Day Trip To Laguna de Sanchez - Journalistic Censorship

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

We took a drive last week to the top of the mountains closest to us.  It's the same road that takes you to Cola de Caballo (Horsetail Falls).  The drive is not for the faint at heart.  The road has been in better condition over the years but because of the last two hurricanes, one most recently in May, the roads have deteriorated considerably.  In dry river beds there is no road so we drove over the river rock.  I would never attempt to pull the travel trailer up there although it would make for some fantastic camping.

There isn't much history on the area other than there are 300 inhabitants and sits at an altitude of 1650 meters.  There are many cabins for rent on the road up and during summer months, they are almost always rented out on weekends.  Apart from tourism the locals have fruit orchards and sell apples, peaches, and plums.  They make and sell preserves made from the fruit as well.   

We took our time going up the mountain stopping to take pics.  The road is not only washed out in areas, but so narrow only one car can pass at a time.  The drive is incredible and the mountain views something to see.

This is the lagoon at the top.  It's full after heavy rains and hurricanes.  This particular day there was no water but sunflower fields.  In the past, the locals would grow corn and after the floods came they would have to start over.  Same today but they are coming into the 21st century.  Sunflowers are not native to us here but it has become big business.  They sell the seeds, and make cooking oil and body oils.

We found this restaurant which seems to be one of three.  The other two are very small and not a lot of people actually go all the way to the top.  Most if not all of the land around the lagoon is private so walking around would be difficult without asking permission everytime you crossed a fence.  We asked about security and no one really seemed to want to answer directly.

You can see the preserves and sunflower oils they sell.  

The food we ordered was cooked on leña, or wood fire.  It was delicious especially with flour tortillas.  They had corn, but they were made from Maseca, and we don't care for them.  We like the yellow corn from the south.  Corn tortillas are not as common here in the north.

It was a fun day and even though we've been there several times it was cool to see how little the place has changed.  It was 23 years ago we took my oldest brother and his wife to the lagoon.  There was no place to eat and we asked a kid on the road where to eat.  He said there wasn't any place but we could knock on just about any house and someone would be more than willing to prepare something for us.  We also took our friend Dave (David and Marina) from Perth and his friend Cam to the lagoon.  It had water in it then and it was a beautiful crystal blue.  At that time too, we found a woman to cook for us.  But as I remember, it wasn't very tasty.  

Censured Journalism has come to the Americas or I should say has returned.  Politicians and presidents are filing lawsuits, forbidding journalists from reporting and more.  I'm not sure where this will go but here are a few cases in Mexico.  There are 21 cases of registered censorship.

When the majority rules it's not just in the politial cirle.  It trickles down to everyday society.  

This year we have had 21 journalist censored and some in the worst ways.  I'll give you a couple of examples:

A well-known journalist spoke out against a state governor.  He was fined 2 million pesos and not allowed to publish for two years.

A citizen claimed that a representative of the house obtained her job thanks to a higher up in the majority party.  She was sanctioned with giving a public apology for 30 continuous days.

A lawyer made an off the cuff remark to the president of the senate as he was deboarding a plane in the Mexico City airport.  He was required to appear before the senate and formally apologize to the party.

A Tik Toker was sanctioned and forced to apologize via TikTok for speaking out against a politician.  In addition, she will remain on a sanctions list for one year and six months.

Here is the law that is supposed to protect those listed above:

The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States guarantees freedom of expression in Articles 6 and 7. Article 6 establishes the inviolability of freedom of expression and the right to seek, receive, and disseminate information and ideas of any kind through any medium. Article 7 prohibits prior censorship and establishes that the freedom to write and publish on any subject is inviolable.

What's next for the Americas?  

Are We In A Quagmire?

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

The last few months have been brutal to democracy.  On June 1st, there was a public vote for 800 district and Supreme court judges.  Do you know how many countries have a public vote for Supreme Court judges?  None. The candidates were chosen from a tombola.  The requirements were minimum to say the least; a law degree, five years of practice, and a minimum GPA of 8.  To ensure that a certain party won all the slots, accordions were passed out the week before telling people who to vote for in their district along with the Supreme Court justices.  An accordion is a cheat sheet.  

80% of the vote matched the cheat sheets, ballots were not folded, indicating that they were not true votes and never inserted into the urns, ballots were marked with the same handwriting, voting polls with 100% or more participation, voting polls that were open for up to 29 hours versus eight hours.  Since then, 29 of the winning judges have had their votes nullified for corruption, extortion, or involvement with the drug trade.  So much for the judicial system. 

There has been talk of militarization.  It has already begun. For example, the armed forces are now in charge of distributing vaccines and school textbooks, building publicly owned hospitals, banks, highways, stadiums, and hotels, as well as infrastructure projects that are key for administration, including Mexico City’s new airport and a tourist train in the south. The military is also responsible for administering the new publicly owned airline (which still only has five aircraft and many flights have only had one passenger. These are 737-800 aircraft) and for policing airports and customs areas. The army’s budget has doubled since 2018 and is now more than three times that of the Health Ministry.

The worst news became public last Friday.  Happy 4th of July!  Many of you are temporary or permanent residents and, like all Mexicans much have a Clave Unica de Registro de Poblacion.  It is a requirement for all Mexican residents.  BTW, you need to have the latest printed and on hand at all times, signed by the Secretaria de Gobernacion.  That position has had a personnel chang three times in the last seven years.  If it doesn't have the latest Secretria name on it, it is not valid.

Anyway, the constitution was changed last week to require that the above document be digitalized.  That means we will all now be part of a biometric system that includes facial recognition, fingerprints and more.  Here is the list:

Personal Information:

Full name (first and last name)

Date of birth

Place of birth (state)

Sex or gender

Nationality

Biometric data:

Digital photograph

Fingerprints

Iris scan (possibly)

Security features:

Electronic signature

Barcode or QR code

Security features to validate authenticity

The law was passed, and then an important clause was changed after voting.  Before the vote, a judge would be required to authorize the use of the information before an investigation or arrest was made.  This could be for many violations, including those at a highway checkpoint, immigration and more.  That clause was removed after the vote and now no authorization is required.   This is a serious change.  So seriously, that I booked a couple of flights for next month on VivaAerobus to Queretaro and San Antonio, TX.  I received an email after booking asking me if I wanted to use facial recognition to avoid an in-person check-in. 

Some good news on the border front.  Arrests by the U.S. Border Patrol have been reduced by 93% because of action taken by the U.S. There are no more caravans traveling through Mexico.  Those caravans were filled with a variety of undesirable people, including criminals, people who have obtained legal residency in other countries but were looking for a free ride to the U.S. 

The border is still very dangerous, and Nuevo León has created a workaround to help avoid some of the cartel trouble via the Colombia Bridge.  They have created a connection from the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo highway to what is now called La Gloria.  A bypass which will avoid the necessity to use Hwy 2 from Colombia back to Nuevo Laredo and then to the autopista Monterrey/Saltillo.  

Military and Guardia Nacional checkpoints have become very spotty.  They are now going through personal belongings, including wallets and purses, asking for the amount of money one is carrying and in many cases stealing money or items from vehicles.  The most recent atrocity was a guy who had a U.S. prescription for Viagra along with the pills.  The prescription means nothing here and is considered a federal crime.  The military threatened to jail the man in Mexico City if he didn't pay 1 million pesos.  He resisted for hours, and finally they gave up taking what money he had in his wallet.  Oh, and the confiscated Viagra was thrown back into the owner's car.  

Abrazos no balazos and primero los pobres.