Venezuela, Guns, Gangs, Mob Trade

This Associated Press article is a stunning revelation and

 admission by a normally leftist news organisation that

demonstrates the fact that  deranged, criminal groups

work hand-in-hand with the Chavez Thug Factory;

The Voice From the Sierra Madre Oriental knows, believes, and thinks that most of the guns and ammunition moving into the criminal sector of Mexico has little or nothing to do with private American gun dealers.   Illegal dealings in firearms in the United States is already dealt with and prosecuted under a mix of local, State, and central government laws that now number in the scores of thousands.   The most compliant with these laws are the non-criminal element.   The least compliant is the criminal element and the United States central government itself.

     The United States government remains committed to surreptitiously usurping firearm rights and to the total disarming of the American population.   That is the objective of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives arm of an increasingly totalitarian, marxist government, as presently composed in Washington, D.C.

      The fact is that most of the guns come from outside Mexico, usually from communist countries, or countries whose governments are intentionally involved in black market arming of drug cartels, Islamic terrorist groups, and "liberation movements" in various parts of the world.

      The central Mexico City zone of "El Tepito" and the anchor outlet of the Buenavista Market is the crowning glory of Mexico's organised crime.   As the saying goes, "if you can't find it in El Tepito, it was never made".   It is a 16 square block area in the very middle of Mexico City that is almost completely dedicated to the receiving and processing for sale of stolen goods.  Pilfering, burglary, prostitution, and all forms imaginable of illegal activity are centered there, just north and adjacent to the very centermost point of Mexico City.

     The area described in Caracas, entire parts of the city are something considerably different.   Assemblies of heavily armed, somewhat uniformed gangs make much of the slumland of Caracas a veritable 666 wonderland.    It is completely operated by hideously violent gangs who are hypnotically tranced out monks in the Satanic religion of Hugo Chavez's Communism.    If the OROG will study the above included picture, he or she will see religious art works modified to show the Jesus with a crown of thorns for some reason, and holding an AK47 rifle.   The other picture shows the the infant Jesus standing and holding a similar automatic weapon.    These gangs, as reported, zone off entire "colonias" of the city and practise "immigration control" by allowing or prohibiting entry or exit by the general population.

          The members of the various gangs, possibly as many as 250 in the city with organised structure and administration procedures,  essentially determine who comes and who goes, who lives and who dies.   They publicly execute people, force family members to eat body parts of executed individuals, and generally set the bar for their counterparts in Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador, and other places in Latin America.    They are the inspiration for the MaraSalvatruchas 13.

         When people and the American press strut around, huffing and puffing about Mexico's "cartel violence" and how superior we are to Mexico because we do not "permit spillover violence" they are fools.   When the American government or even local governments talk about how they are "preventing spillover violence", they are simply trying to justify bigger budgets for a police force that will ultimately be used against the American people.   They can do nothing about the MS13  except arrest a few thousand and deport or detain them.   They call that victory.   Mexico does a bit better because they have militarised the issue.
        But the gangs in Central America and Venezuela and Brazil are so depraved, violent, unpredictable, and drugged-up or drunk almost all the time that the world would be stunned if it were to know of their actions.   It would make Hitler look like an old Roman Catholic nun.    At least we can be comforted that there are only three or four million of them.    But they breed quickly, chiefly by bastardy.  Perhaps it is well that they kill so many of their own babies during their glue sniffing, everclear drinking, marijuana smoking, cocaine snorting, and methamphetamine escapades.    Perhaps it is well that they kill so many of each other during fights over a few feet of "territory".     In the new "socialist workers' paradise" that Hugo Chavez birthed upon the South American Continent, one can estimate that almost one million all but anonymous deaths...murders....killings have occurred among these people during Chavez's rule.

       While all of the gangs are indescribably violent, the ones that become the survivors are the ones that develop interior discipline and a "political philosophy" of a combination of "liberation theology'', some form of socialism, and a willingness to practise militant anarchy and/or nihilism.   The survivor gangs, clans, tribes...whatever...are also, ironically, the one who kill and terrorise and commit atrocities that are truly unthinkable.

       The gangs all support Chavez even as they fight among themselves for even a couple of yards of slum turf.  They also handle sales in bulk from the Venezuelan military of weaponry that is gathered from around the world.  The sales include criminal elements in Mexico.   Deliveries of these sales of Cuban, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Eastern European, Red Chinese, and North Korean arms are delivered onto the Mexican east coast and west coast via everything from tramp steamers, to cruise liners, to jerry-built submarines, and  "tuna fishing boat".

Chavez Seeks Leave: Fly to Cuba for More Cancer Treatment...

(drawn from Drudge Report) 

     It is commonly understood by the opposition in Venezuela that they will have to physically fight these ghastly, ghoulish gangs as well as secret government army squads during any election process that might still be allowed by Chavez or those like-minded totalitarian thugs who survive him.   He is returning to Cuba very quickly after having come back home.   His time may be limited. 

We're going to pick up the boss.   Thanks for your time and attention.

El Gringo Viejo 

A gentle suggestion....

It may be at times difficult to keep up with the eclectic, pin-ball machine activity of El Gringo Viejo's neurons and synapses.   It is recommended to scroll down and even dabble a bit in the "older" offerrings.    We do wish to assure that when we write about specific issues of war and peace in Mexico,with reference to the cartels, we are dealing with information derived from first or second hand, on the scene information.

      We derive information from official sources within government, military and/or police entities,  from the military privately at times, from press reports and from reporters speaking privately and off the record, and from other private citizens speaking privately and off the record.

       We have found that in all cases our information and interpretation has always been at least accurate in the transfer of information.   We also accurately assert that our information and interpretation of events is almost always better than what is being transmitted by the foreign press, especially the American mainstream media, and unfortunately, FOX News as well.

       Talk radio and overnight radio information is dismal, obnoxious, half-truthed, and even deliberately misleading, 90% of the time.   The OROG can imagine that something is dreadfully wrong with the United States if people are leaving to go back to Mexico....not because of deportation....but as El Gringo Viejo predicted four years ago, because Mexico would be entering into a labour-shortage situation and the United States would be entering into a prolonged period of somnambulatory economic activity.   Those things have come to pass.    Mexico stumbles away from socialism, along with Canada, and the United States falls into the same morass the Canutes and the Mexicans are leaving in the dust bin.   Hope and Change.

      We call attention to the fact that the return to normalcy in Mexico has become increasingly evident.    Much remains to be done, and the job will never be done in totality....man is born imperfect.    But while Mexico returns to something that might appear to be closer to normal, the social situation in Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina deteriorates by the hour.    Tomorrow a mainstream media report that exposes Hugo Chavez's and the Castro brother's involvement in weapons trafficking that makes minor leaguers like Obama and Eric Holder look like the the buffoons they are.

More later
Thanks for your time and interest as usual.

