The Dog begs…
I’d never heard of “Celebrity Stink”, or Scott Gwin, but couldn’t help but pass on this update on a
barking good tale of gringos gone bad.
“Dog The Bounty Hunter” is frantic to avoid becoming the kind of person he’s known for catching. Usually he’s the one dragging people to justice but now the Mexican government wants him, his son Leland and another of their associates extradited on charges of illegal activity. The big Dog is prepared to do whatever he has to do to keep it from happening, even apologizing…
According to a report from the AP, Dog is willing to forfeit the bail paid in Mexico, apologize for everything except capturing Luster (which ironically is why he’s in trouble in the first place), and even make a generous charitable contribution . What’s he trying to do, give them grounds for a bribery charge too?…If there were ever a time for someone in Mexico to want to make a name for themselves as a bounty hunter, this could be their chance. I hear Univision is looking to expand into reality TV. I imagine the guy who brings Dog to justice in Mexico might land a TV show of his own.
That’d be ruuufffff!
I’m coming for YOU… pinche gringo!
¡Por la libertad!
By Richard Gonzales
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Carmen Puertos drank, smoked and laughed for most of her 92 years.
When she chuckled, her open mouth revealed few remaining teeth; she never bothered with dentures. Her earlier photos show a pretty woman with thick brown hair. Time turned it gray and caused her legs to hurt when she walked. But it never took her pride, spunk or freedom.
She cared for her grandchildren — including me — while her children worked in Chicago factories. She taught her family, in Spanish, not to be cowed by the big, blustering American city.
After all, she was a chilanga — a native of Mexico City who had lived in the capital during the days of dictator Porfirio Diaz and revolutionaries Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Perhaps the rebellious airs in the days of the Adelitas and soldaderas, or female warriors of the revolution, filled her with an independent spirit.
One night when she was 14, she stayed out late to attend a neighborhood fiesta. Fearing the wrath of her father, she ran away to a convent where her older sister was studying to become a nun.
Her father forced her to return to his comfortable, maid-tended house, where she could have lived out her years. But Mexico was a macho country with macho men. (Her father was 30 when he married his 14-year-old wife, with whom he would have 14 children.) She wanted to live in the world beyond Don Puertos’s reach. So she ran away again at 19 with the help of an older brother.
This time she fled to Nuevo Laredo with a female friend to care for her aunt. She worked as a laundress at the Hamilton Hotel in Laredo.
When she heard that a family was going to Waukegan, Ill., to open a restaurant, she went along. She proudly told her children that she was never undocumented — “No era mojada.” She walked across the bridge spanning the Rio Grande with papers for which she paid $8.
It would be nice to say that life in the United States was pleasant and bountiful for her. In truth, life in the Depression was hard for her and millions of others scrambling for food and work. She married another Mexican immigrant, Juan Reyes, bore him four children and followed the jobs to Chicago, Lyons, Kan., and back to Chicago.
In Kansas, she joined other Mexican women to form a mutual aid society that raised money through jamaicas, or fairs, for the election of Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas. During Mexican Independence Day celebrations, she sewed Mexican dresses for her daughters and herself, splashing red, white and green in their skirts, blouses and hair. She played old Mexican songs and taught them to dance traditional steps that she recalled from fiestas.
When Kansas commemorated the 400th anniversary of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s exploration for gold, Carmen Reyes and other Mexican women pooled their money to bring Mexican matadors and bulls to demonstrate the corrida (although the bullfighters would go through the sweeps and turns in their suit of light and crimson capes without the fatal sword plunge).
The Kansas townfolk easily accepted the Mexican garb, dances, customs and Spanish. Perhaps the small number of Mexican immigrants, their hard work and neighborliness calmed any fears that they might have harbored of the children of Coronado. There was no bitter history of the Alamo and the Mexican War; instead, they shared a memory of a conquistador traveling with his soldiers and priests in search of wealth.
In Chicago, there would be more disappointment and heartache for Carmen as a daughter followed in her footsteps and ran away. Despite their advanced age, Carmen and Juan Reyes adopted the runaway daughter’s five children.
In later years, Carmen and Juan wanted to live closer to family. And so when she died Aug. 6, 1996, it was in Garland.
When I asked my grandmother why she had come to the United States, she answered: Por la libertad — for the liberty. She wanted the liberties to smoke, drink, marry the man she loved and live in a country where a runaway girl could find a home.
Carmen Puertos de Reyes taught her children to cherish their golden freedom.
¡PENDEJO!
I know this really has nothing to do with Mexico, but it’s outrageous…
No dogs, bottles or Spanish-speakers allowed!
