Give Us Your Poor, Your Tired, Your Bloated

Some good news today in the category of American Exceptionalism: The USA not only remains the fattest nation on the face of God's splotchy Earth, but we're putting the title out of reach!

Adult obesity rates increased in 28 states in the past year, and declined only in the District of Columbia...

More than two-thirds of states (38) have adult obesity rates above 25 percent. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent.

Suck it, Mexico!

But before we start resting on our steel-reinforced laurels, we should note the fact that "adult obesity rates for Blacks and Latinos were higher than for Whites in at least 40 states and the District of Columbia." Put another way, a large part of our obesity epidemic is thanks to Latinos who come here and gain the weight Americans aren't willing to gain? Could that be possible?

Complacent Americans may want to take a gander at this report titled Migration and Health: The Children of Mexican Immigrants in the U.S. [pdf]

Among males ages 12 to 15, the average weight of Mexicans’ children is 63.5 kilos. This average is the highest in comparison with other ethnic and racial groups. The children of U.S.-born Afro-Americans weigh an average of 60.6 kilos, as opposed to 59 kilos for the children of U.S.-born whites. The children of other immigrants have the lowest average (54.5 kilos). These differences are even more striking in view of the fact that Mexicans’ children also have the lowest average height.

Open your eyes, people. Mexicans - who are pretty fat to begin with - are coming into our country, having offspring, and fattening them into the most obese young ethnic group in the nation. (Sort of gives new meaning to the term "anchor babies.") And lest you think, "Well, good for us! We're draining Mexico of all her fatties!" Remember, there are people out there determined to send 12 million of these human marshmallows back where they came from. And then who will the Fattest Nation on Earth be?

If you're anti-illegal-immigrant, you're anti-American. It's just that simple, beanpole.

Horse He Rode In On Sold Separately

Via CM Mayo, another world record for Mexico (sort of)!

"A fabulous saddle made for the last Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian I sold at auction on January 30, 2010. The stunning Imperial saddle, consigned by the heirs of the Julius Skilton family who acquired it shortly after Maximilian's execution by the forces of Benito Juarez in 1864, was lavishly adorned with multiple imperial crests and sold for a record setting $200,000 (estimate $100,000 - $150,000) propelled by animated bidding from the audience and all six telephone lines."

It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp

Because Querétaro is an insanely dangerous place crawling with murderous drug lords, we'd sort of lost track of this guy, who was rounded up with little or no fanfare here a couple of years ago. Like most of the city's most dangerous residents, Craig Petties is an American, who made his living shipping drugs to American customers in exchange for American dollars, etc. What we didn't know at the time is that he was also allegedly involved in at least six murders - which, because Mexico is so dangerous, had to be carried out in and around Memphis, TN, for security reasons. This sort of spillover, where cold-blooded assassins come across the border and infiltrate our peaceful, God-fearing communities, is why we have long supported the building of an impenetrable wall along the border.

But, really, the only reason we're even posting this is to pass on the awesome news that Petties is also the half-brother of Three 6 Mafia's DJ Paul. A quasi-celebrity's relative in our midst all that time!

Como Vuela el Cuervo

Oh, honestly, people...

The University of Kansas had 18 students ready to fine-tune their Spanish skills this summer in Puebla, southeast of Mexico City. Then multiple killings in distant Ciudad Juárez in March prompted the State Department to issue a travel warning for northern Mexico. The university canceled its Puebla program.

Apparently they're not teaching geography in college anymore, because if the idea (and it's a good one) is to keep your students away from the insane violence in Juárez, then it's worth noting that the University of Kansas's main campus in Lawrence is nearly 200 miles closer to Juárez than Puebla is. Concerned administrators should be urging the entire student body to transfer north to the University of Iowa if they want to keep them outside the 1200-mile-radius Ciudad Juárez Kill Zone.

Trust us, we'd be as happy as anyone to see the flow of American exchange students in Queretaro slow to a trickle, but for the record, this guy has the right idea:

“To make an analogy,” said Geoffrey E. Braswell, an associate anthropology professor at the University of California, San Diego, “I would not have considered taking students to Mississippi during the early 1960s or to Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention, but other parts of the U.S. were of course safe for travel. Mexico is that way.”

