It's come to this: The simple truth withheld from the community by CPS Energy was revealed last week by NRG Energy executives to a Houston gathering of financial analysts: San Antonio can't afford the high price of expanding the South Texas Project nuclear facility.

Not that we need another example, but once again Wall Street enjoys the advantage over Main Street. Ratepayers don't have a need to know, but let's not deny institutional investors a little inside information.

The project will cost billions more than CPS estimated, even after interim General Manager Steve Bartley went to Japan to seek concessions. Utility executives want until January to bring a new number to Mayor Julián Castro and the City Council. Why wait?

Government Allows Misleading and False Information to Spread in the Corporate Media

reposted from Narco News

On October 24, Chiapan state police arrested Rocelio de la Cruz Gonzalez and Jose Manuel de la Torre Hernandez, both leaders of the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization (OCEZ). Narco News' Fernando Leon reports that the men say police tortured them during interrogation. De la Torre Hernandez said in a statement: "Multiple times they put a nylon bag over my head, suffocating me, so that I would answer affirmatively to a list of questions. [The questions included] if our organization OCEZ has weapons and a relationship with the church and with former and current Carranza mayors. They also shot mineral water up my nose until I passed out." De la Torre told his lawyer that police made him sign papers without reading them during the torture session. Police tortured him until he passed out, then they woke him up to sign papers while he was still groggy.

On October 25, a contact sent this reporter an email with the subject "Official Communique." The email was written in the style of a government press release, but it contained no media contact information nor was it signed by a government agency. The contact believed the email was the government's official press release regarding the de la Torre Hernandez and de la Cruz Gonzalez arrests. The contact had received the email from a local reporter who also seemed to believe the email was the government's official press release. However, this "Official Communique" did not appear on the Chiapas state government's "Public Relations Institute" website, where all official state government press releases are posted, nor did it appear on the Chiapas State Attorney General's Office website, where press releases regarding arrests are posted.

The "Official Communique's" absence from the websites where all official government communiques are posted is particularly noteworthy due to the wild claims made in the "communique."

First, the "communique" claims that de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez belong to "Los Pelones," which the communique reports is a gang that is "known for its strong activity in trafficking weapons and drugs and is responsible for multiple homicides, including the 2007 murder of state police...in Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan."

The "communique" also claims that de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez paid the Carranza mayor MX$300,000 in order to purchase weapons. The Carranza mayor, Amín Coutiño Villanueva, is from the President's National Action Party (PAN). The Chiapas governor is from the opposition Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

The "communique" claims that de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez, acting as members of Los Pelones, "also bought and distributed 9mm pistols, for which they paid MX$8,000 per gun, and the social organization [OCEZ] supported them in this." The "communique" also claims that the detained men engaged in "human trafficking as well as migrant extortion. Their lands have served as a collection site for hiding weapons and drugs. The social organization mask has impeded civilian and military authorities' access to the area surrounding the 28 de Junio community [where OCEZ operates]. That is why they had so-called 'international observers': to cover up their criminal activity."

Normally, Narco News wouldn't classify an email of this sort as "news" without verifying the source: it makes wild claims, and no government agency has verified its authenticity. This reporter thought the email was a hoax.

However, local and national corporate media seem to have also received the "Official Communique" email, and they don't seem to think it is a hoax. Articles have appeared in papers across Mexico that quote lines that appear word-for-word in the "Official Communique" email this reporter received. Mexico's national daily El Universal, for example, ran a wire article by the Spanish news agency EFE that credited the quotes from the "Official Communique" to a statement by the Chiapas State Attorney General's Office (the State Attorney General's Office is prominently mentioned in the "communique"). The EFE article's quotes only come from the "Official Communique," the defendants' lawyer, and the OCEZ. No government official confirms or denies the statements. As previously mentioned, the State Attorney General's Office has not posted any information on its website about the arrests of de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez.

The "Official Communique's" unorthodox distribution method (unsigned and not posted to a government website) aside, the email contains other inconsistencies and red flags. Narco News spoke with Marcos López Pérez, the lawyer who represents de la Cruz Gonzalez, de la Torre Hernandez, and Jose Manuel Hernandez Martinez, a third OCEZ leader who was arrested one month before the other two men.

Lopez Perez informed Narco News that the arrest warrants for the three OCEZ leaders are all part of the same case: a 2003 land occupation in Chiapas that successfully pressured the Chiapas government to legally turn the land over to peasants who are OCEZ members. That case dossier only covers the 2003 land occupation and alleged crimes related to that takeover; arms trafficking, migrant extortion, human trafficking, and other crimes are mentioned nowhere in the dossier.

Lopez Perez says that he is not aware of any other official investigation against the men that involves those crimes. He assured Narco News that the government has not charged the men with any sort of trafficking; they have only been charged with crimes related to the 2003 land occupation, which are all state-level crimes.

The crimes the "Official Communique" and the corporate media accuse the men of committing are federal crimes. The federal government has made no comment on the arrests, nor do the men have any federal investigations or charges pending, says their lawyer.

However, Lopez Perez does not rule out the possibility that the federal government could initiate an investigation. He says that he has reviewed every paper in the dossier against his clients, and he can't find the papers de la Torre claims he signed under torture. Neither de la Torre nor his lawyer know what the papers say because de la Torre wasn't able to read them before signing. Lopez Perez says it's possible that the papers could appear in a future investigation as part of a case file.

The "Official Communique" smelled like a whisper campaign even before this reporter spoke to the men's lawyer. The "communique" accuses de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez of belonging to "Los Pelones," which is a criminal group associated with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera's Sinaloa-based drug trafficking organization. However, when the government reportedly seized a massive weapons stockpile in October, the Chiapas government claimed the weapons belonged to the OCEZ, and the federal government claimed the weapons belong to Loz Zetas. Los Zetas are the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, and are also reported to work for the Beltran Leyva criminal organization. Both the Gulf cartel and the Beltran Leyvas are reportedly enemies of El Chapo. It is highly unlikely that a small peasant organization would be working for or with the armed factions of opposing drug trafficking organizations.

When the Chiapas government arrested de la Cruz and de la Torre, between 20 and 40 trucks full of state police carried out house-to-house searches of two Carranza County communities that belong to the OCEZ: 28 de Junio and Laguna Verde. Two helicopters participated in the operation. The police ransacked dozens of homes in those communities, terrorizing residents and reportedly beating some. The police were looking for suspects, and they reportedly threatened bodily harm to residents if they didn't tell them "where they were hiding the guns." The police did not find a single piece of contraband in either community. For all of the claims the government makes about the OCEZ's alleged use of the communities to hide drugs and weapons, the government didn't find a single weapon. Its Merida Initiative-style ion scanners and drug dogs didn't find a trace of illegal substances.

