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A Couple of Days in San Diego
17-Jul-2008
The gate across the entrance road to the park was shut and a sign said it was open on weekends and holidays. Today being neither, my dad turned the car onto a dirt road just this side of the barricade, figuring we could drive around it through the brush. This place will be swarming with cops in five minutes, I said. Good thing my skin isn’t too dark, my Iranian wife said. Our eight year old son wanted to know what we were talking about.
It took all of two minutes for the first Immigration and Customs Enforcement patrolman to arrive, standing on his all-terrain vehicle in his neat green uniform with pockets and belts, helmeted and armed, and a tough, overfed face. What are you headed off to do, he demanded of my father. We’re going up to Border Field Park, my dad said. It’s closed, the ICEman said. Nice of ICE, I thought, to be guarding parks for the state. Another one arrived on another ATV. I wondered how far dad was going to push it. He chewed on his tongue for a moment and then said okay. We headed back. The ICEmen didn’t follow. I don’t suppose they had to; they could see our dust and I’m sure they had other means of surveillance.
In the old days the cops and the military showed a certain amount of gruff courtesy when they gave you orders, a certain generosity grounded in the crude and brute force they exercise, at least with us white folks. But those were days of victory and success, when noblesse obliged, there was sometimes a little individual exercise of discretion, you could negotiate a little leniency. In these days of failure, defeat, unemployment, and cruelty and oppression sanctioned at the highest levels, that largesse is squelched. Now they’re all mean and nasty; nor do they care, or dare, to act independently.
The entire San Diego area feels like a military camp. Or maybe like an occupied territory. That is, for us peaceable civilians. It looks around here like you’re either in the military or working for it, and if you’re not, they’d like you to think they’re protecting you. From what? Mexicans for one thing, I guess. And terrorists. From yourself, maybe—if you’re a civilian, not one of them, then you can’t be totally trusted, and you’ve got to be controlled, to protect them, or you, or something—or am I being paranoid? It’s a weird place, gives me weird thoughts.
Maybe statistics would prove me wrong, but the economy feels like a military economy. The major things you see being manufactured and built are border walls and military facilities. You see battleships and carriers in the bay, bases and naval air stations along the freeways, soldiers in camouflage sitting in the backs of trucks or on gates in fences at freeway exits in the countryside with nothing around, tattoo parlors and strip joints on the main streets of National City, Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, the immense retired officers community of Coronado, jeeps and Humvees and SUVs on the highways, black with tinted windows, driven by young men with buzz cuts and wraparound sunglasses or thin young women with frizzy hair, or not so thin with a back seat full of boys with buzz cuts, kids in camouflage T-shirts.
Besides the black jeep-like vehicles driven by special forces around the world, there are pickup trucks. Note that pickups are driven by the ruggedest individuals, the cowboys, the construction workers, the men who move things, the not-sissies, the ones who don’t need to think, who despise thinking. They’re driven by single young men, occasionally by a big-breasted young woman in a tight shirt looking haughty—her boyfriend drives a pickup.
There’s a lot of testosterone in this place. Strip joints, pickup trucks, crew cuts, tattooed biceps in sleeveless T-shirts. Tough sneers. Expressionless faces. Hostility.
We saw a van that had quite a paint job: An eagle, red white and blue streamers, and some text: “For God. For the Flag. For the Marines.” Me, I pray to God and the Flag that it belonged to a Marine recruiting office and not a private individual. Bad enough for a recruiter, but if it was private, there’s a real nutcase driving around.
Aggressive driving, cutthroat, give no quarter. Two cars behind me pull into an off-ramp on my right. They both speed up at once but the one farther behind is faster and crowds the other. They just miss my bumper as they accelerate toward the red light at the end of the ramp. They must be test pilots. Lots of them on the roads here.
Mulish driving. Somebody pulls into the leftmost lane to pass someone going marginally slower in his own lane and then stays there, although he’s holding back a line of cars in the fast lane. He’s there, he’s going the speed limit, the rest of the world can damn well get over it. Further north, in LA for example, people who do this are simply oblivious or on the phone or spacing out to their iPod. But people here are ornery. If you don’t believe me, try getting around the guy by pulling into a break in the lane to the right. He speeds up to keep you there until you come up on the next car and have to slow down; then he slows down.
