We Apoloigze For the Unavoidable Delays

Wow. Five days without a post might be some kind of record around here, not counting the time we had typhoid back in '06. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but for now, enjoy more puppy porn.

On The Road Again

We're on the road doing The Man's bidding for a few days, and will be switching almost exclusively to an All-Cute-Perro-Pictures format for a while. We'll kick it off with this clip of the li'l fella trying to stow away in our luggage, only to pass out from the exertion.



The simultaneous nose-licking and tail-wagging is the most exercise he's gotten in weeks.

EXTRA!! Reporter Interviews Public Official! BREAKING....

Earlier in the week, our favorite local paper, Plaza de Armas celebrated its first anniversary with an EXCLUSIVE!!! interview with Governor José Calzada. In typical PdeA fashion, this was spread over two day, with both days featuring a front-page above-the-fold photograph of the reporter (who completely coincidentally, happens to be the publisher's son) interviewing hizzoner.

Stop the Presses! PdeA editor Sergio Venegas [left] and Gov. José Calzada [right].

Notwithstanding the fact that Calzada is not exactly a reclusive figure - the only way he could spend more time in the media spotlight is if he rigged the governor's house with webcams - PdeA wasted no time getting right down to the issues the readers care most about:

This interview in first anniversary issue of PLAZA DE ARMAS, which the reader is holding, has been a two-stage interview.

The first one was, on Monday, January 3. That day, this newspaper (the reporter, and photojournalist Fernando Venegas Demian Chávez), went to the el Palacio de la Corregidora to interview the governor.

"Sergio," he suddenly said to me without warning,"I'm going to have to postpone the interview....give me a few weeks and we'll do the interview again."...

"Well," I thought, "I'm going to have to go back to my office without the interview and without being able to publish the contents of the one-hour chat the governor had with PLAZA DE ARMAS. Too bad, but I promised. So we'll just keep it in the drawer for now."

Half a year later, we are back in this same office, with the same pictures, same furniture, but a better environment.

Etc, etc. No word yet whether the governor gave his regards Venegas's wife or children, but then we haven't read day two of the interview yet.

But we'll say once gain that Plaza de Armas is by far the best newspaper in town. Sigh.

Third Stone From the Sun

Courtesy of a commenter, please enjoy this soothing video of the Space Shuttle Atlantis re-entering the atmosphere over Cancun, Mexico, en route to its final touchdown in Florida. Seriously, it's three minutes of an orange line in the black sky, but the sounds of the waves will chill you right out.

Hot Town, Summer In the City

The perro rides the Uptown 1 Train last night:

Heatwaves are apparently even worse when you're a 20-pound ball of gristle and fat wrapped in a fur coat.

Evidence Emerges of Possible Existence of Narco-Linked Activity In Querétaro

A few weeks ago we ran a post with the knowingly-ironic title There Are No Narcos in Querétaro, over a photo of the seizure of three tons of methamphetamine precursor chemicals here in town. An anonymous commenter set us straight:

3 tons of meth "precusor" wouldn't even be enough meth to get a small town, like Wasilla Alaska, through a weekend.

Definitely small time operators.

Fair enough. Let's try 840 tons.

Mexico's army has made one of its biggest-ever drug busts, seizing a warehouse full of chemicals that experts say could have been used to make billions of dollars worth of methamphetamine.

Just under 840 tonnes of the chemicals used for making methamphetamine were found in a warehouse in an industrial area in Queretaro...

...It was the largest seizure of meth chemicals since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led crackdown on Mexico's drug cartels shortly after taking office at the end of 2006.

...If the seized chemicals were processed in a sophisticated lab they could yield nearly 3.5 million doses, which would have a street value in the United States of nearly $28 billion, Islas calculated on the basis of current market prices.

Not even Wasilla could snort through $28 billion now that Bristol Palin's moved to the Failed State of Arizona.

We Just Want to Wet Our Beak

We were kicking back yesterday with a Lipton Brisk® Raspberry-flavored Iced Tea, when a potential investor emailed us with an intriguing proposal:

From: Brandy Olson
To: BurroHall
Sent: Sat, Jul 16, 2011 3:36 pm
Subject: Blog Question

Hello! I was wondering if you took paid guest posts on Burro Hall? Not a traditional "guest post" but one you'd be compensated for and have complete editorial control over.

