We’re in Vicenza, Italy, right now, visiting family for Christmas! I’ll give a region review soon, but in the meantime, here’s some bullet points on travel during the Omicron portion of the pandemic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxEy5QX7jHk
Bob said it all
Any international travel remains difficult at best. Omicron (and if you want to be a citizen of the world, pronounce it as “Oh-MIKE-ron” or little O, as the Greeks do) has sent various national governments scrambling, changing the travel rules daily. Right now, you need an antigen test (or better) one day (NOT twenty-four hours) before departing for a plane ride to the States. For Italy, we needed an antigen (or better) test forty-eight hours before departing, and a EU-wide Personal Locator Form stating where we’d been, how we were travelling, where we were going, which resulted in a QR code.
Nobody really checked anything out: it all remains on the honor system. Yes, the airline did check the covid test form for the date, but there remains no way to confirm the piece of paper is a real test! And the gate agent looked at our QR codes but didn’t scan them, so again, all on the honor system.
Finding covid testing sites can be a challenge, given the one-day rule for US travel. I found two really good tools; the first is this website, which also has a handy summary of national regulations. Of course, always verify those regulations with the nation’s official website which you can usually google. The other way to find covid tests is through your airline. Go on their website (especially if you already have tickets) and look for “help with covid testing.” I found a test site near Atlanta’s airport using Delta this way, and it didn’t show up on any other search tools I used. There are some testing sites in airports, too, but be careful to check for opening hours, types of tests, and how fast results come back. You have to manage a wide range of variables to get the right test, in the right time frame, with results before your flight!
Covid test prices are extremely variable. In general, antigen tests are cheaper and PCR tests much more expensive. Be careful not to confuse antibody tests and antigen tests: the former are not accepted for travel, the latter are accepted in many places (but not all, like Canada). Any test promising rapid results is generally more expensive (like double or more) than the same test with results back in days. Rapid antigen tests in Mexico run between a few hundred and a thousand (or two) Mexican pesos. When we were looking for the same tests in the States, we found them for over one-hundred dollars near airports, or two-hundred and fifty dollars in airports! PCR tests were still more expensive. In Italy, it looks like the same tests will run us forty Euros.
Airline traffic is almost back to normal levels: you will see full planes, no social distancing, but masks, always masks! Most airport concessions are open, and those little oases known as airport lounges are serving full meals with drinks again (showers still mostly closed).
Airlines are making rapid changes to their flight schedules to handle the increasing and changing travel patterns. For example, Delta is dropping some domestic routes–even leaving some airports altogether–to focus on new transatlantic routes. Look for more Europe travel opportunities in the near future, with competitive rates, at the cost of regional routes in the US.
Everybody is trying to play by the rules, but it is hard to do so. Landing at Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris, the flight attendants announced that the airport requires N95 or KN95 masks. Then they handed out simple surgical masks (not N/KN95 masks) to everyone. Flight attendants (and airport personnel) will constantly remind the flying public to wear masks and keep them over the nose and mouth. Any attempt to ignore this guidance is one way to lose your ticket.
The same confusion exists on the ground. Here in Italy, they instituted a Green Pass which people carry as a card (or on their phones) to be allowed inside stores, restaurants, museums, etc.. However, they also accept US tourists with only a CDC card, which they don’t even check (could be a 3 x 5 card with printing on it for all they can tell). I recommend checking with travelers or expats where you are going to find what ground truth is for your destinations!
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport (aka ATL) remains my favorite (especially since I focus my travels on Delta airlines). However, the airport is currently a mess. They are building the first hotel inside the airport (all the others are a short distance away) and the construction has caused major headaches. If you need to stay the night, there is no easy way to use airport shuttles to get to your hotel. Oh, they have them, but you need to wait thirty to forty-five minutes to get a shuttle from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, then wait under a MARTA train overpass (outside) for your hotel shuttle, which could be another thirty minutes or more. My suggestion? Spring for a taxi from whatever terminal you arrive at; most seem to have a twenty dollar flat rate for the mile or less ride to nearby airports, and it is money well spent. Savvy travelers tell me you can follow the international-to-domestic connection inside the airport even if you don’t have a connecting flight (no ticket required) which lets you take the plane train to the domestic side, but requires you to pass through a one-size-fits-all TSA security checkpoint (no PreCheck, no Clear, no Global Entry). And that still leaves you to stand outside with a hundred people huddled under the overpass, waiting to see which shuttle is yours! Spend the money!
Finally, you’ll no doubt see those “do not travel” warnings from the US State Department or CDC. Just like the ones issued regularly due to violence or instability, you need to be a savvy traveler and aware of your own risks before making a decision where/when to travel. There are parts of the US with much worse covid rates than some of the countries where the US is officially saying “don’t go there.” You have to determine (1) your risk from the disease (co-morbidities, general health, etc.) (2) the medical infrastructure of the place you will visit (3) their covid trends, (4) your insurance coverage, (5) whether you can change or reschedule your trip and at what cost, (6) what you will do if you get sick while travelling. But all that information only sets up your decision: only you can determine what risk you are willing to accept!
With full apologies to Jack London. If you haven’t already, or don’t remember, you can read the original here. It’s short, and sad, and a classic. Mine is shorter, not sad, and neo-classico.
Day dawned warm and sunny as the man stood reviewing his balcony. It was the usual: always warm and sunny, almost monotonously so. The man liked to joke about the sameness of the weather. It was after all all of twenty-five degrees outside . . . Celsius. The joke ran cold with friends up north, but never failed to elicit a smile on the man and his dog. Or at least he thought his dog was smiling. It could have been his canine sense of humor, or it might have been the bacon which the man regularly fumbled off the table at breakfast. Either way, the dog was definitely smiling.
In a land where the weather never changes, and rarely threatens, the man knew the importance of routine. You arise with the dawn, because the blackout curtains always leave a small crack which the sun penetrates and demands your attention. Or the dog does. You eat breakfast which is always huevos mexicanos, bacon, avocado and tomato, which will tide over a hearty man until a real meal in the afternoon. Not that life is so strenuous it needs fuel; no, it just tastes good. You rest in the afternoon, not because you need sleep, but because it’s hot, and wise not to tempt nature’s fury in the tropical noontime.
The seasons change little, so the man clung to small reminders of times past in order to mark their passing. One was building a fire in the hearth for Christmas. Not that he needed a fire; he didn’t need heating, or air conditioning, or even a blanket at night most of the year. But winter–and the man smiled when he said it, noting he used the term loosely–required something to mark its arrival, and the man chose a fire.
The man knew how to start a fire. He had lit small brush fires as a child, burning his fingers on the matchbook before hastily stamping them out in panic. He had started charcoal grill fires, usually after a heavy dose of lighter fluid and the ensuing rush of ignition. He even lit gas grills, and mostly remembered to open the top BEFORE hitting the starter. He was a man.
