Another border shooting?
Rosa María Méndez Fierros reports the incident in el Universal (posted 16:41 27 January 2007). I haven’t seen anything on this on any of the wire services (in English or Spanish) or in the U.S. press. I went ahead and did a “quick n dirty” translation:
Border Patrol fires on vanload of immigrants
Three Mexican immigrants wounded after being fired upon by Border Patrol agents in the the Yuma, Arizona Sector. The Mexicans returned to Mexico, according to Mexicali Municipal Security Director, Javier Salas Espinoza.
The police chief said the incident happened Friday night in Los Algodones, Delegacion Mexicali (Baja Califonia). According to Salas, Border Patrol agents apparently shot at a group of 16 undocumented persons travelling in a 1980 Dodge Caravan after a chase.
“All reports to the Municipal Police agree that the Border Patrol Agents fired on the vehicle, which was entering Mexican territory,” Salas said.
Eduardo Zaragoza, 15, César Iturriaga, 27 and Alfredo Morales, 28 were taken by patrol car to the Los Algondones Health Center where they were treated for minor injuries caused by a shattered windshield.
According to employees at the border crossing station at Los Algodones, the minivan, carrying immigrants and two “polleros” was fired upon about 100 meters from the Mexican border.
The vehicle’s windows were hit by at least four bullets, Salas reported.
“The information we have is that the immigrants were returning in the van, when they were intercepted by Border Patrol agents and fired upon,” Salas commented.
The Senator, the trannies and Rev. Pat Roberson
Wow, any time I tag an article “travestis”, I get hits from … Brazil, Peru, Egypt – everywhere really. I don’t know why Mexican trannies are so popular around the world, but Mexican trannies apparently even outclass the Thais when it comes to the best of the best.
A name change would seem to be a small thing, but not in Mexico, where whatever name you’re born with is your name for life. Consider the saga of Senadora Yeidckol Polevnsky (the PRD used to call Carlos Salinas “the unmentionable”.. the PRI refers to her as “the unpronouncable”), who was nearly disqualified as a candidate when she ran for Governor of the State of Mexico on the PRD ticket, because of a name change. Power, politics, child-abuse all factored in something very rare .. a court recognizing a name change.
The background was sordid. The candidate and businesswoman had been continually raped as a child, and gave birth hershelf to two children. Worse the abuser was a family member, and the family was already covering up a second scandal. The future Yeidckol’s mother was the illegitimate daughter of Maximiliano Avilla Camacho (bagman and sleazy brother of the WWII era president, Manuel Avilla Camacho). Political considerations and protecting the family name, as much as protecting the daughter all played a part. The idea was simple… buy a birth certificate from somene who would keep their mouth shut. Unfortunately, there was no one with a name like Lopez or Garcia available, but there was a Polish immigrant whose daughter’s birth had been registered, shortly before the baby died. Citlali Ibáñez Camacho beame Yeidckol Malka Polevnsky Gurwitz.
When this came out during the gubenatorial campaign, the PRI (and PAN) made a stink about it… they couldn’t just stick to raising questions about her honesty (“how can a candidate who doesn’t know her own name… blah, blah, blah”), but went in for overkill and tried to have her disqualified. So, the thing ended up in court, and in this rare instance (after all, she was a minor at the time and couldn’t be held culpable for any criminal acts involved in the name change) the improbable Polish name was her “new” and legal name, and had been since she was in her early teens.
As Yeidckol Polevensky, she had become a chemical engineer, opened a successful plastics factory and become a “self-made millionaire”. Having been head of the National Chamber of Commerce, she wasn’t an obvious choice, but she was an excellent one, for the Socialist PRD candidate for state governor. She wasn’t expected to win, but the scandal gained her some backers she hadn’t counted on — single mothers, abused women and… transexuals.
Situations like the now Senadora’s are probably more common than we like to think, but few Mexicans can afford to change the name on their birth certificates. Not having the right documentation in Mexico is a problem — If José Lopéz becomes Josefína — she’s S.O.L. when it comes to voting, applying for social security, going to the university, or… hell… just about anything to do with the bureaucracy.
