We are back in town

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     We have arrived back in town.   It  was a bit of a wet drive of it back up to-day.  At 06:35, the beginnings of quite a storm set in, and we received over 1 inch of rain in the first 10 minutes.   We drove off into the semi-darkness and the rain at 07:00 and drove, and drove into the un-relenting, moderate to heavy rain, stunning lightning displays, and all nature of strangely odd, totally deferential traffick manners being displayed by 99% of the driving class.

 

     Mexican courtesy on the highway takes a while to pick up on, but it normally abounds.   To-day, however, seemed like a cloistered period or silent-time retreat at an old-style Opus Dei or conservative Episcopal-Anglican cursillo meditation and rededication seminar.

     It was just as well, because about three-fourths of the trip being done, we came upon the phenomena of the highway being violated by three fairly close-together crossings by high-water runoff.  It was something that we had been through before, especially in Vera Cruz State of Mexico and in Central Texas at various times.

     The first crossing was a little touchy, while the second was fairly easy to wade through in the little Ford Ranger XLT.   But the third was impossible.  Water was two to nearly three feet deep running across the highway for what appears to have been at least one mile.  A few large trucks could manage to make slow progress through, but even that appeared to be precarious.

     The locals who came out from the farms and little community congregations informed those of us who were parked on the side of the road about previous episodes that carried off dogs, cats, chickens, goats, and even a few Volkswagen Jettas and Nissan Tsurus-type vehicles.  The older among them seemed to think that it would be three to four hours of waiting, it there was no further rain to the west, before the flow would subside to the point where general traffic could proceed.  Busses carrying luggage and forwarding packages in their bellies had stopped crossing and high-rise military and police pickup-type vehicles were pushing or towing stalled vehicles to drier confines.

     Locals, who actually appeared to be somewhat prosperous, were generous in loaning telephoning devices and providing their home facilities for charging cellular phones for those with low batteries and the like.   My own contribution was to provide jumper cables and help connect-up said cables to autos that had been hauled, pushed, or otherwise delivered to our nearby "command post".   The "drown-outs" can (and all did) respond to extra voltage supply when trying to do the "wet-dog shake-off" and get going again.

     When it became apparent that my progress would depend upon changing routes, first by retracing the 30 kilometres back to the Matamoros - Cd. Victoria highway, and then by going to Valle Hermosa and then to the Los Indios International Bridge that connects the Republic of Texas to Mexico in a rural area just south of Harlingen, Texas.   My generosity and good nature were rewarded by the fact the I was the only entrant arriving at that bridge and there was no delay of any kind.   After a perfunctory computer analysis of my passport and a couple of questions, the lady-officer sent me on my way, backtracking a bit towards the McAllen-Mission area to the west.

 

     Rainfall total ranged, for the area around deepest South Texas and the zone pertaining to the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre etc. from another six inches for already wet yet to as much as twelve inches during the preceding 24 - 36 hour period.    All along the core of the Republic of Texas for these days....including my in-laws, children, grandchildren, and El Zorro up in North Texas adjacent to the Red River, nearly....there has been repeated heavy rains, hail, a bit of tornadic activity with casualties, and all the flooding one would normally associate with such events.   We shall be checking on ours and hoping that all of yours are safe and sound.

 

More later to-morrow when this old bag of old bones rests up a bit.

El Gringo Viejo

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Admonition from one who has faced the fire of the enemy before.....

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     What is so disturbing is the ignorance and apathy of Kafirs (any people not Muslim) generally about the state of Islam. It is a very simple society that has the ultimate goal of converting or killing all Kafirs until all people are under Sharia law. Sharia is Islamic law based on the Koran that dictates every aspect of human activity. Women are subjected to men totally. Freedom of speech is non-existent.

 

     There are two major parts of Islam the first being religious and the second being political. The religious part was conceived by Muhammad in 610 until about 624 in Mecca. He had revelations that Gabriel the angel sent him. The Jews, Christians, pagans and others did not accept his religion of tolerance. He was driven out of Mecca. He took his small group of followers to Medina where he developed the political and militant side of Islam. In Medina he was gaining over 1,000 converts a year by destruction and intimidation. Newer Sharia law superseded earlier. The political goal (cannot be separated from religious) of Islam is to convert the entire world to Islam.

 

     Islamists are using the first Amendment to gain power in the United States.  Freedom of Religion in the Constitution says there can be no persecution of it.  By that, the radicals demand special accommodations for the religion of Islam.  Schools should make allowances for prayer by giving Muslims time to pray, give them special places (rooms) to pray where they need facilities like pluming to wash their feet, etc.  The schools must teach Islam because the Koran says all people have to abide by the Sharia.  Clothing has to be Muslim specific.  Lunches have to be religion specific.  On and on...

 

      Islam tells Muslims they may appear moderate to deceive the Kafir until they have the strength to become militant.  The Koran says Allah allows lying to get the power to convert or kill non-Muslims with impunity.  Our ignorance of Islam by our leaders is going to be our downfall as a free society.  Our Constitution is being used against us by either closet Islamist leaders or conspiratorial ones.  Our legislators and Judiciary do not understand the nature of this enemy.

 

     We cannot allow the religion of Islam to be accepted because of the political implications that are in conflict with our Constitution.  Since Islam does not accept the political and financial systems in the Western world, specifically America, they use the guise of religion to implement Sharia that is not compatible with the Constitution and our way of life.  Also since Islam is not purely a religion and is in conflict with our Constitution it cannot be treated as a religion.  Religion is a rationale to implement Sharia not the purpose of Islam per se.

 

     "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his only prophet!  Sharia is the only law!" There is no interpretation of the Koran.

 

The recent discovery of Islamic camps in Northern Mexico is evidence that Islam is here.  We know of the Islamic cells in Detroit, New York, New Mexico, and many other places in the US.  They are waiting until they have the strength to become militant.  We convert or die. Be afraid!

 

We have to educate ourselves. A must-read is “Sharia Law for Non-Muslims” by Bill Warner. It is only 48 pages and very concise and easy to read.

 

                    El Zorro

 

 

 

(editor's note:   The choice of words by El Zorro .....".....recent discovery of Islamic camps in Northern[most] Mexico is evidence that Islam is here".....meaning of course the most dangerous form of deranged, and already trained Islam.   The Mexican Army's analysis of the site to the west of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua was not that it was a training base, as Glen Beck and Hannity say...but rather a place where clusters of Sharia motivated "freedom fighters against the heretics and Kafir-class of gentiles".  Their assumption was/is that these people are already trained up.  Therefore, the simple choice of words used by El Zorro are well chosen.

No, Mr. Boehner, the Clintons are not "good people".- And some Global Warming / Climate Change for dessert

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     The scratching of the fingernails on the blackboard signalled that something stupid, this way comes.   It was the sometimes normal, sometimes apparently hopelessly mentally defective.   Instead of manic depressive, he has a syndrome of dumbo - repressive.   The idea of saying that the Clintons are "good people" is as absurd as a turn-signal on a sewing machine.  Puh - leeze!!!!

     Mzzzz. Rodham has flopped out so many whoppers that Burger King has had to consider suing her for copyright invasion.   There is no reason to go through them all.  She was "discontinued" from her service on the Senate's committee of investigation into the Watergate affair because she repeatedly lied to the head of the investigative group.   That individual declared Hillary Rodham to be an untrustworthy person and a person whose word was without value.

    Over the years, while people waited for her mother to name her, nothing changed.   She finally confessed that her parents waited until three or four years after her birth to make certain that (Sir Edmund) Hillary had completed his conquest of Mount Everest.   (Sir Edmund) Hillary lied when she was snoring.   She would lie in front of her grandmother's back.   She would lie about lying.

     And over the years, while other over-paid public-sector workers would arrange and stack firewood in cords, somehow or another (Sir Edmund) Hillary could have made a business of stacking dead bodies like cordwood.   Anyone who knew any inconvenient truth that just might lead to an investigation or an indictment or a conviction....might also wind up pushing down daisies in Fort Marcy Park, (or similar).

     Billy Jeff Blythe, like typical white-trash, learned how to put his bluff in on the "sophisticated" Yankees by saying the things they wanted to hear.....especially about the need to be "convenient" about killing unborn babies.   After all, we have a dude-ranch vacation at a really nice place in Colorado this Summer, and a baby in the belly would just be....inconvenient.



The Lion's Oldsmobile is hauled up from the Channel

     And, like (Sir Edmund) Hillary, Billy Jeff has never had any problem about lying through his teeth to accomplish any goal or destroy anything pure.  His brutality against various women brings to mind the fact that Democrats can walk away from the Chappaquiddick Swimming Academy for Single Young Women and never have to look back before they are called even by Republicans....Lions of the Senate.  That is pretty much what Billy Jeff did after he skated the incident with the English Lord's granddaughter.   Arkansas J. William Fulbright and the American Department of State managed to pluck Billy Jeff up and get him out of Her Majesty's country....long before he terminated his "studies" (draft dodging) at Oxford....and with enough time for people to forget what a scuz he was, is, and forever will be.
     How many women?   How many dead bodies?  How many people frightened into silence or even staying around.   At least one "beauty queen" has never returned from Canada after fleeing from the Clinton Magic.

     All of this brings up the question.   We understand that the Clintons, being white-trash, want to impress people with their wealth, however ill-obtained.   They are specialists in selling pardons, in shaking down donors, and generally doing pretzel-folding in the dark tricks to shake down more money from more people for no good reason.   We remember the "Chinese Buddhist Temple nuns" giving the bags of cash and checks to AlGore to take back to the White House.....one of many, many inconvenient fund-raising faux-pas that would have landed a Republican in prison had a Republican even thought about or had a dream about knowing someone who that thought about doing such a thing.   But for the Clintons, they were to be admired because of their "innovative fundraising ability".

     We ask now, the question.
    If the Bulgarian National Bakery magnate who has 5 billion dollars in his checking account wants to help the Haitian recovery from whatever the last catastrophe was that destroyed Haiti again, why does he not just give the money to the Haitian Salvation Army or any number of Catholic, Hebrew, Protestant, or VooDoo Bohdongu Humbaba charities???   If he wants to give a few million bucks, he could send a trusted nephew of a chief subordinate to Port-au-Prince to supervise the correct deployment and distribution of resources to accomplish the eleemosynary objective intended.
     Why would it ever be necessary to funnel money into the hands of the Clintons?  Why?   The only reason is to connect with whatever leverage the Clintons can provide to link the donor to the club of National Socialist - Crony Capitalist kick-back specialists who might be able to benefit the Bulgarian Baker.

     Fewer than 3% of the population could possibly know that Hillary Rodham's brother.....he of the Pardons-R-Us effort and the Meet-My-Friend-Craig-Livingstone-Security-Chief-for-the-WhiteHouse-Fame, was awarded a position through the Clinton's "charity" that gives him preferential accommodations to massive benefits in terms of a gold-mining concession in Haiti.  To wit:

(source cited below.  El Gringo Viejo urges connecting with linkage to read well-researched and un-refuted facts concerning this case)

     The new scandal involves Haiti, that tormented island in the Caribbean which gets hit not only by earthquakes but also by the ravages and looting acts of the Clintons and their friends and relatives. It involves obvious misuse of Bill Clinton’s position in Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 Haitians. It involves nepotism with the brother of Hillary Clinton. It involves Hillary directly, and it involves a foundation owned by the Clinton family which works closely with a reputed Mexican narco kingpin and some of the dirtiest Clinton political associates from their days in Washington.

Charity begins at home…

      The timing of events here is important. On March 5, the popular web blog Breitbart published a story taken from an about-to-be-released new book by award-winning journalist, Peter Schweitzer titled, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. The book details facts around an unprecedented award for a gold mine, the first such granted in Haiti by the government in 50 years, to an obscure North Carolina company named VCS Mining to mine the Morne Bossa.

VCS Mining according to Schweitzer, had on its board of directors Tony Rodham. Never heard of him? Hillary Clinton’s family name is Hillary Rodham and Tony is her brother. Not only that, but the mining company also lists another board member, former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. Bellerive co-chaired the “charitable” Interim Haiti Recovery Commission with former US President and Hillary’s husband (at least legally), William Jefferson Clinton.

Moreover, the terms of the first new gold mining license granted by the Haiti government were made with no Congressional involvement and the state of Haiti got royally cheated. The terms of Rodham’s gold windfall upset members of Haiti’s senate: The government’s royalties under the deal were just 2.5 per cent, half the customary rate. And VCS mining has an option to renew the terms for 25 years.
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/20/hillary-the-new-york-times-will-never-tell-us-this/

  (To date, no winner has gained the lucky Free-Funeral Drawing being sponsored by over 5,493 mortician - funeral homes in the northeastern United States.   The winner will have the privilege of performing the duties and making the arrangements for Peter Schweitzer.)   

     As a touch-stone of reality, the Mexican government works out, fairly straight-up and down, the Constitutional requirement that states that the foreign or domestic concessionaire will pay 30% of the net worth of any refined precious or first tier metal (gold, sliver, copper, molybdenum, titanium, etc.) or useful mineral (barite, cantera stone, onyx, etc.).   This will serve in lieu of corporate income tax, and the exploiter will adhere to additional environmental and labour conditions extant at the time of the beginning of exploration.   Many domestic and foreign operators adhere to these laws, and make good profits.
     Hillary's brother, who is a ne'er do well, shake-down artist, sludge-bucket....has to pay 2.5 per cent to the Haitian Treasury for the task of slicing, at who knows what kind of environmental damage, gold from the patrimony of the Haitian children.
      The Clintons' "charitable foundation".....do tell.   (enter sound of contemptuous snorting by El Gringo Viejo).

     Folks....all you people who want to give something to the downtrodden....if you want to give something, use an established charity with an 80% or better distribution figure.   The Clintons' "foundation" has a 15% distribution...with the rest going to staffing, travel, and accommodation....as well as salaries for the "administrators".

     The Clintons are grifters.  They take deductions on their income-tax for used underwear.  The lie when the truth would help them better.   They are whitetrash with marxist overtones....and they are hypocrites.

       Besides all that, they are alright folks.  Please check this out, and remember, the source is pinko and if the OROG reads through the bull-rush curtain, one sees the sad countenance of a defeated batch of experts who cannot explain why AlGore is the best source of Summer Snows anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.  Even in their "best-scenario scenario" it is apparent that such fish-flopping on the bank of the river means only that the fish is out of his water, and his conclusions about which way to turn were as bad as his decisions that brought him to the point of being a fish out of water.

Our climate models are WRONG: Global warming has slowed - and recent changes are down to ‘natural variability’, says study

• Duke University study looked at 1,000 years of temperature records
• It compared it to the most severe emissions scenarios by the IPCC
• Found that natural variability can slow or speed the rate of warming
• These 'climate wiggles' were not properly accounted for in IPCC report

By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail.com

Published: 15:56 EST, 23 April 2015 | Updated: 18:31 EST, 23 April 2015

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3052926/Our-climate-models-WRONG-Global-warming-slowed-recent-changes-natural-variability-says-study.html#ixzz3YG20qB9x
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

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More later.   We head south to-morrow.
El Gringo Viejo

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A Message to Take Seirously....seriously.

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      El Gringo Viejo has corrected a couple of misspellings and the unintentionally allow the word-processor conversions of El Zorro's writings into Britannic English whether he wishes or not.  The OROGs note that El Zorro's writing is much more of that style of an historian or a true comentarista and less of that of a blowhard and bar-room brawler such as your humble servant.

      We quiver a bit we receive that note thrown through the window on a windy night, when lightening can be seen on the very summits of the closest of the lower mountains.   El Zorro is content, during those moments to chase back with a steed that all in sixty counties know cannot be caught.   He and the mount blend into the darkness and become what can only be called, obfuscate.

 

     The message he delivers cannot be denied, however.   The warnings and advisories are always accurate.  He gains nothing and loses nothing if they are wrong or right.  He sends his reconnaissance in good faith...it is something he not only believes, but also knows.

     As ancient Anglicans, we thought of the sect as "our philosophy" as much as it was our linkage to Catholic Religion and  tradition that displaced the Druids.  It was a kind of a  bedrock Religion for the Ages like Buddhism and Baseball.  We learned that Saint Francis of Assisi studied the manifestations of Islam, both the good and bad of it, arriving at the conclusion that Islam was the fulfilment of the promise of the Angel of Yahweh to Hagar, that the babe of her loins, though rejected by Sarah and, in passive mode, Abraham, he truly would found a great, but subservient, darker race and that they would have a great figure to guide them in the future.   He thought of Islam as a kind of sect of an Abrahamic master philosopho-religious cosmic conjunction.

