The church hole

The Little Vaquero, almost 7, learned to ride a bicycle this week. Lady Zapata, his beloved aunt, was the teacher.

The classes, which took place over a couple of afternoons, were held on a broad sidewalk outside the oldest church in the State of Michoacán. It´s just across from the romantically named State Museum. Perhaps you know it.

Due to spending way too much time with the Eggman´s aunts, religious fanatics, the boy has developed a good head of steam toward fanaticism himself. He wants to be a priest, he says.

We´ve explained to him what that means, particularly no wife. Being 6, that seems no drawback to him. Perhaps later, age 13 or so, when hormones surge and hairs grow.

It´s also premature to explain that, though wife-less, he would have his pick of tender choirboys. That, at the moment, lacks appeal too. Perhaps later. He has artistic tendencies.

But let´s get to the topic at hand: the hole in the church door. Every few minutes, the lad would leap from his small cycle, run to the door, kneel and peer into the Catholic gloom.

The photo is the actual hole he peered through. We took the photo just for you. It is intentionally cut, as you can see. For what? Rats, cats? The hole could be centuries old.

One wonders how many little boys over the ages have kneeled and peered through that hole into the Catholic gloom.

And how many became choirboys and then priests due to being sucked through the hole in the church door.

The maw of the Vatican.

Perhaps we should nail a plank over it one dark, moonlit night as a community service.

Our Tijuana tart

At 7, she was a cutie who smiled a lot. At 14, she broods, adjusts her thick makeup and looks like a Tijuana hooker.

She´s a niece who lives in a nearby city with her left-wing, radical mother and two brothers. Her mother looks at her, shrugs her shoulders, and says: What can I do?

Adolescent boys, breathing heavily and moist tongues lolling, knock on the front door. Instead of throwing rocks at them, mother hustles her girl out to play. What can I do?

Sometimes the girl and her two older brothers are left home alone for days so mama can spend time on Mexico City streets behind a barricade protesting the government.

The girl has a half-sister, 26, who lives with them sometimes, sometimes not. The sister has two children, no husband. Mama has never had a husband either. What can I do?

We wonder how much time will pass before our Tijuana tart has a child. Recently, she wrote on her bedroom wall: I want to die.

Mama saw the note, no doubt thinking: What can I do?

Virgin on the street

In Mexico, the Virgin Mary is a disturbing case of multiple personalities.

Her Pátzcuaro face is La Virgen de la Salud, or the Health Virgin, and she lives up high like a bat in the Basilica.

She´s 400 years old . . .

. . . and doesn´t get out much. Twice a year, August and December, she´s taken down from her glass-enclosed lair for a stroll. This excites the locals very much!

Normally, her path extends only to the Basilica door. There she´s put into reverse and returned to her perch at the other end. But twice in recent years, she´s paraded in the streets.

We watched last night.

It was dark, about 8. We stood at the foot of a hill a block from the Basilica. There were bunches of folks, breathless.

Preceding the Virgin, toted like a pasha on the shoulders of worshipers, were two long lines of women, mostly older. They were dressed in white with religious stuff dangling from their wattled necks. Their faces were pasted with piety.

And before the women walked a musical group. There were horns, drums and a tuba or two. Oom-pah! Oom-pah! Warm-up band, opening act. There were skyrockets and blasts because what´s a Mexican religious event without explosions?

God comes to Mexico for noise, and we deliver.

Closer to the Virgin were some nuns afoot, attired in what appeared to be nunnery evening wear, decked to the Nines, formal gear from the convent closet, sparkling they were.

Probably hadn´t looked so fresh and fine since those long-ago nights when they first married Jesus.

Our eyes scanned the long line of white-dressed women. We spotted one of the Eggman´s aunts, a woman so unstable she´s ever on the cutting edge of commitment papers.

Also in that same pious line we saw another familiar face, a woman reputed to be a bruja, a witch who settles scores with dolls and sharp pins. But, forget that, because on this dark night, she´s a member of the Virgin´s team.

