Saloon Brawls Should be Safe, Legal and Rare

In the complete absence of saloon brawls or the like, men have been faced to turn to video games; this has caused the dangerous illusion that they are really capable of winning a brawl, or recovering from one quickly.

Even worse, many men don't even have video games and are left searching for alternative expressions of masculinity, like smoking pipes or shaving old-fashioned razor blades; needless to say, both are life-threateningly dangerous.

To help remedy this urgent situation of masculine health, I propose the following:

Saloon brawls should be safe, legal and rare.

Safe - Paramedics should be on hand to remove men who can no longer get up on their own and give them adequate medical treatment.  Missing teeth or broken arms should not qualify for this service, since those suffering from these injuries can still walk home and take care of themselves.

A saloon brawl video game

Legal - Current laws have made impossible for men to initiate or even seek out local brawls;  such activity would surely bring jail time and legal action.  Our laws must be changed to reflect this basic necessity and right for masculine well-being; a man should not have to fear being jailed or a criminal record simply for breaking a wooden chair over another man's head.

Rare - It would be unreasonable to think that the local tavern could carry the costs of a brawl every Friday evening.  Besides the inconvenience of closing for several days for repairs, it would drive up the prices of beer.  Brawls should allowed to happen often enough that any man choosing to participate could easily do so in his lifetime without having travel far or wait till he is too old to do so; yet they should be rare enough so the local taverns can recover and absorb expenses easily.  Men initiating tavern brawls too frequently in the same place would be expected to cover the expenses.  Those who are fond of brawls are free to find a different tavern or bar each week.

Some would argue that this last point is limiting to a man's right to brawl as he sees fit; men should be free to choose about their own body.  However, the point of this proposal is not to create a free-for-all, but simply to give each man the choice to participate in a tavern brawl should they feel that need, rather than having to turn to sad situations of video games, smoking or shaving with dangerously sharp objects.

Mexico's Elections 2012 - Why I'm NOT Voting, and a Note about the PRI

Founder of PRI, responsible for the death of 90,000 Mexicans

Mexico's presidential elections are coming up this Sunday, the same day as Canada Day.  I'm a Mexican citizen, and have the right to vote in these elections.  Unfortunately, I won't be voting.  Here's why:

I left Mexico for Canada in April of this year.  Some time after arrival, my wife investigated how to register to vote from abroad.  As it turned out, we had to apply at Mexico's embassy in Toronto in January 2012 at the latest.  At the time she found the info, the applications which were received were being evaluated for possible approval.  Essentially, unless we had made a special trip to Toronto in January just to register, it would've been impossible.  Alternatively, we could make a special trip to Mexico on July 1st just to vote.  Since my wife is pregnant with twins (and getting really close to delivery) and Mexico can be little unruly at election time, we had to rule this possibility out.  (The budget was also a factor.)

This was a great disappointment.  We had been talking about the candidates and trying to choose the best one to vote for.  A friend of mine made a comment something like this on Facebook: "Not voting is one of the most cowardly actions to take at election time."  I agree. And I'm sad that I can't vote.  I believe it's not only our right to vote when we can, but our obligation.

Now, a note about the candidates.  While I'll refrain from saying which candidate I would have voted, I will say who I definitely wouldn't have voted for.  Although Enrique Pena Nieto is young and hansom, and claims to have distanced himself from his party's past, I still don't think a president from his party would be a good idea; his party is the PRI - the Institutional Revolution Party, which I wrote about before (The Institutionalized Revolution & Mexican Bureaucracy.)  Besides being the engineers of the bureaucratic mess that defines most of Mexico's government organizations, they also have a track record of hanging on to power and the presidency in an oligarchy style, and of violent repression of opposition.

Many people like to talk about the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in which somewhere between 30 and 300 civilians (mostly student protesters) where shot.  I agree that this event was horrible. However, it seems that little is being said about the very origins of the PRI;  the party was created by president Plutarco Elías Calles, who was also the instigator of the Cristero War, in which over 90,000 people were killed in less than 3 years. (That's double of even the biggest estimates of President Calderon's 6 year war on drugs - this is also a problem, but at the very least, this is an war against illegal - and often inhuman - activity, while the Cristeros War, which killed twice as many people in half the time, was a war against people's religious freedom.)  So, about 1968, what could you expect from a party which was born from so much bloodshed?

