Obama in Mexico

One of the most common questions people ask me, after they find out I´m gringo, is: "What do you think of Obama?"

I always tell them I hope he wins, but it´s such a close race that it´s too hard to predict (and if he loses, I´m moving to Canada -- or staying in Mexico).

Then I return the question, asking, "what do you think"?

The response depends on who I´m talking to: unless it´s a young person, they usually say they have no opinion (in general, Mexicans tend to err on the cautious side when talking about politics, especially if it´s with foreigners). But if it´s someone under 30, undoubtedly they will say Obama.

Curiously, Mexicans showed little interest in the US presidential race. According to a Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted in June, Mexico is the country with the fourth-lowest interest in the race (of the 23 nations polled). 30 percent of Mexicans have a favorable image of Obama (compared to 19 percent of McCain). There´s something to be said, however, about the timing of that poll: it´s two months old, the race has certainly heated up since then, and McCain made a brief stop to Mexico last month, in what was a widely publicized event, and to some, a misguided and awkward excuse to garner Latino votes in the US. What´s more, McCain is Protestant, and received blessings in the Basilica (Mexico´s equivalent of the Mecca), in an overwhelmingly Catholic country and one in which (unlike the US) politicians avoid mixing religion with their campaigns. Misguided, indeed.























Elsewhere

The U.S. presidential race is captivating far more than Americans´attention: it´s safe to say that in nearly every country, particularly in Western Europe, foreigners favor Obama by as much as 53 percent over John McCain (72%:19% in Spain; 84%:33% in France), and in some countries (notably, Japan, at 83 percent, and Germany, about 82 percent), the election is being followed heavily or somewhat (in the US, it´s at 80 percent). Not surprisingly, McCain maintains his highest ratings in the US (60 percent have favorable views of McCain, 59 percent for Barry), while every other country polled by Pew (except Jordan) favors Obama.

Taxisismo

One of my least favorite groups of people in Mexico City is taxistas, or taxi drivers. Most, but not all, tend to be nacos, Mexican for someone with a limited level of education and culture; bad taste and bad manners; which would be equivalent to redneck or white trash in the U.S. Taxistas generally have a bad reputation for their reckless driving, muggings, assaulting, robbery and sexual harassment. They tend to reek and listen to bad music. Whenever I am about to enter a taxi, I always ask myself: "Am I going to die in this car?" If the answer is no, then I´ll get in. If my chances are high, then I´ll back away slowly and then run off.

In general, there are two types of taxis in Mexico City: legitimate and pirated. You can almost always tell the difference by their license plates. Legit taxis carry government-issued taxi plates, differentiated by a red or green bar at the bottom of the plate. Pirated taxis, on the other hand, use normal plates like other cars, but usually the loud exhaust, squealing tires and numerous dents give them away.

One downside to legitimate taxis, however, is that they are often as bad as pirated taxis. For example, I took a legit taxi the other day in the downtown, and the tires were noticeably loose. The taxi driver seemingly had little control over his car, and whenever we´d make a turn he´d fight with the steering wheel to make sure we didn´t veer off into oncoming traffic. I noticed, too, that he had a long, thin, discrete mirror attached to the sun visor, directly in view of the passenger´s crotch. Watch out, ladies.

All of this negative talk makes taxistas sound like the most horrible people around. Although they are close, taxi drivers have a few redeeming factors: they tend to have impressive knowledge of the city, they have the ability to weave and curve around traffic, they´re better than using mass transit on crowded days, and they´re cheap. Flag drop costs about sixty cents, and most taxi rides cost between $2 and $6. I´ve had good conversations with some taxistas, but most of the time they´re silent -- the majority barely talks to you.

One uncommon sight is to see a female taxista. I´ve only seen a few, and last wek was my first experience with one. It was a massively obese grandma driving a scummy little Beetle (many people still drive the old Beetles in Mexico, and lime-green Beetle taxis in Mexicoare ubiquitous) with no power steering. Interesting sight...

