slipping a mickey to the feds

My little tryst with the IRS may be at an end. For now.

If you read three little words, you know when I filed my income tax form in 2014, it contained two errors. The errors were mine.

Being johnny-on-the-spot, more than two years later, the speedy folks at IRS spotted the error. They may have been too busy auditing political organizations to have enough time for my paltry return. But they finally got around to it.

Last week, the feds notified me I had an additional $2,600 to cough up or -- I actually don't know what the "or" is, but I am certain it must be something medeival. The delinquency form (after informing me I had a very nice house; it would be a shame if something happened to it) said we could resolve this matter amicably if I would simply write a check, sign a mea culpa admitting everything was my fault including the last recession, and send it off to Fresno.

Meanwhile, the interest clock was ticking from 2014.

As much as I like the Mexican postal service, speed is not its outstanding quality. A couple years ago, I would have popped the envelope in the local post office box. Letters were taking about 10 days to two weeks to make their way north. No more. Now, it is more like two months.

Because money is involved here, I thought I could just transfer the amount electronically. But I could not find anything on the IRS web site. Jennifer Rose came to my rescue. That service is available: https://www.irs.gov/payments/direct-pay. The instructions are a wee bit clunky (actually, incredibly confusing), but I received word today the IRS has my money.

That just left the form. I was going to count on the kindness of friends flying north. But no one is leaving soon. And the form needed to be on its way.

Felipe suggested DHL. I had thought of that, but my experience with the local DHL agents is that they will accept payment for next-day delivery, but the package will still be in their office a week later because the truck from Manzanillo has not yet shown up.

So, I cut out the middle man. I headed off to Manzanillo to leave it at the DHL warehouse.

Like most delivery service warehouses, it is in an industrial area filled with other -- well, warehouses. I knew where this one was because it is smack dab in the middle of Mexican Dashiell Hammett country.

Last summer I decided to do a little research on the seamier side of life in Mexico. Through some of my local sources, I met and interviewed a series of guys who claimed to sell drugs of all varieties, to be able to hire someone to bump off the party of your choice (for a nominal fee), to grease any political transaction, and to fence all things electronic with same day service.

I spent a decade as a criminal defense attorney and a like number of years as an Air Force prosecutor. A lot of what you hear on the street is simply guff and bluff -- to give the speaker unearned cred.

And that is what I suspected of these guys. Until one of my sources ended up as a corpse. He had earned his cred.

But I dropped the stories. For a number of reasons.

This blog is not a police blotter and I am not a wannabe Mike Hammer. It is not the type of tale my readers expect to see here.

I also decided it was not the wisest choice of topics to earn my journalist spurs. The fact that all of this happened about the same time I decided to stop publishing daily is an indication that last August was not a pleasant time around the house with no name.

What I did learn, though, was the location of the DHL office. It is at the navel of Manzanillo's crime network.

For $613 (Mx), approximately $32.88 (US), my form is on its way to Fresno -- and should be there tomorrow. It was worth the drive to Manzanillo to get it shipped, but I am not certain it was a wise financial investment. The interest that will accrue during a slower transit time would be far less.

The good news is it is all done. Until I receive my interest due notice.

I hope I can then simply use the site Jennifer so graciously provided.

Just in case anyone is thinking of asking -- No! I will not publish any of my stories about crime in Manzanillo.  I am already dealing with the American government's version of the mafia. I don't need to be talking with another brand.

three little words

Notice of Deficiency.

I am not certain there are three more disturbing words in English. Especially, when the IRS is providing the notice.

Yesterday, my friends in Nevada told me the IRS had sent me a certified letter. I knew it could not be good news.

Certified letters from the IRS usually do not contain notes of apology: "We sincerely regret we have been acting as bag man for the welfare-military-industrial and crony capitalist complex. Having seen the error of our ways, we are returning all of the money you have paid to the federal government since the day you started pulling weeds for the local bank branch in 1962. We wish you, as a free American, much joy in spending the money you earned and that we took from you."

Nope. It was a notice I had failed to properly report income from two sources in 2014. The IRS claimed I had received an additional unreported payment from a deferred income account and that my tax form did not reflect the total benefits I received from Social Security.

I did some quick research. The IRS is correct. For some reason, I slipped the deferred income into the wrong line on a form that did not add the amount into total income.

The Social Security entry was not initially my fault. I used the total I originally received from the federal government. Apparently, a corrected form arrived after I filed my income tax return. When it arrived, I did not look closely at it.When I retired in 2009, I seemed to be well-set for a pleasant post-employment life. Partly through my own ignorance, I did not take into account that I would have to pay income tax on my Social Security benefits at a marginal rate of 28%. That if I withdrew a large amount from my savings in any given year, it would radically increase the cost of my Medicare premium. And that when I withdrew amount from my deferred income account, I would pay income taxes on it at the same rate as when I was working.

