A thug bishop retires

What is one to make of this picture?

La Jornada

Onésimo Cepeda Silva, from his 5,000+-invitees farewell dinner. A former boxer-turned priest, hardcore PRI backer, and a declared opponent of Mexico's secular state, retires after 17 extremely controversial years as  Bishop of Ecatepe in Mexico State.

Good riddance.

Source:
Tras su última misa como obispo, Onésimo Cepeda ofrece comida para 5 mil personas. La Jornada, May 19, 2012
Obispo Cepeda anuncia retiro. El Universal, May 8, 2012.

Pilot fired for greeting AMLO, colleagues force his return

Quite an amazing little story: An Aeroméxico pilot was fired for greeting, over the aircraft intercom, presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who was on the flight.

The story hardly stops there.

His colleagues, in a wonderful display of solidarity and in protest over the extreme reaction from the Aeroméxico management (privatized by PRI's Salinas in the late 1980s), refused to fly, which lead to the cancelling of several flights from Mexico City. After brief negotiations, the pilot, Miguel Pérez, was reinstated.

Source: Cesan a piloto que saludó a AMLO durante un vuelo. La Jornada, May 19, 2012.

Gay rights in Mexico: How far it has come

Call it blatant politicking if you may, but the picture below is in any regard quite a measure on how far (parts of) Mexico has come on gay rights. Contrast it with 1994, when then-PRI lackey in Veracruz, Miguel Angel Yunes, sent a squad of drag queens to "embarrass" the left's presidential candidate,  Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, to make him appear as backed by gay activists. It made the national news.

Here is Miguel Mancera, the PRD's candidate to be mayor in Mexico City, posing with activists from the LGTB community:

El Universal

Times have changed, and not all for the bad.

Source:  Mancera busca ampliar la lucha contra el sida. El Universal, May 18, 2012.

Happy birthday, PRD

Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), born Cinco de Mayo 1989: Happy 23rd.
                       
                 

Peña Nieto taking the left's causes

AMLO accused PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of "plagiarizing" his proposals, given the latter's new campaign initiative of a minimum universal pension for all.

AMLO is absolutely right: This has long been one of AMLO's campaign causes, and as such it should perhaps be regarded as well as a compliment.

Yet there's a crucial difference. When AMLO was mayor, he actually implemented minimum pensions for the old who were not already covered by other types of pensions or social security.

When Peña Nieto was governor of Mexico State, he had six years during which he could have implemented an initiative he now all of a sudden proposes on the campaign trail.

Unlike AMLO, he never did.

IFE caves: No "cadena" of national debate

IFE's general council voted 7-2 to reject a cadena nacional, where Mexico's venomous media duopoly would simply be forced to transmit the first (of only two) presidential debates, shaping it principally in terms of "liberty," in the sense that IFE should simply not force the broadcast of the this mechanism, but presumably rely on more consensual methods. Yet what about the principle of equity?

Against the blatantly anti-democratic behavior of the two mass media chains Televisa and TV Azteca - yes, it is anti-democratic when a company has the privilege of a near monopoly public airways, awarded at bargain prices, yet refuses to use them for public good - how can one expect that either will be "persuaded" to air the debate on its prime-time star channels?

I am squarely with Alfredo Figueroa and Lorenzo Córdova here, the only two councilors who voted in favor of a cadena. To suggest that this would turn Mexico into a Venezuela-like scenario, where Hugo Chávez for sure has abused this mechanism beyond the pale, is absurd and extremely dishonest reasoning: This is the most important decision Mexican voters will make for the next six years, and all actors should facilitate the wide dissemination of a debate that will help make such a decision.

The very respected former IFE chief José Woldenberg - the man who set up presidential debates in Mexico in the first place - backed such a cadena. The counselors should have listened to him. As Figueroa noted,

There are two channels (television) that concentrate 90% of the radio-electric spectrum and because of individual decisions and for the sake of rating it can be said that much of the nation will be left without the ability to compare different policy options.

Please, no "But if they care so much, they'll find a way to watch it and they should be free to " etc type of arguments. This is not about serving - or not - democracy, pure and simple.

Why Mexico's media duopoly must be crushed

Yet another obvious reason why Mexico's Televisa-TV Azteca media duopoly must be ended:
The two national chains, which have for the past four years did all in their (very considerable) power to discredit IFE and the electoral reform that ended the lucrative political ad business, now refuse to broadcast the two national candidate debates on any prime time TV channel.

IFE Councilor Lorenzo Córdova put it very well:

This episode puts to test the fundamental commitment to democracy of Televisa and TV Azteca... The national chains are in the hands of two groups, and it would be desirable that they reconfirm this vocation.

It is not an irrelevant fact that PRI frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto is desperate to avoid exposure of unscripted appearances, and the anti-democratic decision of the two chains are of tremendous help.

Note as well that Peña Nieto again bailed out of a debate: The woefully unprepared PRI frontrunner refused to participate in a presidential debate organized by Milenio, as did the inept PAN candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota, with the latter again declaring she would participate in no debate unless Peña Nieto appears.