On a sunny morning in "downtown" Isla Mujeres, Diana and I, both suffering from severe respiratory infections, crawled out of our motel room and went to breakfast.  We had attended the session of the Journalism School that Gary took part in at the school's Merida hotel the previous week, during an international conference on drug law reform, and been much impressed.  Now, the gang was in Isla, but we had been hard-pressed to join them much, feeling as we did.

As we sat down, Gary sauntered in, asked if he might join us, and we spent more than an hour together, relating mostly around our common bonds to California's San Joaquin Valley (he in Sacramento at the top end; ourselves just south of Fresno in the center): its politics and changing culture, and the persons and issues involved.  It turned out that Gary was working as an investigator for one of the state Assembly persons representing "our" area (we don't live there much, preferring our home in Oaxaca).  Later, we discovered that he had had a hand in exposing a financial scandal involving a major computer systems supplier and an overpriced state contract for which no bidders had been solicited.  We knew he had been pretty beat up on for his work at the Mercury News, and we were delighted that he had managed to end up with a job that not only paid well and was "flexible", but also allowed him to continue to do "the work".  After the School ended, and we all went our separate ways, we never saw Gary again.

Nobody can really know another person's demons.  I'm saddened that his got the better of him.  We have all lost one of the few things we can't afford to lose: a man who speaks truth to power, no matter what the consequences.

Thanks, Stan.