Sad, but there will be a better day.

Sometimes people ask, "What does the common man think about this stuff that is going on?"   I do not know everything.   I do know what the vast majority of people with whom I might hang around think.

       Below, the Old Gringo includes from the original Spanish, a translation of observations made by someone who probably is in the upper-middle class, about 35 to 50 years of age, principally Caucasian in racial/ethnic composition, w/preparatory or higher education, and possibly a self-employed salesperson, small businessman, or management level corporate man.     He lives in a major city between Guadalajara and Mexico City.

     He filed these comments on a popular blog concerning the narcowars and the cartels.   He is celebrating the outcome of a skirmish yesterday between the Mexican Army and cockroaches on the north edge of Monterrey yesterday.   The result of the encounter....Mexican Army 4  Cockroaches 0.    Nobody has come forward yet to claim the remains of the cockroaches.

      The Old Gringo has taken the liberty to smooth out some rough edges of a screed rapidly composed and written by a sincere and literate person.    A bit of rough language has been smoothed out, and a couple of replacement terms have been used.   For instance in Mexican Spanish, a pistol called "escuadra" is "squared" ....in other words a semi-automatic that loads from the base of the butt with a magazine.   The writer refers to an "escaudra" that is cowboy style.   In Mexican Spanish...in reasonable vernacular... a "cowboy" pistol is always a revolver which loads from a mid-mounted round cylinder.

      Also, when this writer speaks of the "people who patrol this city"....the patrols are not the regular normal police patrols.    He is referring to the thugs who have marked a certain number of people, pull them over on or off schedules (normally there is a "payment day" although sometimes "additional payments" are demanded ahead of time), and extract a "security tax".  They remind the victim that this payment is just for an insurance policy and that the other thug/pistoleros will not bother them now...."because they fear us so much".    It is blatant banditry and frequently carries threats against the female family members....daughters, nieces, granddaughters, (....and if you don't pay us, we know where your niece is at Primary School Benito Juarez..).

The English translation:

What stupid things you say (The writer is responding to a drunk writing on the same screed who was making a stupid statement about trying to "salvage" the "poor dead boys" instead of killing them).    I am from Michoacan and I comment to you something about the people who patrol my city.   Yesterday, when I arrived to see one of my clients, I was presented with those that charge the fees (shakedown).   I do not know if they were La Familia or the Knights Templar (two famous groups of cockroaches).   The thing is that I recognized two of the suspected thugs/pistoleros.   It took me some effort, because it pertained to a cheapo/beggar well recognised in the city as being one of those who clean windows with their bucket and rags and utensils at the intersections, charging 30 pesos to clean the car.    The thing is, now that he is a thug/pistolero,  he was carrying four cellular telephones en his belt, and he was trying to use one.  I am certain that he does not know how to read.  He had a semi-automatic pistol in his belt, and another (he means "cowboy-style" revolver )  in this fancy white belt with a huge belt-buckle.  And then a cowboy hat dangling at his leg.  Always before when I had seen him it was with a backwards-worn baseball cap.

       The other, his comrade, I know, is an ignoramus, but a person whom I always have tried to accommodate and treat as a good person.     This person was and has always been a garbage collector and most certainly does not know how to read or write.   He is one of those who is paid 10 or 20  pesos to carry off trash and garbage.  But now, he is a thug/pistolero, and has really fine boots, of those kind with high heels, that in my opinion look like something very effeminate because of their high heels.  This one was carrying an AK47 with a double magazine, taped together at their bases.    They were driving a black Lincoln pick-up cuadracab, like those units that the Federal police have (the police units are Fords, similar in appearance but Fords).   There were four thugs/ pistoleros, none of whom were over 22 years of age.    For example the garbage collector has 20 years, the  car cleaner has 17,  and one of the other two who I did not recognise looked to me to be no more than 15 years.    They were all truly jackasses.    One of them, when my client rendered the 500 pesos that they were extorting each month, spoke to my client in such profane saloon language that not even the most basal Indians in this region use,  he responded to my client's question about the bandage around the wrist of the thug/pistolero telling us that he had burned himself with his AK47 during training in Apatzingan.   According to him his training had endured for one month.   He informed us that their training even includes strategy, but that when they had left in a new pick-up, the pick-up did not work very well.    My client...a bit more at home with the thugs...asked them if perhaps the emergency brake might still be on.    They laughed and then readjusted the emergency brake ( To their surprise, they had been driving around with the emergency brake on).    Then my client looked at me and said, "What do you see (think)about these whores?   In a little while they will all show up in a garbage heap / landfill."