But the man’s problem was he was not mechanically inclined. He could tell you the theory of a thing’s design, or describe the components of a chemical process like combustion, but he did not intuit the “how” as someone so-inclined does. And now he faced a challenge: a gas fireplace. Not that that was totally new. He had faced one before, and it nearly defeated him. In the end, he eschewed the fake logs, added a large dog iron full of kindling and fresh firewood, then ignited the gas nozzle directly with a quick-n-flame: dangerous but effective.
All that stands between the man and his hammock
Now he would need to engage with the real thing: a fully enclosed, completely installed gas fireplace. There could be no compromise here, and maybe only a second chance to succeed. It was early afternoon, shortly before his routine siesta, so he had little time. He had instructions; Good Lord, did he have instructions. There were instructions for installation, for warranty, for safety, for lighting or extinguishing the fire, for cleaning. He even had three (three!) sets of hand-written notes from the original owner, scribbled and identical and now faded to illegibility.
He had only one or two tries, less he miss his siesta. He was already growing tired, anticipating a good nap on a hammock in the shade, but near the sun. Yet he persisted. He removed the grill cover and discovered the controls. They were all there, just as the many instructions foretold, but never exactly where they foretold. There was a knob, clearly meant to be turned. A spigot which should control the gas flow just before the igniter. Another knob with “pilot” on it, and a button which had to be the ignition system. But there was also a rocker switch on the wall, and a master handle to control gas flow to the entire system.
Choose wisely!
His mathematical brain told him 5! (factorial) meant 120 possible combinations for these five knobs/switches. He had no time to start trying them in order, which was the rational thing to do. He made some simple assumptions–always dangerous when one’s siesta is at stake, but still necessary. He reasoned that the fireplace was off, and had been for some time, so he assumed every switch was in the negative. He started to switch them, slowly, to the positive. The dog, which had been following the action closely to this point, backed away, tale between his legs. The man wondered: did the dog smell gas leaking or sense an explosion in the making? It was too late for such introspection: he knew that if gas was flowing, he needed to ignite it now, or risk something much worse than a blown grill lid. The man pushed the igniter, and the dog left the room.
Nothing happened. The igniter snapped, but no gas, no flame. He stopped. Now he remembered the gas tech who years ago told him “if you ever try and fail to start a gas system, you should always, (–and here the grizzled old gasbag paused and repeated for effect–) ALWAYS turn everything off and wait for any gas to dissipate.” Yet it was siesta time, and he realized his assumptions about what-was-on and what-was-off were incorrect: so how to ensure they were “off?”
The man paused. The dog was nowhere to be seen. Maybe the gas had dissipated already. The man lit a match and mover it toward the ignition system, slowly, and nothing happened. It was a rash move, like tasting milk in the fridge to see if it had gone bad, but it worked. As in, nothing exploded. The man decided to press ahead, buoyed by this small success. He was heedless of the small significance of the explosion-that-didn’t-happen, and instead decided to use it as the basis for renewed confidence.
He knew what to do now. He tried each knob or dial in turn, lit match in hand, to determine if any were contributing gas to the igniter. The first knob started a tiny circulating fan, which fascinated the man. Who needs a circulating fan on a fireplace in a place where no fire is needed for warmth? But he had no time to linger on the thought. Probably a Canadian design, he mused before moving on. One switch produced only the slightest, tell-tale smell of gas, so he eliminated that variable. Obviously, the knob-so-named needed to be set to “pilot.” Which left only the wall switch.
He flipped its position and tried the igniter. Nothing. He knew the gas might be flowing, so he tried it again, quickly, realizing time (and his luck) was running out. Still nothing.
At this point he should have backed away, ventilated the area, and reviewed the instructions. But he was tired, so tired. He had been awake for hours, and the hammock sat there, swaying in the wind. Yet the fireplace was between him and his goal, and he was a man. It would light. The man flipped the rocker switch, whispered a small prayer (for success? for safety? we’ll never know) and pushed the ignition button. Still nothing happened. He was just short of delirious now, and resigned to his fate: he pushed it again, and again, willing the spark which would breathe life into the device.
Suddenly, there was a small “whooshing” sound, not the giant bang of a gas grill, but clearly and unmistakably the sound of ignition. There between the fake kindling and ceramic logs was a little blue flame. It spread around the edges of the fireplace, real (if gas-fed) and sustained. The man was pleased. The dog returned, since the fireplace provided a chance to warm one side in the tropical sun while the other toasted near natural gas. The dog had no idea how dangerous it had all been, but then again, the dog had instinctively left the area. The man felt only a sense of peaceful calm. He was already in the hammock, leaving the gas fire to tend itself. He had lit the fire. “Who needs snow?” he thought.
This is a complicated story; I hope I make it worth your trouble to follow!
The simple part is Notre Dame football. As an Irish Catholic lad growing up about 3 miles (as the crow flies) from the Golden Dome, I was predestined to be a fan of the Fighting Irish. Going to the local parochial school, still staffed by nuns who led us in prayers of thanksgiving every Monday for the past Saturday’s victory, didn’t hurt. And my adolescence coincided with a run of greatness that included national championships, miraculous comebacks, and legendary players/coaches. Unfortunately, it also came with the childish expectation that such things would continue: “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.” Amen.
Except of course it wasn’t. While Notre Dame football went through extended periods of mediocrity, I remained a staunch fan. While excellence was a key component of their reputation, so was winning the right way, graduating student-athletes, and enforcing a degree of discipline and decorum. It’s not that the Irish players were better people than the players anywhere else. It’s that the institution held them to a higher standard, and disciplined them when they failed to meet it. And the same went for its coaches.
And then came Brian Kelly, a coaching success at small programs who brought Cincinnati near the top of the college football ledger for a season, right at the end of four failed Irish coaches in a row. He was straight out of central casting: Boston Irish, Catholic, blue collar, with a solid family life and a straight-forward demeanor. My first impression: no, he wasn’t a high-profile choice, but he had all the ingredients for success.
So I was shocked when I first asked my Dad what he thought of Kelly: “I don’t like him, he’s a phony. He’s not the right man to be coach at Notre Dame.” Now Dad couldn’t cite any statistics or even link to any salacious gossip to reinforce his gut instinct, but he stuck with it. What gave me momentary pause was the fact Dad was career policeman–a detective–and was very good at reading people. But he was also old-school, and a blossoming curmudgeon, so I chalked his opinion up to the latter and left it at that.
The fact that Kelly left his undefeated Cincinnati team practically on the field, facing Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators in a major bowl game (they were blown out), was a clue to the man’s character. There were many more to follow. Some were football related, like the time he had his quarterback throw a low-percentage fade route into the end-zone (intercepted) as the team was driving for a winning field goal, resulting in a loss to Tulsa. Yes, Tulsa. Questioned after the game, Kelly responded that was how he called his offense, and “get used to it.” There was the emergence of the screaming, purple-faced Kelly monster, literally losing his religion on the sidelines during a pathetic opening game loss to South Florida. Yes, South Florida.
Lest we EVER forget
Always taking the ball to start the game, often having a false-start out of time out, the star quarterbacks mentored into indecisive wrecks (before transferring), the posse of assistant coaching buddies who failed on the big stage, the offensive play-calling scheme (and I use the term loosely) that was indeed offensive. Not to mention the unending string of humiliating losses in big games.
I’m a Catholic, and a football optimist, so all these past sins could be forgiven. But then there were the off-field issues, too. When a student who helped with filming practices died in a fall from a camera tower, toppled in high winds, Kelly admitted no responsibility. His Athletic Director boss, Jack Swarbrick, called the 50 mph wind gusts “unremarkable.” Kelly’s players got caught cheating. His reaction when asked whether he had ANY responsibility: “Zero. Zilch. None.” He secretly met with representatives of the Philadelphia Eagles professional team (for a job interview) just before a championship match-up against the Alabama Crimson Tide (this in his third year at Notre Dame)!
To be sure, Kelly brought Notre Dame out of the doldrums where they languished when he was hired. Some younger fans admire his record number of victories, ten-win seasons, “appearances” in play-offs, or just his keeping Notre Dame “in the conversation” (a favorite quip of AD Swarbrick). And all those things are true, but counterfeit. His victory total includes wins forfeit due to NCAA violations. He has more ten win seasons than past ND coaching legends because his teams play twelve or thirteen games a season. His appearances in the play-offs and championship games have all the luster of the time when Grandpa showed up at Thanksgiving without his pants. And “the conversation” is highly overrated in today’s social-media saturated world.
And all this happened on top of a constant need to have everything his way. They tore up the grass and put in fake turf because Kelly wanted it. They added a jumbo-tron with nonstop jock-rock because Kelly said the players wanted it. He abandoned the tradition of pregame Mass because, well, there was no reason given. He got more, bigger, and better facilities which serve to separate the players from the other students, previously a hallmark of the Notre Dame experience. He complained about having to meet with so many alumni/booster clubs, perhaps misunderstanding the price of coaching a legendary program.
Did Kelly grow into the job, or embrace the traditions and the challenges they represent. Not really. He did eventually fire coaches, did admit he didn’t need to score a lot of points to generate excitement about the program, did get more involved with his players. These were all do-or-die changes. The closest he ever came to introspection was when he was smart enough to admit (around all the hoopla of “passing” Knute Rockne in total wins) he still didn’t have a championship. Kelly left his players with a tweet (this time), surprising even his chief proponent, AD Swarbrick. One of his assistants found out as he left a recruit’s house! In some respects, Kelly never really believed Notre Dame was different, and he proved his point by first denying any interest in other jobs, then taking one suddenly for a ridiculous payday.
In the end, Brian Kelly was a conniving, grasping, small-time coach. Yes, he was above-average on the sideline, but well below-average as a person of integrity. Despite my harsh words, I hold no grudge against Kelly. He was offered the opportunity, and he took it. He failed in the goal of winning a championship, but got paid admirably along the way. I wish him well, and I hope he performs just as well for Louisiana State. I do hope some future AD and leadership at Notre Dame correctly records Kelly’s tenure–officially–as having only 92 wins. After all, winning isn’t everything, . . . or is it?
So my Dad was right, again. I know he’s been waiting to hear that from me!
Where to begin? I watched long portions of the jury trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, and then followed-up with segments on various partisan media (Fox News, MSNBC, etc.). I don’t know whether to confess these sins or demand your appreciation. Either way, we’ll start with the facts of the case.
Back in August, 2020, Kenosha (Wisconsin) erupted in two nights of violence after the arrest and shooting of Jacob Blake. Blake, who is black, was arrested and shot (seven times, in the side and back) as he wielded a knife and attempted to enter a car with his girlfriend’s children in the backseat. His girlfriend called the police when he entered her home, as he was already charged with sexual assault, trespassing, and domestic abuse. Instant video analysis and widespread media coverage claimed (incorrectly) that Blake was unarmed and shot in the back while presenting no threat. Subsequent coverage debunked these claims, but not till long after protests against police brutality erupted in Kenosha.
While daytime protests were initially peaceful, at night violent groups seized on the police’ reluctance to intervene, engaging in looting, property destruction, and general mayhem. It was on this second such night that seventeen year-old Kyle Rittenhouse decided to go to Kenosha (he lived just across the State line in Illinois) to “protect (this) business.”‘ He took a medic bag (although he was not a trained EMT) and borrowed an AR-15 for self-defense from a friend who was keeping it for him in Wisconsin.
The Times version is incomplete and biased, but a useful synopsis
After standing watch with other people at a car dealership, Rittenhouse walked over to a nearby crowd where a group had gathered to destroy vehicles and light fires. Joseph Rosenbaum, who had just that morning been released from State mental care, had spent most of the evening threatening those you had arrived (like Rittenhouse) to ‘protect against the looters.’ Rosenbaum seemed to take special interest in Rittenhouse, and began following and harassing him. At one point–immediately after someone else discharged a firearm in the area–Rosenbaum charged Rittenhouse and reached for his rifle, whereupon Rittenhouse shot him in the chest, killing him.
The gunshots initiated a chase sequence with Rittenhouse calling a friend to admit he shot someone and needed help, and a crowd forming and following Rittenhouse as he attempts to run away. Different people in the crowd shout “he’s the shooter” “get the m*therf*cker” as they follow him. One man runs up behind Rittenhouse and hits him in the back of the head before running off. Rittenhouse trips and falls to the ground, as he rises, another man does a running drop kick, glancing off his head. Rittenhouse shoots and misses him. Anthony Huber takes his skateboard and hits Rittenhouse in the shoulder; they struggle for the rifle, and Rittenhouse shoots and kills him. Finally, Gaige Grosskreutz, who was armed with a handgun, approaches Rittenhouse; he stops and backs away, then raises the pistol toward Rittenhouse, who shoots him in the arm, gets up, and heads towards the police vehicles two blocks away.
What we have here is immaturity, stupidity, and rage–multiplied by weapons–resulting in unnecessary deaths. Rittenhouse as a teenage boy is automatically guilty of immaturity. His impulse to go “do something” is misplaced, and where is the parent/guardian saying “no!”? This parental stupidity is trumped by the friend who gave him his weapon: yes, he had a Second Amendment right to carry it, and the laws in Wisconsin permitted public carry of a long-rifle. But as a conservative, I believe rights come with responsibilities, and Rittenhouse was not trained to defend a property. His friend should have told him “no.” If Rittenhouse insisted on doing something, he should have been armed with nothing more than a medic bag and a phone-camera. More properly, he should NOT have gone to the site of previous violence; what did he have to offer?
More stupidity! Rosenbaum had a long history of mental illness, as did Huber. Who among their friends thought either would be a useful, stabilizing addition to the volatile nightly mix in Kenosha? Where were their now-grieving families when they needed to keep them home? And all these people were not just at the afternoon protest; they attended the subsequent evening arson and property destruction, for reasons that remain unclear. Grosskreutz also brought a pistol to the scene, but at least he had the sense to back off. For that momentary sanity, he saved his own life.
Finally, it all goes back to, and ends up in, rage. Why did so many people need to fan the flames when Blake was shot? This was just after the police brutality case of George Floyd in Minnesota, so activists started building a narrative, but it was false in this case. That narrative led to the protests, and the violence, and the shootings. Listen to the mob after Rittenhouse shoots and kills Rosenbaum, if you want to hear vigilante justice in action. It is pure, unadulterated hatred. If they could have torn Rittenhouse limb-from-limb, they would have on the spot. The only thing that stopped them was the AR15.
So what’s the verdict? Well, the jury had little choice. Wisconsin’s self-defense laws (which are mirrored across the United States, and have nothing to do with “stand your ground” laws) draw from hundreds of years of English common law. The defense can assert self-defense, and must provide reasonable facts. These could (and did) include a statement by the defendant that he feared for his life, as well as video evidence he was chased by people with intent to do him serious bodily harm. The prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he did NOT fear or the others did NOT present a serious threat. This was an impossible task given the video evidence. The only chance for conviction lay in the initial shooting of Rosenbaum (who was unarmed), but that went out the window when other witnesses testified to his erratic, confrontational, and threatening behavior. No sane person–armed or not–would have been unafraid when confronted by the mob, and the mob’s intent to do deadly violence was evident in the video.
Kyle Rittenhouse is not a hero. We can only hope he learned from this experience and isn’t permanently damaged. He was guilty of extreme immaturity and was let down by several adults who either failed to prevent–or actively supported–his immature actions. Several other adults on the scene were guilty of gross stupidity. Two paid with their lives, and one was injured (shot in the arm). Several others (if you watched the trial, drop-kick man, or the guy who hit Rittenhouse in the back of the head) sneaked back into the shadows, but they participated in the mayhem and deserve our disgust. The activists and media who poured gas on the flames have blood on their hands, but of course they walked away scot free.
Make no mistake: Rittenhouse should have stayed home, or should have left his weapon with his friend. You don’t go to a riot looking for trouble, because it will find you. How overmatched and unprepared Rittenhouse was for what unfolded on the dark streets of Kenosha is evident in the video.
Your rights (to weapons or assembly) come with responsibilities. Ignoring that can be detrimental to society, and deadly to the individual.
Mexico is always changing, just like everywhere else. The changes here in Mexico seem to be ones which would be most evident to expats, and they involve some of the quintessential things that make Mexico, well, Mexican. And therein lies a story.
Ask people who have visited extensively (or expats who live here) what qualities about Mexico are unique, and you’ll quickly find some common themes: the friendliness of the people, the slower pace of life, or the incompetence of the bureaucracy, for example. And in most of these areas, change is afoot.
Take friendliness. Mexicans as a rule remain eager to help and often greet you on the street, regardless of whether they know you or not. Except in big cities like Ciudad de Mexico and Guadalajara. There, you might greet neighbors you know, but if you start “buenos dias“-ing every passerby, you’ll get a mix of responses from greetings to odd looks to being ignored. The larger cities have imported some of the the urban mindset from elsewhere, where you just can’t talk to strangers.
Put on top of that the curse that is the cell phone. Mexicans have taken to their cell phones wholeheartedly, and it’s not unusual to surprise people–even in small towns–by greeting them when they are walking, face-down in their phones. They will startle and still respond, but clearly cell phones are winning the battle for eye-balls.
The slower pace of life is experiencing some acceleration, too. Over the last thirty years, Mexico has developed a sizable middle class, and with it, widespread automobile ownership. Which means traffic, and the delays that come with it. Now Mexicans normally aren’t in a hurry to be on-time, but that’s changing, so when some hit a traffic snarl, they start driving around it in, shall we say, innovative ways. Like creating extra lanes where there are none. Or ignoring traffic lights or turn lanes or even traffic barriers. Some of that is a carry-over from Mexico’s fundamental lack of concern for laws which appear arbitrary (“I only need to go one block the wrong way down this one-way street to get where I want to go.”). But some is an attempt to hurry-up, which is something new.
Finally, many expats comment about changes in taxes and regulations, with the main theme being more enforcement. Many of the small mom-and-pop vendors in Mexico (which can mean nearly every family) operate on a cash-only basis and avoid taxes and regulation. The federal government is gradually tightening its control of money flows, so as to capture the lost tax revenue. There is an growing web of identification which ties people and their income to the taxes they owe. For many larger or recurring transactions, you need a CURP number (Clave Ćnica de Registro de PoblaciĆ³n), in effect a Mexican Social Security Number. Once you have that, you may also need an RFC (Registro Federal de Contribuyentes) code or clave, a personal/unique tax identification number. We’ve noticed an increase in information required to directly transfer money to Mexican accounts (for example, to pay for our recent home renovations) that have come from Mexican banks, responding to Mexican government directions. Over time, this results in fewer off-the-books transactions and more revenue to the federal government.
Likewise, expats speak of less flexibility in border crossing and immigration enforcement. For a long time, some expats came to Mexico on the automatic 180-day visitor’s visa and simply stayed. They never left the country, never became a temporary or permanent resident, which requires a payment and has financial eligibility requirements. Later, expats with more means came and went every 179 days, in effect renewing their status and avoiding the costs of legal residency. Mexican immigration officials (INM) have started random checks on mass transit hubs (like big city bus stations), arresting and sometimes even deporting those long-time overstays. And border officials sometimes now ask for a departure date (e.g., return flight?) and only renew another visitor’s visa for a set length of time, much less that 180 days. Deportation remains rare; most overstays are offered the opportunity to legalize their status, but again that requires dinero.
As hard as these changes to the bureaucracy are for expats who arrived in the wild west days of yore, they are part and parcel of Mexico becoming a more efficient country. That means making and neutrally enforcing laws, taking control of its borders, collecting tax revenue and distributing it effectively. It won’t be quick, and it surely isn’t painless, but it is necessary.
Most Mexicans will continue to greet and respond to greetings. Most will kindly let you cut in line in heavy traffic. I firmly believe that even after all these changes work out, Mexico will remain Mexico. After all, it will always be full of Mexicans!
You may think the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade was a watershed moment in women’s rights. You may think it was the beginning of the end. I’m not going to try and change your opinion on abortion: there are very few people who haven’t developed a very firm opinion on abortion. What I am going to try to do is argue that regardless of your views on abortion, legally Roe must change, and explain why that is so.
To do that, we must first understand the history of abortion, and what the status of abortion as a medical procedure was in the United States in 1973, when Roe was decided.
Of course abortion is nothing new. Some of the oldest medical texts and treatments involve abortion. So abortion has been around just a slightly shorter time than pregnancy, to make a point. And during all those eons, almost all major societies either outlawed abortion, limited it to certain hard cases (e.g., prostitutes, rape victims, women too ill to carry a child to term) or severely frowned upon it. Certainly once Christianity entered the scene, all Christian societies outlawed it. Yet it continued in the shadows. Which reminds us there is a difference between what we dislike or criminalize, and what people do.
