Identity Politics Are Not For Me

The idea of identity politics is to give a voice and a presence to the historically disenfranchised, which is good and necessary. For many people, identifying themselves as part of a group or community is empowering and it gives them a sense of self, belonging and purpose. This helps them become a more visible, cohesive and accepted part of society. However, what often ends up happening in the cacophony of conflicting identity politics currently being broadcast at an alarming volume by social media, is absurd (college cafeterias that serve sushi are accused of cultural appropriation), divisive (pitting men against women, gay against straight, liberals against conservatives, black against white, etc.), and overly simplistic.
I have always had an aversion to clubs, even those I can conceivably belong to. In that respect, I'm with the Marx who would not belong to a club that would have him as a member. And I'm even more averse to identifying myself by some willfully chosen slice of my complex makeup. I am from Mexico, born and raised there in a Jewish family, with an atheist dad and an observant mom. This is complicated enough, if not downright exotic.
The other day I was ranting about white people when someone interrupted to remind me that I am white. This stopped me in my tracks because I don't see myself that way, being Mexican and Jewish and all. Indeed, I am pale, have blondish hair and green/gray eyes, and according to everyone, I am swimming in great vats of privilege (another overused word currently in vogue to make certain people feel guilty for existing).
Having grown up well-fed, clad, educated and traveled in a country where children beg for food on the street, I have been aware of my privilege and my enormous luck since I was a toddler. In Mexico, the color of you skin may very well inform your station in life, with whites mostly on top. Still, I find that making people feel bad because they were born rich, male, white or lucky by accusing them of "privilege" is spurious. Privilege is not a choice. I am an accident of history. I find it a precious privilege that both sides of my family had the presence of mind to escape Eastern Europe long before the nazis came to get them, and that, having had less than zero privilege as Jews in the shtetl, for circumstantial reasons they chose Mexico, where it turned out I could be born free of persecution, into privilege.
I was straight for about 40 years and then fell in love with the woman who is now my partner. However, I like to say that if Michael Fassbender shows up, she'll be toast in a New York minute. I have been accused by gay friends of being in denial about my own sexuality when I have protested that I don't consider myself a lesbian. I had a gay male friend who, upon hearing me confess I had a girlfriend, exclaimed, "I always knew you were a dyke!" Well, isn't that rich? Because I didn't know, and not because of some closet I have yet to come out of. The problem with identity politics is that there is usually someone expecting you to be what they think you are.
I was invited to join Pantsuit Nation, a group of Hillary supporters on Facebook. A man was banned from the page because he had the temerity to put forth his views, which were in agreement with the liberal tenor of the group, albeit in a way which some women considered offensive. In truth, his post had an admonishing tone. But was this a reason to ban him? The responses to his post and subsequent deportation from the page went from puerile put-downs to women sensibly if timidly chiming in that banning him was a bit extreme. In fact, it was appalling. The guy was not disrespectful, just full of himself. He did not say anything offensive. He was contributing something of value. Do we expect all of us to think alike and agree on everything and sound exactly the same? In a democracy?
The current climate of polarization separates all of us into rarefied niches that end up floating away into their own select, put-upon bubbles. Recently, some of these bubbles have burst into attacks by legions of offended people, such as the reprehensible student behavior at Charles Murray's lecture at Middlebury College, or the brouhaha over a painting of Emmett Till created by a white artist at the Whitney Biennial, that devolved into some people demanding that the painting be burned. I was compelled to write on a Facebook post:
You may criticize the aesthetic and conceptual shortcomings of the painting all you want, but saying that a white person cannot make art about a topic that is judged unrelated to their ethnic background is absurd and a noxious kind of censorship. Does this mean that I as a woman writer can only write about women or women like me? If I want to write a story about Japanese internment camps am I not allowed? Till's is a story that shocks, saddens and outrages many Americans who are not Black. Is it possible that the artist feels the same? Attacks like this are a threat not only to freedom of thought and expression but they are against art, since according to this logic no one can create anything that is not directly related to their own personal history. Identity politics is reductive and instead of liberating people, it categorizes them into one-dimensional stereotypes, which is ironically what it is supposed to protect them from.
This tiresome cacophony of grievance, in my view, is related to seeing everything through the prism of one's identity -- it leads to the escalation, exaggeration, and distortion of alleged offenses against whatever labels define you as a person. I'm not saying that we should deny who we are, quite the contrary. The more people are antisemites, the more Jewish I'll be. The more anti-Mexican, the more proudly Mexican. All I'm saying is that we are greater than the sum of our parts.
Our enhanced sensitivity on behalf of ourselves and others is preventing us from fighting real evil. Accusing students of racism because they put a sombrero on a bottle of tequila for a Cinco de Mayo party, or firing a college teacher for defending the right to wear offensive costumes on Halloween doesn't help against the real forces of darkness, it actually abets them. In fact, the forces of darkness are rolling on the floor with glee at the crypto fascist excesses of the politically correct "left".

--> Identity politics affect people on both sides of the divide: the rabid conservatives with their bizarre sore winning and brutal contempt for the whining liberals, and the whining liberals with their p.c. concepts like cultural appropriation, microaggressions and triggering, which increasingly feel like censorship. Social media amplifies the abuse of terms like oppression, privilege, safe space, and has made them into overbearing clichés that weaken the actual meaning of those words and ultimately threaten the free exchange of ideas, which is the cornerstone of progress. If everything is offensive, then nothing is offensive. If everyone is a racist, then no one is a racist. Skirmishes about identity politics leave everyone exhausted and none the wiser. Everybody loses.

When Do We Cry Uncle?

