Episode 68: You Don't Want To Go There

Mexico has provided many memorable travel moments for us. It enjoys the richest, deepest culture in the Western Hemisphere, witnessed at such diverse archaeological sites as Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Cobá, Monte Albán, and Palenque. We scrambled in wonder over the monumental ruins of the Maya, Oltecs, and Aztecs and lowered ourselves into the massive sinkholes called cenotes and into caves sheltering vessels and artifacts of clearly ancient origin. We lingered at cafés bordering the zócalos of the provincial capitals of Oaxaca and Merida, watching vendors in native dress selling serapes and balloons while sipping tequila shots chased by tumblers of sangrita. In Mexico City's Zona Rosa, we poked our heads into boutiques and galleries and crafts and antiques shops, and in Plaza Garibaldi hired a couple of the dozen or so mariachi bands waiting there to sing for us. The museums were fascinating, the beaches near-perfection, the prices low.

I wouldn't go back now unless someone was willing to pay me large sums to review five-star hotels and fine restaurants with private supplies of certified pure water. For, in case you've been inattentive or away on a tramp steamer, Mexico is fast becoming a nation of outlaws. There are, to start, the millions of Mexicans without documents who swarm our border, with the active encouragement of their government and the assistance of brutal smugglers called coyotes. However essentially innocent of evil untent they might be, they violate our laws by their presence and strain our consciences about how to deal with them. But put aside that knotty issue for the moment.

More important, especially if your kids are thinking about taking Spring Break south of the Rio Grande, is the lawlessness that pervades Mexican society. Start with the everlasting tradition of the mordida - the "bite". Regular visitors know to be prepared for what is, in fact, a bribe. It is encountered everywhere, when the offering of a fistful of pesos may end unreasonable delays at the border or persuade the traffic cop to return the papers he demanded for no apparent reason. Offers to watch your car are attended by the vague hint that without payment it might not be intact when you return. As in any country with high unemployment and a despairing populace, pickpocketing, purse- snatching, street cons, random thievery, and aggressive begging are to be expected and tolerated as a cost of travel.

But in the last few years, escalating levels of violence have pushed Mexico to the precipice of what geopoliticians call "failed states." Combat between vicious, heavily armed drug gangs and between the gangs and police have resulted in over 6,200 homicides in the last year, a number on track to be exceeded in 2009. This statistic doesn't include the more than 400 women tortured, raped, mutilated, and murdered in recent years in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, nor the additional 1,000 who have been "disappeared."

The chief of police of Juárez was told by drug traffickers that if he didn't resign, they would kill a police officer every two days. And so they did. Corruption is pervasive. An earlier Juárez police chef pleaded guilty to smuggling a ton of marijuana into El Paso. Hundreds of abductions and kidnappings, typically resulting in torture, rape, and/or death, occur every year, often undertaken by police officers, frequently in league with hired chauffeurs and taxi drivers.

Much of this occurs in the north, in border towns, and in Mexico City, usually against Mexican nationals, but visitors shouldn't consider themselves immune. Indeed, they are often preferred targets of organized and freelance criminals. Armed robberies of entire busloads of tourists continue. State Department travel advisories note that rape, ATM assaults, and taxi robberies are on the rise in such major resorts as Alcapulco and Cancun. Drive from the beach into the country and road blocks and traffic stops by uniformed men who may or may not be police are a dire threat. The Cancun police chief is now in custody on suspicion that he colludes with drug gangs and took part in the torture and killing of a retired army general who had been hired to reorganize the police force.

This anything-goes atmosphere recently dragged competing drug thugs from Guatemala and Mexico into a running gun battle over the results of a horse race - a horse race! - in which 17 people died.

Visit Canada. Please.

Great Writing. Not.
The winning submission to the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, awarded to the person who crafts the most egregious opening sentence to an imaginary novel, read:

"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped 'Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

'Roid Rage
An actor who portrayed a drug dealer in the acclaimed film, The Wrestler, created a slam-bang drama of his very own in our county last month. Scott Siegal , 34, exited his car in front of his parents' house, aware that he was being watched by nearby DEA agents. He was carrying a brown box when he approached the agents' vehicle, looked inside and said, "Nice (bleeping) vehicle." Shortly after, when the agents pulled up behind Siegal's Cadillac Escalade and were joined by several police cruisers, he floored the accelerator and roared off. He crashed through a fence to get out of the gated community. Trapped in a parking lot, he rammed the DEA car to get out. Cornered again, he blasted through several police cars to escape. Dove straight at an officer, apparently intending to run him down. Rammed a total of five official vehicles. Abandoning his Escalade, he finally lost a footrace. The agents later retrieved $150,000 and 1,500 bottles of steroids from the perp's parents' home.

Said his lawyer after arraignment, "It was a temporary lapse of judgement."

Slumdogs
Fans of the over-praised Oscar-winning film know that India isn't the greatest place to grow up. It isn't a barrel of laughs for women, either. American researchers have estimated that there were 163,000 fire-related deaths of young women in 2001 alone. Many of those deaths were due to domestic abuse, often over disputes about dowries or because the women were unhappy about arranged marriages. A common method of solving such matters is to douse the women and set them afire. The deaths are then reported as kitchen accidents.

A woman's perilous place in Indian society is too often determined by the medieval moral standards of rabid fundamentalists, both Hindu and Muslim. In a January 2009 incident, a mob drawing its inspiration from a Hindu organization called the Army of God attacked young women in a bar in the college town of Mangalore. The women's sins, it was said, were drinking, dancing with men, and being generally un-Indian. Sri Ram Sena, as the group is called in Hindi, also condemns Valentine's Day as a foreign conspiracy to dilute Indian culture. In the controversy stoked by the incident, one intellectually incompetent politician denounced shopping malls as places where hand-holding was rampant! Can burkas and home confinement be far behind?

Chile Cashews
Spring is on the way. Time to remove the covers from the deck furniture and ask a few friends over. Here's and idea for an easy cocktail party snack to soak up the alcohol (or make them drink more.) It's adapted from a recipe from the Sazón Cooking School in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (that place you don't want to visit). It takes minutes to put together followed by 30 minutes in the oven.

3 tablespoons lime juice, freshly squeezed or bottled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sweet smoked paprika
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 pound unsalted dry-roasted cashews

Pre-heat oven at 250° with rack in middle. Whisk together the juice, olive oil, paprika, salt, and cayenne. Stir in cashews and stir to coat thoroughly. Spread the cashews in a large shallow baking pan and bake until coating is dry and fragrant, about 30 minutes. Cool completely before serving.
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