The Toyota Recall and What Nobody Talks About.

I had a very exiting moment in the early 1970's when I was heading west on Interstate 8 in San Diego. When I was halfway in to the sweeping left turn on to 163 South, my throttle stuck wide open in my Austin Healey 3000. I quickly turned the key to 12 o'clock position killing the engine, then waited an instant to let the engine compression slow the car a bit, then shifting into neutral and eventually coasting to a stop on the side of the freeway. That was standard procedure. I wasn't going that fast - maybe 60 or 70 miles per hour. Stopped on the side of the road, I opened the hood( the bonnet) and unjammed the primitive levers and pivot's that made up the throttle linkage. I then drove to the nearest Auto Parts Store and bought a couple of return springs and that was the end of my problem. I didn't even think about it again until I read about that Highway Patrolman and his family's horrible crash and burn in a Lexus loaner car from their dealer.
In this case, the Highway Patrolman did not have the option of turning off the engine. He had never read the manual and didn't know that you had to hold down the start button 3 full seconds before the engine would shut off(a lifetime in these situations). And it was a loaner car. But here is the real problem. He didn't have the option either of shifting into neutral, because because the software in the cars computer didn't have a variable for a stuck throttle. It had a variable for not allowing you to accidentally shift into neutral at speed, but no variable for a stuck throttle that would allow you to shift into neutral in an emergency. In other words, there was no mechanical override of the cars computer to allow him to shift the car into neutral at speed. And even if there was, it would have still taken too long to activate it in an emergency situation anyway. That family was doomed from the beginning of their ordeal.
The reporting in the media is trying to suggest that this tragedy happened because of some floor mats that didn't fit and this caused the crash. There might be something to that, but they still should have been able to stop the car safely. The wider recall by Toyota suggest to me that they need to completely rethink a few more things than the floor mats. Toyota has forgotten a few things about safety in emergencies.
If you drive a Bush 2 Administration Era Lexus and Toyota, remember about holding that start button down for 3 seconds to kill the engine. You probably won't have three seconds if your throttle sticks, but if you remember that little tidbit, you have a better shot at survival than that poor family did. By the way, the photo on the upper left is the 2010 Ferrari Formula One Car. I bet they have a variable for a stuck throttle. I bet that Ferrari could even shut the car off from the Pits electronically if they had to.

Americans and Foreign Language Skills

I happened to watch again the Movie, the "Bourne Identity", whose main charactor is this super trained American CIA Spy machine. A very unrealistic depiction of a CIA operative if you ask me . They are mostly analytic geeks that spend most of their time on computers. We used to see a few field agents in Mexico but they always stick out like sour thumbs. Everybody knew who they were. This guy(played by Matt Damon) is really tough and can do almost anything including making himself understood in many different foreign languages. As a long time expatriate American, I find the language skill part of the character very unrealistic. Americans are not in anyway skilled language learners from my own personal experience. Here in Mexico, I have known some Americans that have also lived here for ten years and they still can't get past "buenos dias". It's an embarrassment because nearly every 8 year old street kid here can make himself understood in English.
I think this is the biggest barrier to success in America's War on Terror, It's war on Drugs, and its Wars even with itself. Why is is so hard? Why is it so much easier for everybody else to learn English? Maybe that's one of the keys to the mystery. Why should we learn anything that difficult, when we can make everybody else learn English? (The dittohead mentality)
For the cost of every soldier we send to Afghanistan we could pay a 1000 children to learn Arabic from childhood. We could make the classes easy and fun for the children, instead of the children dreading language classes like they do now. But learning a foreign language is not something you can buy at Walmart and take home in a plastic bag. So it must be very valuable indeed if no amount of money can buy it.
Here is what I think the real reason is that Americans can't learn a foreign language. You can fake your way through Math, English, and History classes and graduate from high school. You can even fake your way through life. But you can't fake your way through language class, because if you didn't study the material, you risk making a fool of yourself, because 90% of language class is verbal. You either know it or you don't. You either studied it or you didn't. The student can't hide from his lack of dedication in language class.
They say World War 2 was won by cracking the German communication codes. It had to have been the British who accomplished this, because from my point of view, this is a fundamental weakness inherent in our society that goes way back needs to be addressed if the US is going to continue as the world's only superpower. And I don't think the answer is to continue to move the people to the US to lower the tensions abroad. Some of us should go abroad ourselves and spread the positive contributions the US can make in the future to the world.
I have become a big fan of this new age Mexican Cinema. They are really making some good movies down here these days. What disturbs me about them sometimes is, that if there is an American Character depicted in the Movie, he is stereotyped as either a conniving Alcoholic chasing the young women, or a religious zealot invading Mexico like some ladder day Moses trying to liberate Mexican Catholics with some form of Brand X christianism. That's how the Mexican Filmmakers see us. In other words, they don't ever meet anyone else who might have some kind of other purpose. This disturbs me because if Mexicans were typecast this way in American Films it wouldn't be politically correct, but in this case, there is no backlash, because I'm the only one who has the language skills to notice. Good luck with that super power thing.

