Observations from OROGs

Every now and then we review comments, emails, and other communications from OROGs and others.   It helps keep the lid screwed on.   This time we ran across the letter of a left-handed, right-brained Ph.D. who is one of the "reasonable" people.  This individual was involved with the Old Gringo and with his family back in the days when he was a juvenile deliquent in training, mixed with a bit of a know-it-all preppy and all around "cool guy"  (read: arrogant, self-centered, spoiled, conceited narcissist).   The Old Gringo was...after all...the only "cool guy" in McAllen with a new Kharmann Ghia Volkswagen, and even Playboy Magazine declared that automobile to be the quintessential "Cool Guy" ride.

     In any regard, the comments sent by this individual, who is a tenured professor at Texas's premier public university....the one in College Station - Bryan.....confided some opinions about my political orientation.    The same individual also revealed (confessed) "extreme moderate" views guided that contributor's political leanings.     My response  (once again...everything is about the Old Gringo still) was telling and worth sharing with other OROGs so that you all will know how I try to divy-up the servings on this blog.   We try to keep it interesting and pointed without over-dosing on Lite-mayonaise and low cholesterol rice-cakes.    We recognize that many folks....some of our "followers"....review this screed to gain a bit of insight into a slightly pro-Mexican rightwing vintage.     So, the entry below is an only slightly redacted response to the OROG from the prestigious University.

• Thanks for your message,  You are a Trojan for putting up with my rightwing rants....I think you can see my softer edges even in the sputtering and spluttering ..but I appreciate your not jumping on what is left of my bones.   Your environment is a bit different and your point view is certainly filtered by great intelligence, so it is best that we leave political sleeping dogs lie between us as we drift on to the horizon.
• I normally try to do 1/3 rightwing meltdown, 1/3 Mexico geography, good, bad, history, politics, archeology, anthropology, sociology, demographics, weather & climate, business and commerce, and 1/3 personal history, activities, and life in a rural area in a homemade, handmade adobe home on a beautiful River in front of the beautiful mountains.
• Later
• Thanks for making the coffee
• The Old Gringo

       You all will notice my guiding formula.....rather much like mixing up the pitches in baseball.   Hope you all enjoy this "kinder and gentler" look at the Old Gringo.  Now, back to the Wars.....
El Viejo Gringo Vengador

El Gringo Viejo Plays the Role of Grandfather

We try to avoid showing ourselves around too much during these times , but all Anglos look pretty much alike, I presume.  The little one in the pink gown (made up by her "Grammy" as a special gift) on the left is part English/Welsh mongrel, Prussian/Saxon mongrel, and Spanish colonial mongrel.    I guess that makes her a pure-bred Texan.....and an American to boot.   She really is a little beauty, even judging without a curve.    She is also sharp as a tack and very adept at controlling "big people".
      Her "big sister", equally a knock-out and "quick as a whip" as my mother used to say,  is over on the right with a purple and green "Mermaid Dress" made up for special events by her "Grammy".  Her ancestry is exactly the same, of course.   We have difficulty telling which is whom in solo shots when they are at the same age....remember to label such photographs before memories dim.

      This is a picture taken somewhere,  designed to convince the OROG community that my succeeding generations will vindicate my worth.     My daughter and son-in-law have done wonders with both their girls.  It is amazing what selfless investment by simultaneous paternal and maternal influences, guided by a proven catechism, can accomplish.

Thanks for your time and attention.

El Gringo Viejo

Where? Oh! Where? Fast and Furious?? Really??

     These were the days that tired men's souls.
    It is very difficult to engineer a computer application when one understands naught about any of it.   In any regard, our problem is that the URL used in the reformation of our website could not be adapted to the page.   Another URL appeared during the final reconstruction.   The old URL would only access the old webpage that looked like  Fred and Barney  had done it in the garage.    Now the Old Gringo has one that is modernized to the point that it looks like Mrs. Cleaver did it while cooking her famous casserole.    But, it cannot be accessed by the old URL.   So....welcome to North Conundrum.

        After considerable pursuit by Pharaoh's chariots and cavalry, and repeated assaults by Pickett's delayed Brigade, the Old Gringo finally developed a way to essentially hand-change the URL everywhere the webpage is normally accessed.  This will delay the time that new business cards have to be ordered and paid for.    At this time we are requesting that OROGs advise their friends and families to log onto the webpage through the blogsite.  We have three radioactive links placed in the first two paragraphs welcoming the world to  ''A Gringo in Rural Mexico".

               So, after great, nearly incomprehensible effort El Gringo Viejo finally managed to do something that might appear to be miraculous.   But, it might actually have been all luck.   At least there is a predictable channel for OROGs to find the website and the new little tweaking and attachments that have been placed there.    And just imagine, you all don't even have to get your feet wet.   You all enjoy the cyber scenery and the Old Gringo will take care of Pharaoh's men.


