Activity Log

Department of Homeland Security will Waive Laws to Build Border Fence.

How terrible.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1029mexico-halloween1029-ON.html

No, wait, I do have comentarios. Here’s one: “the Catholic Church is an evil institution.” And another: “fortunately the Catholic Church is losing influence, albeit slowly, in Mexico.”

Yesterday, Alma and I went bike riding along some of Mexico City’s largest streets. We were able to do this because they were closed to regular traffic during much of the day.

The route we took is barely visible at MUÉVETE EN BICI. Unfortunately, the map is very low res, and zooming in won’t help.

We picked up the trail at the junction of División del Norte and Churubusco, went through a stretch of Patriotismo, and then went through parts of Condesa, Roma (where the stopped for a brunch of barbacoa), and the Zona Rosa. From there we picked up the Paseo de la Reforma towards the Centro Histórico, rode along the edge the Zócalo, skirted Merced, and went on to areas where I’ve never been on foot (and much less on a bike) and don’t really know. When time ran out — the streets were only closed from 7am till 2pm — we were close to the Palacio de Deportes. There we got on the Metro and went home under someone else’s power.

Along the route, there were police protecting every major intersection and most if not all of the minor ones too.

It was a great way to spend the day, although I wish we’d started earlier, or, better yet, that it went until later in the day. It was very nice to see Mexico City from a new perspective. It was kind of like being in a car, yet without the traffic and all that the traffic entails. And it was kind of like being on foot, except we were going much faster. I won’t say that Mexico City would become paradise if everyone got out of their cars and started walking or cycling, but it sure would be a lot nicer. Seeing the surrounding mountains clearly would be a daily occurrence instead of a rare treat, and there would be much less noise. For many people, daily commutes would be substantially shorter. I am not joking about this last point.

Biking here is usually a harrowing experience. But not yesterday.

Here’s a picture of me by the Ángel of Independencia.

According to this blog, the government of the DF has started clearing some streets of vendors. It’s difficult to believe that it’s really Eje Central in the first photo.

I have mixed feelings about the operation in general — commerce is good, but so is being able to walk down the street without being harassed (or banging your head on all sorts of lowhanging things) by people hawking things at you.

In the argument between (economic) liberalism and socialism, Mexico City comprises a big data point. What isn’t clear is whose position, if either, it buttresses.

(Earlier.)

Well, can you?

The latest example…

Soon, if the Teamsters don’t get their way, some Mexican trucks may be allowed to drive throughout the United States.

On the face of it, it’s easy to write off the Teamsters as being Teamsters — a powerful, self-interested, violent, and corrupt force with nothing constructive to add to society in general.

On the other hand, lots of trucks in Mexico are undermaintained. Many shoot huge clouds of black exhaust (suggesting little to no engine maintenance), have bald tires, etc. And, if the training of drivers of everyday cars is anything to go by — it isn’t mandatory — then there also are probably plenty of untrained truck drivers too. And not all of them would understand English road signs.

So, people not wanting to allow these drivers and vehicles into the US (for reasons other than fear of competition) aren’t being entirely unreasonable.

The best solution seems to be to ignore the Teamsters and the racists and figure out what the real problems or potential problems would be: the problems I outlined above, basically. Then fix those problems: only allow trucks that are properly maintained and driven by properly trained drivers into the country. Which may be the case already: “Participating Mexican carriers must comply with all legal requirements governing operations of domestically owned carriers, and in some cases stricter requirements,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler.”

Assuming anyone with “Attorney General” in his title can be trusted these days, I’d say that’s a good enough. Let the trucks in.

“I lost my vacation time and my money. I would have expected this from the U.S. but never from Canada. It would almost be better if Canada had a visa requirement for Mexicans. At least then the rules would be clearer.”

I wonder how prevalent it really is, though.

Argentine president calls US border fence plan ‘insult’ to Latin America.

Of course it is. But Latin Americans shouldn’t feel singled out — racists within the US would be just as happy to insult any other country where most people are brown. But since it doesn’t border any other country like that it can’t. At least not by building a fence.

Amate Books has the best selection of books in English that I’ve found so far in Mexico. Unfortunately, they’re pretty far away unless you live in Oaxaca. I learned today, however, that they offer shipping at a flat rate of MXN $50. It’s with Estafeta, and they claim shipments typically arrive within 2 to 5 days in most of Mexico.

I also learned that they have a location in Mérida. I think it’s new, and I think they opened it because in the past year or so the prospect of maintaining a business in Oaxaca has become a bit dubious.

Alcalde del DF se compromete a sacar a ambulantes del centro antes de octubre.

I guess it’ll make Eje Central a lot more pleasant.

