Catemaco Matresses

To fatten the Mexican treasury, lawmakers approved 2 new laws to enhance Mexico’s economic development.

ONE - they raised the gasoline tax - because they are bleeding the monopoly PEMEX oil company to death, and TWO - the Mexican equivalent of the IRS will collect 2% on any deposits totaling more than 25,000 pesos per month, probably because one third of the Mexican economy neither files nor pays taxes.

Consequently beautiful downtown Catemaco will see a surge of the traditional financial institution “Under the Mattress, S.A.”, and local merchants are hustling to place their orders.

Catemaco History

On the eve, or one of those mañana things, of Mexican Independence (Sept 15/16), read the history of:
La Batalla de El Alamo in garbled Google Spanish, and then
The Battle of the Alamo in Wikipedian English.

And then! Grab a six pack of Corona and holler a toast to the Texicans.

Oops, the Mexicans only seceded Texas, etc. They kept the rest of Mexico.
That is why there are almost no Six Packs of Beer in my part of Mexico.
Common Mexican beer drinkers prefer their beer lukewarm in quart size bottles.
A real culture shock!

Catemaco BIG is beautiful

Being rich, handsome and driving a giant SUV is possibly the biggest status symbol in Mexico. (Probably in the US, too). Unfortunately the rich to poor distribution in beautiful downtown Catemaco is a little out of whack.

Catemaco, of course, is a tourist destination, so the frequency of Cadillac Escalade, Mercedes, BMW, Hummer, and volcanic dimensioned Ford and Chevrolet models may be excused as neighboring cities visitors out for their weekend SUV drive.

But, in my almost daily walks around Catemaco City, I see a lot of these cars parked in front of homes, possibly worth half as much as the car. Of course I cannot see the cars behind the customary 8 feet walls that any self respecting Mexican will erect to revert to his possible "gachupines" (Spanish born) roots.

Nevertheless my latest table napkin calculations show that there are more expensive cars in Catemaco than what the Catemaco government receives as its allowance from the state and federal governments. (Less than 6 million dollars).

And here I thought I was living in an impoverished area of Mexico.

"Booming" Veracruz

Mexican politicians recently went into apoplexy over supposed US mercenaries being hired for Veracruz. The issue is now being fueled by the chip-on-shoulder fringe of the usual supposed Mexican “inteligencia”.

At issue is a help wanted ad by a US contractor to provide services to fly unmanned aircraft in the state of Veracruz. No objective was stated but presumably this would involve drug field and gas pipeline inspections.

Mexico has about as much experience in flying unmanned aircraft as flying space shuttles, namely NONE. The only qualified technicans to fly unmanned aircraft are the “mercenary” veterans of US army field operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other exotic tourist destinations.
Those mercenaries would have been very welcome yesterday, before someone decided to blow up 6 pipelines in Veracruz.

It is about time that Mexican politicians pass a law forbidding native Mexicans to mess with Veracruz !
Mexico Says US Recruits Mercenaries

Mexico Cucurrucucuuuuu..

The new 20 peso bill dropped the proud Mexican eagle for a chicken or a dove, depending on your gastronomic view point.

Next, the bureaucrats of Mexico will probably want to change the name of the country from “United Mexican States” (Estados Unidos Mexicanos) to “Mexico”, to stop this endless confusion of which Estados Unidos Mexicans would rather live in.

Catemaco Elections

Mexico possibly has some of the best election procedures in the world.
Anyone following the news of the 2006 debacle of a photo finish in the Mexican election and the resultant havoc may question that statement, but judging from what I saw in this current election and several before that, the election procedure is managed about as clean as can possibly be.

BUT, what goes on up to the moment a voter actually casts his or her vote is possibly along the lines of 19th century America, Chicago, or George Bush owned plantations. Vote buying, vote coercion, voter impersonation, etc, is still the norm, and reportedly votes and their corresponding voter identifications were being offered up to 500 pesos each.

Political parties competed with handouts ranging from bushels of eggs, toiletry kits and sacks of concrete to sheet metal roofing. Individuals were threatened with loss of their scholarships, social support, and monthly stipends for failing to vote in the “right” direction.

Nevertheless, beautiful downtown Catemaco, Veracruz did itself proud and produced a record turnout of 63 per cent of registered voters, including a few dead ones, and elected a mayor for the next 3 year term with a 28 % “majority”.

Now, personally, if I took this stuff seriously, I would probably prefer to leave Catemaco rather than to live with the next mayor’s reputation.

But then again, nobody left Catemaco after I moved here.
So what!
VIVA JORGE GONZALEZ AZAMAR
Líder maximo de Catemaco, 2008-2010.
May he reign in peace.