This short work is a follow-up by author Mark Bauerlein, who wrote the original The Dumbest Generation in 2008. It’s bombastic, clever, and sad, with the net effect of “I told you so” about the Millennial Generation. Millennials probably should not read this work, or should do so only in a safe space with a therapy app open on the cell phone. Indeed, most Millennials will not understand this book, so filled with classical education references to which they were never exposed. But they are very attuned to derision, and the tone here is relentlessly derisive. What they may miss, again, is that the author empathizes with them: his anger is directed not at them, but rather at their Boomer parents and educators, who failed to prepare them for life. . . and now it is too late.
Part Two: this will not end well!
The book includes endless footnotes and references for those inclined to review the data or who choose to argue with his thesis, but I would suggest reading it simply to ask and answer this question: does it ring true? While I am no longer in the working world, it does track with my experiences about Millenials’ lack of familiarity with the great concepts or works of Western Civilization, and how that infantilizes their world view.
((Writer’s note: we have two daughters and two sons-in-law, all Millennials, although they are from the oldest part of the Millennial generation, which largely grew up before cell phones and screen time were such a challenge. They exhibit few of the characteristics the author describes, which leaves one with hope that perhaps there is an older group of Millennials still ready and available to lead going forward!))
Bauerlein’s work describes Millennials as a generation which has lost the art of deep-reading (my term), that is reading something of substance that requires reading, re-reading, digesting, and maybe even discussing before thinking one has learned something. In its place, they have screen time, either passively receiving info curated for them by various apps/services, or engaging in ephemeral online interactions with peers and friends. On top of this, educators gradually abandoned the notion of civics, prerequisites, and “Western Civ”-ilization at the same time, meaning students were taught a melange of disconnected (but diverse!) myths and stories, told there is nothing special or good about their own background, and asked how that made them feel. The short answer is confused, but resentful.
An interesting part of the book is his recounting of the history of Western Civ as the core curriculum at Stanford. Bauerlein tells how educators at Stanford quickly abandoned the core requirement in classical knowledge for an increasingly diverse course-offering that the students found (also increasingly) “incoherent.” Faced with negative student feedback, the administration responded by doubling down, reducing the core requirement and introducing a new purpose: not to master any classical concepts, but to interrogate why anyone/anywhere thought such things were important to learn in the first place! The answer (i.e., white male supremacists wanted to maintain their power) should surprise no one.
Yet the more powerful part of the book is about the prison conversion of Malcolm X (no, I am not kidding). Using the activist’s writings, Bauerlein covers how he transitioned from a clever, violent criminal to a prisoner then an activist, intellectual philosopher, albeit one in support of a repugnant cause (the Nation of Islam). Malcolm X was, of course, no Millennial; in fact he died as Generation X was only beginning. But he was an archetype for the Millennials: clever but uneducated, with no understanding of the country or society in which he lived. Like a reptile, he simply existed and thrived doing whatever it takes, until in prison he met a older inmate of learning who opened his eyes to a larger world of books and reading. He started by reading and transcribing a dictionary (in order to even understand the other books he wanted to read), then worked his way through most of what was considered the Western Canon: the great works of literature and philosophy. That this led him to the race-baiting Nation of Islam is irrelevant: it gave him a purpose in life, which he previously lacked.
Bauerlein’s point is that all youth, everywhere, need a mythos to start with: something tangible to hang their hat on as they become adults. No culture, no country, no race, no sex, nor anyone is without guilt and sin, but a person lacking a mythos is truly pitiable: they are subject to the whims of fancy: what’s trending on Twitter? What gets the most “likes”? Who shared what on Instagram or TikTok? Lacking depth–the depth of experience gained reading about those who’ve come before us, good or bad–the Millennials are left to their own devices (literally), or to the noise of the online crowd.
I found that much of his thesis rings true; you may disagree. But if you do, I ask you to do this: find a Millennial, and ask them a few questions that any Boomer (most of my friends and associates are Boomers) should be able to answer. From where does the phrase “from each according to his abilities. . .” come? What’s the difference between the Old and New Testaments? What contributed to the Fall of Rome? What’s the significance of Guernica?
C’mon, you know this! Picasso? The horror of war?
You and I could debate the answers. I’ll bet most Millennials would not even understand the questions! The reflexive retreat by Millennials to defensive feelings are a result of this educational deficiency: and that won’t change until it is rectified. Malcolm X showed it is still possible to do so later in life, so perhaps there is some hope. Of course, his example also reminds us that when one has been led to believe in nothing, one can believe in almost anything!
Overall, it’s an interesting read, probably too over-the-top to convince those with opposing views, who would refuse to consider the footnoted data. The most convincing part of the book is how it unlocks some of the puzzles of the Millennial generation, although the answers it suggests are frankly terrifying.
What could this mean? Old friends will recall I have a longstanding love affair with the English language. Being born an native English-speaker is a gift; it is an easy language to learn, but a difficult one to master. It is rich, so rich, because it borrows from everywhere and everything, and keeps growing and changing. But not everything is new and better. My daughter liked to complain about “new and improved” products as a redundancy, since a new product should always be improved and an improved product was by definition new. For my part, I fought the good fight against “impact” as a verb (because one hadn’t learned the difference between “effect” and”affect”), enormity (which means ONLY a great and evil thing, not large), and fulsome (which is fake, not real) praise. I can hear my friends and associates chuckling: the fight goes on.
Yet the degradation continues. “Fake news” would only mean something if it wasn’t news, that is, not new. If it’s false, it is simply a lie. Treason is a crime with very specific circumstances, and one should not claim it if one doesn’t know what they are (a declaration of war and two witnesses are among the criteria). The same goes for an “insurrection.” Racial equity is a new, friendly-sounding buzz-phrase on the left, which points to equal representation in outcomes. I doubt anyone would support it for their local NBA team.
Politicians have been masters in abusing language for a long time, and it has become a high (or is that low?) art form today. I waited for then-President Trump to tweet that Joe Biden was “a known bibliophile” hoping no one thought too much about what the phase really meant (Trump wasn’t smart enough to know the word, and Biden isn’t one, anyway). Maybe next time (shudder). Politicians brought us such wonders as “that statement is no longer operative” (as in, “we lied”), “mistakes were made” (“we were wrong”), and “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” (He “did have sex with that woman.”).
But many normal folks engage in the same sophistry (look it up). They share and re-tweet garbage because they agree with it, without stopping to think: is it true? Is it a dodge? Or better yet–what does it say about me when I endorse it? And so it goes. I can’t count the number of social media arguments I have been induced to engage in because the language was so indistinct (I know, it’s a personal failing: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!)
The effects (there’s that word) are many and not harmless. English is beautiful because it is so adaptable and has so many shades of meaning. This started to dawn on me when I first studied German and French, but really hit home as I learned Spanish. I asked my Spanish teacher what the equivalent was for the verb “to wait”? “Esperar,” he said. “To hope for?” “Esperar.” “To expect?” “Esperar.” Yes there are other Spanish words, but the general usage is toward a single verb. In English, even a child can express the very significant differences between “I wait for parents”, “I hope for parents”, and “I expect parents.”
Today, if you’re not anti-racist, you’re racist (from the left), while the right has taken to calling everything “grooming.” Unprecedented is an adjective which apparently means only “I haven’t heard of it.” I have yet to meet a person who would defend the degraded, modern usage of “love”: I would love to do so, if only to impact their vocabulary (ugh, it hurt to write that). Sloppy speaking or writing is a sign of poor thinking. It is the close cousin of vulgarity, where a rude term is used strictly to shock and offend.
Oh, and the title? It’s a riff on the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a philosophical story which also touches briefly on linguistic abuse. I originally used bulls!t, but it seemed to me to be a bit too vulgar. We’ve watched a lot of British crime dramas lately, and I like their use of bollocks (literally, testicles), which connotes complete rubbish or nonsense. I strongly recommend using it. You’ll affect your opponents, and no one would dare give you fulsome praise. And you’ll avoid the enormity of disfiguring the language of Shakespeare, Yeats, and Eliot.
The gradual ebbing of the Covid pandemic, the continued retirement of the baby boomer generation, and the abiding allure of lakeside all conspire to one end: more expats are showing up once again in Chapala, Ajijic, and other communities lakeside. I realize my blog may not be the easiest to search for what I have written in the past, so I decided to recount and update my thoughts for those who are recently arrived. And here they are, in no particular order:
Expats have been coming here for decades. The first ones were real pioneers: no internet, one long-distance phone in the plaza, as many horses as cars on the streets, few imported American products, no real pizza (the horror!). So they came to a sleepy Mexican fishing village which got overrun sometimes on weekends and holidays with Tapatios (people from Guadalajara). Now it’s crowded (to them) all the time, there are Gringos everywhere, and even US-style politics intrudes. The old-timers don’t like it. Try to be understanding of them, because in many cases they can’t–or don’t want to–just pick up and move. But here and now is not what it once was, and they miss it.
Which leads to online boards and FaceBook groups. People here are friendly. People online are not. It’s a phenomenon the world over; my wife calls it “the angry guy in his underwear sitting alone at home and yelling at his computer.” Only it’s not just guys. Just like ordinary people, when alone in their cars, act outrageously because they feel anonymous, people online get snippy in ways they never would in person. So ignore them. But do learn how to search for things on whatever online source you choose before you ask the same question three-thousand gringos have asked.
Like anywhere, the cultural and political and ethnic mix at lakeside is changing. There have been past waves of arrivals: originally many artistic types, then Viet Nam vets and hippies, then baby boomer retirees and now even young families. Mexico’s middle class, a relatively recent development, is also discovering both lakeside and retirement, leading to more permanent Tapatios and Chilangos (Mexico City folks). They come for a variety of reasons, and stay for the clima (weather), cultura (friendly culture), and comida (food). All really are welcome here. Some folks still think everybody here is just like them, but that’s just because they don’t socialize widely enough. Whatever your background/interest/politics, you’ll find like-minded friends here.
All those arrivals highlight a glaring lack of infrastructure. Things like banks and hospitals and restaurants and internet service providers have grown amazingly, but water and power and roads have not kept up. Mexico is not known for its infrastructure planning, and lakeside is still peripheral enough (to government) and growing so fast as to have problems. None of these problems are catastrophic, and eventually enough Mexicans-with-connections will live here to force change. But in the meantime, your community well may run dry, or the power may be intermittent, the internet abysmally slow in the afternoon, the traffic lights un-timed. It’s Mexico’s way of telling you to slow down and enjoy the view. If that really bothers you, oh well, but don’t think you can change Mexico.
