Mexican Heroes

Mark in Mexico reports on a group of teachers that want to...GASP!...CHOKE!!....Teach the children rather than engage in leftist protests.

This should not be news as such (indeed teachers in this country that don't tow the NEA line are pretty much ignored by the press) but down in Oaxaca, where Mark blogs from, this is a real gutsy and principled move...and dangerous to boot.

This is Erika Rapp Soto, leader of the Consejo Central de Lucha (CCL), the teachers group that wanted to teach children rather than camp in the Zócalo and repaint the downtown. I don't know the rest of the fine folks pictured here and they are not identified by El Universal, but there is a key figure missing. That would be Jaime René Calva Aragón, who was picked by Sección 22 (the striking teachers).

By "picked", I mean, of course, ice picked to death in broad daylight on a busy city street. Professor Calva Aragon had the temerity to, you know, actually try to teach school rather than fire bazookas at city, state and federal police officers. The former leader of the CCL paid for that temerity with his life.

Mark has for a couple of months been following the chaos south of the border and while there have been some hopefull developments the outlook for the situation in Mexico is not good at all.

Go to his blog, read and scroll.

We have a nation that is teetering on the edge of "...stan"-hood on our southern border.