I'm part of a business that does high-end brand placements worked into guest posts on a variety of subjects. Our posts don't advocate or review our clients, they are informational and/or newsy. We include a reference link to our clients amongst other topical links inside the content. We'd provide the article, written by a domain expert, and pay you a bit of money for you to review and post it upon your approval.

(If you don't take guest posts, we also have arrangements where we discuss your upcoming post and find one in which a link makes sense and pay you to include it.)

Is that something that you would be interested in and if so, how much would you want us to pay?

Thanks,
Brandy

Needless to say, we almost spit our crisp, refreshingly tart beverage all over the keyboard! We can't wait to see the look on The Man's face when we tender our resignation in the morning.

Voice of a Generation

Yesterday was "Bring Your Perro to Work" day at The Man's corporate headquarters. The perro took the opportunity to lay down some narration tracks for an anti-spay-and-neuter PSA he's been working on.

Miss Querétaro's Sexy, Sudsy Three-Girl Bathtub Romp!

So last night, the Nuestra Belleza Querétaro crown was laid upon the elaborately hairsprayed head of 19-year-old Adriana Martínez de Anda, whom you will recall we confidently predicted would never be selected because of her habit of posting un-sovereign-like pictures of herself on Facebook. We're pretty sure a tech-support team from Nuestra Belleza Mexico is tightening up that loophole as we speak, so - in a blatant attempt to muscle in on Rupert Murdoch's turf while he's vulnerable - we wanted to rescue from the memory hole a couple shots from our new monarch's recent trip to Puerto Vallarta, where water is apparently so scarce that bikini-clad women have to share a bathtub.

Presumably, water scarcity will be her issue, should she ascend to the throne of Miss Mexico.

Update: It's official...The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.

Miss Querétaro: The Year In Review

We found it hard to believe that Miss Querétaro 2010's reign is coming to an end in just a few hours, but then we remembered that she actually ascended to the throne 18 days late because that's how long it took for the first Miss Querétaro 2010's sex tape to surface. Anyway, we wanted to look back on her unforgettable 347 days in office, but couldn't for the life of us remember anything she did. But a couple weeks ago she took a (presumably unofficial) trip to Vegas with some gal-pals, and posted a bunch of pix of herself on Facebook, so here's a few of them. Burro Hall wishes her luck in whatever she decides to do next.

She really was the People's Princess.

Sabado Gigante

* Heroic Americans continue working hard to preserve our Morbidly Obese American Way of Life. And this inspiring, 16-pound baby has made us rethink the wisdom of letting Texas secede.

* Just three more months until we sit out the Querétaro Marathon! If you're interested in running, there are a few different age divisions. If that's confusing, the website has a handy chart to help you figure out how old you are.

* We were pleased to see the hometown paper putting not one, but two "good news about Mexico" pieces on its front page recently. We imagine that's going to come to an end now.

* Mexico City turns out to be an okay place to do business. Maybe we should open a branch there.

* Sometimes the Failed State of Arizona does our parodying work for us.

* FSoAZ Failed State Senator Lori Klein is no crazier than most FSOAZ legislators, which is to say she thinks nothing of pointing a loaded weapon at a reporter's chest. Unfortunately, her weapon of choice was a .380 Luger rather than the Official Failed State Gun, the Colt revolver, and so will likely face a recall election in the fall.

* And really, she's not the dumbest person ever elected there.

* On the other hand, they apparently did manage to locate Chapo Guzman. They just didn't think it was worth telling anyone about it.

* The Burro Hall Arts & Literature department has a long history of enthusiastically endorsing books we haven't quite gotten around to reading yet, a proud tradition that continues with Positively No Dancing by real-life friend-'o-the-blog Jim Mason. Refunds are available from our Guadalajara office if you're not completely delighted.

* As long as we're plugging friends we made at the Brooklyn Inn, check out Brooklyn Girls Cooking.

* Really, bars are wonderful places.

* Via Madam Mayo, the story of how Google wiped its feet on the world's best archive of Mexican newspapers, then casually walked away.