The price of things is a source of constant argument here. Not the actual price, but whether that price is cheap or expensive. If you come from an expensive city (like we did), everything is cheaper. If you come from a small town, house prices may shock you. If you insist on buying only American-branded products specially imported to lakeside, you might blanch after doing the math (as a quick rule, it’s twenty Mexican pesos to the dollar, or drop a digit and divide by two: 100 pesos becomes 10, divide by two equals five dollars). Remember, the Mexican brand may be identical, or may not, but it will always be less expensive. Expats get into endless (and in my opinion needless) arguments about whether to tip like NOB (North of the Border), or whether to support WalMart or the neighborhood tienda, or visiting the tianguis or the Gringo market. Here’s a clue: do as the Mexicans do. They don’t argue about such things. You do you. Life is hard enough that one should not waste one’s time arguing about its flavors.
Which is easy to do because the weather here is so amazing. Now those old-timers will swear it was better before, but they are getting older and more temperature sensitive. I used to run in the sleet and freezing rain NOB. After five years here, I shiver when I encounter anything below sixty degrees Fahrenheit. It happens. The average monthly temperature has not gone above a high of 87° or below a low of 41°. The rain falls mostly at night and mostly during a rainy season from June to October. We are at mile-high elevation (think Denver) and the latitude of Hawaii. This area should be a high desert plateau (like Phoenix), but the mix of the tropical latitude and lake-effect create a lush, mild, constant micro-climate. Even nearby Guadalajara is more extreme (hotter in summer, colder in winter, rainier in the season). Is it perfect? Not if you like hot humid beach weather, or Fall, or cold clean air. But it is ideal to be outside as much as you like. I tell friends that we just don’t have WEATHER here: I never think about the temperature or precipitation before leaving the casa. And even when it does get hot (never humid), it yields every night. Here’s the data:
And you can see why some expats go on vacation in May; it’s nice many other places, and it’s the only time it ever gets “hot” here
Lakeside is neither Florida, nor Arizona nor Texas. Some new expats may be fooled into thinking–by the sizable expat population–that here is much like those other places. That thinking will leave you surprised and annoyed. Mexico is a very different place: give it a chance and you may fall in love with it. But if you expect The Villages with tacos, you’ll be disappointed.
Mexicans lakeside are friendly in a small-town Mexican way. They greet strangers on the street and when entering a store or restaurant. Learn the proper use of “buenos dias, buenos tardes, buenos noches” and use it. And of course gracias and por favor. It’s not much, but it’s an attempt to accommodate yourself to the culture, and the Mexican people will welcome it.
To learn or not to learn Spanish? Another frequent expat point of debate. The old-timers didn’t have a choice: learn Spanish or be very lonely. Now there are many vendors who are bilingual, and specialists who will escort you through anything from a hospital visit to the dreaded encounter with the Mexican government bureaucracy. Mastering a new language is hard for everyone over the age of five, with the exception of a few people who have a knack. It’s especially hard for those of us getting on in years. But you should make an attempt. There are resources to help you whatever your learning style. You may never be fluent, but if you practice, you will be able to communicate, and the Mexicans you talk to will help you, and appreciate your effort.
Unlike the States and Canada, Mexico’s laws and style of regulation descend from a Spanish inheritance. I like to describe Mexican law as “the pirate code” as in, “more of a guideline than a rule.” Bureaucracy is a fine art here, and petty bureaucrats seem to enjoy being exacting. And there are ways around everything if money or connections are involved.
I think the concept of time is the single biggest difference between Mexico and cultures NOB. Life moves slower in Mexico. It’s not efficient, it’s not cost effective, but it is pleasant if you move with it. Work hours are variable. There are breaks (siestas) for naps or chores or visits with the family during the work-day. Reservations are approximate; parties start about two hours after they start, and last forever. It’s not that Mexicans are never in a hurry: watch out for Tapatios on the carretera during the weekend: driving in non-existent lanes or even on the bike path to pass traffic! It is more like if you’re NOT in a hurry, don’t BE in a hurry. You will get there when you get there; the work will get done when it gets done. This can be frustrating to type-A, can-do, “time is a-wasting,” time-is-money gringos. Learn the concept of mañana. It literally means both tomorrow and morning, but figuratively means everything from “just after midnight” to someday or even never. And that’s ok.
About that traffic. Another quick start to an expat argument is the traffic around these parts. Mention it, and old-timers will remind you when there were no traffic lights. City folk (like me) will chuckle: you call this traffic? Others lament the twenty or forty or sixty minutes to get across town . . . in a small fishing village. Here’s the thing: We have too few roads and too many cars, especially when the tourists come in for holidays and the snowbirds visit. There are no good places to put more roads. Traffic lights only work to facilitate traffic flow if (1) they are timed and coordinated and (2) people obey traffic laws. Neither happens in Mexico. So for example in San Antonio Tlayacapan, people complain and lights go in, causing back-ups, so the lights go intermittent or get taken down: rinse and repeat. Timing and Coordinating the lights? See my comment about infrastructure. Obeying traffic laws? See my comment about the pirate code. Your best bet is to slow down (unless you’re really in a hurry, and ask yourself “why?”), and either turn up your air conditioning, or roll down your windows and people watch.
Mexico is as diverse a country and culture as the States or Canada: go and visit it! There are excellent low-cost airlines and terrific interstate and intercity, cheap-but-luxurious bus lines. Drive the autopistas (toll roads called cuotas by the gringos, but that just means “tolls”), which are somewhat expensive (remembering the relativity therein) but safe and fast. Most people know the Atlantic and Pacific resorts, but there are natural wonders (Copper Canyons, Barrancas del Cobre, rivaling the Grand Canyon or Morelia for the Monarch butterflies), Colonial cities (Guanajuato, Querrétaro, Puebla), arts centers (San Miguel de Allende) and of course, the big enchilada: Ciudad de Mexico (just México to the Mexicans, which leads to all those confusing road signs and airport monitor listings). There are guided tours, or just find a gringo with more experience and travel with them. Lakeside is great, but it is even better as a base to explore everywhere else in Mexico.
Travel around Mexico? What about all the crime, the cartels, Narcos? Let’s get real. I wrote here and again here about the criminal threat to gringo expats and tourists. The gist of it is: if you don’t use, buy or sell drugs, if you don’t stay out all night partying and drinking, if you don’t flash cash or I-phones or jewelry, if you don’t get drunk in public, the chances of falling prey to the cartels is minimal. Not zero, but unlikely. Do you do those things at home? Probably not, because they are unsafe; same here. The data show Mexico is no more dangerous than Japan for American expats and visitors. If you want to be extra safe, consult the US State Department travel advisory page here. Pay no attention to the general warning (“Reconsider travel”), it is boilerplate language intended for newbie travelers who think a US passport is some kind of international travel protection. Go to the state or region page for where you want to travel, and read the section on restrictions for US governmental personnel. This highlights the specific places (like towns or roads or neighborhoods) which the US government wants its employees to avoid because there is evidence of recent violence there. They are more cautious than most visitors need to be, but it’s an excellent resource. The most common crime problems locally are petty thefts and purse snatchings. Which doesn’t make for much of a TV series.
Speaking of governments, Mexico has one, and you are not welcome to engage in its politics. The language is right there in Article 33 of the Mexican constitution. Now you would have to be a pretty big, public nuisance to warrant deportation, but Mexico is especially sensitive to foreign pressure or influence (invaded six times), so leave your political opinions about Mexico to yourself or your immediate gringo buddies. It’s only polite (educado) and Mexicans are always educado. “But wait, I’m a Mexican citizen” some old-timer will object! Ok, technically (and legally) you can vote and engage in politics, but here’s the larger point. Even if you’re a dual citizen, or here legally as a residente permanante or temporal, you’re still not a Mexican (unless you or your family was originally from Mexico, and you’re a returnee). Residente is a legal status, and remember my comment about Mexican law (it could change any old time). I’m not engaging in the favorite expat argument about whether we’re “visitors” or “residents” or “guests.” Whatever you want to call expats here, we can enjoy the culture and be welcomed into it, but we are not “of” it and never will be. It is a fact worth keeping in mind.
Some people claim to have come to Mexico to escape NOB politics; this may be true in a general sense, but I have yet to meet anyone who specifically said “if so-and-so is President, I will move to Mexico” and then done it. There is normally something else involved, and the political part is making a virtue signal out of necessity. That said, it used to be (I am told) that NOB politics rarely raised its ugly head here, but now it is much more common. Not overwhelmingly like it is NOB, but still enough to make things uncomfortable at times. Based on nothing more than opinions I have heard, expats lakeside used to be very liberal and/or libertarian, but now there is a growing number of more traditional and conservative types (I’m in the latter groups: forgive me for I have sinned). One liberal friend told me she didn’t know any conservatives locally; I re-introduced myself (much to her chagrin). My wife likes to say “you never notice us because we’re just quieter.” It’s a good thing to be politically active, to defend your ideas and support your candidate, party, or ideology back home. Just don’t be a bore. I guess I agree with the old-timers who say “if you want to be like that, stay NOB; you’ll have lots of company.”
One thing you’ll notice a lot of here at lakeside, especially during snowbird season (November-April) is Canadians/Canadiennes. Most Americans only occasionally run into people from Canada (my daughter, when young, insisted it should be called Canadia), unless you are from a border state. Down here, a significant portion of the seasonal expats are from Canada; I would estimate about forty percent. So you’ll get a chance to mingle with two different groups/cultures: Mexican and Canadian!
The reason so many Canadian expats are snowbirds is due to the peculiarities of Canada’s Health Care System, which is Provincial, and which I’m told requires some time in Canada every year. For the rest of us, it is good to know that lakeside has a surfeit of clinics, labs, and even hospitals, while Guadalajara (under an hour away) is Mexico’s center for medical training. It is easy to find a well-trained and credentialed English-speaking doctor, with a full range of services in support. Prices are much less than in the States (almost anywhere is cheaper than the States), but costs are rising as local Mexican health providers determine what price gringos will pay for health care. There is nothing unethical or sinister about that: you’re getting an excellent service customized (language, etc.) to your needs, and you can afford to pay more for it. Free Mexican health care is available and is worth the price you pay (read that twice). Take care with groups offering to bill Medicare or US health care providers back in the States: while there is some interest in the US Congress to authorize a pilot project to permit such coverage, it remains illegal as of now. There are big differences in how Mexican health care functions: what nurses do and how they are trained (more basic in my opinion), who can share health care data (my wife and I do all our visits jointly, and we own our records), and the need to pay before you leave the hospital (or you don’t get to leave). Continuing health problems remain the number one reason expats eventually return NOB.
