From La Jornada, March 31, via Chiapas95 (our translation):

CANCUN — Mayan priests tonight carried out "a cleansing against the wickedness of George W. Bush," in the culmination of the first day of protests against the presence of the American leader in this city...

From El Universal, March 31, via Chiapas95:

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Chiapas. Thousands of campesinos in southern Mexico blocked roads and bridges Wednesday to protest the alleged failure of the central government to help them cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Stan.

From The Dominion ("Canada's Grassroots Newspaper"), March 25:

Potable Politics
Will water put the Zapatismo into Mexico's big city politics?

by Van Ferrier

The 4th World Water Forum has drawn to a close in Mexico City, but the debate over who will provide clean drinking water in regions throughout the country has only just begun. In Guadalajara, Mexico's second most populous city, drinking water is a private business. The local water company was sold to multi-national corporations in 1998, since then the price of water has doubled, causing public uproar.

This one isn't a joke, tho we wish it was. Another entry in the fast-mounting signs of global ecological collapse. From AP, March 31:

WASHINGTON - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.

We sure hope this is just a couple of lone wackos and not the beginning of a destabilization campaign against Evo Morales. An AP report indicates suspect Triston Jay Amero of California "has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals since he was seven-years-old"—which is comforting for us, even if it doesn't seem to have done him much good. Still, that doesn't mean he wasn't being paid or manipulated by the CIA (or somebody). From Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 26:

File this under words-mean-whatever-we-say-they-mean. NYU "had not put any pressure on [the Objectivist Club's] free speech", but "said the panel discussion could not be open to the public if the cartoons were shown on stage." Huh? It's amazing how absolutely everybody pays lip service to free speech, while practically nobody upholds it. And of course it is right-wing nimrods like the Objectivists and the New York Sun who get to reap the propaganda benefits of this capitulation. Will "progressives" never learn? From The Sun, March 30:

From the New York Times, March 29:

Nanny Is Hit by Truck While Seeking Help to Save a Choking Baby

An Upper East Side nanny trying to save a choking boy was struck by a truck yesterday after she wandered into a busy Manhattan street on her way to the hospital, the police said. When she collapsed from her injuries, strangers and a police officer took the child from her, revived him and took him to the hospital.

The latest shoot-out between US forces and the Sadr militia has prompted an alliance between Sadr and his longtime rival in the Shiite movement, the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which controls the equally formidable Badr militia. This will, of course, increase the pressure on Washington to effect "regime change" in Iran... From The Guardian, March 28: