I think 1 is mostly because no one has any idea what to do about it.
Yeah, I mean, 1 sort of blew up so fast, and the proximate causes are somewhat vague, from what I can gather. Obviously, decriminalizing the illicit drugs in the US would be a huge factor in solving things in Mexico.
For the second problem, I don't know what to do about that either, as it is virtually the opposite of the first, in that people seem to have been hung up on this question for thousands of years, and no matter how many self-help books come out on the subject, nobody ever wants to believe differently. Also, I am unaware of an feasible public policy solution to the issue.
As for the third, stretching and relaxing and cyclobenzaprene seems like the best combination of solutions to me. But of course that doesn't take into account having kids under 5 and all that.
1 and 2 are beyond me. For 3, I felt the same way many times back when I had to lift the boy regularly. Every growth spurt would leave my back feeling pained, but it never gave out.
This morning I was sitting on the floor with O and at one point sort of reached and bent over to lift him up. While lifting I heard and felt a sort of "pop" in the posterior portion of my right hip. I basically had to stay on the floor for half an hour before I could stand. I've been on the couch since, as any twisting and weight-putting is impossible. I would really like someone to hand deliver some Flexeril or Valium. KTHX.
(ughmoansighwailgnash)
(I am old.)
(But not max.)
Ouch. Hope that gets better overnight.
Am I dense for not seeing exactly what decriminalization does on the Mexico side of things? There would still be huge profits to be made.
Less huge, because for pot at least, the market would be swamped by US amateur growers? That's the hope, at least.
The quasi decriminalization via medical mj would seem to muddle that argument.
Regarding 3 and oud's popping body, ack! I just went running, and right at the start both of my knees hurt for just a second. Seems foreboding.
2: It is hard for people learn to live by themselves. Society puts enormous pressure on those who are not paired up. Even those who are paired up, but not married, are pressured to get married.
3. Back trouble is horrible. Good luck. I hope you find relief (medicine) soon. I try to make sure my back stays strong and flexible as I often have to lift a thrashing young lady after she has decided to break things.
My mom wrote a letter to the kids, which she taped to the back of a painting, in which she referred to Whinnie the Poo and Eor.
Also once she mispelled Jesus as Jeasus.
My back is always sore first thing in the morning, but playing soccer on the super hard ground seemed to aggravate it a lot today.
Whoa my soles are peeling. Why do your palms and soles occasionally look like they're decaying?
It's tempting to keep commenting but I'm worried I'll run through a half dozen post ideas and then regret having wasted them.
We used to talk about heebie's ass.
Now, it is her back and soles. Unfogged has aged.
1. I feel a little uncomfortable discussing the horrible violence in Mexico because I fear stoking the right-wing project of painting everything south of the Rio Grande as a looming, teeming, invading Mordor.
2. As pressures go, the pressure to find love and, crucially, to make more of it than a consumer's passing fancy (cough Kardashian wedding cough) or something you do when you're not at work (cough all those magazine stories commanding women to marry their jobs and never look back cough) seems benign. Of course, one writes that from a thwarted, bitter posture.
3. Pain is weakness leaving the body. Have you considered seeing a physical therapist to learn some preventive exercises/practices?
Oh man, sympathies to the various wounded.
I'd say the focus on finding love is problematically disproportionate. Figuring out how to live happily single is important, figuring out how to remain happily partnered is also important. Moving from one state to the other, actually finding someone to be together with, is a huge deal for people who are going through that process, but it gets attention as if it's the most important thing in a life, which it really shouldn't be.
24: Maybe the human mind has evolved into a shape that appreciates the quest narrative more than the "let's build a space for ourselves in a larger community that reflects our mutually-held values while according others the respect of hearing their views on matters of the common good" one.
As for 2, I think the longing to love and be loved is universal. I suppose the impulse to invest that longing so near-exclusively in the idea of romantic love is not unrelated to the difficulty expressing intimacy outside romantic relationships.
