A blast from the past.....Petroleos Mexicanos and the sociology / psyche of the Mexican Republic - a repost with minor updates and corrections

Monday, 16 December 2013

The Oil and Natural Gas Aperture: Mexico stumbles into the 21st Century

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     The Great Expropriation put into effect by Lazaro Cardenas del Rio, President of the United States of Mexico  -  1934 . 1940, was heralded as a great leap forward for Mexico.   By the stroke of a pen, three years of formal dispute, millions of words of negotiations, pushing and shoving, harsh threats by both sides, hypocrisy and justifiable self-interest practiced by both sides....Article 27 of the Constitution of 1917 was  finally imposed as would be a death penalty in a criminal trial.   All subsurface natural resources are under the protection of the Central Government, which is obliged to defend those resources for the benefit of all Mexicans, making all Mexicans owners of their national patrimony.

    Such magnificent words.   And all of it is fairly useless mattress stuffing to cover a move to the establishment of one of the largest corruption cash cows in the history of humanity.  Labour union dynasties were establish by 1940 that would make the AFL - CIO leadership look like a group of monks sworn to poverty.

      Some little known facts about the oil industry in Mexico from around 1900 through 1938 would indicate that the Americans were the least abusive of the "exploiters", and that it was the Germans, through their operation of the Royal Dutch - Shell consortium, trademarked Flying Eagle Oil Company who produced 60% of the oil extracted from Mexico during those latter years of foreign involvement.   The American company most involved in Veracruz State and elsewhere in Mexico was the Standard Oil of California, to-day known as Chevron.   That group produced about 30% of Mexico's total oil marketing during the last years of f0reign operations.

     Foreign or domestic mining and, at that time, drilling companies were constitutionally required to pay 30% of the gross value of any ore or other extraction to the Mexican Central Treasury....known as La Secretaria de Hacienda.  This was an amenable issue for the foreigners.  Their engineers enjoyed, in large part, life in Tampico, motoring up and down the Panuco River and its Tarzan Movie-like scenes, the beaches, the finest seafood, and many other amenities.  To this day there are the progeny of those Americans and 0ther foreigners who deigned to remain behind after the foreigners were forced to stand down from their operations.   Their lead workers / supervisors generally got along with the Mexican workers, and hobnobbed with them after hours, became godfathers of babies, ate at their tables, drank beer with them in the saloons and cantinas.   The Germans.....not so much.   In order, the Mexicans preferred the company and companies of the Americans, Brits, and on the bottom of the list.....the Germans.

     Lazaro Cardenas, however, knew to make the issue about foreigners in general and the Americans in particular.   The Obama-style smear machine, backed up by the European press, made great issue of the fact that the American companies were going to drain out the Mexican oilfields before going after their own American resources.    It was a form of subliminal warfare, according to the Cardenistas, with the Americans trying to make Mexico dependent upon American petroleum largess, thereby guaranteeing that Mexico could never challenge the United  States, militarily or even in terms of business and boundary negotiations.

     Cardenas and his negotiators also pointed out that the Americans were making 2 to 10 times more than the common Mexican chain roper and/or roughneck.   The world swooned over such obvious discrimination.   Of course, the Americans wages frequently reflected that they were  experienced drilling supervisors and engineers while the rig workers were untrained and inefficient, although they learned quickly and most had a good work ethic.  The wage matter was brought up primarily to demonstrate that the Americans would bring in people to do semi-skilled work, pay them American level wages, and finally freeze out the Mexican workers.   Even if it weren't true, it might become true.

      There was some solace in the fact that the debts involved in the Expropriation  would be recognised by the Central Government in Mexico City and bonds were issued to the companies that were losing their permits and leases.   Those bonds were finally paid off, on schedule to those who were wise enough to take them seriously, about five years ago, with appropriate interest, etc.

    The pinky, demagogue-fuelled  Mexican expropriation was different, say, from the Boshie-styled, pseudo-communist taking of "illegally" foreign-owned properties in Cuba.  None of that property was ever indemnified.  None of the 200,000 jobs provided by American, British, French, and Spanish investment were replaced.   Well, they were replaced after several years with half as many jobs that paid 1/10th as much.   But there was nothing to buy anyway.....so everything worked out fine.

