Emotional Millstones

Each morning, each week, each month, as the sand runs through the narrow part of the hourglass, El Gringo Viejo tries to move to the next issue without being troubled, angered, and distressed about things over which he has no control.

      The fault is entirely that of the Gringo Viejo.   He chooses to forget the admonitions of his father to his mother when she complained about some foolish thing someone had done..."Doll, try to remember he's a Mexican"    or  "Doll, try to remember he's a German"  or "Doll, try to remember he's a Southerner".    These admonitions gave, at the very least, some comfort to those who believe in bio-cultural dominance in terms of major influences over individual and group human activity.

      "I just can't believe that that horrible man was letting his 6 year old child drink beer at the table.   We're only 30 years away from the Prohibition and half the County's still dry!   I want you to go over and tell Mr. Hophenbluschter what a bum he is!!   We fight two wars against them and they still don't learn anything"

      "Husband, that lazy Mexican is over there sleeping at 2:00 in the afternoon!   People are going to say he's drunk!   Go over there and wake him up right now!

      "Look at that crazy English tourist there on the beach.   He's actually going into the water and it can't be a degree over 80f," she would point, incredulous of the scene.

     It was not quite that extreme, but it was something similar.   The Old Gringo's father would smile and beg a bit understanding and tolerance, which was always granted.    It was my job to anticipate my own uncomfortableness with deviant social and cultural behaviour and move to be understanding and tolerant, to the extent possible.    One does that realizing  there are certain cultural, biological, and social forces that are overwhelming to the large majority of humans.    There are also certain variables among individual humans who make them disposed to do well, prosper, be happy, to work, to serve, to do good by their neighbours, and generally be positive....And there are variables that move certain persons, individually to do things that are self-destructive, that are narcissistic, that cause pain to self and others, that are counterproductive in general to the establishment of a good, prosperous, and happy existence in this life.

    Sometimes El Gringo Viejo forgets.   Forgets to accept.  Consider the Leftist.

      He is always angry.   Let him be angry.

      He is always certain that his motives are the only pure motives.

     He is satisfied, since his motives are pure, that his policy of taking things away from owners, killing millions of people - or thousands - or hundreds - or scores that is always justified, for the greater good.

     He is always sure that his plan for bussing someone else's child from here to there will serve to punish the evil and liberate those he wishes to liberate.

     He is always convinced that when his programs and designs produce results that are many times worse than the ill that had been proposed for extinction, it was the result of insufficient expenditures.

     He  is satisfied that all the ills of the world are caused by wealth and the wealthy, and that the "poor" are somehow more morally grounded than other people.

     He is content in the knowledge that, if it is necessary to publish information about an event, it is perfectly acceptable to amend the facts so as to protect his point of view and to slander the opponent.   After all, those who oppose helping the poor are evil people.

    He is proud of the people who foul the lives of the un-involved and destroy their paths and properties, because he knows those who have, need to suffer what it means to be poor and lacking control.

     He understands that while he proposes stringent programs and strident solutions to problems that may or may not exist, he himself must not be restrained by the law, or even require of himself any compliance with that new law.

     He scoffs at the idea that certain people suffer in life due to their own addictions to alcohol, drugs, sloth, self-centeredness, promiscuity, violation of natural law, profligacy, or other personal failings.   All personal problems are reactions to the Oppression by the Rich.

     He stares in wonder at an old fool like the Gringo Viejo's father who always urged to understand the origins of each man.  To tolerate his idiosyncrasies.  To allow a troubled person to awaken to his disorder, seek help, and climb from his abyss. (Stupid Indian, why doesn't he use a saddle for his horse?)


El Gringo Viejo was touched by this posting by a OWC activist.   Much jewelry, many piercings of nose, lips, eye brows, and many tatoos.   She was well dressed but dirty.   Her eyes seemed to be able to hold a focus for two or three seconds before going into a 10-mile stare.  She might have been 20 years old.

Her protest sign?

"There is nothing the Amerikan Wehrmacht  can do that regular people can't undo with a law to set people free and give them money and food and what people nede.   No Jews!  No Jews in Palestine! No Jews in America!"

The Gringo Viejo will have to vote for that bill before he reads it again.  Peace, brother.


 

The Collegiate Defect

     Rush is raving forth about the dunce - ism of majoring in liberal arts.   In these days, most of those who are stumbling through a liberal arts curriculum are not aware that the only place where their studies can be readily applied is in the area of instruction.    Therefore it becomes something like the Bavarian Butt Biter.   The Bavarian Butt Biter is the animal who bites himself on the rear and as the pain becomes more intense the animal gnashes himself on the rear even harder.   One can only imagine how it all ....how would one say....how it all ends.

