does not compute

If you listen to the news and the politicians, we should all be boning up on harmonizing "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"


Jodes a'plenty. Bread lines. Dust bowls.


They should be everywhere.


I don't doubt there are people hurting financially -- and that added together, they should be quite evident in our daily lives.


But here is what I have seen recently. On New Year's Eve, Beth and I went to a pre-play dinner. It was very early in the evening, but every table was full. When we left, we could barely make our way out of the reception area. It was packed.


Now, this was the type of restaurant where a couple can easily drop $140 for dinner. And it was New Year's Eve. Maybe people were simply celebrating.


But I have been to several lunches and dinners (many associated with Steve's Big Birth Year) since then. With one exception, the restaurants were packed -- whether a small lunch place or a fancy evening restaurant.


Exhibit #2: As you know, I have been looking for a lap top. After shopping around for a week, I decided I would buy the Sony Z series I mentioned earlier this week.


I have now stood twice at Best Buy beside the computer with my credit card out holding a stack of other merchandise. On Friday evening, I waited for an hour without attracting a salesman. On Saturday evening, a young man stopped momentarily and then rushed off never to be seen again.


On both nights, I could not blame indifferent salesmen. A platoon of blue-shirted young men were running hither and yon trying to keep up with the customers -- customers who were buying shopping baskets full of electronic goods. The waiting line to purchase goods looked like the check-in line at the airport. Almost literally.


And this was not the tony New Year's Eve restaurant crowd. By their clothes, they appeared to be regular working class Americans. (Of course, clothing in America is no clue of a person's social station. Many of my colleagues dress as if they were extras in a gangsta rap video. There may be a future blog in that comment.)

All of this in one of Oregon's poorest cities -- in a state with 9% reported unemployment.


Billie made similar observations as a result of her recent visit to Houston. Something does not seem right.


We used to talk about the invisible poor. I am wondering if we have outed another group -- the invisible affluent.


What I do know is that I appear to be one of the few people in Salem without a new computer. I intend to resolve that matter soon -- even if I have to order it online.

russian through the list

One and a half check-offs today.


Not the Russian playwright type. The "I'm going to Mexico" type.


Today's mail brought news from Washington, DC that Hillary Clinton is willing to grant me the authority to cross the borders of This Great Country -- and then get back in without hiring someone who sounds as if he should be trying to catch The Road Runner.


I will spare you a photograph of the first page showing my new travel visage. Let's just say that if I ever end up on a wanted poster, Elmer Fudd is going to have a very difficult life.


This means, of course, that I can now head over to the Mexican consulate in Portland and start the process of getting an FM3. I am still not certain that I will go through the full process before I head south. But I want to, at least, find out how many burning hoops this puppy can jump through.


I may also have made a decision on a laptop. Assuming that I do not work on contract after going to Mexico, I will need a laptop primarily for email, internet, and manipulating blog material. I toyed with simply getting one of the inexpensive netbooks. But they do not give me the computing power I need for my blog.


I also realized that I could leave my DVD player and CD player behind if I could rely on a lap top.


Here is the plan: I will buy a small notebook (probably a 13" screen). I will then bring my flat screen monitor along with some auxiliary speakers.


I went to Best Buy two days ago to actually feel laptops. I am glad I did -- though my wallet may regret my caress fixation. After picking up and manipulating about 15 potential matches, I decided that the Sony Vaio Z series meets my needs. That is my new love at the top of this post.


I am going through my cooling off period. On Saturday morning I am driving up to Portland for a brunch with some members of my high school class. That will give me an opportunity to look for a better deal at Fry's. If I do not find one, I will most likely consummate this deal at Best Buy -- for the price of about 8 netbooks.


And so the pieces are starting to fall into place. Much more requires doing. But it is happening.

a pin in your football

With the exception of American Mommy in Mexico, the Mexico blogs I read regularly did not even mention the Super Bowl this year.


I know I didn't. It barely made a cameo appearance in my sermon on Sunday.


But there is some interesting sports news that has trans-border possibilities.


On 11 February the U.S. soccer team and the Mexican fútbol team will meet in a World Cup qualifying match. Now, those of you who do not follow soccer (a term I will use because using "football" in this context carries enough political baggage that the sports story will get lost -- just like the Olympics) will probably be surprised to discover that the U.S. team is favored to beat the Mexican team.


Surprising, to me, at least, because anyone who has watched a group of Mexican schoolboys knows that soccer appears to be part of the Mexican XY gene pool -- a heritage earned the hard way with Aztec stone rings and their deadly consequences for losers. Compare that with the soccer preppy American kids learn. That may also explain why some of the names on the American roster sound a bit less-than-WASPish. Hey! If we can't raise them, we can always buy them.


