THE CUBA AFFAIR - A Gathering of Marxists This Way Comes

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Raul Castro Ruz

Beacon of Social Justice

and Fair Income

 Re-distribution



"Once and for all, we and all fair-minded people in solidarity must mobilise  to make that one, last two-year total assault against the horrid hegemony forced upon the exploited nations of the mestizo and indigenous races that have suffered far too long.    Now, perhaps, finally Cuba will be free from the blockade that has kept us impoverished for much of the past Century and all of the present one.   The arrogance of Gringismo and the notion of Anglo-Saxon supremacy is now conquered, and Glorious Socialism has won once more by vigorously defending the downtrodden."

     Do not doubt that these are the words booming out over Radio Rebelde, late at night, from Santiago to the Isla de Pinos and the Isla de Juventud.   Throughout the nation that has become essentially a junkyard, people are being shoved out one more time to tie Fidel onto his horse so that he lead one more triumphal entry into La Habana de Cuba.

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     One might assume that the above hypothetical quote from Radio Rebelde is an over-the-top denigration of a poor stuggling national radio system, using bicycle-pedal generators just to struggle to stay on the air, due to the embargo, blockade, barricade, isolation, and quarantine of the Peoples' Republic of Cuba.   It is all a lie.   Every Pope since John XXIII has urged or even demanded that the United States end the illegal blockade.   Over 3,000 of the world's 234 nations have demanded that the United States stop blockading Cuba.   The United Nations issues up to 712 demands every hour of every day concerning the blockade of Cuba.

     In keeping with the framing of all issues by the left, it is all a lie.   Every nation in the world trades with Cuba.  Japan, Spain, The United Kingdom, Red China, Canada, Brazil, Russia, and the powerhouses of Haiti and Venezuela.   All of them.  India, South Africa, South and North Korea, Taiwan, and BossoNova Gapuvia.  Every one of them.  The European Economic Community has 17,000 standing committees working 25 hours per day, year around, even during Kwanza and Global Warming, Cooling, and Climate Change Memorial Day, working against the Blockade.

     In spite of all of this, and even the the world Communist and leftist movement's worshipping of Nelson Mandela's ghost via very respectful and meaningful in the greater sense selfies, Cuba remains something less than an overfilled septic tank in the order of things.   Ernesto (Che) Guevara, the guy who established the T-shirt company, who murdered up to 2,500 Indians, Negroes, Mestizos, fellow communists, rustic traditionalists and other such folks by his own hand, thought that the problem with Cuba was probably the fact that it had too many Negroes.   His solution was to send them all to the United States and let them drag that country down so that Cuba wouldn't have to send them back to Africa or have them liquidated.   Reading further into his public writings, it is revealed that his opinion about the Mexicans was the same



Where some of the Castro's foreign

crony capitalists stay while

"doing business" in the

workers' tropical democratic

paradise

 That Fidel and Raul Castro have apparently absconded with an estimated two billion dollars during their time and service should be no great surprise.  Some estimates are even higher....much higher, all deposited in foreign banks under a maze of legal sounding names.
   Fidel's "labyrinth" of subsidiary private business developments, shopping centres, gasoline station chain, events centre and industrial plaza have provided considerable income.  And since Fidel and Raul are part of the 1/100th of the "One Per Cent" they pay no taxes, nor does anyone challenge their real estate leasing and purchase development, such as the one at Villa Armonia....."just 15 minutes from downtown Old Havana, set on beachside views and tropical wonder".  There people can stay in segregated facilities....no stinking natives, save those who have been prepped to both attend and spy on the high ranking foreign business people and others who have been lured into the spider's web.

The foreign business people who were rushing into Cuba about ten years ago, have all mainly returned, mainly to Spain licking their wounds, because Raul began to treat them much more roughly after Hugo Chavez began to give Cuba free oil and refined product.  The Castros did not need any new money to burn from the Gachupines so they were dumped as fast as the dog could scratch off the tick.

     Now, the Great Hugo Chavez is being composted, and Maduro, the new madman of Venezuela has essentially turned his back on Cuba except to demagogue in their behalf occasionally.   So it became necessary to play up to the stupidest, meanest, most anti-American administration available....so they decided to answer Valerie Jarrett's insistent robo-dialed apology line, finally.

