send in the clowns

The circus is in town.

Well, the rump circus is in town.

Mexico was once well-known for its circuses. Acrobats. Wild animals. Clowns. They would regularly roll into town with loudspeakers blaring followed by the inevitable parade of zebras and llamas through the streets.

It was not even remarkable to see an elephant on your walk to church. Circuses were as much a part of the Mexican culture as tortillas.

No more. Almost two years ago, Mexico outlawed exotic animals in circuses. For the animals, it meant a mass slaughter of hundreds of lions and tigers in a valley just outside of Mexico City. For the circuses, it meant adapt or die.

A lot of the small shows have died. Others have adapted. This winter one of the "new circuses" showed up in Barra de Navidad. It was essentially a variety show under a big top. Think of Ed Sullivan meets Oral Roberts.

This week another incarnation has shown up -- on the highway in Jaluco. I call it the rump circus -- because it is just a remainder of an old circus. The animals are gone. As are the acrobats.

All that is left are three clowns. I remember seeing their act a couple of years ago when they were with a small family circus that stopped in Villa Obregon.

Mexicans love their clowns. And so do I -- to a degree. Physical clowning is universal. And funny.

Where I get lost is in the dialogue. And it is just not my lack of Spanish vocabulary that defeats me.

Clowns create three language difficulties for me. 1) They talk too fast. 2) They speak in clown voices that are designed to be more hilarious than communicative. 3) And this is the greatest problem: their jokes are steeped in Mexican slang and culture.

Even if I were fluent in the Spanish clown tongue, that third difficulty would continue to defeat me. Humor and wit find their roots in national cultures. If you do not know the culture, you will not get the humor. Or, as Johnny Carson would have it: "If you buy the premise, you buy the bit."

There is a canard that Germans do not have a sense of humor. They do. But if you are not German, you might find it difficult, while everyone around you in the Munich beer hall are roaring, to understand what is so funny about: "This man was walking down the street and fell down ripping his pants. And they were new trousers."

Nor can everyone understand the wit of the English with their subtle twists: "True friends stab you in the front." Or any of the Monte Python pieces.

My friend Julio and I were discussing The Simpsons this morning. Even though he is a Mexican citizen, he has a very good grasp of American culture; he spent a good portion of his youth in Utah.

The Simpsons is quintessentially American humor. There are very few programs that have found the soft underbelly of the American dream, and then disemboweled it so methodically. I have often wondered how such an ethnocentric program could be translated into another language and still maintain the humor.

According to Julio, it can't be done. Or, at least, in the case of The Simpsons, it hasn't been done. The funniest parts seem to drift off.

In high school, I used what I had learned in my Latin vocabulary to write what is still one of my favorite English puns: "Have you heard about the left-handed gambler who was known for his sinister dexterity?" It is one of those jokes you immediately get (accompanied by riotous laughter) or you don't.

So, I will probably give the clowns a miss while they are in town. Did you hear the one about three clowns who walk into an empty tent --- ?

dining out on false news

And though he really knowsA multitude of things
They're mostly wrong

I should have that adage chiseled in the concrete above my work station. The line is from Bock-Harnick's The Apple Tree. Eve is attempting to explain how she could possibly love Adam in "What Makes Me Love Him?"

The line came to mind this morning and saved me a lot of embarrassment. Let me explain.

Yesterday, I was heading upstairs with a limb lopper to trim off one of the bothersome flowers on my Queen Anne palms (bring forth the guillotine). The stairwell has several small niches for recessed lighting. As I passed by the last one, I saw something large dart past me down the stairs.

My first reaction was it was a coachwhip snake. Earlier in the week, Antonio, The Pool Guy, had encountered one next door. He was convinced it was about six feet long.

That is possible. They do grow that long. And they are fast.

But it was not a snake. It was a lizard. A black spiny-tailed iguana, to be more specific. Probably a young female. I had discovered one of her newborns in a pail on the upstairs terrace.

And this is where The Apple Tree lyrics came to my rescue.

A year or two ago, I was breakfasting with an expatriate friend. He told me he had recently discovered what we call black iguanas are not iguanas, at all. Only the green iguanas, which are also very common here, are iguanas. The "black iguana" is merely a lizard.

Now, I had always believed the green and black were two different types of iguanas. But I believed that because that is what I had been told. I was now being told something quite different.

One of my chief rules in life is to constantly doubt what I know. After all, if I test it and find it wanting, it should be discarded.

My friend had received his information from his Mexican gardener. And a quick internet search back then came up with the same answer: black iguanas are not iguanas.

