Auld Lang Syne (With Lyrics and English Translation)

Catching Up - Odds and Ends - Commentary about the American Election Process

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THE PAST MONTH AT THE QUINTA:

     As the regular OROGs  (Official Readers of the Old Gringo) know,   we were out for about a month at our little place in the middle of nowhere Mexico.  All in all it was a pleasant exile, quite dull save for a few Christmas pyrotechnics that drove our cats and dogs crazy.

     We were covered up by hummingbirds, perhaps eight or nine species.  There was a strong return of the mountain-dwelling bumblebee hummingbird, said to weigh something between the weight of an American nickel and dime.  They are bright-black, and ever-so-tiny;  two inches is the length of a male.   Ten years ago they were fairly numerous in the lower skirts of the Sierra Madre Oriental during the Spring, but gradually became fewer in number, sometimes skipping out on the entire downslope visit business.

     Other species of our feathered friends were especially numerous, considering that we were entering the darkest days of the year.   Mornings were quite brisk, always in the lower 50s and several early morning readings in the 40s and even a couple of drops into the upper 30s.   Afternoons were always comfortable with highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s.  

     Our little water pump that charges our running water inside the walls of our adobe cottage, as well as providing for garden watering at times, gave up the ghost after almost 15 years of faithful service.   So that required quite a bit of diagnosis, kibitzing, tinkering, and finally Unction, followed by a run into Ciudad Victoria to buy a new pump.

     The years have provided the same effect upon pump motors as they have all the electronic stuff that surrounds us.  Everything is smaller and more powerful.  With a bit of skepticism and the shelling out of about 3,500 pesos (about 200 dollars) we returned to our little place in the Santa Engracia outback.   Alvaro, our majordomo, summoned the maestro plomero (master plumber) Arturo, and within an hour had the new motor installed and  running smartly.

     We always scratch our heads when the  Maestros of the various blue-collar skill groupings charge for their labour.  In this case we had to fork over to Arturo the massive amount of 350 pesos, which is around 20 USD at this point.   And our workmen are the types who clean up everything after the job is done, and who do not leave until they have checked out the functionality of their work, be it new construction or an installation, or a repair.

     Another interesting development was the request for accommodation by the last remaining offspring of the last great hacendado (traditional hacienda owner).   The lady, born Alicia Martinez, daughter of Jose Martinez Gomez sent a long-time, local personal attendant to our humble place to ask if we could put up a couple of Don~a Alicia's friends at the end of the year.

     We were surprised because Don~a Alicia has two large homes across the street from the Hacienda de Santa Engracia where she was born and raised.  The two large houses, adjacent to the old stables which housed some of the finest horses in Mexico at one time, are antiques, dating from the 1830s.  Having been in only one, and then only briefly, it was easy to appreciate that they were are are still very elegant properties,  especially on the inside. 

     As it turned out, Don~a Alicia was having a small get-together, and was going to put up a couple of people in her main house, a foursome in the second twin house adjacent to her lodging, and then was hoping to have us take another couple in for a couple or three nights.   We thought it a bit strange, because she had the Hacienda de Santa Engracia right across the street, and no-one alive has more connection to that facility that Don~a Alicia.

     Remember that the Hacienda is also a 5-star hotel, full of lore, gardens, a swimming pool, scores of ghosts, and other attributes.  We learned a bit later that, due to the various changes in the composition of the ownership, Don~a Alicia no longer has any particular leverage on rates or anything much beyond respectful treatment.

     Her personal assistant painted out what was needed, and then asked if we had any space available.   El Gringo Viejo was a bit surprised to say the least, but responded that we had our room available for the dates that had been mentioned.   The assistant, named Carolina, called on her cellular to her mistress and advised that El Gringo Viejo had space and would keep it reserved for her two friends.   So, that was that.