Scanning more, we hunted another member of Pátzcuaro´s upper crust, a woman once reputed to jog mornings in the Plaza Grande sporting no underwear, the vixen.

But the line of ladies is long, and the night is dark. There is heavy smoke from fireworks, lending an air of Ypres.

We stood, watching the Virgin and her people hang a left at the corner, continuing toward the Plaza Chica and the night market of greasy enchiladas. Oom-pah! Oom-pah!

We headed home.

Tale of two coffee shops

Atop a tall mountain in Mexico are two coffee shops side by side on a beautiful plaza of a lovely Colonial town.

Both are owned by señoras. And, of course, that means: muchos problemas. Because women are like that. At times.

The shops are not precisely side by side, which is a good thing, but they almost are. A tobacco-chewing hillbilly could spit from one to the other. Yes, they are that close, the same block.

The two señoras were related by marriage, not blood, and you know what that means: even more problemas.

Because women are like that. Often enough.

One is a cousin of the infamous Eggman, and the other is his widow woman. The cousin is said to be involved in Black Magic, and perhaps she´s even a witch. Una bruja.

Some believe it so.

The widow is said to hold grudges, a woman who´ll blow smoke in your face, literally or figuratively. And she has cats.

More than one.

These two señoras, back in their younger days when both were señoritas, were amigas. Then the widow (not a widow then, of course) wed the Eggman, a local dolt of note.

That´s when the stink really started, as it often does, with a man in the mix. If the man is a dolt, the stink magnifies.

A legal dispute over the man´s real estate erupted. When there is money in the mix, things magnify more. And they did.

During the property dispute, strange things would happen. Now this was 20 years ago, so don´t be scared. When the widow woman (we´ll stick with that name because you know it) opened her coffee shop on some mornings, she would find . . .

. . . feces and the reek of pee. We can´t tell you if this was human or animal, but does it really matter? Now and then, there would be signs of brujería and curses. Funny stuff.

At the coffee shop´s dawn door.

* * * *

Eventually, the real estate matter was settled in favor of the widow woman and her dolt. And then much, much later, one Mother´s Day, the Eggman caught a bullet.

The ancient house of the real estate dispute appeared on a coffee commercial seen on cine and television.

Life moved on and changed. But one thing that has never changed -- and likely never will -- is the loathing of the two señoras, one for the other. And their coffee shops are still just a hillbilly´s hawk away, one from the other.

Yet another true yarn of Mexico.

Going to Guanajuato

Dad was cremated in '91. Mother last January. Lady Zapata´s Dad went up in smoke in '86. But her mother lies whole in her grave in the small town near Uruapan where she was born.

Three out of four incinerated. We´ve long intended to be incinerated too. But we are reconsidering. Here´s why.

There´s dark romance to a corpse. As ashes, you are gone for good. A casket might be opened 200 years hence, and there you are! Quite dry but so incredibly fascinating.

Let´s look at the pluses, the case for not getting torched, for intact interment forever and ever, amen:

1. The interest factor. A century down the road (or even a decade) there will be no interest factor with an urn of ashes. A reopened casket, however, is the meat of legend.

2. Eternal happiness. This is a crap shoot because the face can dry into any expression. It could get ugly, but with a touch of blessed luck, you´ll develop that stupendously wicked grin.

It is well known that even a forced smile alters your mood and that of those around you. It´s contagious! If you get that famous toothy grin, you win eternal glee. Cross your fingers.

3. Winning fame. Who doesn´t want to be famous? Here in Mexico, it´s possible we´ll be dug up after a spell of curing, and we might be exhibited with the famous Mummies of Guanajuato! That would be really swell. Their first Gringo-Mexican.

4. Travel opportunities. On joining the Mummies of Guanajuato troupe, we´ll be eligible for travel. Just recently some of the corpses were shipped to the United States for a museum exhibition. And then back to Guanajuato. Wow!