Poor people here are miserable and there are so many and they look beaten down. It’s depressing. They’re fat, they wear shoddy clothes, they frown. The blacks are unhappy and solitary, the Mexicans are quiet, and the whites swagger around in their fatness, feeling good that they’re the bosses, the top of the heap, the ones all the stores are for, the flags and the soldiers and the fighters in far-off Afghanistan or Syria or wherever freedom needs fighting for. You see them in the discount stores. Not the chain outlets in the malls, the ninety-nine cent grocery stores, the bulk grocery discount stores, the places that sell day old bread and canned vegetables and styrofoam containers of flavored pasta just add water, the stores that sell bad food cheap enough for these poor people to buy.
Get up close to the border fence and look at poor people on the Mexican side—the kids are running and playing, the grownups are sitting or standing around chatting, vendors stroll up to them selling one thing or another. This side looks like a DMZ, except it isn’t demilitarized, it’s militarized. You can’t have a social life with ICEmen and military helicopters. Take a look at the fence. It looks like bars on a jail; the question is who’s in and who’s out?
Look at the fence and through it, but don’t bother crossing the border. Easy enough leaving, but coming back—hoo boy! That’s another story. Two hours standing in line or sitting in a car or a bus, waiting to show your passport. Ain’t worth it. Somebody doesn’t want us fraternizing with the enemy. Or seeing what we’re missing. Or maybe they figure we’ll pay that small price gladly for protection against the aliens.
Unfriendly people here. You can’t meet anyone. Usually poor people are less uptight than affluent ones, but here they are silent and sullen. You can’t get close to most of the affluent ones in their cars, factory outlet shopping malls, suburban houses. Now and then you will encounter someone at the zoo or a nature interpretive center, but they won’t meet your eye, they won’t return your smile, and they often won’t even acknowledge a spoken “Hello.” The friendliest among them will only smile briefly and quickly glance away. It’s worse than being in an elevator because you know at least that’s the etiquette there, it’s how you’re supposed to act. Here people don’t know how to act, and everybody in the county is shy, I guess, or they’re afraid of acting friendly first and not having the gesture reciprocated, or they’re afraid of being tricked into smiling back at a con man. Clearly, they’re afraid.
I used to dread being around other tourists because their jolly camaraderie got on my nerves. “Where are you from?” with a big smile, “Mom and me, we’re from Decatur, staying down at the beach in one of them RV campgrounds. Great place this California. Where you staying?” I hated it. But now I think it may have been better than the studied lack of contact now. People don’t meet your eye, white people, big open-hearted Americans who used to own the campgrounds of the world.
The US has a tradition of disgust with elite privilege, militarism, authoritarian rule. People could start rebelling against the twenty year old trend in this direction. It would be one of few such historical occurrences, but it might be possible given Americans’ more or less widespread training in civic activities. They could reject small-mindedness and cultivate cheerfulness, generosity, and sociability.
On the other hand, the US also has a mean streak, a tradition of immigrant hating know-nothingness, a conquer-and-take frontier attitude. It shares the human affinity for rapine and cruelty. Now, think about all the returning soldiers and contractors and depatriating allies from around the empire. These people need jobs. They know security. They know police work. They know how to obey and how to command. And it so happens there are plenty of jobs these days in immigrant control and antiterrorism and the prison system and shopping center security. And a lot of these jobs are in San Diego.
Apocalyptic me. It seems like the mean streak has won. Hostility reigns. The sky is low and heavy, there’s no space to breathe, no room for friendship with strangers. Rebellion of the good-minded isn’t going to happen around here soon.
I can just hear some of the reactions to this piece: “Go back where you came from, a**hole!” Me: “I’m from here, dude. I got nowhere else to go.” Or: “Love it or leave it.” Me: “Right. Ain’t a lot better elsewhere. Same goddamned aggressive patriotism, same aggressive religionification, same merchandizing, same lies same fraud.” Man, in the old days at least the conquerors didn’t lie. Rape and pillage was straightforward. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t yearn for the days of the Vandals and the Horde. Things are better now than ever for peaceful types like me. No question. And civilization has always been made in the corners away from the big shots and the thugs. But I do hate the abounding lies these days.
