El Grito & 200 Years of Mexican Independence

On September 16, 2010, Mexico will celebrate its 200 years of Independence. The Bicentennial is a celebration of two events. The first is two hundred years since Independence and the second is the 100 years since Mexican Revolution of 1910. Mexican Independence Day is to celebrate the independence from Spain, which controlled what was at that time called New Spain.

 A call to revolt (El Grito) by the Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo, was made shortly before dawn on September 16, 1810. The uprising brought the indigenous indians and mixed mestizo groups against the Spanish military and helped change the face of the already on-going fight for independence. This occurred in the village of Dolores, Guanajuato. El Grito has become emblematic of Mexican independence.

Each year on the night of September 15, the President of Mexico rings the bell of the National Palace in Mexico City. He repeats a cry of patriotism from the balcony of the palace to the assembled crowd in the Plaza de la Constitución, one of the largest public plazas in the world. This event draws up to half a million spectators. Local politicians such as the Mayor or Governor will also ring a bell and offer the traditional saying. President Calderón is expected to officiate the Grito in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato as part of the bicentennial celebrations in 2010.  Similar celebrations occur across Mexico.

 September 16 is Independence Day in Mexico and is considered a patriotic holiday, or fiesta patria (literally, holiday of the Fatherland).

Two-day Pride Festival in Tijuana

FIRST-EVER, TWO-DAY, OUTDOOR PRIDE FESTIVAL DOWNTOWN JUNE 19 & 20

by Rex Wockner

Tijuana's 15th gay/lesbian pride march hits the streets Saturday, June 19, at 5 p.m.

Participants will gather in front of the community-based Alliance Against AIDS (ACOSIDA) Clinic at 7648 Calle 1ra, five blocks west of Avenida Revolución between Avenida E (Mutualismo) and Avenida F (5 de Mayo). (Some street signs refer to Calle 1ra as Calle Artículo 123.)

To get there: Walk across the international border at San Ysidro. Exit the southern pedestrian turnstiles (not the western ones). Turn right and follow the tourists across Avenida Amistad, through the Viva Tijuana open-air mall, and across the big Tijuana River pedestrian bridge. Continue walking straight west about three blocks and cross under the huge St. Louis-style arch on Avenida Revolución.

Enter Calle 1ra/Artículo 123 -- do not veer slightly left into the slanted Plaza Santa Cecilia pedestrian mall -- and proceed to number 7648. (For extra fun, some buildings are marked in both old and new street-numbering systems. Pay attention only to numbers above 7000.)

To get to the border, take the San Diego Trolley or drive and park in a secure, paid lot on the U.S. side. You can ignore bus and taxi drivers on both sides of the fence who insist it's a long walk to downtown Tijuana, because it isn't.

FIRST PRIDE FESTIVAL - DOWNTOWN, OUTDOORS, TWO DAYS

Other pride events this year include a first-ever, two-day, outdoor pride festival smack in the center of downtown, stretching east, west and south from the arch. The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. both Saturday, June 19, and Sunday, June 20. Entrance is free. Festival Map

According to the organizers: "Come and celebrate together with 10,000 other people the First Annual Tijuana Gay Festival in a three-block area of the center of the city. Discover the latest in gay art, culture and music, experience a variety of diverse food and drink options, and then take over the streets with thousands of friends for a massive hip street party Tijuana-style. Residents and community leaders, with support of the local police, invite you to discover the gay side of Tijuana."

Last year's Tijuana pride parade was nearly three times bigger -- and twice as long -- as in any other year.

The turnout was all the more amazing because the city had been hit with a serious crime wave as drug cartels and dealers battled for dominance. The situation has improved notably since last summer.

In contrast with previous years, almost no gays and lesbians from Southern California crossed the border to join last year's festivities -- it was a purely local and home-grown affair. Many people from San Diego, which is just 15 miles away, have stopped going to Tijuana because of the violence.

Yet the gay parade was bigger, better, longer, more colorful and more spirited than ever. At least 1,000 people marched or rode in the parade itself -- which stretched along seven blocks of Avenida Revolución, the main drag of the city of 2 million people. More than 10,000 people watched the spectacle pass.

Then, when the parade got to its endpoint, it took an unscheduled right turn, then another right turn, and headed all the way back to the north end of downtown, traversing Avenida Constitución. Police, who up to that point had made an effort to keep vehicles moving through the heavily congested downtown, gave up at that juncture and resigned themselves to a traffic jam.

"It's been the best march that's taken place in the city of Tijuana ... the biggest and the most participants," said organizer Lorenzo Herrera. "People have decided to come out, people no longer want to hide their sexual preference. We all have equality."

One large official banner carried in the parade read: "Tijuana-Ensenada GLBT Pride. 500,000 pink votes also count. We all have the same rights."

