Six Spanish tourists raped by gunmen in Mexico, authorities say
Source: LA Times
MEXICO CITY -- Six Spanish tourists on vacation in Acapulco were raped by masked gunmen who burst into their lodgings in the middle of the night, roughed up their companions and made off with cash, laptops and other valuables, authorities said.
The attack early Monday on what was in Mexico a long holiday weekend came as the one-time tourist mecca struggles to salvage its reputation. Acapulco, faded gem of Mexico’s Pacific coast, has become one of the deadliest cities in the country as rival drug traffickers fight for control.
“This is a very regrettable incident that undoubtedly hurts Acapulco,” Mayor Luis Walton Aburto said at a news conference.
Read more: http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-74302826/
= new reply since forum marked as read
i.e. mad at me for making a comment about the speaker's comment that this was NOT good for Acapulco instead of the fact I was pointing out the STUPIDITY of the statement.
In situations like this one, I have to remember Emperor's Franz Joseph's comment on the then new Opera House in Vienna. After 1848, Austria accepted that its old walls were militarily obsolete and wanted to tear them down and replace them with a new circular boulevard (Called the "Ring Strasse"
. This was part of an overall European tread to tear down these old walls and open up the inner cities for ease of movement (A secondary reason, was to permit cannon fire on the Urban poor if the urban poor did another Paris of 1789 or 1848 or a Vienna in 1848 again, the old walls and narrow old streets were hard for cannon to operate in, and thus protected the poor if they set up barricades on narrow streets, the new wider streets and removal of the old walls opened up these cities to cannon fire if the residents of said cities wanted to revolt).
Anyway, back to Franz Joseph and the Opera house. The Opera House was started as the old City Walls were being taken down. The plans for the Opera House was based on the original intention of how far down the old wall was to be torn down and construction started on that premises. The problem was the walls had been built so solidly that the price to remove them skyrocketed and thus a decision was made to cut corners, including NOT tearing them down as much as had been planned (a decision was made to leave them 1 meter ABOVE the surrounding land instead of level with the surrounding land).
Construction of the Opera House had already started and was nearing completion when this decision was made. The net result was the Opera House, instead of standing Magisterially over the new wide boulevard, sat like a dump in a hole on the side of the boulevard.
At this point Franz Joseph came into the picture, he was a young emperor, new on the job. He was invited to the New Opera House and asked to make a comment and he commented that it was bad for it was BELOW the street level (a comment every one agreed with and did not Fault the designer). The problem was the designer of the Opera House took this as a comment that he was a bad architect and committed suicide.
From that date forward till in died during WWI, when asked about anything, Franz Joseph would make a positive comment about it. It could be the worse design even made and he would say it was an excellent design, because he was Emperor and his comments would have more effect even then people who would know if the design was good or bad.
Other Politicians have adopted the same position, NEVER make a bad comment, or even a comment that could be construed as being BAD. Thus your better politician never comment on how something bad will hurt their city, they comment how the bad thing would hurt the victims. They may BELIEVE the act would hurt the city, but never make that comment if it can be construed negatively.
More on the Architect of the Vienna Opera House:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_van_der_N%C3%BCll
More on the Opera House itself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_State_Opera
More on Emperor Franz Joseph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I_of_Austria
More on the "Ring Strasse" with a comment on the Revolution of 1848:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringstra%C3%9Fe
