Scattered Stories of Mexican Mayhem

The AP had an article earlier this week on the increased presence of the Mexican cartels in the US, effectively a series of grizzly crimes interspersed with quotes from a DEA official with a terrific name: Rusty Payne.

This reminds article is a like a 1,00-word version of the stereotypical Mexican drug book, such as those by Ricardo Ravelo. It bounces from one brutal anecdote to another, without much of a thematic thread aside from, Mexico (or in this case, the US) is f'd. This isn't so much a criticism of the reporting as it is a reflection of the thematic breadth of the war on drugs. It's simply impossible to find a simple explanation or a narrow theme that encompasses all of the Mexican drug gangs' activities, from Tijuana to Cancún to Laredo to Atlanta to Chicago. The most coherent books (and articles) don't aim to summarize everything, but they rather wring everything possible out of a very small piece of the puzzle. The more ambitious books (or articles) that aim to explain everything always fall flat for me. That's why Down by the River is better reading than Herencia Maldita, and why Daniel Kurtz-Phelan's piece on Genaro García Luna was more memorable than other similar articles appearing at the same time.

More Gloom

An economic research unit at UNAM predicts that Mexico's economy will shrink by 2.6 percent in 2009 and shed 258,000 jobs in 2009, before bouncing back to basically zero growth in 2010. Also, remittance payments will drop by 5.4 percent.

Reporting on Drugs

The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, headed by Ernesto Zedillo, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and César Gaviria, has released its final report, which recommends the decriminalization of marijuana and a paradigm shift toward harm reduction. Gaviria said that the group didn't recommend legalization of harder drugs because it was unrealistic, and "you have to start somewhere." I wrote about the Commission a few months ago. You can find what appears to be a summary (at least, I think it's just a summary) of the final report here.

Margarito Out

I don't quite know what to make of the Antonio Margarito suspension. On the one hand, if he is going to be punished, one year seems like a fair sentence. It'll also take him out of a big-money fight, so it is a punishment with some teeth, unlike, say, Zab Judah's suspension, which merely delayed his comeback from the Mayweather loss by a few months. The hearing didn't remove the suspicion that he fought with loaded gloves against Cotto, Cintron, and any number of other fighters, but absent an admission that he had done so from one of the principals, it really couldn't.

At the same time, Margarito convinced me that he had no idea what was going on. At the risk of being a sucker, the fact that he offered his already loaded right hand to Naazim Richardson to show him that nothing was wrong demonstrates that he really had no idea. His evident shock at the outcome yesterday also supports that hypothesis. Boxers don't wrap their own hands, so this isn't the same thing as a baseball player saying he accidentally grabbed someone else's corked bat. Boxers really are just members of a team, and while they are the most important member, they aren't the team's supervisor. The idea that a boxer could have an unfair advantage without knowing is neither implausible nor unprecedented (see Aaron Pryor's special water against Alexis Arguello). Bob Arum's reaction, though a bit overheated, has some logic to it:

"It's the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced," Arum told ESPN.com. "It's not going to hold up. The commission determined that Antonio knew nothing and did nothing wrong, but that he is head of his team, so he's responsible for the trainer and, therefore, it is appropriate to revoke his license.

"How can you revoke somebody's license when they didn't do anything or wrong or attempt to do anything wrong?"

Fun detail from the episode: the inspector from the California commission charged with approving the wraps is named Che Guevara.

Theories

I tend to read Andres Oppenheimer's columns four or five at a time every few weeks, so I'm late in coming across this oddity: George Friedman of the security analysis firm Stratfor has written a book that envisions a 21st century war between Mexico and the US, among other episodes unforeseen by most of humanity. Stratfor jumped aboard the failed-state bandwagon rather early, so Friedman's doomsday predictions should be taken with a sizable grain of salt. But while I think the chances of a Mexico-US war are slimmer than my reaching 27 wins in the Streak for Cash (only 23 to go!), the causes upon which Friedman is basing his prediction are worth pondering*:

Mexico will become one of the world's 10 largest economies in coming decades. By around the middle of the century, there will inevitably be a rise in Mexican nationalism, at a time when a tremendous U.S. labor shortage will result in a massive flow of Mexicans -- invited by Washington, with financial incentives -- into territories occupied by the United States in the 19th century. This combination will result in ''a high degree of tension, if not war,'' he said.

