Pointed Potpourri

A flurry of little things come up as new problems arise on the homefront, and new solutions as well.   The international situation....economic turbulence....unreasonable reasonability.    This can be mixed with unreported or mis-reported news about Mexico and Texas.   Set all of this against the backdrop of the fourteen month long American commercial holiday season and it becomes an interesting artist's studio full of paints, easels, and canvas.

(1)    At this time of year, the Old Gringo pauses to remember that Abraham Lincoln did not free the slaves, nor did he particularly give a whit what would becomes of Negroes once emancipated by force.   His preference was to send as many of them as possible to Panama to dig the canal that would make the world perfect for all times.

(2)     The Mexican military, somewhat discreetly, announced the arrest and confiscation of a large container off of a Red Chinese freighter at dock in Lazaro Cardenas, an unfortunately-named port city, situated on the Pacific coast in the western State of Michoacan.    The contents of the container?    A large shipment of knock-off brand AK-47 rifles with automatic conversion capacity, a large number of knock-off brand 9mm semi-automatic pistols, and a large number of kn0ck-off military police style 12 guage shotguns, along with considerable amounts of the appropriate ammunition.    The port rumour is that a complete inspection of the ship will reveal the truth of the issue.   The ship is probably carrying a huge shipment of illegally transported arms.    That truth is also that Communist Chinese, northern South American producers and transporters of drugs, Castro's Cuba, Hezbollah/Iran, and international black market arms dealers especially from Russia and Eastern Europe are the purveyors of arms into Mexico.   Not dumboe American gun stores and collectors....but people who want to destroy Mexico, the United States of America, and Canada.  Communists, Islamic psychopaths, professional criminal interests, and other people with no souls who hate liberty.

      This announcement by the military has to have been allowed by the President of Mexico.   It is a dangerous step in a way for the President to allow this official news to be made public.  The official Mexican position is that the "gun dealers" in Texas and Arizona have been the main sources of guns for the drug cartels.    This faery-tale helps, to some extent, the leftists who wander  in Mexico's pantheon of illustrious bologna-legends that all ills in Mexico come from the United States.    It has taken the better part of 24 years of centrist and center-right conservative governance to barely pick away at the dead petals in the chrysanthemum blossom, so to speak.   Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has taken a brave step in the direction of telling the world, the Americans, and the Mexicans the whole truth and nothing by the truth now.

      We must remember that that largest cash interception of recent history was the 215, 000,000 dollars, in true American currency as well as much other treasure that was found on the finca of a Red Chinese "vacationer" outside of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, at another mansion near Culiacan, Sinaloa, and at an ultra-mansion in the posh Lomas de Chapultepec section of Mexico City about four years ago.    That amount of money being found in the possession of an agent of the Red Chinese Army....a high ranking general officer....posing as a common wealthy tourist... can only be considered as an act of war against Mexico.   There can be no justification for it  when a person can live the life of royalty even in highly developed surroundings in Mexican resorts....easily on 1,000,000 dollars per year and have lots of change left over.....lots of change...forever....seriously. 

     For a fairly accurate summary of the events surrounding this matter, oddly enough, Wikipedia has a good collection of facts and suppositions.   They do make reference to the Chinese individual's being elevated to "Che Guevara" status with bumper stickers and t-shirts and the like, and it is not true that most Mexicans believe the Chinese individual's claim that he was just keeping the money for Calderon.   The Chinese individual is not one of those nice, kind, little men from Shanghai who just happens to have 1,000,000,000 dollars laying around in his dacha in the form of ready cash, Mexican gold coin, jewels, Euro cash and bonds, etc.    He is also just a "regular Chou" who has active wants, warrants, and search orders out in several countries and Interpol....some of them for complicity in homicide.   The Gringo Viejo recommends the perusal of this article     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenli_Ye_Gon and gives Wiki an A- for its analysis.    In the article, there are hints at obfuscation and a bit of a willingness to ask the reader to believe that cows and pigs can fly and jump over the moon, but it is easy to see that this is not the fellow you wanted your daughter to bring home to meet you.   He is not "Charlie Chan" or the nephew of Confuscius.  He is a Chinese "businessman" who set up a receiving operation for arms, money, espionage, sabotage, criminal alliances, and preparatory military penetration of the North American Continent.    It is the Red Chinese method of making war.

     It is worth pointing out that the American Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy probably co-ordinated with each other in this operation against the ship currently in port.    O'bama will apologise to-morrow, we are sure.

