Culture – Page 4 – Pat the Expat

Everything You Know is Wrong (XI): the Internet

Here’s a series of things you might have heard of as true, but aren’t, since everything you see on the internet is not true (shocking, I know):

Ever see a FaceBook post that instructs you to click on the white space, copy & paste something, rub your head and pat your tummy (I made that last part up), and then “Prest-o! Change-o!,” you’ll see more posts from more of your friends. No, just no. Their algorithm is a mysterious thing, but you can’t hack it. In fact, it hacks you. FaceBook (and all social media sites) measure everything you do on their site: how long you linger on a post, what/who you respond to, what groups you join, what ads you remove, every single thing. The algorithm is designed to maximize the amount of time you spend on FaceBook. Yes, it wants you addicted to FaceBook. So it tries different approaches: if you argue with someone, it starts showing you more of their posts, to get you to argue more. If you share something, same. But the algorithm is clever, too. It will adjust some things, “starving” you from one friend’s posts or some site you like and only giving you a “hit” once in a while. So the only way you could “hack” it was to do random things, which would confuse it as to what you like/dislike. And who has time for that? Not only that, but you’d still be spending time on FaceBook, which means they would still be getting paid. So don’t try to hack it; you can’t. Go with the flow and use it if you like, but always remember, it’s using you, too!
Speaking of hacking, you (probably) haven’t been hacked. Especially on social media, people receive “friend” requests from folks with whom they already are “friends” and they let their friends know, saying “you’ve been hacked.” Hacking involves assuming the identity and account access of a person. The hacker is you and you are not you, any longer. Instead, what I have described is called cloning. Clones are a ruse wherein the cloner starts another page with your name, perhaps image, maybe some info, and then starts sending out friends requests. Your page is still there, but now there is another one. While a hacker can do some damage by posting things you would never say, the cloner is less dangerous. They can ask your friends for help/money, but that’s about all the damage you can do. If you’re the type of person who gives out money to social media “friends” then perhaps the clone trick will work. By the way, if you are that type, send some my way, too! Cloners mostly exist to gin up more eyeballs looking at sites/posts by sharing them with their even-less-real internet friends.
Ever see an extra long video with a title like “unique way to clean X” or “hack your Y.” So you watch it and it seems crazier as it goes. There’s one on cleaning your toilet–which I won’t link to, because I don’t want you to watch it–that goes on and on, with the cleaning person putting ever more odd stuff in the toilet. So you get done and you think, “that was a waste of time.” Except it was only a waste of your time: what the creator got was your eyeballs on their video, which is worth real money to advertisers. So beware such videos, and who knows if the special technique even works?
Which recalls the internet maxim “if you’re not paying for it, YOU are the product.” Which is not to say paying for things is always better, or always results in better service. But paid exchanges have a predictable nature: I send money and I receive a thing. When someone provides a free object or service to me, they probably are relying on my reaction as a tangible thing to market to someone else. So they might be trying to manipulate me in the process. Just a caution.
That image somebody shares of an otherworldly view of a tornado, or lightning, or a cliff-side village, or, well you get the point. If you use the Chrome browser, you can right-click and choose “search image with Google” then “find image source” to see if somewhere out there on the internet there is an original, that may be very different. If you don’t use Chrome, try “Google reverse image search” and you’ll see how to be your own fact-checker with pics on the internet. While this is mostly innocuous now, you need to get into the habit of being skeptical. PhotoShop and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have gotten pretty good, so there’s a lot of digital imagery nonsense out there. Eventually you’ll see fakes of political leaders, friends, family, etc.
Speaking of Chrome, some really like a feature therein called incognito mode. They think that when they use this mode, they are invisible while out surfing the ‘net, so they perhaps can go to naughty sites to which they would rather not admit. Incognito mode doesn’t hide you browser history, nor does it prevent cookies. It simply masks who you are to the site you’re visiting. This is useful when reading an article from a news site that only allows three free articles, for example. But don’t think you’re invisible. Anyone with access to your computer can see where you’ve been. Oh, and if incognito doesn’t work to avoid access limits (perhaps for paid subscriptions), you can always try the WayBack Machine or the Internet archive. Sometimes brand new articles take a day or two to get archived.
Ever get one of those “I truly believe X is a cause worth supporting, and I want # of my REAL friends to share/post this”? Another version asks you to read all the way to the end of a long post. These do not support any cause. They are simply the internet’s version of chain letters. I may be going out on a limb here, but they mostly annoy everybody who sees them. If you really care about something, write (that is, in your own words) what you really feel about it and share it.
Pfishing is the fine art of getting someone to release important financial or personal details through an online interaction. You undoubtedly have received the infamous “Nigerian Prince” e-mail offering you a great cash windfall if you provide the sender with your bank information. Right. But it takes many other forms of which you may be less aware. A list of places you have visited, which “the average American has visited only 10.” A challenge to come up with your Hollywood name, wherein your first name is the name of your favorite pet growing up and your surname is the name of the street where you lived? Favorite foods, things you would give up forever, places you would never go, life experiences. It all seems so innocuous. But if you respond (as millions do), you add to the publicly available data about you. Hackers can send bots through the internet looking for “your name” and “whatever you post publicly.” So? What’s a common security question for websites: How about your favorite pet’s name? Your address growing up? Favorite food? Ooops. But it’s not like they have your birthday, since only all those “friends” on the internet who send you congratulations every year know that. Let’s not become paranoid, now! None of these things means you’ll be hacked. What they do is make you easier to hack. Remember the old joke about the two men going walking in the woods? The first one is wearing hiking boots, and says to the second one, “why are you wearing running shoes? Are you planning to outrun a bear?” The second one says “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.” Don’t be the person online wearing hiking boots.
What about password security? First, why are we even using passwords? Passwords started because networked computers were for businesses and organizations, who needed a simple security procedure they could mandate to employees. As online interactions and commerce took off, it seemed like an easy transition to keep using them. Except I don’t work for Amazon, and having a different password for everything I do online is unworkable. Not to mention passwords are eminently hack-able. The good news is passwords are dying, being replaced by other security measures like texts, biometrics, and tokens. So this is a problem being solved. In the meantime, using a simple generic password phrase is fine for all your unimportant sites. But remember, it’s only an unimportant site if it has NO IMPORTANT INFORMATION. If you let the unimportant site keep your credit card on file, or it has security questions or other data, it’s not unimportant. For important sites (think banking), use a password phrase with both upper and lower cases, a number and a symbol. Surely there is an old song lyric you will never forget: “ONCE th3r3 w@s” a way… is an example. If you have multiple important sites and know all the lyrics to a favorite song, using different lines of lyrics from the same song also works well.

