CONSIDER THIS: The 2013 Christmas Scrooges List

By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com

Michael Rodriguez

Michael Rodriguez

DISCLAIMER: It takes a special kind of human being to make this annual list, and I assure you that I take no pride (well, maybe a little) in compiling it. So if the shoe fits after reading this piece, do me a solid and just think of this very necessary process as an exorcising of the community’s demons, except in this case the men and women I have deemed the 2013 Christmas Scrooges may not even be from San Benito. On that note, I suggest you kick back and enjoy the fireworks.

Have you visited valleycentral.com recently?

The Action 4 News website is popular, no doubt, and I freely admit to using their app on my mobile devices. But while there are some great folks who do good work over at Channel 4, a number of people who comment on their website are not so great… or even good. In fact, I’d say they’re downright bad.

For some time now, commenters on valleycentral.com have targeted San Benito for ridicule, even within stories that have absolutely nothing to do with the Resaca City.

So who are these people?

Well, the usual suspects, many of whom display racist tendencies, often include folks who refer to San Benito as a “cesspool” of crime, iniquity and social deviancy. They’ve even gone as far as to criticize San Benito residents who perished under tragic circumstances, either for their own personal amusement or to incite a flame war (an angry exchange in dialogue that serves no purpose other than to bastardize either the original post in which the comments are located or, in this case, the entire city).

Inflammatory comments are not all that render their opinions inconsequential; their use of pseudo-intellectualism in a transparent attempt to appear relevant in their rants and their implications that San Benito is a town full of cowardly and uneducated people (yet they make such observations behind an alias and within comments that are rife with errors) are also indicative of their worthlessness.

Granted, their antics have earned them a certain measure of attention, albeit rather infamous. After all, am I not dedicating this year’s Christmas Scrooges column to these people? I suppose we could simply ignore their foolishness and dismiss them as internet trolls hellbent on satisfying their carnal lust for misery, but sometimes a fool needs to be called a fool.

These fools are no exception.

On another note, you may be wondering who exactly I’m referring to, and don’t try to deny it. Consider that I did think about taking this column a step further, as I have done in the past, by publishing the names of some of these individuals, but there would be no use since they probably hide behind Facebook pseudonyms.

When taking these valleycentral.com commenters into consideration, the truth is revealed that San Benito is nothing like what these people describe, especially since many of them are not even who they say they are.

For your information: San Benito is Janet Mata, the 21-year-old terminally ill but resilient citizen who continues to live beyond doctors’ expectations. San Benito is its high school varsity baseball team, which adopted a family struggling to make ends meet in hopes of making their Christmas a little brighter. San Benito is the local school district’s central office staff, which is comprised of employees who annually donate money from out of their pockets to the custodians. San Benito is the local municipality, which opens its doors to the public the week before Christmas and feeds all who enter.

In short, San Benito is benevolence as much as it is culture and music. San Benito is passion as much as it is rich in history and gorgeous in its natural amenities. Sure, we have our issues from time to time, but no more than the rest of the Valley.

Anyone who argues otherwise either doesn’t live here or doesn’t get it.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.sbnewspaper.com/2013/12/20/consider-this-the-2013-christmas-scrooges-list/

1 comment

    • Milo Esquivel on December 21, 2013 at 12:45 pm
    • Reply

    Like all cities we have our bad apples and sometimes those bad apples leave such a bad impression on others that it is easy for others to label us all. It’s just like when you put a single dot on a blank white paper. You look at the paper but all you notice and remember is that one dot. San Benito is full of kind hearted people that only wish to do good not just for them but the whole community. You have people like Noe Zavala who took it upon himself to try and raise money for the family who lost their daughter for example. It is a tight community willing to help each other during times in need or disaster. San Benito may not be the Country’s prime example of a perfect city but it is way better than most cities. The Resaca flows strong through our city and in our hearts and I for one and proud to be a native of San Benito The Resaca city. As people from there say Que Bonito San Benito. Let them “hate” we will continue on as we have. A very proud city. Go Hounds.

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