A Blitz for Blitzer

Every day when I get home from work I flip on the boob tube to catch the latest world disaster while I peruse our daily newspaper to learn about whatever local crisis we may be having. I noticed that Wolf Blitzer of CNN always signs off on "The Situation Room" with something like "For our North American viewers John King will follow and for our international viewers we switch you now tho CNN International in Hong Kong" and then in Mexico we are switched to CNN World Report in Hong Kong. He continuously leaves Mexico out of North America. I am taken aback at this so I checked out what geographers consider to be the limits of North America. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by South America, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. North America does not end at the Panama Canal either. The continent is delimited on the southeast by most geographers at the Darién watershed along the Colombia-Panama border which means that all of Panama is within North America.

Why would a supposedly credible newsman make such an erroneous distinction? I decided to write to him and suggest that he might be mistaken. I went to the Wolf Blitzer contact page which can be accessed at http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?2 and lo and behold I found that the "contact us" page also divides the U.S. and Canada from the rest of the world. If you are writing from the U.S. or Canada there is a drop down box where you can click on your state or province. All other countries a lumped together in one long list. I found Mexico between a country called "Mayotte" that I never heard of and "Micronesia". It turns out that "Mayotte" is a tiny island belonging to France located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. There is also a box to check to tell Wolf whether your comment is positive or negative. Hmmm, which category do you think he reads? You can also e-mail him directly at wolf@cnn.com or Twitter him at @wolfblitzercnn. Either way however, I don't think he will include Mexico within North America without enough people pointing out his error and questioning whether it is a deliberate slight or just a gap in his understanding of what constitutes North America. Hasn't he ever heard of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement that includes Mexico, Canada, and the United States?

Sometimes I wonder about these news guys and their hidden agendas. Let's put the "blitz" on Blitzer and restore Mexico to her rightful place on the globe.

¡¡¡ Viva México !!!
¡¡¡ Viva America!!!
¡¡¡ Viva Canada !!!
¡¡¡ Viva North America !!!

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Oh yummy!

It's time for a bit of slang today. In Mexican Spanish there are certain phrases called "modismos"(moh-DEEZ-mohs) that cannot be translated literally and you need to learn what a phrase means in total context and not just word for word. One example would be the phrase "echar de menos". The verb "echar" literally means "to throw" as in "to throw out" and "de menos" means "less" or "wanting" or "missing". Taken as an entire phrase or "modismo" the phrase "echar de menos" means "to miss someone".

Te voy a echar de menos.
I am going to miss you.

Te echaré de menos.
I will miss you.

Another interesting phase is "dormir a pierna suelta". Taken apart word for word, "dormir" is "to sleep", "pierna" means "leg", and suelta means "loose". Often "dormir a pierna suelta" is translated as "to sleep like a log" but that is not entirely correct because to "to sleep like a log" would be "dormir como un tronco". A better translation would be "to sleep soundly" because "dormir a pierna suelta" give the impression of sleeping very well with arms and legs extended all over as opposed to sleeping fretfully rolled up in a tight ball.

Esa noche dormí a pierna suelta y no oí nada.
That night I slept very soundly and I didn't hear anything.

Anoche dormí a pierna suelta y no me enteré de nada.
Last night I slept very soundly and I wasn't aware of anything.

So...as long as we are talking about sleeping, how would you say that you couldn't sleep? You could just say:

No pude dormir anoche.
I couldn't sleep last night.

Or...if you wanted to use a phrase similar to the English phrase "I couldn't sleep a wink" you could use the modismo "pegar las pestañas" meanig "to glue eyelashes shut".

No pude pegar las pestañas en toda la noche.
I couldn´t sleep a wink all night.

On the other hand...if you were "burning the midnight oil" you would use the modismo "quemarse las pestañas" or "burning the eyelashes" as in:

Anoche me estuve quemando las pestañas estudiando español.
Last night I burned the midnight oil studying Spanish.

But...what would you say if you want to take a nap? You could simply say "Voy a dormir una siesta" meaning "I amgoing to take a nap". Or...you could dress it up a bit with a modismo as in:

Voy a echar una pestañada.
I'm going to take a little nap. (I am going to shut my eyelashes for a bit.)

