How Dumb Do They Think We Are?

This is something every patriotic American should be marching in the streets against:

Mexico looks to US to find future Olympians

Mexican sports officials are searching for potential Olympic athletes in the United States with family links to Mexico who might eventually compete for the Latin American country.

Mexico's sports minister Bernardo De la Garza said Wednesday that the first step in the identification process would be the so-called Mexican Games being held in Los Angeles in March. Competitions will be held in 12 Olympic disciplines and will be open to Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and Mexican-Canadians.

Don't think we don't know what's going on here, amigos. The only Mexican-Americans who would be interested in this are the ones that couldn't make the US team, meaning they're unlikely to rain Olympic medals down on their ancestral homeland. But of course this isn't about the Olympics, is it? No, it's about rendering Mexico's own athletic system superfluous. Role models? Who needs 'em? Athletic aspiration will become a thing of the past, as will serious training - eventually, fitness and exercise will be all but unheard of.

And then, with all the nation's serious athletes living and training in the US, the Mexican people will achieve their true dream: being the fattest nation on Earth.

Wake up, America!

Tale of Two Cities

The Man moved his operations into a new office space in New York's Flatiron District last week, and we've been using what little free time we have to explore the neighborhood. Usually, when it comes to Manhattan dining, our standard line is "anything but Mexican!" - mostly because we're just really sick of Mexican. But last night we took shelter from the brutal cold in a warm, inviting joint called Crema, whereupon we remembered the other reason we don't eat Mexican in New York.

We started out with a first-rate michelada with Negra Modelo. Seven US dollars (91 pesos).

Beer.

Micheladas on the Plaza de Armas during hora feliz are 2 for 30 pesos.

Beer. Beer. Beer. Beer. Beer. Beer.

Then we moved on the the tacos de carne asada, $14 (182 pesos), which were absolutely delicious. Both of them.

Taco. Taco.

Whereas the equally great but slightly less well-presented beef tacos at Tacos Francia are six pesos each.

Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco. Taco.

Crema's prices are perfectly in line with any comparable place in the city, of course. Even the taco truck permanently parked on 19th St charges $4 apiece. Luckily, Francia doesn't read this blog. We wouldn't want her to get any ideas.

Where the Only Water Flowing Is the Bitter Sting of Tears, and the Christmas Bells That Ring There Are the Clanging Chimes of Doom

This isn't how we spent our Christmas Night (because, between us, our friends and family are kind of lame), but we love the fact that this was an option: a 12-man steel cage free-for-all at Arena Querétaro. It's an annual tradition, of course, and the Biblical parallels with the 12 Tribes of Israel and the discord amongst the 12 Apostles in the wake of the Resurrection are so obvious as to need no elaboration here.

If the scene about 20 seconds in isn't the most joyful celebration of the Baby Jesus you've ever seen, then we suggest you try opening your black little heart to the True Meaning of Christmas.

[If the lucha isn't your cup of eggnog, this was the other Xmas option we didn't participate in.]

The Revolution Will Not Be Sexualized

Laura Martinez reports that the Great Calles-Carranza Sapphic Sister Strip-down of 2010 may not be all we've been lead to believe it is. Alejandra Elías Calles, a direct descendant of Plutarco Elías Calles, says that whoever these two hussies are, they're not in anyway related to General Calles.

We expect this will be settled in the traditional manner: by a three-way water hose and soapy sponge fight while washing a classic car in satin shorts and tube tops. Coincidentally, that's how Pancho Villa lost the Battle of Celaya.

Never Leave a Man Behind

The UN has officially called off the search for survivors in Haiti - which, the occasional miracle notwithstanding, we agree makes sense after 11 days. So the Mexican government sent word to the Mole Men, hey, nice job fellas, but it's time to come home. We've got boats and planes waiting for you, and a great big pozole simmering on the stove.

To which the Mole Men have responded, What part of "we're not done yet" do you not understand?

