Walking across US border to TJ, Mexico

(Cecil Travels) I crossed the border between San Diego (Alta California, US) and Tijuana (the largest city in Baja California, MX, often affectionately referred to as TJ) to see if all the terrifying tales of drug cartels, MS-13 gang members, prostitutes, donkeys, cunning dealers, clueless mules, underage drunken American partying, kidnappings, and human trafficking were true. What I found shocked me.

Aztec: terror, tribes, sacrifice?

(Re Righting History) Aztec warriors kinda sucked as neighbors...

• Neighboring tribe, the Tlaxcaltecs, neighboring tribe or "traitors" in league with European imperialists? It's messy

Series of earthquakes hits SoCal

Not all elephants get high. These smart animals followed their instincts to circle the wagons and protect the young of the herd in response to a natural temblor rocking the United Mexican States (Mexico) and former-Mexico (now calling itself the USA) north of the border in and around San Diego. Even the rockers rocking Coachella felt it, and they definitely were getting high.

5.2 magnitude quake rattles Southern California, fore- and aftershocks

Elephants form protective circle amid California earthquake

(TODAY) April 15, 2025: People across Southern California were jolted by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake in San Diego County Monday morning that was felt from Mexico to Los Angeles. Video from the San Diego Safari Zoo shows a herd of elephants instinctively forming a circle around their young to protect them from threats. NBC’s Liz Kreutz reports for TODAY.

• Large earthquake strikes near San Diego, violent shaking

ABOUT: TODAY brings the latest headlines and expert tips on money, health, and parenting, waking up every morning to give families all they need to start their day. If it matters, it matters. TODAY Is in the people business, which means ratings and making money. Subscribe to channel for exclusive TODAY archival footage and original web series, and watch all the ads. Connect with TODAY online. Visit TODAY's website: today.com. Find TODAY on Facebook: today, Twitter: todayshow, Instagram: todayshow. #earthquake #california

Getting into the USA via Tijuana, Mexico

At the USA/Mexico border: Tijuana 🇺🇸🇲🇽

(Joe HaTTab) What is Tijuana? It is the biggest city along the border. Joe H travels the world to film interesting locations (and seems to have the help of a voiceover to present what he finds). Instagram   ➭ joe_hattab. Huge thanks to my friend Baja Cali Food for all the help in TJ. The food of Mexico is full of fried fat and many unhealthy things to tickle the tastebuds with too much spice, salt, chiles, processed oils, flours, and chemicals. It's garbage on the streets. Welcome to Fats Ville. Eat organic in someone's home with fresh herbs and handmade tortillas, and it might be healthy. But fried on a roach coach and sold for cheap? Tasty garbage. bajacalifood @bajacalifood ● Joe's IG ➭ joe_hattab

Coming from China, it may be possible to swim

San Diego to Tijuana and back by foot: What they don't tell you

(PhotowalksTV with Jefferson Graham) 🌉 Border Crossing Tips: San Diego to Tijuana adventure and back. 🇺🇸🇲🇽 Embark on a border-crossing adventure with Jefferson Graham. Discover the ease of walking from San Diego to TJ, but brace yourself for the return journey. Graham shares crucial insights. Tune in. 🌟 Subscribe to Photowalks TV for weekly adventures: https://bit.ly/3Al6RsS 🔗

Explore chapters

• 00:00 Take pedestrian bridge to TJ
• 01:03 Park in San Ysidro
• 02:01 Bring passport
• 02:37 One-way gate
• 04:49 Lessons learned

💬 Share your experience: Have you crossed the San Diego, USA-Tijuana, Mexico border? Share your tips in the comments. 🌐 Explore more at website: Photowalkstv.comk. #TravelAdventure #PhotowalksTV #BorderCrossingTips

• Joe Hattab, Jan. 4, 2023; PhotowalksTV with Jefferson Graham, Feb. 13, 2023; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Irish-Mexican writer: Luis Urrea (audio)

Terry Gross (NPR, 3/29/19); Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Luis Alberto Urrea's The House of Broken Angels borrows from the story of his older brother, who died of cancer. He told Fresh Air in 2018 that the book went through a rewrite after the 2016 election.

Irish-Mexican-American author finds inspiration in family, tragedy, and Trump

Fresh Air guest University of Illinois, Chicago Distinguished Professor of Writing Luis Alberto Urrea writes what he describes as a literature of witness.

He grew up in San Diego, California, but was born in neighboring Tijuana, Mexico, to a Basque-Mexican father and Irish-American mother.

When he was 3 years old, they relocated to California. He grew up in a San Diego barrio. He has family on both sides of the border. This dual culture was the subject of his memoir, Nobody's Son.