Voy a echar un coyotito.
I am going to take a quick little nap. (Note: "coyotito comes from the word "coyote" because coyotes are nocturnal animals that sleep only a few minutes at a time during the day.)

Voy a echar una jetita.
I am going to take a snooze. (Note: "jetita" comes from the word "jeta" meaning "mug face" or "slack face", or in other words the face of someone who is sleeping deeply.)

If you wake up a little crabby and woozy, and swollen faced from your nap you can say:

Me quedé bien jetón.
I am still half asleep and woozy.

Here is another modismo on a different subject. In English, when we have to walk somewhere, we say we went by "shank's mare" or "shank's pony" or we had to "hoof it". In Spanish they use the woud "pata" which means "hoof" or "paw" as in "andar a pata".

Voy a andar a pata.
I am going to walk. (I am going to hoof it.)

No tengo ni coche, ni moto, ni bicicleta, ni dinero para tomar un camión así que tengo que andar a pata a todos lados.
I have neither car, nor motorcycle, nor bicycle, nor money to take a bus so I have to hoof it everywhere.

That's about it for today except for a reminder that if you want to be hip you have to keep up with new phrases in Spanish just like you do in English. The latest modismo that I learned is "ñami ñami" (NYAH-mee NYA-mee). The word "ñami" means "milk" or "to milk" in the language of the Guarani people who are an indigenous people from South America's interior (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia). Paraguayan Guarani is actually an official language of Paraguay. As I understand it, the youth of Chile started using the word "ñami" to describe a sexy looking young lady in a manner similar to how Mexican males sometimes use the word "mamacita" to mean the same. In Mexico the word "ñami" has taken on the meaning of anything delicious or "yummy" especially when it is repeated twice as in "ñami ñami" (or "yum-yum").

Ese plato de fresas con crema parece ñami ñami.
That plate of strawberries with cream looks yummy.

Ah, fresas con crema...ñami ñami.
Ah, strawberries with cream...yum-yum.

One final word. Modismos can add color to your Spanish and be lots of fun but you must memorize them carefully, practice them first with friends who can correct you if you go astray, and you should be judicious in their use. Go ahead and enjoy them but be careful.

Booby Fruit

In my last post which was entitled "Fanny Fruit" I wrote about the Fig, the Mango Manila, and in particular, the Mango Petacón. Today I am writing about another favorite fruit of mine, the "Mamey Sapote" (mah-MAY sah-POH-tay) which is commonly called simply "mamey". The mamey sapote looks like a little brown football. Whenever I see one I have to stifle the urge to pick it up and throw a touchdown pass to my wife Gina. The problem is that the people in the market frown on this practice and so does Gina. The outer skin has a texture somewhat between sandpaper and the fuzz on a peach. To choose a mamey you scratch the outer skin with your fingernail. If it is ripe the inner skin will appear red. Even though the inner skin is red, if the mamey is still a bit firm you need to let it sit for a day or two (or three) until it becomes slightly soft to the touch. You open a mamey the same way you would open an avocado. First cut all around it lengthwise down to the seed and then separate the two halves. Inside you will find a smooth and creamy orange colored treat that tastes sweet and musky. Some people say that it tastes like a cross between pumpkin and sweet potato but I say that a mamey tastes just like a mamey...it has a distinct flavor all to its own. I like to enhance the flavor by squeezing lime juice over it. Mamey can also be incorporated into milkshakes, smoothies, ice cream, and fruit bars. Yum!

The mamey sapote is indigenous to Mexico and in the native Nahuatl language mamey sapote is "tetzontzapotl". The first part "tezon" comes from the native word for tezontle which is a red volcanic rock that was used for constructing temples and also used extensively by the Spanish during the colonial period as a general building material. The reddish brown color of tezontle is similar to the color of mamey. The second part of "tetzontzapotl" or "tzapotl" is a Nahuatl term for a soft, edible fruit and it is from "tzapotl" that we get "sapote". In fact the Latin taxonomic name Sapotaceae for the the plant family that contains the mamey was derived from "sapote". So, where did the name "mamey" come from? Well, that too, is an interesting story.