Casting further doubt on the "Official Communique's" claims, the Carranza mayor that allegedly received MX$300,000 from the detainees in order to illegally purchase weapons has not been arrested, nor has the government brought any formal charges against him. Of course, the mayor adamantly denies the accusations and reportedly told press that "it's about time the authorities did something about Roselio de la Cruz and Jose Manuel de la Torre."

Reforma Steps In

On November 9, Reforma, a Mexico City-based daily and one of Mexico's largest newspapers, ran an article by Martin Morita that claimed the reporter obtained an "intelligence report" about arms trafficking in Chiapas. The article does not disclose if the report is from the state or federal government. The only person the article quotes is a "high-ranking state government official" who is "participating in the team that's carrying out the investigation" that is outlined in the report.

In the article, the high-ranking state government official mentions a case in which two fragmentation grenades were found wrapped in cloth in a plastic bag in the government agency parking lot in Tuxtla, the Chiapas state capital. The grenades did not explode. In an interview, the state official accuses leaders of the OCEZ and the National Front for Socialist Struggle (FNLS, an unarmed civil society organization with a strong presence in Chiapas) of having "orchestrated that terrorist act." No charges have been filed; currently this baseless anonymous statement is the only accusation linking the two organizations with the grenades.

The Reforma article doesn't limit its accusations to the OCEZ. It says that the intelligence report claims that the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), the People's Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARP), and the Insurgent People's Revolutionary Army (ERPI) are "connected" to "subversive armed cells" that are "receiving support from organized crime groups such as Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel's armed wing, and the Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, in order to obtain firearms." The report claims, "It is confirmed that organizations that call themselves civilian have strong ties to these subversive groups [who are gathering arms] and are trying to carry out violent acts, particularly during the 2010 Bicentennial celebrations."

The Reforma article reprints the following quote from the report:

"It is noted that, based on the detention of people involved in said groups and through testimonies obtained by intelligence networks, there is evidence that establishes a relationship between those groups and people and criminal organizations that are dedicated to drug trafficking, such as the so-called Zetas and the organization led by Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo. This complicity stems from the distribution of weapons to subversive groups."

The Reforma article mentions de la Cruz, de la Torre, and Hernandez Martinez: "The three are accused of using the [OCEZ] organization to distribute weapons and drugs." Reforma fails to mention that it is only the press, not the government, that is officially accusing the OCEZ of trafficking arms and drugs.

Reporter Martin Morita filed a similar article on TabascoHOY.com. In that article, he says that Hernandez Martinez "is linked to the seizure of an arms arsenal on October 11." It also claims that "the official investigation points to Hernandez Martinez as the leader of the EPR in Chiapas and of having links to Los Zetas." Again, no charges have been filed against Hernandez Martinez that link him to arms trafficking, Los Zetas, or the EPR. Morita does not specify which "official investigation" he is referring to in the article. However, Hernandez Martinez's lawyer only knows of one official investigation--the one related to the 2003 land takeover--and it does not mention any trafficking allegations.

War on Social Movements

In a letter to Tabasco HOY's editor, the OCEZ writes, "This type of stigmatization in the corporate media doesn't only have negative political consequences for those who suffer [the stigmatization]. Rather, frequently they are orchestrated by government agencies in order to sway public opinion to help justify arbitrary judicial actions."

As the government intelligence report mentions, authorities are growing increasingly concerned about the possibility that armed groups will take action in 2010 to commemorate the bicentennial and centennial of two Mexican revolutions. According the Reforma, the report states that "the groups are trying to carry out actions aimed at destabilizing, through armed struggle, the PRD member Juan Sabines' administration in 2010, in particular during the Bicentennial celebrations."

The government may be trying to preemptively smear social organizations in the media by alleging links to drug trafficking organizations. This may prevent insurgent organizations from enjoying the sort of national and international support that protected the Zapatistas when they staged an uprising in Chiapas in 1994. It may also serve to justify judicial or military actions against civil society, which always seems to get caught in any war's crossfire. The smear campaign even includes a preemptive strike against international human rights observers, who have played a key role in human rights defense in Chiapas since 1994. In accusing human rights observers of preventing the military and police from carrying out their anti-trafficking work, the corporate media places them directly in the drug war's line of fire.

Thanks to the war on drugs, in 2010 Mexico will be more militarized than it was in 1994. The military will be better prepared and better armed than it was in 1994 during the Zapatista uprising. And now, thanks to the media smear campaign against social organizations, it may have more public approval to use its drug war military might against non-drug war targets.

Narco News has warned that the increasing militarization under the guise of the drug war could have negative consequences for insurgent and social organizations. The Merida Initiative's counterpart in Colombia, Plan Colombia, targeted insurgent organizations as a matter of official policy. In Mexico, both the US and the Mexican governments have predicted "links" between insurgent and drug trafficking organizations. In December 2008, Narco News reported:

In an official DEA PowerPoint presentation recently leaked to Narco News correspondent Bill Conroy, the DEA argued that the possibility exists that drug cartels will seek allies in insurgent organizations: “DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations] will further reach out to the Mexican military and foreign paramilitary and possible insurgent organizations in order to acquire much needed human and material support to fend off advances by competing Cartels.” Similarly, in a report obtained by the Mexican daily Milenio entitled “The National Defense Department in Combat Against Drug Trafficking,” Mexico's National Defense Department says "a symbiosis between [drug cartels and] armed groups who are hostile to the government is forseeable."

The OCEZ may be a test case, to see how far civil society will allow the government to go in its war on social movements. As Jaime Ramírez Yáñez writes in an editorial in Milenio,"The detention of these two indigenous men [de la Cruz and de la Torre], who are visibly opposed to the government, was carried out with only the alleged testimony of a 'protected witness,' and without the bother of a formal criminal investigation." A protected witness is often a suspect himself, and the government offers leniency or immunity in exchange for testimony against other people.

Using that one protected witness and the media, the government has linked the OCEZ, an unarmed organization, to the armed EPR and nearly every major drug trafficking organization in the country. The media has accused the OCEZ of human trafficking, arms trafficking, migrant extortion, and drug trafficking. It also stigmatized human rights observers who are in OCEZ communities to assure that human rights are respected. In turn, the government has been able to stage one of the largest raids in recent memory on two peasant communities, and no one seemed concerned that the raids produced no contraband. State police continue to occupy the area around Laguna Verde. The state government has been able to hunt down and allegedly torture the OCEZ's leadership. The government has executed three of fourteen warrants stemming from the 2003 OCEZ land takeover, leaving the communities terrified that police will carry out another violent raid at any moment.