Property and liability insurance are available just like NOB. All insurance decisions are matters of personal risk, but be aware that what is covered and how it is covered may be different here. Some expat home owners do not have property or liability insurance. Why not? For one a casa of brick and concrete is not going to burn down, and we haven’t had a significant earthquake since the nineteenth century. Another reason is Mexicans don’t rush to sue (remember the legal system?), which is also why property owners who have claims denied by insurance companies have a difficult time taking it to the courts. Yes, you must have automobile insurance, but after that it’s up to you and your personal views on risk. If you choose to get insurance, have a long talk with your agent about what is covered, what it takes to file a claim, and what are all the exceptions.
That property you may/may not insure is a key factor in whether you stay as an expat or return home. Everyone agrees that renting to experience different neighborhoods and home styles is the right way to go. We and some of our friends bought right away, but I provide this warning: trained professional on a closed course; do not try this on your own! There are simple choices you have to make about indoor/outdoor living, numbers of visitors/bedrooms, whether to walk or have a car/where to park it, whether it feels too hot or too cold TO YOU, western-exposed windows, garden/pet space, even colors vs. heat retention. You’re unlikely to get it all correct in the first try, so take your time.
Choosing a neighborhood is a fine art. Some expats head directly for gated communities called condominios. They offer better security, some rules (quiet hours, tree heights) and amenities (club houses, pools, gardening of common areas, parking), some cost-sharing and dues. Other expats, especially old-timers, deride condominios as NOB living, shorn of any contact with real Mexicans. Yet the two condominos we have lived in had as many Mexican owners as gringos. Living in the villages is an authentic expat experience, complete with cohetes, dogs, roosters, cattle, and the family next door who decides to open an evento (party-place) on weekends. Living in the village is less expensive and still nice, the condominios more comfortable to newcomers. The important thing is to know what you like before you settle in.
Some lakeside expats appear to treat trips to Guadalajara like adventures to a distant, confusing place, and try to avoid it. Or they just go to the Costco, Home Depot, or a mall (yes, they have many). I suggest visiting regularly, as Mexico’s Second City has so much to offer: museums, sports (futbol, beisbol, and baloncesto), a very nice zoo, theaters and opera and plays and restaurants! Ask friends for suggestions, get a place to stay and investigate the city; it will be rewarding.
What goes for Guadalajara goes for all of Jalisco. It’s the home of Tequila in the eponymous village, mariachi music, guachimontones (conical pyramids) and Charrería (Mexican rodeo). Jalisco is to Mexico as Texas is the United States. Jalisco is the more conservative, more Catholic heart of Mexico, with more liberal, more cosmopolitan Guadalajara as its urban center (think Austin). The things people think of as quintessentially Mexican are de Jalisco. Heck, the state’s tourism motto is “Jalisco es Mexico!”
One major difference from NOB is the police (Policia). Like up north, there are several types: municipal police, traffic police, state police, federal police, and the new Guardia Nacional. Again like up north, they have different authorities and jurisdictions. Pay is a major impediment to professionalism: the average monthly salary for a police officer in Mexico is $20,000 MXP, or about $500 USD! Some make half that. Equipment and training are spotty. There is the constant threat of drug traffickers and other criminals corrupting police either through graft or threats: “plato o plomo“, that is silver (graft) or lead (a bullet). Is it any wonder police look to petty corruption by requesting bribes for minor traffic violations? Some locals and expats swear by refusing to give a bribe, arguing it prolongs the corruption and the police will generally give in in the end. Others relate tales of cars being towed or a few hundred pesos “solving” the problem. How you choose to deal with it is up to you. For starters, don’t drive a car with foreign plates, do get a Mexican driver’s license, and learn the unique rules of the road. Many of the stories of these run-ins with police begin with not wearing a seat-belt, talking on a cell phone, having expired tags, making an illegal left turn, etc. Know what not to do and avoid the problem.
Driving need not be a nightmare. Download the Waze (pronounced Wayze in English, Wah-zay in Spanish), which marries Google maps with real time traffic/police/pothole alerts. We have navigated through backstreets and around gridlock like locals using it. Trust the Waze! Drive slower than normal, as anything can and will happen on the carretera: people and things falling out of trucks, cattle in the highway, topes (speed-bumps) without warning signs or warning signs without topes, scooters passing on any side, pedestrians scurrying across major highways (what do you think all those roadside shrines are for?), five lanes in the space marked for three, even cars coming slowly the wrong way! You name it, we’ve seen it in Mexico. Mexico uses fewer manned police speed-traps, but does make use of speed cameras which (in Jalisco) must have a warning sign placed before the camera. So there are many such signs, with fewer cameras, and one quickly learns where you need to slow down, as the cameras don’t move around very often. So yield and go with the flow, and don’t be in a hurry. And remember, if anyone is seriously hurt in a traffic accident, all the drivers involved are going first to jail until the policia determine who is at fault. So settle on the spot if you can, know the name and number of your insurance agent, and be careful out there.
How have I gotten this far and not mentioned Lago de Chapala, the lake itself? It’s beautiful and is responsible for our microclimate. Expats get into an annual argument about how clean/dirty it is. Someone drags out an environmental group’s analysis claiming it’s so polluted it’s a crime against humanity. Someone else pulls out testing data showing it’s no more polluted than most (beaches/lakes) in (California/New York). Like most things, the truth is somewhere in between. Here’s the thing: the lake is the main source of drinking water for the millions of people in Guadalajara. Yes, the water gets processed along the way, but if it was that bad to start with, there would be plenty of seriously sick people in Guad (yes, gringos call it that). Mexican sewer systems have never been designed to withstand the deluges of the rainy season, so during that season, overflow goes straight into the lake. And that means near the towns and villages there are higher, temporary concentrations of coliform bacteria (the kind that make you sick) during the rainy season. Locals know when to go in the water (they fish in it, etc.) and when not. There are marinas with sail boats, some jet-skis, and an expat kayak club. Some people avoid the water because of abandoned fences, poles, etc. that lurk under the waves; caution is advised.
In addition to the healthy climate, we have abundant, healthy fresh foods options. A friend warned me–at the start of the pandemic–that borders might be shut and food become scarce. I responded that we’re the place that sends food elsewhere, so we’ll have plenty to eat if we can’t export it! Yes, you need to wash your fruits & vegetables from the market, although some expats say they never have. And yes, sometimes a fresh salad will give you some, shall we say, digestive discomfort. But in general, you can get really fresh meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, and of course, tortillas for very good prices (by any standard).
Speaking of food, lakeside is a veritable Epcot Center of choices. Ok, maybe a bad comparison. How about the world’s largest food court? Still not right. Suffice it to say we have an incredible number of restaurants focused on expats, and you can find almost any type of cuisine. The cautions? We have only a few amazing, high-end places. Restaurants change hours, staffs, and locations all the time. This means the restaurant that was nearby and great last month may be down this month and better again but far-away two months from now. It’s a very variable food environment, but you can get everything from pizza to sushi to BBQ to burgers to Indian to Chinese to German/French/Italian to Argentine. Even Mexican!
Expats are quite involved in the local community beyond eating out at restaurants every day. There are many clubs and too many charitable groups to name, but I know there is one that will float your boat. Get involved. Mexicans view the family as the source of charity, and that leaves many gaps, so this is a welcome way expats can bring a positive aspect of NOB culture with them.
All those charitable groups doesn’t stop there from being many people looking for donations on the street. Begging in Mexico isn’t looked down on in the way I felt it was NOB: it’s just viewed here as a fact of life. Beggars in general are not aggressive, and there is no need to fear them. Some people hang out in public places to help you back out of a parking place, or to cross the street. Others stand at topes (where traffic slows) or outside of grocery stores, selling candies or hand-made trinkets. Feel free to buy from them, give to them, or just greet them, but not judge them, por favor!
Likewise, you’ll see many street dogs or roof dogs. The latter are a form of security, as Mexicans (mostly) view dogs as working animals, not pets. The former may or may not be on their own–some locals let their dogs wander during the day. Which leads to all the dog carcasses one sees on the carretera to Guadalajara. There are very active dog (and other pet) shelters run by expats; they even export dogs to the States! But dog-lovers may find the Mexican approach to dogs (and its results) challenging.
That carretera to Guadalajara runs past our international airport, which is between lakeside and Guad and only thirty minutes away (if you drive like the proverbial bat-outta-hell). It’s officially Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Aeropuerto Internacional, but GDL for short. You can catch non-stops to hubs at Dallas (American), Houston (United), and Atlanta (Delta), along with others to Los Angeles and Chicago. GDL is a small airport, albeit Mexico’s largest for freight. It is due for a major renovation and expansion in the next few years. As a tip, there is a secure parking lot at the airport, and other park-n-ride options near it: we used both many times with no issues.
The Goat Sucker: A Very bad Neighbor!
Speaking of issues, one which always surprises new expats is noise. Mexico is a noisy country. As I write this, I’m being serenaded by gardeners employing the country’s favorite musical instrument: the leaf blower. Here it is known just as the blower, because it is used for all forms of blowing: leaves, clothes, trash, insects, animals, other blowers, or just because. Mexicans love to set off fireworks (cohetes) for any reason. Lakeside retains small farms and indigenous properties where animals live side-by-side with their owners, in the village. You’ll hear dogs (of course), roosters, birds, cows, horses and the occasional chupacabra (Ok, I made the last one up . . . I think). Locals celebrate with long and loud parties (fiestas) that may be held at an evento or at home, complete with bands and dancing and singing to the wee hours. Even Mother’s Day has a tradition here of serenading Mom by having a band play songs under her window . . .at the crack of dawn. There are laws about noise, but they are more honored in the breach. Either get used to it, buy earplugs, or get invited and join in. All three work equally well.
