Pickings from sources here and there

We move into the cyberworld to harvest things of interest to El Gringo Viejo and that he thinks should be of interest to OROGs and others.  We begin with an article from Americas Quarterly about Enrique Pen~a Nieto, President of Mexico, who has surprised the sceptical rightwingers (like me) by complying with various campaign promises quickly and forcefully in the early part of his administration.        
      One is the continued deployment and successful efforts in the degrading of the cartel and gang menaces....and another is the following account of a declaration of another war on another cartel. This is a cartel equally devoid of virtue, although not quite evil. It is a cartel that has taken the Mexican public education system from something noble and effective when Mexico was a truly poor country and changing the state school system into a sow nursing several hundred thousand lazy, in-fighting, whining, dull, and generally useless union thugs piglets. The Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores en la Educacion has steadily avoided guiding its flock for especially the last decades. Under the command of La Bruja (The Witch) Alba Esther Cordillo, who has been the head of the Sindicato (union) for nearly a quarter-century excellent became good, good became fair, fair became poor, and finally poor has become grotesque. The story unfolds below:






ATTRIBUTION TO "AMERICAS QUARTERLY"  this date -

 



 

Peña Nieto's Reforms Take on Teachers’ Union

February 26, 2013

by AQ Online

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed major education reforms into law on Monday, limiting the power of the powerful teachers’ union. By modifying two articles of the constitution, the overhaul allows the government to hire and fire teachers, and aims to gather reliable data on schools, teachers and students in Mexico’s education system, which serves an estimated 35.5 million children. Monday “begins an education transformation Mexican society longs for,” the president said during a ceremony at the National Palace in the capital.

Mexico’s 1.4 million-strong teachers’ union (SNTE)—the largest in Latin America

staged nationwide strikes to oppose some of the proposed reforms, fearing they could result in massive layoffs. The union "cannot support a measure that threatens our job security," said Elba Esther Gordillo, who has led the union for the past 23 years. Still, with Mexico ranking last on test scores among OECD countries, President Peña Nieto considered taking on the unions necessary to achieving meaningful reform.

Bipartisan support of the reform renews hope that the president commands the political capital to pursue his ambitious reform agenda, which includes overhauls of the tax and energy systems. "This reform is the first great step to transform the education of our young. We are going to get Mexico moving," Mr. Peña Nieto said in a Twitter post, shortly after the education bill passed the Congress 360-51 last December.t of his administration.

This is an actual real live picture of Miss Gordillo,
a veritable image of the face of atheist, socialist
union, corrupt thuggery

 

   EL GRINGO VIEJO adds a few quick observations.   We were always humoured when some jackass would state with great authority that  "Mexicans are poor because they have no labour unions."    The fact was that the government used the unions for years to organise people to vote and vote mindlessly or else.   Petroleum workers, electical workers, peasant farmers, and other divers social groups were forced into a particular, pertinent official nationwide union for the purpose of intimidating business people, conservatives, and other free thinking labouring people....and that went on to a lesser or greater degree for much of the 75 years of the hegemony of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).

     Someone could say, "Well, what they needed was free and independent unions."  And, of course, such is a contradiction of terms.   During the last 20 years there has been significant, perhaps even massive, movement towards  "Green"  and "White" labour unions that are significantly more production oriented and less politically motivated.    But not the SNTE;  it has become increasingly opaque, devious, even threatening.

      And please understand that forty years ago, when a Mexican child came into the McAllen public school system (usually by tuition back then), if he were in the seventh grade in Mexico (1st grade of secondary), he would usually wind up the school year in the McAllen 9th grade. And McAllen was a very, very advanced educational plant....perhaps the best in Texas at the time...and nationally recognised for its excellence.

       Now, in Mexico, there are few public schools that are functioning well.   About half of the teachers are there as a calling and to serve, while the remainder are union thugs, barnacles, parasites, and slugs.   Turmoil and disputes are the general rule in a majority of primaries and many secondaries.   Preparatories are better, but...much improvement is needed to get back to where they were.   Private schools at all levels in Mexico range from really good to excellent...and many of the public universities are also very good to excellent...especially the technology and medical schools.

 

Rule number one:   education and unions do not mix,  except to make a poison.

 

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      We also urge a quick visit during your browse to the blog of the Anglican Curmudgeon to see his first posting to-day.  It is very brief, and carries a two sentence, witty profundity worth reading.

 

 

El Gringo Viejo

Bobcat Fever

Normally, Bobcat Fever might be associated with something pertaining to Southwest Texas State University....alma mater of LBJ and George Strait, and El Gringo Viejo and his son and daughter and son-in-law.   But this is a real live bobcat story.

     During the early morning hours down at our little mud hut, El Gringo Viejo went out to finish the breakfast ceremony for the dogs.   First they receive their allotment of dog gruel, something like Gravy Train, and then about an hour later, they will receive doggy candy in the form of fairly nice, house brand doggy chew bones.   The procedure begins around 04:30 and ends around 06:15.     So, four or five days ago now as I went out to finish the ritual, it was noticed that we a visitor.
     The visitor was a large male bobcat, walking fairly nonchalantly from our land "down under" adjacent to the Rio Corona.   He was walking just off of our "long, west-facing corridor", and keeping a wary, defensive eye on the dogs and the Gringo Viejo.  Bibi, the labrador growled very slightly.   He is used to dealing with regular cats and has been very deferential to our three "house cats".
      But he knew that this was not a regular house cat.  The bobcat also did not want to become too involved with a dog bigger than him, but neither did he want to gallop off into the diminishing darkness like a coward.   The bobcat veered in his path and strode to the outside grill, jumped the stacked-rock fence, and went somewhat briskly back down to the Rio Corona.   Bibi went the long way out...(he really probably could not jump the stacked-stone wall) through the front gate, and followed the cat from a distance of about 50 feet.
     It was the first bobcat we have had up on the "high part" of the property in several years.  On one occasion, I almost lost a finger to one quick whack by a  bobcat's left hook.  He was confronting a large male domestic cat we had taken in....and that cat had never heard about the "....better part of valour".   All of that drama took place five years ago or so on that same long, west-facing corridor, right at the front door.   In any regard this was a interesting little episode under the watchful eye of the slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental.

     These kitties pictured at this linkage are very similar in size and colour to our early morning visitor last week.    http://dfwurbanwildlife.com/2013/02/19/mammals/news-bobcats-roam-carrollton-neighborhood/   .

News that can be used, or thrown away....

     We have just returned, yesterday, from our little fraidy-hole in the outback.   We were out for almost a month, and all-in-all, things went well and progress was made.  The negative?  There were troubling incidents, including a grenade having been thrown at the main entrance of the Governor's Palace in Cd. Victoria.   There were casualties, one dead and four wounded...all staff people of the Governor's Office who were standing around outside waiting for assignments.   Most were drivers of vehicles assigned to various dependencies of the State government.

     While the downtick of the overall cartel violence has been remarkable as opposed to two and three years ago, there are still strides to be taken and offensives to be maintained.   There is some irony in the fact that, with so much degradation and cannibalism having been visited upon the cartel activity the fragmented elements, without leadership, essentially become more cannibalistic and more violent.   Still, almost all of the violence, which is substantially less, is conducted within the groups themselves, or at rival groups.

     The "pandillas" (gangs) are erratic, changing loyalties frequently and also behaving in self-defeating ways that leave the observer scratching his head.   Their activities along the border and hereabouts...(Yes, Virginia, there is and has been substantial "spill-over" violence here for decades)....would bring to mind something that would have to be named "Keystone Kartels".

 

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     More to the other points, we had a fairly brief failure in the water delivery system in our little community.   Two days went by without any word from the Water Committee, so it came to El Gringo Viejo to be the one to go and find out the nature of the problem.   It turned out that young glue-sniffers had essentially vandalised a directional valve leading from the large water tower that is about two hundred yards from our little home.    They were attempting to steal it for scrap, ostensibly for obtaining money to buy glue and/or paint.   The valve had some damage, but another one was found that was serviceable, and a dumboe was contacted to install it.

     The installation worked for a couple of days...but after suffering through three days of no delivery....two days after the repair...as Ronald Reagan said..."There they go again".    Alvaro came to tell me that the Committee had found that the valve in question needed a threaded sleeve which the plumber had not used.   The Committee did not have any money, but they had found the sleeve and the plumber we normally used had agreed to put it in.   But, they wanted to know if they could have El Gringo Viejo buy the brass sleeve at the main local hardware and construction supply outlet at the Estacion Santa Engracia.

     The OROGs are aware that this is a fairly normal process.   The Committee goes then to the State Water operation, which heavily subsidises these local water  operations, which are actually medium to large locally administered endeavours, and they are re-imbursed.   We have backed them up this way perhaps four or five times, and they have always returned the money....either very or relatively quickly.   It is a holdover from the time of noblesse oblige, and they lump me in with about three other "patrons" who form up the "local nobility".

     As we left yesterday morning, for instance, Alvaro informed me that the Water Master had told him that they were going on Monday to pick up their re-reimbursement.  It might be pointed out that the monthly charge for daily delivery of three to five hours of potable water at medium high pressure is about 3.20 USD,   We have a large cistern and our own internal pumping system for the house, and we use the remainder of the deliveries to water our growies and lawns once the cistern is refilled.   The cistern by itself can supply the Quinta for about a week of disciplined use.

      The vandals were already under judicial process, as juveniles.   Now however, it seems that they are adults and so they will be picked up some night in a gutter in Cd. Victoria and be put into that wondrous process of the Mexican judicial system.  For these and several other minor but significant offences they will probably get to hang around in real live prison for about three years.

 

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     We are also putting in a small, but quite nice, "cochera" (Koh-CHAIR-ah), which in our case is an open-air carport.    It too will be a bit rustic, rhyming into the style of the home and the out-of-date, minimalist, head-in-the-sand nature of the local nobleman.  Alvaro is the overseer of the operation and it had come time to go and buy the heavy (and rustic) full-cut two-by-four members that will be used to be tied into by our metal roofing.    This meant a 400 yard walk over to a humble home where a man known as "The Bear" forms wood into various lengths, widths, and thicknesses.    That was 320 pesos (about 25 USD), and Alvaro and I carried the long, and very heavy six members back to the Quinta.

     What struck me as I went was the somewhat humbling realisation that there had been various new houses and other structures built of which El Gringo Viejo had been unaware.  The main characteristic of 90% of the new structures is that they all showed obvious signs of having been variations or near duplications of the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.  It is not our normality to walk around much in the Ejido, and we live on the edge of it.   There is nothing really to avoid in the Ejido Francisco I. Madero, it is just that for one or two people the day at the Quinta is almost always full of projects, and necessities are usually bought at a couple of little stores that are 3 miles distance or more, while Alvaro will go and buy Coca Colas, milk, and necessities of urgency at any of about a million different little outlets quite nearby.

      So, this passing by of twenty or so structures, glowing bright white, looking very "retro-progressive", using colonial touches and a bit of organisation of the vegetation was almost disorienting.   However, and with all American judgementalism in place, these places are better than the near-hovels they replaced.   Other near-hovels are being improved even as we write.  But it was strange that the phenomena had been right in front of me, and I had not seen it over the past two years or so.

 

There will be more venom and rancid liver bile poured forth in the coming days.  We have an observation or two about the president's on-going .....dare I say....crusade to destroy and humiliate the United States of America.   We have more about Mexico in general.   We urge the attention of the OROG to the last three posts in the Anglican Curmudgeon's blog, and of course there will be guests' submissions as they arrive.    We appreciate your interest, time, and attention.

El Gringo Viejo

Notice from El Zorro to his posse

A notice from El Zorro about the reality of buying medical devices under the conditions of the affordable care disaster.

 

Anyone still believe Obama didn't raise taxes on the middle class?

A little inconvenient truth sprouting up through the cracks of the socialist sidewalks.   Free medical really is not free, Virginia.  When the government increases its involvment in the affairs of the citizens, costs go up and quality goes down....the socialist promise that the property of the State is everyones property, sooner usually than later, becomes an awareness that the property of the State is no ones property.   In God We Trust becomes "take what we give you and pay the price we're telling you to pay.  And do it now!"

      El Gringo Viejo has returned and will be railing forth again, to-morrow.

Hello from the Sierra Madre

We are in the little community of Estacion de Santa Engracia, briefly.   We needed to buy the cover for our new ´´´cochera´´ and thereby finish the project.   To-day we had another pass by a bobcat, who eyed Bibi the Labrador as he passed by the dog on his way through the property.   They came to an uneasy peace, and Bibi followed the large male back towards the Rio Corona, but at a distance.   The Bobcat´s weight we would estimate at about 36 pounds.

 

     We continue to be depressed, amazed, and disgruntled about the  performance of the president of the United States and of the public.....the body politic.   The fact is that it is increasingly evident that Texas must re-establish itself as an independent governing Republic or Constitutional Monarchy or whatever....to avoid the control of people so specious and evil as Janet Napolitano, Eric Holder, and Barak Obama, etc.  The complicity of the Obsolete Press in covering and performing apoligetics for these horrid marxists is tantamount to a reasonable charge of treason.

 

      We need to prosecute our affairs here, and will be back in touch in a couple of days or so.   

News from the Sierra Madre Oriental

Crisp mornings....upper thirties to the mid forties...and afternoons that run up to the low eighties.   Things are a bit dry and there is a ragged appearance all about due to the uneven spring greening and blossoming.   We had a three day service interruption in our water delivery and this causes more than a little consternation.  We really cannot water....or really bathe....or whatever because there is no really good way to determine when the service is restored.   Rumours and gossip abound, and there is nothing to be gained by driving over to the watermaster´s home every three hours....to ask the same question...and receive the same deflective, non-informational answer from a family member.

      Water was restored...there had been an attempted theft of a old diversion valve...made of all brass...and this had left the part of the line that served us and about 20 other households  un-fed.    But now all is bliss, because the service is restored, and we are being rewarded with periods of 6 hours of delivery.

 

      We had a very slow period of it concerning the birds until  yesterday....Wednesday.   Then the tree lit up with the usual show of colours and squawking.   A little rain would help.   The Quinta has served well in that during the very brisk nighttime hours and early morning, the temperature has remained at or above 72 degrees.   During a very high wind episode three days ago, we once again did not lose power or even the signal from SKY TELEVISION.

 

     El Gringo Viejo has little to say about the president's address.   It brought to mind a very poor form of those advertisements that deal with Red Chinese junk that always include the admonitions,"....but wait. there's more!"   It was a very un-clever, predictable sermon to the low-information crowd....and a perfect service of government largess designed to enslave the proles.     The pre-school bilge was very interesting due to the fact that it has been demonstrated time after the time that the  Head Start program has serve no academic or assimilation purpose of any merit.  It does provide make-work jobs for lots of people who are willing to do as little as possible so as to have a make-work job handed down by some Democrat ward-boss.

      This incessant bilge about green energy is so pitifully transparent, Spain's much vaunted infrastural renaissance based upon green energy (what is green energy?)  produced a present unemployment rate there in the neighbourhood of 24%.   In the USA it is simply a method of using "free money" to be channeled to papier mache' companies whose executives then dump large sums into various Democrat and leftist coffers.

 

     We have a new deployment of heavy infantry here.   So, apparently the new President of Mexico is keeping his word about the deployment patterns.   This is a group of  about three companies...perhaps 550 or so men and officers....and they are saying that they might be here for some time.   Asides from the incident with the attempted theft of the old brass valve, there is nothing to report concerning the social situation.

 

More later.

El Gringo Viejo