Long in the Tooth

The thing about having a "geriatric" perro is that you wind up logging a lot of time at the vet's office. And while we have the utmost faith in our Mexican vet's almost shamanistic ability to accurately diagnose and successfully treat any malady without the apparent use of any medical instruments whatsoever, preventative veterinary medicine is kind of unheard of here. So one a year we splurge for a complete physical in El Norte - but in order to get to his complete physical in El Norte, the perro must first undergo a complete physical, the results of which are certified and notarized and presented to the Customs goons at Houston Airport. Thus, we have two vet-office photos, one in Mexico, one in the US, taken six days apart:

Can you tell them apart? Here's a hint: one of these visits cost 150 pesos ($12); the other cost $842 (10,514 pesos). In both photos he's merely mimicking the look on his owner's face.

But this year's twice-as-hefty-as-usual price tag is because we were finally persuaded that he needs a serious teeth-cleaning if he's to continue eating solid food in the future. The second-most-common question we get when we take him out for a walk is, "Does he bite," which amuses us to no end, because even if he did, it would take him 20 minutes to break your skin. (The most common question we get is, "Can he fuck our dog for us," which we're really only now getting used to.)

This procedure is being done today, and has to be done under general anesthesia - which means that for a few hours this afternoon we'll be invoking the 25th Amendment, and the cat will assume the duties of Lead Pet until the perro is fit to re-shoulder the burdens of his office, probably around 5PM Eastern time.

Thank you, and God bless the United States of America.

Where In the World Is Jefe Diego?

The big news in Mexico yesterday was that Querétaro's most famous kidnap victim, conservative politician/power broker/general douchebag Diego Fernandez de Cevallos had been released and was, according to the screaming, above-the-fold headline in El Universal, "Free and Healthy." And within hours, everyone with a connection to the case was denying it.

We're just going to put this in the "Things Are Different In Mexico" file. While it's certainly possible for a rich and powerful American to be held hostage for six months, we have a hard time imagining this much confusion over a simple, confirmable piece of data such as whether or not the victim has been released in good condition.

We hope the reports are true, of course. Were El Jefe to be released while we're in the United States, it would make it harder for Governor Calzada to pin the whole thing on us.

¿Why is this Night Different from all Other Nights?

Next Friday, Temple Emanuel in nearby Andover, MA (population: 98.2% non-Latino), presents "Maccabi Goes Mariachi," a very special Chanukah service featuring the the Old World stylings of Mariachi Mexico Lindo. Puttin' the "Manuel" back in "Emanuel," so to speak.

Yes, we have all the same questions you do.

Sábado Gigante

* The Week in Cheesecake: Unemployed Mexicana flight attendants hope their semi-naked pin-up calendar will save the airline, which is not the wost idea we've heard; Jennifer Aniston celebrates Thanksgiving in the traditional Mexican way; Governor Calzada's wife + black top + white bra + powerful flash = Burro Hall 2011 pin-up calendar's Miss January.

* Large Hispanic man assaults president of the United States. Meet Fox News Latino's new host for the 8pm time slot.

* Given the considerable - say, 100% - overlap between Immigrant Haters and Climate Change Deniers, this is going to be pretty funny when it happens.

* Mexican Census results in handy infographic form.

* Mexican activists end White House hunger strike before anyone knows it's started.

* In Querétaro, even our high-profile political kidnappings end happily!

* Murder City sounds like it's worth reading if someone gives you a free copy and pays you to review it.

* We've said this 100 times, but while the drug violence gets all the attention, it's Mexico's drivers who are the real threat. Even the pros are at risk here.

* And if you want to reduce your risk of being attacked by terrorists, there's only one country in North America you ought to avoid.

* This exact thing happened to us last month, only instead of an ambulance it was a moving van, and instead of a dying loved one we were transporting a bed. But is was still annoying.

* This year, 350 tons of cocaine and 15,000 tons of pot will glide across the US-Mexico border undetected, while the Border Patrol is busy searching Willie Nelson's tour bus.

* And meanwhile, Mexicans are perfecting their tunnel-crawling-robot technology.

* England's not the only country planning a royal wedding, by the way.

* Some more cool old Mexican photos on Flickr. And a snapshot of life in Querétaro before the Revolution ruined everything.

* Another result of the Mexican Revolution: Mexican-Americans! And back then, coming over the border in search of a better way of life wasn't illegal, so everybody loves those guys.

* An amiga of ours, braving the Minnesota winter to help make Americans smarter.

* La Casa del Atrio is now officially excellent.

* Tequila distillery Hacienda La Capilla introduces a new $3.5 million bottle, guaranteed to get Selma Hayek into bed with you.

* The Mexican Hamburger of Denver. Guaranteed to keep Tom Tancredo out of your bed.

* And not a word about the Failed State of Arizona...

Meet the Beatles!

Because we traditionally move our editorial offices to the US during the Thanksgiving holiday, we were unaware that every November for the past 12 years Querétaro has hosted a massive conference/expo called the Beatles Festival. This year's event is tomorrow in the Auditorio Josefa Ortiz, where, among other highlights, attendees can gaze upon an original edition of the infamous "butcher cover" - la portada de los carniceros - of the "Yesterday and Today" album. The idea, apparently, is that Mexicans are hungry for a glimpse of bloody carnage these days.

Meanwhile, the Autonomous University of Querétaro is planning to offer a course in Beatles Studies next year, which would certainly help cement the town's reputation as an educational Mecca. And it's conveniently close to Liverpool, so field trips won't be a problem.

El Día de Acción de Gracias

Today is Thanksgiving - or, as we refer to it in Mexico, "Thursday" - the day we stop to remember America's first wave of undocumented immigrants, and give thanks that the natives opted not to round them up and put them to work picking up trash on the Arizona highways before deporting them and their rolly-poly white anchor babies.

Via the nice folks at Geo-Mexico (whose posts on the Mexican origins of turkey, corn and potatoes you should read), we came across this account of the first Thanksgiving feast held by European settlers in the New World:

Safe and grateful for the expedition’s deliverance from the extreme hardships of the journey, Oñate ordered that the travelers construct a church with a nave large enough to hold the entire camp. Inside the church, on April 30, 1598, the first Thanksgiving celebration of European colonists in the New World was held....

The feast took place in what is now New Mexico, but was then just Mexico, 23 years before the big luncheon at Plimouth Plantation, and fully 356 years before whites invented rock 'n roll.