Ex-Workers from Luz y Fuerza del Centro Tried to Enter the Pachuca Station and Hung Red and Black Banners in the Nuevo Necaxa, Puebla, Hydroelectric Plant

Wire Reports
El Universal

Ex-workers from defunct Luz y Fuerza del Centro power company intensified their actions in simultantaneous protests outside the company's buildings in two states.

In Hidalgo, the protesters created a protest encampment (plantón) outside the Juandho division in the Tetepango municipality, where the majority of the residents are ex-Luz y Fuerza workers. Meanwhile, in Tula and Pachuca, they burned banners, flags, and sticks. The situation remains tense, and they are expected to be forcibly removed.

At about six o'clock Thursday morning, electricians protested in Pachuca, Tula, Tulancingo, and Juandho, where they yelled chants against the federal government and burned flags, sticks, and some banners that announced the shutdown of Luz y Fuerza. In Juandho they closed off access to the buildings with pick-up trucks and cars in order to keep out police. The authorities have announced that the ex-workers could be forcibly removed.

In Pachuca, in the Santa Julia substation, about 100 electricians forced open the substation doors. However, they were only able to advance a few meters into the building because Federal Police were on guard inside with billy clubs. [Translator's note: The Federal Police have occupied Luz y Fuerza since thousands of federal troops first entered the power company's buildings in order to fire all of the workers.]

The electricians, led by the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) secretary Luis Espinoza*, hung red and black strike banners as part of the general strike that has been called for November 11.

Municipal police arrived on the scene, and they remain on alert near the substation. According to Luis Espinosa, the ex-workers will remain at the site indefinitely because he insists that looting has begun in the Luz y Fuerza buildings.

"We don't want them to start blaming us. Equipment such as conductors have been stolen, and we aren't going to allow that to continue," he said.

Meanwhile, in Puebla the electricians hung red and black flags in the Nuevo Necaxa hydroelectric plant, where they will hold an assembly to call for a national general strike that is tentatively scheduled for November 11.

Union organizations that support the SME will participate in the assembly. Miguel Angel Montiel, the SME's Undersecretary of the Exterior for the Necaxa division, said that the electricians will "stop at nothing" to reverse the shutdown of Luz y Fuerza.

Regarding the workers who have picked up their severance package in Huauchinango, Miguel Angel Montiel says he doesn't know how many have accepted the government's offer.

"I wouldn't know how many have begun the paperwork to receive their severance package because we know that the SME has filed over 30,000 individual injunctions against the president's executive order to shut down Luz y Fuerza," he explained.

El Universal correspondent Dinorath Mota and Notimex contributed to this report.

Translator's note:
* This may have been an error in the original Spanish article. SME's secretary general is Martin Esparza. Luis Espinosa (alternatively spelled Espinoza in the press) is a former SME secretary general.

Translated for Narco News by Kristin Bricker

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Conflicting Press Releases Cast Doubt on Government Claims

This past October 16, the Mexican Federal Police transferred Chiapan peasant leader Jose Manuel “Don Chema” Hernandez Martinez to a maximum-security federal prison located in Nayarit, 26 hours from his home. Don Chema is a leader of the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization (OCEZ). The government claims that it transferred him “for his own safety.”

On October 9, the government claims to have uncovered a massive weapons stockpile—reportedly the largest weapons seizure in the history of Chiapas, and the biggest weapons seizure in the entire country so far this year. The Chiapas state government says in a press release that “according to statements made by the men detained in this operation, the arsenal would be linked to José Manuel Hernández Martínez.”

The press release, dated October 18, is meant to justify Don Chema’s transfer to a maximum-security federal prison “for his own protection.” The press release continues: “It was detected that people, members of the organization in which Jose Manuel Martinez participates, wanted to cause him physical harm so that he wouldn’t testify to the authorities about this arsenal.” Don Chema’s family was unaware of these threats; they protested his transfer as a government move to isolate him from his family, lawyer, and political support base.

On October 12, the Chiapas government issued a press release regarding the arms seizure. The press release explains how the government arrested three men who then led them to the weapons. The three men are: Juan Rocha Flores from Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and Joel Díaz González and Silverio Osorio López from Huimanguillo, Tabasco. According to the press release, all of the men say they belong to a “criminal organization in the region;” one of the men “said he belongs to an organization called OCEZ or OPEZ that uses ‘social struggle’ as a front.” The press release does not specifically mention Don Chema; the press release mentioned above that justified Don Chema’s transfer to Nayarit makes the explicit link between the weapons stockpile and Don Chema.

On October 13, the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) issued a press release stating that the Chiapan government had transferred the three men to the federal government’s custody for detention, processing, and prosecution. The PGR press release states that the three men admitted to being hitmen and “halcones” (elite fighters) for Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel’s private army that occasionally also works with the Beltran Leyva drug trafficking organization. The PGR press release does not mention the OCEZ nor the OPEZ nor Don Chema. Likewise, the previously issued Chiapas state government press releases to not mention Los Zetas.

Contradictions Outweigh Consistencies

The three press releases (two from the Chiapan government and one from the PGR) include a number of inconsistencies that cast a shadow of doubt over their claims, particularly the so-called evidence that incriminates Don Chema and the OCEZ.

The press releases’ inconsistencies begin with the moment the men are detained. The PGR press release reports that Chiapan State Preventive Police (PEP) stopped the men at a checkpoint. According to the PGR, the men tried to evade the checkpoint. The Chiapan press release states that the men were stopped for a routine inspection (which could be the checkpoint the PGR mentions, but the wording is too vague to be sure) on the highway that connects the cities of Frontera Comalapa and Comitan. Here’s the problem: the Frontera Comalapa-Comitan highway is a federal highway. State police don’t have jurisdiction on federal highways; only federal police and soldiers do. State police can’t make arrests on federal highways unless they’re taking part in a joint federal-state operation (none of the three press releases alludes to a joint operation on that highway at the time). And State police certainly can’t set up checkpoints on federal highways. So why do the government press releases say that state police stopped the men at a checkpoint on a federal highway?