     But, frequently Rush is wrong.   The Old Gringo has the right to say a little about that because we were sponsors of one of his early stops during the Rush to Excellence Tour he did early on during the launch of his National radio career.    Rush is more frequently right, this this time he is wrong.

     The point is that those who go into liberal arts need to know going in that they are bound to have to adapt to a changing seascape here and a changing landscape there.    There is plenty for them to do, because they are usually capable of performing in three or four or five discipline areas.   Many are extremely quick studies and can move from entire discipline to another with ease.

      BUT !!!    The type who wants to go into liberal arts should be a person who is going to university only to verify that he is a gentleman or that she is a lady, a studied and compliant person to some measurable degree.  The liberal arts graduate has a piece of paper to prove it to the world.   That same graduate must accept that others who have taken technical and professional degrees have a leg up....but only in direction of life's path.

      Once the liberal arts graduate has finished he might go to the military, the Peace Corps, into church missionary work, or (heaven forbid) into "public service".   He can also move into the business world by serving a form of apprenticeship in or with a small or large business.   He can quickly figure how to start small, on a shoe string, and connect with potential clients.   He is comfortable in old tech, low tech, high tech, cutting edge tech, business, trades, or space colonisation.

       The Old Gringo met a man in Louisiana who refurbished old Confederate whatevers;   wagon wheels, pistols and rifles, flags, uniforms, ledgers, or whatever bore an identifiable CSA purpose, manufacture, or utilisation.   He had three degrees in History.  BA, MA, PH.d. and said that he was essentially retired when he was 43 years old.   People paid him and paid his travel to review documents, supervise reconstructions of old homes, supervise battlefield and cemetery excavations, and repair artifacts.   He made about what a "pretty fair lawyer" might make, in his own estimation.

        He said he had only been interested in one thing since he turned five years old, and he never grew up.   They had paid him in public and private universities to work at his hobby and then after he kind of, more or less,  withdrew gradually from the teaching he went on to working at his hobby and being paid for it.    He said, "I'm like Mickey Mantle.   I'm paid to play."

       What the Gringo Viejo means by all of this is some people do well to be uselessly educated.   BUT THEY MUST BE SADDLE TRAMPS, even if they are from the upper-middle, or upper class.  They have to establish their own "career ladder", understand the value of a university education that has no direct objective.    They must have a sense of self-value that is not measured by trappings and treasure, but by the nature of  their journey.    The journey will ultimately bring wealth if the Saddle Tramp Paladin is true only to the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule and loyal to those closest to him....the first level of relation and the one or two friends that one might encounter in a lifetime.    Usually, wealth to the "professional Liberal Arts" person is something to store up later in life and to be meted out or willed to causes and people deemed to be of value.

      Rigid values, flexible path, and basic catechism.   Those are the tenets of success for the liberal arts person.    Most of those who are in the liberal arts schools at Whatever U. are not there for the right reason in these days.    My urchins are liberal arts type people and they have wound up in areas so interesting and places so perfectly ordered for a good life and having accomplished so much that it is staggering.   My son-in-law and his brother are the same.   So....just because your degree does not have a built in range-finder or a roadmap to the pot of gold or whatever....it does not mean that you are in the wrong room.   Maybe you just crossed into the Twilight Zone of fulfillment.

(just to prove the Old Gringo's point, click below)

 

For Yankees

http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/civilwarantiques/ 

For both regular folks and Yankees,

http://www.civilwardealers.com/dealers.htm

These people are all happy, frustrated, grumpy, and get up every day and do the same thing because it gives them great pleasure.

El Gringo Viejo

The Reason Perry is a Dumboe

     The number one reason Mr. Rick is a dumboe is because he can talk longer and say less than even the most accomplished Texas politicians who talk right and act left in history.

     The number two reason Mr. Rick is a dumboe is because he calls us down because we don't "have hearts" when we suggest that it is not a good idea to allow in-State tuition to children of illegal aliens who have been here for a long time.    The Gringo Viejo understands this issue, and is conflicted by the various arguments on about 5 or 6 different points of view about the issue.  To say that the Old Gringo does not "have a heart" is arrogant, misleading, and pointless.