He's also written about the period he did relief work in Tijuana with the garbage pickers who survive on what they can find in the mountainous garbage dumps.

He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his 2004 nonfiction book, The Devil's Highway, about a group of 26 Mexican men who crossed the border illegally, guided by smugglers through the Arizona desert, where they were abandoned by the smugglers. More than half the men died in the desert.

Urrea's latest novel, The House of Broken Angels, just came out in paperback. It borrows from the real story of his older brother, Juan, who was dying of cancer when his mother died. After her funeral, the family threw a party for Juan that was part birthday celebration, part wake.

TERRY GROSS: Luis Urrea, welcome to Fresh Air. So did Donald Trump's candidacy, and election, and "build the wall" and "end DACA" [slogans] influence your decision to write this novel or influence the content of it?

PROF. LUIS ALBERTO URREA: It definitely affected my rewrite of the novel. You know, the novel started out as a kind of a slim memoir inspired by the events of my brother's death and final birthday party on Earth before his death. And it kind of was what I call the Mexican Finnegans Wake, right?

...GROSS: Some of [your mother's] family is from Virginia. Your father was [white, a blond-haired, blue-eyed Basque called a] Mexican, [who] grew up in Mexico...?

PROF. URREA: Yes, yes.

GROSS: So I'm not sure what his ethnic background was. But -- so describe that wall in your own home.

PROF. URREA: The situation was kind of complicated in that my mother didn't speak Spanish [and] was struggling with all her might to make me an American boy. And the other side with all of his might was trying to keep me a Mexican boy. And in my mother's world, I wasn't named Luis, I was named Louis. I was Louis Woodward, one of her people.

And that kind of combat over me was extended into so many other things. You know, the two cultures clashing, the relationship coming apart at the seams but sort of trapped together by my fervent Catholicism.…

GROSS: You must've been pretty confused when you were growing up if your parents were fighting over your identity... So in the conflict between your mother wanting you to be American and your father wanting you to be Mexican, did you, at some point, say to yourself, I'm Mexican-American?

PROF. URREA: (Laughter). I'll be honest with you. So the neighborhood we lived in was full of ethnic violence and strife. And it was a neighborhood where black versus brown versus white and any combination of those, okay?

So if you can imagine me, Irish-looking kid, talking Tijuana with a Mexican accent going to Catholic school, right? walking -- this sounds like a great hard-luck story -- but, you know, it wasn't quite a mile. But it was a pretty long walk through the barrio in my little, silly Catholic school uniform every day. And can you imagine all the homeboys watching this? And I always have this weird fantasy of them all saying, "Gentlemen...

GROSS: (Laughter).

PROF. URREA: Right? "Let us make peace and kick his butt today."

GROSS: (Laughter).

PROF. URREA: ...Which is perhaps what made me a big reader, right? I'd rush home and lock myself in and read. And in fourth grade, a scary event happened, which is melodramatic to talk about. But I escaped some street violence - let's put it that way - and my parents felt that it was time to get out of that ambiance. And my mother had come into a little bit of inheritance money. And we suddenly moved north again. And note the journey -- right? -- heading north.

We went north to a little, essentially, Anglo, working-class suburb -- in other words, to my mother's at least ethnic group, not my father's. And we were the first mixed family in our little neighborhood, which caused a lot of interesting things. But I suddenly, for the first time in my life, heard pretty harsh anti-Mexican rhetoric. And I myself was called greaser, wetback, taco bender -- which was a San Diego specialty. I thought that was a good insult because it was creative, you know, a little bend in the taco. You're so witty.

GROSS: (Laughter).

PROF. URREA: And I had gone - I had joined the Boy Scouts. I was instantly an American kid, and I liked it. I thought, OK, Americans have lawns. That's cool. I had not seen lawns until fifth grade -- big green lawns. More + AUDIO

What the war needs now...is a wall (Trump)

Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Mapcherson, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; AP; SCPR, PRI

There is already a large, long border partition along parts of southern United States (AP)

SAN DIEGO, California - As Trump announced his plans for a wall on US-Mexico border, Border Patrol agents in California on the lookout for drugs and smugglers drove all-terrain vehicles along a barrier that reaches 18 feet, topped by razor wire and reinforced by cameras and lighting (AP).

I want us to restart our torture, too (AP).

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. But what Trump, sweet Trump, wants to dump dump dump along the border is a big f.u. to the US war on its enemies, the world.

Our dummy-in-chief is not the first president to embark on an aggressive buildup on the border. Here's a look at what is already there: 

SEMI-FORTIFIED BORDER

Drought ends, but water prices to stay high.

