An iconic English-language bookstore that has graced Guadalajara’s leafy Colonia Chapalita for the past 47 years is about to close its doors.

More than 300,000 worshipers from 40 countries descended on the Hermosa Provincia neighborhood of Guadalajara this week for the annual Holy Convocation of the Luz del Mundo (Light of the World) church.

Despite some serious misgivings regarding the transparency and cost of the project, Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro is determined to push ahead with his public sculpture initiative, Arte Publico.

Monday, August 21, much of North America (i.e., the United States) will experience a complete solar eclipse, which for many citizens there who have been duped by leaders both secular and ecclesiastical into letting superstition rather than reason govern their lives will no doubt be a portent of imminent doom.

Long gone are the days when Guadalajara’s moniker as “The City of the Roses” had even a modicum of validity.

Giving a new meaning to “putting the cart before the horse,” Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro and his minions officially unveiled the calandrias electricas that will eventually replace the traditional equine-drawn model seen filling the city’s center’s paved circuitry with the sound of bells and hoof-clops — and the smell of horse hair.