      For those who think that any "new Cuba opening" will somehow translate into great opportunity for the American investing, manufacturing, and labouring class, be aware that all of Cuba with 11,200,000 population produces 1/12th of what the State of Tamaulipas, Mexico produces with a population of 4,000,000.

   And with all the nations who do business and send tourism to Cuba, which is any and all of them who care to, there is one nation that stands out in the greatest delivery of low cost or essentially free grains, processed food, and medicine.   There is one nation that stands out as first in economic inter-activity with Cuba, from whence Cuba derives the great majority of all of its international hard currency.   Derived from legal activity.  One Nation.  Under God.  With liberty and justice for all.  Adding an Embassy benefits only two men at this point.

     It would take a minimum of 10 years to even think about putting Cuba back up on a 2nd World footing, and it would require a mainly private, Marshall Plan administered by someone of Mitt Romney's administrative level,  plus much churching.   Over one-third of fertile females in Cuba at this time are dedicated to prostitution.   The much vaunted Cuban free medical system....The Best in the World....is a joke.  The government jefes and their families almost all go to Spain or Mexico for almost any remotely serious procedure.

     So, the idea of crony capitalists lining up to take "investment tours" into Cuba to pick up a lot of low-hanging fruit is something reserved only for "important" investors such as the Wizards of Solyndra and the Red Chinese who love to build bullet trains that Wiley Coyote would not buy, and dams in Peru whose walls collapse with dependability.   Consider also the following sombre demographic:

FOR CUBA

Year	Population	Growth Rate
1960	7 141 130	N/A %
1961	7 289 830	2.08 %
1962	7 450 405	2.20 %
1963	7 618 358	2.25 %
1964	7 787 144	2.22 %
1965	7 951 916	2.12 %
1966	8 110 405	1.99 %
1967	8 263 513	1.89 %
1968	8 413 282	1.81 %
1969	8 563 130	1.78 %
1970	8 715 054	1.77 %
1971	8 869 924	1.78 %
1972	9 025 344	1.75 %
1973	9 176 167	1.67 %
1974	9 315 458	1.52 %
1975	9 438 366	1.32 %
1976	9 543 798	1.12 %
1977	9 633 669	0.94 %
1978	9 710 009	0.79 %
1979	9 776 117	0.68 %
1980	9 835 085	0.60 %
1981	9 886 228	0.52 %
1982	9 930 589	0.45 %
1983	9 975 082	0.45 %
1984	10 028 578	0.54 %
1985	10 097 020	0.68 %
1986	10 183 690	0.86 %
1987	10 285 920	1.00 %
1988	10 396 268	1.07 %
1989	10 503 898	1.04 %
1990	10 600 841	0.92 %
1991	10 684 831	0.79 %
1992	10 757 891	0.68 %
1993	10 821 551	0.59 %
1994	10 878 823	0.53 %
1995	10 932 013	0.49 %
1996	10 980 758	0.45 %
1997	11 024 249	0.40 %
1998	11 063 917	0.36 %
1999	11 101 580	0.34 %
2000	11 138 416	0.33 %
2001	11 175 465	0.33 %
2002	11 212 125	0.33 %
2003	11 245 926	0.30 %
2004	11 273 363	0.24 %
2005	11 292 078	0.17 %
2006	11 301 100	0.08 %
2007	11 301 674	0.01 %
2008	11 296 355	-0.05 %
2009	11 288 826	-0.07 %
2010	11 281 768	-0.06 %
2011	11 276 053	-0.05 %
2012	11 270 957	-0.05 %
2013	11 259 235	-0.10 %
2014	11 241 922	-0.15 %

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     These statistics are fairly accurate, and it is known that the Cuban population has become almost hopelessly either old or saturated with fatherless children and a diminishing reservoir of young people.   Further, what young people there are seem to be educated in useless things such as "how to love Fidel better" and the wonders of Socialism.   Also, unlike in times past, the intellectual ability of the Cubans....regarded as uncommonly high during the first part of the 20th Century, has since diminished  noticeably.

     These are not politically correct things to say  or point out.  It is, none of it, the fault of the Cuban people per se.   It is obviously the result of listless, pointless life, standing in ration lines, being propagandised instead of educated, having an horrid diet.   It also is the result of  being treated essentially as parade stuffing to glorify a petty fuhrer who suffers from both a well-deserved inferiority complex and a messianic complex rarely found among  either the sane or insane.

