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Archive for the ‘The Americas’ Category

Burger King & Mexico Em-Broiled in “Texican Whopper” Advertising Dispute

Posted in American West, Business, Food & Wine, Media & Advertising, Popular Culture, The Americas on April 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

05_Flatbed_1 - APRIL“Mexico is protesting what it says is a whopper of an insult.

“An advertisement for Burger King‘s Texican Whopper burger that has run in Europe shows a small wrestler dressed in a cape resembling a Mexican flag. The wrestler teams up with a lanky American cowboy almost twice his height to illustrate the cross-border blend of flavors.

“‘The taste of Texas with a little spicy Mexican,’ a narrator’s voice says.

“The taller cowboy boosts the wrestler up to reach high shelves and helps clean tall windows, while the Mexican helps the cowboy open a jar.

“Mexico’s ambassador to Spain said Monday he has written a letter to Burger King’s offices in that nation objecting to the ad and asking that it be removed. Jorge Zermeno told Radio Formula that the ads ‘improperly use the stereotyped image of a Mexican.'” (more @ NY Daily News)

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No Mas?: Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez “Lays Down His Pen”

Posted in Books, Literature, The Americas, Writers & Writing on April 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

“He is the 82-year old giant of Latin American literature who pioneered the school of magical realism and inspired a generation of novelists. But Gabriel García Márquez has barely written a word since his last novel, Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores, came out to distinctly mixed reviews five years ago.

“Now fans of the Colombian author are facing the prospect that, after a career spanning half a century, Garcia Marquez has finally laid down his pen for good.

“His agent, Carmen Balcells, told the Chilean newspaper La Tercera: ‘I don’t think that García Márquez will write anything else.'” (more @ Guardian UK)

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Today’s Sign of the Apocalypse: Miss Universe Has “Fun” at Guantanamo

Posted in Crimes & Misdemeanors, International Affairs, Politics, Popular Culture, Sign of the Apocalypse, The Americas on April 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Indonesia Miss Universe“A ‘relaxing, calm, beautiful place’ may not be everyone’s description of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States holds about 240 prisoners in a detention center that has drawn condemnation from around the world.

“But this was the opinion of reigning Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, who visited the U.S. naval facility in eastern Cuba this month . . .

“‘It was a loooot of fun!,’ Mendoza wrote . . . she said they also visited a bar on the base and the ‘unbelievable’ beach there.” (more @ Reuters)

Update: Miss Universe’s Blog Post on Guantánamo Vanishes

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Hola Havana: Washington Mulls Lifting Travel Ban to Cuba

Posted in Congress, Economy, Foreign Travel, International Affairs, Obama, Politics, The Americas on March 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

cuba_postcard“Roughly a year after Fidel Castro stepped aside and handed much of the responsibility for leading Cuba to his brother Raúl, there is new momentum in Washington for eliminating the ban on most U.S. travel to the island nation and for reexamining the severe limitations on U.S.-Cuban economic exchanges.

“At a Capitol Hill news conference scheduled for tomorrow, a wide array of senators and interest groups — including Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.); Banking Committee Chairman  Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.); Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Human Rights Watch — will rally around a potentially historic bill to lift the travel ban.” (more @ Washington Post)

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Mas Bolano: Part VI of “2666” Discovered in Author’s Papers

Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Literature, The Americas, Writers & Writing on March 10, 2009| 1 Comment »

bolanosmall“Two new novels by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño have reportedly been found in Spain among papers he left behind after his death. The previously unseen manuscripts were entitled Diorama and The Troubles of the Real Police Officer, reported La Vanguardia.

“The newspaper said the documents also included what is believed to be a sixth section of Bolaño’s epic five-part novel 2666. . . .

“It follows the discovery of another novel, entitled The Third Reich, which was shown to publishers at the Frankfurt book fair in October. . . .

“The writer, who spent the last part of his life in the Costa Brava region of Spain, died at the age of 50 in 2003.

“Uncompromising in his style and critical of authors who sold out to the market, he did not publish a novel until he was 43. He supported himself by, among other things, working as a security guard at a campsite and selling cheap jewellery to tourists visiting the Costa Brava. . . .

“Bolaño published his first novel in 1993 and posthumously grew in popularity after 2666 was translated into English and was one of the New York Times‘s top 10 books of 2008. His novel The Savage Detectives appeared on the same list the previous year.” (more @ The Guardian)

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Update: Chilean Bolano Posthumously Wins Book Critics Circle Award

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“The Eyes of Texas,” or: 43,000 Virtual Texas Deputies Patrolling the Rio Grande

Posted in American West, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Current Events, International Affairs, Politics, Science & Technology, The Americas on February 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

texasborderbadge“In a controversial program aimed at enhancing border security, Texas sheriffs have erected a series of surveillance cameras along the Rio Grande and connected them to the Internet.

“Thousands of people are now virtual Border Patrol agents — and they’re on the lookout for drug smugglers and illegal immigrants.

“Robert Fahrenkamp, a truck driver in South Texas, is one of them.

“After a long haul behind the wheel of a Peterbilt tractor-trailer, he comes home, sets his 6-foot-6-inch, 250-pound frame in front of his computer, pops a Red Bull, turns on some Black Sabbath or Steppenwolf, logs in to www.blueservo.net — and starts protecting his country.

“‘This gives me a little edge feeling,’ Fahrenkamp says, ‘like I’m doing something for law enforcement as well as for our own country.'” (more @ NPR)

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Cuba Literaria: “Cuba 2009” International Book Fair Opens Tomorrow

Posted in Books, Business, Foreign Travel, The Americas, Writers & Writing on February 11, 2009| 1 Comment »

cuba-books“Cubans’ passion for literature will again characterize the upcoming 18th International Book Fair Cuba 2009, set for Feb 12 through the 22 here in Havana and then, from Feb 23 through March 8 in other Cuban cities.”

(via Cuba News Headlines)

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Across the Great Divide: Tijuana’s “City of Waste”

Posted in American West, Architecture, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Current Events, International Affairs, Politics, The Americas, Urban Affairs on February 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »

While the completion of the final 670-mile stretch of security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border continues to be slowed by political and engineering issues, across the more than 600 miles of fence already completed (“a hodge-podge of metal panels, wire mesh and steel posts”) “drug smugglers . . . continue to breach the fencing that is up, forcing Border Patrol agents and contractors to return again and again for repairs. The smugglers build ramps to drive over fencing, dig tunnels under it, or use blow torches to slice through. They cut down metal posts used as vehicle barriers and replace them with dummy posts, made from cardboard.”

Teddy Cruz, reporting for “The Nation,” writes that “no matter how high and long the post-9/11 border wall becomes, it will never stop the migrating populations and the relentless flows of goods and services back and forth across the formidable barrier that seeks to exclude them.” Yet from the southward flow of materials something remarkable is being created – “while human flow mobilizes northbound in search of dollars, the urban waste of San Diego moves in the opposite direction . . . The leftover parts of San Diego’s older subdivisions — standard framing, joists, connectors, plywood, aluminum windows, garage doors — are being disassembled and recombined just across the border. A few miles south, in Tijuana, new informal suburbs — some call them slums — spring up from one day to another. This river of urban waste flows across the Tijuana-San Diego [sic] to make something dramatically new.”

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Travel Photo of the Day: The Candy Men of Xochimilco

Posted in Foreign Travel, Photography, The Americas on October 13, 2007| Leave a Comment »


Two of the many vendors encountered while cruising the crowded canals of Xochimilco in the south of the Mexico City D.F.

(Full photo)

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