By the way, Rush

     From one who had people in his background who used the term and applied it to themselves at times, allow me to interject for all the people who are still actually sane out there.    Cracker, like the word Gringo, is a term of balance.  It is only an insult if it is said in an insulting way.  Red-neck, hill-billy, web-foot (Cajun), and a thousand other terms are used  to describe what is essentially best defined as the Upland South White Man.  Red-necks are normally associated with eastern Texas, northernmost Louisiana, and Arkansas.  Georgia, especially north Georgia is the home of the Cracker, Eastern Tennessee-Western North Carolina and South Carolina is hillbilly....and to a lesser extent southern Missouri and northern Arkansas (Ozarks and Boston Mountains people).    Central Texas has what the Mexicans call "posteros" or "cedar-choppers" ....people who make posts from cedar limbs.    And on, and on.

BUT!    Cracker is certainly a person of both great and small resource. But either way, he or she is a person who cracks a cob of un-shelled corn shortly after harvest, and throws different parts into different piles.   This base end of fat corn goes to the still'n, and the middle three-fourths we'll put'n in for grindin' into pone-meal.  And the tail of d'cob will go to the hogs.    Of course,  any leavings will be raked up and fed to the chickens.....but not that mean old rooster over there....he just won't share to be beaten.   (he is so obstinate that he'll take a beating before he shares.)

     When the song says, "Jimmy, crack corn, and I don't care....",  it refers to a person who is not qualified to judge which part of the corn goes to where, being allowed to  crack corn caus'n the one who is in charge just doesn't care how the job winds up.

     Oddly, the term applies generally to white folks, but in the good old days the black folks were as apt to be sittin' on the upside-down bucket singin' or gossipin' while "dey cracked de coin".    Further, in some of those places a Yankee would have to sneak up really close to tell if da talkin' people wuz a white cracker or a black cracker.....caus'n they sounded a lot alike.  The accent points and pronunciation written in this little paragraph, for instance, is how my Granma Mamie and Granpa Rex sounded.    They were from Eastern Tennessee.
     Hand-powered kernelers or shellers pretty much destroyed the "cracking" of corn by the turn from the 1800s into the 1900s in all save the most traditional areas.

Pleasant Hill Grain
Corn Sheller

Tough cast iron construction & fast, easy operation!

White Southerners wear our provinciality as a badge of honor.   We thought the Beverly Hillbillies and the Dukes of Hazard was genealogical about our own famblies.   We were rat proud of all o'dem.

El Gringo Viejo   

"Just be reasonable"

Rodney and Gangrich are the same.   Each of them beg the analogy.   The analogy is:

     A passenger liner is steaming through the night, at 24 knots, in spite of the fact that there are more icebergs than fish ahead.   The ship finally strikes an iceberg that is three time the size of the passenger liner.   The iceberg wins.

     Rodney lurches up in his bunk and runs over to the dresser in his drawing room.  He moves his socks and handkerchiefs from one side of the drawer to the other.   He also remember s that he meant to change the blade in his razor.    The clatter wakes up Gangrich who promptly goes over to the same chest and places his socks and handkerchiefs where Rodney's had been put, changing Rodney's back to where they had been before.

      He thinks,"I might should change my razor blade."   But he decides that he can do that in the morning.   "Why are all those stupid emergency sirens going off?"

      "Who cares, you're stupid," responds Rodney.

      "Pots and Kettles.   Sticks and Stones," snickers Gangrich. 

"Where did you put my socks?"  "That's for me to know

and for you to find out" "Turn the light out" "No!"

"I'm gonna tell.""Shut up" "Are we there, yet?"

     The "wise ones" and the "moderate Republicans" who look down their noses at those of us unwashed radicals who wander in the desert, living off of the locusts and the honey and drinking with the camels are really much more enlightened than us, the little, extemist hot-heads who cannot grasp the art of reasonable compromise and seeing the other point of view.

Gerald Ford, King George I, McCain, and now Rodney....or Gangrich?   The only reason King George II won his first election in 2000a.d. was because he was running against a dolt who invented Global Warming.    At least he finally gave us "free prescriptions for Geezers"....that solved all the problems.   You see, the government pays for it.   That way it doesn't cost anything.

