After a month and a half, I’m still enchanted by the historical center of the town and the views of the houses perched on each other as they climb the hills. The university sponsors all kind of event. I’ve been to a dozen foreign movies, for examples, with Spanish subtitles I barely understand! There always seems an excuse for parades and festivals. This week the anniversary of the Mexican revolution. This gives the place a definite vitality worth experiencing.
A tourist destination for Mexican people as well as foreigners, it must have a hundred hotels and dozens of hostels. I stayed at Casa de Dante for a month. A wonderful breakfast included, beautifully illustrated inside, clean, comfortable, fresh bedding. The staff very helpful. The only drawback: 175 steps up from the street! This old guy did it every day and I a sure I’m in better shape for it. The city extremely hilly, which gives it it’s beauty.
Americans views of Mexico completely off base. The country more prosperous and sophisticated than it was 35 to 60 years ago on my previous visits. The country safe, as long as you stay away from narco traffic. Here’s video which goes into some detail:
https://youtu.be/kULFS6tsRPI
What I worry about most is tripping and falling. The sidewalks often a landline. Rough stones, broken tiles. As video says, building codes not as strict, I did fall getting off a bus on my first day. After being hit in a chico crosswalk a few years ago, I don’t really trust anybody. In Guanajuato the drivers generally conscious of you, but the streets very narrow the walkways almost non-existent. That said, you just have to be careful.
Sorry I to leave. I hope México City turns out to be as much fun as it was last year. Okay, later.
Yes, it’s one big black hole.
I am amazed when I scroll through the engines and airplanes cal-fire has acquired while the fires in California keep getting bigger and more deadly. What is all this expensive stuff doing for us? Huge airplanes that can fly only during the day on flat land and rolling ridges. In 2003 they closed 77 lookouts, saying they were too expensive. Three years later they rented their first DC10 for three million dollars, 5,500 dollars an hour to run. One plane vs. five lookout seasons. Crazy, no? How are they getting away with it?
It’s our belief in technological magic. For some reason we think bigger bombers, helicopters with fancy names (black hawk, etc.) can save us from conflagrations in front of 80 mile an hour winds. Forget it. And again, none of them can fly at night or in powerful updrafts of smoke. And the bigger the aircraft the less useful it is. But they play well on TV and when they fly overhead, everybody goes OOOOOH! Basically, it’s a pr stunt to buy them more magical toys.
God, their budget has gone through the roof. And what real good has it done?Cameras can’t beat lookouts, this has been proven over and over again. As for warning people by telephone, what about those with phones dead because of PG&E blackouts? Not to mention those with wells whose wells won’t pump and they’ve no water to put out the sparks on their roofs. Yes, PG&E does have a grip on the real magic ELECTRICITY. Our whole world runs on it.
Why aren’t these two mega corporations focused on real answers EARLY DETECTION AND BURYING POWER LINES? PGE is merely punishing people for suing them. They’re saying, “We have the real power. See how much you need us” isn’t it really nasty? And as for cal - fire, they won’t install air-raid sirens all over the state. That’s too easy, not technological enough, like telephone calls thousands won’t get. Both organizations trading in magic in their different ways. And we remain Gullible.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-06/california-lookouts-fire-watchers
My first boss 1962 shipped beer to guys on a fire! That would never happen today, alas. The forest service has become a dehumanized bureaucracy living off faint memories of what it once was. And what was that in the old days and why did it change?
There are three basic reasons: First the cuts in the budget by Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s. Services once provided by the outfit like road crews, nurseries, people in the field who gathered seeds, the patrols once making sure fires didn’t get started. In other words, all the field people vanished. Gradually there were simply desk generals supervising seasonal ‘employees.’ If the forests degraded over a period of forty years, this is what happened.
And secondly, small districts combined into mega-units. This meant the small family feeling of people living together at ranger stations disappeared. Those who were intimate with each other and with the lands within their charge no longer were. A large separation appeared between supervisors and the supervised. It became much more like an army fighting fire. Or perhaps like a monastery. Sure, comraderie still exists, but it’s that of soldiers in the field, not a family in a home.
And the final blow came from sending all administrative personal into exile in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This meant mainly the women who ran the district offices, who organized all gatherings for birthdays, who gave sympathy and help to the home crew. Now celebrations are few and far between, meant to boost the hierarchy of the church, highly organized and essentially impersonal.
Not that a few small units in the service don’t have a residue of humanity. I’m often touched by facebook posts by dispatchers who managed to create an intimate group despite the extreme tensions of working under fire and in confined spaces. This doesn’t often happen, as I know from my own experience, But the potential Is there. Otherwise, it’s mostly small units boosted by action under fire the way soldiers are.
There’s no returning to the past. The whole country has gone this way. My own family used to have large reunions. They kept contact with family letters. This was a chain-mail togetherness. A letter was sent from one family member to the next, pictures added, news traded. This very personal connection can’t really be replaced by facebook. The news travels too fast and intangible, a complete lack of smells and fingerprints. Yes, it’s sad to be a survivor of a past almost no one knows.
