Morelia

Morelia, capitol of the State of Michoacán, makes the list of the world’s fifty most dangerous cities, with 47.5 murders per 100,000 people in 2020. Things are on edge. Still, though, the historic center of Morelia is far more pleasant and peaceful than most of downtown San Francisco, the city in which I was born, where currently homeless men and women copulate in public, use the sidewalk to take a crap, shoot heroin and crack, and harass techies and tourists! This is not to mention Ice, the latest scourge to hit cities in North America, a form of methamphetamine so powerful it keeps people awake for days and even weeks at a time during which time they scavenge. It is a safe assumption that both the tent encampments and the motorhomes lined along side streets of cities like San Francisco and Oakland (which profoundly overflow with some of the ugliest crap one could imagine) are communities formed around Ice. That the drug in question is manufactured in Mexico should be no surprise and it should further be no surprise that some (more or less guilty than not) American voters want to do away altogether with immigration from Mexico and make cities like San Francisco sanctuaries for the homeless and drug addled. People just do not care. "We are too angry at insurrectionists to care!"

San Francisco, the Tenderloin 

Morelia, Historic Center

In Morelia people seem passively tied to their lives, fear very subtly present, things churning along, the economy more than a bit contracted. As I passed under the walkways which line the main square, where people sat outside at tables eating, drinking, smoking and talking, two cops eyed me suspiciously, so I quickly put on my mask and announced, “buenas tardes!” It was then I spotted a restaurant showing the Champion’s League soccer match, Paris Saint Germaine vs Manchester City, and ducked inside to watch. 

Bar/restaurant where I watched the Champion's League soccer match. Cold beers, waiters who were taking mezcal shots during their shift, and a cool respite from the heat outside. 

A drug gang, Los Viagras, has been exerting its power in and around Michoacán, and there have been many recent acts of coordinated terror, murder, and violence. As recently as January, a group of armed men in nearby Uruapan blocked several roads with stolen vehicles which they set afire in a coordinated effort to generate panic. Often times this terror occurs when police arrest or detain a gang member. In February of 2020, eleven people at an arcade were killed in Uruapan, four younger than eighteen, in response to a drug arrest. It must feel like Sicily did during the 1980’s. Google the subject “cartel crime Michoacán” and a steady stream of news stories appear. The most comprehensive English news agency covering the criminal activity in Mexico is the right wing rag, Breitbart. 

Vegetable warehouse district, stuck in traffic, Uruapan. 

Outlets aligned with The New York Times do not much cover cartel violence. In fact, most Left leaning papers in the U.S. do not cover drug violence in places like Chicago, either. Chicago had shootings in which fifteen people were shot at one time, two times this last year (shouldn't those qualify as 'mass shootings'?). As of this writing, already Chicago has seen 201murders in 2021. In 2020 Chicago averaged 18.2 murders per 100,000 people. Uruapan, which has the eighth worst murder rate in the world, averaged 72 murders per 100,000 people. It is more dangerous than any city in the United States except for St. Louis, according to metrics provided by The Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice. While my suspicion is that certain neighborhoods in Chicago are far more scary than anywhere in Uruapan, the random acts of moral turpitude meted out by the cartels has placed the citizens of Uruapan in a rather new, and I pray temporary, state of horror.