Maquiladoras - Out Sourcing Mistakes.

The Blog this week is about a pattern of mistakes that I have seen made by Americans and American Companies opening production facilities in Mexico. Once again, I should say that there have been

many success stories with the Maquiladoras as they are called in Mexico. Many have been in business for years and have done very well for their owners. I say this because I want to accentuate the positive before giving a "heads up" to mistakes that I have seen these guys make over and over again. These mistakes doom the project to failure, in some cases before even any work gets done.
It starts with the boss realizing that going to China is just too expensive and the turn around time too long, to be practical. So it's Mexico. He comes down and instead of asking an American already established to recommend someone who can accomplish the paper work, he takes the recommendation of someone he meets in a bar or a waiter in a restaurant. And this facilitator has never done anything like this before. He learns at the expense of his new customer. Immediately everything seems to be getting done backwards. For instance, a lease is signed and paid for before the environmental permit is issued. "What if they don't issue the permit. Did we lease a building we can't use?" The whole paperwork process is like that, a maze of starting at 10 and working back to zero instead of the other way around. But everything does get done eventually.
Then it dawns on them that they're are going to have to choose someone to run the Plant. Here is the mistake. They choose their Warehouseman who's name is Juan because he's been a great employee and he's Mexican and he is always talking about retiring to Mexico anyway. He is also an English speaker. However, no one has ever heard him speak Spanish. Well, they promote him and he moves to Mexico and starts hiring people. He starts by hiring many of his extended relatives he has all over Mexico. This creates two classes of employees right from the get-go. Problems swell when the third or fourth payroll is sent and no work has been done. They get rid of Juan and they have to fire most of the people that he hired. And these former employees quickly file labor demands that have to be individually handled as separate cases by expensive lawyers. Then they make the same mistake over again by hiring another Mexican American to fix the whole mess because he speaks English and talks a good game. Let's call him Juan II. But nobody watches him either. He puts fictitious people on the payroll and pockets their wages. And, of course, variations of the same problems happen all over again. Honestly, I have known three companies that have done variations of this same episode and went back to the US with a lot less capital that they came with, only to forever complain about how difficult Mexico is to do business. Mexico graduates many business majors every year that are very capable of dealing with the system. And many of them speak English very well and are very computer literate. This is where you go to find management talent. And remember, the legal systems in other countries, especially in Latin America, are not designed to bail the UN-informed out of bad choices like the legal system in United States is designed to do.

Mexican Immigration - What Really Happens

I have run into all kinds of people with all kinds of stories about Servicios Migritorios(Mexican Immigration). Last night I ran into a guy whom I know to be pretty knowlegeable about Mexican predicaments, but he really showed me the truth when he said, "I am tired of always being late and all the other problems with renewing my FM3, I ran into a guy who went the Citizenship route and now he's got papers and everything. I think I'm going to do the same thing he did." I tried not to burst out laughing. You see, that is really pretty funny to me, because I am the only person that I know of who actually finished with the Servicios Migritorio part of the process. From my own experience: this is what happens.
1. FM3 renewed each year on time with no changes for five years.
2. At the end of the five years, all paperwork goes to Mexico City for a year. Yes for a year you have no paperwork which makes Airport Travel inside of Mexico kind of tricky, Still carry your US Passport with the FM3 Stamps in it. Remember to have them stamp your passport at Sevicios Migratorios during the renewals.
3. If all goes well after a year then the FM2 (the Grey Book) comes. It too must be renewed every year for five years. Same paperwork hassle as FM3.
4. At the end of this five years, all paperwork again goes to Mexico City for a year. No immigration documents during that year. Remember about traveling within Mexico. Always have your US passport with the FM2 renewal Stamps in it.
5. You go to the Immigration office one day to complain about something else and the Secretaries are all smiles and you really start to worry a little because this is very unusual. Then one says, "Your time has come", like that Queen Song, "Shivers down my spine - body's aching all the time. Goodbye everybody - I have to go - gotta leave you all behind and face the dawn." She comes up to me carrying some papers like they were a birthday cake with lighted candles on it. I nearly burst into tears when she hands me the final paperwork which is the FM2 Book with all the signed renewals. A formal letter welcoming me and my family to Mexico signed by the Director General of the Secretary of Gobernacion. And a more technical letter saying that you have completed all the requirements for permanent residencey in Mexico. That's it. That is all you get. But the funniest part of the whole process is when they tell you that you still can't own property in your own name in Baja. And you still can't vote or run for political office. But you can do nearly anything else and you never have to go back to immigration, except if you change addresses. They always have to have your current address.
And I almost forgot. If you want Citizenship(They call in Naturalization), then you have to start the process all over again with a different Ministry(They call it the Secretary of Relations Exteriors). But you can't start that process until you complete the process that took me 14 years to complete. I would like to know what happens before I start this new process myself. I don't want to be first this time. I think I will let someone else make all the mistakes before I try it myself.

