentstruggle is Sergio Villarreal, or “El Grande.”Beltrán and Villareal are identified with the

Southern PacificCartel (CPS), while Barbiemay havealignedhimself againwith an

old and powerful ally -- Joaquin “El Chapo”Guzman.

As if thestrugglewithin theoldEnter-prise wasn’t enough to rattle the nerves, oth-

er groups including Los Zetas and Michoa-can’s La Familia, each backing different sidesin the conflict between the two old Beltrán-Leyva factions, have also staked out claimsin the geographic areas under dispute.

Like the bloodbath in Ciudad Juárez, thewar between Barbie and Hector was practi-

cally announced. Only days after ArturoBeltrán’sdeath, MexicanFederal Attorney

GeneralArturo Chavez Chaveztold thepress a violent power struggle for control ofthe syndicate could “not be ruled out.”

In addition to smugglingcorridors toMexicoCity and beyond, a lucrative retail

tradein illegal drugs in CuernavacaandAcapulco is at the center of this war. In both

cities, hundreds of “tienditas,” or illegal drugoutlets, service a robust economy.Tidied up

with a legalcover,spin-offbusinessesandpolitical and public security institutions sub-ordinated to the underground economy andsubterranean state factor into the spoils.

A war for hearts, minds, and headsA public relations battle has been a note-

worthy feature of the war for the Guerreroand Morelos “plazas.” Regularly, both sides

drapenarco-bannersin public spacestoconvey their messages.Typically, the CPS’

messages deride a “traitorous” Barbie as anallegedhomosexualwho cavortswith kid-nappers and other lowlives.Addressed to

the“citizensofMorelos,”arecentmessagesummed up the group’s posture:

“TheSouthernPacific Cartel is anorga -nization dedicated solely to the trafficking

of drugs.We wouldnever harmMorelos’families. The ‘Chief’ has given clear orders toeliminate the members that work for Edgar

Valdez Villarreal (la Barbie) who betrayed usand molested the public, and we have orders

to kill,chop up,anddecapitateone-by-oneall who have connections to him…”

The CPS’ attacks on Valdez for his allegedlinks to kidnappers builds on the campaign

of the lateArturo Beltrán to“cleanse” hisarea of influence of kidnappers, auto thieves,and other petty criminals who were compli-cating the drug business.

Possibly with the collusion of local, state,and federal authorities, the fallen capo’s hit

men spent much of last year littering Morelosand Guerrero with bodies of victims bearing

warnings against“lawbreakers” and socialdegenerates.Dramatically,theslaughter

showed how normal state functions like ar-resting and trying accused criminals had es-sentially ceased to function and, in a twistedway, been outsourced to a private business.

On the other hand, messages attributedto Barbietauntthe CPS forconsistingof

greedyhas-beens and killers of innocentpeople. In a recent statement, the author(s)accused the CPS of burning the homes and

businesses of innocents in Cuernavaca.Presumed CPS messages denigrate La Bar-

bie’smen for being“homosexuals,” whilemessages linked to Barbie refer to the CPS

as “ ,” a derogatory term for peoplemayatesof African descent.

In theGuerrero state capital of Chilpanc-ingo, eight dismembered bodies were recently

stuffed intoplasticbags anddumped in theparkinglot of state policeheadquarters. Pre-

sumably left by the CPS, a note accused Guer-rero State Ministerial Police Director ValentinDiaz and two other officials of being traitors.

A military veteran, Diaz was appointedhead of the Guerrero State Ministerial Police

last year. Previously, he was in charge of a di-vision of the Ciudad Juárez municipal policeat a time when supervision of the local copswas turned over to professional soldiers.

Deadly cross-fireIn the dispute between Barbie and Hector,

bullets often fly in very public spots. PostingonLa Jornada’swebsite, a writer identified as“Ana” scribbled a postcard memory of an in-cident in downtown Cuernavaca only a half-block from the historic plaza:

“I was drinking in a café with two friendswhenthe shootoutbegan and the soldiers

told us to get inside the building. We man-aged to see how they killed a presumed nar-co. Terrible things. I won’t go back there.”

This month, an eight-year-old child waskilled whena truck he wasriding inwas

shot up at an Acapulco gas station in broaddaylight.In mid-April, as the tourist season

was winding down, athree-wayshootoutbrokeoutonAcapulco’smaintouristdrag.

Occurring in the middle of the afternoon,crossfire claimed the lives of the wife of Aca -

pulco hotelier Antelmo Miranda, Laura Del-gado Turllos, and two children, 12-year-old

CarlosMirandaand9-year-oldMonserratMiranda.

Theclashoccurred very close to the USConsulate and on an especially busy sectionof the Costera dotted with restaurants, retailshops, and hotels, including the Playa Suites,

longfavoredbydrugandbooze-lovingUSspringbreakers, one of whom nearly burned

down atower of theresort complextwoyears ago. A guest of Playa Suites, Germán

Lopez, was in his room when shots rang out-side. The experience made Lopez question ifhe and his wife “were in a war zone and not

on vacation.”Almost immediately as the Acapulco gunbattlebegan,Mexican TourismSecretary

GloriaGuevaradeclaredthatfears of vio-lence in the old playground of Tarzan, John

Wayneand Bill and Hillary Clintonwerea matterof “perception.” The local popu-

lace,however, knows and acts differently.Threeweeks after the Costerashoot-out, a

back-firing car nearly caused a stampedein thepopularGranPlazashoppingcenter

just down the street from where the earlierblood-letting happened.

Where is the government?Unrestrainedviolence inCuernavaca

andAcapulco unleasheda newwave ofcriticism directed at both local and federal

authorities.ColumnistJavierSiciliaques-tioned why authorities did not publicly re-spond to a widely circulated e-mail in Cu-

ernavaca that warned residents to stay outof nightspotsand remainat homewhiletheauthorswentaboutthe jobof“clean-

ing” the city of rivals. According to Sicilia,the e-mailaccomplished its goal.By the

eveningof April 16,hewrote,downtownCuernavaca was largely deserted.

F eature

Barbie’s bad break-up: the fight for Mexico’s heartland

LareDOS | MAY 2010 | 2 1

Viewed through a broader political lens,Sicilia contended that suchinaction cou-

pled with amanipulatedmasspsychosiscould lay the groundwork for an eventual

state of emergency that suspends Constitu-tional guarantees.Indeed, the armed forc-es have been seeking equivalent authorityfrom the Mexican Congress.

Pursuing the trails of theshatteredEnterprise, federal forceshave killed or

arrestedscoresof individualsallegedlyassociatedwiththetwo feudingfactions,

especially suspectslinkedtoBarbie. Lastmonth,soldiers arrestedGerardo Alvarez

Vazquez, “El Indio,” allegedly a major allyof Barbie, along with gunmen at a property

outside Mexico City.Servingas the vanguard inPresident

Calderon’santi-narcooffensive in CiudadJuárezandotherplaces,the armynever-

theless largely has taken a back seat to thenavy and Federal Police in this campaign.

BesidesGuerrero and Morelos, theBarbie-Hectorsplithashadviolentreper-cussionsin thestatesofNuevoLeonand

Mexico. But it is in theMexicancapital it-selfwherethings could getreallyrough.Given thepopulation density-- and thevastinternaldrugmarket ofMexico City

-- an all-out war for control of the capital’smoney-makingmachinery would have

devastating consequences.

All for the narco crown of stateScatteredkillingstied to the breakup

of Barbie and Hector have already stainedMexico City and its suburbs. Although

the denizens of the old Aztec capital havelong put up witharmed robbers,fly-by-

nightkidnappers,ubiquitous scam artistsand thieves of every size and shape, many

have viewed their lives as farremovedfrom the vicious narco wars played out in

thelawless hillbilly districtsofGuerreroor Michoacan or the distant, culturally bi-zarre no-man’s land of the Mexico-US bor-derlands. All that could be changing.

Last January’sshootingof soccerstarSalvadorCabañasinside a Mexico City

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

nightclub partially exposed how narco cul-ture had seeped deeply into multiple layersof society. Cabanas’ alleged attacker, JorgeBalderas Garza, was a ghost-like man witha billfold of names and monikers including

“Batman.”The fugitiveBalderaswasa VIP regu-

lar of the Bar Bar club where Cabañas wasshot and, accordingto the Mexico City

district attorneygenerals’office, a majorretail drugdistributor for BeltránLeyvas

and Barbie who specialized in the upscalenight club scene. Bar Bar was well-known

as a favorite hang-out of television stars.Balderas,orwhateverhistruenamemight

be, is the father of Silvia Elena Irabien Milke’sdaughter.Popularly known as “La Chiva,”

the 35-year-old Irabien came from nowhereto gain fame as a star of theBig Brother reality

television show. Becoming a sex symbol, LaChiva pranced around naked in videos thatreportedly fetched millions.

In 2009, Irabien was listed as a possibleCongressionalcandidate in thestate of

Yucatanfor the since-disappearedSocialDemocraticParty, a short-livedpoliticalgrouping that favoreddruglegalization.

The erstwhile media personality soon saidshewas toobusy with otherprojectstodelveinto politicsfor the moment.How-

ever, a comeback cannot be ruled out.Like a flashyparty thatonly getsbet-

ter and better before it blows up and burnsdowntheneighborhood,aconfluenceof

narcos, entertainers, policemen, and politi-cians has long electrified neighboring Mo -

relos.Thepresence of celebrity musicianslike Ramón Ayala at an ostentatious party

hostedby Arturo Beltránjust beforehisdeathwasbutanother example of the as-

cent of the narco to the court of the elite.In Morelos, the currentwarbetween

the pretenders to El Barbas’ crown shouldcome as no surprise. The Carrillo-Fuentes

brothersof the JuárezCartelreportedlyfound safe haven in the small but hospita-ble state, and it was rumored that another

capoidentifiedwith theorganization,“ElAzul,” was romantically involved with the

daughter of a state governor.For decades,fertileground hadbeen

sown for the transition from the old orderto the newone. Under successiveadmin-

istrations of the PRI and PAN parties, dif-ferentpoliceagencies busied themselves

with kidnapping-for-profit, watching overairstripswheredrugswereunloadedandprotecting kingpins.By the turn of the new century, a fire sale

of Morelos real estate was on, as the old elite,terrorized by hundreds of kidnappings andmurders, scurried fast out of Dodge. A simi-

lar processhassincetransformedCiudadJuárez on the Mexico-US border.

Flush with cash,northernersliketheBeltránLeyvas and Barbiemoved in todisplacethe archaicbourgeoisie.And inan oddand ironically tauntingway,theruffians from the GreatChichimecaand

beyond, that vast land north of the Valleyof Mexicowhich neither Aztecnor Span-

ish rulers could really control, also share acertain similarity to Pancho Villa and oth-

erswhobeganclosing in ontheMexicancapital nearly 100 years ago.

In a modern sense, Cuernavaca and itsenvirons function as not only the getaway

of Mexico City, but the gatewayto theGrand Tenochtitlan.

A full-scalenarcowar for theprize ofMexico City, wrote journalist Jorge Carrasco

Araizaga recently, would represent the “cor-onation of the escalation of violence touchedoff by Felipe Calderon’s strategy.” An open

struggle for the nervecenter of the nation,Carrasco wrote,couldmark the “consum-

mation of the challenge to the State.”Sources , May 7, 2010.: El Diario de Juarez

Proceso/Apro, March 13, 19, 20, 24, 2010;April 14and 24,2010;May4and 5,2010,ArticlesbyJorgeCarrasco Araizaga,Glo-

ria Leticia Diaz, Ezequial Flores Contreras,JavierSicilia, andeditorial staff. El Sur ,

March 10, 23, 26, 2010; April 15 and 16, 2010;May 5 and 9, 2010.ArticlesbyZacarias

Cervantes, Jesus Saavedra, Xavier Rosado,and theReformanewsservice. LaJorna-

da , March 15 andMay 9,2010. Articles byMisael Habana de los Santos and editorial

staff.Milenio.com , May 1, 2010. El Univer-sal, December 17, 2009; February 11 and 27,2010; March 16, 19, 24, 30, 2010; April 2, 22and 24, 2010; May 5, 2010. Articles by Silvia

Otero, Claudia Bolanos, Francisco Gomez,Justino Miranda, SalvadorGarciaSoto,Carlos Loret de Mola, RobertoMorelos

Cruz, Notimex, AFP , and editorial staff.(Frontera NorteSur(FNS) is an on-line,U.S.-Mexico border news centerfor Latin

Americanand BorderStudies at New MexicoState University Las Cruces, New Mexico. For

a freeelectronic subscriptionemail [email protected].) u


ByDENISEF ERGU SON

was pleased, as an interested grand-parent,toattendthe recentautism

conference at TAMIUfeaturing Dr.Patricia Harkins, a San AntonioI

developmental pediatrician and SheilaShwiff, a San Antonio speechlanguage

pathologist. Muchof theconference ad-dressedhigherlevels ofautism;howev-er, Dr. Harkins notedthatprofessionals

are now leaning towards bundling com-municativedisorders under the term

“autism spectrum disorders.”According to Dr. Harkins, thereap-

pears to be a relationship involving fam-ily history. A probe into a family historymight turn upancestors who werelate

talkers/readers, or who had anxiety dis-orders orcompulsive/obsessive disor-ders. Familybackgrounds mightreveal

individuals who may have achieved suc-cessin focus-orientated careers such as

engineering or who earned several mas-tersdegrees (andpossiblyencountered

difficulty in the work sector).Biologically, artificial substances

found in cord blood may also be a factor.Also, environmental and immunologi-cal triggers mayplay a part. “There is

no association between autism and vac-cines,” said Dr. Harkins, adding, “In fact,inoculations may decrease susceptibility

to autism. Be sure to get every vaccine atthe regular times.”

Shecontinued. “Sometimes,parentsare the first to know.” She said that many

parentsmeasure the progress of theirinfants with respect to sitting, walking,

and talking milestones. “The early symp-toms may be innocuous and can only beformally diagnosed around the age of 18

months.But if theparent issuspicious,

therapy can be implemented immediate-ly,” she said.

Is the child fixated on one type of toyor activityas Thomasthe TankEngine?

Is heableto concentrate on one activityfor more thanfive minutes in infancy?

That is not typical in early childhood.While thechild maycharm adults,he

may be completely inept with his peers. “Ihavenevermeta spectrumchild who is

not bonded with the parent,“ said Dr. Har-kins. “But if rituals are not observed, thereis hell to pay.” She dispelled the myth that

if the childdoesn’tspeakbyfive, he willnever speak. She noted that the oldest new

speakerthatshe hasobservedwas age14.Forthosewhodon’teventuallyspeak,

pocketcomputershave provided consid-erableassistance. Althoughchildren with

highspectrumautism may be speech de-layed,theyoftencatch up bythe age offive. At that point the child mightscore

well on tests but still not have good verbalskills in dealing with the real world. Also,

thespectrumchild may haveaproblemwith idioms.

According to Dr. Harkins, spectrumchildren may exhibit rigidity in an un-predictableworld.Somethingunexpect-

ed may result in an inability to cope andresult in inappropriatebehavior.“Even

Christmaspreparationseason results inanxiety with everything changing; deco-

rations,trees,differentfood; not know-ing what is going to be under the Christ-mas tree,” she said.

Dr. Harkins explained that we are nor-mallyablejudgeother people’spointofview. “This skilldevelops at aboutnine

months of age and is automatic. You haveno idea you are using that skill.Peoplewith Autism Spectrum Disorderscan’t

put themselves in another person’s shoes.

F eature

TA MI U hosts Autism ConferenceThey have no perspective. But it is impor-tant to understand that with proper inter-

vention we can teach them anything. EvenIQ scores are not set in stone,” she said.

The spectrum child is oblivious to hiseffecton othersandsees himself as so-

cially equal to adults. A child who is highonthe autismspectrummay putadults

in “time out.”Dr. Harkins warns parentsthatalthough thisscenario mightseem“cute”at the ageof five, parentsshouldkeep in mind that if the behavior is notcorrectedin early childhood, that sce-

nario might not be so amusing when thechild reaches the age of 16.

Sherecommendedthat sensory andoccupationaltherapy beprovided at the

sametime in the form ofsensory-basedoccupationaltherapy.Theoccupationaltherapyis particularlyimportant in ad-dressing difficulties with writing, whichcan developinto seriousanxietysymp-tomsaround theage of eight. But,over-all, Dr. Harkins said, “They can learn

anything that they can see.”The autistic child often starts a sen-

tencewith, “Do you know?” or “Actu-ally,” which expresses their factual orroutine-basednature. They may speak

in the third person such as, instead of “Iwant a cookie,“ theymay say,“Do you

want a cookie?”Autism Spectrum children have a

problem using expressive language.Their language expertiseis particular-ly focused onnumbers, letters,cars. Ifthe child seeshispeers building a sandcastleand wants to make aconnectionwith them hemay walkover and knock

it down so that he can have the opportu-nity to rebuild it with them.

Spectrumkids like each other. Usu-ally, they form betterrelationshipswithgirls. They do nothave difficulty mak-

ing friends until the first or second grade.“Kids are kind early on,” said Dr. Harkins,“but around the third grade, the spectrum

child maybepickedon.They maybesetup, teased, andbullied.They don’t know

they are being set up. As a result they maybecome depressed and act out.”

Also around the third grade, theirreadingcomprehension maydecreasedue to lack ofdevelopment ofabstractthinking and social cognition. Dr. Har-

kins said, “At this age, it may be desirablefor the child to associate with the same

kids with whomhehas hadpositive re-lationshipsearly on. They maybeused

to him. Also, try to enlist empathetic ac-

quaintancesto becomepeermentors.”Family pets might also provide a produc-tive social learning tool, she added.

In order to expedite learning, Dr. Har-kins suggestedintroducing new skillsthroughalternatevenues. Forexample,thePokemon gamemayhelp with writ-ing skills. BeanieBabiesmay help with

math. “Video games may provide a gate-way toteachingthingsthey mayresist,”

said Dr. Harkins. Writing therapy can beusedas an occupationaltherapy.Typingand using a wordprocessorhelps to re-

lieve stress. For explaining rules, use so-cialstories orcomicbookconversations.

“Gramma likes me to visit.” “Gramma ishappy when I hug her.” “Grammagets

mad if I hit.” Use a positive approach in-stead of the negative, “Don’t do this.”

According to Dr. Harkins, “In a so-cial setting such as school, the spectrum

child may need bully protection. Theyare natural targets.Classroombuddiesor lunchbuddies orrecess buddiesmayhelp. But Shwiff notedthat onecannotforce people to be friends.“Such sup-portsituations should not be labeledasfriendships. And kids may have to be

taught how to be their friends.”According to Dr. Harkins, thespecial

interests of the spectrum child may lateron develop into a career thatrequires

intenseconcentration, such asthat of ameteorologist.

“A Spectrum Disorder is not necessar-ily a limiting condition,“ said Dr. Har-kins. With treatment,60percent reach

independence andacquire a few goodfriends. An example of a famous per-son with the conditionwho was able to“thinkoutside thebox” in his adult life

was the composer, Mozart.Dr. Harkins continued, “Girls are able

to fake things better.Theyare likely tohave gender appropriateinterestssuchas animals.Three-quarters of adult fe-

males with autism spectrum become vet-erinarians.”

Discipline should beshort and tothepoint; limited to things that areunder

their control; teach the child to do some-thing different; reserve discipline forreally importantsituations. “Safetyandhealthare thebig things,”said Dr. Har-

kins. Positive discipline includes rewardsystems;parentalattention;preventive

measures. According to Dr. Harkins, “In-dicators of a successful outcome are peer

mentors;earlydiagnosis with interven-tion; and parents who are married.” u

LareDOS | MAY2010 | 2 3

Scouting thatstarted thescouting craze inBritain and,eventually,worldwide. Baden-

Powell’s goal was primarily to teach youngpeoplefrontierskillsandelementarysur-

vival techniques in the wild.Cub Scouting was also a Baden-Powell

invention dating back to 1916, when he be-gan the Wolf Cub program in Britain. Cub

Scoutingshapedup in about 1930 in theUnited States, once again with a great dealof input from Ernest Thompson Seton.