25: And that enrages me. Where, in the bookstores, are the shelves of Procedural Conflict-Resolution novels, with mistily portrayed pastel covers showing committee meetings? I'm tempted to write a sternly worded letter with supporting evidence to the proper authorities.
Secondary guy from Community
Magnitude doesn't even know his own name?
28: Aren't there a few SF writers, the chief virtue of whose works, if the Internet is to be believed, is that they don't let the siren songs of spaceships, rayguns and monsters entice them away from their depictions of committees, coalitions and Marxism?
All the politically aware SF writers I can think of are suckers for the ray-guns and spaceships. Pure reports of properly organized consensus-building through a system of public comments and openly run meetings are thin on the ground.
I blame the cartels controlling the publishing industry.
Where, in the bookstores, are the shelves of Procedural Conflict-Resolution novels, with mistily portrayed pastel covers showing committee meetings?
Even in some of the closest approximations I can think of---say, David Lodge novels that are partly about politicking in academia---it seems like two-thirds of the plot is about sex.
Where, in the bookstores, are the shelves of Procedural Conflict-Resolution novels
Those are in the utopian community section, duh. Also in the dystopian/ecological/ecotopia section. Also the anarchism/hippie section. Cross-filing is difficult.
||
I really hate spending all day in the office on a weekend. I'm going home now, and I don't care if not everything's done. I'll get in early tomorrow. Feh.
|>
Those are in the utopian community section, duh. Also in the dystopian/ecological/ecotopia section. Also the anarchism/hippie section.
I must go to the wrong bookstores.
Amen to 36. I also feel that way about having to stay late at work, which I have to do a lot this coming week and I totally resent it.
The strange thing about the idea that life starts when you find your romantic partner is that most of the stories we see in movies and TV end when people find each other.
There is housekeeping wanted above but I really don't feel like standing up and moving to a computer.
37: Proper bookstores are few and far between these days. Natilo has a good list of books for those interested.
On the back pain front, what Flip said in 22.3 (the physical therapist part).
Re: marijuana and Mexico, RAND believes that marijuana is probably only about 15-26% of Mexican drug traffickers' revenues, so even full national legalization of marijuana wouldn't make a big difference.
Somewhat apropos the love thing, I'm watching Deathly Hallows Part I, and it was just the scene where Harry and Hermione dance. It's just pure, platonic affection.
Anyhoo. Really just love that scene.
39: Life is meaningless beforehand and boring after. A bleak picture.
Oh, all stages can be boring and meaningless.
Life is like physical therapy: do a bunch of uncomfortable exercises and if you're lucky, your back won't go out. As often.
Or maybe physical therapy is like physical therapy.
Hawaiian punch really loves watching rocky horror videos on youtube. We've just a jumped to the left a lot lately.
Boring gets such a bad rap. I like boring.
Unfortunately she also likes this dumb time warp flash mob video from Oklahoma.
42: Losing a quarter of revenue seems like it could damage any economy.
51: Possibly making everybody more shooty to gain the remaining 75%.
36: I went to the bar. I have jury duty tomorrow so there is no reason not to be hung over.
Decriminalization of pot, as opposed to full legalization, would probably benefit the cartels. Without strict sourcing controls, they just take over supply to the dispensaries (as has already apparently happened in California, where decriminalization has also already effectively happened).
I agree that (1) is baffling. There is a humanitarian and political crisis on a massive scale just hundreds of miles from major US cities. I think part of the problem is that people don't realize that until recenty Mexico was a pretty safe and prosperous country (in world terms, not US affluent suburb terms).
On 3, I've had very good luck with chiropractors, although I'm sure someone will now attack the mystical woo.
44: Life is meaningless beforehand and boring after. A bleak picture.
Survived the former and don't plan to be around for the latter; it don't worry me.