The Mexican rescuers are continuing the search for survivors in Port-au-Prince 11 days after the earthquake, using their own resources and proceeding at their own risk.

We worry that the relentless clanging of their enormous brass balls might cause a landslide, but we applaud this nonetheless. They've pulled out 15 people so far, and are becoming something of a legend among the ranks of the rescuers - people from Argentina, France and Brazil have joined the team. When their hands get tired from digging, they'll probably just use their teeth.

Queretaro's earthquake victim, Karen Valero Jacques, was laid to rest today after first being baptized - which we didn't realize could be done posthumously (she was Jehovah's Witness). After the funeral her family "gathered in the atrium of the church to decide whether she should be buried or cremated." We mean no disrespect when we say that this strikes us as the kind of detail you might work out before a funeral.

Karen is no longer the sole Mexican confirmed dead. The foreign ministry has identified the body of María Antonieta Castillo Santamaría, a United Nations employee based in Port-au-Prince.

So, remember how we pointed out that there were a lot of unanswered questions about Karen Valero's death - specifically, that it wasn't at all clear that she was actually killed by the earthquake? Well, Maria Castillo

was presumed to be in Haiti when the quake hit, but her body was discovered in the Dominican Republic.

The government did not explain why the UN employee who worked in Haiti would have been found in the other country, nor did they explain her cause of death, instead simply indicating that her remains would be sent home to Mexico.

We don't mean to sound conspiratorial or anything, but of the two confirmed Mexican deaths, we're not seeing a lot to make us think they died in the earthquake.

Update: The UN is saying that she died when the UN mission collapsed, and that her body, like that of other non-Haitian UN employees, was taken to the DR, where it was later identified. So there you have it.

Days of the Dead

In twist that would have been over-the-top in a low-budget a horror movie, the magnificent old Cathedral in Port-au-Prince was reduced to rubble in the quake, with its tower collapsing on top of the archbishop, Msgr. Joseph Serge Miot. (You can see the destruction in this panorama, with a portrait of Msgr. Miot laying on top of the debris.) We'd heard his body was recovered this week, but we hadn't realized who'd found it:

On Tuesday night, outside the ruined cathedral in Port-au-Prince, a Mexican rescuer was overcome after recovering what is believed to be the body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot.[Photo: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters]

Chalk another one up to the Mole Men. This seems to us entirely fitting. Despite the nonsense you might hear about an island full of Devil-worshiping voodoo savages (Oh, hi, Rev! How goes the fundraising?) Haiti is 95% Christian and about 85% Catholic - just slightly less Catholic, in other words, than Mexico is - though the Haitians are a good deal more fervent about it.

They've modified it, of course, much in the same way Mexico has. Very much in the same way, in fact; any Mexican could surely relate to the predicament the Haitians now find themselves in.

Along with everything else stolen by last week’s earthquake, Haitians must now add another loss: the ability to identify and bury the dead. Funeral rites are among the most sacred of all ceremonies to Haitians, who have been known to spend more money on their burial crypts than on their own homes.

It is the product in part of familiarity with death — the average life span of a Haitian is 44 — but also the widespread voodoo belief that the dead continue living and that families must stay connected forever to their ancestors.

“Convening with the dead is what allows Haitians to link themselves, directly by bloodline, to a pre-slave past,” said Ira Lowenthal, an anthropologist who has lived in Haiti for 38 years. He added that with so many bodies denied rest in family burial plots, where many rituals take place, countless spiritual connections would be severed.

“It is a violation of everything these people hold dear,” Mr. Lowenthal said. “On the other hand, people know they have no choice.”

The Best Nightmare on Earth

The body of the lone confirmed Mexican death in Haiti, Querétaro's Karen Valero Jacques, will be back in Mexico tonight, after her parents went to Haiti to retrieve her. Strangely, the newspaper, repeats the parents version of the story - that she was in a hospital that collapsed on top of her - without even mentioning Valero's Haitian boyfriend's much more interesting and self-incriminating account of her death.

