They could have heard a pin drop

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JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded, "Does that include those who are buried here?"
DeGaulle did not respond.

You could have heard a pin drop.

When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.
He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of Its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for In return is enough to bury those that did not return."
You could have heard a pin drop.

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, One of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?"

 A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships. How many does France have?"
You could have heard a pin drop.

A U.S. Navy admiral was attending a naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French navies at a cocktail reception. He found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks when a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?"

Without hesitating, the American admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."
You could have heard a pin drop.

AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...
     Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. "You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. "Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."

The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it." 

"Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France !"

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to whom I could  show my passport."
You could have heard a pin drop.

If You are proud to be an American, pass this on! If not, delete it. I am proud to be an American.

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? ? ? ? ? The Democrats are concerned that I have not finished my Democrat Survey...

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You’re not doing the 2020 survey?? - privatouring@gmail.com - Gmail

Your input in our August survey is going to help advise our 2020 project. We’re building a massive data-driven campaign with 3 big goals:

  1. Defeat Donald Trump
  2. Defeat Mitch McConnell
  3. Give the next Democratic President a HUGE nationwide majority!

As part of our strategy, we need to know what is driving Democrats to vote. We need input from strong Democrats like you. That’s why I’m personally tracking responses as they come in. Once you finish the August survey, my phone will ding to let me know!

You’re an informed Democrat in Mission. You’re exactly who Democrats need to listen to for our 2020 strategy. Click below to complete your survey before midnight:

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       To the OROG Community and other readers of this wandering minstrel, we  lament that El Gringo Viejo will have to tolerate the fact that he shall be having to go in for Grief Counselling and Special Consolation and three huggy-bear Emotional Reconstruction Sessions for the next 3 to 33 months.

    WHY???   Because the people who sent this misdirected electronic mail to my personal and private address failed to take into consideration the following:

     (1)   In 1952, my mother was one of the co-chairmen of the Hidalgo County-wide Democrats for Eisenhower in McAllen, Texas.   The middle Newton brother, at the age of 10, was passing out Eisenhower / Nixon propaganda leaflets in front of the McAllen Post Office, and I was, at the age of 5, helping him at that same place.

The main flood release gates and spillway for times of
heavy flooding, especially during hurricanes.  The spillway
is flanked by Mexican (on the right) and American electric
generators that provide to this day, considerable power. 

    (2)    In 1953, (October 19th, I think) Dwight David Eisenhower came to dedicate the bi-national Falcon Dam and Lake project, in conjunction with the Mexican President, Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez.   Both Presidents were wearing dark suits, and they did not seem to mind the heat, wind (gusts to 35 mph)…it was an extremely windy and hot day (103 degrees)…and I wormed my way through the sea of legs and managed to make it up to the side of President Eisenhower.  Speeches had ended, National Anthems played, pomp and circumstance observed, etc.
       I pulled on the President's coat on his left side a couple of times, and…as it is said,"Ask and ye shall receive." , the President looked down, shook my hand, and asked something about where my mother was.

http://bit.ly/2RDh0fz  -  for a summary of Falcon Dam Dedication

     My response to him, after he had hoisted me up like his own child, was to blurt out that,''…my name is David, too…just like you".   He laughed robustly, and, at that point, I re-blurted out, " I can spell your last name".
     The President - General beamed a bit…actually from this point in my life, it is probable that he was a bit embarrassed, but he said, "Okay, how do you spell my name?"
     I went through the whole long assembly of letters, and those nearby assembled applauded.  At that same moment, my mother and Godmother came bustling up…(my mother had had a brief fainting spell, upon learning of my shameful barging in on someone else's party.).  The President seemed pleased for the episode and equally (at least) pleased to be rid of me.  He told me to remember to always be a good Republican, even as my mother dragged me through the dust on the way back to our Brown Box Jeep.

     The President's admonition held…and infected my two older brothers as well.  We all metamorphosed from moths to butterflies.  When everyone in Texs was Democrat…the three of us (my two older brothers and me) swore loyalty to the Elephant Herd.  And, in reality, we never changed.