Laredo’sPack404andTroop 505aremembers of the Aztec District, whose chair-man is Dr. David E. Garza. The Aztec Dis-

trict’s15-personexecutivecommitteeisheaded up by vice-chairman Joseph MichaelDickerson and Ed and Sylvia Romero.

Gutierrez’scommitmentto the CubScouts runs deep andstrong, as he cur-

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM


Laredo Scoutleaders José LuisGutierrez, Cub Master of CubScout Pack 404, and RicardoCampos,Scoutmaster of Boy

ScoutTroop505, were recently presentedwiththeprestigiousSilverBeaverAwardby the SouthTexas Council of theBoy

Scouts of America.GutierrezandCamposwereawarded

their medals,patches, andplaques at aceremonyaboardthe USSLexington in

Corpus Christi as part of the South TexasCouncil’s Leader Recognition Dinner.

The Silver Beaver recognizes outstand-ing longtimeservice toyouth by a regis-

tered Scout residing within a given Coun-cil. The average tenure for Silver Beaver

candidates is 10 years or longer.Foundedin1910, the Boy Scoutsare

America’s largest youthorganization.What is known as theScoutMethod is

universally recognized as one of the mosteffective approaches to positively develop

ayoung person’sinnerself, to instill alifestyle of responsiblebehavior,habitsof cleanlinessandhelpfulness,andlead-ership qualitieseverdevelopedandput

intopractice.Furthermore, thevalues ofdependability, trustworthiness, and an

activelifestyle are part and parcelof aScout’s training and personality.

Naturalistand authorErnestThomp-son Seton, sponsor of a youth group called

theWoodcraftIndians, and Daniel CarterBeard, organizer and sponsor of the Sons ofDaniel Boone, are credited with establishingthe Boy Scouts of America, whereas English-man and Boer War veteran Robert Stephen-son Smyth Baden-Powell wrote a handbook

at the turn of the 20thcentury titledAids to

News

BSA: Gutierrez and Campos honored for outstanding ser vice

rentlyoversees 46 youngsters in the firstthrough fifth grade range. “We have week -

ly meetings with the kids, and the parentsare encouraged to attend, too,” Gutierrez

said,adding,“These are structured meet-ings where we teach and work on activitiesthat will help the kids become better lead-ers in the community.”“Cub Scouting is a five-year program that

takes a youngster through levels of trainingandachievement -- Tiger Cub, Wolf, Bear,

Webelosblue(fourthgrade)andWebelosyellow(fifthgrade)-- each levelhaving its

own requirements,activities, skill levels,and schedules for earning the various merit

badges attainable at that particular level ofscouting,” Gutierrez said.

Talking to Gutierrezevokedmy ownvery positive experiences in Scouting. Some

things, perhapsmost things, aboutCubScoutinghavenot changed much down

through the generations since when I was aCub Scout with Pack 104, and Mrs. Ruth El-lis was our wonderful Den Mother. I meanthe uniforms, sometimeshalf-uniforms,

the merit badges, the learning activities, theweekly meetings that you always looked for-

ward to,therefreshments at the meetings,the great feeling that you were becoming a

betterperson anda more skilled outdoors-man, doing a Good Turn every day, and, of

course, the books -- the Cub Scout Books thatare so informative, instructional, well-illus-

trated, inspirational to a young boy workinghis way up the Scouting ladder.

Gutierrez sad that today the Scout booksareavailableonline or through theareacouncil,which mails bookstoScouts.Hesaid thatthe individualScoutstaketheir

books to the meetings, and added that alladultvolunteersworking withScouts arenow required(beginning in 2010)to take

a mandatoryYouth ProtectionTrainingcourse.The Scoutingmovementencour-

ages parents to attend meetings and otherfunctions and to be involved in their chil-dren’s scouting efforts.

“We also take an inventory of individu-al parents’ skills and particular areas of ex-pertise, with an eye to getting them to as-sist in specific kinds of training areas, like

carpentry, for example,”Gutierrez said.He added that there are Scout benefactors

among the parentsand inthe area of the

Laredocommunity thatsometimeshelpenableindividual scoutsin the purchase

of an official Scout shirt, an item which in -stillspride,team spiritand the notionof

groupbelonging, aswell asbeing in andof itself a handsome garment where iden-

tifyinginsignias, pins,and meritbadges,which are indications of advancement, can

be displayed.“Thisgenerousactof goodcitizenship

isimportant becauseitprevents the situ-ation from possiblyarising in which thelack of aScoutshirtmight serveasa de-

terrent to membership in that it might dis-courageparentsfrom either participating

themselves or allowing theirchildren tojoin up as Scouts,” Gutierrez said.

“Prospectivedenleaders’ names aresubmitted to the local Counciloffice, andonce they are selected, theirnames areregistered at the district,state,and na-

tional level,”Gutierrezadded.“WhereasCubScoutdens meeton aweeklybasis,we usually meetasa packon amonthlybasis,mainly to formally recognizethe

achievements of individualscouts beforetheirpeers andparents,”Gutierrezsaid,

adding,“There are 17 Cub Scoutpacks inLaredo. Den leaders can be male or female,and we have quite a few husband-wife co-

leaders.”Gutierrezsaid thatScoutingparticipa-

tion nationally reached a peak in 1972, add-ing that participation is alive and well andquite healthy in 2010. “There are currently

800Scoutsin Laredo,and we thinkthatthenumbers couldpossiblygo up by as

many as 400 to 500 more members,” Guti-errezsaid.“You haveto remember,we’re

competing with sports, band, and all otherkinds of school activities, and consideringthat, it is actually pretty amazing that par-ticipation in Scouting has just been declin-

ing by an average one percent per year. Wetry to work around those other activities so

as to conflictaslittle aspossibleor notatall in scheduling,” he added.

The letter that the South Texas Councilsent to Aztec District chairman Dr. David

E. Garza,advisinghim of thebestowalofthe Silver Beaver Award upon Gutierrez

and Campos, stated, “This is the first timein history that two leaders from the samedistrict receive this honor.”

Gutierrez praised the Aztec District “foritsleadership thatmakes this oneof the

fastest-growing districts in the nation andfor the wealth of opportunities that it con-

tinuesto offeryoungpeopleforpersonalgrowth, outdoorsmanship, and leadership

training.” u

Jose Luis Gutierrez, Dr. David E. Garza, and Ricardo Campos

This is the first ime in history thattwo leaders from the same district re-

ceive this honor.”South Texas Council, BSA

“”

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

banning “Ethnic Studies”) and the stateof Texas (reimaging its U.S. history cur-riculum to conform with theTea Partyand Christian Nationalistperspective)havebothembracedamore“conserva-tive” view of history, it only seems fairand reasonableto take their efforts atface value. Theirs is not an assaulton

academic freedom.No, it is an effort todiversify and makemore inclusiveand“American” the curriculum taught toour children.Many, on both sides of the political di-

vide, havetreatedthesenewguidelineswith much derision and complaint. I sug-gest that the best way to understand the

teachingof history asimagined by thisbravenewworld is to work throughthe

reality it offers. To that end, I present U.S.history as outlined in the politically cor-rect guidelinesoffered by Arizona andTexas.Sometimestheold is indeed thenew --welcome my friends to TeaPartyUSA.The essential dates and events of U.S.

history as approved by the States of Ari-zona and Texas:

1607 -- Jamestownfounded. Capital-ism, which can trace its roots to the Bible,

is now firmly rooted in the New World.1660-1800-- Triangular Atlantic trade

continues to bring wealth and prosperityto America while giving opportunities tonew immigrants.

1776-- War forIndependenceagainstthe tyrannical, evil British Empire. Colo-nists sufferoppression that is unprec-edentedin humanhistory. Minutemensingle-handedlydefeatthe evil British

Empire in 1783.1788-- The United States Constitution

issigned asa document tostandfor alltime, inspired by God, and never to bechanged.

1803-1848-- America continues to ex-pand westward into empty territories.


ByCHRISTO p HER DEIS

(This storyfirstappeared on alternet.orgon May 20, 2010.)H istory is one part truth.

History is also one partfable. It is a site of politicalcontestationand struggle.of Arizona (with its rulesAs the state

American settlersmake the landbloomwith the help of friendly Indian tribes.

1823 -- America guarantees the free-dom of all countries and people in theWesternHemispherewith theadoption

of the Monroe Doctrine.1848-- Mexico, in an act of friendship

following their humiliation at the Alamoby the great Republic of Texas, gives theirterritories to the United States.

1860s-1900s--The Gilded Age of pros-perity. American capitalism providesopportunities for all people to growwealthy, secure, and happy. Liberalsand ProgressivesbeginworkingagainstAmerican freedom and capitalism by

forming unions, demanding unfair com-pensation from their employers, limitingthe rights of children to work in factories,

and imposingrestrictiveregulationsforthe“safety” ofemployees. Manybravemendie fightingCommunistinfluenced

unions as they riot in America’s cities.1861-1865 --Civil War fought because

of anoverreaching, tyrannical federalgovernmentand its desire to limit thefreedomsof allAmericans. 620,000peo-

ple die, including many brave and nobleblack Americans who fought on the sideof the Confederacy.Northerners andSouthernerseventually find commonground throughRedemption andmoveforward as brothers and sisters in theUSA.

1865-1870s-- Democraticterroristscalled the Ku Klux Klan begin a reign ofterror in the South until braveRepubli-

cans defeat them.1906-- Using the Antiquities Act, The-

odore Roosevelt establishes the NationalPark System. In one bold stroke Roosevelt

establishesSocialistpolicies that stealland from the American people.

1913-- More Socialism and class war-fare usheredinto theU.S. with thefed-

eral income tax system.1917 -- America enters and wins

World War I single-handedlybecausethe French are cowards.

1929-- Great Depression begins. Tensof millions unemployed because of FDR’s

failed economic policies. His New Dealintroduces the nanny state, prolongs

America’s economiccollapse,and weak-ens the economy until RonaldReagan

renews America.1941-- PatrioticJapaneseAmericans

volunteer to place themselvesingatedcommunities so that America will be safefrom Imperial Japan.

1941-1945 -- America enters and winsWorld War II single-handedlybecause

the French are cowards. Out of necessity,the United States drops atomic bombs on

Japan.1945-1965--A high point in U.S.his-

tory, as freedom and prosperity reignover all Americans.

1950-- Senator Joseph McCarthy fear-lessly highlights how communistsfrom

Russia and China have infiltrated Amer -ica. Big Hollywood and the liberal estab-lishment are brought to their knees by

his brave efforts.1954-- Brown v. Board ofEducation

removes the parentalright to send chil-dren to theschools of their choiceand

with the company they desire. A danger-ous and unconstitutionalera of activist

Supreme Court decisions begins.1955-1968 -- George Wallace and Mar-

tin Luther King Jr. lead a Civil RightsMovementtoensure that all Americansare judgedby“the contentof theirchar-

acter and not the color of their skin.”1968 -- The cinematic classic The Green

Beretsstarring John Wayne,America’sgreatest actor, debuts.

1971 -- America largely withdrawsfrom Vietnam on the cusp of victory

because The Gays, TheWomen’s Move-ment,and “TheCounter-culture”weak-ened it. The French arecowards whose

failure forced the U.S. to intervene in In-dochina.1973 -- Roevs.Wade, the worst legaldecision in UnitedStates history is de-cided.

1974 -- Nixonforced toresignby lib-eral conspiracy.

1980 -- Ronald Reagan, America’sgreatest president, restores Americanprovidenceby ushering in a new eraof

economic prosperity,cuttingthe federalbudget,and correctsthe unfair federaltax code in orderthat the hard work ofthe richestAmericans is justly reward-ed.

1989 -- The BerlinWall falls. RonaldReaganwins the Cold Warsingle-hand-

edly.1992-2000--DemocratpresidentBill

Clinton in office. His recklesspersonalbehavior and irresponsible foreign policy

choices weaken America internationally.The U.S. economy is almost destroyed by

his tax policies. His wife Hillary Clintonfurthers the march towards Socialism

by advocating for free public health careand todestroy theinsurancecompanies

that drive us economic growth.2000-- George Bush elected in a land-

slide.2001-- Terrorists attackAmerica on

September 11th. Because of Bill Clinton’spolicies, a weakened border, a lax immi-

gration policy, rampant multicultural-ism, and theDemocrats’weakening ofthe military,America is left opento at-tack.

2003--Dr. King’s vision is finally madereal. In a landmark decision, the SupremeCourt strikes down the reverse discrimi-nation policies of the University of Mich-igan. Freedom rings across the land.

2003-- The country of Iraq, aroguestate, part of the Axis of Evil, and led bythe dictator Saddam Hussein -- a co-con-

spiratorin the 9-11 attacks -- is liberatedby President George Bush.

2008 -- Barack Obama is elected.America is in a Constitutional crisis as

Obama is unable to prove that he is a U.S.citizen.

2008-- the present. Brave Americansbegin joining TeaParties and 9-12free-domgroups. Millions of theirmembersmarch on Washington DC.. Freedomfighter, James David Manning, placesObama on trial in absentia fortreasonand sedition.

2008-- Sarah Palin, mother, governor,author, actress, comedienneand role-

model begins here meteoric rise to politi-calstardom. Sheushers in an era of ro-

bust, common sense approaches to politi-cal problems tempered by real Americanvalues.

2010 -- Barack Obamaremains Presi-dentalthough his rule is illegitimate.Brave patriotssuch as Glenn Beckand

Rush Limbaugh continue to lead the peo-ple’s resistance against his tyrannical rule.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146945/ u

Opinion

What U.S. history would look like if itwere writ ten by Texas and Arizona


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TRLA director Israel Reyna and his wife Betty Reyna are pictured with attor-ney Ron Rodriguez at the luncheon honoring Rodriguez’ generous contribu-tion to the TRLA office.

At TLR A luncheon honoring RodriguezLareDOS founder and publisher María Eugenia Guerra was the recipient ofthe Webb County Heritage Foundation’s Jim Parish Award. She is picturedat the recent Founders Day Luncheon with the WCHF’s Rosanne Palaciosand Jim Moore.

Guerra recipient of Jim Parish Excellence in Journalism Award

Parkinson’s Support Group MeetingMonday, June 7, 2010 at 7 p.m.

Laredo Medical Center, Tower B, first floor, Community Center

call 723-8470 or 285-3126.

Alzheimer’s Support Group MeetingTuesday, June 1, 2010 at 7 p.m.

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By MELISSA DEL BOSQ U E

(This story firstappearedonTuesday,March 9, 2010 in theTexas Observer, www.texasobserver.org.)A n explosion of violence has

occurred in the state ofTamaulipas in the last fewweeks and also around the

city of Monterrey in Nuevo Leon.Fromwhat I hearfrom friendsand family in

Mexico is that both the Mexican and U.S.press are only reporting a fraction of

what is happening.Mexican journalists are being tortured,

killed, and kidnapped along the border tothe point wheremuch of thenewsabout

narco violence goes unreported.The Committeeto ProtectJournalists

yesterdaydemandedthat the Mexicangovernmentinvestigatekidnappingsandkillings of journalistscoveringthecartel

violence in Reynosa just across the borderfrom McAllen,accordingto arecentSan

Antonio Express-Newsreport.Increasingly, Mexicans are turning

to Twitter, Facebook, and online chat fo-rums to document the violence eruptingaround them.Mexicans havedistrusted

the media for decades since it has a longhistory of being co-opted by the govern-

ment, which hands out mordidas “bribes”like candy.(Thebraveand trustworthy

reporters who do existand do an admi-

rable job are being killed orthreatenedwith death).Mexicans also don’t trusttheirgovernment to releasereliable in-formation.Often theydon’trelease anyinformationon thegunbattlesbetween

cartels and the military anyway.Increasingly, Mexicans are circumvent-

ingthe oldmodesof informationandre-lying on theInternet.Theotherday I re-

ceived a mass email from a friend in Dur-ango asking that others in Mexico join herin documenting the violence around themwith cameras and putting it online.

“An ignorantpeople is apeople con-demned to failure,” my friend wrote. “We

use thecomputer to entertainourselveswith sillythings, but we canalsocreate

citizen networks like they created so manyyearsago in Colombia,only inInternetform.”

To giveanidea of howprofoundlyso-cial media is shaping the psyche of Mexi-

cans,Icanceleda trip toMatamorostwoweeksagobecause a viralemailwas cir-

culatingthere thatgunfightsweregoingto eruptbetweenLosZetasandthe Gulf

Cartel that day. People in Matamoros werestayinghome, keepingtheirchildren out

of school,andnotgoing out. I felt like areal wimp for not going, but the paranoiawas starting to overtake me as well. Whygo, if I didn’t need to? said a nagging littlevoice in my head. And so I succumbed tothe “Psychosis en el Pueblo.”

F eature

Mexicans turn to social media to document narco violence;“Psychosis en el Pueblo ”

Grupo Reforma, a chain of newspapersin Mexico, has started chat forums for dif-

ferent Mexican statesalongthe border togive citizensan outlet. GrupoReforma

writes at the top of the forum:“With the increase in violence in border

citiesthere has been a flood of rumors ofgunfights with little information from the

authorities. This hascreated a psychosisamong the people. What is reality?”

Good question.Whatin thehell is go-ing on in Mexico? On February 28, a pretty

extraordinarypostwas uploadedto theReforma site. Who knows if it is real or not,but it has gone viral in Mexico.

Apparently, thepost is fromthe “TheNew Federation.”In the post it saysthe

cartels have banded together to stamp outLosZetas and “bring tranquilitybackto

the people.”TheZetasareformer U.Strainedgov-

ernment specialforces thatwent into thedrug business a few years back. Their ter-ritory is around Reynosa and Matamoros,

across from Brownsville and McAllen.They’vesplit from the Gulf Cartel and

hence the gun battles that have erupted inthe past month.

Things havebeenespeciallyawful inReynosa, across fromMcAllen. The post

says that the turning point for the forma-tion of the cartels against the Zetas was the

brutal killing of the teenagers in Juarez inJanuary.

“The water that broke the dam for so-ciety was the death of the children at the

party in Juarez,” theywrite. Theythendirect people from Reynosa to keep their

children out of schoolandto notgo outinto the streets until further notice. Theytell people in Monterrey to go about theirbusiness and to not get too paranoid.

“ElChapito, CDG y la familia in thisagreementaregoing torespect thepla-

zas, they are not going to charge more feesand they are going to prohibit the kidnap-pings,” the New Federation writes.

Theyalso write thatthe mediais re-maining quiet as part of theagreement.

Then they give a tip of the hat to Reformafor its chatforum “We give applauseto

Grupo Reforma for this space. There is noother, this is the only form.”

Apparently, the media that is not re-maining quiet in Reynosais being kid-

napped or killed.Membersof each cartel aremarking

theirtrucks so thateveryone knows whothey are. Friends tell me it’s not uncommonthese days to see a line of SUVs filled with

maskedmen with Ak-47sdriving downthe street. No one knows who they are orwho they work for.

What will happennext? ChancesareMexicanswon’t tune into their radiosor

turn on the TV to find out. Instead they’llturn on theircomputerand startlookingfor answers.u



World War II veteranandrancher RobertoVidaurrijust turned 85 on May7,and is still proud of ade-

cisionhemade in 1944tojointheMarineCorps, now that he is one of the final two

or threesurvivorsof Iwo Jima out oftheoriginal five from Laredo.

“Wethought it was the best at thetime,” Vidaurri said of the decisionheand two friendsmadeto go to SanAnto-

nio to be inducted into the Marine Corps.“We were trained to be riflemen, and after

threeto fourweeks ofadvancedtrainingtheyshippedus out to the Pacific-- first

Tinian,then Saipan,partof theMarianasisland chainalong with Guam; thenon

Jan.1, 1945, I was aboard a ship headed forIwo Jima, wherewe arrivedon Feb.19,”Vidaurri said.“Iwaded ontotheshore aspart of the

24thRegiment -- we were the sixth or sev-enthwaveof Marinesto hit thebeachatIwo, and it was a dangerousbusinessbe-

causetheJapanese artillery was blastingaway at us all of the time,” Vidaurri said,adding, “We took a lot of casualties, deadand wounded -- all along the beach, in andout of the water, many men went down.”

The small island’s terrainfavored thedug-in Japanese, who were afforded a

clear view of the landing and advancing

Americansacrosstheflat plainbetweenthe two forces.