FAST AND FURIOUS??
       With special reference to the "Fast and Furious" program conducted by the ATF.....inserting automatic weapons into Mexico in order to trace the path those weapons take into the hands of demonic sacks of garbage born with no souls.....this is another reason  why this Old Gringo has always been suspicious of the FBI, and especially the ATF.   This might make me sound like one of the anti-government nut-cases, but the ATF has a record replete with disastrous outcomes.   The FBI, with the approval and prodding of Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno and the Hero of the Battle of Mount Carmel, Gen. Wesley Clark, did manage to kill 42 children because their parents happened to have fewer guns per adult-in-residence than the average Texas household.  It was deemed to be permissible because Hillary Clinton had to be the most intelligent woman on the Planet....nay! the most intelligent human....She took care of her part in the matter later by saying she had nothing to do with it.
         It would have behooved the ATF et. al. to have read the Old Gringo's blog and learned that 90% of the arms and ammunition used by the cartel people come from sources including but not limited to Red China, Viet Nam, Russia, Cuba, Serbia, and Venezuela.  Those are the ones who are deep into the illegal and extra-legal armaments trade.  
         It is lamentable to report that there have been more than a few AR-16 .223 automatic assault rifles (redundant?) that have been purloined by civilian and military personnel on American military installations.  Various National Guard facilities have lost such weapons and ammunition over the years, as well.  some of the losses have been "considerable", although the total number of weapons is very small compared to those imported from the off-shore providers.
         One of the reasons there is so much armament going into Mexico is because the cartel people do not care for their weapons, or care for them correctly.   The Chinese ones, in particular, are knock-offs of the AK-47 and AR-16.    The generally last for about 40 to 50 rounds before becoming useless.
Much is captured by the Mexican armed forces.   There is always a need to be re-supplied and the off-shore dealers do their best to address the demand.    
         The Old Gringo will guard his words.   Oddly, it is for fear of retaliation by the police agencies of the United States of America.    The Old Gringo has to go back and forth across the bridges as a matter of the course of his life.   It is urged however that all readers who might care search the web for the daily stories about what is actually going on within the ranks of those sworn to defend the Nation and its Constitution.    As you all go through the website listings on your various search engines, throw out the Timothy McVeigh anti-government nuts, the anti-Negro nuts, the "nobody is illegal just because he is here" nuts, and the anti-America, communist and national socialist hate America first, push the Jews into the sea nuts........There are various places where reasonable, sworn testimony before Congress and other forums can be retrieved that will curl everyone's hair.  Look it up yourselves, please.


      These things are remembered.     Poor, chubby, Security Guard Richard Jewell who was the hero of the Atlanta Olypics plaza explosion.   His running towards a suspicious package and shouting for people to "Move away!  Get Back!" probably saved 30 or 40 people.   Three were killed or seriously wounded.   His compensation for this was to be hounded by the FBI for the next 20 months as a suspect until the stress finally indirectly, but certainly, caused his premature death.   His attorney indicated that the FBI would repeatedly ransack his mother's home and garage....always waiting until they knew everything had been put back in place, beds remade, drawers re-filled, kitchen and table ware picked up off the floor, nails and tools collected from the garage floor.....as many as 2o times in 20 months.    Jewell was admonished that the "on-site investigations" by the FBI and ATF agents would stop when Jewell "would finally come clean".     Later, of course, the real bomber was found, primarily by police work done by local Jethros and Bubbas working for Red Neck County Constable's Office in Rebel Yell, Georgia.


    It is truly remarkable when an American has to guard his words in America, except for those whose speech is intended only to destroy this great Nation.


More later....
El Gringo Viejo 

About Things in General

     Days continue to pass at our little place and yet nothing really happens.   No bad things anyway.   That life continues, the cats and dogs come round and by for their feedings and attention....seeking their favourite cool spots to hide from the effusions of gamma and beta soakings sent down from an angry Tropical Sun.   The bigger trees continue to do well, in spite of the lack of rain, because they are still soaked  at the roots due to last wet season's heavy soakings and inundations.

       The main problem we are all watching out for is the fire issue.   There is just so much Johnson grass and other low growing "yerba" (green undergrowth, among the various interpretations....everything depends upon context with the word.    It can even mean marijuana or mint).    At the moment all the previous fires have run their course.    Real damage anywhere around us is minimal, because the fires have been incidental, like roadside situations.   Strategically, a case could be made that we might be in an advantageous situation because so much has been burned we are found in a doughnut hole of green, surrounded by already blackened areas.     These blackened areas are important because they are the ones with the dense grass that is most likely to flare up and invade the really thick tropical forests at the foot of the mountains' skirts.


      We simply wait for rain.   The hurricane season is upon us, and we are willing.....very willing.....to trade a medium hurricane for what we have now. 


          While the normal OROG is tired of me responding to this question, it continues to be asked.  I shall be brief.   To this point I still have not seen or been involved in any "situation of risk" in terms of the on-going wars between the traffickers and the efforts by the military and police to eliminate the plague that besets almost every country in the New World at this time.     It should be pointed out that every time the President has declared increased troop commitment into this State, he has complied.    The military has complied, and their efforts have paid off with steadily improving social climate here and elsewhere in the State.
            The war is assymetrical, so it takes a thousand well-trained military people to eliminate 10 cockroaches per week.  We have 60,000 naval infantry and soldiers in the two adjacent States of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon now.    It is expensive.   It is necessary.  The alternative is to have Detroit or any other such  major American city's central urban situation  as the new norm and constant.


       That is my brief up-date and response to a few questions recently posed by reasonable people who are asking reasonable questions based upon what information is available to them.


More Later,
El Gringo Viejo  

So, we are now at the fiftieth day after the Feast of the Resurrection.    This is essentially the day of the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ.....a rabbi who was known to be the Son of Yahweh by those closest to Him.....a Jew from an upper-class family of privilege, with a strong religious background.    So, let us celebrate the Pentecost with wine, greenery, roses, and other blooming things.   As of yet there is no ruling from the bench declaring that there is a Constitutional admonition separating Computer from religion.

Sometimes a Girl has to do what a Girl has to do.....

Sometimes you just have to drain the swamp when you're standing in the wind tunnel, Nancy.    The Old Gringo likes  Wilma's white stone necklace a lot better.