KILLER BALLOONS? AND WAR,FAMINE, PESTILENCE AND DEATH?

By Juan Montoya
Expect Sharon S. Putegnat and her cadre of Healthy Communities of Brownsville sympathizers to be out in force at the next Hands Across the River celebration during Charro Days.
Putegnat, in her half-page editorial published in today's Brownsville Herald "Your Voices" section, railed against gaily colored inflatable balloons as one of the human creations  "lethal" to man and beast. She said that despite their colorful appearance, "balloons do not go to heaven...Up, Up, and Away...Not!!!"
That bunch is nursing their ulcers and insomnia brought on by such things as discarded cigarette butts (toxic and don't decompose), balloons, discarded gum (unsightly, and deadly to birds), and plastic bags and bottles (kill marine animals and don't decompose).
We all want to contribute to a better planet, we guess. But given the "traditional easterly trade winds," as the Chamber of Commerce Sunshine Boys used to say, unless we get a rare northern whatever balloons float away from the Hands Across the River are going to blow toward the west away from sea turtles and feral children. And next time you have a birthday party remember her words that "according to research, no child under age of 8 should be left unsupervised with a balloon."
And lest you decide to discard a piece of gum as you enter a building, she says those become unsightly dots on the pavement that an innocent bird could mistake for food and end up stuck to the sidewalk or worse, choke on the wad because, research has shown, birds have no teeth!
We've all gone through the trauma of the plastic bag ban at local grocery stores. Rather than buy a reusable bag every time you dart in the store to buy bread and milk (or if you're obese, flour tortillas and a Coke), you emerge with the stuff in your hands looking for your car because while fretting over carrying the stuff in your hands, you forget where you parked.
As far as the cigarette butts, that is a double-edged sword. Remember that the City of Brownsville passed an ordinance that prohibited smoking inside any establishment in the city. If you are in a bar and want to have a smoke, you must go outside at least 20 feet away from the entrance and engage in your filthy habit. If it happens to be a sidewalk with people passing by, they'll get a whiff of nicotine and countless carcinogens they otherwise would not have gotten if the ban was not in place.
And once you're done with your cigarette, what do you do with the butt?
When smoking in bars was legal, there was a handy ashtray that workers periodically emptied in an trash can that eventually ended up in a dumpster and in the city landfill. Most bars in town don't provide a can of sand 20 feet from their entrance, so the toxic and fauna-lethal butts end up constituting the equivalent of toxic IED's to animals wandering through the streets and alleys of the city. So for the sake of alley cats and stray dogs, carry a napkin where you can wrap you butts and gum and wait until you're next to a receptacle to discard them.
Ok. So plastics, balloons, gum and butts are next four horsemen of the apocalypse according to Ms. Putegnat. Her counterpart Rose Timmer is waging a crusade against soft drinks, candy and everything with any animal fat content. So far, the sacred cows of barbacoa de cabeza, carnitas, tamales, hot dogs and hamburgers, chamoyadas, raspas, and just about everything else that is fun and tasty. These guys would have railed against apple pie if they had been around when it became a slice of Americana.
I have a friend who says he agrees with Putegnat, Tony Martinez and even Rose Timmer about the problem with butts.
"I'm tired of Martinez, Putgeant and Timmer butting into my life and telling me what I can eat smoke or put into my body," he said. "If you ask me, they should just butt out of other people's lives."
Meanwhile, the population of Brownsville is suffering from illiteracy, cartel-related violence, high dropout rates, teen pregnancies, drug addictions, unemployment, judicial and official corruption, and entrenched economic class of elitists who think they are entitled to loot the public treasury.
But those are such small things compared to Killer Balloons, uh?