Finally, speaking of holidays and fiestas, here’s a tip: get a calendar, one with all the Mexican federal holidays AND all the Saints’ days. “Why?” you ask. Mexicans take their holidays seriously and they celebrate all the federal holidays, Catholic holidays, and local Saint’s days (for example, the parish’s patron Saint). If you don’t know what they are, you’ll always be the one asking “what was with all the cohetes last night?” or “where did all the traffic come from?” or “why is the street closed?” Here’s a pro-tip: for the Catholic holidays, Mexicans often practice a novena, which is supposed to be nine days of prayer and fasting leading up the the celebration of the Saint. In Mexico it has become nine days of fireworks, or bands, or whatever leading up to the Saint’s day. So also know the names of local parishes and plot the novena out on your calendar. For example, San Andrés is Ajijic’s main parish, and his feast is November 3oth. The national (Mexican) feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12th. Christmas (La Navidad) is December 25th, and Three Kings’ Day (Tres Reyes, when presents arrive in Mexico) is January 6th. Plot that out on your calendar, and you’ll soon realize there are non-stop parties (and many business closures) from American Thanksgiving through the end of the NFL regular season (to use secular America holidays as an example). Consider yourself warned!
I hope you enjoyed reading this stream-of-consciousness review as much as I did writing it. As always, there are way more details hidden away in blog posts and through authoritative websites. But I hope this gives you a flavor of expat life–if you’re just considering it–or eases your arrival if you’ve already made the jump.
Another partisan issue is voting; Captain Obvious would agree. After all, voting involves choices among parties (in most places), so who gets to vote and under what circumstances is obviously a matter up for partisan debate. Some democracy advocates would disagree saying “it’s a fundamental human right” and the UN Declaration on Human Rights supports this view. Yet even fundamental rights have limits: children don’t vote, and no one seems to get upset about that.
In the United States, there are two camps–both extreme–currently waging war over voting rights and procedures. On the right, Trump supporters claim the 2020 election was rigged, full of vote fraud which illegally denied then-President Trump a second term. In his supporters’ view, this fraud requires a tightening of voting rules and greater oversight by State elections officials, up to and including the ability to overrule and replace slates of electors in future elections. On the left, the push to enact greater restrictions is seen as an attempt to disenfranchise (mostly) minority voters who vote overwhelmingly for Democratic Party candidates, and to build in an illegal backstop to overrule majorities and ensure Republican electors in the future. Their meme is “Jim Crow 2.0” recalling the many ways southern states denied black Americans their franchise for almost one-hundred years.
As I usually admit, both sides have basic facts to support their contentions, but both exaggerate or outright lie to make a stronger case. Let’s examine the whole truths, shall we?
For starters, the notion everybody has a right to vote. Advocates chant this, but no one, and I mean NO ONE, really believes it. Children (as noted) don’t deserve a vote. People who are unconscious don’t merit a vote. You and I may disagree about how young is too young, or how conscious someone needs to be, or if felons or non-citizens should be allowed to vote. But the principle stands: some people do not have a right to vote. In fact, the original text of the US Constitution said very little about who could vote, other than that if one was eligible to vote in one’s state, one was eligible to vote for federal office. States were left to decide the franchise, that is, who could vote.
Much is made of the sexism and racism of the original state decisions to limit voting to white men who owned property. This was more a case of elitism than anything else (since it disenfranchised more white men than women or blacks). It was elitism to believe (as those passing the laws feared) that large groups of voters could be bought or directed by others. Yet even the white men of property all knew of cases of ‘saloon meetings on election day’ when wealthy candidates bought rounds of drinks for eligible voters in exchange for trips to the voting booths. More voters simply meant more opportunities for fraud in this view.
Drunk & ready to vote!
And the history of American politics is rife with voting fraud. Anyone familiar with the two centuries of Tammany Hall control of New York City or the Daley machine’s sixty-year run in Chicago knows that such organizations knew precisely how much corruption and vote fraud was needed for every election, from ward member to President. Top those stories off with the hundred years of poll taxes, rigged literacy tests, and violent intimidation of black voters under Jim Crow laws. It was very late in the Twentieth Century that most of the blatant voter fraud and disenfranchisement was wrung out of the US democratic process, at the cost of many new laws and controls.
But’s that all (dirty) water under the bridge: what about today? One cannot see today’s exaggerations for what they are if you don’t know the history!
Let’s start with the fraud claims in the 2020 election. President Trump and lawyers representing him filed sixty-three lawsuits claiming voter fraud. They were heard in a variety of states, under various Republican- (including Trump) and Democratic-appointed judges. All of these suits were denied, most in summary judgments. That is, the attorneys filing the suit made claims, but when asked by the judge to present ANY evidence to support the claimed fraud, they did not do so. So it’s not a matter of not considering the evidence; no evidence was produced. Some lawsuits presented evidence, but never in sufficient numbers to affect the outcome of the election in that state, rendering the suit moot. Some more outrageous claims, like those of rigged voting machines, are not being adjudicated as (disproven) vote fraud accusations but as defamation by the individuals making the claims. Even various recount efforts by pro-Trump organizations and legislatures have failed to find anything which undermines the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 victory.
Why do so many Trump supporters (and even Republicans in general) still believe the election was rigged after this unbroken record of failure? First off, there is the recent historical precedent. What’s good for the (Democratic) goose is good for the (Republican) gander. Democrats clung to the 2016-election-was-rigged-and-Trump-is-a-Russian-stooge fairy tale to this day, and Trumpers love a good tit-for-tat. Second and more importantly, the 2020 election was held during a pandemic which made for really dicey voting conditions and delayed outcomes. States changed voting rules and procedures, often late in the election cycle, in a genuine attempt to assist voting when gathering in public on election day may not be advised or even permitted. Some of these changes violated State constitutions and were thrown out; most were allowed as prudent responses to an unprecedented situation. In general, these rules favored absentee/early voting.
Nothing wrong with absentee/early voting, although it does require special and different forms of verification than in-person voting. States like Colorado had pioneered the effort and had strong procedures in place. But other states tried to enact new early/absentee processes on the fly, while the government officials responsible for implementation were not even working in-person. This led to debates about fairness, ballot verification, voter identification, drop-boxes, and nursing home ballot harvesting. None of these situations demonstrated any fraud which could have changed the state’s electoral outcome. But they did delay vote total announcements, and that was a major problem.
As predicted by several analysts, the delayed announcements of voting results were inevitable, and had an obvious effect: Republicans tended to favor in-person voting, where rapid processes were in-place that resulted in quick vote totals. Democrats favored absentee or early balloting (the kind that took longer to count). This resulted in election night preliminary results indicating President Trump would be re-elected, and morning-after results showing he lost. Which the President and his supporters were never going to believe, no matter how many recounts, lawsuits or fact checks were done. Hey, some on the left still believe that Al Gore beat George W. Bush, so delusion is bipartisan.
Now some red states are rolling back the pro- early/absentee processes they enacted during the pandemic, and some Democrats are crying foul. The amusing thing here is (1) there is no evidence the changes increased the number of Democratic votes, and (2) there is no evidence the changes increased the total number of votes. The 2020 election was a vast experiment with red and blue states making different choices about voting rules, but with an odd outcome: the changes neither affected the total turnout nor the partisan results. And this tracks with decades of research on the issue. So Republicans are doing something meaningless in terms affecting Democratic voters, and Democrats are fighting it even though it doesn’t make a real difference. This may be the ultimate “no there, there” issue. What did happen is when people voted changed (Democrats early and absentee, Republicans in person on election day), but not the number of people voting. Furthermore, some of the red state changes are the same as or less restrictive than those which already exist in blue states, which hardly is evidence for claims of “Jim Crow 2.0”. Georgia has been the principle battleground for these charges. If you want a solid review of what’s changing and why, Georgia Public Broadcasting has it here. Suffice it to say the changes place Georgia in line with voting processes in New York, and New Jersey, and even Delaware, so Jim Crow is more widespread than we knew.
Gerrymandering remains a problem, but I note that the same folks who decried it as a great Republican threat to American democracy (sic) are now chuckling at the Democratic party’s clever use of it to secure more seats before the 2022 mid-terms. Perhaps it isn’t quite the existential threat some imagined.
States may find a way to limit gerrymandering, but I am not optimistic. It must be done using State constitutions, not the federal one, since the US Supreme Court has called gerrymandering an unfortunate but inevitable fact of electoral life (my words). The move to create new or additional review mechanisms to certify an election is troubling, and might provoke a constitutional challenge if implemented. Oddly enough, some state legislatures once appointed their own choice of federal electors, regardless of the votes cast, in effect treating the vote as a popularity contest. However, once a state commits to using an election to determine slates of Presidential electors, it would be legally dubious to somehow ignore the results and select other electors. And the US House of Representatives need not accept them (another thing which already happened).
Finally, there are those who claim that since there is no widespread evidence of voting fraud, there is no reason for new or additional restrictions on voting. Those holding this view are guilty of the magic amulet fallacy (“See this magic amulet; it keeps away tigers.” “I don’t believe it.” “You don’t see any tigers, do you? It must be working!”). Voter fraud has always been an issue, and it was one mitigated by increasing identification and verification processes. If the states wish to move toward more options for voting (early, absentee, online, whatever) they need to enact more and better processes to prevent voting fraud, which will occur. One need not be an alarmist or a racist or a partisan, just familiar with history and technology, to see why.
In summary, Republicans are attempting to suppress Democratic votes, and vice versa. The fact that one side seems more successful (in passing new rules) is not a moral judgment. More importantly, there is no evidence the changes make the difference that is (privately) believed by the Republicans or publicly-decried by the Democrats! That fifty-state experiment in 2020 showed that the increases in voting, and the partisan shifts, were the same in blue and red states and in states with fewer/more restrictions. The 2020 federal election was legitimate, as was the 2016 one. All that changed is when people voted: Democrats before the election, Republicans on election day.
Most importantly, don’t question the legitimacy of the election process, and remember to vote!
Ever wonder why the prices at gas stations go up so fast, but come down so slow? Not around here, where PEMEX continues to own most stations and even those run (under an aborted attempt to introduce competition) by other oil giants must buy their gas from PEMEX! But it’s a common enough phenomenon in the States as to anger the average person.