Note as computers get faster, these periods will shrink!

Did you notice that many sites now ask you to register, usually using your name and e-mail address. Why not? Well, that’s another useful piece of information about you. Which means it can be shared, sold, or hacked away from you, and combined with all the other info about you out there. Solution? Get a second, free e-mail account for everything other than important business and friends. When anybody else asks for an e-mail, give them the alternative. You can check on it once a week in case something interesting shows up, but otherwise just let it sit there and fill up. If anybody tries to tie you to that e-mail, they don’t get anything useful!
Back during the pandemic, my family started doing monthly Zoom calls just to keep up to date and in touch. Some won’t participate because of the much-publicized “zoom-bombing” which coincided with greater Zoom use. Zoom-bombing is when someone unauthorized enters your Zoom call and generally makes a nuisance of themselves (or worse. Some folks share pornography!). That was a problem, especially for people who post Zoom sessions on public websites (like social media). But Zoom fixed that: when you enter a zoom call now, the call moderator has to “authorize” you to join the call. If they don’t recognize you/your number, they can chat with you to confirm or simply leave you in the “waiting room.” So Zoom to your heart’s content (which may be short).
Last, a tip I haven’t been able to confirm, but seems to work. If you access a site with many ads, and that takes a long time to load, try increasing the size of the displayed text or portion (usually <ctrl> and <+> at the same time) so only that text/portion is visible. The computer doesn’t always load things which don’t fit the screen. I noticed on my old MS Outlook Mail this hack works well, speeding up my reading and eliminating the flashing annoyances of paid adverts. If anyone can confirm or refute this, please do in the comments!

Book Report: Can Legal Weed Win?

This book was written by two University of California economists (Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner) who make no secret they see the legalization of “weed” (their preferred term for marijuana) as a positive step toward a more logical, more just society. They take no position about the moral implications of drug use, but rather focus on the economics. and more specifically the claims that legalization would have several positive results: ending the illegal drug trade (at least in weed), eliminating the unnecessary incarceration of those involved in the trade, redirecting law enforcement resources, and generating large and growing revenues for federal, state, and local governments. They conclude that– unsurprisingly for anyone familiar with supply and demand–none of these projections proved to be true.

When California led the way by decriminalizing weed in the form of medical marijuana, the path seemed clear: safer weed to smoke (or eat), easily available via a doctor’s note at local dispensaries, less expensive, and without the baggage of any connection to the illegal drug trade. The alleged medicinal properties of weed, which to date remain under study but not proven, were the ostensible reason to legalize weed. Yet medicinal weed was never the intended endpoint, but rather a useful start toward full legalization. Dispensaries and the fiction of a “doctor’s note” only salved some consciences, but did not satisfy the final goal of legitimizing recreational weed use. And that is where things became interesting.

What went wrong? Let us count the ways:

The move to full legalization almost always involved government regulation, taxing, safety and quality restrictions. Which increased the cost of doing business. So the price of legal weed went up, while illegal weed remained available from all the same suppliers at a discount. Would consumers pay extra for the government assurances and regulation? No, since most weed users had been buying for years from suppliers they considered safe, and the connection to the illegal drug trade seemed tenuous, even though it was real (“I don’t deal with a cartel; I buy from Joe down the street.”)

Meanwhile, decriminalization/legalization made retailing weed a crime, but not possessing small amounts. So there was no longer a strong reason for police to “police” the illegal weed marketplace, except as a matter of violation of commercial regulations. And the move toward legitimate recreational weed use eliminated the need for the “medicinal marijuana” ruse: in states which legalized weed, the dispensary weed business largely evaporated. Meanwhile, Oklahoma, a relative newcomer, has stayed at the medicinal weed way point, and has a medicinal weed dispensary for every 3,000 residents (the greatest density of medicinal weed suppliers in the nation, despite no strong medical evidence)!

Specifically in California, legalization included giving local officials the right to regulate where and how weed was bought, sold, and consumed, a compromise necessary to ensure legislative support for legalization. And in the land where NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) rules supreme, public use of weed in most of the state, which was unregulated under medicinal weed rules, became outlawed under legal recreational weed laws. It seems that most Californians didn’t want a weed shop on their street, people smoking a joint in their public parks, or even a weed field next door to their homeowners association (marijuana fields are well-known for a distinctive, unpleasant odor).

