Well I slept on it (yesterday’s post was written at midnight and in a rush of indignation) but this morning I find myself still a tad worked up over this ‘new’ mobile phone registry news item.

I found a better link on the subject on the news site for Milenio. You can read it (in Spanish, of course) here.

The federal government, through the Secretaria de Gobernacion (SEGOB) and its’ Registro Nacional de Población or RENAPO (don’t you love all the initials!) will be charged with the safekeeping of your personal information. Fear not, Big Brother conspiracy theorists, it’s all in good hands.

Meanwhile the cell phone companies, such as TelCel, IUSACel and MoviStar will be responsable for ‘control and storage’ of your calls and text messages. I am sure you are relieved to know that this information is being stored on your behalf. I know I am.

You have until April 10th next year to register your phone; if you don’t, your phone line will be de-activated.

I am not so much concerned with my personal information being in a databse; that’s already a given, whether I live here, in Saskatoon or in Phoenix. It’s just that this measure, which is supposed to combat crime, and the way they are implementing it, is so onerous and full of loopholes so as to make it useless. And more intrusion by government into our private lives.

Of course we are in Mexico, dear reader(s) and so there is a very substantial possibility that this law will be struck down once the deadline looms near. Remember that mega-million dollar airport project near Mexico City that was cancelled by machete-waving campesinos. Think of all those tenencia, agua potable, predial and other deadlines (deadlines!) that were extended and then extended some more. The discounts given to those who pay their government bills late. If enough people don’t register and/or protest, this new law may also just be ‘postponed’ indefinitely.

So I wouldn’t rush out just yet to register anything.

It seems that when it comes to Draconian laws that infringe on your privacy, the United States (Patriot Act) is not the only country to come up with new ways to create more bureaucracy and poke around in your life.

The newly decreed Mobile Telephone Registry program, now officially a part of the Mexican governments’ Telecommunications Law, states that everyone who owns a cellular phone, both on a plan basis or pay as you go, will have to register the number with the ‘authorities’ who promise to keep your personal information private. Yes. Well. Give me a moment to have myself a chuckle.

The purpose of this new Big Brother law is to have everyone’s phone in a database so that if there is a crime involving a cell phone, the all-knowing, competent and completely efficient and honest authorities can trace the telephone used, back to its registered owner, thereby solving the crime! Hooray!

Anyone familiar with laws and police work in this country will probably just shake their head.

Now originally, they said they would like your name, current address, photo ID and even a fingerprint. You had to go and present your documentation to some sallow faced burocrat or some executive at your local TelCel office. Fine and dandy. That might actually have worked.

Now, however, they have made it easier for everyone and have completely defeated the purpose of the new law (matching phones with users) by stupidly introducing the text message option of registering your phone. You type in your name, date of birth and voila! Alternatively you can type in your CURP (another government ID comprised of birthday, initials and some other number or letter) Your phone is registered! Wonderful!

My question is this: HOW DIFFICULT WOULD IT BE (assuming you are one of the bad guys) TO TYPE IN SOMEONES NAME AND DATE BIRTH or another CURP (I bet there is a programmer out there that can generate fake CURPS in the hundreds) and thereby create a false registry and/or cause someone completely innocent to find themselves involved in a crime?

Does anyone else see the stupidity and the futility in this? THIS MAKES NO SENSE!

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These are my first impressions. Chances are good that there will be more later!

Can you spot the Caffeinated Kid?

In the previous post, I mentioned the camp and the rules imposed upon its’ operation by the fact that it was a School District run event and therefore had to comply with several sanitation requirements.

This camp, which was run by counsellors and Grade 12 students for Grade 7 age students, featured tents and campfires and all those things that make camp fun. Such as marshmallow roasts at night.

Or not.

My strict kitchen boss had included in her list of camp food a case of marshmallows for evening around-the-fire roasting and on the first night, issued 2 bags to the camps’ organizers for the evenings’ activities.

The next morning, one of the counselors came to the kitchen trailer where we were hard at work with hash browns, off-the-grill toast, oven sausages and scrambled eggs for 40, to return the two bags of marshmallows from the previous night. With an apologetic shrug, he announced that one of his senior counselors had decided that there were ‘safety issues’ with the idea of people sticking marshmallow mounted on sticks into a fire and perhaps ‘waving them around’ (his words).

Really.

My boss and I looked at each other incredulously and tried really really hard not to burst out laughing in this poor students’ face.

What kind of lame-ass camp doesn’t allow marshmallow roasting at night? The powers-that-be have already gone overboard with mandatory helmet regulations for bikers (bicycles, not Harleys) and their anal sanitation issues; now this? It was just too much! How did we ever get through our childhood, before Mother Government was around to dictate how we were to ‘play’?