Ask your favorite liberal/progressive, and it’s a conspiracy of sorts. President Biden and some of his spokespeople coined #PutinPriceHike to blame the rise on everybody’s least favorite authoritarian. Putin certainly isn’t helping, but gas started rising long before the war in Ukraine. Senator Elizabeth Warren beat a familiar war-drum: “The cause of rapidly rising energy prices for consumers and manufacturers is clear: some of the nation’s largest and most profitable oil and gas companies are putting their massive profits, share prices and dividends for investors, and millions of dollars in CEO pay and bonuses ahead of the needs of American consumers and the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.” Big Oil profits are at or near record levels. From the conservative side, pundits blame Joe Biden for cancelling the Keystone pipeline and pausing new drilling leases on federal land. Yet a pipeline doesn’t increase production, and thousands of leases remain unused. What’s really going on here?
Strap in, this may take a while, and if you’re open-minded and not careful, you might learn something!
Is Fat Albert cancelled?
All these claims have some truth: the best propaganda always does! But none of them captures the whole story, which is far more complicated (bad) but also interesting (good). I’ll attempt to make it simple:
After in-depth research, I uncovered this unassailable fact: not a single one of the major oil companies (hereafter Big Oil)– neither ExxonMobil, nor bp, not Chevron or Marathon–is registered as a 501.c.3 charity; look it up. Apparently, all of them are for-profit enterprises; I know you’re shocked. And as such, they try to make more (and more, and more) profit, all the time. There is a technical term for businesses which don’t seem dedicated to profiting: bankrupt. Not that this justifies just any old behavior (like price-fixing or profiteering, just to name two), mind you, but also keep in mind that there is an entire part of the federal bureaucracy (in the Justice Department) which spends all its time looking for such things. So don’t be surprised when Big Oil makes money, and know that someone is always looking over their shoulder if they do it the wrong way.
Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum: the price at your local pump. It is there the pain is felt, and no, you’re not imagining it: prices do go up faster than they come down. Is that Big Oil? Big Oil owns around one percent of the gas stations in the US; the rest are independent or have affiliations, which are unique supply contracts (if you’re a bp station, you only offer bp gas and products). About fifteen cents of the cost of each gallon of gas goes into paying for the overhead of owning/running a station: breaking even for the gas station owner means charging 15¢ over the price he/she paid. Most look to charge about two cents more for profit (yes, gas stations on average make just two cents profit per gallon). The federal and state governments also tax gas sales: so different tax rates in different states are another cause of price differences.
Gas stations fill their tanks between once and twice a week, and the price they pay changes constantly. So they are in a slim margin business with high volatility; the only saving grace is most everybody needs their product, and people like to re-use the same stations for convenience. But the gas station owner might be selling gas he bought last week for a price he is anticipating next week (cheaper or dearer). Guess wrong one week, no problem. Guess wrong too many weeks: bye-bye. So they generally raise prices faster and lower them slower. Note, we’re not talking about huge profits here. Why not? Because the gas station across the street gets its gas deliveries on different days, and is facing the same challenge. If the first station raises its prices too soon or too much, the second station gets more business. If it happens all the time, the first goes out-of-business. Ahhh, competition. I’m sure we all have stories of gas-price wars which resulted in some amazing deals-at-the-pump.
Standardized price of oil (blue) and retail gas (green) over decades
And in case you were wondering what the biggest cause of retail gas prices is, the chart above shows the correlation between oil prices and retail gas prices. This is what we call a strong correlation, almost certainly causation. There are only minor times–usually a result of some crisis or shock to the global supply chain, where the two prices don’t vary directly. But what about Big Oil’s massive profits? Don’t they prove price gouging?
I’m am sure you heard that ExxonMobil raked in $23 billion in profit in 2021. The same goes for all Big Oil. But did you know ExxonMobil lost $22.4 billion in 2020? Their net profit for two years was $600 million, which is nothing compared to revenues. All Big Oil took a huge hit in 2020. They went on a down-sizing binge (cutting costs) and started selling off assets that didn’t fit with (some of) their commitments to move away from fossil fuels. The combination of a large drop in expenditures, profits from businesses they sold, and the rise in oil prices resulted in . . . record profits. Not gouging, not conspiracy, just a fortunate turn after a very, very bad year. Apple is the world’s most profitable company, with 2021 profits of almost $153 billion, also a record year; where’s the concern for that number, which came after two previous record years of profit?
Big Oil is a very robust industry, for a reason. They pioneered the concept of scenario planning. With the long-lead times for production, market volatility, and vulnerability to geopolitics, they had to! Royal Dutch Shell–as it was then named–pioneered the process of looking at alternative futures way back in the 1970’s, and used the work to anticipate things like the 70’s oil shocks and survive them as a business. I attended an executive education seminar at Oxford in the early 2000’s, and we were still studying Shell’s techniques then!
Speaking of long lead times, what’s up with all those leases President Biden mentioned? And what happened to the US fracking revolution, which made us energy self-sufficient during the last administration? It can take decades to go from field exploration to buying leases to approving permits to putting in the drill rigs and pipelines to pumping oil. These are costly endeavors which may or may not produce marketable oil. Companies speculate on leases, buying some on the prospect there is oil and others to keep them out of another company’s hands. After you acquire a lease (for example, from the US federal government which owns about about 47% of all land out west), you still have to do research on the site, and test for suitability of the site and the oil. If it passes, you must begin the permitting process, which involves sate regulators and environmental agencies and activists. All this process is proper, but imagine how long the studies and lawsuits take. Then comes erecting the drill site and laying the pipeline, and finally, pumping oil. The outlays prior to any possible revenue are huge, and must be accounted for by the revenues resulting from the drilling which does produce. There is nothing unusual or sinister in the number of non-drilled leases held by Big Oil right now. Those decrying the President’s moratorium on federal leases are also just making noise. And all those saying these things know better.
The fracking revolution did itself in. Hundreds of small US companies used the fracking technique to generate sizable increases in US oil production, making the US the world’s largest producer at one point. The competition between the frackers was cut-throat, and OPEC dearly wanted to starve them out by increasing production of Saudi (and Russian) oil at less cost. Then came the Covid economic collapse, which Big Oil survived, but which doomed many frackers. The remaining fracking companies are being more careful about capital investments and profitability, acting more like Big Oil and less like internet start-ups.
Likewise, new pipelines do not increase production. If there is excess production somewhere in the system, and excess refining capacity somewhere else in the system, a pipeline between the two locations can increase overall production, but only in this relatively unusual case. Most pipelines are simply more efficient means of transport, which is not a bad thing, but hardly a near-term solution to anything. Oh, and pipelines face all the same regulatory hurdles as the drilling sites, so no, they are not fast.
Which brings us to “the Turn.” The Turn is the common term used by green energy advocates AND Big Oil for the move away from fossil fuels. British Petroleum even legally changed its company name to “bp” and started citing themselves as “beyond petroleum” (no, no one believed it). Big Oil and green energy advocates use the same phrase, but mean very different things, and the concept has implications for today’s gas prices. As in, if oil prices are high and Big Oil profits are up, and they want to make more profit, why don’t they starting producing more oil? I have explained how it takes time, but Big Oil is not even doing those smaller, simpler things they could to increase oil production immediately. What gives?
What is the future of the energy business?
Not a quip; he said it over and over
If you ask any environmental group, anyone concerned about climate change, anybody in the automotive or energy business, they will agree. The Western model of economic development based on the Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (hence POL) used by the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) has been wildly successful, but must come to an end. It was labelled the POL-ICE connection and it is an ongoing revolution in the developing world. Those most concerned about climate catastrophe say it must end now or soon, like in ten years. The industrial giants (including Big Oil) think thirty-forty years, with some residual use after that. But it will end, and it must be replaced with some other energy source.
A gallon of gas was about the same $
Now why would Big Oil ever agree to such a “Turn?” Well, the answer to that lies at your local Mickey-D’s. Yes, McDonald’s. You might have heard this story, but it’s a great one worth re-telling. Ray Kroc’s hamburger business was going poorly, and he was taking out personal loans to keep it afloat. A lawyer he brought in to review the business and give advice told Kroc his problem was simple: “you don’t quite understand the real business you are in. You are not in the business of selling burgers. You are in the business of real estate.” Kroc accepted this re-framing of his business proposition and made McDonald’s (with its standard menus and ingredients, franchises and leases) into the behemoth you behold today.
Big Oil realized more than decade ago that they weren’t in the gas business. They were in the energy delivery business. Oil and gas just happened to be the preferred energy products at a place and time, but what Big Oil was good at was delivering energy where and when it needed to be. The green energy advocates think they know the answer: electric cars and charging panels and charging stations. That is one possibility. Big Oil has run the scenarios, and they have made many small bets: electric cars and charging stations and solar, but also natural gas, hydrogen power, and driver-less cars and rigs, touch-less energy transfer, batteries, wind and hydroelectric and tidal power generation, even carbon-capture technology which (if it worked) could extend the POL-ICE combination. See, Big Oil is not sure which will win, and they are placing many bets, waiting to see what’s next.
Which recalls the last Turn, from horsepower to the POL-ICE connection. Some very sage experts in those times pointed out that a man on a horse could ride into the vast countryside with great assurance that he could provision his mount, as the countryside was where the hay was grown. What would happen when all those “drivers” started driving all those “automobiles” out of the city? They would litter the roadsides, out-of-fuel monuments to folly. Except that didn’t happen. Businesses grew to fuel and service the cars, governments built new and more and better roads, and something new and different happened.
All of which is a long way of saying the one thing Big Oil is NOT going to do right now is start many new leases, wells, or pipelines. They have been warned there is not much long-term future in fossil fuels, and they are think they are well-positioned to survive and thrive as “the Turn” commences, once it is clear which way it is going.
So let’s review, shall we. The POL-ICE era is ending, but no one knows how soon. Some advocates believe they know best how it will transition; most businesses and governments are hedging their bets, as there is a fortune to be made or lost. Big Oil may be the least likable business consortium since Big Tobacco. The oil and gas business is (and has always been) cut-throat but very profitable if you can stay ahead of the market. The major inputs to the retail price of gasoline are the price of a barrel of crude oil, taxes, station operating expenses and profit, in that order (from greatest to least). The only way to affect immediate supply and demand in the gas and oil business is to either shut down production or delivery (see the Arab Oil embargo in 1973) or to drastically decrease consumption (see the recent Covid economic collapse). There is no way to quickly increase the supply, unless there is untapped potential being intentionally withheld from the market. The only case where that currently applies is Saudi Arabia, who can literally turn on the spigots, but they are not in any way disposed to do so, nor have they (apparently) been given an impetus or inducement to do so. Saudi did just agree to increase production in the five year time-frame. Higher prices at the pump lag behind reductions in oil prices because that is how the industry (from Saudi Aramco to Bill at the corner station) keeps profitable.
