Study in Contrasts

The Old Gringo recommends this original "Get Well Soon, America" card for mailing this Kwanzaa to any number of right-brain thinkers, children, elitist socialists, etc.

Herman Cain's idea about how to tack a wagon

Barry O'bamaham's idea of how to tack a wagon!
After all, that mule should pull his fair share.  

     My trip to the grocery store always fuels my inner sense of dispair.    Where the Old Gringo picks up a very few necessities for our larder, to-day, it was 17 vacuum cleaner, two-legged digestive-tract, pamper-throwing, grocery-cart-abandoning slob troglodytes,  and 2 human beings paying their own way.    Michelle O'bamaham must certainly be proud of America by now.

Trudged through Snow 7 feet deep, and the temperature was 108 degrees, (w/ additions)

Show your children if you wish.

      The Old Gringo...very spoiled...last born....very self-absorbed,  arrogant, lazy, and generally disgusting....is stuck in neutral with 31 college hours and a 2.10 GPA that went along with a 1490 SAT score.   At 17 years of age and feeling pretty worthless, the young Old Gringo received a letter (by mail) from his old high school baseball coach.   The letter stated  that the University of Texas Head Coach of the baseball program, Bib Falk, wanted to take a look at me.   The high school baseball coach included a carbon copy of his communication with Falk which indicated that he felt that I was the best pitcher he had  coached in all his 15 years on the diamond.

     A couple of days later, another letter came to our house in Austin.  It was from Bib Falk.  He mentioned his communication with my old coach from High School and urged that I make my way to tryouts, not as a walk-on, but, if my talent was somewhat equal to his friend's tale, as an invited athlete and for consideration for scholarship assistance.   The much younger Old Gringo went to the athletic department, with his transcripts and SAT scores.   He played a little catch, did a little fielding, and threw a few pitches.   He filled out a form, and was not totally forthcoming about not having played professional or semi-professional baseball, paid or unpaid, and did not mention a few nights of pitching with the Reynosa Broncos AAA Mexican League team between his junior and senior year in high school, and a very brief dabble with the old New Orleans Pelicans....mainly batting practice, but in a Pelican uniform which was an NCAA no-no as well.

      One of the Old Gringo's personality defects is to just walk away from something if it offended him, if it was overly inconvenient, and in those days, if it did not come from a worshipful sense that the Old Gringo was terribly important to the Old Gringo and that everyone else just needed to wait until such time when ( or if  ) he would return to their lesser issues and concerns.

     The visit on the next morning at the University of Texas seemed to be positive.   An assistant coach briefed me, saying that I would have to go in with the tutors....not for academic help, but in order to mature to the point that the semester grades would be all passing, and with at least a couple of "A's and/or "B's" in the mix.   Sco Beta Pro was not to be carried on the team for more than one semester.    A UIL report that the Old Gringo had "talked back" to a coach on the field of play, during a district game was also pointed out."We want our boys to have a little hot streak in them,...but if you talk back to any coach, our black janitor, an umpire, or a fan in the stands you will be wet in 3 minutes".   (Their way of saying ..."Shower out, get dressed, and leave").

     With course assignments in hand, the Old Gringo hopped into his Kharmann Ghia and drove back to the house....29 blocks away, also in mid-town Austin....all fired up.   My mother was somewhat stunned and my father was seemingly un-surprized.    The extra scholarship would take him off the hook for having his son at the "best University" in Texas.   He himself was finishing his doctorate at UT, while my oldest brother was finishing a doctorate at LSU in Baton Rouge.

     The next day, the Old Gringo found a parking place some distance from the building where he had to register for 3 of his basic, academic foundations classes required by the State of Texas at that time.   He was mulling over which other two courses he might choose in order to break up the monotony.    But first, English 1301 was over there, with a poster-board sign and an arrow pointing to a door.   The problem was that there was a line of unimportant people standing from that door to an extent exceeding two blocks distance back the way the younger Old Gringo had come.

      Everyone in line advised him that they had waited all day yesterday, had their numbers, but the line had only moved about 50 feet during the previous day.    "But I have this scholarship form" and that met with, "We are all on one scholarship or another in this line here.   You haven't gotten the pink card from Student Affairs yet.  You need to go to the Library Building first".

     Library Building, same thing.    Except for the woman who said, "I don't care a whit about Bib Falk.  All scholarship arrangements for this semester were finalized three months ago.  Take it up with the Dean, and you have a lot of legal forms to fill out and a lot of other things.  Do you have a complete medical and your medical records from your family doctor?   You'll need it all and whole bunch more, son."

      There was no one to bluff out, no shuck and jive to practice on a manipulable nice old lady, or a friend or relative upon whom to impose.   The young Old Gringo even thought, "Maybe I can go over to the music department.   I am such a great pianist that they could not resist me."

And heading in that direction, the Lord sent a message in the form of the Longhorn Marching Band.  Even in Levi's and white T-shirts, sweating in the sun, four hundred strong, playing WAY, WAY, WAY beyond the very excellent McAllen High School band that had put 17 people on the All-State AAAA (biggest) Band during my last year.    After watching for a few minutes, it dawned on the younger Old Gringo that the music department had better things to do than to babysit a self-centered nobody from nowhere.