One-third of the U.S.-Mexico border, or 653 miles, is already studded with fence in a potpourri of styles, from menacing barriers to less formidable ones. The Ancient Chinese would be proud.

The barriers arose from pseudo-Pres. George W. Bush's "Secure Fence Act," which was passed quietly in the last year of his administration. You don't need to know what the "Patriot Act" actually says, so what do you need to know the full plan of taking over the U.S. from the inside out?

Let's make war on the world

Kahlo would dislike this war.

Mexicans shopped at an outlet mall that bumps up against the border. And dozens of migrants huddled in tents outside a shelter in Mexico hoping to get into the U.S. To them Trump's executive order Wednesday to build a wall seemed more like a symbolic gesture of a new chapter in U.S-Mexico relations than a real deterrent for people to enter the country without dealing with U.S. bureaucracy. More

A look at border security, fencing as Trump announces wall

HOUSTON, Texas - Trump announced his long-awaited plan today to build a "wall" on the 1,954-mile U.S. border with Mexico, calling for its "immediate construction" to stop illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and potential future acts of "terrorism." More

 

Trump has created Orwellian reality: read 1984 and Animal Farm to see why (pri.org).

Unpopular President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico says NO to Pres. Don Trump (AP)xxx

The easiest way to cross the US-Mexico border is to wade out a little at the beach (AP).

Don Trump orders a border "wall" because our fence is just not good enough (KPCC)

The Federalis, US Border Patrol cowboys on the hunt for trespassers on white man's land

Latin Border Patrol agent Olmos at secondary fence separating Tijuana, background, and US

We didn't cross "the border." The Border Crossed Us (vagabondpress.net)

The border dividing Mexico into Mexico and the US or El Norte and El Sur (AP)

• Real Donald Trump to increase deportation, but will he make records public? 
• Trump's plan to build a bigger border wall has plenty of critics
• Trump's wall met with skepticism, unease on US-Mexico border
• Scientist plan march on Washington due to Trump
• Juggalos (Insane Clown Posse fans) plan march on Washington 
• Mexican president cancels trip to US to meet Trump (Trump tries to pretend it was his idea)
• What the Mexico City rule means to women around the world
• Why does everyone hate Trump (except racists who hate being called racists)? 
• VIDEO: Kellyanne Conway, Koch Brothers' failed comedienne

1. Trump orders US-Mexico border wall, strips sanctuary city funding
2. How LA's multi-heritage kids navigate their identity
3. There are 63,000 homeless children in school in LA County
4. She turned the world on with her smile: Mary Tyler Moore dies at 80
5. LA affordable housing incentive program isn't working, audit finds
6. California's freeze on Aliso gas field use shatters in the cold
7. Who gets the drug Truvada? Study finds CDC guidelines miss HIV risk factors
8. 185-foot tower near Beverly Center gets council approval
9. UC president expected at Regents meeting after health scare
10. Medical debt named top reason collection agencies call

Water protectors weigh whether to fight or give up on Mother Earth

Water protectors stop ETP and police (rt.com)

CANNON BALL, North Dakota - Most of the peaceful demonstrators who gathered on the North Dakota plains to oppose the Dakota Access oil pipeline declared victory and departed their snowy protest camp last month after the Army announced it would halt the project, says the AP. But diehards knowing the corporation, the police, and the government are lying remained behind as "water protectors." Trump recent statements proves they were right to doubt the powers that be would choose the people and the environment over their profits and power grab. More biased reportage from the AP

(MSNBC) The Rachel Maddow gleeful on The Rachel Maddow Show

Can a Buddhist be a Christian?

Text by John Suler, Rider.edu, Zenstory; Wisdom Quarterly

Jesus the Christ and Siddhartha the Buddha from the awesome Japanese manga 聖☆おにいさん。or "Saintly Young Men" (Gerald Ford)

Christian Buddhist
John Suler, Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors
One of Master Gasan's monks visited the university in Tokyo. When he returned he asked the master if he had ever read the Christian Bible.

"No," Gasan replied, "please read some of it to me." The monk opened the Bible to the "Sermon on the Mount" in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

After reading Christ's words about the lilies in the field, he paused. Master Gasan was silent for a long time.

"Yes," he finally said, "Whoever uttered these words is an enlightened being [one attained to the level of stream enterer or higher]. What you have read to me is the essence of everything I have been trying to teach you here!"

(In another version of this old Zen tale, a Christian reads the Bible passage to Gasan.)

Reactions to the Story

"This story held no interest for me. I don't believe in the existence of God and therefore believe that the Bible is a bunch of bologna!"

