Unintended Consequences

One of the happy results of the horrible, shameful election we just endured was that a number of states, including California, have legalized marijuana! (Can I get an AMEN?). As a result, we have a new source of taxable revenue and people there will no longer be arrested for the victim-less crimes of possession and personal use. It gets a little bit stickier when you turn your attention to the effects this is likely to have south of the border. In Mexico, the cartels that run the weed game have suddenly lost their biggest market. Marijuana is not going to be a very profitable enterprise any more. What happens now? If they ante up and move on to harder drugs they will have to compete with larger cartels who have already cornered the cocaine, heroin, and designer drug markets. There will be infighting, mergers and acquisitions, turmoil. All around them, innocents will die. I’m not saying we shouldn’t legalize weed. We should just be aware that even something as seemingly positive as marijuana legalization can have terrible side effects.

Mexico is on track to legalizing weed as well. They just voted to allow certain cases of medical growing and use. This is the first step towards full legalization, even though that will take a lot longer to pull off. Legalization in Mexico would be wonderful for the economy, terrible for the cartels, and would generally make things a lot better. In the meantime, as far as anyone is aware, there is no plan in place for dealing with the blow-back from these steps. The government seems content to let the chips fall as they may rather than stepping up and putting protections in place to offset the violence that will result in denying power to the cartels.

Other wonderful examples of unintended consequences exist in the related system of gun and human trafficking. Legal and illegal guns move from the U.S. to Mexico. Drugs, money, and humans are hustled north to the States. Meanwhile the gun debate rages in the U.S. with gun advocates (the nutty ones) claiming that reasonable regulations will infringe on their rights in some mythical vacuum where there is no ocean of murders, suicides, and accidental gun deaths every single year and gun-toting citizens prevent crimes every day with illegal weapons purchased without background checks through loopholes like gun shows. Whatever. I’m happy to debate these issues ad nauseum.

What isn’t talked about north of the border, is the effect our lax gun laws have on the people of Mexico. Mexico, as of 2013, had only one licensed gun shop in the entire country. There are an estimated 2.5 million legal firearms in Mexico, but an additional 13 million illegal firearms, mostly owned by organized crime. More than 250,000 illegal weapons cross the southern border every year. Thanks in part to our lack of regulation, guns are readily available to criminals, obviously with the best firepower going to organized crime. This helps cement their power, fend off the police, and efficiently terrorize the public. Try tracking those serial numbers. Try holding U.S. gun manufacturers or retailers accountable for tracking the weapons they sell. All a moot point, since we are far from progress on gun issues. It does bear repeating that we should be talking more about how our lax gun laws are being used in many other places, particularly cartel-land south of the border, to kill innocents.  

Meanwhile, while every effort at tracking or restricting guns is stymied, other countries are doing everything they can to try to better track the money that is spent in their economies. Turns out this may be more damaging to the freedoms of the people than tighter gun laws could every be.

India, for example, is moving away from paper money to an all digital system. This is great if you want a high level of centralized control over the economy. It’s a big thorn in the side of organized crime and other illegitimate enterprises. There are many other positive benefits as well. One unintended consequence of moving away from paper currency is the enormous negative effect on women(mostly poor, and by extension, children). Women, certainly an underclass in Indian society, are able to squirrel away small amounts of cash so that they can free themselves somewhat from economic slavery to their husbands and male family members. They are able to achieve some amount of independence by earning money on the side in small all-cash enterprises. This, they would be unable to keep from the men without the secrecy of cash. Similarly, while removing cash hinders crime, it similarly hinders righteous revolutions from funding and ultimately mounting resistance to unjust leadership. This seems more and more important these days.

This brings us back to the U.S. Election. Our Tweeter in Chief offers fertile ground for exploring unintended consequences. The focus in the news this week are his promised border taxes for the goods companies like Ford and Toyota produce in Mexico. The auto industry is 3% of Mexico’s GDP. 70% of this is exported to the U.S. Many cars built in the U.S. use Mexican parts and vice versa. El Cheeto seems to think that globalization is a linear thing. That, somehow, making things harder on Mexico will not catastrophically hurt the entire auto industry. He also seems to think that U.S. buyers won’t mind paying a lot more for their vehicles. Never mind that the Toyota plant was moving to Mexico from Canada. Toyota reminded Trump that it employs 136,000 people in the U.S., suggesting that he may be barking up the wrong tree with his Twitter policy initiatives.