I'm not getting carded at all lately. Do I suddenly look a lot older? Though the guy at the airport doing the new security-questioning thing this morning somehow misunderstood me and took me to be a college freshman.
58 to, I don't know, Moby going to a bar?
I feel like the popularity of 2666 has something to say about 1, but I'm not sure what since I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
You look older but mostly in a wiser kind of way.
22: There is a guy in here with a t-shirt saying "Pain is weakness leaving the body."
63: Sweat pants, a shaved head, and a Livestrong bracelet already told me that.
Fucking talking sweat pants, follow me everywhere.
19: Used to happen to me whenever I got my feet wet for a long enough period of time (generally by stepping in a deep puddle when I was out and about).
Now I use overshoes and haven't been troubled since.
19 is athlete's foot but nobody wants to say so.
What? Athlete's foot is it itchy. This isn't.
the notion that life starts when you find your romantic partner
I find this curious: the quest for love? or just someone for tonight? And then you have kids life's over again, now it's all about the kids. 20-25 years later you look around and ask yourself, where'd I put me?
You may ask yourself "How did I get here?"
You may ask yourself "Did I really see what I think I saw?"
Decriminalization of pot, as opposed to full legalization, would probably benefit the cartels. Without strict sourcing controls, they just take over supply to the dispensaries (as has already apparently happened in California, where decriminalization has also already effectively happened).
This could certainly happen in theory, but I don't think it's happened in Northern California, at least. (Mexico doesn't have much of a competitive advantage in hydro.)
73: No worries, I'm sure you had a good reason.
69: It isn't always itchy at the start of peeling.
Is that drunk man bothering you?
I suppose if the skin between your toes in intact, there is a chance that you aren't having your skin eaten by a fungus.
Anyway, I left the bar and went home. Therefore, I'm not drunk.
66.1.last: generally by stepping in a deep puddle when I was out and about
Doctor Benquo went to Muravlenko,
In a shower of rain;
He stepped in a mudhole,
Right up to his piddle,
And never went there again.
My toes are pristine. Just some decay and a recurrent ingrown toenail spot.
If a leopard could change his toes, there would be no toenail spot.
Astronomers wonder what is happeningon your anus.
83: Toenail spot? What toenail spot?
It's been awhile since I complained that my back still hurts.
(1.) I don't think we have good models for how not to be coupled up. In my work, one of the goals is to help people live more independently, preferably in an apartment on their own. Mostly we're talking about public housing. If you live in public housing or section 8 housing, the only people who can live with you are blood relatives or a spouse. Some people might really enjoy that, but I think it might be kind of lonely.
I have no desire to be celibate, but monastic communities seem sort of appealing. People are committed without being romantically involved, and they share responsibilities for the household. In fact, since there are more people, you can divide the labor up. Some people take care of the gardens and others cook etc.
If you're single and you lose your job, you've got no health insurance. Being part of a couple is a major safety net. The only thing that comes close are some of those intentional communities, but they don't seem to spread or last long.
(2.) to 1. Mexico has gotten violent, because the government is less corrupt. Is that about right? If we decriminalized cocaine, I'd think that the costs of distributing it in the U.S. would go down, so the profits would not be quite as high for the cartels. Legalization would work better, because then it would just be regular old evil corporations who would feel less need to engage in violence.
If the skin between your toes is not intact and you wear the same pair of socks for a week, you can get a nasty skin infection that causes your foot to swell up like a football requiring a week of hospitalization on IV antibiotics.
Is that a promise or just a possibility?
Does the football have health insurance?
89: If you could tell me it was your ex and not you who didn't change socks for a week, I'd sleep better.
I just prefer to have all disgusting traits assigned to a small number of people.
92: I figured that went without saying. Yeah, I let a real winner get away...
If we legalized cocaine, then we could tax it, and use the proceeds to stimulate the economy by going on a massive cocaine binge.
95: Think of all the money saved in laundry costs.
