Vignettes

    Yesterday when driving back up from our little hideaway there were more than the usual number of military checkpoints along the highways.   It was,  quite frankly, a bit comforting.    But little things impress a person during times when a body is on a continuous slow adrenaline drip.     At a point about mid-way between our place and the border, there is a major, permanent military checkpoint.   It is always manned and it is involved with northbound traffic.

      It was good to note that this particular day there was no long line....with a hundred trucks and busses in the right lane and 150 autos in the left lane slowly edging up to be examined or not, depending on the luck of the draw or upon other, more military, reasons.    Nope...to-day it was straight to the sergeant at the receiving box.   He directed me immediately to inspection and I complied, as usual.

      Two things occurred that might be missed perhaps, at other times.   For one, I had been passed just before arrival at this checkpoint by a convoy of heavy infantry, well-armed, well-outfitted, excellent equipment order, excellent discipline and appearance.    They passed me, but had entered the normal inspection at this stop.   A lieutenant had come over to the next-to-last pick-up and saluted briskly to the officer on the right door position.

      Looking closer, there were two teams checking paperwork, vehicle ID numbers, and scanning cyber-dogtags of the soldiers with hand held computer devices.   Each team was made up of a sergeant and two PFC types.  Each vehicle was scanned, each soldier in the convoy.....quickly, coldly, and courteously.  

       The lieutenant had stepped back from the pick-up of his interest.   The officer inside, I think he was a Lt. Col. type, got down from the pick-up, handed the lieutenant a batch of forms on a clipboard and then took off his cyber-dogtags while the lieutenant's helper scanned the documents and the colonel's tags.    The lieutenant signed his rubric to some of the papers, then did a walk-around along the 8 vehicle convoy, once again checking the serial numbers on the doors and other points.

      Upon returning, the lieutenant saluted the Lt. Col., who returned the salute.   Then, oddly, they stood briefly with the left hand on the right  shoulder each of the man in front....then backed off, crossed themselves, and saluted and then went about their business.     Officers and non-coms mounted up, the Lt. Col. barked something, the convoy pulled off to the north.  It dawned on me then  that this particular heavy infantry unit was "Going into harm's way". 

      [As an aside, I encountered this group an hour and a half later on the highway south of Reynosa where they were waiting on anyone who might be trying to escape from Army offensive actions taking place at that very moment in Matamoros to the east.   It is probable that later in the day they went into Reynosa and were involved in another successful encounter against "members of organized criminal activity" who actually were fleeing in disorder from Matamoros.]

     Anyway.....back to the first checkpoint.... I was awaiting the finishing touches of my old car's inspection, and it was apparent that the non-com had dallied for a bit long at the foot well of the left-rear,  passenger seat.   He asked me about "to what I dedicated myself" to which I replied that we had a little bed and breakfast place near Victoria.   I told him about the bird and butterfly attractions and the natural backdrops, and he seemed impressed.  It dawned on me that for almost a minute and a half he had been going through  an agenda/calendar where I keep my rain records and other climate data of note.    Each page has a very nice picture of some form of wildlife found in the State of Tamaulipas and he seemed to enjoy the calendar book immensely.   I would have offered it to him but for the fact that it has my weather records from the three tropical involvements and from a particularly cold Winter episode this year.

     I gave him one of our business cards and expressed my appreciation for his service.   Perhaps on my next pass through he will be there and we can give him another agenda or maybe one for the new year with the same kind of excellent photographic work. 

Once again, there will be more later, and your attention and time are most certainly appreciated.
El Gringo Viejo   

Desde Estacion de Santa Engracia

    Selene Diaz Castro.....dueña de la Chat de la Estacion de Santa Engracia

     This is a big deal!  There is finally a way to communicate via the blog from our home area.   The owner just established this service and has..of all things...five computers.....all very advanced....especially for me...so I can receive messages, reservations, and so forth only about 5 miles from your home away from home.
More later!
The Old Gringo

Questions Keep Coming In

The responses to my silly rant have been very positive.   The problem is that the effect of the policies forwarded by this administration would be, will be a disaster for this Republic as we know it.   There is little humour in that fact.

     There have been some questions concerning President Calderon's initiative to essentially "Nacionalizar" (nationalize) the local and State level police.   Without mincing words, I will tell you that, with few reservations, it is a policy that is needed.   The ill is far outweighed by the good.

      My inclination, as an old Confederate, is to maintain local control....if anything ....to the extreme.    Little good can come of ordering society from some distant castle, far removed from the plague or flood or blight or riot.   Those who know best are most frequently found nearby, was a favourite saying of my parents
.