Until when are we allowing this dangerous charade?
Asking for a friend.
We're six days into the Trump presidency and it is clear to anyone with a shred of common sense that we have a delusional maniac sitting in the White House, abetted by a bunch of irresponsible Republican flunkies and paranoid, resentful extremists like Steve Bannon. Trump rules by division, not unification, which means he is single-handedly waging war against the United States, its democracy, and its constitution. He has antagonized the C.I.A., the intelligence community, Mexico, the media, sanctuary cities, the EPA, The National Parks Service, all of science, immigrants, and even the very democratic process that got him elected.
He won yet he is still picking fights about crowds and popularity.  He is obsessed with the fact that he lost the popular vote by a considerable margin. Every single executive he signs seems to be the result of a personal vendetta. He signed the abortion gag rule the day after millions of American women marched to assert their rights.
Anybody who watched his TV interview, or any of his public appearances for that matter, can plainly see he is mentally incompetent. This condition will be exacerbated by the power he is already allowed to wield and by the public resistance that chips away at his massive insecurity, a resistance which needs to be relentless.
My question is to the Republicans who are acting as if this is a normal state of affairs. How much damage to the fabric of our system are we expected to endure? How much indignity and disrespect? How long are you prepared to look away while Trump puts this country in grave danger?
The fracas with Mexico is a serious issue. Mexico stands to be destabilized by the absurd insistence that it should pay for the stupid wall. When the Mexican economy suffers, more people cross the border. There are already walls, fences, and systems in place at the border, but Trump can only enact asinine symbolic gestures like the wall. It is not in the best interest of the US to have an unstable, economically weakened and defensive Mexico.
It is not in the best interest of the US to reopen black sites and reinstate torture. It is not in the best interest of the US to deny climate change or affordable healthcare for millions of people. I understand that Trump is only interested in feeding his own sick ego and in gaming the system as he always has. What I cannot understand is the suicidal insistence of Republicans on acting against the interests of the citizenry. Their indifference to the welfare of the American people is chilling.

I Know What Peña Nieto Was Thinking

In which I will attempt to surmise what Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was "thinking" when he decided to invite Donald Trump to Mexico.

Disconnected from reality by his own infatuation with power and surrounded by fawning yes men, all EPN could think of was how to reverse his precipitous freefall in popularity polls.
How could he make the Mexican people stop arguing about his very recent college plagiarism scandal? How could he make them forget the new $2 million condo in Miami used by his wife, real estate hoarder and ex-telenovela star, Angélica Rivera, a house that is connected AGAIN to a construction company that has been awarded big projects by her husband's government?
How to make them forget their tsuris with the recent devaluation of the peso, or the horrific insecurity and violence all over the country, or the 43 massacred students at the beginning of his mandate that still no one has been found accountable for? How to stop Mexicans from deploring and relentlessly mocking his obvious lack of presidential stature, and his incompetence?

Reflecting that he needs to recover his mojo, a simple idea arises in his little mind (if not in the mind of some sibilant advisor):
"Who do Mexicans hate more than me?"
He didn't have to look very far.
"Bingo! I'm going to read señor Donald Trump the riot act. Hell, I'm gonna lay down the law to the guy I compared to Mussolini and Hitler, right here in our country. That'll show that bunch of ingrates, the Mexican people, who's their daddy. I will go down in history as the guy who stood up to Donald Trump."

Alas, yesterday Peña Nieto went down in history as the guy who went down on Donald Trump.

In one fell swoop, as many Mexican commentators have lamented, he did what no one had been able to do yet: he made Trump look presidential, made his cockamamie idea of a wall a feasible notion, he legitimized his racist rhetoric and treated him like a head of state. If the invitation in itself was not humiliation enough, Peña Nieto got totally played and humiliated by Trump, the superhuman troll, who then came back to Arizona to a triumphant rally where he espoused his "immigration policy", which is nothing but the dangerous racial scapegoating of a demagogue.
Peña Nieto, other than perhaps privately dying of shame at having lost his shriveled manhood to the human Cheeto, will suffer no real consequences. As per the Mexican political system, he is enshrined in power for 6 years, since there is no reelection (two long years to go),  during which he, his vulgar wife and his corrupt cronies will continue trading on their shady deals and their violent contempt for their country. Then he will vanish into the sunset like the rest of all the other bad presidents we've had (most of them from his party, the P.R.I.), yet another forgotten blemish in our history. There will be potholed streets with his name in sleepy towns empty of Mexicans who will be found in the US looking for dignity.

I'm not as flummoxed as some by the logic of Mexican political thinking, because, in essence, it is very simple. It goes something like this:

"The Mexican people are idiot infants that are better off not knowing the truth. We have always lied and talked down to them and pretended that we govern, when in fact, all we do is steal and take long (six-year) baths of intoxicating power. We have always staged this dog and pony show that they innocently call "democracy", and pontificated with meaningless, highfaluting words, communicating nothing true and nothing essential.
In fact, we're a bunch of deeply corrupt cynics who only care about fattening our bank accounts and safeguarding our uncontested, untouched, magical impunity. We steadfastly refuse to work for the improvement of our country, let alone reform its putrid institutions, which we deliberately keep inefficient, bureaucratized, moth-ridden and bloated, so we can continue the status quo.
We conspire with the rich, to whom we give monopolistic powers so they can prop us up, whether they are drug cartels, the richest man in the world, or privately owned media monopolies. We buy the votes of the poor with free sandwiches and sodas. We don't give a flying fuck about the smart, hard-working people who love this country and have truly good ideas to make it better. We just smother everything in bureaucracy and impediments.
We deliberately keep people in poverty and ignorance so that they don't get any ideas. Through our brilliance at entrenching corruption at almost every level of social interaction, we have created a nation ruled by distrust. We must admit, though, that despite the fact that almost everything we do conspires against progress and against greatness, Mexicans somehow still manage to be productive and creative. Imagine what they could do without us."

This visit is no different. Like all their other farces, this is pretend statesmanship that is not fit to belong to a second rate circus, just like the president's guest.

Which brings us to the uncanny parallels between Trump and the current Mexican President:

• Both are playing pretend at being presidential
• Both have been irresponsibly propped up by vastly corrupt and incompetent political parties.
• Both are constitutionally incapable of true leadership, let alone statesmanship.
• Both are crooks.
• Both inherited their power from their families (Trump financially, and Peña Nieto politically).
• Both are uneducated, anti-intellectual and married to uneducated, flashy floozies (one steals speeches, the other traffics in houses).
• Both have had more than one wife, and children by several.
• Both have unsavory friends. (For Trump, see Christie, Chris; Manafort, Paul et al. For Peña see Castillo, Alfredo).
• Both have ridiculous hair, though Trump wins this contest hands down.