If we legalized meth, we could remove all the screws from all the household devices and lay them end to end back and forth across the country, and actually live out one of those dopey statistics.
And still save on the laundry costs.
99: that's why they call it dope.
Statistics are hardly ever called dope.
On the other hand, you're the one taking the class, so you'd know.
If everybody didn't do laundry so often, stopping right before the "massive infection" phase," then everybody would have the same relative stink and we could stop global warming.
Stink globally, scratch locally.
Is WheresMySuitcase.com a new innovation? I find it kind of weird to be given the full name and phone number of the dude who will bring me my luggage.
It's a front for prostitution. Everybody knows that.
Some of my friends seem massively undermined by the notion that life starts when you find your romantic partner, and that there's someone out there for everyone, etc.
Just reverse the values. Life ends when you find a romantic partner, and everyone has their nemesis lurking out there somewhere.
I've been a longtime advocate for little rfid tags in luggage that would turn green when your luggage boarded the plane. (So that you could start bitching immediately to a set of beleagured employees who can't help you but must stay pleasantish.)
Also there is a fourth item of things that concern me, which is some massive stuff which our faculty senate seems poised to pass, which seems to contain gigantic structural flaws.
When I flew east with my cats, the airline (Midwest) had a special thing where they would come and tell you where your pets were aboard. They also had a frequent flyer program for pets.
They also had a frequent flyer program for pets.
Must be great for parrots.
I'm picturing flight attendants coming over and pointing emphatically at the floor. "They're somewhere thataway!"
114: actually, they had a special heated compartment underneath the cockpit where they put all the pets.
They were definitely going after the travels-with-pets market at the time.
God, I wish I had made this hotel reservation myself. The hotel staff call me "Dr. [Me]" everytime they interact with me and I always have a moment of "wait, who? oh, right, that is me."
108: Don't be so negative. Sometimes romantic partnerships go as long as twenty years before one murders the other.
Sometimes comment threads go as long as 120 comments before someone kills them.
If you wait long enough, poor hygiene can work.
28, 32: for your "enjoyment" I offer kim stanley robinson. at first I was disappointed when I found out he was a guy, because I wanted a female sf author to have written some doorstop hard-sf trilogies about mars, but then I read them all and changed my mind, y'all can keep him on team dick. "read them all" being perhaps the operative question, why "all"? even the one about antarctica? even though 20% of the pages are taken up by committee meetings (not the remotest exaggeration). I have a thing about completing books, I read stupid fast, I cared about maybe 2 of the characters. I dunno. I've read dune prequels not by herbert (sr.), so, you know.
I'm now the only commenter who hasn't been killed by his own foot-stank germs.
also, in an effort to not strain my fucked up knees I picked some things up wrongly (bending at the waist) a few too many times and now it is the case BOTH that my knees hurt AND that I put my back out. grrr. oudemia, don't you have anyone you can send our for flexeril and valium? there is always ibuprofen in the world. hm.
also I discovered one hour too late yesterday that the 1950s table I had just sold is exceedingly rare and regularly sells for USD20,000. whereas I sold it for like 1500SGD. if I had but googled the manufacturer I could have known. I am going to make an attempt to get it back from the couple (it hasn't been delivered...), lying that my business partner had already promised it to her sister in law but didn't tell me in time, and offering to pay back 2x what they paid. can't then put it back on the floor, but we can sell it on ebay, or merely possess it in a spirit of covetousness.
So what's my list of Bay Area utopias/dystopias?
The Great Bay, by Dale Pendell
The Bridge Trilogy by William Gibson
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
The Iron Heel by Jack London
The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
Ecotopia and Ecotopia Emerging by Ernest Callenbach
End Times: Notes on the Apocalypse by GA Matiasz
Holy Fire by Bruce Stirling
Conquistador by SM Stirling
After the Deluge by Chris Carlsson
Related:
Three Californias by Kim Stanley Robinson
Always Coming Home by Ursula K. LeGuin
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
What am I leaving out?