* Terrorists punch thousands of holes in US border wall.

* The media meta-shitstorm around Pulitzer Prize-winning illegal alien José Antonio Vargas's article about being a Pulitzer Prize-winning illegal alien is a nice reminder that the journalism biz is still dominated by white dudes with an outrageous sense of entitlement.

* Speaking of the Spanish Academy, the anti-Querétaro-is-the-awesomest-word backlash has started.

* If we were writing copy for the QRO Tourist Board, our first description of the town wouldn't necessarily be, "a radiant intensity of peace, history, diversity, pureness" - mostly because that doesn't make sense in any language. "Pureness" isn't even really a word, we don't think.



* Acapulco becomes a real-life porn video.

* Our Animal Affairs Correspondent, Julie Carmann, gets a nod from the LA Times for her coverage of Burrofest.

* A great archive of movie stills from Tex[t]-Mex.

* Tres generaciones of mariachi nosejobs.

* Dick Dale: Mexico. Go crazy. Totally bonkers.

Así Va el Barrio

This is the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston, "a 1718 building whose varied uses offer a unique window on the history of Boston’s commerce and culture."

The building was once the home of Puritan dissident Anne Hutchinson, who was expelled from Massachusetts in 1638 for heresy; in the 1830s, it became the headquarters of Ticknor & Fields, the publisher of the first editions of “The Scarlet Letter," “Uncle Tom’s Cabin," “Walden," and many other celebrated works.

Then the wops and the micks moved in, and the place went all to hell.

In later years its tenants were more run-of-the-mill retailers; at one point it was a lunch counter, then a men’s clothing store, and in the 1950s it hosted City Pizza, whose giant sign advertised “sliced crispy pizza" for 15 cents.

And now and the Reconquista enters its next phase, The Old Corner Bookstore will soon be.... a Chipotle. ¡Viva!

Victory or Death

Big sports news this weekend - no, not Derek Jeter's 3000th hit (Which, could everyone in NY just calm down a bit? Hitting a baseball is literally his whole job, and he's been doing it for 16 years). Rather, there was all manner of screaming, honking, and celebratory gunfire yesterday as Mexico won the Superbowl of soccer's Sub-17 division. We don't follow the sport very closely, and we assumed "Sub-17" was one of those over technocratic league names the soccerites are so fond of. In fact, it turns out to mean "children under the age of seventeen," meaning the entire nation spent a summer weekend enthralled by a high school soccer game. Hey, who are we to judge?

So both our local papers, and we assume many hundreds of others across the country, we with the same boldface tribute to the team's heroic children:

The niños héroes, as the headline writers surely know, were a group of young cadets who slaughtered by US forces - one of them ("el niño apócrifo") throwing himself off the parapet wrapped in the Mexican flag - as the yanquis took Chapultepec Castle in 1847, en route to winning a humiliating war that would cost Mexico half her territory.

We were going to say something obvious about how, as metaphors for victory go, this one is somewhat lacking. But of course, this is Mexico, where there are few things as glorious as a 16-year-old boy hurling himself to his death wrapped in the bandera nacional. The analogy between that and a 16-year-old winning a soccer championship, is pretty straightforward; they’re practically the same thing. Rather than being historically ignorant, as we originally thought, the headline writers clearly know their readers.

Great Moments in Uncanny Search Results

Every now and then we like to wander down to the engine room, where our enormous Univac computer is busy crunching site statistics, and page through some of the raw data. Our favorite tidbits are the Google search terms that somehow lead people to our doorstep. That's how we just learned that Burro Hall is the very first thing on the entire internet that comes up when someone searches for "Queretaro prostitutes."

Hilarious! Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got to go downtown to spend the day slaving for The Man in exchange for money.

And Now, A Word From The Chairman

Apologies once again for the light posting. The Burro Hall Enterprises, S.A. 2nd quarter investors' meeting was this weekend at the W Hotel in South Beach. In the video conference call below, our Chairman/Executive Editor discusses some of the shareholder resolutions headed for the ballot in September.

