A Gringo in Rural Mexico: More on Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.....Study these passages and apply them to to-day....perhaps....

Monday, 2 May 2016

More on Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.....Study these passages and apply them to to-day....perhaps....

Antonio López de Santa Anna

(Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón)

A Chronology

It will or should be noted by the reader that following graphic below these comments are prepared in the most Spartan sensibility.....perhaps a Jack Webb / Sergeant Friday moment. We think it best to use such a "Just the facts, Ma'am" approach so as to avoid the fixation people tend to have with stereotypes concerning the gloriousness of despots with fancy uniforms. We might allow that Lopez de Santa Anna is possibly the most audacious and self-absorbed of all the high names and personalities of the New World. He is most certainly among, at the very least, the top fifty.

The wonder is most certainly that he could come and go, approach and sit upon the Throne of Mexico, and then abandon said throne long before any programme....economic, national infrastructural, criminal and civil law, foreign relations....could ever be adequately put into place and action.

He has been pictured to the public as a slight man, of short stature. We see him, at times, compared to Napoleon Bonaparte....who was short....thereby explaining Antonio's peacockery and posturing as a product of the inferiority complex that he derived from being short. But...he was not short. For his day, in fact, he was "high-moderate" or "low-tall". His height was normally estimated to be what would now be 5 foot 10 inches and his weight no more or less than 145 pounds....without his formal 20 pounds of uniform, epaulets, medals and medallions, and boots and headdress. Travis, Bowie, Sequin, de Zavala would have been "body doubles" in the dark.

It is probable that he had a form of mild epilepsy, not because he was in the habit of taking opium and/or cocaine, and significant amounts of the powder 'lithium carbonate; along with wine of the very best European and Mexican and New World vintages. But, we must remember that such prescriptions were commonly rendered by the physicians at that time, especially for patients who had money and position.
Hear these comfortable words of Wikipedia concerning lithium:

In 1843, lithium carbonate was used as a new solvent for stones in the bladder. In 1859, some doctors recommended a therapy with lithium salts for a number of ailments, including gout, urinary calculi, rheumatism, mania, depression, and headache. In 1948, John Cade discovered the antimanic effects of lithium ions. This finding led lithium, specifically lithium carbonate, to be used to treat mania associated with bipolar disorder.

Lithium carbonate is used to treat mania, the elevated phase of bipolar disorder. Lithium ions interfere with ion transport processes (see “sodium pump”) that relay and amplify messages carried to the cells of the brain.^[8] Mania is associated with irregular increases in protein kinase C (PKC) activity within the brain. Lithium carbonate and sodium valproate, another drug traditionally used to treat the disorder, act in the brain by inhibiting PKC’s activity and help to produce other compounds that also inhibit the PKC.^[9] Despite these findings, a great deal remains unknown regarding lithium's mood-controlling properties.^{[citation needed]}

Use of lithium salts exhibit a number of risks and side effects, especially at higher doses. Lithium intoxication affects the central nervous and renal systems and is potentially lethal.

The site of the old Hacienda Manga del Clavo

While this above analysis speaks to a date of 1843 as being the time of the "coming out" of Lithium, it had been used in Europe, especially for titled people, and the wealthy, and others of the endowed classes since the earliest part of the 18th Century....especially in France, and the German principalities. It might have been used even earlier in Turkey and Persia.

The Hacienda El Lencero - Lopez de Santa Anna's
Favourite property....only a few miles from Manga del
Clavo, which was destroyed by the American Military
during the Mexican - American War

Concerning this chronology, below-included, we urge the reader to understand that each time His Excellency would decide to either abandon or re-occupy the Presidential Throne, it was a matter of an extremely arduous journey.....from low to high altitude....bananas that produced year around and elhechos arboleras (ferns the size of large trees).....and crossing into or back out of places that have known no month without significant snowfall. From Manga del Clavo at 2,000 feet above sea level, crossing mountain passes at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, either way arriving to or leaving from the City of Mexico at 7,600 feet elevation, the journey could take ten days or a month or perhaps even more. If the rains were to be extremely heavy during the two rainy seasons, it might require a couple of months, at times, to travel the 140 mile distance, (in those times) .

