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Election echoes a brutal past

Mexico held elections in 15 states Sunday, and the results did not cheer a large portion of the Mexican electorate.  One might think this wouldn’t matter. That’s because 60 percent of Mexican voters abstained. But the results will matter both sooner or later.  And the reasons are of pressing importance. 


Concha, aged 16

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. 

Life with bugged phones

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.  

A mixed week for Mexico

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.  

A time of bitter debate

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.