Of course, the wild card in legalization was how would organized crime respond. The optimistic forecast was that drug-dealers would simply accept the inevitable and either go legit by becoming regulated weed retailers, or leave the weed business for other, more lucrative drugs. As the authors point out, people who thrived selling weed when it was illegal were those adept at avoiding government regulation and maneuvering among violent competitors: not skills which translate well into a legal marketplace. So local drug dealers simply went on selling weed more cheaply and without government interference (remember, the police don’t care as much about economic regulations), undercutting the legal business. And cartels have taken to offering legitimate weed retailers the classic Mexican dilemma: “plato or plomo,” meaning work with the cartels (accept their silver, plato) or get killed (received their lead, plomo). So illegal weed also continues to leak into the legal business. The biggest change in the illegal weed market has been to move weed growth from Mexico to the US, to avoid the problem of federal restrictions on its importation. Cartels don’t need to smuggle weed across the border anymore, when they only need to hide it as it grows in the States (where law enforcement is less interested in finding it).

Which points toward the long-term outlook. Of course federal law which still treats weed as a Schedule 1 substance (serious drug) acts as a restraint, but only just. The drug war was always fought primarily at the state and local level, and there it is ending with a whimper, not a bang. Eventually the federal government will give up also, but of course local drug-dealers and cartels will not. Meanwhile, numerous investing firms, tycoons, and get-rich quick investors have gone literally bankrupt betting on the profitability of legal weed.

What happens next? The authors point to several scenarios, but none of them are particularly positive for the weed business. They posit four changes they see as relatively certain in the long term (2050): (1) national legalization of weed, (2) legal interstate weed commerce, (3) more efficient weed farming production, and (4) agribusiness involvement in the weed market. Legal weed loses its counterculture cachet and a national market reduces profit differentials. Weed grown in greenhouses needs cheap labor and cheap power, making a place like Oklahoma incredibly competitive with California. Current demand is met by small, distributed producers, and while some weed aficionados claim market use will soar, that is unlikely. Just as weed may prove to have health benefits for some, long-term weed use is likely to pose health challenges. More efficient farming techniques will produce stronger, safer, and cheaper weed. All of which is to say the legal weed business will resemble farming more than prospecting: a highly competitive market with some product customization (read craft weed), low prices and profit margins, and relatively static demand.

Hardly the profitable, smokey nirvana the weed industry projected. If you like supply and demand charts and lots of data, read the book. The authors have a wicked sense of humor and make the economics discussions about as lively as the dismal science can be. Otherwise, you received the gist of their analysis here. And it is a cautionary tale: legal weed will be neither a golden goose for government revenue, nor a rainmaker for investors. Legal weed will not affect the illegal drug business, nor will it reduce crime. Legal weed does not cause mass addiction, but it also (probably) is not a wonder drug. What legal weed does do is add one more legal way to get high. That’s the blunt truth.

Mexican Riviera

This tourist zone encompasses a series of similar tourist resorts that stretch along the Mexican Pacific coast, from the end of the Baja peninsula down to the Huatulco in Oaxaca. It’s perhaps unfair to call these places similar, since they are in fact different. However, the chief difference is that they are at different stages of development in the same life-cycle: tourist hot-spots.

The oldest of these, and arguably the most famous, is Acalpulco, which became a getaway for the Hollywood rich and famous back in the 1940s. Now it is well past its prime, attracting fewer foreign visitors and having a vaguely seedy reputation. Puerto Vallarta, or PV among expats, is the reigning champion. It has a modern cruise ship terminal and a well-developed tourism infrastructure to host visitors and expats. Probably next in line after PV are the various resort towns at the end of the Baja peninsula, namely Los Cabos (Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo). We visited Huatulco, PV, and Cabo San Lucas.

What you’ll find at all these sites are plenty of the usual tourist development (yes, Señor Frog is everywhere) but even more amazing ocean/beach activities. World-class sport-fishing? Check. Ditto for surfing. Endless beaches with bars, seafood restaurants and palapas? Yup. Whale-watching? Swimming with Dolphins? Of course. Ocean kayaking, paddle-boarding, snorkeling, yes. Para-sailing: yeah. Back on land, there are tours of small Mexican towns, visits to haciendas, tequila and mezcal tasting, and eco-visits to jungles and deserts. There is quite literally something for everybody along this coast.

Not being beach people or adventure-seekers, we visited small towns in Oaxaca and Baja California Sur. We can certify that the cruise tours provided what they promoted: very authentic sites where locals produced textiles, mezcal, or other crafts, and small towns still mostly as they are, not carefully crafted tourist recreations. The rug-weavers we saw came from the same small town in central Oaxaca we visited back in July. The mezcal producer used the same techniques we saw in Tequila.

We did sneak in some adventure. I finagled Judy’s agreement to go whale watching while in Puerto Vallarta, as December is the beginning of the humpback whale annual visit to the bay. I imagine she envisioned changing out the cruise ship for a large boat and watching for whales from a distance. I didn’t bother to explain we’d be in zodiacs, basically large inflatable rafts (with a hard interior) and an over-powered pair of marine engines. While Banderas Bay is generally calm, there is nothing calming about screaming across the small waves at 30+ knots in a zodiac, chasing whales. Judy survived the experience, so I’m still here to blog about it!

