New Mexico Mercury

Transformation

We’ve all been to, paid for, dozed off in, had bad meals at and endured countless fundraisers. It’s an obligation of today’s society. Not very often, however, do we come across one that was as much fun as Southwest CARE Center’s 6th Annual Closet Ball.

What I read in a local paper said, “Watch ordinary men transform into gorgeous drag queens at this fundraiser for the Southwest CARE Center, which helps provide treatment for New Mexicans with HIV/AIDS.” What I found was a wonderful event for an excellent cause...

Redemption at the Rock

“Boom!” It’s only one minute and forty seconds of the first round and suddenly Natalie Roy from Santa Fe lands a tremendous punch on her opponent, Nikki Lowe, and the fight is over.

This is “Redemption at the Rock,” a night of mixed martial arts (MMA) fights at the Camel Rock Lodge in Tesuque, a night with 10 fights and a cheering audience of about 1,000. Put on by Orthrus Promotions, its leaders, JR Rodriguez and Sal Mora and their staff, it was an exciting and well organized event for a sport that has a big future in New Mexico and across the country. It was their fifth such event in New Mexico, Texas and Iowa and another is coming up on June 14...

The James Boyds of Juárez

It’s Sunday morning and I’m driving through the desert east of Juárez, Mexico, only a few miles from the New Mexico border. Suddenly I see a scraggly line of some thirty or forty men and women coming towards me in the sandy pathway that parallels the two lane highway. These are mental patients in Visión en Acción, a private asylum founded by Pastor José Antonio Galván, an ex-addict who repented and has spent the last eighteen years caring for approximately one hundred of Juárez’s mentally ill. These are the James Boyds of this city that has suffered so much...

Semana Santa or Holy Week in Spain

Suddenly the lights go out in the whole town. We’re in pitch black darkness. The crowd is silent. Then with a great creaking sound, the enormous wooden doors of the cathedral slowly open.

We’re in Caravaca de la Cruz, a small town in the little known region of Murcia in southern Spain. It’s midnight and this is our first Semana Santa or Holy Week experience. Frankly, we have no idea what to expect...

A Pig named Melissa

Yeira pulls back a strip of chicken wire and points into the little pen. There is Melissa, a tiny pig. She had been given to Yeira and her family by Pastor José Antonio Galván, the founder of the nearby mental asylum, Visión en Acción where Yeira’s grandmother, Elvira once worked as the cook. They, in turn, were going to fatten Melissa for a birthday celebration for me next January. This is not only an extraordinary gift from this impoverished Juárez family but a new insight into the role of animals here...

Uniting Frontiers: The Cabalgata Binaciónal Villista

It’s early morning on March 8 and some thirty or forty Mexican riders and horses are working their way through US Customs at Palomas, Mexico. This is the fifteenth annual Cabalgata Binaciónal Villista or Binational Villa Cavalcade, an effort to unify a border that has often been in conflict, no more so than on March 9, 1916 when General José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known as Pancho Villa – ordered about 100 of his soldiers to cross the border and raid Columbus, New Mexico...

She Who Wears the Pants

The headline of the February 20, 2014 issue of La Prensa stated that Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua had fired two Cabinet ministers. In the first paragraph of the accompanying article, however, it said that differences with First Lady, Rosario Murillo had led to their ouster. In Nicaragua, a cab driver named Ismael told us, “Whatever she says, he does.” Or to quote a man on horseback in Granada, “It’s she who wears the pants"...

The Pink Store

Crossing the border between Columbus, New Mexico and Palomas, Mexico, you see a large store painted pink called The Pink Store. It is, to me, the symbol of this small, poor town, a symbol of wellbeing or, sometimes, trouble.

Founded 25 years ago by Ivonne and Sergio Romero, a very special couple, it has a wonderful restaurant and a marvelous selection of ceramics, silver, jewelry and folk art from all over Mexico.  When it is full of customers, you know that things are going well in Palomas. When there are no customers, it’s a signal of problems in the town...

Answering response to ‘Reforms in Mexico’

On January 24, I submitted an article entitled “Reforms in Mexico” and writer Margaret Randall filed a very articulate response, finding my ideas “extremely troubling.” She raised three issues to which I would like to respond.

1. My characterization of two-time presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador as “loony” when, in fact, she believes that he is a “genuine revolutionary reformer” and “widely believed to have won the election in his first bid for the presidency.” I agree with part of her criticism. Using the word “loony” was wrong because he’s a very intelligent individual. The word “hypocritical” would have been more accurate...

Reforms in Mexico

Congratulations to Mexico’s President, Enrique Peña Nieto. When I was in Mexico City interviewing voters prior to the 2012 elections which he won, he was generally viewed as a dandy from a discredited party but the lesser of the three evils – the loony Andrés  Manuel López Obrador (AMLO )and Josefina Vázquez Mota from the party of former President Felipe Calderón whose “drug war” had cost so many thousands of innocent lives. Josefina, as the voters called her, seemed the best candidate but because of Calderón’s record, she didn’t have a chance. So Peña Nieto won but expectations were low...