But history indicates that the Americans have a leg up: winning nine and losing only two of the last 14 matches. Mexico is often a prisoner of its own history, and the soccer pitch appears to be little different.


Plus the teams hate one another. The intensity is so strong this season that Oswaldo Sanchez made less-than-complimentary remarks about Landon Donovan’s mother. The U.S. striker returned the favor by urinating on the field at Estadio Jalisco in Guadalajara -- almost inciting a riot. Boys will be -- delinquents. (Where did we put that can of spray paint?)


And, of course, there is the long history of the big brother-little brother relationship wrapped in the big enchilada of the 1848 unpleasantness. The Russia-Poland, Italy-France rivalries come to mind.


That may explain why Radio Shack, a Fort Worth-based American corporation, got caught up in the emotions of this match. Its Mexican subsidiary and a Mexican newspaper promoted the voodoo doll kit pictured at the top of this post -- designed to improve Mexico's chances by jinxing the opposition.


Yup! That is an American player, just waiting to have pins poked into parts that should not even be in play during a match. Remember the Absolut Mexican map advertisement that caused American talk shows to go apoplectic? Well, it happened again.


The result? Radio Shack decided to withdraw the offer with the brave corporate voice that has made Americans such a business force throughout the world: "We wish the very best of luck to Mexico, the U.S., and all teams in the final round of regional qualifying for next year's tournament." Miss America could not have delivered a sweeter world peace speech.


So, the match will go on. Voodoo aficionados will need to search out a back alley priestess to hex the pesky Yanks.


I am a bit more surprised that our conspiracy-minded buddy, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has not charged the U.S. of fixing the match. Look where it is being held. Crew Stadium. Columbus. Ohio. 11 February. Outside.


It is 18 degrees (fahrenheit) there today. Admittedly, the forecast is for 46 degrees on the 11th. But at least half of these young men are raised to believe that when the weather drops into the 70s, you break out the ski parkas.


Ah, well. It promises to be an interesting -- if not good -- match. If I had a television, I would watch it. But, I don't. And it will not be interesting enough to find an available set.


I will wait for the next corporate voodoo headline.

stick 'em up

Crime stalks the halls of blogdom.


No back-alley mugging this. No, sirree, Bob. This is theft with an electronic edge.


No Pink Panther. No Saint. Just a sleazy mind with a lap top and the limited intellectual talent to copy and paste.


The electronic era has played havoc with copyright laws. Prior to Chester Carlson's electrostatic glass rod, reproducing material from a book was prohibitively expensive. Then came the copier. The video camera. And the copier with its bunny-like reproductive system.


And that brings us to this episode of law and disorder. Fellow blogger Nancy has been virtually rolled. Or, more accurately, her blog has.


Her fancy blog program (apparently, far better than the rudimentary tools this program provides) allows her to check on unusual usage patterns. Jane Marple has nothing on her. She tracked down a miscreant, who had the audacity to copy her blog content, and then claim it as his own. Exactly the type of behavior prohibited by copyright law -- and just plain old-fashioned Emily Post etiquette.


A friend of hers, Jennifer of MexScape, discovered that some of her posts and photographs had also been lifted. Jennifer tells a good tale. Take a look at her post. I was most impressed with her creative way of fighting back against this 21st century version of Blackbeard -- and that is a polite term for this behavior.


This once again raises the question of ownership of blog material. Almost everybody I know who blogs spends a good deal of time putting together posts. I cannot really say my posts are my children. (Yes. I know. "They look just like their father.") But they are personal enough that I would be a little angry if someone lifted my words.


I have been pleased when some of my colleagues have asked permission to use something I have written. But having it show up on another site unbidden is a bit like seeing a relative's head piked on Tower Bridge.


On the other hand, I do not feel that way about my photographs. If I could capture images as well as John Woods or Billie Mercer, I might feel differently.


The bottom line is that the thief Nancy encountered was using the material on a website that flogs condos -- among other things. My Daddy said there are some people you just do not need to lend your name to. And he was right.

empty buckets

Economic news is bad all over. Mexico is certainly no exception.


The newspapers have carried announcements of factory and production cutbacks -- everything from soft drinks to automobiles. But the worst news came last week when, for the first time on record, the amount of money immigrants from Mexico sent home, dropped.


Many developing nations rely on their citizens to find jobs in wealthier countries and remit the money to their families at home. For Mexico, those remittances are its second largest source of foreign income -- the first being oil. Mexicans send more money home than is siphoned out of the trousers and purses of oil-slathered Brits and Yanks on vacation.