     I asked Carolina if perhaps she would like to see the room.   She seemed almost astonished for some reason,  but then responded in a very animated manner in the positive.   Upon entering she declared, "Que hermosa habitation!"  (What a beautiful room!).   I directed her to the bath, which is, in fact, quite large and well equipped, especially for the area.   Carolina was very animated, and was already dialing up Don~a Alicia as we walked back to where her brother was minding a grandson.

      Carolina extolled the quarters she had seen in very glowing terms, and suddenly asked, "Don~a Licha would like to speak to you, if possible."   So, El Gringo Viejo took the telephone and engaged the revered aristocrat carefully. Once we were through and settled on prices and conditions, we parted company.   It was all very interesting.  ("Licha" is a diminutive and/or nickname for Alicia.)

     We had come full cycle.   An eccentric Gringo interloper accommodating guests of the daughter  of the last great Hacendado.

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THE AMERICAN ELECTION:

     (1)    We are replacing a man who was elected by people who were/are stupid.....according to a certain Dr. Gruber, the architect of the Obama Socialised Medicine Initiative.    The American Obsolete Press has buried Dr. Gruber deep into the confines of some dark swamp.   The Stupid never knew about Dr. Gruber before, during, or after either of the elections of Barrack Hussein Obama.   Still to this day, very few, beyond those in the Conservative  camp, have ever known of the existence that particular personality.

    Why?   Because they are generally intentionally ill-informed, incapable of being informed, uncaring, or aloof and committed marxists.

     (2)     We  are presented with eight years of truly slimy, undeservedly arrogant, incompetent, racist, and marxist oriented presidency that will supposedly be followed by another eight years of the same.   This time the incumbent will be an equally mendacious, incompetent, America hating narcissist.   She, like Barack Hussein Obama, is under the control of a Persian communist.   Huma controls (Sir Edmund) Hillary passively, perhaps the way she controls her hubby, the famous Anthony Weiner.....the famous auto- photographic - email specialist.

     The other president, soon to be gone, perhaps to be named President of the United Nations for life, has a controller who is much more assertive, Valerie Jarrett who also has a communist family background,  as well as Persian background.   Both controllers were born in Persia (now known as Iran), both Presidents are hopelessly shallow.   The only thing that has allowed these two Presidents to remotely maintain sway over the electorate, as we now return to the first point, is the willing lack of critical thinking or even interest in the American political-economic complexion on the part of what appears to be a slight majority of the electorate.

    That willingness to be apathetic and ignorant is cultivated every second of every minute of every hour is the Obsolete Press and the popular performing culture.

Harold Stassen

Candidate for the Republican
nomination  for President on
ten (10) occasions from 1940
through 1980

     We are not saying that two female Rasputins are the sole controllers, or handlers of the marionettes strings.   We realise well  that they represent only two of the several thousand who awake daily to go about the work of killing the Republic and imposing upon the hapless citizenry a totalitarian national socialist Gulagstag.   How peculiar.

     On the other hand, we watch as the Republican Party undergoes a very,  difficult labour and  delivery.  All form and nature of Republicanism is on display.   It is keenly apparent that the stodgy pseudo-conservative control group known as the Establishment is quaking it it collective boots.

    They seem to be dedicated to the notion that we must nominate the only person who can win, a non-binding philosophy of moderation that they say has been successful every time it has been employed.   Referred to as the Harold Stassen Rule,  they have had many successes.   Ford, GHW Bush, Dole, McCain, Romney, and Hoover have clearly demonstrated their brilliant strategy of presenting mayonnaise and healthy, low fat margarine to the public as a Republican campaign platform.

     We are left with a good set of candidates after all the posturing, clucking of hens, and preening of show-cats.   Christy, Bush, Kasich, and some others are still bravely rowing towards the finish line, although their canoes have long since stuck themselves into some kind of sandy goo in the part of the river that has no water.  This leaves Carson, Fiorina, Paul, Rubio, and Cruz to weld a conservative battering ram that might be able to distract the American Lemming Association from nominating the Republican version of Hope and Change.

