a chilly 33 degrees the other morning. the worst part is probably the shower because the tiles are so cold. and then getting out of the shower and putting on clothes, that is not much fun. having your hair dry in the icy temps is not recommendable either. hot to cold. oaxaca to mex city. i must say i like the cold better but it is damn cold here right now.

so i saw an interesting film the other week called ¨jesus camp.¨ about evangelicals and such, it gave a somewhat objective view of a group of evangelicals based in kansas. i recommend it highly because it is both entertaining and real. this is not a phenomenon consisting of a small group of people. this is millions of us people with more converting each day. at the very least, we need to be aware of it.

then yesterday i saw this piece in the new york times

i recommend reading it (although at 9 pages in a word document it will take a bit of time- not a usa today piece) because it also gives a lot of background information and brings the issue up to date. the republicans are losing support from the evangelicals and this article explains, to an extent, why.

at the very least this article will give you something to chat about.

i have also been reading a fair amount about the upcoming elections in the usa. it is probably all over the news in the us, but imagine if hillary wins. that would mean either a bush or clinton in the white house for 32 consecutive years, starting with the 80´s and bush the father. seems like a monopoly in many ways. does that not seem like a problem? i am not against hillary at all. she would probably be an excellent president, but do we really want to keep the same regime in power? i dare say the last 32 have certainly not been ideal, so why continue the trend? 32 years. that is a long time for a supposedly democratic country to have 2 families in control (though you could argue the limits of that control in the 1980´s) of the nation. if i were obama or edwards, i would make this a point of my campaign. similarly, if i were giuliani or mitt romney, i would definitely be using this against hrc. now, the question remains: is she strong enough to overcome this anyway? it seems more and more likely as the weeks go by.

and speaking of monopolies of power, did you hear about the argentine presidential elections? the current president decided not to run for re-election (they have a max of 2 4-year terms just like us), but remains in power nonetheless. it is interesting because though the president chose not to run, he backed his wife to run, and therefore his entire party, the majority, was behind her. she won. she became the first female president of argentina. and, in 2011 when her term is up, both she and her husband will be eligible for re-election. will they trade years again and eventually retain power for 16 straight years?

freezing. it is.

last night and the night before it was in the 30´s. keep in mind we are describing a country that has almost no indoor heating. people, literally, die when it gets this cold (it is even colder in the mountains) because their homes are not insulated and rely on wood heat to survive (not to mention poor ventilation so that when they do have wood for a fire, the smoke suffocates them).

i am not in this situation. i have blankets and long underwear, so i survive. but, i have been tempted in the last few days to buy a space heater. 8 months out of the year it is useless and would just sit in my house (this is not a grand house. nor a spacious house. nor, indeed, a house. it is a tiny apt without closets, so everything you have is open and out there). my reason for not buying is not so much tied up in this. part of it is the feeling that i can survive this without a heater. part is knowing that in a few days this cold front will push through and i wont freeze at night. part is being a cheapskate. some things never change.

trying to justify this type of purchase seems ludicrous at times. those times are not 540am when i am in the bathroom and the wind comes through the slats in the closed window (the bathroom window is like the windows at beach and lake houses that have little glass panes that ¨close¨ with a lever on the side. ya. they ain´t stopping anything) and the hot water heater is not functioning well and i am feeling the breeze so to speak. at those times, i desperately wish i had already bought the damn heater.

then the afternoon comes, or i am at a friend´s house, who is the same boat, and i imagine making my argument for needing a heater. then i sound stupid. then i feel like a nancy, a sally, a child. no no i tell myself. none of that soft shit. you survived worse. you will get past this minor setback.

this is, for all intents and purposes, machismo. the machista spirit.

i also tell myself one other important thing. cold weather means growing season is fast coming upon us. i am excited for the beard.

yesterday was my sister´s birthday, and oddly enough, she was in a dream i had last night. happy birthday cline!

in the past, mainly for work related but also in college as well, i have written my share of recommendations. they usually involve the key ingredient in all recommendations: embellishment. i think those who read recommendations are well aware of this and read accordingly. lord knows i have written my own share of recommendations, for myself, written by myself, so i know that there is a lot of lying going on. i do think writing your own recommendation is something everyone should try at least once. it will broaden your perspective on who you are, and depending on your self-deception abilities, it might raise you to another level of success (or incompetence as the case may be).