I suppose we will just have to watch the devolution unfold. It’s certainly not going to stop, but we can grit our teeth, pay close attention, and be as politically active as our schedules allow. While we are paying attention to the big issues, I’m going to pay special attention to the littler ones that tend to squeak past us as we rail against the destruction of the environment, the loss of our civil rights, and any number of other awful things we are going to continually confront in the new year.

Feliz aňo nuevo.

Don’t Talk About Money

I’ve already discussed the incredible and affordable food in this city, but it’s worth mentioning a few more times. It’s wonderful to be able to have access to world-class food without spending our savings. The streets are filled with the smell of frying fat and cheap cuts of meat.  Everyone can eat. That’s a plus, particularly for so many people living in poverty. (Of course, there is the ever present reality that eating cheap food will mostly make you fat. In that way, a lot of Mexicans share body types with the U.S. population. 70% of Mexican adults are overweight compared with 68.8% of the U.S.. Over 30% of adults in both countries are obese.) There are plenty of ways beyond food that illustrate the ways this city nurtures those without lots of money.

A subway ride in Mexico cost 5 pesos(the equivalent of 25 cents). Like New York and unlike a lot of other dumb cities, it doesn’t matter whether or not you take it for one stop or for twenty. This, naturally, does not accurately reflect the cost of a ride. Rather, it reflects the incomes of the people who ride the subway to work. The government subsidizes the cost, so that the lower income workers are able to commute vast distances to work every morning. Without this, the city would quickly grind to a halt. Money well spent if you ask me.

We’ve been going to see the National Symphony. My favorite seat is front row mezzanine of course, but who can afford a seat like that in NYC? The average ticket to the Metropolitan opera is between $150 and $200. Tickets to Carnegie Hall in the mezzanine run from $120-$150. Contrast that to the seat of my choice to see the National Symphony, which run to 120 pesos or $7 USD!! This too, obviously,  does not reflect the true cost of the tickets. The arts are heavily subsidized by the government as well.

It seems there are a lot of things that the cash-strapped Mexican government spends money on. They fund the Cervantino Arts Festival in Guanajuato, a sweeping festival celebrating the arts from around Mexico and the world. They fund the weekend bike lanes that close the main boulevard in Mexico City to traffic every sunday for a brief bike Shangri-La. They even hold Zumba classes in the roundabouts, where people who might not ever experience dancercize get to publicly shake their asses to music. They fund a number of National arts organizations, that provide scholarships and funding for the arts. There are many other examples of government funds being used to enrich life for everyone at all income levels. These programs are, for me, some of the more noticeable things that make Mexico City so memorable and wonderful to live in. Incidentally, they are all at risk if the peso keeps going downhill and the government doesn’t manage to curtail corruption, and balance the budget, but what else is new?

Being a New Yorker, I can’t help but draw comparisons between Mexico City. Sure there are a lot of free events in New York, and there are a few museums with “suggested donations”, and you could get by with street falafel and canned food (probably a lot of people do). I just don’t think you could make an argument anymore that NYC is a place for everybody. It’s increasingly a place only for the well-off. It used to be THE city for everyone. Sure, it could chew you up and spit you out, but it also had a place for everyone, rich or poor. It nurtured the dreams of the creative class like no other place in the world. Do we even remember what it means for a city when everyone, or nearly everyone, can afford food, and a place to live, to say nothing of access the arts, cultural experiences, and even affordable transportation?

This is where Mexico city is at the moment. Cities are always at crossroads, but Mexico City is fast following in the footsteps of cities like New York. The real estate market is shooting up so fast it’s hard to believe. At the moment, people can still afford to live here.  As it goes in cities, the poor mostly live in the sprawl, (hence the importance of decent, and affordable methods of transportation) but it’s easy to predict a time in the near future when the affordable bits are so far outside the commercial areas that the commutes will become impossible. Something needs to be done.  Everywhere you look, new luxury apartment buildings are shooting up. Every store space that opens is filled by a new boutique restaurant. The public transportation system, though excellent, is hopelessly overwhelmed every day.  