El Gringo Viejo

Rumblings from the Sierra Madre Oriental

Being away from the Quinta for such a length of time leaves the observer a bit in the dark about the nuts and bolts, the ins and outs, of activities South of the Border.    To be sure, anyone who says that he knows and understands everything that is happening in Mexico at any any given moment, past, present, or future, is a fool.   There are many such observers, some who even charge for their services.    This particular entry into the annals of Voice from the Sierra Madre Oriental is simply a bit of a summary of notions, observations, and a few facts about what is going on.

(1)    President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa :

                 The President enters his end days in office now, having served well.   My own evaluation of his service might even place him in the highest tier of Mexican Presidents who were worth more than a bucket of spoiled donkey mare's milk.    El Gringo Viejo gains no friends in some Mexican circles by citing the bad ones, in our opinion, such as Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Benito Juarez Garcia, Venustiano Carranza, Alvaro Obregon, Pllutarco Elias Calles, Lazaro Cardenas, Luis Echeverria Alvarez,  and Jose Lopez Portillo.    There are others who were just dumboes, and others who were "interim Presidents" who had little effect, good or bad.  There were others who had some value of a positive nature.

                  The greatest objection we have with Felipe Calderon is that he cannot resist the ancient Mexican political custom of blaming the United States for the interior problems of Mexico.   He does so much less frequently than most Mexican national level politicians, but that is to be expected from someone who comes to the political scene from the right wing of the spectrum.  Figure that demagoguery ranks about like this:

Percentage of Demagogic Bilge when mentioning the USA

Partido de Accion Nacional - PAN                                    13%
Partido Revolucionario Institucional - PRI              28

Partido Revolcionario Democratico - PRD               63

        

     These figures are highly scientific and approved by Nancy Pelosi, who will read them shortly after the OROGs have voted for this blog-entry.

      It is none of any foreign head of state's business what Arizona does with its relations concerning the central government of the United States of America.   It is none of any foreigner's business who, what, when, where, why, or how matters transpire within the govbernment and the people of the United States of America.   Not the Queen of England, the Prime Minister of Canada, or the President of Mexico or any other of their elected and/or appointed officials.

     While the President of Mexico did point out during his most recent visit, that the military and other authority in Mexico has recovered 150,000 or more firearms during the past 5 years with origins in the United States, he could well have pointed out that over 400,000 weapons such as automatic rifles and pistols, grenade launchers, hand grenades, and even bazookas have been decommissioned, whose origins were from Red China, Russia, Eastern Europe, Hezbollah, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.   El Gringo Viejo has had too, too many conversations with military personnel who freely admit that this is the case, and whose numbers have almost always been in very close focus.
      We are certain that the Mexican President, who is certainly an intelligent man, knows that the Fast and Furious debacle was an artificial construct, meant almost exclusively for the purpose of causing the death of a few Americans and/or American police so as to have a huge pin~ata made of gun dealers, gun owners, and any one else who is stupid enough to think that the American Constitution means anything.
       To the President of Mexico's kind attention, El Gringo Viejo also points out that Mexico is awash with firearms that are normally only found in large armies of small countries.    So, it might occur to him that, in spite of the draconian anti-gun and ammunition laws in Mexico....only the law abiding are disarmed.    The thugs, trash, cockroaches, gangs, and other human refuse are, however, qualified to have automatic weapons and unlimited access to Red Chinese ammunition for AK47s and AR16s.    Thankfully, the vast majority of the people who have been killed or wounded during the last 10 years have been the thugs, trash, cockroaches, gang members, and other human refuse.   But the innocent have also been unjustifiably punished.    Some 200 - 300 civilian deaths alone have been traced to the firearms moved in the Fast and Furious disaster.    Many of those were miscreants.  But others were women, children, soldiers, sailors, honest and semi-honest cops, who were killed because Obama and Holder thought the had a sure-fire way to forward the progressive agenda of disarming American civilians.
       The President did return from a relatively productive trip to Cuba, however.  He made very few friends among the higher ups in the Government by Gulag.   It is said that he made his overtures to Fidel and Raul about how Mexico would be willing to renew investment in the Cuban mess.   When Raul began to point out how the accomplishments of the "Revolucion" could not be compromised even while Cuba begins to make linkages with "friendly and understanding" nations, it is said that Calderon stood up and declared, "Gentlemen, I am on vacation.   I came to give you my message, not to listen to yours.   We'll go out an take our pictures and you can announce that the Revolucion is working as always for the betterment of the Cuban people and that we are all brother nations in Democracy".
      The President was insolently received at Jose Marti' Airport, which was to be expected.  He was received, for instance, by the Assistant Secretary for Foreign Relations.   He did have sit downs with Raul Castro and Congressional leader Alarc0n.   Distance has steadily increased between both official and man-on-the-street Mexico and the regime in La Havana de Cuba during the past 20 years.    Almost all of Calderon's statements in public were directed over the head of the media and directly to the Cuban populace.   He did speak about the future possibly involving Mexican private industrial investment.
     It is sad in a way.   Mexico is Cuba's number six or seven trading partner, but trade does not exceed 400,000,000 dollars total per year.    Mexico and the United States do about that much trade in a day and a half.    C0untries that trade with Cuba in declining rank are (1) Venezuela, (2) Red China  (3) Canada (4) Spain (5) Holland, then Mexico and the United States.    All of that commercial interaction barely totals 10,000,000,000 dollars.
      Cuba has little or  nothing to sell, and it cannot buy anything since it is broke.   Fidel is a zombie, but Raul has the metabolism of a 40 year old man.   So my granddaughters will get to grow up with the Castro-Ruz brothers, just like El Gringo Viejo has.
     Obama has ruined the mystique generale of the gringo.   No political leaders or presidents or dictators want to sidle up to the El Presidente Americano if he is not a tough, fair, real-live-pro-gringo gringo.   The grovelling apologiser is not the guy you want to stand beside at the bar in the Real World Saloon.

(2)    Please beware of news articles about the unpopularity of Felipe Calderon Hinojosa.   His overall approval ratings remain remarkably high.    The sober and silent Mexicans who are undecided about their vote this round have a very high level of possibility that they will keep to the right.    El Gringo Viejo had thought about printing bumper stickers in the blue and white....with slight orange accents....which are the PAN's battle colours....with the ancient highway sign admonition (before the days of deaf-mute, metric signs with circles and bars).
     The was a sign for the literate that stated "Conserve su derecha".....which means Keep to the right.   Anyway it was a thought, but it would have probably resulted in my being escorted to the border.   We'll leave everyone with what it might have looked like, more or less.   There will be more on the Mexico situation, politically and in terms of the peculiar calm that has settled over most of Mexico.   Perhaps it is Popocatepetl....or maybe it's the Mayan Calendar thing....or perhaps Al Gore is going to visit Mexico City and they are breaking out the snow ploughs.