Vote forSantorum....to stop the bleeding at least.    The patient may already be dead.

     The nation is well beyond at-risk.   We are in danger of drowning in a sea of red ink, in a morass of entitlement, in a quagmire of socially-defective, dependent-groups producing hordes of meth and crack heads, moral and mental slugs.  We are surrounded by consumers and prostitute business and labour interests.   And Rodney and Gangrich want me to worry about, each the other's, money posture?    Beam me anywhere, Scottie, quick!

Free money for Geezers now!   Free money!!!!! Now!!!!

El Gringo Viejo

Josephina Vazquez Mota, Accustom Yourself with the Name

We are happier to report that our favourite in the Mexican Presidential race, within the centre-right National Action Party, has pulled out to a substantial lead for her party's nomination.   We have Josefina Vazquez Mota, who has steadily built a lead and now, according to reliable polling among PAN "militantes", she has over 60% of the votes heading into the final nomination convention on 5 February 2012.    She is something like a Michelle Bachmann/Santorum cross.   She has worked privately, successfully.   She has government experience, serving as Secretary of Social Development and as chief economic advisor to the President.    The leftist press calls her "La Borracha  (the drunken woman)" because of her sleepy eyes and they refer to her as "La Nin~a con Cara de Mona del Planeta de los Monos (the little girl with the ape-face from the Planet of the Apes).    However, a centrist "body language specialist" from Mexico City....a person of considerable understatement and highly respected as a psychologist and analyst of such things....says the following:

     En conclusión, Vázquez Mota me parece, de los tres pre-candidatos, la más auténtica. Es una mujer expresiva, intuitiva y asertiva.   Su gran desventaja, la inexperiencia (en comparación a otros políticos) y la timidez que a veces refleja (a veces en su sonrisa, pero sobre todo lo observamos en algunas posturas cerradas). Evidentemente, no es nada fácil presentarse ante una audiencia, los nervios son perfectamente normales. Sin embargo, de llegar a ser la candidata Presidencial de su partido, esto sí le podría jugar en contra sobre todo ante un personaje como López Obrador (que proyecta fuerza y autoridad).

     In conclusion, Vazquez Mota appears to me, of the three pre-candidates, the most authentic (is as she looks, sincere).   She is an expressive, intuitive and assertive woman.   Her greatest disadvantage....(compared to the other politicians)....is her inexperience and her timidity that at times is reflected (at times in her smile, but above all, we observe it in certain 'barrier postures').   Evidently, it is not easy to present oneself before an audience, to be nervous is perfectly normal.  However, upon arriving at the point of being a Presidential candidate  of her party, this might play against her, above all else before a personality such as Lopez Obrador (who projects forcefulness and authourity).

     It is well to point out that this same analyst later declares Lopez Obrador (communist) to reflect his forcefulness and authouritativeness as does a drunken, braying donkey.....which makes sense because that is what he revealed in the last Presidential elections.    In that episode he made a fool of himself in the first debate and then said he would not attend the next two debates because ".....I have already won the election, anyway".     Works for me.

One of the greatest political pictures of all time.   On the left is the woman who
gave Snow White the poisoned apples.   This picture was taken when the leaders of
each party's faction in the Mexican Congress's lower house (Camara de Diputados)
were having an official group picture made.    The one on the right is our girl, when
she had been selected to lead th Partido de Accion Nacional, (PAN) on the floor.
The other one was the leader of the old, frumpy centrist party, the Partido
Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and doubles as the head of the national teachers' union.
   She is as evil as Nancy Pelosi, but sadly she is also much more intelligent.   But would
you want to see her on the other side of the breakfast table?

     It would serve the Republicans well to follow the lead of their brethren in Mexico and support the moderate Yankee, Santorum at this point and leave the two elitist, liberal Republicans out on the line to dry.   They have demonstrated that they have only their own interests within their hearts and souls(?), and Santorum has demonstrated that he has the interest of the nation placed foremost in his pecking order.    He has also proposed "government-get-out-of-the-way" solutions....which is good.    All the problems we have right now can be traced back to central government programs and legislation...social security, medicare, medicaid, establishment and subsequent dissolution of the underclass, military diminishment, FmHA and FHA, EPA, educational decay....now far beyond repair, etc.   All predictable failures due to the fact that they come from marxist utopians and people who live in Chappaqua and want to tell the hoit poloi how, when, and where to live.

