Thursday, May 31, 2018

Poetry from the Land of Rapists and Animals

Each of these verses below, except those of the Book of Genesis, can be found in Spanish on the walls of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.  I have included lines from the Book of Genesis (King James version) for comparison with the Aztec creation narrative. The English translations are mine.

In the Beginning:  Cuado Aún Era de Noche 

           In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and
           void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face
           of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light:  and there was light.  The book of Genesis

           Cuando aún era de noche, cuando aún no habia dia
           cuando aún no habia luz, se reunieron
           Se convocaron los dioses, allá en Teotihuacán

          When it was still night, when there still was no day
          When there was still no light, they met
          The gods convened, there, at TeotihuacánThe (Aztec) Florentine Codex

The Florentine Codex consists of field notes taken by the Spanish Franciscan monk, Bernardino de Sahagún, in the late 16th century, for his monumental work, The General History of Things of New Spain, also known as the Florentine Codex. Teotihuacán, around 500 AD, was the fifth or sixth largest city in the world.  It was built probably by the Toltec civilization at least a thousand years before the arrival of the Spaniards.  The civilization collapsed in the sixth or seventh century AD.  Teotihuacán, in Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs), means "birthplace of the gods."  The Aztecs believed the gods created the universe at Teotihuacan.  The site can be visited today.
Creating Humans:  El Hombre Formado

           And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
           breath of life:  and man became a living soul.  So God created man in his own image, in the
           image of God created him:  male and female created he them.  The Book of Genesis

           ¡Que aclare!
           ¡Que amanezca en el cielo y en la tierra!
           No habrá gloria ni grandeza hasta que exista la criatura humana:  el hombre formado
  
           Let there be light!
           Let the light awaken in the sky and on earth!
           There will be no glory or greatness until the human creature exists:  the created man:  Popol Vuh (Quiché Maya)

The Popol Vuh is the creation narrative of the Quiche speaking Maya civilization.  According to the narrative humans were created by the gods only on the third try.  The first resulted in lifeless mud figures, the second, monkeys.  Popol Vuh was transmitted orally through the generations, until the Dominican friar, Francisco Ximenez, a Spanish priest assigned to Chichicastenango, in Guatemala, transcribed it. 

The Fleeting Nature of Life: Toda sangre llega al lugar de su quietud

            ¿Solo asi he de irme? 
            ¿Como las flores que perecieron?
            ¿Nada quedará de mi nombre?
            ¿Nada de mi fama aqui en la tierra?
            ¡Al menos flores, al menos cantos!

            Thus am I to go?
            Like the flowers that perished?
            Nothing will remain of my name?
            Nothing of my fame here on earth?
            At least flowers!  At least songs!  Cantos de Huejotzingo

Cantos de Huejotzingo is part of a three-part book of verses in Nahuatl, copied probably by friars Andres de Olmos and Bernardino de Sahagün.  It was found at the beginning of the twentieth century in a forgotten pile of books in the National Mexican Library.  The fleeting nature of life, along with images of flowers and songs are favored themes of nahuatl poetry.

            Toda luna, todo año, todo dia, todo viento
            camina y pasa también.
            Tamien toda sangre llega al lugar de su quietud.

            Every moon, every year, every day, every breeze
            comes and then moves on
            Likewise, all blood reaches the place where it lies in stillness Chilam Balam

The Chilam Balam are books from the Yucatan written after the conquest, in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.  They are written in the Yucatec Maya language but using the Latin alphabet.  The lines included above are from a famous section of a chapter called "To Castrate the Sun," referring to the actions of the Spanish conquerors

Saturday, May 26, 2018

The Trump Tweet Game:  What Does it Tell Us?

It appears to be something like a law of nature, drummed into every television producer for two years now:  Every tweet tweeted by Trump must be covered fully, especially if the content is truly an outrage to decency or democratic values, like threatening to punish football stars for kneeling at the national anthem, or threatening to fire Rosenstein one more time, or one more insult at Hillary.  The tweet must be displayed in a little box with a hash mark, long enough for viewers to actually read it.  It must be read breathlessly, with an air of disbelief, perplexity, and frustration at the latest installment of the genre, as though it was completely unexpected.  Then a panel of experts will appear.  One familiar face, we know, will support Trump not matter what the case, with the glee and smugness of a secure victor.  Another familiar face, we know, will plead against the factual basis, or logic, of the tweet, as though appealing, desperately, to the inherent reasonableness of the American public, for validation--with the look of frustration of a loser suspecting the game is rigged.  Viewers who, for the moment at least, love the shake-up that Trump represents will smile approvingly at the pitiful scene the tweet has produced on television.  Viewers who hate Trump will cling to the straw hope of voter revenge in November, say a silent prayer for the flip of the House, and allow a shiver to disgust to rumble through their minds once more.