Here's a handy tool for measuring the distance between Mexican cities, for all you spatially-challenged university deans out there.

Gato Perdido

We've pretty much stopped posting All Points Bulletins when the spare cat has gone missing, since it happens about three times a week. But the main cat seems to have gone outside the perimeter and, by our estimates, has been gone for four days - not unprecedented, but surely unusual for her.

If you happen to see this medium-sized, all gray, female gato in the Centro, we'd be really grateful if you could call and let us know. She answers to the name Lucy, but she's extremely shy, and you probably won't be able to grab her yourself. Discretion prevents us from listing the amount of the reward you'll receive, but it'll be well worth your while.

Sábado Gigante

* Mexico moves up two slots on the Failed States Index, and is now the 96th Most Failed State in the World. The Failed State of Arizona benefits from being lumped in with 49 other, more successful American states, thus coming in 158th.

* Think we're kidding? Compare crime statistics between two neighboring states: Sonora and Arizona. Jan Brewer may want to send Vermont a thank-you card.

* First the FSoAZ comes for the Mexicans, then they come for the burros.

* And then for the terrorists.

* Querétaro, because it's in Mexico, doesn't actually have terrorists, but we loves us some security-state apparatus, so our color-coded alert system is used for rain instead. The chance that this summer may being some Orange Alert days is front-page news. (The fact that heading up the Municipal Civil Protection Unit appears to be part of the governor's wife's ceremonial duties is, strangely, not remarked upon.)

* In other civil protection news, Querétaro police have seized 5,200 beers in raids on after-hours clubs, and "are beginning the process of destroying these beverages." We'll bet.

*We hope Ran Paul gets elected, because we're dying to hear how this is supposed to work: "My plans include an underground electronic fence, with helicopter stations to respond quickly to breaches of the border."

* Mexican profanity is really confusing.

* We don't know if there's a Mexican term for "food porn," but The Mija Chronicles traffics in it delightfully.

* Carlos Monsiváis died last week. It's hard to think of an analogous American figure.

* The MexFiles on becoming Mexican.

In the Spanish language, “to be” has two forms: estar and ser. Estar is a changeable or impermanent state, Ser is permanent. And what is more permanent than death? But we do not say, “Señor Kurtz, se muerto” but “Señor Kurtz, está muerto” — Mr. Kurtz is dead right now, but that’s not necessarily the last word on the subject. There is no last word, and no reason to spend a lot of extraneous words getting around that.

* Tom Petty: Jefferson Jericho Blues. It's not Mexican, but we're not in Mexico anyway.

Gato Perdido

We've pretty much stopped posting All Points Bulletins when the spare cat has gone missing, since it happens about three times a week. But the main cat seems to have gone outside the perimeter and, by our estimates, has been gone since at least Tuesday, June 22.

If you happen to see this medium-sized, all gray, three-year-old female gato in the Centro, we'd be really grateful if you could let us know. She answers to the name LUCY, but she's extremely shy, and you probably won't be able to grab her yourself. Discretion prevents us from listing the amount of the reward you'll receive, but it'll be well worth your while.

Gol!

Today the US accomplished two things that have eluded the French: they defeated Algeria, and their soccer team staved off elimination from the 2010 World Cup. The winning (or, this being soccer, only) goal was scored by Landon Donovan. Via Benjamin Reed, here's an ad Donovan starred in for a Mexican lottery game:



It's funny because Donovan's sneaking in from El Norte! If he's was coming in from the south, the border guard would have fucked him up hard.

Would Dolores Del Rio Lie To You?

The World Cup finally rolls around, and we find ourselves working in a country that doesn't take the entire day off every time there's a soccer game. So, in deference to the insatiable demands of The Man, "updating the blog" is moving a little further down on the to-do list this week. But today, as a service to our under-18 readers, guest blogger Dolores Del Rio is here to explain how to be a sexy, glamorous movie star!

And she lived to be 77, so don't believe the uncool kids when they tell you it's unhealthy!

