Japan

       These are special times.   The hysteria involving the cement dust seen blowing out from the explosion of hydrogen gas in the outer shell areas of the reactors has given great joy to the anti-American intellectuals who oppose any energy source required by the Great American Economic Engine.

     These are the people who oppose any type of exploration for oil and gas, who oppose the use of coal no matter how cleanly it can be burned, and who even oppose "wind farms" because the birds will be struck, hit, and disturbed, or solar power because it is unsightly and uses strange materials for the storage batteries.

      These same people, however, want us all to buy electric autos, because we know that the stork brings the electricity overnight and feeds it to our little cars that make us feel good about ourselves because we are better than "other people".....the "little, stupid people".....the people who are not "progressive" and who do not care about important things.

      The press people and talking heads are giddy about this new opportunity to assault America and to attempt to drive this great Nation into some kind of 5th World, pre-historic living condition.    After all, everyone knows that all the problems in the world are caused by America.....America is a horrible place....that's why everyone wants to come here....leaving behind the wonderful places where everyone can drink out of an open sewer.     And Cuba....where everyone has free medical care.....that would be closed down in America because the standards do not measure up to a veterinarian clinic standard in almost all cases (party officials have different facilities....or free transportation to Mexico or Canada or Europe for treatment).

      But to my point.    The Japanese people are a clean people.    My father used to joke thusly...."Do you know what a mentally-retarded Japanese person is called?"   The listener would say "No."   To which my father would respond ".....A genius."

       They are a communitarian people, they are clean, they are summarily intelligent, they are dedicated to the idea that they are one with their ancestors, they play baseball, they are industrious and generally honest.

        In a year's time, the Japanese will be nearing completion with the public works and restoration projects and they will be cutting ribbons all over their tiny productive empire.    We, on the other hand,  shall be debating specifics about how to rebuild the World Trade Center because of issues brought up by intentionally hateful anti-American Americans who desire the obliteration of America and the American example of community.     Those Americans will be helped along, of course, by anti-American immigrants who come to this country with the intent of installing the worst characteristics of their old country in order to hasten the ultimate decline of the American Experiment. 

      The word "immigrant", I know, is used incorrectly here, because many of these new "immigrants" are actually colonists and saboteurs.....who arrive here with no intention of becoming that peculiar and particular thing that is an American.   They are "Obama's Aunt".

      The Old Gringo is certain that the Emperor of Japan will speak, the people will listen, the politicians in Japan will become less useless for a while, and they will restore their great nation....relatively quickly.     They play baseball.    It will take a bit, but it will happen.

Batter up!

El Gringo Viejo    

Ramblings, significant and otherwise (proofed & amended)

      There have been a couple of moments when the Old Gringo thought that you all might be thinking that he was thinking about not thinking about the disorders we face daily on this continent due to the traffic in illegal drugs.   Not so.  It is just that the topic becomes burdensome and it is left to me and few others to try to explain that Americans in America are probably more exposed to drug violence in America than Mexicans or Americans are exposed to it in Mexico.

       The first point is that it is all bad.   There is no positive face that can be put upon an issue which involves criminals with no souls.

        The second point is that there are continuing positive things that occur, about which nobody hears.    Remember that, at best, we are looking at eighteen months to three years more of this messy business.   But, please consider these brief points:

               (a)     About three days ago several main thoroughfares in the Monterrey metroplex were blocked again by miscreants commandeering busses and tractor-trailer rigs and parking them perpendicular to the running lanes.   This would usually be followed by a gun battle by cartel integrates who wanted to make sure that Military and police units could not gain access to the zone of disorder.     This time, however, the bus drivers and truck drivers informed the police and Military that the perpetrators were juveniles, aged 12 to 15 or so....who acted as if they had guns concealed on them....or knives....as they boarded and began the offense of taking control of the vehicle.

                         Once in control, they parked the vehicles in a manner that would cause the greatest consternation among the driving public,  and then ran off giggling like girls.   Nobody picked them up...no waiting Escalade full of thugs with automatic weaponry...nothing.   Police stool-pigeons informed befuddled officers that there was a new game called "bloqueo", being played primarily by three or four secondary schools in an area where Monterrey, San Nicolas de los Garza, and Guadalupe city boundaries come together.      Some of the city busses and almost all of the long-distance inter-city busses have security cameras with memory, so the cops have a good idea of which specific individuals are involved and where they can be picked up.    Some of the idiots were good enough to demonstrate their stupidity by posting their own live action pictures on "social networking sites" so that by now 80%  of Mexico knows who they are.....and nobody is smiling.

               (b)     Then, yesterday a gaggle of thugs decided to fire on a Military patrol in the southern part of Monterrey proper.   The soldiers returned fire, chased the vehicle a short distance where it crashed into some curbing and a business's concrete wall.   Three of the thugs, all wounded and bleeding ran into traffic and escaped, more or less.  The soldiers reached the fourth thug who was also wounded, but too severely to be able to run.   Inside the SUV the soldiers found the guns and ammunition that had fed their bravado, plus quite a bit of beer and a kilo or so of marijuana.

                         What was of interest is that the driver was 14 years old.  The other three were ferreted out at a hospital emergency receiving room.   None had made it to the age of 17...two were from Central America.

               (c)       Once again, acting on a tip, the Army searched out a "campamento" in the deep brush and low mesquite forest of central Tamaulipas State.    They encountered, as was advised by the tipster, a corral not of horses but late model SUV's and pick-ups....being poorly guarded by eight thugs.     All were known thugs of the ZETA group, very much wanted by every level of authority in the area....including five or six of them being wanted in Texas.....for trafficking, murder, extortion, etc.     There was also one man who was essentially hog-tied to a mesquite tree.

                           Within two minutes there were no more active " detain and arrest" warrants in force against  the eight.     They were dead.    The hog-tied man was released to his family.   The Army took possession of varous armaments and fourteen vehicles. 

                           Two key things here;    anonymous tips that are accurate and......if a person chooses to fight the Mexican Army or the Naval Infantry...chances are strong he will lose.

               (d)     There were four other incidents with significant casualties for the Cartel people in Tamaulipas State and Nuevo Leon State.





(L -  R)  The Old Gringo, Brother Milton, and Brother Norman

 

NOW, ON ANOTHER TOPIC;      I was rooting around in some old material, working on the genealogy of the family when a photograph turned up from 20 December 1963....showing the Old Gringo with his brothers.    This picture was taken in front of the front porch at the old farmstead in what is now north McAllen.   The rightmost individual is the middle brother Norman (1942), the center is the oldest brother Milton(1936), and the heroic looking individual on the left is the Old Gringo (1947).    We were dolled up for brother Norman's wedding rehearsal and after-event supper.
    The wedding took place two days later....30 days after the assassination of President Kennedy....It was quite an event for McAllen.   It was, to that date, the biggest non-Roman Catholic wedding in the history of McAllen.   Norman played the role of groom, and has been married to the same woman for almost 50 years now.   Milton was given the chief supporting actor's role, as the elder brother, and served as Best Man, while El Gringo Viejo was the Acolyte in attendance of the Priest Officiate, the Reverend Father Henry Clay Tompkins Puckett.   That priest read a good mass but he was a pinko.   He is the problem of Saint Peter now.
        Our housekeeper attended with a seat of honor on the groom's side (Gospel).  She had been with the family for 30 years and had gone all out to dress-to-impress.    She was escorted to her second pew, aisle seat, directly behind my parents, by the Old Gringo, vested en acalyto.    She was to observe later that in all her years it had never occurred to her that we were Roman Catholic.    I did not have the heart to tell her about the simililarities and differences between the Anglican and Roman branches of Christiandom, but she spared me that by observing that Latin "sounds a lot different in America than in Mexico."

      As some of you all know, Guadalupe (Lupe) Gonzalez was essentially the Housekeeper and my Governess from my birth until we left McAllen in 1966.    She was a descendant of the Otomi' Indian nation  who still dominate in the area around Puebla, Puebla to the east of Mexico City.    It was they, along with the Tlaxcalans, and a few Huastecs and Totonac warriors, numbering around 80,000 who assisted Hernan Cortez's meagre forces in the defeat, destruction, and subjugation of one of the worst civilizations ever to infest Planet Earth....the Aztecs.   Lupe came from good blood.
      Thank you for hanging in there with me.

More Later,
El Gringo Viejo      

A Man Is Judged by the Company He Keeps....

http://cpusa.org/wisconsin-and-beyond-the-conflict-is-irreconcilable/











     That's all.    'Nuf sed.
El Gringo Viejo

March Musings....and News

      There are bits and pieces of news and observations that you all need to know.....or better yet....that I need to relate for no particular reason.  

(1)      You can feed the fish.   Those multi-coloured fish that you see in the right margin can be fed simply by right-clicking onto the aquarium.    Deposits of black granules will immediately flow to the fish, and the fish themselves seem to appreciate it all.    You can feed them as much as you want and even choose favourites, if you wish.

(2)     Texas State University (more correctly known as Southwest Texas State University before a bunch of dumboes decided to "improve" the name) sent a delegation to the Debate Among Philosophers event in Cincinnati, Ohio.   I am given to understand that Cincinnati, Ohio is way over in northeast Texas somewhere.

      My son led the debate between the hayseeds and rustics of Texas versus the hotsey-totsey blue-bloods of Dartmouth (named for an orthodontological disorder common in the area where the university is located).   In short, Texas State University won, and my son received special commendation due to his  stunning performance.

       Thousands and thousands of crazed females filled the streets around his hotel after the SWTSU vs Dartmouth debate concluded, forcing the police to cordon off the area, and finally calling in the National Guard to restore order after six hours of near chaos.    As many as 20,000 shrieking females of every known race, colour, and creed were chanting "Christian, Christian" and three Muslim women burned their burkhas during a complete emotional collapse.   Several hundred of the young women were admitted to various hospitals in the area suffering from hysterical collapse. 

       (The above paragraph is subject to amendment as new details emerge from the scene)

        Christian is a lone rider in the scheme of things.    He is  found doing what he wants so long as he does no damage to others.   People always want him to "come back" to the places where he has been.    In the South, the term "come back" is not a term of translocation....it is a term which means "Please return and be amongst us and be with us", and that is his young legacy.    He is  always employed, always advancing with his higher education....(heading now into graduate school at SWTSU....I mean Texas State University)....and generally being a Texas-style bon vivant surrounded by 2,558 of his closest friends, the bulk of whom are stunning blond, brunette, and redheaded women.

      His mother and I are always humoured by his life-path and pleased with his enjoyment and mastery of the art of living.   He inherited characteristics of both grandfathers....always pleasant, always dedicated to humour as a theme of life, always seeking spiritual, material, and physical improvement in his lot....and always contributive.    He is the quintessential "You-oriented" person.

      He has a fancy, rakish automobile (not from Government Motors or Chrysler), a nice little dump in the middle of San Marcos, and can walk, drive, bicycle, or jog to work, stores, TSU campus sites, restaurants, saloons, and other points of interest in downtown San Marcos.     Downtown San Marcos is kind of a stretch....but it does have an interesting potpourri of businesses and other services....all of which are well operated and pleasant.   He is even within walking distance of the AMTRAK, and right at the point where the new toll road takes off of IH 35 and goes around Austin so that he and his sister can exchange visits in less time than it takes people in Austin to make a bank deposit at their favourite drive-through.     (Round Rock and San Marcos are about 50 miles apart.)
      He has  geographically positioned himself so that, while the World is in heavy traffic, he faces none.   His sister and brother-in-law are in a very similar position because they drive primarily a very short distance east/west while most of the folks in the greater Austin metro area are involved in the mainly north/south US 183 and IH 35 "situation".

(3)     The next observation is a call for you all to begin raising money now for my defense fund.    The next time some slobs with a Lone Star Card buy 300 dollars worth of food(much of which is either not fit for human consumption or things we, as upper-income people, cannot afford) for a "family" that is on complete public support (AFDC, food stamps, rent subsidy, electricity subsidy, WIC,  extended unemployment compensation, etc.) and that "family" leaves the grocery cart in the running lane or parking area of the HEB parking lot en lieu of just pushing a few feet to the little corral for the carts.....I SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGES OR MAYHEM....Therefore I want you all to be prepared to have money enough for my future successful temporary insanity plea.
      

Back in Texas

     Arrived back in Texas yesterday afternoon.   The weather became a bit of a problem just south of Reynosa....with heavy rains just about bringing traffic to a stop.   The rains were welcomed by everyone due to the fact that we have been through a period of almost no precipitation since the end of the those several tropical involvments of last Summer.

      It has been a neat deal....can a curmudgeon say that?   Our guest is almost like a family member already.   Totally adapted, making old friends out of new acquaintances, and being self-managing, self-sufficient is particularly helpful for Alvaro and all concerned.

      The return of green leaves is complete for the cypress trees that line the banks of the Rio Corona.   Almost everything is in complete recovery;    esperanzas, bouganvillas, powder puffs, durantas, copper plants, crotons, herb and spices plants, and so forth.   The flamboyans remain moribund, although during the past week, we noticed that the trunks had begun "weeping" with sap leaks breaking through where a bark-scab might have openned.    That "weeping" is a sign that the life-renewing sap is flowing up into the branches and, hopefully, bringing restoration to the cycle of life of these great tropical trees.

      Throughout the region other jacaranda-type trees have already begun blooming such as the "primaveras" types with trees full of violet-blue blooms or in other cases bright, shimmering white.    These particular trees bloom first and then produce their leaves, pretty much like the passion-flower, (sometimes misnomered 'orchid tree').     Our large mulberry tree is already setting its first fruiting, so scores of species of birds will be keeping an eye on the arrival-date for the juicy black berries.     Our various shrimp plants are already quite laden with blossoms and are receiving hundreds of our hummingbird friends.

(This is a continuation from yesterday.   My turn came to do a little father-in-law sitting so that my wife could take my mother-in-law around for various shopping necessities.    It is a chance for my mother-in-law to move around a bit, and it gives me a chance to make a contribution, howsoever slight, to the general care and concern for my father-in-law.   He remains pleasant and dignified, and presents no critical problems.   He never complains about anything.)

      The overriding problem we are having right now is the lack of rain in the Santa Engracia catchment area, per se.    My records show that we have had no more than 2 inches of precipitation at our Quinta since November.    The abundance of moisture from the heavy rains from April through September of the year 2010 is what has been helping to this point.   The Rio Corona continues to flow....although slowly....based on the continued function of the seemingly inexhaustable Springs of El Tigre, four or five miles to the west of us.    It should be noted that the folklore of the area states that the Springs have never been known to have gone dry.    Irrigation is well underway in all those areas that have been irrigated since the colonial period.   In spite of this demand on water, the Rio Corona continues to flow, slowly.    The good thing about this intricate, almost filigree like channeling of the irrigation system, is that unused water is returned to the Rio Corona, cutting down a great deal on  the supply shortage downstream.

     Once again we'll have to take a bit of leave, this time for other duties.   A fresh page will begin again to-night early.
Thanks for your attention, as always.

The Old Gringo 

Our Long-term Client Arrives

      More or less right on time our client showed up at the correct meeting place.     She decided to drive down from McAllen instead of taking the fancy bus.    The journey was uneventful....she received instructions and directions  at every gasoline and meal and rest stop.....from every category and class of Mexican individual she encountered.....and we made it to the Quinta at about 3:00 pm.

      During the morning we had a cool front pull through....much heavy wind, up to 70 mph in Cd. Victoria....but we are enjoying very brisk cool nights and very warm afternoons....All is well.

       The long-term client is very pleased....stating that what she encountered is exactly what she was looking for, only better.    We are increasing our charges immediately.

More later!

El Gringo Viejo