More later.

El Gringo Viejo

The Quiet War in the Anglican Communion

     El Gringo Viejo was moved to respond to the kindly Rev. Father Wier, a nice Episcopal priest whose concerns are well placed, I am sure.   He seems puzzled that the Republican people would think it appropriate to rely on tax cuts for the investing class....and lower taxes overall...as a method of providing employment and economic prosperity for what is generally termed the "middle class".
     El Gringo Viejo is not a kindly, nice old man.   He is a curmudgeon who has tired of placing ugly, evil, sloth, filth, arrogant sense of entitlement, violence, coarseness, vulgarity, perversity, and treachery over Divine order and natural law.   El Gringo Viejo is now too old to learn to be kinder and gentler to people who expect someone else to provide food for children whose parents care naught about them.  And food for those same parents, as well, also comes along with the package.

     The Gringo Viejo's over-reaction on the blog of the Anglican Curmudgeon is placed here for the view of all.  He feels bad for having to state the matter in the way it is stated, but does not apologise for the defense of the Natural Law of Creation.

The Old Gringo said...

     The Rev. Mr. Wier is a well-spoken man. His ideas deserve some reasonable comment, obviously. The question he raises is about calling Mr. Obama "the food stamp President". My comments are not reasonable. They are founded in a passion originating in reality.
     The fact is that Obama is.    That is the meaning of is.    Democrats and socialists desire the death of a sinner's soul and that he become the slave of Man, not of Good. The Democrat Party...all leftist parties....desire the death of a man's soul and that he replace his loyalty away from Yahweh and towards those on Earth who know what is best for each man.
      Large businesses also sell themselves to the call of Lucifer's enchantment by pointing out that farmers, food processors, transporters, and grocery outlets, along with school feed-the-fat-afdc children, all benefit from Lucifer's feeding the people and the children. After all, if the elites and Lucifer do not feed the people, who will? They themselves? Who will feed the "minority children"?    Will it be the "minority parents"? Who will feed the "majority children"?   Should it be the "majority parents"?  What a brutal notion.     However novel, it is silly. How quaint and backwards to think that people should feed themselves and their own children.

          We are told that it is better to give than to receive. We were told, in the Olden Tymes, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven".
       Now we are told,"If you have, you are evil. If you support yourself and give the second gleaning to the poor then you are a Republican. You are evil and part of the one percent."
       The only good people are those who whelp without plan, who demand to be supported, and who strive to become grandmothers when they are younger than 26 years. The only good businesses are those that depend on Lucifer's subsidies. And the only good churches are those who doubt every element of the Creed of Nicea, who know that homosexuals are better than perverted normal people and that aetheist women should wear cleric's collars and traditional women should be spayed.
Thank you, Father, for you time and patience.

January 30, 2012 9:57 AM

Thanks for the readers' time and patience as well.

El Gringo Viejo

Grumpy Old Grumpy Old Men

(a)    Why do the pinkoes at Google think they have to change the foremat for composition and posting processes on the blogspot.com system?    Is there a  "no sleeping dog left un-kicked" policy that is universally enforced by all pinkoes and leftists?    Is there some bastard son of Ernesto Guevara who works late at night and finds out that the Gringo Viejo is comfortable making his rants and grumbles with the same crummy system that he has used for 327 years?    Is is (Sir Edmund) Hillary I,  Eternal Queen of the Universe and the Duchess of Chappaqua?  Is it Eric Holder, working under orders from Father O'bamaham?    Before long, after a person realises that the entire world is out to get him, he becomes a bit paranoid.....or quadranoid.

     In any regard,  yesterday we were attending a bit of a parade, celebrating the founding of one of our locale's early industries.....grapefruit production.   It is the 75th anniversary of the event so in keeping with the theme of diamonds and such they decided to have a Mardi Gras theme in order to celebrate grapefruit and diamonds.   Such is the living proof of the usefulness of committees.    It was pleasant enough, however.