     The Mexican thing was much more complicated.  The establishment of the company Petroleos Mexicanos, SA de CV (aka: PEMEX), caused to be created a moon circulating around the planet.   The planet was the central government and its republic, and the moon was what was suddenly the sixth largest oil company in the world, almost overnight. 

     PEMEX was formed up out of new clay.  It was established as a government chartered, essentially private and free-standing Corporation and also a monopoly.  It had a CEO named by the President and approved by the Senate of the Heroico Congresso de la Republica Mexicana.  But after that....it was a moon, circulating a planet like a good moon, but "out there", just out of reach....but still in the orbit.  Typically Mexican.

      PEMEX became at once a name of honour and patriotic pride.  The oil is ours.  We can make our own gasoline.   We can produce our own gas in canisters, or even pipe it long distances.  We are self-sufficient in hydro-carbon refining.

       PEMEX  also became at once a name associated with massive incompetence and corruption.  Money disappeared, projects were shabbily terminated, only to fall to ruin in weeks, and the notion of training engineers to handle major, medium-sized projects was studied for years....while Mexico's best and brightest went on into civil engineering, went to the United States and worked there, and/or came back and established construction engineering operations.   PEMEX learned far too late about obligatory scholarships that would have been especially symbiotic both for PEMEX and La Patria.  

     PEMEX became the great fountain of employment.  Hundreds of wells needed to be reworked,  scores of new wells around Coatzocoalcos - Minatitlan and Poza Rica needed to be sunk.   There were hundreds of kilometres of pipelines that desperately needed to be repaired, reconstructed, and initiated.   And the off-shore....mein Gott....the offshore in the Bay of Campeche....oil and gas for a thousand years.    But, because the Constitution required that all workers (and business owners actually) had to be members of their appropriate labour union, a new fountain of abuse was created.
     The PEMEX labour union, SINDICATO de TRABAJADORES PETROLEROS al SERVICIO de la REPUBLICA MEXICANA (STPSRM)....was established to assure  that the workers would receive all the benefits ascribed to the workers of all businesses, especially government-related businesses.   It immediately became a den of thieves, with the local "secretary-general" lording over the positions and demanding a "tithe" from each union-local member so as to "remain in good standing" with the local's executive committee.   These monies were funnelled up by the "rule of tithe" until finally the overall head of the Petroleros Union would wind up with what to-day would be about one billion Mexican pesos per month for his own favourite private charity.   And yes, that would be one billion dollars per year in to-day's money.

     A "reform" was initiated in the early 1970s that broke the overall union up into regional unions.  This meant that now, instead of one major cad and his lackeys, there would be several cads and their lackeys.  That is the nature of "reform" in a socialist or governmentally controlled system.  In the late 1980s, the famous corrupt Mexican labour union chief for the very important northeastern division....a fellow by the name of Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, with the nickname of "La Quina",  was brought down by a new President.  (Quina is a Barcelonan contraction of the word 'cinchona', which is a bush that produces tonics and things like quinine.   The derivatives are found in tonic water, quinine anti-malarial, and such bitters. A person nicknamed "La Quina" is a person with whom one should exercise caution due to his hard manner and tendency to take revenge.)  He had challenged and ridiculed the new president during the election campaign of 1988.   Six weeks into the new term, the Army kicked in "La Quina's" bronze doors in the upscale Tampico subdivision, and they stormed his luxurious home.   He was arrested along with some of his thug enforcers and before it was over several score million dollars were recovered, massive amounts of jewelry of the finest order, along with firearms and fine art pieces.    The sale of six frames of Renaissance-era art work, the names of the pieces escape me at these moments, brought 9,000,000 dollars in an auction by Sotheby's on behalf of the Mexican Treasury, several years ago.

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From the Los Angeles Times:   a bit of an obituary for La Quina who died at the age of 91, 11 November 2013.  To wit -

Secretary General Hernandez
(La Quina)
The old man shortly after being released from
 prison having been convicted, correctly,
 for massive fraud and embezzlement.
  At one time he had four Lincoln
 limousines with 16 chauffeurs.

Even so, many of the old-school unions remain intact, including Hernandez's union, which represents workers in the crucial, but troubled, state-run oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. These vestiges of an older, less-transparent time present an ongoing challenge to those who purport to represent the forces of modernization and reform in the 21st Century.

