EL RRUN RRUN
http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/
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ERIN AIRS 30-SECOND SPOTS ON EVICTIONS, DWIS
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By <b>Juan Montoya</b><br />We have just seen the two 30-second spots that JP 2-2 runoff candidate Erin Hernandez Garcia posted on various sites on the Internet.<br />Now, based on the tenor of the campaign that Erin, her mother Norma, her politiqueras and her father Commissioner Pct. 2 Ernie Hernandez have waged up to now, we expected some sort of nasty attack on her opponent Yolanda Begum.<br />You know, the usual (and predictable) "she can't speak English, she has no education, she's not a lawyer" drivel we've come to expect from that camp.<br />Instead, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the ads are pretty straightforward messages dealing with the customary cases that come up before the justice of the peace courts in Cameron County. And it's also refreshing that the ad agency that prepared the spots didn't resort to razzle-dazzle rabbit-in-the-hat trickery to put forward the message.<br />Now, if only the rest of the Hernandez campaign had been run that way and stuck to the issues, there would be no need for the usual confrontation and intimidation that has marked that campaign up to know. Let's hope that campaign strategy stays clean and focused on that direction for the duration until election day July 31.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-6207010690466647817?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/07/erin-airs-30-second-spots-on-evictions.html
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MR. CAVAZOS FINALLY FULFILLS HIS DREAM OF WRITING HIS NOVELS
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<div>By <b>Juan Montoya</b></div><div>The news that Kingsville writer Sigifredo Cavazos has written his book rekindled old memories of when we had this remarkable man as a teacher.</div><div>It was in the late 1960s, when the Brownsville Independent School District still segregated its migrant students at the Josephine Castañeda Elementary School next to Cromack Elementary, when we encountered him. The school was ringed by an eight-foot chain link fence that stretched from 30th Street all the way to the private homes east facing Lima Street. The buildings were barrack-type buildings that often lacked air conditioning.<br /> Only the library and the administration buildings had central air. Three strands of barbed wire topped the fence. A silhouette picture of a farmworker carrying a hamper of fruit on his right shoulder adorned the front of the school.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2b23HMHyaZHnNzUTl0kBjY0_tDCyop8ts4zfLX2hXpaPeK3hZ1c1df4bH-UmdM_CfqiBSH5UV9hJg1wIMGWhQOKi5lRgo2w2xz61aJbe85Tp1oDssCq3DIC8698NhxY-x25sCt1MjGN8/s1600/cavazos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2b23HMHyaZHnNzUTl0kBjY0_tDCyop8ts4zfLX2hXpaPeK3hZ1c1df4bH-UmdM_CfqiBSH5UV9hJg1wIMGWhQOKi5lRgo2w2xz61aJbe85Tp1oDssCq3DIC8698NhxY-x25sCt1MjGN8/s200/cavazos.jpg" width="200" /></a>Students were bused in from all areas of the city where they lived. Kids from Las Prietas, El Puerto, Portway Acres, La Doce, La Muralla, Cameron Park, and other neighborhoods farther out in the city as far as San Pedro and Villa Nueva, and, of course, Southmost. All the barrios and colonias of Brownsville were represented.<br />There, with one teacher per classroom, we received the instruction from Mr. Cavazos, Mr. Garibay, Ms. Peña, and other dedicated teachers. Mrs. Xochitl Hidalgo was the social worker who would make sure needy kids would get a pair of Converse tennis shoes and girls would receive what they needed to face the onslaught of puberty.<br />Ruben Gallegos Sr., was the principal, followed by Lee Garcia, also the Senior, who came after him.</div><div>The classes covered grades first through eighth grade. There were no extra-curricular activities. Now sports, no speech or drama. Nothing. The teachers focused on making sure their wards received the basics that they had missed when they left school in early April and returned on October or November from working with their families in northern fields. School ran from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.<br />This wasn't your average school population. Migrant kids grow up fast. Some boys at 14 and 15 were already contemplating having a family. Girls knew their way around the kitchen and had probably provided the child care for their siblings as they grew up and their older brothers and sisters were working with their parents in the fields.<br />The P.E. coach had hell to pay trying to get khaki-clad youths wearing their starch-pressed dress shirts and double-soled Stacy Adams into gym shorts to play basketball or run laps around the school yard. Some simply refused and challenged him to fistfights.<br />And then there was Mr. Cavazos, because it was unthinkable to call him anything else but "Mr."<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsMFCPFV8svUB-1opCsNASqgCOBudUrWUdBkLL691IqTVqMb1V1ubkx357iEP6lyQ0nzZRq3ZaRNRWYe3kJyOWMGLheiz33va0sF7VQkBXLlxl120pjIRSqL5ymLxFXxpmp6zE4pe6Xs/s1600/oldCastaneda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsMFCPFV8svUB-1opCsNASqgCOBudUrWUdBkLL691IqTVqMb1V1ubkx357iEP6lyQ0nzZRq3ZaRNRWYe3kJyOWMGLheiz33va0sF7VQkBXLlxl120pjIRSqL5ymLxFXxpmp6zE4pe6Xs/s400/oldCastaneda.jpg" width="400" /></a>He was a lover of literature, music and an avid hunter. He was also a body builder, with the huge biceps and forearms to prove it. In a drab barracks classroom he introduced a tape recorder so that we could hear ourselves as we read the books we checked out in the small school library.<br />In that way, he piqued our curiosity for the written word.<br />And he was always writing.<br />In fact, he wrote the Christmas play one memorable year that had the teachers and students in the audience howling with laughter. It was a play â€" and I don't remember the name â€" about the human senses. Some, like the ears and eyes, were characterized by huge, over-sized glasses and fake ears. Others, like the sense of touch (I played that part), was a huge glove filled with cotton.<br />The upshot of the play was that the senses were arguing over who was the most important to the human body. The nose said it was he who sensed "something rotten in Denmark, the "eyes have it," etc., and of course, you had to "hand it" to touch.<br />In the end, the brain stepped in and reconciled everyone to the idea of working together and everyone saw the "sense " of that.<br />We knew Mr. Cavazos was something different, something special. My classmates like Tony Rocha (son of "La Peca"), and now an accountant, Rene Rosenbaum (now a professor in economics at Michigan State and brother of former county commissioner Lucino Rosenbaum) and others too numerous to recall, got together that Christmas season and took up a collections from the rest of our classmates (these were poor migrants, mind you) and bought him the current version of the Shooter's Bible that he had told us was a book he wish he had.<br />The look he got when we presented it to him even warmed the cockles of the hearts of <em>chucos</em> from Las Prietas we had in class. Congratulations on you book Mr. Cavazos. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-4294853461746952786?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/07/mr-cavazos-finally-fulfills-his-dream.html
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