Grumpy and Glad - a potpourri of impressions and aimless commentary

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     It is understandable that people might be distressed because there is a monument still standing anywhere which commemorates the life of Jefferson Finis Davis.   Little matter that Davis had a much deeper and much more hands-on, compassionate attitude concerning the "Negro situation" than did Abraham Lincoln.   The explanation of that declarative is not lengthy, but I shall defer until another time to explain, in two or three paragraphs, the truth of it.

 

   As we tear down the monuments, as will they all be torn down even unto the Stone Mountain Carving, we will be protecting those who feel "threatened" because such presences are left to "keep an eye" on Black folks. The doll-baby, snowflake collegiates who cannot suffer the least anxiety without having to have a choir of grief counselors come running still quiver when they see a leaf that might bring to mind the facial profile of Robert Edward Lee.   And, my God in Heaven, one can only imagine the suffering when one must bear the image of Thomas Jonathon"Stonewall" Jackson glowering down upon the hapless Master's candidate who is doing his (or is it hers) thesis which deals with the History of Underwater Basketweaving among Eritrean pre-Phoenician Transgendered Retired Military Officers.
     Life is but a mine-field of hurtful thoughts, and caucasian privilege imposition, and discriminations, and inequality, and no social justice and all those things that many folks want, RIGHT NOW.   And that is why I DEMAND that Shiela Jackson Lee be taken to the nearest gulag and incarcerated for having frightened so many, many tender souls who are traumatised by the insolent name she has chosen for herself.  It is a name that has frightened and terrorised millions and millions of minorities, women, children, poor people, and people who are under-diagnosed, and Miz Shiela has strutted around with that name, wielding it as a broadsword that threatens all those who are powerless and disenfranchised.

     In a more serious vein, we like to point out that El Gringo Viejo was informed on several occasions by people who had the pleasure to travel with Miss Jackson Lee on the flights that travel between Houston and the Washington, D. C. area.  Her deportment was reported to be something akin to a high-handed, foul-mouthed self-centre'd shrew who complained en voce alta about every detail during her flights.  She would frequently invoke the saw that other people who were white had received preferential treatment over Her Highness....and her a Congresswoman.   It was bad enough that when the stewardesses learned that Miss Jackson-Lee was to be flying the friendly skies on such or such a date, the stewardesses would call in sick.   The main word that came forth during the accounts of these flights was "abusive".   The next adjective was "irrational", followed by something like  "terminally arrogant".   The word "stupid" finished a not-to-distant fourth.

     It is presumed that the people represented by Miss Jackson Lee will be able to overlook the offensive nature of the names she bears, so long as she brings home that bacon.  She is also the Queen of Permanent PMS, to wit:

     ..... (In 2011 she was reported to have one of the highest staff turnovers in Congress and to be one of the worst bosses. The Huffington Post and Houston Chronicle reported that she had gone through 11 chiefs of staff in 11 years.^[17][18] In 2011 she was named as one of the "worst bosses in Washington" by The Daily Caller.^[19] The Huffington Post stated that "Jackson Lee regularly appears on Washingtonian magazine's list of the “Best and Worst of Congress” as the “meanest” member of House of Representatives."^[17][20] That reputation as the worst boss on Capitol Hill continued; in 2012 Washingtonian again listed her as the meanest member of the House,^[21] a report in 2013 concluded that "the veteran Texas Democrat had the highest turnover rate for all of Congress over the past decade."^[22]...

       ^{The foregoing is extracted from the generally pro-lib, pro-"minority'', pro-pinko Wikipedia, who have also almost} 

^{always tried to be fair with reasonable right-wing observers.}

^{__________________________} 

      ^{Now we move to other matters, very pressing matters.  We are contemplating an underground,}

^{non-violent movement that will put an end to advertisements that pronounce, once a person has}

^{decided to listen, that the second addition of a similar product being promoted for sale,  will be}

^{added "FREE!!!!".    Excuse me please.   If money has to be pro-offered to obtain the product}

being considered, then it is not FREEEEEeeeeee!!!!.

     The product being considered will be mailed and/or shipped "FREEEEEeeeee".   But it is

not FREE!!!!!!  It is included in the cost of purchase.   Not Free.....but included.

    Rush does it, the My-Pillow Guy does it,  Dana does it, and it is depressing.  One would hope

 that people of that level of intelligence would understand that they are insulting their own

 audience.  "Just buy this in the next five minutes and you will be given FREE!!! two skillets

 made of pre-historic dinosaur dung and diamond dust from the mines of Cleopturous,

Emperor of Gwongo in the 63rd century, B.C.

