Older fans will immediately recognize John Cleese as one of the comic geniuses behind Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Younger ones know him from A Fish Called Wanda and his short stints in several James Bond and Harry Potter films. His biting satire and sharp wit are never in question, although at times not well received. His send-up of Christianity (and Judaism) called Life of Brian was reviled by Catholics, Protestants, and Jews alike, leading Cleese to ad lib it was ‘the first time in millenia they had agreed on anything.’ After one divorce decree came out particularly bad for him, he said “think what I’d have had to pay (her) if she had contributed anything to the relationship—such as children, or a conversation.” Ouch!
Cleese clearly has an enquiring mind, and this book–better to call it a booklet or a pamphlet–brings together the results of his thinking and research. I hesitate to call it a book only because it is exceedingly short; so short, I digested it fully with lunch one day, and it barely outlasted my chicken & rice bowl! There’s no need to summarize the work, but here are some tidbits I found interesting:
Creativity is not simply being different; it is also being good or better. Modern definitions of creativity emphasize difference, but difference without improvement is not creative, just a matter of taste. I would add that newcomers often believe they are creative and being “stifled” by the existing organization, when they simply don’t know enough to know what has already been tried and failed.
Creativity starts after mastery. You have to be good at something first, otherwise you won’t be doing something new or “creative.” This is why creativity is so hard in fields like medicine and science, because mastery there requires much hard work first.
Creativity lies primarily in the subconscious (Cleese refers to it as the unconscious). Think hard about something and eventually you’ll get stuck (“what was the name of that guy?”). Leave it alone, that is, leave it to your subconscious, and eventually your subconscious brain creatively unlocks the information you could not consciously get to! This tracks with my experience. If I faced a hard challenge at work, and seemed stuck, I knew a good long run in the hot DC sun would do the trick. I would consciously forget all about the problem (focusing on not falling down, getting run over, or just breathing), but upon returing to my office, suddenly the challenge appreared in a different and solvable light.
How powerful is the subconscious? Cleese refers to studies on the “Mere-Exposure effect,” which shows that people exposed to random Chinese characters (漢 字) but who do not speak Chinese, could not consciously remember them when asked. Duh. But when later shown a second set of characters, the subjects “liked” certain characters better, and the ones they liked (none of which had any meaning to them, remember) were the ones they had been previously shown!
Interruption may be the greatest threat to creativity. During creative thought, you imagine complex structures and stories which completely collapse the moment the real world intervenes. Getting back to the furthest, most creative point takes re-building those structures in your mind from the ground up.
Interruptions, from Python days
Finally, Cleese holds special contempt for the “inner voice” that tells you “you can’t think that!” since it prevents creativity. Inside your creative thought pattern, you must let your mind wander to forbidden areas and say forbidden things. Note he’s not saying you stay there or repeat them out loud, just don’t self-censor. By the way, this also accounts for his dislike for woke-ism (not just cancel culture), as it becomes a chorus of self-righteous internal voices saying “don’t think or say that!” which is disastrous for creativity.
More about his book than Wokeism, but an introduction
This work on creativity is engaging and easy-to-read. Get thee to a library and borrow a copy for lunch soon!
Packaging, or branding in modern usage, is everything. Slap an attractive slogan on something and people will buy (or buy into) it with abandon. Tag something else with negative connotation and sayonara!
If I called this post “rules for a good life” you might have stopped at the word “rules.” Who likes rules? Plus a “good life” has a vaguely religious flavor to it. “How to” attracts people; they like being in charge of themselves and practical advice to accomplish things. And the “best life?” Nothing is more internet-savvy than that. Plus, five steps is easy enough to memorize: no need for a to-do app or summary sheet.
If I was ever going to write a post about “How to Have the Best Life,” it would go like this:
Decide for yourself what is most important and keep that always first in all you do. Otherwise you will squander your limited resources on less important things.
Respect legitimate authority. Regardless of your wealth, education, popularity, or power, there will always be those with authority over you: parents, teachers, police officers, sergeants, bosses, tax assessors, and so on. Some will have brief and limited authority (the clerk who gives you your driver’s license), others will have a lasting effect (your drill sergeant). To the extent they act legally and honorably, give them the respect they are due. Be careful not to place yourself in judgment over them: you know not what they do.
Harm no one. Certainly defend yourself and those around you. But always seek to defuse, de-escalate, and disarm rather than go nuclear. Violence in word or deed begets more violence, and once the cycle is started (and remember, the cycle only starts with the second act, not the first), all will suffer.
There are no victimless lies, cheats, or steals. We have an endless ability to rationalize and are quick to use it. But even if your offense is never discovered, you know what you did, and that affects you, so you (and the truth) are the first victim.
If you renounce only one thing in life, make it jealousy. There will always be people “better off” than you: richer, more attractive, luckier, more powerful, more popular. In most cases, they will not be more deserving than you in any sense. They will simply be “better off.” The more that bothers you, the worse your situation will be. It is truly wise to consider how much “better off” you are than others, especially in comparison to those whom you consider more worthy than you are!
