In light of the fact that Hurricane Gustav is looking like it might effect Cancun my good friend Steve has just de-mothballed the Hurricane Cancun web site. I’ll be posting any hurricane-related posts on that site, so be sure to check it out.

The Democratic National Committee Convention (DNCC) started in the U.S. today. And being that I’m in Mexico and have essentially pathetic TV cable service (Can you say Cablemenos? Menos means less in Spanish.) I decided I wanted to watch the opening night speeches over the internet.

So first I dug around on Barack Obama’s (lovely) site looking for a link to a live video stream, but that was a fruitless search. Then I got with the program and made my way over to the DNCC’s site. I found the DNCC video stream link, but when I got to that page I was informed that I needed to install 2 plugins in order to view the live video (they were Microsoft’s Silverlight and the Move Media Player). Now I don’t live under too big a technological rock, but I had not heard of either of these programs before.

When I have a web design client who wants to deliver video on their web site I always tell them that we need to provide video in the formats that are commonly used. I tell my clients that it’s bad form and that it’s a usability obstacle to force your viewers to install a plugin in order to see content. If you want to reach the widest possible audience you deliver content that users can see without doing any extra work.

But why on earth would the Democrats do that? Why would they make it easy for us to view their video when they can complicate things by making us download not one, but two plugins?

Now it’s possible, maybe even likely, that this combination of plugins provides better quality video than other programs would. If that’s the case then I guess I’m happy to have installed them. But I’m still upset that I couldn’t just arrive on the site and see the video stream without doing the work of installing something first. And if these two plugins were widely used I’m certain that I would have encountered them by now, so now I’m annoyed that I may have just installed two plugins that might not get much use once the Convention ends.

Something about this feels typical of the Democratic Party. It’s an example of what we Democrats always seem to do wrong. We make things complicated when they should be simple. We make people work to hear our message when they shouldn’t need to.

That being said, I did enjoy watching the opening night speeches. And Michelle Obama’s speech made me a little misty…

This blog brings me many compliments (thank you all). But it also brings me some nasty comments and some extremely nasty personal emails.

Often my detractors have clearly not read more than one blog entry and so it’s easy for me to be dismissive of their viewpoints. If you disagree with me so strongly because of just one post, well, I’m sorry. I think that if you bother to read more than one post then you will see that I’m not that feeble-minded or that one-sided, or whatever it is that you think.

I’ve received two “I wish you were dead” emails since I’ve been writing this blog. And there have been countless more nasty comments that have come through. I allow comments to appear that disagree with me if they are in some way constructive. But comments that just call me names and accuse me of living here “because Mexican men will f*ck anything that moves” do not end up appearing on the site.

To my detractors I want to say this: Mexico is a developing country. It is a big, diverse, interesting, beautiful country. But it is a developing country. This means it’s not done yet deciding how it should treat its animals or its land or its people.

So when I bitch about Mexico being full of garbage or full of mis-treated, starving animals or full of people who should know better it’s because I care! OK? Got it? I care.

If you read my blog for more than one post you will see that I spend a lot of my time doing community work here and volunteering my time to make Mexico a better place. I do this because I care. Capiche?

And to those ex-pats who get miffed at me when I point out that this “paradise” you’ve moved to is less than perfect I say “Get out there and make Mexico a better place.” Mexico is not benefiting from you getting all ga-ga about it’s beaches and pretending that everything here is hunky-dory. So quit with the “See No Evil” routine and get out there and pick up some garbage and adopt a street dog and raise some consciousness with your own blog.

OK then.

Cancun has a hidden treasure, a secret little cache of culture tucked away in the hotel zone. The Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano (Mexican Folk Art Museum) is overflowing with excellent examples of Mexican folk art and crafts. Not to be missed.

If You Go
Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano (Mexican Folk Art Museum)
Location: El Embarcadero Marina – 2nd Floor (near the Pirate Ships)
Blvd. Kukulcan, Km 4.5, Zona Hotelera, Cancun
By Bus: Blue Line Stop #80, Green Line Stop #81
Tels: 998.849.4332 & 998.849.5583
Cost: Around $5 USD
Open: Weekdays 9am – 7pm & Weekends 11am – 7pm
Web Site: Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano

My 14 year old daughter has been visiting for the last two weeks. Since she’s been here she’s been busy writing short stories. She writes like someone far older…and far more twisted. One day I encouraged her to put up a blog with her stories on it and 20 minutes later she had published her first story.