While trannies don’t have it easy, and there is discrimination (especially in rural areas), for complicated cultural reasons (best explained by Amaranta Gómez Regalado, “two-spirit” traditional Zapotec educator, social activist and political figure) transexuals are not rare in Mexico. And, as I wrote in my little guide to Mexico City:
Transvestites and Transgenders are – surprisingly – well accepted by Mexicans. A popular TV program (la Roña) features transvestite performers satirizing the prominent and pompous. In some indigenous communities, where women hold economic and political power, ambitious men adopt women’s clothing. While most “out” transvestites in Mexico City work as hairdressers (though I know a transvestite grocer and auto mechanic too), many are prostitutes. Friends tell me the pretty streetwalkers are usually boys.
As a foreigner with a passport (and the same gender that was on my birth certificate), I hadn’t considered the problems trannies faced. Unable to get a “real job” (every legitimate job requires you show your ID and school papers and every other damn certificate under the sun), it’s no wonder streetwalking is a common career choice. Even “proof of age” is only required if you join the streetwalker’s union.
So… it would seem there is a need for bills like that introduced by Polevensky’s PRD colleague, David Sanchez Camacho (a relation?) .. but which really, really bothers foreigners who make it their business to complicate other people’s lives. I got this from Pat Roberson’s “news” service:
By Michael F. Haverluck (CBNNews.com) January 25, 2007
MEXICO CITY — A bill to amend Mexico’s constitution and change civil laws guaranteeing transexuals the right to change their name and gender legally will be submitted in March by Mexican congressman David Sanchez Camacho.
If Sanchez Camacho’s bill passes, Article Four of the Mexican Constitution will have an extra paragraph asserting that “every person has the right to the recognition and free exercise of their gender identity and their gender expression.” This legislative action could ignite much contention, especially amongst conservative Mexican Catholics adhering to the biblical stance on homosexuality.The guarantee of equal rights for men and women, along with the rights of families and children are currently contained in Article Four, with no mention of homosexuals or transexuals.
…
It is hoped by transexual activists that other nations will follow cue in pushing for such liberal legislative action.
Conservatives, on the other hand, realize how crucial it is for nations to support biblical family values in order to maintain the backbone of society.
“Persecuted by bad luck…” Another Prensa crime page masterpiece
The second in my occasional translation of “paid by the word” notas rojas, tonight’s masterpiece is actually one of the better nota rojas I’ve ever read. The genre calls for elevated, euphemistic language that’s still understandable to the not well-educated readership, and… given the fact that reporters are paid by the word… requires the ability to produce interminably long, run-on sentences. Most reporters use tricks like padding out the story with extraneous information like the make, model and year of the police car or the serial number of the gun, but not here(Not that the author wouldn’t include it, if he had the information… he is paid by the word, after all).
Not here. Within the literary constraints of a nota roja, Gabriel Zendejas has written an exciting tale of crime, citizen bravery, a police chase and a tragedy for la Prensa. It’s literature… of a sort.
I don’t know what to make of it that when you log on to la Pensa now, you have to affirm that you’re old enough to read their hair-raising (and literary style killing) articles and look at the photos (this one included the main protaganist in tonight’s drama face up, eyes open, and outlined in chalk).
I think we’re all old enough to read Petty thief died facing police in a shootout. ¡Provecho!
Persecuted by bad luck yesterday morning, one of three assailants in Iztapalapa, who — in a desperate attempt to avoid capture at the hands of the uniformed police — tured and shot, but as it happened, one of whom was felled by the projectiles filed by the representatives of law and order. The remaining two accomplices of the dead delinquent, in the end, were caught by the police as they searched for refuge in a building in Colonia Leyes de Reforma.
The bloody deeds occured during the pursuit of the three assailants by uniformed SSP-DF officers, who hoped to deceive the police as they feld through several streets in Leyes de Reforma, which lies both in the Federal District and in the State of Mexico.
In the shooting, the one who perished was identified as a participant in an action by which the three had relieved 2500 pesos from Jose Manuel Salgado, who had gone to an automatic teller of a HSBC branch in that Colonia, and after making a withdrawl, was leaving the area, when he was violently intercepted by the delinquents.
In agreement with the first versions of events told to Iztapalapa Delegation sector agents, the subjects forced their victim to give them money, took the time to remove a gold chain and other objects by showing him the business end of a pistol and making death threats.
