Ed Warner

Heads of state are expected to be all-seeing. So perhaps it was no surprise that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador spotted an aluxe, an elf like creature, in a photo some engineers took while working on a tourist train in the Yucatan peninsula, a favorite project of the President.  Fascinated with the Mayan culture of fifteen thousand years ago, he wouldn’t doubt he had seen a contemporary offshoot of the ancient past.

He wanted the world also to see it, and it did with varying reaction – excitement, skepticism or relief that it has nothing to do with the current drug trade that has overwhelmed the country. But wait! On closer inspection, is that something in his hands? Could it possibly be drugs? Is there no escape from them? Could aluxes now be carrying them across the border? What an advance in the drug trade!

Mischievous aluxes like to hide things from humans. Perfect! They can hide drugs as they cross the border. It’s hard enough to see them at all, much less the drugs they carry. The U.S. Border Patrol would need a revised manual to describe their activities and how to catch them. Once apprehended, what then?  Would they join human migrants in detention centers and on release go north to various destinations? What communities can we count on to accept them? Would they qualify for sanctuary cities?

Their existence sheds new light on President Obrador’s ambitious and controversial plan for developing the Yucatan peninsula. It is there in the Mayan culture that aluxe originated. A train that goes 910 miles around the peninsula will be able to transport any number of aluxes to support drug cartels at the border. Tourists go down to the Mayan scenery, aluxes come up to make a lot of money. A nice trade-off.

But it could eventually backfire. The cartels, as is their habit, would treat aluxes the way they do human Mexicans. Do what we say or die, and the cartel manner of death can be unpleasant for any living creature. But the aluxes are not known for tolerating this kind of abuse from humans. They could change their minds and turn on their oppressors with their special aptitude for other-worldly annihilation. The cartels wouldn’t know what hit them.

Having accomplished what U.S. might could not, the aluxes would be the toast of the town. Aluxe for President, if Constitutionally ok.

“Man of the people” is a much over-used phrase, but if it applies to anyone, it’s to Hubert Humphrey, chief spokesman for liberalism a few decades ago. He never quite outgrew his roots, which was just as well. He grew up in Dalton, South Dakota (pop 900), where his father ran a drug store and he helped out. For a bright ambitious boy it was up the proverbial political ladder from mayor of Minneapolis to the U.S. Senate to the Vice Presidency and perhaps to the highest prize of all? Along the way he never forgot his origins and the people from whom he came. They were his lifelong passion.

This was demonstrated as he became a master legislator in the U.S. Senate. You name the issue for the betterment of humanity, as he saw it, and he effectively supported it – civil rights, education, medical care, arms control, genuine economic equality. This near unparalleled reach of the federal government was his liberalism, but he gave it a happy face. If you’re going to remake America over the objection of many, you may as well be cheerful about it. He was without guile – no lies, bribes, blackmail, not even routine arm twisting. His biographer Carl Solberg writes that he was wordy and corny in his endless speech giving but also extremely likable.

To be sure, he was not without his fights. An early one was with the communists, then a power in the U.S. Initially, he had worked with them, even opposing President Roosevelt’s removal of Henry Wallace as vice president because of his communist connections. But he wasn’t left enough. While mayor of Minneapolis, he was prevented from giving a speech at the convention of his Democratic-Farm-Labor party by communists who spit on him and cursed him as a fascist. He became a lifelong anti-communist and supported major U.S. measures against the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

He thought he had the right collection of policies to achieve the Presidency, his lifelong ambition, but his major obstacle turned out to be a fellow liberal Democrat of a far different stamp, President Lyndon Johnson, who craved power above all else. He was contemptuous of Humphrey’s benign brand of politics, though he felt he had to name him vice president in 1964 because of his national popularity. A dramatic falling out came over the Vietnam war. Humphrey felt a settlement was needed to end a war that was eventually lost and presented LBJ with a memo praising the President’s skills as a negotiator. The war obsessed President was furious and locked Humphrey out of any more talks on Vietnam and belittled him at every opportunity. Doubling down on his loyalty to LBJ didn’t do Humphrey any good as he outhawked the President. His liberalism over shadowed, he lost the 1968 Presidential election to Republican Richard Nixon.