     We are being treated to the scene which includes  one marxist wannabe dictator casting a life-line over to a fellow marxist dictator, and each hoping that the other will save what little there is left to save out of the wreckage they both have created.

El Gringo Viejo

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Special Contribution from the Frozen Wastelands of the Extreme North of the Republic of Texas

(A welcomed contribution from El Zorro.  If all OROGs will indulge this publicly made private message, allow us to inform El Zorro that we are having a bit of problem with our out-bound email, but no problem with the inbound.  A little spooky, but it should be solved before 21:00 hours, in any regard, to-night.)

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The Guardian Angel

 

 

ANGELS:   AS EXPLAINED BY CHILDREN

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I only know the names of two angels, Hark and Harold.
Gregory, age 5

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Everybody's got it all wrong: 
Angels don't wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it
-Olive, age 9

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It's not easy to become an angel! First, you die: 
Then you go to Heaven, and then there's still the flight training to go through. 
And then you got to agree to wear those angel clothes. 

-Matthew, age 9

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Angels work for God and watch over kids when God
Has to go do something else.
-Mitchell, age 7

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My guardian angel helps me with math, but he's not much good for science.
-Henry, age 8

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Angels don't eat, but they drink milk from Holy
Cows!!!
-Jack, age 6

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Angels talk all the way while they're flying you up
To heaven. The main subject is where you went wrong before you got dead.
Daniel, age 9
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When an angel gets mad, he takes a deep breath and counts to ten. 
And when he lets out his breath again, somewhere there's a tornado.
-Reagan, age 10
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Angels have a lot to do and they keep very busy: 
If you lose a tooth, an angel comes in through your window and leaves money under your pillow. 
Then when it gets cold, angels go south for the winter.
-Sara, age 6

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Angels live in cloud houses made by God and his
Son, who's a very good carpenter.
-Jared, age 8
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All angels are girls because they gotta wear
Dresses and boys didn't go for it.
-Antonio, age 9
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My angel is my grandma who died last year. She got
A big head start on helping me while she was still down here on earth.
-Ashley ~ age 9
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Some of the angels are in charge of helping heal 
Sick animals and pets. And if
They don't make the animals get better,

 they help the child get over it.

-Vicki - age 9
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What I don't get about angels is why, when someone
Is in love, they shoot arrows at them.

Sarah - age 7 

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 NO ONE SAYS IT BETTER THAN A CHILD !



Glen Beck is a nice guy, but....

(we suffered some kind of a 'spot evaporation' of text in this posting overnight.  Not really clear how or why.  We have repaired the missing text and hoist again the howls of the wolf back upon the crest of the hill outside the camp of the enemy.)

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    We have a lot of people on the radio who hold views that are concurrent or in agreement with us.   Glen Beck is one of those, although we find ourselves more "in concurrence" than "in agreement" very frequently.   There were two points yesterday that wobbled way out of bounds, although Glen seemed happy to be wrong.

 

       In his desire to ever-emphasise the need to buy gold and silver, he tends to hype points that suggest that to-morrow there will be a complete collapse of the economy of the entire Milky Way Galaxy.   He urges that, since everyone will die instantly, his listeners should and must be prepared by owning gold and silver coin and bullion.   It would help to have six or seven hundred tonnes of MRE packaged food stored in an inflatable Liberty Safe as well.

 

    Glen also advises that the Russians are raiding the banks in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and Vladivostok, clearing their accounts, and generally going through their Metternich Moment.   Soon, 1,000,000 ruble bills will be used to light cigarettes, and the name of the newly denominated bill will be the Russian Rubble.   But, somehow, this present economic collapse falling upon Ivan Ivanovich, again, is going to circle the world like the domino daisy chain, and cause a  Planetary Economic Collapse, requiring the legalisation of child consumption and dietary dogs and culinary cats.

 

     The problem for Glen, and by the way...the Honourable Mr. Putin....is that Russia's GNP, especially now with the "rubble" at 62 for a dollar, puts Putin's place at or near the level of Argentina in terms of GNP.  The "rubble" has declined by better than 90% against even the crippled American dollar since the turn of the century, and that even follows a severe "adjustment" of the Russian currency at the beginning of the "Putin Era".

