by Lewis, Dan
In most cases, the lime-producing farmers would be cheering on the era of expensive limes and bemoaning the subsequent price crash. In this case, though, the opposite was true. The higher prices went, the more scared farmers became for their lives and livelihoods. When the price returned to normal, it was because something great had happened.
It meant the drug lords had gone away.
The lime wars started innocently enough. Toward the end of 2013, heavy rains in some parts of Mexico’s lime-producing regions damaged crops while bacteria invaded another region. (A person with an affinity for puns may point out that parts of Mexico had to deal with a particularly bad epidemic of lime disease.) Supply fell, demand stayed roughly the same, and the basic rules of economics kicked in, leading to a small but noticeable uptick in the price of limes. If you were one of the affected farmers, hopefully you had diversified your crops or had banked some money in case of bad times. On the other hand, if you had limes to sell, it was a good day, as you made a little more profit than usual.
If you were a drug cartel, you suddenly had access to a product you could import into the United States without risking incarceration or worse.
The cartel in question is the Templarios—the Knights Templar, in English—a criminal organization active in the Mexican state of Michoacán. The Templarios aren’t just drug smugglers—they’re more akin to the Mafia than anything else, with a history of kidnapping, counterfeiting, money laundering, arms trafficking, and murder. In many areas of Michoacán, there’s a good chance that any businessman you meet is paying protection money to the Templarios. For his sake, he probably should be.
Despite this criminal activity, Michoacán has experienced an agricultural boom over the past few years, and limes are one of the largest growth areas. Going into 2014, six contiguous towns in Michoacán are, collectively, responsible for about 20 percent of the limes produced nationwide. That many limes in such a small, easily managed area was too good for the Templarios to resist. According to the Washington Post, the drug-fueled cartel used its muscle to slow the production of limes while taking ownership of the citrus supply chain. The Templarios bought up lime farms, often extorting the previous owners to sell for cheap or face threat of violence, then drastically reduced output. Many other lime farms were de facto operated by the Templarios, and they cut production as well. For those farmers who were somehow outside the control of the Knights Templar, they had few places that would take their fruit—food packagers were understandably wary, given the possible (if not probable) repercussions.
Ultimately, many in Michoacán started to join militias and took up arms against the Templarios. Mexico’s federal government also sent in police, and the lime cartel began to crumble. NPR reported that “several top leaders [of the Templarios were] killed or arrested”and the limes began to flow freely once again.
BONUS FACT
According to a 2002 article in the Washington Post, escaping from jail isn’t illegal in Mexico. Yes, if you’re caught, you still have to go back and serve out your jail term—but authorities don’t tack on any additional time because of your attempt to gain some freedom a bit early. Juventino Victor Castro y Castro, then one of Mexico’s Supreme Court justices, explained to the press that “the basic desire for freedom is implicit inside every man, so trying to escape cannot be considered a crime.”
SANDWICH LAW
LEGALLY SPEAKING, WHAT MAKES SOMETHING A SANDWICH?
There are many Mexican restaurant chains in the United States, most notably Chipotle, Qdoba, Taco del Mar, and Moe’s Southwest Grill. Go into any and order a burrito and you’ll get what’s known as a “San Francisco” or “Mission-style” burrito. These burritos differ from their Mexican progenitors in size—they’re just plain bigger—and by the number of items stuffed inside them—there’s a lot more. It’s a meal by any measure.
But is it a sandwich?
To most, such a question wouldn’t matter. When the San Francisco burrito was created by a Mission-district grocer named Febronio Ontiveros in the early 1960s, he probably didn’t care about the semantics. All Ontiveros cared about were the local firefighters who were hungry and wanted sandwiches—and the fact that he was out of bread other than some six-inch tortillas. So he threw meat, rice, and bunch of other items in it, rolled it up, and sold it for a dollar. The product—and price—has gotten larger since, but the item has maintained its defining traits. Whether the firefighters (or for that matter, Ontiveros) thought of it as a sandwich or a replacement product is anyone’s guess. However, in 2006, a judge in Massachusetts had to make that guess.
Panera Bread operated a franchise at the White City Shopping Center in the Massachusetts town of Shrewsbury. In its lease, Panera had a clause preventing the shopping mall’s operators from renting out space to another sandwich shop. White City offered to lease a spot to Qdoba, and Panera invoked this clause to prevent it. Qdoba and White City argued that Qdoba wasn’t selling sandwiches; Panera countered by noting that Qdoba offered burritos, and argued that burritos are sandwiches.
The matter went to judge Jeffrey Locke who, according to the Associated Press, turned to Webster’s Dictionary and a few expert witnesses. He concluded that a burrito was not, in fact, a sandwich: “A sandwich is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos, and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans.” With that Qdoba was able to move into the White City mall.
But in the end, Panera got the last laugh. As of this writing, the Qdoba at White City is no longer in business, but the Panera Bread is.
