However…..

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HOWEVER…

     You all know what it is when a television or radio commentator, or worse, a programme guest, begins the next paragraph by repeating most of the previous paragraph, all the while waving her hands in the faces of the listeners as if she were the return of Kong King to the Harper Valley Skyscraper.

       The men are better.  Especially on the left side of the political spectrum…men very frequently attempt to charm the audience with suave assurances concerning the niceness,  and caringness, and thoughtfulness, and forwardlookingness, and desire to give your daughter a Ph.d when she finishes an advanced degree at Molehill Primary after three rigorous years of study in Funzi Wunzi Primary, minoring in Whatever and majoring in Eye Forgot.   Everything FREE!!!, of course.

     The women are worse, perhaps because they try to outdo the men.   Now after offending everyone as equally as possible.    This particular set of commentaries and recounting will be a bit haphazard, but will deal with a of yesterdays, and how those yesterdays stayed with me…stayed with the Times and how both I and the Times have done for ourselves.

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     We begin with the tale of the arrival of the President of Mexico to help formalise the beginning of operations of the fabled Falcon Reservoir.  This was the first establishment of a dam, especially of this size, to have been established on the Rio Grande…or Rio Bravo y Grande del  Norte.   It was something my Godfather roared with laughter about at each telling, and I was present at the events to be described below.

     Suffice to say that the construction of Falcon and its placement into service, and to have served well, is a testament to the power, ability, and precision that Mexicans can perform, and Americans can perform, simultaneously and effectively.   We return to 1953, a dusty day on the Border…very windy and temperatures over 100 degrees…(and yes, Virginia, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, sometimes October brings us 100 degree days).

This speaks to the Inauguration of the Falcon International Dam

     On the 19th of October of 1953, while the authorities and neighbour of Mier, Tamaulipas were making themselves ready to receive the President of the United States of Mexico,  Adolfo Ruiz Cortines in the airport especially constructed along the edges of the Rio Bravo, with the purpose of the holding the ceremony of the inauguration of the International Falcon Dam;  the Presidential Committee, when they arrived, surprised everyone by ground travel down a road that had not been paved, all the way from the airport in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, (100 miles distant).

     The first to have knowledge of this matter were Mr. Gorgonio Lopez and his wife Conchita being surprised by the President's arrival in this manner.  While there the group solicited water to drink, and after satisfying elementary necessity, they all transferred over to the Presidencia Municipal (County Office) where they met up with one or two policemen, depending upon with whom one spoke.

       After spending a good bit of time in the centre of the municipal site, it being reasonable that the vehicles and the people needed a good wash down considering the dusty trip and arrival from the unpaved "highway".

     The Official Committee continued on then to their destination in their vehicle where they learned that only the section from the new airport to the new community of New Guerrero (which would replaced the old colonial city of Guerrero that was soon to be inundated and committed the depths of Falcon Lake), was paved.   The transit from Mier to Nuevo Guerrero was still unpaved, but the only connection already paved was finally encountered en Nuevo Guerrero.  There, the President arrived in a luxurious auto with the front end completely covered by a huge Mexican flag.  It is there that they encountered huge crowds of Mexicans full of anxiety and excitement, from many nearby parts.

     The first stop in the town was the where the Presidente and his committee stopped to give honours  to the new statue of don Benito Juarez Garcia the first (and apparently last) Indian to serve as President of Mexico…but the hot south winds were very strong (dry, dusty gusts up as high as 40 miles per hour).   The wind never stopped for the length of the ceremonies.

     With great enthusiasm that the people present were extremely enthusiastic in front of their new Presidencia Municipal, where President (and General) Dwight David Eisenhower, with a large group of Mexican soldiers presenting arms, with the military band, with a salute according to protocol of both Presidents went up the steps to the balcony of the Ayuntamiento (city government)…and from there they watched the Mexican Academy of Dance, especially the regionally popular Huapango, who without doubt had to have had pertinence from Nellie Campobello (she had just established what is now considered the greatest National folkloric presentation in the world) and was accompanied by an orquestra of the Palace of Fine Arts from Mexico City.

Immediately following it was left to present honors and honorifics to the President of the United States, saying "goodbye" to New Guerrero City the formal group drove on the top of the dam (paved) transferring to another very similar reception, after first stopping to see the huge hydroelectric generators and the huge gates of Falcon Dam.

    At the American encampment on the edge of the lake Mr. (sic) Eisenhower responded with the hospitality of an excellent American military band, a huge array of food selections, like any good reception, and toasts all around.

    At the dividing line between the two Nations one can encounter the commemorative monuments, with their appropriate national formal emblems, and it was precisely at that point where the final and most official acts were done…fancy signatures…hundreds of photos…etc.

