As always, on the heels of Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you, if you don’t get it), comes Cinco de Mayo. I guess we’re all getting a little tired of hearing that same old refrain… “It’ll be different this year”. But yeah, indeed it will. As you may recall, around here, the first “celebrated” holiday affected was St. Patrick’s Day… and the decision to pull the plug on pub gatherings was made only a few days, if not hours, before March 17th. My first post of this entire series was on that day, me sitting here in front of the computer with a pint of Guinness, digging into some numbers, trying to figure this out for myself.
Good trivia question… how many countries in North America are called the United States? I obviously wouldn’t be asking this if the answer were obvious… the answer is two, because the official name of the other one is “Estados Unidos Mexicanos” — literally, the United States of Mexico.
Now that you’re back from Googling that, let’s continue…
There are 32 states in Mexico, and most of us haven’t heard of many of them. Looking at this list… the following stand out: Jalisco, Baja California Sur, and Nayarit… because I’ve vacationed there. Chihuahua, Sonora and Sinaloa stand out because they’re continually in the news related to drug cartels and violence (and cute dogs). Mexico City, of course. And Veracruz, but only because my buddy, two-time-Kentucky-Derby-winning-jockey Mario Gutierrez is from there.
The Mexican federal government has their hands full fighting this thing, but they have the added headache of the very powerful and ubiquitous drug cartels, who control many areas, especially near the border. It also doesn’t help that these criminals are stepping-up, handing out care packages to locals who happily accept them and who can use any help they can get. Big-time criminals love this sort of stuff — step up for the little guy, do more for the people than the government is doing, etc. Pablo Escobar was good at it. So was Al Capone. Optics.
There hasn’t been much talk of the border wall these days; remember, the big wall Trump was going to build and which Mexico was going to pay for. I think they may have built some parts, or maybe that was just refurbish/remodel. I don’t know. What I do know is that Mexico hasn’t paid a cent for it. Whatever.
The border-wall, or lack thereof, that worries me a lot more, is the virtual one that exists 30km south of here. For the moment, that border is closed, and that suits me just fine. And if our neighbours to the south could follow along with what’s best for the common good, I wouldn’t be against re-opening it. But, at the moment… well, at the moment, let’s look at a different state that borders Canada.
Recall the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer… at some point she called-out President Trump, labelling his federal response to the pandemic as “slow” and “mind-boggling”. Trump’s response was to sit back, reflect and admit he was wrong, and quickly move to provide whatever help he could.
Ha ha! Of course not. As expected, he lashed back, made up a name for her on Twitter ("Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer” — because, I guess, she only does ‘half’ a job? Or because she's a half-wit?) — and proceeded to insult her. By the way, even by Trump’s infantile-nickname standards, that’s pretty lame. I would’ve expected something like “Grumpy Gretchen”. This was the governor that Trump made a point of not calling, and telling us all about it.
In any case, Governor Whitmer was doing the best she could under exceedingly difficult circumstances. As of yesterday, Michigan was in third place for most deaths in any state, and that’s not a good spot to be in when it’s only New York and New Jersey ahead of you. Going with the best advice she could get, from all of the intelligent people she’s surrounded herself with, by evaluating what’s going on elsewhere, by listening to her medical experts… Governor Whitmer renewed the state emergency order a few days ago, extending it from April 30th to May 28th. This led to loud and crowded protests at the state Capitol building. You know the kind, lots of flags, guns and “MAGA” hats. But this time, add to the mix — nooses, Confederate flags and swastikas. With all due respect (which isn’t much), f#@& these people.
President Trump, upon whom the game “How low can he go?” is based, tweeted his support for the protesters, which in a sense validated and empowered their insanity. A man in Flint, Michigan shot and killed a security guard — who’d simply asked him to put on a mask. Also, in Holly, Michigan, a man wiped his nose on a store clerk who told the man he needed to wear a mask.
Michigan has a population of 10 million, exactly double that of British Columbia. But while we’ve had only 2,232 confirmed cases since day one, they’re over 44,000… a clean 20x… which makes it about 10x more than it would be if people were following orders. And while B.C. is at 121 deaths, Michigan is at 4,179… a staggering 35x. They’re not in good shape, and it’s about to get worse. And, of course, Michigan borders Canada. In fact, given the twisted border situation of Windsor and Detroit, parts of both countries are actually inside of each other. All I can say is I much prefer our Washington neighbours to the south, who I suspect wouldn’t be anywhere near as tolerant of the insanity. The Peace Arch border crossing has engraved on it “May these gates never be closed”. Indeed, those gates can’t literally be closed as they’re not hinged; they’re bolted into the stone. But virtually, the border is closed to all non-essential travel, and until things get sorted out and settled to both sides’ satisfaction, it needs to remain that way. We are doing well here, and we don’t need to mess with that. We apparently have bee-murdering hornets now visiting from Washington State. That’s enough for now.
