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Last updateFri, 05 Feb 2016 2pm

Jalisco’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries

The “Black Widow” of Chapala 

With a string of suspected poisonings, a strangling and an empty coffin, the case of the “Black Widow” is a narrative Raymond Chandler would have been proud of. Yet Maria Socorro Rodriguez, the femme fatale of the story, was no fiction. A Mexican woman who married a string of wealthy U.S.-born retirees, Maria is suspected of bringing them all to an early grave.


Mexican Anglicans remain relaxed after US Episcopalians give nod to same-sex marriage

The U.S. Episcopal Church’s approval of gay and lesbian marriage, passed at its General Convention in Salt Lake City July 1 following on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s groundbreaking decision favoring gender-blind marriage just a few days earlier, appears not to have had an earthshaking effect — either positive or negative — on its sister province to the south, the Anglican Church of Mexico, despite close social and historical ties between the two churches.

Looking Back: A review of July news from the last 50 years

1965

Cast readies musical review

“Sing for your Summer — 1965,” annual musical review produced by Tapa-Teatro of Guadalajara (in English) to benefit the Dr. Banda free clinic in Colonia Seattle was in fine form on opening night at the Teatro Experimantal in the Parque Agua Azul. The show casts nearly all American actors and singers and is built around Broadway musical hits.

Revolutionary lessons taught from south-of-the-border

“Congratulations on your revolution,” said our old, limping friend Don Salvador Gomez.

“Revolution?”

“You don’t know?” he asked arching his heavy white eyebrows. “Don’t you have a birthday coming up?”

“We’ve had our birthday. Two a year would kill us at our age.”

Don Salvador looked pained. “Your FOURTH OF JULY!” he said, almost spelling it out for us.

“Oh, of course. Why didn’t you say so.”

Mexico’s great dictator still inflaming passions 100 years after his death

Few historical figures in Mexico generate so much contention as Porfirio Diaz, the dictator who served as the nation’s president for more than 30 years between 1876 and 1911.  As expected, the 100th anniversary of his death, on July 2, is sparking a good deal of controversy, most notably regarding the possible repatriation of his remains from France, and whether he deserves any kind of “official” recognition or homage.