The total due in additional taxes is almost $2,600 -- an amount I will gladly pay.

I searched through the packet for a website where I could acknowledge my stupidity and make an electronic payment. Certainly the IRS is modern enough to have a process like that.

I was wrong. The instructions make it perfectly clear that I must sign a paper waiver and mail it along with the deficiency -- as a paper check. And the time the packet takes to wend its way to The States, I will be incurring additional interest.

The most difficult task may be to find a check book for my account. Who writes checks these days?

Or was this is some sort of elaborate scam? We senior citizens are often preyed upon by the unethical.

Probably not. The address in Fresno is an IRS processing center. So, into a paper envelope it all shall go.

This week's Economist has an article about major protests concerning Chile's pension plan. Unlike most countries that have defined benefit pension plans, Chile decided it would provide its citizens with a defined benefits plan.

Each citizen was provided a savings accounts where the account owner could deposit up to 10% of his income. If the maximum amount (10% of income) was deposited, after 30 years a retiree could anticipate receiving 70% of his last income as a pension.

For those who fully participated, the returns have been outstanding. Instead of receiving 70%, full participants have actually received 77%.

So why the protests? Most account holders failed to make the maximum payments. Now, they are angry that some of their fellow citizens are receiving more in retirement than they are. And they want taxpayers to pony up for them. They also want to change the system to the type of defined benefit system that is currently putting financial strains on every western government.

It is a response we have seen around the world -- people wanting someone else to pay their benefits. This tax deficiency notice has made me wondering whether they are correct.

As I was growing up, I was told the wise and frugal person should forego immediate gratification to save up for the future. Particularly, retirement. So, I did. For 20 years, I went without one day of vacation. Instead, I invested the maximum amount of money I could in tax-deferred savings accounts and stripped my daily budget to the bone. I wasn't Bob Cratchit, but I was close.

Now, I am not certain I was the smart guy. Had I spent all of my income on my hedonistic desires, I could have had a lot of fun -- and my tax bill would be greatly reduced. I could then do what the protesters in Chile want -- expect the government to bail me out of my wrong choices.

It is thoughts like this that remind me why there are so many angry American voters. People who played by the rules and were told if they did, they could see a better tomorrow. They think someone lied to them. And they may be correct.

Of course, I still have the money I saved. A giant chunk of it is going to end up in the hands of the federal government, and there is very little I can do about it.

Well, I guess I could vote. And after today, I just may do that.

mind the gap

Not the one in the London underground. The one that adorns many an Appalachian smile.

Me? I need no longer worry about that type of gap. My dental implant is complete.

The saga began back in 2013 when my left rear upper molar became infected on a visit to Morelia. For almost a year, a persistent endodontist attempted to save it. But the root was cracked, and bacteria were flooding through like Chinese soldiers swarming over Korean hills.

There was nothing to be done, but to pull the tooth and hope the infection could be controlled. In February 2014, my new dentist (Omar) extracted it (the tooth-- the whole tooth -- and nothing but the tooth).

Because there was now a gap in the chorus line of my upper jaw, my dentist suggested a dental implant.  It was not simply for aesthetics. I have lost that battle long ago. But gaps tend to loosen other teeth. Without support they succumb easily.

So, I agreed. I finally started the process around Christmas last year. And it was truly a process. The bone in my upper jaw had receded enough that it would no longer accommodate an implant without a bone graft.

And that is where it all began. For three to four hours, I sat in the dental chair while Omar sliced and diced to slip a piece of cadaver bone onto the top of my jaw. He then drilled and chipped to make a home for the temporary post that would later be replaced by a permanent one.

When I returned to his office last month, the graft had taken, and I was now ready for a shiny new molar (the reverse tooth fairy). And this morning, in it went. That, of course, is it at the top of this essay.

To install it, Omar screwed the permanent post back in place. He then seated the new molar on the post, and screwed it in place.

Yes. Screwed. As if he were mounting a rear view mirror or a fender on a 1994 Toyota pickup.

You may remember the scene in Star Trek: Insurrection where F. Murray Abraham's character undergoes dental and cosmetic surgery in a losing battle to aging. That is about how I felt. At least, the dental part.

But I am now done. The gap is filled. And, other than a couple of followup appointments and being careful with what I eat for a month or two, I am back where I was in December 2013 -- except without the infection.

The total cost? $22,000 (Mx) for the bone graft and post; $12,000 (Mx) for the crown.  About $1,924 (US).

Omar wants to install a second implant where a molar was extracted long ago by the Air Force. But I am not certain I want to go through the process again. I am happy to have the tooth he installed.

