A Tortilla Dozen

One of my best memories from childhood is standing in the kitchen while my mom made tortillas on a comal my dad made for her. As I’ve mentioned before, there were a whole gang of us kids, so my mother used to have to make pile after pile of tortillas for us.

I loved the sound of my mother clapping the masa between her hands and watching the bubbles form as the tortilla cooked on the comal. I’ve never figured out how, but my mother seemed to have fingers immune to the heat of a comal and flipped them with ease. Must be a secret extra layer of skin on moms or something.

When she’d add a hot one to the top of the pile, I was always lurking around with a stick of butter, ready to swoop in and snag one when she turned her back. She’d yell at me in Spanish if she caught me and usually hit me with what was ever nearest her reach. But it was worth it.

There was something about a fresh, hot tortilla in my hands. I’d peel back the wax paper around the butte

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Caption Contest

Free lunch to the person that comes up with the best captions to the following pictures. Be creative.

I am the judge, so there is no real formula, just whatever I think is the best one.

Leave a comment, identify the picture and then put your caption.

Thanks for playing.








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Tactical Error by Tiguas

I used to work on the reservation doing employment readiness training so I got to know several of the tribal members. A very close friend of mine, along with my cuñado, are also tribal members.

I am not exactly comfortable being critical of moves made by tribes, but since I have an understanding of how tribes work and a specific knowledge of the Tigua tribe, I’ll go ahead and give my thoughts on what I perceive to be a tactical error on the part of the tribe.

This isn’t about the merits of gaming. I am 100% behind gaming on tribal lands because I know first-hand the benefits of gaming. In most areas where there is tribal gaming you’ll find a lot of white people there. If you ask me, it’s poetic justice. Of all the things that Indians have received from the white man, gaming is a hell of a lot better that alcohol and pock-infected blankets. After all the years of being screwed over and having everything taken away by white people, I have no problem with tribes gettin

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McCain’s Straight Talk Express Off-Track

John McCain seems to be struggling with multiple personalities. Or maybe it’s dementia, after all, he’s pretty old.

One day, he’s taking pictures with President Bush. The next, he’s having librarians kicked out of town hall meetings because she has a sign that says McCain =  Bush.

One day he’s a maverick, the next day he toes the party line.

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Miguel Teran Park, Part II

As you can see from some of the comments on the previous post regarding the naming of an Agua Dulce park for embattled County Commissioner Miguel Teran, the vote was 3-1 to approve the name.

It was 3-1 because Commissioner Teran abstained from the vote.

How honorable.

Judge Anthony Cobos and Commissioners Sarina and Haggerty voted to approve the name of the park for Teran.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I’m a strong proponent of holding elected officials and leaders accountable. In fact it’s fair to say that in general, I am pretty hard on them.

But every once in a while, one or two of them make me very proud. In this case, its Commissioner Veronica Escobar. 
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To That Good-For-’Nothing Low-Life…

That stole my fuel cap and siphoned gas from my car while I was getting my hair cut:

You better hope I don’t ever find you.

When I do, I’m kickin’ your ass!

De-politicize Administrative Staff at City Hall

Memmer’ when I told you about my little field trip to City Hall last week? Well, on thing that I found interesting was the fact that there was a lot of discussion amongst staff on other floors about how little communication there is between the administrative staff of the various city reps.

Representative Lily wants to pool the staff to save some money. I am with her on that one, but a lot of the reps will probably object because they will complain about wanting someone who is “loyal” to them. I don’t give a shit if they want loyalty, let’s get qualified, experienced staff who aren’t people who worked for someone’s campaign.

Quintana will probably welcome the move because it will mean that she can actually keep some help for once.

But I would do one better than Lily. If I were the HVIC of the City of El Paso
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Miguel Teran Park

Tell me this is a joke. You can’t be serious. Somebody took this to County Commissioner’s Court with a straight face?

The Court had to have approved this name with a vote if I am not mistaken. So, who were the three Commissioners that went along with this? 

It will be interesting to see who voted in favor of this. If it’s Cobos, Sariñana, and Teran, that would be too funny. The jokes just sort of write themselves.

If Haggerty and Escobar voted for this, it’s even more interesting.

Of course there’s always the possibility that it was only two Commissioners that voted for this name change. You only need three for a quorum. 
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El Dorado High School Backpack Policy

I was doing some work over at the Hyper Café on Tierra Este and Edgemere. It’s my neighborhood coffee shop and has free wi-fi access.

It’s also across the street from El Dorado High School, so there are a lot of students in there from time to time. I over heard a few of them complaining about the new back pack rule at their school.

Apparently the only back packs they are allowed to have are see-through or mesh. Sounded like another incident of the man coming down on teens, but I have teens myself, so I know better than to trust them.