Another large official banner said: "Homophobia must end. Live your pride with dignity. Homosexuality is not a problem, homophobia is."

A third one read: "Homophobia is intolerance of homosexuality. Equality begins when we recognize that we all have the right to be different."

Spectators cheered the parade and smiled broadly. A single protester with a hand-held PA system, stationed at the parade lineup location, asserted repeatedly, "The price of sin is death, according to the Bible."

Everyone ignored him.

View photos from the 2009 Parade by clicking this link: WOCKNER

Tijuana Gay Pride kicks it up a notch

Get ready for the next generation of Gay Pride Festivities in Tijuana with a two day festival on June 19 and 20.

What: Inclusión en Revolución

Where: Plaza Santa Cecilia

Details: More to come

Tijuana Map - click on Arch

YouTubers of Mexico Against Homophobia!

Mexico enters the Tournament of Roses Parade

Mexican officials plan to kick off a year's worth of bicentennial events, commemorating their independence with a float at the 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade held on January 1, in Pasadena, California.

"It's about putting Mexico in an international forum ... like the Rose Parade," said Juan Marcos Gutierrez, consul general of Mexico in Los Angeles. "The message is pretty much that today we are starting the celebrations throughout the year."

The float – featuring floral replicas of the Aztec calendar and Mexico City's Angel of Independence, skirted by 36 people dancing to traditional Mexican music – is the first time in recent years that the nation has featured a float in the parade. The last time the Mexican government sponsored a float in the parade was 1968, the same year the nation hosted the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

More information and photos: Orange County Register

Mexico tightens security at U.S. border crossing

Reporting from Tijuana - Driving into Mexico has been a largely hassle-free experience for decades: There were few customs inspectors, even fewer gates, and for most border crossers, no questions asked.

That's about to change.

The Mexican government is modernizing its ports of entry along the border, including its biggest crossing in Tijuana. The new infrastructure -- which includes gates, cameras and vehicle scales -- is meant to help curtail the flow of drug money and weapons to Mexican organized crime groups.

But bolstered security means more border-crossing logjams, and business and trade groups fear that the new measures will deal another blow to a fragile regional economy.

The System of Supervision and Vehicular Control is still in the testing phase ahead of its scheduled January rollout, but traffic jams already occur regularly at peak crossing times in late afternoon. Cross-border trips from San Diego that once took five minutes can take an hour or more.

Baja California Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan, fearing more damage to the collapsing tourism industry if increased wait times discourage Southern Californians from venturing south, has lobbied federal authorities to scale back the inspection process.

But President Felipe Calderon, under pressure to show progress in his nearly three-year offensive against drug cartels, declined, saying the measures are a necessary sacrifice. Since 2008, more than 1,000 people have been slainin Tijuana, many of them with guns believed to have been obtained in the U.S.

"We want security," Calderon said on a recent trip to Tijuana. "This requires sacrifice and measures that permit us to stop the trafficking of weapons, drugs, drug money and criminals across this border."

Intercepting the flow of contraband has always caused a headache for northbound travelers. Motorists in Tijuana sit in a sea of traffic waiting to be inspected by U.S. agents who run through a battery of checks, including license, passport and, in some cases, criminal background reviews.

Tijuana customs inspectors in the past conducted random checks and focused on people trying to avoid paying duties on shipments of secondhand clothing, or traffickers bringing hard-to-find drugs, such as Ecstasy, into Mexico. They also found the occasional rooster being smuggled onto the Tijuana cockfighting circuit.

Mexico's new process doesn't approach the sophistication and strictness of U.S. inspections levels, but still represents a dramatic change.

Instead of motorists driving directly onto Tijuana streets, a gate will block the way. License-plate photographs will be run against a criminal database in Mexico City; a scale and vehicle-scanning system will determine if the car may be overloaded with contraband; and canine units will roam the area.

Suspicious vehicles will be directed to a secondary inspection area staffed by inspectors and Mexican marines.

The process, Mexican officials say, should take about eight seconds per car, but business leaders have their doubts. And even an eight-second wait translates into traffic snarls at peak crossing times.

"It adds another brake to the cross-border economic engine. People are already not sure of passport requirements and worried about cartel violence across the border," said Kenn Morris, president of the Crossborder Group Inc., a San Diego-based market research firm. "And as word spreads that southbound border waits can take 30-40-60 minutes out of your life. . . . It's going to really highlight the lack of infrastructure and progress in creating efficient border crossings in our region."

On a recent late afternoon, the long wait times were on full display. Claudia Serrano, a San Diego resident, said she waited about 20 minutes, much longer than the five minutes it used to take her to cross into Tijuana. She was taking her children to a relative's birthday party, but had been ordered into the secondary inspection area, a rare occurrence in the past.