This game has become a ritual, re-enacted daily, and it will continue as long as Trump toys against the interests of the Lower 99% with such glee.  The dirty little secret that gives the tweet game life is that the new Establishment is--surprise!--the same old Establishment of monied interests, only this iteration is more honest and forthright:  Trump is telling them they needn't bother with the silliness of paying homage to the trappings of democratic values.  That game was over years ago.

Saturday, May 19, 2018

The Royal Wedding

The Brits Send a Message to America and the World:  This is What Racial Harmony Looks Like

It was as though the Brits had decided the royal wedding presented an opportunity to show America (one half of the royal couple's bloodlines) and the rest of our racially hysterical world what decency and mutual respect at a simple wedding might look like in a multi-racial society.  It reminded us that ancient ceremony and tradition, if it conducted with grace, can unify and heal.
 
Such a ceremony in inconceivable in Washington today.

Friday, May 18, 2018


My productivity in this blog has been sparse.  This is largely due to my uncertainty about the new contours of power in the nation (and I'm not referring here so much to Trump as to his corporate and financial backers who appear desperate to prop him up), and to my feeling I was slightly behind the times (some of my students used to think I was at least twenty years behind the times), and in danger of making dumb analytical mistakes.  The school shooting this morning in Santa Fe, Texas, has prompted me to comment.

Another School Shooting in Texas:

The increasingly frequent tragedy of students shooting other students is regularly reported in the media as giving urgency to an ongoing "conversation" about gun control.  I put this word in quotes because the concept of conversation carries with it the notion of mutual sincerity, in an effort to reach common ground while maintaining mutual respect.  In fact, however, school shootings have been used as opportunities for advocates of gun control to speak to each other, bathed with the pathos,if not the authority, of tragedy, and for opponents of gun control to double down with the NRA.  No respect for the other side is evident, nor any search for common ground.

This is not a conversation at all, and all the hoopla around the shouting match has produced precious little in the way of understanding, much less to solving the problem.  For much of television, the shouting is what is being covered in the aftermath of a shooting, not whatever insights might be available to shed light on what makes this scenario so frequent.

My quarrel with worn out, knee-jerk reaction to shootings is not that the issue of gun control is trivial.  It is not trivial; gun control goes to the heart of democratic practice; it raises serious issues about why our political system cannot deliver what the public clearly wants in restricting access to certain lethal weapons, the role of bribery, often legal, in our electoral processes, and other serious matters such as what attitude I might have about gun control should I lose confidence in the workings of the rule of law in the age of Trump.  They should be on the agenda, and if shootings revive them so be it.

My quarrel is this:  The most serious question lurking behind the shootings is not gun control, although it plays a role, but this:  what kinds of forces in our society are at work to prompt dozens of young men and boys, to want to go out in a blaze of what appears to be displaced anger?  Why is this not happening in other societies?  Why is it not happening in Mexico, for example, which is already going through an orgy of mutilation and death related to drug trafficking, and where, in spite of strict gun control laws, AK-47's are as common as margaritas at the Kentucky Club in Juarez on a Friday night?  Why is it not happening in Bolivia or Timbuktu?

There are, of course answers to these questions, and the field of sociology was designed specifically to explore such issues.  So why aren't the sociologists, from respectable institutions, regularly asked for their opinions about the forces at work producing a mindset that sometimes ends up in a tragic shooting?  Why do we focus only on the psychology of the shooter?  Sociology and other branches of social science have much to say about all of this, and we should at least encourage a broad, public discussion about some of their insights.

