Sex, Drugs, Guns, and Fast boats

I was in middle school when Miami Vice first appeared in living rooms across America. I was too young to know that it was a watered-down version of what could be in an R-rated feature film. But what even a young girl could recognize was that it was something visually, musically, sexually and dangerously more than anything else in prime time. I might have been a good girl, but at 13 I would have given my virginity to Phillip Michael Thomas in a heartbeat. Everything about the excess was attractive and repulsive at the same time, but it sucked you in. It was cutting edge, it was seductive.

But if you've ever caught a rerun, it's dated. It's pink. It's the 80s. It's a cliche now. Its time-capsuled. So when I saw they were making a remake--I was like, whatever. You know remakes--they're not good. They try to recapture something and usually end up feeling like a spoof. It's sad. And that guy from the Phone Booth is no Sonny Cockett.

But yesterday, I was reading the New York Times, a paper that is pretty hard to please. The review was actually pretty favorable. I mean, the guy had to slip in that it was a "gratuitous" film. Well, duh, it's Miami Vice not Schindler's List. Not every film is going to add significant meaning to the world. But the reviewer also said, "Miami Vice is an action film for people who dig experimental art films, and vice versa." Plus, it mentioned the on location filming: Paraguay, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti and on and on--oh, and of course Miami. So, I had to go see it. I had to see if they could really translate that feeling I got at 13 to something a adult could feel at 34. I had to see if Michael Mann could bring Crockett and Tubbs out of the 80s and let me believe in them again. I wanted to be washed over by the music and the images and the sex and the revulsion and the seduction all over again, but in something now. I didn't want them to recapture the 80s. I'll never be 13 again. I wanted to feel like a grown-up and I wanted Miami Vice to feel like it had grown up, too.

Damn. They did it. It was a wild, sexy ride. You were undercover and you wanted to stay there, but you had to get out. It was too big, too vibrant, too hot, too rich, too dangerous. You knew you couldn't stay, but it sucked you in. It was what Miami Vice had always wanted to be--on the big screen, for an adult audience. The film became the drug, so sometimes, it even hurt a little. Yeah, it was gratuitous. It's an escape. It's a drug. It's intoxicating and dangerous.

Once you've seen it, you can check out the adult-only portion of the website and learn not only about the actors, film-makers and cinematography, which was by the way, intoxicating in itself, but about the drug trade, and many of the other vices controlled by cartels around the world. You get facts and figures on the demand-side, as well. About the young mothers doing crystal, about the eighth graders trying cocaine--about why this all goes on and on. Because part of the what makes Miami Vice so seductive and repulsive is that knowledge that as over-the-top as this big-budget, fictional thrill ride might be, underlying it is a violent, dangerous, incredibly addictive, unbelievable lucrative and ultimately destructive truth.

Summer means the New York Times

What do I think of when I think of summer? Exploration. Time to travel a bit, reflect, refuel-- and read what I only fantasize about during the school year--The New York Times. Okay, you caught me. If you have been reading my blog for a while you will realize that I often reference articles from the Times even during the school year. That's true. I often peruse the paper and a few other sites looking for pertinent information and interesting takes on subjects of political interest.

But lately, I have been following the blackout in Queens, where I once lived, but haven't for quite some time--during the school year--old neighborhood--no time. Today I read a fascinating article about niche farming of exotic livestock in the New York area. During school year--not on radar screen. Last week I read about the lost art of drawing by the common man as a metaphor for the speed of modern life--during school year--frivolous. I have had time to read about all sorts of fascinating tidbits of life that fill-out this rich newspaper.

The Times is just the most obvious, well-known example of what summer means to a teacher with a wide range of intellectual curiosities and interests. To be a really good, dedicated teacher, you have to, well, dedicate an enormous amount of time and energy to the students, the grading and the course material at hand. But to be an intellectual, broadminded citizen of the world, you have to have time to take-in and absorb a wide array of information. It keeps your mind fresh, awake and, in the end, makes you a better teacher.

Where do I begin? Where does anyone begin in the Middle East?

I've been away from my blog for awhile and in that time the world has turned itself upside down again. We still don't know who the next president of Mexico will be, though I predict that Calderon will come through leaving Obrador and his supporters with a close enough loss to demand respect. Count on them to jump on any weakness shown in the new government.

Meanwhile, the fighting in Lebanon has blown a new hole in the Middle East. It is so hard to really even see to the corner, let alone around it or down the road on this one. It has the Muslim World split. It is for sure winning Israel new or at least more fierce enemies. Will it reduce the threat they face from Hezbollah? We'll see. If they manage to do that, will something more terrible come in and take its place? What is Syria or Iran's role really? Has this terrorist organization gotten away from everyone? Will the pockets of anger directed by some Arabs angainst Hezbollah hold up if Isreal continues to inflict major punishment on the Lebanon? Personally, I think the Israelis have gone a bit overboard and are causing too much destruction of government and civilian property, lives and infrastructure. I believe it will result in yet another generation of Lebanese who hate and fear, and in the end, threaten the Zionist state, but I do not pretend to know enough about the psyche of the region to say with certainty if that is a risk that needs to be taken or not. And what of our support of Isreal? Do we need to stir up any more Islamic rancor?