                     CONSERVE SU DERECHA  -   Vote Josephina, Vote PAN


As always, we appreciate your presence on the blog, and your continued interest in the affairs we cover.
El Gringo Viejo

Fleeting Observations

(1)    There is a boy who drives the pickup out to our Ejido, all the way from Cd. Victoria, with about 8 medium sized ice-chests every morning....five, six, or seven days a week.   He sells pre-measured 1 kilo packs of freshly made corn tortillas that arrive still too-hot-to-handle.   He will frequently dally at our gate, although El Gringo Viejo only buys about 1 kilo per week (13 pesos at the current time).

     He likes to ask questions about his use of English, or how to say this or that.   We try to tell him to speak English at the same level he speaks his Spanish, and to avoid VHI and MTV and such.    Then, the time before last, he showed me a 1099 IRS form that showed his earnings for having worked in Wisconsin for five months during the last year.   His earnings had been about 11,500.oo American dollars.  The contracting firm had requested that he sign and send back the carbon in the return envelope that had been provided.  He had been concerned that he was in some kind of trouble.  He was assured that it was just a standard thing now.   Nobody owes anything.

     "I had wondered where you had gone," th Gringo Viejo inquired obliquely.

     "We go up every year, except the year before last." the Tortilla Man says.  He is a jovial fellow and smiles broadly after every finished statement.

    "What do the people make or produce?" another question comes at him.

    "The have farms and canneries and quick-freeze plants.   I do building maintenance and machinery preparation in the early mornings and put the machinery to sleep sometimes."

    El Gringo Viejo asks, "This is all money that you sent here?   Don't they charge you for room and board or anything?"

     "No, they tell me, no social security, no withholding.   Then our contractor says, no social security, no taxes.   He pays our taxes, but no social security.   We are paid 12.50/hour and out checks show a net of 11.77 per hour after the income tax."

      "And you receive the 11.77?   No problem?"

      "They send it to my house in Cd. Victoria in a money order every fortnight.   My wife puts it on the debit card.   But she's a good wife.  She spends very little. Mainly the house and our daughter.   They want me to come back again next year.   They can't get anyone there to work."

       "And they don't charge you for meals or a place to stay?"

       "I ask them to give me 30 dollars every week out of my check to buy things.   But they give me a small apartment at the plant.   Sometimes trucks come early in the morning, and I open the locks on the gates for them.   Sometimes I wash their trucks and they give me effectivo (cash)for that.   But my apartment is nice.  It has a bathroom with tile and I have a flat screen and cable, nice furniture.   It's not fun being away from the family.   But then I get to come back and help my mom and dad with this, and relax for seven months...at home all the time.  Our Tortilla business is really good."

     The mean old lady with the store near us is tapping her foot in the middle of our little trail, waiting for the truck to bring her delivery.   The tortillas are a little too big, and very well made, so she sells about twenty kilos every morning.   We state our departure good-byes and the boy "roars" off the 100 yards to her place.

     Bebe the Labrador is happy, because he knows El Gringo Viejo will play a bit of tortilla Frisbee with him on the very short walk back to the front door.    Bebe will catch it and bring it back a couple of times before just eating it.   They really are good tortillas.

(2)    We have communicated with the Quinta, and we have been informed that the security situation has been very, very quiet.    Cd. Victoria and all the surrounding counties...quiet.   Perhaps no more should be said.

(3)    The better half continues to improve....well into the A- level now, but she took quite a mule-kick in the gut.    So she is still not in the position to run any 100 yard dashes or  880 relays.

(4)    We are prepared to wait for every convoluted, tax-the-rich, Romney's a polygamist, "the Republicans want to starve the children" attack imaginable.    In Mexico, Josephina met with Fox in Monterrey and buried their differences (they clashed in intra-party[PAN] affairs before).   She continues to gradually build her percentages.   In the Pena Nieto (PRI) camp, there is grumbling that Ernesto likes to make sweeping ads, like intros to his wife's stupid telenovelas.    The party poobahs are certain that the people will tire of the "ads that say nothing'', and begin to listen to the conservative candidata and the leftist nut-case and forget about the PRI....leaving them to finish in 3rd place like the last two times.    We'll see.

Enough for the night.   Thanks for your time and interest!

El Gringo Viejo

Cain't Beat It With a Stick!

Humour, Ire, Wonder, and Frustration....

Among the OROGs are many, many more eloquent and well-stated than the Gringo Viejo.  My old buddy from days of yore is one of those more intellectually endowed who will write in occasionally with recommendations, corrections, and salient comments.    He arrives at certain points where the frustration of things like, "Why doesn't somebody make Obama understand .....blah, blah, blah.."   or the famous, "I think Obama is a loyal American who wants the best for this country. ....blah, blah, blah."  drive him back down to the television store to buy another flying-brick-proof television.    We meet down there frequently.   It's like buying another battery for your car.   They measure the time left on the warranty on the old television, figure our remaining credit and then we pay the difference on the new brick-proof television.    My last one only set me back about 43 dollars.

      He states things in a way that neither requires nor begs apology.   He very frequently states exactly what I am thinking, only in a more readily understood way.   To wit:

 0.)   I feel your mortality as I do mine.  The issue about belief in Jesus is huge.  To be a charismatic Christian or not, that is the question.  Never mind.  The ends make the means a difference without a distinction.

1.)   Without having any informed basis to comment, I believe the Mexicans who are dedicated are as good or better than any soldiers in the world excluding ours truly.  They have motivation without prejudice.  The problem I see is the dysfunctional bureaucracy/govt. with the disclaimer that the govt. appears to be struggling mightily to “do the right thing” unsolicited corruption notwithstanding.

2.)   University is not one size fits all nor is it appropriate for what could be more than 60% of the high school graduates.  There are alternatives that could shrink the number of unfit significantly i.e. associates studies, trade schools, OJT, last but not least the military.  The problem is education.  They need to go to university “to know what’s in it”.  Actually, the pressure for the urchins to attend college by family is absurd.  Not all your 90 IQ offspring are qualified or able to comprehend that level of dribble.  Then the vigorish to the government is equivalent to racketeering by the mob (wait… they are the mob).

Sorry.  I feel compelled to, rather commiserate with, your brilliant knowledge and analysis on most matters affecting the universe.  I will try to limit my inane commentary...

      This OROG's code name inside of our computer and files is EL Zorro.  We had thought about using his initials, but they are 'JR' and we did not want anyone to think that Larry Hagman had anything to do with this blog.   Larry Hagman can act like he was an officer in the Air Force hobnobbing with beauties like Barbara Eden, but while that show was going on El Zorro was actually serving in Viet Nam.   He did advanced technical work on the F-4 Phantoms, and also did black-ops work outside of, and adjacent to, Viet Nam, especially related to counter-insurgency and recovery.   He was one of the guys who won the war that the pinkoes in Congress decided to lose for us after we had withdrawn.   Thanks, Sen. Church.

This is Barbara.  She's a Republican.
She performed for the troops.
  After second thought we
decided Larry Hagman is a drunken pinko, so
we did not show a picture of him.

