I once lived in a Manhattan neighborhood that was upon-a-time a Mafia stomping ground. It wasn't the happiest period in my life, so I don't think about it that much. It does seem to have affected me, however. When I went back to visit it with Amma, for the first time in many years, we visited the below-pictured pizza place, within which we had an experience with the fellow patrons that caused her to exclaim, "Now I understand! You really are Italian."
Among other things, the experience appears to have given me a bit of unwarranted sympathy for colorful members of organized crime syndicates.
Fortunately, living in Mexico also appears to have permanently eroded that sympathy, which is why I take a great deal of pleasure in Jorge Hank Rhon's failure to win the Baja California gubernatorial race. Hank is certainly colorful --- he likes to drink tequila mixed with tiger penises, and once said, "Women are my favorite animal." He's also astoundingly corrupt.
His father, Carlos Hank Gonzales, built quite a fortune as the head of Conasupo, which used to run Mexico's agricultural price support programs and distributed subsidized food products to urban dwellers. He then became mayor of Mexico City, where he managed to contract $2.3 billion in dollar-denominated debt, build some of the ugliest roads in history --- Eje Central needs to be driven to be believed --- and make enough money to pay $1 million in cash for a house in New Canaan.
Jorge, meanwhile, managed to add to the family fortune by running OTB operations throughout northern Mexico. His employees shot dead a newspaper reporter, he was once arrested at the border holding $17,000 in cash, and a colleague tried to smuggle 126 pounds of cocaine (!!!) into the U.S. Still, in the best Bostonian tradition, he managed to get himself elected mayor of Tijuana. During the campaign he then proceeded to brag about how he'd cut petty crime ... which apparently doesn't include homicide (up 7 percent), rape (up 13 percent), or robbery (up 43 percent).
What was down? Littering?
So this guy runs for governor of Baja on the PRI ticket. Baja has symbolic importance, above its (considerable) real importance: Baja was where the PAN first showed that it could govern. Winning it, especially with such a ... colorful ... candidate would show that the PRI could come back from its recent electoral blows, and do so without reforming itself.
Which is why I'm so happy that the returns show Hank losing by eight points to a PAN economist. ¡Viva México!
When I first glanced at the title of this post, I thought it was going to be about Barry Bonds.
(Hank? I was stuck with Chuck, so I am in no position to throw stones, but... Hank?)
Posted by: Carlos | August 08, 2007 at 07:48 PM
Jorge's grandparents emigrated from Germany. That fact kept his father out of Los Pinos. I'm tempted to say, "Thank you, God!" but it isn't like he could have done any worse than José López Portillo.
Zedillo pushed through a change in the Constitution in the late 1990s that let the children of immigrants become President. The PAN wanted it, because Vicente Fox's mother emigrated from Spain.
In fact, Fox was a true child of immigrants: his paternal grandfather was a German-American named Joseph Louis Fuchs who left Cincinatti in 1898 when he lost his job at a local carriage-maker, changed his name to José Luis Fox Flach, and eventually became a rancher in Guanajuato.
Germany. Hmm.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | August 08, 2007 at 08:14 PM