      The problem in Mexico is that the local police in thousands and thousands of municipios (counties), small ciudades (cities), delegaciones (subdivisions of municipios) and even Zonas Metropolitanas (metropolitan zones) and estados (States) are frequently working in very weak command and control structures...They are also exposed to very strong temptations, due to the fact that they frequently earn between 350 and 750 dollars per month.    Even with a fairly generous secondary benefit schedule...medical, small retirement, the job frequently presents more to lose than to gain.

     One of the main threats for anyone out in the hinterland is the fabled offer of the organized crime group which offers the policeman or public official the choice of "Plomo o plata", (lead or silver).  And the other famous tactic of making veiled or direct threat against a family member can be equally effective.

      It has been demonstrated that, while not perfect, the Mexican Army, the Mexican Naval Infantry, and the newly constituted uniformed national civilian police have performed between well-enough and stunningly effectively.   The military part of this formula has really been remarkable.   Self-cleansing, self-improving, self-reliant, self-disciplined, and obedient to civilian authority are all accurate terms to described the military units, now numbering 160,000 under arms and at the "front".     This does not count the "on the water" Navy which has also professionalized by quantum measure in the past 10 years.     Other military personnel not actively engaged in combat or neo-combat situations now number in the range of around 230,000 more uniformed effectives.
       These folks are dedicated to combat and combat support, they know, use, and understand cyber-combat application as well as cyber-warfare.   They have good basic and advanced education.   The federal police units make in the neighbourhood of 16,000 dollars/year along with a benefit package of about the same amount at the low end....while the military receives somewhat less at the lower ranks, but still far from subsistence.

     It appears to this observer that the processes, legal and military and constabularial, seem to function better if the recruits are gathered up from the provinces, trained well, and deployed under a single chain/level of command.   When there is a problem or a corruption issue, it is immensely more easily detected.   It is also immensely more easily guarded against by the establishment of procedures, active and passive observation and monitoring, and the building of an esprit de corps that frequently replaces temptation and avarice.     Many observers said that the possibility of  such a development in Colombia was  "impossible"  or "ridiculous", or "preposterous"....but it turned out to be very possible.

     Perhaps tomorrow I will be able to comment about the economic situation in Mexico....perhaps some surprizing observations.

Thanks for your time and attention,
El Gringo Viejo    

I Went and Did It!

Well, I finally did it. On the way to the polls to vote absentee I did a lot of thinking. It occurred to me that Obama was really a good guy who is trying to do his best for the country. I remembered all the good things the Democrats give me to make my life easier. And I thought about all those bums out on the golf course, playing golf, having a good time, just because George Bush let them have too much money.

     Then there was all the discrimination Obama's people suffered during slavery and Jim Crow, especially, or even if, none of his Kenyan people had ever heard of the United States of America until 1955, much less lived here.
      And all that stuff about Bush driving us into a ditch and letting all those people drown and die of starvation in New Orleans....over 10,000, some say it was more like 250,000....no one will ever know. The fact is that the conspiracy to eliminate New Orleans began with Eisenhower and was finally implemented by Bush....and it could have been 623,000 people who died. Everyone knows this and that's why they have to keep it a secret.
     And I had to remember that "teachable moment" when Obama showed me the errors of my way of thinking....when the police in Massachusetts had "behaved stupidly" .....To think..a man so brilliant that he could use this as a "teachable moment" about the police "behaving stupidly" when He did not even have, according to He Himself, "all the facts". That truly speaks to inspired brilliance.
     All I can say is that for the first time....the first time in my adult life....I have been proud of my country. Any country that can run up 2,400,000,000,000 dollars of national debt load in two years with absolutely nothing to show for it....has to be a great country.
     What finally did it in for me was to think that Obama's aunt is an illegal alien, living on complete public support...and she recognized what it really meant when the people sing..."the land of the free (lunch, housing, electricity, everything)"...it is truly inspiring.....and of course, His half-brother who really is a Mohammedan with two wives...but wait...marry now and you get another wife...ABSOLUTELY FREE. And sho' nuff...Obama's brother in Kenya...at age 52, gets to have a third wife, aged 18, ABSOLUTELY FREE! You just have to admire Obama.... His family ties.... His intellectual enlightenment.
     As I went into the polls there was a homeless guy...pretty well known here in the McAllen area. He panhandles everyone...works the bigger intersections mainly....and he came up to me and asked " Hey, buddy....I hope you can spare me some change." How could I resist?
      So, I went on in and voted straight Republican,  just like always.   