Located750 milessouthofTokyo, IwoJima is anuninhabited sulfurvolcanic

islandwherethe famous “Marines Land-ing” photowas taken by JoeRosenthal,andwhere thousandsof lives ofsoldiersfrombothsideswerelostbetweenFeb19

and March 26, 1945.TheJapanese defensesincluded heavy

fortifications, stout and sprawling bunkers,lots of heavy artillery, three heavy mortarbattalions, a tank regiment, eight infantry

battalions,navalbattalions, and21,000Imperial soldiers, 20,000ofwhom ended

up getting killed in the battle. Most of theJapanese foughtto thedeath,andAmericancasual-tiesexceededto-tal Alliedcasual-

ties at Normandyon D-Day.

A roundishvolcanic extru-sion, known asMt.Suribachi,atthesouthern tipof theisland, isvisible fromthe

beaches on thenorthernsideof

the island. Therewas no cover forthe Marines,

only a couple ofgradualrisesinthelandscape.

Most notably, “the turkey knob” was seenby both sidesas a desirablepiece of real

estate,andVidaurri’s24thRegimentspenta whole day fighting to wrest it from Japa -

nese control. The 23rdRegiment had the jobtohold itovernight,but had to fallback

due to a vicious Japanese night attack.AlthoughtheJapanese wereshort of

foodand water, theAmericans wereun-abletotakeadvantageof this formany

days due to the overcast conditions of theskies,whicheffectively prevented Ameri-

can air raidsonJapanese positions,andland attacks were deemed unwise withoutair support, Vidaurri recalled.

“Our Navy hadthe islandsurround-ed,” Vidaurri said, “butthoseJapanesewere tough, and theyweren’t about tosurrender.”Indeed,Japanesepropagan-dahad frightenedtheaverageJapanese

soldier and civilian into believing a mythaboutthecrueltreatmentwaiting atthehands of the Americans for any whosurrendered.On some nights,however,many starving and thirstingJapanese

left their encampments and surrenderedto the Marines, and many were quiteamazed to bepeaceably greeted withwater, coffee,food, and othergesturesof commonhumanity.“They could stillbe dangerous, though,” Vidaurri said,“becausesometimes they’d come outwith their hands up and then they’dreachbackand shootyou with thesub-

machine gun strapped around their neckto the back.

Profile

Roberto Vidaurri: Iwo Jima sur vivor from Doloresis still farming the old Spanish land grant,

and still carr ying some mortar-shrapnel in his shoulder

Vidaurri Family


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Marcos Varela is pictured with Domenica Scorsese at the recent TribecaFilm Festival in NYC. Varela, the son of former Laredoan Alfonso Varela andSandra Santa María Varela (now of Houston), wrote the musical score for

Scorsese’s film, Roots in Water .

At the Tribeca Film Festival

CONTINUEDFROM p AGE 28

On March 4,1945, Vidaurri becameoneof the19,217Americanswoundedat Iwo Jima when a mortarshell ex-plodednext to him, killing one manand dealingVidaurri a seriousshrap-

nel wound to his left leg and the entireleft sideof his body,andpermanentlydamaginghis hearing. Vidaurri was

evacuated and spent the next few daysona hospital ship off the island. “The

ship was so full that it took them threedaysbeforetheycould look afterme,”he said. Vidaurri was senttoSaipanfor anight or two and thenwasflown

to a hospital in Hawaiifor a couple ofweeks before being shipped back to Sta.

MargaritaHospitalat CampPendletonin Riverside, California, where he spent

the betterpart of a monthconvalesc-ing.Vidaurrithen requestedatransfer

to Corpus Christi for the next phase ofhis recovery,but he wasinformed that

the hospital at Corpus Christi was full,sotheysent him to a hospitalin NewOrleanswhere heremained for four

months, after which he was sent to theprocessingcenterat Norfolk,Virginia,

where he was declared disabled for fur-thercombatand honorably dischargedon January 8, 1947. Vidaurri received

a PurpleHeart forthe injurieshesus-tained in battle.

Vidaurri is the grandson of Juan Vid-aurri Cuellar and Antonia Martinez de

Vidaurri of Dolores and the son of Alfre-do Vidaurri (D.1937) and Anita LongoriaVidaurri (d.1974), who had five children,(three girls, María Herbst, LuisaV. Stott,

and RosaVidaurri andtwoboys, Juanand Roberto.) “We were brought up onour ranch in Zapata County by my un-

cle Alejandro (d. 1950) and my mother.We had the usual farm animals, and weraised cotton and onions, and maize for

thehorses. The landhadto be clearedbyhand to be madesuitable for farm-ing in those days. For a while, we leasedpart of the land to the McKendrick fam-ily,” Vidaurri said. The first Vidaurri inthearea marriedthe daughterofJosé

Vasquez Borrego, one of the earliest set-tlers in this part of the world. The Vid-aurris ended up with a royal land grantfor around 7,000 acres from the King ofSpain. We’ve never sold a single acre ofour land,” he added.

The Vidaurri ranch has been faithful-ly passed down from generation to gen-

eration, and when he and his siblingswere children, the schoolhouse they at-tended was located right there on ranchproperty, and the teachers were, amongothers, Mrs. Martinez, Mrs. Garza, and

Mrs. Hein fromZapata.“Whenwe built a newranch house closer to

the river, we moved theschoolhouse,”Vidaurrisaid.“Not muchof ourland was floodedatthetime theybuilt theFal-con Dam,” headded,

“and we’re still farmingand ranching out there.

Vidaurri attendedLaredo Junior Col-lege after World War IIand marriedMaría delSocorro Hernandez.They eight Vidaurrichildrenare María delSocorro, Cynthia M.,José Roberto, AlfredoM., Anna Margarita,Alma Laura, MauricioAlejandro, and PatriciaElena. u

Roberto Vidaurri

sites at Pico Road, Bill Haynes Island abovetheJefferson St. waterplantintake, down-

river fromLaredoat thePabloHernandezRanchon Hwy. 83, and the HeinRanch at

the Webb/Zapata county line. The submers-ible instrument they used and that Vaughan

continues to use reads parameters for dis-solvedoxygen, conductivity, salinity, total

dissolved solids, turbidity, temperature, andflow rate. Collected water samples are testedin a lab for e. coli and coliform bacteria. That

workcontinues todayand has provided adecade anda half of research on how the

riverhasfaredsince the NAFTAand howso muchresidential and commercial devel-

opment in recent years north and south hasaffected erosion and water quality.

RGISC has established numerous collab-orationsand coalitionslocallyand up and

down the river. One of the most significantis that with the South Texas Environmental

Education and Research (STEER) componentof the UT Health Science Center medical

school which brings health professions stu-dents andfaculty toexperience and study

the environment of the borderlands and thehealth issues of this region.

C ONTIN U ED ON p AGE 41


By MARÍA EU GENIA G U ERRA

As an environmentalist and as theRíoGrande International StudyCenter’s(RGISC)firstdirector,

always held the good workI’veof theorganizationclose to myheart. Un-

equivocally, this champion of the Río Grandehas never faltered and has stayed its courseon the side of right, on the side of defending

the river,thewatershed,anditsresidentsfrom the negligent, harmful practices of citygovernment, developers, polluters, and reg-ulatory agencies that in fact act on behalf of

polluting corporations andgreedy developers like law-

bending betterbusinessfoundations.

There’sfarmoredepthto RGISC than its well-

publicized annual Día delRíoclean-ups that drawthe public,andespecially

school children, into takingresponsibility for El Paso

del Indio, theriverbanks,and theriver fromwhichwe drink.

RGISC has made ussmarter about the environ-

mentby making usmoreawareof ourpracticesonthewatershed.RGISChastaughtusthat gravityal-

ways prevails and that whatwedump on theground

-- beit oil,solvents,pesticides, or chemicaldefoliants -- makes its way to the river, our

only source of drinking water. We’ve learnedfromRGISCthatadeveloperwhochanges

the channel of a creek, like Manadas, is play-ing at a fool’s game because water’s memory,

gravity,finds thecourse it has always runto the river. Thanks to RGISC we’ve learned

thatthepoor land clearingenvironmentalpractices of the U.S. Army Corpsof Engi-

neers have had devastatingeffects on theerosion of the river vega.

The selfless,committedworkofRGISCfoundersDr. Jim Earhartand Dr. Tom

Vaughan, Pam Vaughan, Danny Gunn, Ruk-mani Kuppuswami, Penny Warren, and vol-

unteers likeDr. RolandoGuerra, CordeliaFlores, BirdyTorres, Dr. Alfonso Martinez,

Victor Oliveros, the late Luis Zapata and hiswife Letycia, and manyothershave kept

RGISC going.Thereis abouttheireffortssomething noble. They have been our envi-ronmental conscience, the will of their con-victions weighted with science and findingsborne of their own research on the river.

I think of all those Saturdays over the last16 years that Earhart and Vaughan dedicated

to testingthe river at fourpoints -- takingbiology and nursing students with them to

RGISC speaks up for the river, for the environment, and for us;let ’s return the favor

Earhart and Vaughan, 1994

with circumspecion and mercyAbout 20 years ago, a handful of us gravitated to a man of few words, a stern

veterinarian named Dr. Adolph Kahn. In groups or one at a time, he took us inhis station wagon on what he called “The Toxic Tour,” a mind-bending look at

environmental ravages on both sides of the Río Grande and the effects of thoseravages on the river and on the people, who held in place by poverty and cir-cumstance, adapted to live with those conditions.

He drove us through the unfinished $50 million Nuevo Laredo sewage plantfundedin largepartby theU.S., telling us that even beforethe plant was fin -

ished, it was not of capacity enough to keep all of Nuevo Laredo’s raw sewageout of the river. He was right. The politicians on both sides of the river, dizzywith their platitudes for progress, were wrong.When Dr. Kahn drove us to the Nuevo Laredo shantytown colonias of houses

built ofmaquiladoraplant cast-offs, like wooden palettes, he showed us house-hold water supplies kept in metal 55-gallon drums that still bore the name of the

toxic chemicals they’d recently contained.Always, always from the back of that old station wagon, he gave away sacks

of groceries,water, medicine, and clothing. He wasall business, this man ofmerced.Dr. Kahn opened our hearts and minds, stirring in many of us what would

become the environmental movement in Laredo.Jim Earhart noted we are deeply indebted to Dr. Kahn. Indeed we are.

María Eugenia Guerra

The environmental movement in Laredo:Dr. Adolph Kahn led the way

Dr. Adolph Kahn

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St. Peter’s Memorial School’s SecondAnnual Summer Camp -- aimed atdeveloping mind, body, and spirit

-- begins Tuesday, June 1, and con-tinues through June 30.Themonth-long

camp is open to all Laredo students and isoffered for students from K-3 (three years

old minimumandmustbepotty-trained)to those entering 8th grade.Camp days begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at

3:30 p.m., and include breakfast and lunch.Reading/phonics and language develop-

ment for those students for whom English isa second language, as well as art and mathclasses, drama/dance, writing, science class-es, and a mini daily basketball camp offer awell-rounded learning experience.

Last year’s favorite class, the cold cook-ing class, is back and is perfect for young

handswho wantto learnhow to help inthe kitchen. The camp day ends withstory time. Forparents who work un-til 5:00p.m.,after-campcareisoffered.

“Come one, come all!” said St. Peter’s prin-cipal Dr. Linda Marie Garcia Mitchell. “Thesummer camp promises to be educational,

fun, and exciting, and most importantlyfor parents,your children will be wellcaredfor, andthey will learn atremen-dousamountofinformation,”sheadded.The cost for themonth-long program,

which runs from Monday through Thurs-day, is $300, and $260 per second child.

The cost for after-camp care is $6 per day.For more information about summer camp

at St. Peter’s MemorialSchool, which islocated at 1519 Houston Street, please call

723-6302. u

News

St Peter’s month-longsummer camp focuses

on developmentof mind, body, and spirit

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Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar is pictured with his parents Odilia andMartin Cuellar Sr., honorees at the first-ever Catholic Social Services ofLaredo Recognition Dinner at the Laredo Country Club.

Catholic Social Service of Laredo honorees

Activist Cordelia Flores is pictured with Hector Farias and Placido Salazar, anational officer with the GI Forum, in the building that will be reconfigured intothe Juan Francisco Farias Military Museum. They are pictured at the recep-tion that followed the unveiling of a Texas Historical Commission marker.

At the historic Farias Home


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2010 Martin High School Tiger LegendsCou

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Pictured at recent ceremonies are the 2010 Martin High School Tiger Legends Sergio H. Velasquez; Gregorio Lopez Jr.; Miguel Treviño; María Eugenia Lopez;Maya Guerra; Howard Edward Ruhlman; Richard Rosell representing his late brother U.S. Army SGT. Hershel Rosell Jr., Reverend Harlan Irvin Jr.; Dr. Sara

Campos Carrasco, PhD; and Dr. Linda Marie García Mitchell, PhD. Student presenters pictured behind them, are Roxy Quintero, Sofia Estevis, Viviana Cruz, LuisMoya, Arturo Saenz, Katherine Hill, Principal Oscar Perez, Mike García, Yesenia Rojas, Ricardo Garza, Jonathan Macias, and Kassandra Morales.

Eva Schultz of International Sales (left) was recently presented a check fromWorkforce Solutions of Texas as part of their Texas Back to Work Initiative.The program offers employers up to $2,000 to help train new employeesmatched through Workforce. Schultz hired Mary Vargas, who had beenunemployed for over three months after losing her job due to illness. Thestaff at Workforce, in conjunction with the Back to Work Initiative, is commit-ted to helping Texans who have been out of work find gainful employment.

Texas Back to W ork Initiative


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Afundraising concert set for June24 at the TAMIU Fine and Per-

formingArtsCenter will helpyoung pianist Carlos Abraham

continue his missionary work, this time inBolivia. The 2008 United High School grad-uate has worked in Oaxaca and Chiapas inthe past and has also ministered to needyHindu residents of New York City.

Born in San Antonio and raised inLaredo,the self-taughtAbrahamlearned

to play on his grandfather’s piano. By theage of 16 he had composed his first melo -

dy, “Hope,” and by 18, had composed hisfirst CD In the Beginning.

While still in high school, he attendedLaredoCommunity College andbegantaking advancedpianolessons with Dr.Mikolaij Gorecki,and hebegan to play

classical music.In the fall of 2008, he was accepted intothecollege of musicat theUniversity ofNorth Texas,where he now pursues a

bachelor’s in music composition with aconcentration in piano. Inthe spring of

2009 he played for the late Maestro Sergio

Peña in a piano recital. In the summer ofthat same year, he was invited by the Cityof Nuevo Laredo to perform a solo piano

concert, playingclassical and contempo-rary classicalmusic at the “Sala SergioPeña.”

Of his upcomingmissionarywork inBolivia, Abraham said, “Although Bolivia

is rich in natural resources, sadly it is oneof the poorestand leastdevelopedcoun-

tries in South America. The struggle overcontrol of these resources has brought thecountry to the edge of civil war. Since thenative people of Bolivia lack basic life es-

sentials, they are desperately in need ofhelp.Many communities havevery little

money to sustain their families and needhelp in becomingself-sustaining.Iwantto help.”

Abraham’sconcert at TAMIU be-gins at 7p.m. Generaladmissionis$12.

Ticketsareon saleat D’ Ruben’s Hair &Skin Care, 401 West Del Mar, suite 4B; theLaredo Center for the Arts; and Cantu In-

teriors,1720Chihuahua. For more infor-mation, please call (956) 324-9342. u

News

June 24 concert fundraiserhelps pianist Abraham continue

missionar y work in Bolivia

Author and Texas Monthlyeditor Jake Silverstein was recently at the LaredoPublic Library promoting his book, Nothing Happened and Then It Did. Thestory details Silverstein’s struggle to be a journalist in West Texas. SenatorJudith Zaffirini joined him at the event.

Author visits Laredo


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At the intersection of Guadalupe and Cedar, this gentleman cut to the chase,asking up front for spare change for beer. His un-varnished plea seemed tobear results.

No shellac here

Marianne Lamont, Fernando Zuñiga, and Betty Moreno were among themany generous Laredoans who made the evening a success.

At the Bethany House Sharing Hope fundraiser

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

suspension systems, and body constructionsthat could stand the rigors of “dirty racing.”

Since I had only seen such racers in news-casts on television and had never even been

close to suchdevices, I was intrigued. Butsincetheevening lightwasfadingso fast,

taking photos of the vehicles was out of thequestion. I continuedwalkingthrough the

crowd of cars until I finally got to FremontStreet. I met my friend in front of the GoldenNugget and ate supper with her at the Gold-

enSpikeamid reminiscences of Honduras27 years ago.On late Friday morning, I learned that the

three finalists for the Miss Mint 2010 Contesthad been presented the night before on the

GoldenNugget’smain stage: the “pageantqueenof off-road racing’shistoric General

Tire Mint 400” had been crowned. She wason display all day Friday during the General

Tire Mint 400 Fan Fair and Tech Day, and shehelped start the Mint 400 Race on Saturday.

In the olden times of Las Vegas, the Mint400 had been an annual event that broughtinto the local business community millions

of dollars.Forexample, in 1983,the racebrought528 entries and their teams and

familiesandfriends into town.Del Webb,owner of Del Webb’s Mint Hotel and Casino,began the race in 1968, and his public rela-tions chief Norm Johnson named it the “DelWebb Mint 400 Desert Rally.”

Thegruelingrace offeredoff-road com-petition in the Mojave Desert for souped upcars, trucks, buggies, and motorcycles.


By LEM LONDOS RAILSBACK

During the last week ofMarch, I wasstayingdowntownin LasVegas

IencounteredtheOff-RoadEnthu-

whenSouthernNevadasiasts(SNORE)vehiclesfortheveryfirsttime.Iwas onmy way tohave

supper with an old friend from Hon-duras who has lived in Las Vegas forseveral years. I was walking toward

the Fremont StreetExperience,awonderful site erected in order to re-vitalize downtown Las Vegas.

As I walked toward the FSE, I dis-covered that the streets from Main to

Eighthhadbeenpolice-cordonedsothattheSNORE vehicles could park

end-to-end. I was instantly amazedwith the varietyof engines,bodydesigns,colorschemes,andsizesof

thecars. Especially intriguing wastheadvanced engineering that hadproduced such “souped-up” engines,

F eature

Pardon me, Señorita , but I just don’t get your jargon

A friend of Howard Hughes, Webb spon-soredthecontestthat,over time,became

known simply as “The Great American Des-ert Race” and as the toughest off-road race inthe USA. In those days, the off-road race over

nearly 600 miles of hostile terrain began atthe Mint Hotel and ended at the Mint’s sis-

ter hotel, the Sahara Tahoe. K.J. Howe, one ofWebb’s executives initiated the Technical andSafety Inspection on the famous Fremont.

In time, the beauty pageant was added.Previous winners of theMiss Mint 400 in-

clude Linda Carter(RememberWonderWoman?) and Wheel ofFortune’s Vanna

White. Famous faces in the Mint 400 over theyears include James Garner, Steve McQueen,Lee Majors, and Mort Sahl; astronaut GordonCooper; off-road star Mickey Thompson; In-dianapolis 500 champion Parnelli Jones; and

many, manyothers. Then, with the sale oftheMint HotelandCasino in 1988,the ex-

traordinary race in the desert braked sharplyand disappeared.