     The number three reason Mr. Rick is a dumboe is because he never did point out that the Border Governor's Conference did not meet in Texas last year because the Mexican Governors of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sonora, and Baja California were miffed with the Texas Governor.   The Mexican Governors played the Tom for the anti-American intellectuals in Mexico and the United States and snubbed because Mr. Rick tended to side with Arizona's right to self-defense in light of the avalanche of lawlessness that has beset that poor State...due to Janet Napolitano's failures both as Governor of Arizona and as "Secretary" of something called Homeland Security.     Perry said he had a few issues with Arizona's law but he supported the people's right to arrange things the way they chose.

Instead of pointing out something intelligent, he underscores that he tries to be stupid, when possible.  

     The number four reason Mr. Rick is a dumboe is because Texas is still stuck with a Tar Baby thing that no one knows whose uncle it is, where it came from, why it's here, or why it does not leave.    That unidentifiable amorphous mass is called  the "Business Tax".    It was put in place so as to make up for the reductions in property taxes that were being passed in most locales of the State.   The poobahs and the Governor were adamant that the "Business Tax" was not a State Business Income Tax....which of course meant that it was exactly that.
    There are exemptions now, so that no tax is owed for businesses generating less than 1,000,000 dollars in sales.   There are other exemptions for left-handed Lesbian Eskimoes, blue eyed Eskilarrys, and club-footed Eskicurlys....so now we have to seven or eight more  Astronautical Accountants to fill out all forms and obtain the correct number of contradictory answers from another layer of dumbasses in a government taxing office somewhere.
     Still, nobody knows where the "Business Tax" came from, why it cannot be repealed outright during the openning seconds of the next session of the Congress of the Republic of Texas.   We are told that we need to make certain that we have enough money to fund the "Feed Somebody Else's Children Who Have Severe Dietary Disorders Program" via the Lone Star Card.    And other very important programs, like "Feed the Children of Mother's Who Miraculously Become Pregnant and Whelp Out Seven Babies in Nine Years by a Possible Universe of Fifty-three Paternal Eligibles Program"
      You know, like, it's not like we're wasting money or anything.....and if you rich people don't chip in, then who's goin' to feed them?    It's just, like, you know...you gotta have a heart.   Otherwise the grocery stores and banks won't get any money to show how prosperous we are.  And it's required anyway in order to qualify for our share of the WIC program, and the Pre-teen Neo-natal delivery assistance program, and the Big Gold Lone Star Card we have to give every quarter to the girls who qualify to become members of the 26 Year Old Grandmothers Club.   Last year we had to make two trophies for the Annual Golden Lifetime No-limits Lone Star Card when two different girls tied for youngest grandmothers of the year at  24 years, 3 months, 15 days, 5 hours, and 22 minutes of age.   The decision had to be delayed because the mid-wife of one of the two girls was in prison for documentation forgery, so her paperwork had to be checked out a little more carefully.

      The number five reason that Mr. Rick is a dumboe is because instead of attacking and tearing down other Republican candidates about anything, he could say, "This is why Social Security is not a good choice for Americans or for America.     Here is a copy given to me by a public school employee in Texas.   She wanted me to show it to you in order to save America.   I cannot show her name, but it is a common Texas Teachers' and Public School Employees' Retirement System Statement.....She has been employed by the school district near where she lives for 33 years.    She has served in four or five different capacities.    Her earnings have been low, by New York standards, but the pleasure and honor of living in Texas and being a Texan, makes up for that.    Even though the salaries she has earned are low, we still take off the top a percentage, about 6 percent, and put it into.....not a lock box for Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.....but a numbered account that belongs to this woman...only her....no one else.  She does not participate in Social Security and pays no Social Security withholding.   We then turn the money over to a bunch of our "good-old-boy" friends who serve on the Board of Governors of the retirement fund and they put money into green energy projects and Amalgamated Alchemy, and Soros, Gore, and Associates sponsored projects and flush it down the toilet.

         No, no .. no no no ....excuse me.   That comes for one of those bills we had to vote for in order to find out what was in it.
       Our fund's governors put this woman's money, and several hundred other similar peoples' money into a mix of very conservative and boring investment instruments.   About the most dangerous are Mexican and Canadian short term bonds, the rest are like Joe's Watch the Paint Dry Bonds.   So here we are.
     Her monthly pension will be almost 2, 300 dollars per month.  She can choose less and leave some to be inherited.   There are burial alternatives, there are five different plans for her and an equal number for her survivors.   Why, it's almost like......it's her money and she can make the choices.   Not me, not you, not Hillary.....She makes the decisions....She has 112,000 dollars that only she can access and manage.    In Texas, we do not fund the retirement system from the general fund....it is funded by the employee....and it belongs to the employee....not to the politicians.
     But Mr. Rick is a dumboe so he gets into a shouting match and plays the part of Stanley Laurel while he forces a Massachusetts dumboe to play the part of Oliver Hardy.   That does a lot of good, Mr. Rick.....or maybe it's Rowan and Martin....or is it Martin and Lewis??