     It is just not true.  These products are presented with the true proviso that both pillows are

for sale at the 19.99 yankee dollar price.   One pillow does not cost 19.99 and the other does

cost nothing, or better stated, $0.00 yankee dollars.  Both pillows costed 19.99 and the

shipping is not "FREEEEeeeeee!!!!!"  It is included in the cost of purchase.

     The reason for El Gringo Viejo's whining and moaning about this is because he sees the

over-use of the word "free" as a tool to accustom the public to the idea that there is actually

anything that is "FREE".    It is like the motorcars that are being foisted into the market

with the admonition that "...this pick-up is yours for nothing down, no payments until next

February, and remember that it is being offer'd at 13,339 yankee dollars below MSRP

(manufacturer's suggested retail price).

    Er....uh....if the public will permit....If the discount of 13,339 yankee dollars is true, then

everyone in the marketting and accounting departments should be immediately dismissed

due to incompetence.   If it is necessary to un-load a banana-yellow, Chevy Silverado with

a manual transmission and inverse / reverse electrical / gasoline fuel option then it is

because there is a disconnect between accounting and sales.

Puh - Leeze.....

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There shall be more later, but right now, we have less important things

that must be attended.

El Gringo Viejo

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Thanksgiving, family, cultural and social turmoil.....

We enter Winter looking like this at the Quinta's
"land below", adjacent to our little mud hut.

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    'Tis truly the Season.  Activity at our little hideaway, the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre down in "Old Mexico", the incessant boring deeper into the muck-heap of culture in the post-brave new world social rot, family connection brought on by Thanksgiving, all slam together to confuse the mind, body, and soul.

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Cleopatra (the cat) and Prieto (the dog)

  Two of the neighbour's dogs, both purebred Rhodesian Lion Hounds with a combined weight of 300 pounds, also make frequent and extended visits to the Quinta, especially when this writer is en residence, and was sized up long ago to be a lackey who waits on the neighbour's dogs as would any proper slave.
     The scene to the left is more normal, with Cleopatra (the cat) doing a bit of grooming while Prieto (the dog) does his normal "morning sunning and snoozing" routine.  They are friends and always will accompany me down to the Rio Corona, about 200 yards from this scene.

    On this particular day, the two friends are Prieto (the Quinta's main and only dog since Bebe's demise) and Turco, the neighbour's Rhodesian Lion Hound (aka: Ridgeback).  They are escorting El Gringo Viejo along the fence-line that both separates and joins the smaller Quinta to the much larger Hacienda de La Vega.

     The reason?   It is simply because of the sudden return of the fairly rare miniature white morning glory vine.   It exploded along the area at the lower edge of our properties and the Rio Corona, whose majestic Montezuma Cypress trees can be noted in the near distance at the rear of the scene.   The above video simply does not seem to want to work, but the OROG can attempt to open it in his / her own viewer.   In this "still-video" one can see the white flowers straight down the upper centre.

Capturing scores and more of Sulphur
 butterflies - look very closely

     My ability as a videographer leaves a considerable amount to the desired.  My elocution also suffers a bit as well, but it deals mainly with miniature morning glories, the chachalacas cackling in the background, the dogs, and a bit of background on the Hacienda de La Vega's successful planting of a particular type of lime that is becoming extremely popular in both the Mexican and international markets such as the United States, Texas, France, and Japan, and other places. 
      We also include a bit of a survey of other growies and flowering things such as another of the climbing vines, known locally as "Virginia"which is related and similar to the ubiquitous Corona vine.  The Virginia is less common, but longer lasting, sometimes flowering for 90 days on the same stem.   As in all things red, they are excellent attractants for the numerous species of hummingbirds that frequent our little backwater hideaway.

    Please observe a bit closely in order to see the numerous Sulphur butterflies as this fairly short clip scans the bramble that is our "Western Wall" of the Quinta's outdoors property.

    These scenes abound throughout the area, and can be used as a backdrop that helps to restore at least a bit of sanity and pleasure in terms of appreciation of the Creator's creation. How many places?  In this part of the country, there are at least 100 interesting and/or beautiful settings for every one view of something disgusting.

    We move on.

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Family Thanksgiving activity in the Sub-Tropical Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas:

A scene including El Gringo Viejo's first

 son, who happened to be a girl.

 She is accompanied by a twenty year

 old hybrid Marsh - Pink grapefruit that

 suddenly began to publish really

 significant and high-qualitygrapefruit.

  The site of this photograph is the

 backyard of the grandmother of the girl

 pictured.