In 1967, Colorado decriminalized some forms of abortion, and by 1973 sixteen US states had rules permitting abortion under some circumstances. That is when the US Supreme Court heard the legendary Roe v. Wade case, and held that a Texas law criminalizing abortion was wholly unconstitutional. With that broad ruling, the laws in thirty-four other states were singularly swept aside, and with it even some of the restrictions in the sixteen states which had permitted abortion.
In the place of the slowly changing public mores, the Supreme Court presented an absolute personal right to abortion (based on the right to privacy), and balanced this new right against the interests of the States by providing a trimester policy: in effect, earlier in the pregnancy, the pregnant mother should decide, later in the pregnancy, the State could intervene. This ruling seemed congruent with medical science at the time, which admitted the fetus was of course going to be a person, but could not answer definitively when (other than birth) that person-hood began.
The problems with Roe are several. First, it was overly broad, as already noted. The Supreme Court usually tries to limit the extent and effect of its rulings, but here it emphatically extended and amplified them. Second, the profound change Roe envisioned generated a unique resistance that only grew over time. And third, the pseudo-scientific trimester approach (which seemed so logical) was entirely at the mercy of scientific and medical advances, which would greatly undermine it.
Who am I to call Roe “overly broad?” Nobody. How about Ruth Bader Ginsburg; would her opinion matter? Nobody would dream of calling into question her support for a woman’s right to choose. But when asked about Roe v. Wade, she said āDoctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped may prove unstable.ā She went on to criticize the ruling–not its outcome, but the way it was decided–as so sweeping as to be vulnerable to being overturned by future courts for the contention it caused. To be clear, she sought a broader, deeper basis for the right to abortion, not its end. But being the insightful jurist she was, she could not fail to point out Roe’s weak reasoning.
Nor can anyone doubt that Roe unintentionally birthed the pro-life movement, which has only grown over time. Despite little or disparaging coverage in national media, pro-life groups organized crisis pregnancy clinics, prayer vigils, fasts, rallies, and the largest annual protest march in Washington, DC. All this happened despite a series of rulings stigmatizing or even criminalizing their behavior. The pro-life movement is the longest, most successful protest movement in the history of the nation.
Both the pro-choice and pro-life movements enjoy citing strong polling data indicating large majorities of Americans support their cause. How can this be? First off, abortion was the test case among pollsters for how to word and stage questions to elicit results. Ask “do you think rape victims should be forced to carry an attacker’s child to term?” or “should anyone be able to have an abortion for any reason even at the very end of a pregnancy?” and you get predictable results. And most Americans don’t understand the nuances of what Roe held, how it has changed over time, and what role the States still play. Public opinion does not provide a solid basis for determining a way forward.
Finally, scientific advances and improved neonatal care led to pictures worth more than a thousand words. Talk all you want about a fetus or a “potential person,” once the pro-life movement could show high-definition images of a thumb-sucking little person (not to mention the gruesome results of rare, late-stage abortions), the other euphemisms fell cold. These images, and the gradual extension of earliest preemie survival undermined Roe’s trimester approach. It is worthwhile here to mention how quietly pro-life the medical community has always been. While a few outspoken activists carry the headlines, the greatest limiting factor to abortion availability has always been the number of doctors and nurses who refuse to employ the procedure; even most hospitals avoid teaching it. While some claim this is because of the perceived threat of pro-life violence, the medical establishment’s resistance goes back to the beginning, long before Roe came into effect. There was little doubt there what the fetus was, and what an abortion represented.
case closed
The combination of Roe’s sweeping effect, its persistent resistance, and the changing scientific and medical environment played out in unforeseen ways. Roe and its companion Doe v. Bolton case added the concept of a pregnant woman’s “mental health” to the list of possible legal justifications for abortion; subsequent cases expanded the list to include financial and “family” interests. That resulted in the US having one of the most permissive abortion regimes in the world. While the laws vary by state, the most liberal states can and have legalized abortion for any reason at any time. I am not saying abortions happen moments before birth; just that Roe and some state laws would permit it. Most of the so-called liberal nations of Europe severely restrict abortion after twelve weeks; only North Korea and China have fewer restrictions than Roe does.
Since much of the initial opposition to Roe came from religious groups, pro-choice organizations counterattacked by claiming that the Constitution required a separation of Church and State. This charge failed in the courts, which require all policies to be adjudicated on their merits, not on who proposes them. After all, many of our laws stem from religious rules (e.g., “Thou shall not kill.”) and it was only a decade before Roe that religious leaders were lionized for their leadership in the civil rights movement. Note that the growth of the pro-life movement in younger generations has happened at the same time society overall–and younger people in particular–has become less religious. It won’t go away.
Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, the pro-life movement tirelessly submitted legals challenges to Roe, constantly pressuring the courts on the obvious logical fallacies, the detrimental effects on the democratic process, and the changing medical environment. Various members of the Supreme Court were loathe to jettison Roe altogether, and their compromises only further weakened Roe’s basis in law. The final straw was the recent Texas law which is currently before the Supreme Court. This law avoids judicial scrutiny by not using the State to enforce its provisions, but rather deputizing anyone (literally) to sue a doctor or clinic (or others, but never the pregnant woman) for supporting or performing an abortion. The threat of unlimited civil fines of $10k USD has had a truly chilling effect on abortion rates in Texas.
Despite being pro-life, I don’t support the Texas law, and I hope the court invalidates it. This law if replicated could choke the judicial system with similar case involving gun owners, voting rights, and a host of other policies. But the exercise demonstrates how far the pro-life movement is willing to go.
Most likely, the Supreme Court will invalidate the Texas statute. But it will also hear a case in December from Mississippi (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) which directly calls for overturning Roe. I believe the Court will do so, to send the matter back to the States and end the federalization engendered by Roe’s privacy right. Some states have trigger laws, either banning abortion or re-instituting Roe. The nation has lived with different laws in different states for drinking, driving, gun-owning, voting, age-of-consent, marriage and divorce, and many other life-and-death matters. Abortion access will become one more.
Ending Roe will not end abortion, either legally or in fact. What it would do is take a hot-button issue off the national stage and send it to the states for local decision. After almost fifty years of increasingly tortured legal rulings, ridiculous charges and counter-charges (on both sides), and entrenched partisanship, that’s good enough.
Anybody who knows me for long knows I’m fascinated by history, and I collect interesting (to me) stories to illustrate the many lessons we can learn from it. And few aspects of history are more entertaining (to me) and enlightening (to us all) than those dealing with unintended consequences. You know, the situations where a leader or a group or even a nation does something and ends up–eventually–with an outcome entirely at odds with what they intended.
On one hand, these historical tales describe a rich vein of irony: not the watered down understanding of irony in vogue among post-modern intellectuals, nor the whiny version Alanis sang about (Ray-ay-ain on your wedding day is unfortunate, but hardly ironic). Irony involves the unexpected, which means when you have no reasonable expectation (such as the weather for a wedding day you chose), you can’t have irony. The best example of ironic humor I ever saw was a simple cartoon showing a man hitting a hammer against a glass vase; the hammer shatters, and the vase stands untouched. That’s ironic. And maybe that black fly just likes your Chardonnay!