Speaking of anniversaries, it was 50 years ago this week that CBS Reports aired a groundbreaking documentary called "Harvest of Shame," a celebration of the Golden Years of American agriculture, when farm labor was still done by native-born Americans, many of them white.



But that was before Mexicans came and stole all those great jobs from us. Sure, the fact that these people only make about ten grand a year means you'll be able to feed ten people today for just $43, but do you really want to feed your children food that's been touched by Mexicans? It's your call, but we've heard from reliable sources that they're dripping with leprosy.

(And now for the non-snarky portion of our Thanksgiving post: This nice lady is a good friend of ours, and you could do worse things with your money than donate some of it to her organization. Thanks!)

Great Moments in Advertising

When your country is going through a bit of a 'kidnappy' phase, a tightly-gagged young woman with terror in her eyes is perhaps not the best spokesmodel for your condo development.

"Leave them speechless," goes the slogan, though this could probably be accomplished just as easily with a vigorous pistol-whipping as by purchasing a three-bedroom apartment.

Notes from the Killing Fields

According to the mayor of tiny Huimilpan, Querétaro, at least 12 of the town's citizens have returned home from the United States in body bags over the past 13 months, with two others missing and presumed dead. Huimilpan has a population of about 32,000. If there's a similar-sized town in the US that has lost a dozen people in Mexico this year, the press is doing a great job of covering it up.  It would be just devastating to the country's struggling tourism industry.

Needless to say, this hasn't deterred us from visiting the US. Many parts of it are actually quite safe.

Mexicans Know Their History

One of the local papers debates the legacy of Pancho Villa: hero, bandit, or saint?

We don't pretend to know the answer, but we do know that the guy with the sombrero as big as his mustache is Emiliano Zapata, not Pancho Villa.

Centennial Fever!

Today's* the centennial of the start of the Mexican Revolution, in which a guy named Frank, who had every legal right to be in Mexico but was forced to flee to the United States, harnessed the power of the printed word and sparked the overthrow of an autocratic despot. Something our friend Governor Calzada may want to think about.

This isn't one of those posts that tries to explain The Meaning of It All, since we're eminently unqualified to do so. The Mexican Revolution goes largely untaught in American schools, we can't say we knew a thing about it until a few years ago. The most surprising thing to us was the free-for-all nature of it. Unlike the neat, two-side wars Americans tend to fight - Colonists vs Brits; North vs South; Jesus vs Terror - The Mexican Revolution was Madero vs Diaz; Huerta vs Madero; Zapata, Villa and Carranza vs Huerta; Villa vs Carranza; Villa vs Obregon; Obregon vs Carranza... all of whom were either crazy, bloodthirsty or both. It was sort of like one of those 12-luchador steel-cage clusterfucks they have in Querétaro every Christmas. Only Diaz managed to die of old age. Obregon was shot by a Cristero, which was the war that followed right on the heels of the Revolution.

We can see why this isn't taught in US schools. It's sorta hard to condense.

Despite the free-for-all nature of it, the actual fighting was contained to a relatively few states, and Querétaro wasn't one of them. Querétaro did cerebral stuff like hosting the constitutional convention, but didn't get its hands dirty. More Revolution 9, than Revolution.

But while the constitution was written under Carranza's supervision, and there's a bust of him in the Teatro de la Republica, and Venustiano Carranza Street right behind our offices, Querétaro was (surprisingly, if you'd never seen the place before 2005) Pancho Villa country - because Carranza and Obregon were staunch anti-clerics, and Villa wasn't nearly as bad. In Querétaro, the Baby Jesus's enemy's enemy is your friend.

Villa visited the city twice and was hailed as a hero both times (though, ironically, one of those visits was on the way to the Battle of Celaya, which was kind of his Waterloo). So if we were forced to take a stab at The Meaning of it All, we'd just note that, 100 years after the start of the Revolution, the moment a guy like Villa set foot in Querétaro, he'd be picked up by the municipal police on vagrancy charges and hustled over the Guanajuato border in the dead of night. Viva!

Update: By "today," we mean "yesterday." We've sent a crew down to the engine room to figure out why this didn't post last night. Another round of layoffs to follow...

Sábado Gigante

* The fabled "death panels" are now a reality! Where? Why, in the Failed State of Arizona, of course. And al Qaeda's scheme to cover the US in "victory mosques" and impose Sharia law? Also a reality in the FSoAZ! You want heartless government bureaucrats turning their backs on our heroic veterans? You know where to go! Be careful, though - thanks to President Obama, cold-blooded killers and child molesters come spilling over the border all the time.

* Mass-murderer spillover is a problem on the San Diego-Tijuana border as well. Why won’t Obama finish that wall?

* In fact homicidal Americans are spilling over from as far away as Wisconsin. “U.S. Marshal Doug Bachert, a lead investigator in Milwaukee hunting for Lopez. “[US Marshal] Bachert said that Lopez's arrest should serve as a message to other criminals who might try to flee to Mexico. ‘It's not the safe haven it once was,’ he said.” On the other hand, it’s never been more affordable.

* US Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske: "Drug use in America drives instability and violence in Mexico." No shit, Sherlock! Still, it's nice to hear someone with a West Wing office say it.

* Texas Gov. Rick “Dick” Perry won’t take Federal tax dollars to create jobs or insure old people, but definitely thinks we should invest in an invasion of Mexico. Man, Molly Ivins sure picked a shitty time to be dead.

* We know it has nothing to do with events in Europe in the 1930s and 40s, but it still creeps us out a little when Mexican officials do this.

* Twelve-year-old cartel hitman makes $3,000 per scalp. When we were 12, we had a paper route that actually managed to lose money. This kid is going places.

* Dallas Morning News’s Alfredo Corchado is a friend of a friend, but we’ve never managed to hook up with him here. That’s starting to seem like a good thing.

* This is an absolute master class in boo-hoo-hooing. If Bill Gheen were simply to weep all his tears into the Rio Grande, the river would run too deep and fast to swim across.

* The Library of Congress has some images from the Revolution online here. Bear in mind, the camera adds 15 pounds to Mrs. Pancho Villa.

*We always hear that "Mexicans know their history." That’s probably true; they just don’t understand it very well.

* UNESCO declares Mexican food treasured part of the world’s Intangible Heritage, giving it its rightful place alongside Turkish oil wrestling. We don’t understand how anything involving habanero chiles can be considered “intangible.”

