Amigos ex pats
If you buy a condo in Mexican territory please learn Spanish and behave correctly with your neighbors and as a citizen of a country that has their own customs.
One of the focuses of the recent Mexico biodiversity expedition was finding these interesting Ditmars' horned lizards. I found the first one, of only two found on the entire trip. This was not a range extension, per se, but more of an infill between known ranges in the sky island region of northern Sonora.
There is a tradition that you have to kiss the first one you find and then a bottle of tequila is opened for the occasion. Out of four trips, this was the first one I ever found.
They are fascinating little creatures. Their main predators are ravens and small canids like coyotes and foxes, so they are not particularly afraid of large animals like us or cows or deer. They are quite docile and even a wild one will take a grasshopper offered to it without trying to run away.
Alt text (because the site keeps crashing): first photo is a small horned lizard sitting in the palm of my hand. Second photo is me fake-kissing the same lizard while holding it.
#Ecuador: Ex-vice president hospitalized after embassy raid
> Ecuador's detained former Vice President Jorge Glas was hospitalized on Monday, barely three days after his arrest during a highly controversial raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito, where he was seeking refuge.
El Paso, Texas, US
The shadow of razor wire falls on the face of Alejandra, 32, of Venezuela, as she and others prepare to breach a fence into the US from the bank of the Rio Grande in El Paso
A latecomer attempts to squeeze in between other monarch butterflies for warmth, at El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, a migratory overwintering spot within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacán, Mexico. Most of the eastern population of monarch butterflies overwinter in the reserve.
Spent the last week in Sonora, Mexico, on a remote ranch in one of the sky island mountain ranges helping with a biodiversity survey. The group of Mexican and American biologists collected upwards of 250 plant species alone, in addition to documenting birds, herps (reptiles and amphibians), invertebrates and mammals.
I found one of only two Ditmars' horned lizards, a particular focus of this trip. It was my first Ditmars! (I'm working on a story about these super interesting creatures, so more later.) I was giddy about this, as were the professional herpetologists on the trip and we celebrated with tequila back at the trucks. If you understand this, you may be a genuine bionerd.
Most of the photos I shot are just iPhone record shots to go along with plant and invertebrate specimens, but I did shoot a few birds with my DSLR and then digitally zoomed waaaay in on what would otherwise be tiny bright specs on branches.
Anyway, enjoy a painted redstart Myioborus pictus.
"[ITS] have appointed themselves judge, jury, and executioner; the guardians and enforcers of Truth using a romanticized past to justify their actions. As absolutist authoritarians, they have constructed a theoretical framework that, while ever-shifting and inconsistent, somehow always ends with a justification for why they get to hold a knife to the throats of all of humankind. In short, they think and act like the State."
Mexico has ended diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police broke into the Mexican embassy in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito to arrest a former vice president who had been residing at the embassy since December. AP reports: https://flip.it/oyB44J #News#WorldNews#Mexico#Ecuador
The Warning 🇲🇽 are on tour in Germany 🇩🇪 with their new single! I would have loved to see them in Munich, but unfortunately I already have plans for that day.
En #Ecuador el gobierno de #DanielNoboa dispuso que la Policía Nacional (con respaldo se militares) entre a la embajada de #México en #Quito.
Ahí se encontraba #JorgeGlas exvicepresidente de Ecuador con orden de localización y detención emitida por la Fiscalía. México había otorgado en la mañana del 5 de abril asilo político a Glas y esperaba Ecuador diera un salvoconducto.
Ante la invasión a la embajada, #AMLO anuncio que México suspende sus relaciones diplomáticas con Ecuador
#Mexico’s likely next president is a scientist. Politics has her mostly quiet on climate threats
"Sheinbaum has said she supports the president’s goal of keeping 54% of #Mexico’s electricity generation under state control, a vision that effectively casts aside more renewable energy production in favor of dirtier fuels.
But there are also some indications that Sheinbaum could take a more science-driven approach than her predecessor."
A new investigation of a deadly fire that killed 40 migrants in a locked detention cell in #Mexico shows that keys and fire extinguishers were readily available, but withheld.
Call for solidarity with Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel, anarcho-punk political prisoner in Mexico
Jorge has now been held in prison for over a year without a trial, and urgently needs funds to cover legal fees and prison costs (food, water, phone calls, visits, administration fees, service costs, etc).
Jorge "Yorch" Esquivel is a beloved compañero of the punk community, and a long-time participant of the Okupa Che. He was arrested on December 8, 2022 by plainclothes police as he was leaving the campus of the Ciudad Universitaria (of the UNAM university) in Mexico City as part of a campaign of criminalization against the Okupa.
BACKGROUND
On February 24, 2016, an operative was carried out in which plainclothes policemen detained him, "planting" drugs on him in order to fabricate crimes, and accusing him of drug trafficking, as part of a campaign of repression on the squatted auditorium Okupa Che in UNAM (still existing). The whole case was plagued with irregularities. He was transferred to Oaxaca and then to a maximum-security prison in Hermosillo as a strategy to hinder his legal defense by taking him far away from his support networks. Thanks to the solidarity and legal work, he was reclassified from the crime of drug dealing to simple possession of narcotics, and was released on bail in March 2016.
Even though he was no longer in prison, he was not out of danger. Constant threats and journalistic reports did not cease; the press even reported his death and accused him of participating in organized crime. Meanwhile, steps were being taken to frame him once again and re-arrest him for the same fabricated crime.
On December 8, 2022 he was arrested in exactly the same place - a few steps outside Ciudad Universitaria, where the Okupa is located, once again by plainclothes police - with the grounds for this illegal detention being that the Attorney General's Office appealed the decision to reclassify the crime.
The compañero's health is fragile due to an extended hospitalization a couple years back and the toll the prison conditions have taken on him.
CURRENT SITUATION
Jorge is currently incarcerated in the Reclusorio Oriente prison in Mexico City. The legal process is still in the evidence stage. Several hearings have been postponed and Jorge’s process is being delayed and prolonged to keep him in what is called “preventative imprisonment” with no sentence, which is common for cases of political prisoners in Mexico. Despite the fact that there is no evidence to keep him in prison, the strategy of the State is clearly to drag it out as long as possible, which is a tortuous level of uncertainty for all of us close to Jorge.
Thanks to the solidarity of individuals, collectives and networks, it has been possible to cover Jorge's expenses inside the prison, which have been very high due to the corruption that reigns in Mexican prisons. We are raising funds to support his legal costs and basic needs to be able to survive in this unjust incarceration, and to re-join the community on the outside as soon as possible. We call upon the solidarity of our friends and compañerxs around the world to help us in supporting our compañero Yorch.
Today in Labor History April 2, 1903: Mexican police fired on more than 10,000 protestors, killing 15 and wounding many more. People had been protesting the reelection of General Bernardo Reyes as governor of Nuevo Leon, who was aligned with Mexico's brutal dictator, Porfirio Diaz.
Sinoquipe, Sonora, Mexico, about 30 minutes ago. I'm with a group of Mexican and American biologists en route to a remote mountain range as part of a biological survey of the area. We got stopped by this protest.
A few years ago, there was a massive retention pond spill from the giant copper mine near Cananea. It contaminated the water supply so new wells had to be drilled, but this town pump has been out of service for three weeks. Protesters say the President of the municipio (like an American county), does not listen to them and has been unresponsive to their needs.
They have been without water for three weeks now. To get water, they go to a nearby pig farm that has a well and have to pay for it, filling containers that they take home. People have been getting sick because of lack of sanitation.