Culture – Page 6 – Pat the Expat

Surprising Panamá

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Herculaneum

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

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

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

The Vesuvio caldron today, once again calm

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

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

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

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

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

House shrine, note the metal roof support

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

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

Napoli (Italia, not Florida)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Domestic changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Expat as a Minority

One unique aspect of being an expat, regardless of where you come from or go to, is you’ll be reclassifying yourself as a minority. I recently read a Washington Post article about African-Americans who have moved back to ancestral lands in Africa, to feel included and not judged anymore. I wish them luck, although I fear they will learn that even if you look like “us,” you may still be “them.”

I’m a white, Irish-German (maybe Polish, too) American man. Apparently I benefited from much privilege as a result of being white and male and American. I never noticed it, but that (they tell me) is the clue it existed. I also came from blue-collar Catholic stock, and I almost never noticed the victimhood that provided me, so it too must have been real. I do recall a family car trip (our only one) through the South in the 1960s, and when I insisted we just stop on Sunday and ask where the Catholic church was, my Dad told me that was not possible. It was decades before I figured that one out.

I grew up in a Catholic enclave, next to a Catholic school, and all my friends (save one) were Catholic. I first noticed everybody wasn’t Catholic at my public high schools. Of course then I went to West Point, where all races and creeds were treated equally poorly: as “bean-heads,” “crots” and several other vulgarities (see the Ronald Lee Ermey soliloquy in Full Metal Jacket). So I never distinctly felt like a minority . . . until I became an expat.

As a fellow of pasty heritage, I’ll never be mistaken for a Latino in general or a Mexican in particular. A proud moment in my life was when a Spaniard told me I spoke Spanish like a Mexican, but that’s as good as it is going to get. I’m too tall, too white, too bossy-acting to ever fit in. So that makes me a minority. Even lakeside, where occasionally (like what you know as Winter) there are as many expats as locals in and around Ajijic (my village), expats are a minority. One only need drive five kilometers east (to the town of Chapala) or west (to the town of San Juan Cosalá) to realize you’re not in Kansas anymore.

I have lots of company. Watching expats, especially Americans, deal with being a minority is interesting. Some never catch on. I hear expats saying things about Mexican culture or politics within earshot of locals and not realizing everything they say is being understood and translated for the people at the next table. Middle class (back home) expats can live like the rich here, and sometimes they adopt rich people’s views that “money makes all the difference.” This is true everywhere, and nowhere more so than in Mexico. Here there is a sliding scale for justice and rule-of-law. Rich expats, like rich Mexicans, can find ways to get whatever they want. Need a driver’s license? You can pay someone to take the driver’s test for you. Need a quick visa? A “fixer” can find the right official to move your paperwork through the system immediately, at a price. The same applies to wealthy Mexicans, who have been known to ignore rules they don’t like. But even wealthy expats should never confuse the ease they have of negotiating life in Mexico with being anything other than an accepted minority.

Expats have been around here for decades, sometimes being people fleeing some aspect of life NOB (north of the border) which they just couldn’t endure. People can live a decent life in Mexico on income that would make them poor in the States or Canada. Some expats fit in better, learning the language, eating at the local stands, buying the Mexican products at the corner tienda. Sometimes they try too hard to be more Mexican than the Mexicans. You’ll see this variety on social media, posting in Spanish about how awful “the Gringos” are. The dead give-away is when they reference NOB politics or culture; few Mexicans care a whit about the politics in el Norte, and they don’t relish social media drama.

Being in a minority status can challenge your established views. NOB conservatives who decried immigrants there who didn’t speak any English are known to scream at locals in English for not understanding them here. Progressives NOB who insisted all must welcome immigrants there and embrace their diversity of culture, food and customs tell expats here they must adopt the local culture and fit in. Goose & gander, what?

