Ah. Justin, I barely knew Ye, my lad

Peculiar things.   While the politicians posture forever about matter of little import, then pay scant heed or practice  to deceive on issues great and grand, we fail to see things like life.   Life, going on around us.

      This was a very dull weekend in Mexico....our part of it....From Cd. Victoria to Monterrey.   The absence of marked inter-cartel confrontation leads to a lot of human interest stories in the news....and speculation about the up-coming Presidential elections both in Mexico (July - 2012) and in America (November - 2012).

      BUT!  The Really Big News these days is Justin Bieber's arrival at the performance center known as "The Arena" in Monterrey.   When the sales started for independent private purchases of tickets for the event, the tickets sold out in 4 minutes.   These are for tickets purchased on only one credit card and for a maximum of four tickets.  This is done to keep as many tickets as possible headed directly into the hands of the dedicated and deranged Pre-Bimbos known as adolescent females.   Click here for more details  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0M6PEkAzpo  .      Prices for the tickets ranged from dollar equivalent of around 50USD to a little more than 400 USD plus the 16% federal sales tax.   Bundle services were left with very few tickets....and there are two other presentations on the 1st and 2nd of October in Mexico City....also sold out. 

       Now we learned that all the tickets are all gone, within 2 hours.   Group tickets, 2ndary market tickets, everything.    These heifers' video might be typical of the many that were produced for this thing, who knows? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcJ1uHbgjlQ&feature=related      You'll have to wait it out all the way through.   It's funny in a way, sad in a way, good in a way....But there is not space show the OROGs the several hundred home produced videos and even personal webpages ....This particular one was done on 5 May 2011....well after all the ink had dried on the event, so it is really just a celebration more than an exhortation.   It is pretty much silly....except we are looking at lots of time,talent, money, and effort....loyalty on the part of the fans and performer, and something a bit normal....much more refreshing, perhaps than PoopDog Leper Breath and the Ho' Beaters or  Gutslyme and the Electic Toilets.

     The venue for this event, the Arena Monterrey is quite a place...troubled leaving the batter's box and making it to third base....but like a lot of things Mexican...quickly and well finished.   It is situated in a downtown Monterrey  site officially known at the Parque Fundidora which is the old Steel Foundry, shut down about 35 years ago.   The 700 acres of downtown property was finally converted to a Plaza Sesamo (Sesame Street Park), a World Trade Center... "CinterMex"....quite a nice "theatre of access" to and from  Mexican heavy industry....an elaborate family park with advanced aquatic diversion, and so forth.   The Arena is a 50,000,000 facility with "basketball seating" of about 18,000 and "concert capacity" of 56,000 with all exit doors "unblocked and unlocked" as they say.    The Wikipedia summary  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterrey_Arena  about the place is fairly accurate, although the events list is incomplete by about 50% and a bit out of date now.

Thanks for your time this early Monday morning.   Time for me to try to look like something a little better than Howard Hughes on his deathbed.   Thanks for your time, messages, and interest.
El Gringo Viejo

Since You Asked

Observations by the Old Gringo about what the Republicans are up to?    Not much, because of the axiom in American politics that 6 weeks is a lifetime.   My rankings by preference?    Not ithat it amounts to much, because any Republican would receive this vote over Hillary Rodham or even Barry O'Bama should he decide to file in all 57 States again.   Rumour has it that he might be going to join the Marine Korpse, or maybe even the France Four In  Lesion (hah! beet the spell czech again!)  just to get away from his mother-in-law.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH4lRzKboeg

(1)   Michele Bachmann - a dumbo such as I....natural law person...

(2)   Herman Cain - someone who just simply understands that the government is not the source of innovation, money, or  positive outcomes.    He is a private sector man and a person who builds solutions from his own heart, brain, soul, and sweat.   A Gentleman...and he is an accomplished singer!

(3)     Santorum

(4)     Governor Perry - Do not presume that this is a walk in the park for the President of the Republic of Texas.   Sen. Hutchinson of the Country Club poofy set of Elephants, really wierd rightwingers who know that George Bush blew up the Twin Towers and who think Perry is an agent for the Royal House of Bourbons and King Juan Carlos, and people who just do not like the guy because they think he is a hayseed, will distribute their votes among a group of GOP pretenders,    Perry is the guy who chose to endorse Guliani in 2008, leaving fellow Confederate, and "reasonable, moderate" disguised as a conservative, Arkansas GovernorHuckabee in the lurch.   Oddly enough, he was Gore's Texas campaign chairman in 1988.    The Old Gringo will vote in the GOP primary, as always, but for Bachmann or Cain.

