Five Reasons why Mexicans are Awesome

1. Mexican food.

2. Corona.

3. The way that whenever characters on TV go to Mexico, everything is shot with a yellow filter.

4. 2006. All police officers in Nezahualcoyotl are required to attend a fortnightly book club in order to keep their jobs. This is a two-pronged approach: firstly, it broadens the minds of the cops (most of whom didn't stay at school past grade 5). And secondly, it proves to the public that not all cops are scheming low-lifers. "The principle is that a police officer who is cultured is in a better position to be a better police officer," says Jose Jorge Amador, the head of public security.

(replace the words "police officer" with the words "human being" and I reckon we've got ourselves a Charter for Life)

5. 2007. The reading program (it's called Literature On Alert) is still going strong. And still amazingly creative. They've translated some of the best works of Spanish literature into... into Cop. Like this, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude:

Many alfas later, in front of a 44 squad, Col. Aureliano Buendia had a 60 about that distant afternoon when his father 26 him to 62 ice.

They're police radio codes. They're giving this new version of the book to new recruits, who then, astonishingly, ASK FOR MORE BOOKS. In normal Spanish. And then they go home and buy books for their CHILDREN. One cop has published a novel. Another is studying Law in his spare time. They have creative writing classes and group storytelling sessions.

I think I want to be a Mexican cop.

Can you IMAGINE what life would be like if everyone, in every job, did this? What the world would be like? Sigh.