THE M&M WARS: GOWEN VS. LONGORIA OVER POGO BAIT

By Juan Montoya

Someone finally had to stand up to Zumba Queen Rose Gowen on the Brownsville City Commission.The surprising thing is that the hero of the M&M crowd was none other than Rick (I never met an accordion I didn't like) Longoria.

Apparently, the duo has been at odds regarding the availability of Pogo bait (candy) sold in vending machines in city facilities. Gowen, whose healthy initiatives include rewriting the Guinness Book of World Records with the largest group of Zumba dancers, establishing a Farmers Market (what, we have farmers?), prohibiting plastic bags at local stores (a pain in the butt), and – speaking of butts – encouraging the picking up of cast off cigarette butts by smokers off city sidewalks.

To say she's an annoying woman is an understatement. But to touch the sacrosanct vending machines that offer the average, obese, city worker a moment of sugar and fat was the limit for Rick.

"What right do you have to prevent me from eating M&Ms if I want to," candy lover Longoria was overheard telling Gowen. "I should have the right (God-given, we might add) to buy M&Ms if I want to."

You go, boy.

Now, some city workers say that Gowen's real target is actually the local residents' love affair with delicious manteca. You know, the stuff that gives tamales their flavor, flour tortillas their succulence and clogs your aorta just thinking about pork carnitas swimming in the boiling stuff. The assault on M&Ms was just a dry run, they say.

But you have to draw the line somewhere and Longoria, to his credit, reached his limit defending the symbol of individual rights: M&Ms.

Is this a great country or what?