Meanwhile, the numbers continue to fluctuate, but the current total is 138 Mexicans in Haiti at the time of the quake. Forty-seven have left the country. Forty-four are still there, but accounted for, and 47 are somewhere in this world or the next, no one's sure exactly where.

Querétaro's small contingent of rescue workers arrived yesterday and have been sent to Fond Parisien, a few miles inland from Port-au-Prince, where they've been attached to an NGO that the local paper, apparently thinking of Caribbean sex tourism, renders as "Love Children." We're sure they're doing good work whatever it is.

And the local head of the Mexican construction industry's trade group, Daniel Cordero Espíritu Santo (whose name translates awesomely to "Daniel Lamb of the Holy Spirit") says that his people are fired up and ready to go. It sounds a little more aspirational than operational at the moment, but he'll be presenting some proposals for ways to support the country during the long, complicated reconstruction ahead. It's the kind of work that will be done without tv cameras watching or the world applauding their heroism, but if he means what he says, he'll be living up to his name.

The Mexican Evolution

1910:

Mexican Revolutionary leader Plutarco Elias Calles (1877-1945), and Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), also a one-time Mexican head of state... were allies during the early years of the 1910-1917 Mexican Revolution but later became bitter enemies because of their fierce battle for the presidency.

Carranza has gone down in history as the architect of Mexico's 1917 constitution, while Calles is known for his key role in building the country's 20th century institutions.

In April 1920, Calles presented the Plan of Agua Prieta, which called for the overthrow of Carranza.

2010:

A pair of twenty-something sisters, great-granddaughters of revolutionary leaders, are marking the bicentennial of Mexican Independence and the 100-year anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution with a nude photo shoot for the adult publication Playboy Mexico, the magazine said.

Fernanda and Isabel Calles Carranza "will show off their beauty in a lovely pictorial to kick off the 2010 festivities," Playboy Mexico said.

After learning about these two university students and their family background, the magazine's publishers sought them out and convinced them to appear in the February edition.

The two women are great-granddaughters of a brother of revolutionary leader Plutarco Elias Calles and a cousin of Venustiano Carranza.

It almost seems churlish to point out that they're actually great-grandnieces and fourth cousins of revolutionary leaders, rather than great-granddaughters.

Update: For the completists out there...

Why Do Hard Working Mexicans Get Kicked Out of Every Country They Go To?

The Mole Men of Tlaltelolco pulled a 69-year-old woman out of the rubble of Port-au-Prince Cathedral yesterday, where she'd lain without food or water for eight days.



Video here. We haven't seen a gang of sweaty Mexicanos celebrating in the street like that since they kicked the USA's ass at soccer this summer.

So of course in the wake of this - oh, let's call it a miracle - the UN then orders the Mole Men to suspend all operations. Usually we'd be outraged, but we're guessing the Moles aren't going anywhere and nobody has the balls to make them.

Speaking of balls, big saludos to María de la Luz Pérez Estrada, who survived the Haiti quake and the 1985 Mexico City one. We can't decide whether to adopt her as our patron saint, or ban her from coming within 100 miles of Burro Hall Headquarters.

Boots on the Ground

A buen viaje y buena suerte to Luis Miguel Rodríguez Pujólas, Ernesto Fernando Arroy Zurita and José Manuel Martínez Cano, members of Querétaro's Civil Protection Unit who are scheduled to arrive in Port-au-Prince in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

Also, the Querétaro Cruz Roja says they've sent 160 tons of stuff to Haiti already, but it's not clear to us if that number refers to the Mexican Cruz Roja as a whole, or just little Querétaro. We're betting the former but still, congratulations and godspeed.

Let's harness this energy and see if we can't channel it into opening a couple of decent bars in the Centro, okay people? Sí, se puede!

Update: Meanwhile, the search for survivors has been officially suspended, to which the Mexican teams there responded, "No, we're not finished yet." Viva!