AND THIS TIME, THE MEXICAN PRESIDENT RETURNED LATE THAT AFTERNOON, BACK TO MEXICO CITY…..THIS TIME…YES…BY AIR. 

INAGURACION DE LA PRESA INTERNACIONAL FALCON

El 19 de octubre de 1953, mientras las autoridades y vecinos de Mier se habían dispuesto a recibir al Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines en la aeropista construida exprofeso en las márgenes del Río Bravo, con motivo de la ceremonia de inauguración de la Presa Internacional Falcón; la comitiva presidencial sorprende a la población al arribar vía terrestre por un camino sin pavimentar procedente de Monterrey, N. L.

Los primeros en tener conocimiento del hecho fueron el Sr. Gorgonio López y su esposa Conchita al ser sorprendidos por la plana mayor presidencial a las puertas de su casa solicitándoles agua para beber, que tras satisfacer tan elemental necesidad se trasladaron a la presidencia municipal en donde solo había uno o dos policías, dependiendo de quién lo cuente. Permaneciendo un buen rato en dicha sede municipal, suponiéndose que coches y viajeros necesitaban y urgían de algún acicalamiento ante tan relevante acontecimiento y después de sufrir los estragos de la terracería y el polvo del camino.

La comitiva continuó su camino que solo estaba pavimentado el tramo correspondiente de la aeropista a Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, a donde llego el Sr. Presidente en un lujoso auto con el frente cubierto por la bandera nacional en donde era esperado con ansia y gran algarabía por los asistentes al evento.

El primer acto consistió en la develación de la monumental estatua del Benemérito de las Américas don Benito Juárez García con una gran molestia ocasionada por el persistente viento del sur que se dejó sentir ese día.

Con gran entusiasmo de los asistentes se recibió frente al palacio municipal al presidente de los Estados Unidos de América Dwight D. Eisenhower, con una valla de soldados presentando armas, una orquesta y una banda de guerra, con el saludo protocolar de ambos presidentes subieron al balcón del Ayuntamiento en donde miraron a la Academia Mexicana de Danza ejecutar un cuadro bailable titulado Huapango, que sin duda debe de haber pertenecido a la escuela dancística de Nellie Campobello, acompañando en los acordes una orquesta procedente de la ciudad de México.

En seguida tocaba hacer los honores al presidente de los Estados Unidos, diciendo adiós a Nueva Ciudad Guerrero se trasladaron por el bordo de la presa, en donde se observaba ya almacenamiento de agua y del otro lado de la cortina las plantas hidroeléctricas.

En el campamento americano a orillas de la presa el Sr. Eisenhower correspondió a Ruiz Cortines y su comitiva con una banda de música, banquete y brindis de honor.

En la línea divisoria se encuentran los monumentos conmemorativos en los escudos y las placas alusivas de ambos países y fue allí precisamente donde se llevó a cabo el acto formal de inauguración con asistencia de invitados de honor y discursos de ambos presidentes.

Al atardecer el presidente Ruiz Cortines regresa a la Ciudad de México, ahora si, vía area.

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Falcon Day just before its completion. The dam itself

has a length of over five miles. From the dam to the point

of entry into the Lake at San Ygnacio, Texas, some 44 miles

from the Dam.

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Return of the Times That Try Men's Souls and Women's Patience

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         There is so much about which we could comment, and an equal amount that would just as well be forgotten, but it has been a while and there is a need to keep this screed at least on the radar.    There is so much depravity and duplicity pervading the culture now that one wonders if there is any reason to fight the culture wars.

     One can take a look a our deprived (or is it depraved?) Speaker of the House of Representatives who has been fixated for the past 2,000 days or so, worrying about Donald John Trump.   One wonders;

     (1)    Anorexia Nervosa?   The shaking of hands, especially the right hand and

pointing to unknown targets while attempting to make her half-witted points…eyes darting in all directions…are things that would allow a half-sober psychologist to reasonably conclude that the woman is suffering from psychopathic, pan-hysterical, xerecktious, bongo brain disorder.

   (2)     Thankfully, it is not transmittable.  For those who have graduated recently from some kind of a prestigious college or university that means "you kant ketchup".    Has the Republic become so rotted out…so dead in the soul…so devoid of things such as ''…the common good", that we have to put up with mediocrity in almost all public performance?     Must we pay people for having babies, to allow people to smash, burn, and destroy property that belongs to others, and then serve the will of "public servants" by deciding what a good number of ruffians per capita should be.

     This idea that a metropolis or large city should "cut back on constabulary" while allowing the criminal elements something that could be called "…an acceptable level of depravity and anti-social destruction…''.  In each effort to establish a "Peoples' Centre" in some unfortunate urb with a downtown that still has stores and bars and restaurants, the "New Citizens for the Re-awakening of America Cause'n Black Lives Matter" usually can put together three to seven  weeks before the effort implodes.  A few hundred million dollars and any number of wounded and/or murdered cops and/or proprietors or other innocents are normally involved, as well.