Happy Judy, when the zodiac is going slow

Whales!

Our ship looming over the cruise dock in Puerto Vallarta

New development built to fit in, in *Todos Santos*

Local tour guide claimed this was the inspiration, but it isn’t

Not everything can be authentic!

Antigua, Guatemala

Sunday found us docked at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, so we availed ourselves of an “on your own” bus to Antigua, one of the ancient capitals (yes, plural) of Guatemala. It’s a well-maintained historical site with excellent views of local, active volcanoes. Which is why it’s no longer the capital.

Seems when the Spaniards arrived, they established their first capital on the site of the indigenous palace. Which was subsequently destroyed by a volcano. So they moved to another valley, where the second capital was safely away from a volcano, or so they thought. But there was a nearby mountain with a lake on top. You guessed it, there was an earthquake which unleashed the lake and destroyed the town. So the Spaniards built a third capital in 1541 in another valley, safe from most volcanoes and most earthquakes. Of course, mother nature has a way of making man look foolish, and in 1776 there was a tremendous earthquake which destroyed the third capital, resulting in the final site at Guatemala City (which still stands as of the time of this post).

Iconic archway between two convents, framing another volcano

But the people in the third capital didn’t want to give up, so they slowly rebuilt, calling the town Antigua Guatemala (as in the old capital). And there it sits today, a mix of preserved ruins and rebuilt colonial houses, without the business or industry a modern capital city would normally have. It’s as if the old city was preserved in amber from a date long ago.

It being Sunday, we had scoped out a Catholic mass in what remains of the old cathedral. Mostly magnificent ruins, locals refurbished one small wing of the cathedral as a small parish. During mass, we heard loud cheers and groans coming from the town plaza immediately outside. There was another religious event of sorts: the World Cup Final. The priest even made a parting joke at the end of mass about seeing everyone outside.

Cathedral interior in ruins, still magnificent

Defending champion France was playing Argentina that morning, and the local government had erected a giant screen in the plaza for all to come and watch. Normally weekends bring a rush of local tourists from Guatemala City to spend a day in Antigua, but this Sunday the crowd was all locals, and most of the town was bunched into a corner of the plaza, glued to the screen.

We heard Argentina was leading 2-0 as mass began, then we heard more screaming during the liturgy. We were surprised to learn France had tied the game up, so we grabbed a coffee (a local specialty) and enjoyed extra time and a penalty kick shoot-out. The crowd, which was rooting for Messi & Argentina, grew silent until the result was in. I mentioned to Judy how strange it was to know the whole world (less the US) was watching the same event at the same time, all holding their breath. It was something like the moonwalk, and special to enjoy among passionate fans.

The moment when . . .

Puerto Genérico

Don’t look for it on a map. It’s less of a place than a state of mind. You’ve been there if you did an ocean cruise in the Caribbean, Central America, heck even Alaska. It exists where a large cruise ship arrives at a small port in an underdeveloped region or country. And it’s always the same.

When Judy & I were hard-working professionals in Washington DC (“working hard or hardly working?”, yes I know the joke!), we tried to get away every winter for a week, usually to cruise the Carrib Sea from Miami (Pro-tip: you pronounce it “car-RIB-ee-an” not “care-i-BEE-an”). We soon learned there was no reason to off-board at the ports, because they were all the same. You walked off the ship and were accosted by a steel drum band. Locals started offering to (1) braid your hair, (2) sell you Ganja (marijuana), or (3) give you a henna tattoo. As we were uninterested in all three, well, why disembark? There were the usual set of excursions, but these too predictably fell into beach-time, water-time, and local customs. We tried some of the latter, but found them more generic than legitimate. I recall visiting a market near Cozumel and buying a “Mayan sun disc calendar” which turned out to be Aztec. Whatever.

If you head north to Alaska, they’re selling sweatshirts, salmon, and First Nations handicrafts. In Central America, its tropical drinks, Mayan art and indigenous clothing. Notice that few things have “made in” labels, because you don’t really want to know from where it came. I don’t mean to disparage the hard work or the opportunity. If you’re on your once-in-a-lifetime trip, enjoy the experience, don’t over-analyze it. And the vendors are trying hard to make a living, souvenirs being souvenirs the world ’round.

We landed in Puntarenas (sandy point), Costa Rica. We were greeted by a xylophone band, a market full of t-shirts and carved wooden tchotchkes, and some restaurants featuring (in English) “Costa Rican food.” We sauntered past in the tropical heat and found our way to the local church. After we tried the locked doors, a handyman came over and opened it up to we could visit. The cafes and shops were barely open, although there was a line outside the government medical clinic. This could have been any pueblo anywhere in Latin America.

We’ll be spared the experience in Nicaragua. The Captain explained that the Nicaraguan government is closing its ports due to Covid. Funny thing, the Nicaraguan government website has no mention of it. More likely, the Sandinista government is engaging in another round of repression, so Norwegian Cruise Lines decided not to send day-trippers merrily traipsing across the countryside lest than run into a protest, a riot, or an insurrection. But we will be in Acajutla, El Salvador, soon thereafter, and I bet it will be eerily familiar.

