During our last stay down on the face of the Sierra Madre Oriental, days were confused by positive and negative clashes of information on various fronts. Yesterday, coming back up from the Quinta, it was amazing to see the number of tractor trailer rigs....really comment worthy. Many were in same company convoy, others just moving along. I was passed by scores of these trucks, almost all expertly handled....(there are always one or two jerks in the mix). A roughly equal number was encountered heading South into the interior, loaded with some American-orginated something.
For someone who grew up essentially travelling throughout Mexico, we still marvel to see transport trucks that have all 18 (or frequently 22) tires being the same brand, age, mileage, and "truth of axle". Such a think has been commonplace for about 15 years now, longer on 1st class and deluxe busses...but, back in the 1950s it was a marvel to see how many different wheels, tires, and whatever they could adapt to the issue of moving this thing to that place.
Big Bird?
The silliness over introducing Big Bird into the issue of this campaign, or a debate, is on a parallel path into the Brea Tar Pits. Parallelling paths include Miss Fluke's demand that someone pay for her birth control pills. All of this is driven by Democrat focus group respondents who famously have no remote notion of "what means" critical thinking. Democrat focus groups are well-known to be unable to respond to questions about certain common topics because they have never heard about the common topic under examination.
But! One thing stands out about the common Democrat voter; they love things that make them feel good. Big Bird has helped many a busy mother distract her little litter launchers during early morning and/or after-school episodes. So mothers love Big Bird. The children love amorphous, androgynous "beings"...(Big Bird, Barney)...and so it is a big, happy, warm, and fuzzy Daisy chain of parasitism.
It also feels good to remember that Big Bird comes from Sesame Street, where there are no churches or synagogues and where heroes are garbage scavengers, and where five year old girls lecture 50 year old men about moral issues and "social justice" and global cooling...I mean global....wait, it's polar bears and recycling to-day?
Also, Big Bird fits the template. He's unemployed, educated after a fashion that he's not even qualified to do jobs for which he feels he is too good to stoop. He's also able to take advantage of his Uncle's house AND his insurance until pigs fly and Government Motors pays back the bond holders and preferred stock owners from the days of the expropriation in 2009.
It would be so much nicer if Big Bird and all of his peculiar fifth-column strangoes could go out and support themselves, as did Fred and another famous Barney, as well as the Jetson. But, (sigh) Big Bird has the curse and blessing of having a very rich uncle.
The Military and the Cartel
The normal, reasonable, and commonly civil and inefficient Mexican rural condition has continued to improve over the past couple of months....faster than we thought it could. There were two major figures in our general area, very senior level, very animalistic who were taken down. One was killed, and perhaps better, the other one was captured. They had been encountered in a remote area in Coahuila State a few miles southwest of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
The captured one has been fingered as the ZETA area commander at the time of the situation on Falcon Lake. He has the unlikely nickname of ''ardilla" (squirrel). He is a remnant of a treasonous group of ranking sergeants of the Mexican Army from about 15 years ago now. (Has it really been that long?)
He was never a member of the Mexican Army. He post-dates the formation of the ZETA group. He was a child in the real heyday of the organisation. He has brutally killed many people personally, many of them illegal aliens from Central America who refused conscription into the new, improved ZETA organisation.
There is hope that "El Ardilla" will shed some light on the happenings at Falcon Lake.
What all does this mean to El Gringo Viejo or anyone else? Nothing more, really, than having to go out to the gate more frequently to receive "drop-in" type visitors who are moved to want to take a better look at our little mud hut on the Rio Corona and to census our gardens and stories. Perhaps business will soon return to normal.
Doing a bit poorly....nothing serious.
We have been beset upon by the Devil with having a bit of a runny nose which turned into a bit of throat discomfort and then a lot of slop being coughed up. Throw in some fever and a pre-disposition of moan and groan....we just haven't been really, really up and in the mood to attack yesterday and to-day. At this moment, we are feeling much improved.
It is fascinating how many women in general, and in particular the better three-quarters of the Gringo can have all this same symptoms and just keep right on going. But, for me, it just seems impossible to think with a fever.
More Later.
El Gringo Viejo