Expats sometimes overestimate their influence and importance here in Mexico, mostly as a result of Jalisco having the largest concentration of NOB expats in the world. You may hear some expat say “what if we all left?” or “they need to address our concerns since we bring such economic vitality to the area.” Granted, expats do bring advantages to the region, but they also pose challenges. Expats expect responsive government in a way most Mexicans never would. They demand efficiency and punctuality, two traits distant from local culture. If all the expats left tomorrow, the homes would be filled with Tapatios and Chilangos looking to live the Mexican dream. The hours on the restaurants would change, the translation services would dry up, and little else would change.

All that being said, Mexico has an incredibly welcoming culture. The pluses and minuses of expats for Mexico are generally embraced by the people, just as they embrace whatever situation in which they find themselves. As expats and a minority, my wife and I try to speak some Spanish, try to adjust our eating schedule, try to engage with local culture. The repetition there is intentional, as the key phrase is “try to.” We have happily taken on board a more relaxed attitude to timeliness, been more accepting of inefficiency, and enjoying the pleasures of the moment, whether it’s a good tequila, a beautiful sunset, or a friendly conversación. I’ll never be a Mexican, but there is something about being an American who appreciates Mexico that is special to Mexicans, too.

Being a minority is first about recognizing where you stand in a hierarchy. Then it is all about how you respond to the fact of that standing, which is all up to you, dontcha know?

Everything You Know is Wrong (X): Cristóbal Colón

Or Christopher Columbus, if you prefer. Either way, it is hard to think of an historical figure about whom more wrong things have been said. And not just wrong, but truly perfidious, bordering on calumny. Or in more modern ways, he’s been dissed.

So as we come upon another celebration of Columbus Day–or Indigenous People’s Day if you prefer–let’s set the record straight.

Starting with the silly complaints, no, Columbus did not discover North America. He landed in the Caribbean and eventually on the South American coast, but never the North America mainland. And various others had come from Europe to the Western Hemisphere before him: none of them documented the travel in a verifiable way, nor left an explanation which could permit their trail to be followed. All of which makes this complaint entirely irrelevant. Before Columbus, explorers were unsure what lay west of Europe; after, they knew what was there, and how to get there and back. That was a tremendous achievement. Look, we knew what the moon was, where it was, and what we would find there long before Apollo 11 landed, but no one thought that “one small step for (a) man” was anything other than a “giant leap for mankind.”

Next, there is the question of motivation. Modern revisionist historians claim Columbus went west for money and glory. This is partly true. Constantinople had fallen just forty years earlier, so all trade with what Europe called the Orient had to pass though Muslim lands. Columbus believed he could detour by going west, and bring the riches home free of interference. But why? He wished to (1) spread the Catholic faith (he was third order Franciscan), and (2) he wanted to fund a crusade to recover Jerusalem. He already had a comfortable existence as a sea captain, but he did crave more fame, and he wanted to do something he thought would merit him Heaven. This is hard for moderns to believe, as I have pointed out before. He left money in his will for such a crusade.

Which leads us to his behavior. Columbus was a sea captain, with the power of life and death. He was not used to being a land Governor, but that was the deal he made with the Spanish Crown. He expected to be conducting trade negotiations with the Indians or Chinese, not supervising naked natives or suppressing human sacrifices. But that was what he had to do. He was alternately too lax and too cruel, and this was a real failing on his part. Many of the abuses cited against him happened under his watch, but not under his direct supervision, as he sailed around the Carib Sea or back and forth four times to Spain. He did direct an atrocity when one tribe revolted (and eliminated a Spanish garrison), killing many and enslaving the rest, but this was the standard of his time. The losing side in any battle or war was taken in slavery.

The idea Columbus went west looking for slaves to get rich is utterly ridiculous. There were tens of thousands of slaves available for sale in Africa. Anyone seeking to make a fortune in slave trading need only follow the well-worn sea lanes south to the African slave ports, where African tribes were quite ready to sell other (defeated) tribes into slavery. Remember, Columbus thought he was discovering a shortcut to China, so slavery was not his motivation. He did say that the native Taino people were easy to control and would “make great servants/slaves” (Note that you’ll only see that last quote rendered as “slaves” by many, but it translates correctly either way). Why were the Taino that way? The Taino Columbus met were pacific, and were preyed upon by the neighboring Carib tribes, who practiced cannibalism and kept the Taino as a food source! The Taino were eager to ingratiate themselves with the Spaniards, who were brutal but not looking for a Taino entree.

