"Green Limes"

Five years ago, retired Houston lawyer Joe Ray Blalack read an article in the San Antonio Express-News about Spanish-language radio station KROM's segment in which readers phone in Border Patrol sightings from around the city.

They refer to the Border Patrol agents as limones verdes (green limes) because "They are green and they will sour your whole day," one station employee told the Express-News back in 2000.

Now, thanks to Blalack's whining, the station gets static from the FCC:

... Though he doesn't expect the FCC to pull the station's license, he's confident that it will issue a hefty fine, which should put other Spanish-language broadcasters on notice: There's nothing funny about meddling with the work of federal officers.

Wrong, mister. It's our God-given right as Americans to make fun of federal officers. Besides, the paper reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn't find any criminal wrongdoing by the station. And furthermore:

Mike Barón, who's in charge of the [Border Patrol} agency's San Antonio operation, said he has heard the reports plenty of times, concluding that they present more of a logistical nuisance than a strategic threat.

"It's just one of those things we just have to deal with," he said. "It hasn't impacted our work much. We've found ways to circumvent it — we'll just go up the road."

So lighten up, folks. We're getting too paranoid about "security matters." If we can't make light of the Border Patrol or any other federal agency, we're that much closer to a dictatorship.