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SHE SAID…
July 20, 2003
In a slightly unusual departure from
my usual format (if I may call it that, considering
that this column really doesn’t have a format)
I would like to respond to an anonymous reader who sent
me a beautifully-written, single-spaced 7-page letter
last week. This gentleman wrote of many things but he
started off criticizing the fact that some of the letters
published in the Tribune were addressed to me personally.
I would like to point out to all our readers that the
section devoted to their letters is indeed called “Letters
from Readers” under the heading “Readers’
Pages”. It was obvious from the outset that the
Tribune was receiving letters addressed not only to
our editor, but to the various contributors as well.
Thus, they are not all “letters to the editor”.
The other thing he complained about
was the publisher’s lackadaisical approach regarding
meeting a distribution deadline, making special mention
of the issue following Hurricane Kenna’s visit
- which he obviously did not get. Now as most of our
regular readers know, the Tribune goes to press on Wednesdays.
The hurricane tickled us on a Friday. Both the Tribune
and The Times had already gone to press. The “Special
Issue” of the Tribune that followed (No. 291)
became a collector’s item as it was the only local
publication to feature the photographs taken by Javier
Perez during and right after the hurricane, shown alongside
the photos he took 5 days later from the same spots,
thus illustrating to one and all the incredible clean-up
job the various departments in this city had accomplished
in a few days.
Mr. X, as we shall call him for the
purpose of this response, then went on to complain about
the content of the Tribune …and our contributors.
At this point, I will take the liberty to repeat what
our editor has pointed out on a number of occasions:
The Tribune is distributed in all the hotels throughout
the bay area because it is a paper intended for tourists.
Yes, it has earned a very loyal following among locals
/ foreign residents, but its main market is still tourists.
And tourists come here to “get away from it all.”
Yes, they enjoy reading about our daily life and its
quirks thus getting a more personal, in-depth look at
the place, but they are not particularly interested
in the darker side of town, the seamy side that every
place on earth has and tries to hide. If that is what
turns them on, they can always turn on CNN in the comfort
and privacy of their hotel rooms.
At one point in his letter, Mr. X
wrote, “…just how much does either the tourist
or resident need or want to read about jewelry? Enough,
already!” In response to that I can only say that
I am privy to the e-mails the Tribune receives. We all
try our best to give our readers the most diverse assortment
of topics possible in the little space afforded to us,
and we decide -as a team- which topics those should
be. Among our English-speaking readers’ favorites,
restaurant reviews, culture, art, jewelry (yes, especially
for our female readership), environment, computers,
fishing, real estate and financial investments have
topped the charts so we have kept them, even when we
have to reduce the number of pages due to the summer
closing of so many of our advertisers. I would like
to remind Mr. X that the Tribune is free only because
it is subsidized by its advertisers, just like The Times
and Vallarta Today are.
With all due respect to Mr. X’s
intelligence (the gentleman is an excellent writer -
not a single grammatical error in the 7 pages…),
I would say that if he wants hard news, he should get
a subscription to the Tribuna de la Bahía, our
mother publication. It covers literally all the local
news “that’s fit to print”. I take
it for granted of course that being a full-time resident
of Vallarta for “a number of years”, Mr.
X can read Spanish.
The letter then goes on to question
my mental well-being. Mr. X could not decide whether
my column in Issue No. 325 was sarcastic or satirical…
perhaps I had been “stricken with dementia”,
he ventured, “…perhaps after having a few
too many after dinner drinks…” If Mr. X
is such an avid reader of my writings, he would know
that I do not drink. One-half glass of white wine is
all I can take, anything beyond that and I’m fast
asleep. He also questioned why I mention my favorite
ice cream shop so often, suggesting that I should buy
some Haagen Dazs or go visit a Ben & Jerry’s
while I’m up in Montreal as better alternatives.
Truth be told, I would much rather have my excellent
double espresso or a scoop of Chocolate Fudge Brownie
ice cream while sitting outside on a pretty terrace
at a pretty table with an interesting view, than alone
in my kitchen with a vat of imported ice cream. Mr.
X wondered if I had “sold out”. I don’t
think I have. After all, this IS an “opinion”
column and personally, I like the ice cream at that
particular shop better than Bing’s, Delphy’s,
Blue Bell or Michoacana which, by the way, don’t
have terraces. So there.
To get back to Mr. X’s main
point, he referred to the paragraph where I wrote about
the story of Mr. Luster’s arrest and the free
publicity it would generate for Vallarta. Very much
tongue-in-cheek, I had written “considering that
the CNN announcers kept talking about our town as being
a fun resort, full of nightclubs and night life, a place
where the laws are enforced… as Martha would say,
“that’s a good thing! Think about it. Criminals
of Luster’s ilk will think twice about coming
down here. After all, the laws are enforced here and
bounty hunters lurk behind every palm tree, right?”
Please note that I was quoting the CNN announcers, then
I questioned their statements, sarcastically - or so
I thought. I guess I was just a touch too subtle for
Mr. X. Anyone and everyone who read the local Spanish
papers at the time knew that the local police had little
if anything to do with Mr. Luster’s apprehension.
Mr. X then went on to condemn the
lack of police enforcement of laws counteracting the
uncontrolled increase in the number of adolescent boys
who sell their bodies to perverts. Sir, I agree with
you 100%. I always have, and I have even dared to write
my “opinion” on the matter on a number of
occasions, especially when the Ladies’ Association
of Vallarta tried to associate gays to pedophiles, child
abusers and other perverted types. And again when the
local chapter of the federal Family Services Department
(DIF) issued those posters illustrating a screaming
child with an American passport in the background.
I am not naïve nor am I foolish
as Mr. X suggests I may be. I’ve lived here too
long. At no time did I, or would I, or would any of
my friends “extol the virtues of the PV police
department” as Mr. X perceived that I was doing
in that column. All of us have often lamented the fact
that we are still seeing so many children selling Chiclets
or flowers along the beach and in restaurants till all
hours of the night, even though the DIF continues to
tell us all about their accomplishments in that regard.
Personally, I have never seen an inspector or police
officer around Olas Altas once the sun went down. I
have lamented the fact that drugs continue to be sold
out in the open within a couple of blocks of the Tribune
offices. There were many articles written about the
proliferation of drugs in the local schools, but what
can I as a foreign resident do about it? Just about
nothing. We know for a fact that the folks at City Hall
do not read the Tribune or The Times (which carries
more of that type of news than we do). So I try to concentrate
on topics I am “permitted” to write about,
without troubling the waters too much, while still giving
visitors to Vallarta a small insight into what goes
on here. And when things are really bad, as I’ve
said before, all I have to do is translate our Director’s
opinions on the topics. With the freedom of the press
which Mexico enjoys, he can write whatever he feels
and most of the time his opinion and mine are the same.
Now I’m going to pack so that
I may go have some of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream
on the pretty wooden deck in front of their shop …in
Montreal. As Peter, Paul and Mary used to sing “I'm
leaving on a jet plane… I hate to go.”
Take care of each other. Hasta luego muy pronto.
pvmomto3@hotmail.com
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