many of my students are applying to places like harvard, princeton, yale, mit, cal tec and other universities that would never have even opened an application from the likes of me. they also need recommenders, clearly, and as i am their sole native english speaking teacher, i get put up on the list for almost all of them. this raises questions (or challenges, depending on how you envision the world). there are a few students who are, let´s say, testing my limits. nothing nice to say? say nothing at all. how do you do that in a recommendation? i have toyed with the idea of simply giving back the rec forms and saying, no. why was i chosen anyway? if you were a student who put little to no effort into a class, would you ask that teacher to write for you? i would not. of course, i am not in high school so i cannot really answer that question fairly.

another problem is that we in the usa are indoctrinated with the importance of these letters and how they can make or break some borderline apps. here? not so much i get the feeling.

so, what do you do?

this is not a rhetorical question. i would like advice. any suggestions?

not sure how much time y´all afford to reading online, but down here there are not many options as magazines from the states and abroad are rather expensive. about a month ago i began reading the economist, for numerous reasons, but mainly because i was looking for information about rupert murdoch´s Newscorp (that´s his company) takeover of Dow Jones & Co. essentially, he bought the rights to the Wall Street Journal. you are probably aware that Newscorp is the parent company of Fox. putting this all together, Fox now has the WSJ on its side, which if nothing else lends incredible amounts of credibility to a station known for its opinionated commentaries. i won t go into my own views of Fox or murdoch, but this news that he bought the WSJ back in july was rather astounding.

first, how many people are actually buying up newspapers? the answer is not many. why not? well, see how i found out about this takeover. online has become, to many, more important than print media. lots of people do not go online to read because they buy the paper instead. however for me down here, and for my students, we simply access the New York Times online because it is far cheaper (read: free) than buying the publication at a store. plus, it saves time and allows for convenient searches. downside? after about a month all content expires for non-subscribers (you pay an online fee to view all content).

in order to avoid this problem, i simply print the articles from these online sites and then have access to them. i will not even go into to how many copyright laws i break on a daily basis here (my students have never actually purchased an actual book: i create ¨readers¨ from online texts and photocopies of books from the library or my own collection (my sister amy bought me some great anthologies this summer when she and i went to bookstores in c-ville).

now that al gore is your nobel prize winner (although not a surprise to many, i was rather shocked), i feel a little bad about the trees i waste printing so many pages of online text. i make myself feel better by telling myself that buying the whole paper or magazine would waste more paper (living by pretexts). on the other hand, i have no real regrets about the copyright infringement part. authors works are, to an extent, public domain. that is, in the majority of the cases, the reason they write: to share with others an idea or experience. the internet has made this sharing all the easier. bravo.

there should be a point here, and maybe i will get to it.

the economist is by all estimations a rather conservative publication. this is why i enjoy it so much. not that i am completely conservative by an stretch, but i appreciate a publication that manages to print the news with no frills and with a clear objective. of course you could argue almost all publications direct themselves to a specific audience and it is almost always obvious. however, the economist, as the name suggests, is concerned with money. money, power´s cousin, makes for interesting reading when it comes to world affairs. what is going on in bahrain? let´s look at the financial implications. i find it refreshing that they manage to make the complex so simple in many ways. this does not mean i always agree with their perspective or even how they report the news, but i know what i am getting.

my dad used to listen to a lot of talk radio when he was on the combine or in the tractor (maybe still does in the truck also), and i thought he was just getting biased information (for a great article, read ¨i agree with me¨ by p j o´rourke http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200407/orourke ). of course he was. so am i. maybe he knew more than i was giving him credit for. hopefully i know more than you might be giving me credit for right now. either way, i am now for biased reporting because it is obvious. very little is hidden or tucked away from the reader/listener/viewer. sure, you may think the side given is insane, but you know where the author/publication stands. i appreciate that.

after feeling sorry myself about the price of international shipping rates for The New Yorker, i finally starting going to the website and printing articles to read. in the end the physical copy is preferred, but why spend all that money when i can get the same articles for free. when i go back to the states, which seems a certainty at any rate, i will order the physical copy of it. until then, i go to www.newyorker.com and read away.

if any of the previously mentioned publications would like to pay me for the above statements (whose bias should be obvious), i take cash and direct deposits.