Catchy song teaches illiteracy . . . maybe that’s ironic?
So here goes with some unintended consequences; enjoy:
“The Sins of the Father.”
George H.W. Bush, hereafter Bush ’41, was faced with a post Cold War conundrum. The US was the lone superpower, but what did that mean? When Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait in a completely opportunistic and aggressive move; he had his answer. Bush ’41 developed a global response, led by the US, to evict Saddam from Kuwait. Why? The US had long guaranteed the House of Saud that it would protect the monarchy as long as the oil flowed. And if Saddam could just seize Kuwait, there was little stopping him from doing the same to Saudi Arabia. We had built complete air bases out in the Saudi desert, even though they had little air power. The bases were financed by the Saudis and built/maintained to US standards, for our use should we ever need to project power in the region. Thus the US did not need to station troops in Saudi Arabia, which would have been offensive to devout Muslims.
So the grand Coalition marshaled its forces in Saudi Arabia and then expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Except there was no agreement about actually deposing Saddam, so they left him in power. Which meant he was a continuing threat. Which meant we needed to keep some “tripwire” forces in Saudi Arabia. A little-known cleric named Osama bin Laden had been preaching, to little effect, that the Saudi Monarchy was corrupt and in league with the infidel West. He predicted that the Saudis would allow “crusaders” into the Muslim holy lands, and when it happened, he moved from lunatic to prophet. And the seeds of Al Qaeda and 9/11 were sown.
Bush ’41 was looking to create a better world where aggression was punished by collective action. He forgot the simmering tensions that underlay all foreign relationships, and thought our good intentions would be recognized by all. Rather, he inadvertently laid the groundwork for a terrible challenge his son would someday face.
2. “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” H. L. Mencken.
In the early Twentieth Century, the Progressive movement was quite influential in federal, state, and local politics in the United States. Progressives were impressed with recent, dramatic improvements in science and technology and believed that these advances heralded an age when reason and science would rule between individuals and among peoples. One of their core concepts was the importance of direct democracy and the belief that the people could be relied on to do the right thing, if only given the opportunity to do so (i.e., vote). Partially this was a naive belief in the ‘wisdom of crowds’ but mostly it was a reaction to the various cabals, conglomerates, and oligarchs which proliferated at the same time. These “special interests” had seized control of several layers of government and the Progressives were their sworn enemies.
Progressives in California eventually got control of the state government and enacted several provisions which supported greater democracy: one was the creation of Propositions, whereby the people could vote directly on a policy which the government would then have to accept and enforce. The other was Recall elections, where the people could sponsor a vote to remove an office holder and replace him/her immediately. Both of these provisions were designed to limit the power of tiny groups of influential people by providing a means for larger groups to override them.
Things didn’t quite turn out that way. The Proposition concept did require a simple democratic majority, but it proved to be a blunt instrument that allowed ill-conceived, general concepts to be “approved” by the voters who probably didn’t fully understand the implications. It eventually ended up with the infamous Proposition 13 in 1978, which created a series of prohibitions on raising taxes or appraisals that have hamstrung California leaders to this day. Whatever one thinks about whether taxes are too high or too low, California’s proposition system proved a poor approach.
Oh, and the recall option? Progressives set the signature bar low for initiating a recall, and thus have cost one Democrat his Governorship and forced the current incumbent into an expensive defense, which had it failed, would have inaugurated a conservative Republican who managed only twelve percent of the vote! Power to the People, indeed.
3. Upsetting a delicate balance
Those who had a basic civics and government course can quickly describe the various “check and balances” built into the government of the United States by the Founders. There are the struggles between the three branches of the federal government, the powers reserved under the Constitution to the States and the People, Judicial Review, and the anti-majoritarian aspects of that same Constitution. These balances are constantly under stress. For example, as the US moved from a developing nation to a global superpower, the federal government naturally accrued much more sway. But sometimes the balance is voluntarily upset.
The Founders designed the House of Representatives to be representative of the people: directly- and more frequently-elected, more passionate and more partisan. For the Senate, the Founders intended a more deliberate body, selected by State Legislatures and therefor representing their (i.e., the States’) interests. But in the early years of the Republic, the federal Senate was less powerful (even a backwater), and some States either didn’t bother to send Senators, or didn’t send their best.
During that Progressive era at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, William Randolph Hearst, a fan of direct elections, sponsored a fictional novel, “The Treason of the Senate,” which detailed the failings of various Senators and State legislatures, fueling the fire for change. The result was the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which took the Senate away from the States and made it directly-elected, like the House. And as we all know, since that time, the Senate has never had any members who would be considered dishonorable in any way.
Williams
Kennedy
Agnew
Packwood
Menendez
A liar, a thief, and a pervert walk into a bar . . . no wait, it’s the US Senate!
*EDIT: a sharp-eyed friend pointed out Agnew was only President of the Senate (as Vice President of the United States), so he merits inclusion as disreputable, but not as a Senator!
More to the point, since that time, no entity represents the view of the States in the federal process, which has led to further “federalizing” of State functions, and greater stress on the delicate balance that is the American form of government.
4. A prophet is not without honor except . . .
On June 8th, 1978, Harvard University held its annual commencement exercises, discharging another set of high-achieving alumni into careers as leaders of the nation. As is its custom, Harvard had bagged the most influential commencement speaker: former Soviet political prisoner, Nobel prize-winning author, and famously private dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
No doubt the Harvard administrators expected an important address, not the usual platitudes about ‘changing the world’ or ‘finding yourself.’ Perhaps the soon-to-be graduates expected a paean to the West, which had helped rescue the Russian dissident just as the Cold War was reaching its peak. What they got was “A World Split Apart,” a jeremiad worthy of the original Old Testament prophet.
Solzhenitsyn, characterizing his criticism as coming from a friend, not an adversary, attacked the West from start to finish. He said Western society was morally bankrupt and weak. Youth were selfish and complacent and materialist. The press was corrupt, interested in influencing the public rather than informing them. He asked what moral force the West could provide in the larger battle against the evil that was Communism, and he saw none.
The crowd at Harvard was rapt as the speaker–in Russian–and his translator–in English–continued. A few times they cheered, more often they vocally hissed. Afterward, the major media attacked the messenger, not the message, calling him “bitter,” “unappreciative”, with James Reston at the New York Times saying the speech represented “the wanderings of a mind split apart.”
Solzhenitsyn never apologized and never withdrew his criticism. After the fall of the Communist regime in Russia, he returned there, dying in 2008. His speech, which merits your attention, is amazingly prescient, accurately describing how trends evident in the West in the 1970’s resulted in many of the problems which bedevil us today. The speech is widely considered one of the greatest of the Twentieth Century, alongside Churchill’s “Blood, Tears, Toil & Sweat” and Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream.”