Serrano, an import-export broker who crosses twice daily, can't avoid the waits. But she said many of her Mexican friends don't cross anymore. "They hate waiting so long."

Some Americans didn't seem bothered by the slow crossing, including those heading south last weekend for the Baja 1000 off-road race. Traveling in convoys of trucks pulling expensive dune buggies and motorcycles, many said they appreciated the extra security. "It's a sign of the times," said Jim Blackmore, a member for the Riviera Racing Team.

Some experts question whether the new measures will affect southbound flows of contraband, pointing out that U.S. inspectors intercept a fraction of the drugs entering the U.S., despite having even more sophisticated detection methods. Mexican authorities say they're confident that the inspections will enhance their ability to spot traffickers.

"There's a lot of information we can exploit here," said Cesar Montoya, the port director.

The people most affected will be daily cross-border commuters like Richard Corona, 32, whose waits total more than one hour on some days. Corona, a construction worker, moved his family from the San Diego area to lower-cost Tijuana last year due to the slowdown in the construction industry.

"I'm thinking of going back," said Corona, waiting about 20 minutes for Mexican officials to inspect his Ford Escape. "This is not even worth it."

Source: Los Angeles Times

Also check this article at The Real Tijuana

Possession of small amounts of drugs now legal in Mexico

Effective Friday, August 21, 2009.

MEXICO CITY – Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency.

The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday.

Anyone caught with drug amounts under the personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory — although the law does not specify penalties for noncompliance.

Mexican authorities said the change just recognized the long-standing practice here of not prosecuting people caught with small amounts of drugs that they could reasonably claim were for personal use, while setting rules and limits.

Under previous law, possession of any amount of drugs was punishable by stiff jail sentences, but there was leeway for addicts caught with smaller amounts. In practice, nobody was prosecuted and sentenced to jail for small-time possession, said Bernardo Espino del Castillo, the coordinator of state offices for the attorney general's office.

"We couldn't charge somebody who was in possession of a dose of a drug, there was no way ... because the person would claim they were an addict," he added.

"This person obviously couldn't be charged, not yesterday, not the day before, not a year ago, but the bad thing was that it was left up to the discretion of the detective, and it could open the door to corruption or extortion."

In the past, police sometimes hauled suspects to police stations and demanded bribes, threatening long jail sentences if people did not pay.

"This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty ... for a practice that was already in place," Espino del Castillo said.

In 2006, the U.S. government publicly criticized a similar bill. Then President Vicente Fox sent that law — which did not have a mandatory treatment provision — back to Congress for reconsideration.

The maximum amount of marijuana considered to be for "personal use" under the new law is 5 grams — the equivalent of about four joints. The limit is a half gram for cocaine, the equivalent of about 4 "lines." For other drugs, the limits are 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams for LSD.

The law was approved by Congress before it recessed in late April, and President Felipe Calderon, who is leading a major offensive against drug cartels, waited most of the summer before enacting it.

Calderon's original proposal would have required first-time detainees to complete treatment or face jail time. But the lower house of Congress, where Calderon's party was short of a majority, weakened the bill.

Mexico has emphasized the need to differentiate drug addicts and casual users from the violent traffickers whose turf battles have contributed to the deaths of more than 11,000 people during Calderon's term. In the face of growing domestic drug use, Mexico has increased its focus on prevention and drug treatment.

Sen. Pablo Gomez of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party praised the legislation: "This law achieves the decriminalization of drugs, and in exchange offers government recovery treatment for addicts."

Previously, possession of any amount of drugs was punishable by stiff jail sentences, with some leeway for those considered addicts and caught with smaller amounts. But in practice, relatively few people were prosecuted and sentenced to jail for small-time possession.

While the United States openly expressed concern about the 2006 law, this time around it has been more circumspect.

Asked about the new law in July, U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said he would adopt a "wait-and-see attitude."

"If the sanction becomes completely nonexistent I think that would be a concern, but I actually didn't read quite that level of de facto (decriminalization) in the law," said Kerlikowske, who heads the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Source


List of maximum allowable drug quantities approved for personal use:

Opium: (raw, to be smoked): 5 grams
Heroin: 25 milligrams
Marijuana: 5 grams
Cocaine: 500 milligrams
LSD: .015 milligrams
MDA: 200 milligrams
MDMA (Ecstasy): 200 milligrams
Mescaline: 1 gram
Peyote: 1 kilogram
Psilocybin (concentrate, pure, active ingredient): 100 milligrams
Hallucinogenic mushrooms (raw, off the farm): 250 milligrams
Amphetamines: 100 milligrams
Dexamphetamines: 40 milligrams
Phencyclidine (PCP, or Angel Dust): 7 milligrams
Methamphetamines: 200 milligrams
Nalbuphine (synthetic opiate): 10 milligrams