 That girl, our daughter, is also the

 mother of two of our granddaughters.

   She is also the wife of her husband,

 who happens to be our son-in-law,

 by pleasant coincidence.

During the time leading up to and including Thanksgiving and shortly thereafter, four generations spanning many eons of time and a narrow, but varied, set of ancestries converged to celebrate, contemplate, and eat too much.

   It is good, however, to the advance of the children of our children and the well-being of people who are older than ourselves.   Sharing with not-distant cousins and neighbours, and managing the logistics of a two-different home-site process for the preparation and delivery of a fairly complex banquet for 10 was a pleasant challenge.   It helps to have the better half do all the work while I generally kibitz and critique.

     We did a few things that people from the Austin area of Texas really cannot do this late in the year, such as visiting a nature preserve that is replete with butterflies at this time.  Most of these insects are involved in making the trek down to our place and other Winter quarters that might be a bit more favourable than Valley Forge in January.  This is essentially "last call" for all those heading to Mexico and Central America for the Winter.

     The weather was fair to excellent in the McAllen area for the duration of our get-together, a matter that was greatly appreciated.  We remember the sleet and snow of the Thanksgiving of 1976, I think....it was a cruel trick the Devil played on South Texas people.   Not as bad as the White Christmas of 2004 when the McAllen area picked up between 9 and 13 inches of wet snow, but something that always is lurking in tropical areas to torment people who live in some kind of paradise immune from the misery of frigidity.

     This writer finally figured out why his great-grandfather had to come back from his ranch in Mexico wet tropical east coast, mountainous Vera Cruz State.   They had three different very hard freezes between 1893 and 1899, destroying almost all the mango, kiwi, banana, citrus, and coffee production in the area.

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Turning to less pleasant matters:

   The Swamp seeks to suck everyone into the muck and hold everyone in the rancid sludge until all nature of perversity, vice, degeneracy, criminality, and licentious conduct is recognised as "normal".   The swirl around the women reporting abuse and  harassment at the hands of reprobate political figures was an interesting case in point.

     The spawn of the German Democratic National Socialist Workers' Union of the 1930s, known at the Democrat Party of Hill and Billary of the 1990s through the first quarter of the 21st century, have finally encountered the ruin they so richly deserve.   The framing of some hapless man like Judge Moore, who is hopelessly despised by all the "right people", shook loose a bunch of loose stones on the side of the mountain.

     Gloria Allred had found another individual, very similar to the Guatemalan girl who worked for a Republican candidate for the Senate from the Peoples' Republic of California.   Judge Moore would be her new "Guatemalan Girl".
    The Guatemalan girl was placed by a maid service business as a caretaker for the Republican woman who was running for the United States Senate seat.   Before the campaign had really heated up, Gloria divulged to the World that the Republican candidate had hired an illegal alien to work as a maid-slave.   The fact that the girl came from an agency, and that that agency had guaranteed that all their referrals were either American citizens or legal aliens with green cards, had no bearing on the truth or the nature of the issue.   The Senate candidate was dead meat.

     Gloria tried the same tactic on the hapless Judge.  Before long, several hundred thousand women came forward, and one only had to wait until it would be divulged that Moore ran a call-girl service with millions of underaged girls working in slave-brothels, and that Moore was selling babies on the black market for 1,000,000 dollars each.   The number of murders and "disappeared" girls was estimated to be in the billions....and Moore did this while flying guns to anti-communist fighters in Central America and cocaine and marijuana back into Alabama, where he forced Black Women to roll Cuban-looking cigars, but made entirely of marijuana leaves.  The women were paid 3 dollars per day....something akin to slave labour.

     BUT WAIT!!!  THERE'S MORE!!! All of a sudden, things became quiet.  There was a new and distant rumbling.   Equally suddenly, the merrily mendacious Gloria seemed to be.....gone...or perhaps on an extended vacation....perhaps to some appropriate paradise like where Obama plays golf on a private island.   The eight women who actually brought forward their recollections about the Evil Jekyll -Hide Moore of forty years past seemed to be increasingly unavailable.

     But of greater interest is that those loose stones on the mountainside were on the other side of the mountain.  Suddenly the avalanche began to gain momentum.  It is now under full steam and it seems to be sweeping away scores of leftist and elitist Democrat officials, officers, movie - entertainment stars,  and magnates.

     The extent of the avalanche and perhaps even some earthquakes seems to be truly massive.  One could hope for, but never expect, that finally the Rodham - Blythe Corruption Enterpise, LLC, whose offices are located somewhere on the map on the left, will be part of that which lies in the pathway of the avalanche.

     Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is supposed to be working there as a secretary, along with Anthony Weiner who is on a work release programme.   The brother of Billy Jeff Blythe is there on an early release probation programme, as is the brother of (Sir Edmund) Hillary....and it is generally estimated that before the end of the year, as many as 340,220 people who are Billy Jeff's favourite best friends and "party guys"....(you swingers know what I mean)....will be taking up residence either there or in the even friendlier precincts such as Venezuela, Cuba, or Nicaragua.  They will be singing that famous song, Danken Gott, Nien Auslieferung (Thank God, No Deportation).

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There shall be a bit more to come about these topics, but commentary on matters of history and issues pertaining to Mexico and Texas during the coming days.   Thank you all for your time and attention.

El Gringo Viejo

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Orwell and the New York Times join forces in a disjointed time-warp

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Mr. Lincoln and Negro Equality

Published: December 28, 1860

New York Times

    The Tribune, of Wednesday morning, copied conspicuously from the Albany Atlas and Argus an article intended to prove that Mr. LINCOLN holds firmly and unflinchingly to the principles of the Republican Party, -- and that among them, is the principle of Negro Equality. With what special object the Tribune thus gave prominence and a quasi endorsement to this statement of Mr. LINCOLN's position, from an open and unsparing political opponent, it is no part of our purpose to inquire. Probably nothing has done more to embitter the minds of the Southern people towards the President elect than the imputation of such sentiments on this subject. We propose, therefore, to examine the basis on which the allegation rests. 

     The Atlas and Argus quotes from a speech said to have been made by Mr. LINCOLN "in September, 1858," the following: 

     "That central idea in our political system at the beginning was, and until recently continued to be, the equality of men. And although it was always submitted patiently to, whatever inequality there seemed to be, as a matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all men. In what I have done I cannot claim to have acted from any peculiar consideration of the colored people as a separate and distinct class in the community, but from the simple conviction that all the individuals of that class are members of the community, and in virtue of their manhood entitled to every original right enjoyed by any other member. We feel, therefore, that all legal distinction between individuals of the same community, founded in any such circumstances as color, origin and the like, are hostile to the genius of our institutions, and incompatible with the true history of American liberty. Slavery and oppression must cease, or American liberty must perish. 

     In Massachusetts, and in most, if not all, the New-England States, the colored man and the white are absolutely equal before the law. 

      In New-York the colored man is restricted as to the right of suffrage by a property qualification. In other respects the same equality prevails. 

      I embrace with pleasure this opportunity of declaring my disapprobation of that clause of the Constitution (of Illinois,) which, denies to a portion of the colored people the right of suffrage. 

     True Democracy makes no inquiry about the color of the skin or place of nativity, or any other similar circumstance of condition. I regard, therefore, the exclusion of the colored people as a body from the elective franchise as incompatible with the true Democratic principle." 

    Where or on what occasion this alleged speech was made, we are not informed. We do not believe it was ever made by Mr. LINCOLN at all. We believe it to be a forgery, out and out; -- and we shall give the reasons which lead us to that belief. 

      The speech is said to have been made "in September, 1858." Now, during all that month Mr. LINCOLN was engaged in stumping the State of Illinois with Judge DOUGLAS. If any such speech, -- or any speech embodying such sentiments, was made at that time, therefore, it must have been in the course of that discussion. That whole debate has been published, -- and we find nothing in any one of Mr. LINCOLN's speeches like the language quoted, -- nor anything embodying the sentiments ascribed to him. Nor does Mr. DOUGLAS anywhere in that debate -- or during the succeeding month of October -- ascribe to Mr. LINCOLN any such language, as he would infallibly have done if Mr. LINCOLN had ever used it. So much for the negative evidence on the subject. 

     On the other hand, throughout that debate, Mr. LINCOLN repeatedly repudiated the sentiments ascribed to him in this extract. On the 18th of September, 1858, the very month in which he is alleged to have said what is quoted above, he made a speech at Charleston, Illinois, in which he said: -- 

From Lincoln's Speech, Sept. 18, 1858:

  "While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making VOTERS or jurors of negroes, NOR OF QUALIFYING THEM HOLD OFFICE, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any of her man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." 

     This was certainly a definite, distinct and unequivocal declaration of his sentiments on this point; and when Mr. DOUGLAS came to reply, all he said of it was this: 

     "I am glad that I have at last succeeded in getting an answer out of him upon this question of negro citizenship and eligibility to office, for I have been trying to bring him to the point ever since the canvass commenced." 