If I ever return to my Appalachian roots, I will next need to lose a tooth was far more visibility.

a better man for it

Keeping in touch with old friends has its rewards -- sometimes, very tangible ones.

I have known Al French for almost forty years. He was an assistant district attorney in Clackamas County when my law partner and I opened up shop in Oregon City. We had a few trials together, but not many.

Our common ground was politics and Coos County. He was raised in the big city of Coos Bay while I was chasing tadpoles in Powers.

Whether it was our joint interest in the Federalist Society or him introducing The American Spectator to me, we quickly became fellow debaters and, more often, political sympathizers.

It was a heady time with the elections of 1980 and 1984 -- along with property tax limitation initiatives that split our conservative consensus. When I ran for a seat in the Oregon legislature, he was there to assist.

So, it was no surprise when he offered to mail a Harding biography to me as part of my presidential biography project. It arrived the other day. Over $30 in U.S. postage. That is a true friend.

The book is Francis Russell's The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times. When I started my project, I researched the internet for the best biography of each president. Russel's book appeared on almost everyone's list. But it was not available in a Kindle edition. Al solved that problem for me.

Re-learning how to read a hard-bound book is an interesting process. I have heard other people say the same thing. They seem to read more books -- and read them faster -- on an electronic reader.

I concur. I am only on page 52 of this 663 book, but I have the flavor of it. I am hooked.

Harding is still a teen at this point. His father has purchased a cornet for him, and he is playing in the town band.

Russel comments on the role politics and religion played in Marion, Ohio. Most of his neighbors were Democrats. Harding was a Republican. "A man was born one or the other, just as he was born a Baptist or a Presbyterian, and gave an emotional allegiance to his church and party without, however, letting either interfere with his practical life."

That description helps to explain what would otherwise have been an anomaly. Russel describes how the town band, managed by Harding, would give street concerts every Saturday night, as well as providing background music at the local roller link, and playing at political rallies of both parties.

That last item on the list struck a familiar chord. The year was 1966. Oregon had an open United States senate seat. The two favored candidates were Republican Mark Hatfield (then governor) and Democrat Bob Duncan (a congressman). But both of them had primary opposition.

Duncan had announced enthusiastic support for President Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam. That drew opposition from an anti-war candidate: Howard Morgan.

I do not know how it came about, but our band, from a suburban high school, was invited to play music at a Howard Morgan political rally in Portland. Most of the band members arrived by school bus. My parents took me because the rally was on Sunday and within blocks of our church.

To the best of my knowledge, no one ever questioned the use of taxpayer money for the school bus or the non-volunteer time of students on a Sunday. My mother has always been a staunch Republican. And my father was in the process that year of leaving the Democrat party. But I am not certain either of them questioned our participation in the event. Maybe it was just one of those things that seemed normal then -- and now seems like a political land mine.

I asked the band teacher if I could wear my Hatfield hat (a cardboard derivative of an Uncle Sam topper with "Hatfield" written across the front) and a Hatfield button. He told me that was what the First Amendment was all about.

It turned out to not be much of a protest. All of the Morgan people I talked with said they were going to vote for Hatfield if Duncan won the primary.

Well, he did, and a lot of Democrats did just that -- electing Hatfield in one of the tightest elections of the year.

I need to remember that the next time I witness someone having a meltdown over partisan labels. Maybe we just need to be a little more adult -- like the Marion band -- and not let the labels of church or party interfere with our practical life.

And, once again, Al -- thank you very much. You are a true pal.

social security admits error

Well, the American government once again is doing its best to prove that incompetence is not a monopoly of the Clinton and Trump campaigns.

Earlier this month (breach in the chinese wall), I brought you a bit of bizarre news from the Social Security Administration. The federal government has spent years in trying to wean Americans from using paper. Instead, we are to trust the government and banks with direct deposit checks (a process I have used since the 1970s) and we are to transact our business with the feds over the computer.

That system appeared to be working well. Citizens had easy access to their accounts and information. Unfortunately, Chinese and Russian hackers found the access even easier.

In a ham-fisted attempt to fix the weaknesses in its computer systems (defects the federal government has known since the Clinton administration), Social Security announced at the end of July that access to personal accounts will now require obtaining a code by text-enabled cell phones for each time a person wants to see his own information.

You all saw the weaknesses in that system when I wrote about it. The primary one is that a large portion of people on Social Security do not have text-enabled telephones. And, for many who do, the process of requesting a code and then using it, has baffled many American seniors.

To Social Security's credit, it has now called king's X. Hey, folks, we really did not mean it.

Well, that's my paraphrase. The official announcement is a bit less personal in its tone.