You want an example? They tell us we the people are in charge. The illusion of control: Billboards that advertise: My Television. My Rules. That is, control the channels your child can watch. Lie #1: If you own it you control it. Lie #2: Control is good. Lie #3: Ownership is good. Lie #4: Television is good. Lie #5: Influence comes from ownership, not anything like example or discussion. Lie #6: You own your children. Lie #7: You’re in control. Of your life! Of your kids! You be da boss! Big shot! You! Never mind you got no say where you work, you might even gonna lose your job you got no idea, the price of gas goes up, people buy fewer cars, you get laid off from making windshield wiper blades. Sorry, Charlie. You can get retrained at the University of Phoenix to become a middle manager. Or go home and control your TV! Not to mention the tone, self-centered, smug, bossy: Nyah, nyah, nyah, it’s my ball so you gotta play by my rules. They want you to act like the kid everyone hates.
The trouble is, you can’t talk to most people about this. They’re either naïve or complicit. You make the naïve ones uneasy, and they end up cutting you off or repeating the day’s party line at you and they commonly get hostile. The complicit ones are hostile from the get-go. These days hostility is the modus operandi of the Bushies, the neocons, our friends in the Middle East, and the others in control. In days gone by, you ignored gadflies. These days you swat them. These days are vicious. Some people, poor people especially, know this already but what can they do? What good does talking about it do? You can’t teach the naïve, can’t convert the complicit, can’t expect poor powerless saps like us to be able to do anything. I guess you talk about it so a few like-minded people know they’re not alone.
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Monda (also a note to AW)
by programmer craig on Tue Jul 22, 2008 08:44 PM PDTI was not in the US in the '60's or early '70's, when US was globally respected much more than now.
lol. Where were you, then? In Iran? Was the US respected in Iran in 1979? Or maybe you weren't even born yet? If that's the case, then why are you telling thoise of us who can remember, what things were like?
I don't see how housewives referring to cops as pigs speaks of these times.
Really? And how closely did you read the post before commenting on it, then?
What "agenda" are you referring to? My wish as a reader of iranian.com is to read good writers of all views.
Did you miss the portion of your comment that I quoted? Well, here it is again:
Monda: Even though QR predicted to get the rage out of some readers, in his last paragraph, I read it as a clear view of rotting values in this
country of ours.
Remember saying that, Monda? Your agenda is to prove that we in the US have "rotting values".
American Wife, I don't disagree with what you say. I want to point out one thing, though:
and no... it was NOT the hippies grown up and with jobs with the coke.
it was the hipper crowd... not hippie... BIG diff. they were younger
and almost exclusively they were the kids of the stiffs... the big
bidness corporate types.
And the hippies were also the children of privilege. My own parents were, and so were all of their hippy friends. I never met a hippy who came froma blue collar background. You are right that it wasn't the hippies who were going wild in the 1980s. It was more the children of the hippies, like me. But who raised us? And in what environment? :)
PC
by Monda on Tue Jul 22, 2008 08:20 PM PDTI was not in the US in the '60's or early '70's, when US was globally respected much more than now. I don't see how housewives referring to cops as pigs speaks of these times.
What "agenda" are you referring to? My wish as a reader of iranian.com is to read good writers of all views.
Objection overuled!
by maryamt59 on Tue Jul 22, 2008 05:14 PM PDTIranians and Americans, don't ever forget for whatever reason you may have come here, the main reason has always been that in America you can express your opinions albeit anti-mainstream. Indeed, one has to go from East to West to experience the differences of patriotic flavor in this land...As Woody so well put it...
This land is your land, this land is my land
From [the] California to the [Staten] New York Island,
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters,
[God blessed America for me.]
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway,
And saw below me the golden valley, I said:
[God blessed America for me.]
I roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts,
And all around me , a voice was sounding:
[God blessed America for me.]
Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn't say nothing --
[God blessed America for me.]
When the sun come shining, then I was strolling
In wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling;
The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting:
[God blessed America for me.]
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people --
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
[God blessed America for me.]
There is no need for anyone to prevent anyone else from expressing an opinion! We forget why we came here in the first place!! Freedom of EXPRESSION!!!!
You're a little younger so
by American Wife (not verified) on Tue Jul 22, 2008 04:56 PM PDTYou're a little younger so you caught the tail end of the 70's... kinda like the "sludge"....:-0
going through your pockets and rolling down your socks? dude, that was my PARENTS who did that...LOL.
we didn't trust ANYONE... parents, government... it was equal opportunity distrust. i did have some pretty cool teachers though...not like donald sutherland of course but pretty cool.
and no... it was NOT the hippies grown up and with jobs with the coke. it was the hipper crowd... not hippie... BIG diff. they were younger and almost exclusively they were the kids of the stiffs... the big bidness corporate types.
the hippies i knew... you can tell them a mile away. still have long hair... still smoke... still idealistic. i don't mean the pseudo hippies (like me, i admit it). i mean the real-deal... the ones who thought they were making a difference.
PS
by programmer craig on Tue Jul 22, 2008 04:05 PM PDTI was in the 1st marine Division at Camp Pendleton, in San Diego County, for 5 years! So I was one of the military assholes this post was about. I have no clue why anybody would go to a pit like Oceanside at the south end of Camp Pentleton. I was only in Oceanside a few times myself... doens't take a rocket scientist to figure out that's not a nice place to be! And San Clemente at the north end of camp Pendleton is only a 10 minute drive away. Much nicer :)
American Wife
by programmer craig on Tue Jul 22, 2008 03:53 PM PDTAs
compared to now... shoot, the police weren't that bad at all.
Yeah they were! I was in junior high in the late 1970s and I used to get stopped by the pigs several times a week, just walking home from school! Why? because I ahd long hair! Which made me a suspected doper! And since merely being under the influence wasn't illegal, that meant they had to go through my pockets and roll down my socks looking for evidence, every time. In broad daylight. Right on the side of the road! The only bright side is it was WAY cool to be hassled by the cops, back then :)
When people talk about infringements of civil liberties and profiling these days, i think they are really lacking in historical perspective! Or they are living in denial.
And the
government... well, people were rebelling against the war. It wasn't
the decay-riddled government of today. In other words, it was "cool"
to be in the counter-culture movement.
Yes. But was there any point during that period of time wheer you trusted the government? Any administration?
But those were my experiences.I'd be the first to admit I came from as "beaver-cleaver" a family as
it gets. I'm not sure I agree with the rotting values version of the
70's.
I didn't have a Brady Bunch family... my parents got divorced about 1970 and they were both hippies. Or wannabe hippies. Not sure that it matters much which it was! But they both came from good families. I don't think they did a better job with their children, than their parents had done. And i don't think American society was healtheir at that time than it had been in the past.
The one bright side I can see about teh 1970s (don't recall the 1960s very clearly as I was just a little kid!) is that people were pretty optimistic. That ended sometime during the Ford administration in my opinion.
The 80's? Oh yeah... those were some high value years... you
didn't go ANYWHERE without someone offering cocaine... infidelity was
THE name of the game... corporate greed on the rise.
Right. That's what happened when the hippies grew up and got jobs! I spent most of the 1980s on active duty in the Marines.
No, I feel that
the 60's and 70's was the birth of social awareness. Values... maybe
not. But in the long run, values are a personal statement.
Maybe so. That was certainly the way it seemed at the time. People seemed a lot more tolerant back then than they are now, that's for sure. But if thinsg are worse today in US culture than they were then, whose fault is that? Not the government's, surely! It is parents who raise children, after all.
Peace, love and waterbeds...:-)
Yes! It was fun while it lasted :)
couldn't resist
by American Wife (not verified) on Tue Jul 22, 2008 02:26 PM PDTnoting that i've got jimi's "star spangled banner" on itunes right now...lol.