(5)    Romney  -  Also, like Huckabee, another "reasonable" Republican.  Once again we have to remember that     "Reasonable" is another term for "moderate".   Both terms are used for any Republican who knows that the eventual drift of the culture in the United States is to an improved European statist form of capitalism, whereby certain of the superior race control all assets that are privately owned.   Industry, labour, and social organisation are placed in the hands of bureaucracies that buffer the superior people from the hoi polloi.    These bureaucracies will assure that the people have enough rice and beans, a bit of entertainment, and an apartment to share with people of their own kind.   This "social democracy" provides for equivalent income distribution, and other rewards, like a washing machine for the family of the child who draws the best picture of the Great Leader.

     While the Old Gringo would vote for Romney in the General Elections, and although Romney has a great number of admirable traits, Romney is the lowest point on the Old Gringo's list of favourites.   He did manage to compromise Massachussets into O'bamacare Socialized medicine....as would all "reasonable, adult-thinking" compromisers.   He did this well before the Saint O'bama passed his own  unconstitutional version of the British National Health Nightmare.

Old hulks, waiting to be scrapped

   He also says that he is in favour of taking active measures to solve the problem of "anthropogenerative global climate change".   Like Governor Christi from New Jersey....who shut down all seven of the coal-fired electricity generation plants in his State recently....by executive order...to "do his share"......like Al Gore, who is an expert on Earth - Sun relationships and who loves to ridicule people who think that there are more polar bears at this time than since records of such things have been kept. (There are)
      Finally, concerning Romney, he is another in the long line of 'moderates' who lose elections honorably.   John McCain, Bob Dole, GHW Bush, Gerald Ford...all nice elephants who "know their place" and recognized that drinking vanilla Ensure was a lot better than eating real food.   

(6)     Gingrich, Huntsman, and whoever....Newt was one of the worst check-kiters back during the House scandal about such things in the 1990s.   He also gave one of his preferential passes to Jesse Jackson to some Joint House Congressional Session...(State of the Union or the like)....so that that particular piece of hypocritical human debris would have a place of honour in the Speakers' pantheon....I'll never get over that one.
        He appeared at a "town-hall" meeting (what a horrid overused term, please) with that great defender of Wimmins' Rites, William Jefferson Blythe, and talked about manners of implementing O'bamacare before O'bama had married St. Michelle d'Arc!!!   Run for the restroom and barf!!!

         And Huntsman, who served as O'bama's ambassador to Red China....????   Huntsman, who like all RINOs from Charlie Halleck, Earl Warren, and George H. W. and George W. , is a "reasonable, adult-thinking" conservative Republican.   They all remind me of some impressionist's painting of a sea-scape with old wrecks abandoned on the shore or rotting and decaying at dock.      They are all socialist-lite, huddled behind their electric gates, hoping that they have given the masses enough food-stamps and lottery tickets to be left alone.

It's time for me to crawl back into my cave and drink my Air-wick, and nibble on my No-Doze, to see what other hobgoblins can be conjured up.   Thanks for your time.
El Gringo Viejo

The Futility of Compromise

     Why compromise, in its truest form, is impossible during the discussion of these issues.

      (1)     It is none of the central government's business what the level or extent of a citizen's income is.   Once yielding to the Crown's legitimacy in this matter the subject becomes a vassal to the Crown.    To be absolutely in a condition of Liberty, no man, Prince or Pauper, should know or even be able to divine the amount of one's wealth, income, or expenditure.

                      (a)    For the Crown to know these things, it raises immediately the spectre of the designing of methods to implement fairness of outcome.   Fairness of outcome leads immediately to sloth and the sense of entitlement on the part of the slothful.   The Laws of Nature demonstrated this clearly to the earliest of the English Colonials when the first settlements failed miserably while practicing the purest form of social democracy....communism.