So this little nightmare scenario we witnessed yesterday is nothing but two impostors getting together to convince people that they are real.

Finally, this is what I imagine transpired behind closed doors at their meeting:

BOTH:
Nice hair!
EPN:
Let me cut to the chase: My wife wants an apartment in a Trump Tower. Any Trump Tower will do. We'll pay for the wall if you make it happen.
TRUMP:
Deal! Believe me, you're gonna be very happy. It's gonna be yuge.

Open Unhappiness

I haven't seen a more offensive advertising since Donald Trump last opened his mouth. Mistakenly thinking that its role in society is to do good, Coca-Cola Mexico came up with a campaign to "open your heart" and "break prejudice". Which is fine. We don't listen to someone like the Pope when he exhorts us to do the same, but if Coke says it, the entire Mexican nation is sure to follow through. After all, it is a known fact that Mexicans drink far more Coke than water.
In the commercial, a bunch of young white models, all behaving in slow motion, get into a hipstery looking truck, and, supremely enamored of their own munificence, arrive at an indigenous Mixe village in Oaxaca to spread their self-congratulatory, privileged joy. There, instead of bringing education, jobs, better housing, opportunities, water, curiosity, respect, understanding, equality, any sort of practical help, or simply begging humbly for forgiveness, they unload coolers filled with ice-cold Cokes and, armed with plywood, "build" a hideous Christmas tree made of Coca-Cola bottles that happens to look like a deformed Coke bottle and which says something like "let's keep the unity" in the Mixe language.
According to The Guardian, where you can still see the spot, there were calls to take this preposterous garbage off the internet, for the expected reasons: patronizing the Mixe people, and by extension all the indigenous cultures of Mexico, while encouraging their consumption of a drink that can only hasten their tooth decay, their diabetes, and their death.
To me, this, although true, is not the biggest problem. I love Coke and will love it until it causes my untimely demise. In my case, the demonization of its sugar content falls on deaf ears.

Forget about the tone-deaf impropriety of a foreign company that peddles what many people consider syrupy poison telling Mexicans how to deal with their "prejudice".
Forget about the absurd appropriation of a Christmas tree by discarded product.
Forget the wholesale contempt for the original religious and cultural traditions of the indigenous Mexican peoples.
Forget about the imposition of Christmas, consumerism, cavities and Coca-Cola by a bunch of insufferable rich twats pretending to "give back" while they look down on the "indians".
Forget, if you can, the plywood.
What makes one retch is the abject cluelessness of an ad that preaches against prejudice while completely avoiding the vast majority of Mexicans, who are neither resplendent white specimens nor indigenous people.
Where are the people who represent most Mexicans, not just the ones at the very top and the very bottom of society? Where's the working class? Where's that mythically expanding Mexican middle class everyone talks about? In short, where are all the other brown people?
As is traditional in Mexican advertising, they don't exist. They are rarely, if ever to be found in a commercial.
This ad is no different from the great majority of ads in Mexico, which, unless they are public service announcements, almost exclusively cast people who seem to have arrived recently from Scandinavia or the tonier confines of Buenos Aires. But in this case, for maximum absurdity and bitter unintended irony, it also stars, probably for the first time in the history of Mexican corporate marketing, a number of forsaken natives, and not even this fact could make the advertising agency, the casting agency, the director and the client consider representing all the rest of the actual people who drink their beverage, and who are hounded every second of their lives by the racism the ad purports to fight.
People who deny that Mexican society is predicated on the most enduring, insidious racism need to be subjected to an endless loop of this ad, like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.
So do the people who made it. Ad infinitum.

The Problem With Puto

Mexicans are up in arms at FIFA's investigation of discriminatory misconduct by Mexican fans in Brazil, who have been heard to chant the word "puto", which means "faggot" at opposing teams. Mexicans only recently are slowly becoming aware of their own deeply ingrained prejudices, mostly thanks to the internet. We are always amazed that slurs that to us are perfectly common, such as "puto" or "blackie", are found offensive by others. "We said it in jest", or "it's a term of endearment", some of us will protest.
Mexicans will say that the word "puto" in this context was not uttered in the spirit of discriminating against any gays. This is true. The Mexican fans that were so maturely and in such a sportsmanlike fashion screaming "puto" at the opposing team were not berating any particular player because of their homosexuality. In Mexico, the word "puto" has become an all-purpose insult, not necessarily aimed at gay men. Think of Alec Baldwin or Jonah Hill hurling "faggot" at the paparazzi. People choose to neglect the fact that the original intention of both "faggot" and "puto" is to denigrate homosexuals, and when used against straight men, to disparage them by accusing them of being gay. It's the worst thing you can say to a guy (in Mexico, without mentioning his mother). Even if it is directed at the straightest man on Earth, the connotation is sissy, weakling, crybaby, coward, less than a man.
In Mexico, people are making outraged jokes at the whole situation. How dare FIFA, a corrupt organization with no ethical credibility, chastise Mexican fans for their innocent chanting? A jokey letter to FIFA is making the internet rounds. Written rather pathetically in bad English, it clarifies the definition of homosexual as a person who likes someone of their own gender and the definition of puto as "whoever reads this". It's funny, but that is exactly the crux of the matter: people prefer to ignore the fact that the insult, whether directed at gays or not, is inextricably linked to homophobia. And the word homophobia has in itself become a bit of an empty cliche, so let me remind you: it means fear (and loathing) of homosexuals.

