Méxicas & Narcos

Last week, when I had finished reading the classic Chinese novel "The Monkey" (by Wu Cheng-En; c. 1550, translated 1942 by Arthur Waley), I bought the "Historia de México; tomo I, (1519 - 1761)", a collection of essays and rumination on the subject by Guillermo Torva de Teresa. I learned that the Méxica tribe (i.e. the Aztecs) rose to power and wealth in the 14th century principally by extorting tribute from their neighbouring tribes – e.g. the Tlaxcala, Teotitlan, Mixteca, and Zapoteca – in a well-organised and well-documented system. The Méxica did grow their own food and they traded both near and far, but their extraordinary wealth derived from this tribute, and thus from extortion. 

Each tribe or region had to deliver what was requested. If too much was requested, they might rebel (and periodically did so), but that meant war, and defeat, slavery and human sacrifice. According to the complicated religious system imposed by the priests, the human sacrifices were necessary to maintain stability. And this claim was not without basis and, indeed, proof. The horror inspired by the blood-letting overawed everyone from the emperor down through the ranks of the elite, to the peasants and the slaves.

The killing of sacrificial victims was common practice in other early societies. Witness, Iphigenia and Isaac as two proposed victims from the ancient Greek and Arabic worlds respectively. And, from the world of medieval China, one of Monkey's tasks (on the road to India to bring back Buddhist scriptures) was to save a village from the scourge of providing a boy and a girl sacrifice each year to a extortionist daemon (in truth an angry goldfish escaped from the fishpond of the Bodhisattva 'Kuan-yin'). 

All very scary, I thought; and how glad I am that we have put such things behind us. The scriptures arrived, and human societies learnt the sin of killing for profit. That is to say, most civilised societies. For extortion under threat of death is exactly what is happening in large parts of present-day Mexico (See my recent post and the map quoted.). 

So, even today the real threat of violence does lead to wealth, and to a sort of insidious 'stability', for the use of bribes brings a great number of people in the class of 'those who profit from extortion and the threat of violence'. What a perilously thin membrane divides the civilised from the uncivilised! What a dilemma: to fight them or to join them?

European counter-proposal on Ukraine

  Today (Monday 24th November), there were two encouraging developments towards a resolution of the Ukrainian/Russian conflict.

[1] A US/Ukraine joint statement put out 23rd Nov by the 'Office of the First Lady'.
"Both sides agreed the consultations were highly productive. The discussions showed meaningful progress toward aligning positions and identifying clear next steps. They reaffirmed that any future agreement must fully uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and deliver a sustainable and just peace. As a result of the discussions, the parties drafted an updated and refined peace framework.
The Ukrainian delegation reaffirmed its gratitude for the steadfast commitment of the United States and, personally, President Donald J. Trump for their tireless efforts aimed at ending the war and the loss of life.
    Ukraine and the United States agreed to continue intensive work on joint proposals in the coming days. They will also remain in close contact with their European partners as the process advances.
Final decisions under this framework will be made by the Presidents of Ukraine and the United States.
Both sides reiterated their readiness to continue working together to secure a peace that ensures Ukraine’s security, stability, and reconstruction."

[2] Reuters published (24th Nov.) the full text of the counter-proposal, drafted by Europe's E3 powers (Britain, France and Germany,) This counter proposal takes as its basis the 28-point U.S. plan (Seen by Reuters on Sunday 23rd),  but then goes through it point by point with suggested changes (and deletions). This, among other things, raises the size of the permitted peace-time Ukrainian army from 600,000 to 800,000, and adds detail to the way the reconstruction of Ukraine is to be financed.  

   This may annoy President Trump, but it may also add some constructive ideas on details of financing Ukrainian reconstruction. 

Trump's Plan for Ukraine

 Trump's Plan for Ukraine

President Trump's proposed plan for ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine seems, to Ukraine and its European sympathisers, to be too biased in favour of Russia. 