Thanks for your time and attention


The Old Gringo

A Few Observations

     There comes a point when a few small observations are required.   Everyone here knows my political orientation, so please do not think of me as un-American.

     I have a bit of passing familiarity with Falcon Reservoir.   It was my pleasure to be there when it was dedicated by President Eisenhower and President Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez back on one incredibly hot (before global warming was caused by Gerge Bush), terribly windy October day in 1953.   My Godfather had been the contractor who built all the housing for the "Dam workers" ....a requirement because Falcon Dam was pretty far removed from anything, and the personnel pretty much had to remain on-site.   The Employees' Village numbered about 30 nice homes, with 2, 3, and 4 bedrooms.    We thought it was pretty neat that someone could rent a really nice home with 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths for 12 dollars a month.

     We fished there after it filled from the effects of Hurricane Donna...which ended the drought of the early 1950's.   During my high-school days we fished there, and in the Rio Grande below the dam several miles to Chapen~o, Salinen~o, and "puntos intermedios".    We would always take advantage of the really excellent, even if a bit plain, restaurants in nearby places in Mexico where a guy could score a huge "Mexican Plate" for 3 pesos including a Coca-cola or a really good Gringo style hamburger and a Coke for 1 peso.    That was a range of 8 American cents to 24 American cents....in 1962-1964.

     We frequently travelled over to the old colonial city of Guerrero, originally known as Carrizales in the colonial period, to see the effects of its inundation.   My mother and various people in the Valley were saddened at the loss of the city because it was truly a little picture post-card town....very clean and  picturesque.

      We would camp out on the Rio Grande below Falcon Dam in various places....using the law in Texas which permitted people free access to cross over private property in order to gain access to rivers within the State.   Actually, I spent a good part of my senior year pretty much camped out there.  That did not help my grade point average.....but I was arrogant and knew that I would do well on the SAT.   (Of course, it would have been better to have a high SAT score and a high gpa.)

     It was all very pleasant.   There were few if any problems.   The Mexicans always treated us like human beings, whether we deserved it or not.   The scenery was magnificent...especially for flatlanders from McAllen....for it was from Falcon Dam where a person could frequently see the Sierra de los Picachos....which parallel the Sierra Madre Oriental....sixty miles to the west.   Monterrey itself....kind of like the Capital not just of Nuevo Leon but of Northern Mexico in a way.....is only 90 miles from the Dam by straight line.

     In any regard, with reference to the issues of to-day, there are things that are not reported and things that are reported incorrectly.   I am saddened that FOXNews and my local station KURV-710 have been just as misleading and inaccurate as the rest of the media in this matter.  

     One thing that needs to be stated at the beginning of this observation is that the Mexican military has just completed an incredibly successful operation in an hemispheric area 20 miles in radius from a point placed on the center of Falcon Dam.   This operation was conducted in September, and was puncuated by two major engagements; one between Parras, Nuevo Leon and  General Trevin~o, Nuevo Leon and the other in a place just southwest of Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas.   The two points are about 18 miles apart from one another.   In the two encounters 58 cartel members were killed, 20 were taken prisoner, a score of late-model motor-vehicles (SUV's, BMW's, etc.) were decommisioned along with much militaria.  They were, according to various reasonable observers, gradually isolating a peninsula near Old Guerrero, the submerged city, where a body of "mules" had set up something akin to a hobo camp.   These mules were/are guys who used to dedicate themselves to commercial fishing on the lake.

      As these times and opportunities came to them, they began taking loads of illegal drugs and marihuana and  illegal aliens across the lake at night in their "pangas".  A "panga" is a very high-prowed, bulky, very under-powered (25 horsepower), 20 foot,  plasti-foam boat which can carry considerable weight and freight....at low to moderate speeds.

      At first it was done for fun and profit and adventure....and then it became a matter of "do it or else"...as it is with all organized crime.   Various sweeps of lesser and greater intensity and commitment by civilian authority dented but did not eliminate this activity.   But with the steady criss-crossing offensive by the Mexican Army and the Mexican Naval Infantry occurring in the near distance....along with better measures taken by State and Federal police entities....the cartel people have been put at a disadvantage, leaving the "pangeros" (boatmen) to now huddle on a peninsula near Old Guerrero where they hide in an area of mesquite and willow thickets of about 120 acres extension.