He might have done better to have followed the example of the great populist-liberal William Jennings Bryan, who resigned from a top post in government rather than approve U.S. entrance into the catastrophic First World War. Humphrey’s liberal convictions would still be unsullied and setting an example for today’s more truculent version. He showed that venom is not needed to attain liberal ends, in fact is counter productive. His was a Humphrey style search for new ideas instead of an assumption that they have already been found and must be imposed. Coercion in the realm of ideas is not liberalism. 

While some builders are bringing earth skyward, others are digging below, crafting homes and even hotels partially or altogether beneath the earth. They take all kinds of shapes depending on the land that encloses them. Empty space can often suffice – an abandoned mine, quarry or even a missile site. Otherwise, excavation is needed to secure a home in a mountain or valley or even desert.

Who is that who seems to be coming mysteriously out of a hill? It’s no ghost but a human being who chooses to live where he can  hardly be seen unless he wants to appear. That’s the advantage of living below – quiet and privacy. It’s not altogether for the fainted hearted, anyone who may fear being buried alive. It takes a certain type of adventurous mortal. Roughly speaking, we know of a million underground homes, but there could be many more. We just can’t see them all.

There are distinct advantages to living underground. While excavation adds to the cost of a home, it’s matched by savings in energy – heating and cooling.  Built of durable concrete, the home below is especially desirable in areas of extreme temperatures. The insulation of the earth helps keep living conditions comfortable. Depending on how far down the structure goes, windows may not be available for sunlight, but bright lights can substitute. The location also provides protection from the hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes that periodically ravage the homes above. It’s called living with the earth instead of in opposition to it.

Not content with that, ambitious builders are contemplating entire cities beneath the earth. The plans are there. They await the execution. Meanwhile, an imposing 337-room hotel, the Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland, more appropriately known as the Deep Pit Hotel, has been constructed in an abandoned quarry near Shanghai, China. The top of eighteen floors is on a level with the earth, the lowest two are under water. Guests have a unique view of what transpires underground. This takes some getting used to, admits an hotel manager. It’s topsy-turvy with water and sewage having to go up instead of down.

Life below is not without problems. Doris James Mizbejabber has lived in a partially underground home for eighteen years near the Arkansas state capitol Little Rock. It’s been delightful, she says, but over time repairs due to location are needed. A wet spot appeared in the ceiling, and then more, forming stalactites from above – picturesque but daunting. Walls and ceilings have also suffered cracks. A variety of insects – spiders, centipedes, termites – decided to make a home there as well. The family thought it was time to sell, but the value of the house had declined. Where would they go? Why to another underground home, to be sure, but a bit more up to date.  There’s nothing like mother earth.

One day Italian architect  Stefano Boeri was walking around fabulously wealthy Dubai and grew tired of all the glass walled buildings that distinguish the city. Too sterile to look at, he thought, and too wasteful of the energy needed to keep them livable. There must be something better, and he decided to work on it.

The result is a pair of buildings that are the talk and pride of Milan, Italy. In this heavily industrialized city they are an offering to the gods of change, beauty and energy conservation.  All 800 units in the 27-story buildings have balconies with two trees, an array of plants with birds nesting in them, all living comfortably with human occupants. It seems to be a park heading skyward that almost makes the apartments disappear, a striking contrast to the routine of the typically makeshift city.

Architect Boeri says his plan has been realized. Nature can be enjoyed in the midst of the city hubbub. Trees can help absorb pollutants, he says, and contribute to global cooling. “Bringing more trees into the city means fighting the enemy on the spot.” With renewable energy solar panels and a flittered water system sustain plant life. Once every three months three flying gardeners repel from the roof down to every apartment to prune and water the vegetation.

That sight itself is worth the price of the rent, which varies considerably from the affluent top occupants to the more affordable units down below. Boeri says he wants renters of all levels of income to have nature in their lives. A full survey of their adjustment to this new existence has yet to be made. Higher upper Simona Pozzi says how much she enjoys watching her plants change with the seasons. Instead of going out to a park she comes home to one.

