Thursday, May 04, 2006

What I missed

I was out of commission yesterday. Whatever ailment it was, I slept through most of Wednesday, roughly 32 hours. Today, I'm still a little spaced out. I was just over at SpinRGV.com and saw some new headlines by fellow bloggers. I'm a bit like Rip Van Winkle right now, so I'll go over headlines.

A Capitol Blog
Lacking a Two-Thirds Approval The Senate Presently Unable to Consider HB 3.
Senate Passes HB 3 and Sends Bill to Governor
Problem arises, problem solved.

There is a new blog in town, another Edinburg blog. It is the Edinburg Committee of Concerned Citizens. This blog, so far, appears to be the opposite of Edinburg News. From the first entries, the new blog appears to be anti-Joe Ochoa for Mayor. On the other side, Edinburg News is worried about being censored.

Edinburg News takes a pot-shot at Rep. Aaron Peña.

In another blog I compared Edinburg Politics to the opposite of Edinburg News, which isn't true. Edinburg Politics does put politicians in his/her crosshairs, but seems to be looking out for the general welfare of the City of Edinburg, and being the county seat, the welfare of Hidalgo County. Earn My Vote does research stories and provides links to the facts. The general idea I get from Edinburg Politics is that the author wants what is best for the City of Edinburg and Hidalgo County. RGV Life seeks what is best for the Rio Grande Valley, so we have common interests. There are some benefits that Edinburg Politics enjoys from writing anonymously that I can't do as an out in the open blogger, things that would bring death threats if I did them.

That brings me to a point that I've been realizing since I started looking into the way things work in RGV politics. It seems like the current struggle, and the reason why there have been so many corrupt officials nabbed, is that there is a struggle between the old guard and a new group of people who seek to make the RGV a better place. The old guard is trying to keep and move things the way they used to be with compadreism, off the books deals, and general exploitation of their positions. The new group coming into their season are making inroads. As they win more and more elections, you will see that they will expose more and more unethical and even corrupt actions by the old politicians. As the RGV grows, we are beginning to see an increase of truly professional public servants rather than people who do it as a money maker.

Going back to headlines, Earn my Vote has two more stories exposing a screwup and more from members of the old guard:
"Hot Checks" Mercado
Liars, Theives, and Cheats... Oh My!. Green Junkbox chimes in on this one.

RGV Politics addresses the Mexican Government's decision to decriminalize drugs for personal use.

South Texican's Octavio summarizes his thoughts on the state of valley politics. It's fresh to read somebody who is against school bonds. I see Octavio's reasoning. A sudden influx of cash can lead to more possiblities for corruption within our school districts. On the other hand, the districts seem to think that they need the money to keep up with growth. What happens if the bond issues are shot down? What will the districts have to do? So far, I've not seen a school district shut down because they did not have a bond issue passed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shaine, we appreciate your balance and sense of fairness in these difficult times. It seems that the world has gone crazy as elections come near. Thank you for your posts.

Anonymous said...

Shaine, I like your blog. It's an informative introspect into your life in the RGV. But please don't go brown-nosing Earn.

He vilely criticized you for comparing his blog to that of Edinburg News. You're right on the money with that comparison because what Earn does and what Edinburg news does is to attack their opposition. Albeit Earn does it with more professionalism, but don't get fooled by his "research" and his "links" to sources as being separate from Edinburg News. It's all the same, Shaine.

Earn slams Ochoa and his cabal, while Edinburg News slams Mayor Garcia and his association to First National Bank and the Palacios family. What's the difference? There is none between both blogs. They are set out to discredit, slander, smear the opposition. But then again, that's Valley politics for you.

Writer said...

Thanks for the compliments. I appreciate it.

Earn and I are having fun, don't read too much into it. I'm not bothered by Earn at all and not brown-nosing. We're just having a little fun. Sometimes blogging gets too serious.

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