It's me, María Eugenia, the publisher. I'm pinche hitting for Cholulah, who is out of the country having some kind of hongo silvestre squash blossom, corn fungus hormone tratamiento being done at Cuatro Cienegas. Pobre, she has not been the sane since La Lupe's untimely and disgusting demise at the tick dipping vats near San Ygnacio. Hablo de su muerte, no de su vida.
Cholulah has been feeling guilty since La Lupe bit the dust because they were never very nice to one another. And, to boot, Cholulah came across some kind of document that implied that Cholulah may have been La Lupe's love child. "There was a way that she would call me La Bastarda that was almost endearing," Cholulah said in the angst-riddled e-mail I got shortly before her quick departure recently.
Hablo de su vida, no de su muerte. So what for do I need to leave this office to give you chismesitos when the internal soap opera is awash in suds.
So hang on, readers. I'll do what I can to make this sound Cholulah-esque. Oh, I may miss the depth of her range and fail to achieve the formic acid of her bite, but you'll appreciate me for trying.
Let's keep things short and sweet here so we don't invite another eight page missive from USBP's Monty Guthrie. Apparently, the slightest thing sets him off, so we'll be careful not to scratch the Kevlar. How would you like to tick off that short-fused fellow on hot asphalt at a remote checkpoint some afternoon when the temperature has decided to peak 108°?
The federal government on private land is not a new issue, and it is one that as a taxpayer and citizen I have the right to protest without being told by a pop-off that I am seditious, that it is un-American of me.
Our ranch is my home. Just as agent Guthrie would choose not to have some unmannered, raucous, rowdy strangers in his front yard or living room for all the obvious reasons, I affirm that choice and his right to make that choice. Just as he would not allow a bunch of kids to run through his place of business or warehouse, leaving a disruptive mess and doors open behind them, I choose to wish that our business operation out here also not to be subjected to this.
Besides Agent Guthrie's articulate nanny-nanny-boo-boo defense of the massively misdirected bureaucracy of his heart (and no doubt the source of his excellent retirement package) and his venom, (yes, like a Monty Python and almost as laughable), I also heard from area ranchers who have been locked out of their own ranches by the USBP, who clean up after the cochinitos in green who can't keep their Payday and $100 Grand candy wrappers in their cars, who have had their dirt roads rutted by the capriciousness of a youngster with his first SUV.
The quejas go on and on. Gates left open. Cattle turned loose. Poaching. Arrowhead pilfering. Target shooting. The sport shooting of snakes. Sometimes they don't even pick up the shells from their extra unofficial firearm. This is an invitation to all ranchers who need to have issues addressed with USBP to send us copies of complaints and photos.
Monty says they don't have to be nice, and they don't have to ask. Oh, the impunity of it. These aren't ranches we bought off the auction block last year. This is family property kept intact over generations through revolutions, economic depressions, and devastating droughts. Besides being a business operation, many of these ranches figure into family histories that are revered. If the land had no value for us, the gates would swing in the wind until they rusted off.
Here's an issue I would like answered. Our ranch partnership has easement and right of way agreements with Central Power and Light, as well as with Conoco, Samson Exploration, and pipeline companies, all of whom have their own locks and keys to our property. By what authority, by what legal piece of paper, did USBP ask for and receive keys to our property for purposes other than utility or petroleum ROW? By what authority, per the individual agreements we have with those companies for specified purposes, can they pass along keys to our property?
Manitos and manitas, it's chocking all right, the way some campaigns are throwing money at their problems. No matter what the candidates are reporting on those campaign expenditure reports, you are a witness to the dance of millions. ¿Pa' que te rajes? In a month, part one will be behind us, the signs will take on a faded useless tint as they blow in the wind, and we'll still have the same condenados in office.
Up your nose with a rubber hose, that's where the bird of paradise has apparently nested for the winter. Manito, those non sequiturs that you think are acerbic put-you-in-your-place shots of sarcasm in the courtroom are insults to the public that elected you. Robert, he of rules of order, gonna whack you upside the haid one of these days. And, oh, Bubba Baby, don't you be having anymore of those taxpayer nickel fun-runs to another country.
At a time when firemen are revered as American heroes, here's one fellow who may have chosen another claim to fame. Zapata County fire chief Fernando Gonzalez was the alleged driver of a decoy vehicle leading an 1,100 pound load of marijuana off the banks of the Falcon Reservoir and down Los Lobos Road. He was popped, and mightily, by the Zapata County Task Force headed by DPS' Bob Loza. Rather decisively he was suspended by his employer without pay.
How much do concrete culverts cost? Put a pencil to the pile of broken ones all along the Hwy. 83 construction approaching, at, and south of Río Bravo. Cry a little, because those are the same culverts that were new when they were put in about a year ago as road crews finished the first phase of Hwy. 83 expansion. Wouldn't it be incredible if TxDOT could think ahead and not throw away the kind of money they do? What are they thinking -- build it to100% so that we can come back and tear it down to 90% and then keep going? If there is one bright spot in that quagmire and boondoggle of asphalt, steel, and concrete, it's that the USBP has been visibly missing from a Hwy. 83 checkpoint.