      The number six reason Mr. Rick is a dumboe is because he cannot bring himself to say, "The Confederate Flag license plate option is supported by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the vast majority of Texans.  The SCV is the Ku Klux Klan's and their assorted white-trash membership's worst enemy.   We need to know, understand, and remember our past.  Six Flags Over Texas, we honor each.   Next question please.
      But no....Mr. Rick....you went estrogen on the issue and did what the liberal Republicans and the anti-Americans wanted and Tom'd out to the anti-American Politically Correct metro-sexual tofu eaters.    Although you seem to be a Texan, at times you smell like a carpetbagger.....the kind of carpetbagger who will say, do, and sacrifice any sense of honour in order to obtain your ends.

That will do for a few reasons why Rick Perry is a dumboe.   I would still vote for him over any possible, known, probable, Democrat for President.   We have to remember that he can fly a C-130 , and he is a graduate of Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University and he has served the longest tenure as President of the Republic of Texas...longer even than Sam Houston.    He's been sober longer than Houston, and Houston was drunk a lot longer than Perry has been alive.   (The Old Gringo thinks that it is probable that Perry does not use alcohol.)

 One of the worst nightmares of America's enemies.   A bunch
of guys like Rick Perry driving a few of these babies into
someplace that needs a lot of USArmy attention.   Perry can
drive one of these War Busses...the Old Gringo can't.
(Just doing some basic balance)

Thanks for your attention as usual.
El Gringo Viejo

Too Good to Pass Up

     This screed was found while stumbling around on various blogs, newspaper editorials, and screed responses.    It speaks to the truth.   It points out the ultimate results of allowing people like the Occupiers to have their way with anything, especially America.    In a way, it shows the audacity of mendaciousness of a president and first-lady who can campaign in mansions and rant about the "1% who don't pay their fair share" while they vacation and insume and act like the white-trash at every venue.   Since they have no real moral grounding they are actually proud of their hyporcrisy.   They relish the illogic of their proposals and analyses of the American people.   The more preposterous their proposals and blame-casting becomes, the prouder they become of themselves....what pitiful people.

(note for OROGs :    The writer of this entry below-entered is obviously educated.  He learned his English well, but uses a bit of Russian language syntax.   OROGs should have no difficulty with the one or two rough parts of the entry.   The Old Gringo was going to say that if a person had watched Boris and Natasha during the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, there will be no problem.   But since that might be offensive to the ACLU and the White House Czar for Feeling Bad, Hurt, and Athletes' Foot, it was decided not to include the above statement)

Former Soviet Citizen

Orange you said? That explains everything! What’s next – Bandera was like Robin Hood? Nazis were good people because they were killing Russians? I net bol’shego schastiya, chem chtoby u soseda korova sdohla? (There’s no bigger happiness then to see neighbor’s cow dead) You should learn some wisdom lessons from Vintage. Tho… darn! I forgot, he can’t be right because he’s been a RUSSIAN!!! or may be even worse – Moscal! And speaking of Russians – do you and does your wife see any difference between Russians and comminusts/bolshevics?

When real rich people were gone (Russian Immigration) or killed and their redistributed wealth didn’t make anybody rich (you better take a pen and write it down) Bolsheviks still needed money to create their equality paradise. And they found a new target – kulaks, not so rich but not poor either because they were hard working people. Does it ring the bell with 250K and then with 200K? (write it down too) My grand-grandparents were farmers (ukranians, just for your wife’s info) and their whole family worked hard so they had bread to feed their kids. Since they had horses and cows then, according to Bolshevist agenda, they weren’t honest people because “honest” people couldn’t be “that rich” and “honest” people are always poor because of folks like my grand-grand-parents. 99% vs 1%, anyone? (I hope you are writing) Bolsheviks’ solution was simple – take away their “dishonest” earning, give it to “honest” people and send this nasty “rich” family to Siberia to pay for their sins. All young children, half of the family, paid them alright – they didn’t survive and died of starvation on their way to Tomsk. Did the bread they couldn’t eat any longer improve anybody’s life? Hell, no! Write it down too, you might need it when one day somebody will knock into your door because you make, let’s say, 30K which makes you “rich” and it’s time for you to pay your debt to society of “honest” people in a local kolhoz or, if you make, God forbid, “filthy” 50K, then Kolyma will be your final destination . Now that you wrote it down you can donate it to those neo-leninists from OWS you and your wife support so much. I hope they don’t accept cash and blankets only but useful reading as well. And I hope it’s enough to wake them up.

