A ruling party senator has presented a bill that proposes the compulsory dubbing of all foreign-language films into Spanish as well as widely-spoken indigenous languages.
Put forth by Martí Batres, leader of the Morena party in the upper house, the draft legislation would make changes to the Federal Cinematography Law.
The bill states that all films whose original language is not Spanish must be dubbed and shown on the same number of cinema screens as the original in a multi-screen theater.
Under the proposal, a movie theater screening a Japanese film at 2:00pm on one screen would be required to show the same film dubbed into Spanish at the same time on another screen.
It would also have to offer at least one screening per day of the film dubbed into the predominant indigenous language of the region – Mayan in the Yucatán peninsula, for example. The same rule would apply for Spanish-language films – theaters must screen the film dubbed into the main indigenous language at least once per day while the original is playing.
Taking into account suggestions made by the Mexican Voice Actors Guild, the bill aims to increase the amount of work available in the dubbing industry, improve the conditions of its workers and promote national culture by making more films available in Spanish and indigenous languages.
“Voice actors aren’t even recognized in the Federal Labor Law nor by copyright law,” Batres said Thursday during an appearance on the television program La Nota Dura.
He claimed the conditions under which many voice actors work are “precarious,” adding: “They work in cabins without air conditioning. Their work status should be raised.”
The senator stressed that the bill doesn’t seek to impose dubbed films on cinema-goers but rather give them the option to choose between the original and a version with Mexican Spanish audio. Countries such as France and Spain defend their languages but Mexico doesn’t, Batres said.
“In Spain, for example, they even dub the movies that arrive already in Spanish,” he said, apparently referring to films from Latin America in which the Spanish spoken differs from the Iberian variety.
On the same program, the secretary general of the National Actors Association offered his support for the bill.
“Voice actors have been ignored. There are more than 10,000 families that depend on the industry,” Marco Treviño said.
However, the newspaper El Economista noted that the bill goes against the wishes of the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AMACC), which opposes changes to the law as it currently stands.
It said that the public has the right to watch a film as it was originally conceived, charging that the right is violated if the script is changed and dubbed into another language.
By mandating that a film must be dubbed, private interests for the purpose of profit are given precedence over the public interest, the AMACC said.
The ex-mayor admitted to stealing 'a little' but critics said he stole it all.
The ex-mayor of San Blas, Nayarit, who won a second term in 2014 after admitting he “only stole a little” from the municipality, is now the subject of a nationwide search.
The Nayarit state Attorney General’s Office issued an arrest warrant for Hilario Ramírez Villanueva, also known as “Layín,” for embezzlement, fraud and improper exercise of power. It also alerted Interpol to his status as a fugitive.
Ramírez allegedly sold the municipal airfield for 12 million pesos (US $636,000) but that money never made its way to public coffers. Charges were brought against him and two other former San Blas public servants in 2018.
He evaded appearing before a judge twice due to supposed medical conditions. In October, his attorneys presented the court with a doctor’s note claiming he required bed rest for an eye problem.
The doctor’s note his lawyers presented in November claimed the recommended bed rest was for a case of infectious hepatitis.
The judge subsequently issued a warrant for his arrest, ruling that he was attempting to evade justice. He faces a minimum of 23 years in prison.
Nayarit Attorney General Petronilo Díaz Ponce Medrano said that his office has sought the collaboration of the army, marines and National Guard to locate Ramírez.
He didn’t rule out the possibility of requesting that Interpol issue a Red Notice to initiate an international search for the ex-mayor.
After being accused of stealing 120-150 million pesos during his term as mayor of San Blas from 2008-2011, Ramírez admitted in a 2014 campaign speech that he “only stole a little” from the town, “because it’s very poor.”
He won reelection a month later, making history as the first independent candidate to win an election in the state.
He also ran for governor of Nayarit in 2017, coming in third.
Ramírez is known for his extravagant lifestyle and crude behavior. He has contracted internationally renowned musical acts, such as Los Tigres Del Norte, for his rowdy birthday celebrations.
He also gave a car to a popular quinceañera (a girl celebrating her 15th birthday) from San Luis Potosí in 2016 and caused a scandal when he lifted the skirt of a young woman with whom he was dancing at one of his birthday parties.