     Anyway, you all can see that OROGs are a literate bunch....most of them much better than El Gringo Viejo.   It is interesting how El Zorro can state forcefully in three paragraphs more goodies, and in pure Texian lexicon, than El Gringo Viejo.   Must work on my brevity!
El Gringo Viejo

All Saints Intervene in the Affairs of the Episcopal Church....We pray

We urge the intervention of  the Saints in the affairs of the Anglican Communion, especially the Episcopal Church, USA.    We ask that attention not be spared the Church of England as it drifts into its self-satisfying heresies.    We also recommend the site, The Anglican Curmudgeon, as usual.  There are still lighthouses in the storm.   His  is one of the good ones. 

The Anglican Curmudgeon has asked us to consider the absurd comments of highly placed personalities who hold power and fundamentaly Apostolic positions of authority in our Communion.   To wit:

The American Anglican Council has published on its Website a newly updated (as of April 2012) edition of its classic resource: Tearing the Fabric. The compilation is more useful than ever, but also more desultory than ever, as well.

It starts out with a collection of quotations from ECUSA's heretics, including this classic statement of the "faith once handed down" (not!) by the former rector of All Saints Pasadena (which shows why that church went the way it did):
"'I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to God except through me.' The first thing I want you to explore with me is this: I simply refuse to hold the doctrine that there is no access to God except through Jesus. I personally reject the claim that Christianity has the truth and all other religions are in error... I think it is a mistaken view to say Christianity is superior to Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism and that Christ is the only way to God and salvation." The Rev. Dr. George F. Regas, Rector Emeritus, All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, California, April 24, 2005, guest sermon at Washington National CathedralAnd of course, it does not fail to include gems from the Presiding Bishop, such as these:
TIME Question: Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, TIME Magazine interview, July 10, 2006 CNN Question: So what happens after I die?
Jefferts Schori: What happens after you die? I would ask you that question. But what‘s important about your life? What is it that has made you a unique individual? What is the passion that has kept you getting up every morning and engaging the world? There are hints within that about what it is that continues after you die. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, interview by CNN Live, June 19, 2006The document continues with a section on the "Fruits of TEC's Theology", including "Syncretism", "Promoting Abortion", "Weakening Traditional Marriage", and more.

It also has a useful compilation of ECUSA statistics, including a nifty graph showing the decline in active membership from 2.32 million in 2002 to 1.95 million in 2010. Then it concludes with a compendium of all the litigation with which ECUSA has harassed its congregations, bishops and clergy since 2004. The list of more than 78 lawsuits initiated by ECUSA and its dioceses demonstrates how their pace has accelerated in recent years.*

It is an invaluable resource, and I commend it to your attention.

We once again commend the Anglican Curmudgeon's site, which can be readily linked by searching just to the right of this posting....perhaps a little lower.   As according to the canons of our Holy, Catholic and Apostolic faith, you do not have to be Orthodox or Catholic to enjoy, enter, and study at his site.   It helps to be baptised by water in the Name of the Father, Son, and  the Holy Ghost....but nobody will check to see how wet your forehead or hair is.

El Gringo Viejo

El Gringo Viejo

Makes the poor Gringo Viejo crazy!

(1)    There are stories, circulated by McKlatchy News Service concerning the desertions in the Mexican military.
      This news service cites various un-named sources who moan about how crummy the service is and how low the pay is and how they don't want to make war on fellow citizens just to defend the rich. The news service cites the number of "nearly 50,000" soldiers and airmen who have deserted.

The Truth:
        Mexico has a form of national military service. Young men of a certain age are require to report once a month for rank and file formations, drill, weapons familiarity and marksmanship, military law and protocol, and so forth. This is done for one year. Some are chosen and asked to join the "regular Army", and many of those do, perhaps one-tenth or fewer.    They are the ones who have an inner military bent.

       Many who are momma's boys, poofies, communists, dumboes with no sense of obligation to the country, and some who are just shiftless and lazy, drift in and out of this obligation for part of the year, and just kind of evaporate along the way.    They are enrolled as members of the reserve training program, but their brief records indicate that they did not complete. They are noted as "desertadores". BUT! In Mexican military Spanish, this has the equivalent of the American military English of Absent Without Leave (AWOL). It is rarely punished.   They do have problems later in life when their "tarjeta militar" cannot be presented or it is not stamped "Sirvio'".

      The fact is that the men under arms at this time are very dedicated. The pay is relatively good, the benefits are good, the arms and equipment are good, and their mission is honourable and legally founded. Previous postings have the numbers who are under detention and the numbers presently serving and the numbers of personnel in combat and close combat support who have served and/or are serving since 2006. The official and the probable statistics are close....better than "close enough for government work"....and they are very good in terms of the morale of the troops and sailors,  especially considering the difficulty of the mission.

   And so that folks will know, last Saturday there was a "pursuit" by the Army against four thugs in two vehicles. The Army followed the thugs and their stolen vehicles out on the Monterrey highway to the west of Reynosa. Both vehicles were recovered and two of the thugs were wounded, all four were captured. There was a brief news article on one of the television stations, the reporter interviewing a business woman near where the incident began, wherein she stated, "I had gotten used to the pursuits and the battles. It's been so long since we had a good one, but this one was nothing...just two little cars. I was hoping we would have some more altercations so that the Army would stay in force longer."

(2) Why Romney evokes yawns when passion is required:

       We rightwing crazies say, "But, we cannot compromise with those who want to buy votes with someone else's money. It's a racket...Social Security, Medicare, AFDC, WIC, Section 8, Food Stamps, COLLEGE LOANS, and the like....It's all a racket. We cannot compromise!"

Now, with the nomination more or less comfortably in hand, Mitt decides that he likes the slavery producing, communist halls of higher (sic) learning funding college loan program that Father O'bamaham wants.

        Earth, Gravity, Solar forces to Mitt Romney!!!
      Money!   Give money to college bound urchins. Urchins give money to communist professors and overpaid university workers. There is more money now because Romney and O'bamaham want to give urchins more  free money! Therefore, since there are fewer "students" with more money in hand, the COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO RAISE TUITIONS AND OTHER CHARGES because they are staffed and run by leftist slugs who like to do little and be paid much. More money, same amount of product? Prices and charges rise. DUH? DUH! DUH? So, we pay,  and the urchins pay in order to be indoctrinated and told that the system is taking advantage of them, by making them slaves to the bank. Can you imagine how the commie professors are laughing up their sleeves?

      My urchins borrowed a bit, but they both totally paid their way, working much of their way through, with good grades and incredible life experience en route. They were forged and tempered. They started excellent and came out even better. There is no need to facilitate university tuition. It is not meant to be easy.   Many, if not most, of those who are on campus would be better off somewhere else.   A master underwater welder makes $300/hour.   First class and deluxe hotels are paying six figures to Managing Chefs, for instance.
      And, if overly facilitated, a graduate winds up as cannon fodder arrogant, ignorant college-drips who feel entitled to something and feel bitter and neglected because there were not 500 employers offering 100,000 dollar/year jobs to people with degrees in "History of Lesbian Circus Performers' Literary Works".