27 26

The bad news is that there were not 80 Mexicans in Haiti at the time of the quake, but rather 131. The good news is that 65 [Update: 66] have been brought home and 36 more are still there but accounted for. The bad news is that you can probably do the math on that one.

Update: Probably no two countries have more unusual attitudes towards death (to a foreigner's sensibilities) than Mexico and Haiti, so we probably shouldn't be surprised that the story of the only confirmed Mexican death so far would turn out to be pretty strange.

To review, Karen Valero Jacques, from Lomas de Querétaro, was allegedly found dead in a hospital in Canape Vert on Friday. Except that her Haitian boyfriend says that no, she was at home with me when she died, and as for repatriating her body, well, um, I already buried it in a makeshift grave so she wouldn't be thrown in a mass grave. Sigh. "To the bitter end," as a Haitian friend of ours used to say.

But here's the weird part - which may just be due to a combination of bad journalism and our worse translation, but...



The Haitian explained that Karen was not in the hospital when the earthquake struck, but was at home with him.

In an interview with Radio Fórmula, he said the Karen had a bad headache, and then she was dead.

"She died at my side. I went to the Mexican Embassy to tell them, found that there was nobody there Wednesday morning, and I went and buried her."


Raise your hand if there's anything in that passage that indicates to you that she was actually killed by the earthquake.

Ragin' Arizona

A Martin Luther King, Jr. Day shout-out to all our friends in the Failed State of Arizona.

Why, 2K!

We were down in the engine room this morning investigating a weird clanging sound coming from the Burro Hall mainframe - the spare cat had somehow crawled inside and couldn't figure out how to get out - and noticed that the big odometer on the wall was about to roll over. Which means that this - the post you're holding in your very hands right now - is officially Burrito of Wisdom #2,000.

By now, the naming of Burro Hall is the stuff of legend, but in honor of #2K, we thought we'd share with you the first recorded instance of someone referring to Brooklyn's Borough Hall as "Burro Hall." This was from a letter delivered to attorney Henry Breckinridge on March 7, 1932:

"Dear Sir: Dit you receive ouer letter form March 4. We sent the mail in one off the letter pox near Burro Hall - Brooklyn."

You may insert your joke about the quality Burro Hall writing having remained unchanged here: _____________.

But like our own Burro Hall, this one was also written by a non-native speaker of English, a German immigrant named Bruno Hauptmann. Henry Breckinridge was Charles Lindbergh's attorney. The rest of the letter concerned the potential safe return of Mr. Lindbergh's young son, Charles Jr. ("We are interested to send your Boy back in gud Health")

And until the statues of limitations expires, that's all we're going to say about our role in kidnapping the Lindbergh baby.

Gawking in a Winter Wonderland

Six inches now fell in the state of Querétaro this weekend - the first snowfall in 18 years - a statistic that surprises us because it does get pretty damn cold up in those mountains.

But even more unusual, the snow got within a few miles of the city for the first time in a quarter century. It's not technically snow, apparently, but something called agua-nieve - "water-snow" - which we take to mean sleet and/or slush. Whatever it means, it probably really sucks given that most of the houses there don't have heat.

Man's Best Friend

A 25-year-old chemistry professor named Patrick Alhston, who'd been lying under the rubble of the University of St Gerard in Port-au-Prince for three days, was pretty friggin' psyched to see the Mole Men of Tlaltelolco and their body-sniffing golden retriever yesterday.

Video here.

Friends and Neighbors

We expect the number to grow, but so far there's only one confirmed Mexican fatality in Haiti - and she's a queretana, as it turns out. Karen Valero Jacques, 39, from Lomas de Querétaro, who lived in Port au Prince with her Haitian husband (or perhaps was single and had just arrived on vacation), was found in a hospital in Canape Vert today.

Here's an excellent link to information on how to donate to the relief efforts.