 

   Russia's place in the ranking of national economies is below Mexico, and Mexico has only 60% of the population of Russia.   Russia's GNP is less than that of the Republic of Texas....and Texas has a little less than 20% of the population of Russia.   Russia is embarked on three or four military campaigns with almost no fuel in spite of having a lot of oil.

 

Russian Bear Su-95 long-range bomber
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     Some of these campaigns are faux, such are the flying of the beat up old Su-95 bombers around, in, or near the airspace of European, American, and Japanese territory.   We recall how a Russian "tour ship" became trapped by ice in Antarctic coastal  waters during a visit last Summer (Antarctic Summer).   Various rescue vessels tried to extract the ship, including an Aussie boat, and a Red Chinese icebreaker, but finally it was an American Coast Guard ice-breaker that freed the larger Russian "tour ship".
     Out point is that Russia is hard pressed to even decisively invade and remove the eastern Ukraine and incorporate that tract into the Russian sovereignty.   Crimea was one thing, but the Ukraine was a little more complex.  The Monopoly Board Countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia need to be concerned, as well as Finland, but all are doing better economically than Russia at this time.
      My opinion is that Russians, in spite of their Orthodox Christian background, are essentially people without souls.   The loss in the Russo - Nippon War to the heavily outnumbered, outgunned, out-war-shipped Japanese was a humiliation.   The murder of the Romanoff Dynasty, and the senseless losses caused by bad leadership in the Red Army during World War II, the utter collapse of the command economic model and central planning for everything approach developed a nation very similar to the worst of America's central city disasters.   Russian criminal activity, Russian Mafia entrenchment and involvement in arms trafficking, human trafficking, drugs, extortion, all manners of violence, and general human sludgery exceeds all save the Red Chinese in the Underworld of Darkness.

 

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     Next, Beck made a good point about the wobbly-knee'd reaction to the bluster of tyrants about a fairly poor movie that pokes fun about an even worse mentally defective, unqualified, pompous little baggage who styles himself as something important on the world stage.  The cocky, swaggering chubby dictator of North Korea is proof that, at times, the inmates do run the insane asylum.
     Beck reached back to the earliest moments of bellicosity in Europe when Curly, Larry, and Moe literally made one of the best slapstick comedic routines in film history, making fun of the Axis Powers and exposing their motives.  The Three Stooges, mind you.

      He even pointed out that the famous commie, and statutory rapist, Charlie Chaplin had enough muster to make a lengthy movie and eloquent soliloquies directly condemning the guilty in a way that they could not have failed to hear.   Would that he had included Uncle Joe Stalin in the Choir of Shame.

     But, Beck was either not aware of, or just failed to mention, perhaps the best of the Hollywood thumb in the eye to the Axis thugs.   The tip of the spear was Jack Benny, of all people, who excelled in his role in this farcical comedy, tinged in dark seriousness, and laden with import.  It was not the Jack Benny with whom we became familiar in later years, or even the pre-WW II golden-age of radio.   Although this movie was a comedy  with great servings of sarcastic overtone, it dealt with humour about a very macabre and tragic matter.....that matter being Adolf Hitler and his plans and people.

     Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, and a genuinely high-powered group playing in supporting roles, pulled off this bit of the popular culture in such a way that exposed them to assassination and/or other reprisals.  The movie's director, Ernst Lubitsch, was especially leading with his chin, but did so without any reservation.

     We remember the various Christian clerics in Europe who pinned on the gold Star of David to their lapels and garments when the orders went out require the Juden to so mark themselves.  When asked, the clerics would respond with a variation of, "If one must identify himself in such a way, then suddenly we all become Jews.  We all can become victims of this madness."

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More later.   We are trying to warm up and become productive and thoughtful, but the little grey cells just don't seem to run longer than 20 minutes at a time.  We sincerely appreciate the time, attention, and patience of all OROGs.

El Gringo Viejo

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GOP Party Pro's lecture the plebians

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      The informed and sophisticated intellectual political class....New York City, San Francisco - Oakland, and the District of Columbia belt (including Chappaquiddickia) all know that the greatest enemy menacing Captain Planet is some amorphous mass of disorganised people known as "The Tea Party".   All people who are associated with "The Tea Party", even in the most peripheral way are to be isolated, zeroed in by the Obsolete Press, ridiculed, discounted, harassed by the IRS, OSHA, EPA and other agencies of the National Socialist Geheime Staats-polizei  Network and finally fed into the wood chipper of History.