It was all very humiliating.   It was   a teachable MOMENT.

 Believe it or not, that is the younger Old Gringo
with the uplifted mug.

     Lugging my millstones and anchors back to my crummy pseudo-sports car Volkswagen, my intent was to drive down to the induction center in San Antonio and throw myself on the mercy of the United States Army.   This, even though the Old Gringo was a total coward and an absolute eschewer of any kind of discipline, especially military.   But, being a Republican, it seemed like the right way to go.   Driving along the then new Interstate 35, blank-minded, the scene of the Old Main Building at Southwest Texas State College came into view on the right.  The Victorian era castle-like structure had a view of the community of San Marcos and the campus.   The enchanting Aguarena Springs  were so beautiful and the whole community's atmosphere so enchanting that it induced Johnny Wiesmuller to move there.    He bought or leased an old mansion and restored it to ante-bellum splendor  (it wasn't that old, but the Yankee tourists liked to hear that it was) just a couple of blocks from the Courthouse and main square.

A view of Old Main, shot from the 7th floor
of the Albert B. Alkek Library at Texas State
University

     The younger Old Gringo, on a whim, turned off and went into the middle of town, and suddenly found himself walking up towards the Old Main Building.   His brother had attended there when, four years before, it had been Southwest Texas State Teachers' College.   By this point, the school of business, the school of agriculture, the school of fine arts, the school of liberal arts, and the school of industrial arts had all become larger than the Education Department, so the word Teacher' had been dropped from the official name.   "Why, there were over 10,000 expected to enroll this semester,"  someone was heard to say.   There was a set of folding tables in front of the Evan's Academic Center with some pleasant enough dolts who looked more or less like the younger Old Gringo.

      "Registration is here, " some girl called out.

       The younger Old Gringo went over and asked what was going on.   He was told that this was registration week and "everyone has to register with punch cards.   We are all computerized this semester".    No punch cards?  "No problem, we have blanks right here.   The course availabilities are posted on that wall over there."

   The San Marcos Springs are the Head of the

San Marcos River.   This Hotel, built by Johnny

Weismuller and his wife Dot in 1950 is now the

TSU - Texas River Systems Institute

http://edwardsaquifer.net/sanmarcos.html

        So the younger Old Gringo reviewed what he had taken, what he needed to take, and filled out the punch cards.   The people went inside...."Come on in.   This is really neat."   They fed the cards into this whirring monster which then printed out other cards and a wide piece of paper with all the courses that had been chosen, times of class meetings, name of professors, their degree origins, and other calendar information about the semester to come.    "We'll see you here Monday after next.  You must have a charmed life, all your profs are really good.    Remember to bring a check for the 155 dollars for tuition and another check for 10 dollars for building use fees.  You'll have to turn that in that morning and get a receipt ."
      "Can I do that right now with cash?"

     "Sure, just go up to the Old Main.   The first door on the left as you go in is the Registrar's Office".

     So the younger Old Gringo walked up the 100 feet to the Old Main Building and paid his way in.  "Don't lose your receipts, because the profs will make you show them before each class."

      "Duh...okay...."

 Image by Larry D. Moore, used under a
 Creative Commons ShareAlike License
This was the Wiesmuller home.

       And that was the was the Old Gringo wound up at Southwest Texas State College.   A year and a half later it had become Southwest Texas State University.    My son-in-law and my daughter made it out under that moniker.   But my son graduated from what is now Texas State University and now attends graduate school there. Great traditions grow from mighty Tarzan yodels....or something.    The above house is the old Johnson House...(not associated with Lyndon Baines Johnson)....that was called the Tarzan House, due to Johnny Weismuller's use of the home during a two-year residency in San Marcos.