An idiosyncratic and counter-productive strain of nationalism has coursed through Mexico's politics for most of the past century, and it seems more likely that said strain will become a diluted and less vital presence in Mexico in the decades to come, as has been the case in the past couple of decades. Furthermore, today's twentysomethings are more internationalist than their predecessors, and their nationalism will be ever more cosmetic, not a basis for foreign policy. All of this mitigates against the possibility of war. Nonetheless, interesting to ponder.

*Yes, I jacked Oppenheimer's reaction. It's still mine, however, even if it isn't original.

Rivalry

The US-Mexico (7 p.m. EST) game makes me feel like I'm watching the stepchildren with whom I live against my children, from whom I'm estranged. I know the Mexican league and its players better, and Donovan's a pain, but whatever our problems, I have to root for my blood. Also, I love watching Altidore; he's someone who I'd feel comfortable being the face of the team until around 2023 or so. [Stopping to sing the first few bars of the national anthem...all done.] In the very un-Mexican Midwestern winter, there's no way Altidore and co. drop a meaningful game.

Rumors: Sven-Goran Eriksson could be headed back to England, to Portsmouth. So close to the World Cup, that would throw the Mexican team into chaos, but it would be a blessing in disguise. There's no way this team is going anywhere with Eriksson. El Tri has played miserably in virtually every game since he's been here.

Transformation

The sort-of rehabilitation of Laura Zúñiga from potential criminal to showbiz novelty continues. Today's example: the recent interview in which she admitted to dating the brother of a Juárez cartel capo appeared in the entertainment section of the Torreón paper.

Families Hurting

No one would expect a series of questions about personal finance to provoke happy answers right now, so it's no surprise that polling about just that topic in El Universal delivered a shot of pessimism. Fifteen percent of respondents (which the article refers to as Mexican families, but it's unclear if they were all heads of households or what) said they would stop paying electricity bills and other utilities as a response to the crisis. Another 54 percent said they'd cut down on food costs, slightly more than the 50 percent who planned on reducing transportation costs. Seventy-three percent said they spend less on entertainment, with 69 percent saying they'd reduce clothing purchases.

The poll also mentioned a handful of ways that Mexicans are adding to their spending power: 18 percent have pawned something, 16 percent are increasing credit card debt, and 23 are requesting assistance from a government program. 

Bad News

For the second time (at least) in the new year, Torreón earned national news coverage that it would prefer to avoid. Last night, an armed unit broke into the city jail, beat three prisoners to death, and set them on fire. The armed group then set eight prisoners free (or six; there are conflicting reports) and fled. The three men were part of a kidnapping group that was taken down with great fanfare after a gunfight in the parking lot of a trendy mall last month. The article linked above notes that the group was thought to have kidnapped and killed a prominent Monterrey businessman last year. That factoid is a bit of a non-sequitur, and therefore could be interpreted as a suggestion that last night's crime was revenge for the November crime. 

Which Is It?

The following passage comes from Julio Scherer's book, La Reina del Pacífico, about the alleged drug runner who lent her alleged nickname for the title:

Later, El Universal had announced on its front page a spectacular interview, with a four-column photograph of Sandra Ávila. The newspaper displayed the exclusive boastfully, at which point I gave up on the project that already was sparking my interest. 

Nevertheless, the newspaper tricked its readers. It was apparent that the interview hadn't taken place and the text, divided into three successive parts with front-page headlines, dealt with the subject from a distance, with hearsay. I didn't pick up any interesting fact, one live description, any dialogue that was worth reading. 

Scherer is a little vague about what he's accusing the paper of (probably purposefully so), and it's unclear whether he is alleging that the made up quotes or simply appropriated others' reporting misleadingly. Here's the series, which certainly gives the impression of having been the product of an actual, real-life interview. 

Whatever the case, that's perhaps Mexico's most renown journalist accusing perhaps Mexico's most prestigious newspaper of what would seem to be grave misconduct. It's an imperfect metaphor, since Mexican newspapers occupy a different and essentially lesser role in the society than do their American counterparts, but it's a bit like Bob Woodward accusing the New York Times of plagiarism. Despite that, as far as I know, there hasn't been any outcry or indignation or even any followup whatsoever. I first read the above description several months ago in Proceso, and I don't think it sparked even a ripple in the Mexican media pond. If you type "Scherer acusa a El Universal" (which means, "Scherer accuses El Universal") into your search engine, you come up empty. So, what's the story? Who's making something up?

The only reason I was prompted to write about this is that I finished the book a couple of weeks ago, and El Universal randomly posted a summary of the interview on its website today, apropos of nothing. 