The Thin White Duke

Today is the 143rd anniversary of the execution of Emperor Maximilian in the hills of Querétaro. While we've long argued that he should have been granted clemency simply for introducing the parted-in-the-middle beard to Latin America, passions were running a little hot at the time, and Benito Juarez wasn't going to let some bitchin' facial hair stand in the way of a good firing squad. In case you were wondering what a recently-murdered 35-year-old inbred Austrian archduke-emperor looks like after a few days in the sizzling queretano sun, behold his embalmed cadaver, courtesy of the book Querétaro: The End of the Second Mexican Empire, by Konrad Ratz:

Max was embalmed by a local gynecologist named Vicente Licea, and legend has it that the glass eyes staring back in the photo above had been plucked from a statue of Saint Ursula. Dr. Licea also may or may not have clipped off parts of that beautiful beard to sell as relics.

After they killed the dumb bastard, no one really had a plan for what to do with him. For a while, his coffin resided under the stairwell in the building at Madero 70 (where it was pulled out once so Juarez could take a peek). Over the summer, it was decided that the body would be sent back to Austria. In early September, it was shipped to Mexico City, and...um, something happened en route. This is where our weak Spanish works against us, but according to the book, the body suffered dos caídas al agua, which we take to mean it fell into water...twice. We'd have a hard time understanding how that was possible if we hadn't lived in Mexico for several years.

Anyway, the three-months-dead body was deemed "unpresentable," and was re-embalmed. Dr Licea had plucked out Max's organs and stored them in lead containers, and these organs were stuffed back into the body cavity just in case the Austrians decided to cut the guy open for a third (fourth?...we're losing track) time and accuse the Mexicans of stealing them to sell. (Six years later, police would discover a preserved heart and some intestines in Dr. Licea's office, and accuse him of having stolen them from Maximilian. The good doctor explained that, no, he had actually stolen them from body of General Tomás Mejía, who was executed next to Max, and who he had embalmed at a house on Calle Independencia, down the street from Burro Hall HQ, and across from Restaurante Bhaji. Please update your guidebooks accordingly.)

Six months after he died, on Jan 18, 1868, Dead Emperor Maximilian arrived home in Austria. His beard was still intact and crisply parted.

Racial Sensitivity Watch: World Cup Edition II

A couple of days ago an overzealous Mexican soccer fan plopped a sombrero on top of a statue of Nelson Mandela, for which he was quickly shackled in irons and dragged off to District 9, while all sorts of officials demanded apologies for the "insult." We're pretty sure that if Mexico hadn't battled South Africa to an unexpected tie in the opening game, the "insult" would have been allowed to slide, but to us what's really interesting is the the threshold for what the article classifies as "lamentable conduct," given that this is the way Mexican television is covering the tournament:





And yes, the host is an alcoholic clown. Deal with it.

(The linked-to article mentions a few previous incidents of Mexicans Behaving Badly at the World Cup, our favorite being the fan who pissed on the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe. Now that's an "insulto internacional.")

The Rematch

Oh, France...when will you learn?

Fried Pork Kidneys for Breakfast!

With Mexico being home to the sixth-largest Irish community in the world, we imagine the country will be more or less shut down for Bloomsday festivities all day. We can't be there, but invite readers to share their stories/photos/videos in comments.

You can order your own copy of Ulysses in Spanish here (we assume it would be no more impenetrable than the English version), or, if you prefer, catch up with these apparently Joyce-influenced Mexican authors:

In literature, the Irish writer James Joyce had a huge influence in Mexico. His innovative monologue style and his linear writing structure greatly impacted the way in which the best Mexican writers approached literature. Salvador Elizondo was obsessed with his writings. He dedicated a complete book about Joyce called: Invocación y evocación de la infancy. Joyce is also present in his short stories and novels. Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo is overflowing with the interior monologue that characterized Joyce's work.

See ya at the Wicklow!

Balls Like Mexican Churchbells

In 20 years of watching bullfights, we’ve seen quite a few failures of nerve, and occasional displays out outright cowardice - including our own, like the afternoon in Mexico City in 1994 when a bull flew over the first barrier (but not the second) not too far from where we had splurged on front row seats, causing us to squeal like schoolgirls at a Jonas Brothers concert. But we can say with some confidence that we’ve never, ever seen anything like the show Queretaro's own Cristian Hernández put on this weekend during a novillada at Plaza Mexico.

