The strange, sad, funny, and interesting life of Sir Edward James

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(this is taken from a recent letter written to an ancient friend....perhaps it should be stated to a friend from our ancient times....who somewhat recently visited this place called Xilitla (hee LEE tlah)

 

 

 oooooOOOOooooo

 

 

   Edward James seemed to me to be a person who was only happy during those lengthy periods of depression and introspection that seemed to follow him closely during most of his life.  That psychological or emotional disposition is how I remember him last...it seems to be around 1978.  It could have been either in Xilitla or at the venerable Hotel Valles, in Valles, San Luis Potosi, Mexico.    James would be dead in England about 6 years or so later.  He was 77, I believe, at the time of his demise.  When I took a group into the Hotel Valles in 1979, the staff told me that he had returned permanently to England.    In that land, his home, he was truly an aristocrat, in spite of his father being an American railroad magnate and  designer.  His mother, a titled Scotswoman, was an heir to a massive estate in England, by way of her grandfather.   It was, however assumed that she was the daughter of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward IV, as the result of a bit of a tryst as it was said in those times and in that strata.  It is said that his name stems from that.   It is also said, that because of the track to relationship to HRH Victoria and Prince Albert...that Edward James had Royal ancestry, although his title "Sir" came from his mother's Scottish side.

 

     When I would come across him, twice in Xilitla, and about four or five times in either Valles or Tamazunchale, and perhaps once in Aquismon and once in Tanquinhuitz de Gen. Pedro Santos, all places that were very close around to Xilitla, he would always be armed with his pet cotorro who delighted in biting the H lasting Hell out of anyone with a finger to spare.   Edward James always had the "layered look", with robes and raiment, about three deep of different textures....from almost gauze, to  flannel, to very fine goat hair serape-like overlay....like a cross between a robe, a serape, and a poncho.   He always wore sandals as I recall.

 



This is a borrowed image of a postcard of the

 Hotel San Antonio in Tamazunchale,

 San Luis Potosi.

 Owned by an American couple,

 Episcopalians, and one of the most

 fantastic places in rural Latin

 America for all times,

   In 1962, the majority of people, 25 miles in

any direction, did not speak Spanish.

   The largest group of white people were not

 Spanish in origin, but French.

   Still, to this day, there are large swathes

of the Indian populace who do not speak

 any or very little  Spanish.

    The meals and ambience were ideal.

The Hollingsworths had another home,

 nearby on the tropical Tamesi River

in the same style as above.

  They would come to McAllen, every now

 and then attend Mass at Saint John's

 Church - Episcopal in McAllen.

   They w0uld buy things that were

 a little harder to come by in Mexico

in those days. 

He would talk in a friendly way, making inquiries concerning ones activities and health.   Conversations could be lengthy...at times all day affairs.
      But as one might answer, Edward might  look away and/or turn his attention to his parrot, his  given name does escape me at this time. Perhaps it was "Sir Winston".



   He spoke at length one time of the Hollingsworths and their Hotel San Antonio in Tamazunchale, where he said that he would frequently dine. He declared their staff as expert in the preparation of acamaya (the small river lobsters).   He did not like for the people in Xilitla to know that he actually ate meat because he made considerable noise about the need for humanity to return to its vegetarian antecedents.   He was something like the doctor who would advise his patients to stop smoking and then ask them for a light.

 

    One learned that he did not respond to anything about his activities in England, California, or his time in Mexico City and Cuernavaca.   Joaquin, the bartender at the patio bar of the Hotel Valles said that he would prepare nachos with "everything" including the excellent cecina (sheets of very thinly sliced prime beef) that Joaquin would cut into 1 inch squares to mount on the totopes (fried tortilla quarters), with queso blanco, guacamole, jalapen~o, onion, and a bit of over-ripe tomatoe.   This preparation was only when no one was in the Patio Bar area, once again because the nachos had meat, and a very fine meat at that.

 



The very elegant thatched roof
 restaurant of the Hotel Valles.

    Edward James always seemed wasted.   Gentle, patient, but really wasted.  Underneath his robes and trappings, he wore white captain's trousers, like one might see as part of a British or American (Canadian?) naval or coast guard officer.   He wore white socks with his sandals, and I never saw him wearing conventional shoes or boots....even during muddy or rainy events.  El Gringo Viejo is given to the wearing of white, Oxford-cloth, long sleeved shirts, a habit since high school, and Sir Edward also had that same habit, it seems.

 

     He had very fine flasks...larger than normal flasks....perhaps one-quart....but still smooth, slightly rounded, and apparently made of Taxco silver, and initialled by an excellent smith with a Gothic E and J.   Not showy but impressive.    In one he carried  tequila, in another rum from the  local distillery in Valles.   The tequila he drank with tonic water and lime, while the rum he would mix with bottled Coca Cola, and squeezings of fresh lime.   He would feed his parrot the nachos or anything else for which the bird might have had a hankering.   I never saw that the bird made a mess on his raiment, although the bird was ever present.  And, frankly, Sir Edward never seemed to be dirty or smelly although he would at times look almost as though he were a derelict.