Now, I use slurs (in the privacy of my own mind) and I hate unbridled political correctness, which also largely thanks to the internet, has created a climate, at least here in the US, of self-righteous censorship and mob accusations of racism and discrimination that threaten to turn everybody into either the thought police or hypersensitive whiners. Now college teachers need to warn students that there may be "offensive" passages in books dealing with the usual depredations in human history. People scream "racism" indiscriminately. Everybody is a victim. It's as if we are pretending that we are better than we are and that having prejudices is not the norm in human behavior. Newsflash: it is and we all have them. But that doesn't mean that people should not be aware that words have history, they have power, they can keep others down. The anti-discrimination Fare network, which reported this behavior to FIFA, considers "puto" a slur because it is, no matter how good humored the usage. They don't know that in Mexico people think there's little wrong with it. This is common. We liberally use slurs and then pretend they are not racist or derogatory. By the same token, but inversely, I have heard some fellow Mexicans try to avoid the use of the word "judío" (Jew) in my presence because they think it is a horrible slur. It is not, but they resort to rather amusing euphemisms, asking me if I am a Hebrew or an Israelite (do I look like I'm 5000 years old?). And when I say I am a Jew, they flinch because in their minds "Jew" means someone terrible. Obviously, the more ingrained the prejudice, the deeper the lack of awareness.
So let's simply turn the tables for a moment. I bet Mexican soccer fans would be delighted if their rivals would disparage our team in the same good-natured fashion. The Mexican team, a bunch of putos? I didn't think so.
I can understand to a certain point the frustration of Mexicans with the solemn humorlessness of the correctness brigade. We are great at humor, but still lag in the awareness department. At the second decade of the 21st century, however, it is about time that we look into our dark little Mexican souls and simply acknowledge our deepest prejudices. It is the first step towards diminishing them.
Something else gnaws at me. Forget about political correctness for a moment. Why is it necessary to root for our team by insulting the others? It is bad form, vulgar and completely unnecessary. Whatever happened to our good manners?

Nationalism, Politics and Frivolity

The Oscars just blew into town, leaving nothing but despair and destruction in their wake. Apparently, Mexico and Kenya almost went to war over the nationality of Oscar winner and classiest new star since Audrey Hepburn, Lupita Nyong'o, a daughter of Kenyan diplomats who was born in Mexico and left at the age of one. Lupita gamely averted an international crisis by saying that she is Mexican-Kenyan or Kenyan-Mexican and she loves carne asada tacos and both countries equally.

Poor Alfonso Cuarón is first lambasted for not making films in Mexico, then treated like a national hero for winning a bunch of Oscars. National pride surges to an all time high, since his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, is also Mexican. Some Mexicans consider the Poncho-Chivo-Lupita a Mexican axis of world domination. The last time this happened was when the Three Amigos (Del Toro, Cuarón and Iñárritu) all had nominated films.

Venezuelans bent on overthrowing their abject, incompetent, irrational, yet democratically elected government, organized a campaign asking Hollywood people to mention Venezuela's plight in their Oscar speeches. Apparently, Best Supporting Actor Jared Leto got the memo and mentioned, among other things, Venezuela, Ukraine, his mom, AIDS, etc. A lot of people liked his speech. I was not that impressed.
People who win Oscars are suddenly foisted upon a soapbox in front of a billion people, but they are still in a circus called Hollywood, not in the circus called the United Nations. Increasingly, I think they should stick to thanking their agents and costars and directors and moms. If they want to do something for world peace, they should do as Angelina Jolie and actually work it.
I know many Venezuelan friends will disagree with me on this one, but asking people who have nothing to do with that country to give it a political shout out at an entertainment ceremony is absurd. Why Venezuela and not Syria, where things are far more dire? Why not some war torn country in Africa? What makes Venezuela so special? The request is both disproportionate and inappropriate, as was the Venezuelan government's response delusional in the way that only ideologically perverse regimes can muster: they banned the Oscars. Reductio ad absurdum on both sides of the divide.
People have been trying to call the world's attention to sundry plights at the Oscars since Vanessa Redgrave lashed out against Zionism and Marlon Brando sent a Native American to retrieve his award. Except in very few instances when the issues are relevant to the films, broadcasting them from the winners' perch is misguided and frequently embarrassing.
And even when relevant, as in the case of 12 Years A Slave, it was rather jarring for Steve McQueen to mention that almost 30 million people are still slaves today, then jump around the stage like an overgrown schoolboy with his coveted Oscar. There is a tonal conflict at work. The possibility for gravitas is almost nil.
Bringing serious issues to the most frivolous event in the universe belittles and cheapens those issues. Unless the winners happen to be intelligent, articulate and self-possessed enough for impromptu eloquence, they all look like pompous asses trying to be something they're not when using their thirty seconds for some cause or another. Lupita Nyong'o did more against racism and for women with her poise and her refreshing lack of ego than any bombastic speechifying ever has.

Mexican Coke Is It

Art by Andy Warhol, who should be rolling in his grave.

Only a threat of this magnitude could rouse me from my long hibernation in the world of film reviews, dear readers. I am concerned about an extremely frightening scenario I stumbled upon here.
The headline screams "Could This Be The End of Mexican Coke?"
It is not the stuff the nightmares of cocaine fiends are made of. Just imagine: no more mountains of deeply adulterated, cheap and plentiful cocaine, a byproduct of the spilled blood of tens of thousands of Mexicans and of the voracious appetite for blow north of the Mexican border. That coke we don't care about. If that ends, goodbye and good riddance.
We are talking about Coke with a capital C. We are talking about the end of Mexican Coca-Cola, which is the only Coca-Cola worth drinking, in my estimation. It is made with cane sugar, as opposed to high fructose corn syrup, and while it will still make you fat, diabetic, and will rot your teeth just like the other one, the difference in the experience of drinking it is enormous. Plus, as poisons go, it is the less bad of the two.
As you all know, there is a difference between Coke that comes in a can (bad), a plastic bottle (worse), a two liter bottle (the pits), or the very best Coke, which comes in the classic curvaceous glass bottle, either small or medium. So it stands to reason that there is a difference if Coke is made with cane sugar or with corn syrup. You can taste it right away. Mexican Coke is less syrupy. It is less cloying. Less sweet. It is lighter, easier to drink, more refreshing. The very best Coke comes, ice cold, in a medium (probably 12 oz) glass bottle. Pour that cold Coke over a glass full of ice. Open happiness, indeed.
So now that the Mexican government is following the Bloomberg approach and wants to tax soft drinks (Mexico has the greatest consumption of soft drinks in the world and alarming rates of rising obesity and diabetes), Coca-Cola Mexico is threatening to switch to high fructose corn syrup, which supposedly is cheaper than cane sugar.
This is malevolent.  If I were the Mexican government, I would tax them double for making it with corn syrup. If people are already going to pay an extra tax for their coke, why would they want a worse Coke? Coca Cola will win this battle, like it wins all battles, because it is all mighty. But since it claims to be a nice company about happiness, that spends so much money trying to pretend their bottled water is not destroying the Earth and that Putin is a nice guy, they should have a public relations fiasco with this bullying threat.
Unfortunately, the majority of Mexicans won't give a damn if their Coke is made one way or the other. They may revolt at having to pay more for a drink they consume like water. But it is up to fineschmecking foodies like me and my indignant Facebook friends to man the barricades against this blatant attack on taste (and less bad health).

