keeping things interesting

the president gives his annual state of the union every september 1st. today is september 1st. brendan is flying into mexico city this afternoon. the airport is in the vicinity of the legislative building where vicente fox will give his address at 7pm. a lot of people are really miffed with vicente fox right now. this is not good.

there has been ample talk about how the protests surrounding tonight's state of the union address are going to be the biggest of fox's six years in office. a notice went out to GIRE staff earlier this week, saying that anyone who lives in that part of the city (the northeast) could plan to not come in at all today, or leave early, if they were worried about not being able to get home. a bunch of metro stops are closed and as far as i can gather most of the major streets in the general vicinity of where the address will be given are blocked off.

how, then, will we manage to get from the aiport to our hotel? that, my friends, i cannot tell you. we will have to wait and see.

my theory is that there have to be still be taxis running from the aiport. there have to be. brendan cannot be the only person flying into the second biggest city in the world on this fateful day. and the up-side of airport taxis is that you pay before you get in. so worst case scenario, we sit in a taxi for 5 or more hours in an attempt to travel about 10 miles. but at least we still only pay 120 pesos or so. we could attempt to take the metro, but your not allowed to bring luggage on the metro, and will every thoroughfare closed, i am guessing it will be overrun and there probably wouldn't even be room for his luggage. i am taking the metro to the aiport to meet him, and i am bracing myself even for that.

it will be interesting to see what unfolds tonight... in terms of the country's political context as well as my own personal transportation dilemma. jennifer has heard that fox won't even take the podium to make his address since there are serious concerns about his physical well-being. yikes. i have always kind of wondered what the 2000 inauguration protests would have been like... this is probably the closest i'll ever come.

the drama with lopez obrador continues. i have to say that he is starting to sound a little batty. politically, he still has my support, but his recent proclamation that if calderon is declared the president-elect on the september 6th deadline, there will be two president, with himself as the president of civil disobedience...

we just got word of the increasing chaos so i am off to the airport on short notice. will finish my thoughts later.