Well, maybe…
With the Calderón Administration having all but turned over Mexican national security to the U.S. and that new energy “reform” bill pushed through by Peña Nieto that basically gives away the country’s resources to U.S. multinationals, maybe Milenio TV wasn’t too far off the mark:
Everybody’s Christmas favorite: Pilkuanitlan borroj
El burro sabanero (“The scruffy burro”) in Náhautl: in Spanish, English, or Náhuatl, burros understand “tuki, tuki, tuki”…
Lalo Guerrero – Pancho Claus
Better watch out, better not shout…
Holy Crap
Although the classic villancicos were written for courtly dances in the 15th and 16th centuries, in the Americas, especially in Mexico — although often with lyrics by the most sophisticated of poets (Sor Juana wrote a number of villancicos, both in Spanish and Nahuatl) — they continued to be written up through the 18th century, meant to appeal to the masses. The art was in creating out of simple language and allusions to ordinary life, an extraordinary message. Those still popular today being mostly related to the birth of Christ, villancico has the ordinary meaning now of “Christmas carol”.
“El peces en el rio” is both a modern, and classical villancico. The images are simple and earthy… Mary combing her hair, fish swimming in a river and… laundry put out to dry. While Mary is presented as someone special (with golden hair and a “fine silver” comb), and something extraordinary is going on (the fish are witnessing the birth of God), something even more extraordinary has happened… God, taking on human form… and needs his diapers changed.
“El peces en el rio” … here by the Gypsy Kings:
Chapo in Honduras?
Honduran Deputy Defense Minister Carlos Roberto Funes warnes that Joaquín Guzman Loera, alias “El Chapo,” may be in Honduras, who warns that his country is the most vulnerable nation in Central America to having its institutions penetrated by organized crime.
Honduras’ public institutions and it’s government are an organized criminal enterprise, but leaving that aside, is sounds very much like the same excuse given by the Calderón Administration, which also came to power amid credible claims from the leftist opposition that it had subverted the democratic process to achieve a dubious electoral victory, and was in need of a rationale to justify militarizing its internal security apparatus. And, just coincidentally, give the United States a credible excuse for providing the resources to track citizens and quash resistance to implementing neo-liberal “reforms”.
Lempira to doughnuts, even if Chapo were in Honduras, his people would no more be the victims of any state action than they were here… but rather the beneficiary of the state’s elimination of his rivals.
Illegal aliens
Caravaggio, “Rest on the Flight into Egypt (ca. 1571)
José showing angelic coyote his false papers, as María hushes little Jesús preparing to trek through the desert and the illegal entry into Egypt.
¡Buen provecho! Eat right and pay more
On the first of the year, the price of “junk food” will be going up substantially here in Mexico… an eight percent surcharge on foods high in fat, sugar, or sodium and an extra peso per liter on soft drinks. One justification for the tax has been the alarming rise in obesity and diabetes among children.
... the government has taken the long view – that the potential economic harm from reduced junk food and soft drink sales now is insignificant compared with the damage in 10 years time if obesity continues at the current rate. The healthcare burden of diabetes and heart disease in Mexico is already huge and increasing. Some 9.2% of children in Mexico now have diabetes.
With the funds raised THEORETICALLY going to public health, it looks promising that the national institute of pediatrics (IPN for its initials in Spanish) has developed Latin America’s first “virtual nutrition training center”… to retrain the country’s pediatricians and general practitioners in nutrition. One issue of concern is that premature babies and babies with life-threatening illnesses are often overfed simply to keep their weight up, but setting them up for future problems with obesity.
Whether any of this will bring down the alarming obesity rate (about a third of children are obese) and will, in the long range, save money and improve public health is yet to be seen. As in wealthier nations, the rich have the resources to eat right, and the rest of us — especially in urban areas — are often limited in our food selection to what is available in local markets. The traditional city markets still carry a large selection of fruits and vegetables, but with changing work requirements and housing patterns, do not serve nearly the percentage of the population that they did even ten years ago.
Honestly, I think the problem is one more of supply than demand. While the higher taxes on unhealthy food may lower demand (or may just mean people have less to spend on food that at least stave off hunger pangs), the problem is not so much what they want to buy, as what is available to buy.
With chain stores driving out the neighborhood abarrotes many are limited to 
purchasing in smaller chain stores… where the selection is extremely limited. My local OXXO sells no canned or packaged vegetables other than refried beans and chiles, and only a few few onions and tomatoes of dubious freshness, and sometimes bananas and/or apples… which is obscene in a fruit and vegetable exporting country. Even the local mom-n-pop is unlikely to have much more than onions, cabbage, tomatoes, chiles, and usually criollo calabasa (summer squash) … and, if we’re lucky, a few wilted heads of lettuce or a sad looking broccoli and some questionable potatoes. At least they carry some canned vegetables and dried beans.
