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Parents accumulate their children's artwork the way receipts pile up in kitchen drawers. Both multiply without effort, serve no practical purpose after creation, and eventually become someone else's problem. The difference is nobody pretends CVS receipts represent profound emotional artifacts worthy of permanent archiving. Schools operate as assembly lines for disposable art projects. Elementary classrooms generate staggering quantities of construction paper turkeys, handprin

Meet the Rutherfords. Sarah. Jesse. Rebecca. Jeremy. Most families have wholesome holiday rituals involving cookies, carols, or matching pajamas. The Rutherford family awards a golden gift bag to whichever sibling their mother likes best that year, then watches everyone else spiral into competitive madness. Rebecca Rutherford has built a minor social media empire documenting this annual bloodsport. Her TikTok account chronicles years of sibling warfare, complete with face pai

I'm watching caravans of vehicles with Mexican plates stream across the road all morning long. The Rio Grande Valley's retail corridors look like Black Friday stretched across an entire month. Parking lots overflow. Cash registers sing. Store managers scramble to restock shelves emptied by Mexican nationals doing their Christmas shopping north of the border. Está hasta a la madre. Everywhere you turn, there are Mexican nationals standing in line to buy what American people ca

I was sitting at my desk preparing to write about Abraham Quintanilla's passing when a Facebook post wishing AB Quintanilla a happy birthday stopped me cold. The algorithmic irony felt almost intentional. Birthdays and death sometimes occupy the same day. Sometimes the universe decides that the anniversary of your arrival should also mark someone else's departure. My best friend died of cancer on her daughter's birthday. My daughter Valeria lost her father on her birthday. Li

When my body turned 50, my brain apparently missed the memo. Someone should have warned me that getting older means becoming a walking contradiction. The mirror insists I've accumulated five decades of existence while my internal monologue still sounds like I'm negotiating curfew with my parents. My knees creak when I stand up from the couch, but my sense of humor hasn't matured past freshman year dormitory banter. The math isn't mathing. Society operates under this bizarre a

Some of you have never known politics without the push notification. You wake up, grab your phone, and before your first sip of coffee, five strangers have explained “the end of democracy” in a 30‑second vertical video shot in their car. Around 70% of young people got info about the 2020 election through social media, and a lot of you weren’t just scrolling—you were posting, organizing, stitching, duetting, and dropping hot takes with yesterday’s eyeliner still on. TikTok, In

Parenting through self-awareness isn’t a trend or a technique. It’s a quiet revolution that starts in the smallest, most forgettable moments—the ones no one posts about, the ones your child’s nervous system remembers anyway. The greatest story ever told is not in a book or a film. It is a life unfolding in real time, written in muscle memory, and the quiet corners of the mind. It begins, long before language, as a series of impressions—tones, tensions, tiny shifts in the air—

A Tribute to Mr. Ricardo Abel Pérez If you were a Roma High School student in the 80s or 90s—or even if your footsteps touched campus decades later—you knew the voice. It wasn’t just heard. It rose. Above the brass of the Mighty Gladiator Band. Above the drumline’s thundering cadence. Above the roar of the stadium on a crisp Friday night. Warm. Booming. Steady. Unmistakable. “Interception by number 34… passing the 40… the 30-yard line… and he’s—touchdown, Roma Gladiators!” An

Welcome to Texas, where brisket is sacred, cattle are legendary, and state lawmakers have identified the gravest threat to civilization: watermelon-flavored hemp gummies. The legislature moved faster against peach rings than it ever has for failing schools or collapsing hospitals, treating candy-coated CBD like a national emergency. This is how politics works in 2025. A resident can legally stockpile enough firearms to outfit a small militia, but sell a hemp chew in a bag wit

The Rio Grande flows slow and brown past Roma and Rio Grande City, curling around Starr County like an ancient scar. On quiet nights, you can almost imagine the murmur of voices carried on the wind—men, women, and children whose lives were cut short not by war in foreign lands, but by racial terror at home. When people speak of lynching in America, their minds often leap to the Deep South—to Mississippi or Alabama, to Black men hanging from oak trees under the gaze of grinnin

Simple question: If the state can afford billion-dollar tax cuts for corporations, why can’t it afford to pay its fair share for our kids’ education? Simple question, demands a simple answer—you would think. Let’s talk taxes. Texas’ school finance system wasn’t built to last. The “Robin Hood” plan, born out of a Texas Supreme Court ruling in 1993, was a desperate bipartisan fix, not a visionary one. Lawmakers were under court order to end an unconstitutional gap between rich

Let’s get something straight, Starr County — nobody gives you power. You have to take it. For years, people have said South Texas is “changing.” They say Starr County “flipped red,” as if we suddenly decided that the politicians who’ve ignored us for decades finally earned our trust. But before anyone buys that story, let’s look at who’s really been running this state — and why we’re still fighting for the basics our families deserve. The county may have turned red, but the m

Case Closed - Trevino Brothers Learn Their Fate Three years after one of South Texas’s most polarizing killings, the Treviño brothers and their childhood friend Juan Eduardo Meléndez have finally learned their fate. The 2022 death of 42-year-old Gabriel Quintanilla wasn’t just another murder case for Hidalgo County—it was a reckoning. The man accused of molesting his 9-year-old stepdaughter died beaten and dumped in a McAllen field. His alleged abusers were his own stepsons.

Picture this: it’s November, election night. The TV flickers in the living room. Someone mutters, “There they go again, ruining the country.” The tacos are still warm, the cafecito is cooling, and everyone shakes their heads like it’s a bad novela we’ve seen too many times. But here’s the ugly truth, tío: a lot of this mess isn’t only the fault of corrupt politicians or greedy billionaires. It belongs to the millions of Americans—millions of Texans—who simply did not vote. Th

Growing up on the border meant two lives divided by a river that never stopped flowing. Being the daughter of a father from Laredo and a mother from Garciasville, the question when I got to college—where are you from—was always complicated. When I said Garciasville, the reaction was always in awe: no way, you have your own town?! My childhood was simple and beautiful, but describing life on the outskirts of a small city in a quiet county was difficult to explain to friends in

Kamala Harris has a new book, and it’s a tell-all about 107 days of campaign carnage. I haven’t read one word of it, and I don’t need to. I already know the ending. She was never going to win. Not in 2020. Not in 2024. Not in this country. Before someone says I'm a hater, let me remind you: the back window of my SUV still has a “We’re Not Going Back” sticker clinging to the glass like a badge of survival. Kamala is my girl. I love women in politics. I worship them, even when

It’s here. The game everyone’s been waiting for — Roma vs. Rio Grande City. Gladiators vs. Rattlers. Two towns. One border. One championship atmosphere. Down along the South Texas border, football isn’t just a pastime. It’s a season of life. When the Roma Gladiators square off against the Rio Grande City Rattlers, the entire community knows it isn’t just another game on the schedule. This is the game. The rivalry runs deep, fueled by history, geography, and pride between two

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The myth that women need dick is finally dying—and not a moment too soon. For decades, women were told that without sex, they were incomplete. That a woman without regular sex was either cranky or depressed. That if she went too long without it, she might shrivel up like a neglected houseplant. Turns out, she didn’t wither. She thrived. Listen, we're going to be blunt about sex. If your vagina takes communion, this is your one and only warning to scroll away. Onwards. Women d