The press releases also give conflicting reasons for why the men were arrested. The Chiapas press release states: “During a routine inspection carried out while they traveled along the highway that runs from Frontera Compalapa to Comitan de Dominguez in a gray Chrysler Ram double-cab pick-up truck, the men responded in a nervous manner and tried to bribe the police officers.” The PGR press release states that the men tried to avoid the highway checkpoint all together.

Even more interestingly, none of the press releases claim that the men had any contraband on them at all at the time of their detention. So aside from the attempted bribe that may or may not have actually occurred, it seems as though the arresting police officers had no evidence against the men. This begs the question: why would the men have tried to bribe the police officers if they had no contraband in their vehicle?

The Organizations

One of the most striking contradictions in the three press releases is the very information that directly incriminates Don Chema and the OCEZ: the three detained men’s testimony regarding who they work for. The Chiapas press release states that the three suspects told police that they are members of the “OCEZ or OPEZ.” It’s odd that the detained men aren’t exactly sure which organization they belong to. What’s even more odd are the two organizations they say they might belong to: the Emiliano Zapata Proletarian Organization (OPEZ) split off from the OCEZ years ago, and the two organizations and their members don’t get along at all. Overlapping membership in the two organizations is highly unlikely.

The men’s OCEZ membership is even more questionable when one considers where the men are from. According to the Chiapas government, the men hail from Tabasco and Tamaulipas, not Chiapas. The complete name of Don Chema’s OCEZ is the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization - Carranza Region (OCEZ-RC). “Carranza Region” was added to the name in order to distinguish it from other Chiapan organizations that also call themselves OCEZ. “Carranza Region” refers to the Chiapan county in which the organization is located. In other words, not only does the name “OCEZ” refer to Chiapan organizations, Don Chema’s OCEZ-RC is an organization that exists in a particular Chiapan county. It is unlikely that the OCEZ-RC has Tabascan members, and it is even more unlikely that the OCEZ-RC has members from Tamaulipas, which is located at the other end of the country. Members of Don Chema’s OCEZ are from communities in Carranza county, Chiapas.

Two of the three men also reportedly told police that they spent one month in Guatemala receiving kaibil training. Kaibiles are elite Guatemalan soldiers, holdovers from the dirty war there. They have a reputation for being inhuman monsters; their training reportedly includes biting off the heads of live chickens. Kaibiles have a history of repressing insurgent peasant organizations, not training them. The Mexican government claims that many kaibiles have now allied themselves with Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) and train DTO hitmen and private armies.

According to the government, the two men testified that the San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, diocese put them in contact with the kaibiles. Since Don Samuel Ruiz, an indigenous rights supporter and president of the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), was bishop of the San Cristobal diocese during the Zapatista uprising in 1994, the diocese has been very oriented towards liberation theology. As such, both Frayba and the San Cristobal diocese have been frequent targets of government harassment and smear campaigns. Furthermore, during the Guatemalan dirty wars, the kaibiles and other Guatemalan security forces were known for repressing and killing liberation theologists and catechists, not training them.

But why would the three men incriminate local peasant and religious organizations, some of which they don’t seem to even be vaguely familiar with? The answer could lie in Mexico’s protected witness program: Mexican officials offer detained suspects “protected witness status” which would result in their charges being reduced or dropped if they agree to testify against more important targets, in this case, that could be Don Chema, the OCEZ, and the San Cristobal diocese. This could have been the case with these three men: in a highly unusual move, the Chiapan government press release regarding the men’s arrest and their alleged arsenal only includes pictures of the weapons; the three detainees’ pictures are not included in the press release. The government generally prefers to parade detainees around in front of their alleged arsenals for the press. With this arms seizure being the largest in Chiapan history and the largest in the country this year to date, one would think the government would want to give the press a picture of the men who allegedly lead them to the historic stockpile.

In contrast to the Chiapan government press release, the PGR press release regarding the same men and the same arsenal says that the three men admitted to being Zetas. Oddly, the PGR press release does not mention anything about any “criminal organization that uses ‘social struggle’ as a front,” nor the OCEZ, nor the OPEZ. However, the PGR press release does state that the men testified to the Chiapas State Special Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime that they worked as hitmen and halcones for Los Zetas. If the PGR is to be believed, this seems like important information that the Chiapan government should have taken credit for in its own press release. So why did the Chiapan government neglect this important piece of information, and choose to instead focus on linking the OCEZ and Don Chema to the historic arsenal seizure?

The Arsenal

According to the Chiapas government, during questioning the detained men tipped off authorities to the location of a safe house where arms were stored. There, the Chiapas government found the largest weapons stockpile in Chiapan history. However, the arsenal itself raises questions about the veracity of the government’s claims.

The Chiapas government reports no arrests in the ranch where the arms stockpile was discovered—it found weapons and animals there, but no people. In other words, the Chiapas government wants us to believe that the largest arms cache in Chiapan history was left unguarded.

The arsenal was discovered in Frontera Comalapa, which is located about five hours from Carranza county, where the OCEZ-RC is based. It is imaginable that major drug trafficking organizations, which due to their immense financial resources are arguably better armed than the Mexican government itself, would have an excess weapons stockpile of this size stashed away in a house. However, a poor peasant organization whose members live in tiny cinderblock houses is not likely to hide a weapons arsenal of this size so far from its base of operations—after all, the weapons are useless if they are located a five-hour drive away from home. Furthermore, guns require routine cleaning and maintenance: this is something an insurgent peasant organization could do if their weapons were dispersed and hidden amongst their members, but regular weapon maintenance would be much more difficult if all or most of their weapons were stored in an abandoned ranch five hours from their community.

Peasant organizations are, by definition, too poor to have an excess of armament that they would store hours away from their home base. Case in point: during the Zapatista uprising in 1994, many indigenous members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) were armed with sticks instead of guns. This is because many indigenous peasants, the poorest of Mexico’s poor, couldn’t afford to buy a gun, even if it meant the difference between life and death. For example, in the below video of the 1994 uprising, at 1:28, 2:09, and 2:32 minutes one can see EZLN soldiers who are armed with sticks or who are completely unarmed. Those who are armed carry obsolete weapons. On EZLN soldier can be seen holding a tear gas launcher as his only weapon.

The typical peasant army arsenal is a far cry from the stockpile allegedly found at the Frontera Comalapa ranch. In addition to 306 mortar rounds, 22 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and eight landmines, Chiapan police allegedly found nine vehicles and two racing horses. Peasants whose leaders live in two-bedroom cinderblock houses (as is Don Chema’s case) would keep their vehicles close to home for daily use rather than leaving a fleet of them parked at an abandoned ranch. Likewise, most peasants don’t own expensive racing horses; they own beasts of burden.