     These are the words of truth spoken against the rage of self-appointed madmen who seek to perfect society....not for society's sake....but to realise a burning desire and impulse to control the lives of other people and make society into something it should be as determined by a madman (Adolf Hitler), a group of madmen (Lenin, Mao, Ho, Pol, Fidel, Saddam), or an organization of organizations of madmen (Soros, NOW, PP, Move on, USCommunist Party, SEIU, ACORN, Democrat Party, atheist Media, Jew-haters, atheist Jews who hate Jews, Muslim fanatics who hate all Jews and Gentiles, ).

     There is a certain sadness in recognising that Russia...free standing Russia....is a country that is totally consumed by a corruption that would make New Jersey, California, Mexico, and New York blush.    Since the fall of the Communist Government, there have not been enough people with moral or ethical understanding to come to the fore and develop a new Russian life code...morality...common understanding of right and wrong....common law...etc.    The population continues to drop....over 8,000,000 fewer Russians now than say...since the Berlin Wall came down.     Babies are not all that en vogue....but consuming a barrel or two of Vodka for breakfast remains a national passtime.    There is enough to export to keep cake on the storeshelves for a while longer.   There is always hope of finding more gold, gas, oil, or lumber or fish...to sell on the world market so that the people can continue the socialist way of life while calling it democracy....but what happens when the Russian brand of the  Bastille People run out of Vodka once and for all?    Will they dig up the Romanoffs and kill them again.   Will they revive the mummified Lenin and beg forgiveness?   What happens when all the plans fail and there is no culture left...No true morality, no true ethic, no culture ....only variations of mad dictators,  mafia, crime, decay, and hopelessness.

El Gringo Viejo likes to take the words of inspired Communists, and play them against the backdrop of their concrete.   So, perhaps I am a magician, changing their concrete into our beautiful green lawns and golf courses.
                                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRxvaVhVN7Aul 

 Malvina Reynolds

Pete Seeger was excellent at the mastery of the pointless.   So long as it hated America, it had to be good.   In this famous ditty, he points out that what he rails against is much worse than the "projects" and the children going to the corner to sell drugs and the to prison instead of trade school or college.    After all, can a child learn if the government doesn't give him.....(enter any or all of 14,234 things)? 
                                                 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONEYGU_7EqU

 Pete Seeger

   If you read the Russian's words all the way  through, you have heard the tone of a fine bell made of copper, silver, and gold.   The truth always rings true.   Bless the truth of a Russian who knows...

El Gringo Viejo

    

WORSE JUST KEEPS ON GETTING BETTER

     A school chum from high school days circulates these pieces of news and information among us survivours with some frequency.   She was one of the "very bright" bulbs in the chandelier.  So, her protestations notwithstanding, she would have done well on the test...a 98 or 99 probably, after a bit of preparation on the night before.  Especially by the eighth grade.
   At our school, David Crockett Elementary in McAllen, Texas....our three combined 6th grade classes score an average of 12th grade plus 4 months on our collective final "aptitude tests".    It was in the upper one percent of the nation, at the time, but it was a peculiarly sharp bunch of urchins.
     Her point is, depressingly, well-taken however.    The regimen for a high school diploma from 1970 and before could not and would not be tolerated by the NEA or any school boards now.  It just wouldn't be "fair" to the children.   Our regimen was still nothing like what was the norm during the first half of the the 1900s.   We have changed especially the public schools  into feeding stations teaching how to pass a test rather than to know, understand, and apply knowledge to the world around us and our lives in that world.

