El Gringo Viejo has been in a WalMart, perhaps, 30 times in his life.   It seems to be the primary outlet for Peking's junque that cannot be unloaded into Indonesia.   The environs are depressing and the going and coming is wrought with all the same problems, at least down here, of drippy people who are dedicated to the leaving of grocery carts in the parking lot, with or without recently changed pampers.

     There are more and more people  who have learned, apparently that pampers really can last for one week without being changed.   They all seem to wind up at WalMart or the grocery stores or the public parks or anywhere El Gringo Viejo happens to be walking in low-light situations.    We try not to get out much anymore.

     HOWEVER, lest all be dismayed, the WalMart issue will be flogged, a la Miss Flukie and the women who were so offended by Herman Cain, and the Guatemalan illegal alien who wept over her horrible treatment by Meg Whitman, for as long as the story will stay on the front page, then on the second page, and then on the first page, second B.     Then it will make the rounds in the editorial sections of newspapers nobody reads any longer.

      The same crowd, those with IQs under 90 and those disposed to be Bolshevik or National Socialists, will howl to the heavens (which do not exist), about exploitation and corruption.  The left can strike a blow for liberte', fraternite', egalite' once again....dragging out the guillotines and the gut-wagons to lug the rich and titled to the chopping bloque.   Whack!!  Hurrah, vive la revolution!   Go Frida Go!

      But before they walk into the door like Miss Flukie, Pelosi, et. al. allow us to state that little will come from this "scandal".   Please remember that the Left hates certain things.   One is a Mexican Republic under a common law schema, under the governance of a conservative and especially non-marxist regime.   The next thing is anything that causes the lower-middle class to form up and stabilize and thus become less beholden to labour bosses and politicians who want to "help" them.    Wal Mart is one of those institutions.   They have faced the same union bilge and "discrimination" against women, corruption of local officials charges from their first arrival in Mexico. The two things are related, in this case.

     Understand that WalMart went into Mexico under the umbrella of the Grupo Cifra and the Grupo Aurrera, a mega-important Mexican-Spanish retail and restaurant consortium.   This was back in the 1990s.  WalMart de Mexico, SA went the route of having a "white union" instead of the old mossback, totally corrupt official union...the Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos.   For so long as the PRI was running every detail of business and labour law in Mexico, business and labour pretty much had to do the wishes of the "officials" and "important people".     Americans have been taught by people who do not know anything that the "rich people" in Mexico run everything.   For those of us who hang around in Mexico too much, we know this a wry joke, because we have seen the hundreds of times that some lower level slob labour-leaderof a local affiliate of the CTM could whip up a group of employees at some factory or business and close the business down....sometimes permanently.

   With the Free Trade Agreement and other liberalisations of the labour law, the requirement that businesses with a certain number of employees assure that those employees are members of  (the)(a) labour union, it also became possible to form and operate "non-official" unions....totally unaffiliated, independent, and unconcerned about being a force for PRI party "voter mobilisation".

     WalMart is presently the largest employer in the private sector in Mexico, especially when one includes the SAMs operation.   Since entering into partnership with the Cifra organisation (the father of Aurrera Group), WalMart has caused price decreases throughout the "food chain".  The public is wildly supportive of WalMart, and even the hootsy-tootsy people who look like actors and actresses from the telenovelas and the rich folks are seen in WalMart, without bags over their heads.   It is telling that the community of Teotihuacan, which is adjacent to the archaeological zone of the same name, was going to have a WalMart.  Various Indian Rights groups from all over the New World came to protest.   Televisa and all the PRI and PRD mossbacks trundled out to moan and whine and talk about "sacred ground".
Then the people who live in Teotihuacan held protests which were explained by CNN to be "protests" against WalMart's plans.   Oddly, in one televised broadcast, the stupid reporter was speaking very authoritatively  about how the "people" had mobilised against this horrid incursion unto 'sacred ground of the native Americans"...when in the background were hundreds of people holding pennants and home-made signs with the epithet "PRO-WALMART".    Apparently the stupid, ignorant, or intentionally mendacious reporter figured that the gringos watching the "news" article would be too stupid to figure out the signs.
     WALMart built the store anyway, just a little closer to the village.

     With all this said, and with a female conservative party candidate making a reasonable bid for the Presidency, the left has pulled out all stops....operating with its American brethren, to assault WalMart with any combination of criticism, outright lies, physical intimidation, and negative propaganda, disseminated via a willing pro-socialist press, which, as we know, is abundant both in the United States and Mexico.   Nothing is lost on the fact that Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, is also a claptrap for the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (the old official government party) and the owner of the New York Times, the water-bucket carrier for the "corruption story" now flooding into the American sensibility zone.    This assault by members of the Zuno family from Guadalajara...(in-laws of the disgusting pro-communist, totally corrupt, madman Luis Echeverria Alvarez, President from 1970 - 1976), and other old, immensely wealthy limosine liberal lefties of the PRI have always hated WalMart....because WalMart, like the Maquiladoras left these mastodons in a real lurch.   Like they frequently say..." It's just terrible what all this industry and commerce has done to things.   You just can't get a girl to work in the house any more, and if you find one, she want 100 pesos a day and the holiday and benefit package.   It's just terrible."We used to be able to get one for 30 pesos a day and a meal.   Just terrible".

     In other words, this is a Miss Flukie sham.   Again.   The "corruption" is that the Aurrera format is to pay the Notario Publico (a super-attorney in Mexico, who has the authority to draft agreements concerning real estate and permanent structure title establishment and transfer).   The Notario Publico might or might not determine if "lubrication" might be worthwhile to effectuate the timeliness of real estate transfer, the permitting process for construction, the engineering report acceptance, and other preliminary details.   WalMart will figure out how to apologise for any errors....which are actually none....and how to express contrition to the press and the Bolshies who hate WalMart, and this will have been something akin to running over a possum in a rainstorm within six months.

     It is strange the Boshies and other pinkies hate WalMart so.   Without WalMart, Mao's "Revolution" would have ground to a halt 20 years ago.

A time-line, so that the OROGs will know WalMart's history in Mexico.

          . 1957   the Arango brothers, Jerónimo, Placido and Manuel, founded the stores Aurrera

                        thinking in a supermarket model, with household items and clothing at cheaper

                        prices.    Aurrera in Basque means "Let's go!"...or an emphatic  "Come On!"

• 1958: Opens the first store Aurrera, with the branche Bolívar.
• 1960: Begins to operate stores Superama 1960.
• 1964: Starts operations Vips Restaurants 1964.
• 1970: Begins Suburbia and Bodega Aurrerá operations.
• 1976: Inaugurate First Distribution Center in Mexico (in Spanish, CEDIS).
• 1978: Opening of restaurants El Portón (The Gate).
• 1986: Makes the organization Grupo Cifra, for the administration of stores and restaurants in Mexico.
• 1990: Aurrerá starts the barcode system in Mexico.
• 1991: Wal-Mart and Cifra makes a joint venture. Creation of the International Division of Wal-Mart Stores and signed a partnership agreement with Cifra. Born the first Sam's Club in Mexico.
• 1993: Began operations Wal-Mart Supercenter. The supermarkets Aurrerá changes style and design in Walmart stores.
• 1994: They're joined Suburbia and Vips inner the association Cifra/Wal-Mart Distribuidora, S.A. de C.V.
• 1997: Wal-Mart buys most of the shares and acquiring control of the company.
• 2000: Grupo Cifra renames figure at Wal-Mart de Mexico.
• 2001: Aurrera stores become Walmart Supercenters and Warehouse Aurrera.
• 2005: Walmart Mexico makes the stores Mi Bodega Aurrera currently has over 50 units in various parts of the Republic. It's a variant of Bodega Aurrera, with less area and products.
• 2007: Bodega Aurrera has about 300 units driving prices lower for much of the Mexican Republic.

Just a bit of explanation.   Thank you all for your time and interest.
El Gringo Viejo

Actuarials and Reality

The number of zombies, druggoes, and head-cases wandering around loose in the United States is flabbergasting.   The article below about Chicagoland is repeated in hundreds of venues throughout our nation.      Any metroplex with 200,000 people or more has this report. Just this week, a trio of slugs who live only a block from our little place, decided to kill a girl with whom they were doing business. Their business is burglary, receiving and selling stolen goods, and now, at least least one case, premeditated, cold-blooded murder.   One of the three is now charged with the shooting of  a 23 year-old girl in the lower part of the back of the head and dumping her body off on the edge of an important secondary street in the McAllen, Texas area. She was a daughter of an important merchant in the area. She was also en league with the other three in their other 'business pursuits". None of the males involved had crossed the age of 20 years yet.