I don’t know how much good it does to talk to pendejos like Dr. Ken Cherry, but you can always call or write him at:
2105 Park Plaza Dr
Springfield TN 37172-3937
Phone: 615-384-2558
The City of Springfield’s email address is here.
Somehow, if that isn’t sufficient, print off the photo below, paste it on a BLUE candle (why blue, I don’t know, but that’s what my local cuaradaro recommends) and light it at sunset every day for nine days, earnestly reading the attached prayer. Who knows… stranger things have worked.
WITCH WAY DID THEY GO — a real MeX-FILE
Monterrey, Mexico (18 Sept 06) – A policeman from Santa Catarina claimed having seen two witches while on a routine patrol near a graveyard several months ago. He only made this information known today.
Gerardo Garza Carbajal explained his experience with the supernatural very near the Panteon Municipal, a few meters from the road to Villa Garcia. “It was nighttime, I stayed behind to stand guard on my own and suddenly someone started pelting me with stones. Then I saw two people with wings and wrinked faces.”
“I was so scared that I got into my squad car. I could hear them laughing in an ugly way, flying a short distance. I thought they were witches–I saw them very close,” said the officer, who has a long service record with the local police.
Garza Carbajal said that he immediately requested backup, and in a matter of minutes was surrounded by several municipal police cars even some from the Ministerial Police.
“The witches flew 
off, but the police officers who came to my aid saw what I saw. They can attest to the fact that I didn’t imagine anything. What I saw was real. I’d never been so scared before,” said the officer. He added that he was subsequently taken to a medical center, since his blood pressure dropped excessively. He soon recovered from the powerful shock. Witnesses to this event stated that they do not know for sure if two witches were involved, but are indeed certain that they have no explanation for this phenomenon.
(translation © 2006, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Marco Reynoso, Fundacion Cosmos)
I found this on one of the weirder… and more interesting websites around, Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology
Viernes: blogiando de Los Gatos…
Everyone from Woody Guthrie (whose wrote it, along with California high school teacher Martin Hoffman), to Joan Baez to Bruce Springsteen to the Byrds to Dolly Parton has sung this… but for some odd reason, there isn’t a free internet copy available.
Can’t figure that one out. Woody’s attitude towards copyrights was: “This song is Copyrighted in U.S… for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”
Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee)
The crops are all in and the peaches are rott’ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They’re flying ’em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back againGoodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be “deportees”My father’s own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract’s out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died ‘neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, “They are just deportees”Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except “deportees”?Words by Woody Guthrie and Music by Martin Hoffman
© 1961 (renewed) by TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc.
The agreement of 1947 (between Mexico and the U.S)… contained a novel provision which established amnesty through deportation, agreeing to limit deportations to one per year per farm worker. Under its terms, undocumented Mexicans who were sent back across the border could return to the U.S. as temporary contract labourers; during the life of their contracts, they could not be again deported. In practice, employers often called Border Patrol stations ( la migra) to report their own undocumented employees, who were returned, momentarily, to border cities in Mexico, where they signed labour contracts with the same employers who had denounced them. This process became known as “drying out wetbacks” or “storm and drag immigration.” “Drying out” provided a deportation-proof source of cheap seasonal labour… The 28 men who died in Los Gatos were victims of this bizarre system.
What’s Mexico Hiding?
By Irma Sandoval and John M. Ackerman
September 22, 2006
(Los Angeles Times ©2006)
MEXICO now has two presidents-elect. One officially recognized by the electoral authorities — Felipe Calderon — and the other proclaimed the “legitimate president” by millions of followers — Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. There is one way to settle this crisis. As in the aftermath of Bush vs. Gore in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, a group of Mexico’s newspapers should be allowed to conduct their own canvass of the ballots.
Unfortunately, the Federal Electoral Institute, which organizes the presidential elections, has announced that it will not open up the ballots to public scrutiny. The institute appears bent on repeating the government’s performance after the 1988 presidential election, in which the computers “malfunctioned.” It is widely believed that massive fraud allowed Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to mysteriously overcome the early lead of the leftist candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. To cover its tracks, the government then quickly burned the evidence.
Mexico’s freedom of information act, enacted in 2002, is one of the best in the world. It gives full priority to transparency, stating that everything should be made public except when disclosure might harm economic stability or national security. But even this “reserved” information must be made available after 12 years have passed.
Mexican law does keep confidential personal information, including names, photographs and sexual orientations of particular individuals. But, of course, secret ballots don’t contain any of this material. Although the institute is required by law to destroy the ballots eventually, there is no need to do so immediately. And it would be illegal to carry it out prematurely for the purpose of avoiding the freedom-of-information requests.