 

     We learned to, at the very least,  respect Islam in spite of its peculiar differences to the expected, if un-achieved, norms of Christianity and Judaism.   What I am saying here, is that during our Catechism, our times and wondrous encounters with Sherry Thomas, Jane Martin, Betty Brooks,  etc. at the Sunday evening Episcopal Young Churchmen sessions, and serving during those last days in the corps of all-male acolytes at services high and low, late and early, of feast and fast, we did not hate or even dislike Islam, Moslems, or any such thing.   Heck...we even had exchanges with the youth groups of the Romans, the Baptists, the Jews, and all kinds of weird people....even Presbyterians and Methodists.

     So when El Zorro or El Gringo Viejo laments or points out this or that about Islam, it is not in joy or with pleasure.   We lament, vigorously,  the fact that few among the Moslems have striven to condemn the idea that beheading a person because of his faith should be tolerated.   The other excesses of ISIS are too numerous to detail.

 

     Many words are spent here  to underscore that the reading list below-posted is highly recommended.  A majority of the tomes have been read and re-read by your humble commentator, and now I see another that must be sought out.   Some of this is basic, but definitely necessary.  Other recommendations are almost prophetic.

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RE: “Sharia Law for Non-Muslims” by Bill Warner

 

   I do not ordinarily request that anyone read (I only recommend) a specific book or document but this one is a must-read.  How low information people can be made to understand Shar’ia is a real problem.  This book is only 48 pages long and can be digested in only a couple of hours.  I bought mine on Amazon so it is widely available.  It is very easy to read, even for disinterested individuals.

 

This book cuts through the fat and documents the truth about Muslim law.  I cannot stress enough how important it is that those who do not know or care about Islam be educated.  Islam does not have a moderate aspect.  It is the proverbial irresistable force.  If you are not interested in this subject or think it is wrong there is nothing I or anyone can do for you.  But I can offer this perspective.  It does not hurt to read anything… a God given right we have that Muslims do not have.

 

I think this is mostly preaching to the choir; however, you may be able to use this book where you might learn things you do not know about Islam or offer to your acquaintances for their edification.

 

We are Kafirs and we are in trouble.

 

It is not my intention to irritate or insult anyone to whom I am sending this message.  It is just that this is a very serious subject that affects all of us no matter what we may already know about it.

 

PS – Two detailed books I have read with dissimilar, if not opposite, views I would recommend are “The Sword of the Prophet” by Serge Trifkovic and “Islam A Short History” by Karen Armstrong.  A third one specific to the Qur’an is “The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran” by Robert Spenser (New York Times best selling author).

 

I return to my place over the mountain, but I shall return soon!

El Zorro

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So much to say, and time is fleeting

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     All should be aware that El Gringo Viejo has been dealing with  a bit of a computer problem that we would prefer to not discuss in detail.   Suffice to say that all should triple tier their computers with cast-iron and titanium firewalls and change 28-character passwords on an hourly basis.  (well, almost)

     We shall be heading down to the south on Saturday due to increased interests in visits and activity at our little mud-hut hideaway, the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.   With a new "chip" and fresh batteries, we shall try to bring the OROG community a set of fresh pictures of our place and surroundings.

     We have various thoughts and observations to leave behind that have no particular profundity, but that continue to circulate in those deep recesses of my mind.

      One of the main things is the recurring recognition that all the problems we have in the American economy and society and culture are derived from programmes foisted upon the people by "forward thinkers", "progressives", "intellectual reformers", "liberals", and the like.   All of the above are people who not only know, but understand and agree, that they are innately endowed far beyond the ''common people" with a greater understanding of why society is as it is.   Further, these wise ones know what should and must be done to correct and improve what Jews and Christians and common/natural law agnostics have ruined.