Many of the harshest accusations revisionist historians raise stem directly from the writings of Bartolomé de las Casas and Francisco de Bobadilla. The former was a Spanish priest who documented many of the worst acts committed by Spanish leaders in the New World. Yet on Columbus, he wrote “The admiral should have taken pains to bring love and peace and to avoid scandalous incidents, for not to perturb the innocent is a precept of the evangelical law who’s messenger he was. Instead, he inspired fear and displayed power, declared war and violated a jurisdiction that was not his but the Indians…” and also “Truely (sic), I would not dare blame the admiral’s intentions, for I knew him well and I know his intentions were good. But…the road he paved and the things he did of his own free will, as well as sometimes under constraint, stemmed from his ignorance of the law (editor’s note: i.e., the Gospel).” De las Casas presents no strong case against Columbus.

As to de Bobadilla, he authored an investigation that is the basis for most of the revisionist historian charges against Columbus. But he was scheming to replace Columbus from early on, and his account of charges must be viewed in that light. He succeeded in having Columbus recalled to Spain, but there Columbus was ultimately freed, although he lost his titles and lands in the New World (to de Bobadilla, among others). The Spanish Crown was more displeased at the disorder in its new colonies than in the inhumane (by current standards) behavior of its Governors.

What of the charge of genocide? Genocide is the intentional elimination of a nation or group. Columbus may have been violent by modern standards (although hardly by the standards of his time), he may have been unfair, but he never imagined his encounter with the natives peoples of the Americas would result in their demise. Diseases were misunderstood at the time, and he had no way of knowing or understanding the locals’ inability to deal with the endemic diseases his crew carried. He did nothing to prevent or further the spread, as he didn’t know how. If Columbus had bowed down to the native Gods, dropped off his armor and renounced Spain to become a Taino, nothing would have changed. All (over 95%) of the natives would have died in the next ten years. This is not genocide, as no one intended it.

Does Columbus deserve a national holiday and statues in parks? What we celebrate speaks to what we respect and honor. If we demand perfection in our heroes, we’d have only statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. But do his acknowledged faults disqualify him? Every historical figure must be judged against his or her times, and by their specific accomplishments. Woodrow Wilson brought freedom and self-determination to millions in Europe, but he was an avowed racist and supported eugenic policies. FDR was one of our greatest Presidents, a superb wartime political leader, who ordered both the round-up of Japanese Americans and denied the entry of Jewish refugees. Nelson Mandela proved stronger than the chains of apartheid, but he was once a member of the Communist Party and planned terrorist attacks. And so it goes.

What Columbus did would have been accomplished by someone, eventually. Yet he was the first, and many failed before he succeeded. His failures were real, too, but within the standards for his time. On balance, he merits his due.

A Modern Parable: The Fan

There once was a man who proclaimed he was a fan. When he saw other fans cheering and shouting for the team, he said “I, too, am a fan” and they gladly welcomed him.

Prior to the next game, all the fans met for a party wearing their team’s colors, but the man did not wear them. The other fans chided him, but he told them he was just as much a fan as they were. They teased him some more, but still accepted him, as he said he was a fellow fan.

When the day of the big game arrived, the man attended the tailgate party, still wearing his usual attire. As the other fans cleared the party to go into the stadium, the man began to leave. “Where are you going?” they asked, “come with us to the game!” “I don’t have a ticket,” he said, and walked away. The other fans were sad, but they had no extra tickets, so they said goodbye and went to the game.

The day after the big victory, the other fans were still celebrating when they saw the man once again. “We’re sorry you couldn’t attend the game; wasn’t it great” they asked? ” The man responded, “I didn’t watch it.” “What!?!” they exclaimed, “were you so angry about not having a ticket that you refused to watch the game?” “No, I just didn’t watch it” he replied, and walked away.