(3)     The Consul General for the State Department of the United States of America, situated in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico announced yesterday that travel advisories to that city and the State of Tamaulipas have been cancelled.   They cited the success of federal troops in re-establishing the previously existing order and urged travellers to exercise only the normal precautions involved in travelling anywhere, anytime.

       In this same vein, the Gringo Viejo was surprized to note that he enountered a caravan of travel trailers....about 29 or 30....heading south during his last drive north from our place by the mountains in the interior.    It was such a normal sight that at first he did not register it in his brain.   But then, as trailer number six or seven went by, it dawned on him that the phenomena had been absent from the Mexican roadway for almost three years now.

      What the caravaneers encountered was a peaceful transit over highways that have been up-graded from B-  and A-  to B+ and A during their absence.    They also, knowing it or not, will be re-enforcing a pride inside the heart and soul of the "common Mexican" that their country has fought for itself and is winning the respect of "common Americans" who have the willingness to reach beyond the controlled news media outlets and do their own research.   The War is not over.   The skirmishes will never end.   But, the improvement in social order is very much like the difference between the dead of night and the brightness of the dawn.

     God Bless the Mexican Army and the Naval Infantry.

(4)     During the next months, Mexico will undergo Presidential Elections.   The leftists and communist elements have already launched an Abu Ghraib event to throw into the mix in order to defame the Partido de Accion Nacional, the present President's party.   They are backing an effort by "international human rights organisations"  to prosecute the Mexican military for 450 "human rights" violations.   Unreasonable searches and seizures, abuse of power, the killing of innocents, destruction of evidence in collateral damage cases, torture, illegal detention, illegal interrogations, etc. are being alleged.

       To begin, when one considers 450....in fog of war....having been fought over a five year period so far....with literally millions of contacts with the populace.....that, in and of itself is remarkable.  Would that the Union forces had treated the Confederacy so well.   Next, what the Mexican military was facing was a group that would kill an entire family, men, women, and children because of the fact that one of their family, forced to work as a mule, had lost his load of marijuana or drugs to the American or Mexican authorities or to another criminal organisation. This has happened thousands of times in these recent contratemps.  Thousands.    The atrocities committed by the military's enemies have been monstrous and legion.   They are the same things the  communist guerrilla did in Guatemala and that Rigoberta and the world press blamed on the hapless Guatemalan Army. 

     The fact is that the Mexican military was the most respected institution in Mexico before this all began, and their ratings have only risen to this point.  They have also been remarkably open and rapid in the court martialling of issues of violation of rules of engagement, fraud, and other violations of military protocols and laws.    Not perfect....they say so themselves...but remarkable positive and pro-active.

(Long sentence warning)

(5)     Finally, when one worries about all the money going to Mexico....as if it is somehow being removed from here and taken there....the Old Gringo was amazed to see the hundreds of overloaded pickups and SUVs with American plates heading south during this Thanksgiving holiday period, loaded up with junk....new junk....that had been bought before "black Friday", and then taken down to family, close and distant, to begin the celebrations.   Mexican purchases, made by Mexican legal aliens, Americans of Mexican descent, and Mexican tourists coming up just to shop on the border and other places in the United States will spend up to 20,000,000,000 dollars this season.    "Christmas" for Mexicans begins lightly with American Thanksgiving and then gradually builds into a period of lethargy, paralysis, fun, fiesta, food, conviviation, too much beer, tequila, rum, and too much gift buying, laughing, crying, singing....including the national MONSTER celebrations of the Apparition of the BVM at the Hill of Tepeyac in Mexico City on 12 December 1531....then the Posadas, door-to-door carolling based upon the trials of the Journey to Bethlehem, then the Feast of the Nativity....and then on to the 6th of January and the arrival of the Three Kings and their additional gifts to children.      WHEW!!  Out of breath.

St, Juan Diego, and the tilma with the

image of Saint Mary, and the probative

roses she gave him

This should be enough for a while.  Please forgive the longwinded nature of the entry.  More later.

El Gringo Viejo

Worthy of Interest

(Kimberly Launier/ABC News)

     Please notice that this is an ABC News reporter's shot.   Various sources assure that it is not a photoshop, retouch, or combined photograph of any kind.    This is the dog "Hero"  who was saved by an American soldier in Iraq.   The soldier was killed in action shortly afterwards.   The dog was sent to the American soldier's home.   This picture was taken in that soldier's parent's back yard shortly after the soldier's mother had been hugging the dog, and asking to the dog's chest, "Justin, are you in there?"....a mother's lament.