     "Pemex was a latrine of corruption before La Quina came in, but he turned it into a sewer of corruption," George W. Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary, said Monday."   And it still is."

      Hernandez was a man of slight build, the son of an oil worker who eschewed flash and who, though trained as a welder, possessed uncanny political skill. After rising to the top of the union in 1958, he maintained control by doling out favors to local politicians and everyday workers, personally receiving underlings who would ask for loans or help with marital problems.

     He also had a reputation for violence. He was publicly accused of the 1977 slaying of a rival, Heriberto Kehoe Vincent, although the accusation was never proven. Two of his bodyguards also allegedly, admitted to killing another rival in the 1980s

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     The common worker for PEMEX was almost required to give primary allegiance to  head of the union.  Those seeking work did not have to show how their employment would benefit the company's overall mission, they had to show how they would comply with the structure of keeping the head of the Union in deep shekels.   We disagree with the depiction of the PEMEX union being just as corrupt as it was thirty to fifty years ago.   PEMEX overall is nowhere near the level of corruption of the "good old days".  The unions have steadily been more and more marginalised, although to say that they are not corrupt would also be an over-statement.   In the opinion of El Gringo Viejo,  all public unions are corrupt, and most heavy industrial unions are corrupt, to a lesser or greater degree wherever they are found, Mexico, the United States, Europe, Japan.  It is the nature of the beast.

BUT NOW, We finally arrive at the point behind all of this perambulation.  Last week, the Heroic Congress of the Mexican Republic took up the issue, finally, after a score of years of threats and admonishments by the various Presidents since Miquel de la Madrid Hurtado (1982 - 1988) that PEMEX join the ranks of all other Oil Giants in the world and participate in free market exploration, refining, marketing, and petrochemical business adventures.   The Mexican Behemoth is a competent and legitimate player and would be moreso with a bit of competition and formal alliance.  Talk about a joint EXXON-MOBILE and PEMEX collaboration in a 20,000,000,000 USD refinery in or near Matamoros, across from Brownsville, for instance, is not thought to be (is this a pun?) a pipe-dream.  The idea of American riggers actually frakking and perforating in northern Mexican deserts may be a reality now...legally....within months.   Activity subsequent to the purchase of debilitated Mexican rigs in the Bay of Campeche by British Petroleum and Conoco - Phillips is already probably on drawing boards from Tulsa to Mexico City.

    The Congressional Action was, in fact, considerably brave.   It is the surmounting of something like voting not to have a Martin Luther King and/or Nelson Mandela national holiday in the United States.  That act spurs howls of "Racism!! Racism!!".  The Mexican Chamber of Deputies and the Senate approved a Constitutional Amendment that will allow foreign development of petroleum and other hydrocarbiferous assets beneath the surface of Mexican territorial soil.   The amendment essentially only brings the petroleum law into focus with the rule of extraction for any foreign firm that is involved with any "minerals of the national patrimony".  Gold, silver, copper, valuable trace metals, barite, etc. have long been mined and processed in Mexico by foreign companies since before, during, and after the Revolution of 1910 and the establishment of the Constitution of 1917.

     The pinkoes and the neo-Bolshies and the Frida-ites howled and threw themselves in front of the doors of the august halls of deliberation.  Almost all were members of the Partido Revolucionario Democratico,  Mexico's variation of the lunatic element of the American Democrat Party, (which is about 85% of the American Democrat Party's membership).    When the doors were blocked by the PRD nutcases, the remaining members of the Diputados (congressmen of the Lower House) simply went to another large conference room, convened with the President of the Lower House, voted and provided an 83% margin (including the dumboes blocking the doors), well beyond the two-thirds required by the Constitution, to amend said Constitution to facilitate the new inclusion of Oil and Gas into the mining provisions.    The upper house, the Senado de la Republica, had already voted earlier in the week, 98 to 23, to authorise said action.

     We now have only to wait and see if a majority of the States of the Mexican Union will approve of the measure.  The odds are overwhelming that two things will happen:   (1)   There will be insane demonstration, State congressional members taking their clothes off at the podium, graffiti spraying leftist scum painting public buildings inside and out with crude, crass, and coarse profanity and pseudo-religious commentators talking about the sacrifice of national sovereignty to the altar of materialism, and (2)  The overwhelming approval by the various State Congresses of the measure coming out from the Mexican Congress.

