Doug Bower

[iowagto]

As an occasional visitor to Guanajuato, I used to regularly read Doug Bower?s blog, but when I tried to visit it last week I found that it was now limited ?to invited readers only.? Because of that, I wrote to Mr. Bower and asked if he would invite me. Here, in part, is his shocking reply:

Hi: Doug Bower here. I no longer write blogs about GTO. The reason is that there is a group of Gringos who have threatened my wife and I to such and extent that we collectively decided it was too dangerous to keep writing and telling the truth about the rising crime issue in this town. The Gringos who threaten us have real estate businesses and who have delusionally decided that what I write is a threat to the success of their rentals and sales.

In fact they ran us out of town. We no longer live in GTO. We moved to an undisclosed location in Mexico for our protection. We also are living with a Mexican family to further mask our location. No one should be able to find us since the collective lot of these poor souls cannot speak enough Spanish to find us.

In the San Javier area about which I have written extensively is getting worse with the Pollo Negro gang. There has been talk of bringing in the military to quell the gang activity.

Sincerely,
Doug Bower

I don?t know who these people are who ran Mr. Bower and his wife out of town, but they ought to be ashamed of themselves. Mr. Bower was doing his best to write the truth about Guanajuato, and now he?s been silenced. Doesn?t anyone believe in free speech anymore?

It?s your loss, Guanajuato.

Sue

I think you can safely translate "a group of Gringos who have threatened my wife and I to such and extent that we collectively decided it was too dangerous to keep writing and telling the truth" as "people who disagreed with me".

Doug Bower's writings were delusional. I live in San Javier, and while it is not a crime-free oasis, it is not some border town war zone as Doug's descriptions make it sound. Doug chose to see the world around him as being opposed to him in an almost exclusively negative light, and if anyone dared question that, Doug immediately characterized them as ignorant Gringos who couldn't speak spanish and clearly could never truly understand Guanajuato.

I could not care less where he lives, but he was never 'silenced'. he had as much right to speak here as anyone. However on the 'other' Guanajuato blog, several who dared question him were banned. These were not people attacking him, simply asking him to correct massive errors in his postings, which he, of course, never did. Doug could not accept even the smallest of criticism or questioning, and he turned himself into a victim when he couldn't deal with it. He will not be missed on this blog.