Disqus - Latest Comments for Guy_Courchesne

Re: The Undeveloping World

Guy_Courchesne — Sat, 09 May 2009 11:16:30 -0000

Why even bother with a kitchen when you can set up shop on any street corner? Heard a stat once...the average new Mexican business lasts 2 years, in any field except one. that would be the average Mexican taco stand, which has an average life of 11 years!

Re: The Laughing Coyote School

Guy_Courchesne — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:01:17 -0000

Whoops...we celebrated too soon. The Laughing Coyote School website is back up. Looks like they had some money troubles and couldn't afford to renew their hosting package. Jeremy promises a revamped site with big plans for photos of blacklistees though...

http://laughingcoyoteschool...

As Jeremy's promises have often turned out to be worthless, I wouldn't expect much to come anytime soon.

Re: My Five Minutes Gone

Guy_Courchesne — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:16:23 -0000

Exactly right in that shutting things down would cause a failure, which has happened in a number of areas, including tourism and the pork industry, nevermind the damage done to a single city. Hindsight may give us a better picture, but foresight would have prevented the economic loss that is ongoing, and that foresight should never be placed in the hands of the media. Researchers in the US and the UK are now showing that this is a mild flu virus...something we have been seeing since day 1 if one bothered to add up the numbers of cases and dead which are far lower than a regular flu season.

There's only one good thing that will come of this scare. It showed us just how woefully unprepared humanity is for the real thing. Crying wolf now does an incredible amount of damage to the credibility of authorities who may one day be called upon to stem a real outbreak...if we learn lessons from that, then maybe we can do better. If the lesson learned here this time - paid for almost exclusively by Mexicans -is how to communicate properly, then there may be hope.

Re: My Five Minutes Gone

Guy_Courchesne — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:57:16 -0000

There's a pretty good dirst-hand account in English from a Mexico City doctor who is at the center of control efforts. Interesting numbers and comments he has to make.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/citi...

I'm now of the belief that this is one massive over-reaction, but the damage done to the Mexican economy is the real story here.

Re: Mexico Flu Diary - Day 5

Guy_Courchesne — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:32:11 -0000

Wondering aloud is all we can do with such a lack of information. BBC is reporting today that the number of deaths in Mexico has now dropped to 7 total confirmed. 7? It was 26 yesterday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/...

What is going on? I'm beginning to wonder if the answer to the question 'why are people dying in Mexico and nowhere else?' is that people apparently are not dying? What have the dozens of others died of in that case? Regular flu? Panic?

Re: Mexico Flu Diary - Day 4

Guy_Courchesne — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:15:33 -0000

Have you been contacted by any British media? I see the BBC has a few people on the ground in DF - but not that cursed Duncan Kennedy, thankfully.

I've been contacted by Canadian media. Did a phone interview with a Toronto newspaper and will do a live radio interview with the national broadcaster tomorrow morning.

Re: Mexico Flu Diary - Day 4

Guy_Courchesne — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:48:53 -0000

So you're still working? That in itself is a good sign as to how calmly people are taking the flu here...no panic as I see it.

Re: The Laughing Coyote School

Guy_Courchesne — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:47:37 -0000

Mission accomplished my friends. The Laughing Coyote School website is down...seems the school let their domain name expire on April 19th, probably because it was no longer viable what with all of our efforts to link to it. While they will most likely move to another domain name (can anyone find the new one?), the Blacklist is no longer online and THAT was the goal.

Good work everybody!

Re: Schools Out For Summer!

Guy_Courchesne — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:12:03 -0000

Have the day off myself today...hoping to go back Monday as I hve work to do. Watching the media on this is like a compressed version of reading about narcowars in Mexico. A lot of details and very few facts...

Here's a social experiment for you Gary...as you go about your day in Mexico City, count how many people tell you that they are starting to have flu-like sysmptoms. I'm up to about 6 so far, including symptoms like a headache and a sore toe. Where's the headline:

HYPOCHONDRIA PANDEMIC GRIPS POPULATION

Re: Man Food

Guy_Courchesne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:57:14 -0000

I trust you have discovered frozen pizzas at the grocery store? Red Baron, San Rafael and the Soriana brands all fill the man hole.

Re: The Texican Insult

Guy_Courchesne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:29:41 -0000

I can't see any reason to complain at all. It's a rather good commercial I think. It should be noted that it was aimed at a European audience as well.

