Casual Restaurant Critic goes Blogging

The Casual Restaurant has joined the overcrowded realm of the blog. You can read his latest entry, on the new Sirloin Stockade restaurant here in sunny Merida, at:

http://casualrestaurantcritic.blogspot.com/

Enjoy.

We have a winner!

Just in case you are completely uninformed, Yucatan will soon sport a new governor, a woman, whose name is Ivonne Ortega and she is from the formerly (70 years) ruling party of Mexico, the PRI. Everyone that knows her and is on her side insists she is very charismatic and just a wonderful person.

The PANistas are quite upset, especially the ultra-right catholic chest beaters in Merida; how this could have happened is beyond them. But, as someone pointed out as a possible exclamation: The PRI governments stole everything they could, but also helped a lot of people especially in the poor, rural areas of Yucatan, while the PAN government just helped itself to everything without giving anything back.

My candidate, Cholo, didn't fare very well, but I suppose he served his purpose, which was to distract voters and votes from some of the other candidates. Ana Rosa, who would have won had she been the candidate for the PAN party, also fared poorly. The logic among the Ana Rosistas was that while they supported her, she had no chance so they voted for someone else, mainly Ivonne Ortega. If everyone who preferred Ana Rosa had actually voted for her, and not copped out, she would have probably won.

Conspiracy theories abound: The PRI was 'given' the Yucatan in exchange for less antagonism at the federal level where the PRI controls the Congress and generally opposed the president; Ana Rosa was forced out of the PAN party by the PRI who knew they could not beat the PAN with Ana Rosa and offered her a deal - in exchange for her dimission from the PAN governor race, a hueso, or political appointment within the PRI government.

As I hear more of these charming theories, I will be sure to post them for your amusement.

The Godfather al estilo Yucateco

Not to be a gossip (ha ha) but the other day I heard some chisme (gossip) from a fairly reliable source.

Turns out he had attended a breakfast meeting for local businessmen put on by Xavier (PAN) to garner support for his campaign. At some point during the breakfast, donations were asked for and received, in the form of envelopes with money inside them handed to someone there.

Kinda reminds me of the Sopranos.

Not-The-News UpDate!

For those of you still reading, my Not-The-News has once again been updated. You can read it by clicking on the Apr/May 2007 button at www.not-the-news.com . There you will see that it's not all negative and critical. Most is, but not all. If you are one of the lucky millions that hasn't read the back issues, those are located at www.geocities.com/elmaloso.geo.

Enyoy!

(Espanish Version) Si eres de esas curiosas personas de muy buen gusto que todavia leen lo que se me va ocurriendo, puedes disfrutar la ultima actualizacion haciendo clic en el botón que dice Abr/Mayo en www.not-the-news.com Verás que no todo es critica. Mucho, pero no todo. Para articulos de gran interés para los que disfrutan el vivir en Yucatán, los archivos anteriores a este 2007 están en www.geocities.com/elmaloso.geo

Thanks and lets all vote for Cholo on Sunday!

Yucatan Election Relief

Yucatecans both local and imported are suffering from election campaign overload, and we can all be thankful that it will come to an end very soon.

You can´t see the trees or the walls of the city - or anything else for that matter - thanks to the virtual wallpapering of Merida with visual election propaganda. The TV and radio are also crammed with ads for the two main candidates from the PAN and PRI party.

Luckily for me, I don´t watch local TV (definitely pena ajena material) so I am not subjected to the assault as are some of Yucatan's less fortunate citizens who, without the dish providing them with Sky, can only tune in those channels. And the radio, well I cannot thank Steve Jobs enough for coming up with the iPod, which in turn led to iTunes which led to Podcasts.

I think everyone misses the sight of trees without a purple and orange 'X' on them and listening to Fernando Ayora mangling English band names on 97.7. I can't wait to see the trees again but I won't be tuning in Merida's worst radio station any time soon...

Oh yeah, Cholo

In a previous post on the Yucatan gubernatorial (is that even a word?) candidates, I don't think I mentioned Cholo aka Hector Herrera, a regional comic/comedian who has been doing regional theater (read extremely local humor) for years now.

He is in the running (although he is way behind and seen as not having a hope in hell of getting any substantial amounts of votes) for the pathetic PRD party. The party that is full of ex-PRI politicians and spend their time raising hell and complaining about everything. The party that gave Mexico Mr. Lopez Obrador as a presidential candidate who lost his mind during and after the last presidential elections.

If I could vote - alas my foreign status prohibits it - I would vote for Cholo! He sounds like a fun option to all the boring and/or corrupt politicians out there, sweating in the pueblos, posing for photos with the Mayan villagers whom they could care less about. At least with Cholo, we could have a laugh as he bumbles his way through the pitfalls of Mexican politics...