Ukraine has to vacate territory, Russia  does not. Ukraine has to limit its armed forces, Russia does not. Russia started the war, Ukraine did not.

The draft plan [Ref1] proposes that Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognised as de facto Russian. This is ambiguous. The Charter of the United Nations is clear that it is no longer possible to conquer territory by force of arms. I do not think anyone could object to recognising certain territories including Crimea as being occupied by Russia, pending elections. That would simply recognise the fact of occupation. It would not confer 'ownership', nor any other legal rights or status.  

(Indeed the idea of ownership seems very odd in the context of states and territory. At least to those of us so lucky as to have been brought up under the principle of democracy; it is surely up to the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, not up to Putin, Trump or Zelensky, to decide whether (in the long term) they want to be part of Russia, or part of Ukraine. Russia should woo those people with cultural benefits, rather than by blowing out their windows with high explosives. )

The plan contains suggested forward commitments regarding Ukraine's membership of NATO and the European Union. These may be more sensible than the terms discussed above.  In the sort term, it does seem unacceptable to Russia to have NATO suddenly on its door-step.  That must be recognised. I have previously discussed the possibility that NATO could "guarantee" the independence of Ukraine without stationing troops on Ukrainian soil [Ref2]. 

There is nothing in Ukraine's dramatic gesture of rushing to fight with its giant neighbour that makes it incumbent on NATO to come to its aid. The power of NATO probably lies in the nuclear arsenal of the United States; the troops and the money may come from Europe, but the ultimate sanction is almost entirely in the hands of the 'gringos'.  If the US does not wish to use its weapons agains Russia it will not do so. 

On the other hand, if Europe does want to use its strength (economic and military) against an encroaching and bullying Russia, it should aim to prevail, and not just ring its hands and talk. The question of a European defence force may arise again, as it did before, but with far greater urgency [Ref3]  It is often argued that the best way to maintain peace is to prepare for war – and be very clear about one's own red lines and those of one's neighbours. 

References

[Ref1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde6yld78d6o

[Ref2] https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2025/03/no-nato-boots-in-ukraine.html 

[Ref3] https://ecfr.eu/article/the-four-pillars-of-european-defence/

Carlos Manzo

Carlos Manzo – the Murdered Mayor of Mitchoacán

     It seems that, in more than half of Mexico, the forces of law and order are powerless to protect the population against the drug cartels who, by intimidation and the very real threat of death, extort "protection money" from small businesses and private citezens. The British Government advises its citizens against all but essential travel, in orange areas on the map below, and to take care in other areas also.

Map

     On the evening of Saturday 1st November, the mayor of  Uruapan (the second largest city in the State of Mitchoacán (Mexico) was shot dead while having his photograph taken with a bunch of children. He, Carlos Manzo, a man of 40 with a wife and young two children, had stepped forward the previous year to challenge this regime of intimidation and extortion,  by which the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) terrorises and extorts money from the populations in his state. In August 2025 local police, at Manzo’s request, had arrested the cartel's regional boss, René Belmonte. Manzo's assassination seems to have been in retaliation.  Was he scared? Sure! “I don’t want to be just another mayor on the list of those executed, those whose lives have been taken from them”. [Ref1]

     The Federal President, Claudia Sheinbaum has inherited the view of her predecessor, that directly combatting the cartels has been tried before and is counterproductive. "There would be no return to the war on drugs"  [Ref2].  On Monday 3rd November, Sheinbaum told reporters “Returning to the war against el narco is not an option, México already did that, and the violence got worse.” [Ref3]

     The gunman was a 17-year old amphetamine addict, regarded as belonging to the Jalisco cartel. But the gunman was not alone. He was gunned down instantly by the mayor's bodyguard, and tested positive for gunshot residues, but two 'accomplices' are in custody. 

     Within days, Grecia Quiroz, Manzo’s widow, put herself forward to replace her husband and was sworn in before the State Congress on Wednesday 5th November to succeed her husband as mayor. “They killed Carlos Manzo, but they couldn’t kill what he awakened,” said Quiroz. She speaks well to the crowds, and to the camera, and has aroused enormous sympathy. She is seen as a possible candidate for the Governorship of the State of Mitchoacán when the post is again vacant in 2027 [Ref4].  

