McAllen, I mean Harlingen is eating our artistic lonche

From The McAllen Monitor

I don't really know if anyone even goes to Cinesol Film Festival in Harlingen but you have to give the Valley credit for at least being creative. Below is a schedule for some of the films being showcased this weekend at various locations in Harlingen, Texas. It looks like McAllen told their neighbor just how easy and delicious it is to eat Laredo's lunch and now they want to be part of the feast. After last week's proclamation by our Mayor that even San Antonio is "eating our lunch", is anyone surprised for other cities wanting to jump on the bandwagon.

Maybe Laredo is not ready to host a film festival per se but at least they could start with an Ad Festival. Imagine all the corny local commercials that KGNS has put together over the last few years. That in itself would be a substantial offering. From the Pout girls to the Single Lady ripoff to the infamous There goes Jerry ad, Laredo can compete with any small-medium market TV stations around the state. 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 17 – University of Texas-Pan American (1201 W. University Drive, Edinburg)

• 12 p.m. “Deseada”    Main Theater (330)
• 12:30 p.m. “Damn!”    Classroom #1 (50)
• 1:30 p.m. Golden Age in Mexican Movies  Main Theater (330)
• 2 p.m. “Challenge of a Champion”  Classroom #1 (50)
• 2:45 p.m. “Una Ruta Nada Santa”   Main Theater (330)
• 3:45 p.m. “Where Soldiers Come From”  Classroom #1 (50)
• 4 p.m. Film Festivals: A Tool to Promote Movie Main Theater (330)
• 5:15 p.m. “New Children/New York”  Main Theater (330)
• 5:30 p.m. “Portraits on the Malecon”  Classroom #1 (50)
• 6:30 p.m. Reception (Library Lobby)  Main Theater (330)
• 7:30 p.m. “The Summer of Massacre”  Main Theater (330)

SUNDAY, SEPT. 18 – University of Texas-Pan American (1201 W. University Drive, Edinburg)

• 12 p.m. Script to Screen Panel     Main Theater (330)
• 12:30 p.m. “Wuss!”      Classroom #1 (50)
• 1:30 p.m. “El Ambulante”     Main Theater (330)
• 2:30 p.m. “Sixty in 60”     Classroom #1 (50)
• 3:15 p.m. Video Distribution    Main Theater (330)
• 3:45 p.m. “Close Up”     Classroom #1 (50)
• 4:30 p.m. Shorts #2     Main Theater (330)
• 5:30 p.m. “How to Boil a Frog”    Classroom #1 (50)
• 6 p.m. “City Dark”     Main Theater (330)
• 7:30 p.m. “Hard to Love” and “A Lonely Place for Dying” Main Theater (330)

Cuellar votes with GOP to pass bill to weaken National Labor Relations Board

Does Blue Dog = GOP ?

From The New York Times
By Steven Greenhouse

The bill, called “The Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act,” is expected to face an uphill battle in the Democratic-led Senate. In the House vote on Thursday, the partisan divide was clear: only 8 Democrats voted for the bill and only 7 Republicans voted against it.

Republicans have repeatedly criticized the complaint that the board’s acting general counsel filed against Boeing last April, which accused the company of building an assembly line in North Charleston, S.C., as a form of retaliation against unionized Boeing employees in Washington State who had engaged in five strikes since 1977, including a 58-day-walkout in 2008. The National Labor Relations Act prohibits companies from taking any actions, whether firing employees or relocating a factory, against workers for exercising federally protected rights that include forming a union or going on strike.