Needless to say, Harvard got more (and different) than they bargained for.
5. Packing, Cracking and Majority-Minority districts
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark piece of legislation that, among other things, attempted to redress decades of voting rights violations committed against many minority groups. One of the things the Act specifically prohibited was the drawing of voting districts in a way to reduce the influence of minority voters. This is a type of gerrymandering (drawing voting districts to create an artificial vote result) called cracking: you divide a concentrated minority group (say for example, blacks in a city) among several voting districts that also include larger numbers of suburban whites, making it difficult for a black candidate to win. The end result is few if any successful black candidates.
But as anyone who is mathematically and geographically literate can tell you, if you draw a district to create a majority of minority voters (hence the term majority-minority district), you greatly reduce the number of minority voters in all the surrounding districts (because you’re dealing with small numbers–a minority–in the first place)! This is another form of gerrymandering called packing, which nearly guarantees a successful black candidate in one district, but also also greatly increases the chances of all the other white candidates’ success.
Currently there are approximately one hundred majority-minority districts in the US House of Representatives, representing about one quarter of the four hundred and thirty-five seats. These seats are overwhelmingly occupied by minority representatives, strongly indicating that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 worked. But, and there is always a but, over time voters have increasingly sorted themselves politically (like-minded voters choosing to live where they think other like-minded voters live).
Gerrymandering to disadvantage voters by party — or political gerrymandering — may be distasteful, but it is constitutional according to the US Supreme Court (Gill v. Whitford). But what if a racial group (i.e., African-Americans) overwhelmingly identifies with a single party (i.e., Democrats)? Then gerrymandering those voters might be a violation of the Voting Rights Act. So these majority-minority districts become protected (in theory) during redistricting. Which means if certain seats can not be changed (or changed much), all the other seats become subject to even worse gerrymandering.
So the law which seeks to protect minority representatives actually also places many more Democratic candidates at risk of being re-districted into noncompetitive campaigns.
6. Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Weapons that Weren’t
From the moment he took power in 1979, Saddam Hussein was on a mission toward self-aggrandizement and Iraqi domination of the Middle East. He constructed a security service that strangled Iraq’s many ethnic minorities, built up military forces, and sought weapons of mass destruction (WMD, especially nuclear and chemical). By 1981, Israel deemed the threat of Iraq’s nuclear program sufficient to justify a risky long-range aerial bombing and destruction of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. During the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, Saddam gassed the (Iraqi) Kurdish village of Halabja, killing thousands of his own citizens. He repeatedly demonstrated the capability and will to use such weapons.
US and Coalition military forces were prepared for Saddam to use such weapons during the first Gulf War in 1991, but he didn’t, fearing the reprisals. After the war, UN sanctions forced him to destroy his WMD munitions and infrastructure. Saddam complied, but continued to conduct suspicious actions which led the UN and various intelligence agencies to believe he retained a covert stockpile and program. Why else would he deny certain inspection areas, or make sudden movements of equipment and people to avoid inspections, if not to hide a residual capability? In the end, Secretary Colin Powell laid out the circumstantial case about Saddam’s programs before the UN, and Bush ’43 proceeded to occupy Iraq, capture Saddam, but never found any WMD!
During debriefings by the FBI after his capture, Saddam explained that he knew Iraq had the technical know-how and scientific capability to rebuild its WMD program. But he didn’t do so, so as to avoid giving the West an excuse to remove him from power. However, the West (and especially the US) was a more distant threat; Saddam firmly believed WMD and his demonstrated willingness to use them were all that was deterring the Iranians–and to some extent the Israelis–from attacking him. So he took a calculated gamble: act suspicious enough to make Israel and Iran stay back, but not so suspicious that the US would get involved.
This approach worked for decades. By the year 2000, human rights organizations were calling for the removal of sanctions on Iraq for humanitarian reasons (fake child mortality data provided by Saddam), Russia was actively working around the sanctions, and even France was signalling the sanctions had to go. But the 9/11 attacks had heightened US sensitivity about vulnerability to terrorist use of WMD. Combined with the Bush administration’s belief Saddam was a problem which would only get worse, his WMD bluff proved in the end to be his undoing.
Hope you enjoyed this small foray into the world of unintended consequences; if not, maybe I just committed another myself!
Is there anything harder than putting down your dog? Don’t answer, I don’t want to know.
Judy & I have put down three Vizslas in our married life. It’s an odd euphemism. Some say “put to sleep,” others “put down” and of course there’s the old “sent to the farm.” But in the end, it means the same thing.
Our first two (consecutive) Vizslas each lasted to ten years old, which is pretty good for a large dog breed that has been inbred for generations. Both developed cancer, and showed signs of physical decay and pain that made our choice somewhat easier. The decline was sudden–weeks not months–and obvious. The veterinarian told us we could wait a little longer, but the likely outcome was painful internal bleeding leading to sudden collapse: hardly an option to choose. Still, it wasn’t easy, and I (actually the whole family) cried like a baby.
Dogs will do that to you. Both Judy and I had grown up with dogs as family pets. Yes, they cost a lot. Yes, they take up time. Yes, they’re inconvenient when travelling or with visitors. But then again, so are families. And dogs are a chance to teach your kids about responsibility, about growing up and growing old and dying. And in between, they give unconditional love. Kids need that; sometimes parents have to be the provider of tough love, but that dog is always there, wagging a tale, just happy to see you.
The best dogs don’t think they’re dogs any more. They think they’re slightly smaller, oddly-shaped humans. They want to be with you, they need to be with you, they’re only happy when they are with you. When our kids were grown and off to college, we rescued two Vizslas at once. Even though we understood the breed, the balance of two Vizslas and two humans turned us into a pack rather than a family, with negative behavioral consequences for all concerned. We quite literally found a farm for one of our Vizslas, and things returned to normal.
Tucker in earlier, better times
Tucker was our fourth, and almost certainly our last, Vizsla. We rescued him around the same time we committed to retiring to Mexico. He was “four or so” according to the breed Rescue Society, but we had just turned down a five year old since the pain of putting down a dog at ten was fresh in our minds. Suddenly a “four year old” became available. Hmmmm, something suspicious about that, what?
Tucker was a three-time loser, a dog who had been turned over to rescue at least three previous times, and this was his last chance. We had to say yes. We knew that his most recent owners had been in the midst of a divorce, and there had been an incident of domestic violence (the wife attacking the husband, who was the pet’s favorite, we were told). This would show up again once we rescued him: if Judy started walking quickly toward me, he would move between us, a trait which foreshadowed a sad end.
The Tucker we knew was a sweet dog, very smart, but also very stubborn. He learned several words (outside, w-a-l-k, treat) and many commands (sit, stay, and even “hurry-up” to poop, believe it or not), yet he practiced being deaf at times, too. He was afraid of smoke, even steam, and fire engine sirens. The chirping of the smoke alarm, signalling the need for new batteries, was an existential terror for him. He was only social with humans. When we took him to the dog park, he ignored the other dogs and introduced himself to all the owners. The few times he played with the other dogs, he would show-off by outrunning or out-cornering the other breeds, but then turn the pack on some smaller dog like a schoolyard bully.