You can check out her writing here at Auroraphobia’s Senseless Ranting. Auroraphobia is the “fear of the Northern Lights.” She actually has hemaphobia “fear of blood”, not auroraphobia, but you would never know it from her writing. [Her hemaphobia is attributable to seeing me almost bleed to death when she was about three, poor kid. I hope she gets over it.]

Aside from her visit I’ve been walking around with an unshakable sense that I’m doing something wrong, but don’t know what it is. I’ve felt this before, but never this clearly or for this long. The feeling comes and goes, but is altogether too prevalent for comfort.

One bright spot is that someone gave my husband two free plane tickets to Costa Rica. So we are going hiking in the rain forest sometime soon (I can’t wait to be in the mountains). Now we just need a pet sitter for 5 days. Anybody feel like house-sitting for our eight cats and one very cowed dog?

And finally, I have a game to share. It totally takes me back to my 9th grade Earth Sciences class wherein we spent the whole year calculating planetary orbits and making fun of our poor geeky brilliant teacher. I warn you though, it gets hard fast when you have to contend with more than one planet and orbiting moons. Makes you feel sorry for the sun. Play Orbitrunner. Hope you enjoy it.

That’s Playa del Carmen, to the initiated. One of my web design clients owns a couple of nice condos here that he rents out. One is in Playa and the other is in Cancun. This weekend he was kind enough to let me have use of his Playa condo. So I’m here hanging out with my daughter.

Thus far we’ve done not much of anything. And that’s the point. I’m terrible about taking weekends off, in fact I basically never take two days in a row off unless I’m away from home. I guess it’s a sign that I like my work that I can’t leave it alone for two days in a row. Either that or I’m just pathetic and have poor boundaries.

This condo is located just a couple of blocks from the ocean, so this morning I rose early and took a jog down the beach. The beach here is big and wide and lovely, and at 8 a.m. it’s also mostly empty. I saw just a few other joggers, a couple of families and a couple of die-hard, tan-all-day, leather-looking-skin types.

After my run I came back and read a chapter of Barack Obama’s book Audacity of Hope (which is really GOOD, by the way) and then fell asleep in the hammock under the palapa for a little while. Life is tough in paradise.

For the past year I’ve been working closely with the magnificent and brilliant choreographer, Alison Chase (a founding artistic director of the famed Pilobolus), on her new web site. This week we made a big push and we are very nearly there…. And so I want to warm you up with a little video of one of Alison’s more irreverent and joyful choreographic works. Please enjoy Quarryography:

I finally checked out Twitter. I’d been avoiding it because I figured I’d get addicted to it as soon as I created an account there. Now I’ve got an account and I even set it up so I can send Tweets from my cell phone. So we shall see how deep my addiction will run. Here’s a link to my Twitter profile: http://twitter.com/RiverGirlCancun

I’m mad. And sad.

I just went for a walk with Sam the tonto wonder dog. And during our walk we saw two stray dogs which both seem to need some kind of help or care. Both of these dogs have been hanging around the neighborhood for a few days. One is skinny and needy and young, but it has good healthy puppy energy. The other is older, has a collar and a limp and seems like she might be sick. This second one really concerns me, she’s not just lost, she’s ill.

So when we got home from walking the dog we went back out with some food and water and put it near where this second dog was lying down. She took off when we showed up. But I think she’ll return to that spot because I’ve seen her there a number of times in the last few days, she’s comfortable there. I’ll go back in a few hours and see if she’s eaten what we left for her. Pobrecita.

Cancun’s stray dog problem is out of control. I only saw two dogs in my neighborhood, but I live in a decent area. When you get into the poorer sections of Cancun the problem gets much worse. There are stray, limping, hurting dogs everywhere.

Every time I come face to face with a stray dog I feel so sad. And I get so mad at people here who do nothing. Worse, they don’t just do nothing, they get all ga-ga about how nice it is here. How can it be nice here when there are so many animals visibly suffering in the street? In my humble opinion, it can’t be.

In recent weeks I’ve made a commitment to RAP Cancun to help redesign the web site, and put it in English so that we can more easily solicit donations from English-speakers. We are also going to ramp up a campaign to encourage tourists visiting Cancun from the U.S. and Canada to adopt street dogs. Fortunately there is no animal quarantine between Mexico and both the U.S. and Canada, so adoption is a viable option.

If you would like to make a donation to RAP please let me know or contact Maria Alicia through their web site.