Just as spring break commences, with wary but excited residents of the United States descending upon the beaches of Mexico, the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego has released its third annual report on drug violence in the country.
The bottom line: Mexico is more dangerous than ever, at least it was last year, but the carnage is slacking off.
You can read the entire 29-page report here, or you can just mull over these gleanings:
- Since President Felipe Calderon took office on Dec. 1, 2006, some 50,000 killings in Mexico have been linked to his war on organized drug-related crime. At the start of his administration, one drug-related homicide was recorded every four hours. Last year, one drug-related homicide occurred every 30 minutes.
- This past year alone, around 16,000 persons were killed in drug-related showdowns, up 1,650 from 2010. That's an 11 percent increase, but down sharply from a jump of nearly 60 percent the year before.
- About half of all homicides in Mexico last year were tied to drug violence. Two of every five killings occurred in just three states - Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Nuevo Leon.
- On average, some 40 people were killed daily in Mexico this past year, three of whom were tortured, one of whom was decapitated, two of whom were women, and 10 of whom were "young people" (undefined in this section of the report, though the document elsewhere suggests "young people" are between 15 and 29).
- Mexico's overall homicide rate is 18 per 100,000 inhabitants. As the report notes, however, that's not so bad when compared with other Latin American countries, like Honduras (82), Guatemala (41), Brazil (22) and Puerto Rico (26). The homicide rate in the U.S., incidentally, is about 5 per 100,000 residents.
- An estimated 2,000 persons were killed last year in each of just two cities, Ciudad Juarez and Monterrey, compared with 613 in Los Angeles, 441 in Chicago, 318 in Philadelphia, 209 in New York City, and 133 in Dallas.
- Nevertheless, of all the killings in Mexico the proportion in border towns fell from 29.5 percent in 2010 to 17 percent in 2011. The killings in Tijuana, for example, slipped from 349 in 2010 to 166 in 2011.
- Increasingly, women have been the victims of killings related to organized crime, up from 194 in 2008 to 904 in 2011.
- The drug wars are the leading cause of death for "young people," who in this section of the report are defined as persons between 15 and 29. Their death toll has jumped from 366 in 2007 to 3,741 in 2010. They generally are called "ni-nis," for "ni trabajan" and "ni estudian," meaning they neither work nor study.
- Last year, eight reporters were killed n Mexico, at least three of them for reporting on the drug trade. That's down from the 10 journalists killed in Mexico the year before.
The report is long on methodology and statistics, but doesn't shy from analysis and advocacy. The killings clearly stem from government efforts to curtail the drug trade and from conflict among cartels competing to produce and deliver narcotics, the authors conclude. Efforts to show that the rise in drug-related homicides reflect domestic insurgency or narcoterrorism, a view that looks to be gaining currency in the United States, "seriously misdiagnose the problem," say the authors.
Mexico's inept and corrupt criminal-justice system complicates the issue, indicates the report, which more than once calls for more transparency, efficiency and fairness in law enforcement. As a measure of the population's lack of confidence in police, more than 75 percent of all crimes go unreported, the authors say. And of those reported, only "one or two of every 100" results in a sentence.
Though the report urges politicians to consider more seriously alternatives to Mexico's current drug policy, it also notes that little evidence has been accumulated to support decriminalization or legalization of the kinds of drugs involved in the crackdown on trafficking. Nonetheless, the researchers criticize politicians for dragging their feet in discussing frankly liberalized options to current drug laws.
The Trans-Border Institute, based at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, aims to promote understanding a cooperation between the United States and Mexico. The authors of the report are Cory Molzhan, Viridiana Rios and David A. Shirk.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Fresno Boy Basks In The Mexican Sun
At 8, Frank Arnold discovered his artistic talent.
At 8, he also learned that he was adopted.
Those twin realizations immediately inspired him. Emboldened by the first, stung by the second, he vowed that henceforth he'd be his own person, independent and self-reliant. "I made a deal with myself. I'd take no money from them," he says of his quiet rebellion with his parents.
He sold newspapers. He mowed lawns. He ran a gas station. To pay his way through college, he started a sign business, which he later parlayed into an advertising and marketing agency. On weekends, he painted and sculpted.
Today, Frank Arnold is an established abstract expressionist whose paintings can command five figures. Summers, he lives and works in Fresno in central California's San Joaquin Valley, where he's president of Ashford Advertising. From fall until spring, he's in San Jose del Cabo at the southern reaches of the Baja peninsula. In the heart of San Jose del Cabo's thriving downtown art district he's built a blocky stone-and-concrete 8,000-square-foot compound that houses studio, gallery and residence. It's in the city's old red-light district, just a block from the mission church. He shares it with his wife of five years, Carmen Capshew Arnold, and their feisty bichon, Picasso, which he walks daily through the scraggly arroyo just to the north of the complex.
At 8, Arnold and his family were living at Bakersfield in the southern San Joaquin Valley. One event of the local fair was a flower-arranging contest. He entered it, and his arrangement won a blue ribbon. "I just liked color a lot. I couldn't believe how beautiful colors could be," he recalls.