*Sound advice for eating un-regulated Mexican street food.

* One of the more baffling facts about Querétaro is that a city of 730,000 people has a volunteer fire department. On the other hand, none of the houses appear to be built out of anything flammable.

* American basic-cable TV show to feature undocumented Mexican crimefighter. Batshit-crazies go batshit crazy.

* The Medium is the Message: The Independent Cartel of Acapulco sends a message urging the civilian population to remain calm. Unfortunately, they do so via narcomanta, which tends to have the effect of undermining one’s calmness.

* Holiday gift idea for your favorite Mexican death-porn aficionado (many of whom will be arriving in this post’s comment section any minute now): the Confani Funebri coffin company’s 2011 cheesecake calendar.

* We have our doubts about the un-Photoshoppedness of this photo.

* Same goes for this gallery of Mexico’s most serious journalist, Querétaro’s own Ines Sainz.

* U Can’t Touch This:

Burro Hall Car Seat Giveaway Madness!!

So less than 24 hours after we taunted Governor Calzada to "bring it on," we found ourselves pulled over on the highway for the first time in four years here. Not speeding, not violating any rules - the police just decided completely apropos of nothing to pull us over and check that all our papers were in order, as if we had somehow wandered into Bizzaro Arizona. Of course our papers were not in order - who the hell brings their passport and visa with them to go grocery shopping? - and so there followed a long standoff as the officer asked us "well then how do I know you're here legally?" in a way that implied that his question was not rhetorical.

All evidence on this blog to the contrary, we're not complete idiots; we don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. So we're going to go up to El Norte for a couple of weeks until Governor Hothead cools down a bit. As today is now, unexpectedly, a travel day, it seems like a good time for another installment of BHCSGM!!

Objects In Mirror Are In Greater Danger Than They Appear

If the parent or caregiver of the child in this picture writes us a letter acknowledging the error of their ways, Burro Hall Enterprises will buy them a child car seat and help them install it. And as an additional conciliatory gesture, we'll invite Governor and Mrs. Calzada to the presentation ceremony.

Canadian Quakin'

Earlier this week there was a massive explosion at a Cancun hotel that left seven people dead, and appeared to have been caused by swamp gas, proving once and for all that literally everything in Mexico can, and eventually will, kill you. (Cancun, incidentally, has never been more affordable!) Our analysts tend to doubt the swamp gas theory, since it would essentially be unprecedented in human history, but maybe that's what makes Mexico so "magical."

Five of the dead were Canadian citizens, and while one could argue that death in Mexico is preferable to being alive in Alberta in November, the Canadian press has gone predictably hysterical, and has been cataloging every Canadian who's died in Mexico, going all the way back to 2006 (the date Canadian newspapers first went online). And the total body count for the last four years is....116 - a number that includes accidents, drownings and suicides. The number of homicides or suspicious deaths comes to a whopping 15. But even using the higher number, it means that of the five million Canadians who have ventured into the Mexican killing fields over the past four years, 99.99776% of them have managed to get out of here alive.

But this is where it gets interesting. Annual Canadian deaths here tally about 29, whereas Americans die at a rate of about 223 a year. But 12 times as many Americans visit Mexico as Canadians. If we divide the American death toll by 12, we get 18. And 18, we need not point out, is a considerably smaller number than 29.

In other words, the hysterical Canadian press may be on to something. Canadians visiting Mexico die at a rate 61% higher than their American counterparts.

(While there's of course nothing funny about dying, we just remembered all the Canadians we met years ago in Europe, with those enormous Canadian flags sewn onto their backpacks so they wouldn't be mistaken for Americans, and we chuckled. Sorry.)

But this begs the question, why? Canadians are a hale and hearty, gun-loving people who endure sub-zero temperatures in the summer and six months of darkness a year. They share their land with wild elk and polar bears. But put them in Mexico and they go all harp seal on you. Why? We frankly have no idea, but welcome our (surprisingly high) number of Canadian readers to chime in.

Of course, while it's fun to scream about bloodshed in Mexico, the Canadaian press might want to look a little closer to their own southern border. The research interns are off for the holidays, so we haven't gotten very solid statistics on Canadians slaughtered in the US, except for one recent year. While 29 Canucks a year have been dying in violence-plagued Mexico, a mere 572 died on American soil in 2004. We have no reason to believe that was an especially bad year for Canadians in the US. Adjusting for the fact that 15 times as many Canadians visit the US as they do Mexico, the US is still 31% deadlier for Canadians tourists than Mexico is.

Fortunately, the Canadian public seems aware of this.

As the family of a 51-year-old Ottawa-area man plan the repatriation of his remains after discovering his body stuffed in the trunk of a torched rental car in Mexico, the country’s tourist board is preparing to release news that more Canadians visited Mexico this year than ever before...

More Canadians have visited Mexico each year for the past six years. In 2009, a record 1,222,739 Canadians visited. This year’s total will exceed that by a wide margin. Almost a million came in the first half of 2010 alone, an increase of more than 20% over the same period last year, according to Mexico’s Secretariat of Tourism.

And it's never been more affordable!

Prancing With the Stars

After their attempt to build a "virtual fence" without the aid of Mexican labor ended up dumping a billion dollars into the Grand Canyon of Fail the Failed State of Arizona has been forced to scrape the proverbial barrel in their quest to turn the state into an Aryan paradise. Yesterday, "America's Toughest [albeit least effective] Sheriff," Joe Arpaio, announced, apparently with a straight face, that henceforth the border would be secured by D-list movie stars. And with, like, mad gunz an' shit!

"America's toughest sheriff," Phoenix’s Joe Arpaio, is creating a new armed "Immigration Posse” to combat illegal immigration, and Hollywood actors Steven Seagal and Lou Ferrigno, along with Dick Tracy and Wyatt Earp, have signed up.

[Dick Tracy and Wyatt Earp are apparently just normal non-celebrity people whose main qualification is that they happen to have the same names as a cartoon character and dead lawman, respectively.]

We're not sure why The Incredible Hulk would need to carry a gun, but still, who better to defend our borders than a deaf 58-year-old former body builder? At 6'5" and 300 lbs., clad head-to-toe in green makeup, Ferrigno's job will to be to stand in one place with a torch in his upraised hand, tricking less-cosmopolitan wetbacks into thinking he's the Statue of Liberty. When the huddled masses come running to him, expecting to be handed a welfare check and a voter registration card - blammo! - two or three Baldwin brothers throw nets over them and haul them away.