TALK about irreverancy...LOL
PC
by American Wife (not verified) on Tue Jul 22, 2008 01:10 PM PDTIt's an interesting comparison to me... the late 60's and 70's... to now. Yes, just about everyone DID call the police "pigs" and for sure we rebelled against the government. But I feel... and I'm talking about ME... that most of that was just because EVERYONE did it. As compared to now... shoot, the police weren't that bad at all. And the government... well, people were rebelling against the war. It wasn't the decay-riddled government of today. In other words, it was "cool" to be in the counter-culture movement. But those were my experiences. I'd be the first to admit I came from as "beaver-cleaver" a family as it gets. I'm not sure I agree with the rotting values version of the 70's. The 80's? Oh yeah... those were some high value years... you didn't go ANYWHERE without someone offering cocaine... infidelity was THE name of the game... corporate greed on the rise. No, I feel that the 60's and 70's was the birth of social awareness. Values... maybe not. But in the long run, values are a personal statement.
You can tell where I'm coming from... I'd like to hear more about your experiences... why you feel the way you do.
Peace, love and waterbeds...:-)
Monda
by programmer craig on Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:19 AM PDTEven though QR predicted to get the rage out of some readers, in his
last paragraph, I read it as a clear view of rotting values in this
country of ours.
Were you in the US during the late 1960s through the late 1970s by any chance? Back in the days when it was common even for middle aged housewives to refer to policemen as "pigs" and when most Americans thought of their own government as "the enemy"? At least some people on this blog were. I was. American Wife was. You want to talk about "rotting values" then talk about those days. There WERE no scoial values, then. Period. It was a counter-culture movement.
There are always pessimists who say the country is going to hell in a hand basket. This is well known. To the point it is the punchline of a joke. QRStuve is one of those. Whether he means well or not, doesn't change that basic fact. He's a pessimist and a cynic and he sees the dark side of everything. That may make you happy as long as it suits your political agenda to trot out his testimony as evidence, but the rest of us who don't share your agenda don't place much vaklue on what he has to say. He's living in an alternate reality.
Did I hit a nerve with LOU DOBBS?
by Jaleho on Tue Jul 22, 2008 09:28 AM PDTI thought I would with the type :-)
We are neither complicit nor
by skatermom (not verified) on Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:02 PM PDTWe are neither complicit nor naive here in SD. I've read the piece. It's all over the board and erratic. It's not beautifully written nor poignant. QR should visit standard tourist destinations like the zoo and La Jolla without being harrassed by humvies and gruff jarheads. Rebellion of the mind is an excellent thing. However, you aint gonna find it in La Jolla (It's full of Iranians pissing off the baristas at the Pannikin) Yes I have pride of ownership for good reason and Lou Dobbes is a douche bag. Douche bag is not a vulgar term yet a useful devise (so I've heard).
Beautifully written!
by Jaleho on Mon Jul 21, 2008 07:44 PM PDTIt reflects the spirit of an entire stratum of Americans these days, with a clever reference to a typical military town.
You can even see it in the response of some locals whose "pride of ownership" was hurt!
I bet these are the typical people who have made a hero out of "LOU DOBBS", and and his American style fascism, wrapped and sold as anti-illegal-immigration nationalism.
This piece is not about SD Bashing! Read Again!
by Monda on Mon Jul 21, 2008 04:30 PM PDTEven though QR predicted to get the rage out of some readers, in his last paragraph, I read it as a clear view of rotting values in this country of ours. And I got news for those who suggested he should look at the posh areas of SD, instead! The depressive trend that he describes is apparent even in our rosey lilly white suburb where I live as well as a few other places that I visited these past years. Of course I will not name any locations otherwise I'd be bashing those towns or cities too!
This may be an irrelevant story but I tell you anyway because to me it resonates with the dacaying values which QRStuve writes about: This fellow I met today was ranting and raving about how much he's getting ripped off on putting gas in his Hummer! When I asked what made him decide to buy a hummer, his reponse was "looks cool to the chicks besides it was a great deal at the time....got $15,000 manufacturer rebate, yadayada"
You and I, who are Iranian-Americans may deep in our hearts, have more tolerance with observing the decay here in the US (even after 30 years for me). We may feel our blood boiling however when we visit Iran. Then we come here and complain about what the IRI has done to our Motherland. Well, for QR This Is Motherland! And he's expressing his sadness about what he experiences. What's wrong with that? If he wanted to go visit the zoo and LaJolla, then he would've done just that, RIGHT?!