Traveling would be minimal in a urn. And after a generation, you will have been poured out or misplaced.

So we´re thinking of buying an intact ticket to the netherworld. The fact that embalming is not the norm in Mexico lends an additional appeal. We will desiccate au naturel.

(Note: This item initially and briefly appeared on The Zapata Tales, but it´s more appropriate here.)

Pobre México

It´s quite fun to kick back and watch the misunderstandings fly . . . and fly they do.

Nowhere touch two nations, two peoples, two languages, two worlds that are so utterly different.

The Americans do not understand the Mexicans, though they think they do, even Gringos who live among us. Those poor Mexicans are just like us. They only need a helping hand.

Helping hand = charity.

Truth is, explaining Mexicans to Americans is akin to explaining a sea society to a desert-dwelling people who gauge everything by its relationship to saguaro cacti and blistering sunshine.

Neither do Mexicans understand Americans, but they really don´t care that much, being far more introspective. Mexicans focus on themselves and their families. They care about other Mexicans only as a cuddly patriotic concept.

Their attitude toward their American neighbors is a conflictive brew of envy, wonderment and resentment.

Putting aside the current global economic crisis (which is cyclical and will pass), let us ask ourselves why the economy and society function remarkably well north of the U.S.-Mexico border, and just the opposite south of the border.

To twist that old campaign slogan: It´s the culture, stupid.

Yours truly defines culture very broadly as the way a nation, a people, looks at the world. And that world view passes through the prism of their language, which is one issue.

Spanish is a Romance language and, like love itself, it is shadowy and unpredictable. You can hide in Spanish. You can dance, this way and that. You can be quite unclear if that is your desire.

. . . as it often is. Octavio Paz famously wrote: A Mexican´s "face is a mask and so is his smile."

English, like the English-speaking people, is far less prone to masks. English is often directly in your face. It is a tongue with Germanic undertones. It is efficient.

* * * *

We are very different. Contrary to common notions, Mexico is a younger nation than the United States. It´s 1810 versus 1776.

But that measly 34-year difference is deceptive. The United States began as a democracy, and has been one for over 200 years. Mexico, on winning independence, promptly slid into chaos and into the arms of Gen. Santa Anna.

. . . then the mess with Emperor Max . . . and the dictatorship of Díaz . . . the murderous revolution . . . the comparatively benign dictatorship of what became the Revolutionary Institutional Party, lasting until the year 2000. Almost yesterday, amigos.

Mexico is still staggering, bruised and bloody.

What did the past 200 years (yes, we are about to celebrate the bicentennial) do to the Mexican mind and heart?

It made us stunningly cautious and suspicious. We do not trust others, and we certainly do not trust any government. Many, perhaps most, men toted pistols down into the 1950s.

But we smile a lot, and we love to say yes. Doing otherwise, we have painfully learned, can be quite counterproductive.

And potentially lethal. We have learned to act happy.

. . . which totally flummoxes the Gringos, a fun side effect.

* * * *

Mexico is a large country with lots of natural resources, a mother lode of possibilities that we waste due to the distrust and suspicion that has been pounded into us over centuries.

Like the bright, high school student with poor grades, we are not living up to our potential.

The nation above the Rio Bravo totally misreads us, and how not? The Gringos had no Santa Ana, no inept emperor shipped in from Europe, no moustachioed Generalissimo Díaz . . .

. . . no bloody revolution that ended only one long lifespan ago, no slick "political party" of oligarchs stealing elections, sometimes at pistol point, for most of the 20th Century.

So here you have two nations. One has progressed successfully through two centuries of democracy. The other has crept two centuries from one bloody disaster into another. What do these people have in common? Absolutamente nada.

And yet they are neighbors, shoulder to shoulder.

Mexico has changed, especially in this decade, just the final five seconds of the nation´s time-line.

It´s time to grow up, time to don long pants, come out of the house, say hi to our neighbors, learn to see long-term, recognize that what helps the neighborhood helps us too . . .