 

Hands Across the Aisle

       The comparisons made by the Obsolete Press of Occupy Wall Street and "Hands-up - Don't Shoot" rallies as opposed to the Tea Party usually fail to include a comparison of the grounds and /or protest area.   That is because the OWS people leave their precincts giving the appearance of a pig sty.   We remember the ruin brought to the Wisconsin State Capitol building and campus by OWS and the Democrat - Labour Union ghouls and goons.

 

     On the other hand, the Tea Party types, and yes, even the Republicans, always leave the sites of their get-togethers cleaner than when found.

 

      Leftist demonstrations and rallies almost always either threaten violence, warn that violence will occur if "demands" are not met, or serve to kick-off a two or three week period of looting, killing, brutalisation, and trashing of the effects of.....well, of whomsoever gets in the way.

 

     Some humour can be derived from the simple, basic fact that the Tea Party has some vestiges of Conservative thought and philosophy, and perhaps even purpose.   It is not, however, a classically Conservative entity.  It is certainly not "right wing".   It combines bits and pieces of Southern Ruralism, Mid-West Ruralism, hard-money thinkers, populists mistrustful of large institutions, traditionalists, and folks who prefer bowling alleys, picnics, and beer to country clubs and champagne.   To each his own.

    El Gringo Viejo is Right-wing.  El Gringo Viejo is a pseudo-intellectual, studied monk of the realm of conservatism in politics, religion, social and cultural organisation, and philosophy.

 

     It is because of my true right-wing orientation that I snort when it is heard at each juncture that the party must "stake out the middle" and "have a big tent".  The GOP poobahs are quick to point out that we are going to face a formidable opponent in 2016, who is essentially unbeatable unless we fashion a candidate who is exactly like her.   They are enamoured of Christi, Romney, and Bush.

   My opinion is that these are all fine men.  They are all moderate men who do not frighten anyone.  They are conservative, but their plough digs shallow.  That is my opinion.

    

    To prove the point let us analyse the nature of their choices, just in the recent past.  They forced Ford onto the ticket in 1976 although the rank and file Republicans were more in favour of Ronald Reagan.   Gerald Ford lost to a dolt such as James Earl Carter.

     Reagan postulated for President in 1980 and 1984.  In both cases the moderate and reasonable leadership declared that Reagan was too extreme to win...against the dolt Carter, and later against the very suave, much more intelligent than Reagan, Walter Mondale.  Mondale barely carried one State, his home State of Minnesota.

     The really nice guy George Herbert Walker Bush, who had served as Vice-President to Reagan ran in 1988 as something of a "third Reagan term" candidate.  Upon election, however, his inauguration speech pointed to the shining city on the hill and declared that it needed to be "kinder and gentler" than it had been during the previous years.   Of course, within a couple of years we were embroiled in a full-scale war in the Mid-East.  We won the war decisively,  but Bush could not win re-election, although he was opposed by a loon named  H. Ross Perot who had no philosophy beyond "fixin' things" and a white-trash, crooked, pervert Governor of Arkansas named Billy Jeff Clinton who declared to the masses, "I feel yer pain...!"

 

     Bring on the wizened and privileged, moderates....and lo and behold they run the old Senate Majority Leader against Billy Jeff in 1996.  Clinton has managed to destroy his Democrat majority in both chambers of Congress, and his moral lapses had been more than can be reasonably imagined.  The "moderate" Bob Dole, a World War II wounded hero and Father of the Americans with Disabilities Act...(Empty Parking Spaces in Front of Every Building ACT)....and, he like Ford before him...and Bush to a degree...lost.

     George Bush then ran in 2000, gaining the nomination against another war hero, McCain....both men were actually moderates, country club types but Bush had been elected to two terms as Governor of Texas and postured as a movement conservative.  Bush took the nomination, and barely eked out a victory against Al Gore, Clinton's Vice-President.   He went on to be re-elected in 2004.

 

     After that, the Republicans nominated McCain in 2008....and he lost in a near-landslide.  McCain ran a milquetoast campaign that found his staff spending most of their time not fighting Obama, but in fighting their own Vice Presidential  designee, Sarah Palin.....because she was too conservative and mean and low-class.  They equated her to being a hillbilly.