Nevermind the Alamo

Over the past few weeks we received a bunch of online petitions aimed at sparing Mexican citizen Humberto Leal García from execution. We didn't bother with any of them because it was clear that Leal's survival depended on Rick Perry pardoning an illegal alien rapist/child-murderer while trying to secure the Tea Party nomination for president. Sure enough...

In his last moments, Mr. Leal repeatedly said he was sorry, and shouted twice, “Viva Mexico!” The Associated Press reported.

So presumably July 7 is now a holiday in Mexico, and our street has been renamed Paseo Humberto Leal.

Despite our repeated complaints about the elementary school across the street from our offices, we here at Burro Hall have no great affection for child-killers. But in Leal's case, prosecutors failed to put him in touch with the Mexican consulate, as is his right under the Vienna Convention. As Americans living in a foreign country, we have somewhat self-interested reasons for wanting to see treaty obligations like this one enforced. As accident-prone and easily misunderstood Americans with a propensity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time living in a foreign country with a history of grievances against the US, an ability to hold grudges for centuries and a spectacularly dysfunctional and corrupt justice system... well, we kinda wish we'd known about Leal's case earlier so we could have busted him out of jail. Seriously, if you were arrested in Mexico, who would you rather talk to - your court-appointed lawyer, or the American embassy?

So, just a reminder to the Mexican authorities (who monitor this site with some regularity): your beef is with Texas, not the United States. When Governor Perry loses the presidential election (which he will - America has had more than enough none-too-bright-Texas-governor presidents in this century) he will presumably return home and make good on his promise to secede, at which point you can invade it, take it over, and hand it over to the cartels in exchange for them leaving Mexico. The support of the American expat blogosphere will be critical, and you don't want to undercut that by, say, executing a bunch of us without due process, now do you?

Update: Seriously, you do not want to be jailed in another country without your embassy fighting really, really hard for you.

With God On Our Side

LOL.



Update: Bonus round!

Miss Querétaro Preview (With Photos!)

There were important elections in Mexico this week - so important, we were afraid even to pay attention to them, for fear of not doing them justice. The headline is that 100 years from now, the years 2000-2012 will be known as "The PRI's brief sabbatical from power," but if you want more details, go here or here.

But if what you want is coverage of the upcoming election for Miss Querétaro 2011, you've come to the right place. With just a week to go until The Big Night, the only reportage we've seen is a brief piece in the local paper that merely lists the finalists' names. Even more surprising, given the potential appeal of such a thing, the Nuestra Belleza Querétaro organization doesn't even have a website.

They do, however, have a Facebook page, where you can find links to the individual finalists' pages - at least half of whom, owing either to the kind of openness we look for in beauty queen or the kind of technical ineptitude we expect, haven't configured the privacy settings on their photos. Here, then, is a sneak preview of some of the hopefuls:

Magaly Morales appears to be a talented violinist, or at least someone who enjoys posing seductively with instruments. If Miss Q featured a talent competition, our money would be on her, but it doesn't. Also, not that we have anything against foreigners (obviously), but since the winner will go on to compete for Miss Mexico, we think the fact that she's from Cuba ought to disqualify her. Odds: 12-1.

Elizabeth BriizueLa, who apparently really spells it that way, prepares to forfeit the swimsuit competition. Mitigating factor: she looks to be about six-foot-four. Odds: 5-1.

Adriana de Anda (right) is in it to win it in the "Hot Mess" category - which, regrettably, is not part of the competition. Her page contains probably a few too many unsecured pictures of an all-girls vacation to Puerto Vallarta last summer, especially when you remember that last years winner resigned in less than three weeks for what we continue to believe were sex-tape-related reasons. Odds: 25-to-life.

Our personal favorite though, is Sharon Enid, for the simple reason that we would love to see one of the most ardently Catholic states in Mexico represented by a practicing Mormon.  With two Mormons currently seeking the Republican nomination for US president and the Big Love finale pulling in impressive numbers, the time may be right for a Latter Day Saint. Odds: 3-2.

Sadly, we won't be in attendance on the Noche Grande, but from what we can see below, there's one hell of a milquetoast dance number involved.

The Re-Reconquista

So it turns out that if you make your people's lives better, they're less likely to leave your country in search of better lives. Weird, huh?