The sunrays came upon the dog very shortly after the question had been asked.

El Gringo Viejo

Probably should have said...

About three weeks ago, the Old Gringo was presented a very large Mexican flag, quite a nice one, not made in Red China, of a satin-like material, with excellent stitchwork and colour-fast colours and design (eagles and serpents and all of that), and measuring about 3.5 feet by 5.5 feet.   It was presented by the local Telegrafos Station where we wire money at times.   It was also presented by the Comite' Ejiditario of the Ejido de Francisco I. Madero.    The station-chief of the Telegrafos facility in the Estacion de Santa Engracia was the deliverer of the flag and indicated that the Gringo Viejo was the person selected to receive the honour this time because of the works and examples he had set forth for the communities in the area.

      It was all a bit humbling, but un-necessary.   The article is relatively costly and must be treated with certain formal protocols.....which of course we follow.   Heretofore, we would clothes-pin the Mexican and/or American colours on their appropriate days of celebration or recognition.   Neither flag was particularly ostentatious, but they were always arrange with respect on a nice rope that we run on the inside of the the outside horizontal support  for the manser of the corridor.   Without any pride or humility we assert that it looks dignified, correct, respectful, and appropriate for the appropriate date.    This particular flag has attached ties, and those must be used to secure the banner to its place.   It cannot be pinned, nailed, glued, or taped into its place of display.

      On the day of the 12th of December, we normally hang the flags of Texas, Mexico, and the United States to recognize that the presence of Saint Mary in her apparition at the Hill of Tepayac near Mexico City in 1531 is recognized as the Patroness of All the Americas.

      Sometimes when the Old Gringo is grumpy he might even fly the Mexican tri-colour with the date "1824" in gold numbers on the white field.   That was the flag that flew over the Alamo during the confrontation in San Antonio in 1836.    The defenders at that place were actually fighting for the restoration of the Mexican Constitution of 1824 and the defeat of the famous hideous usurper Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana.    Most Mexicans know the flag as a statement of stubborness and loyalty to principle....and the willingness to fight to the end for an abstract point.     There are other times....usually on Bobbie Lee's birthday and/or Confederate Veterans' Memorial Day that we might fly the Confederate military flag....albeit a small one....in a discreet place on the same corridor.

     We have had teachers bring their students to listen to my understanding of history and my explanation of the various flags and why they are posted on certain days.    Perhaps to the consternation of my ejido, the Gringo Viejo will play the Mexican National Anthem at VERY HIGH volume on major Mexican national days  (there's a bunch) at 06:oo during the morning's darkness.   We have done it during the period of disorder, perhaps to our peril...but it was felt to be necessary so that the youngsters going to school (it starts early there) would know that there are certain things bigger than immediate gain.

      Sometimes a person might think that he has become so eccentric as to be perfectly irrelevant.    Perhaps it would be well should he be so.   But then, along comes a flag that cost a couple of organisations the better part of  50 or 60 dollars, and then that person feels requited and a bit humble.

And that was my story for this hour.

El Gringo Viejo 

Musings

These days now begin to fill with memories of sugar plums and all eleven of Santa's reindeer flying over all fifty seven States to apologize to all for the establishment of Christianity.   S0, one prepares for the sharing, the conviviality, and the general hustle and bustle.

      An OROG wrote in to suggest that this linkage is also a very high quality card service with nice themes and artwork;   www.ojolie.com    was reviewed by the Gringo Viejo, and it is a really nice operation.   We are having considerable problem with the other site due to the inability we are having in adjusting our flash drive properly, apparently.   We are not having any problem with the newer site, so perhaps if the same is happening to other  OROGs, perhaps the new place would serve as a decent alternative.

      It is well that we report that the situation in Mexico continues to improve.    We would commend to the attention of all OROGs that they dig into information beyond what is commonly available about the times we are living through, both in the area of our little place and our area in Texas.     It is hard for one person to speak softly into a strong wind and then be heard at any distance.     But, our earlier repeated observations about improving security and re-establishment of predictable social and commercial order have proven to be true. 

     With another few months it is possible that we might even experience the  re-emergence of the way things were 10 years ago.   We simply must wrest away the hands of the demons from the throat of the people who feel compelled to use these strange substances.   Once again, the Gringo Viejo observes that it should suffice to have things as powerful as alcohol and nicotine.  What more could be necessary?

