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Comments this week addressed Father’s Day, our two presidential candidates and recent animal hoarding cases. Other topics included concern about the reliability of our state’s electric grid and proposals to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions.
As always, we welcome comments you’d like to share with our fellow readers, and thank those who have done so.
Ode to father
Fatherhood is the background music of marriage and of parenting. A constancy that normalizes and stabilizes the chaos and disorder of comingled lives, and of notions and emotions. Fatherhood transforms the singularity of existence into the commonality of life and of living.
Father’s Day for many of us has always been a day of reflection, deflection and subdued affection. A day devoid of flowery prose, embellished gestures or elaborate adulation. Father’s Day is a subtle recognition of a man’s genius of underplaying and understating the significance of their camouflaged pride, joy and affection, that spills over into the hearts and souls of those who complete him, fulfill him, respect him.
Unlike Mother’s Day — filled with sentimentality, hugs and kisses — Father’s Day is more reserved and impassive —- in a manly way. That was true for my Dad. Father’s day was that special day that dignified the man who gave clarity and substance to the symphony of music that was our family. Each member of the family, a master of perfection. Wife. Sons. Daughters. Grandchildren. Great-Grandchildren. Each a separate and distinct note, playing in harmony and tempo to the rhythm of the music. Each note distinct in its sound and tone, when orchestrated by the Maestro — that marvel, that wonder, that man who stood alone and made the notes come together in a sympathy of purpose, of reason, of understanding and acceptance — my Dad.
Like elevator music — always in the background, always around — soothing, comforting, gentle. The Muzak of family. The master of the art of blending and merging into the background — but always the Maestro. Always the artistic genius behind the composition of a symphony of family, of music, affection and passion.
To Dad, and to all fathers and maestros out there on this Father’s Day, please excuse the flowery prose this year, as well as the forgotten tie — and accept instead these words of appreciation, recognition and remembrance — for making the sound of music come alive in my family, and in families throughout this Magical Valley by the Rio Grande. Families of every kind and every type. You, Dad, helped set the tempo of my life. You are, you were, that constancy — that music that never stops. And I am still that music in the background that is the sympathy of you.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad.
Al Garcia-Wiltse
San Juan
Didn’t make school board
I again failed to get on the McAllen ISD school board. I feel bad for the teachers and support personnel of our public schools because I would have lobbied and filibustered and whined until you got more respect.
I look at the list of rejected applicants for Place 7 and I am stunned by the talent and experience the people of the city won’t be getting.
To the teachers who are leaving, consider yourselves better off. The teachers of MISD have always been its top strength; look what their efforts got them.
Politics is not my thing; my religion tells me to reject it, and normally I do. But I am offended by what I think had transpired here. Do I have facts? Nope, but I’ve been here like 30 years. I know what goes down.
I don’t know what was done to Sam Saldivar, but I can guess. I am going to pray that God finds jobs for the dumped staff and offers balm to the staff who remain and will have to put up with the additional work.
The teachers and support staff and some administrators I knew were wonderful folks to be with; I miss you all and I regret that I couldn’t do more for you. I am 74 now, and I anticipate seeing you again on the other side.
Don Delaney
McAllen
Agreement with letter
Just a few comments in response to letter by J. Honaker (May 31).
I am in complete agreement with Mr. Honaker that there isn’t much difference between the Democrat and Republican parties, especially when it comes to illegal immigration and foreign aid.
On the subject of illegal immigration, Democrats have made it abundantly clear they don’t have a problem with millions of unvetted individuals entering the country illegally. They have thus adopted a “let them in” policy regardless of potential harm and cost to American taxpayers. Republicans on the other hand keep holding news conferences and congressional hearings to discuss how bad the problem is but have not been able to figure out what to do to stop or interrupt the flow of massive illegal immigration.
On the subject of foreign aid, I never cease to be amazed at how members of both parties are always falling over themselves when approving billions of tax dollars to finance wars in other countries. It’s so easy to be generous with taxpayer money.
Our elected leaders (Democrats and Republicans) are apparently too busy trying to protect borders and/or solve problems in other parts of the world to pay any attention to the needs and concerns of their constituents.
Ben Castillo
Harlingen
Unprecedented Trump support
Some people voted for Donald Trump only because “they liked” Mike Pence. I know this because a young pastor told me. Now that these folks know that Trump “hates” Mike Pence and that joe Biden and hundreds of millions of others “love” Mike Pence, will these fine folks now be voting for Joe Biden? Just asking.