When I sat down to write this essay, I knew there would be skeptics amongst you. After all, so was I when I first heard that bit of revisionism. The solution was simple: I looked for the article to support my position.

I could not find it. What I did find was source after source (all of them authoratative) that described the black iguana as an iguana. Like the green iguana, it is in the Family Iguanidae. But the similarity splits there.

The two types have different genus and species. The black iguana is Ctenosaura similis. The green iguana is Iguana iguana. (Maybe it is that Walla Walla styling that gives the green iguana some precedence in being called the sole iguana.)

My research did uncover two interesting bits of trivia. Black iguanas make terrible pets; they are inveterate biters. But they taste much better than green iguanas. It appears one good bite deserves another.

When I started this piece, I was in Full Smug mode. After all, I had the opportunity to share a bit of nature news that was not well-known. And, had I not done my due diligence, I would be eating crow by this evening when a number of you had snoped me.

If I want to pass along some non-conformance tales, I will just have to fiollow Mark Twain's advice: "I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened."

I will leave it to you to be the judge.

a life well-shared

Life repeatedly teaches us the same lessons. Sometimes, we learn. Sometimes, we don't.

One of those lessons is that everyone who touches our lives has some lasting effect on us. And that effect may not be apparent until long after they have left our lives.

This morning, I read in The Oregonian of the death of Roberta B. "Robbie" Bocci. I am at that age where I at least scan the obituaries -- just checking if anyone I know has recently died. Inevitably, I see a familiar name. Usually, friends of my mother.

"Robbie" Bocci was not a friend of my mother. She was a woman who briefly slipped past my life in the early 1990s. And, in that passage, there is a story.

I ran for the Oregon legislature in 1988. It was a close-run affair, but, in the end, I lost. I also lost my law partnership.

I was absent from the firm for almost a full year campaigning for a job I probably did not really want. But that absence convinced my law partner that the "and" in "Cotton and Gray" should be erased. We divided up the goods, and I was on my way.

1989 was my wandering year. I briefly opened a practice with a large house-moving firm as my primary client. But, most of the year, I flew around the world acting as an adjunct attorney in various Air Force offices. By the end of that year, I found a job I would keep for the rest of my professional career.

I was just getting my feet on the ground in my new job when I received one of the most dreaded letters an American can receive. The IRS wanted to audit my income tax return for 1989.

That was not a surprise. The IRS always has an eye out for income-dodging professions -- doctors and lawyers are amongst that lot. And my major change in income undoubtedly caused a red flag to raise.

The letter very kindly informed me I could bring my tax preparer with me. Unfortunately, I had prepared my return myself in the false hope of saving money. It was the most difficult return I had ever completed.

So, I gathered up my boxes of records and drove to Portland for the audit appointment. The auditor was "Robbie" Bocci.

She was incredibly professional and thorough. As we walked through my return line by line, she would ask me for any record that supported the amount listed. I discovered my record-keeping had been rather lax.

As she plodded through each entry, I started calculating just how much I was going to owe in taxes. When I went past $10,000, I stopped adding.

She must have known what was going through my head because she very kindly reassured me that this was just a preliminary review and that I could bring in any additional documentation. There was something almost maternal about her approach. I now suspect it was empathic. Her son, with whom I was acquainted, was an attorney.

After almost two hours, I felt drained. But Mrs. Bocci, while retaining her professionalism, kept smiling to let me know, that even if I ended up owing a wad of cash to the federal government, life would go on.

I never did find any additional documents. I just waited for the inevitable dunning letter to arrive in my postal box.

It did. Six months later. As I opened the envelope, I started calculating how I would arrange a payment schedule.

The letter was brief. The audit was complete, and I owed -- nothing. I must have re-read the letter five times before it truly sank in that I was free.

Mrs. Bocci has long been in my memory. She was the perfect public servant. I would like to say I am not so mercenary as to color her memory through the filter of the "no amoiunt due" letter. But I am not. On some things, I can be a very small man.

But, I am also honest enough to remember her as the very essence of fairness. Her virtue was not only one we appreciate in public employees, it is one that we should cherish when we find it in the people who cross our paths daily. They all leave their hand prints on our lives.

To her family, I pass on my condolences. She is a woman to be remembered.

missing dora

Gentlemen, start your wind machines. Hurricane season is here.

The last few days, we have had scattered showers with minor thunderstorms. Some of my acquaintances have blamed them on a hurricane that is a couple hundred miles off shore. But the weathermen are more nuanced in their approach. There may have been some tangential effect, but very little.