These are not easy concepts to put into practice; if they were, everybody would do them. But they are a reliable guide to being happy. And what makes for the best life I cited in the title? How happy you are! Perhaps you recall the quote that “what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul” (Mark 8:36). This was everyday wisdom once-upon-a-time, but lost nowadays.
In fact I am sure some of you noticed that all my five points for your best life are simply a restatement of the Ten Commandments. Their original branding was excellent: brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses, written by God himself and etched in stone (which became a metaphor for permanence). But today some hear “commandments” and think “rules” and immediately rebel. Others see rules and start to lawyer them (what about double effect? “Who is my neighbor?” “what if . . . ?” and so on). But read them again, in your Bible or my summary above. What is really objectionable? What would fail to make you happier?
One of the retirement seminars I went to early on in my career had a session called the rules for a successful retirement. It was all about starting saving early, having goals, making plans for your time. Nobody stood up and asked “who are you to make rules for me?” No one objected to the concepts because there was no guarantee. No one asked “can we get by saving less and having more fun now?” Why not? Because the answer was obvious. The path to good (even early) retirement was well-trod: not easy, but well enough understood to elicit a set of rules that, like a recipe, reliably turn out.
Pundits are up in arms; talking heads are spouting feverishly; activists have taken up their #s. The Supreme Court has simply lost its mind, gone blatantly partisan (or even worse, Catholic!), and has to be reined in. “Our Democracy” (sic) is fundamentally at risk.
Dobbs overturning Roe and Casey? While that seems to be the judicial crisis du jour, if you read this blog (and you do, because you are), you heard the reasoning in Dobbs explained last November! The momentous decision out of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) I want you to be aware of is West Virginia vs EPA (the US Environmental Protection Agency). It might have gotten lost in all the toing-and-froing over abortion rights, praying coaches, and state funds for religious schools. It’s the decision environmental activists characterize as ensuring climate change will end all human life as we know it. But the decision is far more important than that (sarcasm intended)!
The case was unusual for several reasons. First, it adjudicated a rule that never went into effect. Usually, when the facts of a case change during the judicial process (for example, there is a settlement, or a prosecutor drops a prosecution or the government changes a contested policy), higher courts call the case moot and end it without judgment on the merits of the case. The Supreme Court is especially fond of this outcome, believing a case must be “ripe,” that is, fully formed before it merits a SCOTUS decision. Second, it enforced the “major questions” doctrine. This concept restrains the powers the legislative branch (i.e., the US Congress) can delegate to the executive branch (i.e., the President and the administrative departments). Both have major implications for how the US governs itself. So you need to understand it.
First, the facts of the case. The Clean Air Act of 1970 granted the EPA the right to control power plant emissions. The concept was simple: power plants emit pollution, America had polluted skies, the Congress and President passed a law to reduce pollution by controlling the pollution from several sources, especially power plants. It worked, amazingly well. The Clean Air Act is the main reason the skies over US cities do not look like that over Guadalajara most days (brown and scuzzy, for the record).
The EPA’s regulatory authority changed little over the next forty years. It measured how much each power plant emitted, determined what a safe level of pollution was, and fined plants producing too much pollution. Under the Obama administration, the EPA desired to take on the challenge of climate change, so it issued a new set of guidelines called the Clean Power Plan. This plan went a step further: rather than measuring and fining individual plants (which prevented polluted skies but did nothing to combat climate change), the EPA now proposed rules which would gradually phase out coal and natural gas as sources for electicity generation (those sources generate almost 60% of US electicity, so this was a huge change) by reducing the allowed pollution emissions.
Several states sued the EPA saying this rule went beyond the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the new EPA rule pending rulings on the merits of the case in lower courts. So it was still an issue in question: one side wanted the rules enforced, the other side wanted them overturned. Then the Trump administration came into office. Now the EPA ruled it had violated its authorities, and withdrew the Clean Power Plan. Other states now sued the EPA to keep the standards, and to force the EPA to implement it. Lower courts agreed. And thus the case ended up finally on the SCOTUS docket in 2022.
If you read the hysterical press, the headlines went something to the effect that ‘the Supreme Court sides with climate change catastrophe.’ Let’s take that up at the end. What did SCOTUS actually say? First, they held that this was an important issue, and since the plaintiffs and respondents had reversed during the course of the case, there was every likelihood the suits would continue until SCOTUS issued a ruling. In effect, they held they couldn’t rule it moot, as that just restarted the case.
Next, SCOTUS codified something called the major questions doctrine. Why? Over the course of decades, the federal government has issued more and more regulations: it’s what government does. Anybody who has seen the original federal tax form (it was one-page long, both sides) knows how this goes. Congress does not like to be too specific when issuing laws, so they often include language authorizing the executive departments to issue guidelines on how to implement the general goals of the law. Like the Clean Air Act, which had a goal of less pollution but let the EPA determine how much pollution for each plant. Some called this leaving it to the experts, and it is that, to some extent. This was the crux of the issue. The law said the EPA could set limits by individual plant, but could they set nation-wide emission limits effectively eliminating coal and natural gas plants? The court ruled that setting individual limits was within the EPA’s authority, but setting nation-wide limits, especially ones which eliminated certain types of plants, was actually a “major decison” that only the Congress and the President could and should make.