"The bodies often remained on the poles until the... town renounced public religious practice." (Wikipedia)

Both are horrible tragedies. It also speaks very poorly of the party that the government documents about the 1968 event were kept continually secret and not released until a president from a different party was finally elected (Vicente Fox, 2000) and ordered the release.  As for the Cristeros War, children in schools run by states governed by the PRI (which is the majority) still don't learn about that war as a part of Mexico's history. A party that has not yet taken responsibility for their past, and continues to try to hide its past atrocities is ready to take the presidency again.

The Institutionalized Revolution & Mexican Bureaucracy

 

After our second trip back to Canada, my wife and I arrived at Mexican Customs in the Cancun International Airport.  We hadn’t filled out a customs declaration card. We were a family of mixed nationality returning home. The airline attendants on Westjet simply told us that they couldn’t help us or tell us how to prepare for Mexican customs; even for simple, normal cases of tourists arriving for a week’s stay, it seemed that every time a flight arrived, the requirements and documents changed, and no matter what they told passengers, it ended up being wrong when they actually got to a customs agent and they had to fill out a different form, or put different information, etc.  This didn’t surprise us.  My wife is Mexican, and even after 2.5 years of living in Mexico, I knew how these things went.

 

Then, when we got through the customs line, a disgruntled looking customs agent whose disgusted-looking face showed that she had already decided that you did it wrong even before she saw your card looked at us and grunted, “Where’s your declaration card?”

 

“We don’t have one,” explained my wife. “The people on the airline didn’t know what we should fill out since we’re Mexican citizens returning home.”

 

The agent grabbed a card of the pile, slapped it down in front of my wife and said; “Look.  It’s all perfectly well explained right here” … hesitation … “more or less.”

 

My wife looked at the section that the agent had pointed to.  There was no explanation, but only a statement that the form was for tourists temporarily visiting Mexico. “But this explains what tourists need to do.  We’re not tourists.”

 

“But they’re tourists,” she said, meaning me and my sons.

 

“No. They’re Mexican citizens.”

 

She rolled her eyes.  “Just fill out the form.”

 

I just looked at my wife, smiled and said,  “Welcome home!”

 

My wife, who had been dying to get back to Mexico after only a few weeks of visiting Canada and be back with the warm, loving people of her homeland, suddenly felt a yearning for Canada’s well-ordered offices, straight rows of identical-looking homes and friendly politeness that (to her) seemed unreal and impossible.

 

We never did get proper instructions how to fill out the custom’s claim form, and I’m not even sure if we filled out the right form.  In the end, some guy who couldn’t have care less just stamped it and threw it on the pile without even looking at it.  I can guarantee you that if we had filled out the same form on the airplane, the same disgruntled woman would have yelled at us for filling out that form and made us fill out a different one.  We’ve been there.

---

This story I told here is only a mild case of Mexican bureaucracy.  If you have to deal with the government or office-based services in Mexico, it only gets worse.

 

What ever happened to this side of Mexico?  How could a country of such warm, caring and friendly people have such a messed up system of government and public services that make even the worst of Canadian bureaucracy look heavenly?

 

I’ve recently developed a theory about why.  It’s summed up in two words; Institutionalized Revolution.

 

100 years ago was still the very early stages of the Mexican Revolution; within a very short time, the dictator who had ruled the country for 30 years had been deposed, and the decades that followed were defined bloody in-fighting between the former allies who had originally risen up together against the tyrant in the name of freedom.  In the end, a group of revolutionaries called the Constitutionalists (who favoured the reinstatement of Mexico’s 1864 constitution, defined by values of a democratic republic) eventually managed to kill off or buy out the great general heroes of the war like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa – the latter was first bought out, and then in the late 20’s killed off when he tried to re-enter politics.

 

All was good and well; the tyrant had bee overthrown, and the extremists had been supressed.  The road was cleared for a moderate, centrist, democratic republic.  In theory it sounds good.

 

I don’t know enough about Mexico’s 20th century political history to say where things really went wrong.  But they did.  The newly found constitutional democracy turned into a one-party oligarchy.  The party, formed by the victors of the revolution, was adequately named the Party of the Revolution.  As the time went on, and it became apparent that the name no longer to reflected the institutionalized nature of the single monopolized ruling party, they added one word to bring the name up to date; the Party of the Institutionalized Revolution.

