Bits and Pieces, Observations, and Clarifications.....

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For no particular reason, we show all concerned
the bacon / egg / lettuce / tomato on whole
wheat the Old Gringo made for himself
during his stay this time down.
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Alvaro was surprised at these variations
of tropical gladiolas.    These and others
are being planted around the Quinta's
garden areas

     As one might note, we are returned from the Mexican interior, after spending some time at our little hideaway in the middle and muddle of Nowhere, State of Tamaulipas, Mexico.   Some considerable rain, very cool nights (low 50s several nights and early morning in a row), lots of birds (mainly old, but some new), and still a little bit of business percolating.   We would like to cover some points of interest, both for the OROG community and for those visiting our sites for the first time.   They are as follows:

A typical view from the Quinta, including the
 colours of the season....Flamboyan red,
 and Esperanza yellow, and Plumeria
in Hawaiian pastels

(1)     Clarification:   Our last posting had a title of "Should Ted Cruz lose the  primary..." etc.    This might have been interpreted reasonably as an interrogative, but please note that no question-mark ends the title.   The word "should" was used in the conditional and declarative sense.  

     We were certainly not suggesting a question.  And, alas, Senator Cruz was vanquished after considerable collusion between FOXNews including almost the entire staff and Mssrs. Ayles and Murdoch,  along with every organ of the Obsolete Press.  The group we have chosen to style as "The Appropriate Outsiders" who are found on the Right side of the political theatre decided that our chosen one was too loose a cannon.....an ideologue.....a man of narrow appeal, incapable of beating the likes of (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corksrew.

This is the first "summer bloom" of our
 daughter's haleconia,  This plant is

essentially the original banana .

     We remain convinced that Senator Cruz was and is, by far and away, the best candidate to field for these times.   Likewise, we are convinced that Donald Trump is woefully unqualified person for the position of the presidency of the government of the United States of America.   His personal history, his temperament, his depth of knowledge and understanding, and his irrational explosions speak to this conclusion on my part.

This is Alvaro showing relative size
 comparison
with the Flamboyan tree.
   They bloomed about a month early
 throughout the region this year.
  Lots of rain, chilly nights, hot
 days were the secret medicine

     Among his most troubling characteristics is the ridiculous repeating of phrases and words as he speaks, as if picking up things from the ground that he has dropped as he trundles through his Garden of Undeveloped Thoughts.  These things, along with his tendency to employ mendacity as a debate weapon have always troubled us.   His businesses and political inclinations are as muddled a his thought processes.

      In our opinion, Trump was the worst of all the alternatives.   Save for the exception of Governor Christi, we in this household would probably been able to vote, finally, for any of the other of the Cast of Thousands who postulated their candidacy.

       Finally, about this point, the title "Should Ted Cruz lose the Primary...." should have better read, "We are leaving for our Hideaway in Nowhere,  Tamaulipas, Mexico, and Should Ted Cruz Lose the Primary, It could well signal the end of the Republic....But We Shall Return".

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(2)    Bits and Pieces - Part A:
     
     We had clients fairly recently who drove all the way from coastal North Carolina down to our place in Mexico, and then on all the way to the border between Mexico and Guatemala.   They travelled in a large vehicle, known as a ''conversion van".   They are pleasant folks, disassociated from "the herd" in a way, very convivial.  They were very much the kind of people who fit perfectly at the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre both as clients and guests.

      Among other things they kept a nice dairy about their Odyssey throughout much of eastern and southern Mexico.   All of the photography ranges from very good to high-level professional work.   The commentary has a bit of dry wit and considerable valuable observations.   It tends to be a bit lengthy due to the numerous very excellent bird and other photographs, but it is a pleasant, very worthwhile investment of time for any of our readers.   The OROG will appreciate the visits to famous as well as out of the way and off the beaten trail stops during their 40 day passage, all on the ground, save for a bit of boating.

            

     We place this web-page linkage for the OROG's use in accessing the commentary and imaging of these valued clients.

  http://lookingforchorty.blogspot.com/

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     Part B:    In the matter of (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corkscrew vs. the Mean Old Server 

     This is a case composed of  all the worst parts of a bad Broadway theatre offering.   It would be a dark and perverse tragi-comedy, with MacBethian themes and plots.    But, it would also be far too improbable to be considered plausable even as a farce.