126: Haven't read it. Sounds like it should go on the list too.
I picked apples today on a mountain, along with eating delicious brunch and dinner. I met Thundersnow via the internet exactly one-trip-around-the-sun ago today.
nice! when is thundersnow going to be allowed to comment?
She's free to comment whenever, and, in fact, already reads the posts and the occasional thread.
I said that slightly in jest. husband x actually isn't allowed to even read unfogged. not that he doesn't know what's going on in my life via the new "realtalk" feature, I just don't like it. in exchange, I promise never to read his group literary criticism blog. LOL.
132
What am I leaving out?
The Peace War by Vernor Vinge.
Pure reports of properly organized consensus-building through a system of public comments and openly run meetings are thin on the ground.
This may be more what you're after. Aliens arrive, demand that the dystopian, authoritarian society they find here dismantle itself, or at least allow a few anarchist utopian Free Zones to exist. The five volumes are almost entirely taken up by conversations.
I really liked them, though you have to have a little tolerance for heavy-handedness, and for a dystopia that in its original incarnation preceded, and was sadly not updated to reflect, the information-tech revolution.
I'm unsurprised to learn that mj is a small percentage of the cartels' profits. It's bulky and cheap (relatively on a per hit basis) and I would have thought it was the last thing a commercially serious gang would want to be moving long distances. I'm kind of surprised they bother with it at all, but I suppose it gets them a customer base they might not otherwise attract.
128: Congrats, Stanley. It was also our anniversary of having Mara in our home, so some horoscopey person should figure out how that day got so damn auspicious.
124.2: I wonder if people with tables like that aren't really careful about using coasters.
128: Congratulations. Also check her toes.
138: well, we've decided to just eat it up, learn our lesson and move on. I think we will tell the couple who bought. so they can get some motherfucking coasters.
it would be a kind of shady business practice to lie to get it back like that, and given that our customers' tolerance for spending on vintage tops out at 3200 with 10% off, maybe we'd never find a buyer.
someone called us once because he had found 2600 taped to the back of one of the drawers--that was a month's rent for us back then! we told him we had gotten it from a charity and if he were feeling good-natured he could give it to them, but we didn't hear back. but now we TAKE OUT ALL THE DRAWERS. similarly, now, when we get some imported vintage piece that someone brought in in the 50s/60s we will RESEARCH IT ON THE INTERTUBES. live and learn.
and congrats thorn!
or, like, those felt things that go under the whole tablecloth.
140: If I'd bought from you under those circumstances and then been told I had to give it back, I'd think you were some sketchy people.
If you tell me the true value, explain the mistake and advise me to get some coasters, I'd be more likely to trust you and recommend you to others.
pwned by alameda herself.
(Wish I could read super fast.)
more like this. but then, can you really enjoy the table that much? the legs are the crucial thing. but the whole thing is in great, original condition. god I'm glad we didn't sand it down and refinish it. shudder.
If I'd bought a table to put stuff on and was subsequently told that it was worth a shit load of money, I'd sell it asap and buy another one. Because I wasn't in the market for a $20K table, I was in the market for a $1500 table, which is an entirely different thing, and serves a different purpose (eating off, rather than showing off).
If you buy a table at Ikea, the instructions say not to bother with coasters.
148: Right, but you'd want to sell it for at least $18K. Or maybe you thought you were spotting a bargains and wanted to make the profit all along.
no, they definitely wanted the table to eat at. I think it's not totally unlikely that, as chris y suggests, they will be mildly dismayed/want the money. in which case the thing to do would be to let us sell it for them and split the profits. otoh, it's a really nice table, one has nice things sometimes. it'd be like eating at a table you inherited, which also happened to be valuable. perhaps you wouldn't be able to enjoy dinner parties as much, though.