 

This seems to be around 1968 or so.  Sir
Edward with the parrot thought to be
named,   "Sir Winston".  He had become
one of those parrots who would not only
speak...but who could actually carry on
a conversation.




     When asked, Sir Edward would say that he did not use alcohol because he had been an alcoholic.  It was part of his "mystique" and floating-cloud reality brought on by years and years of really hard living.  But, he would approach the outdoor bar, when Joaquin would be polishing the glasses....it was a delightful, tropical...almost elegant setting...and deliver  his flasks at some point that would be nearing his departure. Both he and Joaquin wold try to be at least a little discreet in this operation.  He would point to this  flask and  say something and then to the other one. I'm sure he was identifying which was for the tequila and which was to be refilled with rum. El Gringo Viejo would keep a certain distance from Sir Edward when he would abruptly leave, while making no explanation.  It usually meant he was up to some personal hypocrisy that he felt that only he suffered, and that all others held no hypocrisies in their souls.

 

     He had a car and driver.   The driver was Plutarco Gastelum (gaz tah LUHM)  who said he was a Yaqui from Cuernavaca.   The problem, of course, is that Yaqui Indians are not found in abundance in the Cuernavaca area south of Mexico City.  They are native to the uplands of Sonora and western high mountains in western Chihuahua State's high, about 1,200 miles to the north of the Cuernavaca area.  Because of their incessant hostility, President Porfirio Diaz had them translocated in the 1880s from the bracing highlands in the north to the humid lowlands on the Yucatan Peninsula.  This was greater than the Cherokee Relocation action, and caused a lot of death and disease among the re-settled Yaquis (these are a sub-group of the greater Apache Nations).  It should be pointed out that some of the women of killed Yaqui warriors who fought the Mexican and American Armies at different times...up to and including the 1940s...would sometimes be removed from their homeland and sent to work as maids in the Pedregal or other rich sections of Mexico City.  And with the number of wealthy Mexicans and Gringo retirees in Cuernaca,and Taxco, even as early as the 1890s for the Gringos, it seems now, as I think about it, possible that Plutarco might have been Yaqui. 

    

     Locals around Xilitla, howver,  said that Plutarco Gastalum was from the Conca' and Jalpan area a few miles and a little further up in the mountains on the way to Queretaro from Xilitla.   Very pleasant places, a bit cool in the Winter.   These local folks said he was actually Nahua (remnants of the Aztec nation that, much reduced in numbers sought refuge in the mountains far to the northeast of what became Mexico City after the fall of Tenochtitlan to the Spanish, Otomi', and Tlaxclalan combined armies drove the Aztecs out of their impressive city and empire in 1523).   The Huastec did and still do outnumber the Nahuatl by 20 to 1.   It was said and may still be true that the Indians of the area around Xilitla and Tamazunchale cannot venture far before entering into another linquistic group....the old rule is about 20 miles. 

 

    This last time in Valles when I saw Edward James, he was neither being driven nor driving.  He was flagging down  the common bus to head back south to his Xilitla, with his parrot.   That bus would drop him off at the intersection from whence James would take a taxi up to his Castillo...semi-residence...semi-hotel....semi pleasant-nightmare.   The whole run from Valles probably totalling and hour and a half.

 

After your mention of having gone up to the place it has been rattling around in the front and back of my mind.   This picture that I found and herein attached is my remembrance of how he looked in those latter days.  The first time I saw him, he had very black hair....in the mid-1960s driving around with my brother, who was any accomplished and accredited archaeologist,  looking for archaeological sites.



 An example of the many absurd
concrete statuaries (there are
200 more) found in Los Pozos,
about two miles from "El Castillo"
the home-hotel-studio  place in the
centre of Xilitla.

      We could load up the rest of this blog-entry with innumerable pictures and commentaries about Sir Edward and his Quixotic life in the Xilitla catchment area...a small but incredibly endowed natural area, with  aquiferine, forest, birds, butterflies, major mammals, and doggedly resistant to change exhibited by the local  cultural groups of the indigenous.  But, we would challenge the OROG to read up on his/her own.   Forward questions, of course, because I love to pontificate and say, "But on the other hand....''

     The hotel is still functioning, even in these days.  The town is still functioning, it will never die, in my estimation.  It would be worth any visit that would involve a minimum of  six days and five nights to do it in any reasonable way.  There are still Indian markets on certain days of the week, and there are Indians who still show up in native garb.  On those market days, for instance, it is a rare thing to hear Spanish spoken in the hum of conversation and the calling out to others during the markets.

When we learned that the communities in and around Xiltila, Aquismon, and Tamazunchale, numbering several hundred villages were safe because the Indians would take note of the cartel people, and the men would melt into the forest.   They knew that during the first or second night the cartel people would degenerate into a bunch of drunken slugs.   They also knew that they would insult the girls and women.   But then at one or two in the morning, when the cartel henchmen were passed out, well, the men would enter into the outlying places on the edges of the Indian's villages and take care of the situation.   Suffice to say that it is not a good idea to go to sleep in a drunken stupor after insulting an Indian's sister, especially when the Indian is traditionally remarkably deft with a sharp machete.  The Cartel people are fewer everywhere, but especially in the Xilitla catchment.