Soak the Rich

Carlos Slim, who became the world's richest human by running the world's shittiest phone monopoly, is, through his charitable foundation, matching the contribution of anyone who donates to Haiti via Telmex. If you dial *7777 you can add 100, 200, 300 or 500 pesos to your phone bill. Let's see if we can't knock ol' Slim down to second or third-richest human by the end of the month.

Telcel users can do the same by texting 8888 with the amount you want to donate.

Mole Men to the Rescue!

While the US is offering Haiti the services of George W. Bush (who, it must be said, does have experience with natural disasters in former French territories), Mexico is sending something considerably cooler and more useful. (We're just lifting this whole from The Mex Files, and will pay all appropriate royalties.)

While three Mexican military planes are on their way to Haiti with 15 tons of relief supplies, and two naval ships — the Huasteco and the Papaloapan — are steaming towards the disaster-struck nation, a special shout-out should be given to an unexpected good Samaritan, PRI Federal Deputy Francisco Rojas.

Rojas has convinced his fellow PRI Deputies to chip in to pay the airfare for probably the best — and most needed — resource Mexico can offer it’s sister Republic: la Brigada Internacional de Rescate Tlaltelolco-Azteca, the Mole Men of Tlaltelolco.

A spontaneous response to Mexico City’s own tragic earthquake of 18 September 1985, the Brigada’s nucleus were residents of Tlatelolco who — when several apartment buildings collapsed — and the PRI controlled government was either too paralyzed or inept to act — took it upon themselves to rescue their trapped neighbors. While the original crew included some, like sewer workers, who had the special skills useful for the dangerous work of digging though unstable rubble, many relying on a very tough on-the-job training program.

In the years since, the Mole Men — all volunteers who are willing to walk off their jobs and risk their lives for complete strangers anywhere in the world where natural disasters strike have become one of, if the THE, most respected search and rescue teams in the world. After the Christmas Tsuami of 2004, German airline Lufthansa provided free transport to the Mole Men from Mexico City to Indonesia, where an Australian Air Force plane (and crew) was put at their disposal.

Not that we don't think W. will do a heckuva job, of course...

(Incidentally, we mean mole, not mole.)

Local Angle

From the Guadalajara Reporter:

So far, no Mexican casualties have been reported to the embassy in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, where around 80 Mexicans are thought to reside. The embassy is taking on the task of locating each national. The quake damaged the embassy building but no one is believed to be injured.

The Haitian Embassy in Mexico City is staying open 24/7 to accept donations and is setting up a bank account for contributions which, this being Mexico, should be up and running by the time the rebuilding effort is wrapping up, in the year 2200.

The Embassy is at Presa Don Martín 53, Polanco; tel:(01)(52) 5557-2065 and 5580-2487.

Más Allá de las Montañas, Más Montañas...

We don't ask you to open your wallets very often (except for that one time we did, and you responded with hard-hearted indifference so, y'know, thanks a fuckin' lot, everyone), but our other favorite Latin American country was pretty much wiped off the map yesterday, and the part that's left is a little short of cash. Haiti's got a lot of problems on a good day, and it's going to be a long, long time before it has another good day.


We certainly don't need to explain to a Mexican audience why a really huge earthquake in your capital city is a bad thing - particularly if your government is unequal to the task of rescue and relief - so what better way to show your support than, well, showing your support?

Conversely, Querétaro in particular owes a lot of its current prosperity to the waves of people and businesses that relocated here from the capital after the quake, so if you're living here and living well, the least you can do is give a little back to the seismically challenged. We can predict with some confidence that there's no little city near Port au Prince that's going to benefit from this quake 20 years from now.

Here's a list of charitable organizations active in Haiti. Our personal favorite is Partners in Health, but don't let us influence you. And make sure to get a receipt, which can be redeemed at Burro Hall Enterprises World Headquarters for two free beers until Dec 31, 2010.*

*[Some restrictions may apply.]

