About Cinco de Mayo, the American holiday
UPDATE
Thank you to Moe’s commenter Nick!
Mexico: Mexicali doesn’t want Corona
The makers of Corona, the beer that made Cinco de Mayo a holiday, may have to move out of Mexicali over a water rights dispute:
Mexican Farmers Fight to Oust Border Brewery. Water-rights protesters invoke Trump in effort to get U.S.-owned plant out of Mexico (emphasis added),
Earlier this month, planters clogged the parking lot at the office of the governor of Baja California state with tractors, reapers and other farming equipment. They erected a banner demanding that Mr. Trump stop a large brewery being built here by Constellation Brands—the third-largest U.S. beer producer and the brewer of Corona, the best-selling beer in Mexico—much as they saw him forcing Carrier Corp. and Ford Motor Co. to back away from plans for new facilities in Mexico.
Constellation has begun construction on a $1.4-billion plant in Mexicali that the company says will provide 750 permanent jobs and is crucial to supply growing markets on the U.S. West Coast. None of the beer to be brewed in Mexicali is destined for the Mexican market.
Instead,
“The government hasn’t spent one peso on improving the state’s irrigation systems but for this project, they’re spending 500 million pesos ($26 million), with most of the water destined for the Constellation Brands plant,” said Nancy Sánchez, who represent Baja California in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies.
In other news,
They found a 120-foot-long escape tunnel found under Mexican prison
Prison officials in the northern Mexican state said more than two dozen inmates escaped through the underground passageway.. Twelve of the 29 escaped prisoners have been recaptured.
Three Mexican journalists have been murdered this month: Miroslava Breach Velducea, Cecilio Pineda Brito and Ricardo Monlui Cabrera. Monlui Cabrera’s son had been kidnapped and left for dead in 2010.
About Cinco de Mayo, the American holiday
Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoȋt Nadeau, authors of The Story of Spanish, point out that Cinco de Mayo No Hecho en México, Actually
Cinco is as American as apple pie. So is the U.S. Hispanic melting pot.
Exactly how Cinco de Mayo turned into the signature celebration of the United States’ 52 million Hispanics is a bit of a mystery—especially since it is hardly celebrated in Mexico outside of the State of Puebla. Cinco de Mayo has no association with Mexican independence. It commemorates a battle on May 5, 1862, in which the Mexican army vanquished the well-equipped French forces of Napoleon III.
No one knows exactly why Hispanics in California began celebrating Cinco de Mayo at the end of the 1860s.
It was a good excuse for a party?
What we do know is that in the 1970s cultural organizers in San Francisco selected Cinco de Mayo from among a slate of holidays as the best pan-national Latino celebration in the U.S. It was a savvy choice. Most Mexicans had never heard of the holiday, so it didn’t carry the risk of pitting different Hispanic nationalities against one another.
I had never heard of cinco de mayo until quite recently, either. Neither had several friends and acquaintances from Latin America, who found out about it once they moved to the USA.
What does The Most Interesting Man in the World have to say about this?
By the way, Bronx native Jonathan Goldsmith is The Most Interesting Man in the World.
Buy the book, drink the beer. Skol!
UPDATE,
The article’s author left a comment! Thank you!
[post updated with info on TMIMitW]
The Peruvian elections Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean
The big news of the week was yesterday’s Peruvian election of Ollanta Humala as their next president:
Financial markets, which have been riding a roller coaster during the long campaign, are sure to take a win by Mr. Humala badly, analysts said. Investors viewed Ms. Fujimori as the candidate who would maintain the policies of openness toward foreign investment and trade, which helped Peru grow by 9% last year. Mr. Humala, who has made sharply contradictory statements on economic policy, would face pressure to immediately send signals to the market by revealing who would serve in key positions, such as Prime Minister and Economy Minister.
BRAZIL
Lagarde, on Visit to Brazil, Vows Speedy IMF Reform
CHILE
Video: Michelle Bachelet on UN Women
COLOMBIA
Colombia kills FARC commander
Colombian authorities said they killed the top-ranking security chief of the rebel group FARC, Alirio Rojas Bocanegra, known as “El Abuelo,” member of the FARC Central Command.