Panama: The Big Ditch

The Panama Canal is, to my mind, an afterthought today. The last great controversy involving it was when President Carter decided (1977) to deed it back to Panama on January 1st, 2000, which resulted in none of the catastrophic consequences imagined at the time. Yes, it connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and greatly facilitates trade, but really it seems to be just a piece of infrastructure, and a really old one at that. Which is precisely why it is a marvel.

The first canal between those oceans was attempted by the French in 1881. They had completed the Suez canal, a sea-level enterprise which cut the sailing time from Europe to the Far East to ten days. Suez was said to be impossible, but Ferdinand de Lesseps and his French engineers pulled it off, and it was the marvel of its age (1869). Then they decided to do the same in the Colombian province of Panama. To understand the difference in terms of difficulty, imagine that immediately following the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, NASA announced that Apollo 12 was going to Mars. Yes, there was French arrogance involved, but they had already done the impossible, were the best at what they did, and their plans were sound, with two exceptions. First, they shrugged off the disease implications of the Panamanian jungle (mainly Malaria and Yellow Fever), and second, they insisted on another sea-level canal. Sea-level canals are much easier endeavors than lock canals: any child who has dug two pools in the beach sand, then connected them with a scooped line between has basically mastered the design of a sea-level canal.

De Lesseps was a force of nature (he was called “Le Grand Français” or The Great Frenchman), and his renown as the conqueror of Suez made his opinion unassailable. Despite his talent and expertise, despite the quality of the engineers the French sent and the money they spent, the effort failed. Too much graft and corruption, too little respect for the size of the task and the challenge of the jungle, spelled defeat.

The Americans literally rough-rode in to pick up the pieces. President Teddy Roosevelt settled on completing the task as a declaration of America’s rise as a world power. Instead of negotiating with the Colombian government (a notably difficult proposition), he fomented rebellion in Panama, recognized the rebels, and signed an incredibly advantageous treaty for a US-built and operated canal. All of which just left the canal-building to be done.

The American effort very nearly failed. The fact of mosquito-borne illness had just been established, yet the canal leadership thought it just “a theory” and very nearly suffered the same catastrophic losses the French had endured. The American engineers finally came around to the impossibility of building a sea-level canal that had to cross a mountain range (!) and ran parallel to a raging tropical river (the Chagres) which flooded up to 33 feet during the rainy season. Eventually the Americans settled on damming the Chagres, creating a giant lake in the middle of the isthmus, then building locks on either side to connect to the oceans. The final canal greatly dwarfed the original estimates by orders of magnitude in terms of how much digging, blasting, and construction was required, yet it was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

From Wikipedia; the Gatun lake was once all swampy jungle

The Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) went through several organizational structures and leadership teams before falling under the (eventually) legendary George Washington Goethals, a West Point-trained Army engineer who turned the entire operation into a model of efficiency. Some called the canal zone administration a “socialist paradise” as it was so well-run and so accommodating to its work force. There were stark inequalities between the black Caribbean islanders who did the manual labor and the white Americans who oversaw the work or did the skilled jobs, yet all experienced better pay, free medical care and food, paid leave and other benefits unheard of back home. The administration was not strictly a government: it was more of a giant company-town, where every body and every thing was focused on a single task: digging the canal.

The ICC needed healthy workers, so mosquitoes were practically eradicated from the canal zone, despite it being carved out of the jungle. Skilled doctors and engineers weren’t going to come alone to Panama for years on end, so homes and schools and community centers were built. The losers in all this were the Panamanians themselves, who anticipated a windfall in sales and services but instead found themselves shut out of the manual and skilled labor, and competing with a massive organization designed to bring the comforts of home to the tropical jungles.

The grassy areas are the large earthen dam, completed with the small traditional concrete structure

The canal construction redefined social, technological and material limits. It created the largest dig, the largest earthen dam (at Gatun, above), which resulted in the biggest man-made lake, using the largest heavy equipment (95 ton steam shovels) and largest steel products (gates). Electric motors, just coming into their own, became a chief power source, and the canal used hydroelectric power to be largely self-sufficient. A fledgling American company named General Electric designed a control system whereby engineers could sit in a single room and see a scale-model with a series of live-controls that managed the whole system. The controls were connected in a way it was impossible to “skip a step” or open the wrong lock/dam/gate (aka “idiot-proof”). The final cost was $500 million USD (at the time), the largest single expenditure in US history, and more than five times the cost of all land acquisitions (Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, etc) of the US government till that point.

Container ship in the lock ahead of our cruise ship; notice the elevation gain

Close-up of a “mule,” a small locomotive which pulls a ship through the locks

It opened in August, 1914, but to little fanfare, as the impending Great War in Europe quickly blotted out what had been an object of intense international attention. Still, the canal functions to this day–108 years on– much as it was originally designed and built. Additional, larger locks permit larger New PanaMax vessels to cross, but the locks, the dams, the mules (trains which pull the ships through the locks) are either the originals or rebuilds to original specifications. It is hard to imagine another working infrastructure project which has held up nearly as well: perhaps the Roman roads/aqueducts?

The Culebra cut, where the mountain repeatedly slid back into the canal excavation, requiring constant re-digging

The value of any infrastructure project is simple: does it work? The marvel of this one is not that it works, but that it was ever completed. The beauty of it (if one can call infrastructure beautiful) is how well it works, so long after it was done.

Surprising Panamá

Preparing for our Panamá Canal Cruise from Colón (Panamá) to San Diego.