The storm's name is Dora. (I am always a bit startled when I recognize these storm names. Dora, of course, is the woman who helps me clean the house with no name.) She (the storm, not Dora the cleaner) has now passed north of us and should be blowing her way toward Hawaii in a couple of days.

But, here we are, still in June, and we have had our fourth named cyclone off the western coast of Mexico. And not one has yet been good enough to bring us a major dousing of rain.

The local farmers complain about the lack of rain last year. And this year is no better. We have not had rain since December -- with the exception of the dribbles this past week. More than a few of the farmers wished Dora to play a closer visit -- without moving in too close. She did not oblige.

It is not unusual for the Hurricane Weather Center map to show a new storm brewing in the Gulf of Tehuantepec whenever a storm passes by us. This morning, the map is as empty as a Kathy Griffin monologue.

 I guess we will just have to wait for Ernie or Filia -- or, even, Godot.

summer is here

Yes. Yes. I know. That sounds as if I am ignorant enough to have missed that little solstice we had five days ago.

But summer can start with a number of events. For school kids, it is summer vacation. For astronomers, it is the summer solstice. But, around here it is the temperature of my pool water.

One of the reasons I bought this house was to have a place where I could read, eat meals, and cool down. The pool serves those functions all year. This is the first place I have lived where swimming outdoors in the winter was something other than seeking my inner polar bear.

During the winter, the temperature of the pool hovers in the low and mid-80s. Perfect temperatures for some brisk exercise or to cut the heat of the day.

I know summer is here when the pool thermometer records 90 degrees. And, it did yesterday afternoon. I twiddled my day away in the pool. 90 is a practically perfect temperature to do whatever you like in the water.

But, it will not stay at 90. As the air temperatures rise in the summer, the temperature of the pool water will accompany it. In the case of the pool, it usually tops out around 98. At that temperature, it is still possible to cool off. In August, I actually feel a bit chilly when I get out of the pool.

One reason I chose not to live in the highlands of Mexico was the inability to use an outdoor pool year round. Some wag will probably point out, pools are not necessary in the mountains; the climate is so pleasant, there is no need for the obligations that follow concrete ponds.

Rather than indulge in that fruitless conversation, I am taking my Kindle and a glass of ice water to the pool -- where the proof is in the paddling.

walking on the slant

I thought I had had a stroke.

While walking on our local bike-jogging path, I was listing notably to port. It felt as if my ballast had shifted.

A closer look at the path reassured me. I was not stroking out. The path had a slant.

Admittedly, as you can tell from the photograph, the slant is subtle. Certainly, not as bad as the slope of our beaches that are steep enough to confound a Swiss cow. But it was noticeable enough that it slowed down my walking pace. More as a matter of interest, than as an impediment.

The path has turned out to be one of the best local government infrastructure improvements. Bikers, skaters, runners, joggers, walkers. It gets used all day -- and often by people who are simply commuting to and from jobs.

If it has a flaw, it is its foundation. We are on the beach. The beach means sand. And that is what the path rests upon. Sand. Or, rather, a combination of dirt, gravel, and sand. And because we usually get our fair share of water from the sky, the foundation has shifted. So has the path. It has a slant.

Up until earlier this week, "slant" was one of those words that those of us in polite society had learned years ago not to use -- even in the privacy of one's own bedroom. It was one of those words that has a very acceptable use (just as I have used it in the paragraphs above). But it also was a vulgarity for an ethnic group.

An Asian-American rock group decided it wasn't going to play that game. They wanted "to reclaim a term that was seen as a slur." So, they named themselves, not too subtly, The Slants, and applied for trademark protection with the federal government.

The Patent and Trademark Office threw itself in front of this Orient Express and said "stop." There has been a long-standing regulation that a trademark cannot be issued if it "[c]onsists of or comprises immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute." The federal pearl clutchers thought Slants disparaged Asians.

The Slants responded it was their slur and that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution allowed them to slur themselves. And, in that argument, was buried a poison pill for the vestigal virgins who protect us all from our own natures by telling us what we can and cannot say.

The Supreme Court, as you undoubtedly know, has now decided The Slants are correct. But the decision is nowhere near as interesting as the court's reasoning. The poison pill is loose.

Justice Alioto's opinion hones in on the nature of the dispute:

[The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”

The distinction is important. Even speech that is hateful is protected by the First Amendment. But that is not a surprise for anyone who has studied the jurisprudence of the First Amendment. Free speech is far more than allowing only speech that is popular.