     If she has not been shot. 

     On 15 November, protests in Mexico City requesting a stiffer response to the narco intimidation led to clashes with police. There have been calls for further demonstrations on 20 November near the Zócalo and the Palacio Nacional. The UK government advises travelers in Mexico to monitor local media, and to stay away from demonstrations.

Wisdom and Age

                             Wisdom and Age

Long after I had resigned my Fellowship at Clare College and taken a lecturship at Newcastle University, I was enjoying the privileges of an ex-fellow and lunching again with the fellows at college.  (Ex-fellows are surprisingly rare; fellows tend to 'stay on' if they possibly can.) Remembering college protocol, I took the next available seat at the common board, and found myself sitting next to the Master, Professor Robin Matthews.

How he had aged! I remembered the occasion of his appointment 12 year previously, under the  chairmanship of the elderly Professor Godwin (though with the acute and generous mind of Charles Feinstein at his elbow). There was none of the back-stabbing and shadowy machinations described in C. P. Snow's "The Masters".  We first laid down the principle that the new master should be aged 50 years or over, to avoid the burden of having a 'dud' chairing the governing body for too long a spell. Nevertheless, the name of Robin Matthews drifted to the top of the list of 'possibles', even though he was only 49. Here he was, now 12 years on, looking 70. I wondered briefly if he was suffering some curious condition that caused accelerated aging. 

Demonstrating his mastery of college table-talk, he turned to me, perhaps to show that he recognised me and remembered that I was a biologist, and he asked: "You are a biologist. I have been wondering if Homo sapiens is the only species that lives so long after ceasing to be reproductively active." I was simultaneously grateful and taken aback. Was he also aware that he was aging? I tried to reassure him, by suggesting that, if indeed 'Man' was unusual in that regard, it might point to the evolutionary advantage of wisdom; that we were a species that benefited from, and cherished, our grandfathers and grandmothers.  

Is there a Wisdom of Age? A special brand of wisdom. Perhaps like a collection of prized pebbles that a traveller picks up along the way, increased as much by the miles travelled as by the vigilance and curiosity of the traveller. 

I have recently acquired a few tricks that are peculiarly relevant to an aging mind, like writing things down, and paying special attention when I handle small but crucial objects like keys and mobile-phones. I have also evolved a new way of finding lost objects as an adaptation to weakening eyesight. For seventy years I enjoyed the role of family-finder. I could enter a room and sweep visually from two or three vantages, and spot the missing object before anyone else. Now the visual sweep yields nothing. I have to sit down and think where it was last used, think where it would be hard to see if it were in fact present, (Perhaps under something, or camouflaged; as a white pill on a pale carpet). But these are hardly 'special powers'; they are mere 'sticking-plasters' to make good my deficits.

On the other hand, I have evolved quite recently my own way of suppressing a cough. (You must, yourself, at some time have experienced the agony of struggling with a cough during a concert?) A lozenge offers some relief, as also a sip of water. But my new method require no equipment. The cough in question is the 'dry cough', the unproductive cough that seems to do nothing for the 'cougher', but to be solely to the benefit of the virus and its progeny. I was intrigued during the COVID pandemic by the idea that the virus had found out how to trigger the cough reflex for its own purposes, and I think I found a possible (even probable) mechanism. (See my post) However, my discovery of a way to thwart the virus owed nothing to that research. It was discovered by pure serendipity.  I put my hand loosely over my nose and mouth, perhaps with the idea of containing the cloud of virions, and than breathed partly through my mouth. I was surprised to find that the compulsion to cough faded to nothing in 30 seconds. I suppose in the space confined by my hand the air became enriched in CO2 and water vapour, and a little impoverished of O2; that may have affected the pH of the surface layers in the throat but, as long as it works, the mechanism does not matter, except for the curious among us. 