In a sight rarely seen in the bravado world of bullfighting, Hernandez made a spin with his red cape at the charging bull, then ran across the ring and leapt headlong over the wall to safety, dropping his cape in the process. The crowd hooted in derision.

Several months ago, another bull grievously gored Hernandez in the leg.

Officials did briefly convince Hernandez to return to the ring on Sunday, where he put his hands over his head and pointed upward before he made a second exit, shaking his head.

He later said he would retire from bullfighting.

As if suffering one of the worst humiliations in the history of the corrida wasn't bad enough, Hernández was then arrested and charged with breach of contract for refusing to fight the bull. The Mexican and international press are of course making great sport of the kid, leading us to wonder whether it's possible to literally mock someone to death. Indeed, we were ready to join in the fun ourselves, until we read Hernández's post-debacle comments to the press:

"There are some things you must be aware of about yourself," the 22-year-old Mexican matador said in a television interview. "I didn't have the ability, I didn't have the balls, this is not my thing."

Admittedly, standing in a traje de luces in the middle of Plaza Mexico opposite a 900-pound, charging bull does seem rather late to discover that this is "not your thing," but the sheer honesty of this statement - one that would most assuredly apply to 99% of the people laughing at Hernández from the safety of their comfy armchairs - melted the icy core of our cowardly little hearts. He didn't blame the bull, he didn't blame the crowd, he didn't blame the American Invasion of 1846 - he simply said, "I chickened out." If there's anything that takes bigger balls than killing a wild bull with a sword, it's standing up in front of the Mexican press and admitting you don't have the balls to kill a wild bull with a sword.

For displaying a level of courage unimaginable from the vast majority of his macho countrymen, Cristian Hernández is the 2010 Burro Hall Sportsman of the Year.

Suerte, torero, in whatever you decide to do next.

Racial Sensitivity Watch: World Cup Edition

Thanks to the indefatigable Laura Martinez, we learn that the Official Theme Song of the 2010 World Cup, Shakira's Waka Waka (This Is Africa), apparently started life as a tune by the Latina girl-group Las Chicas del Can called "Waka Waka, El Negro No Puede," which basically means "the black guy can't get it up" (we don't know what "waka waka" means).



So there you have it: the the theme song for the first African World Cup Latin-tinged ditty about black male impotence. No wonder Mandela skipped the opening.

Borderland

The Man has sent us on a mission south of the border this week. Though it's a trip we make pretty frequently, we're never fully at ease here. The people speak a strange, impenetrable language, dress funny, take Jesus too seriously, and, while appearing unfailingly polite and welcoming, bear a deep-seated suspicion (and hostility) towards visitors from the north. Also, you see exotic, disorienting sights like this:

In short, we can't wait to get back onto the right side of the border, and until we do, posting is likely to be as sporadic as the electricity here. We thank you for your patience.

No! Not the Kryptonite!

Some pro-law-and-order talking points from the ALIPAC war room:

We also know that many of you are engaging in debates online, on talk radio shows, and among friends and family members in defense of Arizona and immigration enforcement.

President Obama, the top Democrats in Washington and several city council's [sic] are making the false claim that Arizona's new law is mean spirited and racist!

We want to encourage you all to point out MEXICO and OBAMA and others are all in this together.

Do the right thing in your debates by mentioning MEXICO, MEXICO, MEXICO and Mexico's allies in the US like Obama. Tie Arizona's critics to Mexico.

We have to admit, it's not the worst argument we've heard.

Nice Try, Tri

The bar next door to our office:



The entrance to our subway stop:

Forget it it, guys - you're never going to get us to care about the World Cup, though we have to say we admire the effort. Sending this guy to serenade us on the subway with our friend's family song was an especially clever touch:

Sábado Gigante

* Finding your city mentioned in an article on The Most Dangerous Places in Mexico makes you feel pretty bad-ass. Unless it says this:

Despite being surrounded by states burdened with ever higher murder rates, Querétaro's high standard of living has kept it a peaceful place that has escaped most of the violence; between Jan. 1, 2007 and June 5, 2009, Agencia Reforma logged just 18 drug-related deaths

* Another anti-Mexican rally today in the FSoAZ. Remember: When you Stand With Arizona, you stand with Hitler. On D-Day weekend.