The other fans were perplexed. They debated what kind of fan the man was, and what they should do. The next time they all gathered, they began asking the man about the team. He did not know the players, or the coach. He did not know much about the team’s record or statistics or history. He had some childhood memories of his family being fans, wearing the colors, some big games and celebrations. The other fans were incredulous: “why do you call yourself a fan?”

The man replied, “You don’t have to attend every game, or follow every player, or only wear the colors to be a fan. I can choose to be a fan whether I do these things or not. I can be a fan of the team while walking in the woods, or watching a show on TV, or surfing the net. You create all these rules about ‘who is’ or ‘is not’ a fan, but I am free to choose my own rules.”

The other fans were speechless. One of them asked, “ok, but are you happy when we win? Are you devastated when we lose? Does it matter at all to you?”

The man said, “Why is it so important to you? Sometimes I get emotional, but in the end, no, it’s just not that important, unless I want it to be. I am ultimately the one in charge of my status of being a fan.” And he walked away.

When the fans next gathered, the man came again. The fans did not try to argue with or convince him, for they had nothing to say to him. He could not talk to them about the game, or his favorite players, or how he felt about the officiating, or anything about the team. While he said he was a fan, the other fans had nothing in common with him. Eventually the man came less frequently, and finally he stopped attending all the fan events.

The man felt the other fans had abandoned him. He thought they judged him, and did not accept him as he was. But he knew he was still a fan. He had said so. He alone made that choice, and in the end, that was all that mattered to him.

Tequila

Look closely, you can see the *voladores*!

We live less than two hours from Tequila, so it’s somewhat surprising it took us five years to visit, but visit we did! The town and its eponymous liquor are world famous now, but the town retains its classic Mexican pueblo character, which made for a rewarding visit.

You knew this was coming.

Of course the highlight of any visit to the town is a tequila experience. There are many to choose from: a train from Guadalajara that drops you off already well-lubricated, several similar busses, local tours in barrel-shaped vans, numerous tasting rooms, several distillery tours, and a few all-day experiences where you can plant an agave, harvest a piña, and of course drink mucho tequila. We visited the world’s oldest distillery, and the most famous brand, Jose Cuervo.

We had a sedate, personal tour with Juan Carlos, a former English teacher who now doubles as a bilingual tour guide. He expertly walked us through La Rojeña, the oldest of Cuervo’s distilleries. We watched the piñas being front-end loaded into the ovens, the baked piñas then passed to a series of presses, and the raw agave juice collected and briefly fermented. Here is where today’s tequila is different from the spirit the indigenous people drank. They consumed this cooked liquid, which contain both ethyl (good) and methyl (bad) alcohol along with many impurities. This pre-Hispanic liquor brought warm feelings, hallucinations, blindness, seizures, and sometimes death. The Spanish brought knowledge of additional heating to separate the methyl alcohol and impurities, rendering the tequila liquor we know today.

Tequila is a denomination of origin (like Champagne): it must be produced solely from blue agave, and only in a small region in and around the Mexican State of Jalisco. It comes in two forms: pure tequila, which is only the juice of the blue agave, and mixed, which can have other flavors or additives. It is classed based on aging: the initial clear drink is blanco or platino (silver), which is unaged. Reposado or “rested” tequila is aged in barrels for less than one year. Anejo or aged is left for one-to-three years, and extra anejo is aged for three-to-seven years. Tequila develops more color and more distinct flavors and aromas the longer it is aged in the (always) American or French oak barrels.

The main plaza in Tequila is defined by the Church of Santiago Apostal (Saint James the Apostle). A real treat for us was to visit the shrine inside the church to Toribio Romo González, also known as Santo Toribio. He was a young priest during the 1920s Cristero war in Mexico, and was secretly ministering to the people of Tequila when government soldiers found and summarily executed him. Then-Pope John Paul II canonized him in 2000. During his ministry, Toribio was known for counseling Mexicans not to migrate north to the United States, because staying home and taking care of and participating in one’s family is far more important. However, after his death numerous Mexican migrants, lost in the desert border region, reported a young Mexican priest who led them to safety, and they identified him from pictures as Toribio. Thus he became the patron saint of migrants worldwide. We feel a special attachment to him as our Spanish teacher is from Santo Toribio’s family.

