 Critics claim Felipe Calderón’s government is in league with Sinaloa drug cartel.  Last week in Mexico, critics of President Felipe Calderón’s administration ratcheted up claims that Calderón is playing favorites in his high-profile war on drugs. Arrest records going back to 2003 show that the Sinaloa Cartel, which is responsible for 45% of drug trafficking in Mexico, has suffered only a handful of arrests—none involving high-ranking members. Even as a group of investigative reporters pointed out last week that this indicated possible collusion between Calderón and the Sinaloa Cartel, two more Sinaloa members were arrested, but again they were little more than errand boys—sacrificial lambs, according to skeptics. The Sinaloa Cartel is run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, seen at lower right in the photo. He is estimated to have amassed more than a billion dollars trafficking cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines to the U.S. Calderón denies being in league with Guzmán, yet statistics reveal that his military-style drug war has targeted only the weakest cartels, such as Familiana Michoacana. It’s also indisputable that 15,000 lives have been lost with no measurable benefits—save for the infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. financial support, money that comes directly from American taxpayers.
The feeling among some Mexicans is that Calderón is playing both ends against the middle—accepting American cash, while receiving kickbacks from Guzmán to leave his operation unmolested. If so, it would represent a scam of breathtaking proportions, even in the chaotic world of drug interdiction. A more charitable interpretation is that Calderón simply believes the Sinaloa Cartel is too powerful to tackle, and that an all-out assault would lead to even more violence that might destabilize the entire country. Calderón’s critics have asked for answers to these latest questions, but so far he has had no comment.
 A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  In the truth is oh so much more strange than fiction department, a New Mexico funeral home is being sued after accidentally sending a dead woman’s brain to her next of kin. According to the Albuquerque Journal, the deceased’s brain was sent to the family in a bag of personal effects that sat forgotten in a car until the day after the funeral, when a foul odor began emanating from the bag. Inside they found a smaller bag labeled with the woman’s name and the word “brain,” and inside that, a rotting surprise certain to supply lifetimes worth of nightmare fuel. The understandably furious family has filed a lawsuit against the De Vargas Funeral Home & Crematory, but owner Johnny De Vargas claims the mistake was not made by them, but by another funeral home in Utah, where the woman died in a car crash. “We inherited the problem from Utah,” he said. “We are a very reputable company and we were dealt a bad brain, er, I mean hand.*”
*We lied. He actually only said hand"** **Dammit.
 Another drug lord bites the dust.  Yesterday in Mexico, drug lord Marcos Arturo Beltrán Leyva was shot dead by navy personnel during a raid on a luxury apartment complex near Cuernavaca. Known as “The Boss of Bosses,” Beltrán Leyva had always been on the radar of president Felipe Calderón, who even approved a $2.4 million bounty. And back in August, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced a federal indictment against the drug lord for smuggling billions of dollars worth of cocaine across the U.S./Mexico border. After this slow ratcheting up of pressure, Calderón finally made the move to apprehend Beltrán Leyva after the severed heads of five police officers and a prosecutor were found in streetside garbage Wednesday morning by sanitation workers in the state of Durango. President Calderón is touting the Beltrán Leyva killing as a success in his much-publicized drug war, which many observers had seen as little more than a highly destructive standoff. But even in the afterglow of yesterday’s events, government officials admit that unless the U.S. demand for cocaine diminishes, Beltrán Leyva simply represents the latest in a long line of drug lords.
 Tango for a murderer. Detectives crime magazine, Mexico, November 1936, with the caption “Death Watching.” Two more examples here and here.
 Beauty is only Grin deep. 
Cover of the Mexican film magazine Cinema Reporter, featuring cover star Guillermina Grin, who appeared in more than twenty films between 1942 and 1951. This issue was first published today, 1949. You can see more here.
