The Brownsville Beacon

By Diego Garcia III  ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon I am not a fan of Elon Musk, SpaceX, or any of his exploding trashcans, flying grain silos, or any of the shenanigans he has going on out at Boca Chica Beach (I refuse to call the beach or the area he's trying to colonize after his Spacely Sprockets' name). I hope I'm 100% wrong. I hope he delivers everything he has promised to Brownsville, Cameron County, the rest of the Rio Grande Valley, and South Texas. I hope he brings Brownsville all the economic development and tourist dollars he promised.  So far, he has failed to deliver on all his lofty promises — except for one brief moment when Musk and SpaceX helped the local restaurateurs stay afloat during the pandemic. In an article written by Steve Clark and published in The Brownsville Herald , SpaceX supported local restaurants like Maiz, Mr. Taco, Main Street Deli, New York Deli, and Whataburger. The owner of Maiz stated the orders started out at 100 plates and ende...

  By Diego Garcia III  ★  Editor of The Brownsville Beacon William Randolph Hearst was an American businessman and publisher who was the first person to establish the largest chain of newspapers across the country. His media company was known as Hearst Communications. At the height of his power, his newspapers reached over one million readers a day and covered over 30 major American cities. In order to capture as many readers as possible, Hearst relied on sensational headlines and stories telling of sex, violence, and corruption rather than objective, unbiased facts. This type of journalism is widely known as Yellow Journalism.  The most infamous of William Randolph Hearst stories revolves around the Spanish-American War, or the time period leading up to the Spanish-American War. Hearst sent artist Frederic Remington to Cuba to capture images of the conflict between Spain and the United States in 1897. Remington sent Hearst a cable saying there wasn't going to be a w...

By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon She is known as the greatest American gymnast of all time. The GOAT. She won four olympic gold medals and a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Her world championship resume includes 19 gold medals, three silver medals, and two bronze medals. Add the Pacific Rim Championships and the World Cup, and her medal count swells to 27, five, and four. Her skills are unquestionable. She has moves gymnasts perform in her routine named after her. She is an inspiration to young women around the world. Aspiring gymnasts hit the mat in gyms everywhere trying to emulate Biles' routine. In addition to her unbelievable and superhero-like athletic ability, she is also an advocate for change in the world that is USA Gymnastics. The sexual abuse scandal which left the sport's governing body with a huge black eye, and former diagraced team doctor Larry Nasser incarcerated. Biles came forward and said she was one of the gymnas...

By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon Todays choices in television and visual media are greater and more bountiful than the original "golden age" of television ever had. The first golden age of television existed in the United States from the late 1940's through to the 1950's. During that time, you needed a large antenna to capture over-the-air stations broadcast across the nation. Your "rabbit ears" would pick up broadcasts from the Columbia Broadcasting System, the American Broadcasting Company, or the National Broadcasting Company. These companies first got their start in radio. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA), started the National Broadcast Company in 1926. Radio grew so rapidly that NBC split into two broadcasting companies. One would eventually be sold off and renamed the American Broadcast Company. The Columbia Record Company invested in a radio network that would eventually be named CBS. After televisions were inv...

By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon Another Republican has emerged as a candidate for the Texas 34th Congressional District. At least, his initial platform sounds like he'd be a Republican or a neo-Republican. Philip Sotelo has announced, via a Facebook page post, he is seeking election to the United States House of Representatives. He is seeking to fill the seat Democrat Filemon Vela will be vacating after his current term expires. Sotelo's appears to have been, and continues to be, a public servant. According to his Facebook post, he was a law enforcement official for 17 years before a visual disability caused him to leave the profession. He helps former law enforcement officers who have had to leave the job due to an abrupt disability. He also runs a charity that helps provide assistive technology to the visually impaired. I can only assume he's running as a Republican despite his campain graphic not displaying anything stating he's a R...

By Diego Garcia III  ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon Veruca Salt was the selfish brat who wanted everything she saw when she toured Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Her father spoiled her rotten and broke his back to please her at every turn. When she didn't get her way, she threw a fit and squealed at her father saying, "But Daddy I WANT IT NOW!" She even broke into song with those exact same lyrics. Like the petulant child from the classic Gene Wilder film, Elon Musk seems to be doing his best Veruca Salt impersonation. Musk has done anything and everything in his power to carve out his own private city out at Boca Chica Beach. City, county, and state leaders gave him millions of dollars in tax breaks to build his launch facility among the wetlands surrounding Brazos Island State Park and Boca Chica Beach. Those same civic leaders turned a blind eye as Musk pushed out the majority of residents who lived in a quiet, sleepy beachside community after proising they w...

 By Diego Garcia III  ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon Driving southbound down Paredes Line Road past Price, you'll see the Brandywyne Apartments followed by a resaca . You'll then see Brownsville Rehabilitation Services. After that, you'll see a white building with lots of windows surrounded by a few scraggly trees and a Texas Historical Marker.  The unorthodox looking single-family house  has stood on the 500 block of Paredes Line Road since 1937. The house has been in Brownsville longer than the Charro Days festival has. Architectural historians recognize the house as one of Texas' first houses made in the Modern style.  The house was designed by Richard Joseph Neutra, a Viennese architect who lived in the early 20th century. Neutra mostly designed houses and other structures in California. The house on Paredes is the only known example of a Neutra house in the entire state. Neutra fought for the Austro-Hungarian Empire in The Great War. He studied architec...