We took a Copa (Panamanian national airline) red-eye flight out of Guadalajara to Tocumen International Airport (PTY) outside of Panamá City. Even the name is a reminder of American influences: it’s not Cuidad de Panamá, but just Panamá City. Most of the passengers on our flight were connecting to onward travel in South America; PTY is a common transfer point for such flights. First surprise? Watching the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean . . . in the Western Hemisphere? I looked once, admiring how beautiful it was. Then I looked again and thought, “wait, that’s the Gulf of Panama, which is part of the Pacific Ocean, but the Sun is rising, so that is . . . east?” For the geographically challenged, Panamá is an isthmus shaped like the letter “S” lying on its side. Panamá City lies along the bend, so it looks to the southeast across its bay, where the Sun rises (near the equator).

Arriving at 6:oo am meant a speedy taxi ride of a mere twenty-five minutes to the heart of the business district. Pro-tip for frequent tourists: hotels in a city’s financial or business district tend to be nicer: they cater to a wealthier business crowd which expects better service and amenities, often with fares to match. However, they are more likely to be full during the week, so they often have reduced rates on weekends. Sure, sometimes the business district isn’t the most “happening” place to be, but it’s worth it in my opinion.

Our first impression is how tropical (expected) and vertical (unexpected) the city is. It hit 80° F by the time we entered the hotel lobby, with that sticky, hard-to-breathe sensation common to the tropics. Everything was air-conditioned, and running on high, so walking around meant a constant reversal of dripping sweat and freezing cold. As I said, that was expected. But Panamá City has some serious chops when it comes to skyscrapers.They are dense, frequent, and frequently beautiful.

Panamá uses the Balboa for currency, but the Balboa only exists as coins for change. Good old-fashioned greenbacks trade at 1:1 with the Balboa, and dollars are what you get from ATMs. Prices are what you’d expect in a medium-sized America city: not a bargain, but not sticker-shock, either.

We came here with few (if any) must-see’s or -do’s. Mostly we were looking for an easy transfer and a quiet chance to settle in, time- and climate-wise, before our cruise. Our third surprise was language. Yes, it’s Spanish, but due to the long American control of the Canal Zone, plenty of people speak English. But the Panamanians speak Spanish more slowly and with more distinct pronunciation than we’ve heard in Puerto Rico, Mexico, or even Spain. Our Gringo accent was no problem here, and we were able to understand virtually everybody, even the Priest’s Homily!

Of course we made it to Sunday Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which also had a tribute to Our Lady of Guadalupe next to the altar. I mentioned to Judy that we will have spent the five Sundays in Advent this year in a different country for each Sunday (Italy, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, the United States). Phew!

Our final surprise was mildly distasteful (literally). Since we had so little trouble communicating, we easily told our waiters “todos sin cilantro” since Judy and I both have the gene which leave cilantro tasting like soap and smelling like dirty socks (really). I kept getting dishes with that distinct and disgusting flavor; what gives? The food was clearly cooked with the spice, not just sprinkled on, as the flavor was baked in, so to speak. Judy figured out this was not cilantro but culantro, a cousin with even stronger flavor that is often used for cooking, not just garnishing. Guess we’ll have to add that to our list!

We barely touched the surface of Panamá city, let alone the rest of Panamá. Our tour driver, Marvin, told me the government does a lousy job of publicizing tourism, which is a shame, because there are miles of beaches, dense jungles, a big city, a canal, plenty of English, and an interesting mix of cultures/cuisines (Afro-Caribbean and Colombian). We didn’t make it to the old city or the market, nor the seaside promenade. We did visit the only tropical rain forest within a city limits, as well as the remains of Fort San Lorenzo, where the Spanish galleons laden with gold made a run past pirates.

Much to see and do here, and if you love tropical heat and humidity, this may be just the place for you!

Herculaneum

It was a typical, beautiful day in the shadow of the mountain. Fall in Campania is spectacular, and life was good in the seaside village of Herculaneum. It was especially good for Marcus Nonius Dama, as he was a freedman, made so by his former master Marcus Nonius Balbus, one of the town’s leading men. Dama’s family had been brought to Rome as slaves from Syria (Dama, as from Damascus). Roman slavery took many forms, often more like indentured servitude for a period rather than chattel slavery. Dama had grown up serving in the rich man’s spacious villa. Some seventeen years earlier, when Dama was a teenager, there had been a terrible earthquake which damaged much of the town. Dama had led his master’s wife and children to safety in the arched porticos which protected boats along the beach. Marcus Nonius Balbus never forgot that act, and he was a gracious man in addition to being rich. He gave Dama more and more responsibility, and eventually his freedom.

Dama had made a trade in repairing the town for the past two decades, and although much of his work was done, his reputation was still growing. Now Dama’s wife was eight months pregnant with their first child, and he felt practically on top of the world. Around noon, he stopped at the thermopolium, where Romans grabbed some fast food for the lunch meal. Herculaneum stood along a beach a short distance from Neapolis, the Roman port city. It was both a small fishing village and a rich man’s retreat, lying between the large mountain called Vesuvio and the Tyrrhenian Sea. As Dama was eating, he heard a large “crack,” like the loudest thunder he ever heard. But this thunder was followed by a long, low roar. “It sounds like the earth itself is giving birth,” he thought. People were milling about in the street, so he walked out and looked up at Vesuvio.

