[lit-ideas] Re: The Ends of the World
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 20:19:34 -0800
Andy, do you eat any vegetables? Fruit? How about chicken? Ever wonder who did
the work that
got that to your plate?
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 6:50 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Ends of the World
> Speaking of Mexico, CNN did a snippet that five Mexican states are putting
> out an extra
> page in one of their comic books. The extra page contains tips on how to
> more effectively
> cross the American border. Tips include, don't throw rocks at the border
> guards because
> it incites them, and don't wear heavy clothes while trying to swim across the
> river.
> Totally serious. Nowhere does it have suggestions on how to apply for a Visa.
>
> I know it sounds racist to say anything, but really, what's wrong with legal?
> The reason
> legal doesn't work (obviously), is that it takes too long, and Mexicans are
> Mexico's
> export crop to the U.S., literally. They come here by simply walking over
> the border,
> work, and send money back home, enriching the Mexican economy tremendously.
> Like driving
> at whatever speed one wants, sneaking over the border is seeing oneself as
> above the law.
> Bush has done nothing, except propose legalization to get the vote. The
> borders may as
> well not be there, for how effective they are.
>
> BTW, the largest growing Latino segment is not in California. It's in the
> southeastern
> United States, which now dwarfs California (also courtesy CNN).
>
>
> Andy Amago
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Jan 3, 2005 9:21 PM
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Ends of the World
>
> I have been off, inspecting the Yucatan, where the meteor that ended one
> world--that of dinosaurs-- hit. I have been wandering among Mayans. And I
> have been recovering from a bug, one with biceps the size of Bournemouth.
>
> Were I to give you the idea that Mexico was warm and fun, I would only have
> given you a part of the story. My wife was always more enthusiastic about
> the prospect than I was. Two days into the trip, she asked me what I
> thought. "I think Mexico is a dump," was my short summary. From the time
> we landed to the time we emerged from the airport with a rental car was
> about three hours. Why? The customs and immigration hall, where officials
> slapped computers and one another's backs, and, where they one by one, waved
> people into the country, overflowed with throngs, with hundreds if not
> thousands of eager beavers who wanted to dive on reefs and into Cancun's
> bars. It was a horror. Then I made the error of asking, when first they
> offered us a rental car, whether they could change it for one that reeked
> less of smoke. Of course they could. Away went the new rental car--new
> means, old enough to have been smoked in, but not yet plated (who knows how
> many years it takes to get plates in Mexico)--and along comes a Nissan with
> 45,000 miles on the clock, every panel dented, original tires, a smoky
> interior that has been sprayed with some obnoxious--and possibly
> noxious--"air freshener." Perfect. At least we didn't have to worry about
> returning it scratched.
>
> Out onto the highway we go, brushed to the side by buses with speed limits
> marked in big numbers on the back of them, buses going fully fifty percent
> faster than this. Brushed to the side by concrete trucks. Brushed to the
> side by trucks with parts a'trailing. On one occasion we were stopped by an
> accident. A bus had run into the back of a VW bug. Fortunately it was an
> old bug, with the engine in the rear and so the occupants lived. But it
> being a two-lane road, we all stopped. There was nowhere to go. Or so I
> thought. First, cars from the opposite direction began filtering around the
> accident, four-wheeling their way through the off-road dirt and around the
> blockage. Then the Federales came by on my left, lights flashing, playing
> "chicken" with those who were coming at them in the other lane. Then people
> behind me, deciding that the police were like a tank attack, formed up
> behind the Federales and drove down that lane. Then those who were annoyed
> that they had missed an opportunity began an alternate movement, passing me
> in the breakdown lane at break-kneck speed. Clearly by staying put I showed
> I lacked either machismo or the jolly-happy-go-luckiness for which Hispanic
> peoples are reknowned.
>
> And everywhere we went, at every turn, someone wanted to sell us something.
> I think the best tourist stand that we failed to visit was in a backroads
> town that hosted a jail. Underneath the watchtowers were promises of
> "Handicrafts made by prisoners." I was curious until, slowing, I saw that
> by some extraorinary chance, the prisoners had made identical copies of the
> "handicrafts" that are for sale at every other stall in the Yucatan.
>
> One highlight was climbing the Mayan pyramid at Cobe and gazing out over
> uninterrupted miles of carpet-like jungle. The region is totally flat.
> Imagine Nebraska covered with rather large and dense rhododendrons. Somehow
> then climb a doublesized grain silo and you have the notion. A view for
> miles and miles. No wonder the Mayans liked heights. The trick with
> pyramids, of course, is not falling off. The nearest road is a couple of
> kilometers from the pyramid and the nearest to an ambulance is a guy with a
> bicycle and a kind of gardener's cart. We climbed with a girl who seemed to
> think that shoes were superflous, and a guy who was about two hundred pounds
> over ideal weight. Both also survived.
>
> On Hogmannay at our house there was a sweepstake, of the kind you find among
> the servants in P.G.Wodehouse. How late would the master of the house
> manage to stay awake? By the substitution of antibiotics for champagne, the
> pundits' predictions were proved wildly wrong, and the cat Jeeves scooped
> our pool, with fifty pence on twelve thirty.
>
> How have you all been?
>
> David Ritchie
> Portland, Oregon
>
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