No one will shoot us although our guts signal otherwise.

. . . time to quit sneaking up north to cut the Gringos´ grass, time to stay here and check out the many opportunities we have within our own borders. And, sí señor, there are many.

Our biggest enemy faces us in the mirror. It is time to take off the mask and be sincere, time to do what we say we´ll do . . .

. . . arrive on time, say no when it´s appropriate, trust others and see that usually we´re not disappointed.

. . . though at times we will be. We´ll get over it.

* * * *

A prosperous society cannot float atop a sea of distrust, ill-will and suspicion. The foundation must be cement and rock, like we build our Mexican houses that last for centuries.

It´s time for change.

The gagged society

Survivors of the 13 people shot dead at Fort Hood have two things to blame:

1. Muslim religious lunacy.

2. American Speech Police.

Both are at fault, but it´s likely the Speech Police carry the heavier burden of bloody responsibility.

The Speech Police is the shadowy, unofficial arm of the powerful Political Correctness Movement that has held sway in the United States for a couple of decades.

Unlike the equally puritanical and ill-conceived War on Drugs, which does have a specific start (1969 with Nixon), the Political Correctness Movement came upon us gradually like a Viet Cong guerrilla in the dark, armed with piano wire, in the jungle.

Piano wire to strangle us until we see things their way. And that means nobody shall be offended at anytime by anybody under any circumstances whatsoever. Be nice -- or else.

After it gained its objective, scaring people into silence, it stepped out of the jungle darkness, and now walks the nation free as the proverbial birdy. No problem. We are cowed.

Let´s get back to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. It has become clear that the government well knew that Hasan was an unhinged Muslim wing-nut long before his rampage. But nothing was done.

The culture of fear caused by the decades we´ve dealt with the Speech Police keeps us self-muzzled. We cannot state the obvious because we can be instantly unemployed. Or we will be forced into Re-Education Camps (sensitivity training).

Nobody in the military was willing to state the obvious out loud, fearing it would damage their careers, a totally justified worry in the American gagged society.

Ironically, studies have shown that people passing through the Re-Education Camps come out the other end not more "sensitive" but less. And filled with resentment. Yes, Re-Education Camps are counterproductive.

Yours truly left the United States a decade ago and does not know if Re-Education Camps still are employed. Their work possibly has been so effective they are needed no more.

American Speech Police do not creep the halls at all levels of society. The lower middle class and blue-collar workers like plumbers, electricians, carpenters and Farmer Bob and his wife, Mabel, say whatever the devil they choose.

They don´t care. They are a free people.

It´s Big Business, the media, the upper levels of the military, academia, for example, where the Speech Police swing their steel-nailed cudgels to such good, silencing effect.

Though Maj. Hasan was suspected to be a lit fuse, nobody would take action. The people who knew chose "sensitivity" over clear good sense. And 13 innocent people are dead.

Perhaps it´s time to decommission the Speech Police. We hear they´ve slacked up a lot in places like North Vietnam and Communist China. Why not America? It´s way overdue.

* * * *

What has this to do with Mexico? Not much. Well, there is the contrast element. In Mexico, we enjoy free speech. We are deliciously at liberty to speak badly and joke about others, and others are free to do the same to us. And we survive.

We do not crumble and weep. We are not wusses.

(Note: Who´s the guy in the photo? Ho Chi Minh who ran the gagged society in North Vietnam.)

15 seconds of fame

Nescafé, Mexico´s preferred java, is running a new TV ad.

Perhaps you´ve seen it. It´s being shown on various channels.

And also on YouTube.

The spot shows scenes of lovely, Colonial Pátzcuaro, and right at the very end the camera shows an old, second-story window.

Standing in that window is a woman enjoying a nice cup of steaming cafecito.

What the coffee company doesn´t tell you (because it doesn´t know) is that it´s the window of the very bedroom where the Eggman died.

Yes, just behind that window, behind the woman with her cafecito of steaming Nescafé, still sits the bed where the Eggman´s body was found with the bullet hole in his chest.