After much work, we eventually trained him to ignore other dogs, which was fine with him. I noticed how he watched me go running on the weekends, so one time I decided to take him with. He fell into a heel position and ran at my pace for three miles! Either someone had trained him well, or he was natural born runner’s companion.
He started to “go white” almost immediately, confirming our suspicion he was older than we were told, but he was healthy and well-adjusted. We joked about him joining us in moving to Mexico, which was still five years out when we rescued him. Obviously he took us seriously, because those years flew by and at ten, he was till healthy and active and cancer-free. So we loaded him up in a tiny space in the back of our SUV and drove him south of the border.
Expat life was as kind to dogs as human retirees, and he remained healthy. Over the course of five years here, he lost some hearing, although he feigned losing even more. His depth perception and visual acuity declined, leading to some hysterical encounters with Mexican squirrels, including even stepping on one. He took longer and more frequent naps. He became more sensitive to those loud noises he could here, especially cohetes, which required mild sedation at times. But he was still active and alert. I think he got a kick when people asked how old was my puppy and I told them “fifteen years!”
In the past year, he stated displaying some confusion. He was prone to barking attacks where something set him off–he was clearly agitated, not startled– but could not be easily calmed. He started charging at Judy more often, sometimes just when we were talking. Finally, he took a small bite at her, (Strike One) and we knew trouble was brewing.
The drama of selling our house, buying a new one, moving, and having renovations only added to his confusion and agitation. When the grandkids were visiting, we left Tucker home one day, and when we returned, he ran out the door, jumped in the rented mini-van, and would not leave it. I went out and reached for him, thinking he was having trouble navigating getting out of the vehicle: no, he went off and tried to bite my hands. I backed away, so he leapt out of the vehicle and bit my leg (Strike Two). Then he stopped and looked at me with a “what was that all about?” look.
Two nights ago, Judy walked toward me and Tucker dashed across the room and nipped at her. I shouted and kicked at him (never reach for an angry dog), but he bit her a second time and clamped down. I smacked and kicked at him, and he let go, but she had a tremendous bruise on her thigh from the attack. Strike Three; you’re out.
He laid down in his dog bed, clearly upset, but whether that was remorse or shock, who knows? For us, the die was cast; you can’t keep a dog which might go full-scale beserk at any moment. In some sense, putting Tucker down was more difficult, since when he was normal, he was completely normal. In another sense, it was easier, as we had a sense of relief at not waiting for the next attack.
First, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Mexican law–like the Pirate Code–is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules. Most people know that criminal proceedings in Mexico are, shall we say, challenging; the civil code even moreso. Whereas North of the Border (NOB) the threat to sue someone can be serious, down here it’s an invitation to an endless parade of hearings and charges and counter-charges and oh, nevermind. The lack of a recourse to legal remedies is something you have to understand before owning property here.
Second, real estate is a growing business, but not a profession in Mexico. There is a realtor association (AMPI) pursuing professional standards of conduct. But there are no federal laws, and only some Mexican states have licensing requirements (ours, Jalisco, does not). So anybody can hang up a shingle and be your agent. Because it is not capital intensive and with little barrier to entry, we have met chefs and restaurateurs and waiters and retired expats and doctors and cabbies and others who are real estate agents.
Third, always remember that things in Mexico happen in three speeds: slow, slower, and slowest. Buying and selling property in Mexico means engaging notarios (who review and effectively “approve”the transaction), banks, real estate firms, home owners associations, utilities, maids, and gardeners, all for the purpose of establishing (1) you are who you say you are, (2) you own what you think you own, and (3) no one else has any claim on said property. All this in a land where cash is king, records are spotty, and the pirate code applies! Add in international money transfers and Mexican holidays and things will be all set maƱana.
I just watched a Director’s cut of Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” so that’s the theme from here on out:
The Good, . . .
In the end, we sold our house for a fair price and bought the house we wanted for another fair price. Given that we started out by falling in love with the new house (a REALLY, REALLY bad idea), this is what it is all about. Of course, that’s like saying eating at a restaurant is all about consuming edible food containing sufficient calories at a decent price. True, but there’s the menu variety, the service, the presentation and so forth. When we’re talking about the largest financial transaction most people ever make, you want to say more than “phew, glad we survived that!” The other good thing was that the buyers of our home and the seller of our new home were pleasant people; it is always a pleasure dealing with reasonable people! But that leads us to:
The Bad, . . .
Many of the things under “The Bad” are structural. Without the possibility of a mortgage, we had to move money around in order to have it ready and waiting for the purchase. Getting no debt statements from the power (CFE), phone (TelMex), and water (Simapa) utilities was pretty easy. But some of these you pay in advance, and others in arrears, so that’s complicating. Then we needed to have our maid and gardener sign statements saying they had no claims on the property, and we needed a copy of their identification cards. As well as statements from the home owners association and the club and our receipt for annual property taxes paid.
At least we didn’t face two other potential “bad” aspects: currency conversion and title problems. The former happens if the other party in the transaction is a local national, since the actual transaction is completed in pesos at the moment of closing. If both parties agree to pricing in dollars, this peso conversion is irrelevant. If the deal is actually completed in pesos (per the Pirate Code), then one side has to convert them back to dollars, which could mean a substantial gain or loss depending on the currency markets (because you’re dealing with large sums, even a small change can mean big money).
The latter (titles) is a big potential problem here, as there are federal land use laws that could block one’s claim to ownership! As I understand it, the notario is responsible for authenticating the documents in the closing sale, but if the title is authentic but invalid, sorry, you lose. Buying property in an established development lessens the risk, as the title issues have probably been worked out, but it pays to do the research yourself. And finally:
and The Ugly
These go back to my restaurant analogy: mostly things annoying or head-scratchingly dumb. The waiter spills water on you. Gets the drink order wrong. The appetizer comes with the main course. Your wine glass is dirty. You get the picture: not earth-shattering, but would you eat there again? Not if it’s a high end restaurant.
We had a long list here. An agent asked us to donate the beds in our new house to the cleaning team because “they fell in love with them.” Clauses we wanted in agreements failed to appear, not due to negotiation, they just weren’t there. Other terms–like a rent-back agreement–were similarly misplaced. Names misspelled, documents and data requested but already provided. A counter-offer that failed to mention the original terms, which thus became a “new” offer. An agent telling a client “if you decide not to go through with (buying and) moving here, I want you to promise me now that you will simply re-list the house for sale with me.” A threat to limit access to our new house before closing. A buyer’s agent who blithely commented “if anything minor comes up, I’m sure they (the sellers, us) will take care of it.” All of which just reinforces the point that real estate is a relatively unregulated market in Mexico, so you might encounter some pretty odd behaviors. We were pleased with our agent, but one must be diligent in selecting one.
All’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare penned! Here’s the money shot:
