Not to be a gossip (ha ha) but the other day I heard some chisme (gossip) from a fairly reliable source.
Turns out he had attended a breakfast meeting for local businessmen put on by Xavier (PAN) to garner support for his campaign. At some point during the breakfast, donations were asked for and received, in the form of envelopes with money inside them handed to someone there.
Kinda reminds me of the Sopranos.
For those of you still reading, my Not-The-News has once again been updated. You can read it by clicking on the Apr/May 2007 button at www.not-the-news.com . There you will see that it’s not all negative and critical. Most is, but not all. If you are one of the lucky millions that hasn’t read the back issues, those are located at www.geocities.com/elmaloso.geo.
Enyoy!
(Espanish Version) Si eres de esas curiosas personas de muy buen gusto que todavia leen lo que se me va ocurriendo, puedes disfrutar la ultima actualizacion haciendo clic en el botón que dice Abr/Mayo en www.not-the-news.com Verás que no todo es critica. Mucho, pero no todo. Para articulos de gran interés para los que disfrutan el vivir en Yucatán, los archivos anteriores a este 2007 están en www.geocities.com/elmaloso.geo
Thanks and lets all vote for Cholo on Sunday!
Yucatecans both local and imported are suffering from election campaign overload, and we can all be thankful that it will come to an end very soon.
You can´t see the trees or the walls of the city – or anything else for that matter – thanks to the virtual wallpapering of Merida with visual election propaganda. The TV and radio are also crammed with ads for the two main candidates from the PAN and PRI party.
Luckily for me, I don´t watch local TV (definitely pena ajena material) so I am not subjected to the assault as are some of Yucatan’s less fortunate citizens who, without the dish providing them with Sky, can only tune in those channels. And the radio, well I cannot thank Steve Jobs enough for coming up with the iPod, which in turn led to iTunes which led to Podcasts.
I think everyone misses the sight of trees without a purple and orange ‘X’ on them and listening to Fernando Ayora mangling English band names on 97.7. I can’t wait to see the trees again but I won’t be tuning in Merida’s worst radio station any time soon…
In a previous post on the Yucatan gubernatorial (is that even a word?) candidates, I don’t think I mentioned Cholo aka Hector Herrera, a regional comic/comedian who has been doing regional theater (read extremely local humor) for years now.
Some US ranting for those of you still under the misconception that I only go on about silly things in the formerly white city of Merida.
I just heard, perhaps somewhat belatedly, that the FBI (USA) has admitted to sending out tens of thousands of National Security Letters to individuals who own businesses or organizations in which they request information on clients of those businesses or ogranizations. The letter, which was approved as an integral tool to be used under the slightly fascist Patriot Act, also comes with a gag order which means that the person receiving it cannot reveal to anyone (gilfriend, wife, parent, best friend) under the threat of an undisclosed punishment.
Does this sound a little scary or is it just me? How can those of you living in the US live with this kind of police state? And how in the world can you call the US the land of the free?
How could I forget Ana Rosa Payan? I apologize to her and all the avid readers of this blog who wrote to remind me that she was also contending in the upcoming gubernatorial race. Is that a word, I wonder?
Personally, I still think that Ana Rosa is, among all the mediocre contenders scrabbling to get their flacid buttocks into the Governor’s chair, the only one who actually has any cojones.
On the other hand, were I able to actually cast a vote, it would be for Cholo, whose campaign slogan is “Mas vale Cholo, que mal acompañado”. Loosely translated, this means that it’s better to go it alone, than accompanied by questionable character. And the ‘alone’ part (solo, in spanish) is changed to Cholo. Clever.
Much more so than the asinine, vapid promises and slogans of the PAN and PRI parties. These are (Xavier, PAN) “Te Va a ir Mejor”. In english: “You’ll be Better Off”. Is this original or what? No candidate anywhere has ever said that before! And is it saying that we are not doing so well now? According to who? A little presumptuous, I think. He promises ‘more jobs’, ‘more investment in rural areas’ and ‘better wages’ too. Will Yucatecans really fall for such empty, unreasonable and unfeasible blatherings? Is he really that boring and unoriginal?
The PRI is of course in the same boat, making the same promises, just phrased a little differently. While the PAN is admitting that things are not as good as they could be (and they themselves have been in power for the last few terms, hello) the PRI’s claim to fame is that they have a fresh face on the cover of their recycled pulp fiction paper back and that this is all it will take because she (Yvonne) has ‘passion for the Yucatan’.
So back to Cholo, who was recently photographed, broom in hand, sweeping the sidewalk in front of his campaign office. If you really want someone different, someone who really loves the Yucatan and will shake things up a bit, this would be your candidate.
For Governor of Yucatan, these are the candidates.
The names are in order of money being wasted on their “campaigns” complete with stupid, cliché’d, completely untrue and vague slogans and promises.
Actually this applies to the first two, since I actually haven’t seen anything from the PRD candidate, Cholo.
Another reason to vote for him!
And when I say original format, I am being facetious since my ‘formatting’ abilities are extremely limited.
As you may know, this blog was started as I looked around for a way to continue my neurotic ramblings on life in Merida after Geocities/Yahoo informed me that the ‘free’ space I had was rapidly filling up.
Doing a quick check on the internet last week, I found that the name “not-the-news.com” had been dropped by someone and was now available. I snatched the name and committed myself to a longer relationship with the folks at Yahoo, hosting the site there and actually paying them.
In other words, NotTheNews will continue there, as opposed to all those other options I was trying to juggle (elmaloso.com, this blog, the old Geocities site). All the archives are still at www.geocities.com/elmaloso.geo and all the new stuff will be located at www.not-the-news.com from this moment on (as Shania Twain would say).
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to email me.
One of the joys of living in Mérida, is the abundance of religious activity and hypocrisy one can observe in everyday life. From the local newspaper’s “Religion” section, which mentions, for the most part, only one religion (catholicism, of course) to the charming rituals that make the country as a whole so much more backward.
This month features the post-carnaval period of repentance. Isn’t it fun how you can completely misbehave during carnaval and then, by repenting and following the little rules the church has set out for you, can feel completely absolved of any wrongdoing! If only life was so simple.
The little anecdote you are about to read happened to a person close to me who shall remain nameless. Hopefully you will enjoy it.
Wednesday is class day at the Marista. The Marista, for those of you not in the know, is a college/university here in sunny Mérida run by some religious folks known as the Marista Brothers. This is not a local tropical music group, but yet another permutation of a catholic group with special beliefs that make them, well, special. Now this particular Wednesday is extra-special, because it is the Wednesday after Carnaval, which means “ash” Wednesday! Ash Wednesday is when someone from the religious hierarchy smears ashes on the foreheads of the believers, in an act that supposedly shows how repentant you are and all that nonsense.
The class is in full swing, when suddenly the door opens abrubtly and in walks a little man – un hermano (not a priest but a brother, and no he’s not black) who unceremoniously announces that the time has come to get your forehead smeared with ashes he has brought in what looks like an unlabelled plastic yoghurt container. Note that he hasn’t uttered any of the normal pleasantries associated with human interaction such as Good Morning, Excuse the Interruption, Hello, or Catholic Unite Against the Muslim Infidel. No, he just threw open the door and waltzed right in.
No one seems to mind however, and everyone listens patiently as he drones on in a quiet mumbling voice. When asked who would like to have their foreheads annointed with the ashes of dubious origin in his little container, the great majority of the sheep baa approvingly and stand in line.
But it doesn’t end just yet. There is an evangelio to be read and Little Hermano asks who would like to read it. Of course, the one person in the class whom everyone can’t stand because she interrupts the class by shouting into her cellphone which she ‘forgets’ to turn off and is generally obnoxious is the one whose hand shoots up and she proceeds to read the evangelio in question.
The evangelio chosen is particularly interesting for those of us who believe that the most vociferous of the religous are such hypocrites, as it dealt with the concept of celebrating your faith in private, not making a spectacle of your beliefs, not showing off your devotion in public, etc. which is what the whole morning’s spectacle has been about!
Again, no one seemed to notice, nor did they offer up any resistance when the LB (little brother, remember?) went on at some length about the sacrifices of the cuaresma and how he couldn’t get over the Yucatecan´s (he is Spanish) love for cochinita and that eating chicken was not a sacrifice and that you could eat all the seafood you wanted but not meat and that included chicken by golly and that there was so much sex and eroticism in the world today and and and.
While he was doing his little number about the chicken and the sacrifices, the afore-mentioned evangelio-reading lady had positioned herself next to the refreshments table and was happily – and completely oblivious to what the hermanito was droning on about sacrificing things you love during the holy cuaresma – enjoying a tamal.
She was hungry, after all.
To those of you still reading after all these years, THANK YOU and my wish for everyone is to have a peaceful and satisfying holiday season. It is very gratifying to know that I have made even the smallest difference in some of my reader’s lives, whether it was helping them find a great restaurant or convincing them that Merida, in spite of all its’ interesting quirks, would be a great place to buy a house, renovate it and enjoy all the many good things that the formerly white city offers.