     Donald Trump is the American political equivalent to some organism composed of the personalities of Ross Perot and Harry Houdini.   He unites everyone who can believe, if only for a moment, that Trump "thinks the way I think and feel".  One can almost envision the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "When You Wish Upon a Star" as cameras pan across the crowds of dolts who believe in the Republican equivalent of "Hope and Change".

    As for this Gringo Viejo, my lot is cast not for the lesser of evils but for the candidate he deduces is best, and that person is Cruz.  It would be possible to support the four others named before him with energy, listed above.  But, as a Texan, and as one who has followed the man with interest over the past eight years, I made my commitment early on for him and his dedication to strict constitutionalist and republican government.

There, we have railed forth and bellowed long and loud.  We are back in the saddle again.  More to-morrow.
El Gringo Viejo

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So much chaff and so little wheat....

PAUL RYAN'S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS

A List of Republican Budget Cuts

Notice S.S. And the military are NOT on this list.

These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting.

Read to the end.

* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings.

* Save America 's Treasures Program -- $25 million annual savings.

* International Fund for Ireland -- $17 million annual savings.

* Legal Services Corporation -- $420 million annual savings.

* National Endowment for the Arts -- $167.5 million annual savings.

* National Endowment for the Humanities -- $167.5 million annual savings.

* Hope VI Program -- $250 million annual savings.

* Amtrak Subsidies -- $1.565 billion annual savings.

* Eliminate duplicating education programs -- H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon , eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.

* U.S. Trade Development Agency -- $55 million annual savings.

* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy -- $20 million annual savings.

* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding -- $47 million annual savings.

* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy -- $430,000 annual savings.

* Community Development Fund -- $4.5 billion annual savings.

* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid -- $24 million annual savings.

* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half -- $7.5 billion annual savings

* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% -- $600 million annual savings.

* Essential Air Service -- $150 million annual savings.

* Technology Innovation Program -- $70 million annual savings.

*Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program -- $125 million annual savings..

* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization -- $530 million annual savings.

* Beach Replenishment -- $95 million annual savings. 

* New Starts Transit -- $2 billion annual savings.

* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts -- $9 million annual savings

* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants -- $2.5 billion annual savings.

* Title X Family Planning -- $318 million annual savings.

* Appalachian Regional Commission -- $76 million annual savings.

* Economic Development Administration -- $293 million annual savings.

* Programs under the National and Community Services Act -- $1.15 billion annual savings.

* Applied Research at Department of Energy -- $1.27 billion annual savings.

* Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership -- $200 million annual savings..

* Energy Star Program -- $52 million annual savings.

*Economic Assistance to Egypt -- $250 million annually.

* U.S.Agency for International Development -- $1.39 billion annual savings.

* General Assistance to District of Columbia -- $210 million annual savings.

* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority -- $150 million annual savings.

*Presidential Campaign Fund -- $775 million savings over ten years.

* No funding for federal office space acquisition -- $864 million annual savings.

* End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.

* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act -- More than $1 billion annually.

* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings over ten years. 

*Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees -- $1 billion total savings. WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?

* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees -- $1.2 billion savings over ten years.

* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of -- $15 billion total savings.

*Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress. WHAT???

* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies -- $1 million annual savings.

*Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- $12.5 million annual savings. WELL ISN'T THAT SPECIAL

* Eliminate Market Access Program -- $200 million annual savings.

* USDA Sugar Program -- $14 million annual savings.

* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- $93 million annual savings.

* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program -- $56.2 million annual savings.

*Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs -- $900 million savings.

* Ready to Learn TV Program -- $27 million savings..

* HUD Ph.D. Program.

* Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.

*TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years

My question is, what is all this doing in the budget in the first place?!

Maybe this is why the Democrats are attacking Paul Ryan.

Please Send to everyone you know.

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     The problem with much of this is that the Republican Leadership did not really fight to the death on any of this.  But, this has been forwarded by El Zorro and it does represent a litany of generally useless or at least doubtful value projects.