Enough of such things for a little while.   Family is coming down from Central Texas and we are making the journey to the mother-in-law's place for Thanksgiving's gathering.   This will be the first such celebration without the father-in-law.   So it will be a bit of a challenge for each of us, especially for the widow.

If the football games become blowouts and the granddaughters are asleep, perhaps the inspiration will hit to send along additional messages later to-day.
El Gringo Viejo

Returned from the Front

The Old Gringo returned yesterday.   Windy drive up....45 mile per hour gusts....hot...dry and a wait that was a little long at the bridge.   But... one learns at some point in life to enjoy the misery and just get it over with.

      This particular time it seems that the drive was a little tiring, and so it will take a moment or two to re-disorder the thought processes in the "little grey cells".     There is quite a bit of positive news about our little mud hut on the Rio Corona.   There is news on the Mexican overall political front and on the commerce, industry, and agricultural front.   There are commentaries and observations, and a bit of review of prvious pontifications coming up.

     Speaking of pontifications, it will take a tad longer for us to attempt to understand the former Speaker's contention that ".....Catholics have a concience thing..." and therefore cannot be reasonable about issues that require the contradiction of the Canons of the Roman Catholic Church.   She also observed of herself that she loves and honors her Roman Catholic faith, but since the rules were made up by a bunch of old men wearing skirts and funny pointed hats, there is no reason to adhere to any rules...be they of concience or of canon. 

Your patience will be rewarded with some serious thoughts later to-day.
El Gringo Viejo 

Out for a Bit

Times will be quiet here on the blog for a bit.   The Old Gringo will be heading down for another stint of it.   With the settling of issues at hand from a couple of weeks back, it is time to take my place on the bridge and at the helm of our little place in the middle of nowhere, Mexico.   It is somewhat disconcerting to know that Jesse Ventura is coming back to Mexico after his recent setback in court.   Actually it is rather a sad state of affairs when a person such as Jesse Ventura cannot board an airplane without being repeatedly groped.   He has had a titanium hip replacement that makes it necessary for him to undergo super-inspection at almost every boarding.

     My understanding is that he did not think that he deserved any special treatment, only that he should be able to carry some fail-safe identification that would show that he is an ex-governor of one of the 57 States in the Union and that he has a titanium hip replacement and does not like to have people groping him at every opportunity.

     The judge decided against him.   In a way.  The judge decided that his court was not the most appropriate bench before which to present the case.   Jesse became very grumpy about it all.   We'll both be arriving back home in Mexico about the same time.   But the Old Gringo is not grumpy.   Not too grumpy.

    Not too grumpy....even if some sow has a weep-out about her son's plight.  She does feel really bad for that lady who had her head caved in by her child who dropped a grocery cart off a four story ledge onto the lady's head.  She was really sorry about that, but she just had to point out that the real victim in the affair was not the old white woman but her poor son who is only 12 years old....and New York might be going to treat him like an adult criminal just because of this and his other 22 arrests for various misdemeanours and felonies.  He is, after all, all really good kid.

     The woman who was injured has severe to profound head and brain injuries and is comatose and not expected to live.    The mother of the child lives in an housing project near the shopping mall where the events took place.   She and the mother of the other boy, also a multiple offender at the age of 12,  who was involved in the dropping of several grocery carts, apparently with the openly stated intention of killing or injuring someone....are professional welfare recipients and optimizers of the "baby mother safety net".

      The woman in the coma is one of those peculiar people who still think that organisms who look roughly human must be born with and have souls  even if they are completely unsupervised, are unchurched, and are in the fourth generation of welfare dependency.
      The woman in the coma was doing an errand at the mall that day was to purchase several hundred dollars worth of higher quality candies for the children at the housing projectl   The candy was to be passed out during the trick or treat festivities of All Hallow's Even.
      The woman in the coma was a wealthy woman who had dedicated much of her time and a great deal of money over the years to efforts to help the marginalized populations in New York City and elsewhere.   May she rest in peace.   May the Great Lord Yahweh forgive us all for having allowed the creation of a system of government sanctioned and subsidized creation of narcissistic, sociopathic monsters.

El Gringo Viejo, will return in a few weeks...with luck, during his absence, he might be able to forward some information and conditions about our little mud hut on the spring fed mountain creek somewhere in the boondocks in Mexico.

Al always, thanks for your time, attention, and interest.....