Times Magazine on AMLO

David Reiff's piece in the Times doesn't start out well. The idea that the uber-rich here are driving armored cars is preposterous. It's pretty much a stupid outright lie, at least given its prominence and placement as introductory to his story. I don't know the statistics on crime. Everyone assures me that crime is in fact worse here than in New York City where I lived for almost ten years. Experientially, I can tell you, I feel safer here. I suppose the statistics gathering here has improved, hence the huge increase in crime that Reiff's piece so frighteningly depicts but Mexico City is by far a friendly and kinder city full of people who will bend over backwards to help each other. Tough to depict that in a story designed to do whatever Reiff's piece is supposed to do; depict a country with a public in a country full of living rooms without a public.