On July 30, 2016, we began requiring you to sign into your my Social Security account using a one-time code sent via text message. We implemented this new layer of security, known as “multifactor authentication,” in compliance with a Presidential executive order to improve the security of consumer financial transactions. SSA implemented the improvements aggressively because we have a fundamental responsibility to protect the public’s personal information. However, multifactor authentication inconvenienced or restricted access to some of our account holders. We’re listening to your concerns and are responding by temporarily rolling back this mandate. As before July 30, you can now access your secure account using only your username and password. We highly recommend the extra security text message option, but it is not required. We’re developing an alternative authentication option, besides text messaging, that we’ll begin implementing within the next six months. We strive to balance security and customer service options, and we want to ensure that our online services are both easy to use and secure. The my Social Security service has always featured a robust verification and authentication process, and it remains safe and secure. We regret any inconvenience you may have experienced.

Who writes like that? If I understand its thrust, the message goes like this.

"The president ordered us to improve our computer security. We were doing only what he told us to do, and we did it very well.

"Unfortunately, you, the people who we were attempting to help, are a bunch of whiny babies who still live in the 19th century. This is the age of Twitter, not of liveried footmen running around delivered perfumed notes. The fact that your eyes roll back in your head reacting to such terms as 'multifactor authentication' and 'consumer financial transactions' proves our point.

"Well, you have complained enough that we are now going to take our jolly good time in protecting your account information. For those few of you who understand how to use a cell phone, you can request a code. And you should.

"Of course, it will not matter because all of your non-connected fellow citizens will be sharing their information directly with Xi and Putin. Yours, too.

"Have a nice day."

But, it gets even better. When I tried to read the announcement on the Social Security web site, I was blocked with this message: "The owner of blog.ssa.gov [Social Security] has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website."

Now, that hardly instills in me the type of confidence that the bureaublather announcement was targeting. And it puts paid to that reassuring tag line: "The my Social Security service has always featured a robust verification and authentication process, and it remains safe and secure."

I am not surprised at the rollback. This is almost exactly what happened with the initial electronic registration for Obamacare. The program was put together to amaze computer programmers, and forgot that citizens would be using it.

The good news is that those of us who live in Mexico will now be able to deal with Social Security electronically as if the text-message requirement had never reared its head.

That is, until another new requirement rolls out. And it will.

what's the buzz?

"The heat and the bugs -- in that order."

I was having lunch with an acquaintance who had moved from Melaque before I came down in 2009. He was explaining why he had moved up into the mountains half way to Guadalajara.

He knew how uncomfortable summer heat and humidity could be; he had spent most of his life living in one of those midwestern states that begin and end with a vowel. But knowledge is not always a coping skill. He moved away from that weather, and had no desire to spend his retirement years reliving the title of Jorge Amado’s third novel.*

We didn't talk much about the bugs. But my eight years of living here has proven him correct. We have heat and bugs -- year round. The presence of the ocean offsets that for me. Not for him.

I thought of that conversation this past week. When I walk Barco in the morning, I wear my track suit to fend off the flying midges (what northerners call no-see-ums, and what my neighbors call jejenes). If I don't, the bites of those almost invisible flies will leave my legs looking like two yards of Swiss dot.

The midges have never been a problem at my house. I do get the occasional mosquito at night while I am standing in the pool reading. But I have not seen too many of them -- before last week.

Because we were not heading to the sports park last Monday, I decided to forego my track suit. That was a mistake.

I was convinced I had walked into a re-enactment of the fourth plague of Egypt. There were mosquitoes everywhere -- including on me. At one point, I counted eleven of them on my legs. That was far more than I ever experienced living directly on the laguna in Villa Obregón.

Most were marsh mosquitoes -- those pesky runts that remind me of no-see-ums on steroids. But not all. A large portion were Aedes aegypti. I call it the Egyptian mosquito -- simply because I cannot remeber the latin name.
Aedes aegypti is incredibly easy to identify. Just look for those white knees.
They are a nasty piece of work. Not only do they leave large welts behind after their blood feeding, they also carry the virus for some serious diseases. Dengue. Chikungunya. Zika. Yellow Fever.

Yellow fever is not a problem in our area. Nor is Zika -- yet, even though it seems to be working its way up from southern Mexico. Dengue and chikungunya we have aplenty.

For four days, the plague raged. All day long. Most mosquitoes prowl primarily at dawn or dusk -- like the vampires they are. Not these guys. They were willing to fill up on plasma just like a 7-11. 24/7. And they did.

Then, they were gone. Thanks to the marvels of chemistry.

Within two days of the onset, the local spray truck came through the neighborhood. I do not know what cocktail is used for the insecticide, but it works.

The day after he passed through, my courtyard was filled with the carcasses of bees, dragonflies, moths, cockroaches, scorpions, butterflies, beetles, and assorted other insects. Most of my neighbors throw open their doors and windows when the truck passes through to take advantage of the vector control.