You will see Congressional hearings soon, and both Republicans and Democrats will trot out the same hackneyed talking points we disabused here. Don’t fall for it; don’t re-tweet them or like their social media posts. Gas prices are high for very obvious reasons. You don’t have to like it (I don’t), but be smart about the subject, not partisan. And for God’s sake don’t drive the speed limit in the passing lane.
When we lived in the DC metro area (now called the DMV, for reasons I will never fathom, but this is the same place after all that named its football team the “Commanders”), it was common to not visit the famous memorial sites. One might drive by the monuments, but fight the traffic to find a parking place and visit them? Of course not, that’s for the tourists.
We live just 48 kilometers (30 miles) south of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city, and we drive up every Sunday to a parish that hosts an English-language Mass. At various times we go shopping, or plan a night out to a fancy restaurant (with a driver and van back-and-forth). But this week we decided to stay a few days and check out our nearest big city.
It has its own song, dontchaknow?
Jalisco is Mexico, as the tourist slogan goes. And Guadalajara is the Capital of Jalisco, home to mariachi music, tequila, and the famous (all-Mexican) Club Deportivo de Guadalajara, aka Chivas! Most tourists know the cosmopolitan mega Ciudad de Mexico, or the various Atlantic or Pacific tourist resorts. But Guadalajara has much to offer, too, with less cost, fewer crowds, and much friendliness.
Guadalajara was founded in 1542, and gradually grew to incorporate many small towns which surrounded it: Zapopan (za-POE-pan), Tlaquepaque (tuh-LOCK-ee-pock-ee), Tonala (toe-na-LA). The city itself has a population of 1.5 million, but the Zona Metropolitano Guadalajara (ZMG) has over 5 million.
The sign times two, just like the songThe Teatro DegolladoLions, city symbolThe Founders Memorial
On Sunday we visited a few major religious sites and then wandered about the Centro area. Jalisco fashions itself the Catholic soul of Mexico, and it is home to several distinct shrines. First and foremost is the Guadalajara Cathedral, built in 1618 in a Spanish Renaissance style with two Gothic spires whose outline is synonymous with the city.
Anything look odd? Look closely!No, you weren’t imagining that: it is a horse’s head!
A second site of immense regional importance is the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Zapopan, completed in 1689 in the Spanish colonial baroque style. This church houses a small doll of the Virgin Mary which was made by indigenous peoples in the seventeenth century and later became famous for several miracles: inducing peace among warring groups, ending plagues, and protecting from natural disasters. The figure visits the surrounding towns of Jalisco and is welcomed with parades, fiestas, and great fanfare. Her annual movement –called the Romeria–from the Cathedral back to the Basilica is a major municipal event. Over two million people join in the eight kilometer procession every October 12th. The Romeria is even recognized as a world cultural artifact by UNESCO.
The Virgin, andher Basilica
The final site is unfinished: the great Santuario de los Martires, which sits upon a high hill just south of the city center. This Church commemorates the twenty-five priests and laypeople martyred during the Cristero war, 1926-29. The design is futuristic, sometimes compared to a giant band shell. It is massive, and commands an amazing view of the city.
From the outsideGuadalajara skyline in the distancethe huge altar windowthe inside of the Church
We didn’t eat at any of the fancy (although inexpensive) restaurants this trip, but we did hit favorites like La Chata. Among our delicious plates:
FlautasFajitasChurrosOmelet with bacon and tomatillo saucePoached egg on English muffin with rich tomato sauceCrepas Tequila
Guadalajara has a full range of shopping opportunities. There are several high-end/fashion malls, but we don’t even visit such when we go to the States, so no we didn’t go there this time. Both Tlaquepaque and Tonala have excellent market areas with both artisanal shops and tourist junk: you have to be your own discerning consumer to ensure you’re shopping the former, not the latter. This trip we made it back into San Juan de Dios, aka Mercado Libertad, the largest indoor market in Latin America. The sprawling, three story complex is intimidating, with little organization and another mix of real, knock-off, and junk. But it’s also fun. Here’s a tip: the ground floor is mostly fruits, vegetables, meats, and flowers. The middle level is the grandest food court you’ve ever seen! The top level has stalls for everything else, from clothes to shoes to jerseys to electronics to leather goods to you-name-it!
A portion of San Juan de DiosTlaquepaqueTonala
We missed out on some of the cultural sites we wanted to visit, like the Palacio Gobierno (with its murals) and the State regional museum. Both were supposed to be open, but remained closed, possibly due to International Women’s Day (although we don’t know for sure). In the past this event has included protests and vandalism of memorials and buildings. We did witness the defacing of the Rotunda of Jalisco’s Illustrious Persons by these marchers.
Museo Regional de Jalisco, locked up tight.
It was a great trip and we only scratched the surface. Among other things we plan to do in the future: a Chivas match, Lucha Libre, and a visit to La Barranca de Huentitán (canyon). We’ve already visited the zoo, which is excellent (and well-shaded), and it also has views of the canyon.
One of the more famous Mexican renditions of the song Guadalajara was by Vincente Fernández, who just passed away last December. If you didn’t play the first version I provided, play this one, and get two Mexican classics in one!
You could be excused if you believed you had fallen asleep and awoke to find yourself in Europe in the 1930’s. Armies massing? Bogus staged provocations? Claims of the illegitimacy of neighboring states or governments? Interstate war? Same as it ever was.
“How did I get here?”
There is little surprising in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Even recently, the Biden administration released unprecedented amounts of US intelligence clearly indicating Russia was preparing to do so, and US government officials made one dire prediction after another. These may have become background noise to some, but if so, those ignoring the warnings missed the true significance. Government officials rarely predict something as serious as war: they almost always emphasize first the ongoing negotiations and offer a tepid “war remains possible” walk off statement. In the past two weeks, US officials flipped the script: talking about how Russia was preparing, warning war was imminent, then giving a feeble “we still hope for negotiations.” It was a tell that an invasion was inevitable.
For some of us, this has been obvious for much longer. Long-time Russia hands remember seventeen years ago when Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the Twentieth Century. Neither the holocaust nor Nazism. Neither the holodomor nor the Khmer Rouge killing fields. Not Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The end of the largest authoritarian menace in history was what bothered Putin. Putin publicly dedicated himself then to re-establishing Russia as a great power, feared and respected by the world. Everything he did subsequently was toward that end.
Putin’s Russia will never be a world power, and he knows that. His economy is a mix of what we used to call Third World extraction (oil and minerals) and oligarchic capitalism, benefiting a few corrupt officials. Russian demography remains a disaster: rampant alcoholism and early male death, misogyny and violence leading to few marriages and even fewer births, a shrinking population unparalleled in peacetime. The average Russian is little better off than he was under Communism: and that is totally irrelevant. Putin has a iron grip on Russia itself: he openly jails political foes and kills dissidents with impunity. Russians either admire his strength or fear his vengeance. Remember, this is a country where you can stop in Red Square and take a tourist photo with a Stalin look-alike!
I guess Lenin got up and walked out of the tomb!
Long term, Russia remains in mortal danger, but Putin has played a mid-term game. Russia was initially too weak to do much but posture. He stabilized the Russian economy during oil price spikes and drops and solidified his position with the oligarchs: they know he will turn on them on a dime if they conspire against him, but they are free to make money if they don’t. He fundamentally remade the Russian military from a massive conscript force to a much smaller, more modern, volunteer force capable of threatening any neighbor, if not NATO writ large. He weathered the so-called color revolutions, losing a client state in Ukraine but holding on to Belarus. He threatened and invaded Georgia, putting its move toward NATO on ice. He has been welcomed into Kazakhstan, and has a “bond without limits” with China (no, I don’t believe this means much either, but it doesn’t hurt).
After President Obama failed to enforce his own red line in Syria (Assad’s chemical weapon attack), Putin moved quickly to ensure his Syrian ally’s security. Then he turned to Ukraine and unleashed his “little green men,” Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) which occupied ethnically Russian potions of the Donbas river basin and all of Crimea.
The blue line is the Dnieper river, a large and formidable obstacle. The pink circle on the river is Kyiv, the Capital.
Russia never accepted the Maidan revolution which had chased off a Russian-friendly government in Kyiv. The Crimea occupation was part practice and part toe-in-the-water experiment. Would the West respond forcefully to naked aggression covered with the only the most transparent fig-leaf? Sanctions indicated the answer was no, and the subsequent Minsk accords gave Russia some cover for its defacto seizures.
Meanwhile, Putin began preparing to finish the job. Russia amassed over $630 billion in hard currency (mostly non-US dollar) reserves in case of future sanctions. His oligarch friends probably did the same with their personal fortunes. The EU estimates current sanctions (pre-invasion) cost the Russian economy $50 billion annually. Assuming the new sanctions are twice as bad, Russia will run out of reserves in . . . only six and a half years! Putin negotiated agreements with friendly states, especially China, to continue trade without using dollars in the event of tightened US sanctions. He began a drumbeat in state-controlled Russian media to show Ukraine was a base of “NATO aggression” or “fascist forces” threatening ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
What happens now? Putin may stop at the Dnieper river to assess the situation. He may not try to take Kyiv in order to avoid the urban destruction and outrage that would entail. He may be willing to occupy ethnic Russian majority areas, establish a land bridge to Crimea and Moldova, and eliminate Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. From these positions, Putin could pause to negotiate a cease fire and the establishment of a rump Ukrainian state with a government more amenable to Russia. He does not need to, nor does he probably want to, engage in a long-term occupation, which might become the focus of an insurgency.
The Biden administration was dealt a bad hand here: given Putin’s obvious intentions, the West needed to start to act long ago to deter him. However, every administration inherits bad situations, and they are responsible for resolving them. George W. Bush wanted to be “the education President,” focusing on America’s relations with Mexico and embracing “compassionate conservatism”: he got 9/11 instead. President Biden said he knew the world’s leaders on a first name basis; now has come his moment. The President has rightly rallied NATO, even encouraging Finland and Sweden to join in. But this won’t be over soon.