The Chiapas government also reports that it recovered a jewel-encrusted pistol from the ranch. While it doesn’t show said pistol in the photos it released to the press, a different pistol with what appears to be a gold-and-ivory handle is visible. Jewel- and gold-encrusted pistols are not available off-the-shelf. They must be special ordered and are very expensive. The style is popular amongst rich, high-ranking drug traffickers, which led to jewel- and gold-encrusted pistols being nicknamed “narco-bling.” This historic Chiapas arms seizure is the first time the government has attempted to convince the public that poor peasant guerrilla organizations also possess “narco-bling.” The presence of narco-bling calls the veracity of the government’s claims into question because, again, unlike drug trafficking organizations, insurgent peasant organizations struggle just to arm all of their members with any weapon at all. If by some stroke of luck a peasant guerrilla organization were to obtain a jewel- or gold-encrusted pistol (for example, in a confrontation with drug traffickers), they’d be more likely to strip the weapon of its jewels and gold and sell them in order to purchase more weapons.

Likewise, police report that one of the vehicles recovered at the ranch was armored. Drug traffickers are frequently seen traveling in armored vehicles; peasants rarely have enough money for cheap cars, let alone an armored vehicle.

Police also report that they recovered a trailer at the ranch in Frontera Comalapa. The OCEZ community of 28 de Junio, where Don Chema lives, is located 3 km from the nearest paved road. What would they do with a trailer? It would tip over if they tried to bring it to their community.

Even though police say they recovered mortars and RPGs from the ranch, no grenade launchers appear in the government photos nor in the government’s list of recovered arms. Who owns RPGs and mortars but no weapons with which to shoot them?

Furthermore, the Chiapas government’s photos of the arsenal include eight CB radios. Three of the radios appear to be brand-new; they still have plastic film over their screens. All of the cables that appear with the radios are brand-new: some appear in their original factory zip-ties, while others lack the dirt and grime that would appear on a radio that was installed in a vehicle. Much of Carranza county doesn’t have cell phone reception. Rather than leaving brand-new CB radios stored in an abandoned ranch five hours from home, wouldn’t OCEZ members use them for day-to-day communications?

The Location

The arsenal’s location also raises questions about the Chiapan government’s claim that the weapons belong to the OCEZ. Frontera Comalapa, as previously mentioned, lies about five hours from Carranza county, where Don Chema’s OCEZ faction is based.

Frontera Comalapa is not known for insurgent activity. This arms bust, if it is to be believed, would be the first time the Mexican government has publicly stated that it has detected insurgent activity in the area. However, this is not the first arms bust in Frontera Comalapa.

Frontera Comalapa, as its name suggests, is located along the Chiapas-Guatemala border. This border region is the primary land route for drug traffickers wishing to bring drugs into Mexico. This area is reportedly dominated by Los Zetas.

The Mexican government and press have repeatedly reported Zetas and drug trafficking activity in Frontera Comalapa and the surrounding area.

On October 15, just three days after the Chiapan government issued its press release attributing the arsenal to the OCEZ, the Mexican military seized 40.66 kilos of cocaine in Fronteral Comalapa.

This past July, the Chiapas government reported that alleged Zetas attacked state police with firearms and grenades in Frontera Comalapa in retaliation for the apprehension of a Zetas leader in Chiapas.

And just last year, the Chiapas government reported that it seized another historic arsenal in Frontera Comalapa. This arsenal contained the most grenades seized at one time. The Chiapas state government attributed that arsenal to organized crime, not local insurgents.

Weak Accusations Lead to Useful Results

Frontera Comalapa is drug trafficking territory, not insurgent territory. The arsenal contains items that a peasant guerrilla army would most likely not own or would not stockpile. The massive arsenal and two racing horses (which require food and water) were left unguarded. The federal and state governments cannot agree on the circumstances of the men’s arrest, nor their alleged organizational affiliations. The PGR, which is responsible for prosecuting the men, claims the detainees are Zetas, not insurgents. Something stinks.

But why would the Chiapas state government go to such lengths to link Don Chema and the OCEZ to this arsenal if its story contains so many holes and inconsistencies?

The Chiapan government has unleashed an unprecedented campaign of legal repression against the OCEZ, and as flimsy as the accusations might be, they serve their purpose. The arsenal provided the government with justification to transfer Don Chema, a state prisoner and the OCEZ’s principal leader, to a federal maximum-security prison located at the other end of the country. And just this morning, unidentified police officers broke into the homes of Rocelio de la Cruz Gonzáles and José Manuel de la Torre Hernández, two other OCEZ leaders, and kidnapped those two men. Because the police officers did not present an arrest warrant when they carried off the men, it is unknown what how the government will charge them.

One thing is certain: with the year 2010—the centennial and bicentennial of two Mexican revolutions—just around the corner, the Mexican government is just getting started with its pre-emptive strikes against the opposition.

In 2006, Pilgrim's Pride, then the second-largest chicken processor in the world, made a huge gamble that will seem familiar to anyone who's been following the financial crash: the company borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars, leveraging itself well beyond its means, in order to acquire a rival company and become the nation's No. 1 chicken processor, slaughtering 45 million chickens per week.

That might have given the executives a nice, big hard-on, but it also meant they would have to come up with more money to pay for all that debt. So the company did do what every post-Reagan company has done and gotten away with: it made the workforce pay for the executives' bonuses.

That meant squeezing lower-middle-class workers for more work for less pay, or in Pilgrim's case, more work for no pay: In August 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Pilgrim's Pride accusing it of grossly undercompensating its employees. That same year, 10,000 Pilgrim's Pride employees launched a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation for their work.

The damage extended well beyond Pilgrim's Pride's plants. With bankruptcy came huge unpaid local tax bills, leading to further layoffs and reduced services for the already-beleaguered locals

http://www.wildchihuahuas.blogspot.com

During her second night behind bars, the bleeding started. On the morning of October 14, she felt contractions. Her hands and feet shackled, she was in labor and ushered into a paramedic's van by a detention officer who restrained her to the stretcher.

"That's not necessary," the paramedic told the officer.

"It's my job," the officer responded. The guard was a Latina.

She thought she would be released from the shackles once she arrived at the hospital, but she wasn't.

The officer chained her ankle to one leg of the hospital bed.

A nurse requested that she be freed to get a urine sample. But the officer suggested instead that her bed be dragged over to the bathroom.

Later she was changed from her jail uniform into a hospital gown.