We enjoyed our visit, learning about the liquor and the secret of how to sip it without the telltale throat-burning sensation. We also enjoyed chewing on the tequila cocido snack, which contains the sweet agave sugar in a pulpy fiber much like coconut fiber. While there were a lot of classic tourist offerings (voladores, cheap tastings, all-you-can-drink stands, mariachis, etc.,), it was never overwhelming, even on a crowded Sunday. Tequila the town was a pleasant day (or two) trip, and one to be remembered fondly, if one can remember it at all!

The Covid Chronicles: What Lies Ahead?

Given the planet just endured two-plus years of pandemic with millions of deaths, thousands of cases of “long-Covid”, numerous business and personal bankruptcies and major disruption of travel and supply chains, you might expect some major changes to the world going forward. Based on history, if you do so, you will be wrong!

For the most part, what will change? Mostly those things that were already changing. And some will revert a little after more profound initial change! Why? Pandemics are by definition unusual periods, and even when they occur more frequently (we’ve been 100 years between them), they primarily are experienced as something odd which only heightens the desire for normalcy: to get back to the way things were. Historians have spilled much ink on why the Spanish Flu pandemic back in 1918-21 period caused so many casualties (roughly ten times more deaths than Covid, against a global population 1/4 as large!) but had so few lasting effects. Once it was done, people were done with it. You can see this happening with the corona virus already, even though we’re technically not out of the woods yet. But there are some trends which were accelerated by the pandemic, and those changes will prove more lasting. They are:

