2007 election, arguing that as a woman, she wasn't a "citizen" of the town. "That is the custom here, that only the citizens vote, not the women," said Valeriano Lopez, the town's deputy mayor.

Rather than give up, Ms. Cruz has launched the first serious, national-level challenge to traditional Indian forms of government, known as "use and customs," which were given full legal status in Mexico six years ago in response to Indian rights movements sweeping across Latin America.

"For me, it's more like 'abuse and customs,' " Cruz said as she submitted her complaint to the National Human Rights Commission. "I am demanding that we, the women of the mountains, have the right to decide our lives, to vote and run for office, because the Constitution says we havebeing called a "clown" by Rudy Gay, Perkins is one of the most ridiculed players in the league, an NBA champion who has spent the last four years hearing his own fan base beg for management to pay him to go away.

A lot of NBA fans don't really understand what "amnesty" actually means. It's a complicated thing, a provision installed in the recent collective bargaining agreement in 2011 that allows a team to wipe a player's salary off its cap, while still having to pay out the balance of his contract. Simply put: It's a team wanting a player gone so badly they're willing to pay him to play somewhere else.

Imagine Perkins, who was a prime amnesty candidate after signing a four-year, $34.8 million extension earlier in 2011,