BUT HERE IS THE REASON FOR ALL OF THIS.    THIS WAS THE PERIOD THAT A PERSON WHO WAS ALWAYS DESTINED TO BE A DREAMER, A SADDLE-TRAMP OF SORTS HAD TO REALISE AND RESPOND TO THE FACT THAT EVEN A DREAMER HAS TO KEEP ONE FOOT ROOTED IN SOMETHING AKIN TO REALITY.    The younger Old Gringo took over the Kharmann.  "The Ghia is mine.   I am going to pay for all the repairs, insurance, upkeep, and everything."   he announced to his parents.   He went over to the restaurant where he hung around with his buddies, and told the General Manager, "I need to work here.   I can do a better job than anybody, and I will do as I am told".
        Jose Cuellar, the general manager of El Chico's #10....one of the greatest de luxe Mexican restaurant chains ever....hired the younger Old Gringo and he worked there as host, maitre d', cashier, and slow-time general manager for a good while.     During the Summer (1966), the younger Old Gringo worked full time as a Park Leader at West Austin Park ($1.75/hour - 37 hours - 4 days per week).   This was the year of the Tower Shooter on the campus of the University of Texas.   Charles Whitman managed to tie down the Old Gringo, his older brother, and his father, and none of the three knew the other two were on campus at the time.   
      He then continued the Fall semester, working at El Chico's,  including shut-down at El Chico's for three nights a week.   Full load, full time work, making almost $2.00/hour and actually making some decent grades.
     The next Summer (1967), there was a full three-month job working as a research assistant for the Institute of Texian Cultures.  This work involved collecting and compiling original data and information to fill an ethno-historical museum on the grounds of the HemisFair 68 in San Antonio.   The Old Gringo flew and drove over 20,000 miles and conducted over 300 contacts throughout the State during those days.   He even had the honor of being called back to do some more intensive primary and secondary research later.   The Institute's huge museum is still in service between the Spurs basketball stadium and the Alamo.   It is quite an impressive historical and anthropological museum....one of the best.  
    As the Fall semester reconvened, and with the drive back and forth to San Marcos becoming a bit old, and more library time in San Marcos increasingly necessary, the younger Old Gringo went to his hang-out in San Marcos, at a place that had been operated by a nice old man named Mr. Manske.   It was a Mayberry-type diner named "Manske's".
     That nice old man had just sold out to a younger Czech boy name Rainocek,  who changed the diner into a high-end hamburger shack.     We got along and the younger Old Gringo would help him out, pro bono, of logistical jams every now and again.   The next thing was, I was staying in the dorm, and making hamburgers, running the fountain and then finally working as the night manager of the best hamburger shop that Texas had ever experienced.   My efforts had about 9% to do with its excellence.   There were two other Czechs, one named David and another named Larry and a Mexican fellow named Santiago who were as good or better at the nuts and bolts of the business.   All three were on-again, off-again full-time, part-time students at SWTSU.   The Old Gringo was always full-time.
        Gil's Broiler was (and still is) only a half-block from the main campus of the University, and adjacent to downtown, central San Marcos.   While there, the younger Old Gringo worked from 25 to 60 hours a week and carried a full load at the University.

      AS LAZY AND SPOILED AS HE WAS AND AS HE CONTINUES TO BE.....IT MUST BE SAID.
      If I could do it, anybody can do it, and not whine.     My daughter paid and worked her way through the whole thing.   My son-in-law paid and worked his way through the whole thing...both at Southwest Texas.  Both are well-placed in central command at DELL Computer in Round Rock, Texas.   My son went to school and then made a stop along the way with the United States Coast Guard.   Made good rank.....picked up big benefits for selling a large chunk of his life to his country.   He's working now, essentially full time and heavily committed to finishing his Master's Degree at Texas State in record time.
      So....for the 99 bottles of Occupiers on the Wall street....either admit and confess that you are communists and anarchists whose only reason for doing whatever it is that you are doing is to tear down the American system and America....or go back to your mother's basement...or go do some honest work and work yourselves up the ladder.   Set up your own tiddly-wink polishing machine manufacturing plant....do something.   BUT DON'T LECTURE ME ABOUT HOW YOU ARE BESET UPON BY AMERICA or GEORGE BUSH or whatever.
May All the Saints Weep to see so much sloth and filth.

 This baby sloth will be more self-reliant and whine
 less than the 99% Bottles of Occupiers on the Wall Street.



Thanks as usual for your time and patience,

El Gringo Viejo

      

IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, ZIG

Brzezinski: Make Rich Known Publicly To Pressure Them To Give Back

Zbiginew Brzezinski, national security adviser under Jimmy Carter, told the "Morning Joe" program he thinks the names of the rich "should be known publicly" so the masses can "pressure some of those people to give some of it back to society."

"You know, how many Americans are really fully aware of how many other good people, that’s like Warren Buffett and others, who really donate a lot of their earnings to charities, to philanthropy?" Mr. Brzezinski said.

"But how many more are there in the hedge funds? In the banks? In a variety of other places who on the basis of speculation literally make millions of dollars that it would take a century or two for the average person ever to make? I would like to see those lists. And they shouldn't be that difficult to produce. And I think public pressure might have also some effect, not only in terms of moving towards more systematic international coordination and regulation. But also to pressure some of those people to give some of it back, back to society."

WARNING

THE ABOVE QUOTE WAS RECENTLY MADE ON MSNBC BY THE ABOVE PICTURED INDIVIDUAL.    HE MADE THE STATEMENT WHILE KEEPING A STRAIGHT FACE.   DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ARREST HIM ON YOUR OWN.   HE IS TO BE CONSIDERED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS....DO NOT CALL HIM 'ZIGGY' or 'ZIGGY BIGGY' UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.   CALL THIS NUMBER FOR ASSISTANCE:  BR - 549.

ooooooooo

     It is critical that those of us who are not insanely driven to control the lives of every single living and dead life form in the universe....those of us who are not part of the 99 bottles of beer on the Wall Street....those of us who form the 1% who pay all the taxes and who do not throw pampers in the parking lot....to make certain that people like Zbigniew Bryzinski, Queen Hillary,  Emperor O'Bamaham and the like are taken to a nice comfortable home where they will present no danger to themselves or to those of us who are not deranged, obsessive - compulsive National Socialists or Bolsheviks.   Instead of a home, let us move the Navajo and Hopi populations to Chappaqua and the Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard and Nancy Pelosi's Vineyard, and take Ziggy, Hilly, and Bahmie et. al. out to the fresh air in Arizona and New Mexico, for an extended stay...?