     I remember when we took our daughter to Southwest Texas State University to dump her off on the world.  The parents were given an orientation...which included a morose presentation by the drama department about what a miserable bunch of slugs boys are and how all our daughters were sluts....making themselves available to all kinds of diseases and violence...and that they had come to University in order to be DATE  RAPED....and it was all our faults and George Bush did nothing to prevent it.  (he was governor of Texas then.   Got us into a war with  Bermuda and Samoa)   Not only that, but SWTSU had its own real-live POH-lice Department and when they pick up our child, it was going to be up to her to figure out how to bail out or plea bargain to her best possible legal defense.  After all, she's gotta grow up sumtyme!    Ah! The lofty aims of Acadame'

> 1895 Eighth Grade Graduation Exam,

( forwarded to the Gringo Viejo and various of the same graduating class about 342 years ago from a high school somewhere on the American border with Mexico.)
>
> What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895...
> Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only
> had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have
> passed the 8th grade in 1895?
> This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas , USA . It
> was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley
> Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted by the Salina
> Journal.
>
>
> 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , Kandsas - 1895

> Grammar (Time, one hour)>
      1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
> 2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
> 3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
> 4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of
> 'lie,''play,' and 'run.'
> 5. Define case; illustrate each case.
> 6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
> 7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you
> understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
>
> Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)>
      1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
> 2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many
> bushels of wheat will it hold?
> 3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel,
> deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
> 4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.. What is the necessary levy
> to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for
> incidentals?
> 5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
> 6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
> 7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20
> per metre?
> 8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
> 9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of
> which is 640 rods?
> 10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt
>
> U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)>
      1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
> 2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
> 3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
> 4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
> 5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
> 6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
> 7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn,
> and Howe?
> 8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849,
> 1865.
>
> Orthography (Time, one hour)>
      1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography,
> etymology, syllabication
> 3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals,
> diphthong, cognate letters, linguals
> 4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
> 5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions
> under each rule.
> 6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
> 7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi,
> dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
> 8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name
> the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell,
> rise, blood, fare, last.
> 9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane,
> fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
> 10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by
> use of diacritical marksd by syllabication.
>
> Geography (Time, one hour)&gt
      1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
> 2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
> 3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
> 4. Describe the mountains of North America
> 5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba
> , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
> 6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the
> republics of Europe and give the capital of each..
> 8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
> 9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the
> sources of rivers.
> 10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

> Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete. Gives the saying 'he
> only had an 8th grade education' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?!
> No wonder they dropped out after 8th grade. They already knew more than
> they needed to know!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Gringo Viejo, ever the blowhard, responded thusly:

Bye You're fresh chrimp's hear.   While suplie's lasts.
5 pound's -  $9

     My father would show the his students (back in the 1950s) his mother's primary and secondary text books from that era.   She was born in 1870.    She went to public school in Minneapolis at first and then attended an Episcopal school at the St. Michael's Cathedral and later graduated from the University of Minnesota with a couple of degrees.    They could not believe it.   And then when we compare what we were working with then as opposed to the bilge and fill time instruction, I am amazed that the ones coming out of secondary here can even work an automatic elevator that goes up or down three floors.      My other grandmother (born in 1895), the one in Tennessee, had enough books to allow the children to share, two on one.   Since they were so far away from anything, they had "the coloured exemption", because they had very few Negroes in Franklin County.   So the black children, (3) all cousins, went to school with the 9 whites and 4 Cherokee children.   They were distributed fairly evenly over 8 grades.  
    My grandmother had a "real live" certificate.   She had attended the University of Tennessee's Normal and Pedagogy Department and passed their requirements for being an elementary teacher.   She taught near her home, but still had to assure that she maintained "curfew" and would not move about especially at night without proper concern for her own chaperonage as required of a single woman,  and to avoid alcohol and any scandal of turpitude.    All the children in her classes went on to become professional people and/or officers or  non-commissioned officers in the Military.
     My mother and father both worked with me with those text books at very early ages.   We still have some of them somewhere around in the family....most of the "students" at Mission High or almost any High right now would have difficulty even attempting to read them now.   Passing the above test would be beyond the scope of any reason in these days....for 99% of the "students' now'.

     I stumbled through the examination you sent.  Did alright, but it's either ignorance or dementia that slowed me down a bit.   Don't ever get to be my age.     The caret U is a proof reading advisory for the need of some recommended insertion-in-text.  That is about the only place this humble ghostwriter and commentator has seen the term or heard of the term.

Thanks for the note. 
El Gringo Viejo

Lunacies as We Begin to Enter the 430 month long campaign year...

Mexico has a lot of silly rules about adverising formats and schedules for elections.   All the signs have to come down 72 hours after the election....political announcements or polling results given 72 hours before.    Fox News in its American format is blocked during the last days because they occasionally might announce polling results of Mexican voters during the banned period, for instance.   Most damaging, of course, is the National Dry Day during the Election.
   They also have photo ID...not only on the voter's credential, but on THE POLLING PRECINCT'S ROSTER OF ELIGIBLE VOTERS!!!!!  Try that one on for size, ACLU and all the forces in charge of "making sure every vote gets counted"....Al Gore likes to repeat that one on the women's talk programs.