So I followed up with the school and talked to an assistant principal who explained that the rule was indeed in effect. 

The reason they have the rule is su

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SATURDAY ON KHRO 1650am

Hector Montes has pretty much single-handedly built the Saturday audience on KHRO 1650am. 

Hector seems to take his job very seriously and puts a lot of prep into his show. He’s been able to land some good interviews and host some great candidate forums that don’t show up anywhere else in the media.

Mostly because he’s capable of playing a good referee and calling it down the middle. Except maybe during the Marquez-Moreno debate. I had Moreno on the run and Hector stepped in for the save. 

So I was listening this past Saturday and Hector had another strong line-up of guests, anchored by Congressman Reyes.

So what follows Hector’s show? Fernie the Attorney and Star Chacon in an afternoon bore-a-thon. No offense to them personally, bu

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THE DARK KNIGHT VS. THE MAN OF STEEL

I saw the latest installment of the Batman franchise yesterday. That means I have now seen all the summer blockbuster movies.

By far, this movie was the best of the summer. Heath Ledger takes the Joker character to a far more sinister and sadistic place.

I don’t know if it’s sad, or apropos that he will now forever be remembered by this role. 

The story in this version doesn’t really run along the same lines as the comic book, but that is a tendency of most comic book movies. But it works.

There were some things I didn’t like about the movie, like Batman’s raspy voice. Completely pointless. The love interest in the movie, so forgettable that I can’t remember her name, looks like a low-rent Kirsten Dunst. I kept asking myself, why is Batman hitting on Spiderman’s ole’ lady?

But the movie kicks ass, mostly due to the p

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EDDIE HOLGUIN, TRASH PICK-UP & DISCRETIONARY FUNDS

I met him in person for the first time when I guest-hosted with Mike Armstead, pinch-hitting for David K. He seemed like a nice guy. There are a lot of nice guys that I disagree with politically, like my friends Mike Armstead and David K.

But I think I sold him short because of his close association with Jose Alejandro Lozano.

SIDEBAR: I spent some time up at City Hall last week and heard a

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WALT PHILLIPS ON CITY COUNCIL: “…THEY’RE LIKE KIDS…”

Okay, that’s not exactly what he said and is a little out of context. What he actually said was, “They listen to me. They’re like kids.”

It was the first gaffe in a race that hasn’t even officially started for the City Council seat that covers the Northeast side of town. That seat is now held by Melina “Candyland” Castro.

Walt made the comment, which as an obvious jo

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Melina "Candyland" Castro

Speaking of Representative Castro, here is my beef with her.

Representative Castro has no credibility with me. She’s confrontational and wasted a load of tax-payer money in a stupid pissing contest that she had with the City Attorney. All she has to do is say she’s sorry and she refuses.

There have been countless rumors about where exactly she lives, since she first ran against Jerome “Fac

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El Paso Political Camps

I thought I’d take a swing at a topic that has been floating around El Paso’s cyberspace for a couple of days now, first started by El Paso Times Editorial Board Staffer Joe Muench and then later covered by David K.

No offense fellas, but you guys missed the mark in a couple of places. Meunch was closer than David K, but it’s not his fault, he’s not a Democratic Party insider.

JOE MUENCH

Muench got most of it right and David K was about 30% right.

The El Paso Democratic Party gangs, oops, I mean camps, are not static. They are constantly changing and evolving. In fact, most of the time it’s a ma

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The City of El Paso Needs Hybrids

I talked to a good friend over at the City the other day and part of her job involves some driving around. With gas prices the way they are, she’s resorted to ride the bus to and from work.

We were talking about that when she mentioned that the car she was driving around that day for city business was a hybrid vehicle. I thought that was pretty cool.

But then she mentioned that there are only TWO hybrid vehicles in the fleet. Not sure if the County has any. That got me to thinking, it seems that I am paying more for everything because of gas. If it’s a restaurant, they have raised there prices, if it’s a florist, there is a gas surcharge, and even some of the local government entities have wrestled with the increase in fuel costs.

The next time the City of El Paso has to purchase vehicles, they should set

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Veronica Escobar Declares Full Frontal Monkey!

No, no, it’s not the latest porno-flick for people with some weird animal fetish.

It was a hilarious line in a discussion last Friday on the Charlando Con La Gringa Show with Lisa D. on KAMA. Her guest, County Commissioner Veronica Escobar was talking about her Tia Huera’s (how ever you spell it) chickens and that line of discussion led to Escobar’s impersonation of a monkey.

The multi-talented Escobar showed off her Full Frontal Monkey with Lisa D., who is obviously a friend off-air. These two were a hoot just drinking coffee, I can only imagine how funny they are at 80’s night at Club 101.