Work-Life balance. Many people (especially in the US) began to re-evaluate whether they were living to work or working to live, and whether success really is a matter of how many toys you can acquire before you die and go into the great nothingness that lies beyond. Classic wisdom already taught these lessons, and Christianity reinforced them, but they were lost among the Boomers and Gen X’rs. The terrifying possibility of random death from an unseen virus had the salutary effect of focusing the mind on what’s important. Sadly, this will be a temporary effect, as if you have no classic learning or faith-driven worldview to fall back on, one will gradually fall back into the same old bad habits. Already some took the wrong lesson that life is so short, random, and purposeless that it’s okay to jettison spouses, leave children, quit jobs or whatever else you need to do to define your own happiness if but for a fleeting moment. But not everyone, and in the meantime, people are considering their options. Working less, spending more time with family, acquiring less.
Virtual/online work and services. These were already a thing, but got a big boost during the pandemic. Backsliding? Sure. Yes, it’s great to order things online, but given the opportunity to see something first, feel it or try it on, there will always be some pull to do just that. As to work, the lessons of online organizational behavior are well understood and have not been changed by the pandemic. High functioning teams need to work together in person first; then they can move to remote or online coordination of activities. The military has lived this way since the dawn of the radio. You train together, you establish standards and ways of doing things, you create communication procedures, and then you can go out and be geographically -distant but still interact successfully. The reverse is not the case. So all the moves toward work-from-home will first involve some portion of working together in an office to establish team-building, norm-setting, and patterns of behavior before going virtual. Of course if your job literally requires no coordination with others, you might be able to go full time at home. But . . .
White collar offshoring. Most people are familiar with what happened during the “China shock” when much of the world’s production got moved to cheaper producers, first in China and then elsewhere in SouthEast Asia. In the States, it hollowed out the manufacturing base, leading to huge job losses, increasing poverty in the middle of the nation, and more deaths of despair. The pandemic showed that many white collar jobs can be done from home, and such workers used this leverage to spend far more time that way: congratulations to them. Of course, what can be done away from the office can be done at home, or can be done very far away from home (i.e., offshore). Some of this was already apparent: before the pandemic, there was a growing market for accountants and tax advisers based in India, speaking English, and specializing in low-cost services targeted to US laws. That will grow in the future, and will directly challenge the work-from-home gains of the white collar workers.
Generational fragility. There was a generation once-upon-a-time that was born into horse-drawn travel (circa 1886) and lived to see the moon landing (1969). They witnessed rampant diseases, several world wars, the upending of dynasties and empires, and vast technological and social change. They didn’t even get a fancy nickname, and what they experienced was just called life. The pandemic has induced huge increases in social pathology among Millenials (born 1981-1996) and Gen Z (born 1997-2012). Young adults are saying they face an unhappy future with too much debt, a destroyed climate, and poor work prospects. School children are demonstrating increasing rates of self-harm, mental illness, and other destructive behaviors up to and including suicidal ideation. The sight of society’s adult leaders (mostly Boomers or older) running around in a panic didn’t help. I won’t go all Boomer here and point out the facts of today’s world don’t fit well with the Millenial or Gen Z complaints. The fact is that’s how they feel and they’re making themselves sick over it. It was bad before the pandemic; it got worse during the pandemic. Generations (remember, all individuals are different) rarely change their spots over time.
Pay for the low-end of the work scale. Inequality was actually ebbing during the Trump years before the pandemic. Data during the pandemic will be skewed by temporary government programs and policies, but I suggest when the data returns to normal, we’ll see more positive news here. Why? Partly because the pandemic created an imbalance between the number of jobs (many) and the number of workers (fewer) which forced pay increases. Some of this pressure will be relieved by automation and increased immigration. But if America’s economy keeps gowing in the long run, and some younger workers decide not to compete but to redefine success, there won’t be enough supply for the demand in many essential jobs like teachers, police, etc. Which will lead to many changes, one of which will be better pay for those remaining.
A renewed health care debate (in the US). Nobody likes the US health care system, mostly because it is not a system, it is a patchwork of compromises between States, the federal government, and various lobbies (Big Pharma, doctors, lawyers, hospitals, and investment firms). No sane person would design this “system.” It is expensive and exclusionary (sometimes your insurance doesn’t guarantee any care). However, it performs some tasks better than its rivals. It innovates better, producing more new drugs, procedures, and equipment. Why? Because one can make a ton of money when you do so. It offers better preventive medicine, because that is cost effective. It offers more choices than any other system, although those choices are not equally available. In effect, the US system is the perfect American complement. It complements the many state-run health systems throughout the world by being the high-risk, high payoff health care lab. It complements the American character because it lets you choose to have as much or as little health care as you want, and from exactly the doctor you like. And it complements the legal system by being a source of endless lawsuits, whether of little merit or tremendous consequence. How will the pandemic effect on American health care play out? None of the large government systems did better. Big Pharma did find a vaccine. Some Americans lacked health care and simply died because of it. My guess is little will change here, with perhaps the addition of a catastrophic care regime available to all, financed by the state and federal governments.
Speaking of government, I intended to say here that national health authorities must have learned a lot about what not to do, and that should serve us well going forward with communicable diseases. I intended to say that until the monkeypox virus came along and demonstrated that those same health officials (in the US at least) who loudly called for following the science were just as capable as Donald Trump of ignoring the science when it gored a favorite ox. Monkeypox is an endemic African disease that occasionally slips out of the continent and quickly dissipates because it takes sustained contact to spread. The current monkeypox global health emergency was traced to random group sex events in Europe among men who have sex with men. Over 99% of the cases fell into this group; others were secondarily tied (e.g., family members). Rather than broadcast these facts, health officials continued to say “everyone is at risk” and not make the obvious call for voluntary cancellation of high-risk events planned for Pride month. They left a serious but treatable disease to spread among a vulnerable population because they feared the possibility of fomenting homophobia. Anybody associated with this fiasco should be fired. Let’s hope the remaining health authorities learn from this case before the next one hits.