BONUS FACT
There’s some argument to be made that the sandwich-ish thing called a wrap is a spinoff of the San Francisco burrito, as it may have been invented in the mid-1990s by a Mission-area restaurant called World Wrapps. (There’s a competing story, which is probably hogwash, that former Major League Baseball manager Bobby Valentine invented the wrap in 1980 at his Stamford, Connecticut, restaurant.) So is a wrap a sandwich? There’s no consensus. As reported by the Harvard Crimson, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America asserts that they are sandwiches. Nonetheless, the wrap’s burrito-kin history would suggest otherwise—as would the helpfully named website www.IsAWrapASandwich.com. (If you go there, you’ll see that the website has one word on it: “No.”)
COURTING TOMATOES
ARE TOMATOES FRUITS OR VEGETABLES? YES!
Tomatoes are a fruit. No, they’re a vegetable. No wait—they’re a fruit.
The truth: they’re both. The two groups are not mutually exclusive. But if you’re the American legal system, well, only one of the two definitions matters.
Fruits, botanically speaking, are the seed-containing ovaries of a flowering plant—and yes, this definition includes the tomato, as well as cucumbers, which are also often referred to as a vegetable.
This is because the term “vegetable” lacks scientific meaning and instead is defined loosely by the culture of food. When and how a specific food is served determines how the food is categorized. For example, plants that are most commonly used in soups, salads, or as side dishes to a main course are typically considered vegetables. This includes tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as sweet corn (a grain whose kernels are the fruit) and mushrooms (which is a fungus, not a plant). So while the term “vegetable” generally refers to the edible parts of plants other than the fruit or seeds, that distinction is imprecise and incomplete.
Tomatoes, therefore, are both fruits and veggies, and if you ask linguistic experts (and many dictionaries), you’ll find them generally in agreement over the matter.
Much ado about nothing? Perhaps, but the U.S. Supreme Court found the issue important enough to address. In 1883, the U.S. government passed a tariff act, requiring that importers of vegetables pay a tax—a tax that did not apply to the importation of fruits. Ten years later, in Nix v. Hedden, a group of tomato importers filed suit against the government. The importers hoped to recover taxes
already paid by arguing that botanically, tomatoes were a fruit and therefore not subject to the tariff. In a unanimous decision, the Court held in favor of the government. Noting that tomatoes were used typically with main courses and not as desserts, the Court concluded that tomatoes were subject to the import tax.
At the state level, three states—Arkansas, Ohio, and Tennessee—call the tomato the state fruit. (In Arkansas, it is actually the official fruit/vegetable.) However, this is not unanimous: In 2005, New Jersey relied on the reasoning in Nix when it considered making the tomato its official vegetable of the state.
BONUS FACT
In 2000, police in Blacksburg, Virginia, kept receiving 911 calls from the home of local residents Daniel and Linda Hurst—but when the emergency operator spoke, no one on the Hursts’ end spoke. After determining that the Hursts were not home, the police decided to raid the home, guns drawn, to search for potential hostages or malfeasants. They found neither. Instead, they found an overripe tomato, dripping its juice onto an answering machine. This caused the answering machine to short circuit and, for some reason, repeatedly dial 911. Apparently, tomatoes are fruits, vegetables, and, in the right context, prank callers.
IN LINE FOR JUSTICE
THE COST OF GOING TO THE SUPREME COURT
The Supreme Court of the United States hears arguments from October through April. Photography and videography are prohibited, and therefore there are few opportunities to watch the proceedings in action. Unless you’re working for the Court, are an attorney arguing the case, or one of the lucky few reporters to sit in the front rows of the visitors’ gallery, you may be out of luck. There are about fifty or so seats open to the public, and the good news is that they’re free, on a first-come, first-served basis. The bad news is that the line is usually at least a few hours long, so unless you’re willing to get there early, you are unlikely to find yourself getting one of those few dozen seats.
Or you can buy one on the black market.
The problem is a simple, Econ 101 one—there’s a scarce supply of seats and a lot more demand. Waiting in line, beyond being terribly boring, isn’t a very good use of most people’s time, including many of the people who truly want to be inside the courthouse when the nine Justices listen to arguments and pepper the attorneys with questions. This is America, though—so someone has turned the wait into cash. In some cases, a lot of cash.
For decades, people in the Beltway have volunteered to sit in line for you, for a fee. In 2005, according to a report by the Washington Post, a man named Kevin Rollins earned $350 for waiting in line on behalf of a law firm. The firm wanted one of its clients, whom it was representing in front of the Court, to be able to listen to the arguments, but the length of the line proved prohibitive. Rollins spent fourteen hours waiting on behalf of the law firm and its client for an hourly rate of $25.
In years since, line standing has become a boom industry in the Beltway. At least two different businesses in the Beltway have entered the market, playing the matchmaker role—for a cut, they’ll find a line-stander for you, and for very long assignments, they’ll find relief placeholders as needed. Prices have shot up to at least $50 an hour, and lines have gotten longer, sometimes requiring line sitters to hang out for two or three days. According to one report, one keep-my-place-in-line assignment for a highly visible case cost the purchaser $6,000. Note that observers do not have an opportunity to influence the case; they are, as the name suggests, merely there to watch the goings-on.
The businesses providing these services also tend to provide similar services for those who wish to attend congressional hearings, much to the chagrin of at least one senator. In 2007, Senator Claire McCaskill from Missouri proposed legislation to ban the practice, but as of this writing, any such efforts have been to no avail.