I have tried to interest others in this trick, purely from a love of mankind, but do not think I have made many converts to date. That does not worry me (unduly); I am able to enjoy the benefits in my own small way.  This, I think, qualifies as 'wisdom of age', one of the benefits of living beyond the period of reproductive activity. 

Another recent discovery which I am inclined to regard as an example of the 'wisdom of age' is my new method of drinking wine. This, also, as a life-long educator and philanthropist, I am keen to share. That you know how I came by this new method is unimportant. But I am inclined to tell you that it was as much to do with my health as my pocket book. Ever since my brief experience of exercise-induced angina pectoris at the age of 75 (see my post), the doctors have been asking me annually to declare the average number of units of alcohol drunk per week. As I had a small German 'tasting glass' marked '100ml' just below the rim, I resolved to limit my intake of alcohol to 100 ml of red-wine at lunch and the same again with my evening dinner. Essentially 2 bottles a week. That discipline brought its own rewards (smugness, largely) but that is not my present point. For I discovered that, by taking tiny sips, I got just as much gustatory pleasure as I had found with decent gulps of wine. I can now sip away at 100ml of wine for the best part of an hour. 

We had a young man and his mother round for a glass of wine and a chat the other day. I was astonished how quickly his glass required topping up. So much so that I found it more convenient to park the bottle his side of the table. As they were leaving, I shared my new tip; "small sips are as rewarding as large gulps." Another example of an old man's wisdom. 

        A further tip I would like to pass on is my unique 'neck-scarf'. I often used to wear a tie, but found that I was becoming a rare species in that regard. Furthermore, that my shirt-collars frayed rather quickly from rubbing against the short hairs on my neck (and perhaps also from the scrubbing required to clean the neckband). I tried tying a silk handkerchief round my neck but could not find one sufficiently large. So I bought a metre off a bolt of polyester(**) lining material; indeed one in green and one in blue. This is a slippery, shiny, hard-wearing material that can be washed and drip-dried inside 2 hours. I cut strips 25 cms x 100 cms, then turned and hemmed the edges. Tie under the chin with a half-hitch, before or after putting on the shirt, but before buttoning the penultimate button. (Leave the highest button undone.) So simple! It is pleasing and comfortable to wear, beside closing the gap between shirt and neck. I am seldom dressed any other way these days. 

(**Beware: this material requires a very cool iron.)

Autumn Leaves

 Autumn Leaves (or Hojas de Otoño)

     The streets in our Colonia in Mexico City (Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec) are typically lined with trees. They nestle in amongst the houses. Their roots thrust up the concrete slabs of the pavement and gradually mould themselves to the spaces they have thus created. Their branches tangle with the myriad phone lines that still drape themselves from pole to pole and cluster round the high eaves of the apartment blocks. Where a protective iron railing once circled a young tree, now the tree has engulfed the iron; the smooth bark gently creeping round till it meets bark and fuses. 

     Trees here are valued for their shade, respected and preserved by common consent. If a trunk leans over the pavement the pedestrians step aside, or duck. If you want to roof-over the yard to make a new room, the tree remains in the centre of the new room, finding its way up through the roof, the terra cotta tejas pushed back each year and the floor slabs chipped to free the trunk. I have seen a tree that grows through an iron fence, and another that grows in line with a boundary wall, which obligingly curves out and round the tree. 

     Popular species include a thin-leaved ash (Fraxinus uhdei) that towers upward and throws a light and dappled shade. And a small-leaved weeping fig (Ficus benjamina), which forms a dense canopy and throws a deep shade, the roots of which, when given space, come welling up and over the pavement, writhing in slow motion. Also popular is the Liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua) with its three-pointed leaves, fine autumn colour and prickly fruit. You will find the occasional Purple-Orchid tree (Bauhinia blakeana) and the yellow-flowered Tulipán mexicano (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis), obviously planted for their flowers.  Occasional here, but magnificent elsewhere in the city, you can see the astonishing, jaw-dropping Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia) whose lavender-coloured flowers in early spring completely cover the canopy. 