Here’s a clear example of why that’s true. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is a federal agency under the Department of Transportation that regulates traffic on interstate highways, among other things. This is their charter. Large amounts of data confirm that highway deaths vary directly with speed, that is, the faster you drive, the more likely you are to have an accident and cause a fatality. NHTSA was called upon during the days of the “federal 55 mph speed limit” to justify it, and did so on this basis (it was also to save gasoline). Additionally, traffic emissions are a major source of carbon dioxide and other causes of global warming. What if NHTSA’s experts said tomorrow, “highway traffic deaths are an unnecessary tragedy, and climate change is an immediate threat. Starting today, the national speed limit on interstate highways is 40 mph, and it will decrease 5 mph every year until it hits zero.” Zero mph equals zero interstate traffic fatalities and zero emissions. Right?
Yes, and crazy! But the question is not is this crazy, but is this legal? If the EPA could stretch its authority to effectively outlaw coal and natural gas as sources of electricity, why couldn’t NHTSA do the same? Why couldn’t Health & Human Services outlaw sugary drinks? At least the Temprance Union had the guts to take Prohibition to the Constitution via an amendment!
What does the SCOTUS decision mean to you & me? It really does make our response to climate change harder, because it pushes it from the administrative state back up to the Congress and President, which have proven ineffective thus far. But going around the separation of powers in our federal structure is never a good idea. More importantly, the SCOTUS decision puts the administrative state on notice: do what the law prescribes. While there is some leeway, don’t automatically take things to the limit, regardless of how good you think your intentions are. I doubt anybody thinks the administrative state has demonstrated too little power in the last fifty years. If you do, imagine a President you dearly oppose in charge of that same apparatus . . . it will give you pause.
In the long run, the major questions doctrine could have far more effect on how the US governs itself than Dobbs (which kicked abortion down to the States), Kennedy or Carson (the latter two continued a string of rulings stating the government cannot establish a religion, has to be neutral bewteen religions, but cannot be antagonistic to the concept of religious activity). West Virginia vs EPA will be cited in many upcoming government cases, and the theme of the decisions will be “if the government wants to do that, it better have a law which specifically authorizes that.” However you feel about that, now you know why!
We’re back in South Bend for our annual family get-together, which normally happens around July 4th. All that has me pondering life’s larger issues through the prism of a more familiar one: the family.
Families are, of course, where we are first civilized (if that ever happens, or for better or worse). Many of the larger problems America faces are ultimately originally based in the breakdown of the family. And I’m not talking only about the quintessential 1950s-style nuclear family, but even the more modern evolution of the term. As the privileges and even whims of the individual have become of greater importance, the rights and duties of the family have weakened. We seem to want the schools or work or the government to take on more and more responsibility for things that once were the prerogatives of the family. With predictable, less-than-optimal, results.
Not that families always do a great job. I know some of my friends out there were raised in terrible situations, and only succeeded despite family upbringing. Yet the family remains the core unit of society, and for all its warts and blemishes, it is generally a force for good and a worthwhile institution.
Which leads me to the concept of socialization. One first learns to share (or not) in the family. To be kind (or not). To be treated fairly (or not). To tell the truth (or not). All the things society relies on to function start with the family. But even the best families have those members who primarily provide examples of what not to do (to put it politely). Every family is like this, and every parent faces how to deal with the situation. It is a truly universal experience. Your children must be introduced to the larger family they have literally inherited.
Maw-Maw is a drunk. Uncle Ernie does drugs. Cousin George has a gambling problem. Auntie cheats on her husband. And so it goes.
What do the parents tell the six-year old?
“Maw-Maw didn’t mean to swear like that, she just wasn’t feeling well.” “Don’t accept any brownies from Uncle Ernie.” “If cousin George asks about how much money we have, come get me.” “Auntie and her husband are having an argument.” All of which are at least partially true, but are not in fact the whole story.
As that child matures, the level of honesty expands commensurate with that maturity. “Maw-Maw sure likes her beer.” “Uncle Ernie isn’t weird, he’s just stoned.””No, you can’t give George your baby-sitting money to buy lottery tickets, and call him ‘Cousin George’.” “Auntie did something that really hurt her husband’s feelings.”
Eventually the discussion becomes something more like: “Maw-Maw died so young because she was an alcoholic and couldn’t stop.” “Uncle Ernie never learned how to control himself, and that’s why he always shows up high.””George always has another get-rich quick scheme, and they always end the same way.””Remember all those fights Auntie and her husband had? Well . . .”
Why are the parents “economical with the truth?” Because for all the problems noted, they view the family as a good thing, a thing worth cherishing and sustaining. If they didn’t view it that way, they wouldn’t keep participating in it in the first place. Eventually we have to be more brutually honest, but that comes when we are mature enough to have those conversations.