American Shakedown

Attention, Mexicans! Our pride in being undisputed champions of the shakedown is now under mortal threat from our neighbor to the north. You heard right: not from a ravaged country in Africa, not from the Russians, the Chinese, or from our very competitive neighbors to the south (all of them). The latest challenge comes from the good old US of A. You would think that the police stealing cars, money, jewelry and kids (yes) from people only happens in benighted third world countries, but think again.
According to this excellent article by Sarah Stillman in The New Yorker, now you can find the third world shakedown right in America The Beautiful! And as everything that is rotten and corrupt in this magnificent land (corporations are people, the NSA can read your emails, lobbying, you name it), it is perfectly legal. It is called civil forfeiture. It was originally designed to fight drug cartels and organized crime, but ever enterprising, some police departments in some states have decided to expand it to regular, innocent, hardworking people. Because isn't that the way of all progress?
In a nutshell:

In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.
One result is the rise of improbable case names such as United States v. One Pearl Necklace and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. (Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson’s forfeiture was slugged State of Texas v. $6,037.) “The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window,” Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There’s no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence.

Lately, with all these newfangled laws designed to protect us from sundry terrorist evildoers, the US is starting to adopt not only the surreal magical realism that is endemic to developing countries (Texas vs. One Pearl Necklace?), but a frightening Orwellian and Kafkaesque degree of absurdity. We should all be very concerned.
At least in Mexico we have equal opportunity: everybody can be a victim of the shakedown. The rich, because they're rich, and the poor because they're poor. Everybody pays. Not in the US, no siree Bob. As befits the cradle of unbridled capitalism, the rich here are left untouched, no matter their wrongdoings. It's the poor, black and brown who get shaken down the most.
Do you want to take a guess at what states are vying for the world championship in the art of the police shakedown? I'll give you a hint, it's not Vermont. Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. (you know, where the Capitol is) and the underfunded police department in Detroit. By law, the loot goes directly to fund law enforcement, which is a great incentive for police departments to cast a wider net and relieve innocent people of their possessions. As for the kids I mentioned above, the notorious police ring of Tenaha, Texas, has a cash for freedom deal in which they threaten to remove your children from your care unless you give all your stuff up. A termagant called Lynda K. Russell, the racist, corrupt attorney general of Shelby County, Tx, is the one allowing the shakedowns of people to happen.

One difference between Mexico and here, is that at least here people can still find some legal recourse, even if an expert calls U.S. civil forfeiture cases, "the Guantanamo of the legal system". The article introduces several admirable lawyers that have taken up cases to help people fight this outrageous injustice.
I moved from Mexico 21 years ago thinking that I was moving from the developing world into the apex of progress and civilization. I never expected that I would feel like I was back in a third world country, or worse, but I see evidence of the US slipping into moral, economic and political decay every single day.

Mexican Food Porn Part Deux

I kept eating everything and everywhere. My good friend, Mr. Michael Parker, and his splendid cook Sra. Araceli, made a fabulous dinner with shrimp stuffed avocados and light, fluffy fried fish and Mexican ratatouille. It was a candlelit dinner, so the pictures of the beautiful table are rather dim.

Here's the table at my family's Seder.

And the traditional Passover plate.

Here's the table at my Middle Enchilado Brother in Law Passover lunch extravaganza.

My last important meal was at very good restaurant La Capital. We started with a refreshing mezcal shpritzer, dusted with sal de gusano, worm salt, which makes everything taste better.

The guacamole and chips here is comprised of thin yuca, plantain and potato chips.
The guac has pomegranate seeds in it. It all works.

I ordered caldo tlalpeño, which is a classic Mexican chicken broth with veggies. This one was elegant and a tad spicy. Mexico is soup heaven, because unlike the US, where apparently no soup is complete without industrial quantities of unnecessary cornstarch, here soups are thin but explode with flavor.  In NY I despair of finding decent soups (the only options are pho, ramens and asian soups - the rest is pathetic).

The Middle Enchilada ordered the now famous tuna sashimi tostadas, originally from restaurant Contramar, but easily copied elsewhere. They are amazing.

I ordered a pescado con chile y limón, fish with lime and chili, that was surprising because it was far more sophisticated than its name implies, and not spicy at all. Behind it you can see a glass of esquites, corn kernels mixed with lime and herbs, and the water in which they were boiled, with mayo on the side, just like on the street, but fancier.

At La Capital they make sopa seca de fideo, which is Mexican vermicelli soup, but dried out, and which I love. You can find this at any cheap fonda as well as in the fanciest restaurants, where they make it more presentable, if equally delicious.

For dessert we had meringue with raspberry coulis and vanilla sauce.

Fin.