BONUS FACT
Next time you’re waiting in line, say, to check out at a store, try to guess how long your wait was. You’re probably overestimating significantly. According to retail researcher and environmental psychologist Paco Underhill, we can only wait in line for about ninety seconds before we lose our perception of time. After that, Underhill observes, we begin to think that significantly more time has passed than actually has—a three-minute wait, for example, feels more like five.
CAN’T HARDLY WAIT
WHEN SOON ISN’T SOON ENOUGH
Worst. Thing. Ever.
You’ve probably seen or heard someone say that, usually in a half-facetious, half-hyperbolic sense. (Or because you’ve watched the Simpsons and know who the Comic Book Guy, originator of the line, is.) When (real) people use that phrase, isolated as three individual pseudo-sentences for effect, they’re not talking about actual terrible things like famine, the plague, or the Nazis. They’re talking about the minor inconveniences that bother us in an amount disproportional to the actual harm we suffer. A quick search of Twitter elicits things like “not having somewhere to park my car,” “chapped lips,” and “having short hair on rainy days” as examples of things that were considered the “worst thing ever” by the Tweeter in question.
Here’s another one: waiting.
Waiting is a particularly fiendish terror, which evokes the hyperbole just mentioned. People bemoan having to visit the Department of Motor Vehicles, grumble when YouTube videos take more than a half-second to load, and, as some airport executives in Houston learned, complain when it takes too long for their bags to come. We’d rather do anything other than, well, do nothing.
Unfortunately, we can’t eliminate waiting altogether, and in some cases, even a relatively short wait may be too long. That’s what the Houston airport execs learned when they answered passengers’ complaints directly. Customers were waiting for a long while, perhaps as long as a half hour, for their bags to arrive. The airport beefed up staff and cut the wait time down to eight minutes—as the New York Times noted, that’s “well within industry benchmarks.” Yet the complaints just kept coming. That’s kind of ridiculous—it’s only eight minutes!—but regardless, customers still weren’t happy. To make matters worse, there wasn’t much the airport team could do to get the bags back to the flyers in less time. Eight minutes from disembark until the bags hit the carousel was as good as it was going to get.
But saying “deal with it!” is bad customer service, and really, no one wants to hear complaints from customers. So, as the Times explained, the powers that be at the Houston airport decided to just trick the passengers into thinking they weren’t waiting. They observed that customers at other airports weren’t complaining about baggage claims that weren’t all that close to the arrival gates, yet the Houston airport only required passengers to walk for about a minute to get their stuff. On the other hand, Houston’s customers were very upset about having to stand around for seven of the eight minutes. It wasn’t the eight-minute delay, itself, that was the problem—it was that people hated the idea that they were wasting time, doing nothing.
The solution? The airport moved the arrival gates and the baggage claim carousels farther apart. Much farther. The formerly one-minute walk to get one’s bag was now six minutes, and the idle wait only about two. The travelers were occupied for longer and therefore less bored, and the complaints disappeared.
BONUS FACT
The International Air Transit Association assigns three-letter airport codes to each airport, typically comprised of the first three letters of the city the airport is located in. There are many exceptions, though, and in those cases, a close-ish approximation of the airport’s or city’s name is used instead. New York City, for example, has both LaGuardia and Kennedy, which are LGA and JFK, as they can’t start with N—the navy has that reserved. But what about LAX in Los Angeles? The X doesn’t stand for anything—it’s just a placeholder. “LA,” the airport’s original code, is unambiguous, but when the three-character codes became standard, the airport needed to expand its code. It adopted a meaningless X at the end.
DINNER AND A BACKUP PLAN
WHY PILOTS AND COP
ILOTS CAN’T SHARE A MEAL
Redundancy and efficiency don’t go well together. We wear belts or suspenders, not and, because having both would be unnecessary and the extra cost or discomfort isn’t worth it. Sometimes, though, having a backup plan is a good idea, especially when the risk of failure is incredibly high. If you are operating a commercial airline, for example, it makes a lot of sense to have a pilot and a copilot, because if something happens to the pilot, you really need someone who can still fly the plane. Even if it ends up costing a little more.
Copilots are trained to do everything a pilot does, in case of emergency. However, there’s one thing, for most airlines at least, that the copilot can’t do. He or she cannot have the same meal as the pilot.
The copilot’s job isn’t simply to be the backup—he or she assists in takeoffs, landings, and in a variety of in-flight duties, making sure that everything is being done properly and that the safety and best-practices checklists are followed. While most modern planes can be piloted by one person if need be, that’s not a great idea, as people make mistakes (and in this case, mistakes can have massive consequences). In November 2012, for example, the copilot of a Lufthansa flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Frankfurt, Germany, became ill, and an off-duty pilot for another airline, who happened to be a passenger, helped land the plane. (The plane diverted to Dublin, Ireland, due to the copilot’s illness.) While the passenger’s skills lessened the potential problem, it isn’t fair to say he prevented a disaster, though; the flight crew could have assisted the pilot sufficiently to land the plane safely—most likely.