    One thing is for certain however.  Were El Gringo Viejo to have done what Miss (Sir Edmund) has been demonstrated to have done AT THIS POINT in the "FBI investigation", he or almost any other person would have been in prison already.   The sentence would have been at least three years.

     The waste of time known as the supposed "FBI investigation" has already involved the "suspected perpetrator" in the need to "walk-back" numerous "explanations" which were made try her to bend facts into pretzel-like, out-and-out lies.   Sworn depositions have already been made by a person...the installer of the computer server(s) of interest...who testified with the guarantee of immunity.  The facts have been clear for months.

      General Petraeus, for a matter of much smaller import, was witheringly shamed, demoted, and variously punished for having committed an absurdly stupid crime.  Although his transgressions were far fewer in number and of much lesser scope, his punishments were relatively swiftly processed and enforced.   There was considerable leakage of information about the case and  considerable official commentary before, during and after the scandal and associated legal processes.

     (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corkscrew however, will not.....and we repeat...will not be processed, charged, interrogated in any serious way, placed before a Grand Jury to testify, or other exigency.    We request that the readers remember that she escaped charges over the holding over 1,000 FBI raw data personnel files.   Charles Colson, Special Assistant to President Nixon spent three years in prison for having had one (1) raw data file in his desk, still under seal and un-openned.
     She escaped charges in the illegal firing of the employees of the White House Travel Office during the first days of the Clinton presidency.   She escaped charges for having order the Defense Department to release Linda Tripp's raw data personnel tile.
     She escaped charges for any number of serious criminal acts during the time of the construction of "HillaryCare" (the forerunner of ObamaCare), she escaped charges for having ordered her staff to empty out Vince Foster's White House Office of any and all records and documents after Foster's "suicide", and she escaped charges....numerous charges....in the horrid and death ridden Whitewater and Rose Law Firm Billing Frauds.    This is the short list.   Her dishonourable acts and lies surrounding the Benghazi matter and other of her many debacles during her  time at the State Department remain an Open Book of Shame.
     So, please remember that the FBI has a long record of measuring the above named miscreant with toy microscopes and kid gloves. Even her peripheral involvement, along with "Attorney General" Janet Reno in the Mt. Carmel disaster  where scores of men, women, and children were immolated escaped perusal by the FBI (or any other press or police group).

     After re-reading the above material it seems truly astounding to this writer that this woman has not been either housed in a psychiatric facility or a prison as an Habitual.   Just the matter about the "corkscrewing into Kosovo while under sniper fire would have been enough, had Reagan said such a thing, to have his bones dug up and burned.   It is truly saddening.

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(3)     Observations:

     In the matter of Trump and the Mexican people and government, there are many, many observations that we could make.  For one, Trump's fat mouth and badly wired brain with an abundance of burned out synapses managed to bring on a useless conflict with a Mexican populace and body politic just itching for a topic they can demagogue with glee.

     Next, the building of a wall, after all the environmental, imminent domain, ACLU defense "free association and family separation" issues, etc. would tie up the actual building for years.  Such is the nature of things in these times.   The environmental freaks and frauds would be throwing themselves in front of bulldozers in order to save the Gila Monsters.   Little matter that the government has raised the "acceptable level" of bald eagles to be killed by the blades of the "eco-friendly" electricity-generating windmills to over 4,000 per annum.  But, the point is that there are scores, even hundreds, of detours and delays and obstacles that even a bully like Trump cannot, could not, avoid.

     Next, the saw about Free Trade concepts causing job losses is quite weak.   In Texas, we have essentially a free trade operation going on and employment, along with business development has been explosive for over a generation now.   The solution to predatory abandonment of Terra Firma Americana by businesses could and should be the prohibition of any form of "corporate income tax" or even direct taxation of any form of business.

     In these times, however, almost any larger business is going to try to re-establish itself to some degree or another in foreign countries in order to gain market share.   Hence, the large Toyota plant in San Antonio.   No State Corporate Income Tax, no labour union sorrows, large local markets, and huge regional markets.....bingo.

