Columns

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.)  

Her name was Miriam.  She was from Magdala, a town 120 miles north of Jerusalem on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.  She was to become, first, Miriam of Magdala, then Mary of Magdala, and finally Mary Magdalene, which alternated with The Magdalene.   She was the one female member of Christ’s followers whose personal closeness to Jesus evidently irritated Saint Peter (before he was a saint).   That was when her life was being mauled by what was to become about 2,000 years’ worth of full-time misogynism.   The original Miriam became “the whore” primarily due to her fellow Christians’ mental flaccidity.