     (3)     Mentally and psychiatrically impaired ignoramuses (or ignorami, as you wish {my preference}) with titles such as "Mayor" or "Supervisor" now abound in various strongholds of Democrat and "Progressive" landscape of insanity.   One listens to their nonsensical rants…much like the tantrum of a child mixed with blather of a moderately psychotic, drunk, or addicted individual and wonders how their cranial unit was wired

     We understand the mob-masters who have been trained by Soros disciples in the art of obnoxiousness.  Those are the ones who storm into restaurants and bars and begin chanting and getting into the faces of humans shouting and cursing and begging for a fight.   We have all seen the events…with 100 to 500 evil hatred clowns who swarm a place and turn over chairs, steal food and drink from tables, and generally attempt to cause discord and disorder.   We can say, "Forgive them, Father for they know not what they do." but the problem is obviously that they do know precisely what they do

More later…

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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Dig up the bones of Francis Scott Key? I think not...

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An image of Francis Scott Key during

the bombardment of Fort McHenry -

Mr. Key is aboard His Majesty's Ship

 HMS TONNANT (Thunderer)

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     As usual, the know-nothings are those who howl the loudest.  While my President is not precisely what we would consider "…my cup of tea…", he is at least interesting and accomplished at getting things done that need doing.

     He is a bit too inclined to employ a government order to accomplish things that could be done by private and/or local initiatives.   But, I am afraid we shall forever have to deal with politicians who like to "give" things to the citizenry.   Mr. Trump seems to have more restraint than most of the "overly-generous" politicians, at least.

     A few days back, I was trapped by having to talk on the telephone while a television article was busy pointing out more weaknesses among the icons who make up the unique personalities, heroes, and magnates who advanced America into the realm of greatness.   There was an image on the television showing the statue of Francis Scott Key being pulled to the ground by people who knew nothing about Key, nor did they care, nor did their action prove anything beyond the existence of  their own vituperous uselessness.

    People who do not own a particularly valued property have no right to scar, damage, steal, or otherwise nefariously deal with that property.   It is against the law, and a long time ago, people who did such things as tear down monuments and other publicly (or privately) owned structures without cause…were thrown in jail, prison, and/or fined heavily.   Now mainstream reporters dash to the next incident as if to celebrate of the tumbling down of a monument or statue of some poor dolt of an historical figure such as a Francis Scott Key and many others too numerous to name.

    During these hours, lower-case scum is marauding in various cities in the United States, burning, breaking glass show-windows, knocking down doors so as to be able to loot and carry out millions of dollars worth of products that need to be sold to willing buyers,  not stolen like sub-human scavengers.    Packs of hundreds and even thousands, of mainly rich, lazy, and spoiled young people literally are dedicating their time to full-scale rioting.

    Should one inquire, the activists respond they are destroying things to punish the rich people and also to establish of a new order wherein all will be equal.   In each case it is apparent that the rioters want to destroy things.   Then they want to go back to mommy and daddy and find their marijuana stash, beg some money from big sis or granny, and then go out on the prowl again to burn, destroy, intimidate, steal, and terrorise whole cities in the United States.  All of this they do to demonstrate their sense of "democracy".

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In this image, one sees the senseless "Black Lives Matter" hoisted high.

  Why senseless? Because if one says, "Yes, and all lives matter," another will

 be correcting you almost immediately.   You will also, most probably, be called

 a racist and Klanner etc.

Please take note above that almost all the "Black Lives Mattering" are

 Caucasian, almost all of whom are garnering walking-around-money

 from Soros, and shekels from mommy and daddy.

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    Folks involved with "Black Lives Matter" are certain that they have the right to essentially expropriate entire blocks of downtown properties…stores, saloons, medical facilities, offices…and chase the owners and patrons out.  After two weeks or so of such a "taking", the area is always a mess of waste matter, garbage, drunks and druggies draped over benches or passed out, covered in vomit, with a needle still dangling from the forearm…all in the name of "equality". 

     It is a kind of equality that makes a civilised person want to puke, barf, and throw up at the same time.  Once he takes a whiff of "real democracy" brought to us by the BLM,  we know it really means sewer stench and really gross BO.

     Your humble commentator is aware of several hundred riots and destructive, frightening episodes brought on by these nouveaux parasites who wish for the destruction of America.   He knows of people who have been scared literally to death when people would come  into a restaurant and begin to overturn  tables, throw chairs into clusters of restaurant patrons, and even stooping to the level of drinking peoples' drinks if they were fresh alcoholic beverages.  Free is hard to beat!!