Yes, folks...the president of the voting precinct and the other workers, now drawn essentially from a conscription of other eligible voters at that location, receive the Lista de Votantes.   Each person's name and identifying voter's elegibility number...also has the same photograph that appears on his Credencial Federal Electoral.   If they....then why not we?

     Next is the  Cheshire Cat Knowing Smile and Smirk about all of Bush and Cheney's lies and corruption.

     Just Remember!    Bush and the Enron scandal.

   Just terrible.     BUT, the Fact was, the ENRON people were very much in bed with the national socialists in Clinton's administration and with his national socialist bundler buddies on Wall Street.   It was Robert Rubin who called Bush's Secretary of the Treasury and urged some intervention on behalf of Enron.   The Secretary of the Treasury told him that Rubin's call was inappropriate.   Rubin himself indicated that he had been out of line.   The Bush's and Enron, of course, never did mix...Enron was more aligned with the slimy Bentsen organization and mafia in Houston....experts at turning unused land into soil-bank farm subsidies and stealing royalties from little old ladies and Mexicans and people who were aligned with their crummy corruption in South Texas.    Bentsen was an expert as the big lie..."I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine...and you Senator are no Jack Kennedy...."   Bentsen was sent to a girls' finishing school after returning from Europe where he had a distinguished career as a B-17 bomber pilot which was tainted a bit when he landed his plane in Romania although it did not seem to have any damage.   It is also worth pointing out that Bentsen's position on the top of the Democrat ticket really overwhelmed the chauvinist, dullard Texas Jethroes.
     Since there was a real live Texan on the ballot for Vice-President, the red-necks and hillbillies all went out and voted .....  for the Hoosier...like a Yankee almost...Dan Quayle, who was hated by the press because his daddy had been involved with the John Birch Society.    Dan Qualye is a better man than Lloyd Bentsen, Jr. and Old Man Quayle was a better man than Lloyd Millard Benstsen, Sr.    Imagine a Texan losing to somebody from Indiana for Vice-President in the Texan's home State.

     Then there is that poor Valerie Plame girl.   She was a daring darling,  secret agent for the CIA in Europe, working in deep undercover operations, risking her life, and just being an all around Jane Bond.   Then she received a promotion to be a very high level strategic analyst for Eastern European and Middle Eastern matters at the CIA, and had to go back to Washington, D.C. because that is where her country needed her.   She and her brilliant hubby, Joe Wilson would just have to put up with the dullness of desk duty for the good of the country.
     Then one day while they were serving their country, someone in the CIA said, "I sure wish we could find out if Hussein wanted yellow cake unranium from Niger."   Valerie Plame said, "My husband is a really sharp guy, an ambassador, and he knows all about that area over there."   And since Valerie was a great secret agent man and had a lot of pull in the CIA, the man who needed the job done called Joe Wilson in and said, "Joe, the fate of the whole earth depends on you and your wife.   Go find out about this and write me up a two page report of your findings.  But remember, this is ultra-top-super-duper-secret-classified.   You can't even show your findings to yourself.  In fact, you will have to commit suicide and then eat the report."      Whew!  You have to admire the dedication.   He was authourize, however, to "make the rounds" of the pinko morning shows and Sunday "advance-the-cause" shows, and talk in detail about how he had "....had tea with"....higher-ups in Niger and they had said that they did not sell any such material to Sadam Hussein.   So, who are we to believe?   Thoroughly corrupt political officials, the United Nations nuclear examiner, Saddam Hussein, Joe Wilson who hates America and made his mark by being an anti-war demonstrator during the Viet Nam War era, was and still is a far-left Democrat, or are we going to believe the logic of evidence and proven actions by Saddam Hussein?    The media played its cards very predictably.   Hate America first, Hate George Bush first....and then go to a commercial break from PETA.
     The CIA people were very smart we are told, because they had said there is definitely a large amount of mustard gas, biological munitions, and possibly nuclear weaponry in Saddam Hussein's arsenal.   The first two were well beyond for-sure, and the third seemed very probable.   The deal was to see if Saddam had gained atomic weaponry from black market sources in Russia OR Red China,   OR perhaps from a Bulgarian - Ukranian connection, OR perhaps from a Pan-Arab group combining some of the above with the alliance of Libya, Palestinians, and international criminal elements.
       One indication that he either had the nuclear weaponry or was in the final stages of developing said weaponry was to find out if he was accessing "yellow-cake", and if yes, from where.