These days the genus and species names for the mamey sapote are "Pouteria sapota". There are 188 species that belong to the genus "Pouteria". The name comes from the term "pourama-pouteri" meaning "eggfruit" in the language of the natives on the northeast coast of South America. Originally, however, the taxonomic name for the mamey was "Achras mammosa" back in the early 1700's when the scientific names for the plants of Central and South America were still being sorted out. The word "achras" means "wild pear tree" in Latin and the word "mammosa" is formed from the Latin root mamma, meaning "breast", with the suffix -ose, which adds the meaning of "abounding in", "full of", or "rich in". There was a mythical Roman goddess named Fortuna Mammosa who was purported to have such qualities. Since the mamey fruit really does resemble a pendulous breast the transition from "mammosa" to "mamey" was only natural. That is why I call the mamey "booby fruit". I just love those boobies.

Fanny Fruit

Here in the earthly paradise of Irapuato in Guanajuato, Mexico it is the season for fruit lovers. The figs in particular are ripe. I love to eat fresh figs which are called “higos” (HEE-gohs) in Spanish. When I was a boy growing up in Chicago the only fig that I was aware of was the brown paste-like substance that could be found inside of a Nabisco Fig Newton. You’re darn-tootin’ there is just no comparison between the taste of a fresh fig and a Fig Newton. A sweet fresh fig will win every time. In fact, the fig is one of the first fruits mentioned in the Bible (after the “forbidden fruit", of course) and the fig tree it is the third tree mentioned in Genesis, the first being the “Tree of Life” and the second being the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. The downside is that fresh figs are relatively expensive, even in Mexico, and when they are in-season and very ripe they spoil quickly and require delicate handling. Nevertheless, I would walk a mile for a fresh, ripe fig.

Another great fruit that is a lot cheaper than figs is the mango. The word “mango” is spelled the same in English and Spanish but in Spanish it is pronounced “MAHNG-oh” and not “MAYNG-oh” like we more or less pronounce it in English. The mango tree comes from India and there are many varieties. However, in the Midwestern United States, where I come from, some people still refer to bell peppers as “mangos”, especially in rural downstate Illinois and Indiana. That goes way back to the time when the only way that they could ship mangos, bell peppers, and other fruits and vegetables by rail was to first pickle them in vinegar. In the 19th century the phrase “to mango” something meant to pickle it.

In spite of there being many different varieties, or “ cultivars” of mangos, there are basically two shapes and the people here generally refer to mangos by either of two names, “manila” (mahn-EE-lah) and “petacón” (peht-ah-COHN). The mango manila originally came to Mexico from the Philippine Islands via the Spanish Pacific Galleon trade around the year 1565. It is a a small, flat, oval, medium size, green-to-yellow mango with a point called a beak. The mango petacón is a a large, sweet, round, somewhat oblong, and reddish-orange version of the fruit that is about twice the size of a mango manila and is often multi-colored to some extent in yellow, green, and red depending upon how ripe it is. Sometimes it is also called a mango "criollo" (cree-OH-yoh). In the supermarket the mango petacón often goes by yet some other name like mango "paraíso" (pahr-EYE-soh) meaning "paradise" or mango "florida" (flohr-EE-dah) because that particular cultivar was developed in the U.S. state of Florida. Nevertheless the word "petacón" encompasses all the mangos of the same relative shape, size, and color.

For me, the word "petacón" by itself is a very interesting word. To begin with, the root word, "petaca" can mean various things. Generally it means a container for something else. The word "petaca" comes from the native Náhuatl word "petlacalli", which means "caja de petate" in Spanish or "box made from petate". A "petate" is a mat made from dry leaves, or reeds, or grass. In the old days a mat of petate was carried by an "arriero" who was a person who transports goods using pack animals. At night he would unroll his petate and throw it down on the ground to sleep on while covering himself with his serape. If he died while on the trail they would roll him up in his petate and it became his coffin. The word "petaca" took on the meaning of a "covering" and it could refer to a petaca de pipa (tobacco pouch), petaca de purros (cigar case), petaca de cigarros (cigarette case), or a petaca de alcohol (hip flask or small bottle of booze). A petaca could also refer to a "cesto de mimbre" (wicker basket), a "baúl de cuero", (leather bound chest), or a "maleta de cuero" (leather briefcase or small leather bound suitcase).