GeneralTireandSNORErevivedtheMint400 in 2008. The racing course was moved to

theMoapaIndian Reservation,east of LasVegas. With brutal terrain similar to that ofthe original, the new route savaged the rac-

ers four timesaroundthe new100.6-mileloop. Reincarnated, the new MINT 400 par-

allels in desert/off-road racing what the Indy500 offers on the oval track. The reinstalled

2009 and 2010 versions were bigger and bet-ter and fully back on track, so to speak. Both

General Tireand SNORE plan to continue

the dirt duel as an annual gathering.AftertheraceonSaturday,those amaz-ing,mechanical, marvelousvehiclesre-

turned to the Main-Eighth Street enclave inpreparation for shipment to their respectivehomes. As their drivers and crews wheeled

themthrough, I was luckyenoughto snapsomephotos of a few ofthem. I was also

lucky enough to meet a member of GeneralTire’sracingteam and anarray of support

specialists.All werefriendlyandhelpful;every question that I asked triggered a fast

andcourteousresponse. As it turned out,onememberof theteamwasa veteranof

the Indy 500, the Baja 1000, the Baja 500, andtheSafariRally in Africa.Everyone in the

GeneralTiregroupwastechnicallyastutein their descriptions and explanations of thevarious vehicular modifications required foroff-road racing. They were also kind enough

to re-explainwhenever I obviouslyhadasked an ignorant and obviously technically

non-proficient question.As I moved down the street through the

cars, I could overhear conversations that I didnot understand at all. I heard different racers

explaintotheircuriousfans thenecessary“major head modifications with customized

AEM air intakes,” “hand-built headers anddrive shafts,” “full floating axels with differ -

entialgearratios,” “specificborings,” “sus -pensions and coil-over shocks,”and more.

One redheaded male racer was arguing witha blonde maleracer over the “performance

envelope” of his vehicle with its “rear lock-

ingdifferential, vacuumadvancedmodelelectronicignitionconversion

unit, longer coil springs, and suppres-sion wires.” The blonde retorted that

because he had“doneit all -- mud-bogging,rockcrawling,punchandwinchchallenges, and CCY’s,” he

should know what it took to engineera super powertrain!

When they both turned to meand yelped in unison, “What do you

think?Who is righthere?”Iturnedandwalked silently down the street

to another crowd of cars. I was rattled.By thistime,myheadwasspinning

withall ofthe technical terms that Iknewnothing about.EventhoughI was trying tounderstand, I just

wasn’t. As I moved further down thestreet, I ran into another racer’s loud

assertionthat his vehicle’s lift withlonger leaf springs and a reverse leafspring mounting on the axle made his

chassisperfectlybalanced. He thenbragged about his chrome box system.

As I moved along, another racer’s assertionbegan to drown out the former’s loud brags.This racer was shouting about his vicious fandrive and windage tray and longer spindles.

And heasked thecrowdwhethertheyfa-vored a locking differential or a limited slip

differential. One of his crowd changed thesubject and began preachingthe benefits

of amodifiedpowersteering systemwithsteel components with a front suspension 28feet wheel travel coil over the shocks and an8-links custom rear suspension.

WhenI sawthe casino’soutdoorfoun-tain drink stand, all I could think of was to

getoverthereand grab a large soft drinkwith lots of ice in an oversized cup. On myway to paradise, a large female in overallsgrabbed me by the arm and literally pulledme over to critique the power and the safe-

ty featuresofher own personal car.Sheasked what I thought about her four-barrel

intakemanifoldremake.BecauseIknewthat a manifold had to be part of the engine,I said, “Boy, that’s a lotta power!” Then, sheclaimed that she herself had measured the

throttleborediameter of hercarburetor.Again, Irecognized thatshestill mustbe

talking about the motorsystem,and I re-plied, “Boy, that’s a lotta power!” She then

braggedabouthercustom roll cageandspecial seats and harnesses and her carbon

fiberdash with ultra-litegaugesandon-board navigation system.

Southern Nevada Off-Road Enthusiasts (SN ORE)

C ONTINU EDONp AGE 48

LareDOS |MAY 2010 | 4 1

Over 16 years, RGISC has established itselfas the chief advocate and steward for the envi-

ronment and for thisreach of the Río Grande.Its dogged persistence became well known in thedays of the Casa Blanca wetland battle againstdevelopers and an accommodating city govern-ment, and RGISC had much to do with halting

theBorder Patrol’s aerialspraying along theRío Grande. Of late, however, RGISC has now

taken on a higher profile along the entire courseof the river. Talk about this a bit.

JJC:Our mission is quite lofty, to pre-serveand protectandfoster respectfor

our river, its watershed, environment, andcultures.We do this througheducation

and research. We also do this by buildinga bi-national stewardship and an alliance

with other organizations and governmen-talagenciesassociatedwiththe river.To

do this, we have ourselves established ourorganization as a bi-national one with our

counterpartontheMexican side,el Cen-tro National de los Estudios del Río Bravo

(CIER).As a result, when we, RGISC-CIER,

became aware of the currentthreat to the

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

Icaughtup with RGISC directorJayJohnson-Castro to talk about RGISC’s

profile in the community and itsemergence as an advocate for the riv-

er all along the border.

watershed, we launched an internation-al campaignto bringawarenessto thisthreat.RGISCcommunicatedour call to

action at every level of government on theUS side,from localto international.CIERdid thesame on the Mexicanside.ThisplacedRGISC in international newsand

we havebecome recognizedas the tip ofthe spear that is challenging threats to the

Río Grande-Río Bravo.)Whyis RGISC stillhere when historically

city andcounty government havenever putthe environment beforedevelopment, when

you have city and county government that hasshownopen disdainwhen RGISCgoes to bat

for the environment at the public podium?JJC:The motive for defending the envi-

ronment,andspecifically the Río Grandewatershed, is based on a genuine respect

for natureandnot bureaucratic,political,or economic motivations. We have a visionand we look at the bigger picture and into

the future. Government is generally bu-reaucratic, political, fragmented, and often

driven bynarrowershort-terminterests,which more often than not involve moneyover the quality of our environment.

RGISCappearstobe at a crossroadsinterms of growth and funding. Elaborate on this

and why it is so critical as a champion of the RíoGrande -- more so in the current economic cli-

mate,for this community to support RGISC’sefforts.

JJC:The overall economic climate needslittle explanation. While there is still a lot

of money flowing, there is very little mon -ey dedicated to protecting our river. More

moneyisspent on one parade in Laredothan is spenta yearprotectingtheriver.

Local governments do not help fund RGISCandour missiontoprotectthe river.The

Río Grande-Río Bravo corridoris the fast-est growing region in all of North America-- both sides of the river. Yet, there is onlyone water supply, the river. Our region will

grow by300%in thenext 50years,whilethe amount of water in the river will be re-

duced. As it is, we don’t have enough waterto sustain that growth. With the exceptionof RGISC, there is no agency or watershed-wide organization with the charge to pro-tect the entire Río Grande.

Let’s discuss theprivatization of water re-sources in West Texas, Clayton William’s pro-posal to stick a straw into the Edwards-TrinityAquifer at Ft. Stockton and suck 41 million gal-lons a day? Talk about this in terms of equiva-lencies, how much water this is.

JJC:Currently the Pecos River contrib-utes about 80 million gallons a day into the

Río Grande.Half of thatflow,orabout40million gallons a day, isabout whatthe

city of Nuevo Laredo takes out of the riverper dayto supply a city ofabout750,000

inhabitants.Clayton William’sFort Stock-ton Holdings wants to personally sell more

than that amount for personal profit. Wil -liams wants to sell41,000,000 gallons a

day, 15 billion gallons a year, for 30 years,to communities outside of the Río Grandewatershed.That much water would never

naturally flow downriver to thefastestgrowing region in bothcountries, like

Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.The MiddlePecos Groundwater Conser-

vation District(MPGCD) is the regulatingauthority that can cede thedraw of water

or stopit. RGISCanda host of groundwa-terdistricts,cities,counties,and other enti-

tiesasked for standing with the MPGCD intheClaytonWilliam’s permithearing. Who

were they and was anyone granted standing?JJC: Governments like thecities of FortStockton,Alpine, and Laredo,BrewsterCounty,WebbCounty, HidalgoCounty,and the eight-county TexasWater De-velopment Board Region M (MaverickCounty to Cameron County) byresolu-

tion have opposed Fort Stockton’s plan tosell for personalprofit thewaters of the

Río Grande watershed.

C ONTIN U ED ON p AGE 42

Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award, 1995 W ater sampling on the river, 1994

Icaught up with RGISCdirector Jay Johnson-Castroto talk about RGISC’s profilein the community and its

emergence as an advocate forthe river all along the border.

We are allstakeholdersin the futureof the Rio Grande:an interviewwith RGSIC directorJay Johnson-Castro

CONTINU ED F ROM p AGE 33

It is well known thattheLaredoCityCouncil and Webb County CommissionersCourt hold developers and big business in

far greater esteem than environmentalistsappearing before their forum. I have alwaysadmired the decorum and finesse Earhartand Vaughan -- and those who stand andspeak with them -- invoke when trying to

steer public officials to make the right deci -sions on behalf of the environment.

RGISC speaks for us, and we need to re-turn the favor by supporting the organiza-tion with paid memberships for ourselves,

our families, and our children. Those ableto give more -- banks, businesses, corpora-

tions,and philanthropicorganizations --are also invited to help RGISC continue itsenvironmental mission.


CONTINUEDFROMp AGE 41

Please talk about the Williams family’s long-standing draw of agricultural water in West Texasand how this proposed draw is different.

JJC: ClaytonWilliam’s family has beentakingout upwardsof41,000,000gallonsof water a dayfrom theEdwards-Trinity

aquifer for some 60 years. This has dried upabout 43 of 46 springs in Pecos County, waterthat used to flow into the Pecos River, which

in turn flowsintothe RíoGrande.Thedif-ferenceis thatWilliams now simply wants

to export the wateroutside the watershedregionand guarantee economic growth to

other areas at the sacrifice of the border re -gion.

How big is the watershed of the Río Grande?JJC:The bi-national watershed of the Río

Grande has its headwaters in the ColoradoRockies and flows1,885miles to the Gulf

of Mexico.Thewatershed, which includesmanytributaries such as the Conchos, Pe-

cos, Devil’s, San Felipe, and San Juan, coverssome 355,000 square miles in eight states --Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas on the US

side,andDurango, Chihuahua,Coahuila,Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas on the Mexico

side.How big is the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer?

JJC:It is huge. It goes from Salado andBarton Springs in Austin all the way out to

ComancheSprings in PecosCounty in farwestTexas. It covers much of west centralTexas and runsdeep into thestate of Coa-

huila on the Mexico side of the river.What are the nuts and bolts of the bi-national

Treaty of 1944 that are applicable as law to chal-lenge Clayton Williams’ intent to draw from the

aquifer?JJC:Herein lies one of the major prob-

lems.The 1944 treaty only regulates the“surface” water. It does not protect the

aquifer’s “underground” water or “ground-water” that flows or can be prevented from

flowing intothe Río Grande.Evenworse,there is no agencyoraccordwith regula-

tory authorityover thegroundwater ofthe watershed. This is the problem and thereason we are calling for a moratorium in

orderfor our manylevelsofgovernment,from local, state, national, and internation-al, to be able to review regulatory powers

and treaties, as well as conduct scientifichydrological studies so thatthere can be

informed decisions basedon the impactof extracting waters and exporting them

away from the watershed and thereforeaway from downriver populations.We

alsobelieve that the 1944 Treaty,which is66 years old now, is antiquated and needs

to berevisitedandmodifiedaccordingtothe hydrological science available to us to-day and that was not available in the first

half of the previous century.What is at stake here?

JJC: Water is life.Water is arequire-mentfor existence. Water is essential for

economic growth. The Río Grande alreadydoesnotdeliver all thatweneed.Just sixyearsago in drought the river dried up

and didn’t even make it to the Gulf. If onewatersheiksucceedsin exportingwater

out of the watershed for obscene personalprofits,we mustknow thatother market -

ers downriver are lined up to do the same.As we grow along the Río Grande, we will

experiencemore growth aswell as moredroughts. There is a lot of pressure on ourwater resource and we cannot afford to al-low someone take the water away from our

bi-national community.Whyis thissuchan importantfightto the

millions of Texans and Mexicanswho live onboth sides of the Río Grande?

JJC: Five millionTexans,about a fifthof all Texans, live in the Río Grande water-

shed.Weare thefastestgrowingregion,not only of Texas, but of the entire United

States.Inhabitantson the Mexicoside arenearly four times that of the Texasside

andthe border region is growingat evena faster pace.No water, no future. Why should everyone

have a stake in this battle?JJC:We need more water, not less, and

the RíoGrande onlysupplies whatnatu-rally flows.No one shouldbe allowedto

interfere with the naturalflow of the RioGrande, let alone so that other regions canhave a quick and temporary water fix.What can be done to mobilize the citizenry

and elevate the public’s interest in safeguardingour scant water resources?

JJC: Weare doingwhat we can,justasLareDOSis helping us do here by shar-ing this information with itsreadership.

We are communicating with all our mediapartners, whoin turn inform the public.

With the help of the Internet, we are shar-ing newslinks on list serves,blogs,Face-

book, as well as forwarding e-mails to ourfriends, family, and elected officials.

We were also able to raise the funds toput an ad in the May issue ofTexas Monthly,the “Rivers” issue, warning that, accordingto the World Wildlife Fund, the Río Grande

is the seventh most endangered river in theworld and that we need help to protect it.

Our confidence is that once the citi-zens become aware of the threat to the Río

Grande andto the future of our children,that they will exercise their voice and de-

mand intervention on thepart of theirelected officials andgovernmental agen -

cies that have the authority to take the nec-essary steps to protect the precious waters

of our beloved Río Grande. u

the battles of Lexington and Concord. Thepoem’ssimplicity adds to itselegance.Emersonis markingthe occasionof thededicationof a stonemonumenthonor-ing theMassachusetts farmerswho 50yearsbefore hadchallenged the British

redcoats in armed combat near the banksof the Concord River.

Thedisappeared bridge,theriver, thetalk of the past, the present, and the future,serve to unite all Americans down through

the ages, and the votive “shaft” that is beingerected is symbolic of the tree of American

freedom that sprang up from the seed plant-edby thosefarmerslongago. Thepoet is

proud that “the shot heard round the world”was fired in America, and his poem embod -

ies his solemn hope that the votive shaft andAmerican freedom will be allowed by God

tolast inperpetuity.Thereisnorancorto-wardsthedefeated former enemy, there is

onlythelingeringhopethat theydidtheright thingand “Thatmemory may their

deeds redeem.”He wants to reconcile thefallen British with the fallen Americans whomolder in the ground side by side -- there is

no rancor, no pride.PresidentAbraham Lincoln, a poet

and a patriot himself, definitely seems tobe echoing, perhaps imitating, Emerson’s“A Concord Hymn” in his famous Gettys-

burg Address, written and delivered26yearsafter the publication ofEmerson’spoem.He couldn’thave picked abetter

literary example of reconciliation and re-newal as a model for his masterpiece.

Look at the opening lines of bothworks:

Emerson-- “By the rude bridgethatarched the flood,

Lincoln -- “Four score and seven yearsago…”Both are solemn, formal, and time-aware.

Each of these great works of American litera-ture has the American Idea -- freedom for all-- at its heart. Lincoln seeks to reconcile two

halves of a divided nation, one with the otherand the present with the past, by memorial-izing the heroic deeds of fallen soldiers who

sacrificed their lives for a cause they believedworthy. The similarities between these twodedicatory works are deep and striking, and

bothwriters sought toproduce a stirringproduct,and both succeeded tersely and

magnificently.u


Heaven’s life-givingdew is extra sweetdown here where it doesn’train much

throughout the year.Certainly, the May edition ofLareDOS

is where a short piece on Emerson’s 1837patriotic poem “A Concord Hymn” be-

longs,because it’s a poem of renewal, asin, “April showersbring Mayflowers,”and assuch a sort of rite of Springthattakesus back to theSpringtime of ournationhood.

First, the text of the poem.

A Concord HymnBy Ralph Waldo Emerson

By the rude bridge thatarched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embat-tled farmers stood,And fired the shot heardround the world.

The foe long since in silence slept,Alike the conqueror still sleeps,

And Time the ruinedbridge has sweptDown the dark streamthat seaward creeps.

On this green bank, bythis soft stream,

We place with joy a votive stone,That memory may theirdeeds redeem,When, like our sires,our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dareTo die, and leave their children free, --

Bid Time and Nature gently spareThe shaft we raised to them and Thee.

This is a hymn of redemption ad-dressedto God, and it seeks toredeemthestart of the AmericanRevolutionat

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM


Y es, indeed, “showerssweet,”that Geoffrey Chaucer men-tioned in the first line of hisCanterbury Tales, havebeen

visiting the Texas border town of Laredo.

F eature

“Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled”Emerson’s “A Concord Hymn”was a thematic precursor

to Lincoln’s Gett ysburg Address


Cou

rtesy

Pho

to

Pictured from left to right at a recent meeting of the Villa San Agustín deLaredo Genealogical Society are officers Norma R. Salinas, treasurer; LilyPerez, second vice-president; Bibi Garza-Gongora, journal editor; AlfredoR. Gutierrez Jr., president; Elisa Gutierrez, corresponding secretary; Mary

Treviño, recording secretary; Ma. Antonia (Toni) Juarez, vice-president; andEmma Garcia, historian.

Villa San Agustín Laredo Genealogical Society officers

Try-outs for Laredo LadronesThere’s been noshortageofcalls ask-

ing when try-outs for the Laredo Ladronesbaseball teamwillbe held. Forfurther in-

formation, call the City Manager’s office.From the New Yorker

What an excellent piece I read about LosTigres del Norte in theMay 24, 2010 New

Yorker. Alec Wilkinson’s “Immigration Blues”is anarrative aboutgoing on the road with

thenorteño conjuntothat has sold 34 millionrecordssince1972.Wilkinson’sinterviews

include comments from Linda Rondstadt andRy Cooder, both whom (with Los Tigres) col-

laborated with theChieftainson the recentrelease of San Patricio, an account of the Irish

San Patricio Battalion soldiers who in 1846 de-serted U.S. forces to fight with Mexico during

the Mexican-American War.Wilkinson typifies thecorridosof Los

Tigresas“ The Iliad aslong-form conjunto .”As he offersthehistory of the bandand

its members (brothers Jorge, Hernán, Edu-ardo, and Luis Hernández and primo OscarLara), he provides a wealth of information

about the history of norteño music, which hesays is built around the accordion and wasestablished in Monterrey in the 50s.

He likens corridos to a news form, accountsoftenbasedonreal events,someofthem

about immigration, othersnarcocorridos aboutthe drug wars. Of Los Tigres, he said, “Their

melodies usuallyfall within an octave andare delivered at the top of the singer’s range,in order to convey a sense of urgency.”

Wilkinson provides incredible bits of de-tail about the band, tiny details that shade in

thenuancesoftheirhumanity,likehowafterashow they take the steps up into their bus andshed their boots for fleece slippers that havebeen laid out for them, “a ritual, after which

each radiated relief that brought to mind thatof ahorsesheddinga saddle.”Andthere’s

the jam session with Cooder on the bus, allof these very successfulmusicians moving

along empty streets after a performance sing-ing, “My Life Is Failing Me.”

Wordsmith Wilkinson is a great story-teller,andthis story’sendingwithLos Ti-

gres disembarking their own bus at an im-migrationcheckpointleaving McAllen for

SanAntonioperfectlysews thenarrativetogether. The crew cut, jug eared Anglo im-

migrationofficer,oblivious to thefame ofLos Tigres, is all business, but the younger

Hispanicagent behind himasks if he cansnap a photo. u


sionalism. Quick thinker, fast study, he’s anexcellent addition to the Pro 8 News team.Welcome to Laredo.

On theDaily Show with John Stewart, co-medianLouis Black capably laidinto Fox

News’movingtargetGlennBeckforhav-ing NaziTourette’s Syndrome. The seg-

ment, which is called “Back in Black,” airedMay 10 through 13.

Blackdeconstructed the far right com-mentator’sridiculouspoliticalassertionsthat often pull Hitler and theheinous,

systematic exterminationof 6,000 Jewishsouls into vitriolic explanations for currentevents. The parallels that Beck attempts to

drawbetweenoneof themostdespicablechapters of world history and today’s eventsare not at all a parallel, but rather a shakylogic poised atop a twisted fixation.

Black’s humor is, well, black, and it evis-cerates hate andstupidity.He uses Beck’s

skewed reasoning to pronounce, “MotherTheresahad amoustache.Hitler had a

moustache. MotherTheresa is Hitler!” Hesaid Beck usesmoreSwastikas asprops

than the History Channel.Beck: “First they came for the Jews, then

they came for the banks, the insurance com-panies, and then the car companies.”