To his credit, Calderon has asked the institute to “preserve the ballots for as long as possible” in the interest of ensuring the “certainty” of the electoral results. This is a positive step, but it does not get to the heart of the issue. Preserving the ballots will do no good if no one is allowed to examine them.
Even worse, Calderon’s National Action Party voted Tuesday against forming a special congressional commission to keep watch over the ballots, placing doubt on PAN’s commitment to transparency. Calderon and his party should explicitly state that the ballots should be opened to public scrutiny and take measures to ensure this takes place.
There is a larger issue. If the Federal Electoral Institute is permitted to hide and prematurely destroy the ballots, this would open the door to widespread flouting of the access-to-information law by other government agencies. The institute has argued that the ballots are not “documents” but only the “material expression of electoral preferences” and therefore not subject to the information law. Such ad hoc re-categorizations for the purpose of avoiding disclosure are punishable by law, and allowing it here would set a dangerous precedent in this fledgling democracy.
Mexico’s Federal Institute of Access to Public Information, which has the mandate to promote compliance by all government agencies to the access-to-information law, also has maintained a worrisome silence on this crucial issue. It is high time for a public pronouncement by its commissioners backing up the information law. Such a statement also would help dispel concerns about the personal ties and any conflict of interest between the chief commissioner and Calderon
IN GENERAL, the electoral authorities have needlessly encouraged suspicions about Calderon’s victory. The Federal Electoral Tribunal, which certifies the election results, announced that Calderon won. But it failed to disclose details of its partial recount, which showed widespread irregularities in the computation of the votes. And even though it condemned illegal campaign advertisements and the intervention of President Vicente Fox, it failed to assess their overall impact. In an election decided by only 230,000 votes out of 41 million cast, even small discrepancies could have made a big difference.
The Florida ballots from the 2000 U.S. presidential elections were not destroyed. They are available for public viewing and research for generations to come. Recently, Ohio delayed the destruction of its presidential ballots from 2004 to allow further study of irregularities.
Mexicans deserve no less. They have a right to know what actually happened on election day. We are at a crucial moment in Mexico’s transition to democracy. After 70 years of electoral fraud under the PRI, Fox’s PAN government must ensure absolute integrity in the process through which he passes power to Calderon, his PAN successor. Burning the ballots would set back Mexican democracy 20 years. Full access to the ballots — and then a full recount, if it’s deemed warranted — by reputable civil society organizations in the manner of Bush vs. Gore would restore credibility to Mexico’s damaged electoral institutions.
IRMA SANDOVAL and JOHN M. ACKERMAN are professors at the Institute for Social Research and the Institute for Legal Research, respectively, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. They advised Proceso magazine, whose request for access to the ballots was rejected this month.
MAR-EEEE-AAAAAA-CHE!!!!!! (in the concert hall)
Mariachi Juvenil Aguila Azteca
ALIEN INVASION, remittances to Mexico, etc. Oh my!
Yes, in former California Governor Pete Wilson’s immortal words, “They just keep coming.” Over the last decade, the U.S. State Department estimates that the number of Americans living in Mexico has soared from 200,000 to 1 million (or one-quarter of all U.S. expatriates). Remittances from the United States to Mexico have risen dramatically from $9 billion to $14.5 billion in just two years. Though initially interpreted as representing a huge spike in illegal workers (who send parts of their salaries across the border to family), it turns out to be mainly money sent by Americans to themselves in order to finance Mexican homes and retirements.
Although some of them are certainly naturalized U.S. citizens returning to towns and villages of their birth after lifetimes of toil al otro lado, the director-general of FONATUR, the official agency for tourism development in Mexico, recently characterized the typical investors in that country’s real estate as American “baby boomers who have paid off in good part their initial mortgage and are coming into inheritance money.”
Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, “The land rush is occurring at the beginning of a demographic tidal wave. With more than 70 million American baby boomers expected to retire in the next two decades… some experts predict a vast migration to warmer — and cheaper — climates. Often such buyers purchase a property 10 to 15 years before retirement, use it as a vacation home, and then eventually move there for most of the year. Developers increasingly are taking advantage of the trend, building gated communities, condominiums, and golf courses”
Sit Them In a Corner
|
|
|
The word of the day is “stupid“. Normally, I don’t spend my time running down the U.S. of A. (though I definitely could if I wanted to) .Only some of the people who inhabit it deserve that attention. Remember when there was a movement to teach Americans to get on board with other countries of the world by learning the metric system? It seemed pretty innocuous, but citizens resisted it with all their might.