Which is how we should also learn about our nation. Do you believe America is a worthwhile thing? Is it a force for good? Separate your immediate emotions (some suggested they would not celebrate independence this year): in total, across time, is the world better off for the fact of America, or not.
If the answer is “no,” really? Take a deep breath and listen to reason. If the answer is “yes,” continue.
How do we socialize our chidren about America, if we value it? We start with what’s good, what’s unique, what’s best. Why? First, because those things are true. They might not be the complete truth, but they are still true. As the children mature, we bring in more nuanced concepts. Yes, some of the Founders were slave-owners. Yes, segregation persisted well into modern times. True, women only achieved the right to vote in the last hundred years. But there is a time and place to introduce such concepts.
I disagree strongly with those who claim even mentioning such things is unpatriotic. I also disclaim those who suggest America is fundamentally flawed, systemically racist or a morally neutral force at best. Both these positions are wrong, and must be avoided.
To those who say “no one is bringing these concepts into the early childhood educational system” (say primary school): you’re wrong. The New York Times and Washington Post used to include a disclaimer that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is ‘an advanced academic concept introduced mainly at the university-level and not taught in primary education.’ They have changed that to say ‘it sometimes influences curriculum at those levels.’ Why the change? I spent a few hours one afternoon researching local news stories and found one example after another of CRT being used as early as pre-school classes. You cannot tell a child the nation is fundamentally racist and expect them to think later it is worthy of their respect, let alone their love. It gets the maturity learning model exactly backwards.
Start with the good. There’s plenty of it. Later introduce the neutral points; much to cover here, too. Finally,discuss the bad, especially those things which still linger today. All three need to be covered, but when and how are critically important.
That is, if you care about America more than scoring a meme point. Hope you had a happy Fourth of July!
Subtitled “A scientist’s guide to our past, present, and future,” this NY Times best-seller was written by Vaclav Smil, a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst. His has authored deep studies in energy and agriculture, but he excels in interdisciplinary studies and describing complex problems without lapsing into confusing jargon. As I used to tell my analysts, “anybody can show how complex a problem is; your job is to make all that complexity instantly understandable.” Smil, the Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, provides just enough data while wading through vast quantities of the same across multiple fields of endeavor to show why some policies are possible in the real world, and others are not.
Take the synergy between food and oil, for example. Smil details how even if we abandon fuel for automobiles, oil and its products were essential to the earlier green revolution in agriculture, and cannot be replaced (easily) in airplane fuel, fertilizer, or plastics. In the absence of technological advances to replace these products (technological advances which are not being seriously sought), there is no way to feed the current eight billion people on the planet, let alone assumed population growth. Reducing waste, changing diets, and investing in research can get us about halfway there, but would leave us returned to a world where half the population faces imminent starvation: hardly a desirable state. Thus Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (POL) remain essential products for the foreseeable future (say, fifty years), regardless of how many of us drive electric cars. De-carbonization is a non-starter, as long as we value eating.
Smil takes a rhetorical axe to several sacred cows beside de-carbonization, including globalization, climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), and space colonization. He is not a polemicist or a denier; he just insists on scientific facts in place of assumptions, tweets, and narratives. For example:
He shows how globalization has come in waves (the first when Rome ruled, another during the early 20th Century, a third in the 1980s, all driven by a combination of technological and political change. It is neither a “force of nature” (pace President Clinton) nor inevitable, and it can and has waned recently. He demonstrates how the economic wisdom of relying on a single source of medical protective gear (China) left the entire world vulnerable during the covid pandemic, and also led to the ridiculous point that Canada, a nation with the world’s largest supply of usable forests, imports nearly all its toothpicks and toliet paper from China, a place with few such resources. Globalization is a policy choice which has winners and losers, not a wave which cannot be resisted.
Smil turns things on its head when he professes his complete acceptance of the “science of global warming” while criticizing the “religion of climate change.” He has no time for climate deniers: he demonstrates that the relationship between carbon and global temperature was first identified by American scientist Eunice Foote in 1856, and the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius correctly identified how much and where the warming would occur in 1896! None of this was especially controversial until the science of global warming evolved into the public policy debates and the catastrophic predictions of climate change proponents. Note Smil is certain we need to both reduce carbon sources and mitigate its effects; yet he brooks no fools. His take down of Emmanuel Macron’s famous tweet (“Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rainforest–the lungs which produces (sic) 20% of our planet’s oxygen–is on fire.”) points out that (1) lungs don’t create oxygen, they use it, (2) plants in general use as much oxygen as they make, and (3) at current rates of consumption, it would take 1500 years to reduce Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere by three percent (the equivalent of moving from New York City to Salt Lake City).
Smil is a true environmentalist, but he will not succumb to hyperbole or exaggeration for effect. He points out that all of our increasingly complex climate models have barely changed Arrhenius’ 1896 forecast, and that the key driver of increasing atmospheric carbon content was the rise of China. In a single generation China moved almost a billion people from near-starvation to owning automobiles and air conditioners, at the cost of huge increases in atmospheric carbon. India and Africa are now poised to make the same ascent: how do we deny them? Or what do we do to accommodate them?