But the big get here is obviously Steven Seagal, whose presence in the posse puts Arpaio's sycophants in the awkward position of seeking salvation from one of the stars of Machete, a movie whose cast they have basically been accusing of treason for the last six months.

It makes perfect sense, of course. Even more than The Incredible Hulk of Liberty, the Mexicans will flock to Seagal, deluging him questions about "What's Danny Trejo really like?" and "What's this shit about Jessica Alba using a body double?" Like flies to a Venus Flytrap... Blammo!

On the other hand, Seagal's role in Machete was Torrez, the ruthless drug lord who pulls manipulates the Senator (Robert DeNiro) and the border vigilante (Don Johnson) into supporting a border fence project designed to give him complete control over the movement of drugs into the US and who, in the end, finishes himself off, hari kari-style, at Machete's feet. Arpaio's acolytes, who have a great deal of trouble distinguishing between fiction and reality, will probably go into full freakout mode if they ever see the film, and behead Steven Seagal in the Arizona desert. Which would mean Jan Brewer was right all along.

Machete Weep

There are six multiplex theaters in Querétaro (or at least, that's how many advertise in the papers), with a total of 72 screens. None are showing Machete, even though it opened in Mexico a week ago.

There are, however, 21 daily showings of Jackass 3D.

Mexico is doomed.

Turns Out, You Can Go Home Again

Last weekend, pretty much every news outlet on Earth ran with the story about the entire population of Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas, abandoning the town after certain middle men in the Colombia-to-America Cocaine Supply Chain suggested they might want to do so.



Getting somewhat less attention is the fact that, after five days - less time than we spent in Zihuatanejo - they're heading back. Citizens will no longer be required to move in slow motion, as seen in the above video, and the sad, operatic music being piped throughout the city will cease at 12:01AM on Thursday. So all's well that ends well.

Oh, So It's Like That Now?

Obviously reeling from this blog's savage critique of his American "trade mission"; his use of child laborers to serenade him in his office; his blatant kickbacks to political supporters; and his failure to continue wearing that fabulous red guayabera after seizing the reins of power, Querétaro governor José "Pepe" Calzada suddenly announced yesterday that he's exploring the creation of a "cyber police" unit, "because there are a lot of crimes committed under the cloak of anonymity that go completely unpunished."

A Mexican politician using the apparatus of state power to silence a critic - how...unexpected. Well, if that's the way you want to play it, Your Excellency, going to the mattresses is how we roll every fuckin' day in Brooklyn.

"Cyber police." HA! Bring it, bitch.

Ain't But One Way Out

Ha ha! Like, where does he think he's going?

Spectators at a bullfight in Mexico City got quite a scare when a half ton bull jumped over the barrier into the grandstands.

The incident took place during the second bullfight at the Plaza de Toros Mexico on Sunday when the animal launched itself over the barrier that separates the bullring from the audience.

The bull fell into the alley where assistants and other bullfighters were waiting. A picador – one of the pair of horsemen in a bullfight that jab the bull with a lance – was injured when the animal fell on top of him.

The animal returned to the ring and the bullfight continued as planned.

Nice try, though.

Sí Se Puede

Is it the mezcal talking, or is that a half-merman, half-Sea Monkey creature with the face of President Barack Obama?

Cheko's restaurant, Zihuatanejo.

Great Moments in Resume Inflation

Today's front page carried the startling news that Harvard had awarded scholarships to two thousand queretanos. With the university's average class size being something close to that number, this seemed to us to be very big news: virtually the entire Harvard University Class of 2015 would consist of students from Querétaro, Mexico. But as we were preparing to break the story worldwide, suspicion started creeping in - unless Harvard now offers a degree in Singing the Mexican National Anthem, it seems unlikely that 2,000 kids here would make the cut. So we figured maybe we should read the whole story, not just the headline.

Turns out that the scholarships "to study at Harvard" are actually scholarships to earn a certificate in business administration through a course that uses an online learning tool called Harvard ManageMentor PLUS, developed by Harvard Business Publishing, Inc. We were preparing to argue that this is ever so slightly different than receiving a scholarship to Harvard, but instead we've decided to accept their version and consider it one more reason why Boston and Querétaro should be sister cities. (Yes, we know it's in Cambridge; this not-being-too-nitpicky thing cuts both ways, okay?)

Anyway, this reminded us of an interview our audio/visual division produced out of our Geneva Bureau back in 1999 or so, which we're excerpting here because it always amuses us.

Arizona Hates Mexican Drug Cartels, Loves Drugs

More ideological consistency from the Failed State of AZ:

Arizona voters have approved Proposition 203, which legalizes marijuana for medical use.

Licensed physicians could recommend medical marijuana to patients with debilitating medical conditions, including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and Alzheimer's disease. Patients would register for identification cards with the state health department. They could also receive up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks from dispensaries or cultivate up to 12 plants if they live 25 miles or more from a dispensary.

Amusingly, it was Maricopa County voters who pushed the measure over the top.

Dutch Treat

The good people of Holland, Michigan - one of Querétaro's three Sister Cities - have apparently got wind of the harsh punishment we meted out to their Sister-In-Law City, Orange, CA, because suddenly the Holland Sentinal is running stories like this one

If the city of Holland wants to keep up a relationship with its sister city in Mexico, it’s going to have to commit to a personal relationship, International Relations Commission members say.

Because of a Mexican law barring its mayors from running for re-election after one three-year term, Holland officials have to establish new ties with a new mayor every three years. The two of Holland’s nine council members who have visited Querétaro have not met its current mayor, Francisco Dominguez Servien. His term will expire in 2012.

Someone sounds a little nervous! Given that Mayor Dominguez has only been in office a little more than 13 months, the fact that seven of Holland's nine council members have met with him is really kind of astonishing. Relax, amigos, you've got a long way to fall before we give you the Orange treatment.

Also astonishing was the next paragraph in the Sentinel's article:

This story is a subscriber exclusive for e-edition and print edition customers. Log on to the e-edition to read the full story or check out the printed Holland Sentinel.

Seriously? We need to shell out $77 to subscribe to the e-edition (or $170 for the print edition) in order to read the Holland fucking Sentinel? Gosh, let us get our credit card. Meanwhile, feel free to peruse any of our four local papers online - for free.