Inevitably, the only survivors are the mosquitoes. Or so I thought, until I worked it over in my mind. The spray undoubtedly kills the adult mosquitoes. But, their life cycle is so short, another generation metamorphoses into adults from their watery nurseries as soon as the truck departs.

But the driver, knowing the wily ways of the mosquito, was back in two days to wipe out that lot.

This week, the mosquitoes were gone. At least, around my house. They still hang out in the sports park. The moisture and grass of the fútbol field are a perfect hangout for them. Plus, the spray truck never reaches them.

Some people cannot deal with the flying midges and the (understandable) fear of Aedes aegypti. The insects are a nuisance. Sometimes, a frightening nuisance -- especially if Yellow Fever takes another turn on the world stage as it is doing in Africa.

Fortunately, there are self-defense mechanisms. Mine is Off! When I remember to use it. I am one of those people who dislikes the feel of lotions. Hand creams. Sun screen. Massage lotions. (Well. massages in general.) Insect repellent. They are not my natural thing. But they are effective.

Unlike my acquaintance, neither the heat nor the bugs are going to drive me away from what drew me here in the first place -- the beautiful ocean that daily reminds me there are more adventures just over that horizon.

I think I'll stay a few more years.


* -- Sweat, in case you were wondering.

cock-a-doodle-dead

My blogger buddy Kim loves big cities.

The fact that he has decided to settle in Mexico City makes a lot of sense for him. His blood runs urban.

Not mine. It would stretch the point to call myself a country lad. After all, I love visiting big cities, but, when it comes to choosing a place to live, my preference runs, as the song says, "land spreadin' out so far and wide."

I played with the idea of living in Puerto Vallarta until I realized it had all of the drawbacks of an urban area without any of the cultural amenities. So, I headed south until I ran into Melaque and Barra de Navidad.

Farm living may not be the life for me, but I am a lot closer than I was in Salem. After all, I never would have had two goats greeting me each morning if I still lived in the house on Summer Street. We even had a resident pig for a couple of days until it was invited to be the guest of honor at a big family get-together.

And then there are the chickens. Everywhere.

My neighbors have a rather off-hand approach to raising fowl. A couple of chickens are brought home to be turned lose to fend and forage for themselves. Where there were two chickens, there will soon be a flock of yellow fluff ball chicks. Those who survive will keep the cycle going until there are, as I said, chickens everywhere.

It is the "those who survive" that amazes me. The chickens have no pens or coops. They are truly free range. Wandering through vacant lots and neighbors' lots in search of anything that a chicken might find edible.

The survival rate is low. Anyone who has ever watched a line of ducklings follow her mother on a snapping turtle pond knows what I am talking about. They soon become characters in an Agatha Christie mystery. One duckling will disappear. Then another. Often a forlorn mother duck is left to paddle solo around the pond.

Chicken is on the menu for a lot of local predators. Feral cats. Raccoons. Coatimundi.

But the top hunter is Barco's dog pal Güera. A few months ago, the three of us were out on a walk together. The chickens, for good reason, are wary of four-legged creatures. But they were more intent on breakfast than running away.

That was a mistake. I have seen Güera walk right past the chickens without paying them any notice. This time, she ran at them. They scattered. That must have triggered her basic instinct. She was off after a teenage bird while the rest of the flock clucked and fled.

Güera disappeared around a corner. I called her to stop. But she was gone. I was not too bothered because the chickens appeared to know what they were doing to survive.

Güera knew better. She soon caught up to us with the now-limp chicken in her mouth. Since then, I have seen her dispatch at least a half dozen birds. Barco is impressed.

Up north, Güera would be a dead dog. Dogs who mess with livestock are just minutes from having a bullet between their eyes.

Here? The putative owner of the chickens and Güera's owner seem to accept it as the cycle of life in Mexico. After all, the chicken guy does nothing to raise the birds. I am certain he takes advantage of the eggs and the occasional fryer -- even though I haven't seen him do either.

For me, they are simply part of life and death here on my ever-greener acres.

golden arches on the beach

The lot has sat empty since I moved to Mexico.

Well, not exactly empty. It has occasionally been used as a parking lot for one of the beach hotels. But the gates' stare toward the street was blank as Botticelli's Aphrodite.

No more. The gate is down and workmen are sweating away in our August heat. Something new is going to be wedged between Rooster's restaurant and the new Kiosko in San Patricio.

I did a little spadework of my own. A lot of property owners are a bit cagey about their building projects. Why? I don't know. But, they are.

My first working hypothesis was that Kiosko's primary convenience store competitor, Oxxo, was building a store cheek to jowl with the Kiosko that popped up last year. But the building footprint did not look right.

Almost anything else could go on that lot. The most obvious candidate would be a couple stories of apartments with retail space below. If I had extra pesos, that would be my bet.