Regarding the replacement of real things (like concrete, ammonia, plastic and steel, what he calls the four pillars of modern civilization) with virtual things, Smil can barely conceal his contempt. He shows how modern civilization is based on the former four, while the latter is a recent offshoot which also requires enormous amounts of silicon and energy. The virtual world relies on this invisible connection, and while the virtual world can change quickly, it is entirely dependent on the less-easily changed real world. Thus the real world always trumps the virtual one.
As to the growth of artificial intelligence, he asks how that played out during the pandemic (answer: it didn’t). In the end, “the best we could do is what the residents of Italian towns did in the Middle Ages: stay away from others, stay inside for 40 days, isolate for quaranta giorni.” And the singularity (when artificial intelligence merges with and replaces human intelligence)? He views it as a weird, metaphysical bit of wishful science fiction. The recent claim by a Google engineer that its LaMDA chatbot model was sentient is a case study: while it can hold elaborate conversations that are eerily human, it also cannot correctly answer a question like “when did Saturn pass through the Panama Canal?” Any six-year old can quickly discern the conceptual impossibility of a planet passing through an earthly canal, but these are only words to the best AI we have.
Finally, space travel and colonization, even of nearby Mars, faces so many staggering challenges that it only serves to underline the necessity of safeguarding the one planet and one environment in which our species is uniquely suited to thrive.
His final chapters on risk (like how likely you are to die from visiting a hospital versus being killed by a terrorist) are instructive, and he even delves into how we understate risks where we feel we have control (driving a car) and overstate those where we apparently don’t (a plane crash). Smil even shows how our successful effort to increase longevity created a larger pool of older people vulnerable to a pandemic, and true enough, the elderly were vastly overrepresented in the covid death rolls.
As you might imagine, Smil is something of an iconoclast. He lives a frugal, thoughtful life embodying his beliefs in less consumption and reduced energy use. He debunks conservative and liberal shibboleths alike (he shreds the notion there is nothing America can do about gun violence, for example). He doesn’t argue for inaction; he says we face serious challenges and need to act, but we need to understand what we’re doing first, and avoid simplistic solutions (like de-carbonization). He does discuss reasonable changes in diet, better ways to improve agricultural production, increases in insulation and water use that could make a huge difference.
As you can probably tell, I enjoyed his book immensely. The statistical presentation (using scientific notation frequently, like 1 x 10-2 for example) gets a little annoying over time, but it is forgivable and necessary. At the beginning, throughout, and in the end, he reminds the reader he is neither a magician nor a prophet, just a person who seeks to understand things before leaping to policy conclusions. That’s refreshing!
We all know why everybody is talking about gun violence. Rather than yelling “do something” (always a great excuse for being ineffective), rather than mouthing “thoughts and prayers,” (what does that even mean anyway? As a religious man, I truly believe in the efficacy of prayer, but what’s with the “thoughts”? Are we suggesting good thoughts do something?), instead try thinking, not “thoughts.” Consider these aspects of a truly wicked problem*:
All American
First: America has a unique gun culture. Absolutely unique. I don’t know whether it has something to do with the “new world” and our British heritage and the pioneer spirit and the Wild West. But no country in the world has such a strong affinity for firearms. You (and I) may not have this affinity, but America undeniably does. Pretending it doesn’t is ridiculous, as is pretending it can be wished away. It is as American as the Colt M1911. If you don’t get it, that’s okay, but stop saying things like “Switzerland doesn’t have this problem” because, well, no, no other country likes guns as much as America does. Period.
Second, America has a lot of guns. Most estimates indicate there are over 400 million guns in America today, which is more than one per the 330 million Americans. Yet most American households don’t own a gun. Gallup has been polling gun ownership since 1960, and it has slowly declined from 49% to 42%, while the sale of guns has increased. Warning: math logic problem coming up! If the number of households owning guns has declined, but more guns are being sold, then we know the increase is due to gun owners collecting more guns. Some folks get all excited about the total number of guns, but a gun collector who has twenty rifles and buys twenty more is not the problem, is it? All those guns still exist, so when we want to solve the problem, you can’t pretend they’ll just go away.
Third, Americans have a unique right to bear arms. Some people used to question this. The reigning liberal orthodoxy interpreted the clause “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the maintenance of a free state” to mean that guns were necessary to a military organization (i.e., the militia) and thus a collective not an individual right. However, the US Supreme Court had never ruled on this view until the Heller decision in 2008. There, Justice Antonin Scalia devastated this orthodoxy with a well-researched bit of originalism. The Founders viewed an armed citizenry as a state-of-being (not an organized group) to be called upon by the government, so the right was indeed an individual one. You’ll see opinion writers still arguing this point, but Scalia prevailed, and his historical record is impeccable. Many people just don’t like the implication of his majority opinion (which is understandable). No one cares whether Mexico or Canada or Australia treats gun rights diffrently. It doesn’t matter, because it’s our Constitution that pertains, not theirs.