Despite its pretensions, the Sentinel is too minor even for Nexis. But while we were looking for it, we stumbled upon a piece in the Grand Rapids Press from 2004, about a fountain the city of Querétaro gave Holland as a gift in 2000 - a gift as carefully planned and well-thought-out as everything in Querétaro is.

HOLLAND -- Hundreds of tiles in the Friendship Fountain in Kollen Park are being replaced this week so the fountain can be turned on in time for Fiesta and Tulip Time festivities that will take place the first week of May.

The 5-year-old fountain has not acclimatized to West Michigan winters.

Scores of the colorful blue and cream terra-cotta tiles along the inside walls of the fountain were cracked and chipped.

"They were not meant to freeze and thaw. We seal and waterproof them and then cover the fountain with tarps in the winter. We do everything to keep the water out," said Brian Creek, superintendent of the city's park system.

This week, more than 250 tiles are being replaced. The repairs will cost the city $800.

No wonder they won't let us read their fucking newspaper online.

The Only Spanish Instruction Video You Will Ever Need

Sing along with Cee Lo, kids!

Sábado Gigante

* On the one hand, you have to marvel at a country inventive enough to create an online streaming-video funeral service, so people can say goodbye to their loved ones from the comfort of their own homes. On the other hand, the reason this exists is because hired assassins have a bad habit of showing up at funerals to finish of the rest of the family. You'd think a people who could do the first could find a way to deal with the second.

* For our money, the most inspring thing about Chilean miner Edison Pena's visit to New York was not Pena himself (though, really, could the guy be any more delightful? - he's like the best qualities of Harpo and Chico combined), but the two Mexican guys who escorted him through the marathon.

Mr. Lopez is from a small town in Guerrero, Mexico. At a news conference at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel after the race on Sunday, Mary Wittenberg, the Road Runners president, said those reporters who had questions for Mr. Lopez should ask them quickly. He was scheduled to be at the pizzeria at 4 p.m.

* Your correspondent was born in Roslindale, Massachusetts, which the doyenne of cocina mexicana, Diana Kennedy, insists has "a better selection of chiles than Phoenix." And that was before 10,000 chile connoisseurs were driven out of the Failed State of Arizona. Prediction: in 2011, this will be the best Mexican food available in the FSoAZ. Or perhaps this. (And forget about making a fresh salad on the side.)

* Our other hometown, New York City, remains the capital of authentic Mexican entertainment.

* In Querétaro, they collect the trash twice a day and sweep the streets by hand from dawn til dusk. Whereas right-wingers in the FSoAZ think collecting garbage reeks of socialism.

* Today's Fun Fact: Mexico City dogs produce 200,000 tons of dogshit a year. And there is no word in Mexican for "pooper-scooper."

* Mexican Coca-Cola is vastly superior to the American version. Or not.

* We don't know why vintage cans of Empress Peanut Butter, made in Vancouver, Canada, feature a singing, sombrero-wearing peanut riding a burro, but we're amused by it nonetheless.

* The Mexican government plans to auction off huge piles of bling confiscated from drug lords, which strikes us as an excellent way to commit suicide.

* Querétaro "International" Airport is going solar, which would be great if flights to the US left any time after sunrise, but they don't.

* ABC News runs down seven places in Mexico where tourists won't get their heads sawed off and posted on YouTube. Querétaro doesn't make the list, which is fine with us.

* When people from Turkey are afraid to visit your country, you know you have an image problem.

* When it comes to handling the NRA, Mexico should just cut-and-paste from the MexFiles. (Inspector General's report is here.)

* American military advisers getting involved in a Latin American civil war. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?

* End Days is a-comin'! Catholics apparently have a "new interest" in exorcism. New?

* The Church and/or government waging pro-fetus jihad in Veracruz, Puebla, Guanajuato, and probably a couple dozen other states. Because Mexico needs more unwed teenage moms.

* Speaking of teenage moms, here's a photo gallery of Mennonites in Mexico

* Readers in the Houston area - first of all, our condolences - should cancel whatever shitty plans they have for tonight and head to the Houston Grand Opera for a preview of the new "mariachi opera" "To Cross the Face of the Moon," written and directed by our friend Leonard Foglia. (Correction to the article: Mr. Foglia no longer "makes his home in Querétaro," but moved away last month and is henceforth dead to us. But you should go anyway.)

* If you notice a preponderance of dentists and accountants wandering around the Centro in chaps and leather vests this weekend, it's not a Gay Pride parade - they're here for the Harley Davidson rally. Born to be mild!

* Because reasonable people can disagree, we'll admit we kind of like these anti-bullfighting posters -- from a graphic design standpoint, of course.

* Weekly World News is now online. Searching the word 'Mexican' is worth your time.

Friday Night Lights

As longtime critics of the management of Querétaro's bullring, we've got to give them credit for somehow convincing the same three guys who put on a hell of a show at the season opener in Mexico City last Sunday to come on out here for a rare Friday night bullfight tonight. Magnificently, they're still charging a premium for seats on the shady side, even though the event starts two hours after sunset.

Enrique Ponce was one of the first bullfighters we ever saw, 21 years ago in Madrid. For a long time, he was considered more of a sex symbol than a bullfighter. (Much of the book The Last Serious Thing is taken up by other bullfighters bitching about panties being thrown into the ring when Ponce's fighting.) So it was sobering to see him now as this éminence grise, slightly balding and tired and paunchy-looking, fighting bulls with men half his age.

And then to realize he's four years younger than us.

Update: Review (in Spanish).

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Last night the Culture Desk took in a screening of a new documentary, Women of the Mexican Revolution. We planned to write a short blurb about the film, but instead we’re going to spend a few hundred words bitching about the presentation. Join us, won't you?

The screening was held in the Teatro de la Republica, and the place was packed – in our experience, something rarely ever said about a documentary screening. The story was to culminate with the writing of the Mexican Constitution in 1917 – which took place in the very room we were sitting in. It’s like watching Rocky at the Philadelphia Spectrum. This thing had us at hello.

[Heroes of the Mexican Revolution (right) confronting vaginas (left).]