After completing their illicit act, the attackers fled the scene in a gray Corsa, without a license plate; however, they had not counted on the fact that the victim had gone to the bank on his bicycle, and, without thinking twice about it, had decided to follow the thieves.
Within a few meters, of where he found them, the affected victim encounted the occupants of an SSP-DF patrol car, from whom he requested assistance. Upon noticing that they were being followed by agents of prevention, the deliquents opted to alight from their Corsa on calle Sur 23, and soon slithered into a house at Number 123 on that stret, where in their desperation, they made for the roof, jumping across roofs to other buildings.
In their flight across the roofs, the deliquents were pursued by those men in uniform, who, upon entering upon the place, opened fire upon them.
During the skirmish, one of the presumed theives died, when he received a shot to the chest, and in a matter of minutes, bled to death.
Probate is easy… comedy is hard
It’s impossible to translate Cantinflas. I stole this sample from the comedian’s Wikipedia biography:
Ah! but let me make one thing clear, I have moments of lucidity, and I speak very clearly. And now I will speak with clarity…Friends! There are moments in my life that are really momentary…And it’s not because one says it, but we must see it! What do we see? that’s what we must see…because, what a coincidence, friends, that supposing that in the case—let’s not say what it could be—but we must think about it and understand the psychology of life to make an analogy of the synthesis of humanity. Right? Well, that’s the point.
I haven’t seen the court transcripts, but I can guess why settling the question of who owned the rights to the films has dragged on for the last 15 years.
(My translation from today’s El Universal)
Following the settlement of a long running series of lawsuits [originally involving his son, his nephew and Colombia Pictures], some of the most famous films of Mario Moreno, Cantinflas, will finally be available to the public.
The comedian’s son, Mario Moreno Ivanova said that the courts granted him exclusive rights to 34 feature length films.
Without wasting time, Moreno Ivanova has released 11 of the films for exhibition this February and March at the Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo (FICCO).
“I have several plans, among them the re-release on screen of the eleven films. People should be abble to enjoy them, and learn about this cultural legacy,” said Moreno Ivanova at a press conference.
Cantinflas’ son said that the present generation has never been able to watch on television such classics as ”El bolero de Raquel”, ”El Profe”, ”Su excelencia”, ”Entrega inmediata”, ”Un día con el diablo”, ”El circo” and ”Los tres mosqueteros”.
Moreno Ivanova said he hoped that the results of the decision, giving him distribution rights to the films will allow many more to appreciate Cantinflas’ nobility and humor.
He also hopes that broadcasting the films will bring together parents and children, who once were able to share laughter enjoying the extensive body of cinematography.
We hope to receive more invitations to other film festivals, both nationally and internationally, as well as television broadcasts.
As part of the settlement, Moreno Ivanova also received exclusive rights to the films in Spain, the south of France, Morocco, Brazil and Portugal, and the right to market the Cantinflas name on food and clothing products.
In addition, Moreno Ivanova will receive “severla millions of dollars” that have been sitting in a U.S. bank account since the actor died in 1993.
Cantinflas, with his unique language [the Academia Real Española recognized “cantiflear” as a verb … to speak nonsense with great eloquence and articluation… sort of the opposite of George Bush-speak: nonsense, spoken badly and inarticulately], his droopy pants, tiny mustache and even tinier hat, conquored Mexico and the world with his humor, his rascality and his wounded dignity.
In addition to acting in 50 films, Cantinflas wrote six of his screenplays: ”El ministro y yo”, ”El profe”, ”Por mis pistolas”, ”Su excelencia”, ”El bombero atómico” and ”Si yo fuera diputado”.
Cyber-disappearing AMLO
John Ross, writing in Counterpunch, claims “Fecal” (FElipe CALderón is the odd man out in Latin America … having to tolerate the left abroad, though not at home:
Although Felipe Calderon presses the flesh of the luminaries of the Latin American left, he is doing his best to ignore the left back home. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who probably beat the right-winger in the much-questioned July 2nd election, has disappeared from the public repertoire of “Fecal” (as his detractors dub him.) Calderon’s backers in the electronic media are also dedicated to making AMLO disappear from the nation’s screens. The Interior Secretary refused to permit the airing of Lopez Obrador’s acceptance speech last November 20th as the “legitimate” president of Mexico. A half hour program, “The Truth Must Be Told”, which features a sort of fireside chat with AMLO and Comedy Central-like news, is being transmitted in a 1 AM Tuesday morning time slot to insure a minimum number of viewers. The show’s debut installment failed to air in 12 states due to what the Secretary of the Interior, which controls radio and TV transmissions, called a “technical problem”, and the sound quality on the second edition was so poor that Lopez Obrador was inaudible.
For the Bush regime, the Mexican election was not one it could afford to lose. The Latin dominos have been falling left in alarming succession and the line had to be drawn when the wave reached the U.S, border. Despite the tainted vote count, Bush crowned Calderon president of Mexico in a phone call from Air force One not 24 hours after the ballots were cast. Outside of Calderon, Colombia’s Uribe is the only head of a leading Latin American economy that still stands up for U.S. interests in the region.
Round ’em up, and move ’em out… Operation Wrangler
File this under “one not so great idea deserves another”…
Operation Linebacker, which has created as many problems for law enforcement along the border as it’s solved (I wrote a long piece about the financial headaches thowing state funding at border sheriffs was causing for the October 2006 Big Bend Gazette – downloadable in a PDF file), has been expanded.
“Operation Wrangler” is the latest incaration of what’s becoming a habit of doling out big bucks (in this case, 20 million of them) to local law enforcement officials In my Gazette article, I quoted several rural sheriffs who faced the problem of too much money with no guarantee that they would be able to afford the investment if the state changed their minds (assuming a state run by a governor who thinks Ted Nugent’s dissing of blacks, non-English speakers, and every sane human being – has a mind in the first place). We’re some of the poorest counties in the country, and, as one Sheriff told me, his country couldn’t even afford to pay the unemployment insurance on a deputy he could add under Operation Linebacker, but might have to lay off when the politically-motivated windfall ended. Our local sheriffs ain’t dumb.
I’m happy our local sheriff got some new trucks … and so did our local Emergency Services Coordinator (or, rather, he was able to replace the jeep with no floorboards with a suplused pickup truck), and it’s nice we can pay the deputies for all that overtime, but how much that does towards making the border “safer” is an open question.
If that’s even the point. “Grits for Breakfast,” which tries to do justice to the weird vaguries of Texas legal issues, reports that everybody wants to get in on the act. The creative folks up in Texarkana are looking for their piece of the pie. [Insert your joke about protecting the border from inbed Arkansas hillbillies here.]
As part of “Operation Wrangler” (as South Texas Chisme notes, there’s something not right about a state where football is the state religion changing from “Linebacker” to a word used to describe corralling animals), another 600 National Guardsmen and women are NOT going home.
Which makes me wonder what’s the point of all this… the reimbursements for “housing” federal prisoners (mostly people waiting to be deported) are pretty important for the county budget. And we have a nice jail, as jails go. It’s a new facility, and even architecturally pleasant. I’m speaking as an outsider, not particularly recommending one spend time as a “guest” of course.
Jail funds are well spent, but not a profit center. (and a nice jail it is, as jails go. I’m speaking as an observer, not a guest) And it’s a public facility. Private jails (which aren’t nearly as well-maintained – or so nice to look at) are big business in Texas. Militarized police agencies are another growth industry. Corrections Corporation of America’s concentration camp is turing a tidy return for it’s stockholders.
At least they’ve stopped pretending they’re looking for “terrorists” and now claim they’re stopping “drugs”. Nah… they’re annoying the citizens and making a profit for their friends… and getting Gov. “Goodhair’s” name in the right (wing) media. God forbid state funds be used for anything like hospitals or clinics down here… that’s not what state funds are for, is it?
A Mexican President of the U.S.?
With the U.S. Presidential election not until November 2008, there are already a few “foreign” candidates being talked about. Barack Obama, with a Kenyan father and Indonesian step-father, grew up in Indonesia, though he was born in Hawai’i. John McCain was born in Panama (although the “Panama Canal Zone” was U.S. territory at the time).
Bill Richardson ONLY had a Mexican mother (though I believe his father had been born in Nicaragua) … so isn’t that exotic. Richardson, a former congressman, cabinet officer and diplomat, and present Governor of New Mexico, may be the first “Hispanic” to be a serious candidate for U.S. President, but he isn’t the first Mexican.