Perhaps if the tax funds were also used to help farmers bring fruit and produce into the cities, and to ease up credit for the independent grocers, more “real” food would show up in the markets, and we wouldn’t be paying for junk…
sources: Sarah Boseley, “Mexico to tackle obesity with taxes on junk food and sugary drinks” (The Guardian, 1 November 2013)
“Mexico launches LatAm’s first virtual nutrition training center” (EFE, via Global Post, 20 December 2013)-
Oxxo, Ya! Escobosa, Soriana, Mercado Pino Suarez.
Puto!
The applause was not for Enrique Peña Nieto, announcing the passage of constitutional “reforms” that will change the oil industry here, but for Daniel Vázquez Aguilar, who had just called the President a whore (puto) while asking (loudly, one must admit) why the people were not consulted about those radical changes considered so necessary that they had to be pushed through with almost no debate in 84 hours over a weekend.
I expect we’ll be seeing much more push-back and resistance beyond the revived PRD-leftist coalition (FAP) plans to challenge the “reforms” in court.
Jungle boogie
Two great ideas that go well together… sustainable agriculture and safe sex.
Kate Evans in The Guardian:
Deep in the Amazon rainforest, in Brazil’s far western region, tappers walk the forest trails, harvesting liquid latex from the trunks of the bountiful native rubber trees.
But while their grandparents collected rubber for military use in World War Two, today it is used for lovemaking, not war – transformed into condoms at a factory in the town of Xapuri in Acre state.
The industry provides a sustainable way to profit from the forest, the state government says, and condoms are distributed free of charge throughout Brazil to help keep HIV/Aids in check.
While the article is focused on state policies designed to protect the Amazon, it doesn’t seem all that important whether or not condom production is, in itself, a profitable industry. Presumably lowering the costs of treating HIV/AIDS through prevention (as well as preventing unwanted pregnancies) represents a cost savings that perhaps can be calculated, and I suppose someone could come up with some formula that would put a dollar amount on the value of preserving xx hectares of rain forest, but it seems rather futile. And beside the point: governments are not businesses, and simply creating a financial return on investments is not their job. Something all too often forgotten (like when… ahem… states forget that natural resources are for the benefit of the people, not a profit center).
Rommel in Mazatlán
Herman Melville, Jack Kerouac, Walt Disney, Anaïs Nin, Lucille Ball, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, all spent some time in Mazatlán… but not Erwin Rommel.
OR DID HE… at least in spirit?
The Desert Fox at least make an impression on the locals… or at least one local. My corner grocery changed owners recently, and the new owners have no idea where the former owners have gone. Although the new owners have a better selection of items, and a better organized store, I kind of miss the old place, with its glass case of family mementos… including a photo (not the one above) of Erwin Rommel and… friends?
Who knew Rommel smiled? Or maybe the sun was in his eyes. But he looks quite relaxed. posing with a group of ordinary Afrika Korps soldiers in a photo someone in Mazatlán Sinaloa found significant enough to preserve as a family heirloom. Who? Why?
Were my neighborhood grocers German? That’s a real possibility, and German was still spoken in Mazatlán up into the 1960s, but most Germans emigrated to Mexico in the 19th century, or were refugees from the government that Rommel served under. Pro-Nazis? This is a real possibility here… pro-Fascist Cristeros were to be sent to their own colony in the Baja (basically to get them out of the way), and plans were made to ship them from Mazatlán to La Paz in 1940, but not all of them went, and several thousand of them ended up here at loose ends. Could the family just be a military family (we’re not just a resort town, but a naval town as well, and a number of families here have a tradition of military service). Erwin Rommel, even among his enemies, was respected for his military leadership and for being as humane as possible in an inhumane business.
So… here’s the deal. This is just a heads-up, but I’m going to sponsor a short story contest though Editorial Wisemaz. I can come up with … oh… fifty gringo dollars in prize money… for the best story (ah heck, I’ll take poetry too… extra credit for regular verse forms!) with a Mexican setting and Erwin Rommel (in the flesh or otherwise) as a character.
Dumping?
I hadn’t thought of this, but after rushing through the energy bill (and the requisite constitutional changes … including ratification by two-thirds of the state legislatures in a record 84 hours). it’s becoming clear that there isn’t any crying need for more North American oil …
An influx of Mexican oil would contribute to a glut that is expected to lower the price of Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half the world’s crude that has averaged $108.62 a barrel this year, to as low as $88 a barrel in 2017, based on estimates from analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Five of the seven analysts who provided 2017 forecasts said prices would be lower than this year.
The revolution in shale drilling that boosted U.S. oil output to a 25-year high this month will allow North America to join the ranks of the world’s crude-exporting continents by 2040, Exxon said in its annual global energy forecast on Dec. 12. Europe and the Asia-Pacific region will be the sole crude import markets by that date, the Irving, Texas-based energy producer said.
As with gold in the 16th century which benefited neither the native people nor, in the long run, the Spaniards, the “discovery” of all this “new” oil is not going to make the exploiters rich, but rather all of us poorer.
mexfiles.net 