The Saturday Taxco Silver Market

The Saturday Silver Market in Taxco must be like one great big Female Fantasy Camp. It only costs a Silver Vendor $100 Pesos (about $7.50US) to have a stall so nearly everyone who has anything to do with Silver in Taxco is there in the "Tianges," as it's called. But the fun quickly turns into hard work as your eyes swell from all the bright reflection of all of that Silver Jewelry. And the Floor is so uneven that you find that you get dizzy if you walk with your reading glasses on. So you are constantly taking off and putting on your glasses hoping that you don't leave them somewhere. Buying decisions have to be made quickly and without later regret. I went the distance this time(about eight hours) because we were six eyes this time. Me for the Classic, another for the Hippie, and another for the Commercial. And the result is that I don't think we made any mistakes at all. Life is about minimizing regret - even in the Silver Market. We are sure that you will be pleased with our results.

The Epitome

Lukas took several long deep breaths, just like they teach you in Yoga Class. It was just an accident that he happened to be glancing through the obituaries of his old home town Newspaper's internet edition. There, without any fanfare, was a very small blurb, about the death of a person with a name that sounded vaguely familiar. Was it the same person? It had to be because it was the same birth year as Lukas's. Lukas had not thought about this person much lately. The dead do deserve our reflection when we hear of their demise. In a moment Luka's mind was back in his room in his parents house, the house of his childhood, sound asleep. Awakened gradually by the sound of small stones being tossed by someone below his window, Lukas gazed out the window in a haze, There below Lukas recognized Robert a friend since elementary school. Robert had no place else to go.... They were both 18 years old.

Lukas quietly got himself dressed and went down stares and walked through the back door and found his friend in an acute state of anxiety. Questions could wait. Robert offered Lukas a cold Coors Beer and they went deep into the backyard to find Lukas's pot stash. When they got settled in, Lukas asks the question that was occupying Lukas's mind. "Did you go AWOL from the Army?" "Yes and I haven't been home yet", Robert managed to say. "Boot Camp was like Hell must be. I couldn't last another second in that place. I hitchhiked back here and you are the first person I've seen."

I couldn't really look him in the eye and tell him the news about myself. It was all over for me. No war - no Canada - no more disruption in my life's direction. The news was revealed a week before in very unusual and memorable way. It was a story that I would repeat many times in the course of my long life since. I was walking home from school when another High School chum drove by in a car then came back and offered my a ride.
"Get in Lukas. Its your lucky day.", he said.
"Why did you say that", answering him with a question as he got in the car.
"Didn't you watch the lottery last night on Television?"
"Was that last night", Lukas said acting surprised. "Yes it was and your life will never be the same again."
"Your birthday was July 19th right?"
"How nice of you to remember."
"Your number 327. They'll never get to you. They won't get past 30 or 40 before the war will end. For you the war is over now. This is one of those moments of truth in your life. Congradulations."

The Mexican Army and Navy

On my weekly trip to the United States, I decided to ask why there were fewer Soldiers at the checkpoint this particular trip between Tecate and Ensenada. There were only three Soldiers and no Fifty Caliber Machine Gun or Vehicles. I also wanted to know why the Army seems to be the second line of defence these days, because the Navy Commandos are getting all the high profile Narcos to go out and find, capture and kill. I found a surprisingly articulate and knowledgeable Sargent who explained to me that the Mexican Army was spread so thin by all of its deployments all over the Country that it just couldn't cover all the choke points with adequate numbers of personnel. That's the same reason the Navy is getting more involved, he said. He explained rather emphatically that it was not because the Government was losing confidence in the Army as a first line of defence against losing control of parts of the Republica(the thinking here is that the Mexican State of Chihuahua could come under the control of Narco Criminal Gangs and informally secide from the rest of Mexico with its own breakaway Government right on the border with the US). I am getting into a pretty touchy area with this. Sometimes I'm glad only a hand full of people read this blog.
In Mexico, the Army and Navy are run by two different Cabinet level Secretaries. In the US, the Army and Navy both come under the Secretary of Defence. The reason for this difference in Mexico, was that long ago in even more unstable times, the thinking was, that the President could lose control of one branch of service, but he still had a chance of continuing to control the other. For instance, if Obama lost control of the Army, he would lose control of everything. An outright Revolution might be a little slower in happening in Mexico because it would take a lot of time to infiltrate both branches of the Military. Control of the Army would be necessary because nobody else has enough guns and ammunition. Its far more likely that certain parts of Mexico would have to be given up on to save the Central District.