Black:“Theycamefor theJews to killthem. They came for the banks to give them

$700 million!”Louis Black’s advice to GlennBeck:

“First, you’ve got to find an attic. Then hidethere for the next three years, and whatever

you do,don’tmakea sound. We’ll let youknow when it’s safe to come out.”

Theinvestigative reporting work forwhich Dr. Sherri Fink was named a 2010

Pulitzer Laureatecentersaboutthe lifeanddeath decisionsmade for 180 patients

by physicians and nurses at New Orleans’Memorial Medical Center in the aftermathof Hurricane Katrina.Fink, a trained physician and a writer for

ProPublica,wasfeaturedrecently on NPR’sOn the Media.She spoke of her award winning

August 2009story and herreaction to win-ning the Pulitzer Prize. (Her story is posted atwww.propublica.org/series/deadly-choices).

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

By MARÍA E UGENIA G U ERRA

KGNS reporter Patrick Nelson,arecentgraduateofWashington

State University and the EdwardR. MurrowCollege ofCommu-

presence,polish, and profes-nication,has

Withriveting, unrelentingdetail Finkposes thequestion --eclipsing the horror

of therising watersof HurricaneKatrinawith the unfoldingmaelstrom within the

hospitalcorridors-- whetheror not themarooned, overworkedcaregivers operat-

ing under the worst medical circumstances(norunning water, backed up sewage, no

electricity) euthanized patients whom theydeemed could not be evacuated.

The hallmarkof Fink’saward-winningreportage is the human detail she mined

from thevastamountofinformationcol-lected from countless interviews with

physicians, nurses, coroners,patients andtheir family members, public officials, and

autopsyandtoxicology reports-- provid-ing all the points of view she could for the

events that were but one more sad chapterin the depravity of the storm’s aftermath.

She notes that the initial helicopter evac-uations of patients from Memorial Medical

Centerstopped oncePresidentBush flewoverthecity andthe focusof therescues

shifted to the more media-visible rescue ofpeople on rooftops.Fink’s story is deep, and it goes to the heart

and humanity of the natural disaster, whichcoupled with the inhumane, not-expeditious

response of the Federalgovernment, mayhave forced the hands of physicians, caregiv-ers, and hospital administrators to come up

with a 1-2-3 categorization of patients for whowould be evacuated first, next, and last, mak -

ing life-giving and life-taking decisions nonewouldhavevolunteered to make.In those

decisions, Memorial physicians re-wrote themeaning of DNR orders,calibrating mor-

phine drips and injections of sedatives fromcomfort to “sleep and die.”

She chronicles the July 2006 Departmentof Justice arrests of Memorial physician Dr.

Anna Pou andnurses inconnectionwiththe deaths of four of the 45 fatalities. A New

Orleansgrandjury refused to indict Pou,and in the yearssinceher arrestshehas

helped write and pass legislation in Louisi-ana to offer immunity to health care profes-sionals for work in future disasters, terror-ist attacks, and pandemics.

Finkcontraststhedevastationofthosewholost family members at Memorial at the handsof Pou and the other caregivers with the rel-evant questions: Which patients should get ashare of limited resources, and who decides?

Whatdoes itmean to do thegreatest goodforthe greatestnumber, and doesthat end

justify all means? Where is the line betweenappropriate comfort care and mercy killing?How, if at all, should doctors and nurses be

held accountable for their actions in the mostdesperate of circumstances, especially if their

government fails them?Sherri Fink’swell-written,award-win-

ning narrativebegsus to examinecon-science and will. It begs us, too, to examine

thegrossfailure ofthe BushAdministra-tion in response to human lives so in needof immediate relief and assistance.

The Pulitzer jury for investigative report-ingconsisted of Melanie Sill,editor and se-

nior vice president,The Sacramento Bee; DavidMurray,managingeditor,The Blade , Toledo,Ohio;GretchenMorgenson, assistant busi-

ness and financial editor,The New York Times;JeffryCouch, editor and vice president, Bel-

leville(IL)News-Democrat ; Mark Katches,editorialdirector,CaliforniaWatch , and the

Center for Investigative Reporting, Berkeley,CA; Robert Blau, editor, projects and investi-gations, Bloomberg News, Washington, D.C.;

andWilliam C. Hidlay, president and pub-lisher,Courier News/Home News Tribune , East

Brunswick, N.J. (Sill and Morgenson are pastPulitzer Prize winners.)

Dr. Fink is the author ofWar Hospital: ATrue Story of Surgery and Survival(Public Af-fairs, 2003), which won the American Medi-cal Writer’s Association special book award

andwas afinalist for theOverseasPressClub and PEN Martha Aibrandawards.Fink receivedher M.D. and Ph.D. from

Stanford, and worked with humanitarianaid organizations in more than a half dozen

emergencies in the U.S. andoverseas. Shehas taught at Harvard, Tulane, and the New

School.Mostrecently Finkwas the recipi-ent of a Kaiser Media Fellowship in Healthfrom the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Scary Web Page ImagesImages of children and the elderly having

fun onthe City of Laredo’s Parksand Lei-sure web page have a frightening, distorted,disturbing Witness Protection Program look

about them. Someone with a heavy hand hastaken a PhotoShop swipe at making the im-ages look not like photos but sort of like thebrush strokes of a wild and crazy artist. From10 feet away, the images probably work, but

from here at my desktop, it is my urge to savethese children and seniors from whatever is

making them look this way. Especially theboywith no face behind the children who

have faces at the top of the water slide.

Media R eview

Pro 8’s Patrick Nelson a welcome addition to news staff;Louis Black deconstructs Glenn Beck’s Nazi Tourette’s;Pulitzer Prize winner Fink on the life and death choices after Katrina

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

predatorygenius Roman Polanski, can play an innocentEnglish milkmaid in an ill-conceived and disappointingly

rendered cinematic version of Thomas Hardy’sTess of theD’Urbervilles , shortened to Tess by Polanski, whose jail time

ought to be lengthened for this travesty of justice to the re-spectable Thomas Hardy.

One more comment about Tess -- art shouldn’t be madeto imitate life to this disgustingly transparent degree.

Let meclearyour mindsof any lingeringdoubtthatmay be clinging like dirty-socks lint to your curiosity -- I

did notsit through the whole smells-like-a French-hothouseflick (filmed in France, of course), and you shouldn’t either,if gratuitous violence makes you regurgitate.

But now to get off the sawhorse, stop talking like a for-hireHardy-defenderwithbloodshoteyes, andtryto put

Tess of the D’Urbervilles into perspective as a novel in its ownright and as Hardy’s next-to-last effort in this genre. I thinkI would have to call it an early venture into naturalism -- asort of x-ray picture of life’s ugly innards. But it masquer-

ades as a work of realismdraped in a slightly wrinkledshawl of sentimentality.

Mostof theworksofHardy’smaturity--TheMayorofCasterbridge ,Tess of the D’Urbevilles , and Jude the Obscure -- are

gloomy, too gloomy and tragic for many readers, but artisti-cally written in beautiful English prose by a master observer

of Nature and human nature.For me, Hardy’s late novels are a tad excruciating in the

development of their plots and somewhat predictably sad intheir outcomes, like a few of Shakespeare’s tragedies, though

I don’twantto compareapples and oranges.But Hardy isalways a consummate artist whose best works are literarily

andphilosophicallyengaging,andquiteabsorbing. Al-though he wrote a few clunkers along the way, likeThe Hand

of Ethelberta and The Trumpet-Major , Hardy made a name forhimself with A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), Far From the Madding

Crowd(1874),The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Cast-erbridge(1886), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Ob-

scure(1895), respectively.Sincehispenultimatenoveldealtwith rapeandmur-

der, it predictably caused a bit of a stir in literary circles andlate Victorian society, thebook’sfulltitlebeing, Tess of the

D’Urbervilles : A Pure WomanFaithfully Presented . By addingthis particular subtitle, Hardy is surely trying to preempt theprudish stigmatization of the tale’s protagonist, Tess Derbey-field, which he almost succeeded in doing, and to take a boldstand against the victimization of women in a society wherewomen were disenfranchised and bullied by men in everyphase of public and private life.Tess lives in a rural cottage with her parents on the edge

of Blackmoor Vale, where “the wind became the sigh of an



If a peach-fuzzed Ryan O’Neal could play Gen. JamesM. Gavinof the89thAirborneDivisionin ABridge

Too Far, a movie that was almost as ill-conceived andpoorly cast as the original event it pretends to recre-

ate,thenNatassja Kinsky, aformerunderage victim of

immense sad soul coterminous with the universe, and withhistoryandtime.”Sheis energetic and intelligent, as evi-

denced by the alacrity with which she goes about her choresand the high marks she received in the country school sheattended. After leaving school she lends a hand at haymak-

ing or harvesting on neighboring farms.She seems to love life, and she has her mother’s musical

soul, of whom the Hardy writes, ““No ditty floated over theBlackmoor Vale but Tess’s mother caught up its notation ina week.” Referring to Tess, Hardy says in an early chapter,“Being heart-whole as yet, she enjoyed treading a measure

purely for its own sake.”TheDerbeyfields are simple folk, but Jack Derbeyfield,

her father, a not particularly astutecountrybumpkin, be-comes suddenly overwhelmed by visions of grandeur andupward mobility upon hearing a bit of gossip imparted one

afternoon on his way home from his labors in the field by thelocal parson, who is an amateur genealogist.

It is an infectious tidbit of pseudo-historiography that has“Quite died out of knowledge,” according to Parson Tring-

ham, alleging, no less, that Jack Derbeyfield is the descen -dant of the knightly family of Pagan D’Urbevilles, who came

overwithWilliam theConqueror fromNormandy duringthe fateful Norman Conquest of 1066.Upon hearing the report from her excited husband, Tess’s

mother keeps right on with her washing, obviously not in-terested in pedigree.“Will it do us any good, Mother?” Tess asks.“O yes! Tis thought that great things may come o’t. No

doubt a mampus of folk of our own rank will be down here

in their carriages as soon as it is known,” answers Mrs. Der-beyfield, unimpressed with the prospects that the new infor -

mation might have for her family.But Jack Derbeyfield is quite enthusiastic. “There’s a great

rich lady out by Tantridge named D’Urberville, and my pro-jick is to send Tess to claim kin -- ’twould lead to some noble

gentleman marrying her.”Right on the heels of Parson Tringham’s little encounter

with Jack Derbeyfield on the country road and Jack Derbey -field’s hatching of a scheme to marry off his comely daugh -

ter to a man of wealth and property on the claim of ancientkinship,tragiceventsbegintounfold, beginning with a

portentous ride for Tess in the dead of night to deliver somebeehives to a neighbor’s farm some distance away. During

this ride, Prince, the family’s horse, is killed when Tess’s cartcollideswitha mail cartandasharp sparpiercesPrince’s

breast. Tess is soaked in blood trying in vain to stanch thewound and save the horse’s life.

Theaccidenttakesplace“because webe on a blightedstar, andnot asound one,” according toAbraham, an old

farmer who drives by the scene of the accident shortly afterdaylight. Hardy’s stories are replete with symbolism, omens,

and portentous statements.Since a farmer requires a horse, and Prince is dead, Jack

Derbeyfield is now staring ruinous penury in the face, so hepressures Tess into venturing over to the old D’Urberville

manor house to seek some kind of employment, hoping thatthegirlmight catch theeye of Alec, theyoung and single

D’Urberville heir.The story moves along rapidly now. Tess gets a job as a

henhouse keeper. However, Alec D’Urberville turns out tobe an unscrupulous, thoroughgoing scoundrel who only

pretends to be a distant relative in order to win Tess’s con-fidence and court her with the aim of physically conqueringher, which he eventually does, although she never willingly

submits to hisembraces. He “date-rapes”thesleeping girlon The Chase, the manor’s ancient grounds, a truly vener-

able tract of forest land, one of the few remaining woodlandsin Englandof undoubted primeval date, wherein Druidal

mistletoe was still found on aged oaks.Tessrefusestomove in with Alex, seeingthroughhis

false entreaties, and a baby is born that she names Sorrow.When the baby dies a few days after it is born, Tess seeks andfinds employment at Talbothay’s dairy and is quite proficientand content in her new position. She meets and falls in lovewith Angel Clare, a preacher’s son who loves her to distrac-

tion and proposes marriage.But things go wrong again -- she can’t bring herself to tell

Clare about her experience with Alec, and they have a fallingout on their wedding night, when he refuses to consummate

the marriage. A couple of years later, there is a reconciliation,but only after Tess and Alec have made an unsuccessful at-tempt of reconciliation and cohabitation, culminating in theself-defense murder of Alec by Tess, while the law exoner-ates her of any charge of crime in the action.

There’sno doubtabout it -- Hardy runs hisreadersthrough the wringer in this one. u

L iterary Classics

Tess of the D’Urbervillesby Thomas Hardy --a startling novel for its time


T exas A &M I nternational U niversity

TAMIU partners with Har vard’s Center for Public Leadershipto foster next-generation Latino leadership

By STEVE HARMON

WithLatinos expected to com-prise30 percent of the U.S.populationby 2050,TAMIU

officials recently announced acollaboration with the Center for Public Lead-ership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of

Government to help develop the rising genera-tion of Latino leaders.

Six students from TAMIU have been cho-sen from a highly selective application processto take part in this collaboration, which is be-

ing calledthe LatinoLeadershipInitiative(LLI): Andrea Beattie, Alejandro De La Fuente,Jennifer González, José Lara, Arlyn Martínez,and Cynthia De La Miyar. They will be joinedby 22 other rising seniors from University of

California-Merced,LoyolaMarymount-LosAngeles, University of Houston, and the Uni-versity of Massachusetts–Boston.

The inaugural LLI class will convene inCambridge, MA, on June 12 for a week-long

program that will include classes on decision-making, negotiation, andpublic narrative --

taught by leadingprofessorsfrom Harvard,Georgetown and Stanford -- as well as sessions

designed to help studentsdevelop greaterself-awareness andknowledge of their own

strengths and weaknesses as leaders. LLI par-ticipants will also have opportunities to build

relationships with respectedLatino mentorsfromthegovernment,non-profit,andbusiness

sectors.Regular teleconferences hosted by the

Centerfor PublicLeadership will enable theLLI participants to continue their leadership

development over the ensuing academic year.In addition, the students from each of the fiveparticipating universities will work as a team

to design a community service project that willbe implemented in collaboration with faculty

and/or administration from their home uni-versity .

For more information about the LLI, and tostay informed about the students’ community

service projects as they take shape, visit http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/leadership.

TAMIU’s D.D. Hachar Honors Programcelebrates 10th anniversary

The 10th anniversary of the D. D. HacharCharitable Trust’s support of the TAMIU hon-ors program that bears his name is being cel-ebrated with the most fitting measure of his

legacy: the May 2010 graduation of 15 studentsin the program.Students Carlos Cantú, Sandra Contreras,

Cindy Cruz, Daniel García, Eric Garza, MariaGomez, Alissa González,Claudia Guevara,

Alejandra Lascurain, Cristina Martínez, Man-uel Montes, Sandra Prado, Rosa Ramon, Gabri-ela Ramos, and Nancy Zavala are graduatingthismonth.Priortotheirgraduation,theywere

honored with a reception and an opportunityto welcome freshman students to the Hachar

Honors Program.TheD.D. Hachar Trusthas been a long-timepartner with TAMIU,establishing the

D. D. Hachar Honors Program in fall of 2000

as the university’s first undergraduate honorsexperience for gifted students. The competitive

programawardsqualifiedstudentsafour-yearscholarship including tuition, books, and fees.Dr. Carlos E. Cuéllar, TAMIU associate profes-

sor of history , administers it.“The program works because it is a team

effort involving BBVA Compass Bank; TAMIUadministration and professors that are willing

to mentor the dedication and hard work of pro-gram students,” Cuéllar noted.

Demetrio David (D.D.) Hachar was a Leba-neseimmigrantto Laredo whose dedicated

worthethic helped him toovercome earlyfinancial disadvantagesand attain multiple

businesssuccesses. To further his generosityand affection for Laredo, he created a trust to

provide financial support to educational insti -tutions in the Laredo area.

Sincehis death in 1978, the Hachar Trusthasbecome one of the largest philanthropic

efforts devoted to health and educational op-portunities in South Texas. It is managed bytrust members and BBVA Compass Bank and

has provided more than $10 million in scholar-ships to deserving Laredo students.

Incoming D. D. Hachar Honors freshmaninclude Nohemi Basurto, Angela Benavides,

Ediel Bernal, Sonia Chapa, Oscar Cortez, Ash-ley García,Clarissa García,Karime García,

Rosario Garza, RoyGonzales, Sarah Laurel,Lillian Lopez,ArmandoMolina,Benjamin

Morales, Ricardo Pedraza,Gladys Plasencia,Enrique Ramírez, Jessica Rojas, Erika Salazar,Melissa Saucedo, Monica Stahl, Rebecca Soto,

Belinda Sotelo, MayTumonong, and MarioVargas.For more information, contact the Univer-

sity’s Office for Institutional Advancement at326.GIVE(4483), e-mail candy .hein@tamiu.

edu, or visit room 260 in the Sue and RadcliffeKilam Library .

For additional information on the D. D.Hachar Honors program,contactassoci-atedirectorGerri Laurel at 326.2133,visit

offices in Killam Library, room 418, [email protected], or click on tamiu.edu/

coas/honors. u


By TIM HOWELL

lashoftheTitans is thelatest bigbudgetremakeofa classicfilm.This is nothingnew,but Holly-

wood has a tendency to remakeCanysubstantialmovieof the pastonceit

masters a new form of specialseeminglyeffects. In some ways Hollywood remindsme of Jim Breuer’s character inHalf Baked.Most people have known someone like this.Breuer’s character uses any kind of menial

task,object,or food as a springboardtosomethingnewby gettinghighthen try-

ing it all over again for the first time.“Yeah man, Snickers are great, man. But

have you tried them high?”Insert Warner Brothers intoBreuer’s

role and replace marijuana with computergenerated effects and the outcome is much

the same:“Yeah, man, theoriginal Clashofthe

Titansisgreatwithclay-mation, man. Butcanyou imagineit with computergener-

ated effects, man?”People of my generation are the key de-

mographicthat inspiredWarner Brotherstorecreate MGM’s1981Clash of the Titans.

Nostalgia is a powerful tool in gettingpeopletoopen up theirwallets. Ifyou’re

wondering if I went to seeTransformersandG.I. Joeas soon as those movies hit thebig screen, the answer is, “Absolutely!” As

a matteroffact, Transformers is one of theonlymovies I’ve everseenin themovie

theater two days in a row. What can I say;I still havean optimal love forOptimusPrime.

Theoriginal ClashoftheTitans firstgracedthesilverscreenyearsbeforeI pickedup

aTransformer orG.I. Joe toy. I neversaw themovie in

the theater; I wasbarely five whenit first came out.I do rememberquitewellthoughthe first time Iwatchedit. I washome sick withstrepthroat and

my mom broughthome the VHS

copy. Sure, I wasold enough tonoticethewiresthat were vis-ible as Pegasustook to the air;

and even at thatyoung age I wascynicalenoughto know thatHarry Ham-lin wasn’ttheworld’sbest actor.But none

of that stuff really mattered to me then (orevennow forthat matter). The cool thing

about the 1981 version was that it was thefirst time that I had seen a movie that por -

trayedGreekmythology almost ascan-didly as my imagination had every time I

pored over book after book of Greek myth-ological tales.

Aside from the key addition of Hades, awell-played deletion of the Golden Owl (whodoes make a brief appearance, I don’t want

to spoil it for you), the newClash of the Titansis very similar to its original. It’s the tale of

P e r s e u s ,son of Zeus,who has thewonderf ulproblem ofbeing halfhuman andhalf god. I

feel confidentthatif Iwerehalfgod, mycredit scorewould becloserto theYankees’win-ningpercent-age than mybody weight.Zeus is con-vinced by his

brother, Hades,played withboredvigorbyRalphFiennes,

that in order forthegods tobe-

come more pow-erful they must punish the humans for not

worshipping them enough. This subsequentpunishment, carried out by Hades, is sup-

posed to make the humans fear the gods andincrease their belief in them, thus increasingthe powers of the gods; but it actually fuelsHades, who has the intention of dethroning

Zeus. Also, fans of the television show Lostarein for a specialtreat as the mysterious

black smoke from the show makes a cameoin various scenes of the newClash.