       We have watched an elegant old saloon with century-old mirrors cracked and destroyed.  The place, in spite of its style of business, had never had a barroom brawl, or even a broken chair…now destroyed by the people who swagger around, chanting and menacing while lending the impression that they are some "new wave' of uniform democracy.  Their calling apparently is to  forge the establishment of a perfect world where everything is free and where no one has more and no  one has less than anyone else.

     They would first be well advised to truly understand the basics about the historical figures they are condemning.   Francis Scott Key is not simply the fellow who wrote the poem that was a little later turned into…or better stated…adapted to the strains of a British suds-pub anthem.   Key was an especially talented, kind, brave, and industrious person…an example of dealing somewhat  poorly at times and nearly perfectly on other occasions.

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A Truer Description of Francis Scott Key

     While we know that Key wrote a clever and nicely turned poem regarding the intense battle between British Naval and Marine forces and a steely, resolute group of American defenders in Fort McHenry, Maryland, our friend Mr. Key had many other significant accomplishments and characteristics.  That battle in 1814 was and is legendary, but there were other interesting things.

     For instance, one might ask, "Why was Key, an American on a old rebuilt French Third - Rating, Man-o-War (battlewagon) hanging around with a bunch of high-ranking British Admirals?   Well, imagine asking to board an enemy ship so as to speak as a civilian American concerning reasonable release terms for a fairly high-ranking American soldier who had been captured in Washington D.C.  during the brutal and destructive battles in and around the District of Columbia just a few weeks earlier (Third-class rating for a battleship is nothing negative.  It simply means that it is heavily armed with a count of a minimum of 76 to 80 very powerful cannons.)

     The Admirals Cochrane and Cockburn, along with a theatre-grade British General Robert Ross had formally received and correctly detained Key and a couple of his buddies during hostilities.  They were being held due to the fact that they had seen troops, artillery, Navy ships and coastal boats being loaded and/or repaired while under sail, and would have, therefore, been able to tell the American military critical information about British tactics, conditions, and placement.  For the British officers, it would be necessary, then to keep Key and his American friends on board, and not in Baltimore, briefing down the American commandant of Fort McHenry about the size, number, and "etceteras" concerning the British level of strength.

     Incredibly enough, the British effort against Fort McHenry wound up being a draw.  That meant that the overpowering British might had lost the effort to win and take ground.   The defence had won simply because they were still in business and eating breakfast at sunrise that next morning.  The British Fleet had to sail out for restocking and repairs.   We have been given that an effective prisoner exchange was executed, so Key and his buddies, and the American military fellows got to head for Baltimore, while the British military captured earlier by the American force, were repatriated with their fellows on the HMS Tennant.   The British Naval authority would have had every right by military law to have had all  taken out and shot after their fine supper at the merest insult or faux pas by a slip of the lip.

     This act by Key was fraught with danger.   He was a famed attorney, true.  But he was also an activated member of the American Army's reserve units.   He was involved in active military service…but essentially "disguised" as the  sedate, and seemingly dull lawyer he was and could appear to be.  The British Naval authority would have had every right by military law to have had him taken out for the merest insult and shot after their fine supper.   Sometimes, manners are a pretty cool hand, Luke.

     Another worthy adventure was his service as the lead prosecutor of the man who shot twice but luckily both pistols had discharged ineffectively against the American President.  It is said that Key was among the number to step up quickly to forcibly restrain Andrew Jackson's assailant.  Only slight remarks have been found by this writer concerning this fact.

    As a top-off however, Key served as the prosecutor of that man who shot President Jackson.  Key told his friend, the President, that he would seek justice in the matter, and did manage a healthy sentence, albeit deferential to the defendant.  He was severely mentally ill, and dwelled in delusions.

    His name was Richard Lawrence, and he proclaimed himself to be the King of England.   He had moved, at the age of twelve, with his family to the United States from England, and established a very good house painting service at a young age.   Some thought that the fumes of the oils and mixers may have caused Mr. Lawrence to have brain damage.   Key did convince the court that the remainder of Richard's life should be lived in protective asylums.  The Judge concurred, and so it was.

     Finally, remembering that Francis Scott Key was a man of his times, we must speak to that matter .   He was usually straight-laced and well presented, and at times depressed and clouded with the darkness of self-doubt.  At other times he stood capable of great oratory, great contribution, and concern for man and beast.

   He fathered eleven children during his one marriage.   He had only the one wife, a daughter of the wealthiest and most prestigious family in Maryland.  Her name was Mary (Polly) Taylor Lloyd.

     He father was the wealthiest person in Maryland, and he served a lengthy period as governor of the Colony.  Maryland (Mary's Land…named for Mary, Queen of Scots) and the only Colony of the Crown in the New World's thirteen Colonies whose Governor normally would be a Roman Catholic.  Francis married into the family of the Lloyds, but he remained a fast and loyal member of the Church of England for his lifetime (Episcopalians of Olde were born, not made).

      Key was given life's trials frequently, because of the Negro Situation.  He saw the Black Man as inferior, but he endeavoured for their advancement and reasonable placement in society.   He was also a strict enforcer of the laws and conditions pertaining to slavery, manumission (award of freedom and full citizenship of a person formerly held in slavery), emancipation, and even of the programme American Colonisation Society, which arranged for free Negroes in the United States to return to Africa and "repatriated" in a place named "Liberia".   The name was, obviously, a Latin form for the word Liberty, and the new entity had considerable similarity to the American governance procedures.   It was more or less successful, and during these times seems to have begun to enter a fairly good cultural and living-standard situation.

     We finish with the simple observation that Francis Scott Key is somewhat overlooked as an historical importance, but he actually was.   Wealth, reliable and vigorous legal work, a constant citizen in the truest sense, and even a member of the somewhat surreptitious "Kitchen Cabinet" of President Andrew Jackson.

More of these tales later, and thank one and all for your patience and understanding.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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BLM….insidious George Soros…Pope for Anarchists…where will all end?

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For one, Stop the Madness  -  The business of rotting out the centres of major cities by turning said cities into essentially perpetual destruction zones where nihilists and brutes destroy while chanting meaningless bilge that doesn't even rhyme, is rational?    Billions upon billions of dollars worth of structure and progress has literally been Hiroshima'd east of the Mississippi and Nagasaki'd west of Old Man River.   And for what?

     Even during these hours, fine and noble cities…Portland, Chicago, New York City, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and many others, like Ferguson and St. Louis in Missouri are being gutted by well-orchestrated  mayhem provocateurs…many armed with various kinds of weaponry.  There are scores of communities suffering from these seemingly perpetual, nightly, acts of nihilism and multi-billion dollar vandalism.   The idea that gaggles of deranged, semi-uniformed, semi-militarised by the scores of hundreds…even thousands…are laying siege to the centres of scores of major and important communities throughout the Republic is mind numbing.    

    And, we ask, "…to what end…to what purpose?   Black Lives Matter, a false sham of a blankly repeated, meaningless, droning gobbledegook…"black lives matter!! black lives matter!!"   Well, apparently black lives do not matter if the central social and cultural order collapses in the areas where small businesses and the hope of downtown renovation descends into a forgotten dream for what the honest and productive elements have always desired.

    (1)    In reality, under the tenets of my upbringing and religious and moral code,  all lives matter and all lives are equal before the Eternal Power's own judgement.   Oriental people, Middle Eastern people, Indians from India, Indians from the New World, Extraterrestrials, even Germans are people too.  And Yankees, and women…of course.  And, frankly, Democrats…Black Africans and White Africans…Eskimos…and union members…and people who park too close to the parking space line.   All lives matter.

      It is necessary to point out, however, that black lives matter to everyone, apparently, except black people.   While every year there are six to twelve incidents involving police (and at times civilians), and "community leaders" and  "African American protestors" and others dash out to destroy the inner cities where proprietors are trying to operate stores and service facilities in an ambience always tinged in fearfulness, concern, and worry.   When 6 to 12 white or "coloured" policemen or policemen in general can cause huge social tremors and massive riots conducted by hundreds and thousands of brigands to conduct three or four night of looting, something is dreadfully out of focus.     But few in the Lamestream Press are willing to point out that equally dreadful truth.

     A certain fact must be faced.   Black Lives Matter is known to be a marxist  cum-communist front organisation under the control of people in the United States, but more especially Russia and Red China.  Other controlling offices are located in various points in Eastern Europe…where much money is raised, polished, channeled, and forwarded to the BLM and other radical agencies dedicated to destruction of the inner workings of the United States, Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Great Britain, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and certain other nations and entities.   

   Throughout the world, there are people and organisations, non-profit community service associations, and Non-profit Corporations doing "human improvement opportunity" work.  For instance, the shadowy and compulsive George Soros is a known pro-communist who declares himself to be an investor in "charitable social improvements".

   It is true that he has "given" as much as twenty billion dollars from his "foundations" and almost all of such generosity has been dedicated to the economic and cultural destruction of America.  We submit this condensed commentary and synopsis that extol this Latter Day Saint and Miracle Worker.  To Wit:

The Life of George Soros

George Soros is one of the world’s foremost philanthropists. He has given away more than $32 billion of his personal fortune to fund the Open Society Foundations’ work around the world. He is also the founder and primary funder of the Central European University in Budapest, a leading regional center for the study of the social sciences.

