Not much happening in the world on this lazy Sunday evening so courtesy of my friend at The Mex Files, we’ll put this video out there for you to enjoy. Besides some great sounds by the group Los Felinos de la Noche, it’s got some good behind the wheel video of Mexican highway 57, a road I’ve traveled many times. You’ll be hard pressed to find the pot holed roads and dangerous antiguated junk trucks you’ve come to believe are everyday sights in Mexico. Enjoy your Sunday
Aug 102008
10/08/2008
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Marco Antonio Solís is without question one of the most important figures in the rise of Mexican and Latin music to world prominence during the last two decades of the 20th century. Born in Michoacan, Mexico, Solís was only 12 when he formed his first group, Los Hermanitos Solís, with brother Joel. He was still a teenager when he formed Los Bukis in the early ’70s. Over the course of the next two decades, Los Bukis came to profoundly influence the norteño and tejano music of Mexico and the southwestern United States. Though Solís continued to work closely with Los ….Read More
19/05/2008
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Our friend Sean Mattson, Mexico correspondent for the San Antonio Express News, left this interesting tidbit on his blog this morning, concerning the severed head found on a car in Monterrey this past week. Honor amongst thieves perhaps? Who knows, but I got a chuckle out of the thing. Head left on car with warning for wannabe Zetas; reassurance for businessmen Kidnapping a guy, chopping his head off and leaving it on top of a car is sure one heck of a way to send a message. Just in case the point wasn’t clear, the suspected killers of a person ….Read More
Apr 102008
10/04/2008
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On my days off this week, I needed to get away and relax and not having but a couple of days, headed to Monterrey Nuevo Leon. It’s a good destination, a world class city that can hold it’s own against any similar city in North America. It’s good to have friends there, especially those in the travel industry. I don’t recognize the name of the American company I represented, but because of them, I was able to obtain a suite in a 5 star hotel in Monterrey’s Galeria section that normally is $2400 pesos per night and paid only $921.00 ….Read More
Apr 072008
07/04/2008
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Confronted with environmental concerns about proposed border fencing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used his power Tuesday to waive dozens of federal laws to clear the way for building it. Chertoff’s announcement followed a March 3 letter from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official pointing out that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials had abruptly spiked a compromise the agencies were working on to protect an extensive riverfront wildlife refuge affected by a Hidalgo County fence-levee project. He signed two waivers Tuesday, one of them negating 37 environmental, historic preservation and land management laws to speed 470 miles of ….Read More
22/03/2008
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TUCSON, Ariz. — A program that has rotated thousands of National Guardsmen along the Mexican border to augment U.S. Border Patrol agents comes to a close in four months, despite calls by at least one border governor to extend the Guard’s mission. Operation Jump Start began in mid-2006, deploying up to 6,000 troops at a time during the first 12 months in non-enforcement roles that freed up Border Patrol agents for front-line duty. Through January, the National Guard Bureau spent more than $1 billion on the program — nearly $212 million in the 2006 fiscal year, $687 million in fiscal ….Read More
Mar 012008
01/03/2008
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A new batch of troops arrived in Nuevo Laredo this weekend to supplement the soldiers already assigned to border security. Although the authorities did not reveal the exact number of agents and soldiers who arrived, , military sources commented this week that between the 26 and the 29 of February, 2600 additional troops would be added to the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon According to a report of the Secretariat of the National defense (Sedena), the military will be distributed immediately to the municipalities of Nuevo Laredo, Miguel Aleman, Mier, Diaz Ordaz, Reynosa, Bravo River, Matamoros and the coasts ….Read More
Mar 012008
01/03/2008
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Over recent months, the level of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has begun to rise substantially, with some of it spilling into the United States. Several months ago, the Mexican government began military operations on its side of the border against Mexican gangs engaged in smuggling drugs into the United States. The action apparently pushed some of the gang members north into the United States in a bid for sanctuary. Low-level violence is endemic to the border region. But while not without precedent, movement of organized, armed cadres into the United States on this scale goes beyond what has become ….Read More