      Three more were gunned down a few miles northeast of McAllen during a session of mid-night basketball....except here instead of a basketball, they use two roosters and betting tables. There were several score "people" at the cockfights, and all managed to escape, save for three who were killed, when a group of thugs arrived, faces covered with ski-masks, and opennned fire of the crowd.

And on, and on.

 Below is the reality of Chicago.   This is the reality of every large urban center that has a large urban population that has been raised up on public assistance and/or a secular humanist "school" environment.   El Gringo Viejo makes this inclusion, and attributes the article to the Chicago Sun Times and local FOX Channel 2:

9 Dead, At Least 15 Wounded in Citywide Shootings

Updated: Monday, 16 Apr 2012, 3:21 PM CDT
Published : Sunday, 15 Apr 2012, 8:25 AM CDT

Sun-Times Media Wire

Chicago - Nine people were killed and at least 15 others wounded in shootings across the city from Friday night through Monday morning, including a cabbie found shot to death in his cab, and a 25-year-old woman police believe was targeted after she was shot multiple times.

This weekend’s fatal shootings include:

• David Loggins, 52, shot in the neck at 1:23 a.m. Saturday in the 6500 block of South Champlain Avenue.
• Adegboye Oguntade, 31, of south suburban Lansing, found shot to death in his taxi about 2:45 a.m. Saturday in the 1200 block of West 69th Street.
• Michelle Gregory, 21, was shot multiple times about 4:30 a.m. Saturday after arguing with someone at a party in the 3900 block of West 19th Street.
• Erik Loggins, 40, was found shot dead in his home about 12:40 p.m. Saturday in the 9700 block of South Carpenter Street.
• Darryl Davidson, 23, was shot twice in the chest about 1:45 a.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of South Springield Avenue.
• Brandon Miles, 19, was shot twice in the back about 2:50 a.m. Sunday in his home in the 1000 block of North Waller Avenue. Sources said he was standing in front of a window in his living room watching TV when he was struck by rounds fired from outside.
• Kimberly Harris, 25, was shot multiple times in the face, head, chest and legs about 7 p.m. Sunday in the 2900 block of West Arthington Street. She was shot three times in the face alone, and police said they believe she was purposely targeted because of the extensive number of times she was shot.
• An unidentified man in his 20s or 30s who was shot in the head was found by police at 3:55 a.m. Monday in the 4500 block of West Jackson Boulevard.
• An unidentified man was standing on the porch of a home when he was fatally shot in the 5800 block of South Shields Avenue at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

At least 15 others were wounded in shootings, including three women who were shot about 10:25 p.m. Saturday night by a male gunman who’d been turned away from a party in the 13200 block of South Vernon Avenue. None of the women suffered life-threatening injuries.

No one is in custody in any of this weekend’s shootings, according to police..

And, yes there is no Al Sharpton. No Jesse Jackson. No one to set things straight. What is to come of us without Al's and Jesse's and O'bama's help? Who will feed the children? Who will give Miss Flukie her new replacement back-up bi-polar-solar-batteries for her portable sola-powered aborto-matic kit for free? Who?

Asking the questions that much be answered.

El Grngo Viejo

Update on Josephina's Progress

http://www.eleccion2012mexico.com/estadisticas/encuesta-eleccion-2012-mexico

     Click onto the above linkage to see that our right-wing girl is performing almost precisely as El Gringo Viejo thought and hoped she would.   The pretty boy, Pen~a Nieto of the old government party has steadily lost his relatively shallow support.   Unfortunately, however, the latter-day communist, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has managed to work into a fairly strong third place.    We are somewhat surprized by this showing.

     It does come, however, after several weeks of his apologising about the shutdown of the centre of Mexico City for 2 months following the last  Presidential elections.   He is also promising to never be so rash and self-empowered ever again.   Thankfully, he is going back to his old habit of making long, boring, rambling speeches that sound word-for-word like Father O'bamaham's marxist gibberish.   He can draw a fairly good crowd that comes to collect the free t-shirts and belly-bag giveaway items.....but by the time he finishes his speeches, most of the crowd has left, or is slumped over asleep.

      Be very wary of AP and McClatchy reports about Josephina, since they spend most of their time ridiculing her and making up some stories out of whole cloth.   The "encuestas" included in the linkage above will tell the whole story.   It is complicated, but political junkies will see the "path to Victory" in attitudinal breakout  (the 6 supporting graphs).   Also working in our favour is the fervour level, which is highest for Josephina, and much lower for the two men.

 

Just an update.

El Gringo Viejo

Al Goar's Guest Editorial

Dear Little People:

     You little people really need to understand that we good people really do know more than you do. Anything you little people who study history and move through life guided by the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, and the Catechism of normalcy, deference, decency, and stewardship are not really smart enough or deep enough to have any true notion about Earth – Sun relationships.
       You see, it is only we who call for Reason who can remind you that in 40 years we have saved the Planet from an absence of Polar Bears, white tail deer, and numerous other major mammals who are so numerous now that we have to pass on a daily basis, in the case of the deer, three or four dead ones who are splattered on non-expressway, common streets in and around Central Texas. Luckily, many are not splattered, because they are busy sleeping in our garages with the racoons during cold weather snaps. Then they can wake up and eat our gardens for brunch.
      It is we who warned of the dangers of Global Warming long before McAllen, Texas had a White Christmas….with a 10 inch snow, Christmas, 2004. (Check Mcallen's location on Planet Earth through your Google Earth access.)
      It is we who, because of our superior, more concerned, much more ethical than all you little people who probably own guns and go to Mass at a conservative rite Anglican Church, and believe in something bigger than yourselves, are actually concerned about the true soul of the Planet that weeps because of the poverty of the many and the useless wealth and acquisition of the 1%.

We are the ones who saved the Planet from the Silent Spring.
We are the ones who saved the Planet from the Global Freeze of the 1970s.
We are the ones who, with Jane Fonda’s help, saved the planet from Nuclear Winter.
We are the ones who saved the Planet from the Ozone hole.
We are the ones who saved the Planet from Climate Change.
We are the ones who saved Miss Flukie’s virginity with a solar powered chastity belt,
and who gave her a wind powered, portabortion kit to carry with her at all times, free.

      We are the ones who overlook the fact that a Confederate rube can study at the knee of his PhD. brother, a graduate level professor of geography at Louisiana State University, who was involved in the establishment of the concept of a geostatic, space-based missile intercept satellite system, learning at the same time that the corruption of the Army Corps of Engineers coupled with the corruption of the locale that is New Orleans would cause another flood of the city, and that communists, anarchists, and nihilists were planning even in the 1960s to invent CLIMATE DISASTER SCENARIOS to scare the beejeebies out of school children so as to advance the cause of “social democracy”.
     We are the ones who foisted the lie about, “A plastic water bottle. One day in you back-pack, an eternity in a landfill”. Who knew that children could figure out that a plastic water bottle cannot last 3 weeks in any remotely identifiable form in a real landfill. We’ll have to figure out how to kill Bambi in the movies in a better way so as to scare the beejeebies out of the ignorant and the children.

      Why don’t you little people go on back to your little pointless lives and let us who know better take care of the big issues. We can hate Good, Beauty, Normalcy, Natural Law, Prosperity, Achievement, Family, Clean, Self-sufficiency, Liberty, Family, Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism much better than any of you little people.

An inconvenient truth to the rescue.

Al Goar

ps.   Just because there are "wind farms" that are idle and being (truly) subsidized because they cannot sell their electricity since the wind blows at inconvenient times, and since the propeller blades are all made in Mexico or Norway....doesn't mean that my proposal to put one wind generator every 60 yards throughout America is a bad idea.

Inconveneintly yours,

Al (Mr. Massage) Goar.

(A Revisitation) San Jacinto Day was 21 April 1836. Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad. May they all Rest in Peace.

General Vicente Filisola

     The gentleman pictured above was many things.   He was a Spaniard with an Italian name.  He was a veteran of the Napoleanic Wars, and a distinguished Spanish soldier.   He came to New Spain late in the colonial period and served during the transition from Spanish to Mexican control of that area which now would include all of Mexico, Central America, western Canada, and most of what would become the western half of the United States of America.    For a brief period during the rule of Emperor Agustin de Iturbide I of the Mexican Empire 1821 - 1823, General Vicente Filisola served his Emperor as Governor of Central America.