 In the original Spanish:

Que mamadas dices, yo si soy michoacano y te comento algo de la gente que patruya mi ciudad, el dia de ayer cuando llegue a ver a uno de mis clientes me presento a los que cobran la cuota no se si la fm o los temp, el caso es que reconoci a 2 de los supuestos sicarios, me costo trabajo por que se trata de un gangonso muy conocido en la ciudad por ser un franelero uno de esos que traen una cubeta con una franela javon y algunos utencilios de limpiesa te cobran 30 pesos por darle un franelazo a tu auto, el caso es que ahora era sicario, traia 4 celulares en el cinturon y estaba tratando de usar uno, yo estoy seguro que no sabia ni leer tenia en la cintura una escuadra fajada y traia otra escuadra al estilo baquero en un cinturon blanco fijada con un cincho a una de sus piernas una tejana cuando siempre lo vi con una gorra al revez en su cabeza, el otro conocido era un camarada muy ignorante pero al que yo siempre trate de acomedido y buena persona este definitivamente no sabe ni leer ni escribir era un recolector de basura de los de paga que te cobran de 10 a 20 pesos por llevarse la basura, ahora tambien sicario traia unas botas muy bonitas y algo altas que para mi punto de vista me parecian algo femeninas por su altura, este llevaba un ak-47 con un doble cargador unido por una cinta de aislar tejana cinturon piteado, todo andaban en una lincon negra como la de la policia federal cuadcab, bueno el caso es que los 4 sicarios recolectores de cuota no rebasan los 22 años, por ejemplo el recolector tiene 20, el franelereo tiene 17 y uno de los otros desconocidos para mi, se veia como de 15 años. todos unos verdaderos pendejos. uno de ellos cuando mi cliente le daba su cuota que es de 500 pesos mensuales le pregunto que si se habia lastimado por que traia una venda en la mano, y con un hablar muy cabernicola que ni los indigenas de la zona usan, nos comento con risa que se habia quemado con la ak-47 en un entrenamiento recibido en apatzingan, segun el entrenamiento dura un mes y los convierte en expertos en estrategia, pero cuando se fueren no jalaba muy bien su camioneta a lo que mi cliente por conocerlos les dijo con mas confianza -fijate si no trae el freno de mano- se rieron y se jalaron por que eso ocurria. me miro mi cliente y me dijo -como vez a estas zorras- al rato aparecen muertos por ahi.en un basurero.

      This slice of life rambling analysis by a true person....not a politically correct person...is what the point of view of the vast majority of Mexicans in the organized lower-middle class and higher. Only a narrow fringe of activist, leftist intellectuals in the upper-middle class and upper class see the thugs/pistoleros, cartel people as Victims of Yanqui oppression or inadequate redistribution of wealth. Most know that most have originated from families where no male head is present, by glue sniffing, alcohol addicted, methaphetamine addicted, marihuana dependent, soulless 666 zombies who are living what they think is a telenovela.   Some are derived from spoiled lifestyles provided by well-to-do "normal" families who likewise feel entitled to do as they will and without consequences.  Overall life expectancy for all or any of them is somewhere between 13 to 34 tears,,,,the figure fluctuates a lot....by the day.

      Over the last 20 years, Mexico has spent one trillion of to-day's dollars in various subsidies and payments to "los quien menos tienen"   (those who have less).    The United States has since 1970,  spent over 10,000,000,000,000 in 2011 dollars in various income redistribution programs to los quien menos tienen, minorities, the oppressed, transgendered antelopes who had a typewriter for a mother, the whatever....and in Mexico and the United States and in Canada, in Britain, in Europe,....the nihilistic, destructive blob of zombie thug/pistolero/anarchist addicts are still coming to get us.    And we feed them.