But an acquaintance, who has lived in Barra de Navidad for a couple of decades and sports Mexican citizenship, has a far more novel idea. He had heard about a year ago that McDonald's was going to build a franchise in Melaque -- and this could be it.

I chuckled. That is how rumors get started.

And so is this.

odds and ends -- tourists, meteors, and air conditioning

The high tide of tourism is about to recede from our villages by the sea.

I have been told this is the last week of school vacations. The children will soon be headed back to their regimen of textbooks and marching.

For the past several weeks, our villages have been filled with SUVs,vans, and tour buses. Most of our visitors come from the surrounding mountains to spend a week, two weeks, or a few days sunburning themselves with pleasure amongst the waves.

Traditionally, Melaque and Barra were destinations for working class families, who would arrive in convoys of buses. They still come.

But a couple of years ago, the mix changed. Large numbers of SUVs started showing up in the first wave -- filled with the statistical average of two parents and two children. All of them turned out in the latest designer label casual wear. They were perfect representatives of a Mexican economy that was expanding. For some. And a reminder that Mexico ha the 15th largest economy in the world.

My impression this summer has been that the number of visitors was quite high. Around here, we tend to use Christmas and semana santa (Easter week) as the top benchmark for tourists. For the full school summer vacation, it appeared we were celebrating an extended semana santa. The business people I have talked with say it was a good season.

But it is now almost over. Before everyone leaves, though, there is an event we can all enjoy tomorrow night -- free.

Tomorrow will be one of the best meteorite showers of the year -- the Perseid meteors. Earth is passing through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet. Tomorrow it will be encountering one of the thickset parts in years. The patient will be able to see up to 200 meteorites an hour.

In our area, the moon will set around 1:45 AM. That will be the optimum time to see the most "falling stars." If you stand looking true north, the best view will be slightly to your right.

Happy watching.

1:45 AM is a good time for me. We are not only in peak tourist season, we are in peak summer heat season -- or, at least, the start of it. September should be hotter yet.

Barco is struggling with the heat. For his sake, I have decided to have air conditioning installed in my bedroom.

The contractor, who built this house as her dream home, had the foresight to plumb the walls for air conditioning. Had she not done that, the installer would have been forced to drill from the roof of the pavilion upstairs, through two stories of concrete, to install the regulator in my bedroom and the compressor on the roof.

With this information, I can now hire an installer to give me an estimate. I would be less than honest if I told you I was not looking forward to reducing the humidity in my bedroom.

But, tomorrow night, I will have a good reason to be up late (along with a large group of Mexican tourists) watching one of nature's truly spectacular shows. I can watch from the swimming pool.

Barco will be asleep.

lyndon b. trump

"I am willing to let any objective historian look at my record. If I can't do more than anyone else to help my country, I'll quit."

The sentence made me stop reading my Kindle to see if I had accidentally opened a political column in The Oregonian. Nope. I was still reading my latest installment in my presidential biography project. Robert Dallek's Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (an abridgment of his two-volume biography).

The quotation is pure Johnson. He had stopped in Alaska in 1967 on his way to Asia, and was reassuring the public he was the man to stop the war in Vietnam while he simultaneously wiped out discrimination and poverty in The States.

On that same trip, he visited the troops in Vietnam. While crossing the airfield to board Marine One, the Air Force protocol officer told him: "Sir, your helicopter is over here." Johnson looked the young officer straight in the eye, and swept his hand across the airfield: "Son, they're all my helicopters."

This is another election cycle where we hear political commentators, hoping we are deceived into believing they are in the know, telling us there has never been an election like this. Admittedly, there have been some odd events this year. But the oversized egos of both candidates certainly are not new.

Lyndon Johnson often makes Donald Trump's outrageous comments look entirely amateur. LBJ was a political wizard wrapped in the crassness of a Texas hill country rancher.

That is one of the advantages of studying past presidents and campaigns. It helps us to put matters in perspective.

Not that the perspective makes my concerns this year disappear. I did not like Lyndon Johnson's Great Leader rhetoric that was dialed just one notch south of being Kim Il-sung. Trump's ("I'm the guy") is not much better.

Several of our presidents have suffered from the man-on-the-white-horse syndrome. In their minds, only they can save us from the forces of evil that besiege the people. I suspect a person could not be in politics without suffering from that heresy, which is the polar opposite of the philosophy espoused in the Declaration of Independence.

And they are exactly the people who we should not choose as leaders. Both of this year's political candidates are advocates of the heresy. 

By the way, I do not recommend the abridged version of Dallek's biography. Whoever edited it did a terrible job. Names pop up without any introduction. I assume the transition paragraphs had simply been removed without regard to the information they contained.

At one moment, we are talking about Ambassador Lodge, and, all of a sudden, Bunker pops up -- without any introduction. Maybe we are simply to remember the news from the 1960s.