149: if you buy a table at ikea, the instructions say to drink 1/4 of a bottle of absolut, mixed with that elder-flower syrup from the store, over ice. then warm the alan wrench in your hands before attempting construction. works every time. it's better if you have a family member to curse at, of course, but in a pinch you can yell at your dog, or even a potted plant.
151: But if it were me, and I had gotten a deal and then wanted to buy a different table, I'd want to make some real money. If I got the information that it was worth lots of money from you, I'd be willing to split the proceeds 50/50.
our customers' tolerance for spending on vintage tops out at 3200 with 10% off,
Maybe you could list the crazy-pricy stuff on 1st Dibs. There is nothing on that site that a normal person could afford.
yeah, but shipping is a bitch. then again, what the fuck do those people care about money? nothing, apparently. yeah, we'd go 1st Dibs, not sure how you can become a legit offerer of goods.
A while ago someone offered a set of really nice Quad electrostatics on our local Freecycle. Part of me was tempted to take them, but it seemed a bit shady as the person getting rid of them just thought of them as their late husbands massive ungainly speakers, and didn't realize they were worth $1000 or so. So I emailed them to let them know they were worth money. Apparently I wasn't the only one, and several people got in touch to let her know she should sell them. Which was nice.
Things That Concern Me:
Rick Perry saying his favorite movie is Immortal Beloved
The best explanation is that Perry confused the Gary Oldman movie with Beethoven
Pure reports of properly organized consensus-building through a system of public comments and openly run meetings are thin on the ground.
You're more or less describing LeGuin's The Dispossessed.
re: 159
Yeah. Bits of some of Ken Macleod's stuff, too, but The Dispossessed is the mother-lode.
I've been a longtime advocate for little rfid tags in luggage that would turn green when your luggage boarded the plane.
It should be possible to have a little electronic box that you put in your luggage that wakes up after twelve hours (or whatever) and sends you an SMS of its current GPS-derived latitude and longitude. (Obviously you don't want it to start sending texts in flight, so it has a look at the GPS first and checks that it's below 10,000 feet and not moving faster than a few mph.)
I can't wait to put cheap tiny rfid chip stickers on everything I own, so I can page my glasses and stuff. favorite scarf! beep for me andI will track you down!
Couldn't you just use those key finder things that you whistle at?
162: in theory there's no reason one shouldn't be able to do this already. RFID tags can be made at sub-millimetre scale and you can read them at a few metres' range. Pinpointing them in space should be easy with multiple readers.
You couldn't set it up so that the scarf beeped, not without adding a beeper to the tag (which would be bulky) but you could set it up so that your house AI was hooked up to RFID readers in every room and could say in a deep calm voice "MS ALAMEIDA, YOUR SCARF IS IN THE LIVING ROOM, 1.33 METRES SOUTH OF THE NORTH-EAST CORNER OF THE ROOM AND 1.10 METRES ABOVE THE FLOOR". Or just shine a laser at it, Predator-style.
IIRC Bruce Sterling in "Distraction" describes squatters living like this in Washington DC; they've made semi-communism work by rfid-tagging every bit of communal property, so you always know where it is and it can't be taken out of the squat.
163: You monster. You can't shove your spouse into a suitcase.
If they're submillimeter, then individual Xanax capsules are taggable.
I am honestly puzzled about why pre-sent luggage is so unworkable-- a package containing socks, undies, toiletries, a few changes of clothes that gets to an airport or hotel or Ikea verifiably a few days before I do means not having to check luggage. If plans change and no pickup, storage facility gets to chuck it after 60 days. I'd pay the recipient $20 to hang on to it for a few days. I guess the authorities don't want this for smuggling reasons, but checking luggage is such a hassle.
re: 167
They don't want this for bomb reasons. They changed a lot of the luggage handling processes after Lockerbie.
167: This is pretty much how it works inside Japan. Send your suitcase separately with a delivery service (takkyubin) rather than dragging it around airports/stations.