Some of the comments to him here are truly offensive and crude. This attitude does not promote non-Iranian writers to contribute their perpectives, to say the least. Also, I as an Iranian-American feel VALIDATED by QRStuve's piece. What do you make of that? (Refrain from vulgarities because I won't respond!)
American Wife joon
by IRANdokht on Mon Jul 21, 2008 02:19 PM PDTYes there were a few who got the point of the article....
After reading some of those comments though, I was actually surprised when I read the article itself ! Especially after reading the detailed San Diego's most enjoyable sights comments!
Why would anyone recommend the SD zoo to this writer is beyond my comprehension!!!
I am surprised that with these SD people so completely oblivious to the militarizing of the area, how did they ever get so many signature to stop BlackWater from building another base of operation there...
IRANdokht
IRANdohkt
by American Wife (not verified) on Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:25 PM PDTYou're so right... I made a similar comment very early on, at least pertaining to his enjoyable writing style. I just didn't get the San Diego bashing as being the primary focus of his article. It's too bad that the tide went that way... even his wife tried to defuse the intent...lol.
Most misunderstood article!!!
by IRANdokht on Mon Jul 21, 2008 07:40 AM PDTI read the comments first. I wasn't interested to know more about San Diego's military aspects having already had an image of it and knowing it must have gotten worse...
Finally I found the time and decided to read it for myself. WOW
I can't believe all the hostile feedback!!! This is not about San Diego's tourism, it's about the world we live in and most important of all it's honest and this level of honesty is rare to see these days.
I enjoyed reading your fresh witty and justified comments about the border, the races, the changes and the gloom and doom we're all facing in this world. my favorite part was in the conclusion. Well said:
The trouble is, you can’t talk to most people about this. They’re either naïve or complicit. You make the naïve ones uneasy, and they end up cutting you off or repeating the day’s party line at you and they commonly get hostile. The complicit ones are hostile from the get-go. These days hostility is the modus operandi of the Bushies, the neocons, our friends in the Middle East, and the others in control. In days gone by, you ignored gadflies. These days you swat them. These days are vicious. Some people, poor people especially, know this already but what can they do? What good does talking about it do? You can’t teach the naïve, can’t convert the complicit, can’t expect poor powerless saps like us to be able to do anything. I guess you talk about it so a few like-minded people know they’re not alone.
No! you are not alone.
IRANdokht
Your disappointment and sadness
by Mondanonymous (not verified) on Sun Jul 20, 2008 03:35 PM PDTis very well reflected in your writing. Recently I have experienced a few myself which I wish I could express in detail as you did.
We all make choices whether to live in denial of the times or drive ourselves further looking for more clear proof of what we see and feel.
Also, it sounds like your 8 year old is a peace-activist in the making. Good for you to open him up to a much larger picture than Disneyland.
Are you dissing SD? What?
by skatermom (not verified) on Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:24 AM PDTAre you dissing SD? What? We here in San Diego are stoked you and your family won't be returning. We're so sick of tourists trashing our city and creating mass havoc at our beaches that we have finally devised a way to keep you out. I'm glad our inhospitable plan worked. The fact still holds true. There's no life East of the 5, so go back to Missouri or whatever dehati state your from and tell all of your friends and family that we suck and you should never ever come visit.
about Iranian.com in Iran and Mexico
by K Nassery on Sat Jul 19, 2008 07:14 AM PDTI had some paintings featured here and I sent the http to my sister in law in Birjand. She sent that http to my inlaws all over Iran. I got email from them confirming this. They logged onto the address of my paintings with no trouble so I don't think this site is really banned. Maybe, they take the time to sensor individual articles here, but I can't imagine them doing that.