The last time the sociology of mass killings was explored in mass media was in 2002, when Michael Moore won an Academy Award for best documentary, Bowling for Columbine.  In the movie he explored possible clues about the social origins of the killings, and his answers, while sketchy, read like an indictment of much of what is wrong with our society today:  a media culture that teems with violence, bipartisan foreign policies citizens don't understand, but which seem endless and in which the response to resistance always seems to be to kill and maim whoever gets in the way; what appears to be the conscious creation of fear from government and media alike; and which is often reinforced by school administrators.  I'm not sure Moore got this right, but he made an effort to explore, and today there appears to be a tacit, bipartisan rule that we don't even seek to discuss the social pathologies that account for what appears to have systemic and social, more than psychological, causes.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Excellent Bullfights Last Night in Juárez;  Possibly More to Come

The first two of six Begoña bulls were slow as molasses, lacked fighting spirit, and had no stamina.  Their tongues were already hanging out before the picadors arrived.  The matadors looked silly trying to execute passes in slow motion without a hint of danger from the bulls.  Fortunately the kills were clean.  The third bull, named Alejo, (1200 lbs) fought by Joselito Adame, made up for all of this, restoring the reputation of the Begoña ranch by tossing both horses to the ground.  This happened very quickly and for a few moments both horses were on their back simultaneously.  The second picador was crushed under the horse as it fell to the ground and had to be rescued and taken to the infirmary.  At this point the cuadrilla, lost control of the ring and for maybe 15-20 seconds no one was in control, a, unusual turn that seemed to please the crowd, now solidly with the bull.  Adame restored order by showing off the bull's great fighting spirit and stamina with skillfully executed, beautifully linked passes, and a clean kill.  He was granted two ears.

The next bull, even more spirited than Alejo, tossed one of the horses to the ground and proved to be unremittingly spirited and fit.  Sebastian Castella showed strong technical skills delivering his passes and the crowd begged the president to pardon the bull.  No dice, a solid kill, and two ears.

All in all it was a good evening, with seven ears awarded to the matadors.  Manuel Gaona, from the famous Gaona bullfighting family in Chihuahua, received his alternativa last night from Castella, and even cut one ear. No longer a novice, he is likely to start moving up the rankings.  Castella showed why he is ranked 15th, instead of 25th, and on the other hand is not in the top 5.  To be in the top five requires more of a distinctive, charismatic style than the generically classic style of Castella, but to be as good as 15th you have to have outstanding technical skills.

The underwriters of this bullfight, Espectáculos Taurinos de México (ETMSA), have suggested they might bring more top-ranking venues to the Balderas bullring in Juarez.  I estimated that people filled about 70% of the bullring.

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Bullfighting Returns to Juarez on Friday

The best Mexican matador, Joselito Adame, will appear at the Antonio Balderas bullring in Juarez on May 4 at 8 p.m. along with Sebastian Castella, a French-born matador who usually makes his rounds in Spain, and a young matador by the name of Manuel Gaona, who will receive his alternativa (status) as a full-fledged matador in a brief ceremony on this occasion.  Castella was ranked 15th in the Spanish rankings last year, and Adame, 29, usually ranks in the top 20.  Both appeared in April at the prestigious Feria de Sevilla, and both will do the Fiesta de San Isidro in Madrid in June.  Today, May 1, Adame and El Juli, one of the the top 3 or 4 matadors in Spain for many years, will compete in a mano a mano in Aguascalientes, Mexico.  I saw El Juli about twenty years ago in Juarez, when he was 16 and absolutely fearless, in one of the most astonishingly daring and skilled performances I've ever seen.

Bullfighting has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the last 25 years, in great part because of major improvements in the quality of the bulls, bred to behave more predictably during a bullfight.  Today's fighting bull tends to be quicker, smoother in a charge, and has greater stamina.  This has greatly increased the percentage of bullfights that produce the sculptural, elegant passes, very close to the matador's body, that bring audiences to the edge of their seats as the matador, linking passes in quick succession, establishes a tense kind of rapport between himself and the bull.  This rapport, in turn, because the horns come so close to the body and the bull is beginning to show the punishment of the pic, tends to arouse in the spectator both fear (for the matador) and pity for the bull--emotions Aristotle said define tragedy, and which are purged by the death of the bull.  Spain is known for its tragic sense of life and for most Spanish bullfighting fans, the bull is the protagonist, and sometimes the hero, of the encounter.

Bullfights resumed at Balderas again in 2012, a few years after the Plaza Monumental in Juarez, a bigger bullring, was blown up to make room for a Walmart.  Balderas was built in 1957, and now hosts a limited number of bullfights per year.  There is only one more bullfight programed for this year at Balderas, date yet unknown.

Photo by Jose Z. Garcia at Balderas bullring in 2016