As always, your attention and questions and observations are appreciated.

El Gringo Viejo

A Head Scratcher



This is a standard 1st Class Autobuses del Oriente Bus
Also click here for more pictures of Mexican bus facilities in these times
http://connect.in.com/ado-bus-line-mexico/images-bus-and-coach-photos-ado--1-299843461746.html

     This one is a real head-scratcher.   Three busses are sequestered at gun-point near Las Norias (19 miles south of San Fernando, Tamaulipas) and driven about 70 miles further south....turning off the Matamoros/Reynosa to Victoria highway and onto the recently nicely rebuilt highway to Tampico and points south, along the coast.     The three busses are driven off this main highway down a dirt ranch road (brecha) for some distance, perhaps 1,000 yards, where a fourth bus is already waiting.   The four busses have 8 drivers and about 100 total passengers.   All of the busses are superior quality either 1st class or deluxe long-haul conveyances operated by famously quality businesses.

       This all takes place beginning at 08:30 on Saturday morning, the 17th of July of the current year.   Las Norias is a famous place as a rest-stop, roadside diner, fresh and dried shrimp producing, bean farming, and cattle/goat ranching.    People know it by the folks standing along the highway or operating from tidy, rustic stalls just off the right-of-way selling plastic bags of medium-large to colossal shrimp from the nearby Mexican Laguna Madre.  Perhaps the bus drivers had yielded to the petitions of the passengers to stop briefly for them to buy the very popular dried shrimp as a gift to those back home upon arrival.   Perhaps the assailants used this brief stop to pile into the bus and take control.

     Whether by this method or some other, three busses were taken at this point.    Once arriving at the dirt trail detour just north of  an historical town named Soto la Marina....about 5 miles distant...and very close to an ejido community named  Tampiquito (little Tampico)....the assailants drew the first bus across the trail, flattened its tires and began to talk among themselves at a position equidistant and central to the four kidnapped units.

      It is still a bit before noon.   The dust had settled, but barely, since the arrival at this recess in the dense chaparral....a hilly area with mountains both to the east and higher ones to the west.     Suddenly a bus driver, or both drivers from one unit, and about 10 or 12 male passengers bolt from their bus and run into the thicket....each in a slightly different direction.    They run with desperate abandon, and by the time 90 seconds have passed each is individually consumed by the chaparral.  None of the group can see much of anything, but better yet, none can be seen by the assailants.

      In fifteen minutes there is another development.    The thudding, whirring, jet engine cacophony of four lumbering Naval Infantry helicopters.    They are like B-52s in a way....1950s technology but still useful.   Each is carrying 22 heavily armed, well-trained, battle-tested infantrymen.   While they seem clumsy and slow....within seconds they are landing on tiny clearings, almost directly upon the busses.    Two in the center and two slightly removed.

       The assailants have made a break for it....with only about a minute head start.    Down the dirt trail, a complete company of Army heavy infantry is running in from where the first bus had been parked across the brecha.   They begin peeling off, trying to head off the escape of the assailants.   If they can make it into the dense brush, their chance of escape is good.    The Armed Forces will have an advantage at night with FLIR searchers, but these hills and mountainsides have more bear, mountain lion, and bobcats who will give heat signatures than there are assailants running away.

     Within a minute or two all the passengers are being attended to.   Mostly women, children, and older people....they are glad to have water and rations and someone friendly with whom they can re-establish contact with reality.    The Navy personnel are bringing in the ones who ran during their break for freedom.   They have their hands behind their heads and a cautious covering by infantrymen holding their rifles low-but-ready.    In short order the people from their bus identify them as those who said they were going to make a break for it and make more calls for help or make it to the highway.    Once identified they join the ranks of those called "rescued".

      The ground commanders decide to leave the assailants to the snakes and mountains lions and to take their charges and troopers out of this spot.    They further determine to take the people to Tampico, some three hours journey, and get them back on their way.    The passengers from four busses are loaded onto the three busses that still have good tires, and they are escorted to Tampico by the Army.   The Navy takes off, makes several low-elevation passes to see if they can make a chance sighting of an assailant in the sea of mesquite, cactus, yucca, and other prickly things.