The administration said the array of increasing sanctions were designed to deter a Russian invasion: they have failed to do so. The EU and nations across the globe are joining in sanctions. But will they last? The NordStream 2 pipeline is completed; all Germany did was stop certification. In effect, some bureaucrat in Berlin took the pile of papers off his desk and put them in a drawer. They could resume certification in a moment. Europe needs Russian natural gas (Russia provides over 40% of Europe’s needs), and they cannot fully replace it with exports from the US. Oil prices have spiked to around $100 a barrel, which will further fuel inflation. Putin is betting he, his oligarchs, and the long-suffering Russian people can hold out longer than the–in his view–corrupt and irresolute West. He has a point. Most people forget that the very strict sanctions regime the entire world placed on Saddam Hussein was crumbling just before the Bush administration decided to go to war. We couldn’t keep sanctions on an insignificant country with a certifiable murderer-in-charge; can we do better with Russia?
Was Russian occupation of Ukraine inevitable? Putin took the measure of current Western leaders, and decided he could act. President Biden’s gaffe about a “small invasion” probably didn’t help, but what he said was true (NATO and the US weren’t going to fight to defend Ukraine), even though saying the quiet part out loud was the final nail in Ukraine’s coffin. Putin cannot afford war with NATO. While he would have tactical advantages in location initially, he cannot forestall a NATO build up and eventual counterattack. Any hint of ambiguity about US forces in Ukraine might have given Putin pause. For example, if Biden had rushed the US airborne forces not to Poland, but to Lviv (in far western Ukraine near the Polish border), to set up a permanent defensive perimeter for US diplomats, refugees, and perhaps the Ukrainian government, Putin might have occupied only the eastern parts of the country and steered clear. Even more so if Biden had convinced NATO allies to loin in the action.
Some will counter that American public opinion does not support going to war over Ukraine, and that is true. Neither do I. Yet American public opinion rarely supports going to war. Prior to provocation, the American public wanted to stay out of both World Wars. One major challenge of the presidency is to make the case for why the United States should go to war, if the President sees the need. President Biden ruled out making that case early on, following public opinion rather than leading it. One forgotten lesson of the Cold War is you can only deter an opponent if you have the capability and will to go to war with him; if the opponent doubts either your capability or will, he will not be deterred. The West can’t start the deterrence process by saying “we won’t fight under any circumstances.”
President Biden has announced tougher sanctions. A telling sign was the reaction of the US stock markets: while other markets around the world cratered on news of war in Europe, the US indexes rose! Why? They were expecting much tougher sanctions than the President imposed. We should assume Russia was warned: it makes no sense to rely on some sanctions with a threat of greater ones, if you don’t make it pretty clear how much worse it can get. In the meantime, there is much more the West can do, if the United States leads. All western airlines should be forbidden to land in Russia, and Aeroflot should be denied landing rights anywhere in the West. A review of all Russians on visas in the West for immediate expulsion, and a halt to all Russian visas in process. Russian consulates closed, Russian embassies reduced to minimum personnel. Of course no Russian athlete or team should be allowed into international competitions.
The US military could commence immediate production of ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs), once banned under the INF treaty (from which President Trump withdrew the US), and a replacement system for the Pershing II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile. These two nuclear capable systems were the bane of Soviet leaders due to their short timelines (six minutes) to hit Moscow from Germany. The US should make clear to the Russian government that these weapons will be forward deployed in NATO countries IF Putin does not withdraw from Ukraine and re-establish the legitimate government in Kyiv.
The sanctions will hurt eventually, but will not soon force Putin’s hand. Instead, the West is in for a short (losing) contest for the future of Ukraine, but more importantly, a long contest to re-establish the notion of deterrence which has been lost. That means more spending on defense, more troops and agreements and exercises, more time and attention to foreign policy, and less time, attention, and money for everything else. All that just to maintain the status quo ante invasion.
Or Europe decides warm houses are more important than Ukraine. We lose focus. Americans resent double-digit inflation or a recession brought on by a massive rate increase by the Fed. China runs a sanctions evasion operation. And yes, China is watching how this all plays out for clues about its future interests in Taiwan.
For all intents and purposes, Putin has accomplished his initial objectives. Ukraine is his, and even NATO members like Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia must be wondering about their security. Now the larger game is afoot. Does the US lead a reinvigorated NATO, and to what end? Do we find a way to pressure Putin and Russia to let go of Ukraine? Does China seize the moment, or simply lay low and provide Putin some cover? During the Cold War, every US presidential election had a subtext which went something like this: can this candidate stand up to the Soviet threat? Can they lead the free world, even if that means edging closer to war? That is a focus which was lost in the postwar period. Now it has returned with a vengeance.
On Valentine’s Day, 2065, the Department of Justice and the Food and Drug Administration dropped a bombshell: the US federal government had initiated criminal conspiracy charges against all major American sugar producers. Based on an enormous trove of evidence, sugar was the culprit for a wide-variety of health problems (obesity, heart disease, some cancers, autism and birth defects, even many mental illnesses). Furthermore, Big Sugar executives knew this as far back as the 1960’s, and engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the scientific data and even blame other products (remember the low-fat craze?). Millions of Americans, and other peoples worldwide, suffered and died due to the corporations’ actions.
Ever think you’d see a Mother Jones cover in my blog? Me neither!
Sugar immediately became the most suspect ingredient in history. The processed food industry began a race to the bottom of no-sugar in their products. Restaurants proudly posted signs proclaiming “we serve no sugar” or “take your sweet tooth elsewhere!” Sugar-free advertising became a badge of honor. But it didn’t stop there.
Of course, there was no Sugar Bowl college football game that year, or ever again. American sugar company stocks cratered, and advertisers turned down sugar sponsorship offers. The major media ran in-depth stories about the depth of the conspiracy: lies, pay-offs, political connections. Then media ran heart-wrenching stories of lives destroyed: everything from yo-yo dieters who had wasted their lives not realizing they were fighting a sugar addiction to families traumatized by children with autism or birth defects.
Predictably, the tone changed from the obvious (“Sugar is Evil”) to the more conspiratorial (“who knew what when?”). And there were plenty of targets. Big Sugar had many co-conspirators, from advertising agencies to scientists to politicians who played along. But it didn’t stop there.
Such a vast enterprise, operating openly for so long and causing so much heartache required a full and complete re-investigation of our history. Why didn’t federal bureaucrats stop this sooner? Why did some politicians not make this the top health priority? Why didn’t my doctor tell me? Where were the influencers, the sports heroes, the media personalities on this issue?
And so it began. The statue of former President Ron Desantis, who continued defending sugar long after it was obviously wrong, was defaced several times before being removed. Several high schools named for former first lady Michelle Obama dropped the association, since she was pro-nutrition but insufficiently anti-sugar. The House of Representatives changed the name of the Nancy Pelosi House Office Building to the Victims of Sugar Office Building, noting she never investigated Big Sugar while hoarding her designer ice cream. The University of Florida (America’s largest sugar-producing state) announced full-scholarships for students of families with disabilities associated with sugar use. The American Sugar refinery in Louisiana entered bankruptcy negotiations to settle claims for damages. Candy became a symbol of public disgust: you had to be a certain age to buy it in stores, and it was sold from behind the counter in unmarked paper bags. The NBA eliminated its LeBron James Award for Positive Corporate Relations after it became public he had invested in Big Sugar.
Alright, we’ve gone from the sublime to the absurd, so I think I have made my point. When you retroactively apply the thoughts, opinions, or even morality of today to the past, you must take care. I say this as a person who believes in moral absolutes; I always chuckle to myself when Progressives who say morality and truth are relative (to each person), then apply absolute tests of morality to historical figures. Not much for intellectual consistency, what? And to anyone out there thinking, “but Pat, you can’t be comparing sugar to slavery or Jim Crow or genocide or. . . “, I’m not. I am comparing the use of critical theory to history with a hypothetical future, to illuminate just how ridiculous it is, regardless of the seriousness of the subject matter. Plus, if you want to make the “slavery is far more serious argument”, okay, but what are you doing today given that there are almost twenty-five million people living in slavery now? Want to take responsibility for that? Or for ignoring it?
Much of what I wrote about sugar is true. It would not be surprising if some of the exaggerations I made later prove to be true, too. Sugar is terrible for you, it is addictive, Big Sugar did fight to blame fat for obesity and heart disease, politicians did and do protect sugar producers. And many if not most people know all this. Looking at our current lives with a “sugar-only” lens fails to consider how ubiquitous sugar is in our foods, how it causes cravings, and how many other MAJOR HEALTH CRISES compete for our attention. Life is more complicated today then where you stand on sugar.
One of the worst aspects of woke-ism is the assumption we moderns are morally and intellectually superior (because we are on the right side of history) and thus the application of today’s (superior) views to historical persons, places, or things. One might question the superiority of modern man (or woman). Where is today’s Lincoln or Washington? Da Vinci or Augustine? Mother Teresa or Jeanne d’Arc? We seem to have much more information at our fingertips, yet be much less well-informed. I see little reason to profess our intellectual or moral authority.
This is not an academic argument. The America represented in popular tracts like The 1619 Project is a practically-irredeemable place. As a young man growing up in a small town in Indiana, I was taught the standard fare of American history: the battles and the heroes and the missteps. I also learned about slavery, women soldiers in the Revolution and Civil War, the Japanese internment camps and the Jim Crow South. And I grew up far from any progressive educational paradise. All these things were covered in due course: briefly, and with context. If I had digested the American history put forward by Howard Zinn or the New York Times , I never would have dedicated almost forty years of my life to defending America and it’s constitution. Why defend the indefensible? Is that the goal?
G.K. Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy, “Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” America, as a nation founded on an idea, has few common touchstones. You aren’t an American because of the way you look, or who you know, how you vote, how much money you have, or even how you got to America. You are an American if you believe in the idea of America. History is one of the few anchors our nation has. It must be history warts and all, as it happened and by its own standards at the time. Otherwise it is not history, it is an immature and unwise form of propaganda.
Subtitled “A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause,” this work is by Ty Seidule, Brigadier General (retired), and the first Professor Emeritus of History at the United States Military Academy. Seidule had his “fifteen minutes of fame” back in 2015, when he gave a talk for PraegerU, a conservative online site which produces short videos. Entitled “Was the Civil War about Slavery?” it became the most watched history video . . . in history.
Well worth five minutes of your time!
Spoiler alert: Yes, the Civil War was all about slavery. Seidule was shocked at both the popularity and the notoriety of this short video, which he thought rather obvious.
Seidule’s book builds on that experience to address the Lost Cause mythology of the American South. However, don’t expect a history book in the classic sense, or even a data-driven argument. Seidule adopted the personal-story-as-explanatory-history approach, very popular among authors today. Seidule’s personal history is as a young man who grew up in Alexandria, Virginia (a close-in suburb of Washington, DC, so close it was originally included in the District), a quintessentially southern town in the 1970’s.