Justice Kennedy, in his never-ending search for pragmatic remedies, got to the nub of the matter.

A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an “egregious form of content discrimination,” which is “presumptively unconstitutional.” ... A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

There it is. In a free society, we do not react as the fascists and authoritarians of Cuba, China, Russia, or Venezuela do. We do not attempt to control ideas through legal restrictions. We believe that free and open discourse will lead to the truth. That is the very philosophy behind the First Amendment.

And it is the very antithesis of attempting to control opinions with the label "hate speech." The speech codes on many campuses, designed to carve out a "safe space" for students incapable of hearing opposing views, certainly are not part of the Supreme Court's announced philosophy. (And, yes, I do know that private colleges are not protected by the First Amendment.)

I have always been a liberal on matters of free speech. I remember being scandalized in high school when we studied the Supreme Court's 1940 flag salute case -- along with carving out other rather broad exceptions to the amendment's protection. It was there that I learned that anyone who says "I support free speech, but --" is really saying they support freedom of expression if they happen to agree with the expression.

Until last night, I had decided not to write an essay on this topic, even though I consider it to be one of the Supreme Court's most important decisions. What changed my mind was a movie.

I wanted to watch something funny. The choice was easy. Blazing Saddles. One of Mel Brooks's best movies. The movie never fails to lift my spirits because of its outrageousness.

Last night was no exception. I laughed my way through most of the movie.

And then it happened. When Sheriff Bart offers the help of the railroad workers to save the town from destruction (in exchange for a plot of land), Mayor Olson responds: "We'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks ... but we don't want the Irish."

Offensive? You bet. Hateful? Without question. Should the words be banned by the government? Only if we decide we are capable of building windows into men's souls.

I cannot imagine the movie surviving on many American college campuses -- or even being shown in some cities. Simply because of those two words.

The irony is that Mel Brooks specifically used those words to unmask prejudice, and then to disarm it with humor. Doing exactly what Justice Kennedy has described as the remedy to hate -- "our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society."

Now, I know the Margaret Dumonds of the world will not be happy until every sentiment that makes some people uncomfortable is shunted away in the closet. That road leads to masking the piano legs with doilies.

Rather than gasping and rioting, let's accept the conservative tenet that there is evil in the world and that it, like the poor, will always be with us. But let's marry it up with Justice Kennedy's liberal assumption that truth in a democratic society can be arrived at only through free and open discussion.

The Slants may even write a song about it. I'll bet some of the words may even offend someone. 

these shoes were made for walking

And I think this pair has just about worn out their welcome.

Or their welcome has just about worn them out. That sock-clad pinkie toe is proof enough that these shoes are about to take a short trip to the dust bin.

The hole surprised me. Admittedly, our streets are a bit rough on walking wear. Between sand, dirt, cobblestones, uneven curbs, and various sharp and pointy things, my little village does not coddle my shoes.

And this pair seems as if they are new. Just six months out of the box and they are about to meet their unmaker.

If I have counted correctly, this is my fourth pair of walking shoes since I started my exercise regimen in August two years ago. (You may recall that my initiation into walking was accompanied by three hospitalizations for cellulitis.)

But this pair of shoes has accompanied me on each of my journeys this year. My visit from my brother and sister (and nine other guests), my cruise around Australia and New Zealand, my trip to Colombia, my extended stay in Oregon, and lots of steps here in Barra de Navidad.

I was curious how many miles I have put on them during these six months. And, thanks to the wonders of electronics through my smartphone and my Gear Fit, I know the answer to that question. 1,867 miles.

To put that in perspective, that is further than the distance between Barra de Navidad and Los Angeles. Admittedly, it took me six months to rack up those miles. But it is a lot of walking steps. And I am quite proud of the accomplishment.

When I was in Oregon last month, I bought another pair of walking shoes. I am breaking them in gradually in the hope I can avoid a reprise of my bed rest days in cellulitis land.

But my new shoes will undoubtedly figure in another "I have not come to praise shoesers, but to bury them" in a mere few months.

The good news is that I am daily getting out to see areas of Barra de Navidad I have not previously explored. My favorites are the farm roads through the fields where men with real jobs do something to keep our little village running.

I have re-discovered how much I enjoy exercise. Well, exercise of my choosing. Just as long as it does not involve other people.

A friend in San Miguel de Allende sent me an email this morning about ticket information for the music festival in August. Maybe I will walk there.

Just for a change.