I have an old friend who lives in Cabo San Lucas, and he says that Mexico is as nice as it ever was, away from the border. BTW, he is in the States for some extended medical treatments (don't believe everything you read about the superiority and relative cheapness of medical care outside of the US), and his (Mexican-born) wife complained the other day that the Salt Lake school their son is in is about 1 1/2 years behind his old school in Cabo.

It is always easy to point a finger - and I will yield to temptation. The single principal cause of the crime on the Mexican side of the border - and there are parallel, but much smaller, problems on the US side - is the immigration issue, and specifically the failure of the US government to establish a rational guest-worker program. Would-be line crossers must deal with the guides (coyotes) who feed on the desire of Mexicans (and others) to come north and make money to feed their families back home. Everyone knows what is going on and who to send people to who wish to evade the Border Patrol. This has created a general disregard for the law in northwestern Mexico. Bigger and badder bandits feed on the coyotes and their supporters, the honest police and journalists are murdered and the dishonest ones thrive, and so forth. The solution? Well, I guess I know where to start.