Richardson was raised in Mexico City, but was born in California. The U.S. consitution requires presidents to be “natural born citizens,” but doesn’t quite spell out what that means. At any rate, Richardson, like Obama, was definitely born in the United States. His mother waited out her pregnancy in Pasadena California because his father wanted to assure that his child was a U.S. citizen (the Richardsons were wealthy New Englanders at base… though whether they were thinking of presidential requirments is doubtful).
There might have been a consititutional question had George Romney been elected in 1968. Romney, a liberal Republican (not a contradiction in terms in his day) had been President of American Motors Corporation (Romney, ahead of his time, introduced compact cars to America), a successful Michigan Governor and a serious contender for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 1968. He had a good record on civil rights, especially admired for making low cost housing available in his state and for promoting racial integration. History might have been very different if he, not Richard Nixon, had been the Republican candidate in 1968.
What destroyed Romney’s candidacy was his admisssion, after a trip to Viet Nam that he had been misled by the media. Unfortunately, he used the word “brainwashed” — leading the “spin meisters” of the time to question his competence and sanity. Romney’s religion (he was a devout Mormon) was also somewhat against him (though, in those far off days, the Republican Party was open to minorities, as long as they were well-heeled minorities… and Romney was a very wealthy man). And… there were lingering questions about his elgibility for the office.
Citizenship was largely a matter of where you lived (and were born) until recently. In Mexico, where the President must have a Mexican-born father, there were questions about Vincente Fox’s elgibility for office, too (Fox’s grandfather was an American, and his father once claimed U.S. citizenship when the large estates were broken up: foreign claims were arbitrated under a different court than the court that heard Mexican claims). And, there is no question that Romney was born in Chihuahua in 1907 and that his parents and grandparents were Mexicans.
The Romneys were (and still are) are leading family in the Mormon religion. The sect, starting in New York State ended up, via Iowa and Missouri, in Utah, then part of Mexico, in 1846. After the Mexican-American War, Utah became part of the United States. Being mostly English-speaking and of northern European heritage, most Mormons adjusted to U.S. culture without much problem. However, in 1852, the Mormon prophet Brigham Young, announced that the sect would accept polygamy. By 1862, the U.S. government had outlawed the sect, attempting to end the practice.
While the sect was again allowed to worship openly in the U.S., Mormons had begun emigrating to Chihuahua where they were allowed to practice their religion – and, coincidentally, Porfirio Diaz was encouraging agricultural settlements. The Romneys were among the leaders of the Colonia Juarez community, which was one of several flourishing Mormon colonies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Borderlands has a good short history of the Mexican Mormon colonies. Notice the importance of the Romneys).
In 1912, President William Howard Taft, after his Ambassador touched off the violent phase of the Mexican Revolution (Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson engineered a coup against the democratic reformer Francisco Madero, which led to the Constitutionalist and Zapatista uprisings against Victoriano Huerta), “ordered” U.S. citizens to leave Mexico. Romney’s parents did, talking young George with them. But, it was Romney’s GRANDPARENTS who’d emigrated, willingly, to Mexico. While citizenship was a lot less formal in the 19th century, it still appears that George’s parents considered themselves Mexican citizens, as did most other Mormons – most of whom stayed in Chihuahua and eventually sided with Pancho Villa, like every other good Mexican in Chihuahua.
My guess is that George Romney today would be a dual national. Romney’s son, Mitt Romney, the former goveror of Massachucetts, is a contender for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. So, I’m wondering if he can, like Richardson, claim to have a Mexican parent. Or, if George really was a Mexican, is Mitt the “anchor baby”?
Would you ask them for passports?
Without our casual border crossers, life would be un-bear-able down here in the Big Bend–
Bears are moving back and forth across the border and have been doing this for many years. In some regards the population in Coahuila can be considered the core, with satellite populations in West Texas and adjoining ranges in Coahuila and neighboring states. However, whether these populations can establish themselves and grow will depend largely on people being able to coexist with black bears.
Bonnie Reynolds McKinney (Maderas del Carmen, Coahuila) in the January 2007 Big Bend Gazette
Photo by Jonas Delgadillo (Big Bend Gazette)
Don Porfirio Calderón
(I haven’t thought this through completely, and expect I’ll revise and maybe repost within a couple of days.)
