SPECIAL MASTER APPLICANTS LINE UP

 

SHOULD CONGESTED, CONFUSING BOCA CHICA BLVD BE RENAMED "MARK LUND BOULEVARD?"

 

Mark Lund

The shit show that is Boca Chica Boulevard is a living testament to millions of taxpayer dollars wasted by Brownsville's incompetent Metropolitan Planning Organization before it was eaten by the bigger fish, the Rio Grande Valley MPO.

The old Triple A farm team MPO was always dominated by the informative, but condescending Mark Lund, who presided over MPO meetings like a strict schoolmarm hovering over wayward students, always making copious use of the "I" word:  "I wrote this document seven years ago,"I have questions about this."  Lund both asked and answered his own rhetorical questions, entertaining himself with  witticisms and asides only he found humorous.

Several years ago, I attended the MPO meetings discussing the proposed changes to Boca Chica Boulevard presided over by Mark Lund.  

An artist's rendering of the "new" median-divided Boca Chica Boulevard was propped up on a tripod.

Of course, it wasn't until traffic flow began to be hampered by traffic cones and the construction of the concrete barrier that Brownsville taxpayers began to complain.

Bobby Wightman-Cervantes

 Local blogger Bobby Wightman-Cervantes penned a sort of pre-emptive strike against criticism of the Boca Chica Boulevard project with these unfortunate words:

"But I can assure you in a few weeks when they do the final resurfacing of Boca Chica a moronic blogger will have something to say about it in a negative light."

Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, traditionally Brownsville's "Negative Nancy," yet, in regards to the changes involved along this highway, Bobby almost dared anyone in the local blogosphere to utter a peep of criticism over the Texas Department of Transportation's ongoing makeover of Boca Chica Boulevard.

Of course, the blogger was not at any of several TXDOT meetings three years ago when Mark Lund was trying to sell this idea to the board before the three local transportation boards were merged into a single regional one.

An aspect of planning not widely known is that the planning agency feels compelled to utilize their entire annual budget on projects, lest that budget be reduced the following year.  That thinking did play a part in the Boca Chica project.

Next, Wightman personalizes his praise of the Boca Chica project by claiming to have sailed through a portion of Boca Chica without stopping at a single light, although he gets confused, thinking Jefferson Street somehow intersects Boca Chica:  

"Yesterday from my house which is midway between 4 Corners and the airport I made it without hitting one light all the way to Palm Blvd, and then to Jefferson before I hit my first light.  I routinely make it to the highway without hitting one light.  Boca Chica is so much better."

Well, if Bobby is running red lights, he's not the only one in town.

But, whether or not Boca Chica's traffic lights are synchronized is not the issue. It's the difficulty turning left to access businesses that's become the issue not perceived by Wightman.

The largest retailer in that stretch of Boca Chica, the H.E.B. Supermarket, can no longer be accessed with a direct left turn, but drivers from the east are given two awkward, unwieldy options:

1.  Make a U-turn at the U-Haul Trailer facility, then navigate the many speed bumps across the parking lot and a concrete barrier in front of U-Haul to find a narrow lane behind Chase Bank leading to the H.E.B. parking lot.

2.  Pass H.E.B. going west and turn left at the traffic light at Paredes Line Road.  Proceed approximately two blocks to access H.E.B. from the west side of the parking lot.

Going east, the revamped Boca Chica Boulevard forces drivers wanting to access the strip mall containing D.D.'s Discounts and a sexual enhancement shop to pass the area, then u-turn back to it.  

Vehicles attempting to enter the Walmart parking lot from Boca Chica face the option of sitting through four red lights to turn left on Old Port Isabel Road or do the U-turn thing further east.

Dozens of cars at a time are exiting or entering the narrow opening of a tiny strip mall turning it into a heavily-trafficked side road. 

Boca Chica Boulevard has needlessly become a congested little mess, victimized by poor design more than actual traffic.

Piss poor "planning" MPO!

This new dangerously congested stretch of what is actually Texas Highway 4 needs to be renamed to recognize its primary bureaucratic creator; Mark Lund Boulevard.

FLORIDA GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS NOMINATED FOR "ASSHOLE OF THE YEAR"

 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis comes off as an immature punk with his gleeful transporting of 50 mostly Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard.

Since the U.S. has no diplomatic ties with Venezuela, there can be no arrangement to send these migrants "back" to Venezuela.

