Business in Mexico It’s a very hot and muggy Saturday morning in this border town in Mexico. The company I am visiting is losing money and needs to turn things around quickly. A look at their budget model shows that there are two factors putting this company at risk. One is a very high scrap […]
Continue ReadingBusiness in Mexico In Canada and the United States, it is fairly straightforward to downsize our employee base during a downturn in the economy. We have both short term layoffs and terminations to help us to right size, and the employees have unemployment insurance to cushion the change. In Mexico, however, things are very different. […]
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Available from Amazon Books: Paperback That first film version of The Pearl (1948) was directed by the prominent Mexican director, Emilio Fernández. It won the Ariel – the Mexican Academy Award – for best picture, and Gabriel Figueroa won the Golden Globe for best cinematography; the director, Emilio Fernández, was nominated for a Golden Lion award at the […]
Continue ReadingWith more than 30,000 native flowering plants to choose from, who would have thought that the humble dahlia would become Mexico’s national flower? The earliest known description of the dahlia (known to the Aztecs as acocoxóchitl) comes from the Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún, who arrived in New Spain in 1529. The Aztec name is believed […]
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Both the name and the coat-of-arms of San Luis Potosi recall the tremendous importance of mining to Mexico’s economy. Called Potosí in emulation of the mines of that name high in the Bolivian Andes, the city’s coat-of-arms, awarded in 1656, has its patron saint standing atop a hill in which are three mine shafts. Left […]
Continue ReadingI’ve often been asked, “Where’s the center of Mexico?”, and I’ve always deliberately fudged my reply, but is there a simple answer to this question? Well, perhaps not surprisingly, there isn’t! Several locations lay claim to being the center, but it’s all a question of definition. Does center mean “the point where the minimum distance […]
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Believe it or not, there is a village in Mexico with the unlikely name of Honey. Honey. This hardly sounds like a Mexican word and certainly lacks any Nahuatl or Spanish roots. Yet, in the state of Puebla there is a small village named Honey. I admit that when I first heard of the village, […]
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The Cuexcomate volcano, in a suburb of the city of Puebla, is generally considered to be the world’s smallest volcano. Weighing in at an estimated 40 metric tons, it stands just 13 meters (43 feet) tall, with a reach (diameter) of 23 meters (75 feet). The name Cuexcomate derives from the Nahuatl Cuexcomac which means […]
Continue ReadingLiterary-minded travel writers describing Puerto Vallarta as an “island of tourist delights” probably don’t realize that their words are closer to the truth than they might imagine. At present, Puerto Vallarta has plenty of tourist facilities but is certainly not an island. The Pacific Ocean may swish against Vallarta’s beaches on one side, but there […]
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In the early years of the twentieth century, the nature of warfare changed dramatically. The deployment of aircraft unleashed a powerful new weapon for warring factions, previously forced to rely only on their land and sea forces. The earliest attempt to incorporate air power into fighting is thought to have been when an Italian pilot […]
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