Unfortunately, “Hello" was only the beginning. This is not an uncommon thing in Mexico; at the risk of generalizing, there are few things a certain class of education Mexicans enjoys more than the sound of their own voices. So before we could watch the movie we were treated to not one, but five (5!) speakers. The first four women stole 25 minutes of our lives thanking each other at great length (one, Maestra Patricia Palacios Sierra of the Department of Globalization, Modernization and Regional Development of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the Autonomous University of Querétaro, was referred to by that complete title by each of the other speakers) before launching into four remarkably similar, painfully earnest disquisitions on the role of women in the Mexican Revolution. There were apparently ten or 12 key female figures in the Revolution. All had three or four names. All were listed in alphabetical order in each woman’s speech. Note to Mexican academics: if all three of the speakers preceding you have read off the same list of names, it’s worth taking a moment to edit your own remarks.

(We know there’s nothing worse than gringos who badger Mexicans about the way we do things back home, but for the record, when we screen a documentary, there’s usually some quick opening remarks, a round of thank-yous to the people who opened their checkbooks, and a jaunty “hope you enjoy the show!”)

Fifth up at the microphone, after a reading of her lengthy biography, which was already printed up in the programs we all had in our hands, was the producer, Ana Cruz Navarro, who took several minutes to thanks all the previous speakers ("...and especially Maestra Patricia Palacios Sierra of the Department of Globalization, Modernization and Regional Development of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the Autonomous University of Querétaro..."), and then talked about the role of women in the Mexican Revolution for twenty-five minutes. It’s worth reiterating that Sra. Cruz has written and produced a one-hour documentary on exactly that topic, which 1000 people had at that point been waiting to watch for over 50 minutes. Won’t all this be covered in the film? we wondered.

It would be another 45 minutes before we found out, since the lights went down, the engineer pressed PLAY, and nothing happened. And other than continuing repeatedly to press PLAY, there was nothing resembling a backup plan. After a while, random audience members came over to see if they could help. Someone volunteered the use of their laptop. The problem was the DVD itself, of which - unfathomably, unless you’re in Mexico - there appeared to be only one single copy. While this was going on, the chattering ladies thought it would be a good time to open up the floor to questions about the documentary none of us had seen. Mercifully, the film started up on the 400th pressing of the PLAY button, a mere hour and 45 minutes after we’d taken our seats.

How was it? Well, let’s just say there’s a reason the Burro Hall Audio/Visual Division outsources most of its work to the US. But as a night at the movies, it was unforgettable.

Sucker Birthrate Increases to 1/Min.

No doubt panicked by critics who say Burro Hall is a greater asset to Querétaro-American relations than the Calzada Administration, the governor and his media handmaidens struck back hard today, announcing an enormous, $300 million American investment "as a result of the tour of the United States."

(Yes, respectable newspapers do use the word "gringo" in headlines.)

And who is this American company that has promised to drop 300 Large on building a plant in Querétaro - a plant said to promise the creation of at least 500 jobs? Um, well, uh....the governor can't tell us, for "reasons of privacy." But really, trust us, our little junket has netted a third-of-a-billion dollars. Seriously. No bullshit. You'll see. And hey, pay no attention to anything you read on the internets.

The mystery plant ground-breaking ceremony is expected to be the highlight of Querétaro Month in Washington, which is scheduled for...

Candid Camera

Among the local landmarks in Querétaro is an old gringo named Bill, who first rode into town with Black Jack Pershing and liked it so much he decided to stay. He can be found sitting at a cafe on the Plaza de Armas so regularly that you might think he's one of those "living statues." So we had to laugh out loud when we discovered he's been immortalized by Google Street View:

We haven't spent too much time traveling the virtual roadways looking for other prominent locals, crimes in progress, public canoodling, etc, but we'll add a link for "Querétaro Street View" over in the "Things that Begin With Q" section. Readers are invited to send us links to the best stuff they find.

The Urchin Goes Viral

The Alameda park is featuring another one of its constantly-rotating exhibitions of bad patriotic art this month, but there was one picture in the lot that caught our eye - by which we mean it made us slam on the brakes and almost cause a pile-up on Constituyentes.

For a kid who can't actually play the accordion, he's becoming something of an icon, no? The title is "And Give Him the Same," by Alfredo Morlet Mata, who the Google leads us to believe may direct a lot of short films about transvestites. Tucked in behind Li'l Jesús is Miguel Hidalgo, the father of Mexican Independence. We'll bet a week's wages the kid wouldn't know that.

Anyway, it's nice to see the city spending some money to commission artists to produce a painting like this and to display it on public property in the center of town. Now if only they'd do something about the fact that a seven-year-old boy spends his fucking days playing the fucking accordion for money in the center of town. Maybe they can erect a statute of the boy in the middle of Plaza de Armas. Still, great painting.

Pepe Come Lately

If we could just set aside our Christ-like humility for a moment and pose a non-rhetorical question: Has anyone - anyone - done more to promote Querétaro in the United States than the little blog you hold in your hands at this moment? Two thousand posts over the last four years, in English, for a predominantly American readership, about a Mexican city that probably fewer than two people in a thousand have even heard of, for which we have never received (or solicited) a single peso in compensation nor a word of gracias from city officials, the media or the Church. Not even a Burro Hall Day! But do we ever complain? No! It's a labor of love. The journey is the destination. Etc, etc.

But, boy, Governor José "Pepe" Calzada flies up to El Norte for a few days to pimp for some local plutocrats, and the banner headlines scream "Calzada Promotes Querétaro in United States," as if no one had ever done this before.

And it hurts. Not the members of our Editorial Board, of course - they're in it for the stock options, not the accolades. But the interns are sort of wondering why they should bother showing up tomorrow and, frankly, we don't know what to tell them.

Incidentally, the Guv is "promoting Querétaro in the United States" by visiting the Mexican Ambassador to the US (that's got to be a tough guy for a Mexican governor to get in to see), jawboning with a think-tank guy we interviewed in 2009, long before Calzada was governor, running the New York City Marathon (okay, we wouldn't have done that), and kissing up to the board of directors at Sikorsky. Assuming we're not about to start manufacturing Black Hawk helicopters here any time soon, the biggest accomplishment seems to be the announcement of "Querétaro Month in Washington," which, in typical fashion was announced without any actual Washingtonians in the room, and without specifying exactly which month they were talking about. You can rest assured that once Querétaro Month begins, the only Washintonians who will be aware of it will be the ones who read Burro Hall. Which has been operating for 54 months now. Not that anyone's counting.

Keeping It Simple

This is "The Bicentennial of the Death of Doña Josefa Vergara y Hernandez (July 1809-2009) Home for Children and Adolescents." Or "BOTDDJVYH (7MDCCCIX-MMIX) HFC&A ," for short.