                       (b)     We are required as True Americans to practice that to which the Old Gringo refers as communitarianism...the opposite of communism. In communitarianism each person must provide for himself and aid those around him.     Communitarianism is based upon the finest foundations of Judeo-Christianic dogma....love thy neighbour as thyself....In all things render to friend and traveller as you would wish to be rendered thereby....develop one's talents so that you can be measured by your good works and that they might glorify your Father in Heaven.....If four loaves are taken, bring back five.     Communitarianism requires individual positive striving in the addressing of self-interest and fealty to obligations.    It certainly overrides selfishness and avarice as human conditions or motives.

      Communitarianism requires simply....take care of thee and thine;  take care of those whose needs are few and transitory and to whom you might be able to truly aid (ie  a barnraising); and then take care of those who are overwhelmed, are incapable, are infirmed, or who are beset.

      Not the Crown, but the community.   If there is an ill, it is at hand.   Why send to London for attention of an ill in Nottingham?   The Crown might assist with its standing Army and Navy.  That would do well for engineering excercises for later combat and military manuever....training and service simultaneously during a catastrophe...earthquake, hurricane, etc.   It is true that the greater the self-reliance, the greater the preparedness and prosperity of a people.

       In a democratic-process republic,  reasonable fear can be expressed that there can come a majority which will finally vote to take the bakery from the owners and turn that bakery over to the people whose hobby it is to eat.    Those who have unimagineable wealth will more and more require that those who have some riches and prosperity pay the price of feeding those who will finally take possession of and then destroy the both the bakery and the Republic...along with the "trust fund wealthy" like the Kennedys and Rockefellers.     Their guillotine is the street mob already put in place by their own hand, through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the Great Society income transfer programs.

Read at all costs

One who knew well the Gulag

      This reasoning is a restatement of others more eloquent.   There are times when eloquence is drawn from the effort to speak or write thoughts in a precise manner.   De Tocqueville, Jefferson, Franklin, Adam Smith, Hayek, Solzenitzen and hundreds of other observers have made these observations over the years. These people feared that  those who felt guilty for having wealth would seek to improve our pleasant American chaos with a "rational" social construct that would be much more efficient in terms of providing for all the little people down below.    The howling of George Bernard Shaw is revered by these people while the wisdom of Rudyard Kipling is thoroughly scoffed.....    www.­kipling.­org.­uk/­poems_copybook.­htm .   Click on to remind yourself of his brilliance at seeing through the diabolical intent of elitists.

       Nor should the super-wealthy, whose fortunes are immune from silly bothers like taxes and investment, be taxed by the crown, neither they nor those of middling and higher incomes drawn from their professions or sweats.   The imposition of taxes, normally proposed by the incomprehensibly wealthy, is designed to keep the hoi polloi out of the "very best" mansions and clubs.   Let them have their local country clubs and drive Lincolns....but they cannot be allowed to 'our precincts'.   Those of us who operate businesses and who have professions might resent the Kennedys and the Rockefellers and the like because of their hypocrisy, but we should not wish for their taxation nor our taxation of earnings, wealth, or effects.    Likewise we should not wish for the taxation of a poor man's legitimate income.   If we choose to make him uncomfortable in his poverty so as to impulse him to industry, then we should also maintain the compact that he should have the fruits of his labour.
       In short, we should all strive to be wealthy and well-to-do.   We should all avoid to the point of greatest pain to be wards of the Crown.   The Crown must not impede the building of wealth and property through taxation of income or property.



     (2)     There is no manner by which we can thrive by allowing madmen to point to the 'moulin de jour' and then have the power to order us to Quixotic attack at all costs.   "Hungry Children" "Sex Education" "Old People Eating Dogfood" "Inequitable Distribution of Wealth"  In each case their presumption of crisis is based upon anecdote and their solution is grounded in madness.
    This debate is impossible any longer because any reasonable statement is immediately taken into surgery, reshaped, and then republished as living proof that the individual making the statement is clinically psychotic, and worse, a racist, and is worse yet a Southern white man who thinks that an eternal intelligent force might have had something to do with the formation of the Universe.     In short, we have delivered our fate, our souls, and our fortunes into the hands of the Crown and his jesters.
       We cannot speak because should someone suggest that the War Between the States was fought more over the gauges of railroad lines than the curse of slavery, he might well be arrested and taken to the nearest  Queebler Quookie Factory.    But...it was.
        And then ....for instance.... We cannot say that there is no such founding statement in the Constitution, even as amended, that calls for the separation of Church and State.    A recent candidate for the United States Senate from Delaware declared same....that there is no such statement....and she was practically boo'd off the stage....howling laughter, booing, snickering...But, she was right.   The United States Constitution, in prohibiting the establishment of a Religion, was essentially assuring everyone that they would not have to support through government payments a nationwide network of Episcopal Churches.    This would have been particularly inconvenient because of the prayer in the Book of Common Prayer for the health and guidance of those in authority, starting with King George III.
    The Old Gringo's great-great-great-great grandfather was one of those who argued in the mid-1810s against the maintenance of the Congregationalist Church as the official Church of Connecticut.   That ancestor was a prominent Methodist minister and served as an elected official in that strange State of Meddlers....and remains such in these as well as in those days.   His arguments were made before the State Legislature as well as other public forums.
    The Olde Gringo borrows from the dreaded Wikipedia with the following:
          