UPS or DHL could do it, no need to use the airplanes that bear people.
Tagged objects will not be a convenience-- if my mind is too messy to manage where I put the chainsaw and my shoes, will I be able to manage the software that associates chip IDs with helpful strings? ("important paper" shows up 16 times, and "her favorite kind" is not actually helpful...)
One way to identify lifelong drinkers in their old age is the decay in ability to use nouns. All objects are "that thing," all people "whatsisface."
Some of us were born that way, says the woman who refers to half of her acquaintances as 'Face'.
I doubt it, that's the skeleton looking in the window. I'm told that I was sweet-tempered and kind as a child. I know that I used to be much better at keeping lots of details in my head for a long time.
I've probably deteriorated from my peak functioning as well, but I was certainly bad with nouns even as a teenager.
UPS or DHL could do it, no need to use the airplanes that bear people.
Uh, gee, thanks guys!
I have brilliant memory for absolutely everything as long it's not something I have to remember. Bizarre trivial facts about fucking everything, even after a cursory glance, no problem. Names of people I've met several times, or appointments/work things, not so much.
175: Same with me. I usually need to be introduced to someone about five or six times before I'll start to remember the name and the face. But I'm great at remembering utterly useless shit.
I don't know that I make it past pretty good on the useless shit, but I'm certainly better than average on that sort of thing, and worse than average on events from my own life (including in the immediate past).
I have brilliant memory for absolutely everything as long it's not something I have to remember. Bizarre trivial facts about fucking everything,
That's odd, most of us tend not to remember that sort of party.
175: This is me, too. I bet it's very common around here.
On OP 1, I think Halford is right in noting that people in the US don't care due to not realizing how nice Mexico was in the nineties.
On OP 2, how about the interplay between partnering and childrearing? Roughly speaking, I love my kid, am kind to a few friends who I think well of, and otherwise avoid about thinking about other individuals, since doing so is usually unpleasant. Life-changing love for sure, with the significant individual being a child. Generosity and kindness are very important, but they need at least one viable interpersonal relationship to grow. Life doesn't start with love, but I am afraid that going without for too long makes real personality deficits more likely. How many of the unfortunately love-obsessed lack a network of functioning, loving family and friends? I guess I'm saying that this isn't necessarily an irrational focus.
Learning people's names is a learnable skill. If you had to do it for your job, you'd master it pretty quickly.
180.1: I also don't have any understanding at all of the mechanism -- like, I know (or think I know) that the problem is drug gangs, but US people used just as much drugs probably anytime since the 70's (or, at least there wasn't a huge explosion in use here in the last decade). So why is Mexico trashed now?
I suppose if I paid attention, I'd know more.
re: 181
I think it's context dependent. I do it well enough when I am teaching Frenchy kickboxing. I rarely if ever forget people's names there. I did it slightly less well, but OK, when teaching academic stuff. I'm utterly shit at it in conference type situations.
I actually think it's nearly impossible when people are wearing nametags, because your brain automatically discounts it as information that's stored elsewhere. I love nametags, for the record. It makes it so much easier for me to introduce myself.
RFID! I know something about this. The sub-mm tags are kind of in conflict with the read range; you need at least an inch of antenna to get any decent free-space range. Pinpointing them in space is an area of active work, though - just getting range is kind of hard, so direct triangulation doesn't work well. At my last job, where I learned this crap, we installed systems in a bunch of law offices to track particularly important paper files in this manner.
182: I acquired a vague understanding from someplace or other that the collapse of the Colombian cartels left a power vacuum that was filled in Mexican gangs, and that the collapse of PRI and political changes had something to do with the problematic law enforcement response. But that could be entirely wrong, and is notably short of nouns.