It is utterly naive to expect the free market to sort this one out. How can anyone expect an average real estate investor to also be a benefactor for the public? How many investors have the vision to take a short term loss in order to build things that will benefit the local communities and ultimately providing a sounder financial future for the city at large. Not the majority, I’m betting. We need government to regulate this kind of growth before it metastasizes. We need public funds to work for the public; saving spaces that benefit everyone in the community, and funding the arts and culture. The only way places like Mexico City (and New York City, if it’s not already too late) can hope to survive as the diverse, productive, culturally relevant, AND profitable place it currently is, is by combining careful planning and effective government regulation, with the kind of rampant investment we are currently seeing. Cities are for everyone. It is surely worthwhile to build shining cities of the future, but not if they are walled palaces surrounded with squalor and suffering. Can we even call it progress if it is accomplished without protecting our rich histories and most vulnerable citizens. It’s a brave new world. There is just no reason we can’t insist on doing both.  

Things below the surface Part II: The Subway

Sara and I live in a neighborhood called Roma Norte. It’s half old-school neighborhood with a lovely slow pace and tree-lined streets. The other half is a festering pile of cool, swarming with hipsters. Both halves are filled with the most amazing architecture. I like to think of it as a cross between Brooklyn and Paris, if a little rougher around the edges. There are three predominant forms of architecture. The first is heavily French influenced, hence the Parisian feel. The second is Spanish colonial, which is nice but I don’t know much about yet. The third is crap that they threw up after the big earthquake of 1985. Thankfully, the old buildings were built really well and are mostly still standing. They distract from the preponderance of horrible structures that architects have farted out since and create these mostly fabulous neighborhoods with beautiful facades and wide gracious boulevards criss-crossed with quiet, charming side-streets lined with trees.

The subway in Mexico is yet another thing that reminds me of Paris. That, too, makes sense since they largely copied the French metro. The cars run on rubber tires so the platforms aren’t noisy the way they are in New York City. They are narrower and taller, and they come far more frequently than they do in any other city I have visited. The tunnels and platforms are spotlessly clean, which is yet another major difference from NYC. Is it really so hard to make that happen? Does the NYC subway have to be one compromise after another? I just read that on top of being dirty, noisy, and crowded, they might raise rates in NY again soon. The subway in Mexico costs 5 pesos a ride (approximately 35 cents). It is truly an egalitarian system that gets the people to and from work every day in an affordable way. There is just no way the NY subway is affordable for someone earning minimum wage. There is also no way that 5 pesos pays all the overhead for a subway system the size of Mexico’s. The price is undoubtedly kept low enough for the people to get around without breaking the bank. This is as it should be. People who think the NY system is appropriately priced are certainly not in the low income tax bracket.

The subway cars in México seem to be moving in fast forward. They zoom into the stations, brake, throw open the doors, and before you know it, they snap them closed and zoom away. This affects everyone who, of course, feel the need to push their way on before people have finished disembarking. I don’t think you could argue that Mexicans are rude, they are justifiably afraid that they will miss their train.

The other day I made the mistake of riding the subway at rush hour. I had no idea what I was getting into. It started off mildly enough. I got on at my quiet station easily enough. It wasn’t until we hit the busy downtown stations that I realized the mistake I had made. I haven’t been that pressed even in the most crowded Times Square 4-train. There was no need to hang on. I was more than held up by the flexing butt muscle of the dude behind me. We rode, butt cheek to flexing butt cheek, and I couldn’t move or turn around to give him a wink or get his number. When my stop came, nobody moved. I had figured that others would get out and I would be able to wriggle free, but no such luck. That was the moment when I realized I didn’t know how to say, “getting off". So I said, “disculpe”, but still no one moved. Trapped far from the door, realizing I was about to miss my stop, I blurted out something like, “OFF!!” and pushed through the crowd, which was like being birthed. Sara had explained to me that it was fine to force your way off a train; that that was often the only way to do it, but I still felt that people should have moved a little, tried to help a little. It felt a bit...rude. One guy even said something that sounded like encouragement to me as I squeezed through. Bizarre, and uncomfortable and completely unnecessary. The last straw was the guy standing directly in front of the doorway, blocking my path. I gestured for him to move and he completely ignored me. Apologies to all, but I couldn’t resist shoulder checking him little as I exited. He fell half out of the train and I felt slightly less annoyed for a few seconds.  You can take the boy out of NY…