Update: In a textbook example of why some people think Mexico sucks, Rotativo is reporting that the Cruz Roja de Querétaro is accepting donations for Haiti (cuenta bancaria 0404040406, sucursal 683 de Bancomer, con clave 012180008080808062) and has opened a donation center accepting everything but water and clothing from 8AM to 8PM - a level of specificity that leads us to believe they're not making it up.

But because Rotativo is written by professional journalists, the article doesn't actually say where the donation center is. So we surf over to the Cruz Roja site, only to be told they are not accepting donations for Haiti just yet.

In case anyone from the Cruz Roja is reading this, hi, good morning, we're sorry to wake you up and everything, but this is not a fucking a drill. Burro Hall is run by a bunch of unpaid interns from the hills of the Sierra Gorda - two of them on prison work release - and yet we're capable of making a simple and accurate public declaration about the status of our donation center (closed until after Cinco de Mayo, for the record). Do we really have to explain to you how this shit is supposed to work?

We'll send one of the muchachos over to sort this out later, but FYI the Cruz Roja can be contacted at:



Tel: 229 05 45 Fax: 229 07 29
Avenida Balaustradas esq.
Circuito Estadio s/n
Col. Balaustradas C.P. 76079
Santiago de Querétaro.



Update II: Burro Hall gets shit done. The Cruz Roja has just clarified that they are, in fact, taking donations. And because they are a professional relief organization interested in accepting donations, their announcement still does not include the address of the donation center, since concerned citizens would obviously just know it off the tops of their heads. It is in fact the address we listed above.

Beyond the mountains, more mountains...

Soup Nazi

More tough-on-crime news:

On Tuesday, Mexican authorities announced the capture of ...Teodoro Eduardo Garcia Simental, described as a ruthless drug lord based just south of the American border in Tijuana. Mr. García’s trademark, when not trafficking marijuana and methamphetamine to the United States, was boiling rivals in barrels of lye in what has become known as pozole, for the Mexican stew, the authorities said.

We're guessing Teo wishes he'd paid his employees a little better, as an incentive not to talk.

Also, we're going ahead and giving the 2010 Golden Burro award for Most Foolishly Misplaced Optimism (Lifetime Achievement) to Fernando Ocegueda of Citizens United Against Impunity:

Mr. García’s arrest also gave hope to relatives of some of the hundreds of people who disappeared in Tijuana in recent years. “We hope he’ll be interrogated well and will tell us where our relatives are,” said Fernando Ocegueda, whose son was kidnapped from his home in 2007 and who runs Citizens United Against Impunity, an organization of those whose loved ones have disappeared.

We're sure they're all perfectly safe.

Great Moments in Gringo Solipsism

Just when you thought there was nothing new to say about the Mexican Drug War bloodbath – 7,700 deaths last year, 2,600 in Juarez alone, and 2010 looks like it will only get worse -- the Houston Chronicle manages to find a fresh angle: “American Murder Toll in Mexico Continues to Climb”:

Preliminary statistics and other sources show 2009 was by far the deadliest year for U.S. citizens in Mexico since the Department of State first began releasing international American homicide statistics in 2002.

Final 2009 data is not yet available, according to Jeffrey Galvin, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. But by June of last year, 37 murders already had been added to the State Department registry, compared with 50 in all of 2008 in Mexico. Dozens of additional homicides have been reported by the U.S. and Mexican media in the last half of 2009.

Dozens, on top of 37…so at least 61. Of course, with Drug War deaths up at least 50% in Mexico last year, a bump in the dead-gringo count shouldn’t be surprising, but then no story about Mexican mayhem is ever too small for the Chron’s front page (like this one linking a whopping 0.6% of the city’s homicides to Mexican gangs).

Ironically, it’s conceivable that some of these dead Americans were killed by guns bought in Houston:

High-powered guns purchased at Houston-area stores by a Gulf Cartel cell and smuggled across the border for the syndicate's bloody warfare have been traced to at least 55 killings in Mexico, including the deaths of police officers, civilians and gangsters, federal agents said Thursday.

