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Perilous: Turns out protester privacy on Skype isn't a sure thing after all

ageofperil:

My girlfriend lives in California, and I live in Texas. We spend a lot of time on Skype. Mostly it’s crossword puzzles, or we level baseless accusations at my cat for fun. Trying to do all that over the phone grows tiresome, and Skype is a decent, if still-limiting alternative.

The…

(via ageofperil-deactivated20130204)

life:

This is photojournalism of the highest order, on the front lines of a war that recognizes no rules and no boundaries. Like scores of other Mexican towns and cities, Acapulco has endured a massive spike in drug-related violence, and a terrifying shift in the nature of the carnage. Not content with murdering each other (Mexico saw close to 35,000 killings between 2006 and 2010, with 30,000 classified as “execution style” crimes), drug gangs routinely engage in acts of savagery — decapitations, public displays of the mutilated dead — meant to intimidate foes, and terrorize everyone else.

SHOCKING PHOTOS: Inside Mexico’s Drug Wars— photos depict extreme violence, viewer discrection is advised.

(via californiawatch)

Mexican drug war capital renames itself “heroic”

By Julian Cardona

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico | Fri May 20, 2011 12:39pm EDT

(Reuters) - Mexico’s most violent city, Ciudad Juarez, where more than 9,000 people have died in a horrifying drug war since 2008, is renaming itself Heroica Ciudad Juarez, or Heroic City of Juarez.

Without even a hint of irony, the Chihuahua state Congress, which legislates for Ciudad Juarez, has voted in the name change to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the border city’s role in the downfall of a Mexican dictator and the revolution it fueled.

In a ceremony on Saturday due to be attended by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, state and city leaders will celebrate the city’s new name as part of three weeks of festivities to mark the decisive battle on May 8, 1911 when rebels defeated troops loyal to strongman Porfirio Diaz.

The past glories contrast with the forlorn, desert city’s image not just for the drug war but for the unresolved murders of hundreds of young, poor women since 1993. Ciudad Juarez’s desolate streets and prison-like houses are a world away from the glittering shopping malls of El Paso, Texas, visible through the through the wire fence marking the border between the world’s richest nation and its struggling southern neighbor.

“This is an alternative to the defamatory way the city has been treated,” state lawmaker Enrique Serrano, who voted for the name change, told reporters this month.

It was not immediately clear if the new name will be used on maps of Mexico and on official federal documents.

The city was named by Diaz himself in honor of Mexico’s most famous president, Benito Juarez, who in 1865 briefly took refuge here with his republican forces during the French invasion of the country.

A marble plaque on a museum restored for the celebrations describes the city — a dismal mass of assembly plants, slum housing and shop fronts emblazoned with graffiti — as “the indomitable land of opportunities, friendly and generous.”

But in a place beset by executions, where children have been beheaded by deranged teenage gunmen and where blood is scrubbed off the sidewalks on a daily basis, many residents find the whole thing offensive.

“These politicians are trying to manipulate things so that the violence doesn’t see the light of day. They want to straighten things out, but they are not going to do it like this,” said 30-year-old electrician Carlos Martinez, standing by a recently restored building from the Diaz era.

A war between the rival Juarez and Sinaloa cartels over control of Ciudad Juarez’s smuggling routes into the United States has reached terrifying levels since early 2008, when Calderon sent thousands of troops and police to try to contain the violence.

Efforts have so far been unsuccessful, and more than 230,000 residents have fled the city over the past three years. This has ended a growth boom fueled by U.S. free trade and reduced Ciudad Juarez’ population to around 1.3 million.

(Writing by Robin Emmott: Editing by David Lawder)

Central American Immigrants Rest In Northern Mexico On Their Journey To The United States: Standing in front of a mural at Belén Posada del Migrante shelter, Martín, from Honduras, takes a break from studying English. (Part of photo essay from Latin America News Dispatch)

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Ben Franklin

Explore This

by Robin Carstensen

On the photo of a lone man back-packing across a stark cliff,
sharp white mountains staking blue sky, dropping straight
down into abyss, the advertisement reads “explore this,”
and I don’t get it—the snow-capped allure to be alone, left
on the altitude of death. Weren’t a lover’s brazen arms the edge
enough? Where were those lips, breathing a chorus on his neck,
a wind ensemble to his testicles? Was none of this intense
enough to convince him of a miracle? Safer, a frozen goddess?
Climbing her to the mythic edge, employing every human
skill to go the distance. It’s no banal temple where I want to risk
my life. I ask to burn in your flaming leaves, my mouth and hands
consumed, memorizing the membraned path, flesh mapping flesh
incantatory, blessed, your self, my self’s descent to the hinterlands’
hot white gates opening, light streaming in from the beginning.

Robin Carstensen has served as an associate editor for the Cimarron Review at Oklahoma State University where she earned her doctorate in English in Spring 2011. Her most recent work is published or forthcoming in Dos Passos Review, Naugatuck River Review, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, South Dakota Review, Tusculum Review, and Weber: The Contemporary West.

*Photo courtesy of strychnine.

Missing Cabo sunsets already. (P.S. For some reason this makes me think of ice cream.) One of my favorites shots from my recent trip down.