 In the eyes of the police, you’re never innocent for long. Above is another cover of one of our favorite magazines, Front Page Detective, from September 1967, featuring a nice duo-toned image of a girl in serious difficulty. You see mention of a person named Dykes Simmons, Jr., who the magazine refers to as a tragic figure. This is not because of his seriously unfortunate name, but because he was the first American citizen ever sentenced to death by a Mexican court. The story is worth a detailed explanation, so sit back and relax. The date was 12 October 1959, and a dentist named Raúl Pérez Villagómez, broke down on a Mexican highway while driving with his younger brother and two sisters. Not long afterward a car stopped, and a man emerged and tried to repair their auto, but to no avail. Unfortunately, when the sisters giggled at his failure, he pulled out a gun and riddled the entire family with bullets. Hilda Villagómez was the only survivor of the attack, though she had been shot seven times. In the hospital she told police her assailant drove a Chevy, had two gold teeth, and was tall, thin, and blonde. Police immediately began looking for gringos and soon picked up Dykes Simmons. But he didn’t fit the description—not even close. He was short, dark-haired, and heavy. So the cops let him go. At that point Dykes should have gotten the hell out of Mexico. But instead he went sightseeing, and the police soon learned that he had entered the country with false identification. Pressure was mounting in the media to find this gringo madman who had slaughtered upstanding middle-class locals, so the authorities appear to have decided—in that longstanding tradition of authorities everywhere—that any perp was better than none at all. So they began looking for Dykes again, and when they picked him up, they paraded him into Hilda Villagómez’s hospital room dressed like the gunman she had described. What happened next was pure frame-up. Villagómez could barely speak because a bullet had damaged her tongue and taken out her upper teeth. The prosecutor put his ear to her mouth, then stood up and declared that she had identified Simmons. Nobody else in the room had heard what she’d said, and she was dead days later, leaving her alleged identification of the Simmons the only evidence tying him to the crime. Simmons was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death based upon the prosecutor’s dubious hearsay, but the U.S. Government wasn’t too thrilled about Mexicans executing Americans and got involved in the case. The appeals and maneuvering went on for years. In the interim Simmons tried to escape twice, was shot during the second attempt, but unbelievably, tried a third time and got away dressed as a woman. He made it across the Mexico-U.S. border, and began a long battle against extradition. The story ends there, with him fighting to stay in the States, and magazines like Front Page Detective taking up his cause. We found no info on him after 1960, and so Dykes Simmons, Jr. passes into historical purgatory. But whatever happened to him, he imparts this crucial lesson to the rest of us: when the police say you’re free to go, you hit the exit door like a halfback hitting the hole and never stop running.
 Mexicans got the blame, but only Americans could have done this. 
We stumbled across a collection of Tijuana bibles and just had to share these things. For the uninitiated, Tijuana bibles are dirty booklets produced starting in the 1920s, but which reached their zenith during the Great Depression. The booklets depicted sex between well-known figures of the time—everyone from movie stars to cartoon characters, all rendered in low rent art, but with the gynecological precision of kama sutra diagrams. In addition, some delved into esoterica such as incest, forcible sex, and bestiality. Obviously, they were sold on the down-low, in drug stores, barber shops, speakeasies, or from the backs of cars. The time frame during which these were popular might seem to make their no-holes-barred explicitness amazing, but the Depression was an era of loosened morals, during which most Americans were actually hitting it before marriage. Nobody can say why they were called Tijuana bibles. Perhaps the name was chosen because the pages showed perversions that were presumably available only south of the border, or, equally likely, some smartass simply thought it was funny to blame Mexicans for something they hadn’t done. In any case, Mexicans clearly didn’t make these, because Americans are the undisputed kings of manufacturing smut, and always have been. Yeah baby. U.S.A! U.S.A! More bible covers below, followed by a small selection of the tamest interior art we could find.                
 South of the border down Mexico way. 
Cover of Detectives magazine, with a brilliant painting of two bandits about to pounce. It was published in Mexico this month in 1936.
 Those were the beast years of our lives.             
Assorted Mexican lobby cards featuring famous and not-so-famous monsters. These films were released in English as Dracula’s Lake, Hideous Sun Demon, Orlak the Hell of Frankenstein, The Green Hell, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, Lycanthropus, Neutron Versus the Karate Assassins, Cat People, Attack of the Giant Leeches, The Monster Walks, Zombie Lake, The She-Wolf, and Valley of the Zombies. Mexico, Dracula’s Lake, Hideous Sun Demon, Orlak the Hell of Frankenstein, Rubber the Green Hell, The Phantom from 10, 000 Leagues, Lycanthropus, , Neutron Versus the Karate Assassins, Cat People, Attack of the Giant Leeches, The Monster Walks, Zombie Lake, The She-Wolf, Valley of the Zombies, poster art, cinema
 Once upon a time in Mexico. 
Detectives magazine, June 1935, featuring a splatter photo of an unfortunate gangster. The term paseíto basically means pleasure trip, so the tone here, in true tabloid form, is decidedly unsympathetic.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1937—H.P. Lovecraft Dies
American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer ever. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as it was eighty years ago. 1964—Ruby Found Guilty of Murder
In the U.S. a Dallas jury finds nightclub owner and organized crime fringe-dweller Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby had shot Oswald with a handgun at Dallas Police Headquarters in full view of multiple witnesses and photographers. Allegations that he committed the crime to prevent Oswald from exposing a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have never been proven. 1925—Scopes Monkey Trial Ends
In Tennessee, the case of Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, involving the prosecution of a school teacher for instructing his students in evolution, ends with a conviction of the teacher and establishment of a new law definitively prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The opposing lawyers in the case, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, both earn lasting fame for their participation in what was a contentious and sensational trial.
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