To-morrow, we shall try to put an end to some of this wistful and pointless eulogy to a Supreme Narcissist. There are two two or three telling points about this individual that will help further compound the perplexity he causes and also cause the reader to wonder why someone did not take him out back and do humanity a favour.

Biographical Note

President of Mexico.

Born 1794 or 1795 in Jalapa; died 1876 in Mexico City.

Began military career in 1810; promoted to brigadier general in 1822. Offices and honors include: governor of Yucatan (ca. 1825 and 1829), governor of Veracruz (1828), benemérito de la patria (1829), and benemérito en grado heróico (1835).

Santa Anna was first named president of Mexico on March 30, 1833, which position he repeatedly abdicated and resumed until leaving the office for the final time in 1855.

He led Mexican forces in 1835 and 1836 in the campaign against Texas independence, and in 1847 in the war with the United States. During the latter he served alternately as president and as military commander.

Santa Anna spent repeated periods of exile in the Caribbean.

Upon one return to Mexico in February 1864, he promptly was deported by General Achille Bazaine for failing to abide by the terms of the agreement allowing his reentry. Santa Anna was imprisoned in 1867 then exiled until 1874, when he returned to Mexico under a general amnesty.

He died in poverty in Mexico City on June 20, 1876.


Chronology
	21 Feb 1794/5	born in Jalapa, Veracruz
	6 July 1810	entered the Veracruz infantry as a cadet
	13 March 1811	went with his regiment to Tampico to suppress insurgents working for the separation of Texas
	1813	returned to Veracruz, promoted for bravery to first lieutenant
	1814	made aide to General Dávila, royalist commander of Veracruz
	March 1816	promoted to captain
	March 1821	given command of troops in Veracruz, sent to rescue Orizaba and Córdoba from pro-independence forces
	23 March 1821	arrived in Orizaba, defeated the insurgent Miranda
	29 March 1821	General Herrera arrived, as did dispatch from Viceroy making Santa Anna lieutenant colonel as reward for Miranda's defeat; Santa Anna joined Herrera in support of Iturbide
	25 April 1821
	July 1821	surrounded Veracruz and suggested that his old protector General Dávila surrender to him; Dávila successfully resisted
	21 July 1821
	27 Sept 1821	Trigarante army entered Mexico City
	28 Sept 1821	Regency established
	25 Oct 1822
	16 Nov 1822	suspicious of Santa Anna, Iturbide arrived in Jalapa, removed Santa Anna from his command, ordered him to join the Junta de Guerra in Mexico City; Santa Anna instead returned to Veracruz
	2 Dec 1822	in Veracruz, Santa Anna proclaimed ?la República,? declared Iturbide's reign ?invalid,? demanded new Congreso Constituyente
	1 Feb 1823	Plan de Casa Mata signed
	19 March 1823
	5 June 1823
	mid-1824
	25 April 1825
	30 Dec 1826 (23 Dec 1827?)	Vicente Guerrero sent to put down Montaño's rebellion at Otumba; Santa Anna offered his services to Guerrero
	7 January 1828
	1 Sept 1828	Congress declared Pedraza president and Vicente Guerrero vice-president
	12 Sept 1828	Santa Anna demanded that presidency be given to Guerrero
	3 Dec 1828	Pedraza fled the presidency
	8 Dec 1828	Guerrero named secretary of war
	1 April 1829
	27 July 1829	Spanish under Barradas took Tampico
	11 Sept 1829
	4 Oct 1829	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz
	4 Dec 1829	refused to administer the Plan of Jalapa with Bustamante against Guerrero
	3 Jan 1830	renounced his politico-military duties
	2 Jan 1832
	March 1832	Santa Anna defeated by government forces
	5 Oct 1832	Pedraza returned from the U.S.
	24 Dec 1832	Pedraza assumed presidency in Puebla
	3 Jan 1833	Pedraza and Santa Anna entered Mexico City
	30 March 1833	Santa Anna named President, with Gómez Farías as vice-president
	1 April 1833	Gómez Farías became president as Santa Anna pleaded ill health; Farías'policies proved unpopular
	16 May 1833	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	3 June 1833
	5 July 1833	Santa Anna pursued Arista
	12 Oct 1833	defeated Arista in Guanajuato
	27 Oct 1833	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	15 Dec 1833	left presidency, requesting from Congress 6 months' leave because of his health
	24 April 1834	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	27 Jan 1835	Santa Anna left presidency
	11 May 1835
	26 Feb 1836	entered Texas, attacked Alamo
	6 Mar 1836	attacked presidio of Espíritu Santo
	21 Apr 1836	defeated by Houston at San Jacinto
	18 Jan 1837	interviewed by U.S. President Jackson
	21 Feb 1837	returned to Veracruz by boat, to the cheers of the populace
	27 Nov 1838	French fired on San Juan de Ulúa, Santa Anna defended
	5 Dec 1838	lost leg
	20 March 1839	Santa Anna succeeded Bustamante as interim president
	30 April 1839	defeated federalists Mejía and Urrea at Acajete
	10 July 1839	surrendered presidency to Nicolás Bravo
	10 Oct 1841	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	26 Oct 1842	returned presidency to Bravo
	4 March 1843
	4 Oct 1843	surrendered presidency to Canalizo
	4 June 1844	Santa Anna took oath as constitutional president
	7 Sept 1844	obtained leave of absence from presidency
	19 Nov 1844
	3 June 1845	Santa Anna left Veracruz for Havana
	4 Aug 1846	Paredes y Arrillaga removed from office
	22 Aug 1846	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz, proclaiming the reestablishment of the Constitution of 1824
	6 Dec 1846
	26 Jan 1847	Santa Anna attacked Taylor
	23 Feb 1847	declared victory at Buena Vista and withdrew from the field
	21 March 1847	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	2 April 1847
	20 May 1847
	16 Sept 1847	surrendered presidency, escaped via Guatemala or the U.S., sailed to Jamaica then to Turbaco, Colombia
	1 April 1853	returned to Veracruz
	19 April 1853	made triumphal entry into Mexico City
	20 April 1853	Santa Anna resumed the Presidency
	16 Dec 1853	Council of State gave Santa Anna "facultades omnímodas,"(omnipotent faculties) and title of "alteza serenísima" (Most Serene Highness)
	1 March 1854	Plan of Ayutla against Santa Anna
	9 Aug 1855
	27 Feb 1864	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz, promising Bazaine not to be politically active, but continued seeking support
	12 March 1864	Bazaine deported Santa Anna from Veracruz
	Jan 1866	Santa Anna visited by U.S. Secretary of State Seward on island of St. Thomas
	3 June 1867	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz, claiming U.S. endorsement
	4 June 1867	Santa Anna taken with U.S. help to Sisal, Yucatán, and imprisoned
	30 July 1867
	2 Nov 1867	Santa Anna sailed to Havana, then to the Bahamas
	1874	Santa Anna allowed to return to Mexico by Lerdo de Tejada under a general amnesty
	20 June 1876	died in poverty in Mexico City _____________________________ More later, El Gringo Viejo __________________________