Michael Steele, a political commentator, declared that “the devil wears a red tie.” He was joking, of course, but some folks out there do believe in the anti-Christ and some even believe it’s the Donald himself. And those who have been warning us for ages about the coming of the anti-Christ believe that “their guy,” the guy who some believe is the devil, has all the qualifications to be our first dictator. Hoo-boy, this is getting really weird.
In our country you only need to meet three qualifications to run for president: You must be 35 years old, a natural born citizen, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. Being a convicted felon or even the devil doesn’t disqualify you. Perhaps our forefathers thought that nobody in their right mind would be dumb enough to vote for a convicted felon or even the devil, so it was not necessary to add these disqualifications. Hmm — did our forefathers get something wrong here?
MAGA Republicans say it’s “unprecedented” to bring criminal charges against the former president. Rep. Adam Schiff cleverly agreed with them. “You’re damn right it’s unprecedented,” Schiff said. “We never had a United States president who was making hush money payments to a porn star and then falsifying business records to cover it up. We never had a president withhold classified information and then obstruct an investigation. We never had a president incite a violent attack on the Capitol. So yeah, it is unprecedented! And you know what else is unprecedented? The fact that so many leaders of that party are perfectly fine with all of that!”
And yes, we them here, right in our state Capitol. It’s sickening.
Italo J. Zarate
Brownsville
No confidence in power grid
Every weather report I’ve seen forecasts 100-degree temperatures for the next several days. It is common knowledge that due to deregulation of Texas electric utilities and the assignment of their control to ERCOT in 1996 by then Republican Gov. George W. Bush, we have at best a shaky grid.
Although created supposedly to reduce utility costs, it actually allowed the utility companies to increase their profits at the expense of maintenance, efficiency, reliability and acceptance of new energy sources such as solar and wind. ERCOT, staffed by appointed regulators, many from out of state, continued this regulatory charade until February of 2021 when their focus on profits rather than supplying reliable power culminated in an almost complete grid failure. According to ERCOT, “we were 4 minutes away from a complete failure.” This after a $28 billion increase in energy billings under ERCOT control.
Why am I presenting this? Because after 11 requests from ERCOT to conserve energy in 2023, no big generating facilities have been built. Enough flexible and higher capacity transmission lines have not been built and we are still relying on the wind blowing and the sun shining to cool and heat our homes. That is not reliability.
So why are we, the citizens ERCOT is supposed to serve, not listening? Why the attitude of “I’ll conserve when they pry my dead hand from the thermostat, dish washer, clothes dryer, electric car charger. Why? Because we have become a nation of me-me-me, selfish, affluent brats.
So, what’s to be done? Here it is again for businesses or homes. Close the door and vent to rooms you are not using. Thermostat no lower than 80. Buy a computerized thermostat so you can turn off the A/C when you aren’t at home or at night. Use ceiling fans but turn them off when you leave the room. They don’t cool the room, just you. Turn off unneeded lighting. Are you listening, businesses? No daytime electric car charging or electric dish or clothes washing or drying. Microwave your food, don’t use the power-hungry stove top or oven. Check A/C filters, change if needed. Check the outside unit and remove any leaves or dirt obstructing the vents. If your A/C runs continually, have it checked. Add insulation in attics.
Sorry, folks, this is not a “for a week or a few days” request; it’s for any time we have extreme summer or winter temperatures for as long as we have them. It is in fact a lifestyle change because ERCOT has not demanded, enforced and emphasized citizen safety rather than corporate profit and, unless there is an about-face by the governor and legislature, we will not have sufficient power to meet our new needs, those that appear to have become more the norm. ERCOT has provided no estimate of when we can have confidence in our grid.
Ned Sheats
Mission
Get out and vote
We just commemorated the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing in Normandy, when the start of the liberation of Europe from the grasp of Nazism began. The Allied Expeditionary Forces of Great Britain, Canada and United States suffered more than 10,000 casualties on June 6, 1944. We suffered 4,414 Allied deaths including 2,501 American deaths.
All the pomp and circumstance that took place in Normandy with all the invited dignitaries was indeed honorable in the remembrance of these fallen heroes.
Yet as I write this short letter, a large segment of American citizens not only embrace Nazi ideology but rather they flaunt and shove it in our faces every single day. Nazi flags are flown with pride.
The fallen heroes of D-Day must be turning in their graves.
If we allow this ideology to permeate the United States, these fallen heroes sacrificed their lives for nothing. Not even the country where Nazism flourished in the early 1900s through 1945 allows the flag or the Nazi salute without repercussion.
Joseph Goebbels, Germany’s propaganda minister under Adolf Hitler, said, “A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.” This is exactly what is happening today in the good old USA and it is being propagated by politicians on the right to advance their agenda.