Fourth, gun technology has changed little in the past 50 years. Ditto for bullets. The first fully automatic weapon was the Maxim machine gun produced in 1884. The infamous AK-47 is from . . . (wait for it) 1947. The Armalite (hence) AR-15 semi-automatic rifle came out in 1959. While technology like 3D printing will make a difference in how weapons are produced, nothing has recently made them more deadly or difficult to control. In fact, some new technology (biometric trigger locks, for example) promises to do the opposite.
Fifth, America has a broad, disconnected mess of gun laws. In fact, as Scalia demonstrated in his Heller opinion, America has always had various restrictions on guns. The fact that the Second Amendment is an individual right does not mean it is unrestricted; voting is an individual right, and we restrict it, too. Don’t believe me? Read the Helleropinion or the opinion written by the clerk who assisted Scalia in drafting it! States have limited who could own a gun, where they could carry it, even when they could fire it, and they have done so from the very beginning. Yes, the same Founders who wrote the Second Amendment as an individual right recognized many restrictions on firearms. Prior to 1968, there were few federal laws restricting firearms. This is important to our current debate: America had many guns, few gun laws, and much less gun violence, as recently as fifty years ago!
Sixth, America has a violence problem. H. Rap Brown got it right when he said, “violence is as American as cherry pie.” Where do otherwise normal people get into fatal road rage incidents? Where do strangers push people onto the subway tracks as a train arrives? Where do groups of teenagers challenge each other to knock passers-by out with a single sucker punch? Where do robbers beat a victim to a pulp in addition to taking a wallet? Where do police use overwhelming force to subdue non-dangerous felons? Where do teens lob bricks off overpasses? Where do people completely lose it because a happy meal just ain’t right? ‘Merica, that’s where. It happens elsewhere, but moreso here than anywhere else. Some characterize this as a mental health issue; others call it a problem of evil. They are both right. Whatever you want to call it, you must acknowledge that Americans seem to have a tendency to go to violent extremes quickly and fatally. Guns just make that easier.
Yes, you really did see that; good thing she wasn’t packing!
Seventh and finally (on a related note), America has a personality disorder. As in sociopathology. Somwhere along the way, starting about fifty years ago, America’s worship of individualism morphed into sociopathy, the mental condition wherein the individual sees themself as supreme, and all others as not-people, just objects to be used. I don’t know why this happened, but it shows up in many ways. The lack of concern for the poor or homeless (them, it’s their fault), the notion some people are better off not being at all (abortion, euthanasia), the unwillingness to take collective medical responsibility (masks, vaccines, etc.) are all of a piece. I am important; you are either an obstacle to my desires or a tool for my use.
Getting back to guns, and schools, and massacres, what are we to do? I keep mentioning fifty years ago, because in the Sixties the federal government, alarmed by rising gun violence among militant groups, started introducing more gun restrictions. But before then, school kids used to ride the New York City Subway to school with rifles slung on the shoulder, and no one thought twice about it. No one can doubt the relationship between firearms and school shootings (pull trigger, fire bullet, kill children). But why now? For what reason? Guns are clearly the proximate cause in these attacks, but our collective, degraded culture is just as clearly the underlying cause.
So what do we do? Address both the immediate and long-term causes.
One, the federal government should require all states to create gun registries. No national database, but every state has to keep track. Own as many as you like, just fill out the forms. Unregistered guns are federal felonies with mandatory jail time. Why? To demonstrate it’s important, that gun ownership is a serious matter, like voting. You don’t just go down to WalMart and get some guns. And illegal guns are a very serious offense, whether they’re ever used in a crime or not.
Two, limit gun ownership by age: twenty-five, twenty-one? Let’s talk about it! Introduce a cooling off period for weapons purchases: 72 hours before you can receive the weapon (if we can impose delays on seeking an abortion, we can limit how fast one buys a weapon). Then you must meet with a local police officer (three) within one week of purchase (not for approval, just for recognition and discussion about gun safety and local ordinances). When Tim the Gun-guy buys his thirty-first rifle, it’s not a big deal for him to go down and have a friendly chat with Officer Jones about local gun safety laws. But when the angry, young, white supremacist shows up, the local police might want to be aware he’s now armed.
Four, borrowing a line from Chris Rock, “you don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? You need bullet control.” Some people like guns, and guns can be modified to shoot faster, so focusing on limiting or banning guns is difficult. Same for magazines. But bullets are a pressure point. They are more difficult to make, especially in bulk, and why not place restrictions on ammunition? Want to shoot at the range? Buy bullets there, and use them or turn them in. Want to hunt: same. Want to just keep ammo at home, ok, but now you have to record them, inventory them, secure them, report them, and have them available for safety inspection. And tax the heck out of bullets which fit semi-automatic weapons, perhaps not in the range of Chris’ “$5,000 per bullet” line, but you get the point. Want to use a semi-automatic weapon to hunt? Ok, it’s your right, but it’s also a luxury.