Under his leadership, the Open Society Foundations have supported individuals and organizations across the globe fighting for freedom of expression, accountable government, and societies that promote justice and equality. The foundations have also provided school and university fees for thousands of promising students who would otherwise have been excluded from opportunities because of their identity or where they live.

This giving has often focused on those who face discrimination purely for who they are. He has supported groups representing Europe’s Roma people, and others pushed to the margins of mainstream society, such as drug users, sex workers, and LGBTI people.

Soros has experienced such intolerance firsthand. Born in Hungary in 1930, he lived through the Nazi occupation of 1944–1945, which resulted in the murder of over 500,000 Hungarian Jews. His own Jewish family survived by securing false identity papers, concealing their backgrounds, and helping others do the same. Soros later recalled that “instead of submitting to our fate, we resisted an evil force that was much stronger than we were—yet we prevailed. Not only did we survive, but we managed to help others.”

As the Communists consolidated power in Hungary after the war, Soros left Budapest in 1947 for London, working part-time as a railway porter and as a night-club waiter to support his studies at the London School of Economics. In 1956, he emigrated to the United States, entering the world of finance and investments, where he was to make his fortune.

In 1973, he launched his own hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, and went on to become one of the most successful investors in the history of the United States.

Soros used his fortune to create the Open Society Foundations—a network of foundations, partners, and projects in more than 100 countries. Their name and work reflect the influence on Soros’s thinking of the philosophy of Karl Popper, (complete macro-marxist-lunatic) which Soros first encountered at the London School of Economics. In his book Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper argues that no philosophy or ideology is the final arbiter of truth, and that societies can only flourish when they allow for democratic governance, freedom of expression, and respect for individual rights—an approach at the core of the Open Society Foundations’ work (and presently does hourly work in a cuckoo-clock).

Soros began his philanthropy in 1979, giving scholarships to black South Africans under apartheid (thereby solving all economic and social problems there). In the 1980s, he helped promote the open exchange of ideas in Communist Hungary, by funding academic visits to the West, and supporting fledgling independent cultural groups and other initiatives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he created the Central European University as a space to foster critical thinking—at that time an alien concept at most universities in the former  Communist bloc (…he helped transfer many of the communist professors over to American KGBversities).

With the Cold  War over, he gradually expanded his philanthropy to the United States, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, supporting a vast array of new efforts to create more accountable, transparent, and democratic societies. He was one of the early prominent voices to criticize the war on drugs as “arguably more harmful than the drug problem itself,” and helped kick-start America’s medical marijuana movement. In the early 2000s, he became a vocal backer of same-sex marriage efforts. Though his causes evolved over time, they continued to hew closely to his ideals of an open society. (Saints preserve us)

His giving has reached beyond his own foundations, supporting independent organizations such as Global Witness, the International Crisis Group, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking.  (?)

Now in his 80s, Soros continues to take an active personal interest in the Open Society Foundations’ work, traveling widely to support their work and advocating for positive policy changes with world leaders both publicly and privately.  In 2017, the Open Society Foundations announced that Soros had transferred $18 billion of his fortune (found one morning under his pillow, after a visit from a tooth faerie) towards funding the future work of the Foundations, bringing his total giving to the Foundations since 1984 to over $32 billion.

Throughout Soros’s philanthropic legacy, one thing has remained constant: a commitment to fighting the world’s most intractable problems. He has been known to emphasize the importance of tackling losing causes. Indeed, many of the issues Soros has taken on—and he would be the first to admit this—are the types of issues for which a complete solution might never emerge.

“My success in the financial markets has given me a greater degree of independence than most other people,” Soros once wrote. That independence has allowed him to forge his own path towards a world that’s more open, more just, and more equitable for all.    (?)

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   (2) Parting Notes:

        What is written above about good ol' George appears to have been written by his favourite Auntie.  Perhaps the most truthful thing could have been about the early days during the Nazi Germanisation of Hungary…actually from 1939 through 1945, George and his family had a tough time of it.  After the Second World War, a foggy window cast over the activity of Soros.   He became an "investor" and dedicated much time to investment in currencies as well as certain  industries.,   And, while Soros will occasionally declare that he is not a big fan of communism, he is also dedicated to the notion that he and his closest commie buddies can figure out some way to feed and house and educate everyone "for free" without collapsing a nation's economy.   Good Luck, George. 

     It was pointed out by some leftist observers that he was helping drug users and LGQFX3B people, and same-sex marriage people, and medical marijuana people, and the Open Societies Foundations, Global Witness, European Council on Foreign Relations, etc.  It seemed to reveal what appeared to be a remarkable and generous man.  His works seem ostensibly noble, but in his case they were and are all vehicles for the imposition of marxist economic structure.   They are also actions that are compliant with the world-wide campaign to "democratise" the human race.        