     Mr. DOUGLAS went on, however, -- not to quote anything Mr. LINCOLN had ever said like the sentence copied from the Atlas and Argus by the Tribune, -- but to argue that, inasmuch as Mr. L. had censured the decision of the Supreme Court that a negro could not be a citizen, he must therefore be in favor of negro citizenship. To this Mr. LINCOLN made the following reply: 

      "Judge DOUGLAS has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro citizenship. So far as I know the Judge never asked me the question before. He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I AM NOT IN FAVOR OF NEGRO CITIZENSHIP. This furnishes me an occasion for saying a few words upon the subject. I mentioned in a certain speech of mine which has been printed, that the Supreme Court had decided that a negro could not possibly be made a citizen, and without saying what was my ground of complaint in regard to that, or whether I had any ground of complaint, Judge DOUGLAS has from that thing manufactured nearly every thing that he ever says about my disposition to produce an equality between the negroes and the white people. If any one will read my speech, he will find I mentioned that as one of the points decided in the course of the Supreme Court opinions, but I did not state what objection I had to it. But Judge DOUGLAS tells the people what my objection was when I did not tell them myself. Now my opinion is that the different States have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United States if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they have not that power. If the State of Illinois had that power, I SHOULD BE OPPOSED TO THE EXERCISE OF IT. That is all I have to say about it." 

      This seems to us perfectly explicit and conclusive. And although made in the same month with the alleged speech quoted by the Atlas and Argus, it repudiates utterly the sentiments there attributed to him, -- denies that he ever held them, and challenges Mr. DOUGLAS or anybody else to produce anything he had ever said that would warrant the allegation. And subsequently, whenever Mr. DOUGLAS recurred to the subject, Mr. LINCOLN reiterated the same declarations, and defied contradiction. Is it conceivable that he could have done so, without being refuted and silenced on the spot, by Mr. DOUGLAS, if he had ever made such a speech as the one now attributed to him? These sentiments were not then declared for the first time. In the very first speech of their joint debate, -- made at Ottawa, Aug. 21, 1858, -- Mr. LINCOLN, after quoting some previous remarks, thus spoke of this very subject: 

       "Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of Slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it; and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of Slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the fooling of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge DOUGLAS, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary." 

       And a year after this pretended speech, from which the Albany Atlas and the New-York Tribune profess to quote, -- in a speech made at Columbus, Ohio, in September, 1859, Mr. LINCOLN referred to a statement made by the Ohio Statesman, that he had "declared in favor of negro suffrage," -- pronounced it a misrepresentation, -- quoted the passages from his speeches which we have already cited, and then said: 

"There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, upon former occasions, said upon the subject to which this newspaper, to the extent of its ability, has drawn the public attention. In it you not only perceive, as a probability, that in that contest I did not at any time say I was in favor of negro suffrage; but the ABSOLUTE PROOF that twice -- once substantially and once expressly -- I DECLARED AGAINST IT. Having shown you this, there remains but a word of comment upon that newspaper article. It is this: that I presume the editor of that paper is an honest and truth-loving man, and that he will be greatly obliged to me for furnishing him thus early an opportunity to correct the misrepresentation he has made, before it has run so long that malicious people can call him a liar." 

      The advice thus administered to the Ohio Statesman may not be inapplicable to the two journals nearer home which are committing the same offence. 
   On the strength of the evidence thus submitted, we have not the shadow of a doubt that the pretended extract of Mr. LINCOLN's speech is, so far as he is concerned, an absolute forgery. It is probably the speech of somebody else, -- to which some partisan opponent of Mr. LINCOLN has attached his name in order to create a prejudice against him. He can felicitate himself on having succeeded. The paragraph has been copied far and wide, throughout the country, and especially in the Southern States. It has stimulated and strengthened the belief there that Mr. LINCOLN, is an Abolitionist, -- that he is pledged to the extension of Slavery and to the elevation of the negro to a social and political equality with the white man. It is very easy to stigmatize such an impression on their part as ignorant and inexcusable. But how can we blame the people of the Southern States for believing this when the intelligent Editor of the Albany Atlas and Argus believes it, and when even a person so well-informed as the Editor of the New-York Tribune ought to be concerning Mr. LINCOLN's views, is willing at least to encourage the belief in its genuineness and authenticity.

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COMMENTARY BY EL GRINGO VIEJO:

     Now to the point of this submission which reinforces the words of George Orwell as posted at the beginning of this missive.  