Numbers from Zuckermann

Leo Zuckermann peppers today's column with lots of interesting poll numbers. Among them:

1) Eight-four percent of respondents say that the economy is worse now than a year ago, and 74 percent say that the coming year will be still worse. Despite Mexico's well documented security problems, 65 percent say that factors related to the economy is the nation's principal problem right now.

2) Calderón's personal approval is impervious to the above data. It stood at 62 percent in December, and improved to 66 percent in January.

3) The PRD enjoys only 16 percent of the respondents' support, and 44 percent said they'd never vote for the PRD. Were they held today, the PRI would win the elections with the support of 44 percent of the electorate, compared to 34 percent for the PAN. This is right in the middle of the polling schism between the surveys from Buendía y Laredo and El Universal.

The following finding doesn't appear in the column, but it is part of the same polling from Consulta Mitofsky: 56 percent of the country is on the wrong track, against 37 who think it is on the right track. How does that square with the 65 percent of the poll who say that Calderón is doing a good job?

Calderón bathes himself in Teflon. It's been true throughout his two-plus years in office, but even more pronounced lately. Since November, the economic news has been steadily poor, and the coverage of Calderón himself has been correspondingly harsh, especially in regard to his optimism. Plus, there's been the scandal of Operation Clean-up, and the steady hum of drug violence, such as the assassination of General Tello a few days ago. There's also been a welter of little newsworthy episodes, like Slim's criticism and Calderón's weird interview with Ernesto Zedillo, which have not shined particularly well on the president. In spite of all this, and the corresponding pessimism about the country's future, Calderón is as popular as ever. Part of this is that the Mexican public is savvy enough to recognize that the two big problems facing the nation --public security and economic woes-- are problems that Calderón's inherited rather than caused, and they still have a high opinion of his competence. Nonetheless, you'd expect at least some of the bad news to rub off on him.

Slim Headlines

Carlos Slim's relationship with Mexico continues to fascinate me: he is the richest man in a country where the default view of wealth is that it is ill-gotten; he is the most prominent and ruthless monopolist in a nation whose economy is crippled by monopolies; until recently, he was dismissive and contemptuous of philanthropy in a nation where charity is lacking. Despite all that, regarding finance and economics, I'd say that his words carry greater weight among the general public than anyone's in the country, including Calderón and Carstens. Slim's declarations yesterday landed him on the front pages of the big Mexico City dailies, and earned a rebuke from the Labor Secretary. I don't imagine that comparable comments from Warren Buffet or Bill Gates would dominate the news to the same extent.

A bonus: a Miami Herald rundown of the ethical question posed by Slim's purchase of a stake in the New York Times.

The Army in Cancún

The title pretty much says it all, but, at the risk of repeating myself: the army is patrolling the city.

Phil is Out!

Luiz Felipe Scolari is out at Chelsea, paying the price for the team's tumble in recent weeks, which included a 2-0 loss to Liverpool, a 3-0 loss to Man U, and, the final straw, a home tie against Hull City. The sacking has predictably provoked a wave of commentary.

Phil himself says it was because of the team's failure to land Robinho this summer.

Gianluigi Buffon says it will make the Blues tougher in the Champion's League draw.

Alex Ferguson says the move is emblematic of soccer in the modern era.

"It is a sign of the times. There is absolutely no patience in the world now."

[Break]

"Teams like Manchester United and Arsenal have built over longevity, they've let the manager build a team then rebuild and rebuild again," he went on. "It works even down in the lower leagues. People are changing managers two or three, maybe four times a season - they don't understand how long it takes to build a side and once you've built a side you only need to change two or three players, or maybe one player, to make it better.

But if you keep sacking managers it's never going to happen.

Jon Carter agrees, though with less dismay.

A Soccernet write-up shows that the firing will precipitate the third gigantic coach's buyout in a 18 months, with the sum total of the three taking a £40 million bite from Abramovich's bank account.

Among the potential replacements: Guus Hiddink, Roberto Mancini, Frank Rijkaard, and, in what seems like a bit of a curveball given that he was the recipient of one of the buyouts mentioned above, Avram Grant.