As part of DeSantis' little stunt, the refugees were promised jobs and housing as inducement to get on the plane according to immigration attorneys who interviewed them.

Venezuelan Migrants

No attempt was made by DeSantis to "call ahead" or make any kind of arrangement for these human beings.

Actually, this foolishness may backfire on the young governor as fraud was likely involved in transporting these folks across state lines resulting in immediate qualification for Visas.

Some within the Department of Homeland Security may also have jeopardized their own future employment by falsifying the paperwork of these migrants with fake addresses, such as homeless shelters throughout the country.

All in all, this juvenile stunt puts a terrible taint on this so-called Land of Liberty.

THE WORLD CAN RELAX! KING CHARLES IS IN CHARGE!

 

King Charles III

Many teary-eyed Britains are too choked up to talk to the roving CNN reporter putting a microphone in their face to ask how they feel about the passing of Queen Elizabeth.

"The world is in mourning," Jake Tapper tells us as he goes on to discuss the Queen's "leadership style," devotion and steadfastness.

Americans are not as smitten with the trappings of the monarchy with some of our forebears actually leaving England to escape its control and the burden of supporting it.

Last year England's taxpayers spent $117,000,000 supporting that institution.

But, with all due respect, monarchies are fake governance, propped up as symbolic rulers with only imaginary powers.

I was aware of Queen Elizabeth all my life as she was two years younger than my own mother who passed away at 96.  I can still picture my mom in the 50's garb of the queen and with a similar hair style.

My individual curse was to have the same birth year, 1948, as goofy Prince Charles, now King Charles III.

CNN tells us King Charles III inherits a world experiencing high inflation, the Ukraine-Russia War, global warming, etc., as if the newly-crowned King can do anything about it.

Actually, I'm tired of hearing about Charles; his unimpressive academics, his soccer failures, his love life, his overall awkwardness.

I'm embarrassed to be joined with him in birth year 1948, appropriately named by the Chinese the "Year of the Rat."

I'd have more respect for him if he just abdicated like King Edward VIII did in 1936 to marry his twice-divorced American sweetheart.

Her Majesty by the Beatles

Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
But she doesn't have a lot to say
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
But she changes from day to day

I wanna tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
Someday I'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah
Someday I'm gonna make her mine

METH HEAD CLAIMS HE DOESN'T LIKE COPS

Poteet, TX resident Reynaldo Ruiz, 47, pictured above, is not particularly fond of the police.

Sunday evening, Ruiz noticed a Poteet police vehicle at a stop sign and rammed it from behind with his vehicle.

When the officer followed Ruiz to a convenience store, Ruiz rammed the police car again, this time from the front.

Ruiz was arrested, handcuffed, but, then slipped out of the handcuffs, stole the police car, leading local law enforcement on a huge chase, during which Ruiz tried to run over a police man in the street, then made a u-turn to go after another.

Ruiz later told officers he was trying to hit as many police and police cars as possible being on an "extended methamphetamine binge."

SEVEN MORE DAYS~ "ALL WE GOTTA DO IS SURVIVE"

 

When I learned Ana and Joselyn had only 5 work days after 2 "off" days left on their Iowa contract, I warbled clumsily into "Seven More Days," made popular by Ron Woods, but written by Bob Dylan.

When Dylan gifts a song, it's like he's handing out money.

We've spent the last couple months in Le Mars, Iowa, the "Ice Cream Capitol of the World."

Le Mars is an idyllic little town of ten thousand where boys and girls actually ride bikes all around, teenagers are on motor scooters and beer-bellied guys on Harley Davidsons. 

Driving up and down every street in town, I've not seen a single untidy yard and zero homeless. Handymen are active everywhere getting things fixed up before the brutal winter starts.

Several times a day, we hear the horn and witness the passing of an ultra long train, sometimes even two trains passing each other in opposite directions.  

Beautiful rolling corn and soybean fields surround this town, some even sandwiching housing developments.

On her off days, Ana and I have usually gone to the Willow Creek Campground to grill and cook for the week and most of the time we've been the only ones there.

While it's still nice and warm here, it's a bit unnerving to see Walmart customers loading up bags of rock salt in preparation for the long, icy winter.

Work crews are all over this town; fixing driveways and gutters, painting, remodeling, getting everything done before the weather changes.

But, Ana and I are more than ready to come back to Brownsville.  