 

As much as this name may be only an error in realistically updating the name of the party, it only too well reflects what has become the reality of Mexico’s offices and services.  Let’s break down the two parts of the idea:

 

Revolution – A revolution by its nature is disordered chaos.  A few radical revolutionaries have valued the ongoing chaos of perpetual revolution as something necessary and good in itself.  However, in most cases, proponents of revolution tolerate its chaos only in the hope of bringing a better order afterwards – an order better in some way than the one that existed before.  In any case, the revolution itself is still chaos.  It’s important that while the revolution in Mexico ended, the ruling party retained the name.  The act of revolution was lost, but, I would say, the chaotic mess it involves was retained.

 

Institutionalized – Revolutions may be chaotic, but they are also passionate and driven forward by those who believe deeply in some cause, and are willing to risk all to promote that cause.  So what happens when you remove the passion, the action and the cause from a revolution?  You replace it with the cold, mechanical bureaucracy of an institution.  All this is the normal cycle of things, but what I think happened Mexico is that the all the worst parts of bureaucracy were set up, while the disorder and chaos of the revolution were retained (without the cause that originally made them worthwhile.)

 

Mexican offices have all the frustrating bureaucracy of the most rigid institutions; yet, they are plagued by inefficiency and chaotic disorganization.

 

Now for the record, I’m not saying that the PRI (the Spanish acronym for that party, which has now been out of power on the federal level for twelve years) is any worse or better than the rest of them; I’m only saying that it’s name very adequately reflects everything that’s wrong with Mexican bureaucracy.

 

Next time you’re in a Mexican office, wondering how on earth a country that is not only very beautiful, full of history, art and culture, but also one of the world’s largest economies could be such a bureaucratic mess, just think, “institutionalized revolution.”   It will all make sense.

 

(And please, if you’re not Mexican, take a moment to consider the pain of those who’ve had to put up with this their entire life.)

Canadian Visas for Mexican Citizens

A relatively recent event in Canadian-Mexican relations is the implementation of a visa requirement for Mexican citizens to enter Canada.  2 years ago, Mexicans could enter Canada with only a simple passport.  Apparently, too many Mexicans were falsely claiming refugee status in Canada after arriving as tourists, and thus the visa – I problem I most certainly agree needed to be addressed.  Unfortunately, though, from what I understand, it was actually Canadians who, in many cases were hiring out (illegal) services to Mexican visitors offering to show them how to gain refugee status in return for an absurdly large amount of funds.  This really is sad that Canadians themselves would be undermining our own immigration and refugee systems (both important and helpful when they are run properly), helping to create immigration problems.

I’ve also heard that the main point of the Canadian visa was really to make sure Mexicans weren’t sneaking across the border to the U.S., using Canada as a stepping stone.  Who knows.

In any case, the little annoyance for me is that twice now we had to apply for a Canadian visa for my wife, getting all the documents together, paying the fee, etc.  The first time, we were unaware that the visa would last only as long as the passport; my wife’s passport expired in 6 months along with the visa, even though we had paid double for a multiple entry visa. She now has one valid for 5 years.  This contrasts to the U.S. visa, which continues to be valid even if the passport has expired.  Her U.S. visa is valid for 10 years.

I’m happy about 2 parts; one is that the Canadian visa is a thorough process, requiring a fairly complete set of documentation – if we’re going to have this, it might as well be done right.  The second is that the people in the Canadian Embassy and the visa processing office are very organized, quick and helpful.  For example, for the first application, we forgot to send 2 forms from the application package.  They called us the day the application arrived and informed us.  Of course, they are very professional, and say nothing about the application itself, but simply being informed of the missing forms so quickly was encouraging.  We sent them the next day.

I hope some time down the road whatever the problem was that required a visa to be implemented will be cleared up and Mexicans will be allowed to visit with a passport again, but if not, it’s not the worst thing in the world.

Illegal Immigration - An Alternative Approach

This Caguama (1liter beer) may present a solution (See bottom)

Of course, everyone has they're own opinion about the issue of illegal Mexican immigrants to the U.S., and it's a really a very complex topic, with all sides making economic, cultural, political and social arguments that make complete sense - to the people who fall into each given ideological area in the first place.  Since I'm not American, nor is it likely that I'll ever be denied legal entry into the U.S., I don't really have much say in the issue, I guess.

So, instead of throwing my own 2 cents' worth into a bucket that already has a few billion cents in it, I'll just talk about my experience with Mexicans who've done it.  The following are a few points I've noticed.

