muerte a los baristas

I recently watched Linklater's Slacker on DVD, along with a ten minute trailer for Viva Les Amis, a documentary that mourns the loss of a locally owned cafe that was replaced by Starbucks. Three Starbucks baristas are interviewed. None of them seems to know much about the former cafe, and their tepid mannerisms would seem to symbolize all that is troubling about Generation Y. They are articulate and self-confident, but so dispassionate and uninformed as to seem pitiful. I think the filmmakers make this impression deliberately, and that there is something distasteful about it, about any generation that would sneer at a younger one for not being cool enough.

I recently bought coffee at Starbucks and actually liked the "The Way I See It" quote printed on the cup. Can such a thing remotely compare to experiencing a live hub of counterculture? Of course not. But perhaps a beautiful thing about being young is that nobody gets to do it in exactly the same way. 

The Way I See It #76

"The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life." 

- Anne Morriss

There's always Spider House.

I'm wondering why the state department's warning about travel abroad in Mexico hasn't caused more public outrage. Israel recently invaded Gaza on the grounds that a developed nation has the right to protect its citizens by invading a neighboring state. We are no longer safe to travel in Mexico, millions of Mexican immigrants within our borders live in terror that their family members on the other side might be kidnapped and held for ransom, and the Mexican government is too weak to control the activities of armed groups within its borders. Either we are noble to endure these terrors in the name of respecting Mexico's territorial integrity, or we are just too numb to care. 

Organized crime in Mexico has grown from drug distribution into widespread kidnapping and extortion. My sense is that Mexico has safe areas and unsafe areas, just like in the U.S., only the unsafe areas are more concentrated in Mexico. The facile state department memo reduces the safe areas to "legitimate business and tourist areas." We have the right to demand something better. For example, since the city of Monterrey is not a premier tourist destination, should I consider myself "warned" by my government not to explore its outskirts? The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in Mexico; why should any U.S. memo compromise my rights there?

Backing up a bit, I recently became interested in traveling to Mexico. Having loved trips to New Mexico in 2007 and 2008, I have a feeling that I'll love Mexico for many of the same reasons: the culture, the land, the shared history. This is my personal taste. A U.S. citizen could feel the same enthusiasm about Iceland. To ground this in principle, I believe that since I live within a culture infused with Mexican people and cultural influences, my "pursuit of happiness" should include the freedom to explore this culture at its source. In this light I view the state department memo and general complacency of the U.S. population at large as threats to my civil liberties. I want to go to Mexico and not have to worry about being kidnapped.