     An income tax will solve all the problems of the government's operation.  Before, a few tariffs and excise taxes sufficed, and during war the Yankees printed Greenbacks and sold bonds so as to finance the war to free all men to stamp out grapes and make wine or whatever.   And remember, the income tax will never exceed 1% and it will only affect the rich.  (1917)


    Then we had Hoover's idea that Roosevelt rejected as profligate.  It was the idea of "pump-priming" by spending huge sums of government money to "stimulate" the economy, thereby providing worthwhile employment for the "disadvantaged" or the "unemployed" or the "exploited".    Worked real well, in that it extended the Great Depression by four years and served as a whipping boy against the Republicans.   Roosevelt campaigned against Hoover's pump-priming, WPA stupidity, and immediately adopted it after being inaugurated.




     A Social Security programme that would "guarantee" a sense of dignity to geezers in their final days, since the rich had everything, it would only be "fair'' to require the "rich" to pay for just a bit of "fairness" by giving geezer a few coins at the end.   The Marxists-Bolshevik elements within the "progressive" Roosevelt administration before the was with the Germans and Japanese knew that from the time of the enactment of the Social Security programme that they could beat the dead-mule to death over, and over, and over again, every two years by saying that "The Republicans will take away your Social Security Benefits, and leave you sitting on the curb in the snow, slowly starving and freezing to death while they go to balls with tuxedos and fancy Parisian gowns after repealing your hard-earned benefits.  It is their plan to destroy the middle-class and turn us all into servants of the Romanoffs and British aristocrats.   They want to keep all the money for themselves and let the rest of us starve."
    And they have used this canard every two years, like a dull, unthinking metronome:

FREE METRONOME SOFTWARE - Best Metronome .com
(touch the wind up dial of the metronome)

     "They're gonna take away yer SSI, your disability, your stamps, your Medicaid, your housing.  They're commin' tuh git us....yer kids' free lunch, yer AFDC....they're cummin' tuh git the old people....all of us.
     The estimable Henry Cuellar, who had been of service to George W. during his first term as Governor of Texas by serving as Secretary of State, later became a Democrat office-holder as the United State congressman for a district that includes Laredo, Texas and quite a bit of the IH-35 from Laredo to San Antonio.   Since his district extends down into the Lower Rio Grande Valley, we receive his Spanish-language mailings warning that "....los Republicanos intentan eleminar todo tipo de sus benficios....el Medicaid, el Medicare, el Lone Star (food stamp card), la asistencia a las madrecitas solteras, el Seguro Social, la ayuda de la Section Eight....todo te quieren  eleminar y devolver as sus amigos ricos."    All of this has blared from Spanish-language radio, pamphlets, and other advertising, not just from Henry, or in Spanish, but on all "preponderantly Democrat" advertising venues.


     And of course, the Progressives joined hands with the Ku Klux Klan in their effort to eliminate alcohol from the public view or use.  They also agreed that Jews, Negroes, Mexicans, and the retarded and such should be at least segregated and perhaps even "helped along" to the eventual end of their journey in this life....so Planned Parenthood was born and since its establishment, among their successes, is the fact that the horrid 7% rate of illegitimate births by Negresses in 1950 has since been improved by sex-information and counselling and planning to where now the Black illegitimacy rate is only 77%.   Tell me if AFDC is working or not?

1,200 Pounds Sterling per month
rendered by HRH Elizabeth and
the Parliament.

Where one finds a government stupid enough to buy votes by paying for this...that empire deserves to die.   Eight babies, eight different unknown fathers, free housing, free food, and 1,200 pounds sterling to buy lottery tickets and cocaine lines.  The "progressives" want us to have nationalised health care and a social welfare system like the "more advanced industrialised democracies".  Puhleeze!!

____________________________________

     Progressives mean for things to happen exactly to the opposite of what they are proposing.   Progressives, communists, national socialists, and the like have always practiced the rule that they should always accuse the Right and their opposition of doing the things that the Progressives, in fact, are doing, whether the Right Wing is doing them or not.   They are convinced that the Vox Populi Americanus is too stupid and ignorant to keep things separated and clearly understood.   They also count on the fact that only focus groups can possibly plumb the depths of ignorance and stupidity of the American electorate.   Gruber declared it to be true....Candy Carley and George Stephanopoulos....they and theirs count on it.   Sandra Fluke believes it and demands that my girls pay for her BCPs.
     (Sir Edmund) Hillary counts on the fact that Dancing With the Stars and the need to go down and buy a lottery ticket for the big drawing will trump the need to do the least critical thought before voting.   After all, the Democrats say that Negroes and Latins are too stupid to figure out how to vote, even though they frequently vote in higher percentages  than the other cohorts of the electorate.   But what sense does sense make.  Can't we all just reach across the aisle and say "What difference, at this point, can it possibly make?"