Ziggy!   Great Father O'bamaham!  Queen of the Universe Hillary! 
      IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS HOW MUCH MONEY I HAVE OR DON'T HAVE, or WHAT I DO OR DON'T DO WITH IT.    We must abolish the Internal Revenue Service before we are all wearing grey pajamas, issued once per week by Hillary's Corkscrew Laundry and Uniform Service:  Exclusive Purveyors of Government Approved Fashions.

     Next we'll have people telling us what to feed our children....or who we can sell or rent things to....or the correct way to say waitress or Negro.    How come my radio and television only receive one channel now?

Saints and all the Archangels and Angels intervene!

A Lot of Nines (with corrections)



Nine lives can be really fine when you
have your own organic heater!

99% - of the wealthy had nothing to do with any of the economic problems being faced by our nation.

99% - of the Occupationistas fall into the category of being ignorant, stupid, self-absorbed, narcissist, dirty, and devoid of any intellectual or critical thinking ability.

99%  -   of the Occupationistas do not care a whit about other people's property, about impeding other peoples' comings and goings, or actually doing something that would help themselves or anyone else towards self-sufficiency or self-reliance.

99%   -    of the rest of us who are in the 50% who actually pay income taxes actually worked our way through college, trade school, or technical training, or served in something called the United States Coast Guard, the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, the United States Navy, or the United States Air Force. Some who took out loans did something called, "paying the loans off". We are called "self-reliant".

99%   -   of all central government income taxes are paid by 50% of the taxpayers. The other 50% are called "those who pay no income tax to the central government".

99%   -   of all the people who work in the finance industry, who work in the Wall Street environment are innocent of any legal or moral breach in terms of their professional conduct.

99%   -   of all the guilty, who are few in number, are people like yourselves....atheists, narcissists, egomaniacal, self-absorbed people who think they had or have the right to other people's property just because they want it....like you, the Occupationistas. You are the Bernie Madoffs and the Mark Riches. You are the ones who want a job "given" to you, who want "free" this and "free" that, who want someone else to pay for what you want because you are the one who wants it and you want someone else to pay, because that person is only someone else, and you are someone much more special.  So you think.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

       The number 9 is really working overtime.    Herman Cain wants to 9 9 9 the various taxing processes for the central government.   Unfortunately that would keep the amount of money going to the Central government about where it is now.   The Old Gringo would like to see at least a 20 percent across the board cut in the first Cain budget.   Also, the idea of taxing corporate income, capital gains, or the worth of dead peoples' estates is a terribly bad idea....at any rate.    But his 9% national terminal sales tax, 9% personal income tax, and 9% corporate income tax  would be a good beginning.   Basing the activity of the economy in the area of 15 trillion dollars per annum, it would be adequate to fund what the government is doing at this time.
      A Texas-style iron-clad balanced budget mandatory Constitutional Amendment would be another thing to tack onto the  9 9 9 overall approach.    Then, the abolition or significant reduction of scope of the Departments of Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, FEMA, and Homeland Security would be a huge step in the right direction.   An overhaul of the Department of the Interior, the National Park System, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs would further accompany this "fundamental transformation" of the central government and its power over the daily affairs of the American People.
       With these measures in place,  increased economic activity in the United States would cause budget surpluses to occur.    The unused money would be used to systematically pay down the monstrous debt in a steady, moderate manner.
       Any further war or wars which require American participation would have to carry the weight and authourity of  An Act of War approved by a two-thirds vote by the United States Congress, and all bellicosity would be financed by War Bonds purchased by the free will of Americans and citizens of any country allied with the American War Effort.    The name of the United States Department of Defense would immediately be changed to the United States War Department.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     The problem with our fiscal house is not the amount of money we have coming in.   The problem is that the Parliament of Public Women that we have will find a hundred different ways to spend any money that is sent up to their lofty precincts so as to perpetuate themselves in office on the dime of the taxpayers.   There has never been a stupider,  more brain-dead comment at the barber shop or saloon or the church picnic than when Goober tells Barney something like,

 LAKE FROG LIVER, JUST NORTH
OF NEW GIZZARD GUT, TEXAS

      "Well, I think we oughta be right proud of Congressman Jehosaphat Bladdersplatter, cause'n he went up there and he done brought home the bacon to New Gizzard Gut.   Yessir! He got that money for the Old Folks' Free Lunch Program and for that rebuild on the dam at Old Lake Frog Liver.   That's why we're meetin' up tomorrow at the City Hall, cause'n we're a-gonna name that Lake up somethin' a lot better."

      "Better'n Lake Frog Liver?"

      "Absolutamundo, Barney.   We're a gonna name that lake up proud.   This is a secret, just you and me....but Andy is goin' to move that we name it  "Earlene Snodgrape Bustlebuster Bladdersplatter Lake"....you know, with Earlene's maiden name thrown in.   And then change the "Lake" part from the front to the back of the name.   Yessir, Mr. Honorable Congressman Bladdersplatter will know we're all really proud of him for bringin' home the bacon."