Now, a Texas principal has learned just how fiercely some of his student’s parents would fight back when his school participated in some minor celebrations for 16th of September (Mexican Independence Day).
The “The Facts.com (Brazoria, Co., Texas) has reported about a flag controversy that has escalated into demands for Principal Sam Williams to be demoted. The flap is around teachers having the kids hold a Mexican flag in their hands while 6 parents read the Mexican Pledge of Allegiance aloud. The students were asked to stand (out of respect) as the pledge was read. Approximately 65% of the school’s students are Mexican American…. the principal of 18 yrs is black (if that makes any difference).
“We have stated in our mission statement that we are a campus that is a beacon of hope for a culturally diverse population,” Williams said.
I guess that doesn’t go over too well in parts of Texas! Apparently, teaching students about cultural diversity is un-American in these parts. Parents were outraged because they felt that the brief “lesson” subverted the U.S. ‘s present stand against illegal immigrants. I kid you not! That’s what I would really call a big s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
I guess the climate has to be just right before teachers can give their students a lesson in diversity. Example: It’s acceptable to teach about Holland and tulips and wooden shoes, about England and Shakespeare or tea and crumpets, about Japan and Pearl Harbor, kimonos and the Cherry Blossom festival or China about the Great Wall and the Wu people who live along the Yangtze River.
Since Mexico is out of favor with our present-day politicos, parents want to vent their rage when someone teaches their children that Mexico is a neighboring country deserving of their children’s respect…. not to mention a country that justifiably has its place in Texas’s own history.
Our nation says that we as a people need to prepare ourselves for a global economy… yet some segments of our population resist even the tiniest sharing of a celebration belonging to a neighbor. Our students go into the workforce and the globalization period with such ignorance and with such a skewed view of the world they live in.
When my daughter was in high school (1986), I looked through her history book. It had chapters on the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWI and WWII. I asked her if she had ever been taught about the Vietnam Conflict (War). She said that her teacher told the class that it was too “new” and too “controversial”. It had ended ( for the U.S.) in 1975. I guess the “timing” wasn’t quite right, yet. George W. was the product of a similar education… wasn’t he?
If we can’t deal with “controversy” in the classroom, is it any wonder we can’t rationally deal with it in the halls of the ‘mentally challenged’ Congress?
Oh, let’s just line up the lame-brained ‘parent protesters’ in a neat row and put decorate their pointy heads with dunce caps and call it a ‘day’.
Color Me With Hope….
When I used to travel across Mexico by train, I would have the opportunity to see quite a few areas of immense poverty that you don’t often see by car or bus. While Mexico’s middle class has grown by leaps and bounds, there are many poor who have been left behind. Often, they are struggling families who left their rural homes to seek better jobs in the larger cities. They took huge risks because they were generally unskilled and poor to begin with. Numbers of these families end up “surviving” in the squalid slums like the one from Tijuana pictured (below) or Mexico City on the (above):
After viewing slums in Tijuana, Mexico City, Juarez, Chihuahua etc, I came up with a theory. My theory is that “the color of poverty is brownish/grey”. It’s particulary true of the huge slums on the outskirts of Mexico City where the dirt from the roads and the barren land blows over and through the “houses”. There is no distiction between the land and the sky where the horizon completely blends the two with the brownish/grey polluted air. The monotony of the colorlessness seems endless and reflects the hopelessness of the families who must exist there. The residents of the slums are robbed of the delicious ‘gift’ of color in a country which cherishes color in their every day lives.
Is it any wonder that Mexicans would bring bright colors into their homes if given the chance? When families have the opportunity to express themselves, it’s often done with brilliant shades rather than with soft pastels. Regional cooking is done with a variety of vegetables, fruits and spices which satisfy your eye and palette. Spices, which are unique to Mexico, give your tongue an extra “tingle”. Hot, Hot, Hot! … can be as hot as their colors!
Mexicans and art are synonymous. Expression through art can be seen everywhere in Mexico! Not just in their famous murals or cathedrals. They wear it in their indigenous clothing, they use it in decorating their homes (inside and out). Eye-candy exits even in simple Mayan huts (decorative bowls, and bright hammocks), hair-dos (bright ribbons) and belts in Chiapas. It’s as if colors and designs lift/feed their spirits.
Items from colorful serapes and handpainted tiles for the patios, kitchen walls, or decorative stairways are plentiful in Mexican homes. The styles and patterns are different thoughout the regions, but there’s something for everyone.