     (3)     Your humble servant joined the Teenaged Republican Club in McAllen at the ripe old age of 12, (1959) and by the age of 15 he was President of that Club.  It also happened to be the largest TAR club in the Nation, but more importantly it was the largest Teenaged Republican Club in the Republic of Texas.   We had  up to 600 members, especially during times of special political interest.   We were the ones who changed Texas from a collection of semi-feral donkeys to a massive reserve of noble Elephants. (Lamentably, some of the Elephants later turned out to be "reasonable Elephants" who felt the need to "reach across the aisle".)

     (4)     We have voted only in Republican Primaries, and we have voted in each and every General Election…and always straight-Republican.  I, along with some other men…Latin and Anglo…ran stiff Republican opposition in 1980 to local Democrat politicians for significant local positions…Hidalgo County Sheriff, State Representative, and in my case for Hidalgo County Commissioner, Precinct III.

     Therefore…All OROGs and other readers here can be cognisant that I must take a long respite to recover this horrid assault upon my persona, my history of service, my left big toe's inclination to have an ingrown nail, and my efforts to clip the nose hairs with those really small scissors made for that purpose.

Thank you all for standing by me at this moment.   In a serious vein, however, I was pleased to think that the Democrat Socialist operatives are so pitifully stupid that we would even think about considering making a contribution to the Bernie and Biden and Pocahontas Show…

WAIT!!! WAIT!!!  Just a moment!!
     My Ocuvite vitamin and aspirin regimen just kicked in!!!  It's stopped raining!!!  Everything is bright again.   Let's forget about the Emotional Reconstruction Therapy…let's mount up and ride against the enemy!!!

Thanks for the Memories…and I think we can avoid having to go into therapy after all.  Pardon the intrusion.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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A Finch giving a Hummingbird

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    Australian photographer Christian Spencer, who lives in Brazil took these beautiful photos of a hummingbird that looks like its wings are made of a rainbow. It took patience, skill, and some luck, but he managed to take many shots of a bird with light diffracting through its wings, making them look colorful and magical.

     Why the label "A Finch Giving a Hummingbird"?   Milton Finch, who resides in South Carolina is, among other attributes, a relatively serious bird watcher who is quite expert in the topic.  I am a fairly good minor-league dilettante.   One cannot have a place in the particular area of Mexico where we have our "little mud hut'' without being overcome by what turns out to be well over 500 different species of birds on an annual basis.

     They all  take seasonal turns at barging in on our grounds to bathe, eat, brood, and make racket…without apology.  They never pay us anything, except the joy of the comfort and beauty they bring upon the property.  So we presume that the balance works out evenly for all parties.

     Thanks to Milton Finch for having posted this remarkable bit of photography by Mr. Spencer.  Mr. Finch is a client of ours, having visited out humble abode and property in NoWhere, Mexico not long ago for a nice stay.  He is also an avid star and UFO aficionado, a solid lifetime Christian student and a person with an almost identical social, moral, and political outlook as the writer.   He and the Mrs. are of those couples who make America function.

El GRINGO VIEJO

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INTERMISSIM

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     Were it to have been anything but this horrid matter of indiscriminate carnage, we would have gone on with our elaboration about our previous intended topic.   The matter of dual mass shootings must be addressed however, and this we shall strive to do in measured, solid, reasonable, and respectful ways.

     

     

          We have been called upon again to endure the misery of psychopathic and sociopathic horror…it is truly…as the words might indicate…pathetic.  There is no place to hide when the bullets are flying and there is no place to hide when the reasonable person considers the hideousness of these acts of supreme conceit and arrogance.   We should like to provide the observances and recollections of an older man who has been through this…in some ways directly, and in other ways vicariously.

     One million years ago, back in place called Austin, Texas when it was a normal place, it was my unpleasant experience to have been on the campus of the University of Texas, urgently seeking a fellow worker with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department.  He had left a meeting of Park Leaders to go to the main campus for some administrative duty pertaining to his alignment for next semester's course sign-up.  This fellow, whom I sought, was the son of one of Walt Disney's most important animists and design producers.  The son, Paul Sontag, my fellow park leader at a park most adjacent to the one given to my charge, was a jewel of a fellow…the guy everyone esteemed…not "liked" but genuinely was thought of as a really, really nice guy.

The beloved Tower of the University of Texas Campus?

      Why was El Gringo Viejo driving like a madman, parking in restricted parking, and dashing up into the centre compound of the University of Texas after this fine fellow?  Because the fellow had left the Austin Parks and Recreation main office and driven to the Campus area in order to make a small change in his degree plan.   And he was unaware that a shooter was killing and wounding people, firing from high atop the famous University Tower…the landmark emblem of the institution.

     As I ran in, the first person down that I encountered was what was left of my buddy, Paul Sontag.  He had taken a head shot and was dropped in his tracks without ever knowing what hit him.   I had no time for remorse or even anger.  Seeing a uniformed Marine waving at anyone,  I continued running towards him, at the base of the Tower so as to gain cover from the shooter.   When other people nearer the Library Building (about 200 feet distant) motioned us that the shooter had changed position, the Marine and I ran over and carried a pregnant woman who had been wounded high in the shoulder area.  We hoisted and clumsily carried the lady to our protected area of protection adjacent to the Tower.

    When it was all over, the woman was taken off by competent personnel…to one of several public and private hospitals very close by…she survived and the baby was not traumatised or injured.   The OROGs and other readers will note that this is not my tale of heroism or sacrifice.  My story is one of becoming accidentally trapped with no alternatives, and then having to do what the Christian teachings require…as in the case of the Samaritan…render unto he who needs.   And, a pregnant woman down defines "he who needs". 

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     After all was said and done…it was decided that "something happened and steps were being taken to make certain that such a thing would never happen again", and various movements began to abolish guns, and blah, blah, blah.  Sears and Roebuck stopped selling pistols, for instance.  And, that solved all the problems.

     Folks, the problem is not the firearm.  The problem is drugs, over-medication, and self-adulation, and self-indulgence.   Almost all of these people, using the word "people" loosely, have been pumped full of all kinds of behaviour-control "medicine".   The Columbine assassins were both taking three or more different types of behaviour-control "medicines", and almost all of the spontaneous assassins have been filled with these various poisons, almost totally aimed at males and frequently with adverse effect.

     Charles Whitman,  the Tower shooter, who was also a Marine, was also a walking medicine cabinet, full of various powerful cure-alls for the disease of masculinity and normalcy.   My father, a psychologist, declared that Whitman's "counsellor" concerning psychological medication…"…must have been an idiot."  (My father had little patience for dumboes).

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SO, THEREFORE:

       Your humble servant did receive an Honourable Discharge from the United States Army although Charles Whitman did not.    He was already under DD process before his rampage.   The Marine who did most of the heavy lifting with the pregnant lady, I am sure, received an Honourable Discharge, in later time after the above-described matters.   We wish to move now, however, to the present.

      Donald John Trump has nothing to do with any of these matters that occurred over this past weekend, or any other such time.  And as far as firearms and guns are concerned, please understand that in Mexico, almost all the innocent and uninvolved have no guns…on person…in homes.   Firearms are the domain of the military and the police (such as the latter might be).                   
      Those involved in normalcy, have children, brothers, sisters, cousins or close friends who like to "get together" and blow a little smoke and/or drop a little acid…and after a few weeks, months, or years…go out and slaughter people who have nothing to do with anything that pertains to the perpetrator, or reality.  It is part of the blessing of being "liberated" from normalcy by the people who worship at the altar of normalcy and then who depend upon drugs and other self-contaminants that give the false impressions of normalcy.

     We arrive at our point.

    We know that the OROGs and your humble servant are not the biggest fans of Donald John Trump, but we must also know that he had nothing to do with the shootings of the innocents, nor any of the others, over the past 20 or 40 yea.rs   We also know that we cannot overly judge the innocent or the guilty on this Earth, because those matters are to be left to the acolytes of Saint Peter.

There shall be more commentary…but we have various contributions piling up.   Please excuse.
EL GRINGO VIEJO

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Limes, Problematics, and the "Migrant Mess"

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A brief note before the pontification begins:

     We have been out during the past few weeks, dealing with medical emergencies and situations, attending to affairs at our little place in Mexico, and taking care of a thousand loose ends.   It is a source of guilt-syndrome perhaps because I have had no problems, but people close to me of the first order of relation.

