By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ | Editor of The Avenger
BROWNSVILLE, Texas – First off, I like Brownsville. Yeah, I like it as much as I liked Palm Beach when I was in Florida, as much as I liked Quincy, Massachusetts when I lived there while writing for The Boston Globe. This stuff about The Avenger being an outsider and not one to write about Brownsville is the absurdity of the century. We write about everywhere we go and live. That’s established.
But it would behoove this oft-whipped city to demand more of its lousy bloggers. Brownsville, with a pack of local bloggers out to improve things around here would see quick change, is our feeling. But not when we go all-insular and believe that only locals can criticize. Yes, it’s not a good thing when people come here and find so much of societal life wanting. It has to be crushing and disheartening for the citizenry to be shown perhaps a better way of living, of governing.
Bloggers need to protect the little slices of turf they want to claim. Yet, they never have moved the dial from bad to good. Brownsville remains at the mercy of its bureaucrats and elected officials, most of them damned by the Bloggers pretty much on a routine basis. We were glad to see Blogger Robert Wightman-Cervantes finally write that blogging here is not the place for progressive thinking or even for critical discussion of the many, many issues holding the city down. No other blogger has come close to posting what Wightman posted.
Still, 2017 is but days away, so maybe a bit of reflection from the city’s blogging collective will re-draw the map to include “progress” on the drawing board. It won’t come from the city’s worst blogger, Jimmy Barton, but Juan Montoya and Wightman could lead the charge for a better community. Fourth blogger Jerry McHale is on his way out. He has plans for living out the string in Portugal. We have asked him to write several columns for us about his experience in Brownsville.
A beginning could come when the bloggers stop taking sides in political contests and on socio-political issues. You can’t jump on the city for its lack of bus benches when bus ridership is simply not there. And to “glorify” selected members of the community, such as TSC trustees Tony Zavaleta and Juan Mendez, does little good when the bloggers know that Texas Southmost College is fighting for its economic life.
Brownsville can’s speak for itself, cannot defend itself against woeful news reporting. If it could, it would do right to demand better information. To merely post the correspondence of former Mayor Pat Ahumada on the quirky Tenaska deal helps no one. Educate yourself and put things in meaningful perspective.
Think about doing what’s right for all, for once…
The New Year is almost here. Make it a resolution to do better…
.*.
The Brownsville Avenger 