Five, the federal government needs to step in primarily where state laws come up short. Having tight restrictions in a blue state right next door to a loose red state is a problem. Interstate sale and transport of firearms needs to be strictly regulated (it once was). All those travelling gun shows? Ok, but with oversight and strict enforcement, patrolled by ATF attempting “straw-puchases.” Treat gun trafficking as a form of organized crime, and any dealer or seller caught forfeits everything under the RICO statutes. We know who the problem gun dealers are; take them down. Congress also needs to influence gun manufacturers to adopt technologies like biometric trigger locks: give the companies legal immunity for weapons with such tech, but not for other guns. See how fast the industry moves to a safety-first standard! States should pass safe storage rules (locked cabinets, trigger locks, etc.) that limit the availability of loaded gun with no safety features.
Duct tape, anyone?
Six, if we want to ban bump stocks, or large magazines, or other similar things, it’s a temporary solution, as there are ways around the rules. Sometimes it is important to make symbolic gestures, so if someone thinks this is important now, ok, but understand this only sends a message, it doesn’t really deter anyone.
Up to this point I have focussed on guns, so let’s talk about another side of the issue: kids!
Seven, schools are the ultimate soft target, children our most precious gift. We owe them a safe learning environment. We used to board airplanes like busses until we realized what could happen. Then we changed dramatically. Every school should have only one entrance with a metal detector and armed security during school hours. Extra exits with one-way turnstiles; we can secure a pay-to-attend sporting event, why not our kids? We don’t need armed teachers or armed parents. We need well-trained police and very simple, well understood security. It’s not September 10th anymore.
The deeper culture rot that affects America will be harder to fix. Red-flag laws are all well and good, but how about fixing what makes young men (it is primarily young men) decide killing children, or others, or themselves is a thing to do? Mass shootings are actually a tiny fraction of the problem, although they are stark example. Mass shootings generally account for less than 1,000 of the 45,000 gun deaths annually, of which slightly more than half are suicides. The absolute numbers have increased in the last half-century, but remember, there were 200 million Americans in 1968, and 330 million today. Pew Research data show the gun suicide and murder rate barely changed over the time period:
Eight, we need a variety of cultural programs to support the family as the basic unit of society, where decency, honesty, and respect for authority are first learned. We can’t treat families as a hindrance, and expect schools to teach all the basics of ethics and morality AND math, science, and literature. We tried, and it didn’t work. Yes, we need to fund more mental health efforts (nine), because we have multiple generations who have grown up without a moral compass, with heightened anxiety and little respect for our traditions and history. This is a debt we will bear for generations, but we have no choice. More importantly, we need federal policies (ten) which advantage marriage as an institution. No, that’s not fair to single people, or single parents, or a host of others. It’s what’s best for two-parent families, which remain the single best way to form a new generation of responsible adults.
For those who think, “what if we banned assault rifles” or “all guns” or repealed the Second Amendment: remember, our gun culture precedes these things. It will not change quickly, nor does it necessarily need to. As I pointed out earlier, we had many guns and few laws and almost no mass shootings, once upon a time.
The greatest school massacre in American history involved no guns. Look up the Bath, Michigan, incident of 1927. A disgruntled school adminstrator mined a school house, his home, and his car with explosives. He killed 44, injured 58, and would have killed twice that many if all his explosives had ignited. Call it a terrible case of American ingenuity, but it serves the point that evil, or mental illness, finds a way. So yes, let’s accept some common-sense gun restrictions, avoid grand-but-meaningless gestures, and really work on the culture problem.
*For those unfamiliar, a “wicked problem” is one so complex and multifaceted that it is really “wicked” (not in the sense of evil, but rather difficult) to solve. In the case of gun violence, the term wicked works both ways.
Ignore the Press. Stop re-tweeting, and close your social media. Put aside your worst fears and let’s reason together. Things may have just changed (maybe not), but that change was inevitable.
If you read my post back in November (Woeful Roe), you were not surprised by the text of the recent leak of the first draft opinion in the Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning the precedent of Roe v. Wade and re-energizing the national abortion debate. If you welcome personal ethics, you were probably appalled by the leak itself, a serious breach of decorum, which is, after all, that thin veneer of civilization that stands between us and the Twitterverse. That should be the opinion of all people of goodwill, regardless of their views of the draft text and decision.
I take no special pride in early identifying the reasoning Justice Alito used in his draft: his reasoning was there for all to see, if one cared to look, in decades of pro-life legal scholarship. One hardly needed a psychic to see this result coming, and it was precisely the result Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg feared when she said “Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped may prove unstable” about Roe v. Wade.
Much of the resulting coverage in the press has bordered on hysteria. Headlines predict a return to the bad old ’50s, or to the dark medieval ages, or to the future dystopia of The Handmaid’s Tale. Oddly enough, with “nones” being the second-largest belief group in America and traditional religious participation plummeting, from where will all these fanatical religious leaders come? As to the perceived end of privacy rights, another conjured apocalyptic possibility, those spreading it seem to ignore Alito’s own text (in the draft) which specifically outlines why Roe and abortion are different, and the other privacy rights (e.g., gay marriage, interracial marriage, contraception) remain standing precedents. And majority opinions are binding, which is not the case for dissents.
If you foresee this, I suggest investing in red wool and white linen.