      The purported visit by the Colorado couple for the purpose of taking pictures of the old parish church of Guerrero Viejo interrupted this scene, both for the "pangeros" and the military.   Throughout the American side of the Lake there are written announcements urging that people avoid that particular area of a huge lake that, at this moment is about 60 miles long and about 17 miles wide at its widest point...which includes the mouth of the Rio Salado.    The couple had lived and worked in Reynosa, across from McAllen, with an American company associated with the development of the massive natural gas reserves in the northeastern Mexico area,  for the past three years.    They had recently moved to McAllen...because the company had become concerned about the cartel activity....and the couple was going to be moving back to Colorado in any regard.    The pick-up they drove from McAllen to Zapata on the Lake with was still bearing Mexican license plates from the State of Tamaulipas.    In short, they had to have been well aware that Falcon Lake was a safe place to jet ski, fish, and have a good time...... EXCEPT FOR ONE PLACE.    This was not a stupid or ignorant couple, but at best, they did make a significant error in judgement

               NOT EVEN THE OLD GRINGO WOULD HAVE GONE INTO THAT PARTICULAR AREA OF FALCON LAKE IN THESE DAYS, AT THIS TIME.    Any of about 99.5% of Mexico you might find me....but not at that particular point.

     It should be pointed out that, contrary to published and broadcasted reports,  the Mexican Army began searching the area the day after the incident and gradually added capacity...machinery (helicopters, boats, dogs, American satellite information, GPS, etc.).   Searching has continued, even to this date, but there has been no body....no jet ski....
     With more local people on the Mexican side feeling more comfortable because of the presence of a battalion of heavy infantry taking up positions in the town of Nuevo Guerrero (built to replace the old, inundated town) the local citizens are celebrating "liberation".....They are insistent that the Army not leave.    This fact has been recorded on Mexican and American television news programs, stated on camera by locals.     But there has been no body.....no jet ski.....and the Texas Rangers have not returned, to date, certain items of interest that they took for analysis on the day of the report of the incident.

Now, I am done.   Thank you as always for your interest and attention.
The Old Gringo

Celebration

     This is a very serious matter to my psychological health....which .normally ranges between hopeless to incurable.   We have an old Dodge Dynasty...a 1992 model...which we keep in the family because it belonged to my father-in-law.    It was bought new by him and has been with the family, obviously, forever. 

     It has the 3.3 V6 and a five-speed automatic.     We have had a bit of trouble with this and that, but it has generally performed well.   It makes 30 miles to the gallon, cruising at 62 miles per hour and still, after 250,000 miles, uses no oil.   We also keep it, because it is so old that it attracts little attention   which serves well when driving around in Mexico, or anywhere during these days.   It is in such a good condition however, that, especially when in Mexico,  I rarely can stop without someone asking if it is for sale. 

     Anyway, we've replaced the radiator, a recently dysfunctional elevator for the driver's power window, an AM-FM-Cassette Stereo (no cd capacity), and it needs a new windshield.   We checked the brakes a while back....but the mechanic said there was really no need for any service....the squeaking had been caused by a bit of dust.   The car, oddly, has four-wheel disc brakes.

     The biggest problem is a cranky transmission that hates cold.   It will fail to shift from 2nd to 3rd and sometimes it will suddenly shift down from 3rd to 2nd for no reason and without warning.   If I can get it up into 5th gear then I can go forever.....but the trick is to warm everything up so that can do that.   Sometimes it helps to make sure there is transmission fluid as well.  (One time the Quicky-Lube people drained the wrong sprigot).

     During the last week it has given me a bit of trouble trying to shift up into 3rd gear, and I was losing patience, becoming depressed, moaning, and whining.     My search for the metal piercing 38 cal. cartridges was interrupted by a desire to give the old Dynasty one last chance.    So, I went out, warmed it up.....recalling that early morning temperatures have been hovering  around 59 and 60 degrees...well below the Dynasty's point of toleration.    "Perhaps", thought I " it is necessary to go through the warming up procedure a bit longer"

     The procedure is to drive it a short distance...two or three blocks...then stop, turn off the engine, count to 15 slowly....and start up and go again.   If the transmission fails to shift from 2nd to 3rd...then repeat procedure #1.     Normally, during the Summer it takes 3 to 4 tries...when necessary...and it's off we go.    During the Winter it is best to start the engine, let it idle for 2 minutes, and then take off.   It can take from 0 to 4 tries in the Winter depending upon the Moon stage or something. 

     Anyway...I have just returned from transmission therapy and I now have three mornings in a row that the transmission has returned to its old predictable dysfunction....so now I am happy.   Once a person can get back into the "predictable dysfunction" range of a horse or motor-car then he can live with it.   The really odd thing is that once the Dynasty gets out of its "grumpy morning syndrome" then the rest of the day...no matter how hot or cold....the transmission is a smooth as a button.    Really strange....probably had some estrogen in the transmission fluid one time.
Thanks again.
The Old Gringo