From The Economist, since US media can’t bear to tell you the facts

Cinema is dead; movies are dying. Movie theater revenues plateaued before the pandemic, as they increasingly raised prices to make up for fewer tickets sold. The pandemic shut them down, and while they experienced some immediate recovery when restrictions were lifted, they retain the same problems as before: ridiculous prices, aging infrastructure, poor quality product (Fast & Furious XXV?), and competition from the stay-at-home-and-stream experience. There will always be cinemas, just like there are still some drive-ins. But they will become a niche product for certain wide-screen, or 3D, or “big event” films. Likewise, I’ll posit the movie as an artform is in serious trouble. Think about the great years for movies: 1939 (Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Mr. Smith goes to Washington); 1982 (ET, Gandhi, Blade Runner, and Sophie’s Choice); 1976 (Rocky, Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men, and Network); 1962 (Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Manchurian Candidate). Today’s hits are often retreads, remakes, or action movies resembling video games. If you want to make money, you drag the story out on a streaming service. Audiences reward instant action and no character development: the cinematic equivalent of junk food. The only thing which consistently succeeds is excess: more violence, more sex, more action in less time. Movies were a medium that rewarded clever story-telling captured in a finite time (two or so hours) and a finite space (the cinema). That environment is going, going gone, both physically (cinemas) and metaphorically (the audience).

Somebody who knows a little about good movies and why there aren’t many today

9. Nationalism. Often confused with fascism by those who understand neither, there was a growing trend toward greater nationalism (a preference for one’s own country at the expense of others) before the pandemic, and the corona virus highlighted the reasons why. In the end, nations have governments which look out for their people: even dictators need means to address the desires of the population, if only to control them. When the corona virus stuff hit the fan, free-travel Europe became “let me see your papers Europe” again. Island nations locked down, even from close neighbors (I’m looking at you, New Zealand). Countries withheld personal protective gear destined for others; the US even reached out to corner the market on some vaccines. Nations looked out for themselves, as they always have. Charles de Gaulle was right: “No nation has friends, only interests.” People got all wrapped up in the bonhomie of globalism and travel and “aren’t we all the same deep down underneath?” The short answer is “yes” until it isn’t. So look for more national (vice global) approaches going forward.

Sorry, that’s all I have. I hope you have found these musings on Covid interesting. If you think I left something important out, please add it in the comments. As for me, I swear off any more covid posting!

The Covid Chronicles: Winners

Part three of four.

It may seem odd to talk about “winners” when reconsidering a global pandemic, but there were individuals and groups that gained prestige, publicity, or some other advantage as a result. It was unintentional but nonetheless true. They were:

Doctors & Nurses (including all the medical staff here, too). While hospitals may have suffered financially, the heroic efforts of doctors, nurses, and staff to provide relief and comfort was the #1 heartwarming story of the pandemic. Oftentimes they were the only ones there while quarantined patients took their last breath, comforting them before somehow moving on to the next gasping patient. How they did this for so long, under such tough conditions, is truly remarkable. There are hundreds of impassioned video shorts about them already. Movies will be made, books written about their heroism, all the while being in close contact with the same deadly virus. They deserve it, one and all.

’nuff said

2) Teachers. Hey, aren’t you the same guy who called the teachers’ unions “losers”? Yes. But the teachers themselves merit praise. Anyone who has tried to conduct any organizational effort online knows how hard it is. Teachers got handed an impromptu script for “online learning” and somehow pulled it off. Then they had to return to classrooms with masks and social distancing and quarantines and make that work. We know it wasn’t as good as in-person learning. We know it failed in many cases. But that wasn’t the teachers’ fault, and certainly not for lack of trying. Whatever stupidity their unions came up with, the teachers themselves gave one-hundred percent effort.

3) Employees/workers, especially those blue collar types who found themselves labelled “essential.” That label must have been a surprise, given the pay they normally receive. They had to keep going out, keep being exposed, even when they had no health care insurance or sick leave. But in the end, the imbalance between job vacancies and employees in many fields has given them new-found bartering power, and many are switching jobs or careers or just getting a raise. Sadly, this imbalance won’t last much longer, so here’s hoping they all come out at least a little happier and financially healthier.

4) Proponents of early government actions. Which government actions? In the long run it didn’t really matter. The hard part in a global pandemic is getting the people to realize life has suddenly changed in a way it hadn’t before in their lifetime. Doing something at the national level is key to forging that understanding. So while stopping flights or closing borders or ordering mask mandates are all only temporarily beneficial, they send the message. Leaders who did so had more success during the pandemic.