That was only the first of two times that day I wanted to smack a dude. After I transferred and was securely wedged into the next train, I saw something else I had never seen before. There was a guy wedged next to me and a woman wedged next to him. As she disembarked, the guy casually put his hand on the woman’s ass and gave it a squeeze. I had to blink because it looked so natural, I wasn’t sure if perhaps they knew each other. I didn’t think anyone would do this in so brazen and obvious a manner. The woman, for her part, just looked straight ahead and made a bee-line out the door and through the crowd. When the guy didn’t get off, I knew he had just casually molested her. I made this realization as I was pushing past the man to get off the train myself. By the time it had registered enough for me to get past confusion and shock and arrive at indignation and possible reaction, the doors were closing and I was left to ponder what might have been.

In New York, had I witnessed the same thing, I would have publically shamed the man. Held the doors, called everyone’s attention to his crime and generally made him regret not evolving. Here, I felt powerless. Maybe not as powerless as the woman, but certainly out of my element. Obstacles to action: First, my language skills need to improve to the point that I can do something more than publically embarrass myself. Second, there is really very little time between stops, so your priority has to be getting on and off and not the pleasant diversion of making assholes wish they had made different life choices. Third, realizing the situation more effectively. I have to admit that I didn’t comprehend the event immediately. I’m not used to people sinning so boldly and my mind created possibilities for why instead of spurring me to action (ex. Perhaps they were in a relationship and he was being playful).

Sara was not surprised. She really believes that deeply ingrained societal norms can be overcome through education, spreading of positive messages, political action, etc.  With a resigned sigh, she explained that this kind of thing, to her great regret, still happens all the time. That, she explained, is why there is an entire section of each train and bus reserved only for women and children. This last bit really floored me. While it’s certainly an effective way of providing safe space for them, it has been hard for me to process separating half the population from the other half because it’s just that hostile for them to share the same space. Sara pointed out that they do the same thing in Japan. She worked there for years and the anonymity of packed train cars provides outwardly civilized people with ample opportunity for groping. What the fuck is going on!!?? It’s not that I’m surprised by shitty male behavior, it’s just that productive solutions escape me. Public shaming, really aggressive women who just don’t stand for that shit, men who stand up against it as well. These are the New York way. I guess I’m making it sound like no one gets harassed or touched in NYC. Obviously, this happens a lot...but we don’t have to separate the males from the women and children yet, do we?

My solution, until they expand the public transportation system to the point that we are no longer riding in rush-hour cattle cars, is to avoid the subway at all costs during peak hours. The other part of my avoidance strategy is to ride my bike everywhere. It’s a better way to get around and to see the city. After all, I’m here to live, witness and learn, not change Mexico, and I’d rather not be angry and uncomfortable when I don’t have to be.

Things below the surface- Part I: Your Digestive Tract (Thursday, July 20)

“In Mexico, we eat bullets.”

-Dr. Victor R. Rodriguez Brambila, our new gastroenterologist

Not actual bullets (although that is a sharp description of certain Mexican realities) but rather a reference to the fact that a good portion of the food in this country will either clog your arteries or blow out your guts. Every day in this city is a simultaneous battle with heart disease and gastrointestinal disorder. So far it is difficult to tell if I am winning.

Mexico is a fried food and fat-fest. Sundays start with Menudo, a tasty tripe stew that Sara’s family loves. It’s delicious. The beautiful red broth is full of thick sections of different parts of the cow stomach from the chewy outer lining to the bee hive textured inner layer. Some recipes even call for the addition of boiled cow foot. Sprinkle it with oregano and a stir in a dried chili and let the healing begin. We ate pickled pigs feet at a restaurant in the hills. I like chewing, so that was better than it sounds. Oh, and there are always, always plenty of fried crisps most slathered in chili powder or hot sauce. The favorite crisp is Chicharron(fried pork skin). Everything is covered in Chicharron, sold in huge sheets by the quarter, half, or full kilogram. Do you know how much fried pig skin a kilogram is? All of it, that’s how much! The best chicharron are the ones with bits of meat still attached. That gives that extra little salty kick. Sara and her friends talk fondly of the childhood trauma of biting into a piece with pig hair still on it that the scraper missed.