          ''And your degree is in "African Myths and Legends as a major, let's see here, Women's studies as a minor, with emphasis on Eskimoe Serial Murderers as a Justifiable Homocide Sub-group.    And you want 20,000 dollars/month to start, and a chauffeured limousine to take you to and from your office? We'll get right to it!

Thanks for your kind attention, as usual.   Negotiaing with a communist always starts with the communist declaring, "What is mine is mine.   What is yours is negotiable".   One cannot reason or compromise with a communist, a nazi, a socialist of any kind.    The want to dress your children in grey linsey-woolsey, and feed them all bread and water twice a day while they carry dung to the dung heap for Chairman Mao.
El Gringo Viejo

El Gringo Viejo has been in a WalMart, perhaps, 30 times in his life.   It seems to be the primary outlet for Peking's junque that cannot be unloaded into Indonesia.   The environs are depressing and the going and coming is wrought with all the same problems, at least down here, of drippy people who are dedicated to the leaving of grocery carts in the parking lot, with or without recently changed pampers.

     There are more and more people  who have learned, apparently that pampers really can last for one week without being changed.   They all seem to wind up at WalMart or the grocery stores or the public parks or anywhere El Gringo Viejo happens to be walking in low-light situations.    We try not to get out much anymore.

     HOWEVER, lest all be dismayed, the WalMart issue will be flogged, a la Miss Flukie and the women who were so offended by Herman Cain, and the Guatemalan illegal alien who wept over her horrible treatment by Meg Whitman, for as long as the story will stay on the front page, then on the second page, and then on the first page, second B.     Then it will make the rounds in the editorial sections of newspapers nobody reads any longer.

      The same crowd, those with IQs under 90 and those disposed to be Bolshevik or National Socialists, will howl to the heavens (which do not exist), about exploitation and corruption.  The left can strike a blow for liberte', fraternite', egalite' once again....dragging out the guillotines and the gut-wagons to lug the rich and titled to the chopping bloque.   Whack!!  Hurrah, vive la revolution!   Go Frida Go!

      But before they walk into the door like Miss Flukie, Pelosi, et. al. allow us to state that little will come from this "scandal".   Please remember that the Left hates certain things.   One is a Mexican Republic under a common law schema, under the governance of a conservative and especially non-marxist regime.   The next thing is anything that causes the lower-middle class to form up and stabilize and thus become less beholden to labour bosses and politicians who want to "help" them.    Wal Mart is one of those institutions.   They have faced the same union bilge and "discrimination" against women, corruption of local officials charges from their first arrival in Mexico. The two things are related, in this case.

     Understand that WalMart went into Mexico under the umbrella of the Grupo Cifra and the Grupo Aurrera, a mega-important Mexican-Spanish retail and restaurant consortium.   This was back in the 1990s.  WalMart de Mexico, SA went the route of having a "white union" instead of the old mossback, totally corrupt official union...the Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos.   For so long as the PRI was running every detail of business and labour law in Mexico, business and labour pretty much had to do the wishes of the "officials" and "important people".     Americans have been taught by people who do not know anything that the "rich people" in Mexico run everything.   For those of us who hang around in Mexico too much, we know this a wry joke, because we have seen the hundreds of times that some lower level slob labour-leaderof a local affiliate of the CTM could whip up a group of employees at some factory or business and close the business down....sometimes permanently.

   With the Free Trade Agreement and other liberalisations of the labour law, the requirement that businesses with a certain number of employees assure that those employees are members of  (the)(a) labour union, it also became possible to form and operate "non-official" unions....totally unaffiliated, independent, and unconcerned about being a force for PRI party "voter mobilisation".

     WalMart is presently the largest employer in the private sector in Mexico, especially when one includes the SAMs operation.   Since entering into partnership with the Cifra organisation (the father of Aurrera Group), WalMart has caused price decreases throughout the "food chain".  The public is wildly supportive of WalMart, and even the hootsy-tootsy people who look like actors and actresses from the telenovelas and the rich folks are seen in WalMart, without bags over their heads.   It is telling that the community of Teotihuacan, which is adjacent to the archaeological zone of the same name, was going to have a WalMart.  Various Indian Rights groups from all over the New World came to protest.   Televisa and all the PRI and PRD mossbacks trundled out to moan and whine and talk about "sacred ground".
Then the people who live in Teotihuacan held protests which were explained by CNN to be "protests" against WalMart's plans.   Oddly, in one televised broadcast, the stupid reporter was speaking very authoritatively  about how the "people" had mobilised against this horrid incursion unto 'sacred ground of the native Americans"...when in the background were hundreds of people holding pennants and home-made signs with the epithet "PRO-WALMART".    Apparently the stupid, ignorant, or intentionally mendacious reporter figured that the gringos watching the "news" article would be too stupid to figure out the signs.
     WALMart built the store anyway, just a little closer to the village.

     With all this said, and with a female conservative party candidate making a reasonable bid for the Presidency, the left has pulled out all stops....operating with its American brethren, to assault WalMart with any combination of criticism, outright lies, physical intimidation, and negative propaganda, disseminated via a willing pro-socialist press, which, as we know, is abundant both in the United States and Mexico.   Nothing is lost on the fact that Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, is also a claptrap for the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (the old official government party) and the owner of the New York Times, the water-bucket carrier for the "corruption story" now flooding into the American sensibility zone.    This assault by members of the Zuno family from Guadalajara...(in-laws of the disgusting pro-communist, totally corrupt, madman Luis Echeverria Alvarez, President from 1970 - 1976), and other old, immensely wealthy limosine liberal lefties of the PRI have always hated WalMart....because WalMart, like the Maquiladoras left these mastodons in a real lurch.   Like they frequently say..." It's just terrible what all this industry and commerce has done to things.   You just can't get a girl to work in the house any more, and if you find one, she want 100 pesos a day and the holiday and benefit package.   It's just terrible."We used to be able to get one for 30 pesos a day and a meal.   Just terrible".

     In other words, this is a Miss Flukie sham.   Again.   The "corruption" is that the Aurrera format is to pay the Notario Publico (a super-attorney in Mexico, who has the authority to draft agreements concerning real estate and permanent structure title establishment and transfer).   The Notario Publico might or might not determine if "lubrication" might be worthwhile to effectuate the timeliness of real estate transfer, the permitting process for construction, the engineering report acceptance, and other preliminary details.   WalMart will figure out how to apologise for any errors....which are actually none....and how to express contrition to the press and the Bolshies who hate WalMart, and this will have been something akin to running over a possum in a rainstorm within six months.

     It is strange the Boshies and other pinkies hate WalMart so.   Without WalMart, Mao's "Revolution" would have ground to a halt 20 years ago.