     We have had to defer our normal observations and pontifications to take care of such matters.  Upon return to our blog activity, it was somewhat less than amusing to find that it appeared that some of our last postings had been "modified" apparently either by a weather / electrical occurrence or by outright hacking penetration…or both.

     In any regard, we have set about to restore some of the writing and composition, and we are going to try to return to some semblance of commentary about things pertaining to Mexico, Central America, and the American condition.    We shall probably make some observations about the elections in Texas during the coming Generals in 2020.

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Early 2017 lime sproutlings just getting started

     We continue, now,  with news and information about our neighbour, the owner of the 220 acres of a special type of lime that was put in about three years ago.   During  our last stay down at our Quinta he came and delivered a "decena (10)" of the new-fangled lime.   It was the "first picking",  and Rafael said he wanted me to be the "first" to receive them.   That term is actually a bit of an overstatement, but not by much.  These trees are supposed to produce fully after four or five years.  But, due to very timely rains and no severe cold, everything lined up to be the perfect setting for a "first crop harvest".

This are the limes about one and a half year later, in 2018

    This harvest will not be some great bounty.   But, by September - October of this year, the workers, mechanics, analysts, and marketeers will be able to do enough of a harvest to be able to reasonably confront the requirements of harvest and marketting, pest control and soil analysis, leaf rust and nematode infestations, etc. so as to have a truly smooth running operation.  Especially important is the preparation to be able to confront the "real harvest"coming up in April / May of 2020.

      One can readily see the quick and dense growth that
                  has occurred "while we were sleeping".

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     These particular trees will tend to adapt to a two-harvests per twelve months rhythm.   The tonnage Don Rafael (the owner of the Hacienda de La Vega) and the staff a are looking for will be around 15,000 tonnes (English measure) per calendar year.  There are still enough younger men around who are capable at multitasking who can maintain an active husbandry regimen over what, by Texas standards, is a huge citrus acreage involvement.  The younger but more experienced men generally tend to have three or four journeyman's trades over which they can  perform well without intense supervision.   There are even master's level blue-collar expertise…amazing actually…but good for El Gringo Viejo when repairs are needed at our Quinta, next door to the lime plantation of the Hacienda de La Vega.
     In order to understand well, these limes are slightly smaller than lemons, and shaped more like a basketball than the football-like lemon.   The new-fangled limes are not quite as sour and are becoming very much in demand in the urbane places in Europe, Japan, as well as the large cities of Mexico and South America.   They are especially popular in seafood restaurants and saloons of the higher categories.   Many think that these new fangled limes are medicinal in some ways.
     To sum up this really basic progress report, it has been interesting to watch the work proceed and especially to see, now, the actual fruit of the labours of about twenty people.  Really and and truly impressive.

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The Matter of the Migrant Mess:

     To begin, it has been quite impressive to see how quickly the Mexican military authority finally came into line with what they have been wanting to do for several years anyway.  Oddly enough, it took the doddering Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) supreme socialist leftist President of Mexico to essentially get out of the way and, as well, allow some reason to enter into the issue of the "inmigrantes".
   And, if that sentence makes any sense to the reader, it is very possible that the reader has become immersed into the state of mind that is required in order to have a good understanding of Mexico.  The first thing to understand, of course, is that the entire issue of the "inmigrantes" is a sham.  It is an invention of the leftist "World Control Group"to permit the imposition of all nature of insult against free and relatively free states and nations.   That imposition is designed to serve the interests of our betters who know what is best for us, while they live in gated communities next door to Nancy Pelosi and (Sir Edmund)Hillary.
      It took about 20 years for the issue of flooding to finally sieze the Republic of Texas and the United States of America with hordes of illegal aliens from increasingly ungovernable and/or dysfunctional poor  countries.   The beginnings were in the overthrow of Anastacio Samosa, the President of Nicaragua back in the 1970s.   The end seems to be occurring now.   Perhaps this is Armageddon II - The Real Game.

    We shall have commentary tonight and tomorrow being readied for publication, no later than Monday, next.   Thanks for staying in with us.

El Gringo Viejo

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