 

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Edward James (c) and Gala Dali (l) and Salvador Dali (r)
Probably in Mexico...in Cuernavaca.  It is said that Sir Edward
might have danced at both ends of the ballroom, but it is known
that many women of the avant garde set....and aristocratic
women, wealthy women, literary women ...would fall for Edward
like a box of rocks.  He married once, had many "women friends"
many of whom were on The Registry, even Hollywood noteworthyettes
who hunted him down for maleness or money or genuine attraction.  But
he had his inner proclivities and devils.   Probably a genius.   The Indians
never levelled any charges against him so that he did not
offend them is certain.  He was the only white man, including
the rich white Mexicans from the big cities, to have bought and
 successfully owned terreno communitario of an
 indigenous group.  This is true because his permit would 
have had to emanate from the council
 of the Cacique, with unanimous assent.  They, in fact,
 officialised the sale before a notario publico,
 a form of real estate lawyer/official
 necessary in land transfers.  

[Edward James, Dalí y Gala, su esposa, 1942]

Un jardín puede estar en cualquier lugar, la vida está en todas partes, es el mismo aire, pero en esas 30 hectáreas encontramos paz, delirio, sensualidad, depresión, esquizofrenia; el letargo y la energía en cada piedra, en cada trozo de metal y concreto.

 

(translation - A garden can be en any old place, life is in all places, it is the same air, but in these 30 hactareas (75 acres) we find ourselves peace, delirium, sensuality, depression, schizophrenia, the lethargy, and the energia in and of each rock, en each slice of metal and slab of concrete.) 

 

 

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   El Gringo Viejo has always been very respectful of the Indians there, male or female.   There is something about a well-armed populace that knows how to use its weapons.   But enough.   Please do your own research, and ask me questions about this place if you wish.  Some of what has been put into the blogosphere or the internet in general is a bit out of focus, let us say.  However I am not the final authority by any means about this place.  It is a magnificent place to visit.

We appreciate the continued interest shown by the Original OROGs and all newcomers.  All are welcome.  We remind that we prefer email to any other form of communication.  And we appreciate any comment, critique, or complement.

 

El Gringo Viejo

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A little bottom feeding doesn't hurt sometimes.....

Does this look like a Mayor of New York?   Yes!!

Discussion between Anthony Weiner and his wife, Huma, who works for (Sir Edmund) Hillary Rodham as chief briefcase carrier and body man.

They are discussing their next set of strategies on how to blame Republicans for their War on Women and unborn Girl Babies.  Girl Babies are unanimous in their approval to be terminated before birth,
according to Huma, Hillary, and Miss Flukie

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CONFIRMED: Left Wing Plant at Houston

 Pro-Zimmerman Rally Is Far Left Activist

Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, July 23, 2013, 12:04 AM

 

 

Guest Post by Kristinn Taylor
LEFTIST PLANT INFILTRATES HOUSTON PRO-ZIMMERMAN RALLY–
Liberal Media runs with it
A photo from the Houston pro-Zimmerman counter-rally of the NBPP
 anti-Zimmerman rally picked up by the AP shows a woman holding
 a sign that read, “Racist & Proud.”

(New York Daily News – AP)

That looked incongruent with the other reports from the pro-Zimmerman side.
The Houston Chronicle identufied her as Renee Vaughan:

One woman in the Zimmerman group held a sign that said 

, “We’re racist & proud.”
Austin resident Renee Vaughan echoed the sign’s ugly sentiments by yelling, 

“We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better because we’re white,” 

at the Martin group as they passed, according to the Chronicle.

The act to smear the Zimmerman supporters as racists with a leftist plant worked

 as the photo and comment was picked up and spread worldwide.

Scanning the internet we found that a “Renee Vaughn” from Austin worked for

 a far left environmental group, the Texas Campaign for the Environment.

Renee even has her photo linked to a far left environmental website.

Here are two photos of Renee Vaughan side-by-side:

Here’s another shot of Renee at a leadership event for community organizing.
She’s standing up front in the wild dress.

It looks like Renee Vaughan was definitely

 a racist leftist plant at the Houston rally.

This is how the left operates, folks. This time they got busted.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Karadion – here is a photo of Renee Vaughan with the same

 sunglasses she wore while holding the racist sign at the pro-Zimmerman rally.

Yup. They’re the same sunglasses.

UPDATE: Brandon Darby interviewed Renee Vaughan at the rally. She told him her sign means

 that “there are people here who are racist and apparently think that’s OK. I’m not one of them. I’m being sarcastic.

What would be so difficult.....?

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What would be so difficult with responding thusly?

 

 

(1)    Listen, your job as a reporter, as best you can understand, and according to your training, is to protect the oppressed and the victims from that heavy, mean-spirited hand of the privileged few.   The nature of your question, "Just how are the children going to receive adequate nutrition during the summer vacation from school?  The Republican budget cuts are visiting hunger to the most vulnerable"....means that you have been programmed by the progressives to blame people that you and they have irrationally determined to be guilty of purposefully causing hunger and misery.