Why the hype? I always point out it is important to ask the question “who benefits?” whenever such hype occurs. In this case, Democrats smell an issue to energize their base in the face of possibly calamitous November mid-term elections. And I note the GOP feels the same way: notice how quiet they’ve been, fearing the Dobbs decision could complicate what they saw as a sure thing! One should never be surprised when politicians sway with the wind on what others feel are life-and-death issues. The GOP famously welcomed the pro-life movement with mostly rhetorical support for decades, and only the emergence of the Trump phenomenon actually resulted in pro-life actions. Meanwhile, for all my Democratic and Progressive friends, I remind them thus it always was for them, too. President Obama had a super-majority (filibuster-proof) in the Senate and a majority in the House in 2009. He promised he would codify Roe into federal law as one of his first acts in office, thus obviating the decision for the Supreme Court. And he never did it.
We are (as a nation) going back, but only to 1973, the year Roe was promulgated. That decision ended discussion on abortion, because there can be little discussion about fundamental rights. Some states allowed abortion then (a novelty) while most proscribed it. Then the Supreme Court stated the discussion was over. Now it resumes. I do feel empathy for those who demonstrate such grief about the pending decision, and it is the empathy of a shared experience. For those on the pro-life side, it is the same emotion we felt in ’73, and for almost fifty years since. It is the sense something has changed, something has been taken away that once was sacred, and now all things are different. The difference is, this time the pro-choice side can continue to discuss the issue and how it plays out in every state. After Roe, the pro-life side was practically grasping at legal straws. It was only the weakness of Roe’s reasoning and the persistence of the pro-life argument that eventually won the day, and that took five decades.
So on what is there to compromise? I said I would go first:
First off, I want every child welcomed into our nation. I support three months of full-paid maternity leave (does it need to be more?). I want universal coverage for prenatal care, delivery, and well-baby care. I think we should have more generous child-care support, and not limit it to working mothers. I want to reinstate and make permanent the child support provisions made under the stimulus act to alleviate childhood poverty. I don’t want new federal bureaucracies: give the money directly to parents or in vouchers for services rendered, and don’t limit access based on non-relevant criteria (e.g., no religious prohibitions). I will support tax increases to fund the same, as long as they are partnered with reductions in programs that are obviated by these measures.
Won’t this recreate the “welfare queens” phenomenon identified by President Reagan? Maybe, but only at the margins. No one seriously thinks there are large numbers of women making babies to get a check; the income doesn’t equal all the costs. Will there be someone. somewhere, who does? Yes. So what? Every program has people who cheat or game it, but we don’t end all the programs, because they work for the most part. Whatever the impulse (or lack of thought) behind any pregnancy, I want it to result in a child who grows up with great potential. And that means a healthy pregnancy, a safe birth, loving parents(!) and early childhood development in a safe and thriving environment. We tried the “cut-off the resources” approach, and we ended up with a sickly, poorly educated, and maladjusted cohort. That’s failure with a capital “F”. Time for something new.
I still want a nation-wide ban on abortion, perhaps through a personhood statute, but maybe that will take time. In the meantime, the programs I mention (and any others you would like to recommend) should work to eliminate the economic argument for abortion, especially for the poor. Now that we are not arguing about a fundamental right, can people agree there are hard and easy cases? Is there anyone who supports a woman’s right to abort a fetus because it may not have the designer characteristics she bargained for during in vitro fertilization? Or have a late-term abortion because she’s up for a promotion? What about forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest? These are hard cases, and all of them are fractions of the total issue. Small fractions, but nonetheless tragic cases with real world effects. Can we not find compromises here? If we make exceptions to an abortion ban for rape and incest, what are the protections so it doesn’t become a convenient excuse? Remember, Roe began with a mother’s health, but that was interpreted to include her mental and economic well-being, so this is an argument with a history.
I’d like a greater commitment to supporting adoption at all levels of government, with an emphasis on adoption within the country. Remove adoption from the culture wars surrounding church & state or gay rights: there are many ways to facilitate adoption, with too many children and not enough adopting parents. Let people and the agencies who run the process work it out as they see fit.
Want to provide more contraceptives? I’m against all but Natural Family Planning, but can we compromise on supporting those which are clearly not abortifacient (preventing implantation as a back-up)? Make them free (they’re not costly now).
I’d like to see a suite of pro-family policies at the state and federal level, encouraging nuclear families and parents who stay married. It’s not about judging people whose marriages fail: it’s simply about the obvious fact that the children do best in a stable, nuclear family. So we want more of that, please.
word!
Pro-choicers are feeling the dread, man. Pro-lifers are expectant (pun intended), but they know that now the real work begins. Once Roe is gone, the nation can begin to have an adult discussion about a very serious issue. Oh, there will be political demagogues doing what they always do. There will be pundits saying crazy things just to rile you up. There will be cases of overplaying the laws and that will infuriate both sides. Yes, we could just fall back on posting our favorite memes and hashtags, caricaturing the other side as outlandish and reveling in the praise of the like-minded. Or we could have that discussion, compromise, and get on with our lives and our nation’s future.
I’d really like to hear about where you think the compromises may be!
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.