     Just now, in the last weeks of October, the streets are littered with fallen leaves, dry and yellow. For the Fraxinus and the Ficus, though evergreen, are also deciduous; the new leaves emerge even as the old leaves are falling. Housewives and caretaker are, for the next four weeks, repeatedly sweeping the pavement outside their property. I wrote before about the "Street sounds in our Colonia" but omitted to mention the gentle swishing sound that, night-after-night, I heard from outside on the street; though puzzling at 3 a.m., it turned out to be a night porter whiling away an hour or two of vigilance by sweeping his bit of pavement. 

Pocket-calculator Science (1)

 Pocket-calculator Science (1)    

    I enjoy viewing the earth as a sphere, for then I can calculate its volume, surface area, etc using the tricks I learned in middle school. 

    OK, it is not quite spherical, for the circumference through the poles is 39,942.209 km, while the circumference at the equator is 40,074.156 km. (I shall sometimes simplify by assuming it is a sphere with an average diameter of 40,008 km).

    Imagine a man standing on the earth's surface. The force of gravity (Fg) was found by Newton to follow the equation: 

Fg =G.m1.m2/r^2

where G= the universal gravitational constant, m1 and m2 the mass of the man and the earth respectively, and r is the distance between the two centres of mass.  Imagine a man of mass 72 kg. Clearly, when standing at the north pole he is closer to the centre of the earth than when standing at the equator.  

    Taking the gravitational constant (G) as 6.674 x (10)^-11 ( N. m^2/Kg^2)

and the mass of the earth (m2) as 5.972 x (10)^24, and Newton's relation: F =G.m1.m2/r^2, from these I calculate the gravitational force at the north pole (Fnp) to be 9.8628 Newtons;  while the gravitational force at the equator (Feq) to be 9.798 N. (An average value is often quoted as 9.81 Newtons.)

    Applying this geometrical effect alone (ignoring any centrifugal effect) I would expect the man (of mass 72kg) would weight at north pole 72 x 9.8628 = 710 N; and at the equator 72 x 9.798 = 705 N. 

    However, the earth rotates on its axis once a day, relative to the sun. (Relative to the fixed stars it rotates a bit more because of its rotation round the sun in one day; approximately 361º in a 24 hour day, or 15.04º in one hour.)

    At the equator (circumference 40,074,156 m`), we are rotating eastwards with an angular velocity (𝜔) of 2𝛑 radians per day, but a quasi-linear velocity of 40,074.156 ÷ 24 = 1669.57 km/hr. The inertial centrifugal force (Ff), regarded as acting radially, is usually calculated  as F=m.r .𝜔^2 (where m signifies mass and r radius). A man of mass 72 kg (weight = 710 Newtons at the north pole) would find his weight reduced at the equator not only because of his greater distance from the centre of the earthe, but by a small extra amount due to the centrifugal force acting (as far as he is concerned) vertically upwards.

    If T is the rotational period (1 day, or 86,400 s), we can write the rotational velocity (𝜔) as 2𝛑 ÷ 86,400 radians per second.

    We can then write the centrifugal force (Ff) as:

    Ff = m.r.𝜔^2 = m.r.(2𝛑 /T)^2

Taking r as 40,074.156/2𝛑 km = 6,378 km; or rather 6,378,000 m:

    Ff = 72 x 6,378,000 x (2𝛑 ÷ 86,400)^2 Newtons = 2.4286 Newtons. (Note that at the north pole the man rotates at the same speed, but r= 0, so he experience no centrifugal force.)

    So, combining the geometrical effect of the greater radius at the equator and the spin which is negligible at the north pole, a man that weighed 710 Newtons at the north pole would be expected to weigh only 705 - 2.43 = 702.53 Newtons at the equator. 

(Next post Coriolis, if I succeed in understanding it!)

(Comments are welcome to cawstein@gmail.com)