Click to visit our little Adobe Hideaway…

This is our rustic, but very comfortable place, out in the rural area to the northwest of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas…the State's Capital. From a bustling city of 400,000, we placed our domicile a bit more than 20 miles into the scenes of mountains, citrus groves, spring-fed creeks and rivers with crystal clear waters, and an abundance of bird species that make veteran birders shake their heads in wonder.

We are all but adjacent to the venerable Hacienda de Santa Engracia (about 500 yards away), which dates to the 1720s and has ancient structures still in use, very elegant, and mystical in many ways. It has operated as a guest hotel since the 1970s.

Our little place rests on three and a fraction acres, fronting on the Rio Corona, which is lined with over-1,000 year old cypress trees. The nearby Sierra del Cautivo…a major segment of the overall Sierra Madre Oriental that dominate most of eastern Mexico, lies to the west by about three miles. guards the many springs that maintain the almost perpetual flow from those heights (up to 12,000 fasl) while our place is situated right at 1,000 feet above sea level.

Give us a call, come by and visit…it is truly a different venture in the most positive sense. We can be reached by our email - privatouring@gmail.com - which is our preferred method of communicating.

______________

What is an OROG?

Once a person lands on our page, that individual becomes a member of the Order of Readers of the Old Gringo, (OROG). There are no dues or assessments to pay, no meetings, no requirements. We are not associated with the KKK, the WCTU, the French Masons, or the Global Warming Glacier

Protection Committee.