In Mexico, if you use the plural form of petaca which is "petacas" (peh-TAH-kahs) it means "buttocks" or "rump" or in other words your "fanny". If you use "petaca" with the ending ón which indicates bigness as in "petacón" it has the meaning of big "rump" or "fanny". That is exactly what a pair of mangos petacones look like when placed side by side and viewed from an angle...fanny fruit!



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Do you Roma?

In June of 2009 I wrote a piece entitled "Do you Zote?" about a very versatile bar soap that is just about everyone's favorite here in the Bajío region of Mexico where I live. I decided to write a companion piece about a popular laundry detergent that is made by the same company who makes Zote. The name of the detergent is "Roma" and it comes in plastic bags in quantities of half-kilo, one kilo, 4 kilos, and 10 kilos. The detergent is in granular form and it is mostly white in color with specks of blue. It is a basic laundry detergent and is less expensive than many other brands. We currently pay 22 pesos for a one kilo bag which is about $1.89 U.S. or in other words about 87 cents a pound. My wife Gina and her mother Carmelita swear by it and won't use anything else for washing both clothes and dishes except that they use Zote bar soap for the more delicate items like me, for instance. I shower with a bar of Zote every morning.

Many ladies here are in the habit of throwing a handful of Roma into a corner of the kitchen sink and they use it to wash dishes by just touching the dish rag to the detergent so that a little bit sticks to the rag. It makes great suds and a little bit of this detergent goes a long way. Roma isn't very hard on their skin either and it is also biodegradable and phosphate free. The listed ingredients are:

Cleaning Agent - Lineal Anionic Surfactant
Water Softener - Aluminosilicates and silicate
Soil Suspending Agent - C.M.C
Optical Brightener
Perfume

The company that makes Roma detergent and Zote bar soap is called "Fábrica de Jabón La Corona". It was founded in Mexico City in 1920 by a man named Esteban González. He named the company for a nearby public bath house called "La Corona". The company grew and grew and expanded into several plants and now employs over four thousand people people. Besides soaps, La Corona makes cooking oils, liquid cleaners, toothpastes, and fabric softeners. The company markets its products all over North America, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. The most amazing thing about both Roma and Zote and the other products made by La Corona is that there is no advertising. All of their sales are made through word of mouth and customer demand. In Mexico their market share is much higher than any of their closest competitors. They must be doing something right, eh? You just gotta go with a winner.


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The Blessing of the Rain

There is a Mexican book author, poet, historian, and newspaper columnist named Armando Fuentes Aguirre (a.k.a. Catón) whom I consider my my friend and mentor although we only met once in person. True to my expectations he was one of the nicest, kindest, and interesting people whom I have ever had the pleasure to meet and I heartily shook hands with him to make sure that our worldlines were well connected. I have learned a lot of Spanish over the years just from reading his columns. I have also written about him at length on a previous post that you can access by clicking here.

Today his column "Mirador" contains a beautiful example of his prose and in the interest of introducing him to my fellow students of Spanish I have reproduced it here hoping that he won't mind. After the Spanish you will find my English translation. I had to use a little imagination and poetic license with the translation because if you just translate the "letter" of the Spanish and not the "spirit" the result in English is quite stilted and cannot even approach the beauty of the Spanish. No doubt that English is a very practical language but I am convinced that for shear beauty of expression Spanish is far superior.

MIRADOR
Armando Fuentes Aguirre

Diosito decidió de pronto volver a portarse bien, y se hizo lluvia en el Potrero.

La casa quedó llena con el aroma de la tierra mojada, más grato para nosotros que cualquier perfume. Hasta las piedras del camino parecían alegrarse, y bajo el agua fulguraban con brillos de piedras preciosas.

Abrí la ventana para que entrara el paisaje. En mi cuarto está ahora la nube, y están la montaña y el pino. Los muebles tatarabuelos parecen oír el gargarear de la gárgola, y el panzudo cofre que guarda antiguas escrituras y amarillentos papelorios se pone orondo como un rotundo caballero que ha comido y bebido a su placer.

De tierra y agua estamos hechos los humanos. La lluvia en el campo junta en nosotros esas dos materias, y las vuelve espíritu. Recibimos con gratitud la bendición. Afuera huele a tierra húmeda, y hay en los aposentos de la casa olor a alma mojada.

The Dear Lord decided to do a good turn and make it rain in El Potrero.