Next are the things stuffed into other things. An endless variety of tacos filled with cheeses, the fatty cuts of every animal, more often than not deep fried, more often than not pork. I probably shouldn’t have had the fried tripe tacos, but it’s hard to feel bad about that one in moderation. Gorditas stuffed with chile relleno in Guanajuato were especially tasty. Sandwiches(tortas) galore, usually with fried pork parts. I recently had my first torta de milanesa, which is a few layers of chicken fried steak with melty cheese, avocado and tomato. That one is likely to be habit forming since I can’t seem to find really good fried chicken for my occasional binge.

Anyway, that’s just the stuff I will eat. There are a host of items I refuse to touch out of sheer preservation instinct. Fresh donuts are sold in the subway for 5 pesos. The smell fills the long tunnels between platforms. Every other food stall on the street seems to sell fried empanadas full of fried meat that are then fried again before served to you on a styrofoam plate. There is this strange sandwich where the bun is filled with pork, soaked in tomato sauce, and then deep fried in a suspiciously old looking bowl of oil. Those seem to be a crowd favorite as well. There’s a glass window display near the Zocolo that is filled with roasted pig snouts. I’m not sure what is going on there but it’s pretty medieval (see picture). It goes on and on…

Every Mexican I speak to about the food problems I’m facing here immediately denies that Mexicans eat this way. They always say they only eat like this on special occasions shortly before chuckling and admitting that there are special occasions for everything in Mexico. The good news is that there really are a number of staples of the Mexican diet, that are delicious and supremely healthy. The basis of every meal are fresh corn tortillas (maiz, water, and salt). I’m also getting good at making black beans (beans, water, a small wedge of onion, a clove of garlic and 4 or 5 hours in a slow cooker). Avocados are nature’s butter; just spread on everything with a sprinkle of salt. Fatty? Yes, but it’s the good kind, right? Eggs, lentils, tomatoes, fresh fruits and vegetables of every kind, all the other beans, amaranth cakes, limes, chili peppers (serranos are my new favorite). These are the things I buy for our home. There are delicious brothy soups like Pozole and consomme that are not filled with beef and pork organs. The markets even have wonderful fresh fish, which was a big surprise because we are fairly in-land. The orange juice is all fresh squeezed and tastes like liquid sunlight, as good as anything I have ever tasted. All is not lost.

There are a few options with doubtful health benefits. Corn, for example, is super healthy on its own, but it’s hard to resist the elote on the street, slathered in mayonnaise, grated cheese, and sprinkled with chili powder. I love the beautiful tamales they sell in the morning. I thought they were healthy, too, until I was informed that they are full of lard. They get you even when you don’t know you are getting got.

So we sought out a lovely gastrointestinal expert to sort us out. He has a chart of chili peppers in his office with the different heat ratings next to them. We told him that the food in Mexico was conspiring to kill us. He gravely told us to focus on fiber and to take three different pills twice a day for the next month to stabilize the mechanics. We’re trying to eat at home more often. It saves money and helps us avoid the cravings that assault us every day. Sara likes the bistec tacos and the sopa de carne, and I’ll take a few pork tacos al pastor, with some extra pineapple.

First Blog Entry- Easing in to this.

Monday July 18th (This is my first entry. Trying to get back into the writing habit)

Mexico City is a sensory feast. It’s just layers upon layers. Every cranny is filled with someone trying to eek out a living. Something is always going on: a tortilla being flipped, a shmata being sold, music, organ grinders, scam artists selling medicinal herbs, 3-card monte(didn’t think anyone in the world still fell for that one) more and more the more you look and understand.

This weekend, we took the subway to see an Annie Leibovitz exhibit. The line was too long so we decided to walk the mile or so to our lunch date at a Lebanese restaurant (Al Andalus). This walk took us right through the Centro Historico, past the Government buildings, past the park where the teachers have set up camp like Occupy Wall Street to protest the killing of several protesters at an event a month or two ago.  There they have erected a large village of tarps and tents held up by an elaborate web of ropes tied to the trees and anchored by big water jugs filled with run-off. An entire marketplace has moved in to supply the protestors and to benefit from the short-term economic opportunity that the shanty town represents. Some of this is just the Mexican protest business and some is genuine outrage fueled by a system that is rife with corruption. It is probably impossible to tell one from the other and I don’t think it particularly matters. Everyone is either pushing an agenda, trying not to be exploited, or a combination of both.