Mexican Food Porn

I was in Mexico City for Passover and I ate like a monster truck. Moreover, I ate fantastically, splendidly well. At restaurants and at the houses of generous hosts who cook and eat well. Mexico City was almost empty and looks very spiffy. For the first time in years the idea crossed my mind: I could live here (if it means eating well every single day). Without the traffic and without the Mexican drama, I could consider it.
Some of the following pictures may be NSFW, if you happen to work at Weight Watchers, that is.

My beloved family surprised me upon my arrival with lunch at El Cardenal, which utterly rocks traditional Mexican food. I ate like half a dozen homemade tortillas with fresh tomatillo salsa and queso fresco. The green liquid you see in the back is fresh limeade with chia seeds.

Then, I could not resist my all time favorite, sopa de fideos. This is a soup everybody makes at home, yet I insist in ordering it at restaurants. New York may have everything, but it doesn't have this.

I stole the garnish from my sister's tortilla soup: chicharrón, queso fresco and dried ancho chiles. My Middle Enchilado brother in law ordered a masterpiece of a soup, called Sopa de Rancho, farm soup. It was unbelievable.

Then I had one duck carnitas taco left by my nephew, which was awesome, followed by a chile relleno with cheese. By this point I felt like the fat guy at the end of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

For dessert we had crepas de cajeta (dulce de leche crepes) and guanábana sorbet.

That pink thing is a mini pepitoria, which is like a host wafer with piloncillo inside. I love that stuff.

Dinner next day was the Passover seder at my aunt and uncle's where there is gefilte fish with veracruzana sauce and a matzoh mole chicken gratin, which rocks. I was too busy eating to take pictures of the food, but you can see it here.

I was lucky enough to be invited for Passover lunch by Middle Enchilada's mother in law. She is from Veracruz, of Syrian Sephardic descent and she is an unbelievable cook. She makes perfect Middle Eastern food and perfect Mexican food from utter scratch, and thus I want to stay in her house and eat three meals a day forever. I also urged her to write a cook book.
By the way, Sephardic Jews have it easier on Passover, because they are allowed corn and rice. Hence, this paella.

Hence also, this amazing barbacoa de res, with its kosher for Passover corn tortillas.

She also made chicken in a red mushroom sauce.

 And her famous stuffed zucchini with apricots and prunes.

 She makes the traditional Middle Eastern Kebbe but without wheat, for Passover. It's addictive.

Subtle, refreshing jalapeños stuffed with tuna, too.

This woman makes her own chipotle chiles from scratch. And they are divine (they have bits of jicama in them).

There was also guacamole and salad. Which were also good. 

Needless to say, there were other homemade salsas, each better than the next, and more than one dessert. She makes her charoset with prunes and it should be a controlled substance, like her homemade plum jam, which I have no pictures of because I could not stop eating it. I have pined for it every day since. 

I ate everything. It is a miracle I did not collapse. That very night I saw my friend Jack for dinner and all I could eat was a splendid grilled artichoke with some mysterious seasoning at a fancy schmancy place. Oh, and two tequilas, and an anís campechano (dry and sweet anise on the rocks) to aid digestion. The anise works wonders. 

Coming up, Mexican Food Porn, part II.  (What? are you stuffed already?)

Toys R Us

These are only some of the highlights of the bizarre insanity that is the Museum of Old Toys in Mexico City. The museum takes up about three dusty floors of a building near downtown DF and is the private collection and brainchild of an ornery Japanese man who has been amassing enormous amounts of toys, with no discernible criteria, but who also created some of the displays out of abandoned industrial parts. It offers a nostalgic trip to the toys you had, the ones you coveted, the ones you broke and the ones your parents refused to get you. If anything, it is also a panorama into the mind of a man who never met clutter he didn't like, and whose concept of curating is just to stack shit together in vague thematic ways. 

The museum store also happens to sell Japanese food. Only in Mexico.

I have no words

Betty Boop ad infinitum

A tower of ex-president Salinas puppets

Mexico beckons 

Why is this a toy?

Brothers Quay, move over.

Two story tall head that used to belong to a dancehall

"Remember your happy childhood"

Sandy: "I'll Take Manhattan..."

Darlings! It's sad that only an event of catastrophic proportions would get your Enchilada back to these pages. She has been busy reviewing movies and working for no pay for the greater good of artists, but she is back to tell you about her "nordeal" apres Sandy, that evil bitch.
After the no-show that was last year's Irene, which left us stranded for four extra days in Cancun, we thought, pinches gringos, how they exaggerate. However, since the images of the great eye of the storm in the sky were pretty dramatic, this time we decided to play it safe and calmly follow the panic. Here's the report.
Sunday afternoon:
The supermarket downstairs is in pre-apocalyptic mode. I have never seen so many people stocking up, including in 9/11. Bread is gone, water almost gone, but most importantly, supplies of potato chips and Doritos, etc. have vanished off the shelves. I guess this is what people understand by non-perishables. Being totally unversed in the arts of post-apocalyptic survival, (despite experiencing the 1985 earthquake in Mexico, 9/11 and the 2003 blackout), instead of buying unappetizing canned goods, I buy the fresh ingredients for a spaghetti carbonara, asparagus and shallots and every single supermarket item that is sure to perish in the event of a blackout. See, being a denizen of chic downtown, I am convinced that power outages are reserved for the unhip. Serves me right.
Monday evening:
We are smugly following the dramatic non-reports as yet from wind battered TV reporters, all appliances working at full speed, when we see a huge blue aura come from about where the transformer of 14th Street is, the lights dip, and pop, we are without power. Being from nations like Mexico, where there are frequent power and water outages, we have learned one thing: power outages are extremely infrequent in the United States, but when they happen, they last forever. Basically, we're screwed. Soon we run out of water, since we live on the 13th floor and the pump doesn't get this far without electricity. Our building does not have a generator. So candlelights and wine it is. Also, pasta with broccoli and anchovies that I managed to cook before lights went out. So far so good. I feel like we're in Barry Lyndon and I am Marisa Berenson.
Outside our window, it looks like everyone is in darkness except for people above 34th St. What we can see of Soho, the West Village and the L.E.S is pitch black. But lo and behold, in the first extraordinary feat of surrealism (there are more to follow), the two NYU buildings next to us are awash in light, TVs glowing, stereos playing, water flowing. NYU has power. No one else does. Typical.

