Language:A little about alliteration

Human beings seem to have an innate affinity for finding music just about anywhere. This includes in the words we use in our daily language. One musical, literary device often found in Laredo blogs is alliteration.  Here's a brief definition of the word with a couple of accompanying examples.

Alliteration: the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group , as in from stem to stern or as in the more locally recognized Fun-filled fotoshop Friday. You might have noticed that the title of this post, itself,  is intentionally alliterative. 

What makes Fun-filled-fotoshop Fridays even more appealing is the poetic justice that is showcased in the fun-filled fotos themselves.  Below is today's offering from Laredo's unofficial Poet Laureate, BorderTown Blues.

Fotoshop foto appears compliments? of Bordertown Blues

It's been a year since city's $400,000 gift to Kell-Munoz

Yep, it's been one year with nothing doing!

I believe it was last September when Kell-Munoz held it's farce of a series of public input meetings at the civic center. Over a span of about a month, between 30 and 50 Laredoans showed up to see the transformational process of revitalization at work. One year later, every one's still waiting and not one single thing has been done. Yet, nearly one half Million dollars of Laredo taxpayer money has been wasted by our elected city council members.

The fact that they are elected is probably the worst part. If they were assigned by some big shot, then we could at least understand why they have absolutely no accountability. Sadly, people from all parts of Laredo, made it a point to go out during early voting and election day, Most people took time out of their busy days, used their own vehicles and gas to find their respective precinct and cast their ballot.

But, perhaps the reason, that our city council always returns to its smug and self-serving ways is because they know full well there is another kind of voter that they can depend on. These are the voters who essentially sell their votes to the most enterprising canonero/canonera, get a free ride to the polls along with specific voting instructions. These people will never complain because they could care less. Yet, these are the most important people in the eyes of our seedy council. No wonder things are in such a mess all the time.

So, again I ask.....what's is the latest development with the $400,000 Kell-Munoz giveaway.  I guess I should ask what's the first development with this entire debacle? I really don't think there's been one.

Five minutes with Fox: Anne Coulter- "teachers are useless"

At Fox & Friends, the circus is always in town

What started off as a piling up on Jimmy Hoffa jr's comments in which he referred to the Tea Party republicans as SOB's, quickly expanded its wrath.  Ultra-hater Anne Coulter joined the regular clowns crew of Fox and Friends this morning and wasted no time in going after hard-working Americans.

Coulter whined on and on about how she couldn't believe that the unions in America have gone from defending truck drivers and other such "real men with real jobs" to standing up for "such a useless bunch of government workers like kindergarten teachers".

Former Miss America and co-host Gretchen Carlson even challenged Coulter by interjecting "I wouldn't call teachers useless" but to no avail. The frothing Coulter shot back "Well, I will" and continued with her worn-out republican idea about how school vouchers and privatizing the school systems is the answer. What happened with FOX's love of the constitution?  Isn't schooling specifically called for in our states' constitutions?  Oh well, I think this show belongs on Comedy Central.

Calling all sweepers! Report to La Sanbe ASAP !

Baaaaaaroooooooom !

I have to admit that it's been a long time since I've seen a sweeper around town. The urban sprawl has made it necessary for Laredoans to drive practically everywhere. The busiest, most trafficable thoroughfares are made primarily for auto traffic. You will seldom see any pedestrians at all along Loop 20, McPherson, Del Mar, Saunders , HWY 83 and the new Cuatro Vientos Road. The speeding cars usually zoom by and, perhaps as a result of that, very rarely is any litter found in these parts of town. People are less likely to open their car windows and toss out any trash when they're going at a considerable rate of speed. Yet, along some of the city's older streets, there is a slower pace, more pedestrians and consequently, more littering.

Laredo's vaunted San Bernardo avenue definitely falls under the slow-moving category. As such, there is a substantial amount of littering clearly visible along the historic avenue. Yesterday, as I drove southbound from Calton Road on La Sanbe, I couldn't help notice what a difference it would make to bring in an old-fashioned sweeper .  Flattened paper & plastic cups, tattered plastic bags, empty plastic bottles, old newspapers and other assorted scattered papers were strewn all around. 

What's the city waiting for? Do they think that simply assigning the elegant-sounding Spanish designation of La Avenida San Bernardo will magically make everything spic n span?  I've heard about the power of words- but a huge broom would probably be more in order.

Whatever happened to the idea of TAMIU studios?

Eddie Macon's Run remains the all-time classic "Laredo" movie

In 2010, as the local political races hit full throttle, City council district VI candidate Emilio Martinez unveiled his secret weapon. Martinez had the vision of turning TAMIU into a full fledged film school and using the city's resources to attract the motion picture industry to our historic part of the country. Needless to say, Martinez did not win and his idea was never really embraced by anyone.