Beetle taxis (or Vochos) are as ubiquitous as ambulantes, a topic for another day :)

BACK IN MÉXICO!

Hi bralapeños,


My blog has been dormant for almost three months, and I apologize to those loyal fans who missed out on bralapanews, but don´t worry, I´m back and eager to write...I´ll have PLENTY of stuff to blog about...

I´m living in Mexico City and am now working at an intellectual property law firm doing miscellaneous stuff (job title: etceterista and/or gringo-in-residence) such as translating legal documents, helping out lawyers and researching lucha libre (masked Mexican wrestling)!!!

Anyway, tune in to your favorite blog for more news bits, gossip, photography, moving pictures and things that your eyes like.

Porn star Ron Jeremy and Pastor Craig Gross came to MSU last Thursday to debate porn.


Here's a video I made for a class. I could've spent more time editing it, and if I did it again I would've used a tripod, but that's something you realize when you see it on a bigger screen than the camcorder. I used iMovie 06 HD, which is surprisingly easy and a pleasure to work with, but a few things are irritating: namely, I couldn't find a way to merge audio and video once they're separated, and some of the timeline functions are buggy. Aside from that, '06 is a winner.

April foolery

In writing the Distorter (the name the paper takes on during April Fools'), I was at first excited I'd make some biting commentary toward the university and student life. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the risks I'd run into if I were to be as daring as I wanted to be.

Pretending to be an Onion contributor for a day is many college student reporters' dream, but there are some risks you run into. I had already decided I wouldn't target or name anyone, who wasn't well known. In other words, not directly mock any students or faculty, but more so administrators. Even poking fun at administrators, however, was risky, or at least I perceived it as such: I didn't want to burn any bridges or cause awkward tensions.

I had little to lose: I'm graduating next month, my position as editor will end soon and I doubted the stories I would've written would've put the paper in any sort of legal woes.

So why refrain from limitless mockery? Well, I didn't want to do anything I'd regret. At 11 p.m., jokey headlines and stories always seem more funny than when someone comes knocking at your door, demanding an apology or yelling at you for screwing with their reputation. In that regard, you have to think beyond the production-night punnery, and into the next day, and beyond.

So did we have fun while making a statement? Readers can decide for themselves.

***


The other day, I received a call from building services, which performs maintenance and cleaning at the university. They were upset about a story I'd written about an author who made a book about bathroom graffiti who was asking for submissions. Building services thought the story would provoke more incidences of graffiti and vandalism. I assured him it wasn't my intention to cause graffiti, and that I'd rewrite that part of the story calling for submissions.

So what to do when you write something like that? Just because you write it doesn't mean you condone or condemn it; you're just reporting on the facts, or ideally so. On the other hand, if you or your editor deemed it wasn't worthy of the paper's pages, you wouldn't pursue the story. That's attaching newsworthiness to certain topics. Although the intellectual merit of my story was obviously lacking, I thought it to be an interesting book and since everyone sees graffiti in their lives and perhaps wonders what becomes of it, it was newsworthy.


***

This has nothing to do with journalism, but I was thinking the other day: you know how brain cancer is supposedly linked to cell phone usage? What if researchers don't take into consideration the fact that cell phones add stress to your life? If you have a cell phone, you're always worrying that the battery is charged, or that you don't forget your phone, or that you check your texts and voicemails, or that someone is trying to call you, or that the phone is silenced. Plus, you submit yourself to the demands of everyone who has your number. On the other hand, if you didn't have a cell phone, you wouldn't have to worry about any of that; people would have to wait for you to return their calls. Perhaps it's not so much the electromagnetic-cancerous waves bouncing into your brain as the added cancer-inducing stress from having a cell phone that causes cancer.

In the past year I've went several times without cell phones, and in Mexico I depended on it far less because they are so expensive to use. For two weeks last semester I didn't have a cell, and it was nice. I dare readers to go without their cell phone for a day: how does it change your life?