Beyond the protest park, we headed down the Calle de Messones, where a seasonal bazaar has popped up selling all sorts of school supplies for the coming school year. It didn’t occur to me until just now that the timing of this sale is weird by U.S. standards. It turns out that the Mexican school system roughly follows our own, so I guess everybody likes to get the off-season deals. Anyway, the sidewalks are completely filled with little booths, forming a kind of shanty town of their own for blocks and blocks along the sidewalks.

As we walked along the sky darkened suddenly and it started to pour. All around us, the shop owners sprang into action, throwing up extra tarps and sheets of plastic to protect the merchandise. There was so much cover that Sara and I were able to continue on our way despite the heavy downpour. We just darted from one covered stand to the next like active little cockroaches, hiding from the worst of the deluge, then skipping out across the streets when the rain ebbed a bit. The poor market folk were getting soaked all around us as the rain pooled in huge bowls formed by the tarps, and then crashed to the sidewalk, pushed by a broomstick, or simply overflowing the edges. It even hailed grape-nuts sized stones for a few seconds. All the while we were racing through, we could smell elote grilling on little charcoal burners, the incessant calls of the shop keepers, the non-stop hawking of cheap Chinese merchandise.

Sara pointed out that these goods used to be produced in Mexico, but even they can’t compete with foreign prices. As a side note, she has urged me not to buy U.S. products, like clothes, in Mexico. I asked why, since much of those products are manufactured in Mexico. She said that in many cases, they are shipped from Mexico to the U.S. and then sold back to Mexico for re-sale. The analogy is that of buying an Apple computer in China. It would first be shipped to the U.S. and then after the purchase, shipped again to China. I wonder about all of this foolishness.

We got to the restaurant around 5:30, which to me is a very early dinner, but to Sara and her friends, is just a really late lunch. As a result, the restaurant closed to prepare for dinner right after we ordered. There are too many conventions about serving the customer for them to ask us to leave, so they gave us food and we got to eat our delicious Lebanese feast alone at the far end of a beautiful empty room as rain poured down outside.

After that, we went over to Jose Carlos’s(One of Sara’s best friends and, along with Germain, the brains behind their restaurant, Cassius) house. We arrived unannounced, and joined another friend Rigo and his wife Patty, who were already there hanging out. So the crowd was Sara, me, Germain, his wife Alejandra, their infant, Rigo, Patty, their 2-year old son, Jose Carlos, his wife Cynthia, and their infant as well. The two babies were in the back sleeping, Rigo and Patty’s son was wolfing down chocolate cake, the music was on, and all the adults were snacking and having cocktails. Someone mentioned to Rigo that maybe the kid shouldn’t be eating so much sugar, which he acknowledged, but sadly added that it was too late. Half an hour later, Santiago(the son) was sprinting laps around the kitchen island and alternately doing somersaults across the sofa, destroying the pillow forts he had previously created like a mad mini Godzilla.

Obviously, parenting in Mexico is a bit different than it is in Brooklyn. This is not to say worse. The scene above is fairly exceptional. What isn’t exceptional is that parents do not put their lives on hold to raise kids. They bring them along. Even/especially infants. Children simply learn to sleep through the hubbub, get used to being held by many friendly adults, and on special occasions, eat inappropriate things and stay up WAY too late. By and large, though, everything is kid friendly and no one thinks it odd if you bring your child to a social function. On the contrary, they don’t understand why you would leave your child at home, unless they were being watched by a relative or the occasional babysitter. Here it is a strange concept to keep parenting separate from socializing, as if the baby were somehow separate from the rest of your life.

I’m sure that keeping a schedule is important for a growing child. I’m sure that establishing routines helps development AND helps the parents get a better night’s sleep. I am equally sure that the many kids I have seen at social gathering have taken just as many naps as they would have if they were home. They get used to being around others. They learn and adjust and the parents don’t fear the consequences of these decisions, perhaps because they have established their own routines that seem to work well for both parents and children alike.

Sara and I often worry about what it will be like for us as parents. It’s a longer discussion for another time. One thing I’m certain of is that the Mexican approach to parenting (the small slice that I have been privy to) is far less daunting than the privileged U.S. version I’m used to.