Connecticut was originally founded by Congregationalists who split away from the Massachusetts colony between 1635 and 1636. The first settlers founded three towns on the Connecticut River in Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford. One of the main purposes of the Fundamental Orders was to formalize the relationship between these three towns. The core foundation of the Fundamental Orders incorporates the ingrained religious background of the colony’s founders. They called for “an orderly and decent government according to God” in attempts to pursue “The liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”^[2] Until 1818, the Congregational Church stood as the established church of the state. All Connecticut residents were required to attend church and/or pay taxes to support the Congregational faith. Anyone belonging to another Christian sect such as Baptist, Episcopal, or Quaker, had to provide documentation signed by a church officer indicating attendance and financial support of their separate church in order to avoid paying taxes to the Congregationalists.

     While we neither favour nor oppose the establishment of an official church for a consenting jurisdiction, we do oppose the official aetheism that is presently the policy of the Central Government and the popular culture.    The point here is only that the "well informed" of Delaware guffawed at the Republican candidate suggesting that the Constitution of the United States of America says nothing about "separation of Church and State".    The only mention is in the First Amendment which states that ".....Congrefs shall make no law respecting the establishment of a Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.....".    Once again this was mainly an attempt to head off any attempt to "establish" as in England even to this day, the Anglican Church as the official church of state.     None of this is terribly important now, it diverges, in fact from the point.

     The point is the following:   "Living Document" jurists have steadily attacked religion and the Christian religion specifically over the years in order to break loose the Republic from its moorings and to allow it to seek a Perfect Heaven formed by the Hand of Man.    Lots of Luck....the next re-make of the French Revolution awaits us.
     This is why compromise is not now possible.   Bi-partisan solutions to the problems created by aetheist socialists cannot be had without making the problem worse.   Riots in Los Angeles?  Maxine Waters puts an earmark on an irrelevant piece of legislation that sends 100 dollars per adult to every address in the census tract where the riots took place....as a form of reparation;   part of the justification being that some of the people could not go down to the welfare offices to update their information and obtain benefits due to the riots.
This is not a joke.
      Gun crimes?   Outlaw guns.   Illegitimate babies?  Pay people who have them....it's not the baby's fault.   When the baby is bled dead in the street 14 years later with a bullet through his head....blame George Bush.    When 400 of the babies terrorize people leaving the Wisconsin State Fair, beating and destroying anyone and  anything they can access....blame the Tea Party.   
       Any solution to the grotesque and horrid problems this nation is facing at this time, formed by "bi-partisanship" will look similar to the animal designed by a committee....the platypus.   It will have about as much influence over those problems as that same animal.

I am Done.
El Gringo Viejo

Setting Up a Political Action Committee

Finally, the Old Gringo has seen the light.   He has to rush this one into print before some other wise mind sitting in a prison somewhere does it.   He is setting up the

VOTES for CLUNKERS PAC
send lottery tickets and unemployment checks to votesforclunkers2012.com to support our present adminstration for continued service to all 57 States.
Work to remind Amerika that if it does not learn it will burn.   No Justise No peace.   You got the shovel, they got the money.  Always look for the unoin lable for quatily producks.    

A Bit of News OROGs Rarely Hear or See

Since my presence is so useful that it requires me to be up here for extended periods, I depend upon the staff and the neighbours to keep things in process for a week or two at a time.   Because of my conceit, it seems strange still, even at this point in life, that anyone or any business can get along without my oversight.    Everything comes into play to make the Old Gringo that perfect storm of personality defects.....last born of three, Aries, a little too smart, way too lazy, inborn sense of entitlement....just a delightful person.

