I suppose that many countries around the world celebrate one form or another of Independence Day. Still, given what is going on these days, one can hardly help but wonder how many countries have anything about which they can be proud enough to wave their flags. In Mexico, we celebrate the night of September 15th, where at 11:00 at every town square -- from one-horse podunks to the Zócalo in Mexico City -- hordes gather to shout "Viva México!" This will be the last time that Enrique Peña Nieto officiates at this ceremony. According to opinion polls -- practically since he was elected -- there are very few people around who will be sorry to see him go.

Our new president assumes office on December 1. While he has many followers who believe in him to the marrow, I think that many other Mexicans voted for Andrés Manuel López Obrador because they simply couldn't stand another moment of the status quo. They wanted the PRI and the PAN, who have been in power here since 1929, to get buried as deeply as possible. I wish our new President well and truly hope that he will be able to fulfill the voters' expectations of him. Certainly his predecessors have been so disappointing, many would even say disastrous, that they provoked the kind of mood that the metro rider, pictured below, is in.