By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon Democrat Filemon Vela will not seek reelection to his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Vela currently represents the Texas 34th Congressional District in Washington. The Vela family has served the country, Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, and Brownsville faithfully for years. Filemon's mother served as Brownsville's mayor and his father was a federal judge. Vela's firebrand style will be missed in our nation's capital. One local Brownsville civil rights lawyer has decided to enter the fray and wants to take over in Congress after Vela leaves office. The Brownsville Herald recently published an article (written by a McAllen Monitor reporter) with Rochelle Garza's announcement of her intention to seek election to the House. Garza also took to Twitter to announce her candidacy. Garza Tweeted: "No matter what they say, South Texas isn't about building walls or pitting people against ea...

By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon The United States' political machine is a two-party system. State legislatures across the country are filled with either Republicans or Democrats, with a few third party candidates sprinkled in there for good measure. The American electoral process is complex and multi-faceted. The complexities multiply when electing the President of the United States.  I am a firm believer in abolishing the archaic electoral college. If the president was elected by the popular vote rather than the electoral vote, the list of American presidents would look very, very different. However, that's a conversation for another time. Before the votes were finalized, President Trump was promoting the idea of massive nationwide election fraud. He said if he lost the election, he would not concede and he was certain the election was rigged.  As a result, the mainstream media dubbed the president's theory "The Big Lie." Ironic...

By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon The American flag is probably the most recognizable national symbol on the planet. Recently, it has been under attack from the members of the "cancel culture" who would like to see the flag replaced. There are those who have politicized the American flag. Some argue white supremacists have replaced their swastika-clad banners and Army of North Virginia's battle flag (the Confederate flag) with the American flag, while others connect the flag as siding with the Neo-Republicans and supporting former President Trump's "reinstallation" — as if that was a real thing. Just because certain groups of people carry around the American flag doesn't mean everyone who flies the flag subscribers to their beliefs. Put another way: Just because you believe something in your head and in your world doesn't make it true. Your perception is not necessarily reality, no matter how much you'd like it t...

By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon Brownsville's city government is called a "weak-mayor," council-manager government. That isn't an insult to Mayor Trey Mendez. I am not calling him weak. The "weak-mayor" form of government means the mayor and city commissioners hire a city manager to run the day to day operations of the city. The city manager is usually referred to as the city's Chief Executive Officer or the Chief Administrative Officer.  Each city is different, and each city has its own charter, but according to some quick online research, some of the city manager's duties and responsibilities include supervising the daily operations of the city and its various departments, acting as the executive of human resources, overseeing and crafting the budget, advising the city commissioners on the city's operations, acting as the head of public relations, and attending all the city commission meetings and briefing the commissione...

By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon The local bloggers have proved once again The Brownsville Herald is Brownsville's no more. I have written about this in the past, but it is something that hasn't been remedied ever  since the printing presses at the abandoned Herald offices across the street from the old Cameron County Jail on the edge of historic downtown fell silent and were sold to a newspaper in Matamoros. The staff at the Herald was slashed and burned. A mere skeleton crew of quasi-editors and almost-reporters occupy the old Edelstein Furniture warehouse now known as the VentureX building. The building casts a shadow on the Oyster Bar and The Vermillion at the intersection of Boca Chica and the frontage road. The Big Three: El Rrun Rrun's Juan Montoya, The McHale Report's Jerry McHale, and The Brownsville Observer's Jim Barton are reporting about the turmoil in the Cameron County Sheriff's Department, the current budget issues with...

By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon To quote one of my favorites songs by the Airborne Toxic Event, it happened some time around midnight.  Brownsvillians thought they had been spared as Thursday was relatively dry after rain poured down earlier in the week. Mother Nature, however, seems to have a sense of humor. Consulting with God, and after hearing all those prayers for rain, the powers-that-be who watch over Earth unleashed a whole lot of thunder, lightning, and rain on our fair city in the early hours of Friday morning. In classic Brownsville fashion, the streets flooded. Most of them were streets we're used to hearing flood — Boca Chica, Palm Boulevard, Central Boulevard near the dip by the hospital, some parts of Southmost, Ringgold by the zoo, Barnard by the duck resaca, and, of course, the majority of the arteries criss-crossing Downtown. But this time, streets that normally didn't flood were flooding. Newer residential areas across North...

By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon Today's Republicans are not the Republicans of the Reagan and Bush era. Today's Republicans are not the Republicans of the McCain and Romney era. The Republicans of the Trump-era have mutated the party into a new Republican party — a party I have come to call the Neo-Republican party.  The mutation began before Trump was elected president, I'll grant you that. In the early part of the last decade, the traditional Republicans began losing primaries and replaced by members of a branch of the Republican party called the Tea Party. Sensible Republicans; moderate Republicans who had worked with their Democratic counterparts for years were being labeled as oit of touch and obsolete. They were loyal to the party, they believed in the tenets of the Republican party, and they introduced and passed legislation they believed would further the Republican party and their supporters. They would slowly and steadily be rep...