At around that time he learned rather off-handedly that he'd been adopted. "I was reading a newspaper, and an article had the word 'adoption.' I asked my mother, 'What's adoption mean?' She said that that's what happens when someone can't take care of you. I asked her if I knew anyone who'd been adopted. She said, 'You are.' I thought the way she told me was really rude," Arnold says. "My (adoptive) mother often was sick. She didn't care for me. My father was a truck driver who wasn't home a lot. We were semi-poor, so I was kind of on my own already when I made that deal with myself to be self-sufficient."
Since then, the number "8" has stood for his signature on many of his pieces. "That's me," he says of the number. "It's a loving number for me."
He's never met his biological father, who was in the U.S. Coast Guard when he was conceived. He met his biological mother when he was in his 30s, and they're grown close.
Today, Arnold is a thick and cheery guy. His hair stands upright in a spray of waves that mimic the surf of the nearby Sea of Cortez. His soul patch is the tip of a small paint brush dipped in platinum. He favors glasses tinted blue, unless he's in the mood for the pair whose lenses are gold. He's down to earth, practical and relaxed. His gallery is a popular spot on San Jose del Cabo's Art Walk, each Thursday evening from fall into spring, and not just for the tequilas he pours.
The walls of the gallery are hung with his large canvases, most of which feature a tall, lean and solitary figure, their faces sketchy. They can be ghostly, yet also taut, conveying tension and power. His colors can range from muted to luminous, and at times the oils are applied so thickly that ridges emerge in relief from the flat panels. His paintings have been likened to the figurative works of the late Stanford University abstract expressionist Nathan Oliveira, and in Arnold's takes on guitars and dogs can be sensed the hand of Pablo Picasso, but he says he hasn't drawn inspiration from anyone but himself. "I never paid attention to anyone. I did my own thing," Arnold says.
As abstract as they are, virtually each painting is autobiographical. He refers to them as an entry in a diary, a chapter from his past or present. "They're stories about my life. I daydream while I paint, and go with that. They can be whimsical, painful, ironic," Arnold says. Family members will figure in this or that painting, sometimes via secret codes he etches here and there. He figures he's gone through four periods so far. One dwelled on mother and child. Another sprung from past incidents in his life. Nowadays he's focused on current events. "They're my stories," he says of his paintings, "but other people often bring their own stories to the paintings. The paintings trigger something in their own lives. Women especially break down and start to cry. They've lost something or someone, a love or a spouse."
But Arnold also occasionally indulges an impulse to be playful, allowing his colors to be bolder and brighter, his strokes broader, his figures more accessible. The dog and bird of "Spotty" could be straight out of a children's book, "Chair Fish" is more amusing than unsettling, and "Cabo Bird" - purchased by members of Seattle's Nordstrom family - looks as friendly as something that just flew in from San Jose del Cabo's nearby estuary. "I'm not often in a silly mood," says Arnold when asked why he doesn't show his lighter side more often. "I'm happy, but I don't feel very whimsical very often. And it's hard to pull off the whimsical as serious art."
The more carefree paintings tend to spring from his time in San Jose del Cabo. Paintings completed in Fresno are more structured, he says. "Life in America is more structured, more regimented, tighter," Arnold says. "You can mark every day in America by something stressful that happens to you. Here, the days float away, life disappears faster here; there are no stress points."
Born in Long Beach, Arnold spent his formative years in Visalia and Bakersfield before his family settled in Fresno. He graduated from McLane High School in Fresno in 1969. Five years later he earned an associate of arts degree in art at Fresno City College. He continued to study art at Fresno State College, but dropped out to teach art at night school in nearby Clovis. When he discovered that he both didn't like teaching and wasn't particularly good at it, he went into marketing. On weekends, away from his ad agency, he sculpted and painted "for fun." Before long, his artwork had made him "semi-successful."
About a decade ago, Arnold began to scout Mexico for a spot where he could build a combination gallery, studio and home, the kind of complex for which he doubted he could get a permit in the United States. Also, it had to be someplace where he could work outdoors whenever he wanted, in part to avoid the intake of paint fumes. The prosperous art communities of Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta were tantalizing, but more intimate San Jose del Cabo also was attracting an influx of artists. On top of that, San Jose del Cabo, with its international airport, was easy for him to get to, and the region's growing number of posh retreats, resort hotels and gated communities looked as if it would draw the sort of clientele that could appreciate and afford his paintings and sculptures. He finished the compound four years ago, and as he'd hoped his work now hangs and stands in homes throughout the United States and Canada. He figures that most of his sales in San Jose del Cabo are to collectors visiting from New York City, Chicago, Vancouver, Toronto, Aspen and San Francisco.
He will stay in San Jose del Cabo a little longer than usual this spring, primarily to see what develops when the G20 summit convenes in the town's new conference center in June. The gathering is to draw hundreds of finance ministers, presidents, diplomats and other dignitaries from the world's most prosperous economies. He doesn't know or even care whether he will sell any art during the conclave, but he has a hunch that he will get at least some beneficial exposure.