Liam Neesonstars as Zeus,replacingcinematic god LaurenceOlivier from the

original. Neeson’s contributionsshinemuch less than his armor, but he did whathe could with what he had. Sam Worthing-ton(Avatar)stars as Perseus. Worthington

doesjust fine,as this is arole that is farfrom challenging.Achecklist ofqualitiesneededto play thelead would bequiteshort:

Are you handsome? Check.Do you have a provenbankability

in previousfilmsbut still aren’tfamousenoughto takeaway fromourspecial ef-

fects budget? Check.I doubt that Worthington had the same

problems getting out of character as HeathLedger did as the Joker inThe Dark Knight .

And it’s not like Harry Hamlin set the barvery high asPerseusin the originalver-sion.

It is nitpickyof meto harp on theact-ing. Fun, too. But, truth be told, this movieisn’t about the acting, or the story line, forthat matter. And it certainly isn’t about the

dialogue. Going to see Clash of the Titanswith the aforementionedtopics in mind

would be like going to a football game forthe food. The Medusa battle scene alone isworth the price of admission. The Kraken

is a truly significant upgrade over its pre -decessor.

I dorecommend seeingClashof the Ti-tans. Just make sure you go to the theater inthe right mindset. Lean back in your comfychair, and turn off your brain for the next

106 minutes.Enjoy theair-conditionedcomfort of your favorite movie theater and

watchas somepretty kick-assspecialef-fects dazzle you. In other words, embrace

your inner child, and you willprobablyenjoy what you see.u

Movie R eview

Clash of the Titans -- three out of five stars

CONTINU ED F ROM p AGE 40

Before I could respond,she braggedabout her 120-gallon fuel cell and her fiber -

glass outer skin. At that point, I could standno more: I blurted out, “Pardon me,Señori-ta, but I do not get your jargon!” I pushedaway from her and on through the crowdto the soda drink stand. All kinds of bewil-derment were flooding my head.

Here I was with a doctor ofphiloso-phy degree with a major in compensatory

curriculumand instruction and a minorin linguistics and reading -- all level. Andin those and related areas, I usually knewmy way around, so to speak. And I even

knew and could speakratherwell just

plainole everyday English.But today, Ihad run into all sorts of technical wordsand concepts about which I only had in-

klingsof theirmeanings.Inshort, I wasflabbergasted. I knew of no way to carry

on an extendedconversationwith all ofthese nice folk because I just didn’t speak

their language; I knew only smatteringsof their vocabularies and only shadows oftheir multitudinous concepts.

At that point, just as I had paid for myBig Red, the big female in overalls grabbedme again and swung me to ask, “Say, Man,

whatdo you thinkabout mygrabbers?”At this,I wasrelieved because, after all, I

knew both the word and the concept. How-ever, what I understood as a “grabber” was

not necessarily a nice concept, especiallyin certain contexts or in mixed company. I

wasdumbfounded. She hadcontinued totalk as I had processed “grabber” to myself,and as I began again to listen to her and towatch her dramatic gestures and pointingtoward her tires, I finally realized that shemust be talking about her new tires whichhad been designed and built to “grab” theoff-road dirt more tightly for better traction

and, thereby, more speed. I was so relieved!I had finally understood at least one of hertechnical terms and its concept in the samesense that she had used it.

I wasso happy. I blurted,once again,“Boy, that’s a lotta power!”

Asanotherfemaleracer cameover to

talk to my new teacher, I excused myselfand walkedaway. Fast. I walkedbacktoward the Fremont StreetExperience

where I had started and began thinking.“At least, today is not a total loss. I did getsome really good photos, and I did meet

someverynice individuals.And,even,I didlearn atleastonenew meaningfora vocabularyword that I hadalready

known—’grabber.’” Most of the othertechnicaltermsand their conceptshad

simply escaped me. After all, I have neverhad anydirect, or evenindirect,experi-encewith any off-roadracingor,even,

on-road racing.” I walked along, growingmore understanding of my particular ig-norance with each step.u


By MARÍA E U GENIA G U ERRA

Tracy Chevalier’s sixth historicalnovel,Remarkable Creatures, is seton the cliffs of the southern coast

of Englandand is based on thelife of British fossil hunterMary Anning

(1799-1847). Struck by lightning as a youngchild,Anning was possessedof a unique

ability to find valuable fossils where otherscould not in the cliffs of Lyme Regis nearDorchester.

At the age of 12 she discovered a com-plete fossilized skeleton of the marine rep-tile ichthyosaurwhich lived about 200 mil-lion years earlier, an event that catapulted

the poor,uneducated child into the com-pany of scholars, scientists, and unscrupu-lous upper crusters who wanted to end upwith the quarry of her dangerous, arduous

labors.The character of a refined, pedigreedspinster named Miss Philpot -- a sophisti-

cated former Londoner who with her otherunmarried sisters has faced a recent social

downgradeby being movedfrom Lon-don to thehinterlands ofDorchester -- is

afossilhunterbyavocationandbecomesacompanion of sorts toyoung Anning,

whom the town regards as an uneducated,unwashed poorhouse oddity.

Despite disparities in their age and theirsocialstanding, the two cometogether at

their fascination with fossils.For Anning the fossils kept food on

thetable for her widowed motherandbrother. For Philpot, her life and Anning’s

intersectedat their interest in the naturalworld, Philpot’s view more educated, An-ning’s more rudimentary.

Philpot endeavorstoensurethat An-ning is well paid forher finds,andshe isAnning’sguide toacquiring morescien-

tific data about her specimens.The friendship falls apart over Philpot’s

counsel to Anning about a man who wants

more than Anning’sfossils, and at thispoint in thestorytellingPhilpot,no lon-

gerthe narrator of her daily interactionwith Anning on the cliffs, now tells An-

ning’s story from a distance.One of themost interestingfacets of

Chevalier’s story telling is the inclusionof the creationism debate surrounding

the discoveryof fossils, the debateofscience and religion and the theory of

extinction. Besides thedialogue in Re-markable Creatures ,Chevalier’s web site

puts the issue ofextinction and cre-ationisminto thecontext of Anning’stime (pre-Darwin), posing the then-

shocking question, “Would God createan animal only to have it die out?”

This is a good story well told. Che-valier is excellentat her craft, the

seasoned author of Girlwith the PearlEarring,Burning Bright,The Lady and

the Unicorn, Falling Angels, and VirginBlue.u

book R eview

Fossils by the sea, creationism before Dar win --Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures

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to the lifetime contributions made by politi-cal figures, sports figures, and stars?

Takemypaternalgrandmother,forin-stance. She was a stay-at-home mom. In herearly 40s, her husband, who had a supervi-sory job at the local mill and was actively

involved in communityorganizations,politics, and the church, died suddenly ofa perforated ulcer. Without hesitation, my

grandmotherfound a full time job at themill and proceeded to take over the finan -

cial demands of home ownership, mainte-nance, and providing for the basic needs of

her children.My grandmother’s oldest child was bur-

denedwith severe asthma. But she mar-ried and had two children, whereupon her

husbandabandoned her.Wheredid theygo for help? They returned to the home ofmy grandmother. When the mother of mytwo cousins died my grandmother, in her

late 60s, was charged with the responsibil-ity of bringing up a second family.

By the way, what was mymaternalgrandmother doing all thistime? An Irish

Catholic, she brought seven children into theworld (andexperienced two miscarriages).

But she was lucky. Her husband was a line-


Itseems like grandmothers are alwaysamong the first to take a hit whenever

thegovernment decides to tighten itspurse strings. But in the grand scheme

of things, how do they compare with respect

manfor AT&T,and, in spiteof havinganalcoholproblem, lived totheageof 70. Af-

ter his death, grandma took over the care oftwo elderly sisters and provided shelter andsupport for all the boomerang children who

periodically returned from theravages offailed marriage. She also proceeded to raisean unwed daughter’s child.

Do thesetwo women represent an un-common situation?Has suchadversity

ceased to exist in the modern world?As Iapproached my own “dotage,”I

observed the lives of my slightly older ad-jacent neighbors inRhode Island. One of

them, the mother of three children, workedin a local schoolkitchen. Herhusband

owneda small business. Butwhile in his40s, the husband became disabled and had

to leave work.Their threechildren man-aged to receive training in various produc-tive vocations. One started his own family.But he and his wife both had to work in or-der to maintain a decent living. Guess whowas nominated to take over the daily careof the children? My neighbor, who by then

hadundertakenthe increasinglyburden-some task of caring for her husband.

Eventually a second child started a fam-ily. He married a professional woman, whowanted to keep her job, so the family also

neededacaringbabysitter. I won’t botherto spell out who was appointed for the job.

Eventually,thesegrandchildrenwere

Reflections of a New Texan

Grandmas, unsung heroesall in schooland lessinneed ofconstantcare.Unfortunately,thefirstchild’smar-

riage fell apart, and in due time he remar-ried. And guess what? The new wife want -

ed a family also. And on and on it goes.Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence,

my secondneighbor raised three children,only one of whom got married. However, this

youngmarried womanturnedout to havegifts in the nursing field and was in such de -

mand that she needed a caring babysitter forher child. Unfortunately, her marriage failed

after a short time, and she married again andhad another child. Grandpa, by the way, wasin fairly poor health. But they, like the previ-ously described grandparents, got up everymorning at the crack of dawn to drive 20 or30 miles to pick up kids and deliver them toschool or provide daycare themselves.

Thoseneighbors, by the way,were thelucky ones.Numerousstoriesweretoldaboutgrandparentsthroughouttheareahavingtotakeover the full careof theirgrandchildren due to the widespread

problem of drug addiction.Are things any different here in Laredo?

One day when Iattendedalocal CPRclass, I met a couple who shared their storywith me. They were attending the class dueto the fact that they were primary caregiv-ers for their grandchildren. They felt they

had almost lost one of the smaller childrenwhen hechoked oneday. They toldme

that they were completely exhausted afterhaving the responsibility of taking care oftheir grandchildrenalmosteveryday.The

wife said sadly, “We have not had a vaca-tion for several years.”

When I attended a Senior Circle Tai Chiclassat the LaredoMedicalCenter,there

never seemed to be a day when one of thegrandparents wasn’t called out of class for

a familyemergency. Andoneonlyhas toread the daily headlines here in Laredo todiscover the heinous situations from which

grandparents are sometimesrequired torescue their grandchildren.

So, to hear the politicians speak, the el-derly are “living off the fat of the land” by

accepting the assistance of Social Security.None of the seniorsIhear about are rich.

Not toomanyhave idletime to sit bythepool.But, withoutSocial Security,whole

families would potentially be disrupted.I certainly don’t look forward to the day

whenthe UnitedStates is askedto forfeitits loan fromChina; noram Iopposed to

anyconstructive“tweaks” to Social Secu-rity. And the continued war on fraudulent

claimsisimportant.Sure,bring onmoretaxes.After all,freedom is not free,but

can’t we stop spending tax income on oth-er countries?

Personally, I think grandma and grand-pa (whenhe is loyal)are thebackboneof

the country. u

BY DE NI SEFE RGU SO N

Denise Ferguson isnewly arrived in Laredo.

A Rhode Islander by birth,she and her husband

retired to Laredo to benear their family. She can

be reached by email [email protected].

LareDOS | MAY2010 | 5 1WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

klrn.org

F R O M F L O W E R P O T ST O F R E N C H W I N E

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Border Media-South Texas F ood Bankradio drive set for June 28 to July 11

BYS AL OO T E R O

Salo Otero is thedirector of development

for the South TexasFood Bank. He can

be reached at sotero@southexasfoodbank.

org or by calling956-726-3120.

The fifth annual BorderMedia-South TexasFood Bank radio

drive for the hungry will be heldJune 28 to July 11over thefive

Border Media stations -- La Ley 100.5, Hot106.1,Digital107.3, TheWorks94.9, and

Norteño 1490.The radio drive will raise funds for the

STFB,which has beenserving thecom-munity for over 20 years. The food bank’s

scope of service has increased dramaticallyduring these difficult economic times, and

themoneycollected will alsoenter intoa fund tobe matchedinpartbythe Alan

Shawn Feinstein Foundation.“We certainly believe in the food bank’smission and have seen the needfirst-

hand,” said Ana Rivera-Soto, general salesmanager of Border Media, noting that “our

trips topromotethe Census2010 in thecoloniasandother areasofLaredohave

exposed us to theneedfor food amongstLaredoans. We are happy tocontinue as

partners with the South TexasFood Bankin this noble mission.”

STFB executive directorAlfredo Cas-tillo praised Border Media. “Their partner-

ship with the food bank has been golden inhelpingfeedLaredo’shungry.Obviously,hungerexistsin our ownbackyard.And

hunger is unacceptablethis day in age inLaredo and the United States,” he said.

The food bank providesemergencyfood for an estimated 76,800people an-

nually.Thirty-sixpercentofthoseservedarechildren under18.Morethan87 per-cent ofclients have monthlyhousehold

incomes of less than$1,500. Many reporthaving to choose between food and other

necessities. Forty-five percent must choosebetweenpayingfor food and paying for

utilities, almost 40 percent choose betweenpaying for food or paying for medicine or

medical care, and 36 percent must choosebetween paying for food or paying rent or

mortgage.During the radiothon listeners can tune

in 24 hours a day and call in donations andpledges. They can also call the food bank’s

main number, (956) 726-3120, from 8 a.m. to5 p.m.and to anyofthesethreenumbers

after 5 p.m. -- (956) 771-5389, (956) 774-8318,or (956) 771-5545. Cricket Communications

of Laredo provided the threenumbers.Donations can be sent directly to the food

bank at PO Box 2007, Laredo, TX, 78044. Alldonations are tax deductible.

To raise funds, the STFB is selling radiosponsorships of $1,500, $5,000, and $10,000.

Thesponsors’names will be aired150timesthroughouttheradio drive during

30-second promos to be shared with threeother sponsors. The $5,000 donor will also

receive a personalinterviewduring theradio drive,and the $10,000+ donor will

havea two-hour radioremotebroadcastfrom their place of business. Additionally,

sponsor donors will receive$30 tickets tothe LaredoSponsors will also receive tickets to theLaredo Energy Arena-SouthTexasFood

Bank Empty Bowls concert featuring ThreeDog Night on Aug. 25. The $1,500 sponsor

getsfour concert tickets, the $5,000 spon-sor gets six tickets, and the $10,000 sponsor

gets10tickets.StateSen.Judith Zaffirini(D-Laredo) will be honored at the event forher contribution to the food bank missionof feeding the hungry.

Castillo noted that severalLaredogroupshaveplantedthe seedfor the ra-

dio drive. The Laredo Catholic elementaryschools, St.Augustine High School, Lare-

doBucks,and LaredoBroncoshaveheldfundraisers for the food bank. Hal’s Land-

ing recentlyheldanevent whileLaredoISD and United ISD collected“dollarsfor

the food bank” district-wide.One youngster, United High sophomore

Zelina Ana Ruiz, 16, is again a hunger ad-vocate. She is planning a rummage sale forthe food bank in June. Last year, Ruiz went

around her north Laredoneighborhoodcollecting $1,000 and 1,000 pounds of food.“What Zelina is doing is admirable,” direc-

tor Castillosaid. “It showsthatonechildcan make a difference. She is truly a hero.”

Four new agencies readyto distribute food

TheSTFBboardrecentlyapprovedsev-eralnew distributionsites, including three

in Laredoand onein EaglePass.Laredo’sthree new agencies are Border Area Transi-tions Ministry at 2520 Lane; New Beginning

Houseof Worship,6414McPherson No. 4;and Volunteers Serving the Need, 1202 Sali-

nas. The Eagle Pass group is located at theMaverick County Self Help Center.

“Our mission is to feed the hungry, andthe agencies are the life line,” Castillo said.

Product distributionThe food bank distributed673,007

poundsofproduct in March to bringthe2010 total to 2.3 million,which is ahead

of last year’s 1.9 million pounds. ThroughFebruary the food bank has served 38,831

families, including 32,233 children, 62,739adults and 77,420 meals.

The Adopt-a-Familyprogramhas718families on file and a waiting list of

345. Commodity SupplementalFoodProgram (CSFP) USDA for theelderly

served6,176 individuals. Ithas 1,282 on awaiting list. TheSupplementalNutrition

Assistance Program (SNAP) signed up 450in March, which represents 649 adults and

549 children.Applications for the year are 1,150, in-

cluding 1,587adults,1,48children. TheKids Cafés program, with 12 sites and 530

children, served 11,795 meals for the month.Mealsfor theyearare 31,875. Pounds per

personin povertywas70.65pounds.TheFeeding America median is 55.85.

The food bank is a non-profit 501(c)3 or -ganization.Tax-deductible donations can

be sent to PO Box 2007, Laredo, TX, 78044.The phonenumberis (956) 726-3120 and

website,www.southtexasfoodbank.org.It is alsoon Facebookand Twitter (www.twitter.com/SoTxFoodBank). The food

bank at 1907 Freight and Riverside in westLaredois openMondaythroughFriday8

a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. u

1907F reight St. Laredo, TX [email protected]

956.726.3120

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

JohnDeereor Pioneerseedcorncaps,shirtsleeves rolled to theirelbows, at least one of

them wearing bib overalls, and on each cornerof the table a brown beer bottle. And as Dad

playedtheright and leftbowers and trumpafter trump, snapped them down like he wascracking a whip, each card slapping the tablemore emphatically, he’d deliver the inevitable

corollary: “It takes money to buy whiskey .”Strangely, this is what I’ve tried to get my

composition students to understand again thissemester. Too many of them are stunned whenI show them that even though they know howto talk, they write poorly, and though they’re

nearly always polite, some resist learning any-thing new about writing. It’s not so much thatthey don’t have the proverbial “money to buywhiskey” but that they’re using the wrong cur-rency. Some of them simply believe that writ-ing is no more than talking on paper, and talk-ing -- they often remind me -- they can do.

When students invest in that bankrupt as-sumption, they write badly. They inflate their

draftswith counterfeitsfrom theirown in-formal conversations. If online and unable to

make their spare, simplevocabulary conveytheir pleasure, they type :-). If they worry that

their sarcasm or joke will be taken seriously ,they resort to ;) or :P. And to indicate their sur-prise or shock, they use :-o. However, when I

pointoutthat emoticons and abbreviationslike “lol” or “wth” are too informal for a letter

ofapplication or an argumentative essay oncensorship and try to show them alternatives,they resist, convinced that what they know ofthe English language beyond :-o is more than

enough to write effectively. In fact, when I saidnear the end of a three-hour night class that we

hadonemorethingtocover,astudentgroaned,“There’sstilleven more learning?” Because

theycanchat on Facebookandmaybe eventalked their high school English teacher into

giving them an A instead of a B, they assumethey’re well equipped for college writing.