     But, wait! There's more.....So we are sending a few shekels down to our Mayordomo as a matter of course.    Some is for his enjoyment and some is for the maintenance of the Quinta and the animals.   The Mayordomo, whom we have titled "Sargento Mayor", grumbles a bit because he has to go down to the Telegrafos y Telegramos Station in the center of the Estacion de Santa Engracia and stride in with a waiting room of people sending and receiving money.   The money always arrives...it's like magic.   We know that the Sargento Mayor actually likes doing his John Wayne swagger into the office...it's air conditioned, clean, very professional, smallish.  Alvaro will cock his hat back and declare, "Well, I'm here".

     Carlos has the money in a small envelope...to be discreet, because it is a sum...so to speak.  But, Alvaro will insist upon counting it, especially if there are pretty girls in the waiting room.   It is all part of the show...part of the reason he wears a fine shirt and new Levis and his second best cowboy hat and boots.     Sometimes, Carlos will have to impose a limit on the amount he can give out...a limit that Alvaro's collection will almost always exceed.   Carlos, a youngish, early-

middle age man who is always summarily pleasant....is also very polished and civilised.   When the limit is imposed, he will write a certain hour on the envelope.   That time indicates when Carlos will drive by the Quinta on his way back to Cd. Victoria and deliver the rest of the money.   Very Classy.

    Our friends look in on Alvaro and our place while I am absent.   Sometimes updates are forthcoming.    This is a portion of the email that was delivered up yesterday.    It reads:

      "Alvaro collected enough handouts to hold out until your arrival, whenever that might be possible,  I will tell him that this Monday, the 15th he should go for his deposit at the Telegraph.   He knows well that you have the family contingency and he is understanding of it....he cares for and (really) works upon the Quinta (this is an emphatic statement).   AT THESE TIMES THINGS HAVE IMPROVED GREATLY THERE AND THE LITTLE COMMUNITY IS NOW IN NORMALCY." (emphasis by El Gringo Viejo)

    Alvaro surtio despensa suficiente para aguardar tu llegada hasta cuando sea posible, yo le comunicare que este lunes 15 vaya por su deposito al telegrafo, sabe bien que estas atendiendo la contingencia familiar y conciente de eso, cuida y trabaja en la quinta. Ya las cosas han mejorado mucho por alla, y el pueblito esta en normalidad.

     These are times to be celebrated.  In a way one would prefer not to celebrate the return of normalcy.   But, when it does begin to fully re-establish after many months of literally hard-fought military and police sacrifice, it should be recognized and celcbrated.

      This little segment of our private communication is shared because, in a way, the OROGs are also part of a private, extended family who should share a little of our little setbacks and triumphs.

Back to my diet and cumudgeoning.   Thanks for sitting up with me.   I think I'll be alright now.

El Gringo Viejo

Secrets and Medical Marvels

      Every now and then  we are asked how we manage to maintain such a high level of vitriol and angst without keeling over with a massive heart attack every three days.   One reason is because of the lucky rabbit's foot that came from an Old Indian whose grandfather had carried it during the Battle of Little Big Horn.     My father took it off his body after the poor Indian had been hit by lightning while installing a lightning rod on his wigwam.   He always felt guilty about it, and so he gave it to me shortly before he passed away.   (?)

      That takes care of about 90% of the Old Gringo's health issues.  The rest is broken out thusly:

          (1)     Every morning the Old Gringo takes one large fish oil capsule, 1 small vitamin D tablet, and 1 or 2 aspirin tablets depending upon how the knees feel.

          (2)      Every morning the Old Gringo takes one teaspoon of baking soda in solution with one half of a small glass of  Brita filtered water.

          (3)      The use of Crest toothpaste since before the time of "Look mom! No cavities!" advertisements in the late 1950s.    This is now coupled with the "magic blue sludge" with the Crest tradename of Crest Pro-Health.

