Friday

We ate semi-sushi at Kampai tonight. Kampai is my favorite ersatz Japanese place in Monterrey. Kampai is like a DC-area chic fusion eatery: darkly ambient and stuffed with mirrors and deco light fixtures, then garnished with large metal sculptures. Among the menu's usual suspects, I finally discovered that they have fried barbequed eel "egg rolls," filled with a toothsome chipotle sauce. Where have those been al my life? Most of the Mexican news today is about the US: Last night Senate leaders finally agreed to the "seven-hundred mile fence along the southern US border" thing, and were expected to pass it through the second phase of its journey into legislation sometime today.* They’re in a hurry so they can all run off and attempt to get re-elected. By the end of this year, there is a danger that Democrats will have taken the majority in one or both chambers of the congressional branch, so this border security bill has been tailored to the middle ground in a bid to satisfy conservative constituencies without overly pissing-off liberals. While this comes in the place of far more damaging immigration and border security projects bandied about the House of Representatives off and on all year, many decry this as a detriment to US foreign relations. Who? Well, the Mexican Department of Foreign Relations, for one. They are "deeply worried," saying that the new fence will "increase tension in border communities."* The US Department of Fish and Wildlife isn’t pleased either, saying that the obstructed areas are used yearly as migratory pathways for undocumented jaguars, wolves, black bears, and any number of birds that cross through this area between seasonal habitats.* This ensuing disruption of the course of natural migration could spell the end of certain populations native to either country. [Cavin]