      In the Senate, only 18 Republican Senators voted against  the budget resolution agreement.  It goes back to the old saying that the Democrats are Mommy Socialism and the Republicans are Daddy Socialism.

El Gringo Viejo

Back Up in Texas

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     We made the run back to the border to-day....a very busy highway scene from the outset to the final landing.   After being gone for a month it will take a bit of time to get back in the saddle.  Salient commentary and observation will  be forthcoming sometime in the morning.   Right now we are trying to clear out the various backlogs of spam and making necessary email responses. 

     The view from south to north is certainly dismal.  It seems so very strange that real live Republicans could be so willing to endorse a form of "Hope and Change".   Listening to the overnight radio smorgasbord was at times depressing to the extreme.  So many people made their point by stating that "Trump believes the way I believe" when in fact they frequently had no idea what Trump's positions and procedures are or would be on a wide range of issues and problems. 

     Couple that fact with the reality that Trump has touted his friendship for and with Billy Jeff and (Sir Edmund) Hillary and even recently declared that (Sir Edmund) had done a wonderful job as Secretary of State.

       I personally find Trump's broad brush "pronunciamentos" vaguely similar to Al Sharpton's lunacy.  But we shall keep as much of an open mind as possible.   More later.

El Gringo Viejo

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Making Ready to Head South - Important things first

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    The big deal, to-morrow, is the baptism (christening) of our granddaughter Scarlet.   Bunches of folks drove half-way across the Republic of Texas to-day to bring the baby to this point, to an area where her father and aunt were baptised, and to the same church were her grandfather was baptised several hundred years ago (almost) and where her grandmother is a member of the altar guild and a long time contributor to things such as Sunday School, and social missions.

    The service will be brief, one of the last remaining recognizable things about the Episcopal Church.   We have combined all nature of turkey, pies, the sharing of secrets of the kitchen by my wife with the other granddaughters who are actually interested and adept at producing real, live stuff like the Spanish - Mexican classic "empanadas de calabaza" (a pumpkin-paste filled sweet roll, of sorts....really addictive) that came out perfectly.

     The boss makes grapefruit pie that is a hit even with people who do not normally care for grapefruit, and she made the cherry-ringed, ultra-dark chocolate brownies, all these things from scratch.   The "older granddaughters (ages 7 and 10), seem fascinated with the idea that so much good stuff can actually actually be made of a bunch of disparate ingredients stuck into a heated oven.

 26 November 2015

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     We have had a time of it, baptising a baby granddaughter, moving multigenerational people around...all related by marriage or blood to the child to be baptised, and imposing upon a hapless Episcopal priest to comply with the overly sentimental notion that the father and grandfather had been acolytes at the same Parish two and three hundred years ago (so it seems).   All went well, a luncheon with family at a more than adequate theme restaurant, well-attended and and well provisioned.   It was moving, in a way, to have the officiating Priest and my mother-in-law talking earnestly after the service, while still in the Sanctuary.   The Priest, an Episcopalian, and the mother-in-law, a Roman Catholic, at home in their Orthodox surroundings, with the impressively vestured Priest declaring what a pleasure it was to deal with a baptism where four generations were present, all seemed to underscore the theme and purpose of the event.   Certainly, with that many in the Army of Righteousness, this baby could be protected from the Devil until she can defend herself.
     Visits to the very old who are infirmed...among our family....and a twilight with  son-in-law, daughter, granddaughters, daughter-in-law, son, wife, where much was settled in the ambience of the Casa de Palmas Hotel in the very centre of the city of McAllen, Texas.   We were surrounded by various types of very civilized hootsey-tootsey Monterrey-area business people, and other Mexicans, up from the central part of Mexico, on buying trips and negotiations about buying/selling things that people want to by and things people want to sell. The Casa de Palmas  These are the legal and moral sorts whose trade constitutes over 99% of the international business in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
     It ran from around 09:00 hours this morning until about 19:00 hours this evening.  No complaints...but a lot of driving back and forth between McAllen and Mission.   All in all, better than a 100% rating for the day.