Author D.H. Lawrence and his wife in Chapala. Courtesy of Ian Mursell, Mexicolore
My friend Jorge Varela is author of Mr. Lawrence, a short piece of historical fiction (in Spanish) based on D.H. Lawrence’s 1923 stay on the ribera norte of Lake Chapala, where Lawrence began work on his novel The Plumed Serpent.
Jorge Varela’s writing brings in references to the venerable old Restaurante La Posada in Ajijic, which Lawrence frequented, and to “La Rusa,” the mysterious horsewoman who rode around dressed all in black while being swindled out of the proceeds of a gold mine just up the hillside above the town.
Intrigued, I ask Jorge if he would act as cicerone to my wife and me and give us a little introduction to the history of the area.
Varela agreed and first drove us into a residential area of Ajijic called Villa Nova which has streets with names like Calle de la Mina and Calle de los Mineros.
“Those aren’t fanciful names, as in many fraccionamientos,” said Jorge. “The original Rancho del Oro is still here.”
Author Jorge Varela investigating the old crushing mill.
To prove it, he took us to a stone wall on Calle del Manglar where we hoisted ourselves up just high enough to get a good peek at the well preserved buildings from which the mining operation had been run, with an impressive arched aqueduct in the background.
“Somewhere in the hills just above us lies the gold mine itself,” said Jorge, “but it’s now considered very dangerous to go inside, with rotting timbers, deep drops and bad air. They say several people who entered that mine ended up dead.”
After having stirred up a bit of gold fever in us, Jorge took us straight to the ruins of an old crushing mill in Ajijic. This is on private property, but there’s no fence, and the family that now lives on the premises unhesitatingly gave us permission to wander both inside and outside the decrepit buildings. Outside there’s a long, sturdy earthen ramp where ore-laden wagons were pulled up to the crusher. I would love to revisit this place with someone knowledgeable about mining!
Next we made a brief visit to the doorway of La Casa de la Rusa at 26 Independencia, where the number plaque shows the silhouette of the Horsewoman in Black, a ballerina and actress who eventually became a legend in Ajijic. La Rusa means “The Russian,” and she went by the names Ayenara Zara Alexeyewa as well as Khyva St. Albans, although it appears she was actually born in New York City as Elinore Saenger.
According to writer Judy King, she and her dance partner/foster brother bought the above-mentioned gold mine in the 1920s “hoping to fulfill their dreams to produce and present great Russian ballets here in Mexico.” In their blog, local researchers Jim and Carole Cook say the mine was called La Misericordia and La Rusa was being swindled by her Mexican partners until mine manager Quilocho Retolaza came to her rescue.
Quilocho had been one of Pancho Villa’s most dashing officers and La Rusa herself (under the pen name Frances De Brundige) tells the story of how he saved her from swindlers and bandits in the book Quilocho and the Dancing Stars, which can still be found in a few discriminating used bookstores like La Perla Books in Guadalajara. There are also lots of old photos and memorabilia about Zara Alexeyewa in the highly popular restaurant of La Nueva Posada Hotel, which just happens to be named Restaurante La Rusa.
Room at the Villa QQ in Chapala where Lawrence stayed in 1923.
Our last stop in Ajijic was the site of “La Vieja Posada,” which was built in the 1500s and has had many reincarnations. Today it is called Restaurante María Isabel. Here, says Jorge Varela, is where D. H. Lawrence (and later many other famous artists) used to stop by for a tequila and sangrita. The correct procedure for imbibing these two drinks, said our guide, is not to mix them together, but to sip first one and then the other. Now for this ceremony the tequila must be blanco while the sangrita is red.
When I asked what was in the sangrita, I immediately learned what’s not in it: alcohol. After that I got a different version of the ingredients it does contain from each of my friends and from every source I checked. I guess that means you’ll always be surprised when you drink it!
Finally, we drove eight kilometers east to the town of Chapala, arriving at 307 Zaragoza Street, now known as Quinta Quetzalcoatl Boutique Hotel B&B.