I was a little boy in the 80’s, but as long as they play some Prince, Madonna, LL Cool Jay or Michael Jackson

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Rachel Quintana – Invisible Woman

David Crowder did a great article on Rachel Quintana on NPT and I think he hit it right on the mark. She’s inaccessible and generally unresponsive.

In fact, if you remember the Doonesberry cartoon series, they used to depict President Bush, the elder, as a blank spot. I am very surprised that no one here has picked up on that idea, but that would be the perfect way to depict Rachel Quintana. Or maybe just as a big nervous grin.

Well, she recently held her community meeting. I don’t think it’s a regular thing for her, but I could be wrong. My friend attended the meeting and there were only four people in attendance! Some of you that are reading this probably have more registered voters in your household than attended her last meeting.

My friend suggested they have the meetings in the evening or on Saturday’s so that more people can attend and my source tells me she said that it was out of the question. Weekends were for her daughter. I think that’s admirable. But if she can spend a weekend out on the town (and she has, I’ve seen her), she should be able to spend one pe

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Danny Anchondo & Party Unity

I know, I know, it sounds like an oxymoron right? Like jumbo shrimp or government intelligence. Well the El Paso Democratic Party has a new initiative to foster unity and move forward to November.

When I first heard about this initiative, I was skeptical. I mean, Danny Anchondo is not exactly the picture of party unity, especially after some of the crap he’s pulled since the County and State Conventions.

But he appointed two ladies to run the effort for the Unity Campaign, one Clinton supporter, one Obama supporter. I was starting to become optimistic because I know both of these ladies personally. The Clinton supporter is actually from my caucus and she and I worked together on caucus night and calmer heads prevailed. She’s a sharp cookie.

The Obama supporter I haven’t known as long, but she has an impressive pedigree and is a seasoned p

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Sand Bag Shortage in the Desert – Yet Another Example of PSB Incompetence

We all know it comes around the same time every year, yet the PSB got caught with their pants down by monsoon season.

Everyone is asking the same questions, how the hell do you run out of sand bags in the desert? What the hell are we getting for our money?

The answer is simple, the PSB is incompetent. The lack of sand bags shows a complete lack of planning and forethought. There was only a crew of 8 people making sand bags for the entire city today.

Are you freakin’ kidding me? You people didn’t think to stock pile the sand bags a month or even a couple of weeks in advance? Uh, where exactly were you people living during Storm 2006? Do you not remember the flooding?

Don’t tell me it’s a lack of manpower either. There are plenty of people in county jail that could be used for a worthwhile work detail. People on probation that have community service to perform could be given bonus hours

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National Council of La Raza Name Change

On one of the very rare occasions that I listen to the Mario Solis Marich show, I caught a discussion about some lady (didn’t catch her name) calling for the National Council of La Raza to change their name.

The lady made the same argument that Bill O’rielly makes; essentially that the organization’s name is racist and offensive because of their misinterpretation of the translation of the word La Raza.

The Race, as they translate it, is what they feel is racist. But that translation is a lazy translation that doesn’t even begin to convey the meaning of its use. Talk about something being lost in translation.

La Raza more clo

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McCain, Obama Surrogates Debate

Senators Joseph Lieberman and Jack Reed, surrogates for presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama, debated on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC Sunday morning. The debate circled mostly around the war in Iraq.

Joe Lieberman must have seen Wag the Dog this weekend because he is trying to argue that the war in Iraq is going well and that John McCain was right about the war because the surge is working. Tactically speaking, that is debatable, but Reed countered with the fact that Obama said we never should have been there in the first place and that Obama’s strategy of focusing resources in P

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Mr. Horn, Texas Vigilante

By now you’ve all heard the story of Joe Horn, the guy who shot two burglars in his neighbor’s yard. Recently a grand jury chose not to indict Mr. Horn on any charges.

I know that some of you out there will inevitably believe this guy is some kind of hero. Maybe even find a way to tie this in to the 2^nd Amendment. 

Here’s my take on it. They guy needs to be prosecuted. He stated his intent, in a recording no less, to shoot and kill those guys. I know, I know, you guys are thinking, “he never said that!”

True. But any responsible gun owner knows about safety. You never point your weapon at someone or something that you don’t plan on killing. You don’t fire rounds into someone’s back expecting it to injure and not kill. A man’s back is center-mass (gun owners know what that means).

Come to think of it, why didn’t he fire a warning shot first? He had the presence of mind because he was being told not to engage the burglars while he was on the phone with the 911 operator.

There are law enforcement agencies that protect the area in which Mr. Horn lives. So he takes it upon himself to do the job of the government entity in the area? How nob

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