CUBA
Fábrica de españoles
GUATEMALA
Ethics and politics get divorced
ECUADOR
Congressman McGovern visits Ecuador
SUMMARY: Congressman James McGovern traveled in Ecuador from November 13 to 18, to visit sites at issue in the Chevron-Texaco oil pollution case, and Ecuadorian border communities affected by refugees and other aspects of the violence in Colombia. Congressman McGovern met with Government of Ecuador (GOE) Ministers and President Correa, and while taking no position on the unresolved Chevron-Texaco suit, expressed concern about the humanitarian, health and environmental impacts of oil contamination on local affected communities and the humanitarian situation on the border, and pledged to draw greater attention to the plight of refugees. Foreign Minister Salvador and Vice Defense Minister Miguel Carvajal asked McGovern for the U.S. Congress to investigate the March 1 Colombian attack against a FARC camp in Angostura, along the northern border of Ecuador, which McGovern did not agree to.
HAITI
New Study Questions Quake Toll In Haiti
MEXICO
Mexico City Retailers Pause
Retailers have put expansion plans on hold in the Mexican capital after the megacity’s government enacted a virtual three-year moratorium on openings of grocers, convenience stores and hypermarkets in an effort to shield traditional markets and small family-run bodegas from corporate competition.
Soul-searching amid the debris
Mexican individualism and violence
PARAGUAY
Police in Paraguay Seize 2.1 Tonnes of Cocaine Adulterate
PUERTO RICO
A pun gone wrong: Coors Light “Emboricuate” Ads Brews Outrage Among Puerto Ricans
VENEZUELA
Venezuela: The Brazil connection
Why I am not blogging much lately: the “gimme!” culture of Venezuela. Venezuela’s not alone.
The Perverse Gasoline Subsidy in Petrostates
The week’s posts,
Venezuela: Welcome to Club Hugo
Ollanta Humala’s shell game
The short answer is, No
At Real Clear World,
Bolivia Invites, Then Disinvites, Accused Iranian Terrorist
26396
Washington’s Fortitude
Being brewed in NYC (h/t Aaron),
George Washington’s Beer Being Brewed in NYC
George Washington is famous for many things. Yet it’s safe to say few know the nation’s founding father created a recipe for beer.
The New York Public Library owns the recipe and is partnering with Coney Island Brewing Company in Brooklyn to recreate the brew.
They’ll make just 25 gallons to celebrate the library’s centennial. It’ll be called “Fortitude’s Founding Father Brew.”
I suggest they brew several hundred gallons and send it to DC so the legislators can continue to spend like drunken sailors. You surely can’t expect that they’d have the Fortitude to seriously tackle the budget.
26160
Lend a hand
Nice Deb has the photo that Thomas Lifson posted,
Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?
Lifson finds an analogy to government health care. Go read it.
North Korea celebrates 4th of July with beer and rockets
North Korea launches beer advert
Because nothing in a beer ad says “refreshing” like chemists in labs, assembly lines, antiquated buildings, and North Korean Communist party officials:
Meanwhile the rockets are flying in the overall direction of Japan. The UN forbids that,
Resolution 1874, which was approved last month and which condemned the North’s nuclear test, was the third to be passed by the U.N. Security Council against the country since 2006. All three ban North Korea from launching ballistic missiles.
Obviously the North Korean regime f*rts in the overall direction of the UN as far as that’s concerned.
Ed asks, “Could a Taepodong-2 be next?”
Pick your “glass hold”, please
For the “take with a grain of [margarita] salt” file:
The Beeb says ‘Glass hold’ reveals personality.
If the study is accurate, you probably want to hang out with
THE FUN-LOVER
This type of drinker could be a man or a woman. They tend to be sociable and convivial and “like a laugh”.
They take short swigs from bottled drinks so they don’t miss out on chipping in with the conversation.
The bottle is held loosely at its shoulder for ease. This type of person is always happy to extend their social circle. The best way to approach them therefore is to leap directly into light, good-humoured conversation and make them laugh.
However, it’s probably a good idea to stay away from the browbeater, whether the study is accurate or not.