A time-line, so that the OROGs will know WalMart's history in Mexico.

          . 1957   the Arango brothers, Jerónimo, Placido and Manuel, founded the stores Aurrera

                        thinking in a supermarket model, with household items and clothing at cheaper

                        prices.    Aurrera in Basque means "Let's go!"...or an emphatic  "Come On!"

• 1958: Opens the first store Aurrera, with the branche Bolívar.
• 1960: Begins to operate stores Superama 1960.
• 1964: Starts operations Vips Restaurants 1964.
• 1970: Begins Suburbia and Bodega Aurrerá operations.
• 1976: Inaugurate First Distribution Center in Mexico (in Spanish, CEDIS).
• 1978: Opening of restaurants El Portón (The Gate).
• 1986: Makes the organization Grupo Cifra, for the administration of stores and restaurants in Mexico.
• 1990: Aurrerá starts the barcode system in Mexico.
• 1991: Wal-Mart and Cifra makes a joint venture. Creation of the International Division of Wal-Mart Stores and signed a partnership agreement with Cifra. Born the first Sam's Club in Mexico.
• 1993: Began operations Wal-Mart Supercenter. The supermarkets Aurrerá changes style and design in Walmart stores.
• 1994: They're joined Suburbia and Vips inner the association Cifra/Wal-Mart Distribuidora, S.A. de C.V.
• 1997: Wal-Mart buys most of the shares and acquiring control of the company.
• 2000: Grupo Cifra renames figure at Wal-Mart de Mexico.
• 2001: Aurrera stores become Walmart Supercenters and Warehouse Aurrera.
• 2005: Walmart Mexico makes the stores Mi Bodega Aurrera currently has over 50 units in various parts of the Republic. It's a variant of Bodega Aurrera, with less area and products.
• 2007: Bodega Aurrera has about 300 units driving prices lower for much of the Mexican Republic.

Just a bit of explanation.   Thank you all for your time and interest.
El Gringo Viejo

Actuarials and Reality

The number of zombies, druggoes, and head-cases wandering around loose in the United States is flabbergasting.   The article below about Chicagoland is repeated in hundreds of venues throughout our nation.      Any metroplex with 200,000 people or more has this report. Just this week, a trio of slugs who live only a block from our little place, decided to kill a girl with whom they were doing business. Their business is burglary, receiving and selling stolen goods, and now, at least least one case, premeditated, cold-blooded murder.   One of the three is now charged with the shooting of  a 23 year-old girl in the lower part of the back of the head and dumping her body off on the edge of an important secondary street in the McAllen, Texas area. She was a daughter of an important merchant in the area. She was also en league with the other three in their other 'business pursuits". None of the males involved had crossed the age of 20 years yet.

      Three more were gunned down a few miles northeast of McAllen during a session of mid-night basketball....except here instead of a basketball, they use two roosters and betting tables. There were several score "people" at the cockfights, and all managed to escape, save for three who were killed, when a group of thugs arrived, faces covered with ski-masks, and opennned fire of the crowd.

And on, and on.

 Below is the reality of Chicago.   This is the reality of every large urban center that has a large urban population that has been raised up on public assistance and/or a secular humanist "school" environment.   El Gringo Viejo makes this inclusion, and attributes the article to the Chicago Sun Times and local FOX Channel 2:

9 Dead, At Least 15 Wounded in Citywide Shootings

Updated: Monday, 16 Apr 2012, 3:21 PM CDT
Published : Sunday, 15 Apr 2012, 8:25 AM CDT

Sun-Times Media Wire

Chicago - Nine people were killed and at least 15 others wounded in shootings across the city from Friday night through Monday morning, including a cabbie found shot to death in his cab, and a 25-year-old woman police believe was targeted after she was shot multiple times.

This weekend’s fatal shootings include:

• David Loggins, 52, shot in the neck at 1:23 a.m. Saturday in the 6500 block of South Champlain Avenue.
• Adegboye Oguntade, 31, of south suburban Lansing, found shot to death in his taxi about 2:45 a.m. Saturday in the 1200 block of West 69th Street.
• Michelle Gregory, 21, was shot multiple times about 4:30 a.m. Saturday after arguing with someone at a party in the 3900 block of West 19th Street.
• Erik Loggins, 40, was found shot dead in his home about 12:40 p.m. Saturday in the 9700 block of South Carpenter Street.
• Darryl Davidson, 23, was shot twice in the chest about 1:45 a.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of South Springield Avenue.
• Brandon Miles, 19, was shot twice in the back about 2:50 a.m. Sunday in his home in the 1000 block of North Waller Avenue. Sources said he was standing in front of a window in his living room watching TV when he was struck by rounds fired from outside.
• Kimberly Harris, 25, was shot multiple times in the face, head, chest and legs about 7 p.m. Sunday in the 2900 block of West Arthington Street. She was shot three times in the face alone, and police said they believe she was purposely targeted because of the extensive number of times she was shot.
• An unidentified man in his 20s or 30s who was shot in the head was found by police at 3:55 a.m. Monday in the 4500 block of West Jackson Boulevard.
• An unidentified man was standing on the porch of a home when he was fatally shot in the 5800 block of South Shields Avenue at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

At least 15 others were wounded in shootings, including three women who were shot about 10:25 p.m. Saturday night by a male gunman who’d been turned away from a party in the 13200 block of South Vernon Avenue. None of the women suffered life-threatening injuries.

No one is in custody in any of this weekend’s shootings, according to police..

And, yes there is no Al Sharpton. No Jesse Jackson. No one to set things straight. What is to come of us without Al's and Jesse's and O'bama's help? Who will feed the children? Who will give Miss Flukie her new replacement back-up bi-polar-solar-batteries for her portable sola-powered aborto-matic kit for free? Who?

Asking the questions that much be answered.

El Grngo Viejo

Update on Josephina's Progress

http://www.eleccion2012mexico.com/estadisticas/encuesta-eleccion-2012-mexico

     Click onto the above linkage to see that our right-wing girl is performing almost precisely as El Gringo Viejo thought and hoped she would.   The pretty boy, Pen~a Nieto of the old government party has steadily lost his relatively shallow support.   Unfortunately, however, the latter-day communist, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has managed to work into a fairly strong third place.    We are somewhat surprized by this showing.

     It does come, however, after several weeks of his apologising about the shutdown of the centre of Mexico City for 2 months following the last  Presidential elections.   He is also promising to never be so rash and self-empowered ever again.   Thankfully, he is going back to his old habit of making long, boring, rambling speeches that sound word-for-word like Father O'bamaham's marxist gibberish.   He can draw a fairly good crowd that comes to collect the free t-shirts and belly-bag giveaway items.....but by the time he finishes his speeches, most of the crowd has left, or is slumped over asleep.

