HOME

           

 

           Scary sellers, volcano's, 5 de Mayo and really dirty politics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The political cartoons at the bottom of the page really are nasty, just a warning.  I report; you decide if you want to look or not!  They are from the supporters of Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost in the recent presidential election .  The winner, Felipe Calderon, was sworn in on December 1 and the event was swamped with Obrador supporters protesting.  They claim that President Fox and new President Calderon used dirty campaign tactics and somehow fixed the election so that Obrador wouldn't win.  Obrador swore himself in as president on the following Monday and says he will run a parallel government.  He did promise that his new government wouldn't impose any new taxes or create any new laws and would run by donations alone.  I'm really not making this up!  This guy will likely be a huge nuisance to the new President, or at least that's what he is promising.  My guess is that his group will go broke and fizzle out within a year, then reappear just before the new elections in 6 years to pull another Ralph Nader campaign, only with nastier advertisements (see below).

            The other photo's are of the volcanoes Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, Cinco de Mayo and other stuff.  Here's a live link to Popo, it doesn't really work at night being that it's so dark.

Click on the image to make your food taste better.

 

 

 

 

It's always surprising to me how many of these colorful kid-stuff sales folks look like people you'd never want near your children!

Watch out little girl!!

In fairness to others in their profession I didn't take any pictures of the ones that didn't look scary. The scary ones are just better pictures!

On the Oregon Coast when I was home a couple of weeks ago.

Again in Oregon. This wave coming in got my foot a little wet.

When storms are approaching the coast the waves get bigger.

Grandma's refrigerator.

Grandma. We're lucky that she still smiles so much!

Back in Mexico, Popocatepetl. Also called El Popo or Don Goyo. Whenever I had my camera and there was a good shot, or any shot, I took it.

Popo on the left, Iztaccihuatl, or "White Girl" on the right, "Itza" for short. There are many variations of a legend about these two volcano's.

Popo was either a prince, or a warrior, or a prince from a poor country, or some combination of those.

Itza was a princess that killed herself when she was told her lover, Popo, had died in battle. That's the same in most versions of the legend.

Popo had been sent to battle by the king to win his daughters hand in marriage; or they were already married; or the king wanted Popo to be killed...

Or the King really liked him but Popo insisted on going to battle. And in some versions the King told Itza that Popo had died.

In other versions the King and Itza were told by a jealous prince who wanted to marry Itza.

Popo carried the dead Princess to the mountains, then either killed himself, or is watching over her dead body holding a torch.

Or Popo killed himself when he returned from battle to find the dead princess and the gods put them on top of the volcano's.

So basically Popo is a guy, Itza is a girl, the two are now dead and turned into volcano's.

Popo continues to release steam, ash and smoke so you can always tell which way the wind is blowing at about 15,000 feet above sea level.

The most recent major erruptions of Popo were in 1994 and 2000. Almost every day there is at least a little bit of smoke appearing.

Many of the locals told me that it gets more active in the winter months.

Popo is a great background for a great city. Technically it's in Mexico City's background as well but the smog usually prevents viewing from there.

Just a sunset.

Taken at the fort of the Battle of Puebla, better known as Cinco de Mayo. "Be respectful. This place is an altar of our hometown heroes of 5 de mayo".

The fort and park around it is where the main battle took place in 1862. An army of 7,000 French soldiers was defeated by 2,000 Mexicans.

"Gen. Zaragoza defended the integrity of the republic in 1862". It's only a symbolic victory because the French occupied Mexico within a year after.

"This park was dedicated 100 years later". These signs are allover the grounds.

General Zaragoza's body is buried here on Zaragoza Boulevard, one of the main roads to the city center.

There's a museum in the park. Most of it was too dark for pictures but I thought the paintings were interesting.

They depict the battles that took place when Cortez brought his army to Mexico.

There was a different picture for each area.

Sort of self explanatory, but basically says that the valid declaration of the election was poo, but Calderon liked it.

My guess is that the group will go broke and fizzle out within a year, unless they start selling porn cartoons to Larry Flint.

There are stickers of Obradors smiling face to the left of this cartoon. These were all in the zocolo in Puebla.

"for those that voted PAN this is what you get".