       Several things happened here.    The assailants did not count on the fact that all Mexican busses of this category and even most of lower category, now have GPS.   Not only that, they have GPS that works....with interactive or passive response systems.....like OnStar.    Next, for some reason the assailants did not take the passengers' cellular telephones.  (???)   Next, they did not handle, assault, or molest the girls and women.   Then, they did not immediately take all the jewelry and currency being carried or worn by the passengers.

       Each Company took note almost immediately that their vehicles had fallen well behind their schedule and/or had deviated from its required route.   Those companies are TransPais, Autobuses del Oriente (ADO), and Transportes del Norte (operating the class of service bus known as FUTURA, which is between Ist class and deluxe).    Their security agents informed the Federal Highway Police and the two military emergency numbers as early as 09:20 on that Saturday morning.    The locations being reported to the bus companies was shared between them and they quickly realized that they were all literally in the same bowl of soup.

       The passengers, at considerable risk, continued calling their homes, people, boyfriends, etc. , all of whom flooded the appropriate military and police agencies with extremely precise fixings concerning location, size of possible resistance, condition of the passengers, and so forth.   The two drivers and their passengers who escaped also had done what they said they would do....calling incessantly with detailed information.   The drivers' information about location along with the GPS made the finding a matter of inches in terms of accuracy.

       The calls were all so similar and so insistent that each military and police response force were "saddled and riding" before even knowing the precise destination of their march.   They knew it was "over there".   With the guidance of the GPS and continuous cellular telephonic contact, "over there" soon became "right here".

NOW, this is all a good story.   It is probable that it is essentially true.   The Old Gringo has added in a bit of colour, but only because it is reasonable colour based upon many, many years of experience driving those roads, visiting those off-road people in the little communities, seeing military actions, riding the busses, eating at the roadside diners, etc.    The response by the authorities and the deportment of the drivers and their passengers, the numbers of assailants and military, the cellular telephone interventions, and all the mechanics have been reported, semi-officially, in the press and by reliable source.      ONCE.     Una sola ves.

      Now, it is Wednesday.   With such an heroic story, why has it not filled the airways in Mexico, the United States, nay...verily...the entire Planet??

       We remember the story about the primary school teacher in Monterrey who put her 1st graders on the floor and led them in song...cheerfully....while cockroaches with AK-47's blasted away 70 feet from their front door.   She didn't give a flip about the five dead juveniles who were trying to murder some taxi drivers for not paying extortion money, when it was over, only two things concerned her.    Her charges and that she comply since she was the designated training officer for such situations, and she wanted to be sure to get it all on camera for use during the next week's training episode.    That is when it came out to the public.....she did not run it over to the TV stations or to a police magazine.   Her fellow teachers demanded that it be shown to the world.    And it was shown, worldwide, humiliating some teachers....inspiring others.

       There have been no announcements or statements by the State security officers, the military, the bus companies, or even some of the passengers.   The local Texas press, which is always quick to use any incident to hark their ratings and to scare the bejeebies out of people.....not a word, since the first two airings back on Sunday and Monday....the latter being a word for word repeat of the first prepared release in the famously myopic McAllen Monitor.

        So neither detractors nor supporters......no one is commenting.   The busses kept running even through this....I drove through Las Norias on my way to Reynosa/ McAllen that day....at 09:00 that same morning.   I saw a bit of the after effects....huge Army deployments at Las Norias....Federal Police whishing in the opposite direction at great speed, they to the south, I to my north.    Numerous busses were encountered....perhaps 50 heading south during the rest of my journey north.   Everything seemed normal....and was normal....except my fuel pump.

          The Old Gringo has delayed his comments on this story because he wanted to know a little wider, a bit more deeply, somewhat higher and to be able to put a little more detail into the picture...names, personalities, final outcomes.   But I am sending this to your kind attention because I know that you all think that I at least try to keep you informed with a bit of a different point of view, with all the veracity that can be mustered.