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     We head down to our little mud hut in the Mexican outback to-morrow, early in the morning.   The things that needed to be accomplished were accomplished and now there are things to do and to say grace over at that mystical place in front of the Sierra Madre Oriental.  We have, perhaps, dodged a bit of a bullet in that the Hurricane Sandra suffered a one-two punch, (1) the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains that rise up almost immediately at the Mexican west coast with the Pacific Ocean, and (2) a frigid Arctic blast that has brought sleet, snow, and freezing rain as far south as the Edward's Plateau in west central Texas.

     This means that a repeat of Hurricane Patricio, about five weeks ago, will not be visited upon Texas and our area in northeastern Mexico.   As you all are aware, the problem is not the winds associated with the hurricanes, because those are bashed out, almost always,  immediately upon coming ashore, due to the rugged and high mountains.   The real problem comes from the collision of super-saturated middle and upper levels of the atmosphere with warm and equally moist tropical maritime air coming up and in from the Gulf of Mexico and even the Caribbean Sea.

     We shall entrust everything that pertains to "North of the Border" to the better three-quarters, while I take care of the things that can be put-off for two or three months.   In that this might be our last transmission for a few weeks, we beg forgiveness from the contributing OROGs for this rapid departure, and remind you all that we are thinking about you and what can be written to justify your  continued presence upon my return.  Many things are afoot both in Texas and Mexico that will merit your interest, and we shall have considerable comment upon re-arrival.

El Gringo Viejo

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Often told, but still few know....."Why Poinsettias, or is it Poinsiettas, or just plain Good Night??"

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(1)poinsettia, or (2)poinsetta or (3)Noche Buena?

All those names are correct in the vernacular.
The way El Gringo Viejo learned it?  Number 2
and number 3.... But the official general
 modern-day use in the United States
 is number 1
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     It's  beginning to look a lot like Christmas, goes the song, so even those of us who follow the western Orthodox Calendar.... we look around and ask, "So what if it's not even Advent yet?  We can still start looking around for those showy postings and plantings of newly and freshly blooming Ponsiettas.    We tell ourselves, "After the first of the year, this time I am really going to plant some in the back yard, and not buy any more, from now on."

     After several weeks of overwatering, or failure to "remember'' about watering and dropping a little orchid food in their water, the hapless plants tend to wind up in Dempster Dumpsters along with a lot of Christmas gift wrapping material, burned out twinkler lights, and such things.   Sometimes the poor Ponsietta owner wonders why the name of the plant begins with a "capital P".   There is a reason.   But first:

     We find the stemmy plant surprising the monks who were very much involved in plants, edibles, flowers, and horticultural lore among the native groups in New Spain....or what would much later become what we know as Mexico now.   They found it in the Vera Cruz lowlands....warm, steamy, humid, with 60 - 100 inches of rain...they found in the lower mountains and almost up to 9,000 feet along some of the higher passes and where sheltered places could protect them from the cold.

     They found the plant in the dry lands to the north where they had to be watered carefully and on an almost ritualistic basis....and they adorned the patios of the grand casones of the wealthy and the irregular "yards'' of the most common Indian's hovel. 

     

Large but no record,  16 feet across and 8 feet high
and growing in a normal neighborhood, from stems
of 18 inches, being simply stuck into the ground.
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     The above picture is repeated in different ways in thousands of places throughout central and southern Mexico as well as much of Central America and the Caribbean.  

     During the earliest days of the Spanish contact and conquest of Meso - America, the friars and others learned that the name of this plant or bush was somewhat depressing....cuitlaxochitl....reduced phonetically into the Spanish from the native Nahuatl language.  Cuitlaxochitl (Kwee tlah zoh CHI tl) means any number of variations of "flower that dies", such as death flower or suffering and dying flower.

     The friars liked it more for its surprising quality of beginning to change their leaves from green to bright red....very bright....at a very propitious time.    That colour change and  blooming occurs at the darkest time of the year, which to the good fortune of the friars co-incided with major religious events. 