How much is too much? If you’ve ever visited the fishing town of Tlacotalpan, you’ll find out that that there’s no limit! This unforgettable town, which is situated along the Rio Papaloapan, is filled with houses, shops and government buildings painted in deep blues, bright yellows, and cool greens along with spicy hot reds. Every color that Diego Rivera ever used has been applied to the buildings in Tlacotalpan.
This is the beauty and artistry that is absent from the lives of the unfortunate families who dwell in the misery of the “left behind” Mexico. So close, but so out of reach.
Self-appointed bouncers
“The Circus is Back in Town,” Victor Landa, San Antonio Express-News Sept. 18, 2006
The Minutemen are back at the border. This time, they picked Laredo, and reports indicate that most Laredo residents would rather they go home.
……why are the Minutemen — who, by the way, have proven they need more than a one-minute warning to defend our border because it takes time to pack an SUV and organize a press conference — wasting their time in Laredo?
I’m convinced the answer is Hispanic Heritage Month. For four weeks, we’ll be celebrating Latinos from the Carolinas to California; the noise will be deafening, the news coverage will be intense, the attention will be hard to ignore. The last thing they want is for foreign Latinos to get the wrong idea.
So the Minutemen have gone again to the southern border, along with the Guard and the threat of a two-layered fence. We’re having a party, and they are our self-appointed bouncers.
Maybe what these people should do is use their enthusiasm in a truly creative way. Maybe they should line their lawn chairs along all the exits of airports that handle international flights. Imagine if this citizen patrol were to stop and question anyone they felt might be a threat to our country. After all, isn’t that how the terrorists got in?
Rain on the parade…
Photos José Antonio López (Top) and Francisco Olvera (Bottom) Jornada
It looks as if Tlaloc, the rain god, is an AMLO supporter:
The Mexico City Herald’s coverage was pathetic, missing what was a good story.
There was concern that there might be a confrontation if the two gritos ended up in the same Zocalo.
In Doloros Hidalgo, the 8000 or so spectators included 3500 were police and security personnel. The town was clamped down, and even residents had to show IDs to enter the area. Fox came and went by heliocopter. AND IT RAINED gatos y perros.
In DF, where Alejandro Encinas did the bell-ringing (from City Hall, not the National Palace), assisted by old lefty, human rights fighter and all round rabble rouser (and, now Senadora) Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, all-round intellectual Carlos Monsiváis and… as a sop to the Administration, Secretary of Gobernacion, Carlos Abascal Carranza.
In Doloros Hidalgo, the grito was “¡Viva nuestra Independencia! ¡Vivan los héroes que nos dieron patria y libertad! ¡Viva Hidalgo! ¡Viva Morelos! ¡Viva Allende! ¡Viva Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez! ¡Viva Leona Vicario! ¡Viva nuestra democracia! ¡Vivan nuestras instituciones! ¡Viva la unidad de las y los mexicanos! ¡Viva México!”
In Mexico City, the people gave ¡Vivas! for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, José María Morelos y Pavón, Ignacio Allende, Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, Vicente Guerrero, an extra loud, enthuastic viva for Benito Juárez (the tea-leaf readers are figuring that one out — BJ managed to maintain the Presidency, while a fraudulently elected foreign-dominated adminstration tried running the country for a while) and popular sovereignty.
As an extra bonus, the people razzed Abascal, joining in the new cheer, “Get lost, asshole!” (¡FUERA! ¡CULITO!). It didn’t rain on that party.
Jornada has a good “compare/contrast” on the two gritos.
Seems Mexico City aint’t big enough for two gritos… or presidents? From ¡Para justicia y libertad!
Delegates at the National Democratic Convention (CND) have formally declared Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) as Mexico’s “legitimate president” which he is formally set to take office on November 20 at 3 p.m. at Constitution Square in Mexico City.The delegates at CND also authorize López Obrador to appoint members to his cabinet, he is also authorized to select where the new capital in will be set up in Mexico and right to act as Mexico’s official and legitimate president. The new government will observe the framework of a democratic republic, whereby the President of Mexico is both head of state and head of government. As President of the new government, he has the right to collect taxes.
Aerial view of the National Democratic Convention. Photoby Alfredo Dominguez, Jornada
Meanwhile, in Oaxaca…
There was, for the first time, no OFFICAL celebration. The governor doesn’t dare show his face… instead, José Cruz Luna, presidente municipal of Zaachila, gave a grito on behalf of the APPO from their headquarters. There were the traditional celebratory dance music and pyrotechnics afterwords, but — for some reason — people in Oaxaca tend to leave when there are explosives in the neighborhood these days.
The People celebrating Independence Day by declaring Independence?
HOLY SHIT!!!!
mexfiles.net 