     We shall have a few other matters to clear up before departure on Saturday Morning.   Please bear with us.
El Gringo Viejo




As the dust settles in and around the junction of Bayou Le Bufalo and the Rio San Jacinto

     Much,   very much, was made by the elements of the Texian Army due to the "fair treatment" rendered to Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna by Samuel Houston, Commander, Army of Texas.  Were I to have been there, as an erstwhile Episcopalian, a non-Scottish Rite Mason of any degree, and a bumped and bloody survivor of the Battle of San Jacinto....I would certainly have been distressed at the courtesies and deferences allowed to the criminal despot Presidente de Mexico.

     The other problem was, and remains, that the Texians had two "generals" in the field that day.  Houston, obviously, and conveniently for the surface-dwelling researchers.   For those who like to do a bit of trenching in their archaeological and historical works, it is best to point out that another fellow, General Somervelle.

     Somervelle  was not a general yet, but he would become one later, based upon his service in the engagement under analysis here and now.   The Texas Almanac quickly summarises his curriculum vitae more or less thusly:

 

SOMERVELL, ALEXANDER (1796–1854). Alexander Somervell, entrepreneur, soldier, and leader of the Punitive Expedition of Laredo in 1842.

      Alexander was born in Maryland, June 11, 1796.    As a young man, he determined to move to the new plantation country in Louisiana in 1817.   There he bought tract of usable land and dedicated himself to the life of a planter in St. Landry Parish.

      Wanderlust moved him to seek other challenges and fortunes, so in the early 1820s he moved to Missouri where he became a merchant and wholesaler, at or near the community of Cape Girardeau.

      In 1833, he moved to Texas and was granted a tract in Stephen Foster Austin's second (and last) colony.    Somervell engaged in the mercantile business at San Felipe with a fellow with whom he had been in business earlier.   In October 1835 Somervell joined the volunteers marching from Gonzales to Bexar and was elected major. He participated in the military action against the forces of Perfecto de Cos, the commander of the detachment in the city of San Antonio de Valero.  The Texians prevailed in this affair, and Cos was allowed to retreat with his detachment back to beyond the Rio Nueces and even the Rio Bravo (Grande).

      After learning of the fall of the Alamo, he enrolled in the Texas army on March 12, 1836, and on April 8 was elected lieutenant colonel of the first regiment of Texas Volunteers, succeeding Sidney Sherman. He participated in the Battle of San Jacinto, essentially as XO immediately under Sam Houston.   It is fair to say that Somervelle gained a great deal of respect the day of the Battle because Houston was wounded with a particularly painful musket-ball to the ankle.  This wound rendered Houston essentially helpless, and left Somervelle  in command of the moment by moment events to come.  So, a lot of folks associated the victory with Somervelle and not Houston.

     On the second day, after considerable opium, Houston was almost able to think straight.    and remained in the army until June 7, 1836. He served briefly as secretary of war in President David G. Burnet's cabinet. Somervell represented Colorado and Austin counties in the Senate of the First and Second congresses, October 3, 1836, to May 4, 1838. By the time he was elected brigadier general on November 18, 1839, he was living in Fort Bend County.   Many other assignments were given to him during the rest of his relatively short life in Texas.

     Somervell died in February 1854 under mysterious circumstances. His body was found lashed to the timbers of the capsized boat in which, carrying a considerable amount of money, he had started from Lavaca to Saluria.