* Mexicans may want to avoid Maricopa County AZ for another reason: It's really dangerous, because Sheriff Joe Arpaio does a really lousy job fighting crime.

* Besides, illegals, migrating to the US legally is really simple, so you should just do that instead.

* Also, it turns out that the closer Americans live to Mexico, the safer their cities are, while the closer Mexicans live to the US, the more blood-soaked and violent their cities are. Please finish that wall, President Obama.

* Apropos of yesterday's post, it appears Mexico is home to the world's sixth-largest Irish community. Man, that's a lot of giant foam leprechaun hats.

* It ain't quite the Rolling Stones, but the Aguascalientes coat of arms has a pair of red, smoochy lips on it.

* Great photo essay on America's Mexican superheroes.

* A pedantic asshole after our own hearts.

* The New Yorker on La Familia [pdf].

* The Battle of Lake Texcoco, in miniature.

* If you must vacation with a tiger, you should avoid staying at the Cancun Hilton.

Insane Clown Posse

The Man's been riding us pretty hard this week, so we've been slow in posting and - even worse - have been forced to miss Querétaro's annual "International Community Festival." This is a shame because we personally make a up significant percentage of the International Community, and thus feel an obligation to represent. But the American delegation has already proven that it can humiliate itself without our assistance, so we're going to assume Uncle Sam is in excellent hands once again. Instead, let's just take a minute to marvel at our ancestral forbears, the Irish, seen here in a photo taken by a friend and stolen without permission:

We've yet to run into any Irish people in Querétaro (not even here), and two years ago the Irish delegation appeared to be composed composed entirely of Mexicans, but, assuming they're genuine micks, this picture would seem to have only a handful of explanations: 1) That they dress like this all the time; 2) That they don't dress like this all the time, but did bring these costumes with them on their journey to Mexico, to be taken out for special occasions; 3) The Irish Embassy keeps a supply on hand, to be given out to Irishmen who have come to Mexico without a leprechaun outfit of their own. None of these possibilities is less disturbing than the others.

The Gang's All Here

We're just a few months short of the 200th Anniversary of the start of the Mexican War for Independence - a war that took everyone, including, apparently, its leaders, somewhat by surprise.  Forced to start the struggle a little earlier than they'd planned, the Mexican forces in those early days were, to use the modern phrase, more aspirational than operational, which is how the movement's leaders, Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama and Mariano Jiménez, came to spend ten of the war's eleven years with their severed, sun-bleached skulls hanging in cages from the four corners of the Alhondiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato.

Starting in a few weeks, you'll be able to relive those heady days, when the remains of 12 Independence leaders  (the Alhondiga Quartet mentioned above, plus José María Morelos, Mariano Matamoros, Pedro Moreno, Víctor Rosales, Xavier Mina, Nicolás Bravo, Leona Vicario, Andrés Quintana Roo, Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria) will go on display at the National Palace in Mexico City.  For our money, exhuming national leaders and putting their dead bodies on display is something we don't do enough of in the US.  But most amazing - to us, at least, because we never bother to read guidebooks very carefully - is the fact that all these bodies have been stored for the last 186 85 years in the base of the Angel of Independence, the most iconic monument in the nation.  It would be as if their American or French equivalents were stacked up in the bottom of the Washington Monument or the Eiffel Tower (with the added bonus that the Angel sits on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection). We learn something new about Mexico every day.

The bodies were exhumed from the Angel on Sunday, and transported with great pomp and ceremony to Chapultepec Castle, from which they will then be transported with great pomp and ceremony to the Museum of Anthropology to be authenticated - giving us the prospect of (a) photos of the actual skulls appearing in the Mexican press, which we promise to bring you as soon as they're published, and (b) a national scandal if it turns out one of the national heroes is in fact missing.