Geez Louise!

Also on that morning, a couple (as in 3) kids asked for coffee with their breakfasts. The pot was right there at the beginning of the assembly line breakfast service.

The first kid asked for some and I replied, joking “No, this is just for adults”.

As he started to walk away, disappointed, I said in my best attempt at morning cheer, “KIDDING! We LOVE to have our kids caffeinated!” and served him a mug, adding that the addition of plenty of sugar would give him a nice early morning buzz and keep him wide awake through the mornings’ moss and lichens lecture.

A few moments later, a counselor who shall remain nameless except for his unofficial nickname of Lampshade, informed me that some of the kids were drinking coffee. He said this with the seriousness of an airport immigration officer who tells you “Come with me”

“Yes” I answered, “some kids asked for coffee and I served them a cup”

“Well” he turned to me seriously “actually they are not supposed to have coffee and it should be only for the adults”

I thought of babies drinking Coke from baby bottles in Merida, the complete opposite extreme to be sure, and quietly finished serving breakfast.

Oh, Canada, indeed.

Just back from a trip to Canada where I reluctantly was recruited to drive the fat and always cantankerous (spelling?) Casual Restaurant Critic around, I was struck by some of the rather quaint differences between life in Canada and life in Mexico observed. Here are some:

Safety First in the Kitchen – having had the opportunity to participate – albeit only on the sidelines, chopping red onions as cooks’ helper to a very strict kitchen manager – in a day camp for junior high school age children, I was able to notice the abundance of positively anal rules regarding the handling of food.

When you come from Mexico, where succulent mystery meat tacos are made and sold and eaten streetside, and delicious tamales can be discovered at the bottom of a battered (not breaded; beat up) cloth covered aluminum pot at a gas station, you are bound to be blown away by the rather hysterical regulations regarding food handling and preparation in Canada.

For one thing, the washing of dishes must be done in a commercial-grade dishwashing machine. If that is not available, there must be a three compartment sink available, one for soaking and washing in soapy, xix-filled water; another with ‘clean’ water for rinsing and finally a disinfecting sink with a chlorine solution. There are specific instructions as to water temperature, soap content, and chlorine content as well. These are located on a chart which must be posted at the sink location.

One can’t forget to leave room at the sink for the handwashing poster, which also must be posted there. It instructs one on how to properly wash hands – in a rotary motion and above the wrist and paying particular attention to fingernails – and for how long.

Refrigerator temperatures are controlled as well and must be in a certain range to ensure there is no spoilage. This brings to mind the Comercial Mexicana’s practice of laying out their raw bistek meat on tables in the supermarket, presumably beacuse it is ‘cool’ in the store, thanks to that chilly air conditioning. Of course they are concerned with your health; just look at the ham n cheese ladies: they are wearing facemasks and hairnets. While the raw meat slowly rots nearby.

My hunch is that this is less about food poisoning than it is about legal concerns. In a society where all the basic needs have been met, such as is the case in first-world Canada, people are on the lookout for a problem – any problem, real or perceived – and are willing to sue at the first sign of what they think might be something questionable.

More fun comparisons later!

In that occasionally infuriating way Mexico operates that brings out the neurotic foreigner in me, it turns out that the Gran Plaza mall is open this morning. A call to their administrative office reveals that the order from the manager/administrator is that ‘the mall opens’. This in spite of the ‘official’ statement yesterday saying that Merida malls would be close until May 6th. And you wonder why Mexicans are so cynical about anything ‘official’.

Stores/businesses open this morning in the Gran Plaza are:

• Burger King,
• Doña Gorda,
• Libreria Dante,
• CFE,
• TelCel and
• Mayan Xic.
• Kukis by Maru will open shortly, I expect.

How long will this last? Who knows! In the land of the unexpected and the Kafka-esque, ANYthing can happen! Maybe someone will sneeze and the mall will close.

Officially.

Have a great Monday!

Just a quick note to let anyone not aware of the latest local developments regarding the swine flu hysteria that the authorities have decided in their infinite wisdom to close the malls as of this afternoon and apparently until May 6 or such time as it is determined ‘safe’ to do so.

Wouldn’t want anyone to get a runny nose now, would we?

This is another nail in the coffin of the local, state and national economy. WHo stands to gain, I wonder, by propagating all this ridiculous hysteria?

It’s not Ebola for chrissake. IT’s A FLU people!!!

Anyway.

Soon they will close the beaches as a lot of people are going there since it is the only thing left to do in this scorching, dead city.

Here is the latest update as of this moment on the World Health Organizations website.

Try it and see for yourself!

Click here.

Enough posting for today?

Maybe.

Special address by the state of Yucatans’ governor here.

Here is the link to the LA Times story this morning!