Columns

Veterans Day arrival takes time for some of us to digest, to ponder, to meditate on, trying to qualify thought vs. emotion.   And certainly it deserves the time and analysis that takes.

Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post is a dutiful, sometimes thoughtful columnist specializing in economic affairs.  He got on the John F. Kennedy media train early (November 10) to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the 35th president of the United States.  He was six, he says, when JFK was killed. 

Sixteen-year-old Concha Rosales and her eight-foot rattler have prompted reader comments.  Some don’t say it outright but seem stirred by a fear of snakes.  Some frankly say that no “rational” 16-year-old girl would be so “reckless.”

For some Mexicans a dolorous mood hangs over days that traditionally have been celebrated with high hearts, beginning with the Thursday, October 31 celebration of  El Dia de Brjuas (The Day of Sorcerers).  Friday was Dia de Los Santos (All Saints Day),  remembering los angelitos, the “little angels,” who died in infancy.   Saturday is Dia de los Muertos, (Day of the Dead), also called Fieles Difuntos and La Parca, honoring teen-agers and adults.  By whatever name, this cluster of days has become more complex – emotionally and spiritually – in recent years.  This complexity grows out of myriad kidnappings and of mass, and individual, random slayings by drug gangs.  Especially troubling is the slice of the kidnappings that a discomforting number of eye-witnesses report are carried out at the hands of the Mexican military.

How does a 16-year-old girl kill an eight-foot rattlesnake? Today’s semi-cute answer is a worn cliche: “Very carefully.”  Actually, despite the simpering intent, it’s accurate. 

It wasn’t, isn’t, won’t be (any time soon) an “economic version of the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe,” a Time magazine reporter wrote March 8.  And for the corps of such long time on-the-ground observers of Mexico’s puzzling and certainly surreal government, the Niagra of north-of-the-border stories gushing about the booming Mexican middle class prompted bemused puzzlement.