"The officer chained me by the feet and the hands to the bed," she said. "And that's how my daughter was born."

Phoenix New Times

reposted from Narco News

Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) Secretary General Martin Esparza claims that President Felipe Calderon busted his union in order to take control of a 1,100-kilometer fiber optic network. The fiber optic network in question was built with public money and was the property of Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the government-owned electricity company that the military and federal police shut down this past weekend. The union's opposition to Calderon's agenda of cronyism and privatization is at the heart of the dispute, according to Esparza.

In an interview with the Mexican weekly Proceso, Esparza explains how politicians from the president's National Action Party (PAN) facilitated a foreign company's exploitation of Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic cable, while simultaneously stifling Luz y Fuerza's bid for a permit to utilize its own infrastructure to provide television, internet, and telephone services.

Privatization Began Years Ago

The federal government's official explanation for why it sent the military and federal police to shut down all of Luz y Fuerza's buildings in the middle of the night on October 11 is that due to poor management, Luz y Fuerza was a money pit. The pro-government, anti-union media campaign justified the overnight firing of 44,000 electrical workers and 22,000 pensioners by blaming the SME, the union that represents the company's employees, for Luz y Fuerza's alleged financial precarity. A detail the anti-union propaganda machine conveniently omits is that government-appointed administrators--not the union--set company policy. Furthermore, Mexican presidents have been bleeding the country's government-owned electricity companies dry for years.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) architects had Mexico's energy industry in their sights when they negotiated the treaty. NAFTA's Chapter Six notes that "it is desirable to strengthen the important role that trade in energy and basic petrochemical goods plays in the free trade area and to enhance this role through sustained and gradual liberalization."

As such, in May 1993--just months before NAFTA went into effect--Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gotari modified the federal Electricity Law to allow the importation and exportation of Mexico's electricity, and to allow private and foreign companies to build and operate electrical plants in Mexico. Thanks to Salinas' NAFTA-inspired reform, today dozens of foreign companies operate in Mexico's energy sector. According to former SME Secretary General Manuel Fernandez Flores, private companies currently produce almost 40% of Mexico's electricity. These private companies include Enron (now Tractebel), Bechtel, Applied Energy Services, General Electric, Westinghouse, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Iberdrola, and Union Fenosa.

SME: First Line of Defense Against Privatization

Every president that followed Salinas has attempted to further privatize Mexico's energy sector, but the SME has always halted their plans. According to David Bacon,

Ernesto Zedillo also proposed privatizing electricity in 1999. The union formed the National Front of Resistance to the Privatization of the Electrical Industry, collected 2.3 million signatures on petitions in three weeks, and brought a million angry capitalinos into the streets. Zedillo was defeated, the first time a privatization initiative in Mexico had not succeeded.

Zedillo's successor, Vicente Fox, proposed subsidizing the construction of privately owned electric plants with Mexicans' social security fund. He also proposed that users (that is, massive companies) be allowed to produce their own electricity or purchase their electricity through contracts with private plants. Under Fox's proposal, those who chose to "opt out" of paying for the government-owned electricity companies' services would still use the public transmission grid and distribution system, whose maintenance would be paid for by those users who didn't opt out of the public system. Again, the SME mobilized against Fox's proposal and successfully defeated it.

Calderon, having learned from his predecessors' mistakes, decided to take a different approach to privatization. First, his Secretary of Labor refused to recognize the SME's recently re-elected Secretary General, Martin Esparza . Then, with 6,000 federal troops and a middle-of-the-night executive order, Calderon made the SME legally disappear. In a country where the government controls most unions, Calderon busted one of Mexico's most democratic and militant labor organizations. In doing so, he dealt a severe blow to the Mexican energy industry's first line of defense against privatization: the SME.

The Fiber Optic Network

SME Secretary General Martin Esparza explained that Calderon busted his union because the SME was actively blocking a foreign company's attempt to take control of Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic network.

Fiber optic technology provides what is commonly known as the "triple play" package: television, telephone, and internet all on the same line. All that is required is the installation of fiber optic cable on any normal domestic or low-voltage electrical line--something any electric company has in spades.

Prior to its sudden shutdown, Luz y Fuerza served 6.2 million homes and businesses, or approximately 25 million people, in central Mexico. In other words, Luz y Fuerza served almost one-quarter of the entire Mexican population. Furthermore, the area that Luz y Fuerza served--central Mexico, which includes Mexico's financial and political base of operations, the Mexico City metropolitan area--produces approximately 35% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This means that Luz y Fuerza's infrastructure, with some upgrading, has the potential to bring fiber optic services to almost a quarter of the country's population--a population that is key to Mexico's economy. Whoever holds the monopoly on Luz y Fuerza's infrastructure holds the key to a fortune.

Luz y Fuerza's electrical grid included 1,100 km of fiber optic cable that has already been installed, which represents coverage of approximately 1% of Mexico. The rest of the grid represents an enormous potential because fiber optic technology can be installed on it.

In 1999, at the end of President Zedillo's term, Mexico's Secretary of Communications and Transportation gave the Spanish company WL Comunicaciones a permit to install, operate, and commercialize Luz y Fuerza's network in order to provide fiber optic services. The nuts and bolts of the agreement were worked out during former president Vicente Fox's administration. Fox is a member of current president Felipe Calderon's National Action Party (PAN).

In an interview with Proceso, Esparza claims that neither the government, nor Luz y Fuerza executives, nor WL Comunicaciones brought the union to the table while the three parties hammered out the agreement to exploit Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic network.

In addition to the permit it received from the federal government, WL Comunicaciones signed multiple agreements with Luz y Fuerza executives during the Fox administration. Again, the SME leadership's signatures appear nowhere on the documents.

However, all of the agreements WL Comunicaciones signed with Luz y Fuerza are null and void. One such agreement set the rent WL Comunicaciones would have paid to Luz y Fuerza for the use of its electric poles at $170 pesos per pole per year. President Fox nulled this agreement when he passed a law mandating a $50 pesos per pole per year rent. Another agreement would have granted WL Comunicaciones the use of hundreds of kilometers of Luz y Fuerza's power lines. In exchange, WL Comunicaciones would have upgraded some of Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic network, but with the strict requirement that Luz y Fuerza only use the fiber optic network for internal use--not for providing services to customers. However, Luz y Fuerza says this agreement is also invalid because WL Comunicaciones did not hold up its end of the deal.