     The final State actions should be done on or before the 1st of April, 2014.

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   Now.....one might ask reasonably.....and so what?

   The introduction of American, and to a degree Canadian, technology  mixed
into the existing Mexican technology, along with the infusion of investment by sources in all three of those North American nations, will result in the establishment of an petroleum energy force that will provide "energy self-sufficiency" for all three countries for several hundred years, and perhaps more.

     Next, there will be a demand for semi-skilled and skilled workers in Mexico that will provide wages and benefits at about two - thirds the American level of remuneration.   In some cases, there will be American employment either directly in Mexico or in companies supplying certain things to the Mexican exploration and production issues as demand for such things intensifies.

     Although some may not believe it, there is a shortage of semi-skilled and skilled blue-collar workers in Mexico at this time.   And, although many may not believe it, I know it is true because I see it on a daily basis, almost all the men legally working in the United States and sending money home would prefer to be back near home and making money at such a rate that it would complement his lower cost of living.   The lower cost of living is not so much that things are a lot cheaper in Mexico.   The trick is that one knows where the bunny holes are in terms of buying and eating and moving around in the least expensive and highest quality combination possible.   It also means living in what had been a hovel that over the five or seven years that just went by has become a half-way decent home  with all the nice things like gas, water, electricity, functioning sewer, a fire department and/or ambulance within the next few kilometres.....and no house payment....and real-estate taxes of 10 dollars per year.

The namesake of El Gringo Viejo's little mud hut
on the Rio Corona in NoWhere, Tamaulipas -
The title "Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre" is
drawn from the title of the book and movie which
starred Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston.

     El Gringo Viejo did not put a place in Mexico so much to save money so much, as for the purpose of just enjoying the life that he enjoyed.   It was quite a daunting effort to build a "cheap" adobe home.  But, because his tastes were corkscrewed by too many years of eating really excellent Mexican preparations on various economic levels, highest to the lowest, he shops for those things that please his palate and he finds them at very, very reasonable costs.    When he serves beer to the clients, he charges less than what a beer costs at retail in WalMart in the United States.   And it's better beer.   These are all "for instance" examples.

   El Gringo Viejo also knows quite personally, in that they are essentially neighbours, many people who have come back from working in the United States.   There are many others who go and come, legally, to places in North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan, with working papers and round trip air or bus transportation provided by the American company.   And they do not work for slave wages...they are well paid....and they fill positions, especially in urban areas (so to speak) where no one will respond to vigorous efforts at recruitment of local workers.

    So, it is certain that this value-added industry will have a substantial, non-inflationary positive economic impact, on Mexico and on the United States and Canada.

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    We should also point out that the father-in-law of my daughter, my (choose one or all terms:  consuegro - fellow father-in-law, compere - fellow father - compadre - also fellow father or close relative) worked for many years in Mexico in the sale and fitting and advice concerning valve and storage tanque issues....extremely elaborate control valves and engineering consultation for PEMEX.

    Another thing, both in his experience and El Gringo Viejo's experience, is that there never was a PEMEX check that bounced.   They bought literally hundreds of parts and wholly rebuilt valves from my consuergo's company for many years....and I believe that they continue to do so.  These were not $49.95 USD parts, by the way.

         S0, there is the news.  There is a little history.  The history is interminable, for there are tales and tales that can, and could, and perhaps should be told in a hundred saloons and a thousand parlours in the coming years.   One good place to start would be in the Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston movie with the name, "Treasure of the Sierra Madre".

        The opening third of the movie is actually set in Tampico during the period just before the expropriation, while the filming was done during the period just after WWII and post-expropriation.   While the film is fictional, some of it is based on a true life story and the rest is a fairly good representation of how things were during those days in Tampico, Tamaulipas and Poza Rica, Vera Cruz and the Sierra Madres to the west....not far from El Gringo Viejo's little adobe hut.

More on these matters later.   Thanks for your patience.

El Gringo Viejo

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People ask: "What is the sociological structure of the area where the Quinta is....?" (The most complex and boring, and interesting explanation of the why, where, and when of the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre).