The house was filled with the smell of wet earth, more pleasing to us than any perfume. Even the rocks in the road seemed joyful and under the wetness they gleamed like precious stones.

I opened the window to let the outdoors in. In my room there is now a cloud and a mountain, and a pine tree. The great, great grandfather furniture seemed to hear the gurgling of the downspout, and the big fat chest that keeps the old writings and yellowed documents became self satisfied like a plump gentleman who has eaten and drank to his pleasure.

We humans are made of earth and water. The rain in the fields unites in us both of those elements and revives the spirit. We receive with gratitude the blessing. Outside it smells like moist earth and in the rooms of the house it smells like moist soul.

Web Page for Armando Fuentes Aguirre (Catón) http://www.caton.com.mx/

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Cyber Socialism

I received a note from a contact in Pensacola, Florida this morning (hello tocayo) and he said something that has stuck with me all day. He said, "I'm not much of cyber socialist". Come to think of it, perhaps I may be a bit of a socialist in the political sense, but in the fraternal sense a cyber socialist I am not. I signed up for Facebook and Linkedin, and Twitter just to see what the fuss was all about but to be honest with you, beyond the novelty of trying something new and different I really don't understand the urge behind what is making people flock to social networking in greater and greater numbers. The problem with social networking is that it doesn't connect worldlines.

I have written about worldlines before. Albert Einstein had an interest in them in regard to his study of physics. A world line is the sequential path of a human through time and space that marks the history of a person, starting at the time and place of one's birth until their death. When we are born, our world line branches off from our mother's world line. When we die, the world lines of the atoms that make up our body disperse and move on. If you could actually see a world line it would look like a twisting meandering path with both tiny ringlets and big sweeping curves and with various zigzags and ups and downs in between. Imagine a child being born and the beginning of his or her world line. The path that the nurse takes as she carries the child from the delivery room to the nursery begins the world line but the earth is also rotating at the same time and so both of these movements are recorded. While the earth is rotating it is also moving around the sun and the sun is moving around the center of the Milky Way galaxy which is also moving through time and space and all of these movements become part of the child’s world line. No two world lines are alike except, perhaps, for Siamese twins. Everyone (and every thing) else has its own unique world line.

Whenever we touch somebody our world lines intersect. Take for example two people shaking hands. In the three seconds it takes for a one pump handshake the Earth rotates about six or seven miles on its axis and moves almost sixty miles in its orbit around the sun which moves about four hundred and fifty miles in its orbit around the Milky Way Galaxy while the galaxy itself moves over five hundred miles towards an area in space known as "The Great Attractor"...which I like to think of as God Himself. While the two people are holding hands during this long, yet rapid journey through time and space the handshaking event is marked by the intersection of their world lines. In this day and age of computers and gigabytes and nanoseconds you could transmit a great deal of information in those three seconds. This thought led to my realization that if you had a computer big enough, and fast enough, and a cosmic positioning system like out modern Global Positioning System (GPS), you could keep track of everything in the Universe. It seems to me that perhaps this is how God keeps track of everything and since we were created in His image and likeness we will probably all become very computer savvy someday.

There is just no substitute for personal contact or for being in the same place at the same time whether you are having dinner with someone or sharing the atmosphere with an entire crowd of people. Somehow you need to be within eyesight or earshot to register a worldline connection. I have an idea though. I remember reading "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley many years ago. In this book he described the movie theaters of the future which he named "The Feelies". The seats in the Feelies will supposedly recline way back and the movie will be projected onto the ceiling. On each side of the seat there will be a brass knob and you will place your hands on these brass knobs and when the hero kisses the heroine you will be able to feel the kiss on your own lips. Now there is an interesting thought. Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg could incorporate that idea to make Facebook more socially interactive. It might actually cure one real problem with worldlines. When I was in high school at a Catholic high school for boys, the Vincentian Fathers always reminded us that the the human mouth is connected to the anus via a long tube consisting of the esophagus, stomach, intestines, and bowels, and that every time we kissed a girl we were in reality sucking on a thirty foot tube half filled with fecal matter. So, you see? It just follows that cyber kisses would be much more sanitary.

Happy Socializing!