The amount of remittances has never declined from the previous year -- even during the 2001 recession. This year, they dropped by about one billion dollars.


In developed countries, the loss of a billion dollars in one year is chump change. In Mexico, the impact is felt immediately -- and often by those who can least afford to lose the money.


The remittances do not go to the type of wealthy Mexicans who drive fast cars and have even faster girlfriends and/or boyfriends. The Mexicans who will not see this money are the father-up-north gatherings of women and children who would make the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe look like Margaret Sanger.


The newspapers have also noted the prowling lion of the cloud cuckoo land left, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is doing everything he can to stir up resentment for the sole purpose of snatching political power. Of course, resentment is so thick on the ground, it can be harvested merely by picking it up. It is not a good time to be the king -- even if you had nothing to do with the economic situation.

López Obrador speaks fondly of the 1910 revolution -- an iconic period for most Mexicans. With the exception of his more radical followers, most Mexicans will ignore the veiled threats to rise up against the current government -- for one very good reason. Today Mexico has a positive relief valve in its political system -- elections that really mean something.


As the world economy improves, perhaps, Mexico can develop jobs that will allow its best and brightest to stay in Mexico.

death of a playgoer

I was just about to make a promise I know I cannot keep.


I was about to promise this was my last post with "death" in the title. But that would have been a lie.


I have been obsessed with death since I was at least four. When my brother and I moved our mother out of her last house, I found an Irish Linen stationery pad. The pages were littered with the scrawl of a 4-year old writing his first two stories.


The first was about Dr. Bunny, who owned a dummy bunny. He spilled grape juice on the dummy and left on vacation. The police looked in the window and saw the dead "Dr. Bunny." They arrested the housekeeper for murder and electrocuted her. The end.


The second was about a boy whose mother baked him a rabbit-shaped cake for his fourth birthday (a somewhat more autobiographical tale). During the night, the cake bunny made a wish to be a live cake bunny. The cake bunny fairy godmother (apparently, it is a very specialized union) granted the wish. The cake bunny was attacked by rats, who devoured it. The end.


In the 1950s, the stories were prized as imaginative. In the 2000s, the child would be popped into years of therapy until he climbed a clock tower to settle scores.


But that is not the real topic of this post. Last Friday I scheduled dinner with Cynthia and Mike -- as you all know. I thought I was supposed to attend a performance of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman -- not one of my favorite plays -- on that same evening. "Attention must be paid" may be a fine sentiment, but a full play it does not make.


I started looking around for someone who might want to warm my season seat and who is not prone to being depressed by the turgid prose of Mr. Marilyn Monroe. It was just as well that I could not find anyone who met both criteria -- because my ticket was for the prior Friday.

That chronological handicap was consistent with another incident last week. In a meeting, I told my colleagues that we needed to get to work on revising some projections before the end of the year because we only had three months left. They just stared at me. I thought the current month was October.


As my time in Oregon begins to wind down, I suspect that I will have a few more of these time warps. And for those of you who said I did not need a list, this is why I need one.


Near the end of Annie Hall, Alvy and Annie, after breaking up, are dividing up their books. Alvy pulls out a copy of Denial of Death and nostalgically reminds Annie that it was the first book he bought her. She responds: "Right. Geez, I feel like there's a great weight off my back."


I have always loved that scene. Maybe this move I will be able to toss several of those books in the box that remains in the past -- just like Dr. Bunny and the gnawed cake bunny.

two more down

That sigh you heard all the way to Tegucigalpa was one of relief.


This weekend, I completed two items on my moving to Mexico checklist.


The first involved my federal service retirement. My checks were to start this month. On Saturday, I received a letter itemizing what my first check will net me, and what each subsequent check will be. As soon as the first check is deposited in my current bank account, I will contact Citibank (Banamex) to open the American side of my Mexican account. (See #8 and #9 -- paper money and money paper .)


That was the easy task this weekend. The more time-consuming portion was checked off this morning: my sermon at church. The topic was chosen for me. Our pastors are going to present a 10-week series of sermons based on Max Lucado's 3:16 -- Numbers of Hope. My assignment was to present an introduction and an overview.


Simple? Sure. But you all know me well enough that I can take a simple assignment and turn it into the Manhattan Project. I did far too much research, reworking, and rewriting during the past week. I was moving paragraphs around right up to the moment I stood up to deliver my sermon.


Sermon is probably not the correct term. I am a teacher, not a preacher. But I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity. And it went well.


I believe I have mentioned the English-speaking church in Melaque. (That is it at the top of this post.) I have already made quite a few contacts in my two visits there. I will undoubtedly have more opportunities to keep my teaching skills honed.


And now -- back to the list -- after a nap.