“This is where Lawrence stayed while he lived in Chapala,” said our guide. The door was opened by the proprietor, Rob Cracknell, an Australian painter, who kindly showed us all around. Well, QQ, as they call it in Chapala, turned out to be one of the most gorgeous places to stay I had ever seen, with beautiful trees, fountains, grottos, flowers and cacti. In the middle of the patio was a pool with a serpent motif, shaped with secluded nooks and a jacuzzi.
Lawrence’s room was just as attractive. On the wall was a picture of the writer and his wife Frieda, along with the text of the telegram Lawrence sent her in 1923, which reads “Chapala Paradise. Take evening train.” The train is long gone, but “Chapala Paradise” still says it all.
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If you are in the neighborhood, here is how to find all these places, even without a cicerone:
In Ajijic: the wall where you can hoist yourself up for a peek at the old mining ranch is on Calle del Manglar, in Villa Nova, about halfway between De los Mineros and Del Arroyo. The crushing mill is at the south end of Calle Flores Magón, on the east side of the street, just before the soccer field. La Casa de la Rusa is at 26 Independencia, between Aquiles Serdán and 5 de Mayo. Google Maps will take you straight to La Nueva Posada Hotel, and even to the Vieja Posada, if you input its new name, Maria Isabel Restaurant.
In Chapala: Quinta Quetzalcoatl is number 307 Zaragoza Street. Just ask Google Maps to take you to “Villa QQ Chapala.”
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Alfonso Romo will head new economic cabinet, which finance officials are counting on to boost growth.
The Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) is clinging to its forecast of 2% growth in 2020 despite a market consensus that the economy will expand by barely 1%.
“We’re going to maintain the expectation of 2%. Analysts have made revisions, which are based on historical information. . .but at the Finance Secretariat we have greater access to other kinds of information and we have an operating margin that allows us to strengthen economic growth,” SHCP undersecretary Gabriel Yorio told reporters on Friday.
The forecast is double that of the International Monetary Fund, which cut its 2020 growth outlook to 1% this month from 1.3%, and 0.8% above the World Bank’s prediction, slashed from 2% to just 1.2%.
The SHCP announcement comes the day after the national statistics agency Inegi announced that GDP had contracted by 0.1% in 2019, the first decline since 2009, the year of the world financial crisis when GDP fell 5.3%.
Yorio said that another reason why the finance department was maintaining its 2% growth forecast is that it is working with a new initiative called the economic growth cabinet to overcome the obstacles that hinder greater investment.
Presented by President López Obrador on Wednesday, the growth cabinet is headed by his chief of staff, Alfonso Romo, and is collaborating with the secretariats of the Economy, Communications and Transportation, the Environment, and Energy.
Yorio said that the government would aim to speed up investment by bringing forward the tender process for some infrastructure projects.
“. . . for that we’re coordinating with Alfonso Romo. This will have an impact [on growth] . . .” he said.
In order for Mexico to reach the 4% annual growth that López Obrador has pledged to achieve during his six-year term, the undersecretary said that the structure of the economy needs to change.
“To grow by 4%, effectively we’re going to have to overcome a lot of obstacles. . . [We have to] undertake a range of reforms to improve the financial sector, broaden it and make it more flexible,” Yorio said.
Despite Thursday’s announcement that Mexico’s economy shrank last year, the official said that the SHCP doesn’t feel “morally defeated” and doesn’t believe that López Obrador’s inclusive growth strategy has to be changed.
“Public finances are healthy, they’re balanced. . .” he said.
A presumed regional chief of the notorious Los Zetas cartel in southern Veracruz was arrested in Oaxaca on Thursday.
José Carmen N., also known as “El Comandante Reyes,” was believed to be in charge of the gang’s operations in 12 municipalities in Veracruz, including Acayucan, Minatitlán and Coatzacoalcos, known as the state’s most violent towns.
Veracruz Public Security Secretary Hugo Gutiérrez Maldonado recognized the Oaxaca government’s efforts in the apprehension of the gang leader and said the two states maintain a close relationship to combat crime.
Confrontations between criminal groups, among them the Zetas, have been cited as central to the rise in insecurity in southern Veracruz.
The Pacific coast tourism destination Zihuatanejo will host an event to recognize efforts aimed at promoting sustainable tourism.
Fumi Johns Stewart, executive director of the May Peace Prevail on Earth Foundation, announced that the first annual Sustainable Tourism Award Ceremony & Festival will be held in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, in collaboration with the Art & Cultural Association of Zihuatanejo.