     This article from the period that was marking the end of the Antebellum Epoch in America (December 28, 1860) represents, among other things, that the New York Times was, at one time, a true newspaper and worthy of the name.   The information being analysed was from the Lincoln - Douglas debates.

     A careful reading of the text of the entire article published reveals a certain "cloud of pre-War" as Mr. Lincoln is revealed, during the high moments of the famed "Lincoln - Douglas Debates" by his own words that he was not the Great Emancipator he became known to be.

     His actual words, spoken in real time before thousands of eye-and-ear witnesses, reveal that his opinion of the Negro and his/her situation was quite obviously not the same as the lunatic abolitionists who were prepared to destroy the United States of America and everything else instead of solving a problem.
    En lieu of droning on about the many secondary justifications for secession by the South, including but not limited to railroad gauges and foreign free trade which favoured the South, I shall simply return to the topic of this submission.   We, of the Southern Persuasion, have plenty of contradiction, hypocrisy, and duplicity to load into the cafeteria that feeds the Everlasting Dispute from Whence the Smoke Never Clears.

Treure der Union Monument
Comfort, Kendall County, Texas
(True to the Union)

     But...in Comfort, Texas, a pleasant little German community in Kendall County, out northwest of San Antonio...there is still a memorial monument, placed there by the mainly Germanic peoples back in 1866, shortly after the War Between the States ended.  It commemorates the deaths of Union loyalist Germanic people who colonised there during the late 1840s and 1850s.  Many were killed in defence of the Union, hence "Treue der Union" states the plaque.  Many of the German pro-Union people were not treated so well by the Confederate military and / or civil authority.
     It is a respected monument.  It has been the centre of many a long, windy, and pointless arguments.  It has sparked conjecture, rightisms and wrongisms, criminations and recriminations since its erection and placement.   But no one raises his/her hand against it.   I recall that there was a wreath placed there by the United Daughters of the Confederacy during some pertinent memorial period...and they might still do such things.  I live a long ways from Comfort...it is a nice, tidy place...but we do not stay in touch with the daily comings and goings of the Wreath Layers.

     That is the way things should be with monuments...among true Southerners and those who had people on one of those sides or the other, or both.   And by the way, George Orwell was correct.

El Gringo Viejo

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Dave Brubeck - Take Five

GOES WITHOUT SAYING...TAKE FIVE....

My Yankee Side.....a tale from the 1600s - The Bolles Family, with considerable preamble

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     Many folks put a great deal of worth into their pasts.  The Ancestry Inc. industry seeks to convince people that they can Windex the crystal ball on their parlour's settee, and peer into the past.

     As a Southerner and a Texian, much of my life, has in fact, been conducted while walking backwards.  During these very hours, beginning a couple of days and nights ago Cemeteries in Mexico have been filled with millions of people who are leaving gifts to the Dead.   It is a silly, serious, absurd, jumbled, and summarily pleasant agrupation of all nature of peoples, bottles of tequila, tacos de barbacoa and other foods favoured by the deceased who live in the cemeteries, flowers, and serenades by conjuntos musicales  and mariachis who are having jovial, even if slightly demur and respectful, time of it in the Cementerio de San Geronimo (and 100,000 other cemeteries throughout the Republic).   It is ridiculous....and very noble.

A typical ''corona''
1,250 pesos (60 dollars)
Pictured above are a day and
a night scene of the same
cemetery, near the
Guadalajara area.

  Easily, of the 120,000,000 Mexicans, there will have been by the 3rd day of November, perhaps as many a 90,000,000 who have made the annual pilgrimage to the local (or sometimes relatively distant) "cementerio" , also known among the literate and Christian as the "Campo Santo" (Holy Ground).  Our "Man Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday" called to tell me not to call yesterday because he would be about 20 miles away, redressing and embellishing his mother's and several other relative's final resting place.   He will take a "corona" to her grave and lesser, but significant, gifts to his uncles, cousins, and even his worthless father.   Alvaro is one of 9 children...all identifiably of Portugese bloodline save for one "darker" brother.   All are very advanced blue-collar people or successful white-collar professionals.   They are colonial by both lines, having arrived in New Spain during the 1500s, settling in the areas around Puebla and Queretaro.

     Many tales can be included here.  Trying to be brief, I shall state that we always included a stop at the Panteon Municipal de China, Nuevo Leon....because that cemetery was always very "cleaned up and brushed up".  The crypts, graves, and secondary things were always in presentable order, and there were flowers almost always, adorning the graves (recent interments and anniversary flower).  This was a stop normally for people who were making their first trip into the interior of Mexico...an "introductory to urban Mexico, an excursion of three days and two nights, principally centre'd on the Monterrey, Nuevo Leon metroplex.