     Protectionism of, for, and by labour and businesses is what caused the world-wide economic collapse during the late 1920s through the early 1940s.   The only thing that extracted America and certain other protectionist countries as they moved deeper into the decade of the 1940s is World War II,   Every one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his cadre of socialist economic "shovel ready" planners and economic experts' plans failed.   It is a sad joke when people knowingly repeat the horribly fallacious saw that "Roosevelt's New Deal save America from starvation!"

     But, it feels good to say "America First".   The problem is, when that is said, it places America in a the position in which it steadily loses the ability to compete in the world marketplace.   Where we should be putting the collective American foot down is in the highly specific markets and populations that practice extreme and illegal predatory industrial and commercial espionage and sabotage.   That is fairly easy to do....starting with Red China, the world's most criminal and dangerous economic predator and destructor.
    And Red China is in not the most major trading partner of the United States, in various ways.  To wit:

Rank	Country	Exports	Imports	Total Trade	Trade Balance
-	World	1,620,532	2,347,685	3,968,217	-727,153
-	European Union	276,142	418,201	694,343	-142,059
1	Canada	312,421	347,798	660,219	-35,377
2	China	123,676	466,754	590,430	-343,078
3	Mexico	240,249	294,074	534,323	-53,825
4	Japan	66,827	134,004	200,831	-67,177
5	Germany	49,363	123,260	172,623	-73,897
6	South Korea	44,471	69,518	113,989	-25,047
7	United Kingdom	53,823	54,392	108,215	-569
8	France	31,301	46,874	78,175	-15,573
9	Brazil	42,429	30,537	72,966	+11,892
10	Taiwan	26,670	40,581	67,251	-13,911

     The above chart shows almost up-to-date rankings of America's import and export partners.   These figures make up about 90 per cent of all international trade affecting the United States directly.  All the importing from Red China that we do, and all the exporting to Red China as well, could be redistributed to other, more agreement-abiding trading partners.

     We like to point out that Canada, Japan, and Mexico have a combined population of less than 230,000,000, and yet their activity with the United States substantially exceeds Red China's.    Another interesting, perhaps even astounding fact is that those three countries' combined GNPs exceed by 35% the GNP of Red China which has six times the combined population of Canada, Japan, and Mexico.      Another interesting point is that each day about 1,000,000 Mexicans and Canadians enter the United States.   Also each day, about 1,000,000 Mexicans and Canadians leave.  Most Mexicans enter on a permanent (10 year) nationwide visa, while a large minority have the convenient 72 hour pass which I believe is now issued for three years.   The figures concerning how much Mexicans buy, for instance, during their visits along the frontier, or during other shopping excursion, beach stays, etc. is unknown.  What is known is that McAllen, Texas reasonably estimates that Mexican commercial tourism from Monterrey and other places in Mexico amounts to 3,000,000,000 USD per year in McAllen (pop. 130,000) alone.
   The problem we have with illegal immigration is easily solved simply by (1)   eliminating all public welfare assistance for everybody and (2)   enforcing our immigration laws as they now stand, and (3) abolishing any notion that a baby born atop American soil is an American citizen, and by vigorously prosecuting, punishing, and deporting illegal and legal aliens who have been convicted of felonious activity.     Any political entity (township,town, county, city, parish, State, Commonwealth, or Indian lands) would be prohibited from granting any form of Sanctuary, especially for convicted or wanted criminal aliens, in the United States legally or illegally. 
     America needs, desperately to take the control away from the ethnic and racial demagogues and the Democrats and "Progressives" by reforming public assistance into a purely private, Salvation Army style social service operation.   Government operated systems invariably turn into active and/or passive vote-buying schemes.

We depart now for a night of watching the weather radar, and getting some sleep.  More to-morrow!
El Gringo Viejo

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Should Ted lose this election in Indiana....

