Intersections

Death toll is 2 in Mexico quake; no volcano

** Originally published at World Now:

Two people have died after last week's large earthquake in Mexico, the first casualties reported since the magnitude 7.4 quake shook densely populated Mexico City and damaged thousands of homes across several southern states.

The mayor of a municipality in Guerrero state, near the border with Oaxaca and near the quake epicenter, said that one man died of his injuries after a wall fell on him and that another man died from complications of a heart attack suffered during the quake.

The deaths in the Cuajinicuilapa municipality were reported to the federal government during a tour Friday of the largely rural zone by Social Development Secretary Heriberto Felix Guerra.

Previously, no deaths and no major damages had been reported since the quake, which was centered in Ometepec, Guerrero state.

It was one of the largest seismic events in Mexico since the devastating magnitude 8 quake of 1985 that left more than 10,000 dead. (A quake of equal magnitude hit western Mexico in 1995, killing 49, and a quake measuring 7.6 hit the same region in 2003.)

The low death toll in Tuesday's quake suggests Mexico's progress on earthquake preparedness since 1985 makes the country a "model for preparedness in the developing world," said an online story by Nature. 

Mexico's interior secretariat said 29 municipalities in Guerrero would receive funds for damage to homes and buildings during the quake. Thousands were damaged in Guerrero and Oaxaca, officials said.

Separately, the geophysics institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico released a statement contesting a claim made by Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre that caused a brief buzz on social networking sites. The governor said Thursday that the university's geophysicists were headed to the quake zone to determine whether a small volcano was emerging and therefore causing the seismic activity.

The institute said it was routine to send analysts to earthquake epicenters to study seismic activity after a large quake. "The earthquake ... had a non-volcanic origin," the statement said.

On Sunday, a quake measuring 7.1 hit Chile, resulting in no deaths.

More snapshots from Monterrey, NRMAL fest *

El Festival NRMAL fue *laaaaa onda.* Pero la otra realidad pica.

From Wikileaks: "While there is public concern about the influence of the cartels, civil society is in general unaware of the degree to which the cartels have infiltrated key state and municipal institutions. All of the region's police forces are controlled by organized crime. In the case of San Pedro, the ABL cartel called the shots although a 15-person advance squad from la Familia was present in the city and trying to gain a foothold among the police force. (Separately, the former San Pedro Secretary of Public Security reports that La Familia has been engaged in such efforts intermittently since 2006.) As for the other police forces in the area, the Gulf Cartel was the true master. In general, and as was the case in San Pedro, the cartels did not attempt to bribe the municipal secretaries of public security, but bought off the number two and number three level officials on the force. Note: The mid-September detention by state law enforcement authorities of the Municipal Secretary for Public Security of Santiago (a Monterrey suburb) would represent an exception to this rule. End Note."

A new wave of SoCal ska, with a Latin beat *

** Originally published in the Calendar section of the Sunday Los Angeles Times:

On a wide but quiet strip of Vermont Avenue in South Los Angeles, in the run-down Casa Honduras dance hall, the ska kids are waiting for the next band to start.

Couples are making out in the corners of the venue, attached to a Honduran restaurant. They sport dreadlocks, Afros and spiky punk 'dos and are dressed in everything from camouflage and combat boots to Chucks and suspenders.

A sound check ensues with a band called Blanco y Negro. Once its members get going, blasting the room with a frenetic Latin-punk sound sung both in English and Spanish, the young crowd forms a circle and begins to skank. The dance has them lifting their elbows and knees rhythmically to the ska beat, rushing and pushing against one another when the music accelerates into punk or metal.

Bodies are in motion, sweating, pounding skin to skin. Though just eight miles from downtown L.A., by the sounds and faces, this could be a jam in Mexico City or Tijuana.

Ska — the Jamaican sound that expanded into a variety of rock and reggae subgenres in the United Kingdom and then the United States in the late 1970s through the '90s — is booming again in Southern California. It is experiencing a comeback after a decade of relative exile, but this time around it's influenced by ska from Latin America.

Underground shows are happening in backyards and warehouses across Southern California, with mini-scenes developing in areas such as South and southeastern Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland Empire.