While this is a Zapotec Indian setting in Oaxaca, it is very
similar to the setting of the racially white lady in China,
 Nuevo Leon who felt that I had failed to allow time
 to take a picture of her son's grave.
This speaks to the nearly total saturation of all of
Mexico during these times of All Souls and all
Saints, no matter the race, colour, or creed.

     We would walk the folks in, while the superintendent and his helper would guide the people over the irregular pathways, and I would give a lecture about the Mexican approach to death, and the proclivity of the people to believe that their ancestors and beloved "others" came and went between Heaven, Purgatory, and their home and hearth of earthly existence on a continuing basis.   There were many, many other topics and questions that would be covered in this 30 minute stop, and then we would board up and continue to Monterrey.   One day, however, after I had told the people that they could sit on the monumentary elements of the graves, and take all the pictures that they wished....my people avoided bothering a lady who was tending to a grave nearby....it was quite recent and very attractive....her attention was due to the 1st anniversary of Death.
      I told the people that they could take pictures of the grave and the lady so long as she had given a nod of permission.  No one took me up on that permission, although the lady's gravesite was really impressive.   As we left, suddenly there was a stall...the superintendent of the Cemetery had told our people to stop...the lady was running after us....shouting politely, "Senor, senor!!!!   Porque no hicieron fotos de la tumba de mi hijo???? (Why didn't the people take pictures of my son's grave?!?!?").
     Of course, what we have here was a failure to communicate...AND, it was my fault.  I knew that that the lady, being a Mexican of the disciplined and cultured class,  would consider the tourists taking pictures of her son's last resting place would be a pride point for her (and her son), I had failed to mention to the group that it might be a good idea to take advantage of the photo opportunity with the actual mother of the deceased and the actual adornment of the grave being so perfectly perfect, especially when it was so close by.  The first affirmation of their right to take pictures was given too softly.  I truly should have insisted. 
     I advised the lady of my error, since I was tour conductor, and begged her indulgence.  My Gringitos all scurried back to the site and took what must have been several hundred photos of the nice and very civilised lady and the grave of her son with flowers and polished fixtures.   The lady refused my 5 dollar (peso equivalent)  gratuity,  (year - 1979).

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      We present all the former because of the Orthodox Calendar (All Hallow's Even, etc.) and to begin to address something that actually happened to my family several hundred years ago.   We confess that much of our ancestry is substantially.....shall we say.....Northern.   We also confess and allow it to be known that much of my "Northern" people were Tories and did retire to safer precincts ( during the ''inconvenience" between the New World Colonists and King George III).   Quite a number were found, during the "Inconvenience" in Ottawa, Sudbury, and Toronto, Province of Ontario.  Some returned to England.

     Going back to my grandfather Newton.....Norman N. Newton...he was birthed to a beautiful, very young girl who was the third wife of my great-grandfather Hubbard (Banty) Newton.   The latter was a farmer, but more especially, a master wood-mechanic.....or a person who could build things such as the famous "covered bridges" and "water-powered grist-mills".
Hubbard (Banty) Newton (1808 - 1867) was known as a perfectionist, a good farmer, but prone to contention....hence the nickname "Banty" as in banty rooster.   He married two sisters in succession...each...the first and then the second....died in childbirth.   Both were, according to the lore of the family, very attractive and intelligent.   They birthed out Charles (first wife 1838) and then (second wife) twins Francis and Frances in 1848 (the girl baby died in infancy), and then Sowell Leonard, (she died days after the delivery of Sowell - 1856).