I don’t like being treated like a criminal. As such, I also don’t like paqueterías in stores, especially when their use is mandatory.

More expensive stores often don’t have them (or, at least, don’t make them mandatory). I guess it’s a case of people with money to spare subsidizing petty thieves.

Many ATM locations in the US (and, I believe, other countries) are “locked” — they require users to slide a card into a reader to open the doors that guard physical access to the machines.

In Mexico, most are not configured that way. I think I’ve only used one ATM whose door required a card.

For a long time, I thought that was crazy. Mexico City isn’t a very safe place, and most people advise extra caution when using ATMs.

Recently, however, I questioned my assumptions about “locked” doors guarding ATMs. Anyone with a card can enter the “secure areas”, and cards are not hard to come by. Even if the card readers record cardholder information, a pickpocket can get a card easily enough. Even if a potential assailant can’t get his hands on a card to enter the “secure area”, he can just as easily wait outside of it, which doesn’t much change the dynamics of the situation.

So, on further reflection, it seems like the “secured areas” provide little more than a false sense of security.

On Friday night or Saturday morning, my ADSL modem died. I didn’t bother futzing with it until Sunday afternoon. I assumed that the problem was upstream with Telmex and temporary, and would go away on its own. It didn’t. So Alma called customer support, they ran through the usual obvious steps (is the thing really plugged in?) and no dice. So they said they’d send someone out with a new modem, and that it would take up to three business days.

That was potentially a big problem as a) I work from home and need internet access to do nearly everything I do, and b) if I went to work at a friend’s house, or in a net cafe, or in our corporate office (far!), I’d have missed the Telmex Man’s arrival. Plus I’d be a lot less comfortable than I am working here at home.

Fortunately, the Telmex Man arrived today with a new modem. It took very little time to get it set up.

It might not be the world’s best ISP (or telco in general), but credit where credit’s due: in my experience, Telmex’ customer service has never been anything less than totally satisfactory. People paying some of the highest fees in the world can at least feel good knowing that they get pretty good service.

Haz un sitio web, aunque sea sencillo.

Por lo mínimo, pon información de lo que vendes, un número telefónico que sirva, una dirección de correo electrónico y tu dirección física (si tienes una tienda).

No uses Flash, especialmente para contenidos importantes. Si lo usas, la gente que te busca no encontrará tu sitio en Google, con el efecto neto que nadie verá tu sitio. Tu dinero y tiempo invertidos en el sitio serán malgastados, porque tu negocio no crecerá.

No hagas nada complicado si no estás 100% seguro que funcione, en varios plataformas y navegadores.

Today I found a blog written by an American based in Mexico City. Interesting reading. Earlier this month, he posted about the price of books here.

Submission of comments is closed, so I’ll offer my MXN $0.20 here instead.

Schwartz talks about a $60 Harry Potter book. That’s pretty crazy. In the booksellers’ defense, however, that $60 Harry Potter book is the luxury edition — whatever that means. (”A fool and his money are soon parted”, probably.) Other editions are pre-selling in the neighborhood of $30: overpriced, sure, but not outrageous for people with decent jobs. (Which, sadly, many people don’t have.) And both the British English and American English editions are readily available, which I don’t believe to the the case in the US.

In general, though, I’m not sure that books are quite as expensive as they’re made out to be. My sense, based on an unhealthy book-buying habit, is that they’re similar in price, with the occasional doozy like that edición de lujo. That’s based on the books that Alma and I buy, of course.

Compare El Aleph at Gandhi (MXN $95), at Schoenhof’s (USD $16.45), and at Amazon (USD $8.77). It’s cheaper in Mexico. (I think it was cheaper when I started writing this. But exchange rates change — at the current one, it’s 1 cent cheaper at Amazon.)

Maybe people who buy self-help books, bestsellers, and weird books about spirituality would report differently.

So, while the economies of scale available north of the border as seen in Borders, Amazon, Chapters, and so on won’t be possible until Mexico is (someday) wealthier and culturally more inclined towards reading, I do think that some of the booksellers here — especially Gandhi — are doing an overall decent job already.

(Which isn’t to say that I don’t pine for a fully bilingual and full-sized Borders in Mexico City — or, better yet, a trilingual Chapters. I do. But it probably isn’t on the cards any time soon.)

Australian TV Show Apologizes to Mexico.

Marcelo Ebrard is the head of the government of the Distrito Federal.

I think he’s used public money for some ridiculous things, for example the massive, public quinceañara and the public “beaches”. (In fairness, I haven’t been to see or use the beaches. Maybe they’re better than they sound.)

