When pueblo Mexicans first saw Concha Rosales, they were surprised.  It was because she was too young to be riding such a spooky horse jerking its head at the tight streets and noisy people. 

English colonists in America were ruled — and protected — by an accumulation of laws set down in (and between) the Magna Carta, 1215, and the British Bill of Rights, 1689.

Begun by Sergio Chamorro, a 35-year-old office worker, and a company of friends also disillusioned with the transparently false promises of human candidates, the ten-year-old, adopted “Morris the Cat” is running for mayor of Xapala, the capital of Veracruz state.  

In Guadalajara, until the kidnapping, gristly torture and eventual murder of United States Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena, launched Thursday afternoon, February 7, 1985, there was little reason for anyone to tap the business or home telephones of the editors of the Guadalajara Reporter.  

When Mexican-born U.S. citizen Yanira Maldonado, 42, was released May 30 after “only” a stretched week in Sonora’s women’s prison, everyone following what was dubbed Mexico’s “shakedown justice” was relieved. 

This undoubtedly included President Enrique Peña Nieto.  The president has recently clamped down on media outlets in Mexico, admonishing them not to deal in the number of casualties, carved up bodies, civilian deaths caused by Mexico’s law enforcement system, and associated official corruption.  In other words, no drug gang tales no matter how appalling.  That would reflect poorly on Mexico’s already well-known image – and coincidently on government’s slippery grasp of Mexican culture, though that wasn’t directly mentioned.  

Memorial Day was fittingly celebrated, both here and north of the border, with solemnity, reverence, good cheer and elegant settings wrapped in moving the world’s “universal tongue” — music.  The occasions that many of us witnessed, rightly, and thankfully, emphasized a nation’s often awkward hand of aid to those who have served to defend the United States in ways and venues complex and baffling, most of them dangerous.