On that note, around here, our single-digit increase (+8) in known cases is the lowest since March 14th, when things were just starting up, and heading in the wrong direction. Dr. Henry thinks we may be down to zero by the middle of June. We are approaching the end of the beginning, but there’s a ways to go. Moving too quickly can mess this up; things will be gradually eased, but it has to be done right. And if we do it right, and stick to the new normal for a while… we’ll be ok.
Wow, look at that sunshine… time to go get some Vitamin D… and after that, time to go crack open a bottle of Corona and find a slice of lime. Salúd.
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I think Trump is calling her “Half-Whit” (half-wit). I still can’t believe a president can be so knuckle-dragging as to call political colleagues by bullying names.
HK daily report (3.20 minute read)
Feliz cinco de mayo
And thanks for the continued reading pleasure
Happy Cinco de Mayo. Salute! ????????
Your point with the drug cartels, I was reading an article recently about the same things happening with the Mafia in Sicily.
Also:
“In fact, given the twisted border situation of Windsor and Detroit, parts of both countries are actually inside of each other.”
I feel dirty now.
To my US friends . . . please come home when it’s safe, before they suck you into their downward spiral and please don’t drink the Koolaid.
Being a BC guy almost my whole life, I needed a geography lesson on the Detroit & Windsor area; thought others might be interested too.
???? thank you
Enjoy your Corona. Take care and Be safe!!!
When looking at the US, let’s not forget politics.
Gov Whitmer was likely a leading candidate for VP nominee before she over-reached with her harsh lockdown rules (no visiting neighbors outside, no buying seeds to plant, etc.). Maybe trying too hard? Govs Newsom and Cuomo are likely on anybody’s list of replacements for Joe Biden if/when he gets dumped. And then there’s Trump. A historically successful president cruising to re-election until this mess. Doing most things right during the crisis but of course the media would never report such.
Now we see blue states imposing as much misery as possible for as long as possible. Goals? Mail-in election guarantees a Democrat victory through ballot harvesting. Recession and unemployment hurt the incumbent even though, as Trump endlessly reminds the world, the economy was on fire until this. And keeping Joe Biden hidden from the world is the smartest con the Democrats could ever pull. He’s horribly creepy, non-presidential and sadly losing his mental competence.
The longer this goes on the more it becomes about politics. And it probably hurts us in BC. Even though we were spared from Covid-19, we suffer economically and socially. We have surgery backlogs and cancelled doctor appts. And so on. Without doubt part of the reason we are still in lockdown is because our socialist leaders are doing their part for the progressive movement while refusing any action, however appropriate, that might align with President Trump. Bad for us!
So, Mexico has won the day, Horatio. It is Cinco de Mayo. It is Taco Tuesday (Martes, if you will, for all the cultural expropriators out there). And a Mexican beer dominates every waking moment not working in virus form. An awful, atrocity of a beer better known for…
I used to work in Mexico. A lot. Like I had a FM3 work permit, been to many of those states no one has heard of and was treated with a smile and never a “random” check at border checks. And so much blood in Sinaloa, from El Chapo’s cartel, at a time when one city (Culiacán) averaged 15 deaths every day. Murders, to be specific. #wordsmatter
They are in the upswing part of it now, with better testing and simple facts of a pandemic. But is Culiacán and Sinaloa better off now? Plausibly. Probably reduced gun play amongst the Narcos who may be better off building favour with the locals than beheading their enemies.
And yet not many think they are better off. I hope they can afford to do what we are, with the death of tourism, Mazatlán is probably as quiet as it is decrepit.
Salúd Horatio. I worked with a guy from Windsor he used to say ‘if they swam across this water we would all be fucked’ growing up in windsor his parents used to tell him about the terrible things that happened right across the water in Detroit. And he and his friends and all of Windsor he said is scared shitless of their pretty hardcore neighbours to the umm….south?
Ellen Trufant another good read.
I am wondering, given BC’s relative success at dealing with the situation, there remains 2 population concentrations that are more prone to mass outbreaks of cases. Nursing homes and prisons (add in cruise ships for similar characteristics). What can be learned about our behaviors and policies that are creating these potential hot zones. And can that potential learning be applied to the general public. At some point staged “normalization” will be cautiously implemented and it will pay to have the best practices established before then.
Viva La Raza!
I seriously look forward to your FB post daily. You are officially part of my quarantine schedule.