      He has been and continues to be under investigation by various treasury agencies of several European nations.  How he stays out of court processes in the United States is apparently a function of extraterrestrial intervention.

As always, El Gringo Viejo appreciates your time and interest.

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The Attack of the Grumpy Griper

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     These are the times that make men into ogres;  hanging around in the house…serving as a chef and bedmaker and chauffeur.   It is glorious, perhaps, to have such time and availability…sometimes circumstances allow me to go even so far as the NEXT HEB, and not the closest one.   Tell me if freedom and liberty is or is not a wondrous and/or terrible thing…..depending, of course.

    But, on to sterner stuff.  The quality of grammar, composition, and rhetoric steadily degenerates.  One can go back to Shakespeare, Milton, Cervantes (for your Spanish), Bobby Burns and Walter Scott, and a slough of scores and hundreds good and great writers and marvel how they managed to penetrate deep into the souls and minds of so many folks.

MARGARET MITCHELL

Author of the record selling tome

GONE WITH THE WIND

1900 - 1949

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     Although it is not my intention to infuriate the female race reading this screed,  I shall state….even women can write coherent and useful prose worthy of all men to be received.  Margaret Mitchell and her profoundly insightful tome, "Gone With the Wind" and the many works of Louisa May Walcott and a million other books written by thousands of other women were and are probably all worth the investment of time one might reasonably take.

     As an aside, schools closed and even Roman Catholic Churches and Jewish Synagogues remained open on a twenty-four hours basis throughout the South after Margaret Mitchell was killed by a drunk driver in August of 1949.  Protestant Churches as well, of course…but it went on for a week or more, the outpouring of grief among the citizenry.   Some ladies even expressed condolences to my mother…hugs and other ickey  stuff…lots of runny makeup and sniffling simply because my mother was a look-alike to Margaret Mitchell.

     Why the hugging and ickey stuff?  Without any false pretence this humble writer owns up to the fact that the lady pictured above is Margaret Mitchell.   People would stop and ask to take a picture of another lady in McAllen, Texas back in those times thinking that the lady was Margaret Mitchell or a look-alike enough to fool their friends upon returning to the North after the Winter had left (McAllen and the Lower Rio Grande Valley was an important wintering place for "Yankees" in those days).   But, she was only my mother.   In those moments my greatest desire was probably to go back home and stir up an o'possum so as to have a playmate.

     We move on to my various points.   For one, it seems uncomely for an obituary to be posted with various spelling errors.  I fight them here because of the misinformation and incorrect grammar encountered on a daily basis.   "Jose Gomez, age 31, died and was barried in San Lorenzo Cematary with many of his closet family in atendance."is a small example of what we are served.   And, if one thinks it is a matter of an occasional blip down here among the unwashed, all the major newspapers in print, it seems, delight in grammatical and spelling errors.

     Some sour grapes comes from me due to the fact that some of my writing is drawn from archaic influences and the "spell check" and "grammatical cheque" sometimes works even overtime (like after I have already posted) to make "corrections" for me.

      More to the point are the failures in syntax and outright bus wrecks and building collapses one encounters en lieu of paragraphs.   For instance, "Mr. Bilbert Rogerstien was  detained by officers while driving down Mockingbird Lane last night at a high rate of speed.  After stopping the officers smelled liquor and administered a breathalyser exam, which Mr. Rogerstien failed.  He was transported to County Jail, and arraigned on a charge of Driving While Intoxicated.  He was held on a 100, 000 dollar bond due to his record of repeated violations."

     PEOPLE ARE NOT HELD ON BOND!!!!   PEOPLE SUSPECTED OF COMMITTING AN EGREGIOUS MISDEMEANOUR OR CRIME, IF THEY CANNOT FORK OVER THE NECESSARY LUCRE, ARE HELD "IN LIEU OF BOND" (meaning, instead of bond, because the dumbo was either broke, left his wallet home, or otherwise could not arrange for any method by which to post a surety bond.  He is thrown in the pokey until his wife or sister or bondsman comes up with the lucre.   If the lucre never comes, then the arrestee gets to wait for an opening in the Court Docket…a matter of five or six days…or months.).   As a for instance, the fellow who killed Margaret Mitchell had 26 arrests for DWI, at the ripe old age of 26.  Several of the citations resulted in short stays and slightly longer stays, because the family would scrape up the money to bail him out and then later pay the fines.   This last incident, in 1949 stuck him in the pokey for 12 years, being charged with "Vehicular Homicide and Driving While Intoxicated".

     But/…you all please remember…a person is held en lieu (or in lieu) of bond…not "on a bond".   A person can be released "on a bond" by posting the amount equal to the appropriate judge's requirements, conditions, and/or discretion.