     The GOP made up for the error of selecting McCain by making the error of selecting Mitt Romney for the 2012 go-around.  Nice guy, successful, moderate, friendly, and chewed up...making a one-point landing after being considered a shoo-in due to the disastrous record of Obama's first term.

 

     This is the record of the  "moderate experts" from the Country Club wing of the Republican Party.   On a scale of 0 - 100....let's give them a 19. 

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     Truth be told, the distaste for Obama on the part of the informed rightwing crazies....the foot-washers....the snake-handlers....was so intense, that they were actually going to go out and vote for the Mormon.  Many of the cave-dwellers who had decided never to bother with voting agin', cause there ain't much difference twixt the Mommy D. Socialists and the Daddy R. Socialists had girded their loins just the one last time.

    And then, just before they went out to vote, Romney wilted before the two man tag team....at the last debate...and also made several remarks that reminded them that the similarities between the two candidates were massive and the differences were slight.

     Even this humble servant was almost moved to not bother voting.  The notion of saying, "We want to keep the good parts of the Affordable Care Act and improve them, and get rid of the bad parts....."    Lord Help Us!!!!   Or, "I agree with much of the President's programme in the Middle East...."  Oy Vey!!!

 

     Now we are told that we must choose between Romney again, or Old Rough and Common Core Bush, or Old Barry's Huggy Buddy Christi....or the Hispanics and the Jupitereans and Jumping Jehoshaphat seniors will never vote for us.   We simply must buy their votes fair and square or it's over!!!

 

    The swooning over the declaration by Governor Bush to establish his exploratory committee on the part of the entire panoply of the East - West Coast Obsolete Media, with even FOX News globbing on in concurrence left us with moderately severe nausea and a furrowed brow.

El Gringo Viejo

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Additional Comments on Previous Post about travelling in Mexico

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     We inferred that we had a number of people over during our last episode down at our little bed and brunch place.  For us, that became more rare, but it still happen'd with a bit of frequency.   For the Hacienda de Santa Engracia it became rare....very rare...and it was quite frankly depressing.

      My better three-quarters suggested after reading the previous missive that El Gringo Viejo did not quite round out the point that was being made about the people hanging around at our "parrillada machine".  The "parrilla" is the plain, basic, real-live, mesquite and orange wood,  outdoor griller.   It is the fact that they went back to Cd. Victoria, on the back road, well after night-fall.  To that end I have written this brief but important addenda: 
 

     One other "for instance" about the improving condition:   We mentioned about the visitors we had.

     In this episode of my life down at the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre, all of the day visitors imbibed and/or ate really complicated, excellent outdoor, mesquite grilled, heavily laden pork and/or beef ribs with secret sauces...homemade...including aged rums, native honeys, and other goodies. My special (no-marijuana or illegal anything) Brownies, special devilled eggs with guacamole, salmon, and egg-yolk stuffing choices, and our special red-grapefruit spring mix lettuce and tomatoe salad, with nuts and special vinegars infused with our own rosemary and oregano.   Completely decadent.
 

     In keeping with their processes, they bring really high quality liquors and mixers, but they will willingly condescend to have me make mixed drinks with our limited larder, which they realise even as friends, they will pay for...not much but far below saloon standards....still certainly enough to "recuperate expenses and pay for services".

     One such grouping was of people that to El Gringo Viejo, were a mix of reasonable acquaintances and close friends.   Among themselves, they are all very well integrated as friends, associates, and business and political allies.  El Gringo Viejo becomes an adhesive element, allowing entrance to a private place unknown to many, where they can further cement the bonds they have.   It is a rare but not at all unheard sociological placement for a Gringo in Mexico.  It is an off-shoot of the old notion that...."A Mexican values more of something Mexican if it is valued by a foreigner".
 

The mother of 17 before the age of 2.  Her
name is Sonsa, which means, "silly" or
"not bright".  She does know, however,
that something will come from the
magic "parrilla" just behind her,
because, there, visitors arrived
 earlier this morning with
 boxes of things,and
 fancy ice-chests.