    Your question presupposes that it is somebody's or better yet anybody's responsibility other than the parents of a child to provide for his alimentation.   That is because you are a fool who can be easily tricked.

     The care of children should and must necessarily be the responsibility of the people who brought forth that child.  If such is impossible, then the child should, or even must, be taken up into a public or private care facility to be adopted or to be cared for until reaching the age of eighteen.

     If a second child is brought forth by the same woman, and that child has no other way to receive care, shelter, and/or nutrition, the woman should be clipped so as not to cause any further misery within the population and especially for an innocent child.

    The male of the equation producing a second un-supported child should be tracked down and snipped, so as not to cause any further misery within the population and especially for an innocent child.

 

 

(2)     Listen, your question being couched in the absurd terms of 'reproductive rights' is preposterous and fails in terms of compassion and in logic.  We are to worry about the inconvenience a pregnancy has, when we have all form and  manners of pregnancy prevention?

     There are girls who make errors and yet have the innate humane and religious and/or moral sense to go through the mess, trouble, and other major interruptions to a "normal" life....and place a new beautiful child up for adoption.  Some even strive along when two legs and two arms should be four of each.   But they do not resort to ending innocent life.

      When you ask your stupid question about reproductive rights you are actually referring to a process that precludes reproduction in the strictest and most correct sense.  Through elective abortion, reproduction is precluded...it is ended...the baby is killed dead....and becomes rot.   Not a pianist, not a great baseball player, not a farmer, not a fellow with his own auto repair shop.   The baby becomes dead protoplasm and unfulfilled future.   That is not reproductive...reproductive rights...reproductive wrongs....reproductive anything.   Nothing has been reproduced.

 

 

(3)     Your question is charged with assumptions that are only made by fools or by people who are so sophomoric that they think they can sneak a really cool point past a political Neanderthal.   Your question bespeaks of the mind and heart of a fool so perfectly that you are probably incapable of understanding the point I shall make.   The reason that the panoply of public assistance is not a good thing is because it is better to make a man...or any person...uncomfortable in his or her poverty.    Once a person gains the bottom rung of public assistance, he or she learns quickly that there is such an abundance that is seems arranged so as to reward sloth.  Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Free cellular telephones, public housing and/or Section 8 rent subsidy, Women's, Infants', and Children's Nutrition, school breakfast-lunch- snack and summer feeding program.   This is not to mention essentially free "school" , although schools are nothing like what schools were not so many years ago.   Fewer than 5% of to-day's "students" could pass the basic 8th Grade Proficiency Exam of the early 1900s....which served as the benchmark or equivalent of a high school diploma in many States.  The so-called "students" of to-day's public schools know useless things, and believe dysfunctional things, and have lost moral bearing and believe that they are entitled to some form of comfort that they have not earned.   It is because they have teachers who are trained to be "professionals" instead of having educators who have responded to a calling.

     The approach of the "Progressives" to the "problems" of the "exploited and brutalised classes" has those results that are best observed in settings such as Detroit, or almost any inner city of any sizeable urban area in the United States, and for that matter anywhere in the world where the people have been fed demagoguery and welfare crumbs.   There is nothing quite as expensive in the medium and long run as free medical, food, accommodation, and walking around money.

     To round out your silly point, it is axiomatic that if "free"  money is thrown at any situation, the situation does not, will not,  improve.   What happens is, with the extra money, the problem will become worse.   More people and businesses will seek to take advantage of the free money.   It is horridly corrupting, the idea that a central government or any government can give away "free money" and think that such a manoeuvre would not thoroughly corrupt everyone who touched the filthy greenback lucre.

 

 

(4)     Your question is drawn from a form of dull hostility that points up your stupidity, and the perfect combination of your stupidity with a well-developed ignorance of almost all things.   When the Senator asked a question in a party to a man celebrating his 100th birthday, "Don't you think that we'd all be better off if we could go back to when you were runnin' for President, Strom?'' do you know anything about Strom Thurmond?

     No, of course not.   This man jumped out of an glider-airplane behind German lines on 6 June 1944,,,when he was a 44 - year old Lt. Colonel, leading a battalion into battle.   And that, 16 years before, in 1928 he was the Attorney General of the State of South Carolina.   He drafted and ran through the South Carolina legislature a bill that would prohibit people covering their faces, especially during night-time hours when found in the company of 2 or more others also covering their faces.   Daytime restrictions were also put into place.  The bill also prohibited riding and/or driving while having the face covered, or riding horseback, or in any form of vehicle be it a wagon, buggy, or dreyage of any sort.

    The bill was aimed against the Ku Klux Klan.   It lived for about 6 years before being overturned by the United States Supreme Court.  Strom Thurmond was an adamant enemy of the Ku Klux Klan.

    Did you, as a reporter, ever risk your life and career to fight the Ku Klux Klan and Adolf Hitler, or have you been more concerned about Miss Sandra Fluke's access to other peoples' money so that she can have free birth control alternatives?

     Did you know that this person calling me down because I was humouring a 100 year old man on his birthday, ran a shakedown being fronted by a girl by the name of Tawana Brawley who levelled false allegations against some cops in New York.   He was sued for defamation and lost the case and was order to pay a sizeable settlement...which he has never done.  But he trundles down to Mississippi to jump on my bones for humouring an old man.   An Old Man who did more for the White and Black race than he (Al Sharpton) has ever done or will ever do.    And we are just getting started with this case of Strom Thurmond.   And how do I explain something to someone as ignorant and stupid as you?   Your only job is to go around being judgemental of people and traditions about which you know nothing and understand less.

 

 

    We put this into the arena at this time so that perhaps....perhaps....the GOP can gather up enough gumption to tell the Obsolete Media that they will not be hosing, moderating, or even be involved in the audience during any stupid GOP presidential primary debates.  It the Elephants had as much intelligence as their African, Indian, and Circus brethren, they would have exclusively one on one...with a lengthy interview of each candidate for a couple of hours over the period of about three weeks in February, March, and early April of 2016.

 

    Look at what that hideous woman did to Romney at  the last debate last time.   And please remember the useless grilling....Stephanopolous asking Romney about the war on women and the issue of birth control pills....and all the minefields and tank-traps they put out during the primary "debates".   There is nothing to be gained, and there is everything to be gained by denying even the premises of almost all the Obsolete Medias' questions and snarky set-ups.

 

We retire from the field even as the smoke continues to shroud the who holds the advantage.   To-morrow we shall prepare the attack anew and drive the Utopians from the field.

El Gringo Viejo

 

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Returning to the Issue of Keeping Our Eyes on the Ball

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   

 As something of an arch-revolutionary, it is true that my approach is a bit Hamiltonian.   It is also something of an Americanism to understand that we think of Jefferson as being a real live "peoples'" man, a vanguardian figure espousing democracy in form, substance, and outcomes, while Hamilton is the cool....even cold...aloof, aristocratic closet Royalist who recognised the obligations of the betters to protect the interests of the commoners who cannot comprehend their own self-provision and discipline.

 

     All comparisons break down into a heap of useless bent metal and broken glass. each of these Great Founders are a contradiction of himself.  It is impossible to feel that either should be the absolute cornerstone, or the keystone, of any Great Temple of Public Philosophy.

   In the case of El Gringo Viejo there is nothing salvageable.  I am an unfortunate person in that I am the likeness of all my forbearers.   They look like me, and I look like them.   They, however, were mainly very comely people while I was left to be homely....but looking like them in an ancestral way....both sides.  But they were also equally conflicted concerning the desired complexion of the compact between governor and governed.

 

0000OOOOO00000

 

    Hamilton, the closet royalist, was actually an un-fathered child  who had an extremely difficult childhood and adolescence.  One need not belabour the point, but his mother had to run from her first husband, she married the man who gave her two handsome sons, he left for legal reasons to her benefit.   She later died, and then her original husband came back and sued her estate because she deserved naught, in that she had never divorced him...By Danish law, he recovered her entire estate (very small) and left Alexander and his brother socially adrift. That is just a sample of his "aristocratic and privileged upbringing".

Alexander Hamiliton
('nuf sed)

    Hamilton was sent, scholarshipped by the people of St. Kitts, to attend school in the British Colonies in 1772.   Suffice to say that Hamilton's brilliance and industry led to rapid academic advance, finally graduating with honours from King's College (now Colombia) in New York.   A brilliant military career, at the elbow of fellow by the name of George Washington, and participation with the iconic Marquis de Lafayette at the critical Battle of Yorktown, where the French and Americans gained an heroic victory over Cornwallis assured Hamilton of perpetual adulation and placement among the ranks of near gods of earthly origin in America.



Thomas Jefferson

     Thomas Jefferson, 20 years or so the senior of Hamilton, and to the manor born in almost all ways, was Hamilton's equivalent in terms of studies and brilliance.   The Great Democrat, as his detractors called him, was really anything but.  Direct ownership of inherited and purchased and birthed slaves numbered, at their peak, nearly 1,000 if one includes partial interests and departed slaves who rested in the bosom of Abraham.   Jefferson was a scientist, a "Christian Agnostic" who had arguments with Jesus of Nazareth and the latter's "absurd assertions", although he tended to think of the Rabbi as probably being the Son of Yahweh.

    Jefferson had many rambling contradictions within his range of opinions and studies and beliefs.   He opposed slavery, but was reluctant to manumit many...only seven or eight...because he thought them incapable of self-provision.  He admired much about the Indians, but his were the cited sources of legal opinions and intellectual writings  when Andrew Jackson decided to break of all agreements with the Cherokee and others of the peaceful and adaptive Indians in the South.   This led to the expulsion in the 1830s, even over the outcry of whites in the South, of thousands of Cherokee and Creek over a three year period.
     Jefferson was also something else.  He was an incessant revolutionary.  One must read, and read, and read to find out how this man was committed to the idea of perpetual study and perpetual challenge...to order, to authority, and even to his own conventions.   Very peculiar.

     So here we are, recognising the value of both of these proven, heroic, men. And, perhaps El Gringo Viejo follows the both of them, although, even as a person disposed to the Confederate position in the War Between the States, my favourite betwixt the two would have to be Hamilton.   This is said with full knowledge that he was also a fool for ever having agreed to meet a cold blooded, experienced Aaron Burr on any field of honour.    Alexander allowed his ardour to get the best of him.  He should have simply stated that he would  not stain his beloved State of New York's soil with the blood of a syphilitic viper.

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     All of this wordiness and casting backwards glances bears upon our problem here...and now.   We are well beyond that point where radical solutions must be employed to salvage what is left of the character and strength of the American Republic.  Huge entitlement programs must be localised, reduced, and/or abolished.   We have become as is the monkey who can reach through the bar and grab the banana, but he cannot bring his hand back into the cage without releasing the banana.
   We are so prosperous that a 40 year old man learns in the local saloon that he can slide into a Social Security Disability payment by learning how to limp and whine just right. And after studying the symptoms and manifestations of his chosen disability he can find an attorney to escort him into a compliant hearing at the Social Security Administration and "presto" he's disabled and on the gravy train. He frees up hundreds, even thousands of free money Yankee dollars every month to pay his bar bill and membership at the Water Buffalo Lodge where he can go down and hobnob with Fred and Barney six nights a week.

     Then there is the issue of Detroit which is the issue of all of us.  We, the rightwing crazies and hard noses and "uncompromising" are aware that we were not crazy, hard nosed, and uncompromising enough apparently.   A combination of national socialist-capitalism...where the businesses and businessmen line up to "get their share" of the free bacon...and labour unions where malingerers are paid to do what they do best and then complain about it, public employees who are certain that there is a Right somewhere in that Constitutiary thing that says they retire at 55 years of age and receive whatever can be milked out of the current accounts of the public employer's tax base....have all come together to prove one point.
    That point is that Republicans hate homosexuals and women.  And white people are always going around shooting innocent Negro children all the time.   And if it had been thirty five years ago, they would have shot the current President right now.  Because he looks a lot like the same campaign speech he gives continuously if he can wrap it back around to pointing out that America is the worst place or concept that has ever existed in the history of the Universe.

     This finally is a call to gird the loins, water the camels, to strike out on a difficult mission.   We simply must stop spending money that, not only do we not have,  but worse...it just does not exist.   Go to sleep to-night, and do not count sheep....count Detroits.   There are approximately 240 that are presently teetering over the abyss.  Whole States, such as Obama's home sweet home, Illinois and the Beach Boys' delight...California are swirling in the toilet awaiting that inevitable death rattle as they head for the sewer treatment plant of history.   It all comes from the notion that the Government is the source of money and the withholding of Government money from the people who need it most is an extreme and selfish position.

Patrick Henry
Governor of the Old Dominion

    Another term for this kind of "moderate" thinking is "social psychosis".   And if there ever were a time to think like Jefferson and Hamilton, to seek uncompromisingly appropriate solution and commitment to these overwhelming challenges...this is the time.   We cannot compromise with any fool who is on the Titanic who says, "I refuse to board the life-boat until the waiter brings me my hamburger".    There is no longer any time left to entertain the fools who say, "We had a contract, and they better damned well pay me my 4,000/month USD pension payment, or I'll sue!!"   There is no more money.   We fed it all to Solyndra, subsidies for everything from ethanol to the Soil Bank, to feeding diabetic 300 pound fifth graders, and providing Medicaid to slugs who feel like someone ought to pay for their lifepath...and their staypath....and their eatpath ...and their utilitypath.

     Why are we so bound....?   Another hardcase, uncompromising, Tea Party nutcase who did not want to reach across the aisle and compromise spake thusly:

St. John's Church, Richmond, Virginia
March 23, 1775.
 

MR. PRESIDENT: No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely, and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.
 

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves, and the House? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these war-like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free² if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending²if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
 

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable²and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
 

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace²but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

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So with these things said, and re-represented, and considering the trials and tribulations these above cited personalities endured, I renew the call for us to accept the challenges wrought by the defence of liberty.   These men fought for much less...a tax of tuppence...on a gross crate of tea.   They fought for ideas. And they fought for honour, although, even among themselves they said that their honour had been cheapened through life by their own excesses.

    But they knew that they were being enslaved by a mercantile tyranny. And they risked all to free themselves of the arbitrary nature expressed in the salon of an arrogant Parliament...and worse was found in Buckingham.   We have worse now.

 

We appreciate your time and patience.

El Gringo Viejo

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Observations While Daydreaming and Cloudwatching

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     While just hanging around, looking around, it comes to our attention that anywhere and everywhere throughout the Planet known as Terra or Earth, there is not one tropical, closed circulation, low pressure system at this hour, either in the northern or southern hemisphere.   We were told that this is going to be an extremely active hurricane season because America uses 25% of the energy produced on this planet.   And because America uses more than its fair share....global warming and global cooling happen simultaneously, along with climate change.

 

     The solution is to give Eskimoes bikini stamps.   Then it is necessary to have sad looking people make public service announcements about how one in every six people in the Amazon do not have parkas....and they are your next door neighbours.  I sit beside you at the PTA and live next door to you and our children play on the same Little League team, and you never thought to ask me if my family had enough Parkas.

 

    But for right now....in spite of the stupidity, arrogance, hypocrisy, and gall of the man....AlGore is safe from being drowned by a tidal surge caused by the "exceptionally active hurricane season"  with a record number of category 12 hurricanes with winds in excess of forty thousand miles per hour.

 

    And yet....El Gringo Viejo is not saying that this absence of tropical storms has anything to do with climate change....because climate change is a matter of centuries....not sunrise to sunset.   East Anglia University, AlGore, George Soros, the Progressive Movement, the Unified Society of Dolts and Dull Thinkers, The Society of Low Information and Low Intellectual Quotient Dependably Dependent Dumboes can fret about the inaccuracies of their "Sky is Falling" Religion....but they will have to do it without the help of the discerning and critical thinking class.

 

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 What will become known as the Trayvon Vesuvius Cocktail:

 

     It is becoming increasingly well understood by the general public, something that the "black community" already knew...and it is why there is so little outpouring of people from the "black community" to protest about Trayvon not having a jury of his peers (according to the Reverend Mr. Jesse).

Before long, we shall be treated to the scene of young white anarchists, pseudo-commies, nihilists, and Flukie-slugs charging into the streets to break windows out of banks and McDonald's eateries....setting fires to Dempster-Dumbsters....and generally rioting and befouling the public way.

    In spite of massive efforts by the Obsolete Press and all the company of the Angels of Anarchy and the Preachers of Personal Hatred and Mob Violence (No justice = No Peace) the Black folks have made a tepid response to the call to overturn the verdict....or whatever is desired at this writing.

   
     Therefore, it will be the return of Occupy Wall Street, and the venereal lice, and the drug overdoses and all the other requisite things it takes to obtain hope, change, social justice and the anti-American way.   But almost all the black folks know what Trayvon was up to on that fateful night.   We would like to know if Trayvon mixed up his elixir as he left the 7 - 11, or if he did it while walking back to his father's girlfriend's apartment.
 

NOW, PLEASE BE AWARE
If your children are fiddling around with these three ingredients
you need to pay much more than very close attention.   If your
grandchildren, nieces, and/or nephews are involved with this
stuff...in their rooms, in their autos, in their lockers, or where
ever...you and yours have and will have problems.  And they
will have worse problems as their days go by,
fairly rapidly.

 

    It is known that Trayvon had no "iced tea".  That was a convenient invention of the corrupt, anti-American Obsolete Press.   The actual purchase Trayvon made was Arizona Watermelon Cocktail.   It has become popular among the thug, gang, and low-class trash class that are still school age or thereabouts.   Since algebra and speaking English correctly, or knowing any correct history or something about civics and economics is of no interest or value to people like Trayvon and other future drug-gang leaders, they set about learning more important things.

     Among those things that  are more important are the selling of marijuana on campus, fencing stolen jewelry among friends and acquaintances on campus, beating up nerds and girls anywhere they are encountered, and also mixing up "poor man's meth".   El Gringo Viejo does not know the exact formula...nor will he learn it, but it does involve a not too necessarily precise mixture of Arizona Watermelon Cocktail, Skittles, and what is found in Robitussin.    The goodies reacting with the Skittles and Watermelon Cocktail are chemical constructions named dextromethorphan, Guaifenesin, and our old friend pseudoephedrine.   El Gringo Viejo is neither a chemist nor a doctor of any real sort.   But, it is fairly easy to deduce that with the sugars, acids, and enzymes found in the mixing of Skittles and the Watermelon Cocktail being combined then with a concoction containing above named chemicals, one can have what must be, at the very least, a dangerous mix.

     As it turns out, the regular people and geezers like me are way behind the curve, and learn about these things during episodes such as this Zimmerman thing.  Suffice it to say, and the OROG almost intuitively knows what words follow, the effect of this "cocktail" is a buzz, feelings of omnipotence, heightened aggression and combativeness, and pervasive paranoia that apparently becomes worse the longer a person uses the brew.   It has been associated with gangs preparing to go "on a drive"  (meaning drive-by) or into a face-to-face showdown with an opposing gang.   Boys associate the mix with being able to deal with girls better on several different emotional and physical levels.   But how do we know that Trayvon was doing this stuff?  Because the autopsy reveal yellows patches on is liver....a sure sign that some nice young boy has been schnopsing on the Watermelon Cocktail pretty hard, and for quite a while.

    The press?   They mumbled how they weren't going to use the word "watermelon" because it is racist....and also ''all the kids are smoking and drinking something"....and "it's a juvenile, and they ought to have the right to little privacy; after all, we need to think of the family".    The entire issue is disregarded by the press....and by the prosecution.   No one informed the defence that this passive or active addiction was in Trayvon's quiver of personality defects.  His own character failings, compounded by the fact that he was walking around, after having been, finally, kicked out of school for what were essentially multiple felonies in the "real, big people's world" without any rock in the storm.....no real daddy, no real mommy, just his father's latest to look after him.   Would you have left your ward to go out alone, at that hour, in the rain, with the 10 day expulsion from school and the avalanche of charges against him?   To buy anything.  El Gringo Viejo would not.

       Did anyone ever tell this child "No....!  Go to your room and go to bed.!"

Did anyone care enough about this child to discipline him or at least just be around?

 

     The treatment of these facts by the hag who was originally appointed by Governor Scott to pull this case together knew all these things about Trayvon.    Instead of calling in the Tawana Brawley Kid and all the other black klanners and telling them that they would be held responsible for every broken window and act of vandalism and  act of looting...she took the arrogant, corrupt coward's way out and indicted by her hand...not by a grand jury....a person who was completely innocent of any felony or misdemeanour.   She made his life miserable because she wanted to showboat.
 

Angela Corey

 

 

     The woman pictured above...to repeat....did an end run around the Grand Jury system in Florida, a system typical of many Southern States....and took the direct charging option which is permitted of a staff prosecutor from the Attorney General's office.  This woman is hated in many, perhaps most, corners of the State....abusive, threatening, overcharging, and other  specific complaints by scores of people.   Too many and too much to wade through on this blog;  but the OROG can look up her "career milestones" easily enough. If it makes anyone feel better, she states that she is a Republican and an Episcopalian. 

 

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    We have been distracted by this Zimmerman thing, and it is by plan of the Obsolete Press and the White House.   But, as William Jefferson Blythe was fawned over and lionised for his ability to "compartmentalise" during his Impeachment and near conviction....during the administration of his Presidency with so many lies and perversities that one loses count....We, the conservative force, can also slay many dragons with one lance.

 

     For instance, two tough people testified before Congressman Issa's committee on Thursday, others have presented sworn depositions.  The two testified that Miss Lerner was incorrect when she said that all initiatives started in Cincinnati.   Forsooth!   It seems that the entire initiative came from the Chief Counsel of the IRS....a Presidential Grade appointment....and that that counsel was a frequent flier at the White House.

      The Internal Revenue Service's mendacity and moral corruption has been exposed, and the seconds  seem to be ticking down that signal the approaching moment that will find the White House dumping computers into the Potomac during hours of the early morning darkness.   There is something percolating because of the fact that people are coming forward to say that they were made to sign non-disclosure agreements concerning the matter of Benghazi, and these signings were made under duress.

     There is even some indication that people who were wounded and in the hospital have been harassed into signing these non-disclosure agreements.  But indications are that several are now willing to break their agreements and testify under oath.

 

     When three or four bricks begin to move, there will almost certainly be a falling wall not far behind.   Why wait?  I ask the Lords of Fate.   I shall throw the chicken bones again to see if a better forecast can be conjured.

 

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    Every now and then we have a question about the affectation of English spelling and grammatical construction that is more than a bit archaic showing up in our posts.  "If you're such a great American, then why are you kissing the Queen's big toe??!!"

 

    It comes from those days of Anglican drudgery.   I rather enjoyed it.  The King James, unabridged, the working through the Book of Common Prayer from 1655....that still had Catholic spelled Catholick....and other words that had to be looked up by a somewhat bored 10 year old on the farm....all programmed the brain for archaic spelling, rhetoric, and composition.  Bobby Burns, John Milton, and William Shakespeare also share some of the blame, along with Chaucer, of course.

 

    During my school years, because of my reading so much of even the 1928 BCP (essentially unchanged from the 1789 "first American" BCP which was little changed from the Church of England's 1662 version of the BCP in use in England at that period) caused me a bit of spelling problems during the rest of my years.   Even my lead Sociology professor at Southwest Texas State University gave me grumpy grief about it on a couple of my term papers.   My final Senior Term Paper was well filtered of Britishisms and the professor wrote a final note, after posting me a 99 on the research project....my greatest point of pride throughout my university career....The note read, ''Thank the Lord you can finally write a whole sentence in American!"

 

     So it is not an affectation so much as it is a preference.   And it is meant for my comfort and not your discomfort.   To me, Robert E. Lee's horse will always be "Traveller" and not "traveler".

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    So there now we have it.  A couple of pleasant hours spent with my peeps. And now my blood is cleaned through these keys.   Pray for the salvation of this grand land.   Although I see little hope in the end.  The presence of millions of spoil't and ruined people who were re-enslaved by cynical politicians seems to be a Army of Ignorance and Irrationality that can never be restored to balance.   The call for another flood of anchorbabymothers to be paid 34,000 USD per year to whelp freemoneybabies on US soil (plus 3,500 USD for each additional, every  two to three years)....portends no good.   Remember that I am the fellow who reminds everyone that 0ver 90% of the Mexican arrivals here before the Great Society were are gain and credit for the United States and Texas.   Now, it might be 50%....might be.....but along the border here....it is definitely not.    As Reynosa improves, McAllen slouches ahead....worried about the food bank....when the people arriving at the food bank are driving 1 year old autos and have 100 USD manicure and nail jobs.

 

 

But as always.  accept our gratitude for your interest and presence here this day.

El Gringo Viejo

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