I took the trolley from San Diego down to Mexico to purchase a purse for my mom a few years ago. An American man going to the race track was really upset that I was doing this and he put me in a cab and paid the driver to take me to the shopping district. He wrote down the cabbie's license plate number. Then while shopping, a departmant store manager asked me why I was there. He helped me buy my items and took me to the bus going to the border and stood with me. He was concerned for my safety.
When I got to the border an American guard and her dog took me aside and made me sit in a room with magazines and with a soda for the time it took for them to process all of the Mexicans who were crossing into the US. Apparently, Mexico complains that we look at their citizens, but don't look at Americans and our guards wanted the Mexicans to see an American being taken aside. Nothing happened to me, but later I realized why so many people were worried about my traveling over there. There is a lot of crime and murders happening. I just was too stupid to know it was that dangerous. Thank goodness for those caring men.
I stopped my daughter from taking her honeymoon in Mexico because of the crime.
I feel for those good people in Mexico and I want to help them in any way that we can.
Mrs Stuve
by Kaveh Nouraee on Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:26 AM PDTThere's no need for you to blush for me, dear. Blush for your husband.
I am married to a Mexican and have spent enough time in Mexico to call it what it is.
If it was such a wonderful place, we would all be trying sneak over the border to get into Mexico.
Instead, they want to come here, despite the fact that Mexicans aren't really made to feel that welcome and the fact that in all honesty, they're treated like crap here. But their own country doesn't even want them and treats them even worse, and they openly encourage their own citizens to get out of Mexico and into the U.S. by any means necessary. They even go so far as to publish a pamphlet with tips on how to cross without being caught.
Unfortunately whatever beauty Mexico still holds (and I admit that it still does hold some beauty) is overshadowed by the rampant crime and corruption. Tijuana is the wealthiest city in all of Mexico and it's nothing more than a crime and drug infested slum. Gunshots ring out constantly between drug gangs and authorities, with the drug gangs winning, hands down. It makes South Tehran look like the French Riviera.
Alborzi
by programmer craig on Fri Jul 18, 2008 06:46 PM PDTWhy don't you go stick your head abck in some mullah's crotch? Nobody cares what you have to say about the US.
QRStuve, this is the main reason I onbject to the blatant anti-Americanism in your post. You give people like Alborzi a reason to justifiably claim there are Americans who hate their own country. Because, there obviously are.
I suggest to all Iranian readers of this blog that you don't assume there are very many Americans like QRStuve, though. There aren't.
And QRStuve, I'd like you to think about whether this kind of piece is doing a service to Iranians. You give them a dangerously incorrect opinion about what Americans are like. Try posting this piece on a mainstream American blog and see what happens?
Gutsy piece!
by Ari Siletz on Fri Jul 18, 2008 02:55 PM PDTWhat resonated with me most: "In the old days the cops and the military showed a certain amount of gruff courtesy when they gave you orders, a certain generosity grounded in the crude and brute force they exercise, at least with us white folks."
Nothing showcases Democracy better than a a law enforcement officer knowing and understanding the legitimate source of his power--the people. Beautiful San Diego is of course a metaphor for the beautiful United States, its splendor threatened by the creep of fascism.
I'm pleased to read American writers who still find their dignity in the principles of her constitution.
May I ask, where do you call home?
by Wanderer (not verified) on Fri Jul 18, 2008 02:31 PM PDTIs there a poor part of town in your hometown?
The rednecks are in charge
by Alborzi (not verified) on Fri Jul 18, 2008 02:20 PM PDTA few years ago, I was watching the news and it showed this American military group in Iraq. They would go kick the door in the middle of night and gather the whole family for questioning and in the end take the men to their torture chambers. It was amazing none of the Americans I knew, or my son's friends are like that so where do these killers come from. It turns out in every culture (Hitler had his SS, mulahs have their sepah) there is a group fully capable of inhumanity. This group are now in charge and even though they spend more than all the rest of the world combined in armaments, feel peaceful and justified in their genocide. Its like when they shot down Iranian passenger jet, they can do any genocide and its justified.