Considering that WL Comunicaciones and Luz y Fuerza did not have any valid agreement, this past June Esparza and Luz y Fuerza director Jorge Gutierrez Vera submitted an application on behalf of Luz y Fuerza and the SME for a permit to use Luz y Fuerza's existing 1,100 km fiber optic network to provide triple play service. With their application, they submitted a study that demonstrated that Luz y Fuerza had the capacity to operate the network.

The SME/Luz y Fuerza proposal did not propose locking out WL Comunicaciones from also providing triple play service through Luz y Fuerza's grid. The SME/Luz y Fuerza proposal only applies to the existing fiber optic network, which constitutes a fraction of Luz y Fuerza's infrastructure and fiber optic potential. The government could have approved the SME/Luz y Fuerza application and still allowed WL Comunicaciones to install and operate fiber optic cable in Luz y Fuerza's power lines that don't currently have it.

But there's a problem with the SME/Luz y Fuerza proposal: because Luz y Fuerza owns the infrastructure, and because the fiber optic cable is already installed and more or less ready to be used (some relatively minor upgrades are required), granting Luz y Fuerza the right to provide its customers with triple play service would have allowed Luz y Fuerza to provide television, internet, and telephone services to its customers for a very competitive price. This would have turned a government-owned electricity company into a serious competitor with telecommunications giants Telmex and Cablevision, both of whom came to dominate their respective markets due to years-long monopolies.

The Calderon administration did not want Luz y Fuerza to take even the tiniest bite out of WL Comunicaciones' control over Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic network. Luz y Fuerza's control over its own fiber optic network (even while opening up other parts of the grid to private sector development) would have set a dangerous precedent: Calderon announced this past May that he intends to open up 21,000 km of fiber optic cable owned by Mexico's other state electric company, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), to private bidders. If Luz y Fuerza presented a viable business proposal for operating its own fiber optic network at a lower cost to consumers, why couldn't the CFE, whose network is much more extensive, do the same?

So Calderon's Secretary of Communications and Transportation ignored the SME/Luz y Fuerza permit request in order to give WL Comunicaciones free reign over Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic network. But the plan hit a snag. Esparza says, "I told [President Calderon]: 'Do you want this [WL Comunicaciones deal] to go forward? Then give us our permit. If you don't give it to us, we won't let them in." The Secretary of Communications and Transportation continued to ignore the SME/Luz y Fuerza application, and Esparza kept his word. He gave the order to his union members to not let WL Comunicaciones employees onto Luz y Fuerza property to install fiber optic cable and operate the network. WL Comunicaciones has been trying to access Luz y Fuerza's network since May 2008; SME workers haven't let them touch it.

Calderon's middle-of-the-night raid on Luz y Fuerza and the subsequent lockout of SME workers highlights a glaring contradiction: If the federal government shut down Luz y Fuerza because it was insolvent, why did the government ignore a viable business proposal that could have turned Luz y Fuerza into a telecommunications powerhouse? Why did it sic almost 6,000 soldiers and federal police on unionized government workers, just to open up public infrastructure to a private Spanish company? Perhaps Calderon has gone to such extremes to defend WL Comunicaciones because three very prominent members of his political party, the PAN, have major stakes in the company:

• PAN member and former Secretary of Energy under the Fox administration, Fernando Canales Clariond, is a major shareholder;
• PAN member and former Secretary of Energy under the Fox administration, Ernesto Martens, is also a major shareholder; and
• Lawyer Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, currently one of the most influential and conservative politicians in the PAN (he's said to have hand-picked a significant number of Calderon's cabinet members), is WL Comunicaciones' legal representation in its fight with the SME over the fiber optic network.

Photo: SME Secretary General Martin Esparza addresses students and faculty at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) on October 15. The SME supported UNAM students during their 1999-2000 strike, so Esparza asked students to support the SME now. Photo by Santiago Navarro Francisco.

I'm talking every area of your life! You've got to learn from this past economic winter, and plant your seeds for the spring in this short window of opportunity!

While things have appeared to calm down a bit, right now is your perfect chance...

When would NOW be the time to once and for all enjoy total abundance and true wealth financial, relationally, mentally, physically and spiritually...

You really do have the power within you (regardless of what everyone else does) to create the life you desire and deserve.

Many so-called successful people make a tremendous amount of money, but their relationships are on the rocks. That's not real wealth.

Likewise, there are others who qualify as a creative genius, and they're physically sick all the time. That's not real wealth!

Then there are those who claim to be really "spiritual," and they're always financially broke. That's not wealth either! (IT'S NOT?????? IT SEEMS APPARENT THAT MR. RAY COULD USE SOME OF THIS HUMILITY IN HIS LIFE.)

Just like the harmony created by each unique and important instrument in an orchestra causes your emotions to soar (like an eagle rising on an invisible thermal), complete harmony in your life causes your level of happiness, wealth and success to soar.

My name is James Arthur Ray, and if you nod your head "yes" to at least some of the following, you've certainly come to the right place...

The real key to creating the life of your dreams is achieving true Harmonic Wealth® (remember the emotional impact and magic of the harmony of a choir). That's where you find contentment... peace-of-mind... a deep connection to (and understanding of) the world around you and your place in it.

James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray International

(And here is his great repentence in his BLOG!!!! 'For all those affected'???? Ray, honey, you will be the first and for the rest of your life, whether you want to believe your party of exploiting the spiritually and perhaps mentally weak is over or not.:)

Sunday, October 11, 2009

For All Those Affected by the Tragedy in Sedona

I am shocked and saddened by the tragedy that occurred at Spiritual Warrior in Sedona, Arizona, Thursday evening. I wish to express my deepest heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of those who lost their lives as well as offer my prayers for a speedy recovery for those who were taken ill. Because there are so many more questions than answers at this time I believe it inappropriate to comment further until we know more.

Out of respect for the deceased and their loved ones and for those who have taken ill and for whose speedy recovery we pray, we will not be replying to individual postings. Instead, we thank you for writing, and we hope you will share in our continued wishes of support, strength and comfort to all those impacted by this tragedy.

We also want everyone to know that a friend has been at the hospital monitoring the condition of those still ill. Our love and warm affection is with all who mourn and with all of you in this time of grief, sadness and challenge.

With never-ending love and prayers,

James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray International, Inc.

