A valediction: Of deadlines and celebrations

So here's where we're at.

It was freakishly cold in Mexico City this week -- shivering, daytime darkness, hoodies over hats, austere wool ladies' coats cold -- and it's not even winter yet. Congress, as expected, finally passed the Pemex privatization reforms, with only nominal lefty resistance. The Mexican market is teetering and, surprise, the narco cartels were revealed to have deeply infiltrated the government. Yet the airwaves are littered with offensively cynical public service announcements basically telling Mexicans to strap up and be patriotic. The realities are far more sobering. "To say so with total clarity," the president, in a rare moment of clarity, declared at an Iberoamerican economic summit in San Salvador on Thursday, "Youth today don't believe in anything." Whatever who cares DJ Mehdi played Pasaje America that night.

Today, Day of the Dead, marks the one-year anniversary of my open-ended arrival to Mexico City. It's time to take stock, and party. We're turning Intersections off until 2009.