          (4)      Ingestion, on a weekly basis, of 10 tomatoes...2 heads of garlic.....one large white onion.....10 serrano peppers and/or other hot peppers usually chili piquin and/or jalapen~o, considerable fresh or fresh-frozen broccoli, carrot, asparagus, beets, spinach, mushrooms, and such.    Peas of almost any kind are frequently found on or near the Old Gringo's plate.  Nuts, peanuts, crunchy peanut butter, preferably Central Market, even though it is not made by White People.    It comes from some place called Canada.      Any kind of tropical fruit juice and grapefruit juice is popular, especially if buffered correctly.

          (5)      Rices, pastas of almost any kind, and all types of beans in large amounts....perhaps a quart of each per week.

          (6)      Ice made from filtered water.   One large cup of very,very strong coffee every morning at around 05:00 or earlier, with half/half , brown sugar, dark wild honey, and sometimes a dash of cinnamon, if he is bored.     The Old Gringo never did and does not use anything that is labelled "lite" or "light" or "reduced..anything" or "fat free"  or "low....anything"...and he absolute avoids anything that says "healthy choice" ....or "healthy anything".  The Old Gringo uses freshly ground sea salt or freshly ground kosher salt.    Anything that is marked "low sodium" or "low salt" or "no salt" he will not buy.   He also buys nothing marked "diet", be it soda pop, coat hangars, or used socks....nothing with the word "diet" on the label.

       He also does not buy "elderly" dog or cat food.   If they are at that stage, they do not need it rubbed in that they are at that stage.   His magnificent little runt tortoise-shell ate normal catfood until the end at 21 years.

         (7)     The only meat that the Old Gringo eats is beef, fish, poultry/eggs, shellfish like shrimp bought on the side of the road in Mexico from vendors or elsewhere, raw oysters, eel (pickled or raw), anenome, roasted crickets, and spam.    He requires that these foods be cooked or raw in most cases.   He is the disgusting person eating the shrimp, head and all, and being completely unperturbed by plates with monkey brains, fish with head on, or maguey larvae(worm) with the mescal....His motto has always been...'If it's not moving...or if it's not moving around too much to stab with my fork...I'll make it disappear right under my nose."

       He also wonders about fearing "cross contamination" because everything will be "cross contaminated" in the stomach anyway.

The Old Gringo  takes advantage of the Hillary and Mao's Spa, which is an approved O'bamacare Public Bath Option, part of the Great Leap Forward
 in Cost Containment and Water Conservation.The recycled paper clothes
do take a bit of getting used to.

          (8)     During many, many years of operation of group tours in Mexico, it was of interest to the Old Gringo that the few people who ever came down with any digestive disorder while travelling were the ones who tried to be "very careful" or who were taking  "preventative" anti-biotic .   The ones who ate whatever gruel was served did alright 99.999% of the time.

      It was also of interest that people who drank small to moderate amounts of Mexican beer never became "discomfited"....although Baptists who decided to become Episcopalians while on excursion usually paid a goodly price during the early morning hours.     One preventative that seemed to be a good alternative was acidophiles bacticillus...or what is now called "pro-biotic", the "good" bacteria whose job it is to neutralize "bad bugs" among other assigned tasks.    This should be taken by anyone....it is not medicine...at least a week ahead of one's intention to be away from home anywhere for any length of time, say two days or more, since it also helps with chlorine and mineral variables in otherwise potable water.

          (9)      The Old Gringo does not have digestive problems in Mexico or anywhere else.....save for rare occasion when he might have over-eaten a bit.  He does not limit what he eats, always eats as much as he wishes.    He normally only eats one....rarely two....meals in any given day.     Late at night around 9:00 or so he will normally eat two or three large brownies coated triple doses of ultra frosting and maraschino cherries with cherry syrup, with the above-described peanut butter.    When Diana is not watching he will let the one-eyed female cat lick the plate clean of the peanut butter and oil that is found in this particular brand of peanut butter.    The cat's coat is really shiny, but she smells like peanut butter for some reason.  (Yes, the Old Gringo knows not to give gods dna stac yna rettub tunaep.)

           (10)     This is the way the Old Gringo's  great-grandfather and his grandmother ate.     That old fool was like the present one....the grandmother was like her father....tall, small boned, and scrawny.    Diets and dieting do not count for much...certainly not everything....The Old Gringo thinks a lot has to do with Ancestry.

That is my humble observation....Thanks for your time.   An update concerning our security situation is coming this afternoon.   A personal letter, translated from the Spanish at the scene....it is very interesting in a dull and boring sort of way.
El Gringo Viejo