Columns

“What’s happening in Jalisco is ... a readjustment by a criminal organization that has enjoyed great complacency from the state government, which has let it grow, ” said an opposition congressional candidate for the June elections.  When repeated later, there seemed to be a slight hesitation, mid-sentence, cultivating the impression that the author of this increasingly widely held observation wished to add a greater embrace of tricky, corrosive behavior.  A new scuff marring the presidency. “The real estate scandal” of course is  survivable:  What are they going to do, impeach him?

Quieta Zepeda, the Huichol girl, told me this when Jilotitlan was barely a pueblo, ornamented with milpas scattered near the center.  

“Achieving the rule of law,” declared Luis Rubio, “requires a conscious decision: first, to construct government capacity and, second, for the government itself, the president, to accept submission to the resulting institutions.” 

International financial analysts saw the key market movement that convinced them. There was no doubt about it.  Mexico was economically in deep trouble, they agreed.  The evidence was clear. It was indisputable.  

Various forms of present government corruption threaten Mexico’s dreams of growth.  Past similar attempts at self-aggrandizement stir the memories of many long-time residents.  The 1994 devastation of the Mexican economy is one of these.  A new president, Ernesto Zedillo, had just been sworn in (December 1,1994), unknowingly inheriting the disguised economic debris left behind by outgoing President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Mary Magdalene had an unfortunate name.  It continues in “religious” memory to be too popular.  There were so many Marys that Pope “Gregory the Great” bunched several of Christ’s female followers together and turned Mary of Magdala into a whore.  (Magdala: a well-known city 120 miles north of Jerusalem on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.)