We do have a distant connection with the Knights of the Golden Circle and hold the maps to the internment sites of 34 tonnes of Confederate Gold, and 1,000 tonnes of Mexican Imperial Silver (bar and coinage) derived from the collapse of the Reign of Maximillian von Hapsburg, Emperor of Mexico (1863 - 1867). I think we can remember where we put it.

All kidding aside, we are acerbic, but we do not bite. We do believe in our antiquated philosophy, but we try to not impose our quirks and beliefs so far as to be disrespectful.

El Gringo Viejo

__________________________

Wise Words

Communism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

oooooooooo

Be sure you are right, then go ahead.

I bark at no man's bid. I will never come and go, fetch and carry, at the whistle of the Great Man in the White House, no matter who he is.

I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done. But, if such was not to be, then you may all go to Hell, and I shall go to Texas!

David Crockett

oooooooooo

And on and on it goes. The more the Government gives away, the more it takes, and the less Americans do for themselves, until finally, like Europe, there is nobody left to do anything, and there is nobody left to pay for, the nothing that is not done.

And, yes, Virginia, there truly is a Santa Clause, and he and Mrs. Clause and their helpers care greatly for the good children of the Planet. So long as there is happiness, kindness, charity, generosity, and the Spirit of Fellowship, Santa Clause will be there, representing those noble things, and he will always move in a spiritual way so as to provoke humankind to goodness.

El Gringo Viejo

oooooooooo

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Booker Tallaferro Washington

oooooooooo

It is impossible to make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.

Abraham Lincoln

oooooooooo

El Gringo Viejo: a fair description

Life for El Gringo Viejo began on the Texas-Mexico frontier, near McAllen, Texas literally on a real, live farm. The farmer, as one might imagine, was his father, who had moved with his parents from Gwinner, Sargent County, North Dakota in 1915 - 1916 period, down to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. (And yes, Virginia, that is the way Sargent County is spelled.)

His parents farmed in an area close to the new community named after its founder, called Ed Couch, in Hidalgo County of Texas. My grandfather is buried in the Weslaco Municipal Cemetery about 10 feet away from his friend, Ed Couch.

After studies, and a stint in the 1st Cavalry, 12th Regiment (mounted), Headquarters Squadron of the United States Army...riding warhorses back and forth along the Rio Grande from the late 1920s and early 1930s. He did not speak much about his service, but we determined that he apparently made rank of 1st Lieutenant.

El Gringo Viejo's Father established his farming and citrus grove-care operation just north of McAllen, Texas. Mother was a housewife and a professional woman....a learned, eloquent, well-read woman.

They were educated people, my father winding up as a Superintendent of a major school/facility of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation in Austin, Texas after a twenty year career in education at the secondary level. He had degrees in History, Psychology, and Education Administration.

El Gringo Viejo is the last of three children, all males. Number one was Milton Birchard, Jr. who was born in 1936 and died in a vehicular incident in 1988. He was narcoleptic. He held a doctorate in geography from Louisiana State University and was head of the Department there for a good while.

Number two is Norman Francis, who was born during the WWII situation in 1942 and became an important Republican political engineer and fundraiser. He served as Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas during the late 1960s and early 1970s and as Senator John G. Tower's immediate Executive Assistant. The Senator is the Godfather of Norman's first son.

Norman died at age 77 in Austin, Texas and I was one of four eulogists who was chosen to speak at his en memoriam at the Austin Club in downtown most Austin…within sight of the State Capitol.

It was a personal duty and very rewarding

in every way.

My arrival was in 1947, and I was destined to confound my parents and all those around me. Educated entirely in public schools in McAllen, skipping the third grade, and stumbling out of my high school in the upper 90% of a class of 606. I

attended and graduated from Southwest Texas State University (now named Texas State University, unfortunately), being one of the few conservatives to graduate out of the School of Sociology, although my treatment at the hands of my tormentor-professors was not so unpleasant in those days. Emphasis of studies were social demography, and Latin American Affairs with a concentration on Mexico's history and current political evolution, with a minors in History, Geography, and Political Science.

El Gringo Viejo is one of the old, unreconstructed high-church Episcopalians. Politically, he is very fundamentally conservative. He prefers Baseball to football, and considers that baseball with a designated hitter for the pitcher should be called "poofy-ball". Favourite major league team of all times? The Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. It will never be the same again.
El Gringo Viejo's father was born to a Hudson Valley-type girl and a man who had lost two older brothers who served in the Pennsylvania 96th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry during the War Between the States.

The surnamed line (Newton) originated from East Anglia, not far from a place called Washington in northeastern England. They came into Boston Harbour, Massachusetts in 1642 (the 1st voyage of the Mayflower had overbooked), and settled there and in Maine as well as spreading out to Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, over the generations for the first 220 years.
Another batch of folks, mainly Anglo, settled in the middle Hudson Valley. There was another group of Celto-Teutonics types from Saxony and Prussia, establishing and settling along the Hudson River from around what is Catskill County northward to Duchess and Rennselaer Counties around a place named Red Hook. The main group came in during the early 1650s.

My mother's people were another English line of long-term Southern and Tennessee people, from the Eastern part of that State, who originally came in during the 1660s through Virginia and North Carolina, and finally into Eastern Tennessee, settling in and around a county to be named Franklin, and helping to establish the city of Winchester. Almost all of these people originated from southwestern England, near the frontier with Wales.

Only recently did we verify that she had many people involved in the service of the Confederacy. One died in northern Mississippi, another Captain Asa Grant, 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, was severely wounded and succumbed to his wounds finally in 1869, and another hung around in an Ohio POW camp (Camp Chase) for about 13 months, while three others were either wounded or died in action, including David Limbaugh, Lieutenant, 42 Tennessee Infantry. Another five made it through relatively unscathed.

Almost all were, oddly enough, related to the great-grand uncles and gggg-grandfathers down to gg-grandfathers of Rush Limbaugh. The gggg-grandfather came into the Colonies in the early 1740s from a Prussia and Saxony background, and served in both civilian and military capacities to the Continental government and Army. He was the XO of a Militia Battalion of 3,000 Pennsylvania effectives. They honed their military readiness under the supervision of Gen. von Steuben and someone named Washington at some place called Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

A grandson of his, Isaac, settled in Tennessee after the War for Independence against King George III. So Rush and I share grandfathers, four generations deep on the American Continent.

It should be stated here that were I to be called to declare, my allegiance would still be with the Southern Cause, although I bear no rancor against those who feel the same about their instinct to maintain the Union. Oddly enough, both my mother (a Southerner) and my father (a true Yankee by blood) believed that we would have remained closer if we had separated, and each side gone the ways of their own yearning, but amicably.

The last of the English (El Gringo Viejo's) line came during the time between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. They left County Wicklow, where they had been involved, apparently, in that peculiar Anglo - Scots/Irish practice of making whiskey by the use of peat for fuel. They were also involved in the business of production and processing of various types of grains as well as the production of whiskey, gin, and beer. By their surnames one would know that, while coming out of Ireland, they were actually English, one with the surname of Christian and the wife, Webster. They had, in fact, married in Christ's Church Cathedral, Anglican, in downtown Dublin in 1796. They landed in New York, set up shop in the City among previously arrived relatives, and then in Albany. We have some record that this Christian who married the Webster had actually lived in the colonies, but travelled several times back and forth between the Spirits businesses in England and Ireland and the New World. They wound up as the generations progressed in and around Minneapolis (St. Anthony) & Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Racine, Wisconsin. My particular line went from New York to Alabama, then North Carolina, and then Wisconsin to join up with the rest of the extended family, finally in Minnesota, before the War Between the States.

The Time Line of entry of all lines of my children's blood ancestry on their mother's side in the New World begins in 1578, when Spaniards of mixed Hebraic and Iberian peoples, and others of ancestry from Portugal, Galicia, and southern Spain entered into what was to become Monclova and Saltillo, Coahuila. They are brought under the auspices of the Explorer, Conquistador, and Colonizer Jose Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva, with elements settling in Lampazos and Cerralvo (Nuevo Leon), in Palofox (Texas), and Revilla (Tamaulipas) on the Rio Bravo.
Also, the Count of the Sierra Gorda, Col. Jose de Escandon brought another group of mainly Spanish, Portuguese, and Azoreans in the early 175os, settling along the Rio Bravo (Grande), and then on the north (Texas) side, spreading up to what is now Yorktown, Texas (near and southeast of San Antonio de Bexar, more or less) before and during the Texas Republican period.