On the Rio Grande side of the river, the news out of the Calderón administration has been the decision to extradite a couple of narcos to the United States. On the Rio Bravo side, narcos are also what the administration is talking about. But the context seems to be different.
I’ve been wondering what Calderón was up to. The big anti-narco drive, while overdue, conveniently targets the areas where his political fortunes were the weakest. You’ll notice the big anti-drug push has avoided Jalisco, where his Secretaría de gobernacion, ex-Governor Francisco Ramírez Acuña has long been rumored to have ties to narcos. In that state, the only focus has been on PRD-controlled Acapulco. And, Tijuana, as everyone knows, is PRI-controlled.
Oaxaca, where the Feds went in for ostensively different reasons, voted overwhelmingly PRD. But, the PRI-installed governor, Ulises Ruiz, is supporting Calderón. Ruiz is supported by Calderón – or suports Calderón – and gets support for his claim to be in control of the state (Congress made noises about removing the Governor, which they can do if the state is out of control).
From a suprising souce (Mark-in-Mexico is in the hospital and I wish him well… but his temporary fill in is destroying his right-wing spin campaign, unless his hospitalization has made him see the light), it’s obvious how URO is maintaining control:
Two opposition political leaders have been assassinated in the past five days in Oaxaca state.On Thursday past, indigenous leader Roberto García was gunned down in San Juan Copala. García had just announced that his indigenous group would declare the town an “autonomous” zone.
…
The previous day, in Santo Domingo de Morelos, Pochutla, Oaxaca, Fructuoso Pedro García, was gunned down right in front of his wife. He had the day before announced his candidacy for municipal president. He was a member of the PRD.This news broke several days after the murder because, as allege his family members and political allies, Oaxaca Attorney General Lizbeth Caña sealed the area and released no information to the press, “to avoid the political implications and allow the murderers to escape.”
Lizbeth Caña, by the way, is the person who claimed Brad Will was killed by the APPO.
And a few other odd tidbits before I get to my point:
Calderón has been holding a big anti-crime pow-wow at the Palacio Nacional … which led to URO, of all people, holding forth to the press on how important the rule of law was in a democracy… while outside this was going on:
The photo (from yesterday’s Jornada) is of a police crackdown on a pro-AMLO demonstration just outside the Palacio Nacional. Wouldn’t do to have demonstrators interfere with press conferences now, would it?
All of which sounds like something Porfirio Diaz would have done… “spin” internal crackdowns as anti-bandit campaigns. And, throw a few bones to the gringos (like the narcos who were extradited) . But Porfirio had 30 years to perfect his techniques and Calderón has six… if he’s lucky.
Every Mexican President tries to hit the ground running. They’ve basically got two years to implement, two years to expand and two years to solidify their agenda. Fox got sidetracked early in trying to do to much, and in depending on a much broader coalition than Calderón… Fox depended on the Social Democrats and Greens, then dissed the Greens (who switched their support to the PRI) and waited too long to try to coopt PRI dinasaurios like Esther Elba Gordillo and URO.
Calderón, for strategic reasons, starts off with his PRI third of the electorate, and already has a lot of the dinasaurios on his side. The dinasaurios are, above all, pragmatic. Any ties they might have had to the narcos were from a convergence of interests. If destroying the narcos is the price of staying in power, they the narcos have to go.
And it takes care of another problem. Porfirio’s anti-banditry campaigns incidentally put down people’s uprisings, labor strikes, and kept the left from power… or, when he did have to resort to naked violence…was white-washed as evidence that the “bandits” were still out there. It reasssured the Americans that their investments were safe (though it’s Americans that finance the narcotics industry in Mexico) and welcomed U.S. investors… as Calderón is certainly doing.
I have to admit, I hadn’t thought of Calderón in terms of Porfirio until I read this article from a German paper (reprinted in “Monsters and Critics” U.K.), and remembered what it was Porfirio was up to all those years. Inviting in U.S. funds, while looking for GERMAN technical expertise:
While the leftist presidents of Nicaragua and Ecuador – led by Venezuela – turned away from the United States and actually courted Iran, Mexican President Felipe Calderon is seeking the solidarity of Europe.