What a piece of twisting
by Farhad Kashani on Fri Jul 18, 2008 01:51 PM PDTWhat a piece of twisting truth and what an unfair attempt to blindly bash something.You don’t have to “Bushie”, but why trashing your own country, or the country you live in, using these sneaky tactics? Just because you’re not a “Bushi”, or you “hate the military”, you have to portray an untrue image of a city in such manner? Doesn’t this prove the argument that many people who claim to be “anti neocon”, come up with false statements to trash America? I’m not a Bushie, but I differentiate between Bush and America. San Diego is a spectacular city. A beautiful beach town with great landscapes and great buildings, restaurants, night life, highways, malls, art places, theme parks, great schools, educated population from all walks of life, …a phenomenal city. Its pathetic how these guys portray things.
Sorry to write again...
by Stuve's wife (not verified) on Fri Jul 18, 2008 01:19 PM PDT...but I gotta say one more thing. I agree that this article doesn't describe all of San Diego -- in fact, I told my husband that he shouldn't call it "A Couple of Days in San Diego" but he wouldn't listen to me! It is a description of the area on the Mexican border. To those of you who say "just don't go there" it's like saying to someone describing Evin: "Just don't go there. It's a prison and people get tortured and executed and it's just not pretty. When you drive by Evin just look the other way." Does that sound right to you? Do border towns have to exude so much hostility and aggression and racism? Is the display of superiority -- military and other -- all that is left of taking pride in being American?
And Mr. Nouraee you discredit everything you say when you call Mexico "that toilet of a country." I blush for you.
There are several other
by American Wife (not verified) on Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:33 PM PDTThere are several other places that I would ABSOLUTELY agree with this description... but I agree with most everyone that San Diego isn't one of them. She was an extremely pleasant surprise... a lovely city! I could spend days there and not get my fill.
Ok... so, take away references to San Diego specifically, and it was a great article... I think he's got a great sense of humor and a very entertaining style... I loved it!
Mrs. Stuve
by Kaveh Nouraee on Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:26 PM PDTYour husband comes across as someone who is very embittered.
You know what? I'm sorry you had a crappy time at Border Field. But the truth is, NOBODY GOES THERE!!! That whole area (called South Bay) is the armpit of San Diego. You might as well have been in New Jersey. It's all industrial and run-down. The highest concentration of real estate foreclosures in San Diego was directly behind you as you looked towards the Pacific Ocean. Chula Vista's nickname is Chula Juana. National City is Nasty City. Do you get the picture?
There is Balboa Park, with some nice museums, there is Old Town, there are the various missions, the Embarcadero, literally countless of interesting places you could have visited all the way up the coast to Carlsbad.
Going to a park that straddles the Mexican border is a waste of time and your biggest mistake. You simply made a rotten choice where it came to where to go. You might as well have crossed the border into that toilet of a country. Then you can see what real misery is. Trust me, if you did, you'll kiss the ground the moment you cross back into the U.S.
Hell, even the Mexicans know enough to get as far away from there as possible.
There are good people and bad people everywhere you go. Try not to act like you're doing San Diego County a favor by gracing it with your presence next time, and you'll see the difference.
relax baba!
by MRX1 (not verified) on Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:22 PM PDTI have gone to san diego several times on Buisness and Vaction and I have never seen or experienced any of this stuff. it's a beautiful city and I wish i lived there.
Stuve's wife
by programmer craig on Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:01 PM PDTI'm sure in better days we would have been treated to a couple of bullets!
San Diego is probably the most "laid back" areas in the United States. What are you trying to do to your husband? Brainwash him? For what purpose?
As far as being "treated to a couple of bullets" that's far more likely in Los Angeles, where the largest Iranian population outside of Iran is located. I've been shot at a few timesin my life, but the only time I ever had anyone in the US try to shoot me was in East LA.
I think this post was grossly unfair. And for you and your husband to try to claim teh US has been "hijacked" by the military is bordering on insanity. In the United States, the military has no authority whatsoever to interfere in civil society. It's ILLEGAL. You may not know that, but your American husband certainly does. If you were confronted by military personnel, it was while you weer onboard a US military base. And why would the two of you have done taht, unless you were looking for trouble?