      The good General served only briefly, however, due to the overthrow of the Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Mexico in 1824.   He did provide for an orderly transition from Mexican control to local governance and order, and withdrew his Imperial Army back into Mexico and joined the re-organised Army as a brigadier.

      It is said that Filisola was probably the one who inspired Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to think of himself as...."The Napoleon of the West"....because of Lopez de Santa Anna's fascination with Napoleon Bonaparte and the legends associated with that Corsican.   Filisola was one of the few people in anyones army who had officer level dealings on a Napoleonic field of battle.

    Vicente Filisola is important to Texans because he was one of those Generals immediately under the command of the all important, self-consumed, pompous Generalissimo Presidente Lopez de Santa Anna.    Along with Filisola, and Perfecto de Cos, the Presidente's brother-in-law, and old Castrillon, and Ramirez y Sesma....all Spaniards  by birth and world view, there was also Brigadier Jose' Urrea, the Indian Fighter, a Davy Crockett figure, at once both rough-cut, and aristocratic, and oddly one of only two  Mexican general officers fighting in the Texas War of Independence who were born Mexicans.

    The commander in chief Lopez de Santa Anna, and the lowest ranking general officer were Mexicans.   Lopez de Santa Anna had moved three large elements from all parts of the country from January up to mid-February to do battle against a crafty bunch of scrappers in a place called "nowhere" by some and Texas by others.   Urrea moved a third of the Army along the Texas Coast, aiming to unify with the main body of the Army around a place called San Jacinto.   Urrea also moved quickly, like an early form of blitzkrieg, although he had five major battles against Texian units numbering from 100 to 500 combatants in each case, and several significant skirmishes which tested his 2,400 effectives severely.   He is best remembered, however, as the Mexican general who left orders to deal fairly and well with the Texian Colonel Fannin and the 440 Texian prisoners, only to have his orders countermanded by the Generalissimo Presidente.   So while Urrea had moved up to Victoria del Rio Guadalupe a few miles from Goliad, his subordinate received orders underlining the existing orders from the High Command that all found holding arms against the government would be executed for treason.

     Here, El Gringo Viejo enters a well-documented but rather neglected fact about the the issues of personality, strategy, tactics, honour, and the business of war that the Mexicans were undergoing even as they were winning, fairly easily against the insurrectionists.  To wit:

Gen. Jose' Urrea

"I was unable, therefore, to carry out the good intentions dictated by my feelings, overcome by the difficult circumstances that surrounded me. I authorized the execution, of thirty adventurers taken prisoners, and setting free those who were colonists or Mexicans      "These orders always seemed to me harsh, but they were the inevitable result of the barbarous and inhuman decree which declared outlaws those whom it wished to convert into citizens of the republic,  I wished to elude these orders as far as possible without compromising my personal responsibility.       "They doubtlessly surrendered confident that Mexican generosity would not make their surrender useless, for under any other circumstances they would have sold their lives dearly, fighting to the last. I had due regard for the motives that induced them to surrender, and for this reason I used my influence with the general-in-chief to save them, if possible, from being butchered." Diary of the Military Operations of the Division which under the Command of General José Urrea Campaigned in Texas February to March 1836 Translation from Carlos Casteñeda's The Mexican Side  of the Texan Revolution (Some headings added by  current editor, WLM) For Biographies, Search Handbook of Texas Online Extract from the Diary of Col. Nicolás de la Portilla In a Letter Portilla to Urrea....."I feel much distressed at what has occurred here; a scene enacted in cold blood having passed before my eyes which has filled me with horror. All I can say is, that my duty as a soldier, and what I owe to my country, must be my guaranty...." March 26. At seven in the evening I received orders from General Santa Anna by special messenger, instructing me to execute at once all prisoners taken by force of arms agreeable to the general orders on the subject. (I have the original order in my possession.) I kept the matter secret and no one knew of it except Col. Garay, to whom I communicated the order. At eight o'clock, on the same night, I received a communication from Gen. Urrea by special messenger in which among other things he says, "Treat the prisoners well, especially Fannin. Keep them busy rebuilding the town and erecting a fort. Feed them with the cattle you will receive from Refugio." What a cruel contrast in these opposite instructions! I spent a restless night. sdct March 27. At daybreak, I decided to carry out the orders of the general-in-chief because I considered them superior. I assembled the whole garrison and ordered the prisoners, who were still sleeping, to be awaked. There were 445. (The eighty that had just been taken at Cópano and had, consequently, not borne arms against the government, were set aside.) The prisoners were divided into three groups and each was placed in charge of an adequate guard, the first under Agustin Alcerrica, the second under Capt. Luis Balderas, and the third under Capt. Antonio Ramírez. I gave instructions to these officers to carry out the orders of the supreme government and the general-in-chief. This was immediately done. There was a great contrast in the feelings of the officers and the men. Silence prevailed. Sad at heart I wrote to Gen. Urrea expressing my regret at having been concerned in so painful an affair. I also sent an official account of what I had done, to the general-in-chief. [Portilla to Urrea, Goliad, March 26 1836 and Portilla to Urrea, Goliad, March 27, 1836] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~      El Gringo Viejo and many old timey Texans know these stories, but they are not well known any longer.   Newly arriving people with Mexican backgrounds assume they know all and newly arriving people from the United States and elsewhere have seen Davy Crockett on Disney or some variation, and are certain in their knowledge of the issues involved with the period from 1829 through 1846 and the Texas situation.      This is not said with any particular arrogance.   It is known that what El Gringo Viejo knows from his own research is now useless information.  Nothing matters in the course of human conduct that cannot be compressed into a six-word phrase to put on a bumper sticker.   What is past is no longer prologue, but rather simply useless white-noise on the left side of the time line.       But as an enemy the man pictured below is known among the old, last remaining Texans who know what Texas really was, as an honorable enemy....a good and patriotic man involved in a grisly profession.    Something like Rommel, perhaps. Manuel Fernández Castrillón (?–1836) Fought Texians both at the Battle of the Alamo and at the Battle of San Jacinto.

Castrillon was Santa Anna's ally through much of their working relationship, but Castrillón often took exception to Santa Anna's decisions during the Texas Revolution. He opposed the hurried assault on the Alamo. Yet when he received his orders to lead the battle's first column of troops, he did so with expert efficiency.

A humane and honorable soldier, Castrillón also pleaded clemency on behalf of the seven Texian fighters who survived the Alamo siege. Castrillón's arguments for mercy were ignored, and the men were executed. Castrillón again stated his protest when Santa Anna ordered the execution of the Goliad prisoners.

Castrillón's compassion was a sign of kindness, not weakness. When the Texians roused Mexican forces from their afternoon siesta on 21 April 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto, he was one of the few Mexican officers to stand his ground.

His bravery was recorded in the memoirs of Texian second lieutentant Walter Paye Lane:

"As we charged into them the General commanding the Tampico Battalion (their best troops) tried to rally his men, but could not. He drew himself up, faced us, and said in Spanish: 'I have been in forty battles and never showed my back; I am too old to do it now.'

He continues: "Gen. Rusk hallooed to his men: 'don't shoot him,' and knocked up some to their guns; but others ran around and riddled him with balls. I was sorry for him. He was an old Castilian gentleman, Gen. Castrillo."

Honored on both sides of the Texas Revolution—except by Santa Anna, who blamed the loss at San Jacinto in part on Castrillón—he was even buried in the family graveyard of Lorenzo de Zavala, the vice-president of Texas.

     So, all these major footnotes are added into the blog in order to celebrate the victory tomorrow, the 21st day of April, 1836 of the Battle of San Jacinto.   Normally creditted to the efforts of Gen. Sam Houston, who truly was a bigger than life figure, the truth is that Houston was painfully wounded at the beginning of the battle, by a musket ball to the right foot.   It was Gen. Somervell, commanding, and the surprize rush of the limited cavalry of the Texian force of a bit fewer than 700 men.....attacking on a Sunday morning.   The head of the cavalry was Capt. Juan Seguin, an arch-enemy of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.   The resolve of the Texian force to gain Independence, avenge the atrocities of Goliad and the Alamo allowed the inferior force to pin into a peninsula surrounded by a snake infested bayou, and then essentially destroy the effective force of an Army of 2,500 with superior munitions, armament, artillery, cavalry, stores, and so forth.