Calderon is already very close to the US, having visited there before his December inauguration. His January 25-30 visit to Europe will include Germany, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Britain and Spain.
Mexico has had a free trade agreement with the EU since 2000, and the trip represents Calderon’s first journey outside of Latin America as president, where he has already paid official calls on El Salvador and Nicaragua.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel – whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU and the G-8 – and German President Horst Koehler are both scheduled to host the Mexican president on Thursday.
Who benefits from higher tortilla prices?
Fred Rosen (writing in Sunday’s Mexico City Herald) sees two lessons from the tortilla crisis: Mexico needs open markets and Mexico needs controlled markets. In the meantime…
… when all is said and done, the tortilla crisis illuminates the fact that the future of the Mexican family farmer looks grimmer than ever. Max Correa, secretary general of a campesino group called the “Central Campesina Cardenista,” estimates that “for every five tons bought from foreign producers, one campesino becomes a candidate for migration.” The importing of the proposed 450,000 tons of white corn, he told a press conference last week, is likely to eliminate more than 100,000 jobs in the rural sector.
Meanwhile, the general popular response seems to be somewhere between resignation and cynicism.
The cousins who run a family owned tortillería on the outskirts of Cuernavaca where a good friend of mine buys her tortillas tell us they will not be raising their prices. “It´s still eight pesos for a dozen, just as it´s been for the past six months,” says one of the cousins as she places a dozen fresh yellow tortillas in a customer´s basket. “The flour we buy,” says another cousin, “comes from corn grown by local campesinos, mainly for self-consumption. The problem is not with the price of corn grown by local cultivators. They have gotten nothing from these price increases.”
Alfredo Ripstein (1916 – 2007). D.E.P.
Parral, Chihuahua native son Alfredo Ripstein, whose career as a producer stretched from the 1930s into the new millenium died this weekend, after becoming ill during his 65th wedding anniversary party. Like so many of his fellow movie moguls north of the border from his era, Ripstein was the son of Jewish immigrants.
Ripstein produced 100 films during his long career. Though he worked with some of the best (Pedro Infante and Gael Garcia Benal) during his 70 year career, he also produced his share of “churros”: Pantano de las ánimas (1957), released in English as “Swamp of the Lost Monsters”, which somehow combined your typical Mexican cowboy movie with a hardboiled mystery with a monster movie. It was so bad, some critics aren’t sure to this day if the whole thing wasn’t a joke.
In his old age, Ripstein was a major figure in the the new wave of Mexican cinema, producing the internationally acclaimed Callejón de los milagros (1995, released as both Miracle Alley and Midaq Alley in English) and, in 2002’s controversial el Crimen del padre Amaro. Both these films were based on foreign novels (Miracle Alley on the contemporary Egyptian novel Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz and Padre Amaro on an 1875 work by Portugese novelist, José Maria Eça de Queiroz), recast as Mexican stories in contemporary Mexican settings.
Ripstein was the father of director Arturo Ripstein.
Here’s the trailer form Ripstein’s best known (and probably best overall) production:
Signs of… the Apocolypse? Global warming? The reconquesta?
… or all of the above?
Morton, Texas, on the Texas-New Mexico border, has always been one of those half-Tejano half-Anglo towns where things are kinda mixed up. You know, where you find people named Bubba Gonazles and Pedro Smith… and the Virgin of Guadelupe in the frozen food section at the supermarket:
An ice formation inside a Morton, Texas, grocery store’s freezer is prompting tears from people who see it and has apparently answered the prayers of some visitors, according to a Local 6 News report.
Morton Thrifty Foods employee Alma Avalos said when she went to the back she noticed that some drops of water from the ceiling had frozen.
As more and more people began to hear about the Virgin Mary, they started traveling in droves to see the ice.
Or… more likely, it’s the result of the very chilly response to the second coming of the Goveror of all (well… 39% of all voting) Texans —
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Hours after Gov. Rick Perry kicked off his second full term in office, Ted Nugent helped him celebrate at a black-tie gala, but not all attendees were pleased by the rocker’s performance.Using machine guns as props, Nugent, 58, appeared onstage as the final act of the inaugural ball wearing a cutoff T-shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag and shouting offensive remarks about non-English speakers, according to people who were in attendance..
mexfiles.net 