Seven More Days

Seven days, seven more days she'll be comin'

I'll be waiting at the station for her to arrive
Seven more days, all I gotta do is survive.

She been gone ever since I been a child
Ever since I seen her smile, I ain't forgotten her eyes.
She had a face that could outshine the sun in the skies.

I been good, I been good while I been waitin'
Maybe guilty of hesitatin', I just been holdin' on
Seven more days, all that'll be gone.

There's kissing in the valley,
Thieving in the alley,
Fighting every inch of the way.
Trying to be tender
With somebody I remember
In a night that's always brighter'n the day.

Seven days, seven more days that are connected
Just like I expected, she'll be comin' on forth,
My beautiful comrade from the north.

There's kissing in the valley,
Thieving in the alley,
Fighting every inch of the way.
Trying to be tender
With somebody I remember
In a night that's always brighter'n the day.

TRUMP'S USE OF THE PHRASE "ENEMY OF THE STATE" REMINDS US OF RUSSIAN DICTATOR JOSEPH STALIN

 

In a recent rally in Wilkes-Barre, PA, Donald Trump was careful to refer to President Joe Biden as "an enemy of the state," a phrase likely included in the written text of his speech by speechwriter Stephen Miller, a man whose mindset permeates many Trump policies.

Trump carefully repeated the phrase several more times during the rally.

Trump also used the phrase in describing Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist, who entered a Turkish embassy to get a document for his fiance', but was murdered by being choked, drugged and having his body dismembered.

Trump's words after Khashoggi's murder: 

"Representatives of Saudi Arabia say Jamal Khashoggi was an "enemy of the state" and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that--this is an unacceptable and horrible crime.

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning and execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi."

"Enemy of the State" is a phrase commonly used by dictators and strong men like Joseph Stalin, former Premier of the Soviet Union.

Do you remember Nikita Krushchev, the bald, former Soviet Premier who took off his shoe at the United Nations and banged it on the table to make a point?

Well, Krushchev, who succeeded Stalin, decided the term "enemy of the state" was too divisive for the old Soviet Union.  Notice Krushchev's words:

"This term automatically made it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven.

It made possible the cruelest repression, violating all norms of legality against anyone who disagreed with Stalin . . ."

Russia did start using this term again around 2010, but it's interesting that Trump now uses a phrase abandoned by the Soviets in 1956 as too poisonous.

But, using the phrase "enemy of the state" is not the only way Trump has acted like a dictator.

Thinking that Mike Pence could somehow "could have overturned the election" was pure dictatorial thinking.

It's as if Trump is saying "I and I alone decide what the law says."

That's Dictator 101.

Promising to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists, should he be elected, also projects a leader who is above the law.

Trump is also sending a signal that any future attempts to undue the control of any administration not headed by him would be dealt with leniency once he's again "rightfully" in control.

In Trump's term of office he ran the country as if he owned it and all of its agency's worked for him and under his control.

That's the modus operandi of a dictator.

ARE YOU PASSING THE TIME WATCHING REACTION VIDEOS?

Reaction videos, that is the viewing of the music produced in a bygone era, but heard for the "first time" by kids who weren't alive when it was produced, surfaced as a boredom-fighting pastime during the pandemic.

I admit to perusing these sites, paying little attention to the critique following the playback of mostly the music of my generation.

Monetization is the obvious motivation for these YouTube videos and some of these young people have a substantial following.

Perhaps the phoniest of this new hoard of YouTubers is a woman who calls herself Virgin Rock, claims to be a classical musician, yet has never listened to a Beatles tune before.  That doesn't come off as credible.

Virgin annoyingly interrupts the Beatles' She's Leaving Home about five times during the song's opening lines.

"Oh, I think I hear a harp!," she exclaims.

"Yeah.  I think I hear a phony!" I tell myself.

TRUMP PROMISES FULL PARDONS TO JANUARY 6 INSURRECTIONISTS ON RADIO SHOW

From the Washington Post:

"An on-air conversation between Donald Trump and Pittsburgh-based radio firebrand Wendy Bell has generated national headlines after the former president declared he would pardon anyone convicted from events surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection if he makes another successful presidential run.

“'I will look very, very favorably about full pardons if I decide to run again and win,'” 

Trump said in a clip from today’s show that’s since been shared on multiple national outlets including the Washington Post, Politico, and Salon.