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We truly do receive this as punishment but!!! .....if you really, really want to know, it lies below:

We happen to have an adobe hut, for real...in Nowhere, Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is a bed/brunch place with 456 species of birds, a perpetually running spring fed river and flabbergasting views. I am honourably discharged, Republican, hard-case conservative Constitutionalist, college graduate, self-employed (40 years), refused my disability when leaving the Army because high-school chums had served in extreme jeopardy ("Bring your last will and testament's up to date, boys) and killed or wounded in action against the bastard nephews of (agrarian reformer) Mao and (agrarian reformer) Ho.  I did not feel as though the Army owed me anything....I gained weight in the service....as it is said   I am just tired of the never-relenting marxist lies and deception within the pillars of power of this, our lost Republic.

    

My life has been lived....I am old....my granddaughters are 15th generation Texians, I am 26th generation North American, not counting the 3/64's Mohegan and Cherokee blood....but including various Britannic strains and 5/64's German (Saxony - Prussia - Bavaria), and yes, I really am 1st cousin, three times removed to Rush....my great grandmother was Amelia (Meli) Limbaugh.    I have people who died under the Stars and Stripes, and many more who died under the Stars and Bars.I was, am, and will forever be opposed to slavery, whether it be by forced indenture or by bond and oppression, or by becoming a ward of the "benevolent State" as envisioned buy the marxists and progressives. The time draws nigh. May the Heavens intervene or deign to accept us all who stood against the slavery of socialism.

More on Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.....Study these passages and apply them to to-day....perhaps....

Antonio López de Santa Anna

(Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón)

A Chronology

     It will or should be noted by the reader that following graphic below these comments are prepared in the most Spartan sensibility.....perhaps a Jack Webb / Sergeant Friday moment.   We think it best to use such a "Just the facts, Ma'am" approach so as to avoid the fixation people tend to have with stereotypes concerning the gloriousness of despots with fancy uniforms.  We might allow that Lopez de Santa Anna is possibly the most audacious and self-absorbed of all the high names and personalities of the New World.   He is most certainly among, at the very least, the top fifty.

     The wonder is most certainly that he could come and go, approach and sit upon the Throne of Mexico, and then abandon said throne long before any programme....economic, national infrastructural, criminal and civil law, foreign relations....could ever be adequately put into place and action.

     He has been pictured to the public as a slight man, of short stature.   We see him, at times, compared to Napoleon Bonaparte....who was short....thereby explaining Antonio's peacockery and posturing as a product of the inferiority complex that he derived from being short.   But...he was not short.   For his day, in fact, he was "high-moderate" or "low-tall".   His height was normally estimated to be what would now be 5 foot 10 inches and his weight no more or less than 145 pounds....without his formal 20 pounds of uniform, epaulets, medals and medallions, and boots and  headdress.   Travis, Bowie, Sequin, de Zavala would have been "body doubles" in the dark.

     It is probable that he had a form of mild epilepsy, not because he was in the habit of taking opium and/or cocaine, and significant amounts of the powder 'lithium carbonate;  along with wine of the very best European and Mexican and New World vintages.   But, we must remember that such prescriptions were commonly rendered by the physicians at that time, especially for patients who had money and position.
     Hear these comfortable words of Wikipedia concerning lithium:

     In 1843, lithium carbonate was used as a new solvent for stones in the bladder. In 1859, some doctors recommended a therapy with lithium salts for a number of ailments, including gout, urinary calculi, rheumatism, mania, depression, and headache. In 1948, John Cade discovered the antimanic effects of lithium ions. This finding led lithium, specifically lithium carbonate, to be used to treat mania associated with bipolar disorder.

    Lithium carbonate is used to treat mania, the elevated phase of bipolar disorder. Lithium ions interfere with ion transport processes (see “sodium pump”) that relay and amplify messages carried to the cells of the brain.^[8] Mania is associated with irregular increases in protein kinase C (PKC) activity within the brain. Lithium carbonate and sodium valproate, another drug traditionally used to treat the disorder, act in the brain by inhibiting PKC’s activity and help to produce other compounds that also inhibit the PKC.^[9] Despite these findings, a great deal remains unknown regarding lithium's mood-controlling properties.^{[citation needed]}

     Use of lithium salts exhibit a number of risks and side effects, especially at higher doses. Lithium intoxication affects the central nervous and renal systems and is potentially lethal.