Yea	TX-1	Gohmert, Louis [R]
Yea	TX-2	Poe, Ted [R]
Yea	TX-3	Johnson, Samuel [R]
Yea	TX-4	Hall, Ralph [R]
Yea	TX-5	Hensarling, Jeb [R]
Yea	TX-6	Barton, Joe [R]
Yea	TX-7	Culberson, John [R]
Yea	TX-8	Brady, Kevin [R]
Nay	TX-9	Green, Al [D]
Yea	TX-10	McCaul, Michael [R]
Yea	TX-11	Conaway, K. [R]
Yea	TX-12	Granger, Kay [R]
Yea	TX-13	Thornberry, William [R]
Yea	TX-14	Paul, Ronald [R]
Nay	TX-15	Hinojosa, Rubén [D]
Nay	TX-16	Reyes, Silvestre [D]
Yea	TX-17	Flores, Bill [R]
Nay	TX-18	Jackson-Lee, Sheila [D]
Yea	TX-19	Neugebauer, Randy [R]
Nay	TX-20	Gonzalez, Charles [D]
Yea	TX-21	Smith, Lamar [R]
Yea	TX-22	Olson, Pete [R]
Yea	TX-23	Canseco, Francisco [R]
Yea	TX-24	Marchant, Kenny [R]
Nay	TX-25	Doggett, Lloyd [D]
Yea	TX-26	Burgess, Michael [R]
Yea	TX-27	Farenthold, Blake [R]
Yea	TX-28	Cuellar, Henry [D]
Nay	TX-29	Green, Raymond [D]
Nay	TX-30	Johnson, Eddie [D]
Yea	TX-31	Carter, John [R]
Yea	TX-32	Sessions, Peter [R]

Weird Prius commercial

I know commercials are meant to get our attention and I guess I fell for this particular one. Actually, I had to take a couple of looks just to see what it was that I was actually seeing. Yep, it turns out it's a bunch of contortionists essentially creating a job market for themselves and fellow contortionists. Are you listening Jim Carrey?

Social Justice Poet Martin Espada featured at Laredo Public Library

Poet & essayist Martin Espada will be at the Laredo Public Library's Multi-Purpose room on Thursday, September 15th at 6:30pm.  He is currently a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Espada is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and also has a J.D. from Northeastern University in Boston. Before becoming a published poet, Espada worked many years as a tenant lawyer and a supervisor of a legal services program.

From The Poetry Foundation's website:

Poet, essayist, translator, editor, and attorney: Martín Espada has dedicated much of his career to the pursuit of social justice, including fighting for Latino rights and reclaiming the historical record. Espada’s critically acclaimed collections of poetry celebrate—and lament—the immigrant and working class experience.

Whether narrating the struggles of Puerto Ricans and Chicanos as they adjust to life in the United States, or chronicling the battles Central and South American Latinos have waged against their own repressive governments, Espada has put "otherness," powerlessness, and poverty, into poetry that is at once moving and exquisitely imagistic".

Excell approached LDF, not the other way around

Well, it looks like the truth about the expansion of Excell distributing in Laredo was a process actually initiated by the company itself. It's still good to hear that more jobs (with benefits) are coming to the Gateway city. However, it looks like the ones who went knocking on doors were the Excell people, and not anyone from the city or county as we had been lead to believe (mislead). Still, congratulations to the Mayor, County, City manager and anyone else who is moving ahead to bring these much-needed "jales" to Laredo.

ANGA: America's Natural Gas Alliance's exercise in deception

Their side of the story

Actual fracking pit in South Texas

ANGA, or America's Natural Gas Aliance loves to use a lot of blues and greens in advertising their supposedly "Clean Energy" source, natural gas. However, the truth is that fracking for natural gas is one of the dirtiest drilling processes around. It comes full of dangerous chemicals, toxic cocktails of black sludge, cancer-causing fumes and other assorted dangers to our area's health and the environment.  Nice try ANGA.

How The American Jobs Act would impact Texas

I was reading up on Obama's proposed American Jobs Act. More specifically, I was wondering how it would affect The Lone Star State if it were to pass in it's current form. Here's some of the findings:

• Highways- Texas will receive $2,332,100,000 in funding to support as many as 30,300 jobs.

• Firefighters,Police & Teachers -While supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, and will provide $2,565,500,000 in funds to Texas to support up to 39,500 educator and first responder jobs.

• Building schools - Texas would stand to get about $2,300,000 and create approximately 30,000 jobs.

 Construction workers- Rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses, Texas could receive about $114,100,000 to revitalize and refurbish local communities, in addition to funds that would be available through a competitive application. 
  
• Community Colleges-  Investment in modernizing community colleges fills a key resource gap, and ensures these local, bedrock education institutions have the facilities and equipment to address current workforce demands in today’s highly technical and growing fields. Texas could receive $458,400,000 in funding in the next fiscal year for its community colleges.