      Our friends at Wikipedia have a contributor who provided this information:
The worldwide production of uranium in 2009 amounted to 50,572 tonnes, of which 27% was mined in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three producers and together account for 63% of world uranium production. Other important uranium producing countries in excess of 1000 tonnes per year are Namibia, Russia, Niger, Uzbekistan, and the United States.^[
       There are several countries in Africa where uranium is found in recoverable quantities, as well as in Mexico and certain other places in Latin America.    Also in Texas,
          Long before Valerie and Joe had made themselves important, the cadillac-communist gagazine, VOGUE, ran an article on, by, with, and for the demure Valerie Plame, noted for her subdued wardrobe and attempts to tone down her beautiful, long, golden locks of natural blond hair.   Part of her undercover cover while being a secret agent man was to make certain that her parking permit was properly display in the correct spot of the window of her auto.   That was her parking permit for Langley....the CIA Headquarters.     But the permit does not say 'CIA', it said 'Central Intelligence Agency....just to keep the bad guys off balance.

This time it is not VOGUE, but the popular culture/ political
satire and commentary mag, JEZEBEL, in 2007, showing Joe
and Valerie in their Incognitomobile, a convertible, avoiding
detection from Karl Rove by driving around in front of the
White House....ostensibly so that they could avoid  Lawrence
Eagleburger outing them again.  (?)

     This thoroughly deluded pair of narcissistic, mendacious slugs, each with a long history of anti-war activism and malingering on the tax-payers' dimes, can now enjoy their Duke of Windsor and wife Wallis Warfield (Simpson)(Harris)(Windsor) way of life, and will hopefully die comfortably in some appropriate place like Havana or Oakland, living long to celebrate slowly their tremendous contributions to humanity and their nation.

     To this day, there are many people involved in the "intelligence business" who think that much of Saddam's gas and bio munitions along with significant parts of the atomic program went into Syria....a fellow Ba'athist state....run by another family of nutcases...the Assads.   The Hussein nuts and the Assad nuts did not really get along all that well, but...Case in point....we remember not only the Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iraq's nuclear facility in the 1981.    We note that the Israelis also bombed  and destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility some months back.   The Syrians and the leftist world press were quite mum about this.  The only possible reason is because, in the world contest of power orbs, it does not behoove the communist and national socialist and anti-American interest at this time to allow wide dissemination of news which would tend to underscore what rational people know to be true.
     SADDAM HUSSEIN HAD WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, USED THOSE WEAPONS AGAINST IRAN AND HIS OWN PEOPLE, AND IN THE WAY OF A MADMAN, TRIED TO PUT THEM WHERE THEY COULD STILL BE USED TO DESTROY ISRAEL AND TO RE-ESTABLISH THE DYNASTY OF SALADIN AND THE WORLD CALIPHATE UNDER A ROYAL HOUSE OF SADDAM AL TIKRITI.     Saddam's two guiding historical figures were Saladin and Nebuchadnezzar  We remember when he "won" the first Gulf War and was forced out of the Emirate of Kuwait, he attempted, before the outbreak of hostilities, to fly his air force over into the protective custody of ....THE IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS?
      One of our problems here, as an uniformed blob of mow almost illiterate, almost totally ignorant body politic, is that our intelligence service might have a lot of people in its ranks who are America-haters, and who feed and work in tandem with the Lamampours of the press world...in other words,...other people who hate America, first thing in the morning, last thing at night.   People like Bill and Barry, Michelle and Hillary.    To think that the Emperor of Japan and the Prime Minister of the Japanese Parliament would have to refuse to accept the apology of the President of the United States for America's bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.   The son of the guilty Emperor and the head of their congress had more class and better understanding of the events of 1945, and a more rational intellectual processing of the event than the world's leading America-hater....Barak O'bama.    Great Yahweh, save us.


Jerrold Post
Author of Political Paranoia: the Psychopolitics of Hatred
Statement of 12/1990, before the House Armed Services Committee

Inspired by his uncle's tales of heroism in the service of the Arab nation, Saddam has been consumed by dreams of glory since his earliest days. He identifies himself with Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylonia who conquered Jerusalem (586 B.C.) and Saladin who regained Jerusalem in 1187 by defeating the Crusaders….
In pursuit of his messianic dreams, there is no evidence he is constrained by conscience; his only loyalty is to Saddam Hussein…

More later.  Especially a reminder of how debased our public education has become.
Thanks for your time and attention.
El Gringo Viejo