Rain!

It was almost inevitable: the gal who gives the weather report on a local channel (and why are all these girls dressed like inexpensive prostitutes??) told us that after yesterday morning there was "no chance of rain at all". So it rained like the end of the world after five o'clock, and today dawned clear, cool and just begging for a very early run.

All the lights were out on half the running path; it was slippery, and leaves and acorns covered wide swathes, and you couldn't see a danged thing. After what happened here in Monterrey on Thursday, everyone seemed to be waiting until light in order to run--nervousness, perhaps, or the possibility of falling like a bag of cement on that slippery path.

On Thursday at three-thirty in the afternoon, a comando of hitmen entered a casino in the municipality of Monterrey. The casino was filled with older people, women, employees and a few men. The hitmen splashed gasoline over the area and set it afire. The casino had only one entrance open--the main one. A side door was blocked, and a so-called emergency exit turned out to be a fake door. Fifty-two people died in the fire and by being trampled. At the moment, a three million dollar reward is being offered by the Mexican government for information leading to the capture of the perpetrators; these are the kinds of people who would sell their mothers into prostitution if there was money in it, so before long I expect results. Someone is going to rat them out.

At least for me, a totally unexpected outcome of this horrendous incident is that I began writing for our newspaper again on the editorial page after a hiatus of three years. Sometimes you've just got to get involved no matter what. This is the only way open to me to do so, so I'm going to take it.