The foundation is a global not-for-profit charity that develops and promotes peace activities for communities and youth.
“Our new initiative, the Amig@s de la Paz Sustainable Tourism Award Program, is designed to promote the tourism industry in Latin America, beginning in Mexico,” said Stewart. “We can use the foundation’s various peace activities to help stimulate tourism and draw visitors to destinations that participate in the program.”
The organization highlights businesses within the region that offer sustainable tourism and encourages local businesses wanting to participate in the future.
Patricia Talley, the original developer of the program as well as founder of the Zihuatanejo peace program, explains: “There is a lot of profit in war and this program is designed to illustrate that there is profit in peace, too.”
The festival, which runs February 16-22, will feature arts events, tours, gastronomy and children’s music programs, to name a few – all designed to attract tourists to the region while generating income for locals and service providers.
Among the distinguished international guests to attend the award ceremony and festival are Stewart herself and Deborah Moldow, the foundation’s (recently retired) representative to the United Nations.
Master Kim and Jennifer Kim from the Peace School in Chicago will attend to conduct yoga for peace classes for the community, along with representatives from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Task Force.
“We are so proud to have the first international Amig@s de la Paz Award Ceremony & Festival here in Zihuatanejo,” said Gabriela Pasquel García, president of the Art & Cultural Association.
The awards ceremony and festival will be an annual event to encourage others to support sustainable tourism development. To participate in the program, the community must construct a peace monument as a symbol of its commitment to peace-building and celebrate the UN International Day of Peace each year. Then the community can nominate companies, educational institutions, civic organizations or individuals that support sustainable tourism to receive awards.
Several other organizations in the community will be erecting peace monuments of their own. These include the tourism development fund Fonatur, the Institudo Lazardi, a progressive school in Zihuatanejo, and local hotels Las Brisas Ixtapa and Villa Paraiso Ixtapa.
For more information about the Amig@s de la Paz Sustainable Tourism Program contact Patricia Ann Talley, international director, Amig@s de la Paz Sustainable Tourism Program.
An injunction against the Maya Train project granted by a judge in Campeche could be the first of many, predicts a lawyer who advised the communities that filed the legal action.
Elisa Cruz Rueda, a lawyer for communities in the municipality of Calakmul, Campeche, said it was likely that other communities in the five southeastern states through which the federal government’s rail project is slated to run will also be granted injunctions.
They are not seeking a rerun of last year’s consultation process – which found 92% support for the project but was denounced by the United Nations for failing to meet international standards – but rather the definitive cancelation of the Maya Train, she said.
There were not just “failures” in the consultation, Cruz said, “but rather in the entire process of preparation for the project.”
The information provided by the government about the impact of the railroad in Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatán has been “unclear, biased” or nonexistent, she added.
The lawyer said that the case against the Maya Train, one of the government’s most important infrastructure projects, is also being presented to international organizations on the basis that the rights of indigenous people have been violated.
The Catholic diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, has presented a petition with more than 1,000 signatures against the project to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations, Cruz said.
The petition states that the rights of indigenous people who live along the proposed route of the Maya Train were violated because the consultation didn’t comply with the ILO Indigenous and Tribal People’s Convention. It states that a consultation process must be carried out prior to a project being executed in a manner that is culturally appropriate, serves to inform and allows free participation.
With regard to the provisional suspension order granted to the communities in Calakmul, Cruz said that the status of the injunction request on the federal judiciary website has been updated to show that it was successful even as the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), which is managing the Maya Train project, said that it has not been notified about the ruling and that it didn’t exist.
The lawyer said the judge accepted the argument that the consultation was “simulated and fraudulent” and ordered the suspension of the project until the matter is resolved. A hearing has been set for February 6 at which Fonatur will have the opportunity to present information about the consultation.
If more injunctions against the Maya Train are granted, the government will face a similar situation to that which it confronted with the Santa Lucía airport. The project was delayed for months as the government scrambled to have seven injunctions overturned.
Fonatur chief Rogelio Jiménez Pons said last Friday that construction of the 1,500-kilometer railroad was expected to begin in April or May and that the tender process would commence in February.