        An owl hoots in the old loblolly pine in Andy's front yard, and the calico tabby who has to wear a tinkerbell to keep her from sneakin' up on the mockingbirds, jumps down of'n the New Gizzard Gut Police cruiser's fender.    It's 'bout time to bother Aunt Bea for supper.

       Barney finally speaks, "Goober, if we're so proud of him bringin' back the bacon...why'd we send the bacon up there to begin with?"

 Happy times back at
 Lake Frog Liver with the Gang

      A long silence ensues, while Goober and Barney fiddle around with tuning their guitars.    Andy is in the back room rehearsing one of his AARP advertising plugs about how Republicans want geezers to die quickly, but AARP and Obama will save them.   Aunt Bea is rocking on the porch, doin' a bit of her fancy crochet work,  waitin' on the cat and thinking about which tin of Sheba they are going to share tonight.   Crickets are chirring.   It's a warm, calm night in America.    Tomorrow will be the dawning in America.

Tomorrow, the Old Gringo will have been very grateful that you all stopped by to visit.
El Gringo Viejo  

New Concurrences and Observations about the Jorge Castañeda Book, Mañana Forever

This rare, full-scale follow-up is done for the benefit of the OROG.   It  helps round out why a leftist like Jorge is comfortable in the Old West Saloon, surrounded by old curmudgeon cowboys. While the Old Gringo has seen and hobnobbed a little with Mexican poobahs and potentates (but not much), he has never traded barbs, bottles, or bellyaches with this politically omnivorous intellectual.

     Jorge is a challenge.   To his credit, he has never delved into the pool with any guarantee of what the depth might be.  Nor has he ever been suspected, accused, or remotely associated with picking up shekels for giving favourable mentions in his books....one of the common "fringe benefits"  of noteworthy reporters and major authors in Latin America.   He is as contradictory as his country.   He is a leftist, was a communist, gets along with conservatives, seems almost conservative in terms of his personal social orientation, and is said to be courteous...if a bit hurried and grumpy at times.   He, to my reconnaissance, has not practiced the haughtiness that sometimes afflicts Mexicans who have deep and wide international notoriety.

Illustration to go with the
review of the book "Manana
Forever".  Edel Rodriquez
for the Los Angeles Times

    In my opinion he is the new Octavio Paz....the legitimate bearer of the torch of Mexicanism Interpreted....and a person who can help both Gringos and Mexicans understand the enigmatic phenomena that is Mexico.

This Los Angeles Times review of the book, a review conducted by Reed Johnson was published in the Times in June of this year, 2011.
The actual review continues below.   The Old Gringo has entered parenthetical comments in blue within the text of the Review.
     Mexicans, like their Spanish forebears, love to quote proverbs as a way of underscoring eternal truths and imparting folk wisdom to younger generations.     Jorge Castañeda cites one of these popular adages not once, but twice, in his timely, perceptive new book, "Mañana Forever? Mexico and the Mexicans," to illustrate what he believes are some of the cynical, corrupt and backward-looking attitudes that are preventing his countrymen from living up to their vast potential. The saying is, "El que no transa no avanza" — "Whoever doesn't trick or cheat gets nowhere."
       And that's only the start of the damning evidence that this former foreign minister of Mexico, visiting college professor (Princeton, Berkeley) and senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace assembles in persuasively making his case that Mexico must shed a slew of historically ingrained, counterproductive practices in economics, politics and culture if it someday is to take its place among the world's leading nations.
       "This is not a book about the Mexican national character," Castañeda writes in his preface, disavowing the approach of such famous cryptologists of the Mexican "soul" as Graham Greene, D.H. Lawrence, Octavio Paz and Sergei Eisenstein. "It seeks to explain why the very national character that helped forge Mexico as a nation now dramatically hinders its search for a future and modernity."
        At a glance, greatness would seem to be the logical destiny of a country blessed with the world's 12th-largest economy, an abundance of natural and human resources, a rich ethnic history and close proximity to a gigantic trading partner north of the Rio Grande.  But, Castañeda says, for generations Mexico has squandered these advantages.
        It has done so, he asserts, by cultivating a political culture that shuns direct confrontation and the open, sometimes-bruising, free exchange of ideas and opinions that is democracy's lifeblood. Its ruling class, with a few notable exceptions, hides its true intentions, and its internal conflicts, behind an elaborate, ritualistic charade of outward courtesy and euphemistic rhetoric that mainly serves to preserve the status quo and postpone serious debate on pressing problems.
       Similarly, he writes, the country's business elites — with telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, perched atop the modern Aztec pyramid of crony capitalism — conspire with politicians to keep their iron grip over monopolies or quasi-monopolies in critical industries such as oil, media and telecommunications.
      "Risk aversion," he stresses, is the economic equivalent of the "conflict aversion" that taints Mexican politics, and it's causing Mexico to fall further behind rising powers such as China and India as well as regional rivals like Chile and Brazil.  (Perhaps Jorge does not notice that those countries are not bullet proof, and that much of their supposed advance and prosperity carry a bit of smoke and mirrors coupled with a world press that always sides with communists and socialists.  They purposefully shade their reportage to favour Lula over Calderon, for instance.   They laud the Argentine Presidette because she was once a bomb throwing commie terrorist.  "But now she's working within the system...(of course, still to enslave the people to the whims of an oligarchy of elitists who want to run peoples' lives.).   This taking sides means Mexico sits in the audience with Chile and Colombia and never rises to the stage when the world press is writing the play.) Whenever foreign companies try to elbow their way in as potential competitors, Mexico's corporate denizens exploit old-time fears of the Other, playing up images of outside powers threatening to contaminate the fatherland and enslave its workers.