         Were speculation to be "reasonably" extended with my colouring, it might be possible to assume that the assailants were Centro Americanos...Guatemalans, Hondurans...who had escaped from Matamoros due to the heavy losses recently suffered by both cartel groups in fighting there earlier this month.   These CentroAmericanos were probably conscripted "fighters" who had no dog in the fight.   They "deserted" because they did not want to become bullet catchers in the next firefight with the opposing cartel or with the military.   They had no money and probably no functional weaponry, save perhaps for pocket knives.   They made it as far as Las Norias by hitching and walking, but knowing that there is a huge highway checkpoint just 7 miles to the south blocking their flight back to Central America, they decided to have their Butch and Sundance moment.   They told each other that they would meet up where their "coyotes" had shaken them down a couple of months before, telling them that they were not going to America until they had done a couple of "favours" for the Zetas first.  (Favours means "Catch Bullets").

       That is why the kidnapping of the busses was done as it was.   That is why there were no women molested, that is why they did not immediately steal any and every thing of value, and that is why none of the passengers were killed.  They just wanted to take their different from Mexican Spanish accents, their different-from-Mexican appearance, their lack of money, and their homesickness  and go back to Tegulcigalpa and Quetzaltenango and drink some beer and see their families.

Thanks for your patience.   When more is known...and more precise information can be forwarded, it will be before your eyes quickly.

El Gringo Viejo

About our Visit Up - State

     As all good OROGs know, we went up to the center part of the Republic of Texas a couple of weeks ago.   The trip is always a long one.   It has been done many, many, many times by the Old Gringo during the better part of what seems to have been several centuries.    The need for the trip, this time, was caused by a couple of Old Coots talking about running trips again for the Winter Visitors.

     We both drifted out of the business as the market changed over the years, and as fossilization began to set in.  But, like a couple of old caisson-horses, once they smell a little gunpowder and hear the rumble of the guns, they begin to want to join the fray.
     With all that considered, we began thinking about something to sell to a difficult market, something that would be easy to run, and something that would not result in a lot of effort on the part of the client.   Our planning went on for a couple or three weeks, and we have decided upon a set of offerings.   All OROGs will receive a posting of these offerings in short order.    The strangest one, the one which flowed from my vast-wasteland-between-the-ears, was the San Antonio Missions.
     There is a Texas Baseball League franchise with the official name of "The San Antonio Missions", based upon the existence of the San Antonio Missions.  Everyone in Texas knows about the San Antonio Missions, both the baseball related one and the ecclesiastical, historical ones.    Everyone has been to the Alamo.... La Mision del Alamo de San Antonio de Valero...and bunches of folks have been to the Mision de San Jose.....which has its own fame and elegance.  But there are others.   Most Texans say..."Some day I'm going to....", but they never quite get around to taking the time out to actually, finally, once and for all, go see the other Misiones and understand their why's and wherefore's.
      We covered them  briefly, along a well-planned and executed paved route through San Antonio's center and south-central sections.    Some of the routing is newly done, very "National Park-ish" , and there is an abundance of parking.   Rest-rooms are found at all the stops and  routing instructions that are frequently accurate are available en route as well as in the form of pamphlets and hand-guides found at Park offices.
      So, as the Old Gringo had originally thought, this would be a good trip for people to come up from the Valley, arrive to the center of San Antonio, and essentially do their own inclinations for the remainder of the day.   Then, on the second day, the tour could go as a group to the remaining Missions.   It takes a long morning, including Mision La Concepcion,  Mision San Jose, Mision San Juan, and the Mision de La Espada.    It could then return to the center of town...a short distance....20 minutes.....for a mid-day meal and free afternoon and evening.  The last day could begin with a visit to the Institute of Texian Cultures.     There are several details and possible inclusions to make or leave out.
       We are giving serious consideration to the Painted Churches of East Central Texas and to a pair or so of one-day tours in the Lower Rio Grande Valley area.  We'll see.

A Message from the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre

     The benefits of the rain have been profound all over the area, including the Quinta.   Some place have their Royal Poncianas putting on a second  bloom, which is somewhat of a rarity.    Our Royal Poncianas have only busied themselves with putting on as much greenery as possible, which is better than nothing, I suppose.    Green seems to be the main operative colour for the Quinta, although the powder puffs, the duranta, and the shrimp plants have all been busy with their blooming chores.    There are lots of bees, lots of birds, and other natural activity.