However, I’m willing to overlook that due to the very good things he’s been involved with. In Mexico City, gay civil unions have been legalized. More recently, abortions were legalized too.

Now, his party, the PRD, wants to legalize prostitution in Mexico City.

Woohoo! Hookers, here I come!

I mean, and in all seriousness, this is awesome news from a civil liberties perspective, and probably from a public health perspective too.

I have not read this book. However, due to reasons I’d rather not get into, I’ve found myself with a second copy of it. It’s a mass market paperback, brand new, Barnes & Noble imprint.

If you’re in Mexico and want it, let me know and the next time we see each other I’ll bring it along.

If you’re in the US and want it, don’t be such a cheapskate — it costs under four bucks. Go buy it yourself.

A lot of people, whose motives I suspect but cannot prove are less than pure, say that they aren’t opposed to immigration per se, but have a problem with the many immigrants who have already entered the US in ways that contravene the law.

I always knew that there was something fallacious about that line of reasoning — it sounds appealing and reasonable on the surface but something about it has long struck me as not being quite right.

This post, at Café Hayek, clears the confusion:

A critical distinction in Anglo-American law is that between actions that are malum in se and actions that are malum prohibitum. Some actions are malum in se — wrong in themselves. Examples are murder, rape, theft, and fraud.

…

Other actions are malum prohibitum — “wrong” merely because the government proclaims these actions to be wrong.

…

To attach the label “criminal” both to persons who commit actions that are malum in se and to persons whose only wrongdoing is the commission of actions that are merely malum prohibitum is to use language confusingly.

Yup, that explains it swimmingly, but do read the whole post.

(It’s also amusing to see that the commenter on Café Hayek whose comment sparked the post is also the author of one of my favorite blogs, The Doosra.)

I’ve read in a few places recently that Mexico is now the second most dangerous country to be a reporter, after Iraq. It has taken this dubious distinction from Colombia.

Which is bad.

But it also sounds like a half-truth; I don’t believe that there many imprisoned journalists here.

This page puts Mexico at about the middle of the road with respect to press freedom. It could and should be better, but I guess it could be a lot worse, too.

1. We found an Asian grocery store not too far from our apartment, close to the corner of Churrubusco and División del Norte, about a block South, on the South-bound side of the road. Lots of cool culinary items for sale there.
2. The clothing store chain Suburbia (at least the one on Eje Central in the Centro) sells large-sized clothing, stuff I can comfortably fit into.
3. The Gandhi on Calle Madero in the Centro finally has some books in English. Its selection is comparable to that of the location on Miguel Ángel de Quevedo. There’s still a lot more in the Gandhi in Monterrey, but that’s pretty far. It also has a modest selection of books in French.

Nobody.

Color=dark.

Joakim me pidió que pasara este enlace a todos mis amigos.

Es poco probable que vaya a haber un gran temblor hoy.

Eso es todo, gracias.

I think that more open, green areas (and more affordable swimming pools) would improve Mexico City a lot more than fake beaches.

Abortion will likely be legalized in Mexico City. Currently it is only legal in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger.

Unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church is against it.

I say they should go screw. The Catholic Church is an organization whose lasting legacy is one of some nice art and architecture, ignorance, poverty, corruption, destruction, and disease.

It’s clear that the bad parts of its legacy more than offset the good parts.

In this age of relative tolerance, the church may be slightly less destructive; the rest remains as true as ever. The church continues to be a cause and promoter of ignorance, poverty, corruption, and disease.

Why does the Catholic Church hate humanity more than a misanthrope like me?

Most things here are too short and too small. Too short and too small, that is, for people who lived 3000 years ago during times of war and famine concurrent and lengthy, and were genetically predisposed to being short and small.

And deserving-of-neuteringly small for the 21st century.

No seas un pinche idiota. Pon fotos de lo que vendes. ¿Crees que voy a perder 90 minutos en ir (y 90 más en regresar) para ver tu sobrevaluado mueble de mierda? No mames. Jamás. Para el bienestar de toda la humanidad, pon una foto. Si lo haces otra vez, no serás excomulgado de la Iglesia (porque a la Iglesia le gusta la estupidez); serás excomulgado de la humanidad, neanderthal.

(Si tú subes fotos de lo que vendes, gracias. Eres un ser humano sensato, que no puede decir mucha gente.)

I’ve lived, for years at a stretch, in countries where dollar coins (or coins worth roughly the same amount, such as 10 peso coins) are used and in one country where they are not generally used.

My opinion, based on actual experience with both systems, is that dollar coins are far more convenient.

Whenever discussion of which system is better comes up, people who have rarely if ever left the United States complain about how bad dollar coins are or will be.