     Castañeda concedes that such anxieties, historically, have been understandable in a country that was founded on the conquistadors' brutal conquest of America's indigenous people, and later invaded by the French and the United States Army.   Here Jorge fails to point out that the most brutal of all rulers of Meso America were the hated and despised Aztecs. It is probable that the Aztecs killed 10 times more indigenous peoples of other tribes and nations and did so intentionally. The Spanish  brutalized, or infected simply by sneezing and coughing, and killed by accident many of their victims.   They also had a huge bureaucracy to save the Indians' souls and nurse them and teach them and to enslave them to a strange religion that did not require 3,000 hearts a day to be cut out and offered to the god shown below  pronounced Weet zeel oh PEATCH lee.

 HUITZILOPITCHLI

This nice fellow seemed to thrive
on his worshippers' massive numbers
of offertory beating hearts. He was in
charge of the Sun and Seasons, and
occupied first place among the gods.

        But today, he insists, these phobias have become a huge liability to ordinary Mexicans' improving their material lot. He cites public opinion polls to demonstrate that, for all the cross-border chatter about U.S. discrimination against Mexican immigrants, Mexicans themselves — despite their characteristic warmth and hospitality toward individual strangers — are collectively far more xenophobic toward immigrants than their U.S. counterparts and have largely opposed granting admittance or basic rights to foreign workers.   (This is very true.  It is also the law in Mexico.  It has loosened in the last few years.   Also loosened up have been setting up a small business and/or property ownership for small business and/or homes.  Tourists, both short and long term are treated and seen as something like troublesome, interesting, visiting Angels and are almost foot-washed by almost all Mexicans of any organized catechism and class.   They love "helping" with tires, car repairs, finding directions, translating, etc.)     The book's tough-love tone is supported by Castañeda's precise, systematic mustering of hard facts from scholarly studies, public opinion surveys and the like. His authorial manner suggests a lawyer arguing before an international tribunal, and the book sometimes reads more like an indictment than a native son's amicus brief.
       But if the tenor of "Mañana Forever?" occasionally veers toward the Inquisitorial, Castañeda, a frequent contributor to the L.A. Times' op-ed pages, also takes pains to brighten his dark narrative with considerable wit and humor, as in the title of his first chapter, "Why Mexicans Are Lousy at Soccer and Don't Like Skyscrapers." The answer, according to Castañeda, is that Mexican society emphasizes individual achievement and the familial unit over a broader-based collectivism and cooperation.
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     The Gringo Viejo finds the review of the book by Jorge Castaneda by this reviewer, although an LA Times associate or employee, is fair and accurate.   The OROG will notice that it parallels the other review and serves to help those who might be disposed to buy the book since it is not simply a tank of pinko bilge, but rather a studious but personal assessment of the mental, intellectual, and emotional state of America's southern neighbour.

Thanks for your continued interest in this and the other musings of the Gringo Viejo!
El Gringo Viejo.

The Mendacity of Dispair.....(addenda alert...posted during the late evening hours)

The crowds of 666 people gathered into clusters of various cities and towns of the United States of America are the perfect collision of stupidity, ignorance, narcissism, conceit, and arrogance.   It makes for a really, truly tragic picture of the present state of America's left-oriented political thinkers and activists.

      We have attempted to avoid, frankly, this entire situation.   It genuinely does not interest us much.   The problem is that the participants have lead with their chin so much that one cannot resist pointing out the obvious.