Manyofthem, of course,do realize thatsymbols and casual language aren’t appropri-ate for academic papers. However, then theyresort to worn-out prefab constructions used

by sports announcers or Simon Cowell, peoplewho, in students’often limited experience,

have the appearance of authority. As a result,


Which is what Dad oftensaidwhile playing buck euchre inthe Municipal Liquor Store in

Lamberton, Minnesota. He satatatablewiththreeothermeninsweat-stained

studentspad their writing with “That beingsaid” or “Having said that,” or “Be that as it

may.” Not only do they mistake meaningless-ness for insight or intelligence but they thinkredundancy is elaboration, which leads themto write like this: “My uncle is someone who Iadmire.” Unfortunately they don’t notice that

anuncleis, bydefinition, both a “someone”and a “who” and that they might have simply

said, “I admiremy uncle.”Because we usu-ally don’t need nor have the time to revise talk,

studentsstruggle to break themselves of theconversational habits that constantly infiltrate

their writing.While most students realize that slang and

profanityare inappropriatefor most collegepapers, they still struggle to make less obvious

distinctionsbetweeninformalandformal,con-versational and academic. One bright young

woman,whenwriting a documented essay ,referred to an expert and, in order to justify

him as an authority, wrote that he “has a tonof experience in drug treatment field.” Thoughthe context was academic and formal, she re-lied on informality instead of more appropri-

ate diction, such as “considerable experience”or“extensiveexperience.” And, in the same

draft, when explaining the significance of in -formation from a source, and in an effort to bemore formal, she wrote, “Ehrenfeld argues amore mentionable point.” “Mentionable” maysound sophisticated, but it’s mostly meaning-

less. Similarly , students sometimes mistakenlyuse “literally” to create emphasis -- as in “He

literally went to bed” -- even though there’s nofigurative way to interpret this and, therefore,

noneedfor “literally .” It sounds impressivebecause smart people use the term, but whenused incorrectly, it suggests that the writer is

simply parrotingwithoutcomprehending.And whenteenage conversations outside of

the classroom sound like this -- “Dude, I waslike so pissed that he was like late again that Iliterally didn’t go anywhere Saturday night” --it doesn’t surprise me that many of them don’t

know what“exonerate” means,can’t distin-guish between “relative” and “relevant,” andeven draw a blank when asked for a synonym

for “car.”I don’t expect university freshmen to talk

like adults since they’re mostly teenagers andsimply haven’t lived long enough to have ac-quired an adult’s vocabulary or awareness ofthe world. But what they frequently fail to ap-preciate is that on the page, the writer literally

trumps the talker every time. u

Serving S entences

Talkis cheap

Cou

rtesy

Pho

toC

ourte

sy P

hoto

BY RAN D YKOCH

Randy Koch earnedhis MFA at the

University of Wyomingand teaches writing

at Bloomsburg Univer-sity of Pennsylvania.

Christopher Rincón accepted the Webb County Heritage Foundation’s GoodNeighborhood Award on behalf of the River Pierce Foundation (RPF) in SanYgnacio. The award recognized the non-profit organization’s ongoing effortsto conserve historically significant buildings in San Ygnacio, particularlyFort Treviño, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998.Rincón is pictured with Rosanne Palacios and Jim Moore at the WCHF’sFounders Day Luncheon.

WCHF Good Neighbor Award to River Pierce Foundation

LCC librarian Deborah Matthews received the Webb County HeritageFoundation’s Volunteer Service Award for her contributions of time andexpertise to further the programs and services of the Foundation and theVilla Antigua Museum.

WCHF volunteer recognized for dedicated service


Maverick R anch Notes

Documenting Adrian Woll’s road;new guineas arrive at Fromme’s

General Adrian Woll, born in France anda general in the Mexican army under An-

tonioLópez deSanta Anna,decided notto take the usual road to San Antonio.

The year was 1842, Santa Anna was againin power, and Mexico was not aboutto

recognize Texas as an independent coun-try.Back in February of that year, when ru-

morsof animpending Mexicaninvasionfinallyappeared tobe real, thecitizensof San Antoniobegan toleave thetown

for safety. They loaded their families andbelongings onto ox carts and rode off to-ward places less prone to invasion.

Timepassed, August came aroundand so did thenext session of district

court in San Antonio. Many lawyers andtheirclients returnedwith the judgeforcourt. The families stayed where they

had gone and waited for their husbands’return.Meanwhile, General Woll and his army

of a thousandbeganpreparationsattheborder for invasion. Woll decided to take anew westerly route to evade detection be-cause spies were continually moving along

the regularroadbetweenthe borderandSanAntonio.Healso knew CaptainJack

Hays and his rangers were ever vigilant. Inorder to make a rapid march and surprisethe town, Woll constructed a new road. Hesent road-building troops just ahead of themain body of army to do the construction.These troops must have worked night andday because Woll’s army reached San An-

tonioabout 10 days later, coming in fromthe west through what is now MedinaCounty.

The Texansholdingcourt werecom-pletely surprised when word reachedthemthattheMexicanarmywascamped

just outside town. All adjourned to the roofof the Samuel Maverick home on Main Pla-za. The next morning, Woll’s troops begantheir march through the fog into town. Un-fortunately, Woll anticipated no resistance

from his enemy andplaced his militaryband at the head of the troops. With musicplaying, the troops drew within range. The

Texans opened fireinto the fog and intothe band. After that, the gunfire exchange

was briefand the Texanssurrenderedtofarsuperior forces. The date was Septem-

ber 11, 1842.The rest of this story includes the Battle

of the Salado where N.M. Dawson and hismen were killed trying to rescueWoll’sprisoners.Woll left San Antonio,retrac-

ing his steps backoverhis newroad andtakingthose captives to PerotePrison in

Mexico.That invasion has always aroused deepfeelings. Our great, great grandfather

Samuel Maverick was one of the capturedlawyers.Griffin, a Maverickslave,rode

withDawson to do whatever hecould tofree Maverick but died bravely in the Daw-

sonMassacre at theSalado. The last sightof him was with a mesquite limb raised

over his head in hand-to-hand battle afterhis rifle had been shattered. The Mavericksloved Griffin and mourned his death.

Maverickstartedthe trip on hisgoodKentucky horse, but General Woll quickly

appropriated it for his own,leaving Mav-erick on a poor pony or on foot. He kept a

journaldescribingwhat hesaw eachdayandmadea map of theroute they trav-eled.

On May 16,theQuihi and NewFoun-tainHistorical Societyof MedinaCounty

unveileda new Texas StateMarker docu-mentingtheWollRoad. Toourgreat sur-priseseveralyears ago, we learnedthe

road still exists here and there, in pasturesonfarms andranches.The HistoricalSo-cietyhas workeddiligently todocument

Woll’s Road with this marker. Dr. and Mrs.Robert Fitzgerald, good friends and mem-

bersof theSociety,actually ownsome ofthe road -- it is marked on an old survey of

their farm.B EBE FENSTER MA K E R

Ianswered the phonenot longago,and it was Preston, one of the hunters, on

hisway tothe Ranchto checkhisfeeder.I couldhear hispickupsqueaking in thebackgroundand was surprised since itwas fairlynew. He saidhe wasbringing

mea surprise. The squeak turned out tobe seven guinea keets. Preston had picked

themup at a feed storeon his wayout.Since I was about to leave I called Bebe andbroke the news to her. She kindly set themup with a box, food and water.

Theymoved over toFromme’sseveraldays laterand into acage. I warnedmyoldguinea henaboutthem.Fora while I

housed them in a pet crate at night. EveryeveningI leanedinto the cage,catchingeachkeetand popping it into thecrate.Wow,did they hatethat.Guineasdonotlike to betouched by the humanhand.Theyknowby instinctto kick madlyand

make a big fuss. Their little claws are sharpas razors. I had to hold them so they kicked

into thin air.Others in the family advised me to

keeppettingand handling themsotheywould become pets. Oh yeah, right! Thatwill be the day. They will soon be moved

intothe chickencoop for quite aspell. Ipreferto havethem stay in thecoop atnight so they will be around thenextmorning.

The fields, pastures and roadsides arecovered with wildflowers. Right nowthe yellows, whites, reds, andorangesarepredominant with just a few of theblues,purples, and pinks left. A trip toKerrville was a spectacularshowof col-

or. Shrubs and brush along the roads arein bloomaswell. To saythis spring has

been beautiful is an understatement.SISSY FENSTERMA KER

BYBEBE& SISSYFENSTERMAKER


Notes from L a L a L and

An e-mail from Bill Simpson:have we forgot ten how to blush?

The summer of 1951, when I was15 years old, I got my first paidjob working seven days a week,

no day off, as a bus boy attheold Hamilton Hotel Coffee Shop. My

pay was $11 per week, which was 10¢ anhour. Thenext summer, after graduat-ing from MHS, I got a jobas cashierfor

the downtown office of Central Power &Light, a companyheadedby the terrificChester Wine, thefather of one of my

MHS classmates, Carolyn Wine.While working for CPL, a guardian

angel watchedoverme by the nameofMrs. Simpson,who was Mr.Wine’ssec-retary. Sheguided me,helped me,cor-rected me -- what a blessing shewas.But I only workedthere for thesummer

because news came that I had receiveda full, all-expense paid scholarship toUT-Austin from the John Hay Whitney

Foundation of NYC. I was one of 10 Tex-

as Latinosselected for the honor. MHScounselor Lupe Cabrera was responsiblefor that.

In the past few years,when I startedenjoying the magic of my computer, Icame across an email from “olspice,”aka Bill Simpson, the son of my CPLguardianangel.He’s a retired pastor in

San Antonio. I told Bill, whom I’ve nevermet in person,about how his Mom had

helped me, and I figured she would haveliked for Bill andme to be friends. Andso a greatemail friendship has flour-

ished for years now.A few weeks back Bill sent anemail

titled “Have We Forgotten How toBlush?” I read with great interestwhathe wrote:

“On July 28,1988,a local friend, anEpiscopalian priest, A. Philip Parham,visited me in my office at NortheastBaptistHospital. He presentedmewith

an autographed copy of his newest book,LettingGod , a bookof daily devotions,

which I casually scanned,took home,and put on my bookshelf to gather dust.I did not realize that Philip was a recov-ering alcoholic himself, until this last

December, when I was looking for a newdaily devotional book for2010. I came

across this 1988 gift, and my wife Gerryand I beganreading the assigneddailyportions inamazement of how helpfulPhilip’s information was to eventhose

of us who are not recovering alcoholics.About35 yearsago, Ipreachedaser-

mon‘HaveWe ForgottenHow toBlush?’and the devotional for April 5, which fol-

lows below, brought back memories of thatsermon. This ‘lesson’ is even more signifi -

canttodaythan it was35 yearsago,sim-plybecausewe arewitnessingin our so-

ciety a generation that is oblivious to guiltandshame,almost withoutconsciences.

We seem to be living in an age where we,as a society, have forgotten how to blush.

Referringto the FourthSteptosobriety,mentioned in the last sentence below, has

to do with preparingfor the spiritualas-pects of recovery.”

This is the devotional that Bill deliv-ered:“Depart fromme, for I am a sin-ful man, O Lord.” Luke5:8. In1839,Dr.ThomasBurgess,a memberof the Brit-ish Royal College of Surgeons, wrote

these words: We can make an individuallaughagainst his will, by tickling the

soles of his feet. We can make him cry bycorporal punishment. We can make himtremble with fear by the samemeans.

We can rouse his anger by striking him.But we can only makehim blush by ap-

pealing to his conscience. No physicalmeanscan produceblushing; it mustbe

solely a moral stimulus that will excite atrue blush.

We sometimeshearthat we need toget rid of our hang-ups,our guilt; wehear that guilt and shame are wrongand destructive. That is entirely true.Only false guilt arising from mistake

and misplaced judgment is wrong. Onlyimposed shame and coercive put-downs

that are unjust and unfair are destruc-tive. True guilt and honest shame are es-sential to our moral fiber. Guilt is a mea-

surement of wrongdoing and failure.Shameis what we feel when we know

we are judged guilty correctly. Guilttells us we were wrong; shame is what

makes us blush by appealing to our con-science.Without accurateevaluationofour guilty deeds and without an appro-priatesense of shame, we cannot takethe “Fourth Step.”

Great thoughts from mi granamigoBill, as I call him.

William H. Simpson was born inLaredo on June 1,1934, where he re-ceivedhis primary andsecondary edu-cation. After attending Texas A&M forone year, he received anappointmentto the US Naval Academy in Annapo-lis from which hegraduated on June1,

1956,with a bachelor of science degree inelectrical engineering.During the next

four and a half years, Bill served aboardthe USS Philippine Sea(CVS-47),as anengineering officer, and the USSDash

(MSO-428), as executive officer.In Dec.1960, after beingimpressed

by his understanding of God’s role inhis life, he resigned his commission and

enteredSouthwestern Baptist Theologi-cal Seminary in Ft. Worth on Jan.1961,

graduating with a master of divinity de-gree.

After serving as pastor of threechurches in Texas and Arkansas, hecompleted a year of clinical pastoraleducationat theBaptist Memorial Hos-pital in San Antonio on Oct. 6,1975.He

served there until his retirement on May30,1997. In 1978 he was certified as a Fel-

low in the College of Chaplains.During his 22 yearsas chaplain, he

was active in the Institutional EthicsCommittee,and servedasco-facilitator

on cancer and grief support groups. Hisministry also included leading semi-nars on end-of-lifeissues. Upon retire-ment, he became parish associateatNorthwood Presbyterian Church. Healsobecamea director of theSamaritan

Counseling Center and the San AntonioEye Bank.

Bill is married to the former GerryForrer of Baltimore,Md., and theyhavetwo children, Norman and Meredith,

and one grandson, Desmond.And, after writing aboutone of the

most inspired and inspirational friendsin my entire life, it’s time for -- as Norma

Adamo puts it -- TAN TAN! u

BYD R. N EOGUTI E RR E Z

Dr. Neo Gutierrez is a Ph.D. inDance and Fine Arts, Meritorious

Award in Laredo Fine Arts recipient2009 from Webb Co. Heritage

Foundation, Laredo Sr. Int’l 2008,Laredo MHS Tiger Legend 2002,

and Sr. Int’l de Beverly Hills, 1997.Contact [email protected].


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BypA U L K AAT

(These ideas are all meown.)I once saw a documentary on theHistory Channel showing howHitler and Stalin (I meanSchick-elgruberand Dzhugahvili) fiddled

aroundwith old photographs for propa-ganda purposes just like they diddled

with their own surnames to make thingsseem“just right.”As history hasshown,

nothing that these two madmen ever didor thought of doing was either‘just’ or‘right.’ They were both crazy,megalo-maniac,anti-Semitic,brutal,murderous,manipulative, unattractive, affected,dubiouslyeducated,militarilyignorant,

blundering, paranoid schizophrenics ad-dictedto drugs and power.Quite a pairof piss-ants.

Hitler andStalinwerekillersraised tothe levelofmass murdererswiththead-

vent of new technologies for lethal applica-tion for use by the psychologically aberranton the defenseless Judeo Christian masses

who hadall-but-forgottenPandora’sBox,Procrustes’sBed,theMongolHordes,At-

tila the Hun, the “Don’t Axe Me Why” Vi-kings, and the Roman legions who sacked

Jerusalem and broughtthebricks back tobuild the Colosseum. I guesstime really

flies when fun-guys likeCesare Borgia,Napoleon,andRobespierrearehaving agood time.

Not to equatethe likes of pop vocalistSir Mick Jagger to Hitler and Stalin in any

but the egomaniacal sense, I justhave toquestion his judgment in his recent stat-

edintention to extirpateoriginalRollingStonesbassistBillWyman’spicturefromall pictorialrepresentations of Rolling

Stones paraphernalia. Is Herr Jagger send-ing Wyman’s effigy to the gas chamber? Ishe trying to say, “Junking Bill Wyman is a

gas-gas-gas?” Is ComradeMickhail send -ing theoldest Stone(ex-stonefor 10 years

now) to the Gulag, while he and the otherthreeugly creeps (at least Charlie Watts,

like Wyman, is drug-free -- makesyouwonderwhyWatts isn’talsobeing ‘liqui-

dated’ for being a Jew).No, I can set you straight on this pathetic

situation. After all, I was in England whenthe whole“Brian JonesQuitsthe Rolling

Stones”situation disgracefully unfolded.The“Stones”wereBrianJones’sgroup--

he formedthem,recruited them,and gothis mother to allow them to rehearse at her

house, and he went about and got themgigs to play, thanks to his father, who wasa session musician who sometimes playedshows at music halls, and even discovered

PeterNoone-- HermanofHerman’sHer-mits. Jones was also the most accomplishedand versatile musician of the group -- the

only instrumentthat Jaggereverplayedwere the harmonica, sort of, and the tran-

sistor radio (theone he used to borrowfrom Jones).Two weeks after a tour of parts of Wales

and west England, I got back to London onefoggy dawn at Charing Cross Stationto

“Brian Jones is Dead” on the front page oftheDaily Mirror.I washed down the newswith aboutfour cups of white tea,and I

still rememberpractically everydetail, Ithink because my disenchantment with

Jagger and Keith reminded me of the coldlack of sympathyofthe Beatles a couple

of years before upon learning of the deathof theirmanagerandguru BrianEpstein.

There youare -- “A Taleof Two Brians.” Iwas 20 and bound for Italy -- It was the bestof times. It was the worst of times.

But Jaggeris still a jerk,and I thinkjealousy andsmallness are at the heart of

his personality. Jimi Hendrixcalled Jonesthe “uncrowned king of the Monterey PopFestival,” and Bill Wyman is a prolific song

F eature

Base (Bass?) behavior from where youmost expect it Stalin, Mick Jagger

writer, record and movie producer, an ex-cellentphotographer, accomplished artist,

successful restaurateur,amateur archae-ologist, and theauthor ofseven books of

respectable quality. He does not deservethe treatment he is getting from Herr Mickand Comrade Keith, but he’s used to it by

now.Theyneverusedanyof hiscompo-sitionson anyStonesalbums-- andsome

of the songs met with high critical reviewswhen they were released on Wyman’s solo

albums.In other words, the Herr and the Com-

rade have been“smack” in the middleof apower-and-moneytrip fordecades,and they’reactinglike a couple of para-noid schizophrenics.Butwhile theystay“Stoned,” the multi-talented WilliamGeorgePerks (BillWyman’s birthname)

keeps gettinghis perks the old-fashionedway -- he stays straight and puts his many

fine talents to good use. u

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM

As I arrived at the cash register at 9:30 a.m.,I found myself in the only regular check-outline available, along with four other custom-

erswith completely full shopping carts. Isought out the person supervising the self-

service registers and asked her if anyone was


TheMC received thefollowing re-ports from an avid reader.

I had beenencounteringlonglines mid-morning atWal Mart on

Loop 20, so I decided to try an earlier time.

available to help the lone staff person man-agingtheopenregular register.She oblig-

ingly walked over to the laden register, butwas unable to offer assistance.

My CD had matured, so I stopped by Com-pass Bank(which does not offer quick CD rateinformation over the telephone)at their Mall

del Norte location. (Wells Fargo, by the way ,does not offer such information via telephone

atall.) Their customer service representativedid not look up at me as I stood in front of her,

so I asked the teller if he would provide theinformation. He referred me back to customerservice, where they still ignored me while past-

ing papers and calling friends.Just as I was about to leave, a second rep-

resentativearrived andprovided me withtheinformationIrequested. Lateron,a fi -

nancial service representative from Compasscalled me at home and invited me to stop by

anddiscussotherinvestmentproducts.Iagreed to do so and rearranged my day so

thatI would arriveat theappointedtime.Upon arrival at Compass, I discovered thatanother customer was in his office, while a

second customer waiting for the same repre-sentative was waiting outside on the couch.

One successful attempt to get service doesn’tdo it for me. I walked away.

I later visited Chase Bank for a CDcheck.Astheir CD ratewas alsodismay-

ingly low, they also invited me to talk witha financial representativewhohappenedto be presentand availableimmediately.

I received very attentive advice and infor-mation.Oneof the products,bytheway,

was JP Morgan Investment Funds. I recog-nizedthe nameas beingoneof thecom-

paniesmentioned on NBCNightly Newsas having“hedge” fundinvolvement. Al-

though the product that is being offered tothe publichas no directassociationwith

thehedge fund, I informedthe local rep-resentative that I, as a taxpayer, helped tobail out a sister fund of that which was be-

ingoffered.And expertsin thefieldhaveadvisedthepublicthatsuchhedgefunds

are partly responsible for low CD rates, so Iwas not interested in rewarding the overallproduct by making investments with it.

A coupleof dayslater,I called the lo-

cal Chase Bankoffice to ask aquestionof the representative and found that theirphone service was out of order for at least

two days.During my CD quest I found that,for

time periods two years and under, the bankswhichofferedrates over one percent were

Inter NationalBank;IBC; LaredoFederalCredit Union, and Tex Mex Credit Union.

I received extremelycourteousservicefrom the representatives ofBank of Ameri-

ca(which offered a future upgrade of its onepercent rate);IBC, Texas Community Bank .

Quick, courteous telephone rates were pro-vided by San Antonio Bank and Tex MexCredit Union.

AfteryearsoffindinggreatserviceatEye-mart Express, the MC won’t be going back.