He makes a passing reference to Johnson's belief that the Castro brothers were involved in John Kennedy's assassination, something I already knew. But Dallek offers no support why Johnson believed this interesting theory. Of course, people believe all sorts of crazy things about the Kennedy assassination, but we do not need to trot out the denizens of the fever swamp here -- or in the comments.

That now leaves me with only one more dead president biography to read: Warren Harding. And it is on its way to me in the mail.

Until I finish the project, I am going to do what I can to avoid the Punch and Judy show on offer in The States.
 

a breach in the chinese wall

"Your access to your My Social Security account is being terminated."

So said the good folks of Social Security in an email late last month. My ability to remotely open my Social Security account information was coming to an end in August.

Well, that is not really what the email said. But the tiny hysteric that lives in a condominium in my amygdala has a way of churning up glandular fluids before the better part of my brain has an opportunity to analyze it. The old Adler vs. Holmes fight.

What the email really said, in a very soothing bureaucratic drone, was that the process for getting to my data was about to change -- "to protect my privacy." We do not know if the Chinese ever plundered Mrs. Clinton's home server, but we do know that they have made a series of hits on government computers that contain personal information on current and former government employees -- and benefit recipients.

To ensure us that the Chinese will no longer be able to peruse why my Medicare payments withheld from my Social Security benefits have increased to over $300 a month (part of the humorously-named Affordable Care Act), Social Security will now require that I sign in with my username and password (as I have been) -- and then provide my text-enabled cellular telephone number.

Here's why.  Social Security will then send me onetime security code to open my account.

A number of financial institutions are doing this. But most of them send the code by email. I guess Social Security decided that was not a socially secure method.

I have been doing my best to divest myself of connections up north -- especially of the financial type. All of my telephones are Mexican -- Telmex or Telcel. My experience with American institutions is they go all weak in the knees when Mexico is mentioned. So, I was disinclined to provide Social Security with a Mexican telephone number.

Fortunately, I have kept a MagicJack account active. I was going to cancel it when I bought services to allow me to call The States as part of my telephone plans. I didn't, though, thinking I might have some use for it as a backup.

And so I have. It turns out the number is text-enabled.

If I had deep-sixed MagicJack, the Social Security guys let me know that sympathy is not one of my benefits: "If you do not have a text-enabled cell phone or you do not wish to provide your cell phone number, you will not be able to access your My Social Security account."

I am willing to bet a large number of Social Security recipients are covered by that conditional "if you do not." Sorry, gramps. You paid into the account, but our use of "my" in front of your account was simply a post-modern twist of irony. It's our account, and don't you forget it.

Had I been writing the notice, I would have blue-lined the in-your-face-Mr.-Taxpayer jab and skipped to the reality: "If you are having trouble using our new security measures, try logging onto igotyourstuff@beijing.com.ch. While there, you might be interested in reviewing your FBI file, any information the NSA has collected concerning you during the past 10 years, and your voting preferences in the last two election cycles."

And, now, about that triple increase in my Medicare premium --
 

a remote possibility

P.J. O'Rourke once wisely observed: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

He could say the same thing about Barco and garage door openers.

For the last few days, I have been suffering from one of those gastrointestinal episodes that keeps me within running distance of a bathroom and collapsing distance from a bed. When I sleep, I slip into what seems like a diabetic coma.

This morning (around 1 or 2) I was awakened to a man's voice calling my name -- Estiv! Estiv! When I looked up, sure enough there was the silhouette of a man standing in my bedroom entry.

This is the point where I should say I jumped up to defend this intrusion of my castle. After all, my Mexican neighbor had only recently reminded me that the streets in Barra are not as safe as they once were.

Instead, I just stared in repose -- trying to make some sense out of this Ibsen moment that had invaded my life. And then I realized who it was -- the neighbor who had given me the earlier warning. He was saying something about Barco being outside, the door was open, and my neighbor's wife was worried about me.

I wrapped a shirt around my waist and accompanied him to the front of the house. Sure enough the garage door was open. A couple of months ago, I had made the mistake of putting the remote control in my pocket and accidentally opened the door. I thought that was what had happened.

Nope. The remote was in the car, and the car door was locked.  That left only one possibility -- what seemed impossible had occurred.

I have a backup remote in my bedroom. On a shelf. Which I thought was out of Barco's reach.

Sure enough, it was gone. I looked around the courtyard and found the cardboard box and the plastic bag that once encased it. Both were shredded.

It was obvious that Barco took the remote, tore open the box, and started chewing on the remote -- for the sole reason that it is plastic. That accidentally opened the garage door.

I fully expected to find the remote near the door where he would have run as free as Steve McQueen. But it wasn't there.