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     After solving the problem above-reported we should wish to move on to the matter of the "mail-in ballot" absurdity.   First and foremost, we urge all to go an vote during the early voting period (usually about two weeks before the official election day) or, 'cause it's lots of fun really, to vote on election day.  One sees long lost acquaintances, friends, and even relatives whose names you cannot remember.

     Remembering all that we are writing almost exclusively about the matter of voting in the Republic of Texas.   Texas has had an interesting history in terms of some elections, and calamities have occurred in local, country-wide, State-wide, and national contest.

    There was a Democrat Primary race in 1948 wherein Coke Stevenson, who had stepped down from the governorship to run  for the U.S. Senate seat against a ghastly person by the name of Lyndon Baines Johnson who had been a Roosevelt lackey for a couple of terms as United States Representative for a Central Texas Congressional district.

     In those years, almost all the State-pertinent races were finished in the primaries, because in all the States of the Old Confederacy, there was frankly no Republican presence and so the matters stayed in the Post - Reconstruction Rules until after around 1962 or so.  Texas could vote Republican for a national office like President…but all the "lesser" offices required the approval of Democrat mossbacks.   It is just the way it was.

In the primary of 1948, the vote was very close…and I mean VERY close.   And guess what?   Come to-morrow morning, and the newspapers couldn't name the winner of the election for the position of Senator to be sworn in during January of 1949.   There were people who were gunned down during and after the contentions about the vote count.   There were inter and intra familial disputes, there were Anglos against Latins, Latins against Latins, Latins for Anglos, etc.etc.etc.    Seven people were killed  as a direct or indirect result of this dispute about Box 13 and the whole Election of 1948.

     Lyndon Johnson was horribly corrupt personally and politically.  That's why a broad section of the Texas populace liked the guy.   He could "get away" with things.  He was an erstwhile rancher, a sometimes school-teacher, and a political gadfly…no philosophy beyond "…how am I going to rake off my share?"   His opponent, a fairly popular Governor, was a professional man and a politician of the old school, who tried to move Texas ahead, with low taxes and sober administration.   No real imagination…but steady at the helm.

     There are still people looking for the "lost suffrage rolls" and the like.  As Coke Stevenson had essentially scraped by for his election in 1942 for United States Senator by a total of 1,900 votes more or less, so had Lyndon and Lady Bird won the same Senator's seat in 1948.   It was George and nephew Archer's brilliance to take possession of Box 13 of Jim Wells County (adjacent and to the east of the Parr's empire centre in Duvall County) in the city of Alice, Texas.   It was reasonably estimated by various "estimators" that the Parr's "influence"controlled, at a minimum, something like 13 counties in the centre of South Texas.

    There was an intrepid poll worker and his team who had managed to find  another Jim Wells County ballot box during the wee hours.   The box held almost 800 ballots.   In this case, all voters were Spanish surnamed and they had all signed in with the same style of script…full of flourish and elegance, as if written by a young, well-educated lady.  Further, the voters who "signed in" with the elegant hand had the goodness to sign in by alphabetical order.   Almost 800 people.  Eight days after the close of the election.

    The "girl" who did the executive secretarial work had attended and graduated from a private (read 'Roman Catholic') secondary and preparatory in Monterrey's rich district, Ciudad de San Pedro de Garza-Garcia, Nuevo Leon State.  Very prestigious and very excellent.   The beautiful handwriting was there.   She was a bit older but her hand was infallible in terms of quality.   It was also said of her that she was the only person in the George and Archer Operation who was honest.

    Presently, in Texas a person can request a ballot by mail…but only one.   A person, upon receipt of the ballot must fill in the voter's choices, sign in with a regular signature, and then forward the ballot to the registrar at the County Seat.   It is recommended, I believe, that a person attempt to mail his/her ballot to the registrar a week before the Tuesday, which is the first Tuesday after the 1st Monday in November of even numbered years in Texas.

     What the Democrats across the Nation in these days are pushing is to have the United States Postal Service forward ballots to everyone.  That would be an undertaking that would open literally hundreds of Pandora's Boxes in every State of the Union.  The same slime who constitute "Black Lives Matter" would have people combing and collecting these blank mailed to "Resident"by the handful.   Collection Captains would deliver thousands…scores of thousands of voted ballots without much concern for the dates of compliance and proof of authenticity and qualification as an elector.

     Election judges would be in a quandary,  and for certain the leftwing activists would be crowding into the offices of the appropriate judges and authorities demanding that the ballots be included, "because everybody should have the right to vote".  It will be inevitable.

     The one hope we have is the fact that Biden's lack of quality as a candidate might cause a deflation in the willpower of the Democrat voters to actually turn out to vote.   This next "democratic function" of the election of 2020 could well make the events of Duvall and Jim Well Counties in 1946 seem like some old cowboy movie.

More Later

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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