DESPITE /DP-M'S MISGIVINGS

Our longtime ally and fellow Christian soldier /DP-M, the publisher of The Brownsville Republic who is in mourning this week with the passing of baseball greats Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver and Lou Brock, is continually mystified by Brownsville's penchant for piss-pour politicos. 

He has insinuated more than once that some of the municipal candidates would only pass through McAllen's City Hall doors as janitors and many of the BISD contenders would be lucky to find cafeteria jobs in the McAllen public schools. 

At The McHale Report we aren't going to argue that pretenders in the past such as Roman Perez, Robert Sanchez and Jessica Puente-Bradshaw have been embarrassments as they have attempted to snare a seat on the city council, but /DP-M fails to add that they have lost by large numbers and individuals like Ben Neece, Trey Mendez and John Cowen among many others have served the community well.

The same phenomenon is true at the BISD. In the persons of Carlos Elizondo, Erasmo Castro and Jessica Gonzalez, we are currently dealing with the worst of the worst, but when we watch Laura Perez-Reyes, Dr. Prisci Roca-Tipton and Drue Brown deal with school district issues, we are disappointed that the veteran journalist doesn't congratulate the electorate for their sagacity in supporting this trio.

We have no doubt that a team of Neece, Mendez, Cowen, Perez-Reyes, Roca-Tipton and Brown could more than handle their own against McAllen's best. We can see the final score at the end of a showdown between the RGV's two biggest cities: Hanna, 28; Rowe, 14. And when it is all said and down, we would rather reside in Brownsville by the sea than in McAllen wannabe.

Singing the same song, /DP-M is forever lamenting the lack of education, experience and sophistication of Brownsville's public servants. It is for that reason that we are puzzled with /DP-M's infatuation with Denise "La Gata" Garza in the BISD school board race for Position 2.

At The McHale Report we have often been critical of the "juniors" and " fresas" who with their roots in Matamoros bring an entitled attitude to Brownsville's politics, but nobody can deny that they have class. 

Garza, with her collapsing ass, comes from the opposite spectrum of these privileged Mexicans. She is a "naca" and it is plastered on her forehead like a "nopal." She is running on a platform that a higher-education isn't important in a person's future. It's an argument that baffles us because her lack of even remedial credits from TSC has sentenced her to the lowly position of being a clerk in San Benito's second-rate school district.

She is running against Frankie "El Aguila" Olivo and Jaime "El Whiz Kid" Diez. Both are university graduates, the former pursuing his Master's. Olivo has served as State District Judge Elia Cornejo-Lopez's administrative assistant for years and Diez is a respected businessmen. Both have repeated on several occasions that education has made all the difference in their lives.

They also have high I.Q.s according to Dr. Polyphemous Pangloss, The McHale Report's medical expert. He estimates Olivo and Diez's I.Q.s at 118 and 116 respectively. He calculates that Garza registers a lowly 88. Their intellectual faculties are patently reflected in their professional successes and failures.

The BISD once employed the manipulative Garza, but for reasons that the Baker Boys, the famed investigative duo, haven't ascertained, there was a parting of the ways and Garza was left with no other alternative but to seek refuge in hickville San Benito. 

"One of her ex-colleagues characterized 'La Gata' as a person negligent in her duties," said Billy Baker, the more talkative of the identical twins. "She complained that Denise spent the majority of her time in her boss' office, the same boss who hired her in San Benito. I don't think anyone would describe her as a model employee. She is one of those bureaucrats on whom the dust settles."

Nonetheless, /DP-M has been smitten by her, which doesn't surprise us. He has a weakness for a coquettish lass even if she is carrying extra mass. We have succumbed to the same temptation on occasion, so we have to give him a pass, but we don't want to hear him complaining about underqualified Brownsville candidates in the future.

At The McHale Report we deliberated long and hard between Olivo and Diez. In the end we decided that the older Olivo had significantly more experience in the work place than Diez and as a Hanna graduate, as opposed to Diez's St. Joe past, his loyalty to the BISD tilted our decision toward him. Outside of being blinded by her bovine features, we find it inexplicable that /DP-M would choose the worst of the three selections.

Pity...