Aside from that, the compound he's built and the lifestyle he's created have worked out just as he envisioned when he thought of them more as fantasy than realistic goal. "I wanted a studio where I could work and a gallery where I could sell. I wanted a pretty simple life, and I think it has happened. I didn't expect to be a Fresno boy selling paintings to people from New York and Chicago in San Jose del Cabo. I've been blessed."
At 8, he also learned that he was adopted.
Those twin realizations immediately inspired him. Emboldened by the first, stung by the second, he vowed that henceforth he'd be his own person, independent and self-reliant. "I made a deal with myself. I'd take no money from them," he says of his quiet rebellion with his parents.
He sold newspapers. He mowed lawns. He ran a gas station. To pay his way through college, he started a sign business, which he later parlayed into an advertising and marketing agency. On weekends, he painted and sculpted.
 |
| Frank Arnold, framed by ancient wood door from Guadalajara |
At 8, Arnold and his family were living at Bakersfield in the southern San Joaquin Valley. One event of the local fair was a flower-arranging contest. He entered it, and his arrangement won a blue ribbon. "I just liked color a lot. I couldn't believe how beautiful colors could be," he recalls.
At around that time he learned rather off-handedly that he'd been adopted. "I was reading a newspaper, and an article had the word 'adoption.' I asked my mother, 'What's adoption mean?' She said that that's what happens when someone can't take care of you. I asked her if I knew anyone who'd been adopted. She said, 'You are.' I thought the way she told me was really rude," Arnold says. "My (adoptive) mother often was sick. She didn't care for me. My father was a truck driver who wasn't home a lot. We were semi-poor, so I was kind of on my own already when I made that deal with myself to be self-sufficient."
Since then, the number "8" has stood for his signature on many of his pieces. "That's me," he says of the number. "It's a loving number for me."
He's never met his biological father, who was in the U.S. Coast Guard when he was conceived. He met his biological mother when he was in his 30s, and they're grown close.
 |
| Frank Arnold with his painting "The Wiz" |
The walls of the gallery are hung with his large canvases, most of which feature a tall, lean and solitary figure, their faces sketchy. They can be ghostly, yet also taut, conveying tension and power. His colors can range from muted to luminous, and at times the oils are applied so thickly that ridges emerge in relief from the flat panels. His paintings have been likened to the figurative works of the late Stanford University abstract expressionist Nathan Oliveira, and in Arnold's takes on guitars and dogs can be sensed the hand of Pablo Picasso, but he says he hasn't drawn inspiration from anyone but himself. "I never paid attention to anyone. I did my own thing," Arnold says.
As abstract as they are, virtually each painting is autobiographical. He refers to them as an entry in a diary, a chapter from his past or present. "They're stories about my life. I daydream while I paint, and go with that. They can be whimsical, painful, ironic," Arnold says. Family members will figure in this or that painting, sometimes via secret codes he etches here and there. He figures he's gone through four periods so far. One dwelled on mother and child. Another sprung from past incidents in his life. Nowadays he's focused on current events. "They're my stories," he says of his paintings, "but other people often bring their own stories to the paintings. The paintings trigger something in their own lives. Women especially break down and start to cry. They've lost something or someone, a love or a spouse."
 |
| Frank Arnold's "Cabo Bird" |
The more carefree paintings tend to spring from his time in San Jose del Cabo. Paintings completed in Fresno are more structured, he says. "Life in America is more structured, more regimented, tighter," Arnold says. "You can mark every day in America by something stressful that happens to you. Here, the days float away, life disappears faster here; there are no stress points."
Born in Long Beach, Arnold spent his formative years in Visalia and Bakersfield before his family settled in Fresno. He graduated from McLane High School in Fresno in 1969. Five years later he earned an associate of arts degree in art at Fresno City College. He continued to study art at Fresno State College, but dropped out to teach art at night school in nearby Clovis. When he discovered that he both didn't like teaching and wasn't particularly good at it, he went into marketing. On weekends, away from his ad agency, he sculpted and painted "for fun." Before long, his artwork had made him "semi-successful."
 |
| Decanters of tequila await guests at Frank Arnold's gallery |
He will stay in San Jose del Cabo a little longer than usual this spring, primarily to see what develops when the G20 summit convenes in the town's new conference center in June. The gathering is to draw hundreds of finance ministers, presidents, diplomats and other dignitaries from the world's most prosperous economies. He doesn't know or even care whether he will sell any art during the conclave, but he has a hunch that he will get at least some beneficial exposure.
Aside from that, the compound he's built and the lifestyle he's created have worked out just as he envisioned when he thought of them more as fantasy than realistic goal. "I wanted a studio where I could work and a gallery where I could sell. I wanted a pretty simple life, and I think it has happened. I didn't expect to be a Fresno boy selling paintings to people from New York and Chicago in San Jose del Cabo. I've been blessed."
 |
| Frank Arnold's gallery, San Jose del Cabo |
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