A Second Post in Which I Update an Idea Previously Expressed

A few weeks ago, I expressed upset over the Mexican parties' failure to open up their candidacies to non-politicians. This was not an argument for primaries per se (although I do think those would be just fine), just rather a call for a wide range of expertise in Mexico's political class. The announcements of candidacies have made clear that said post was somewhat premature. Among the non-pols running for office are the restaurateur Marco Rascón (running for the mini-mayoralty of the Cuauhtémoc delegation in Mexico City under the PRD's banner), the Olympic medal-winning runner Ana Gabriela Guevara (running for the same post in the Miguel Hidalgo delegation for the same party), and pinup girl Silvya "La Chiva" Irabién (running for deputy with the Social Democratic Party). I say that the post was "somewhat" premature because while I appreciate the idea of opening up more candidacies to outsiders, I'm not quite sure what Mexico has to gain by adding a woman whose greatest claim to fame is having stripped down to her underwear to make out with another actress for the lad mag H Para Hombres. 

Also, the PSD has preemptively declared misogynistic such comments as the preceding. While you could interpret the declaration as a cynical ploy to lighten the blows on the party's candidate and therefore not worthy of a response, I'll take it seriously: I have no problem with a candidate having done a provocative photo-shoot at some point in his or her lifetime, but a) La Chiva has no relevant experience aside from the fame garnered from being a sex symbol, which is to say she has no relevant experience; b) it's silly to think such an issue won't matter to a big portion of the electorate, and that deeming it off-limits will make it so; c) merely mentioning her appearance in H Para Hombres doesn't make you misogynistic. A primary goal of the shoot was surely to have people talking about it afterward, and here we are, talking about it. 

Update on Cancún Killings

A police boss in one of Cancún's delegations has been arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder of General Mauro Enrique Tello last week. I'd be interested in seeing the government's best guess about whether he was killed merely for doing his job aggressively, or whether he is suspected for taking such a hard against the Zetas because one of the competing groups was paying him. So far, it vaguely seems like the former is the case. 

Slim Warning

A few days after President Calderón warned against Mexicans being overly "catastrophist" in their pronunciations about the country's economic straights, Carlos Slim sounds an alarm that is, if not quite catastrophist, then awfully dire. Among the consequences of the downturn: plummeting GDB, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and widespread bankruptcy.

Aftermath

About Vic Darchinyan's victory over Jorge Arce: Darchinyan looked good, but offensively lots of people look good against Arce. I come away thinking he is more beatable than I did before. Darchinyan has a hard time throwing combinations, and does most of his damage with overhand lefts and one-twos. At the same time, he was hit a fair amount (especially downstairs) and Arce isn't the fastest fighter in the world. If Darchinyan steps in with a guy who has a good chin, fewer defensive liabilities than Arce, and can let his hands go a little with more frequency and better pop (as was the case with Nonito Donaire), I think Darchinyan is in a world of trouble. One fighter who probably fits that description is Israel Vázquez, who was being bandied about as a potential opponent for Darchinyan after the fight. If Vázquez is anywhere near his pre-Márquez level (which, I concede, is a significant "if"), I think he absolutely destroys Darchinyan.

The fight has also led to a lot of commentary about the stoppage. Kevin Iole thought it came too late:

The real problem, though, was that neither Moret nor Arce’s corner seemed to grasp that Darchinyan essentially had won the fight by the time the bell sounded to end the seventh round and that Arce had about as much of a chance to score a dramatic knockout as Pete Rose does to make the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Gabriel Montoya thought the stoppage was correct, but (at the risk of putting words into his mouth) doesn't seem like he would have been disturbed if it went three more minutes:

From where I was sitting, I had a perfect view of Arce’s corner. He wanted to go on. Haven't seen the TV version yet. But from where I was, 2nd row right behind and to the right a bit of Darchinyan's corner, it was clear he would've if they let him. He was pissed about the cut that apparently came from an elbow. Arce had been cut on top of the head behind his left ear from what I was told also was an elbow.

Do I think they stopped it too late? No. A fighter knows when he has had enough. Oscar against Pacquiao. Nick Casal after taking some but not an overly brutal amount of punishment. . Arce was fading a bit but from where I was sitting, on a couple of occasions, he buzzed Vic pretty good and seemed to be killing him to the body when he could land. Vic slowed around the sixth to me and was one and done in the middle rounds. Problem was, so was Arce. Vic definitely looked to be going for the knockout late and he might have gotten at least a stoppage with that nasty cut. Until that moment, I felt Arce would go the distance. He was taking hard, loud-from-ringside-type blows. But he was still upright, still throwing back, still trying. He was even cognizant enough, with blood pouring over his eye, to complain to the ref about the elbow. No. They stopped it right on time in my opinion. The cut was too damaged to continue and coupled with the rest of the fight, where he was on the cards, etc, there was no need to see more.