My children and theirs are qualified to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty, The Sons of the Grand Army of the Union, The Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Daughters of the Confederacy. By my side they are 16th generation English Colonial - American and 6th generation Texian. By my wife's side, my children are 23rd generation northernmost New Spain, Texian, and American. Isolating Texas alone, my grandchildren are 15th generation Texian.

LIKE?

Cats, and then dogs.

Fishing, even a bit of bird watching, now and then.

Really good music..antique, old, 1950s and early 1960s rock and roll, classical - Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven, both Strauses, and many others, African tribal sounds en chorus, Mexican bolero...mariachis when they play out-of-doors, some country and quite a bit of the old western (Sons of the Pioneers, the Texas Ploughboys, Marty Robbins "Gunfighter Ballads, for instance.), even some of my own piano works, bagpipes, Enya, marimba, Caribe.

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess always seemed to me to have been, and remains, a true masterpiece of Americana.

Well maintained Firearms, smooth running small equipment, old autos that respond to repair and upkeep and keep going. Used to have BMWs and so forth, but being old helps tone things down a bit.

Antiques, and antiquities...Meso-American archeology...and religious history. Formal religious services among the Orthodox..as in Anglican, Roman, Orthodox and Conservative Jewish services and celebrations. Hard to find, now.

Overnight radio, rightwing talk radio until it becomes overly tedious and repetitive.

Weather and climate.

And strangely during the past few years,cooking. Not just barbequeing...but actually dishing up gourmet-type stuff...and gardening to a purpose.

We grow a lot of our own spices for our little bed and breakfast and we specialise in flowerng plants, bushes, and trees that attract bees and literally hundreds of species of common to extremely rare birds to our place.

Lifelong Republican, honourably discharged - United States Army (conscripted).

Now drifted into the position of favouring the amicable withdrawal of Texas from the American Union. My grandchildren are 15th generation Coahuila/Texas by my wife and 8th generation Texas by me and my will is to have them answer for the debt of Texas and not for the debts incurred by the National Socialists who have taken possession of the central government in Washington, D.C.

DISLIKES?
Any kind of socialism...bolshevik, national, marxist, social democratic, Trotskyite, progressive, ....and any kind of socialist.

The Ku Klux Klan and such types who figure that they have to hate somebody because of how he/she was born. They are just role players, resucitated by the Communist Party USA in the 1920s, whose members are fueled by a well deserved sense of inferiority.

And almost all social activism.

Almost all labour union officers and almost all labour unions. (There are some exceptions.)

Public assistance of any kind. All welfare and/or charity should and must be privately handled in order to avoid the trap wherein we have fallen, that being the multigenerational slide into the abyss of forlorn hopelessness that is government slavery and dependence. That slide is cheerfully supported by politicians who love to buy votes with other peoples' money.

Lotteries operated by governments.

Litter, filth, graffiti, gangs, and waiting in line for people using food stamps whil'st they argue with the cashier about how they "need" this or that to be covered...when they have three carts with 450 USD of snacks and things we cannot afford because we are in an 'upper income" category.

Church reformers who want to change my church instead of them going to another church and just leaving me alone.

Medications for boys who are over-active, and medications in general.

Lite beer, lite Coca Cola, fat-free, lo-cal, artificial sugars and sweeteners, anything marked "healthy" on food packages, sugar-free, margarine, and driving 23 miles to buy gasoline over there because it is 2 cents per gallon cheaper.

Any government programme designed to help anybody; 94% of the time the programme winds up morphing into some kind of monster. Then liberals and do-gooders will propose another programme, twice as costly, to cure the ills caused by the first cure-all.

Officiousness, and the term "non-profit", as if there is some kind of moral superiority in the failure to produce wealth.

Physical abuse of an animal, an extraterrestrial, a child, slave, woman, or anything like a tractor or power tool, firearm, sewing machine, or an auto, etc.
Loud and/or sharp noises, especially when such noises have no particular purpose.

Wasting anything, from paper towels to Clorox to cake and cookie batter...anything. And....waiting in a line.