"Do you remember the swing days? This is the new era of that," said Hollywood resident Josh Morales, 24. "But it's more ska-reggae."

"It's like a combination of cumbia with ska," Morales said as the band Los Chiles Verdes began warming up for its set. "It's like Spanish rock.... I don't know. It's hard to explain."

** Read the rest here. Read more ...

NRMAL music festival shows different side of Mexico

** Originally published in the L.A. Times Calendar section:

REPORTING FROM SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCIA, MEXICO -- Oakland-bred Raka Rich brought the flow of California hip-hop, in Spanish.

Puerto Rico's Davila 666 ignited a wild mosh-pit with its Latin-tinged punk.

And all kinds of new Mexican acts — as varied as Juan Cirerol of Mexicali and cumbia-rockers Sonido San Francisco — showed that Mexico's independent music scene just might be at its most dynamic in years. Over 12 hours on Saturday, some 4,500 fans gathered to hear more than 50 international acts at a sonically diverse annual music festival called NRMAL.

The name belies the fact that nothing here can be taken for granted. Not only was it the biggest NRMAL fest held in the past three years, but the fact that it took place in this industrial city of more than 4 million without any serious trouble makes it even more of a triumph.

Metropolitan Monterrey is currently a battleground in Mexico's ongoing drug war, where a string of deadly tragedies such as the last August's Casino Royale massacre, in which 52 people died after drug traffickers torched a casino, have traumatized a once-proud hub of industry and innovation.

The storied Monterrey night life that was once centered around the Barrio Antiguo neighborhood is all but dead after a series of shootings with multiple fatalities at popular night spots. Many musicians who in previous years helped make Monterrey an incubator for new Latino sounds — groups such as Kinky or newer rockers She's a Tease — have migrated to safer centers such as Mexico City or to the United States.

"There was sadness, deception, uncertainty, a lack of will to get things done," said NRMAL organizer Pablo Martinez, speaking about the effects of violence on the Monterrey scene. "I think the fruits of staying standing through this year is this festival."

The outdoor fete, with bands spread over three stages all day long, was a stylish yet friendly event where security was casual and the boundary between the performing musicians and the fans was almost nonexistent.

"This is definitely a cutting-edge festival," said Travis Egedy of Denver punk-rave act Pictureplane as the afternoon got going. "The idea to have a cross-cultural music festival is really important and really cool, getting Americans to play down here for Mexicans."

That welcoming vibe was partly the product of a new spirit of collaboration brought by this year's NRMAL co-curator, Brooklyn DIY promoter Todd P.

In 2010, Todd P. organized a separate festival in Monterrey dubbed MTY MX, competing with the budding NRMAL crew and its first festival. That same year, an outbreak of drug-war violence in Monterrey resulted in many U.S. performers canceling their visits at the last minute. Both festivals struggled.

This year, Todd P. joined forces with NRMAL, setting aside the previous atmosphere of competition. He pumped a New York indie ethos into the lineup with acts he invited such as Prince Rama, Liturgy and Gatekeeper.

"The story line is: It's so bad, things are falling apart and it's chaos," Todd P. said. "I'm here, I'm looking around. It's not falling apart. This is a functioning country. It has problems but it's not the country portrayed in the news."

* Read the rest here.

* Photo: Tijuana goth-pop singer Dani Shivers performs at Festival NRMAL in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, March 10, 2012.

Mexico teen prodigy is a psychologist at age 17

** Originally published at World Now and the L.A. Times print edition:

The director of child psychology at the Center for the Attention to Talent is a child himself: 17-year-old Andrew Almazan, a prodigy who was reading Shakespeare and Cervantes at age 6.

Almazan, sitting at his desk last week at the education center he co-founded with his parents, is a tall teenager who speaks rapidly, mounting phrase over phrase.

His astounding ability to absorb and process information is apparent from the moment he begins recalling his earliest years, as he breezed through the standard subject materials of Mexico's education system.

"Since I was 4 years old, I was deciding on what career I wanted to study when I became older, because I became aware that people work at something, and if you're going to work at something all your life, you should enjoy it," Almazan said.