We'd love to know how that fits on a child-sized t-shirt.

The Disneyfication of NY Continues

Narcomantas, the scrawled-on-a-bedsheet messages that are basically the drug cartels' version of Twitter, have been co-opted by a group called Estemos Unidos Mexicanos, the idea being...okay, we really have no idea what the idea is, but it seems to be more or less an "Up With People"-style cheerleading effort. "The criminals are organized - why aren't we?" etc. Earlier this week they hung what we believe may be New York City's first narcomanta, outside Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue.

We always hoped NYC's first narcomanta would be the real deal, preferably accompanied by a cooler full of human heads, but it would seem that the city of Taxi Driver and The Warriors is long gone. Incidentally, it took us a minute to figure out why Bryant Park, but then realized that's a statue of Benito Juárez.

Mascotas Perdidas

A while back, we posted a flier for a missing perro named Pumba. We have no idea how that turned out (though we can make a pretty educated guess), but in the interest of accruing some good karma - the
spare cat has now been missing from our offices for 90 days - we thought we'd post a few more "missing pet" fliers, since we've noticed more and more of them springing up here lately. We'll continue to do this from time to time, so local readers are encouraged to send in their own flier photos in the future.

Click photos to enlarge and read.

Plus, It's Never Been More Affordable

Rather than a Gideon Bible, the nightstand in our hotel room has a 1999 Guide to Mexico. It highly recommends we check out this place called "Ciudad Juárez."

Frankly, it sounds a lot nicer than Querétaro.

Sábado Gigante (Yes, We Know It's Sunday)

* So while we were away at the beach, America apparently had The Most Historically Important Election Ever, in which the Republicans gained control of the lower house of Congress for the first time in, like, four years. Wow. If, like us, you're relieved to see the Senate still being run by normal people, you apparently have Latinos to thank. Of course, because the teabaggers did worse in heavily-Latino states than the polls had predicted, the crazies are braying about vote fraud. A more plausible explanation is that English-only polling excludes a lot of Spanish speakers. Why won't these people assimilate so we can poll them accurately?

* But now the House subcommittee on immigration will be chaired by a guy who likens Messicans to livestock, so all's well with the world.

* The elections took place on the Day of the Dead, so it's not surprising that four dead people won their elections. Two lost.

* And Tom Tancredo gave his concession speech while "La Bamba," by Mexican-American Ritchie Valenz, played in the background, which has made us totally re-evaluate the guy.

* We offered our PR services to the Zetas years ago, but it seems they saw fit to give that job to a Messican. Which is just fucking typical.

* Mexico inaugurates a new five-lane border crossing for freight trucks entering the Failed State of Arizona. Conspiracy theorists, start your engines.

* In Mexico City, a five year old boy visiting the cemetery with his family on Day of the Dead was killed when a stone cross from another grave fell on top of him. Apparently, this is God's idea of funny.

* If New Yorkers think that assaulting dark-skinned people with an American flag is a novel idea, they need to get up to Boston more often.

* Walking near our hotel in Zihuatanejo, we came across a cat that appeared to have been killed by a car. The next morning we discovered it was still alive, and took it to the local animal shelter, which determined that all they could do was euthanize it. They were really terrific, but so under-funded that they asked us if we could cover the cost of the injections and disposal. You can toss them some cash here, either because you support their mission, or because you feel bad that their acronym in Spanish is SPAZ.

* And in the unlikely event that any readers of this blog are avid golfers living locally, a reader has asked us to mention this charity golf tournament in San Miguel on Nov 26, which is all for a good cause: Casa Hogar. (Though Casa Hogar - "Home House" - is up there with SPAZ in the Unfortunate Names Dept.)

* The New York Times gives a favorable review to Mexican artist Nicolás de Jesús's exhibition in Westchester. Mexican press responds on the front page with a highly favorable review of the New York Times's review.

* According to Conde Nast Traveler, this is Mexico's Moment. And as we've said, it's never been more affordable!

* If you're hungry for Mexicans with neck and face tattoos, Daniel Hernandez has got you covered.

* Chilean miner porn. Literally.

Civic Campaigns We Just Can't In Good Conscience Sign On To

Thanks, but we already have a "Stop Cold Beer" movement going on back in Querétaro.

This Is What We've Been Saying All Along!

"Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six." -- Revelation 13:18

Behold!

(Gracias to the Swampscott Bureau for the catch.)

Swedish Bikini Team

We do realize that Mexico is a real country that has friendships and alliances with non-Latino, non-USA countries, but it's still surprising to us to step off the beach in Zihuatanejo and find ourselves in Plaza Olof Palme, dedicated just five months after the former Swedish Prime Minister's assassination in 1986.

Aside from a vague reference to having had "wealthy relatives in Mexico" and an apparently well-documented hitch-hiking trip across the US and Mexico he took as a student in 1947, the interns have been unable to figure out why the state of Guerrero would have felt so strongly about Olof Palme. As always, smarter people than us are invited to show off in comments.

Monument to the Unknown Zihuatanejonian

Down at the bottom of our hill is this larger-than-life plinth, upon which is mounted a slightly smaller-than-life bronze bust, which may just be the saddest public monument we have ever seen in our lives.

The plaque on the front has either been removed, or not yet installed, so we have no idea who this man was, or what he did to deserve such a terrible memorial. Anyone who can identify this man and explain his crimes is invited to do so in comments.

Orange Crush

For years now, the editorial position of this blog has been that Mexico is a perfectly safe place to live. Of course, Mexico hasn't exactly gone out of her way to back us up on this, and over time we've been forced to moderate our position: first to "It's not as dangerous as the media would have you believe," then, "It's not spectacularly dangerous everywhere," and finally, "It's never been more affordable to visit!" (Did we mention our magnificent villa in Zihuatanejo is costing us just $116 a night?)

But one thing that hasn't changed is the fact that, whatever craziness may be happening in other pockets of Mexican territory, the city of Querétaro remains - in the eyes of someone who lived for 20 years in New York - absurdly, almost comically, safe.