     Going back to Gen. Vicente Filisola, it was he who took control of the Mexican Army as it withdrew from San Jacinto.   Lopez de Santa Anna remained under arrest and would later be tranferred to Washington D.C. as an oddity and war-trophy of sorts.   He had been the best general in the field, but also the one most prone to err through arrogance and hubris.   Some say his membership in the Mason Scottish Rite order saved him from a rough and ready gallows at San Jacinto, since Houston and Somervell were both brother Masons.

     Filisola was met with his columns by Urrea, who forced control from Filisola, and took command of the withdrawal.   The two men would argue and write accusations against one another, and each would write interesting, if self-serving accounts of their experiences during the War.   It is the opinion of El Gringo Viejo that Urrea was the better soldier and was truthful concerning his wishes for the good treatment of the Goliad prisoners of war.

      Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna blamed both of them for everything;  Urrea for arriving too late to San Jacinto, Filisola for not mucking through the mud with cannons and stores any faster (he actually moved 2,000 men, animals, and stores faster than Santa Anna had moved his Army away from San Antonio in pursuit of Houston's Army.)   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was a lot like Obama in his ability to blame everything on everybody but himself.

Committed to the dull truth, which always seems to wind up being far more interesting than the false legends or any fiction.....El Gringo Viejo resigns the evening and promises to return to more tales that interest him, and he hopes, the OROGs everywhere.

El Gringo Viejo

Popocatepetl, rumbling and huffing and puffing

As Popocatepetl threatens, Mexico central highlands wait

The level of alert has been raised to 5 out of a possible 7.   This mountain, along with its sister Ixtaccihuatl  (Ish  tock  see  wahtel) form a barrier between the City of Mexico to the West and the City of Puebla, to the East.   Popo is almost 18,000 fasl, while Izzie runs up to 16,300 fasl.    Each peak is 2nd and 3rd highest in Mexico, respectively.   The Pico de Orizaba is the highest, stretching to just shy of 20,000 feet.   All three maintain a snowy cover above the 15,000 foot level, although the area around Popocatepetl is a little stained by effusions from the volcano.

 Another view of the chapel of Santa Maria de los Remedios de Tlachihualtepetl

      It appears, reasonably, to be a little chapel built on the top of a hill.   The fact is that it is a fairly large church built on top of the largest pyramid known to exist in the world.   The Nahuatl name means "unreal mountain"  or "ghost mountain", because the Indians of the pre-Conquest period...Tlaxcalan and Otomi' nations....arrived long after the abandonment of this particular pyramid, built by the same folks who had built the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon in Teotehuacan, 60 miles to the northwest, and the site of Tula 100 miles to the west.    That nation called itself the Toltecs and moved during the 600 AD period to the area now known as the Yucatan, merging with the local Maya peoples there.

     So as to have some idea of the size of the Pyramid of Cholula, it is built upon a perfectly square base, and each leg is one-fourth of a mile in length.  The foundation excavations go down almost 100 feet below what is thought to be the original surface, and the structure from surface to top of structure rises almost 80 feet in height.   On the highest patio in these days, one can see Orizaba, Ixtaccihuatl, Popocatepetl, and La Malinche peaks, and that is covering a lot of territory, almost the size of New England.

      The 2,000 pound gorilla in all of this is Mexico City.   Puebla with its Volkswagen factory and its Cholula suburb is very impressive, and a place worth living in or around, but Mexico City....or better stated....the Federal District....is in the sights of Popocatepetl.    A huge effusion of smoke, pumice particulate, and/or lavic flow heading to the west from the high ridges would bring various levels of catastrophe to 23,000,000 people in the District and surrounding areas.    It is such a severe problem that Mexico City and Mexico in general has responded in recent polls that the impending natural disasters, including the up-coming hurricane season, have displaced the cartel violence as the number one concern of the populace.

       We shall await the will of Popo and give you all reports and updates.   As of yet, we have had no ash-fall on our place outside of Victoria, Tamaulipas.  Upper level winds have been moving some of the effusion in our direction, however.   It will be interesting to see if Obamaham and his secret service will be able to make the trip to Mexico City for the schedule diplomatic events in the next couple of weeks

El Gringo Viejo.