"I ended up on medicine and psychology."

Almazan, born and raised in a middle-class section of Mexico City, earned his psychology degree from the Universidad del Valle de Mexico and is now working toward a medical degree at the Universidad Panamericana. Both schools are in Mexico's capital and had to make special accommodations for Almazan's studies.

In the meantime, he and his family are on a mission to identify and nurture niños sobredotados, as highly gifted children are known in Mexico, through their private Center for the Attention to Talent, or CEDAT (link in Spanish).

The center claims there are 1 million highly gifted children in Mexico and only about 5% of them are identified and educated according to their needs. The rest, Almazan and his parents argue, are often subjected to bullying or suffer from low self-esteem because of incorrect diagnoses of learning disabilities or psychological problems.

Almazan developed many of the materials and programs at CEDAT himself, offering the approximately 200 students who study there supplemental, accelerated courses in literature and the sciences.

"What he needed was knowledge," said father Asdrubal Almazan, a doctor, remembering Andrew's childhood. "We gave him books, videos, classes in what he was asking for. All he needed was the opportunities to prove what he knew."

A philosophy that operates at the core of the center, the Alamazans said, is one of personal responsibility. The theme hasn't always entered the discourse and debate on education reform in Mexico. That might be changing.

Last month, a documentary film highlighting the shortcomings of Mexico's education system led at the box office during its opening weekend, beating out several Oscar-nominated films crowding Mexican cinemas at the same time.

The film, "De Panzazo," or "Barely Passing," examines crumbling facilities, absent teachers and the grip of the powerful teachers union on Mexico's broken school system. It also emphasizes the lack of parental participation in schools. Tellingly, less than half of young Mexicans manage to finish middle school, the film notes.

Dunia Anaya, Andrew's mother, said students and parents in Mexico should look less to authorities for the best education and instead turn to their households for needed support.

The educational materials prepared by Mexico's federal government are not bad, she said, pointing out Andrew studied the standard coursework at his own pace and learned the materials just fine.

"That means the problem is not there," Anaya said. "As parents, we have a great responsibility, because the children are ours. Children naturally want to learn."

For his part, Andrew said he worries many gifted young children in Mexico are falling through the cracks, suffering from isolation, bullying or misunderstanding at the hands of adults. That's why he is lobbying for a national day for gifted children in Mexico.

And he also wrote a book about the topic, which he titled "The Questions of Hyper-Active Adrian."

"We're lacking consciousness at the social level," Almazan said. "Although we know about the existence of this minority, we need to recognize all the highly gifted children that have come before."

"We also need to address their emotional needs, because many times, they arrive here already damaged," the young psychologist asserted.

"There are many opportunities here in Mexico, in work and in education, we just have go out and find them."

* Photo: Andrew Almazan, 17, at his office at the Center for the Attention to Talent in Mexico City in February.

A hike at the Nevado de Toluca

About half-way up the fourth-highest peak in Mexico on Sunday, we spotted these intrepid hikers. This is the Nevado de Toluca, a dormant volcano that reaches more than 15,300 feet. The sight was a humbling reminder that Mexican grandmothers don't play. They'll go anywhere in the name of family and fun. Anywhere.

Now, if this senior-citizen couple could do it, and did, damned if we couldn't. Huffing and puffing, but let's go.

This was our first view of the Nevado on Sunday, coming up after a drive through downtown Toluca, capital of Mexico's most populous state (the one with the most flummoxing name for a state in this country -- Mexico).

It's about a two-hour drive from central Mexico City to get here.

When we saw that old couple, we were just under the point far in the photo above where the green belt of trees ends and the frigid high-altitude snowy part begins. We didn't make it to the crater lakes atop, with traffic backed up heading up the road, but next time, seguro.

The Nevado de Toluca craters, as might be expected, were ritual sites for pre-Hispanic peoples. Sculpted pieces of copal were recovered by divers that have been dated at 1,500 years, and still maintaining copal's distinctive smell after that long underwater, INAH reports.

Deep, deep breaths.

(Click on any photo for a larger view.)

* What is that moonscape alien flower? Anyone?