The site of the old Hacienda Manga del Clavo

     While this above analysis speaks to a date of 1843 as being the time of the "coming out" of Lithium, it had been used in Europe, especially for titled people, and the wealthy, and others of the endowed classes since the earliest part of the 18th Century....especially in France, and the German principalities.   It might have been used even earlier in Turkey and Persia.

The Hacienda El Lencero - Lopez de Santa Anna's
Favourite property....only a few miles from Manga del
Clavo, which was destroyed by the American Military
during the Mexican - American War

     Concerning this chronology, below-included, we urge the reader to understand that each time His Excellency would decide to either abandon or re-occupy the Presidential Throne, it was a matter of an extremely arduous journey.....from low to high altitude....bananas that produced year around and elhechos arboleras (ferns the size of large trees).....and crossing into or back out of places that have known no month without significant snowfall.   From Manga del Clavo at 2,000 feet above sea level, crossing mountain passes at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, either way arriving to or leaving from the City of Mexico at 7,600 feet elevation, the journey could take ten days or a month or perhaps even more.  If the rains were to be extremely heavy during the two rainy seasons, it might require a couple of months, at times, to travel the 140 mile distance, (in those times) .

To-morrow, we shall try to put an end to some of this wistful and pointless eulogy to a Supreme Narcissist.   There are two two or three telling points about this individual that will help further compound the perplexity he causes and also cause the reader to wonder why someone did not take him out back and do humanity a favour.

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Biographical Note

President of Mexico.

Born 1794 or 1795 in Jalapa; died 1876 in Mexico City.

Began military career in 1810; promoted to brigadier general in 1822. Offices and honors include: governor of Yucatan (ca. 1825 and 1829), governor of Veracruz (1828), benemérito de la patria (1829), and benemérito en grado heróico (1835).

Santa Anna was first named president of Mexico on March 30, 1833, which position he repeatedly abdicated and resumed until leaving the office for the final time in 1855.

He led Mexican forces in 1835 and 1836 in the campaign against Texas independence, and in 1847 in the war with the United States. During the latter he served alternately as president and as military commander.

Santa Anna spent repeated periods of exile in the Caribbean.

Upon one return to Mexico in February 1864, he promptly was deported by General Achille Bazaine for failing to abide by the terms of the agreement allowing his reentry. Santa Anna was imprisoned in 1867 then exiled until 1874, when he returned to Mexico under a general amnesty.

He died in poverty in Mexico City on June 20, 1876.