New management, newpoliciesabout put-tinglensesin frames youdidn’t buy there,

lessthorough service about measurements,no questions about how far you sit from your

computer, and some unfriendly businessabout the folks who work there. So the $350

theMC plunkeddown for glasses was fornaught. Still blind in two hours. They don’t

work. Conversely, the lenses and frames theMC ordered at theTreviño Eye Clinicafter

an eye examination were properly measuredwith questions asked. It took two weeks for

the glasses to be ready, but they work!The MC was surprised and pleased at the

swift corrective action taken by the manageron duty atArby’s on San Bernardo on May

26,2010atapproximately 1:30 p.m. Whenthe MC calledto complainthatherorderwasmissingsome verycrucialelements,

the manager drove out to the MC’s office toreplace the order. He arrived within 20 min-

utes of the phone call. u

T he Mystery Customer

You can write War and Peace in the line at Wal Mart Loop 20;CD quest puts banks on the spot;

love is blind, but so was I after I picked up my new glasses at Eyemart Express

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BYTHE

MY S T E RYC U ST OME R

Laredoan Tacee Royce Walters (third from left) was recently inducted as vicepresident of public relations for the American Humanics Student Association

(AHSA) at the University of Texas - San Antonio. AHSA prepares students forwork in the non-profit sector. Walters will graduate in December 2010 with adegree in communication with a concentration in public relations and a minorin non-profit management.

Laredoan named VP of public relations for UTS A student group

landed citizens have come forth to offer their land asa placeof refugeforthese animals, thegovernmenthastaken to packing them intomega-corralsby the

tensof thousands. One governmentspokesman said,“It costs $29 million per year to feed these animals.” Itlooks like the poor widdy biddy government can’t af-ford to protectsomeof our homeland’smostbeloved

and beautiful creatures. But we can turn out millionsof warplanesat$1billiona pop everyyear.Even be-fore Tricky Dick tookoffice as a “peacecandidate,”

like the chameleon that’s up there now, Ike said, “Ev-ery bomber we build is a school we didn’t build.” Ike

wasa Texanand a soldier,unlike theother two, if itmatters to you. It does to me.

Smithsonian Magazinestaff writer Abigail Tuckerwrote a short buteye-opening article in the March

2010 edition entitled “The Mustang Mystique.” There’smoremeaningful truth in it than what comes out of

those jackasses and pachyderms in Washington. u


by high governmental officials like moose in Alas -ka or wolves in Russia, but many tens of thousands

of thesemajestic animalsthat the Lakota Indiansused tocall the sunkawakan (sacreddog)and that

once Spaniards called the mestengo , were, until lessthata centuryago, treated most cruelly. Mestengo

means “stray” in Spanish.The so-calledWild Horse Desertthatstretched

fromapproximatelyZacateCreek in what is nowLaredo down tothe southerntip of Texasusedto

be the stomping grounds of over a million of thesebeautiful creatures, feral descendants of escaped

horses originally brought over by the Spanishwhen they settled vast parts of the New World.

Anyone with a rifle and some ammolookingfor a little “sport” could go out and shootthemwith impunity, and the wild mustangand burropopulationof over two million in 1900dwindled

to about 17,000 by 1971.Not surprisingly, it was a woman thathardly

anyone has ever heard of, a bank secretary namedVelma Johnson of Reno,Nevada, thatfirst spoke

up in 1950 againstall this mindless, wholesale,machobloodletting, brutality, slaughter, and sav-

agehumancruelty againstsomeofNature’smostbeautiful creatures and mankind’s greatest animalhelpers down through the ages. Just like it was the

all-but-forgottenmother (now what’sher nameagain?) of an American Iraq Invasion casualty wholed the way -- before Obama, Kucinich, Hillary the

gutlessAmericanmedia, or any Republicanat all(thereyou go, I didn’t throw in thekitchen sink,but I did include mostof the doofusesin my own

extendedfamily and their spouses) -- tomake itfashionabletoquestion American Big Liepoliciesin Iran, Afghanistan, and throw in Pakistan(as

long a we’re taking a ‘stan’).Of course,there was inevitably a minimal

amount of inbreeding between wild mustangsandescapedcavalry horses, and these wild hors-

es have 30 million acresof westernpublic landsto call theirhome range.Most of this range is in

California, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. This last-mentionedstate,Nevada, hasthe largest mustang

population,and a certain amountofovergrazinghasoccurred over time,and horses,grouse,elk,

WWW.LAREDOSNEWS.COM


here are presently about 37,000 wild mus-tangs on American public lands, but theynumbered in the millions. They’re no lon-

gerbeing turned into glue or dog foodT(legally), or being hunted for sport from airplanes

bighorn sheep, and cattle and a few other species havebeen adversely affected.

Today, wild horses and burros are protected by theWild FreeHorsesandBurros Act of 1971,whichwaspassedby Congress thanks to enlightened,humane

people like Johnson, who was later called Wild HorseAnnie.

The Bureau of Land Managementholds yearlyroundupsof roughly2,500mustangsandburrosand

seeks to sell them off at an average price of about $125.Sinceequinespecieshavelong life spansand areex-pensiveto feedand carefor, and sincemanypeople

who could afford to buy one may not have the land onwhich to raise it, this program has not been as success-

ful as the governmenthadhopedit would be.Adop-tion rates have been getting lower in this decade.

The governmenthas also tried sterilization andcontraception campaigns which have been unpopu-

lar with conscientiouscitizens,and since few if any

Opinion

Go Mustangs: They are livingemblems of the Old West


L aredo Community College

By STEVE TREVIÑO JR.

Collegeisnormallyfor adultstu- ship and teamwork will be emphasized indents. But in the summer, Laredo

CommunityCollegebecomes a 721-5858 for more details.haven for a kids and teens taking

part in some type of summer camp activityat one of the college’s campuses.

This year’sline-up of summercampsoffers everything from a rare opportunityto get up close and personal with Mother

Nature and itsenvironmental wondersto an exciting chanceto explorea time

when dinosaurs roamed the planet.Space is limited in each camp; parents

are encouraged to sign up their childrennow.

Environmental Science summer camps will meet from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., while theYoungsters aged four through 14 with a advanced camp for ages 13 to 18 will meet

love for anything “green” should consider from 1 to 5 p.m. The camp fee is $78, whichparticipatinginthe popularLamarBruni includes a T-shirt if registered by July 8.

VergaraEnvironmental ScienceCenter For more information, call the LCC Ath-summer camps at the Fort McIntosh Cam- letics Office at 721-5326.

pus.Campers get to develop an appreciation

for the environment and all living things.The summercampsaredividedinto fouragegroups:tots,agesfour to six;youth,

ages six to eight; regular, ages nine to 11;and advanced, ages 12 to 14.

The regularand advancedcampswillmeet Monday through Thursday from 8:30a.m. to 4 p.m. and Friday from 8:30 a.m. to

1 p.m. The first of three regular camp ses -sions is from June 7-11. The advanced camp

will beoffered July 26-30.Thetots andyouth campswillmeet Mondaythrough

Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The first offour tots’ camps is from June 7-11. The first

of four youthcampsessionsis fromMay31-June 4.The camp fees range from $125 for tots

and youth to $180 for regular campers and$200 for advanced campers. To register orfor more information, call 764-5701.

K ids CollegeThe LCC Continuing Education Depart-

ment is making it possiblefor childrenbetween the ages of five and 13 to go on alearning exploration of Mother Nature andprehistoric dinosaurs by attending the an-

nual Kids College.“Forces ofNature” isscheduled at the

SouthCampus, whichwill meet MondaythroughFriday,June 14-25from 9a.m. to

Kids rule this summer at LCC

12p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m.Thecamps willfocus on an array of subjects -- reading,science, technology,math,social studies,and sports-- with a creative twist about

flash flooding, tropical storms, seismic seawaves, funnel clouds, and volcanoes.

At the FortMcIntosh Campus, KidsCollege takes on the theme “When the Di-nosaurs Roamed the Earth.” The camp will

meetMonday throughFriday, July19-30from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m.

Thesamesubjectswillbecovered,butthefocus will be on fossils,swamps,the

Prehistoric period, paleontologists, and, ofcourse, all types of dinosaurs.

Registration for the South Campus ses-sion is under way. Registration for the Fort

McIntosh Campus sessionwill begin onWednesday, July 1.

Children can attendKidsCollege fortwo weeks for $210 or for oneweek for

$105. If two or more siblings are registered,thefee for theadditionalchild is$168for

thetwo-week campor $84for theweek-long camp.

For moreinformation, call the Con-tinuing Education Department at 721-5374(Fort McIntosh Campus) or 794-4520 (South

Campus).Indoor soccer and basketball camps

With Laredo’ssearingheat, itmakesperfectsense to stay indoors in the cool

confines of LCC’s air-conditioned gym. TheLCC Kinesiology Department will host its

ever-popular indoor basketball and soccerday camps, beginning Monday, May 31.

Threesessionsforeachteam sport areplanned: May31-June 10, June 14-24, and

June 28-July9.Soccer campersmeet from9 a.m. to 12 p.m., while basketball campers

meet from 1 to 4 p.m.LCC Kinesiology Department chair Dr.

Sara Carrasco will once again serve as thecamp coordinator.

The focus of each camp will be to helpstudents develop their offensive and defen-

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sive skills byparticipating in basicdrillsand some form of play. Good sportsman-

camp. Thecamp fee is $60 per child. Call

Volleyball CampYoung and experienced volleyball play-erscanenhancetheir skills on thecourt

by participating in the LCCSummer Vol-leyballCamp July19-22at theMaravilloGymnasium.

BinnyCanales,coachofthe LCC Palo-mino volleyballteam, is directing thecamp to offerparticipants betweenagesfive to 18an opportunityto expandtheir

talent in this sport.Thefour-day campforagesfive to12

Summer and fall advisement,registration continues

Students canmap outtheir futures bytakingadvantageofadvising for summer

and fall classes.Students can get advised Monday

through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. atthe Student SuccessCenterat the FortMcIntoshCampus or at theCounselingCenter at the SouthCampus.Students

planning to attend LCC this summer andfall are encouraged to register as soon aspossible to lock in their classes.

Registration for summer sessions Iand II andthe fall2010semesterisopentoself-advisedandadvised studentsviaPASPort, thecollege’s studentaccountsystem, athttps://pasport.laredo.edu,

from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. from any computerwith Internet access.To be considered self-advised, students

must have a declared major, have complet-ed all requiredremediation classes, have

earned at least 30 college-level hours, andhavea cumulativegradepointaverageof2.0 or higher.

Deadline for payment of all tuition andfeesis May20 for summer session I and

July 1 for summer session II. Fall paymentdeadline is Aug. 19.

CONTINUED ON p AGE 61

Under the watchful eye of camp director Arturo Jimenez, two young naturelovers in last year’s environmental science summer camp collect insects andother specimens to examine. Beginning May 31, the Lamar Bruni Vergara

Environmental Science Center at Laredo Community College’s Fort McIntoshCampus will once again offer the popular camps this summer.

LCC kids summer camps

catinglocalaudienceson varioustopicsandthemes relatedto Laredo andWebb

County history. Collateral materials suchas booklets, teachers’ manuals, MP-3 and

internet virtual tours are alsoplannedtobe complemented by tours of historic

downtown Laredo including theRepub-lic of the Rio Grande Museum,the VillaAntigua Border HeritageMuseum, andCasa Ortiz.u


contingent upon the Heritage Foundation’sacquiring the participation of the two localpublic school districts. “We were delighted

to getsuch a positiveresponse from ad-ministratorsatboth LaredoIndependentSchoolDistrict and the UnitedIndepen-dent SchoolDistrict,” said Araiza. “We

havealreadycontactedrepresentatives atLaredoCommunityCollegeand atTexasA&M InternationalUniversity for their

participation, and we hope to soon includeWebb Independent School District as wellas the private schools of Laredo in our Ad-

visory Committee.”The grant money will beused to de-

velop a comprehensive series of videopresentations, to be aired onschool dis-

trict instructional TV channels, City ofLaredo Public AccessTV, and / orcom-

mercial networks for the purpose of edu-

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At its recent Founders Day lun-cheon the Webb County Heri-

tage Foundation (WCHF) an-nounced that the D.D. Hachar

CharitableTrust will fund thedevelop-ment of a local history curriculum projectwith a $250,000 grant.

“We are so very grateful to the trusteesof theD.D. HacharCharitableTrust for

their vote of confidence in this project andfor makingsuch atremendousfinancialcommitmenttotheHeritageFoundation

and to the student populations of Laredo,”said Margarita Araiza, executive director ofthe Heritage Foundation. “This is the kindof innovative thinking that will change the

educational playing field for our communi -ty,” she said. “Up to now, Laredo history hasbeen taught only sporadically by individual

educators in a few classroom situations.”Development of this project will eventuallyallow young people to learn how and whytheir city was founded, who has played dy-namic roles in our community’s history, andwhich industries, events and opportunities

spurredtheestablishment andgrowth ofthis colorful region,” she said.

“One of our loftiestgoalshasalwaysbeen to establish the teaching of Lare-

do history in Laredoschools,” said JimMoore, WCHF board president,adding,“andthisgrant nowallows us to gofor-

ward and finally address this project.”The awarding of the grant money was

News

Heritage Foundation recipient of D.D. Hachar grantto develop local histor y curriculum project

Attorney Ron Rodriguez is pictured with Univision’s Wendolyne Morales andcamera man Raymundo Gutierrez at the recent Texas Río Grande LegalAid event honoring Rodriguez for his donation to the efforts of the TRLA’sLaredo branch.

At reception honoring Ron Rodriguez

Margarita Araiza, executive director of the Webb County Heritage Foundation, receives a generous check from the D.D.Hachar Charitable Trust for the development of a local history curriculum. She is pictured with the Hachar Trust’s George

Beckelhymer, Miki Machado, and Joaquin Romero; WCHF board president Jim Moore of BBVA Compass Bank; andGianpaolo Consiglieri, president of BBVA Compass Bank.

WCHF receives generous support from Hachar Charitable Trust


CONTINU ED FROM p AGE 58

The first day of class is May 31 for the firstsummer session andJuly 8 for the second

summer session. Fallsemester classes willcommence on Aug. 23.

To view the summer and fall class sched-ules, log on to www.laredo.edu and click onthe PASPort icon. For further assistance, callthe LCC Admissions and Registration Cen-

ter at the Fort McIntosh Campus at 721-5117or at the South Campus at 794-4109.

LCC offers summerFlamenco dance course

Laredo Community College will be offer-ing a Flamenco dance class during the first

summersession beginningMonday, May31.

“This course is only offeredonce everytwo years and usually fills up pretty quick -

ly,”saidLCC danceinstructorAliciaMcK-innis. “The purpose of this course is to havestudents explore Flamenco, the best-knownSpanish dance form outside of Spain.”

The FlamencoBeginner TechniqueCourse,DANC 1353, will cover classical

Spanish-styledancemovements using awide arrayofbodymovements,andstu-

dents also will be introduced to castanets, an

instrument used in Spanish dances.“This particular percussion instrument

isvery popular in Spanishmusic,” McKin-nis said.“They’re held in a hand and used

toproducea rapidsuccession of clicks forrhythmic accents while dancing.”

McKinnis, who has been an active Span-ish-style dance instructor at LCC and the

Vidal M. Treviño School of Communicationsand Fine Arts for the past two decades, will

teach the class. Throughout her career, McK-innis has taught hundreds of students the artof various Spanish dances, including Ballet

Folklórico and Flamenco, and has performedpopularSpanish works, such as “El Amor

Brujo” by Manuel de Falla, and Georges Bi-zet’s “Carmen.”“Flamenco and other Spanish-style danc-

es have always enlightened students becauseit not only serves as an appreciation for art,

butalsomakes them aware of the Spanishculture, and boosts their self confidence,”

McKinnis added.The four-weekintense coursewill take

placeat theLCC Performing Arts Depart-ment dance studio Monday through Thurs-

day, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. For more informationon thebeginner’s Flamencocourse, contact

the LCC PerformingArts Departmentat721-5330. u

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Is Laredo off limits?A pariah?

BYHENRIKAHN

Contact HenriD. Kahn with your insur-

ance questionsat (956) 725-3936,

or by fax at(956) 791-0627, orby email at hkahn@

kahnins.com

BarryLawrence, aprofessor atA&M University and aTexas

recognized authority of eco-development along thenomic

Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border was afeatured speaker at an International Bankof Commerce sponsored event as a part ofthe recent Laredo Chamber of Commerceannual “Economic Vision” conference.

Aside from some truly sage ideas to de-velop our business opportunities in Laredo,

he mentionedthatcompanies who mightconsider Laredo as a good area for distribu-tion of products into Mexico were concernedabout cross border violence that would puttheir personnel in jeopardy in Laredo.

Safety concerns in Laredo?Are we inthe national territory of Mexico?

Thanksto themediathat panderstotrashandsensationalism, Laredo is be-

ing lumped in with Mexico as being partandparcel of theviolenceoccurringinMexicoandspecificallyNuevoLaredo.

Close to home we have theSan Antonio Ex-press Newsbashing Laredo by publishing

violentand despicableeventsinNuevoLaredo -- articles that include allusions to

thefactthatviolence isjust a short walkaway from Laredo.The Laredo Morning Times, also a Hearst

Newspaper, contributes regularly by plas-teringitsfrontpage withdecapitations,shootingof children,dismemberments,

and more sickening atrocious events. Theirexcuse is that the info is to warn Laredo-ans to stay away from Nuevo Laredo.

Iguaranteeyou thatnewspublishedaboutLaredoas being amajor inland

port in the United States takes a backseat in both the San Antonio and Laredo

newspapers. This situation has become sobad, one of the bold print headlines in theMay 13, 2010 edition of theLaredo MorningTimeswas “Border fears cause game to be

moved.”A high school located in Comal Coun-

ty, justnorthof San Antonio,changeda

scheduledbaseball playoffgame fromLaredotoFalfurrias becauseof concerns

about safety in Laredo.Duringaluncheonsessionfor the Vi-

sion conference I told Robert Rivard, editorof the San Antonio Express News that articles

in the Express News were putting Laredo inthe same light with Nuevo Laredo and thesecontinuous barrages were hurting our live-lihood in Laredo. Part of his answer to mewas that we were linked to Nuevo Laredo

by family relationships and history .Neither history nor family relationships

feed Laredo. Commerce that produces mon-ey that produces jobs feeds Laredo.

Mr. Rivardalsostressedthatpeopleshould quit bashing the media. Pardon mewhile I laugh, especially when the cham-

pionbashersofall timearenewspapersthat are sadly in the throes of death.

The next few lines are my 2¢ worth ofopinion.TheArizonademonstrations are mob

riots fostered primarily by Obama and hiscohorts to push for the Hispanic vote. The

factis thatpersonswho areneitherciti-zens nor permanent residents of the USAare required by Federal law to carry proofof the temporary immigration permit thatallows them to be in the U.S. Violation of

this Federallawhastheconsequenceofarrest. This is nothingnew; the law has

been on the books for over 40 years.I wasn’t aware that on-the-job training

to be a judge was an integral part of beinga newly appointed Supreme Court Judge.

ElenaKaganis alawyer whoseprimaryclaim to fame is that she was dean of theHarvard Law School. She has never been

a judge in any court procedure. If this ain’tstrictly politics à la Obama then I guess it’sonly Obama political show and tell.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republi-can. As an independent, I feel that the U.S.

is going through a spell of bad luck withBushandObama as back-to-backpresi-dents.u

José A. Ramirez received the Webb County Heritage Foundation’s JimParish Award for documentation and publication of local or regional history.He was recognized for To the Line of Fire, Mexican Texans and World WarI . Ramirez is pictured with Rosanne Palacios and Jim Moore of the WCHFat the Foundation’s annual Founders Day Luncheon.

Line of Fire author recognized by WCHF


Monday through FridayJune 14-25

South Campus - 956.794.45209 am - 12 pm and 1 pm - 4 pm

Ages 5 -13Lunch is provided!

Laredo Community CollegeWest End Washington Street • 5500 South Zapata Hwy.• Laredo, TXwww.laredo.edu

COURSETOP ICS :

$210/2 weeks$105/1 week

If 2 or more children (brothers/sisters) are registered the feefor additional children will be $168/2 weeks or $84/1 week each.

ad_laredos-conted-kids college2010-south:Layout 1 5/25/2010 3:39 PM Page 1

laredos newspaper may 2010

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