A room without a view. 

Throughout the night, the wind shakes our windows, which the super has informed me, are shatterproof. The building creaks. Soon we learn that the big tree that gave shade to our backyard is down like a house of cards. It broke the sturdy iron garden fence and collapsed on Houston St. It could have killed someone.

Our fallen gentle giant. 

All of lower Manhattan is in utter darkness and silence. No cars, few sirens, no noise. Eerie.
Tuesday morning:
Against all sensible advice, Magnificent Arepa wants to snoop around. So down we go through thirteen flights of pitch black stairs, with our flashlights and Petra in tow.
The streets are empty, everything is closed, the wind has scattered tree branches everywhere, some windows are broken and some street signs are askew. Tourists roam around like Jews in the desert, with nothing better to do. Downtown hotels are in darkness. We go all the way down to Battery Park, with the winds still howling, and sure enough, the water has receded but I have never seen it so high. It is lapping at the level of the promenade. This is super scary. It looks like a Michael Bay movie.
We wonder if Joe's Shanghai, which never closes, is open (soup dumplings and scallion pancake would certainly restore our spirits right about now). You know that you are in deep doodoo if Joe's Shanghai is closed. My cell phone has no signal and I rue the day when I let the fucking cable company convince me to relinquish my land line. I also can't find the transistor radio that helped me miss the party at the 2003 blackout. I heeded Bloomberg's advice and stayed home while everybody had a ball on the streets.
We are effectively incommunicado. I don't mind so much living in darkness, the respite from internet is actually nice in a way, but no water is not fun. The weather has been balmy up to now (surely the reason for the storm in the first place -- global warming central), but now it's getting chilly, and no heat, no water and no power up 13 flights of stairs becomes challenging.
Tuesday evening:
We go to our friends in the NYU building next door (luckily they just happened to move there), for a shower and to charge phones that don't work and go on internet. They are on the 26th floor, and the view of lights above 34th St and a black nothingness below is amazing. It is so reassuring and lovely to suddenly find out that dozens of friends are inquiring about us, some offering shelter. At this point we are seriously considering relocating, because what we hear on the streets is not good: it could take "days" to restore power. We get a godsend message from a friend who offers his apartment uptown. And we take it.
We go for a fast recon mission on the streets before trudging up the stairway. Our neighborhood and beyond are in the darkest dark, but NYU students are roaming about and the Korean delis on Broadway are open. The cashier tells me they will be open all night and selling breakfast in the morning. Two Koreans and a Mexican helper with three flashlights, and they feel safe enough to do it.
People are charging their equipment outside the NYU library and student center. Wicked Willy's, a bar on Bleecker, happens to be open, and it's doing brisk business, an oasis of light and booze in the darkness.
Through our walks during the day and at night we marvel (as we did during 9/11 and the blackout) at the civilization of New York City. I've seen one or two aimless people perhaps looking to steal something (or maybe I'm just paranoid) but other than that, that tourists and citizens feel safe enough to walk around with children and pets in tow is a testament to the safety and the greatness of this city.
Wednesday afternoon:
Coming down in darkness with Petra and our bags and computers in tow, we find a bunch of neighbors huddled in the lobby eating pizza. Suddenly, I get pangs of survivor's guilt. Here we are, abandoning ship, while there are people in our building that have nowhere to go. A lot of elderly people cannot leave their apartments. Luckily, our building is a solid community and I know that neighbors keep an eye on each other. I tell myself that we are helping the building by not straining its resources even further. The no water situation in a 30-story building with 180 apartments is not to be taken lightly.
We are lucky to get a cab (they are scarce downtown) and a cabdriver who does not object taking us uptown and who did not gauge us. All of a sudden, as if there was a thin, invisible line demarcating the damaged from the untouched, on 26th Street there are lights, stores are open, people are going places. Frantic Manhattan as usual. It's surreal.
The trip from Houston St to 66th St, which usually takes about 15-20 minutes, took almost an hour and a half and cost $35. Mainly because of this:

Cranes are flying. 

I'm sure I'm not the only soul experiencing a high degree of schadenfreude at the prospect of bad karma for this building, where the apartments start at $80 million.
Uptown, it's as if nothing ever happened. It's Halloween. Adults and kids are in disguise (so not hip), the cineplex is open (praise the Lord!), restaurants are crammed. The only sign of something askew is that the supermarket has run out of fresh garlic. Meanwhile, this is the first time that we watch on TV the horrifying footage of the damage inflicted by Sandy in New Jersey, Staten Island and other places. We can't believe it.  As is usual, no word whatsoever on TV about the devastating effects of Sandy on other, even less fortunate countries, like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, etc.
But there is a silver lining:
• The Halloween parade has been canceled, which gives me no small amount of glee. I hate this holiday and in particular this parade. Sorry lovers, I'm a hater.
• This storm effectively put a lid on the media obsession with the election and those stupid polls (which I am convinced are fabricated), and derailed the campaigns. This election will arrive at its home stretch with less of the incessant, polluting noise of punditry, and more of the real choice that is staring us all in the face. Sandy certainly puts in perspective the callousness of the Romney/Republican philosophy. The storm affected mostly blue states and the federal government's help will be very welcome. Obama has reacted how a president reacts. He may have severe failings, but he is a decent human being, not a robber baron. When the shit hits the fan, I'm sure all those people who clamor for less government may think twice if it it is them that have to be rescued by federal aid, by working infrastructure, by first responders, by a working government. When the shit hits the fan, are we going to vote for an experienced, serious president, or for a sleazy, indifferent corporate buffoon?

I wish safety and a speedy recovery to all those who are struggling through these difficult times.

