Leave it to Fox News to bring to appeal to its racists viewers by combining the idea of impeaching Obama with the issue of immigration. The racist dog whistle was blown loud and clear this past week on Fox News after President Obama announced that only those immigrants awaiting hearings who are found to have some sort of criminal records would be deported.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
La Canicula ends this week
I don't know just how official any of this is but I've heard that the dreaded Canicula (dog days) lasts from July 14th to August 24th. This means that this coming Wednesday should be the last day of the 40 day period recongnized as the hottest time of the year.
I have noticed that a few times in years past, we've gotten some sort of change in the prevailing weather pattern around the time the Canicula ends. This might be in the form of a shower, thunderstorm or some other noticeable change. This definitely would be something most of us would welcome especially since school is starting up again. Although we normally still get a lot of hot days through September or even October, they are not as extreme and changes to the weather pattern start occurring a lot more often after the end of the dog days. I guess we'll see what Heatwave has to say about our record heat/drought this coming week.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
400 jobs expected at Edinburg's new call center: Munch Munch, Eat our lunch!
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| Tell me mayor, Why is Edingburg eating our lunch so bad? |
From the McAllen Monitor
EDINBURG — Tony Pecina of McAllen had to drive every day to Harlingen to her call center job there. When she heard that MAXIMUS customer contact center was coming to Edinburg, she immediately looked into applying.
Pecina will bring her experience as a trainer to the company opened its doors Monday to 120 employees who are begining their training. MAXIMUS plans to hire up to 400 people by next year.
The center, located in the Renaissance Industrial Park, will begin operations Sept. 6, assisting residents seeking Texas Health and Human Services Commission aid, such as Medicaid, SNAP food benefits and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
The leased building had to be adapted in record time to house MAXIMUS employees. We ran out of space in our other facilities but there is an increasing demand for service,” said Leslie Wolfe, MAXIMUS’s health services president. “In fact, without the demand we wouldn’t be meeting demands and serving the needy families of Texas.”
Edinburg was chosen in part because of the number of bilingual locals who could work the phones, Wolfe said. “They are barely bilingual in Austin and you cannot go to Reynosa because they do not speak English there,” said state Rep. Aaron Peña, R-Edinburg, who was recognized as making these new jobs possible.
LISD raises pay: Amaya "We'll worry about it next year"
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| Politics in the air |
It looks like politics won out over common sense. Laredo Independent School District superintendent Marcus Nelson had long since recommended that salaries not be raised this year so that layoffs may be avoided next year. Nonetheless, the air of politics must already be in the air since the board of trustees voted to give teachers a raise afterall.
Some trustees even spoke out against the raises only to turn around and vote for them. Hopefully, no teachers or other employees will be laid off next year as a result of being paid $300 more this coming year. That would be a pretty hard deal: get 300 bucks now, lose yer job later.
Nick Georgieu of LMT reported in part:
LISD Superintendent A. Marcus Nelson kicked off the employee salary discussion by saying administration’s recommendation was to freeze salaries.
He recommended the freeze because of the $23 million in state revenue that LISD will lose during the next two school years compared to current funding levels.
LISD will need to shave about $7 million to $9 million from the 2013 fiscal year budget.
Trustees acknowledged the tough financial times. LISD board President George M. Beckelhymer said a salary freeze is an “intelligent, responsible” decision.
And trustee Jose A. Perez said the pay raises could “haunt” the district in the future.
But both said they want to support the employees and show a spirit of unity.
The rest of the board agreed and a couple of trustees said they supported giving higher pay raises than the ones approved Thursday.
“I feel that the backbone is the teachers and the employees of LISD,” trustee John Amaya said.
“They deserve to be given a raise this year. We’ll worry about it next year.”
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
City cowers to Fracking bully
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| Fracking Industry: "Don't talk to me about safety, I'll do as I please!" |
The following letter appeared in today's Laredo Morning Times. It compares Laredo's bend-over-backwards relationship with the fracking industry to a bullied kid. You can read the entire letter at by clicking on the link below. It was submitted by Ms. Virginia Palacios who's with the Safe Fracking Coalition.
To the editor:
You know that kid in school who hangs out with his popular “best friend” who’s always mean to him?
His parents tell him, and everyone knows, that the popular kid really isn’t his friend.
But he continues to hang out with the bully because he likes being with the “in” crowd.
When it comes to the oil-and-gas boom, Laredo is like that bullied kid.
The kid wants to have more friends, and we want to have more jobs.
But does he have to lose his dignity, or we our environmental health, just to be “popular”?
Illegal waste handling from “fracking” is happening here: dumping in creeks, disposal in unlined pits, and spills on city streets.
We don’t have to get pushed around just so we can have jobs.
We have leverage — fossil fuels are scarce, and we were geologically gifted with an abundance of them.
Read more at: http://www.lmtonline.com/articles/2011/08/17/opinion/letters/doc4e4b6dc84bba8843242432.txt
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