But don't take a clueless gringo's word for it. Mexicans themselves are voting with their feet: every 24 hours, 52 families move to the tiny state from somewhere else within the country, giving Querétaro one of the highest internal migration rates in the nation. (We imagine it's only a matter of time before restaurants featuring whatever the regional specialty of Ciudad Juárez is start popping up around town.) According to this article, Justice officials put the number of "executions" in the state (population 1.7 million) this year at (drumroll please...) four. We're a little skeptical, frankly - they probably means drug-related killings only - but as regular readers of the local papers we'd be surprised to learn the actual number was substantially higher. Simply put, there's a difference between Mexico in general and Querétaro. In addition to sharing with the world some cute pictures of our perro, the Burro Hall editorial board hopes to do its part to spread this knowledge and understanding.

Another organization dedicated to spreading knowledge and understanding is the International Sister Cities Association. So we were more than a little astonished to read comments by Bobbie Druilhet, president of the Orange (CA) Sister Cities Association, concerning her city's sister city...Querétaro:

In addition to expensive costs, Druilhet says trips to the closest sister city, Querétaro, Mexico, came with too many security issues.

"Before, we were sending about 15 to 20 students to Mexico," she said. "But right now the situation with Mexico is extremely dangerous. We keep in touch with them, but not the same way as it used to be."

Sigh. Did we mention she's the president of an organization created to foster friendship and cooperation between Orange and Querétaro (and Novo Kosino, Russia, and Timaru, New Zealand, among others)? Currently in her 12th term as Orange Sister Cities Assn president, Ms. Druilhet strikes us as a walking argument for term limits, and the Burro Hall editorial board hereby calls for her immediate resignation and public self-disembowelment.

One of our long-time pet projects has been to make Boston and Querétaro Sister Cities. Mostly, this was a cynical effort undertaken with the expectation that, if it succeeded, we'd be able to weasel our way onto the various delegations and travel back to our hometown for free. But somehow, something went awry and we found ourselves listed as the official representative for the Querétaro Sister Cities program:

Our BOS+QRO crusade sort of fell by the wayside, but Ms. Druilhet's stupefying ignorance has persuaded us that Querétaro needs us now more than ever. Our first official act as President of the Querétaro Sister Cities Assn. is to declare that, from this day forward, Orange, USA and Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico are no longer sister cities. This is not solely due to the idiocy of Ms. Bobbie Druhilet, but also because it has come to our attention that Orange, with a population of just 140,000, has already had three murders this year and, as such, is considered extremely dangerous by Querétaro standards, to the point where it would really just be irresponsible to send our children there as Goodwill Ambassadors.

Our third official act will be to open negotiations with our counterpart in Massachusetts, as soon as we figure out who the hell that is.

Great Moments in Mexican Genetic Engineering

In the end, we opted for the coconut shrimp.

All Downhill From Here

The drive from Querétaro to Zihuatanejo is pretty spectacular, mostly for the range of scenery involved. It's like driving through Vermont, Utah and the Mekong Delta all on a single tank of gas. But then something happens to remind you, oh yeah, this is indeed Mexico.

One of our most frequent complaints involves Mexico's rather cavalier attitude towards personal safety, particularly when asphalt is involved (is there even a word in the Mexican language for "guard rail"?). So we're cruising along at our usual 80 mph (the closest thing there is to a speed limit is the occasional sign suggesting we "moderate your velocity") when, somewhere between Patzcuaro and Uruapan, we see a sign warning us of a DANGEROUS DOWNHILL ahead. Every few hundred meters, there's a new one. DANGEROUS DOWNHILL BEGINS IN 5 KM... CHECK YOUR BRAKES... DANGEROUS DOWNHILL BEGINS IN 4 KM... etc. At this point, the sweat is pouring down our faces, and we're thinking of jumping, Steve McQueen-style, out of the moving car. Imagine The Boy Who Never, Ever Cried Wolf suddenly running through town screaming "We're all gonna be eaten by wolves!!!!" If the Mexicans are this adamant that there's a hazard ahead, we assume the road will simply end suddenly, and the "dangerous downhill" is actually a 10,000-foot free fall.

DANGEROUS DOWNHILL BEGINS! says the next sign and...okay, it's not so bad! Kind of steep, but not precariously so. The thing is, it's really long - seven kilometers of unbroken descent. We know this because the signs now read DANGEROUS DOWNHILL CONTINUES FOR THE NEXT 7 KM, with the countdown broken up with more reminders to CHECK YOUR BRAKES and instructions for finding and utilizing the two runaway-truck ramps built into the mountainside. The downhill itself feels like no big deal, but the road is heavily trafficked by double-length trailers carrying hazardous materials, and we certainly do agree that we'd hate to be in the way of one of those things as it rockets out of control for four or five miles. In an admittedly condescending way, we're actually somewhat impressed: erring on the side of caution is an enormous improvement over the usual insanity that rules the roads in this country.

But now if this seems to you like the dumbest possible place to put a toll plaza... well, amigo, you just don't understand Mexico.

Yes, right in the middle of the DANGEROUS DOWNHILL!!!, traffic is forced to stop so they can collect 62 pesos from you. But, magnificently... if you look at the dotted red line in the middle of the road, that's the line you're supposed to follow if you need to crash-land into the runaway truck ramp. It leads you through that middle lane, where the yellow sign up above explains that this is reserved "Only For Vehicles Without Brakes." So you think it's crazy to put a toll booth on a DANGEROUS DOWNHILL? Friends, the Mexican government has already thought of that! If you're screeching down the hill in a double-length trailer full of hydrochloric acid, swerving out of control at 100 mph, with fire shooting out from the hunks of metal that used to be your brakes, there's a special lane just for you! You can send us the 62 pesos when you get out of the hospital.

Oh, and that white horizontal line right above the big white arrow in the middle of the picture? That's a speed bump. Because if you're going to send a trailer full of acid rocketing through a toll booth without brakes, you might as well get the fucker airborne, right?

Racial Sensitivity Watch: Black Like Sea

Unfortunately for seafood lovers, Querétaro is about 400 miles from the nearest ocean. Fortunately, it's even farther from the nearest black person, so no one's likely to complain about this shellfish place on Contituyentes.

Them big lips sho' does helps him eats mo' shrimps!

Speaking of the ocean, our executive editor and the Missus are heading southwest for a few days, for the opening of our new Zihuatanejo Bureau in a location recently vacated by the blog formerly known as Midwesterner In Mexico (now "Midwesterner In Arlington, VA."). We're counting on a very uneventful week - though the only other time we've ever been there, some crazy, crazy shit went down - but we've got a backlog of Querétaro-related posts for the interns to work on in our absence. Sho 'nuff!