BLOGGERS BLOG

 The local elections are over and we can only pray that Donald Trump's presidency will be over January 20, but nobody is putting anything past him. It may be time for Joe Biden to quit playing Mr. Nice Guy. We have not extirpated the cancer from the White House. Biden must remove the tumor from Washington D.C. and then he can go back to being Uncle Joe. 

Trump could give a damn about the number of deaths that will claim thousands of Americans over the next 70 days. This dictator with the black soul of an Adolf Hitler only cares about his own survival. We will have weeks to rant and rave about Trump sabotaging our democracy. There is a more pressing concern that presently preoccupies us:

What is the state of blogging in Brownsville?

Sadly, we are known as the Third World Capital of the United states, but, happily, we are also known as the Blogging Capital of the United States. How have we earned that reputation?

In the last election bloggers were responsible for many of the winners and losers at the BISD, TSC, Cameron County and the Port of Brownsville. While The Brownsville Herald reporters were eating spam on moldy white bread, the bloggers were jumping into the sty with the rest of the pigs because nothing compares to the hog heaven of being a muckraker in the middle of the mudslinging. The lazy Herald staffers will never know the taste of expensive ham.

Brownsville's impressive blog lineup begins with Juan Montoya's El Rrun Rrun. Nobody breaks more stories than Montoya. The entire Herald staff doesn't publish half the controversial stories that Montoya posts. And his anonymous commentary is nasty shit in which nobody is spared, not even Montoya himself. It is said that when he reads too may complimentary comments, he submits an anonymous opinion blasting the shit out of himself.

While he doesn't have Montoya's readership because he considers his blog little more than a passing amusement that he frequently abandons for destinations unknown, /DP-M, the publisher of The Brownsville Republic only recently renamed The Brownsville Flyer, covered the waterfront (He lives in McAllen, so he doesn't have to worry about getting wet!) as well as anyone with writing skills and reporting talents that he has honed during an impressive four-decades-long journalistic career.

Of course, every realm has to have a court jester and nobody fills that role more indecently than Booby Witless-Cervezas, the publisher of The Brownsville Voice. Physically and mentally ill, Witless-Cervezas attracts an audience who find his many maladies risible. He calls himself the unbought blogger, but he is more accurately the bully blogger who more often than not encounters the 98-pound-weakling kicking sand in his face.

Jim Barton, the publisher of The Brownsville Voice, has been opining about Brownsville for many years, but the death of one wife and the addition of a new wife has changed his priorities. He occasionally emerges from his bedroom a la John Lennon to inform the public that the Coronavirus hasn't claimed him, but he isn't nearly as arduous as he once was attending meetings and providing the public with provocative information. He recently asserted that he was back, but maybe he was intimating that he was on his back in his hammock with the love of his life in his arms. It's difficult to type if your hands are busy elsewhere.

Diego Garcia, the publisher of The Brownsville Beacon, resides in the penumbra. He occasionally entertains with long-winded but sincere and colorful renditions on a variety of subjects. He reminds us of our own Annie Gunn who once commented about one of her many romances, "I love him, but he doesn't fuck me enough!"

Then we have the mysterious Brownsville Times and the eponymous Juan Garcia, the latter who has turned his Facebook into a blog for all intents and purposes. The Times did a solid job covering the Sylvia Atkinson trial while the Juan Garcia page specializes in taking no prisoners. We wouldn't be surprised if the site recommended the death penalty for Atkinson. Both operate under anonymity, but both are sympathetic to Erasmo Castro causes. The two might package themselves as the Fox News of Brownsville. In their defense to protect their identities, we have asserted since the beginning of our journey on the internet that it isn't the messenger that is important but the message. 

And, of course, there is The McHale Report. As politicians like to state when they are seeking reelection, we, at The McHale Report, say, "Our record speaks for itself." We have covered the gamut in experiences and emotions and we're still in the middle of the fray although we are exploring other artistic avenues. Success or failure means nothing to us. It's the act that actuates the atman.

We support all the different voices. Each voice causes a public official to shudder or think twice before he steals anyway. With the Herald renouncing its responsibilities to keep the powerful accountable and transparent on behalf of the powerless, the bloggers at least give it that good ol' college try.