Re: Mexico City's New Logo

Guy_Courchesne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:28:23 -0000

Colourful logo...there was a competition at the start of this year to select a new logo for the city, though I don't remember where I'd seen it.

Re: The Laughing Coyote School

Guy_Courchesne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:26:51 -0000

Good to hear Todd. Let's keep the pressure up until the blacklist comes down and public apologies are made.

Would be great if you could share any photos with us here..maybe Gary would like to post them?

Re: Bob's Little Surprise

Guy_Courchesne — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:15:20 -0000

haha...indeed I did. Dixie caught it though...

Re: Bob's Little Surprise

Guy_Courchesne — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:53:58 -0000

April and Fools...how does that sound for a name?

Re: Urban Regeneration Slim Style

Guy_Courchesne — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:16:57 -0000

Of all the renovations they did the best in my opinion was the addition of rubbish bins on the street. It's funny how you can take that for granted in Canadian or American cities. The Zocalo was devoid of them completely before the renovations.

Re: Urban Regeneration Slim Style

Guy_Courchesne — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:10:02 -0000

It must have been in late 2002 or early 2003...so long ago now I can't recall. If you look at the parts of the center around Republica de Cuba or around Garibaldi you'll have a sense of how it was prior to the renovation. Gante, Bolivar, Motolina, and Regina are some of my favorite streets now but before they were remodeled, they were surefire places to get mugged.

Strangely, they never renovated the actual Zocalo itself, or rather, la Plaza de la Constitucion. They did the street that runs around it, including the trees and bushes, but the plaza itself has the same tile stonework from ages ago. I think they should restore it to how it looked in the 20's when it had trees.

Re: Urban Regeneration Slim Style

Guy_Courchesne — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:36:43 -0000

Not sure if you were here in Mexico City before they renovated the Zocalo area, Gary...if you weren't, you wouldn't believe the contrast. The whole centro historico was decrepit...things closed up at 6 PM and no one went at night...too dangerous. But look at it now...beautiful, alive with outdorr cafes and humming all night long.

Re: Changing The Guard

Guy_Courchesne — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:20:17 -0000

VW stopped producing the old style beetles back in 2003 anyway, so they're disappearance is inevitable as parts suppliers won't be able to stock replacements any longer.

Not sure I like the new color scheme...

Re: The Price Of Justice

Guy_Courchesne — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:10:46 -0000

Reminds me...I was telling the story of that proposal to remove a mountain (and install giant turbine fans) to one of my Mexican TEFL course students...in the context of the ridiculous lengths some people have thoug about pollution solutions She politely listened to my story and at the end informed me it had been her own uncle - a Mexican congressman at the time - that had made the proposal. Ulp...she agreed it had been a silly plan in the end.

Re: Another New Blog Design

Guy_Courchesne — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:31:17 -0000

Opera crashes on me about once a day...usually on sites with video content. Firefox never crashed on me, but it continues to automatically log me out of forums and any pages with logins. Not sure why...

Re: Another New Blog Design

Guy_Courchesne — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:12:42 -0000

Comments seem to work better with this layout...no problems using Opera

Re: The Price Of Justice

Guy_Courchesne — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:20:30 -0000

This past winter saw a decline in air quality over previous years...never had eye burn mind you, but the smog has been more visible over the last few months.

The Hoy No Circula program has actually had great success though. One can't look at the program on a sngle day and say it doesn't work. The most successful portion of the program comes from its ability to move older cars off the road and replace them with newer ones as the law is very hard on old cars. This has been the biggest contributor to cleaning the air. O3 (ground level ozone) is the last car-induced index of 6 major pollutants in the air to be solved. Another called PM10 (particulate matter at 10 microns) is still a problem in DF as well, mostly from geography, burning of farmers' fields and trash incineration outside the city. We'll get there, bit by bit.

Summer time is a much better season to visit...

Re: El Maraton

Guy_Courchesne — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:14:36 -0000

I also put something up for you Gary...and like Missus_Emm, I have trouble with your comments section of each entry.

Re: Bullets and Bazookas

Guy_Courchesne — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:34:43 -0000

We're talking about the same people who reported on the now-famous weapons of mass destruction in Iraq back in 2002/3. Not surprising at all that they are way off the mark on Mexico.