I had never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate until 2020. I’m not blinded by today’s GOP ideology. They perpetuate lies just like Goebbels did for Germany in his time. I cringe every time a GOP leader steps up to the mic and defends their stance. What a disgrace! We know better and we are better than this rhetoric. I implore everyone who is of voting age to get out and vote. If you like the status quo, vote. If you want to change things, vote. Regardless, just get out and vote!
Javier Barrera, USAF Ret
Floresville
America’s weakness
I can see the weakness in America when I see people living on the streets with no way out. No one to assist to include city, county, state or U.S. government have stepped in to reverse this trend. There has to be a formula to heal this problem and get people back into society to live fruitful lives. This is unacceptable.
I can see the weakness in the inability to stop, not control, illegal and legal drug abuse that affects thousands if not millions in America today. I see on the news a video of people from Philadelphia living on the streets, drug addicted, wasting their lives away. People young and old looking like zombies on the streets with no future to look forward to.
This will not magically go away one day. This will double or triple in the next decade or so. Then we will end with a greater problem than the present.
I can see the rising lack of unity in America when I see students from higher learning centers protesting and forcefully supporting terrorist groups and their atrocities and speaking against America. I see lost morale in their hearts to keep America strong; instead they choose to destroy and give it away to those who want it more than they do.
We need to reverse this trend or America as we know will come to an end, where history will be erased by the ones who take it from us. Books will be written about a great nation that once was and the advances that came from that nation like no other and suddenly disappeared from history. Or was it only a fairy tale?
Rafael Madrigal
Pharr
Trump lauded
Reference “Another View” on June 12. This editorial, taken from the Orlando Sentinel, demonstrates the knee-jerk reaction of a far-left organization, representing Democrats who are scared stiff that former President Donald Trump will once again lead our nation to the incredible heights that were the hallmarks of his first presidency. Trump’s “conviction” is a handy whipping post that belies the truth about this obvious miscarriage of justice.
Driven by a rabid Democrat prosecutor who campaigned for office by stating his goal of “getting Trump,” situated in a district known for its liberal voting base and tried before a biased jury, especially selected from their demonstrated left-leaning comments noted in jury selection questionnaires, the outcome of this sham trial could have been forecast by a chimpanzee!
A trial judge, who allowed the prosecution to hide evidence, to conceal the actual law(s) that were supposedly broken, who continually ruled in favor of the prosecution and the selection of misdemeanor charges that were not only expired, but of such insignificance to be unworthy for any note.
Is it any wonder that Trump was “convicted,” when the prosecution, judge and jury had their thumbs on the scale? Trump was “guilty until proven innocent,” rather than “innocent until proven guilty,” as our system of jurisprudence demands!
Democrats, driven to the edge by a president who obviously is incompetent, whose foreign policy is a laughingstock worldwide, who has purposely opened our borders to tens of millions of illegal immigrants, whose financial policies have caused excessive inflation that affects all Americans and personally demonstrates the ravages of mental instability, cringe at the huge fan support base that President Trump enjoys and increases with every passing day. President Trump’s popularity is not based upon “things promised to come,” as demonstrated by many seeking public office, but rather by “things I have accomplished in my first term as president and will repeat if elected in November 2024.”
President Trump, a very successful businessman, a very successful president, an American fighting for the average American, a person whose personal demeanor favors neither race, color, religion or ethnicity, can be called a “convicted felon,” but the majority of Americans know in their hearts that he wears this title with pride, as it signifies the very weaponization of our system of justice that he vows to end, should he be elected again this coming November.
The comments of the Orlando Sentinel do not reflect the views of most Americans today concerning President Donald Trump!
Sherwood Uhrmacher
Palmview
Higher expenses
Your Democratic leadership at work!
Since Biden took office four years ago:
Airfare: +39.9%
Baby food: +28.4%
Eating out: +22.2%
Electricity: +29%
Gas: +55.3%
Groceries: +21.2%
Natural gas: +22.2%
Pet food: +23%
Public transportation: +27.2%
Rent: +21.2%
Used cars: +20.9%
Real average weekly earnings: +3.8%
How’s that working for you?
Enough is enough! Vote Republican!
Hilda Garza DeShazo
Hidalgo County GOP Secretary
McAllen
Editor’s note: We welcome your letters and commentary. Submissions must include the writer’s full name, address and daytime telephone number for verification. Letters of 200 words or fewer will be given preference. Submissions may be edited for length, grammar and clarity. Letters may be mailed to P.O Box 3267, McAllen, Texas 78502-3267, or emailed to [email protected].