Some experts have warned that construction of the railroad poses risks to the Yucatán peninsula’s underground water networks and the long-term survival of the jaguar.
President López Obrador has dismissed the environmental concerns and argues that the project will generate employment and prosperity in the country’s underdeveloped southeast.
Kicking off efforts to promote itself as the 2020 Artistic Capital of Latin America, Mexico City will host a series of events on February 6-9 to be collectively known as Contemporary Art Week.
Taking advantage of the exposure generated by Zona Maco, Latin America’s biggest contemporary art fair held February 5-9, the program will include four other fairs at venues throughout the city: Salón Acme, now in its eighth year in the Juárez neighborhood; the Material Art Fair in the Frontón México building in Tabacalera; Feria Maroma in the Roma neighborhood’s Foro Frontera; and BADA MX in the Campo Marte event venue in Chapultepec Park.
The art week will bring together artists, curators and gallery owners from 27 countries, Mexico City Tourism Secretary Carlos Mackinlay and representatives of the fairs said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Mackinlay said the Capital Bus tourist transportation service will offer a special route to take visitors to each of the four sites through the week.
Salón Acme will host a series of talks on art from Oaxaca and Yucatán focusing on such themes as “Art and Autonomy” and “Art and Combat,” along with various art performances.
The Material Art Fair will feature work of 78 galleries from 21 countries.
The Material Art Fair, to run February 7-9, will exhibit the work of 78 galleries from 21 countries and 37 cities.
Held on the same days, Feria Maroma aims to provide a space for artists to create large, spectacular installations, said fair representative Samantha Calderón.
“Upon entering, attendees are going to see structures four meters tall and hanging art of creative and distinctive design. Art is inclusive and we’re interested in showing people that art can be presented differently,” she said.
“We believe that the art world has become very elitist. There are people who are afraid to enter a gallery or a fair and ask for the price of an artwork. We can’t close off art to the people; that’s how the idea for Maroma came about, as a critique of that part of art. People are going to be surprised.”
BADA MX will host a special exhibition featuring the work of Mexican painter Rafael Cauduro. Entitled “The other side of things,” it will include 12 never-before-shown pieces.
Many Metro stations will be part of the fun as well, with the Bellas Artes, Hidalgo, Mixcoac, Insurgentes and Auditorio stations all hosting exhibitions.
From February 3-9, the Insurgentes Metro station will host Pabellón by Colombian artist Mateo López, a surprising structure made of pipes and cloth that will purportedly engage visitors in an artistic dialogue. There will also be performances by artists Anaïs Bouts and Tania Solomonoff.
Metro Auditorio will host an exhibition called The People’s Mandate from England’s Chalton Gallery for the entire month of February. The featured artists created pieces that complement the station’s British-oriented imagery and comment on such themes as continuity, claustrophobia and coexistence.
A performance based navigation (PBN) system will be used in the airspace of the Valley of México to allow the simultaneous operation of the Mexico City, Toluca and Santa Lucía airports.
Major José Juan Marín Solís, official spokesman for the engineers in charge of the construction of the new airport at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base, told the newspaper La Jornada that a PBN system – described by the United States Federal Aviation Administration as an advanced satellite-enabled form of air navigation that creates 3-D flight paths – provides more precise information to aircraft about their location, altitude, speed and flightpath than that furnished by navigation systems currently in place.
At present, planes are required to follow the signals transmitted by radio beacons when taking off and landing at Mexican airports, he said.
Marín said that a PBN system will be put into operation in the Valley of México before the completion of the new airport to ensure that arriving and departing flights don’t interfere with the operations of the Mexico City and Toluca airports.
“We plan to migrate our navigation system to PBN, which works with satellite location,” he said.
“It’s a lot more precise than that which we currently have. Before Santa Lucía is put into operation, the airport system will already be operating as if the new terminal existed so that at the time it is put into operation there’s no interference.”
Some aviation experts have expressed doubt that the Santa Lucía and Mexico City airports can operate simultaneously because of their close proximity to each other, while the general director of the International Air Transport Association, Alexandre de Juniac, said last May that the concurrent operation of the three Valley of México airports will be “complex” and “challenging.”
