The pressures exerted by the Government of Mexico take their toll on schoolchildren in Juarez.

Not much reporting on this, but it seems to have been going on for a few months.

It was the case in TJ that, when the Tijuana Cartel was being dismantled by government pressure and rival drug trafficking operations, that cartel members took to kidnappings-for-ransom and other “petty” crimes, in order to raise cash.

The Juarez school threats would seem to be a corollary. Perhaps the Juarez Cartel is under threat in the same way: by government pressure and rival drug trafficking organizations.

There’s a remarkable piece of journalism by Rich Wright titled, The Mask of Red Death.

It’s remarkable at once for two quick reasons: First, El Paso journalism doesn’t rise to many heights (see 4 Borders Pundit), and, second few El Paso journalists can write well (see 4 Borders Pundit). Wright, in less than 2000 words, describes (creates?) a competent metaphor for Mexico’s current troubles. His story takes place in a bar in Juarez. The metaphor incorporates economy, culture, crime, corruption and, a 4 Borders Pundit fave, booze. 4BP never met a bar in the 20-something countries he visited that he couldn’t find metaphors in.

This metaphor, however, is different. It’s different because it’s better than 4BP has written about.

To get it out the way, any crime-novel devotee, or wannabe gonzo journalist will be taken in by his opening sentence: “Thursday night I went to Juarez .” It’s a simple sentence, but unloads, like a shotgun blast, loads of cultural connotations for Southwest Border-aware locals living here in current times. And, much unlike a double-aught blast to the stomach, Wright’s story just gets better from the opening sentence.

What transpires during Wright’s visit is nothing short of a Catholic School-rhetoric miracle come to life. He finds two world-class musicians in a working-class bar. And then he records them. And then he puts the recording up on YouTube.

You can see it, and you should see it, here.

The video, I think, portrays Mexico better than all the gawking press, gringo gossip, and foreigner-manufactured realities could: Mexico remains a sophisticated, complex, corrupt, life-loving and optimistic land that outsiders would do better to know than to avoid. Mexico is one of the few places where concert-hall musicians would deign to play for beer-drunk locals.

To hell with 15-second sound bites from MSM. Watch the whole thing and see both a story and the future of reporting.

And after all, when is the last time two world-class musicians turned up in a shithole ghetto bar in Detroit or Houston?

The BBC tried to weigh in on the increased violence in Mexico. They incorrectly implied one thing. In actuality, the surge in army deployments didn’t cause the upswing in killings; their deployment was a result of the upswing in killings.

So ASARCO got their air quality permit, thanks to the State of Taxes Texas.

An air quality permit is not the same as a politically-accurate permit asserting that the quality of air emitted by Texas bureaucrats is any finer than the sublime perfumes of the nearest stockyard.

It’s just a permit, and permits are permitted, by law and by the very nature of the word.

That’s the reality of how home-grown carpetbaggers roll in The Lone Stud State.

Thus, despite our potentially-choked lungs and could-be lead-laden watery eyes (or not), and surrounded by our devoted MS-afflicted offspring and our three-legged dogs, we are pushing through with a series of parodies. The first comes now, and why did ASARCO make it so easy for us?

Now here’s a world-class ASARCO original ™ ad, suitable for parody naked adulation. Note the dramatic effect of black-and-white postering, which is not to say it’s fascist in design, as there are no red spot color calls that would complete the Teutonic Triumvirate of black-white-red (often used by Nazis, South American political parties, Chicano farm workers movements and beret-wearing, scooter-riding, grandma-killing commie Guevaristas (which is the same as at least one Obama campaign worker). The designer could have just had a bad day. What with the bankruptcy and uncertainty over pay stubs, it’s possible ASARCO had to cull the bottom of the advertisorial barrel for a graphic artist who would work in exchange for stock futures. Which is not to say the Artist was a punk, except s/he could have been just a tad desperate. Or s/he could have been a corporate wonk alarmingly left alone with PowerPoint of a frantic afternoon, with a 5 p.m. deadline to fax ad thumbnails to Guadalupe or Rio de Right Wing, Argentina, or Hull, or Kosovo, or wherever ASARCO decides its off-shore corporate HQ is this week. (Click for full-sized badness):

And here’s our new ad, built during an all-nighter in between coughing jags, blood tests for lead poisoning at the ER, and furious phone consultations with both lead poisoning specialists at the Mayo Clinic and alcohol-poisoning specialists at Acetunas (click for full-sized goodness and click again for print-sized wonderfulness, if your so-called Internet browser supports that):

Later on, once we’ve exhausted all medical approaches to our health issues as well as creative approaches to parodying ASARCO, we’re going to explore other reasons for Mayor Crook’s Cook’s opposition to the re-opening of ASARCO. Can anyone say “land grab?”

Can anyone say, “FBI El Paso Corruption Investigation?” We knew you could.

Remember Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, the drug smuggler who was paid by the U.S. to help convict USBP agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean for shooting him in the ass when he was smuggling marijuana into the US in 2005?

He’s about as dumb as we thought he was back then.

El Paso Times notes his tearful family letting that Aldrete crossed into the US because he thought he was getting more money from the feds — for Christmas gifts.

You can’t make this stuff up. One hundred and twenty-nine other dummies just got rounded up in El Paso in the same way. High IQ is not highly-regarded among the criminal set along the border.

Aldrete, who lives in Juarez, from where he gazed lovingly at the William Beaumont Army Hospital in El Paso where he received ace medical attention, had said he’d never cross back into the US — with or without a load of dope, presumably.

I expect Aldrete will have a lot more worries about his backside in prison than the bullet lodged there a couple of years ago. While Ramos and Compean have suffered from inmates’ abuse, this celebrity trafficker will be (in)famous enough to learn about new ways to make his butt-ocks hurt. They really ought to get TVs out of prisons.

Patterico links to the news, and Johnny Sutton’s name turns up in the comments, like a chow chip under your boot.

Diggers Realm has more.