      (1)      The first and most obvious thing is that the people in involved in the "Occupy Peoria" movement are fools, cads, and shysters.  Their ideas, as expressed by their own statements are laughable.   Their knowledge is shallow.   Their rhetorical and compositional ability is limited.  They are at once "against Wall Street Greed", and at the same exact moment, they demand that someone else pay their college loans off, provide them free medical services, and that someone pay them more than they are worth to do whatever job that they feel that they are entitled to walk into.   The entirety of their intellectual thrust is "What about me?  Who is going to solve this problem for me?"
      To the extent that they have problems, which in real terms they don't, they are demanding that the same people who caused the problems give them the solution to the problem.   The demonstrators are too stupid and/or unwilling to understand that the government does not wish to solve problems that the government has created.   The government creates problems so that there will always be something to blame on the testosterone-challenged Republicans every two years.    "The Republicans want women to die on the floor (?)....to throw granny off the cliff by taking away her medicare (?)...to have granny eating canned cat food because the Republicans want to take away her Ponzimatic Free Money(? my daughter liked cat food when she was around two years old)....to kill all Negroes and Eskimoes by taking away the O'bama Free Stashmoney Program....and generally kill everybody just to have the fun to watch them die."    The Free Money for Slugs, Dregs, and the Terminally Indolent Sleigh ride is even funded by Republicans at times, so that they can show that they too, are "sensitive"...."responsible"....."reasonable"....."bi-partisan"....."kinder and gentler"....and above all..."mature and moderate".   $15 , 000 , 000 , 000 , 000  of basic, simple debt is the basic result of this disaster.    Well over seven times that amount awaits the public in terms of union-negotiated unfunded and unfundable pension liabilities.   We can laud and magnify the union-member firemen and policemen all we wish, but paying full pension to a 52 year-old retired NYFD, NYPD, LAPD, or LAFD, bone-fishing in Belize or beaching, salooning, and Campechano-cocktailing in Playa del Carmen, or heading back to the Riviera for the Winter is not something that can be reasonably sustained by the body politic.
      Corporate hog-troughers, General Motors, Chrysler, General Electric, and the other stellar performers like Solyndra, etc. have demonstrated enough Queen for a Day begging power to soak up more "free money" that will certainly wind up having been a real drain cleaner as everything flows into the Septic Tank known as "Washington, District of Colombia' Programs to Help You Because You Are Special and Everyone Else is Rich".
      The Queen for a Day crowd, the Unions, and the ardent Left want the Gravy Train to continue.   Some want it because of their own indolence and sense of self importance and entitlement for having been "me".   Others want it because they hate anything good, anything that represents wealth, anything that represents quality, tradition, or civility, cleanliness, or comeliness.   To them, anything clean must be defiled.   Anything beautiful must be scarred and mutilated.  Anything productive must be reduced to ruin and ash.    Anything good must be perverted and made into evil...while evil, avarice, and self-destructiveness must be deemed sophisticated and  worthy of tolerance and "funding".    The last group...the control group....is dedicated to the overthrow of America as a place of individual self-reliance and limited governance.    They deign themselves the "Queens of the New Anthill".    The Old Gringo, of course, thinks of them as those who learn naught from history and who in their conceit become the "....Dog who returns to his own vomit".
      The "Occupy" people are essentially filthy leftists, who are self-absorbed professional beggars, panhandlers, and gimme-or-else extortionists.

     (2)       They are hogs, pigs, and swine.   If a person goes to a Republican rally, a Tea Party Rally, a PGA event, a neighbourhood where the vast majority of the people are Republicans and/or conservatives,  EVERYTHING IS CLEAN...almost always.   After a Tea Party event, or a Glen Beck on the Strand deal....THE LOCALE IS LEFT CLEAN...CLEANER THAN IT WAS FOUND.    The childish, mean, self-centered zombies that have been shown on television by a largely sympathetic press are filthy personally in almost all cases.   Their personal areas would not pass muster in a sanitary landfill.   There is no sense about anything beyond  "I want,."   and/or " I need,.." ,  "America is evil...",  "Tax the rich or else..."

      The Tea Party people, in the main, talk about what they want for America.   They concern themselves about the future of their grandchildren.    Admittedly, it gave the Old Gringo pain when one would see or hear of some geezer at a Tea Party or Republican event talk about ..." I need my Medicare....or I'm scared about losing my social security"   Every time these statements were made by one of those on my side of the spectrum, it gave a wave of sadness and shame.     Such statements are the sign of a people becoming unthinking slugs and wards of a government that thinks that Hillary Rodham is smarter and saner and more qualified to run our individual lives than we ourselves.    It shows how seductive the idea is that "I am me, and you are only you, and you are obligated to give me what I want, simply because I am me and you are only you."

      But, at least The Old Gringo could point out that even when making snivelly, self-obsessed, me-first, whiney-winey statements, the offending geezer at the Tea Party would pitch in to help and/or help with the Garbage-to-the-Dumpster Detail.    With the Occupacionistas, it is obvious that they are the  99% who have probably never flushed a toilet or urinal.    On passing appearance, it would seem that many of them have a trust-fund funded nanny taking care of that.
       The respect for the sensibility and property of other persons is a hallmark of civility and a pleasant living environment.   These people not only lack such a basic communitarian impulses and sense of social reasonableness....they actively strive to destroy such cultural traits and social conventions.      Private property is to be burned, broken, and destroyed.    After all, it's cheaper to make a political statement with somebody else's possessions.
     (3)     Briefly, and especially to Geraldo Rivera:
                     Geraldo, you are a strange bird....but that you already know.    Last night on The O'Reilly Factor, Your typification of Glen Beck's "paranoia" about these people was absurd, shallow, and revealed that you are totally, and perhaps willingly, uniformed about this matter.   Rightwing alarmists and observers have been aware of this "spontaneous" outbreak being planned since shortly after the election and coronation of Emperor Apologesus.    It was  first going to be run out of the White House by the "Green Czar" who is a self-described communist and who is a convicted felon, and who is unrepentant on all counts.   His name is Van Jones.   It was later transferred to other venues after his sudden departure last year.   To this point it has been a flop.   The leftist American press is trying to breathe life into the event but it will take a lot more effort.   Their desire is to cause enough anarchy so as to force the O'bama administration to begin stringent crackdowns on basic civil rights in this country.   It is something like a "We can't change horses in the middle of a Kristalnacht" strategy.