Aircraft taking off and landing at the two México state airports will have to take the most precise and shortest routes possible to ensure that they don’t interfere with each other, the flight operations software company said. Major Marín expressed confidence that a PBN system will allow that to occur.
The military spokesman also said that a Category 3 Instrument Landing System, or ILS, will be installed at the Santa Lucía airport, which he said will make it the most modern in Latin America.
The system will allow flights to land in “any visibility conditions,” Marín said, including heavy fog, which forces the current Mexico City airport to suspend operations anywhere between five and 10 times each winter.
He added that the planes used by the majority of commercial airlines are equipped to make use of PBN and Category 3 ILS, both of which are already used in many countries.
Just over 100 days after construction began, the new airport is 3.92% complete and remains on schedule to be finished on March 21, 2022, La Jornada said. The newspaper also reported that international aviation organizations will be invited to the site in the coming weeks to verify that the construction is meeting international standards.
More than 6,000 civilian workers are collaborating on the project with 840 military personnel. President López Obrador gave the Secretariat of Defense responsibility for the airport after canceling the previous government’s US $13-billion Texcoco project.
The architect chosen to design the new airport said that traveling via Santa Lucía will be a “memorable experience” but will be required to comply with the government’s promise to build an airport that is “austere in its design.”
Marín promised that will be the case.
“We’re going to have an austere airport but it will be functional. . . and it will comply with all national and international standards. . .” he said.
Not your street variety tamal: this one has huitlacoche and Ocosingo cheese and is pared with a white wine.
Tamales, the pre-Hispanic snack food served on street corners throughout the land each morning, are getting a gourmet makeover for Candlemas.
Though they’re traditionally paired with chocolate, coffee and the corn-based beverage atole, one Mexico City restaurant wants to enhance the tamal experience by complementing them with Mexico’s finest wines.
The chefs at Nido, the restaurant of the Advanced School of Gastronomy, have teamed up with the Mexican Vinicultural Council to offer epicures a unique seasonal tasting menu. For the week before Candlemas, which falls on Sunday, sommelier Jimena Cuevas paired tamales with wines from various parts of the country to put a new twist on the old Mexican recipes.
The combinations can be sampled at the restaurant’s Barra de Maíz (Corn Bar), a 10-seat bar that customarily offers an eight-course menu of dishes made with corns native to Guerrero.
One such pairing is the tamal made with the fatty cut of beef called suadero and the acidic chile morita served with a glass of Calixa blend (cabernet sauvignon and petit syrah) from Monte Xanic, in Baja California’s Valle de Guadalupe.
A beef tamal with chile morita served with Calixa from Monte Xanic.
The wine gives the tamal a smoother flavor and balances out its acidity, spice and stickiness.
The blue corn tamal made with huauzontle (a native Mexican plant similar to amaranth) and creamy Mexican ramonetti cheese is paired with the pinot noir of Coahuila’s Bodegas del Viento.
This complex, aromatic wine with hints of cacao, nuts and fruits contrasts perfectly with the herbal flavors in the tamal, said Chilango magazine, which called it the best pairing on the menu.
White wines with a bit of flavor from the barrel pair well with the strong flavors of cheese. Such is the case with the tamal stuffed with huitlacoche (corn smut) and Ocosingo cheese and served with Ocho Blanco from Baja California’s Bruma winery.
According to wine expert Cuevas, sparkling wines are the best companions for sweet tamales because they refresh the palate from greasiness and enhance the flavors of fruits and spices. So for dessert she paired the bar’s roasted pineapple tamal with a sparkling wine from Querétaro.
This tamal, made with natural vanilla from Papantla, Veracruz, has an almost cookie-like texture that’s suitably topped by caramelized pineapple and cheese ice cream. The bubbles from the Brut Nature Gran Reserva of the Freixenet winery make the dish even more playful.
Nido is located in Mexico City’s stylish La Condesa neighborhood, and the tamal and wine menu is only available until Saturday. Call ahead to make the required reservations.
Editor’s note: After we published Tuesday’s story on the tamal fair a reader advised that the singular of the word tamal is tamale in English, and he was right — according to the dictionaries we checked. When the question was put to MND writers, most leaned toward tamal. Why tack an “e” on the end anyway? We invite your comments below.
