Programming Note

Between building out our new rig, getting all our stuff out of storage in Rochester and moving it to Denver, and helping our kid move to a house, it’s been a busy few months. Tomorrow, dios mediante, we start our long-delayed travel. We’re heading to Mexico and will be there for a couple of months after a little more tune up of the rig.

This means a little less posting, but I hope that Kay and Joe will have something to say.

I just discovered that people who have a grandparent who was a Mexican citizen can get dual citizenship. In theory, I’m eligible. I’m considering it, perhaps not as seriously as I should. As I do before every trip to Mexico, I’m working on my Spanish. Jumpspeak, Duolingo and also watching a few of Claudia Sheinbaum’s morning press conferences with automated English subtitles. Mexico has plenty of problems, but Claudia is doing what the US can’t: making big changes. Last week her health minister (an 82 year-old physician with over 500 publications to his name, i.e, the opposite of RFK Jr.) announced a new effort to combat the #1 killer of Mexican woman: breast cancer (“cáncer de mama”). Today, Mexico has 686 mammogram machines. By the end of next year, they will have 1,000 more, plus 32 new treatment centers, plus 20 super specialty centers.

The numbers are important to Claudia. There was some serious flooding in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, with over 100 dead. Claudia’s government launched a microsite with daily totals of roads repaired, villages reached (some were cut off by flooding), censuses taken, and schools cleaned. Every press conference starts with the numbers. Her press conferences are at 7:30 AM Mexico City time. Then, at 7:30 PM, she has another update on socials, after she meets with everyone working on the floods.

She is a “technocrat” in the sense that she uses metrics to manage, but not in the sense that she forgets about the humanity of the Mexican people. She also works her ass off and is absolutely fearless about being surrounded by crowds.

After 5 more years of her presidency, Mexico might well be a better place to live than the US. So maybe I should become a dual citizen. We’ll see.