     After the death of the second wife, as was the custom of those days, a period of grieving and mourning passed and then there were the social pressures brought upon my great-grandfather himself, and from the society in general.  Men died quickly at work and women died quickly at childbirth.....it was the norm in those times.
   Hubbard (Banty) Newton was known to be a well-to-do tradesman and farmer....he had grown sons (one turned out to be a nephew whose parents had been killed in a horse and buggy incident....details are not clear) and he was a person of swagger and pretence-well-founded.
     A widower-preacher coming back from working with the Indians in the Indiana Territory and adjacent areas had a "spare daughter" of 19 years of age.  She was comely and accomplished in her studies, and turned the head of many a young man.
    Since the appropriate time for mourning had passed, Mary Jane Bolles - daughter of her father - and being an adult by the law, married a man in 1857 who was 46 years of age.   This girl's surname connected her with an already lengthy genealogy of well-to-do agriculturists, bankers, religious leaders, and politicians both in America and in their ancestral England.   She was accomplished in the Mohegan language, literate, accomplished in musical instruments and the kitchen, and a general-over-all "catch".    Mary Jane Bolles became an entrant into the genealogy of El Gringo Viejo.  Without her....I would not be.
      She is the one who birthed out Norman N. Newton....in 1860....the grandfather of El Gringo Viejo.   Little did she know that Abraham Lincoln would, in short order and during the next year, when she had a baby by the name of Norman, order the re-supply of Fort Sumter,  a recently obtained property of the government of South Carolina, challenged by the military force of the Unio.
        That State was in removal as a sovereign cohort of the United States of America.   Lincoln brought on the misery from which the United States of America has never recovered.  Emancipation and various laws never could replace the advice of General Robert Edward Lee who said, ".....there is much said about the Negro situation....In my opinion, in regard to the solution to the issues affecting Black and White people, it would be better to allow the mellowing influences of Christianity to solve the problems presented by these things."
     So He, Marse Robert, advised and as he, do I so opine.  

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THE BOLLES (BOWLES) FAMILY IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND:

The Bolles (Bowles) family had their Southern and Northern roots.   The Northern folks who would meet up 200 years later with the Bolles, came in first...in Massachusetts.  They arrived to meet family in 1642, because of over-booking on the Mayflower (laughter in background).
   After establishing themselves and establishing the  township of  what would become the city of Newton, Massachusetts, various of that clan went north and west.  Little did they know that they would meet up with another of their own class and station:  The Bowles or Bolles of both Massachusetts and Virginia.   As a rule...Bowles is Southern, and Bolles is northern.   My line is the Bolles (northern). 

   During a couple of generations, various and sundry members of the Bowles family moved up across the tormented waters, and settled in southern Maine...(as in 'the bounding main').  
       They settled not far from the now-famous Kennebunkport and had considerable interaction with the Indians and the sailors from various nations.   One day there was a very disturbing incident.  It involved a murder and cover-up of a known personality in that area, and the involvement of certain Indians in that murder.
     To speed up our account,  Major (Brevet General) Bolle's relation of the matter (remember that this is 350 years before the present day.  And, it speaks to the fact that Indian and White relations were as positive as they  were negative in many ways in those days.  The court records of the period are still very clear).... Major (brevet General) Bolles follows the court records. Two Mohegan Indians were found in near proximity of the cabin of the deceased store-owner, who had been murdered in his own place of business and home.  
   The Indians confessed to having taken 1 pint of rum from the stores of the business house.  But they declared fervently that they had nothing to do with any robbery or murder.   The declared that they, at times, would take liquor from the store of the owner, but that they would advise him of their "theft'' and liquidate their account.   (basically, an agreement among gentlemen)
     The problem is that the store owner was found to be dead, brutally beaten and shot.   Some of his money and much of his whiskey and rum had been stolen.  These were ebriates but also medicines for the community.  It was very serious charge...and it was complicated by the fact that the owner was  a highly admired man in the community.  There was no cash or drafts to be found in the store.

     The Indians...a sub-group of the Mohegan....were found nearby and arrested.  They were hauled off to jail and interrogation.   Each said that he was not guilty of anything.  Their taking of a bottle of rum was a normal task, and they always paid the silver upon return.  This turned out to be true. 
     Further questioning, lamentably, just caused them to seal their lips.   Their case was complicated because the owner had been struck by tomahawks, in mortal areas....as would warriors.  But the Indians were offended at even being charged and fell mute.

          Some days later, even as they had begun to prepare the gallows for the two Indian offenders, the Bolles's patriarch learned that there were others who had been in the cabin of the deceased.   The olde man went back to the Indians and declared "You people must speak....we have evidence that there were others there before you, and that you went in an took the whiskey and did not even see the body of the tavern keeper."
     Still they did not speak.

   Finally, Frenchman and his Indian accomplice, confessed to the horrid crimes.   They were hanged in due order for a brutal, brutal murder and robbery, less than a week after the trial.   When the Mohegan friends of the Anglo people and constabulary asked, "Why did ye not declare innocence?", they declared that the simple accusation was enough to prevent them from returning to their tribe.

     And that, my dearest friends and detractors, is why I am a right-wing crazy with a door open to all....especially Samaritans and sinners.  

Very, very appreciative of your following (which is becoming considerable), and hoping for a pleasant time at Thanksgiving and the Advent and Nativity Time.   I shall be down at our mud hut, with clients reviewing the southern trek of the Monarch Butterfliies.....and a hundred other rare migratory birds.

     
El Gringo Viejo

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