The recent tracking of firearms is the result of a four-month anti-cartel operation focused largely on Houston, which the federal government contends is the No. 1 spot in the United States for buying guns that later are used in underworld massacres and other crimes in Mexico.

Today’s story is a follow up to reporter Lise Olsen’s earlier report, Caught in the Chaos!!!: More than 200!!! U.S. Citizens!!! KILLED!!!! In Mexico [boo, hiss!] Since ’04!!!!, from which we learned that the 15 million Americans who cross the border every year manage to get themselves killed at a rate of about one a week, with 2/3 of the dead being the kind of people who cross the border to do stuff that can get you killed in the first place. Today’s story, like the earlier one, makes a subtle nod at the murkiness of its own thesis:

Across Mexico, some U.S. citizen victims, like Father Uresti, of Austin, were slaughtered by people they knew. But most perished in the violent conflicts between warring drug cartels and occupying government military forces, press accounts and other records show. Most murders remain unsolved. Some, like Harrison, had criminal records in the United States....

Most Americans' murders were reported in or near Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo, statistics show. All three areas remain dangerous for residents and visitors — especially after dark and in nightclub zones, based on Mexican and U.S. statistics, U.S. government advisories and media reports.

It’s probably too much to ask that an American newspaper point out that these three cities are by far the most dangerous in Mexico precisely because they border the U.S., but they could at least mention that, y’know, hanging out in Juarez is just a really, really bad idea – worse than Disney World, even.

Meanwhile, the murder rate in Houston (population 2 million) dropped slightly, to a mere 285 murders in 2009. (we believe that number includes the 1.4 murders statistically attributable to Mexican gangs there). We don’t have any stats for the number of Mexicans murdered in the U.S. last year (help us out in comments if you can), but at least 750 died while trying to enter the U.S. last year - 58% of them women and children. We’re guessing they were coming north for more benign reasons than most of the gringo dead were going south.

Frozen Assets

Those of you suffering through the frigid weather up north might think it’s cold where you are, but in Querétaro it’s so cold that it’s now somewhat impractical to make a living selling ice cream in the middle of January.

Brrrrrrr!

Mole: It's da Bomb!

Via Benjamin Reed, Univision would like to remind Mexican travelers that mole can sometimes be confused with explosives by certain airport scanning systems. We've sampled enough of the stuff to concur - some of this stuff should never be carried in containers larger than three ounces, and should most certainly not be concealed in one's underwear.

Game Face

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Mexico Cartel Stitches Rival's Face on Soccer Ball

The body of 36-year-old Hugo Hernandez was left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces as a chilling threat to members of the Juarez drug cartel. A note read: ''Happy New Year, because this will be your last.''

To drive home the point, the assailants skinned Hernandez's face and stitched it onto a soccer ball.

...His torso was found in a plastic container in one location; elsewhere another box contained his arms, legs and skull, Robles said. Hernandez's face, sewn onto a soccer ball, was left in a plastic bag near City Hall.

Just to repeat: they cut his face off and sewed it on to a soccer ball. Didn't just think about it - which is fucked up enough - but actually sat down with a needle and thread and did it. (And if anyone out there believes they didn't then play 90 minutes of soccer with it, we have some investment properties we'd like to talk to you about.)

We post this, of course, with a mixture of terrified revulsion and awestruck admiration that, frankly, makes us hate ourselves just a little bit.

The Great White South

People shivering though the winter in El Norte sometimes forget that it's winter in Mexico, too, which generally means a series of cold fronts cataloged, Soviet-style, by number. (We're currently in the middle of frente frio #22.) And while it's easy to laugh at the queretanos bundled up like Admiral Byrd whenever the temperature drops into the 50s, it's worth remembering that the majority of the houses here - Burro Hall World Headquarters included - don't have any heat. Fifty degrees is what we New Englanders consider balmy in the springtime, but it's pretty frigging cold for a living room. (Still, we're having a hard time understanding why 40% of the city's schoolkids get to stay home when it's chilly.)

