Category: Uncategorized

  • Ramsey Muniz: They Forgot about the Heart

    Dear Friends:

    The enclosed letter from Ramsey Muniz describes his
    spiritual and loving disposition in spite of his
    suffering. The institution was released from lock down
    on Tuesday. Please distribute.–Irma L. Muniz


    5/24/06

    Mi Corazon,

    Yes, I’m back in the jungle of humanity of this
    United States. I have been here only one week and I’m
    locked down with the entire institution. I can only say
    that it wasn’t as bad as one week in Oklahoma. Be that
    as it may, I continue to ponder on one issue at this time, and that is having me transferred to a Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Texas.
    I have been 12 ½ years in this country’s hardest penitentiaries and that is enough for any Mexicano in my position who doesn’t have a violent background, is not a member of any gang or group, and has not had an “incident report” in 12 ½ years of confinement. This in and of itself is cruel and unusual punishment. I can barely walk across the entire prison compound with my cane and yet I see all these younger convicts exercising as if getting ready for war anytime.

    Why? Why is it that they don’t want for me to be close
    to my family and friends in Texas? Even those in this prison cannot understand what I’m doing here in this high security penitentiary.

    As I was sitting on a bench by myself praying to the
    Creator, I heard the sound of a gunshot and instructions to hit the ground, face down, on the gravel. Inside this institution there is no grass, no trees, all gravel, concrete and bars – the future of tomorrow to control your mind.

    Guess what. They forgot about this heart – this heart
    that is full of love and nothing destroys love. It doesn’t
    matter if there is a desert, no trees, only chains and shackles.

    This Mexicano love overcomes all. This love from this Mexicano will one day free all our people. One can be old and think young, others can be young and think old. After God gave me life once again he took my heart and mind and said unto me, “Tez, you shall
    once more think, feel, love, and lead young once again.” And when He said that unto my life, you were there standing next to me with tears pouring, holding my hand and saying, “Oh Ramsey, please get
    well, for I love you so much.” This is the power that embraces me this very minute even in this lock down tonight. I can feel you tonight, I can feel your corazon in my hands. Oh Irma, oh my Citlalmina, I love you, I adore you, I admire your strength.

    We must continue with the faith and courage we have in our hearts. I know at times we feel all the odds are against us, but without sacrifice and sorrow, freedom has never come about, and I know that because of our suffering and sacrificing, many others will never feel the pain. Imagine how Christ felt the days before His
    execution – the nights before knowing that He was going to die for the sins and freedom of all humanity. And how weak some people are about everything in life. No discipline, no faith, no courage, and no love. I pray for them constantly.

    Amor,
    Tez

    “Thus I love you, love.
    Love, thus I love you.
    thus as your hair
    lifts up and as
    your mouth smiles,
    light as water
    from the spring upon the pure stones,
    thus I love you, beloved…

    Tezcatlipoca
    http://www.freeramsey.com

  • KXAN: Austin SWAT Team Intervenes in Smuggling Bust

    KXAN-TV has the best available coverage of yesterday’s arrests involving an alleged smuggling operation:

    http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5082228

  • New School Funding Lawsuit Coming

    Jenny LaCoste-Caputo of the San Antonio Express-News breaks word that the lawyer who filed the last school-funding lawsuit in Texas is preparing a new one.

    “David Thompson, former general counsel for the Texas Education Agency and attorney for West Orange-Cove ISD, whose lawsuit was the subject of the Supreme Court ruling, said a second lawsuit claiming the new business tax amounts to a personal income tax, is imminent.”
    LaCoste-Caputo reports this little gem in the middle of a story about San Antonio area school superintendents who are finding that the so-called funding solution passed by the lege this year doesn’t do much besides solve the state’s need to comply technically with the last lawsuit filed by Thompson.

    “That’s a real concern, not just immediately but in the long term,” said one super. “We’ve gone so long without any additional revenue for maintenance and operations. We’ve cut and cut and cut some more; meanwhile our fuel costs, our utility costs, everything is going up every year.”

    “Lawmakers passed this with no real understanding of what these new taxes would generate,” said another super. “There are a lot of traps in this law.”

    Which is why we spend so little time on legislative shenanigans when it comes to school funding. The main purpose of the last session seemed intent to produce lying headlines, with bad faith so heavy as to crush all scales of measurement.

    Here’s what Thompson told the Dallas Morning News in May:

    “David Thompson, a lead attorney for school districts in the lawsuit that resulted in the Supreme Court’s ruling, said that the plan will definitely require monitoring on issues of adequacy and equity. Still, he said, the Legislature has ‘done something that is very significant, and I personally applaud them.’ “

  • Congressional Leadership Slows Immigration Reform

    Let’s All Declare Victory and Drop It?

    “WASHINGTON, June 20 — In a decision that puts an overhaul of immigration laws in serious doubt, House Republican leaders said Tuesday that they would hold summer hearings around the nation on the politically volatile subject before trying to compromise with the Senate on a chief domestic priority of President Bush.”

    Can it be true that the issue has been turned down to a simmer until after the elections? The scorpion promises not to sting?