Determination.  After being caught and sent back three times, I would give up.  Especially since if I had to pay what amounted to a few months' pay for the service of being taken across and picked up on the other side.  I've heard $1000 USD, and that it's usually borrowed money.  I've known a few people who were going back for round 3 or 4.  That money could feed their family in Mexico for half a year. I don't know how they manage to make the whole thing profitable.  In one case, judging by the under-nourished look of the man's children, I don't think he did.  He was pumped and ready to go again, though.  Of course, there are thousands who succeed, bring their family and even buy a home.  Those stories are enough to motivate the others who don't get any use out of it.  It's kind like slot machines for addicted gamblers.


The lure of the American Dream, or an prospect of making it "rich" is stronger than just about any obstacle or risk.  One writer stated that the only thing the construction of a 20-foot wall along the border would accomplish is an increase in production of 25-foot ladders in Mexico. (R. Longworth, Caught in the Middle.)  Politics aside, I believe this is an accurate reflection of the determination involved.


Worse Prospects Back Home.  If I remember correctly, I believe the new laws in Arizona were proposing 40 days in jail for people discovered in the U.S. without a valid visa (I'm not sure if I have the details right or what the final outcome was.)  While I agree that it's harsh, I don't think it compares to the possibilities of imprisonment in Mexico.  A friend of my wife was in jail, innocently, for almost 10 years; most significantly WITHOUT TRIAL.  We only recently discovered his release when he contacted her on facebook.  If I understand correctly, Mexico doesn't have the "innocent until proven guilty" legal concept, and, it seemed in his case that the opposite was assumed.  (I believe President Calderon has taken steps to change this, as well as implementing a public, witness-questioning type process for trials.  If so, I hope it makes a difference.) In Mexican jails you also have to pay for your food and tip guards.  Family members have to visit to leave money.  Many inmates, are for this reason, compelled to make handy-crafts to sell and pay for their keep; the guards sell the crafts outside and keep a share of the cash. (One of the most famous hammock producers on the Yucatan Peninsula is actually a prison; foreign tourists innocently seem to think it's a nice way to fill idle time; I know I did at the beginning.)  So, how does the prospect of 40 days in an American jail stack up to this?

On top of that, many of these people come from a life of utter poverty.  They don't see much to loose.  Back on the farm, they always had corn, beans, squash and meat, not to mention as much fruit as they could eat. But they didn't have Kentucky Fried Chicken, Blackberry cell phones or satellite T.V.  I guess even a modest income in the U.S can get them these luxuries of the rich.  For others, the prospect of one day being able to take the kids to Disney Land would give their family special status.  They once knew a rich family from he city that had gone ...

Bragging Rights. Now, I can't say for sure, but I don't think 40 days in an American jail would daunt most of the people who head across the border.  I actually suspect it might serve as another source of bragging rights; I can here it now: "The gringos caught me and gave a free bed and food for 40 days!"  I've heard this kind of bragging.  The guy who I mentioned above, who had been caught and sent back 3 times was telling his story (of course, no jail involved) to a group of men and boys, sitting around with beer.  As he spoke with the pride and authority of true drunk, a 14-year-old boy looked on in awe, with sparkle of hope in his eyes.  That was 4 years ago.  I'm sure that 14-year-old is in the U.S. by now.

Not all the braggers are drunks. I've met some very fine, upstanding, lower-middle class family men speaking with true pride of their cross border risks, all for the sake of their dear family (these are more the Disney Land types).

National Identity Confusion.  For some reason, Mexicans who successfully establish themselves in the U.S. (legally or illegally) often do not want to be considered Mexican, or even Mexican-American, or Mexican-background.  I remember on a trip to Detroit once, to the Mexican neighborhood, one hispanic American was offended when my dad mentioned the word Mexican (he was definitely Mexican, as opposed to Colombian, for example.)  I've heard of many similar cases.  These people teach their kids that they are American, not Mexican.

Here in Playa del Carmen I met a Mexican family whose daughters had been born in the U.S.

"Some day," explained one of the little girls, "I want to go back to my Homeland, and get to know my people." She hadn't been there since infancy.  She placed a special emphasis on "mi patria" referring the United States.  All of this was in Spanish, and she couldn't speak any English.  Also, everything about the family, from their clothes and way of addressing people, to gestures and expressions was purely Mexican (which, for me, is a good thing.)  But these girls had been taught to believe that they were not Mexican.