Boeri has been encouraged to build even taller sky soaring parks elsewhere, and admirers are duplicating his efforts in various parts of the world. China, However, offers a note of caution. An elevated park in the city of Chengdu has lost most of its occupants because of mosquitoes swarming in and plants enveloping balconies that leave no room for humans. Maintenance is obviously lacking. Some diehards grumble that trees belong on the ground not in the air, but that increasingly is where they are to largely dazzling effect.

Emerging on tv, a figure of the past, Oliver North offers some proposals on the conduct of the war in Ukraine. Given the clandestine nature of much of the U.S. effort, he is worth listening to since he was a leading director of covert activities in the last years of the Cold War – almost too many to count that finally collapsed of their own weight, leading to Iran-Contra, the chief scandal of the Reagan administration. 

It began as a herculean effort to combine four secret projects, any one of which would be a full time job: blocking aggressive Soviet moves in the Middle East and aiding the Contra rebels against the Soviet supported Sandinista regime In Nicaragua; rescuing some fifty American hostages seized in the Islamic takeover of Iran in 1979, while at the same time attempting an opening to Iran with the aim of dividing our enemies instead of pushing them together, as the U.S. is doing at present. By any measure it was a superhuman effort, and to be sure, Ollie North was only human.

He enlisted in it with gusto. A proud marine colonel with a record of heroism under fire in Vietnam, he had no qualms about what he was doing and was joined by other equally enthusiastic members of the Reagan Administration. But not all forces were cooperating. The President was intent on bringing the hostages home and conveyed that feeling to North without going into detail.  North acquired the services of a go-between, Manucher Ghobifar, full of promise and duplicity. Sell the Iranians the arms they need, he proposed, and they in turn will release the hostages. President Reagan had opposed trading arms for hostages but changed his mind with circumstances. Practicality prevailed over consistency. One of the hostages, a CIA chief in the region, had been brutally tortured and died, not before revealing the names of a number of CIA agents.

The weapons were sent by way of Israel, which then considered Iran less of a danger than Iraq, the reverse of today. But the hostages didn’t appear with the Iranians complaining that some of the weapons were flawed. While making plenty of money from the transactions, Ghobifar reassured North. Don’t worry, be patient, just depend on me. He claimed he spoke for the top leadership of Iran, which remained resolutely hostile to the U.S., regardless of weapons, While North waited, interminably, he thought some of the money from Iran could be put to good use aiding the Contras in their struggle against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. The fear was that a communist Nicaragua could become another Cuba, where the nuclear missile crisis of 1963 had been a global scare.

But the U.S. Congress had ruled against any more aid to the Contras. A leak of all this maneuvering was inevitable and occurred to the outrage of Congress and media. How much longer would we have to deal with this communist menace? Not very long at all. Within a couple of years Reagan would meet with Gorbachev and the Soviet Union would collapse with a finality. Exposed and his plans no longer of use, Ollie had turned from hero to anti-hero. Such are the consequences of at least this covert action. The U. S. is now involved in some of the must clandestine activities in its history in Ukraine.  Are they altogether workable or could they go the way of Iran-Contra?   

At their meeting in Mexico City, Mexican President Lopez Obrador thanked U.S. President Biden for not adding to the border wall between the two countries. In turn, Biden asked Lopez Obrador for help in stopping the poisonous fentanyl that is crossing the border from Mexico. Therein lies a contradiction. The enormous flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the U.S. cannot be stopped without serious impediments of which the wall is one.

For this the drug cartels who basically run Mexico are also grateful. Who could ask for more? In control of the 2000 mile long border, they outnumber and outmaneuver the American guards on the other side. Strategically minded, they order a group of migrants across at one point, thus tying up some of the U.S. border Patrol. That leave a gap elsewhere for drugs to cross. They have little to fear.as they go about their business. While the Border Patrol agents are armed, they can only return fire. In the open across the Rio Grande, cartel chiefs clad in black direct operations free of concern. The invasion, as it were, is cost free.

The new 3.2 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill just approved by the U.S. Congress provides no funds for border protection. At the same time, the U.S is lavishing one hundred billion dollars on the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, a fraction of which would secure the U.S. border. Russians are not threatening the U.S. Mexican gangster are. They have links to the big city gangs now embroiled in crime as they compete for drug profits. The cartels have a well-organized cross-country operation that undoubtedly includes their many thousands of illegal marijuana farms sprouting up in California, Oregon, Wisconsin and no doubt elsewhere. Politically minded cartel bosses talk about reclaiming the southwest that was lost to Americans in the 1840s’ war. Talk about reparations! 