Because it was late, and I was wearing a shirt as a skirt, I decided to wait until the morning when the light would be better. But I knew myself better than that. I could not sleep knowing that the magic key to my house might be somewhere on the street.

There was only one thing to do -- think like Barco. It turned out not to be that difficult. When he gets away from me, he heads to the same place, the pile of garbage on our corner.

And there it was, on a spoiled banana. Barco apparently had been stuffing himself on rotten fish parts at the midnight buffet.

For me, the hero of this story is my neighbor, an owner of one of the most popular taco stands in our part of town. He and his wife were concerned enough about me that he took the extra steps of entering my house to check on my welfare.

And, for those who see no utility in speaking Spanish in this area, this episode would not have played out the way it did if I had not been able to establish a neighborly relationship with this family. When I realized how worried they were, I even felt a bit misty-eyed. Of course, I put that down to my medication.

As for Barco, the last time I saw him, he was driving my car to Acapulco with my garage door opener still stuck in his mouth.

the end is nigh

It is. But, it is not the apocalyptic type with horses, scrolls, and trumpets. (Even though that is always a possibility.)

The end that is nigh is my project of reading a biography of each dead American president. Now, if you have been following my trek through the presidential timber these past two years, you might notice a new adjective in my project. I have decided to limit the biographies to dead presidents.

Let me tell you why.

While reading Charles Rappleye's biography of Herbert Hoover (Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency), I realized a very important point about presidential biographies. It has taken over 80 years for a biography to be written that is balanced between the hagiography and villainization treatments of President Hoover. It takes time to let the glandular partisan impressions to settle.

Biographers are not journalists. Well, some are, but, as biographers, they are exercising a completely different set of writing skills. Without perspective and a certain sense of objectivity, biographies can easily turn into another political slur by Occupy Democrat or Ann Coulter. And that usually takes the passage of time -- especially for politicians caught in circumstances beyond their control.

Hoover was such a man. Economists are still uncertain what caused the Great Depression. What they do know is that none of the governmental economic programs put in place by Hoover and his successor Franklin Roosevelt pulled the United States out of its economic malaise.

Both men tried very similar methods to get the economy moving again (Roosevelt's boldest mood was taking the country off of the gold standard -- a move that, in the long run, did nothing to help alleviate the depression.) The big difference between them was leadership. Hoover tended to lecture Americans that they were not doing enough to help themselves (much as Jimmy Carter did in his infamous energy speech). Roosevelt made people think he was in the battle along side them; that he was doing something.

Rappleye's book could not have been written when I was young in the 50s. My mother idealized Hoover; my father idolized FDR. Memories were still too raw for objectivity. With the passage of time, we can see Hoover as a real person -- a man with the perfect résumé to be president -- who turned out to have exactly the wrong personality when the economy went south.

To test my theory, I read Douglas Brinkley's Gerald Ford. I was correct. The wounds that were opened in the 1976 primary with Ronald Reagan and the campaign in the general election against Carter were still too raw. At least, for me. I was neck deep in the campaigns that year.

Brinkley works valiantly to remain neutral, but there are far too my pejorative adjectives flung around to save the pretense of objectivity. The events are just too near in time to us.

For that reason, I will not seek out biographies on Carter, both Bushes, Clinton (the one who has been president), and Obama. There would be little sense. Not only is objectivity a concern, they are five men all still adding pages to their biographies in life.

So, here's the score. There have been 43 men who have served as president. Five are still living. That leaves a total of 38 biographies -- of which I have read 36. The only two awaiting my roving eyes are Warren Harding and Lyndon Johnson.

My friend, Al French, is mailing a Harding biography to me. While I await its arrival, I will take on Lyndon Johnson's life. I had considered reading Robert A. Caro's four volume set on Johnson's life. But his work currently ends in 1964 -- and a lot happened to LBJ after his landslide election that year.

Instead, I decided to start reading Robert Dallek's Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President -- an abridgment of his authoritative two-volume biography.

Reading these biographies has taught me one thing: journalists are wont to say that the election this year is something completely new. It is no such thing.

The nation has suffered far greater divisions in its politics. During the 1800 election where name-calling and mutual distrust became a normal attribute of American politics. The elections of the 1850s, culminating in 1860, where the nation could not find a political solution to slavery -- and resorted to the crudest of all weapons in the civil war. The populist revolution of the 1880s and 1890s where tariffs and the gold standard were every bit as divisive as abortion and free trade. The election of 1968 where the nation was on the verge of revolution.

Knowing that we have been here before is not comforting. But it is certainly not something new. History rhymes.
So, for now, I will work through two more presidential biographies. And my project will be done. For now. At least two of the former presidents will be dead before too long. But it will be at least a decade or two before decent biographies will be written about their accomplishments and failures.

By that time, the end may have drawn nigh.