the anti-state of the union

the visit with brendan moves merrily along... though i just have a few minutes to write. we found an internet spot near our hotel with internet for 35 cents per half hour. we certainly cannot argue with that, but are off to relax with our multilingual cable TV options, after a long day of sight seeing, and before we meet jennifer and miguel for dinner later this evening.

the state of the union drama didn't quite live up to the talk as far as the airport run was concerned. in fact, there was less traffic than there was the friday afternoon when my girlfriends got into town a few weeks ago. i guess all of the hoopla and warnings of chaos kept people holed up at home. we got to our hotel easily, thanks to our very grumpy PRD-supporting cab driver. the only evidence we even saw of the protests was a string of riot gear outfitted cops standing on an overpass that we drove under... our driver emphatically showed them his middle digit. brendan thinks he was snarky with us since we were gabbing in the back seat while he was trying to listen to an empassioned AMLO speech on the radio. probably so.

we did catch a glimpse of the whole event on tv later that night... i saw a PRI congresswoman make her address, and was followed by a PRD senator. during his talk, all of the PRD folks - from the senate and house, as far as i could tell - rushed the podium and took their places, refusing to budge in a show of adamant solidarity with lopez obrador, their man of the moment. it was really pretty incredible. a number of these men (and women, presumably, though i don't recall seeing any among the PRD crew) stood up there - at the front of what is equivalent to our capitol building - with large signs that displayed a picture of vicente fox, with TRAITOR in big bold letters underneath. i couldn't stop thinking about our own divisive politics, and how this would never, ever go down. it somehow seems to me to demonstrate how all of our precious american freedoms were intended... though never realized to this degree, or at least in such a context.

when fox eventually arrived, he submitted a statement in writing, pointing out that in accordance with the constitution such circumstances were not appropriate for giving a state of the union address, so he would not give the address. and so the state of the union address evening came and went, with no appearance from the president of the country. and i had misunderstood jennifer's explanation leading up to friday evening... the idea was not to protect fox from threats of physical harm - that was how i had understood it - but rather the intent from the beginning was to physically prevent fox from taking the podium. here, i think we can say, mission accomplished.

my minutes are ticking away, so i will get to the more tourist details of the past few days later. we just filled our tummies with pricey food at a gentlemen's club style cantina. lots of button-down shirts and ties, with older men playing rounds of dominoes. my arrival made the number of women in the room four. an experience indeed, and just one of many. the others will come later. tomorrow we are off to guanajuato, where we will breath clean air and soak up the sun. i cannot go back to a september in seattle feeling like i never really got a dose of summer. guanajuato should fix that.