      The low point of the episode was when we went into the supermarket to by some inconsequential this-or-that and fell in behind the people in the express check-out.   Turned out there was a committee at the check out and they were sending members out to refine their wish-list of selection.   After about 5 minutes of waiting around on their coming and going, going and coming, debatinig about whether a 202 ounce Mountain Dew would be better than six 2-liter Coca Cola and would it be better to have ten mega-bags of Doritos and 20 tubes of Pringles or maybe just the 40 pound industrial strength jalapen~o Frito bag.....a non-nourishment-challenged girl searched through her several Lone Star Cards (automatic food stamps in Texas) and finally decided to ask a female relative for one of her cards...and they paid....finally...the sum of  $26.44. 
     I had to restrain my poor wife.   She had to restrain me....Even the cashier was angry and depressed.   "Please help me, I have to see this all day everyday at this store."....His words helped us calm down a bit.

Earth to Newt....Earth to Mitt...Dust Bin of History Approaching

Newt was right.    When he asked the CNN interrogator about wasting time with questions about things other than presidential level policy alternatives.    So, one can assume that   Newt likes irrelevancy when he wants to have a hissy-fit about whether or not Romney has stock in this or that company or a bank account in Switzerland or the Caymans,  or any number of other mind-numbing, pointless matters.

Mitt Oreck
for President

     Newt,  IT'S REALLY NOBODY'S BUSINESS.   Your private income is not my business, Romney's is not my business, Mrs. Gluberstiens's income is not my business.   If there is something illegal about the method of gaining income, about the method of investment,  some day it will come out.    You were the one who was floating (aka: kiting) checks during your time as a United States Congressman.   In fact, your taking advantage of zero-net-negative-checking-account-innovative- personal-financing ranked you up at second place as a privilege abuser.

      And, Mitt....Your presentation of Newt's lobbying for Freddie and Fanny is patently untrue.  A government consultation contract of 1.6 million dollars was not a payment made in cash in some dark alley....composed of used and un-marked 5 and 10 dollar bills.   Furthermore, as you know, the money was turned around in payment for office lease, salaries for clerical people and researchers, and telephone and computer connections, insurances, and all the other paper clip and toner things involved in running a doctor's office or a consulting firm.     That is was a waste of government money goes without saying.    Franklin Raines retirement bonus of 60,000,000.00 dollars was also a bit of an invasion of the exchequer as well, but at least Franklin did absolutely nothing for it save for successfully deleting all of the White House emails from the 1994 through 2000 period.   That's when Franklin was White House Communications Director.   Then Clinton appointed him to head the Freddie quagmire.   Quid pro crook....

     The point of it all is that you both should be named Oreck.   Mitt Oreck and Newt Oreck.   Or maybe Hoover.   Newt and Mitt Hoover.   Because your childish sitting in a muck-slump and pouting and snivelling over totally pointless personal details has demonstrated that neither of you is qualified in the final analysis to be president of the Welcome Wagon Committee.   You remind me of two sophomore girls in the dorm cramming for finals while suffering PMS and pimple outbreaks.

Newt Hoover, GOP Candidate

for the Presidency

While suffering their problems they begin to fight over which one of them will get to have first access to the make-up mirror in the morning.   That is the discomforting image that El Gringo Viejo has of the two of you.   During their next encounter, perhaps we can be treated to a mud-wrestling match with the two of them dressed in cheerleader drag.

     This is not what we were hoping for when we were told that you both were "aspirants"  for election to the office of the Presidency of the United States of America.   Instead of being "aspirants", you both turn out to be "aspirators" instead.     It becomes necessary to reiterate ones support for the best available candidate in the mix, and that would have to be Sen. Santorum.    He is the only one who understands that we do not need any further "adjustments" or "temporary debt ceiling authourisations" .   The Republic is running at 28 knots in the Adriatic....in the dark.....near the shoals....near an island named Giglio.

     The display presented by last night's "debate" leaves a person rather much like surviving a shipwreck.   Gee, I'm alive....but nobody knows where we are and we have these other idiots here on the same un-charted island....Gilligan, Mary Ann, Thurston, Tina, the Professor, Mr. Howell....

Thanks for putting up with the ever-optimistic
Gringo Viejo