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SHE SAID…
April 20, 2003
I must begin this week by offering my sincere apologies
to all our readers who admonished me for not having
submitted a column in last week’s issue of the
Tribune and the Mirror. Please know that sometimes it
has to take a back seat to other, more important articles,
that are deemed to be more interesting to our (visiting)
readers.
In fact, a couple of funny things
happened over the last couple of weeks ...depending
on your sense of humor of course. Let me explain. First
of all, I received an e-mail from Telefonos de Mexico,
this country’s telephone company, affectionately
known as Telmex hereabouts. (I have no idea how they
got my e-mail address and I strongly doubt that they
read the Tribune…) Anyway, the e-mail talks about
the “Infrastructure of Telecommunications in the
state of Jalisco” (that’s the state Vallarta
is in). According to that message, the Company has 1,184,327
lines in this state, 62,604 of which are connected to
Prodigy Internet. For the year 2003, Telmex says it
will be investing over $61,308,000. U.S. Dollars in
Jalisco and not raise its rates. Telmex has 14.4 million
lines throughout this country of close to 100 million
inhabitants, and operates a digital network of fiber
optics over 74,000 kilometers in length. Since 1990,
it has invested $27 Billion U.S. Dollars in infrastructure.
Now I agree that all this is most commendable, but I
don’t understand why, with all that investment
on its part, I still cannot get rid of that sexy woman’s
(irritating) voice telling me to “marque asterisco
ochenta y seis para recuperar sus mensajes” every
time I pick up my receiver to dial a number…
Then, another day, there was a huge
headline in one of the local Spanish papers that read
“Telmex Employees Against Everything”. To
me, that’s funny in itself. Anyway, the article
described how hundreds of the Company’s employees
across the nation staged a work stoppage and demonstrated
in the streets for an entire day to protest against
1) the country’s labor reforms, 2) the war in
Iraq and 3) to show their solidarity with the country’s
farmers. I think that’s quite commendable too,
when you think of it. It reminds me of when there was
a water shortage in certain parts of Canada and the
U.S. many years ago and there were posters everywhere
urging folks to “save water, share a shower”.
Why have many demonstrations when you can lump everything
you’re for or against into a single day off work,
right?
I had the chance to walk around town
quite a bit lately and I must admit that it’s
good to see so many people on the Malecon. If you ask
me, that’s the way this town should be all year
round, but it’s not and that’s too bad.
Many have asked me if they’re going to close the
Malecon to vehicles these two weeks of Easter. Yeah,
right! That’ll be the day. Why make it nice for
folks when you can offer them all that pollution and
attack all of their senses at the same time too!
On the other hand, City Hall’s
“no drinking in the streets” campaign seems
to be working, at least at the hours I passed by the
Malecon, and that’s a good thing. And there are
lots of other good things around, especially those amazing
trees laden with huge yellow blooms whose petals are
scattered to the four winds with the ocean’s breeze,
forming a bright yellow carpet on the ground. You gotta
love it! And if you love the bright primary colors that
surround us at this time of year, please believe me
when I tell you that you would really love to spend
an afternoon at El Nogalito (see separate article in
the “Stepping Out” section).
I’m going to cede the
rest of my space to my friend Javier Perez, the Tribuna
de la Bahía’s star photographer, because
he can express opinions that I -as a foreigner- cannot.
In the meanwhile, I wish you all a wonderfully happy
Easter season and a Hag Sameach to all our Jewish readers.
Don’t forget your SPF 30 block, the sun has gotten
really wicked these last few days. (I speak from personal
-unpleasant- experience…) Be good and take care
of each other.
Hasta luego.
pvmomto3@hotmail.com
HE SAID…
By Javier Perez
They say that in times of war, every
hole is a trench and if we were to translate that saying
into electoral language, it would read: in times of
pre-campaigns, no space is too little.
Even though the election campaigns
still haven’t officially started, we can already
see the political parties’ advertising all over
the place. In some cases, we note the desperate attempts
to take over walls, fences, posts, public telephones,
pedestrian bridges, shirts, tunnel entrances, street
stands, trees, trucks, windshields, bumpers, lipsticks,
any place where you can paint, stick or glue something,
it doesn’t matter how small it is, whether it
is a public place or behind a tree, or even at the bottom
of a vacant lot.
At the present rate, it wouldn’t
be strange to find such advertising in the form of tattoos,
cattle brands, up on the hills (Hollywood-style) and
who knows where else those campaign geniuses could think
of.
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