"Maybe the point is that we don't need Bibles OR Zen teachers to find enlightenment. We already have it within ourselves."

"It's so sad that wars are fought over differences in 'religion,' when in reality all the world's religions are saying the same essential things. If nations really took religion to heart, so many lives would be saved."

"'Lilies of the field' is a rather zen story, encouraging naturalness acceptance of being."

"Universalism is an extremely faulty world view. All the worlds religions do not teach the same thing. Religion is not about being good to your fellow man, or doing nice things to other people. So many of these comments seem to think that because most religions teach that, in general, you should'nt kill people, and you should'nt steal, and that you should feed the poor, etc., that its all the same thing. That misses the point entirely, and trivializes a vast amount of the most deeply held beliefs of the world's populace...."

"It is interesting that when presented with the Bible, the Master was open to listening. I don't find the same to be true when the situation is reversed, . It feels very comfortable to me to be Buddhist and still feel at peace with others who do not share my views."

"If what is true for you is true, and what is true for me is true, than really nothing is true. If there are no absolutes in the universe higher than our own opinions or experiences, than we live on an ever shifting sand. True truth is true whether we know it, or believe it. It is absolute, unchanging, and independent of our reactions to it. God is God and we are not him. I believe this story is an attempt to dilute the hard division line that the Bible deliberately draws. Our culture trys to offer solutions that do not offend anyone. I wonder how Master Gasan would react to Christ's words "no one may come to the Father but by me." Or "the kingdom of heaven advances violently, and violent men lay hold of it"?

"This comment is not about the story but about the other comments: Taken collectively, they illustrate Martin Luther's observation, 'A book is like a mirror -- if an ape looks in, no saint will look out!'" More

• Westerners speak out on Zen stories

Concentration
After winning several archery contests, a young and boastful champion challenged the old Zen master who was renowned for his skills as an archer.

The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try then split that arrow with a second shot.

"There," he said to the old monk, "see if you can match that!" Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain.

Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high up the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a single shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto this perilous and unsteady bridge, the old master picked a far off tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean and direct hit.

"Now it is your turn," he said as he gracefully stepped off the log and back onto firm ground.

Staring with terror into the bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log nor in any way focus on trying to hit a target.

"You have much skill with your bow," the master finally said, sensing his young challenger's predicament, "but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot." Reactions

Pakistan moves troops toward Indian border

Indian activist shouts anti-Pakistan slogans during recent protest (AFP).

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Neighbor against neigbor: Pakistan began moving thousands of troops to the Indian border Friday, intelligence officials said, sharply raising tensions triggered by the Mumbai terror attacks.

• Slideshow
• Raw VIDEO: Kashmir protest footage (AP)
• VIDEO: Nokia Phone Co. enrages Hindus (Reuters)

Pakistani protesters burn an Indian flag during a rally in Karachi, Pakistan on 12/26/08. Pakistan began moving thousands of troops away from the Afghan border toward India on Friday amid tensions following the Mumbai attacks, intelligence officials said (AP/Fareed Khan).

India has blamed Pakistani-based militants for last month's siege on its financial capital, which killed 164 people and has provoked an increasingly bitter war of words between nuclear-armed neighbors that have fought three wars in 60 years.

The troops headed to the Indian border were being diverted away from tribal areas near Afghanistan, officials said, and the move was expected to frustrate the United States... More>>

Pro-India protester waves Indian flag in front of Taj Mahal hotel 12/26/08 (AFP).

Meanwhile at home, terror is also used as pretext for increasing powers of a police state. Although "anyone who would trade freedom for safety deserves neither," that has not stopped the new ministry [1984-speak] of Homeland Security from intimating how it plans to justify its existence and make itself a permanent (and welcome) fixture in the American psyche over the next few years.

US Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff delivers a lecture entitled "Managing Risk: A Global Imperative" to an audience of students at the London School of Economics (LSE) in London, 12/12/08 (AP/Matt Dunham).

WASHINGTON – The terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa, persistent challenges to border security, and increasing Internet savvy, says a new intelligence assessment obtained by the AP.

• U.S. concerned about possible Pakistan troop movement

Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks are...the most unlikely because it is so difficult for al-Qaida and similar groups to acquire the materials needed to carry out such plots, according to the internal Homeland Security Threat Assessment for the years 2008-2013.

[Rather, ] the al-Qaida terrorist network continues to focus on U.S. attack targets vulnerable to massive economic losses, casualties and political "turmoil," the assessment said. More>>

President-elect Barack Obama leaves a news conference with Secretary of State-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., in Chicago, 12/01/08., with other cabinet designees (AP/Charles Dharapak).