And today, the area around Mexico City got snow! We've been trying to find out exactly how much they got, but apparently snow is so rare there that it doesn't even occur to anyone to measure how deep it is. It's just snow! As opposed to no snow. Look, everyone...snow! El Universal even published a guide called "What to do in a snowstorm," full of the kind of tips we could have used back when we were in school: Keep a suitcase packed in case you need to evacuate; turn off the lights, water and gas if you're leaving home; wear layers; leave home only in an emergency; remain calm.

Again, we've got no reliable data, but it looks like they've gotten three inches or so. Remain calm...

The Call Him the Streak

In case you missed the Texas-Alabama BCS Championship game last night, the low point (besides 'bama running up the score at the end) was a goofball dressed as a luchador running on to the field for some incoherent reason or another. He's being referred to in the press as the "BCS Streaker." Now, we don't mean to date ourselves here, kids, but back in our day, streakers used to be more or less naked. But hey, it was the 70s.

Turns out, the streaker himself also uses the name "BCS Streaker," as in this YouTube video he posted over a month ago laying out his whole master plan. And once again, Barack Hussein Obama failed to connect the dots.

We can't quite tell if he's speaking English or Mexican, but we know this is officially the lamest use of the lucha libre mask since the Jonas Brothers video.

News Flash!

Headline of the day:

"Corona Weak In the US."

We can assure you, it's pretty weak in Mexico, too. Like watered-down donkey piss.

This Will Probably End Badly

On the top: MISSING: Little Chihuahua puppy, answers to the name "Toby."


On the bottom: MISSING: American Pit Bull. Answers to the name "Crazy."

Not that we encourage wagering, but our money's on Crazy.

The World Record For Most World Records Broken During Christmas

In case you had any doubt how Mexico spent the holiday season this year, it did so in its traditional manner: by trying to accrue even more world records! We're not sure how we missed this, but early last month Mexico erected the world's largest Christmas tree, a god-awful neon-clad confection 367 feet tall, sponsored by Pepsi, which surpassed the previous record, held by Brazil, by a mere nine inches.

Then, just this weekend, Mexico broke the record for the world's largest rosca de reyes, which is a special cake consumed on Three Kings Day, Jan 6. Though the 1,400 meter, 12 ton cake smashed the previous record holder from Houston by a factor of ten, we're going to call bullshit on this one. First of all, it's not a single cake, but a bunch of little ones glued together with sugar. But more importantly, the rosca de reyes is a Mexican tradition. Rather than celebrating their new world record, they should forever hang their heads in shame that the record once belonged to the US. It's as if the world's largest hot dog record was held by Mexico!

Update: Apparently, the world's largest hot dog record is held by Mexico. Never mind.

Big Baby Jesus

The nativity scene outside the basilica in Guanajuato sure has a thrown-together feel to it, doesn't it? Like it was made from castoffs from other cities' nativity scenes.



On the other hand, maybe that's how it really happened. Mary and Joseph rode into Bethlehem on a burro the size of a large house cat, whereupon Mary gave birth to a four-foot tall, 85-pound baby boy. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest story in the Bible. And it makes sense that God's kid would be kinda big boned.

Happy Days!

We've been wandering the streets of Querétaro this week trying to take in all the changes in the months we've been on the lam. One of our favorites is the arrival of a place called "Bar Retro Los 80's" on Cinco de Mayo in what used to be, we recall, a shop of some sort, or maybe even another bar. Anyway, as the name "Bar Retro los 80's" might imply, it has a "retro" theme. That's Elvis Presley [died 1977] in the center there. Marilyn Monroe [d. 1962] is in the back and on the wall, right above James Dean [d. 1955]. All the greatest icons of the 80's, on display!



Is it possible that Mexico just didn't get American movies and music until the 1980's?