     The mountains are also greened out and it is good to look out to the west and not see any of the smokey haze associated with the Spring forest fires.    During the past nights of the full moon we were treated to the setting of Earth's largest satellite on the mountains.   In spite of the absolute dullness of the process.....what else can the Moon do?.....what else can the mountains do?  really doesn't matter so much as just enjoying the magnificence of it all.    I usually am up around four o'clock, so it is possible to see three or four of these moon-sets during each lunar cycle.

      Alvaro was quick to advise me upon my arrival that the Army had been down our road.....several times during my absence.    The first time they had come in the "back way" , approaching the Quinta from the Rio Corona.    This meant that they had had to been doing considerable scouting and using considerable "community input" along with the overhead surviellance photographic reasources.   On this first visit by this particular patrol they stopped to talk at some length with Alvaro.   They were given a tour of the Quinta, but only a couple of officers and a couple of non-commissioned officers  went in.    This left what seems to have  been two platoons of heavy infantry out in the shaded areas.    They visited our neighbours, made friends with the dogs, and generally went about their "community outreach".     Various military elements have been back and forth during the past weeks.

       This has resulted in a considerable outpouring of people heading down to the Rio Corona as they had done before, enjoying the high waters and conviviating with friends and family as they have done traditionally for generations.   It was, in a way, good to hear children squealing and other such family noises again. 

          All the animals are fine.   Alvaro's Labrador has doubled in size, and has become a bit better disciplined.   I have endeavoured to impart what little training I can give.   Everyone can send money to pay what will necessarily be a gargantuan food bill by the time Bibi is fully grown.

There will be more later.    Thanks for your time and attention.

The Old Gringo  

Making preparations

      The hour cometh for the Old Gringo to head back to the Quinta, laden with dog food, cat food, and other goodies.  We should find a much greener place based upon last week's heavy rains.   This well be the time for pruning and training a lot of our major bushes.   It will also be time not to fall for the idea that we can plant this or that, or in any way expand the tasks already at hand.   We need simply to restore the main parts of our gardens and growies that have been so badly damaged by the freezes of last Winter and the profound lack of rain of the Spring and early Summer.

      We shall try to take a few pictures of Bebe the new Labrador, and the rest of the animals just to be fair to them.   They seem to know when they are being photographed.    If things have begun to really "come out"  with the rain and heat...very tropical conditions....then perhaps we shall "freshen up" some of our archives and let you all see the pictures first.
      The biggest problem we see at this point in going down is that we shall be trying to take the one-eyed cat down, after her operation, and her recovering from o'possum attack and the operation.   It is a bit of a trip, and then she will have to fit in to a group of well established cats.    It is all madness.   But, short of putting a bullet in her head, there is no other remedy left.

       Things have also been a little touch and go with the Old Gringo parents-in-law.    This journey down will be of short duration due to the problems on that front.   It is a matter of leaving one end of the candle to burn while attending the other end.   Either way, it seems that the holder of the candle is going to wind up,  at one point or the other, holding the wrong end.   

     

And the Lord Spake, saying.....

"......Enough already with the praying for rain...I've heard you!" spake the Lord. And so it was. Verily didst fall the torrents. Awash, all living things crawling, creeping, or borne afoot. Fleeing the rushing and roaring of a River in a race to the Ocean as if driven mad by the rapidly falling elevations. Feathered beasts found their niches and crannies, nooks and corners to wait out the solid sheets of previously scarce rain.

Our little adobe hut on the Rio Corona, in front of the Sierra del Cautivo section of the Sierra Madre Oriental, picked up 18 inches of rain during the period of Allene, the Tropical Storm's landfall, up to and including Sunday night. Almost five days of intermittent heavy rains should wake up the vegetation and orchards of our beautiful area.

Rains in the nearby mountains were thought to have been perhaps double that amount. It seems a bit extreme, but remember OROGs, last year we had rainfall amounts in the mountains that exceeded 100 inches over a two month period. This year's rainy season is starting off in the same way. I shall keep you all abreast of everything, blow by blow, drop by drop.

Just a note. Thanks for your attention as usual.

El Gringo Viejo