      Be very wary of AP and McClatchy reports about Josephina, since they spend most of their time ridiculing her and making up some stories out of whole cloth.   The "encuestas" included in the linkage above will tell the whole story.   It is complicated, but political junkies will see the "path to Victory" in attitudinal breakout  (the 6 supporting graphs).   Also working in our favour is the fervour level, which is highest for Josephina, and much lower for the two men.

 

Just an update.

El Gringo Viejo

Al Goar's Guest Editorial

Dear Little People:

     You little people really need to understand that we good people really do know more than you do. Anything you little people who study history and move through life guided by the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, and the Catechism of normalcy, deference, decency, and stewardship are not really smart enough or deep enough to have any true notion about Earth – Sun relationships.
       You see, it is only we who call for Reason who can remind you that in 40 years we have saved the Planet from an absence of Polar Bears, white tail deer, and numerous other major mammals who are so numerous now that we have to pass on a daily basis, in the case of the deer, three or four dead ones who are splattered on non-expressway, common streets in and around Central Texas. Luckily, many are not splattered, because they are busy sleeping in our garages with the racoons during cold weather snaps. Then they can wake up and eat our gardens for brunch.
      It is we who warned of the dangers of Global Warming long before McAllen, Texas had a White Christmas….with a 10 inch snow, Christmas, 2004. (Check Mcallen's location on Planet Earth through your Google Earth access.)
      It is we who, because of our superior, more concerned, much more ethical than all you little people who probably own guns and go to Mass at a conservative rite Anglican Church, and believe in something bigger than yourselves, are actually concerned about the true soul of the Planet that weeps because of the poverty of the many and the useless wealth and acquisition of the 1%.

We are the ones who saved the Planet from the Silent Spring.
We are the ones who saved the Planet from the Global Freeze of the 1970s.
We are the ones who, with Jane Fonda’s help, saved the planet from Nuclear Winter.
We are the ones who saved the Planet from the Ozone hole.
We are the ones who saved the Planet from Climate Change.
We are the ones who saved Miss Flukie’s virginity with a solar powered chastity belt,
and who gave her a wind powered, portabortion kit to carry with her at all times, free.

      We are the ones who overlook the fact that a Confederate rube can study at the knee of his PhD. brother, a graduate level professor of geography at Louisiana State University, who was involved in the establishment of the concept of a geostatic, space-based missile intercept satellite system, learning at the same time that the corruption of the Army Corps of Engineers coupled with the corruption of the locale that is New Orleans would cause another flood of the city, and that communists, anarchists, and nihilists were planning even in the 1960s to invent CLIMATE DISASTER SCENARIOS to scare the beejeebies out of school children so as to advance the cause of “social democracy”.
     We are the ones who foisted the lie about, “A plastic water bottle. One day in you back-pack, an eternity in a landfill”. Who knew that children could figure out that a plastic water bottle cannot last 3 weeks in any remotely identifiable form in a real landfill. We’ll have to figure out how to kill Bambi in the movies in a better way so as to scare the beejeebies out of the ignorant and the children.

      Why don’t you little people go on back to your little pointless lives and let us who know better take care of the big issues. We can hate Good, Beauty, Normalcy, Natural Law, Prosperity, Achievement, Family, Clean, Self-sufficiency, Liberty, Family, Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism much better than any of you little people.

An inconvenient truth to the rescue.

Al Goar

ps.   Just because there are "wind farms" that are idle and being (truly) subsidized because they cannot sell their electricity since the wind blows at inconvenient times, and since the propeller blades are all made in Mexico or Norway....doesn't mean that my proposal to put one wind generator every 60 yards throughout America is a bad idea.

Inconveneintly yours,

Al (Mr. Massage) Goar.

(A Revisitation) San Jacinto Day was 21 April 1836. Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad. May they all Rest in Peace.

General Vicente Filisola

     The gentleman pictured above was many things.   He was a Spaniard with an Italian name.  He was a veteran of the Napoleanic Wars, and a distinguished Spanish soldier.   He came to New Spain late in the colonial period and served during the transition from Spanish to Mexican control of that area which now would include all of Mexico, Central America, western Canada, and most of what would become the western half of the United States of America.    For a brief period during the rule of Emperor Agustin de Iturbide I of the Mexican Empire 1821 - 1823, General Vicente Filisola served his Emperor as Governor of Central America.

      The good General served only briefly, however, due to the overthrow of the Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Mexico in 1824.   He did provide for an orderly transition from Mexican control to local governance and order, and withdrew his Imperial Army back into Mexico and joined the re-organised Army as a brigadier.

      It is said that Filisola was probably the one who inspired Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to think of himself as...."The Napoleon of the West"....because of Lopez de Santa Anna's fascination with Napoleon Bonaparte and the legends associated with that Corsican.   Filisola was one of the few people in anyones army who had officer level dealings on a Napoleonic field of battle.

    Vicente Filisola is important to Texans because he was one of those Generals immediately under the command of the all important, self-consumed, pompous Generalissimo Presidente Lopez de Santa Anna.    Along with Filisola, and Perfecto de Cos, the Presidente's brother-in-law, and old Castrillon, and Ramirez y Sesma....all Spaniards  by birth and world view, there was also Brigadier Jose' Urrea, the Indian Fighter, a Davy Crockett figure, at once both rough-cut, and aristocratic, and oddly one of only two  Mexican general officers fighting in the Texas War of Independence who were born Mexicans.

    The commander in chief Lopez de Santa Anna, and the lowest ranking general officer were Mexicans.   Lopez de Santa Anna had moved three large elements from all parts of the country from January up to mid-February to do battle against a crafty bunch of scrappers in a place called "nowhere" by some and Texas by others.   Urrea moved a third of the Army along the Texas Coast, aiming to unify with the main body of the Army around a place called San Jacinto.   Urrea also moved quickly, like an early form of blitzkrieg, although he had five major battles against Texian units numbering from 100 to 500 combatants in each case, and several significant skirmishes which tested his 2,400 effectives severely.   He is best remembered, however, as the Mexican general who left orders to deal fairly and well with the Texian Colonel Fannin and the 440 Texian prisoners, only to have his orders countermanded by the Generalissimo Presidente.   So while Urrea had moved up to Victoria del Rio Guadalupe a few miles from Goliad, his subordinate received orders underlining the existing orders from the High Command that all found holding arms against the government would be executed for treason.