I would think that for Americans this desire to assimilate should be seen as a good thing.  But, again, I'm not American. Personally, I think it's ridiculous; if I could say I had Mexican heritage, I would do so with pride.  (I do show off my Mexican citizenship card to disbelieving Mexicans; but it's not quite the same is really being Mexican culturally.)  Once people are born and raised in the U.S., and that is really their culture, then of course it makes sense to identify themselves with that nationality.  But, ironically, some Mexican-background Americans I know who have fully assimilated American culture are among the few who look back with pride to their Hispanic roots. Others are scathingly aggressive to their former people.

Now that I'm pretty much done, I'll throw in my one-cent's worth.  (It's not even really worth two.)

In the case of American policy makers, on either side of the political spectrum, I feel like one of two things is true; either they've had no contact with these people, and they know virtually nothing about them, or, they know, but pretend that they don't because it's more important to please their respective voters base.  I suppose both are possible.  If they knew something about how these people thought, I would guess that they could come up with some sort of policy that would work at least little better.

My one-cent opinion: they should gather a few of the illegal immigrants, sit down with them with a few caguamas (pronounced "ca-WAma" - see the picture at the top) and really get to know them.  It might not solve the problem, but I'm sure it would take them farther than they are now.

What do Bush, Obama and Hippies in Tulum Have in Common? Politics vs. Solar Panels

Other than the fact that they probably all speak English to some extent, it would be hard to find much else.  But here's on nice little similarity: they're all putting (or have put) solar panels on their homes.

While I don't think too many people associated President Bush (Jr.) with environmental efforts, according to an article in Yahoo news (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/101005/world/us_white_house_solar_power), he was the second president to install solar panels on the White House, powering "a maintenance building and some of the mansion, and heated water for the pool."  President Obama is going to expand on this, installing solar panels to power the residential section.

I wish that big efforts, like this little one, could cross ideological political lines; it would bring more results and positive change, regardless of which side of the political fence (or fences) people are on.

What does this have to do with living in Mexico?  Very near to where I live, in Tulum, currently a little tourist town which was born from visitors to a beautiful pyramid site overlooking the ocean, many residents are beginning to do things like this - solar panels, wind turbines, rain water capture - to minimize non-renewable resource use.  I'm not sure about crossing political lines, but it's definitely crossing lifestyle lines.  The trend is ranging from people buying natural lots in eco-communities to upscale developments where there's no visual difference.

As is often the case, however, some of the most important issues get less attention.  Because of the underground caves and waterways (click here for a Google image search of "cenotes," the entrances to these waterways) which are a really amazing phenomenon and one of the area's main tourist attractions, and because of porous rock, otherwise properly treated waste water is still harmful; these waterways allow deep injected treated waste water to enter the sea, making contact with the coral reef.  The potassium and other nutrients left in the water cause algae to grow, which in large quantities damages the coral, the small visible animal which lives on the reef, and creates the beautiful, colorful structures through calcium deposits.  This means the slowed growth of the reef, and diminishing of the living part of it.

To help address this issue, several organizations are promoting the creation of "artificial wetland" structures to treat household waste water.  Grey water and treated black water is drained into a concrete bed full of rocks.  In this rock bed, fast-growing plants absorb the potassium and other nutrients before it is re-introduced into the ecosystem. They are small, odorless, very low maintenance, and fruits like bananas and papayas can be safely grown in the bed, (and safely eaten - plant roots don't absorb bacteria) and they make for very beautiful gardens.  The idea is slow to catch on because the prospect of having a rock bed full of waste-water in your back yard sounds unappealing.

A number of people in the eco-communities are trying it out, and I have even seen one small, upscale development include this.  The political roadblock here is that the deep injection is "officially" the clean solution, so special water treatment to protect the reef is not being considered.  The good news is that the idea is catching on, and hopefully soon politicians catch on.  Hopefully some day, politicians on one side of the fence will put aside their opposition to environmental measures, and on the other side will stop talking so much about it and actually do something.

On a personal basis, the common ground is a focus on the "bottom line."  Both Bush and Obama were heavily motivated to install their solar panels because of the large amounts of money it would save; the cost of installation in the case of the White House, is expected to be saved back in five years.  The people in the Tulum area are also seeing, and being motivated by this benefit.