OKAY, here it goes. A CEO suit guy leading a sweat shop (uh, I mean sweat lodge) the size of a CIRCUS TENT?????????????????????????????????????? FOR FIFTY people at once????????? Anyone that has been in a temezcal or sweat ceremony understands the protocol. I won't say more here to belabor the obvious of why native peoples never made a sweat lodge to fill an entire village. One reason why these poor souls lost their lives and one reason only--the absurdity of the size of this circus tent did not allow them to alert the doorkeeper soon enough and to be able to get out right away. The second reason, also obvious is that people don't respect the purpose and intent of these indigenous ceremonies. You don't go to a sweat to hope led by a CEO to increase your wealth. In my lifetime of being shown the curander@ ways of my family and culture I have chosen not to conduct such ceremonies and never to partake of one unless it all feels right, including my own physical well being. It is a great responsibility to lead people through any kind of rigorous penitente ceremony. It is not a ceremony to magically fill your wallets. A sweat is not for people who are in any way physically ill or frail. (neither is climbing mounts or extraordinary long pilgrimages by foot or on one's knees, etc.) This is my way of thinking. I know some don't agree and good for them if they think that adding further suffering to their suffering is going to earn mercy from the gods. There is an annual trek in my area led by the Tortugas Pueblo in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe/Tonanztin on the 12th. It is the day before my spirituality journey writing workshop. I do not recommend it for anyone who is not physically fit. There are others ways to honor our dioses. I wish the tragedy in New Age Sedona did not happen. But now that it has I hope that Ray serves as an example and warning to all the chiflado scam artists playing Indian Chief to lost souls and to greedy individuals (who think these ceremonies will increase their material wealth) that every pig has its sábado.

by Ellis Weiner October 19, 2009

Keywords

Interns;

Book Publishing;

Promotion Department;

Blogging;

Internet;

Authors;

Facebook

Hi, Ellis—

Let me introduce myself. My name is Gineen Klein, and I’ve been brought on as an intern to replace the promotion department here at Propensity Books. First, let me say that I absolutely love “Clancy the Doofus Beagle: A Love Story” and have some excellent ideas for promotion.

To start: Do you blog? If not, get in touch with Kris and Christopher from our online department, although at this point I think only Christopher is left. I’ll be out of the office from tomorrow until Monday, but when I get back I’ll ask him if he spoke to you. We use CopyBuoy via Hoster Broaster, because it streams really easily into a Plaxo/LinkedIn yak-fest meld. When you register, click “Endless,” and under “Contacts” just list everyone you’ve ever met. It would be great if you could post at least six hundred words every day until further notice.

If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they’re better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it.

The vi-spi is cross-platform, but don’t worry if you think you’re not on Facebook, because you actually are. Jason enrolled you when you signed the contract last year, or at least he was supposed to, and he told Sarah Williams he did before he had to retire and Sarah left for nursing school. You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of “Marriage.”

I’ve attached a list of celebrities we think would be great to blurb your book, so find out their numbers and call them up. Be sure to do all this by Monday, because Sales Conference starts Tuesday. We come back Friday and then immediately on Saturday (!) all of editorial (Janet, plus probably Michelle, her assistant) and I go to the Frankfurt Book Fair for a week. During that time the office will be closed, although to help cover the costs of the Germany trip it will actually be sublet to the John Lindsay Elementary School P.T.A. as a rehearsal space for this year’s fund-raiser production of “The Music Man.” I’m told that this was one of the things that Jason didn’t understand and which contributed to his “condition.”

Once we get back from Frankfurt, we’d like to see you on morning talk shows like the “Today” show and “The View,” so please get yourself booked on them and keep us “in the loop.” If I’m not here—which I won’t be, since after the book fair I go on vacation for two weeks—just tell Jenni, my assistant, when she gets back from jury duty.

• from the issue
• cartoon bank
• e-mail this

Remember in your blog to tabskim your readers’ comments. You can use Twitter, Chitt-chaTT, or Nit-Pickr. When you reply to comments, try to post at least one photo per hour of you doing everyday tasks around the house, such as answering comments and posting photos. Please make sure they’re pre-scorched. Let me know, when I get back from Retreat a week after my vacation, if self-surging is a problem.

As re: personal appearances, to cut down on travel expenses we’re trying something new this season called RAP, or Readings by Author by Proxy. We’re asking authors in certain key areas of the country to stay “close to home” and give readings at local bookstores of both their own books and a few of our other new releases. We can send you a list of bookstores in your area once you fill out the My Local Bookstores list on your Author’s Questionnaire. You’ll be reading not only from your book but from “Code Blue Stat,” a new medical thriller we’re really excited about, and “Fifty Great Pan Sauces,” a cool new cookbook. Their authors, Dr. Steven Rosenthal and Gail Freenye, will stay in Chicago and Boston, respectively, and read from each other’s book and yours. This idea, apparently, is what made Jason take his clothes off and lock himself in a supply closet.

F.Y.I., we’ve migrated all the photos out of your book and onto the Web page. It makes the hard-copy version cheaper to produce (fewer pages; no photos) and the e-text more “Kindle-friendly.” Sometime next week, call Christopher over an ISDN line and say your name, as distinctly as possible, at least two hundred times, so we can dub it as an AudioAutograph onto the podcast edition. (You may already have done this for a previous book, but somehow Jason managed to delete all the audio files before Security escorted him from the building.)

Don’t hesitate to try to contact me if you have any questions. I sort of have my hands full, promoting twenty-three new releases this fall, but I’m really excited about working on your book, and I look forward to collaborating with you to make “A History of Moorish Architecture, 1200-1492” the biggest success it can be.

Best regards,

Gineen Klein ♦ (from the New Yorker. Just keeping it real, amig@s)

"I am overwhelmed by the support of immigrant, faith-based and community-based organizations in urging me to introduce comprehensive immigration legislation. I look forward to joining them on Tuesday so that I can share with them more specifically the key principles that will form the basis of such a bill," said Rep. Gutierrez.

"We simply cannot wait any longer for a bill that keeps our families together, protects our workers and allows a pathway to legalization for those who have earned it," continued Rep. Gutierrez. "Saying immigration is a priority for this Administration or this Congress is not the same as seeing tangible action, and the longer we wait, the more every single piece of legislation we debate will be obstructed by our failure to pass comprehensive reform."

"We need a bill that says if you come here to hurt our communities, we will not support you; but if you are here to work hard and to make a better life for your family, you will have the opportunity to earn your citizenship. We need a law that says it is un-American for a mother to be torn from her child, and it is unacceptable to undermine our workforce by driving the most vulnerable among us further into the shadows."

"I believe the support base for this kind of compassionate and comprehensive legislation is strong and far reaching, and I believe the votes are there to pass it. I have always said that immigration reform will not be easy; but it is time we had a workable plan working its way through Congress that recognizes the vast contributions of immigrants to this country and that honors the American Dream."