   Another peculiar thing was the fact that Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna frequently referred to himself as " The Napoleon  of the West".   The Texian Cavalry, such as it might have been, on Santa Anna's left flank during the battle also had "The French Connection".   That connection came in the person of Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar who was the commander of cavalry, and whose XO was Captain Juan Seguin who actually rode in front of the column and did the leading in battle.  Lamar, unlike Houston, was wise enough to not seek glory, but remained "in-charge" and pressed just behind his charges, while his immediate subordinate did the sabre-flashing and exhorting.   They worked well together, although Lamar was noted for not being a fan of anything Spanish or Mexican.   He was Latin however, with considerable French and southern European genealogy.

     He met tragedy when his wife died in 1830 of the tuberculosis.  Then in 1834, his brother committed suicide, "from out of the blue".   Lamar, a newspaper publisher, and an accomplished writer and poet, sought solace in Texas and Mexico.   As his travels ended he struck up with an old friend, Fannin, in the Refugio area.  An accomplished slave-trader, Lamar struck up an illegal but openly practiced business of selling slaves to discreet buyers along the middle Texas Coast.   Although this was against the Mexican law concerning bonded servitude, Lamar was unimpressed with the hypocrisy when compared to the Mexican/Spanish system of peonage.   Under that system it was almost impossible to hope for manumission, and descendants inherited their parents' debts.

     In any regard, on the day before the actual Battle of San Jacinto, Lamar intervened in a skirmish between his cavalrymen and a unit of Mexican infiltrators who surprised the dismounted horsemen.   Lamar rode into the group of Mexican special force detail and whipped them from atop his mount until they finally fled.   For that display, the Mexicans in the bivouac area turned their gun sideways and shot a three volley salute to the enemy officer for his bravery and largesse.

     Later, after provisional President Burnet, and then the elected President Sam Houston, Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar became the  2nd popularly elected President of the Republic of Texas.  He founded, among other institutions, the public school system for the Republic.

 

William Joel Poinsett
1779  -  1851

  Lamar  and many other of the Texian Army  were puzzled as to why and how a man such as Lopez de Santa Anna had taken the oath and ceremony of membership in the Scottish Rite Lodge of Freemasons in Mexico.   This event occurred after one of the first ambassadors  (America had no ambassadors until 1896 or so. They were titled 'ministers' until that time) to the Mexico from the United States set about to help  found more Scottish Rite Lodges in Mexico.  This activity was seen to be obvious meddling in the interior political processes of Mexico and Poinsett had the honour of being the first "minister" of the United States to be kicked out of the country.   He did take several Noche Buena plants that he had nurtured, and as he returned to his native South Carolina, he supplied America is thousands of cuttings of the plant that we call the Poinsietta or Poinsettia.        In any regardMexico had evicted Agustin de Iturbide from the Throne of the Emperor of Mexico in 1823.  He had served as the first head of state immediately after Independence had been gained from Spain.   Before two years had past, political forces had determined that the Mexican body politic wanted to have a Republic and not a Monarchy.

     The Constitution of 1824 was drawn up and generally accepted by all save the most conservative elements in the society at the time.   The American Ambassador, William Poinsett, according to the interior political lore of Mexico, was active in the establishment of Scottish Rite Masonic  Lodges.  The liberal, republican elements of Mexico took to these lodges almost as if the actual lodges were churches.  The canons of Freemasonry ran a bit counter to the Roman Catholic Church's assumption of the scope of authority of the Bishop of Rome, so the argument commenced.

     Much of the Roman clergy was affiliated with the York Rite as were many of the wealthy conservative land-holders.  In the push and the pull of the contentions between these two groups, the conservatives (Yorken~os) finally won out.   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had joined in with the Scottish Rite (Escoceses) until changing sides (typically treacherous) and becoming an adamant Centralist conservative and one who would take down and burn every Mexican tri-colour with the numbers 1 8 2 4 on its white field.  This he did in the Yucatan, in the Zacatecas matter, and San Luis Potosi, Coahuila, and finally in Texas.

     Once captured however, he invoked all of the symbolic mysteries and gestures and clasps of the Scottish Rite Masons and managed to save his hide from a noose or firing squad.   His immediate capture and his first encounter with Houston were surrounded with all kinds of Masonic symbolism.   In reality, however, it behoved the Texians to keep Antonio safe, well supplied with cocaine and old wine, and an emblem of the Texian side having "better angels". 

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More what-if's and gee-whizzes later.   Thank one and all for the time and interest invested.

El Gringo Viejo

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