"http://www.youtube.com/embed/uine5MhOc0I" 

      It is funded and organized very openly by pro-communist, anarchist, and extremely pro-socialist individuals and groups.   The re-constituted ACORN, George Soros, Move-on, Code Pink, SCIU, the UAW, the CWA, American Federation of Federal, State, and Municipal Workers Union,  the National Education Association, AARP, National Lawyers Guild (national lawyers guild convention 2011  click to learn how to circumvent new American and Israeli Laws), and several score other communist, anarchist, and extreme-leftist, America and Jew-hating organizations.

       In truth, Glen Beck came to this issue relatively late.   He maddeningly declares that he is the "only one" to have given a clarion call about this critical issue.  In fact, it is very much "Old Cow" to anti-nazi, anti-communist conservative strike-force people.   Many have been monitoring and moving to counteract this horrid movement.   His lateness gave him a chance to hone his predictions six to eight months ago to a fine accuracy concerning the world wide scope of this outbreak of lunacy, its timing, and its intent.   The rest of us were far ahead of him, yet he continues to set himself up as a "cutting edge" authority about these matters.   The truly violent stages begin next.    You, Geraldo, are either willingly covering up this story, or you are of the useful idiots, or you are gradually losing what little intellectual capacities you might have had.    In your youth you did a lot of right-brain thinking and you might well be returning to that sad stage of your life.

     (4)     And Finally!     To Geraldo and all the Press.   Do not tell me or any of the other critical thinking people anything.   Do not explain to me the motives of these sub-human, anti-humanitarian narcissistic  (self-described) anarchists and communists.    Those of us who give at church, worry about the fine points of stewardship, give to charities and funds, work in charities and service organizations, invest our money, keep things clean, and still consider ourselves unqualified for Holy Grace or forgiveness do not need explanation from useful idiots in the press, who are by thought, word, and deed proudly ignorant  and willfully supportive of any person or movement that is dedicated to destroying America and ridiculing Americans who have any traditional catechism.

Some of Armand Hammer's partners
planning improvements for the
Russian/ Soviet people

 German  Ruhr Valley Capitalists had
this man under their control. (?)

      The Old Gringo is not to be equated with people who wish to destroy all forms of legitimate private enterprise, including capitalism.   Simply because these anarchists and communists want to tear down the banking and heavy industry operations in this country does not mean that their motives are the same as mine, by ANY stretch of the imagination.    Those of us on the true conservative right have no use for the Ruhr Valley Bankers and Capitalists who see a chance of profit by joining hands with leftist extremists the likes of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei or the Armand Hammer and Al Gore, Sr. types who saw glorious opportunity coming from investing with the Bolsheviks, who are seen gathered here appropriately on the left, although Lenin himself is positioned on the right, for once in his life.   It was not long before the Communist thugs declared that "....the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we shall hang them, and they will sell it to us on credit".

     If a company fails, let it declare bankruptcy and/or reconstitute by merger or some other measure.   The world will not end.   Hundreds of carriage and  gas light operators went by the wayside.   The Stanley Steamer was an excellent motor-car.   My great Aunt Maggie played the devil in 1926 trying to find a good, new replacement  long-whip for her "Sunday team" that pulled the fancy go-to-church surrey.   (She used it to scratch the horses behind the ears while they trotted.   She could never bring herself to "....beat them for doing something I wanted them to do anyway.   They always seem to know where I want to go and how long I have to get there.")
     The Old Gringo's desire for companies like General Motors was that should simply go out of business.   Something better would have replaced both them and any other company stupid enough to allow for the edification of a stupid, lazy, ignorant, drooling, drunken, pot-smoking Union work-force that was (and continues in many ways) to be vastly overpaid for the work they pretend to do.    Really, for a company to pay nearly 80 dollars an hour for a sluggy slob to bolt his side of a front bumper on a Volt is a bit ridiculous.   The new wage and benefits package is all the way down now to 49 dollars/hour.....and they require the union workers to keep their morning rest breaks down to 2 six-packs and 3 reefers per person....and that the normal 1 hour break mustn't take longer than 2 days.   Spare us.
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Grumpily submitted.     As an aside, the Old Gringo and wife had a pleasant episode of things with the brother-in-law and wife, and the sister-in-law and husband. Our older children mixed well with their cousins and the batch of first cousins, once removed melded well....We had no problem "mixing the litters" or with noise or in-appropriate activity during the Rosary or funeral or the interment associated with the earthly departure of the Old Gringo's father-in-law. He was buried with full military honors, the service was 101 on the scale of 100. All went well.

Someday, perhaps, the Old Gringo will post the Eulogy which he composed and delivered at the Catholic Church funeral for his father-in-law. Some say that it was pretty good....although the Old Gringo thinks that it sold the Noble old fellow very short.

El Gringo Viejo.

ADDENDA:

     Since this posting, new news is unfolding that is pertinent to the posting.   Please review these articles which were posted on DRUDGE little before 9:00 pm, to-day.

Check in here  -  Nazi, Communist Parties Throw Their Support Behind Occupy Wall Street...