     That I approve of their deportment, which is classy, dignified, and responsible, with the ability to function under the tow of fine alcohol, wealth demonstration (almost overly-fancy cars), and lack of need, and unapologetic consumption of excellent foods....and that they approve of me with all my faults and crankiness...we are bound in a pleasant chamber in our Earth Space Capsule with pleasant music in the background 

      Please allow me to state with little apology that on these  two occasions during our most recent stay, El Gringo Viejo prepared these outdoor, smoked ribs with the "secret sauces" for people such as those described.  Understand that this is not a scene from F. Scott Fitzgerald's dull and foggy remembrances of things that did or did not happen, (The Great Gatsby).  These scenes your humble servant describes are more apt to be found in scenes from "Leave it to Beaver", "The Lawrence Welk Show", or perhaps "Hee - Haw".....or some of the more risqué airings of "Gilligan's Island".

 

   AND FINALLY!   The point is that the people all went back, laden with generous portions of my aged, ultra-chocolate brownies for home use.....AT FULL DARKNESS.... like in the "good old days".
   It was 20:00 hours in mid-December of 2014!
   All were sober, all were cognizant of the hour, and all were aware that it was because the "times had changed back to some normalcy".

 

     And that is the name of that tune.

El Gringo Viejo

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Back Up Again. Long Drive....

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     We had an interesting stay of it this time.  It was substantially wet, with an episode of three days,  nay!....allow me, four full days of drizzle, mist, light rain.  There were but a very few passes of moderately heavy rain, usually brief heavy showers without big drops, lightning, winds, or much of anything beyond the rain itself.

     Then, due to the rain, and to the passing of a couple of relatively mild fronts underneath the cloud mass, the temperature dropped down into that dull, grey even depressing cold.   We moved back and forth from 10 degrees C and then down to 7 degrees C.   That is around 41F to 50F in real temperature.

    Slowly, El Gringo Viejo came to the conclusion that it would be necessary to "light the fire".  Due to the adobe construction, the house does not really become frigid unless a really cold snap, holding temperatures in the 40s or lower, during a seven or eight day period.    While there has been worse events in older as well as modern times, they are very rare at this place adjacent to the Tropic of Cancer.

     The dogs tracked up the corridor with muddy paws, while the cats would go out, and come back fairly quickly, pretty much dripping wet.   Life for the cats and El Gringo Viejo centred around finding comfortable accommodation at or near the "fogata" (fireplace, frequently called, incorrectly a "chimenea").   Local folks rolled their eyes so many times about my observation that I no longer correct  them.  Quite possibly, I never should have corrected them, but we are of an old, noble assembly of the tutoring class.

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     There were a few visitors, as well, mainly during the latter part of the stay.  There was even the development of a group of motorcyclists....approximately 13 persons....who are intending to come to the Hacienda de Santa Engracia, about one kilometre from our little place.   The Hacienda (not to be confused with our adjacent neighbours, the Hacienda de La Vega) has been a water pump essentially sucking up air for the past three years.....a veritable 98% drop in client-visits and income.

     But it is all changing at this point.  My bus count of all first-class and deluxe busses heading south was right at 100 (99), something we have never seen.   The highway  was full of heavy passenger car and SUV traffic, along with the steady rumble of hundreds of cargo trucks.   Business, Industry, and family visits at Christmas.

    Had the highways not been substantially improved and maintained during the past 10 years, usage levels such as what was seen yesterday would have been a disaster and nightmare.

     Once again, Tamaulipas as a trouble spot during the past 5 years has received  literally thousands of Army and Naval Infantry combat personnel.  There have been other thousands of the new Federal Civil Police (actually a militarised group, highly trained and apparently effective), and the deployment of a new (and possibly highly improved) State Police Patrol.   All of these elements were seen in great number during the drive, yesterday.   Thousands....well-presented, heavily armed, deferential, always willing to go into any fray involving the "organised delinquency".


     (additional comments are included in next day's posting)

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    We are amazed at the "little talk" the occupant of the office of the Presidency rendered up to the grouping of soldiers a couple of days ago.   Have we really gotten to the point where a president....the commander in chief....can declare that the United States is really committed to the reduction in numbers of troops even as the world is wobbling ever-more out of control?   The reference to American military personnel as being seen as "Santa Claus in fatigues" by the locals....was received with  stone-faced silence among the troops.

     He tried to recover with a cheerleader-like Army howl- prompting, which did have some effect.....but very weak and un-sustained.

 

Thank each for his/her time, patience, and interest.  We shall be here for a bit, commenting, grousing, and just enjoying being a mean old curmudgeon.

El Gringo Viejo

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