     Here, El Gringo Viejo enters a well-documented but rather neglected fact about the the issues of personality, strategy, tactics, honour, and the business of war that the Mexicans were undergoing even as they were winning, fairly easily against the insurrectionists.  To wit:

Gen. Jose' Urrea

"I was unable, therefore, to carry out the good intentions dictated by my feelings, overcome by the difficult circumstances that surrounded me. I authorized the execution, of thirty adventurers taken prisoners, and setting free those who were colonists or Mexicans      "These orders always seemed to me harsh, but they were the inevitable result of the barbarous and inhuman decree which declared outlaws those whom it wished to convert into citizens of the republic,  I wished to elude these orders as far as possible without compromising my personal responsibility.       "They doubtlessly surrendered confident that Mexican generosity would not make their surrender useless, for under any other circumstances they would have sold their lives dearly, fighting to the last. I had due regard for the motives that induced them to surrender, and for this reason I used my influence with the general-in-chief to save them, if possible, from being butchered." Diary of the Military Operations of the Division which under the Command of General José Urrea Campaigned in Texas February to March 1836 Translation from Carlos Casteñeda's The Mexican Side  of the Texan Revolution (Some headings added by  current editor, WLM) For Biographies, Search Handbook of Texas Online Extract from the Diary of Col. Nicolás de la Portilla In a Letter Portilla to Urrea....."I feel much distressed at what has occurred here; a scene enacted in cold blood having passed before my eyes which has filled me with horror. All I can say is, that my duty as a soldier, and what I owe to my country, must be my guaranty...." March 26. At seven in the evening I received orders from General Santa Anna by special messenger, instructing me to execute at once all prisoners taken by force of arms agreeable to the general orders on the subject. (I have the original order in my possession.) I kept the matter secret and no one knew of it except Col. Garay, to whom I communicated the order. At eight o'clock, on the same night, I received a communication from Gen. Urrea by special messenger in which among other things he says, "Treat the prisoners well, especially Fannin. Keep them busy rebuilding the town and erecting a fort. Feed them with the cattle you will receive from Refugio." What a cruel contrast in these opposite instructions! I spent a restless night. sdct March 27. At daybreak, I decided to carry out the orders of the general-in-chief because I considered them superior. I assembled the whole garrison and ordered the prisoners, who were still sleeping, to be awaked. There were 445. (The eighty that had just been taken at Cópano and had, consequently, not borne arms against the government, were set aside.) The prisoners were divided into three groups and each was placed in charge of an adequate guard, the first under Agustin Alcerrica, the second under Capt. Luis Balderas, and the third under Capt. Antonio Ramírez. I gave instructions to these officers to carry out the orders of the supreme government and the general-in-chief. This was immediately done. There was a great contrast in the feelings of the officers and the men. Silence prevailed. Sad at heart I wrote to Gen. Urrea expressing my regret at having been concerned in so painful an affair. I also sent an official account of what I had done, to the general-in-chief. [Portilla to Urrea, Goliad, March 26 1836 and Portilla to Urrea, Goliad, March 27, 1836] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~      El Gringo Viejo and many old timey Texans know these stories, but they are not well known any longer.   Newly arriving people with Mexican backgrounds assume they know all and newly arriving people from the United States and elsewhere have seen Davy Crockett on Disney or some variation, and are certain in their knowledge of the issues involved with the period from 1829 through 1846 and the Texas situation.      This is not said with any particular arrogance.   It is known that what El Gringo Viejo knows from his own research is now useless information.  Nothing matters in the course of human conduct that cannot be compressed into a six-word phrase to put on a bumper sticker.   What is past is no longer prologue, but rather simply useless white-noise on the left side of the time line.       But as an enemy the man pictured below is known among the old, last remaining Texans who know what Texas really was, as an honorable enemy....a good and patriotic man involved in a grisly profession.    Something like Rommel, perhaps. Manuel Fernández Castrillón (?–1836) Fought Texians both at the Battle of the Alamo and at the Battle of San Jacinto.

Castrillon was Santa Anna's ally through much of their working relationship, but Castrillón often took exception to Santa Anna's decisions during the Texas Revolution. He opposed the hurried assault on the Alamo. Yet when he received his orders to lead the battle's first column of troops, he did so with expert efficiency.

A humane and honorable soldier, Castrillón also pleaded clemency on behalf of the seven Texian fighters who survived the Alamo siege. Castrillón's arguments for mercy were ignored, and the men were executed. Castrillón again stated his protest when Santa Anna ordered the execution of the Goliad prisoners.

Castrillón's compassion was a sign of kindness, not weakness. When the Texians roused Mexican forces from their afternoon siesta on 21 April 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto, he was one of the few Mexican officers to stand his ground.

His bravery was recorded in the memoirs of Texian second lieutentant Walter Paye Lane:

"As we charged into them the General commanding the Tampico Battalion (their best troops) tried to rally his men, but could not. He drew himself up, faced us, and said in Spanish: 'I have been in forty battles and never showed my back; I am too old to do it now.'

He continues: "Gen. Rusk hallooed to his men: 'don't shoot him,' and knocked up some to their guns; but others ran around and riddled him with balls. I was sorry for him. He was an old Castilian gentleman, Gen. Castrillo."

Honored on both sides of the Texas Revolution—except by Santa Anna, who blamed the loss at San Jacinto in part on Castrillón—he was even buried in the family graveyard of Lorenzo de Zavala, the vice-president of Texas.

     So, all these major footnotes are added into the blog in order to celebrate the victory tomorrow, the 21st day of April, 1836 of the Battle of San Jacinto.   Normally creditted to the efforts of Gen. Sam Houston, who truly was a bigger than life figure, the truth is that Houston was painfully wounded at the beginning of the battle, by a musket ball to the right foot.   It was Gen. Somervell, commanding, and the surprize rush of the limited cavalry of the Texian force of a bit fewer than 700 men.....attacking on a Sunday morning.   The head of the cavalry was Capt. Juan Seguin, an arch-enemy of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.   The resolve of the Texian force to gain Independence, avenge the atrocities of Goliad and the Alamo allowed the inferior force to pin into a peninsula surrounded by a snake infested bayou, and then essentially destroy the effective force of an Army of 2,500 with superior munitions, armament, artillery, cavalry, stores, and so forth.

     Going back to Gen. Vicente Filisola, it was he who took control of the Mexican Army as it withdrew from San Jacinto.   Lopez de Santa Anna remained under arrest and would later be tranferred to Washington D.C. as an oddity and war-trophy of sorts.   He had been the best general in the field, but also the one most prone to err through arrogance and hubris.   Some say his membership in the Mason Scottish Rite order saved him from a rough and ready gallows at San Jacinto, since Houston and Somervell were both brother Masons.

     Filisola was met with his columns by Urrea, who forced control from Filisola, and took command of the withdrawal.   The two men would argue and write accusations against one another, and each would write interesting, if self-serving accounts of their experiences during the War.   It is the opinion of El Gringo Viejo that Urrea was the better soldier and was truthful concerning his wishes for the good treatment of the Goliad prisoners of war.

      Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna blamed both of them for everything;  Urrea for arriving too late to San Jacinto, Filisola for not mucking through the mud with cannons and stores any faster (he actually moved 2,000 men, animals, and stores faster than Santa Anna had moved his Army away from San Antonio in pursuit of Houston's Army.)   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was a lot like Obama in his ability to blame everything on everybody but himself.

Committed to the dull truth, which always seems to wind up being far more interesting than the false legends or any fiction.....El Gringo Viejo resigns the evening and promises to return to more tales that interest him, and he hopes, the OROGs everywhere.

El Gringo Viejo