Mega-kudos to the hometown paper both for finding good news about Mexico and for not burying it on page A26. And congratulations to all those unemployed Americans, long excluded from pursuing a careers in the lettuce-picking industry, who will be heading out to the fields immediately. You're welcome!

Simple Answers to Stupid Questions

NPR: 'Spillover' Violence From Mexico: Trickle Or Flood?

Trickle.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

Cuatro de Julio

It’s easy to forget, with our half-trillion dollar military budget, aggressive foreign policy, and the rocket’ red glare/bombs bursting in air/God bless the troops cheerleading that dominates our Fourth of July festivities, but America’s national day is in fact a commemoration of a well-crafted and carefully-reasoned piece of writing composed by an intellectual, eastern establishment elitist. We don’t know for sure if Jefferson ever held a gun in his life (we tend to doubt it), but we do know that the one time he was directly threatened militarily, he took the opportunity to indulge his love of equestrian sports, and then moved to France.

It’s fun to compare the Declaration of Independence to the Grito de Dolores – the focus of Mexico’s national day, Sept 15. One is a meticulously constructed point-by-point airing of grievances against the King, debated and edited by a committee of learned men, justifying a protracted war that almost all of the document’s signatories would survive. The other was a passionate but hastily-arranged cry for vengeance and death that no one in attendance thought to write down, delivered by a man whose severed head would be on public display within months. Does one of these feel a little more, um…Mexican than the other?

Anyway, it's a national holiday in the US, so of course we have to work, so we'll just leave you with the statistic of the day: Mexico is the largest foreign market for American flags, accounting for more than half America's exports of Old Glory. It's nice to know we send them something besides guns.

Cinco de Burro: January 13, 2011

In keeping with the mantra the Absolutely Everything From Mexico Will Maim or Kill You, US authorities are warning people not to purchase Mexican fireworks this weekend, because (a) even if, despite John McCain's insistence, Mexican immigrants don't start wildfires, Mexican fireworks surely can, and (b) unlike the carefully-regulated Made-in-China American fireworks, Mexican fireworks might actually explode and hurt somebody:

"It's important they don't purchase them for their own safety and don't attempt to smuggle them through the port of entry," says Ruben Jauregui, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In addition to concerns about sparking a wildfire in the bone dry southwest, authorities warn Mexican fireworks can pose a personal safety hazard.

"You just never know how much of the powder was used on there, how powerful it is, the fuse: how short, how long? and these are the things that are not regulated," says Jauregui.

We can attest through personal experience that Mexican fireworks work really, really well - at least in the pre-dawn hours. Maybe things are different in the early evening. Whether they're actually more dangerous than American fireworks is hard to say - are Mexican guns more dangerous, too? - but the Feds are correct when they say that the manufacturing process leaves a lot to be desired.

Thursday, January 13, 2011
From the Journal of Parental Recklessness

We saw a story a few days ago about a town in Puebla called La Magdalena Tlatlauquitepec. Typical Mexican hard-luck story - poor, mostly indigenous, most of the able-bodied folks having moved out over the years, those left behind wholly dependent on some arcane, low-paying activity. In the case of La Magdelena Whatever, most of the women make a living packaging fireworks for about 8 cents per thousand, or about 50 bucks a week. The good news is that the work can be done at home. The bad news is that the work involves thousands upon thousands of fireworks. In the accompanying photo we see the kitchen of the house where Eusebia Sánchez Miranda, 36, lives with her seven children. The makeshift hammock/crib allows her to keep an eye on the youngest while she works. And hey, what could possibly go wrong?

We're not even going to bother to ask about the car-seat situation.

Anyway, we didn't mean to ruin anyone's July 4th celebration by making them think about maimed Mexican babies. Enjoy your hot dogs!

There Are No Narcos in Querétaro

With the government of Querétaro constantly reassuring everyone that there's no evidence of narcos operating in the state, we like to check the police blotter from time to time to see the small-time non-narcos who get nabbed for possession.

Like this guy, busted last week carrying 44 pounds of pot for his own personal use.

Or his neighbor, caught carrying a mere 275 pounds. Doctor's orders, we presume.

Or these guys, mixing up three tons of methamphetamine in their bathtub - enough to get them through the rainy season blues.