President Biden has made a nod toward remedy. He has started to rebuild a section of the wall near Yuma, Arizona, and has transferred some 200 air marshals to the border to assist in handling migrants, arousing some concern that a terrorist attack might occur in their absence. The only genuine solution is a border sealed by U.S troops who could confront the cartels and if necessary, pursue them beyond the border. This is war and should be conducted as such.

It’s striking that many Americans seem unaware of what is happening on the border, and that can be chalked up to an indifferent media. Aside from conservative Fox tv and the New York Post, the rest of the media has little to say about the drug cartel threat to the U.S. or its destruction of Mexico. But why is defense of the U.S. a conservative matter? Our compassion is selective. We’re understandably grieved by the Ukrainians dying in the war, but what about the Mexicans who are murdered on a daily basis? Silence.  There’s no popular outcry for U.S agencies to do their job. Engrossed in propagandizing Americans through Twitter, the FBI doesn’t seem to have time for the cartels. Given the many billions of dollars in drug earnings, suspicions can arise about Washington’s inactivity. Time for Americans to be reassured.

The planet we live on leads a charmed life. Though faced with innumerable threats to its existence, it has managed to survive a few billions year and so have we humans for more than three hundred thousand years. Yellowstone Park is an example of how we’re helped. It’s an actual still active volcano that refuses to erupt while we enjoy its splendor into the distant future. Nature doesn’t do our bidding, but it’s very cooperative.

Scientists and skilled every day researchers are trying to determine when the first human being walked the earth. They think they’re getting closer as the elusive date sems to be ever earlier, over three thousand years ago. What’s impressive, astonishing even, is how a particular species managed to survive over this vast period despite natural disasters – frequently occurring earthquakes and fiercely erupting volcanoes – and manmade ones – endless wars and now a nuclear danger. Yet here we are today in a new year with many of us in relative comfort and even happy. There’s a story to be told.

Threats to be sure, continue to exist, many in the most unlikely places. Appearances can be deceiving. Take Yellowstone Park, for example. This 2.2-million-acre wonder, spreading over draws some four million visitors each year to enjoy its splendid scenery of mountains, valleys, geysers and hot pools for an occasional if somewhat risky dip. Yet they may not know it, but they’re standing on a massive super volcano that sits above an enormous reservoir of molten rock that reaches twelve miles into the earth. It also happens to be still active. With some very acute sensitivity visitors might feel the hundreds of small earthquakes that occur each year.

These are precursors of a cataclysmic eruption that will some day occur. But don’t postpone your visit on account of that. The last eruption took place 600,000 year ago and the next may be ten thousand years in the future. Meanwhile just look out for traffic and bison jams on the narrow roads. What could be a distant nightmare is a current paradise for geologist Paul Doss, who says he can observe rocks three billion of years old and new ones being born.
“I’ve never been any place where geology is more evident or prettier.” 

Yellowstone is typical of where we stand in the universe in the opinion of Bill Dyson in his book “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” Tragedy abounds, but we are spared. For instance, we are just the right distance from the nourishing sun. Much closer, earth would have boiled away. Much farther out, it would have frozen. Our moon, larger than those of other planets, provides a steady gravitation that keeps the earth spinning at the right speed and angle necessary for a long and successful life. We’re lucky that 4.4 billion years ago a huge celestial object smashed into earth, carving out a separate moon. Creative destruction, to be sure.

Timing is essential, writes Bryson. Anything can go wrong in billions of years. “It seems evident that if you wish to end up as a moderately advanced, thinking society, you need to be at the right end of a very long chain of outcomes involving reasonable periods of stability with an absence of real cataclysm.”

Privileged as we are, we don’t own the universe or are masters of it. Ultimately, it will decide our fate as we seek to learn more about it. In the meantime we can act appropriately within its bounds with a measure of humility and forbearance. No use tearing up what it has built over the ages. We’re not sure exactly when we arrived here. Any number is arbitrary. But we’ll give it a try. Maybe we’ll hit the jackpot. Happy 319, 642 New Year.