The simplest reason for this would be that : such things are not done in Laredo. This idea was so "outside the box" to borrow an overused phrase, that it actually was beyond the ability of most city leaders to even conceive of such a notion. Instead, maquinitas, talk of gambling racinos and how to put "more heads in beds" continued to rule the day. Interestingly, even the ominous Eagle Ford Shale was but a oil splat on the horizon.

While creative Laredoans would have truly welcomed even the most modest effort to try to bring film enthusiasts to our area, not everyone was disappointed. One Laredoan breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that his favorite motion picture masterpiece would be preserved as the film most readily associated with the Gateway City. Thus, to this day, Keyrose's frequent posting of  clips from "Eddie's Macon Run" remains one of the few ties that bind Laredo to the magic that is Hollywood.

Leave it to Laredo to team up with problem-plagued GEO group



LareDos reported on the fiasco way back on 2007


As many locations throughout Texas were ending their contracts with the GEO group for various shortcoming, the Gateway City was but a handfull of towns that were only to eager to start up a relationship with the questionable private prison system.  As the Fort Worth Star Telegram reports, Pearsall and Laredo plus a few others contracted with GEO even after their well-publicized problems. Laredo Proud!


First, from The Fort Worth Star Telegram Today 09/03/2011

Some private prison operators also were stung by charges that they were lax in providing training for their work force, that they skimped on food and medical service and that some guards abused offenders.
GEO, which operated the North Texas Intermediate Sanctions Facility, was stung by such criticism.

The company, formerly known as Wackenhut, was criticized for letting one facility fall into disrepair with unsafe and unsanitary conditions, for an escape from the Fort Worth unit and for incidents categorized as riots. In 2010, the company reported a $20.6 million decline in revenue because of the termination of management contracts at the Fort Worth Community Corrections Facility on North Henderson Street, as well as facilities in Venus, Newton and Beaumont and one in Illinois.

Still, the company got new contracts for detention facilities in Conroe and Maverick County and in New Mexico; from a Laredo center opened in 2009; and from new services at a center in Pearsall in South Texas, the company reported.

Golden Oldie: From LareDos 2007
as appeared in Texas Prison Bid'ness.com

More Bad Press for GEO on Laredo Superjail Deal   

Geo Group Cover Story in LareDOS: LareDOS, an award-winning monthly alternative paper in the Texas border town of Laredo, has published a scathing (PDF only) of the GEO Group’s recent deal with the City of Laredo and Webb County to build a 1,500-bed private US Marshals federal detention center.

As reported earlier here at Texas Prison Bid'ness, GEO president George Zoley showed up in Laredo last month wielding $250,000 checks for both the City and Webb County -- but Zoley did not leave Laredo empty handed. Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas presented him with a building permit and Webb County Judge Danny Valdez gave Zoley an agreement to provide the prison with water and electrical hook-ups.

The LareDOS article quotes Webb County Commissioner Keko Martinez lamenting a lack of citizens “tell(ing) us that they did not want a prison here.” That comes as a surprise to us at South Texans Opposing Private Prisons who, along with the Encinal Economic Development Corporation, a group of Laredo educators, and national experts, have repeatedly warned that the superjail could bring potential problems with few benefits.

Oil & Gas won't stop fracking but wants you to stop saying "fracking"

 

From Philly.com

Josh Fox, the director of the documentary Gasland that attributes "fracking" as the source of all gas-drilling evils, including some unrelated to fracturing, says his broader use of the term is justified because there would be no shale-gas development without hydraulic fracturing.

Many activists, headline writers, and the public now use the word fracking to describe all aspects of gas production, not just fracturing.

The industry's insistence that there are no documented cases in which fracturing has caused groundwater contamination seems disingenuous to a public that is aware of cases in which gas-drilling caused pollution. Whether it was a bad frack job or bad cement work that allowed methane to leak into drinking water is irrelevant. In the public's mind, it's all fracking now.

Greg Matusky, the president of the Gregory FCA public relations firm, has a solution: Stop using the word.
Matusky's firm, using a Nielsen algorithm, has studied the use of the word fracking in traditional and online media against other terms used in natural-resource extraction. By the context in which words are used, Matusky can draw relative conclusions about positive and negative associations.

Natural gas drilling and horizontal drilling scored positively. Hydraulic fracturing scored much better than fracking. About the only terms worse than fracking were longwall mining, offshore drilling, and gulf drilling.

"A better, more positive term is warranted," Matusky wrote in a blog post in February. "The industry needs to identify negatively charged words and replace them with positive language."


Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/129198733.html#ixzz1X2AAVMJC
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