The Immortal Chavela Vargas

Mexico will honor the passing of the great singer Chavela Vargas with an open casket viewing in the Palace of Fine Arts today. If I could go pay my respects, I would. Gone is one of the greatest singers in the Spanish speaking world.
I first met Chavela Vargas when I was a child. She was a neighbor of my uncle, who had a house near Cuernavaca in Ahuatepec, a place she wrote a beautiful song about.
At the time, by ten in the morning she already had several tequilas on her. She liked to come over to sing and eat and drink some more. She was always warm and funny. She used to call my cousin Carlos, who was a big boy, her "sietemesino de oro": her golden seven-months preemie. Sometimes she brought her guitar and she sang for us, with that torrential voice of hers, which at the time was still unbroken. My uncle eventually sold the house and I never heard from Chavela again. In fact, many people thought she had died, given her penchant for hard drinking.  It wasn't until the 1990s, when she was in her seventies, that she resurfaced in Mexico, after going through a scare with tongue cancer (she also smoked cigars). She was brought out from semi-obscurity by the owners of a bohemian nightclub in Mexico City, where she used to hold court to packed, adoring audiences. I saw her sing in that intimate space many times. Not once did I ever manage to make it through one of her performances without dissolving in hot tears of pain, joy and gratitude. She was one of the most powerful performers I have ever seen. She seemed to tower onstage, wearing her very elegant ponchos, accompanied only by a guitar player. I remember meeting her backstage after one of her shows and being shocked at how tiny and almost frail she seemed offstage. But when that raspy voice of hers boomed out, she made your heart quake. She used to have more or less the same repertoire of great Mexican ranchera songs every night, but each time she sang one of those torch songs (we call them slash-your-wrists songs) it was as if it was coming out of her guts for the first time. She gave her soul in every song. And the feeling was not maudlin, self-pitying, or forced. It was brutal. It was tough. It was raw. As real and as strong as an earthquake. But then after each song she would make funny jokes about her now sadly abstemious life or engage the audience in puckish repartee.
I remember a very funny story she told one night about going to the Royal Palace in Madrid to sing for the Spanish royal family. King Juan Carlos was her friend. They invited her over for dinner, she had a great time. When it was time to leave, she put on her raincoat and left. It felt a little big on her. When she got to the hotel, she realized that she had taken the King's raincoat, and she found the King's wallet, with the King's credit cards in it. She then imagined King Juan Carlos trying to fit into her raincoat. Whether this is made up or not, it was such a lovely way to conveying to us her own royalty and humility. For those of us who were transformed (mostly into helpless pools of tears) by her power, she was regal. She was a goddess, which is what fans in the audience screamed at her at the end of each song. I am extremely sad to see her go, but I'm glad to know she lasted with power, grace and humor until the end. She had one of the greatest second acts in life. We have been bestowed with the extraordinary luck to have heard her sing her heart out.

What's In Store For Mexico?

I read with horror William Finnegan's New Yorker article on the Mexican war on drugs in the city of Guadalajara. In general, it seemed to me a good description of the chaos and lawlessness that Mexicans have always boasted they can live with and that now has completely engulfed the country. My big beef with the piece is that it barely mentions the source of all this satanic trouble: the insatiable drug consumption in the US and the cynical, bullying, hypocritical, and idiotic policy of the American government on the issue. Basically, the US is watching how Mexico descends into chaos fighting a problem that resides mostly within American borders, without sullying its own hands, or even trying to come up with viable solutions to curb demand.
Mexico used to be a place where one marveled at how the degree of chaos, corruption and improvisation coexisted with a relatively functioning, peaceful society. Not anymore. The drug business has put the coup de grace on the country and the upcoming elections are not reassuring, no matter who wins. I am extremely curious and anxious, as is every Mexican, I'm sure, to find out what happens at the transfer of power to a different party. I suspect it's not going to be pretty, no matter how you slice it.
Enrique Peña Nieto, the embarrassing candidate for the PRI, our old dictatorial party, is widely ridiculed, but he is on top of "polls" (if you can believe those in a country where rumor is the main source of information and the media has been bought wholesale). Mexicans are disenchanted by the ruling party, the PAN, which has been in power for 12 years and seems to want to call it a day by having chosen a cipher of a woman who has no presidential qualifications to speak of. The Mexican economy is not doing that badly, but the violence of the proxy war president Calderón is losing, will make people vote against the PAN. So the fight is between the old style corruption of the PRI, with an idiot puppet at the helm, and the PRD, the party of the left, and of disenchanted youth, led by an old PRI dinosaur, demagogue and sore loser, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Many Mexicans think he is the "useful vote", the vote that will ensure against the return of the PRI and its monopolistic, corrupt mafia. Compared to the other two bozos, he seems more of an elder statesman. But how would AMLO fare with the Zetas and the cartels? What compromises would he make? And if he loses, will he again throw a massive tantrum and pay for thousands of people to camp out in protest for months as he did last time around? If he doesn't win, will the I Am #132 youth movement take to the streets and protest? Will there be violence?
I would never vote for the PRI. I never did. But I can understand Mexicans who think that it is the only chance of restoring order, because it is simply going to get a cut of the drug profits in exchange for peace. They pine for the era when the cartels were quietly going about their business with the complicity and partnership of the government. But I'm not sure that even the PRI and its dirty tactics can deal with a paramilitary group like the Zetas, which effectively rules the country by fear and uses atrocity as a profit maximizer. Calderón opened Pandora's box and now there is no going back. The narcos are simply taking advantage of a system where the law is pathetic, and virtually non-existent. As long as Mexico has the antiquated, unfair, corrupt and inefficient judicial system that it has, mayhem will rule. 
When I read about the terror the narcos are sowing, I wonder how Mexican children live today. How do you explain to your kids decapitations, the endemic fear of kidnapping, arson in nightclubs teeming with people, shootouts at kindergartens?
How can we expect anyone to continue coming to Mexico when cops are killed at THE AIRPORT? I wonder if in their quest for money and power the narcos have any conscience of the destruction they are inflicting on the country at all levels, economically, psychologically, morally. I bet they are all deeply patriotic, and I bet they love their country as we all do. Then why annihilate it like this? Will it ever stop?