Where the mountain stood, there now was a towering blackness, like a giant dark tree reaching up into the sky. The darkness was rising and spreading, south with the wind and reaching down to the ground. It was both beautiful and terrible, frightening but seemingly far away.

The Vesuvio caldron today, once again calm

What Dama did not know, what no one in Herculaneum knew, was that Vesuvio was no mountain, but rather a volcano. It had not erupted in the recorded memory of Rome, so the danger posed by the sleeping giant was completely unrealized by the people living alongside it. What Dama watched was the vaporization of millions of tons of rock, turned into a mix of ash and fire, and blown high into the sky. That deadly mix was cooling and condensing and falling toward the larger town of Pompeii, due south, where it would collapse like a giant concrete blanket. And this was only the beginning.

Dama hurried home and told is wife to head over to Marcus Nonius Balbus’ place, to warn them to head to the beach again, lest another earthquake hit. He decided to stop by the shrine to Augustus, the former Caesar and still god; perhaps a little prayer was in order. While he was lighting some incense, he heard another loud explosion above the rumbling roar. Looking up at Vesuvio, he could see another cloud, red and black and roiling, working its way down the mountainside. Dama did not need to know this was a pyroclastic flow: superheated gas and rock moving at more than fifty miles per hour. All he needed to know was what he immediately felt: mortal fear.

Dama began running down the street toward the beach and the porticos. When he reached the beach front, he could see his wife and some of his former master’s family huddled under one of the aches. Other people were also taking shelter there, although the boats were all gone, having departed with a load of people fleeing earlier. Dama walked out into the shallow water to get a better view toward the mountain. The dark red line was sweeping down toward the village at an incredible speed, and there was nowhere to go. He ran toward the portico where his wife was, but he never made it.

The pyroclastic flow hit the town like a firey tidal wave, searing any organic material and killing everyone and everything instantly. Behind it was a wall of hot mud, actually liquid rock, which buried the town under meters of solid stone as it cooled. Vesuvio erased Roman Herculaneum so completely that no one knew where it had been for almost two millenia, when a local farmer digging a well uncovered some gold jewelry.

While Pompeii was smothered by ash, collapsing most structures and leaving the ghostly body-casts of victims, Herculaneum was flash-fried, then dipped in a protective coating of stone. The buildings still stand, two or three stories tall. Wooden objects (screens, doors, lintels, beds) were found charred but intact, giving an invaluable look at Roman life. The same goes for pottery, glass, and even papyri, Roman legal documents which also survived. Herculaneum provided actual skeletons, revealing diets, diseases, heights, weights, lifestyles and even DNA.

House shrine, note the metal roof support

Most people visit Pompeii: it’s larger, more famous, and it’s where cruise and other tours want to take you. And it’s certainly worth a visit. But it is larger, and can be a little intimidating, if not overwhelming. I suggest considering Herculaneum, which is just as well preserved, smaller, and very walkable.

This shows one portico at what was the beach/shore. The “wall” in the background is an unexcavated area, showing how deep the town was buried. The house is part of Marcus Nonius Balbus’ seaside villa

Napoli (Italia, not Florida)

If I did a word association and said “Italy” I bet many would say “pizza.” It’s natural to any American: the food we love best is actually an import. And many Americans know that pizza originated in Napoli (Naples) in the 19th Century, when a local restaurateur developed the classic thin crust, fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce and basil (yes, it mirrors the Italian flag) for Queen Margherita, and a legend was born. But note the date: 1889. Like Italy, pizza is not an ancient dish, and therein lies a story of the nation, and the city of Napoli.

Wait, what are we doing in Italy? Well, our family decided to do the traditional American Thanksgiving, all gathering on the appropriate Turkey Thursday, but we decided to gather at our daughter’s house in Vicenza, Italy. Nothing says Thanksgiving like Turkey, pasta, Italian wine and gelato! Afterwards, my dear wife and I decided to head south for a side trip to Naples on the way home to Mexico.

Now if I did a second word association with “Naples” you might respond with “pizza,” “crime,” or “camorra” (the local version of the mafia). The city has a bad rap,some of which is deserved, but let me make a case for it anyway. To begin with, Naples is really old: as in Greek! It was founded by the Greeks (Neapolis, or New City) over 2500 years ago as a trading station because it has a great harbor and an ideal location on the the Italian “boot” peninsula. Milan was the great city-state in northern Italy (after Venice declined) and Napoli was the great one in the south. Napoli became the seat of a large Spanish kingdom that included Sicily and other Hapsburg lands. It remained cultured, rich, and important, while “Italy” remained only a geographic concept until unification in 1861 (yes, the nation we call Italy is younger than the USA; same goes for Germany!). The rivalry between the more industrial (read German), richer north and the more corrupt, pastoral south ended in a compromise with the Italian Capitol in Roma. Naples went from a proud, distinct seat of power to a provincial backwater, starting a long slide into insignificance.

But Naples is what we see in our minds when we think “Italian.” Napoletanos were the largest bloc of Italian immigrants to America (there being little opportunity back home), and from them we get pizza, spaghetti, tenements with laundry hanging down, and “Santa Lucia.”

Because Napoli had an independent history, it had long come to terms with accommodating foreign rulers while imposing its own rules. To this day Napoli barely tolerates Roman rule, and even the organized crime system there is a version of “how things really get done” as opposed to “what they tell us to do.” After World War II, Naples continued to ignore and be ignored by the central government, exacerbating its decline. By the 1970s, petty crime, graffiti, and general lawlessness reigned, giving many tourists the impression it was too dangerous to visit. The graffiti remains, as does some crime in a city of more than one million people. But Naples had greatly recovered, and deserves a visit. Capiche?