We'll never know what would have happened in a 12th round, but the idea that "a fighter knows when he has had enough" is tough to support. Sometimes he knows (after which he is often labeled a quitter), but not always, which is when fighters are killed. That's what his trainer is there for. The fact that some people think Arce should have been allowed to finish the fight demonstrates how boxing's natural inclination is toward letting damaged or injured fighters finish their fights, their health be damned.

The sport is in need of a paradigm shift away from that warrior ethos and toward safety. Suppose Arce would have knocked Darchinyan out in the 12th (despite the absence of any evidence suggesting such an outcome in the ring). The fact that the fight was called early is a bit upsetting then, but it's trivial compared to the tragedy of Arce potentially suffering a life-altering injury, like the one Victor Burgos suffered against Darchinyan in 2007. The most relevant question in the 12th isn't, Does he have a chance to knock the other guy out?, but, Is there a chance that he will suffer a brain injury? I recognize that boxing is by nature a violent sport, and I don't want to turn it into tiddlywinks. Furthermore, all of the fighters are grown-ups who know what they are getting themselves into, and they decide to fight essentially of their own free will, motivated by debts or passion or the limelight or the possibility of a more comfortable life or whatever. As long as the sport exists, a certain quantity of accidents and grave injuries are unpreventable and therefore inevitable. Nonetheless, is the sport doing everything possible to limit the predictable, preventable injuries? I don't think so.

Much Better

A few months ago, I was quite critical of the PAN's lame election signs. The criticism was justified, as the signs were both aesthetically hideous and conceptually laughable. Evidently, the local PAN heavyweights are loyal Gancho readers, because Rodolfo Walss' billboards are a gigantic step in the right direction. Comfortably dull, inoffensive to the eye, they don't make me laugh at and lose respect for the subject--an unmitigated success!

Conflicting Polls

Last week I posted some polling from Jorge Buendía that suggested that the PRI's summer cakewalk was not a foregone conclusion: the PRI enjoyed voter preference of 41 percent, the PAN 38 percent, the PRD 17. Today, El Universal released numbers that were disheartening for the PAN: if the elections were today, 40 percent of the electorate would punch its vote for the PRI, against 25 for the PAN and 14 for the PRI. Obviously, there wasn't a 12-point swing in just a couple of days, so there must have been some fundamental discrepancies in sample or phrasing of the question that caused the wider margins this time around. The only question is which of the two is closer to reality? Thus far, the majority of polls seem to be closer to Buendía's findings than the El Universal poll, although conventional wisdom supports the prediction of a PRI whitewash.

If the Pro Bowl Happened and Nobody Cared, Is It Worth Thinking About?

The Pro Bowl was played yesterday, which I know not because of any interest in the contest, but merely because the Super Bowl was a week ago, and I happened upon it as I flipped between Out of Sight and some really bad movie about an evil 12-year-old (not The Good Son).

Could there be a more boring all-star game than the Pro Bowl? Every sport's all-star game is a bloated whale over-larded with festivities that don't make me feel particularly festive, but has there ever been an iconic moment, anything at all worth seeing, in Hawaii? The all-star games in basketball and baseball have had lots of memorable moments through the years --Charlie Hustle smashing into that catcher who was never the same afterward, Torii Hunter's over-the-wall catch on Barry Bonds a few years ago, John Kruk's at-bat with Randy Johnson, Magic's return, Isaiah Thomas freezing MJ out of the offense and earning his hatred forever-- but I can't remember anything ever happening in the Pro Bowl. If you asked me to describe a recent game, I'd tell you something like, "There was a big comeback a couple years ago, from like 10 or 28 points down. I can't remember which team it was. I'm not sure if the team that came back won or not. And then a few years before that, there was a big blowout. And there was also a bunch of close games in there."

It's typical to follow up such complaints with a buffet of options for improvement, but I don't really think it matters all that much one way or another, so I will offer none.

Book Review

Seven hundred words on Luis Astorga's Seguridad, Traficantes, y Militares.

Also, many more words on La Familia from George Grayson.

The Church and the Narcos

Malcolm Beith wrote an interesting piece on the Catholic church's relationship with drug traffickers that appeared in The News a couple of days ago. The priests' conflicting motives in maintaining (or not) a relationship with organized crime reminds me of the discussion in Off the Books of the Chicago reverends who argue about allowing gang members to be eulogized in their churches.