     We proceed.  El Dia de la Aparicion de Santa Maria de Tepeyac (Our Lady of Guadalupe),  de La Fiesta de la Navidad, el Feliz An~o Nuevo and the Epifania constitute a string of high Holy Days and episodes that run from the 12th of December through the 6th of January.   There are numerous celebrations from the Matachines to the Posadas visitations and processions.   Fronds  and Poinsiettas, among other flowering niceties accompany all such events and celebrations.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

     Poinsiettas require certain attention, things,
and schedules.   They have to have well-drained
soil, and they have to be allowed to go to dry
between waterings.

   They seem to prefer benign neglect, but
many gardeners swear that Poinsiettas have
to be pinched back one/fourth of their height
on or about Memorial Day and then again on

Labour Day.

    Pray for rain, but water the larger bushes at
least once every two or three weeks. Over-fertilizing

will result in lots of green leaves that do not change

colour.
    

     The story can go on and on.  But, imagine if one of Americas earliest diplomats to Mexico, who also was closely associated with the establishment of the  Smithsonian Institution, also had a hand in the naming and introduction of this, and other wondrous plants into the United States.  It is all true...and in spades.   Joel Roberts Poinsett was the Charge d' Affaires of the American government during the time shortly after the establishment of the Mexican Constitution of 1824 and shortly before the instability of times brought on by the torments of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.  He served in Mexico for almost five years.   His feats were similar if not more exhilarating than any James Bond fiction.

     Santa Anna changed sides  in any political argument, more frequently than (Sir Edmund) Hillary.   He had also groomed what would prove to be a core of an Army with the Mexican Army that would strangely seem to follow him from 1829 or so through nearly 1860, no matter how "confused" their leader might have been at the moment.

Joel Roberts Poinsett,

 Renaissance Man, International Meddler

 and Agent for both the United States

 and the Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge,

 brilliant horticulturist, and scientist

       Although Lopez de Santa Anna was a member of the Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge, as was Joel Roberts Poinsett, he was also enrolled as a member of a York Rite Lodge in Vera Cruz.  Santa Anna also changed from Republican Federalist to Centralist and back again several times.   He also served as self-appointed or elected President and Vice-President depending on how much blame needed to be taken and how much rest he needed in his beloved Hacienda El Mango de Clavo de Lencero in Vera Cruz State.

   It behooved Lopez de Santa Anna to reveal to Mexico that Joel Roberts Poinsett and various others involved at high levels of the Mexican government were conspiring to commit acts offensive to the National Integrity of the Republic of Mexico.

   He raised a stink strong enough to manage to successfully accuse Joel of being involved in this terrible conspiracy and managed to have him declared persona non grata, and deported.

     Joel Roberts Poinsett was allowed time to pack his many effects, among them many of his pottings of the Noche Buena flowers so associated with the many Winter parties he had attended.   Many of the Mexican hosts noted his delight with the plant, and had also learned that he was one of America's foremost plant experts and horticulturists, so various of the hosts gave him a good range of sturdy plants.   It is thought that even Lopez de Santa Anna gave him a sample from that hacienda outside of Jalapa, the capital city of Vera Cruz.

    By the end of 1829 he was back in his beloved South Carolina and plotting other adventures.   During his life, he "meddled" in several countries of South America, in every nation of the western 2 / 3's of Europe, always representing the interests of the United States of America, officially and well, as well as tirelessly advancing the code and standards of the brotherhood of Scottish Rite Masonry.   We commend study of his life....a very complex and adventurous life, by all OROGs.

     And that, Virginia, is why we named the Mexican "Noche Buena'', officially and definitively in the mid-1830s by those in charge of official names for strange and interesting things from the Vegetative Kingdom, the "Poinsettia".  (many Southerners still pronounce it "Poinsietta", however)

More later.  I hear the sound of the Cannons!!!
El Gringo Viejo

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