Maybe that is why I have stayed away from the blog for a while. I read and listen to unending analysis of the situation, but too many intelligent people have too many differing views and what seems a subtilty in the Middle East, seems so often to be someone's essential point or emotional trigger that sorting it out is too much. I don't know how much we should wade into this one. I know we should not have waded into Iraq.

So often it seems we want to paint conflicts in this region with broad strokes, but there are so many divisions, so many alliances, so many competing needs and histories in the region, that it is sometimes what appears to be the smallest detail that can tip a scale one way or another. Clerics do not all agree. Sects don't see conflicts in the same light. Farsi speakers resent Arabic speakers and Arabic speakers distrust Farsi speakers. Governments are often too much absorbed in their own preservation to look objectively at problems. Oil alliances are on the line. Religious truths are worth dying for, but no two groups seem to hold the same set truths. In many corners poverty and ignorance are manipulated rather than alleviated. How do you wade into that mysterious morass?

One thing is sure about the Middle East, there is too much we do not know. Sadly, there is too much that our leaders seem not to know. Not to truly understand. I don't know if members of our government are able to choose which "experts" to listen to any more than I am. We must tread more carefully than we have recently if we are to tread at all.

What's wrong with this picture?: French World Cup Team

Perhaps you are aware of the on-going racial tension in France, in fact in much of Europe, in recent years. France is particularly notorious for its intolerance of immigrants and their influences on the local culture. No Muslim head scarves are allowed in their public schools, for example. You may remember the riots that broke out in Paris this spring fueled by the high rates of unemployment and the feeling of exclusion of Muslim youth.

But have you seen the French National Soccer Team? Of the 23 players, only nine are white. Nine. While the team was critized early for all manner of issues--playing style, age of players, and yes, racial make-up, the country is rallying around 'Les bleus', the pet name for the team. Before the winning began, the New York Times reports, right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the National Front, an anti-immigrant party, publicly bemoaned the number of blacks on the team and the lack of enthusiasm the players demonstrated in the singing of the national anthem.

But now they are winning. They are in the semi-finals! The country is elated and united behind their team. Before we get all crazy about the hypocrisy, think of how many minorities we have sent off to war over the centuries only to snub them upon their return to the homefront. No vote for a while, no lunch counter service, back of the bus...Finally we came around. And most would argue that we're not quite there yet.

What will happen after the World Cup is over? We'll see. Is this the start of some national self-examination and growth or just good soccer? Only time will tell, but if the French can play together, maybe they can live together, too.

During a break from the World Cup, our neighbors are having an election!

Well, Brazil is out of the World Cup. The deserved to lose to the French. France just played better. Brazil looked tired and the coach took too long to make substitutions. Oh, well. At least Portugal is still in it. I own one of their jerserys, too, and their coach is Brazilian.

In the meantime, we don't have any games until the 4th, but tomorrow, Sunday, the 2nd, we have another real contest going on south of the border--the Mexican Presidential Election. So what? Well, with all the immigration talk here in el Norte, we really should be paying attention. Not because I think the new president-elect is going to be a big player in forming our immigration legislation, but because the major reason why
so many Mexicans come north is because their own economy is not performing well enough to provide for population. If you follow the logic so far, then it should matter to us what goes on within in the borders of our neighbor, Mexico.

Here's a quick primer. There are three main candidates, but one, Roberto Madrazo of the PRI (the Party that ruled Mexico in a near dictatorship for most of the 20th century) has been
running a pretty distant third for quite some time. He is playing himself up as the "moderate choice". The two principal contenders are Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador, of a center-left party, the PRD, and Felipe Calderon, of the PAN, a center-right party, of which the current Mexican President, Vicente Fox, also
belongs.

As you can imagine, Calderon's message is one of consistency. Don't change horses mid-stream. He is the choice of most of the upper-middle class and wealthier Mexicans. Meanwhile, Obrador is running on a message of more assistance to the
poor and increased job opportunities. Many of the same Mexicans who support Calderon, are afraid that Obrador will borrow a page from Chavez's (Venezuela) or Morales' (Bolivia) playbooks and assume a dictator-like approach to redistributing wealth in the country. Most political scientists I have read
don't seem to think that Obrador is that radical, but some worry his economic plans don't add up--nothing new in the realm of political promises and economic plans. Obrador himself has listed Franklin Roosevelt as one of his influences--remember the New Deal?

Whatever happens tomorrow, at least ALL the major candidates share one thing in common. They think it is a shame that they are losing so many of their hard-working, entrepreneurial citizens to the United States. So, hopefully, whoever wins, the
new President of Mexico will try to implement an economic policy that will better provide for its growing population.

Of course, there are lots of underlying secondary story lines. This has been a particularly "dirty" campaign with ugly political ads running back and forth. Plus, political analysts are
watching to see if Mexico ends up in the growing column of the new Latin American Left--and if that happens will it go the way of Venezuela or of Chile.

Stay tuned and stay tuned in--we're neighbors afterall.