Suicide? Murder? Or stupid accident? We still don´t know.

Wrapping the women

Let´s take a look at the Muslims. Well, we´ll just take a look at the Muslim men because the womenfolk are all wrapped up!

This matter has nothing to do whatsoever with Mexico, so bear with us, por favor. We´ll return to Mexico rapidamente.

But it does relate to the previous item in which we show that Jim Crow attitudes have been adopted by the intelligentsia, and that people who voice those attitudes are now sensitive folk.

Okay, some Jim Crow attitudes, not all.

Why can´t we see Muslim women? Why are they, with some exceptions, wrapped up? The Koran does not require this. Muslim men require this, and why is that? Because they don´t want other men to see their gal. Pure and simple.

They pass this off as a religious requirement even though it is not. The Koran says women should cover their bosoms. Verse 24:30-31. It does not require full body coverage.

The Arab world, a very macho place, requires women to cover themselves almost entirely. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive cars either or do many other outdoor activities alone.

The Koran does not say a woman is barred from driving a car. Nor from driving an oxcart. So why can´t they drive cars? Or oxcarts? Show their pretty heads in public?

Because the Muslim man doesn´t want the guy next door to see what he´s gettin´. That´s it -- in the ole nutshell.

This is very oppressive for the Muslim women, though some of them will say otherwise. They have to say that. They don´t want a good stoning when they go home.

* * * *

Okay, so this much is clear: Muslim society, run entirely by men, is very oppressive for women. One would think the enlightened Western world would be against this abuse in all cases.

A few days back, we read of a devout Muslim woman in the United States who, on applying for a corporate job, was told that -- if hired -- she could not cover her head at the office.

No doubt fearing a stoning from her Abdul at home, she complained. And who complained with her? The American intelligentsia!

The corporation, they said, should be sensitive to her culture.

Cultures are not better or worse. They are simply different!

So, yet again, the trendsetters close ranks with the cavemen. Sensitivity gets into bed with those poised to knock you senseless with a club for contrary notions.

Or give you a good stoning.

Strange bedfellows indeed. Or perhaps not.

What the Devil´s going on here?

Talkin´ race

It´s not uncommon to hear Mexicans diss Americans for being racist.

This is always good for a chortle.

You´d be hard-pressed to find a more color-conscious culture. And class-conscious to boot.

The darker you are in Mexico (called moreno), the dumber you are assumed to be. And no bones are made about this. It´s spoken of openly, and looking down one´s nose at darker brethren is as common as biftek tacos.

Even the darker brethren openly speak of wishing they were lighter. Mexico is hyper-color-conscious, and there is no speech police here to keep the topic undercover. Like in the U.S.

On Mexican soap operas, wildly popular, the rich are almost always white (güero in Spanish) and their maids are invariably moreno (actually morena, the feminine spelling).

And the gardeners are relentlessly moreno too.

Expectant parents openly grit their teeth in worry about how moreno their children might be. And down here, it can easily swing either way due to the racial makeup of Mexico.

More moreno, sad parents. Less moreno, happy parents. Of course, this worry is justified. Less moreno opens doors. More moreno slams them shut.

And yet they call Americans racist. Pardon our chuckles.

* * * *

Let´s head north over the border, shall we?

. . . and look at President Obama, obviously a biracial man. Mama was white. Daddy was black. It´s a clear-cut case of mathematics. Fifty-fifty. No other way to cut the pie.

And yet he´s called black or, due to the political-correctness storm troopers, African-American.

He even calls himself that.

Ironically, this is Jim Crow thinking. In the bad, old days, any degree of black ancestry directed one to the black drinking fountain, the Negro restroom, the back of the bus.

Clearly, that mindset still reigns. If you´re any part black, you´re all black. George Wallace walks arm in arm with Louis Farrakhan. Bull Connor´s in bed with Whoopi Goldberg.

What the Devil´s going on here?