5) Candidate Joe Biden. And I say this not just because President Trump was the biggest pandemic loser. Biden benefited from a pandemic primary in which his strongest opponent (Sanders) was a firebrand promising big change. In response, Joe was the steady one. During the general election, the pandemic provided a handy excuse to limit his public exposure: few gaffes, no stumbling or shuffling around, no exhaustion on the campaign trail. In a regular election, this would have failed, but during a pandemic, it seemed quite normal. Thus a man who ran three times for President and never got more than 1% in any of his aborted campaigns received over eighty-one million votes, the most in US presidential history. The corona virus gave Biden more votes than Kamala Harris ever did.

6) Big Pharma. About half of viral vaccines fail before Phase I (human trials). The success rate from Phase I to Phase III is under twenty percent. The labs and the scientists were working under the same social distancing and quarantine protocols as the rest of the world (although they were probably more used to that!). Somehow Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca produced different, successful vaccines in less than a year. Yes, governments showered money on them. More importantly, governments closely supervised the process to ensure safety while maximizing speed, and insured the efforts so that–if they failed–the drug-makers would not get sued or go bankrupt. Russia and China “borrowed” concepts or blueprints and came out with suboptimal results. Big Pharma, not government-run health, came through in the pinch, end of story.

7) Knowledge workers. I mentioned how blue-collar types “won” in terms of respect, more options, and better pay. White-collar knowledge workers did too. These folks had been arguing for better work-life balance for years, and were gradually winning a battle for more work-from-home time. Be careful what you ask for, because they got it! While few if any jobs can be totally remote, the pandemic period of total work-from-home made a strong argument to re-evaluate what can and can’t be done outside the office, with much more being labeled as “can” than “can’t.” How to prevent this trend from becoming work-all-the-time is the new challenge for these workers.

8) E-commerce and online retailers. Whether it was Amazon or JD and Alibaba (China), online retailers made out in a big way. You could not go out and shop. You could not travel or spend on services like restaurants or clubs or gyms. There were no events. But the online marketplaces remained open, twenty-four/seven as they say, and business was good. In fact the inflationary effects of huge demand for products when supply was limited by both production shutdowns and shipping backlogs contributed greatly to our current economic problems. Even older cohorts who had disdained online commerce as unsafe moved into online banking and retailing, and they won’t be going back.

9) Streaming services. Cutting the cord was already a going trend, but the hours and hours of home stay provided the perfect opportunity to investigate ditching a cable bundle of thousands of worthless channels for a custom set of streaming apps with thousands of worthless shows. Kidding. Unlike cable bundles which had large upfront costs and infrastructure, streaming services were generally cheaper and disposable. Although many cable-cutters found that purchasing a series of streams was almost as expensive, they were more flexible, and those who ruthlessly watched and cancelled could come out ahead. The era of a nation watching a show on the telly was finally put to rest by the pandemic. At best now, we binge the same season at a time.

“I got thirteen channels of shit on the tv to choose from.”

10) Taiwan. Some countries (sorry, China) get all the breaks. It’s an island, with a compliant population that trusts its government. It had a dry-run with the SARS epidemic. It is not that much of a tourist destination. And it knows mainland China all-too-well. Taiwan was the first to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) that China was lying about person-to-person transmission. Taiwan shut down travel links with the mainland early and introduced pretty draconian contact tracing and quarantines. Eventually they settled on a crowd-sourced QR code, with every person scanning the code as they entered a building (work, restaurant, store) which gave the government a real-time data base of where you were and when you were. If you didn’t have a smartphone, you signed in a register, or you didn’t get in. Shame worked well: people who got sick felt the need to apologize for not being careful. Taiwan made mistakes: they worked on their own vaccine, which was slow, and they did so well during the early phases of the pandemic that people were lax on getting vaccinated, which left them vulnerable to a wave when the mutations came. But overall their economy did well and they avoided the mass deaths and trauma so many other countries experienced. They looked especially good in comparison to the performance of their mainland rival.

Next post: What are the long-term effects of the pandemic?