First off, there is the unique culture, which reminds me of New York in many ways. Locals are extremely proud and like-able, just don’t get in their way (especially the scooters which run riot across the small roads). The food is authentic, the neighborhoods a sight to behold. Locals call it basa living, and its an urban but not urbane, gritty life where people refuse to move out of the block, let alone the neighborhood. Jobs are scarce, people just get by, and that’s good enough. They are very Catholic, and claim to have more churches per capita than any other city. I didn’t count them, but we did see an amazing Gothic church across the street from another amazing Baroque one. Napoletanos have their many superstitions, many friends, and Gli Azzurri, the soccer club known as “the blues.”

As to food, how can you go wrong with the place that invented pizza? Yes, they’ll fry anything, including pasta which didn’t sell earlier in the day, and cones full of fried seafood (cuopo) as Napoli is a port after all. There are amazing pastries like s’fogliatella (go ahead, try and pronounce it, I dare you) and baba, another soaked in rum.

You want culture? Well Napoli is the home of National Museum of Archeology, which just happens to have all the original treasures which were discovered in Pompeii and Herculaneum (yes, the originals are preserved in the museum; on-site you’ll see very well done re-creations. So if you plan on visiting any of the scavi (excavations) buried by Mount Versuvio, you need to schedule a stop in Napoli.

Was there a lot of graffiti? Yes. Some seedy areas? That too. A somewhat rushed city atmosphere? Yup. But no moreso that many other cities, and well worth it to try the food and see the culture. And we only visited long enough for a literal taste: we skipped the castles, the modern art scene, plaza del plebicito and other “must-do” sites, not to mention the Amalfi coast, which is not our cup of tea, but is selfie heaven.

We did go to the scavi, but that’s a post for another day! Bottom line? Don’t avoid Naples, it’s safe, fun, and delicious.

Domestic changes

One of the surprising aspects of expat life is the reality of having a maid, gardener, or both. North of the Border (NOB), such attendants are part of the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Some others may have an occasional cleaning service, or somebody who mows the yard or cleans the pool. But full-time domestic service? No, that’s out of most people’s reach.

Down here, it’s as common as huevos con gusto. There have always been domestic services available here, as the movie Roma (2018) highlighted. Like so much else in Mexico, there was a huge, unregulated market in such work (I used the past tense purposefully there, as it’s changing, slowly). Why so many maids and gardeners? Labor is cheap in Mexico; the Mexican federal minimum wage* this year was 173 pesos per day. Yes, that’s less than $9.00 US dollars a day. Which means it is very affordable to pay someone to clean your house or tend your garden. And most expats can afford to pay much more than that minimum wage, making domestic work very lucrative for people who’s other work opportunities may be quite limited. Which in turn affects the local economy: there are maids (mainly women) who make more money than their bread-winning husbands. And gardeners (mostly men) who make as much as professional employees.

The work varies greatly. I know expats who have workers visiting two (or more) times a week, cleaning, cooking meals, doing laundry and ironing. Others simply have basic cleaning chores done. Some have live-in help, which also extends to home care for older/infirm expats (care which is much more humane and affordable than NOB). Gardeners’ work varies between seasonal plantings and topiary sculpting down to just cutting back the vines and pulling the weeds.

The relationship between the expats and their domestic workers also varies. I know of expats who become more like abuelos (grandparents) to their workers, giving them gifts and integrating into their families. I know of others who don’t make inflation adjustments or skip some mandatory payments because they know there isn’t an enforcement system. There can be trouble brewing both ways: treating employees like family or not even as fellow human beings. It’s a delicate balance and one which most expats have never faced before.

While there are management services which can do all the work of hiring and coordinating workers for expats who so desire, most manage the workers themselves. Until recently, this sector was totally neglected by the government, but now laws are pending which make it a recognized economic component and require certain workers’ rights and owners’ obligations. Such as? Workers are guaranteed vacation time/pay, a Christmas bonus, pregnancy leave of twelve weeks with full pay, and separation payment reflecting years of service. The law will require a signed contract specifying the nature, hours, and type of work, and the worker/employer will need to register with the government. The owner will submit payments to the Institute Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) to cover eventual social security for the worker.

All of this new regulation is part of Mexico’s continuing effort to become a civil society of laws which are actually followed. Some of the rules I cited have been technically on the books, but unenforced, leaving workers no option but the largesse of their bosses. One reason why so many Mexicans work “off the books” or run small, unlicensed tiendas (shops) is that they cannot afford to pay taxes and social security and health insurance on such meager income. Of course, that also leaves the worker/owner very vulnerable to market changes, illness, old age, or even quarantine. And the Mexican government idea of a social safety net is called “la familia.”

Even if the pending changes take root and are enforced, many expats will still have maids and gardeners. They may continue to work off books, or go with those intermediate managing services which take care of all the bureaucracy. The latter will cost more, if only to keep wages the same while paying for social security and management. I would call it a classic “First World Problem,” except we’re in a developing economy. I think it’s all for the best, for the workers, for the expats, and for Mexico.

*The Mexican federal minimum wage changes annually, and there is a slightly higher wage rate for those Mexican states adjacent to the US.