Sometimes I’ll then say that dollar coins are better, and I’ll explain why. The reason most important to me is that small purchases are much faster. (Another reason, less important but valid nonetheless, is that vending machines almost never fail to accept perfectly good coins.)

People invariably respond “I pay for everything with a card now anyway”.

Fair enough.

But it’s changing the subject entirely.

(more…)

En las librerías en México, se venden muchos libros de Kawabata. Eso es bueno, pero no es muy interesante en sí. Lo curioso es que hace muy poco que Alma y yo vimos sus libros la primera vez, sin embargo ya se encuentran por todos lados. Me pregunto si hay una explosión de interés por este autor japonés o simplemente Alma y yo somos muy poco observadores.

A commenter wrote “It’s becoming clear that pure market economics will not solve Mexico’s poverty problem”. But it’s not clear at all. One might as well say that it is clear that socialism won’t solve Mexico’s poverty problem. After all, neither - and nothing even approaching either - has been ever attempted here.

(I don’t think socialism would solve Mexico’s proverty problem; on the contrary I think it would exacerbate it for a variety of reasons. But I would never claim to know since it hasn’t been done.)

He also says, in reference to Mexico, “In real terms, salaries (especially lower-middle class salaries) have been in decline for decades now.” They’ve been going down in lots of countries, if the people saying that they’re going down are to be believed.

On the other hand, a lot of things are better today than they were twenty years ago. To put it another way: money schmoney; it’s wealth that matters, and that has increased for many people.

Me gustaría volver a leer la revista The New Yorker. ¿Alguién sabe si se vende en México, y dónde?

I’ve often wondered how many tortillas are consumed every day in Mexico. There are some 110,000,000 people who live in the country. If you consider all of “Greater Mexico”, which might include some of the Southwest US and Guatamala, and where many people eat tortillas regularly, there are even more people, although I’m not sure how many.

Now, how many tortillas does each Mexican eat on average every day? 1? 5? 15? Alma and I don’t eat tortillas daily, but I think that many people probably do. It’s a high estimate, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the average Mexican eats 10 tortillas.

In any case, the number of et tortillas approaches, if not exceeds, one billion. Per day. Holy crap.

Felipe Calderón, the new president of Mexico, has announced measures to keep the price of corn from going up. Corn is a staple in the Mexican diet, of course.

What gives? I expected this sort of counter-productive, populist, and economically illiterate crap from López Obrador, not from FeCal.

I popped my head into a video game store yesterday. I asked if they had a Wii. They did. The only one in Querétaro, they said.

How much? -I asked.

-1400

Holy crap- I thought- I’d better open it up and make sure it’s not defective. And then I buy it.

1400, that’s a great price- I said to Alma, pulling out my credit card.

He said 6400- Alma responded.

Crap.

I’m now starting to become bored with telling you how much the internet sucks - and, more to the point, all websites suck - in Mexico. So, if you would like to find out first hand, here is what to do.

Go to google. Type in “hoteles en <some mexican city>” where <some mexican city> will be some Mexican city. Look at the results. Every single one of them will be hopelessly useless in one or more ways.

There is some page where you can check a hotel’s availability. Choose a start date, choose how many nights you wish to stay, etc. Click ok. Wait a few seconds for the page to load. And you get back the same exact page you started with! NO NEW INFORMATION!

Another Mexican website. This is pretty priceless. You can, supposedly, search hotels for availability.

Today, you may recall, is THE LAST DAY OF 2006.

You can’t search dates in 2007.

Here’s what I sent them:

Nombre: Miguel
Correo electrónico: xxxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz
Comentarios: Como ustedes ya saben, hoy es el ULTIMO DIA DEL AÑO 2006. Pero no se puede buscar disponibilidad en el año 2007. Inútil.

I am not making this up. If you use firefox, go to ticketbus.com.mx. Look for where it says “fecha” and note that the year is wrong by precisely 1900. It is a classic year 2000 bug.

(I’m told it works with internet explorer, but who is irresponsible enough to use IE anymore? Seriously.)

I sent them a mail about it months ago, and, needless to say, they never responded.

On an inexpensive flight to the US, I could go, buy one Wii and one game for the Wii, and come back. I would end up paying less than what I’d pay to buy them here in Mexico.

Gerónimo describes the Feria Internacional del Libro which has been taking place all week in Guadalajara.

It sounds really cool. Most (all?) book fairs in Mexico City are limited to Iberoamerican publishers. But the FIL has publishers in at least English and French as well, and maybe others.

But it’s pretty far away, and I’ve already been on two long distance trips within the last month, and I don’t feel like any more for a while. My money shall remain in my bank account for now.