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Red, Yellow, & Black

This morning when I arrived at work I saw several people standing around and looking down at a couple of snakes that our watchman killed because he thought they were poisonous. When I took a look at the snakes I quickly dismissed the notion that they were poisonous but with this type of snake the mistake is quite common. In Florida and along the Gulf into Northeastern Mexico there is a snake called the Coral snake that has bands of red, yellow, and black along its body. It is quite venomous and there are several subspecies. In Texas it is called the "Texas Coral Snake" and in Mexico it is commonly called "El Coralillo" (Kohr-ah-LEE-yoh). However, there is a non-venomous snake called the "Scarlet King Snake" in English, and "El Serpiente Escarlata Real" in Spanish, that looks something like the Coral snake but with several differences.

The Scarlet King snake rarely gets over twenty inches in length while the Coral snake can grow to thirty inches or more. The bands of color are also different. The colors alternate red, yellow, black, yellow, on the Coral Snake and on the Scarlet King snake the colors are red, black, yellow, black. When I was a Boy Scout (fifty years ago) they taught us a little rhyme to help us tell the difference. It went:

Red to yellow
Kill a fellow.
Red to black
Venom lack.

In the photos below you can see a Coral snake that was killed by a laborer near Monterrey, Mexico where I was working in 1999. Below that there is a photo of one of the Scarlet King snakes that was killed today. The Scarlet King snake is a friend of man and a very beneficial little animal. The problem is that many people fear snakes so much that they usually kill them before they try to identify them. The poor little Scarlet King looks so much like his dangerous cousin the Coral, that in order to be on the safe side he usually gets the double "whammy"...OUCH!

Slipping and Sliding

The other day my wife Gina went to the supermarket and there she bumped into an old friend who was a classmate in grammar school whom she hadn't seen in many years. After squealing and hugging like women do on such occasions they settled in for a nice chat and I thank goodness that I wasn't there in person to witness it because these reunions generally take at least a half an hour during which time I usually just stand there transferring my weight from one foot to the other and back again like an old milk wagon horse. Gina told the woman that she has a grandson and asked her old friend if she had any grandchildren. The woman told her that she had no grandchildren but she had two handsome sons in their mid twenties who hadn't married yet because they were looking for just the right girl. Gina asked her what they did for a living and her friend said that they were both between jobs right now but that they were very smart and had some very good prospective work lined up.

I told Gina that it sounded to me like the woman is a "mamá cuervo" or "mother crow" meaning someone who is always exaggerating the appearance and abilities of their children despite the obvious fact that that the kids aren't very attractive or bright and not doing very well. There is a cute little story about the background for the term "mamá cuervo" that I wrote about in November of 2008 You can read by clicking on "Stories 001 - Mamá Cuervo". Unmarried guys in their twenties who are still living at home and waiting for some great prospect to come along and fall into their laps are called "Ninis" (NEE-nees) here in Mexico. The word "nini" stands for "ni trabaja, ni estudia" or in other words "neither works nor studies". I asked Gina if that was the case with this lady's sons and Gina replied:

"Mira Bob, la vida es como la casa del jabonero...el que no cae resbala".
Look Bob, life is like the house of a soapmaker...he who doesn't fall, slips.

Picture a house where they are using the kitchen to make soap all day and everything is covered with a film of soap, especially the floor. Sooner or later everyone who lives there is going to slip or fall. The phrase is fairly common and it means that you never know what is going to happen in life and that we are all susceptible to problems. Gina went on to say:

"Una persona que carece de entendimiento menosprecia a su prójimo, pero una persona prudente calla."
A person who lacks understanding scorns their neighbor, but a prudent person keeps silent.

Gina is right. As my Ma always used to say, "If you can't find anything good to say about somebody then don't say anything at all. I hope that the lady's sons find great jobs very soon and marry fantastic women...and that takes care of THAT!

Blue, Blue, Blue...Where are you?

My friend Benjamín Arredondo recently wrote about "Los Colores de la Litugia" (The Colores of the Liturgy) which you can read in Spanish by clicking on this link to his web page, "El Señor del Hospital". He did a splendid job and one thing that he mentioned piqued my curiosity. It is the fact that Spain and its former colonies are the only places (with a few minor exceptions) where the Catholic Church "officially"sanctions the use of the color blue for vestments used in the mass and only then for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th. I couldn't help thinking "Why only Spain and her former colonies?" and "What is so special about the color blue?" Well, I am neither a theologian nor an historian but you might be interested to hear about what I learned while digging around in the attic of history.