In prose both fluid and florid, Seidule tells of growing up a privileged son on the south, taught to revere that ultimate southern gentleman, Robert E. Lee. During his youth, Virginia state history books still had outrageous depictions of plantation life complete with happy slaves and kindly masters! Alexandria especially tried to proclaim its Confederate heritage: the town was occupied on the first day–and for the duration of–the Civil War, so it literally named all its north-south streets after Confederate heroes.
BG(ret) Seidule notes he swallowed all these myths (State’s rights, contented slaves, chivalrous Confederates personally opposed to slavery but unwilling to end it) and fully believed them. Only as an adult and budding historian did he come to realize what a slanted version of history he had been fed, and he has dedicated himself to setting the record straight.
It should go without saying, but Seidule is absolutely right. The Civil War was about slavery. Slavery is uniquely horrendous at all times, and the behavior of post Reconstruction southern leaders in their successful attempts to rewrite history and enforce Jim Crow laws was egregious. Seidule is at his best uncovering the history he never learned about towns he lived in, like Alexandria and Monroe (Georgia), which was once known as “lynchtown.” He is at his weakest when he makes post hoc arguments about why things are without any footnote or reference. Here his book comes across with little force, more like an extended opinion piece in the New York Times magazine.
Further, Seidule relies on his righteous anger at being misled at key points. He does establish the fact that generations of southern children received similar brain-washing, which partially explains the staying power of the Lost Cause myth. But, he also recognizes most of this historical fiction ended by the 1980’s, so what we have now is . . . what? Street names? Statues? Today’s students in Northern Virginia (where I lived for thirty years) get barely a few hours of Civil War history, and are hard pressed to say anything intelligent about the war. Their ability to process the name of Lee highway or J.E.B Stuart high school as a public symbol of white supremacy is suspect.
Early in this work–in the Foreword, actually–Seidule relates the story of his involvement with a project to memorialize West Point alumni who died in combat. Seidule explains he opposed including those West Pointers who abandoned the country and the Constitution at the moment of greatest danger to join the Confederacy. He notes he was overruled by the Academic Board and even the Superintendent, before someone leaked the plan and public outrage led to his position (i.e., no Confederate names in the memorial) being adopted. So far, so good, and of course the Brigadier General was in the right.
But in the telling of the tale, Seidule says “I should have realized that the overwhelmingly [sic] white men around the table might have grown up with the same myths, really lies, about the Civil War.” He has no footnote, no evidence, just a bold-faced assertion of the private thoughts and beliefs of his follow officers. This is unfortunate.
How did he know? He never says. Was there not another possibility? As a professional historian, he knows there was. I attended West Point around the same time Seidule was at Washington & Lee. Cadets did indeed study Lee, the officers who abandoned the Union, and the issue of slavery in the Civil War. In Military Art classes, we examined in-depth Lee’s tactical and operational brilliance, and his manifest failings as a strategist. In ethics, while we examined the role of States in the early days of the Republic and the loyalties they entailed, we also firmly established that abandoning our oath in wartime was an act of treason. Some cadets found this hard to swallow, but I never heard anything else than that from the faculty.
Finally, in studying how wars end, we learned about the unique outcome of the American Civil War. Most such conflicts end only with reprisals, widespread destruction, and endemic hostility. The US Civil War was different: it ended with the successful re-integration of the seceding states. This was in no small part due to the guidance of President Lincoln, whose wartime Second Inaugural address said “with malice toward none except the damn rebels, with charity toward all except the racist traitors.” You know the italicized words ring false because they weren’t there. Lincoln told Congress his plans to pardon the Confederate soldiers upon conclusion of the war. President Andrew Johnson issued a conditional pardon shortly after the war, and he followed that up with an unconditional pardon on Christmas day, 1868. Thus began the process of re-integration of the Union, which was uniquely successful.
Seidule confuses this part of the historical record with the shameful failure of Reconstruction, the abandonment of the freedmen, the introduction of Jim Crow and the racism in both north and south that continued to the Civil Rights era. These things did follow, but they were not necessarily caused by the pardoning process, which worked. He suggests any reference (picture, naming, statue, etc,) to Lee is part and parcel of the Lost Cause mythology and therefor suspect. Seidule rightly holds dear to the US Constitution and the oath that he and I took to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Yet that pardoning power is part of that same Constitution, and he rejects it. Here his anger at being misled gets the better of his argument.
Robert E. Lee was a great leader and a fine military officer. He was also a racist who personally benefited from, and directed the mistreatment of, slaves. He was at once refined AND cruel, educated AND ignorant, kind AND intolerant. The author is right to decry the fact he was led to believe only one side of history. Would that he had heeded that advice here.
My verdict: if you were led to believe only in the ‘sainthood’ of Robert E. Lee, this work is a powerful corrective. If you were ever exposed to the more complicated story of Lee and the South, you’ll find much of this book unsurprising.
Something about the date today got me thinking, and I suddenly realized we’re approaching our fifth anniversary (February 1st, 2017) of moving to Mexico. Tempus fugit and all that. Which got me to thinking about what has changed, what hasn’t, what’s new, what isn’t and all other things expat.
The climate remains spectacular. I’m sitting on my terraza looking out at the lake at 9:00 in the morning in late January, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The sky is blue, with just a few puffy clouds, and the temperature will hit seventy degrees Fahrenheit shortly; next week we’ll reach eighty. All this with no threat of hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes . . . wait, we do have an active volcano, but it’s far away and not that active, I think. Anyway, the climate is still as good as advertised. Some expats claim it is getting colder in winter (due to climate change) but the weather data has changed little. I know that these five years have weathered me to the point I no longer handle cold well. I used to run in the snow in a t-shirt and shorts; now fifty degrees gives me the chills.
The Mexican people are as friendly and welcoming as ever. One would think the pandemic might have put a dent in their good humor, but they choose to look at it all as just another part of life. No carping about difficulties in getting vaccines or masks. No complaining about restrictions, except in that like all government rules, they may be more honored in the breach. Few people getting all exercised about other people’s pandemic behavior, with the exception of a television announcer in Guadalajara:
Turns out he’s more of a performer than a newscaster!
In general, life continues apace here in Mexico. The government never (really) closed the borders, only shut things down for a week here or there, and mandated some performative measures. Some stores or restaurants still have a wet rag on the floor at the entrance, to “sterilize” your shoes before entering, from back when health officials thought Covid was a contact threat. You step on it, then on a dry rag next to it, pump some anti-bacterial gel onto your hands and enter. Sometimes someone waves a magic thermometer at you: they keep trying until they get a result allowing you to enter. Go figure: the results in illness, hospitalization, and death rates are about the same here as in the States, just without all the drama.
It is still cheap to live here, although housing and rental prices have become challenging to some. Mexico’s inflation rate was over seven percent last year, but the peso exchange rate has varied between twenty and twenty-two pesos per dollar, effectively negating the inflationary effect on expats. The rising cost of living is reflected in a rising federal minimum wage ($173 MXP, or about eight dollars a day), which in turn raises the amount needed for an expat to qualify as a temporary or permanent resident. Likewise, Mexico is tightening its immigration enforcement, meaning we’ll see fewer digital nomads (younger folks working online), fewer boomers retiring to Mexico to live on just Social Security, and fewer free spirits who just come with a backpack and overstay their tourist visas.
What about the current expat composition? Snowbird numbers were down during the pandemic, even though the airline routes remained available. The sizable population of Canadian snowbirds (loons?) suffered some pretty strict federal rules that severely limited their ability to visit. Ottawa used everything from threatening to eliminate access to health care to mandatory, supervised, and expensive quarantines to reduce the number of Canadians travelling abroad. American snowbirds numbers were somewhat reduced due to fear of getting severely ill in another country, but are beginning to rebound. Why? During an average year, about one million baby boomers retire (those numbers usually declined during recessions); during this pandemic, the number of baby boomers retiring has more than tripled and appears to be accelerating! All of them have to go somewhere.
Those in the States already know about the nation-wide escalation in home prices, and it’s especially fierce in warmer, nicer places to retire. We have seen a small increase in housing costs here, but much more of an active market, as the wave of baby boomers look south at the same time the newly-retiring Mexican middle class catches on to the notion of a leisurely retirement in a great location (rather than staying put in the family home).
And these trends prove out in the anecdotes we hear, and our own experiences. While construction has slowed during the pandemic, many new projects are suddenly springing up or back-to-life. Our web boards and social media are filled with potential expats asking the usual questions, planning a reconnaissance trip, or announcing they’re in town and looking to make new friends. Some of the long-term expats we arrived with (or shortly behind) are looking to return to the States, for all the usual reasons: increasing health concerns, separation from family, or death of a spouse. There is a constant churn among the expat community for these reasons, none of which reflect on any expat’s rejection of lakeside, but simply a change in life circumstances necessitating a change in domicile. Speaking of change of domicile, we moved late last year, and I will soon have a little tour of our new place in another post.
What’s the verdict, five years in? Of course we still love it here, or else we wouldn’t have gone all-in in buying a new house. All the things we loved about the town and the country continued; we have added a few new ones. We never anticipated being expats in the midst of a pandemic, but I would argue it has been easier here than anywhere else. Mexico presents no challenges to our ability to travel the world or to return to the States as often as we like: no requirements whatsoever from this end. We ended up being the only members of our immediate family able and willing to travel, so we went to see everyone else as they hunkered down: South Bend, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Wolfeboro (NH). Whenever a country decided it could safely allow tourists, we jumped on the bandwagon: Greece in June, Italy in November. We will continue the torrid pace this year, with a French river cruise plus land tour in May, Thanksgiving in Italy with a side tour to Sicily, and another round of visits to family. All this is made possible by the low cost of living and the ease of travel. And as Mexico seems to be moving to treat Covid as an endemic disease, we plan to take more local trips to places like Manzanillo, Guanajuato, and Oaxaca.
While the increasing number of expats locally do clog up the relatively small number of streets in our little town, I can’t get angry about it. Being an expat is not for everyone, but for those who relish a little spice in life, it is wonderful. I can’t bring myself to get angry about folks who are just trying to discover (like we did) whether the expat life is right for them!
![Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by [Ty Seidule]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51YuVl5A1TL.jpg)