Chronology
	21 Feb 1794/5	born in Jalapa, Veracruz
	6 July 1810	entered the Veracruz infantry as a cadet
	13 March 1811	went with his regiment to Tampico to suppress insurgents working for the separation of Texas
	1813	returned to Veracruz, promoted for bravery to first lieutenant
	1814	made aide to General Dávila, royalist commander of Veracruz
	March 1816	promoted to captain
	March 1821	given command of troops in Veracruz, sent to rescue Orizaba and Córdoba from pro-independence forces
	23 March 1821	arrived in Orizaba, defeated the insurgent Miranda
	29 March 1821	General Herrera arrived, as did dispatch from Viceroy making Santa Anna lieutenant colonel as reward for Miranda's defeat; Santa Anna joined Herrera in support of Iturbide
	25 April 1821
	July 1821	surrounded Veracruz and suggested that his old protector General Dávila surrender to him; Dávila successfully resisted
	21 July 1821
	27 Sept 1821	Trigarante army entered Mexico City
	28 Sept 1821	Regency established
	25 Oct 1822
	16 Nov 1822	suspicious of Santa Anna, Iturbide arrived in Jalapa, removed Santa Anna from his command, ordered him to join the Junta de Guerra in Mexico City; Santa Anna instead returned to Veracruz
	2 Dec 1822	in Veracruz, Santa Anna proclaimed ?la República,? declared Iturbide's reign ?invalid,? demanded new Congreso Constituyente
	1 Feb 1823	Plan de Casa Mata signed
	19 March 1823
	5 June 1823
	mid-1824
	25 April 1825
	30 Dec 1826 (23 Dec 1827?)	Vicente Guerrero sent to put down Montaño's rebellion at Otumba; Santa Anna offered his services to Guerrero
	7 January 1828
	1 Sept 1828	Congress declared Pedraza president and Vicente Guerrero vice-president
	12 Sept 1828	Santa Anna demanded that presidency be given to Guerrero
	3 Dec 1828	Pedraza fled the presidency
	8 Dec 1828	Guerrero named secretary of war
	1 April 1829
	27 July 1829	Spanish under Barradas took Tampico
	11 Sept 1829
	4 Oct 1829	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz
	4 Dec 1829	refused to administer the Plan of Jalapa with Bustamante against Guerrero
	3 Jan 1830	renounced his politico-military duties
	2 Jan 1832
	March 1832	Santa Anna defeated by government forces
	5 Oct 1832	Pedraza returned from the U.S.
	24 Dec 1832	Pedraza assumed presidency in Puebla
	3 Jan 1833	Pedraza and Santa Anna entered Mexico City
	30 March 1833	Santa Anna named President, with Gómez Farías as vice-president
	1 April 1833	Gómez Farías became president as Santa Anna pleaded ill health; Farías'policies proved unpopular
	16 May 1833	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	3 June 1833
	5 July 1833	Santa Anna pursued Arista
	12 Oct 1833	defeated Arista in Guanajuato
	27 Oct 1833	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	15 Dec 1833	left presidency, requesting from Congress 6 months' leave because of his health
	24 April 1834	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	27 Jan 1835	Santa Anna left presidency
	11 May 1835
	26 Feb 1836	entered Texas, attacked Alamo
	6 Mar 1836	attacked presidio of Espíritu Santo
	21 Apr 1836	defeated by Houston at San Jacinto
	18 Jan 1837	interviewed by U.S. President Jackson
	21 Feb 1837	returned to Veracruz by boat, to the cheers of the populace
	27 Nov 1838	French fired on San Juan de Ulúa, Santa Anna defended
	5 Dec 1838	lost leg
	20 March 1839	Santa Anna succeeded Bustamante as interim president
	30 April 1839	defeated federalists Mejía and Urrea at Acajete
	10 July 1839	surrendered presidency to Nicolás Bravo
	10 Oct 1841	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	26 Oct 1842	returned presidency to Bravo
	4 March 1843
	4 Oct 1843	surrendered presidency to Canalizo
	4 June 1844	Santa Anna took oath as constitutional president
	7 Sept 1844	obtained leave of absence from presidency
	19 Nov 1844
	3 June 1845	Santa Anna left Veracruz for Havana
	4 Aug 1846	Paredes y Arrillaga removed from office
	22 Aug 1846	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz, proclaiming the reestablishment of the Constitution of 1824
	6 Dec 1846
	26 Jan 1847	Santa Anna attacked Taylor
	23 Feb 1847	declared victory at Buena Vista and withdrew from the field
	21 March 1847	Santa Anna resumed presidency
	2 April 1847
	20 May 1847
	16 Sept 1847	surrendered presidency, escaped via Guatemala or the U.S., sailed to Jamaica then to Turbaco, Colombia
	1 April 1853	returned to Veracruz
	19 April 1853	made triumphal entry into Mexico City
	20 April 1853	Santa Anna resumed the Presidency
	16 Dec 1853	Council of State gave Santa Anna "facultades omnímodas,"(omnipotent faculties) and title of "alteza serenísima" (Most Serene Highness)
	1 March 1854	Plan of Ayutla against Santa Anna
	9 Aug 1855
	27 Feb 1864	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz, promising Bazaine not to be politically active, but continued seeking support
	12 March 1864	Bazaine deported Santa Anna from Veracruz
	Jan 1866	Santa Anna visited by U.S. Secretary of State Seward on island of St. Thomas
	3 June 1867	Santa Anna returned to Veracruz, claiming U.S. endorsement
	4 June 1867	Santa Anna taken with U.S. help to Sisal, Yucatán, and imprisoned
	30 July 1867
	2 Nov 1867	Santa Anna sailed to Havana, then to the Bahamas
	1874	Santa Anna allowed to return to Mexico by Lerdo de Tejada under a general amnesty
	20 June 1876	died in poverty in Mexico City _____________________________ More later,  El Gringo Viejo __________________________