182. As BG said, Mexico used to have single-party rule, with the single party accepting payments from a small number of organized criminals. There was domestic peace as long as you didn't criticize PRI or the gangs. Mexico now has several political parties and possibly less corruption overall, but the transition period has something like warfare inside parts of the country. Hopefully there is cleaner government with less crime on the other side, a plausible but not at all inevitable outcome. One of the cartels has collapsed, and its armed members are now commiting many bizarre crimes that do not seem profitable, like kidnapping migrants who have nearly nothing.
Learning people's names is a learnable skill. If you had to do it for your job, you'd master it pretty quickly.
You'd think, wouldn't you? Actually, I'm pretty good with names. I'm terrible with faces.
187: There's also the rise of new gangs, like the curiously religious (and community-service-oriented) La Familia cartel.
189: I literally do not know if this is an incredibly strained pun.
190: I was being serious (regarding this outfit). But I'll do my best not to create such confusion again.
I didn't have a theory about the nature of the pun -- there were just enough moving parts in the sentence that I figured there might be one that I couldn't find.
No, it's an accurate summary of newspaper reports about one cartel.
It's not clear to me how sensationalistic the reports are; the Mafia in the US for many years avoided drugs and exerted social pressure on its members to live conservatively, but it wouldn't have been accurate to describe it as family-oriented. How should city people describe competent rural criminals who have not completely spurned the culture they grew up in?
The family that slays together stays together.
187 is basically my understanding, just adding that a significant part of the Mexican military, political, and legal establishment became attached to one or another of the major cartels (see here) so that you have something that's much more than a gang war and closer to an Iraq-style insurgency in which various factions are battling each other for control.
Not to trivialise the topic, but Don Winslow's novel Power of the Dog is quite good, covering the rise of one of the Mexican cartels and the cross-border drug trade and resulting violence.
On OP 1, I think Halford is right in noting that people in the US don't care due to not realizing how nice Mexico was in the nineties.
This seems obvious. How would we know what Mexico was like in earlier decades, compared to now? It's been all isolated reports and a general picture of lawlessness since I was born.
Or just shine a laser at it, Predator-style.
I guess this would be useful if your house were foggy all the time.
I think we have LESS of an idea that Mexico is lawless now than we did back when Hollywood was putting out Reagan-inspired action-hero fantasies every week about the US versus the drug smugglers. Plus now the only narrative of why people might not want to live in Mexico is that they want to come here to take our jobs and earn valuable currency, not because there's something wrong with Mexico.
Huh, I'm lagging way behind on threads, but alameida's 140 and 142 relieved me, as 124.2 (this is about that valuable table) had me squinting and going, "Wha? Way unethical, do not do."
I guess this would be useful if your house were foggy all the time.
Smoke machine, neb. A day without dry ice is like a day without ROCK.
How would we know what Mexico was like in earlier decades, compared to now?
You could drive or fly, depending on where in the US you live.
Be a tourist? That wouldn't help.
203. Why not? Leaving the gringo zone is easy, recognizing that a place is prosperous or not and functional just requires watching. Europeans who come to the US get perspective on press overage describing a crime-riddled capitalist dystopia by looking around.
202: What about for those of us who don't have a time machine?
204: I can only mug so many of them.
205. Is this an epistemological quiz? There is both oral and written history. I was never in Seattle in the nineties, but I know that that there was a grunge scene.
206: Vintage Speedy Gonzales cartoons can be used as a baseline point of comparison.
It would be funny (to me) if someone commissioned a time machine in Spanish, only to end up with a weather machine. Hilarious, even!
209 to 205, not 206.
Oh, and I ban myself.
A common misconception. There was a grange scene that ensued when some rural farmers got lost in the city. Confusion and elaboration in the retelling led to all sorts of confusion.
Philadelphia always had more of a grudge scene.
216: On the Internet, nobody knows you're a cat with a lisp.
Hang on, that doesn't make sense. I guess Hick is Sylvester?
Confusion leads to confusion.
OT: I discharged my civic duty without extreme prejudice.
Mostly, I napped on uncomfortable chairs.