During the first thousand years or so there were no specific documented rules for colors of the Liturgy. It was merely a matter of local custom. It wasn't until about the year 1200 that Pope Innocent III mentioned the use of five basic colors which were, White, Red, Green,Violet, and Black and it wasn't until 1570 that Pope Pius V introduced a specific color scheme to be followed by everyone in the Church or more specifically, the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. The colors were (and still are); "albus" (white), "ruber" (red) viridis (green) "violaceus (violet) "niger" (black), "rosaceus" (rose), "argentum " (silver) and "aurum" (gold). No mention of blue. Why? Well, it seems that in the early days of the church the color blue was associated with Eve as the "woman's color" and the color red was associated with Adam (and Jesus Christ) as the "man's color". Because Eve tempted Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit some of the early church leaders felt that women were weaker intellectually and more susceptible to Satan's charms. Therefore, as a religious symbol the use if blue was avoided in certain locations such as before the altar. However, since the color blue was the color of women and Mary the Mother of Jesus is a woman, the church had to develop a limited acceptance of the color blue.

Let me pause for a moment and say something further regarding this thing about red being a man's color and blue being a woman's color. Before the turn if the twentieth century almost all baby and small children's clothing in the United States and elsewhere was white. The garments were made of cotton fibers and they were usually cleaned by boiling with lye soap. It wasn't until about World War I when the fabrics, the soaps, and color fast dyes were improved the the point where colored fabrics for children's clothes became practical. The trend toward colors was accelerated by the fact that most children's clothing was handed down from sibling to sibling but the marketing people discovered that they could double the sales of new clothing by advertising one color for boy's clothing and another color for girl's clothing...but here's the strange part. They chose pink for boys because it was a watered down version of red, the color of men. They chose light blue for girls because it was a watered down version of ultramarine blue, or the gemstone "Lapis Lazuli", the color of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By the way, the word "lapis" means stone in Latin and "lazuli" comes from the name "Lāzhward" which is the name of the place in Afghanistan where lapis lazuli is found. The Spanish word for blue, "azul" derives from "lazuli" as does the English word "azure". In the 1930's the Nazis in Germany began to require known homosexuals to wear a pink triangular identification badge and that is when some people say that pink became associated with the effeminate. I don't know if that is the real reason for the switch but by the end of World War II the colors pink and blue had done a complete flip-flop.

At a fairly early period in church history there was a question about whether or not the Blessed Virgin was conceived with the original sin of Eve because it would seen to be unsuitable for Our Lord to have been born of a woman with a sinful nature. After all, didn't the angel Gabriel say to Mary, "Hail Mary, full of grace" (Luke 1:28)? Many people believed in the Immaculate Conception of Mary long before Pope Pius IX (Pius the Ninth) declared it to be church dogma in 1854. The totally sin free nature of Mary was a controversial subject over many centuries with some theologians believing that Mary was conceived without original sin and others believing that like Saint John the Baptist, she was sanctified in her mother's womb before birth as opposed to being free of original sin at the moment of conception. In any case Pius IX put it all to rest after declaring the Immaculate Conception dogma. He pretty much closed the book on that subject since his other lasting contribution was the invocation of the ecumenical council Vatican One, which promulgated the definition of Papal infallibility. The feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8th because it is exactly nine months before September 8th which is the day in which Mary's birth is celebrated. Pope Pius IX granted Spain and its former colonies the right to use blue as a liturgical color only on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception because Spain had already been doing just that under the Spanish Mozarabic Rite for at least three centuries. Supposedly Mexico also has permission to use blue on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12th but I could find no specific reference for that. Besides, this is Mexico, and the people here will do what they feel is appropriate and ask forgiveness later.

It is my belief that the color of the vestments and other trivial matters are not important. These little picky rules and controversies about what is allowed and what isn't allowed are just a distraction. What matters the most, especially at this Easter Season, is the fact and the belief that:

“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”

Mortem tuam annuntiamus, Domine, et tuam resurrectionem confitemur, donec venias.

“LORD, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world.”

AMEN!