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I.

THE REALITY AND THE MEANING BEHIND SOME OF THE NAMES:

     We generally try to avoid the dull descriptions of the people and places of the social catchment area of Santa Engracia in the Municipio (County) of  Hidalgo, State of Tamaulipas.  BUT....we find that there are numerous persons who have wanted to know more about the place.   Times have been separating the area from common American and / or Texian understanding of life in such places.

     There was a time, back in the 1950s through the 1980s, when scores of honeymooners elected to pass their first moments of marital bliss in the Valley of Huajuco, just to the south of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon at a quaint and very picturesque place (complete with impressive waterfall) known as Horsetail Falls.   Ricardo Montalban, Esther Williams, and Sid Charise even filmed a successful movie there during the early 1950s....showboating the Hotel Cola de Caballo's huge swimming pool and the high-diving board, and the truly romantic and impressive geographical setting.

     But now, even as I type, it strains my willingness to explain things.....partly because I am old an know more than other people just because of my age...and partly because it just does not interest me much anymore to explain to people about the level of difference between 58 decent people being murdered and almost 500 wounded in 12 minutes in Las Vegas, Nevada....in the middle of more security than most nations have military....and the dangers I face as a landowner and house-holder in a remote place in rural Mexico.

     Each time a person asks me about such things, and it is involved with the possibility of coming down to enjoy the much better birding and general ambience, I lose a bit more interest in explaining the obvious.  People have accused me of "paying off" the cartels and "paying off the corrupt officials" in order to buy a bit of peace.....although, I can say without reservation that we have never once had an involvement of any kind such as that. Ever.   During the nearly 17 years of our holding this property and home, we have not have the merest of incident.   The worst moments perhaps were the flooding from the Rio Corona that came up to within 15 feet of our home's south wall.

 

The Dangling Sword of Damocles

   That there is activity by the Cartels and pandilla (semi-associated juvenile gangs) class is certain, and at times their actions dominate the local and international news.    However, I can assure the reader,  with the Blade of Truth that the problem is now nowhere near what it had been, say six years ago, and that even then, El Gringo Viejo drove through the area without interuption once.   He remained with his cats, dogs, clients, friends, and self without ever having had an interruption once among those classes of associates.

     I have had "free medical care"....in the truest sense....to diagnose a slightly fractured third left rib, due to the accidental presence of the State of Tamaulipas OB / GYN mobil clinic having been in our "ejido"(rural community) that day.   They came to the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre because some people had seen one of our neighbour's big male Rhodesians push me down (being too playful) on our rock walkway down in the "wilderness" part of our property.   And, since I was a geezer of anglo/saxon origin, the local folk urged the mobile clinic to attend to me, although my gynocological profile was not correct.

    The operators of the OB / GYN unit were a boy and a girl...perhaps in their mid-20s....who were both MDs and brother and sister.   Their unit was equipped with a "stand-up" X-ray machine, and it showed the very slightest crack in my rib.    The doctorette told me with a straight and serious face...."Do not laugh or sneeze for the next few days.  Otherwise everything looks good."  Her brother said, "Do not sleep on your left side.  Take this if the pain is unbearable (sounded rather ominous)".    They also declared (while writing out a note on their prescription tablet) that "with this prescription", I would be conducted into the favoured precincts of the Hospital Civil, (reserved for the rich and famous, and crazy Gringos) if need be.  Thankfully, the neede knead naught.

     And, of course, all OROGs know that the Mexican Red Cross fixed me up when I lost control of my below-the-knees and below-the-elbows due to electrolytic deficit.   That was also "no-charge".   Please be aware, however, that when the pretty girls, and the fine young men, and the Army, Naval Infrantry,  and the Boy Scouts, and Protestant and Catholic (especially Opus Dei) people are out collecting and standing in main highways with their canisters, El Gringo Viejo is apt to give a larger peso-note than most  (200 and 500 pesos), during the Red Cross collection days (February and March, normally).   It is my responsibility.

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A BRIEF DESCRIPTION AND DEFINITION OF THE EJIDO CONCEPT, and the EJIDO de FRANCISCO I. MADERO

Venustiano Carranza

      We begin this missive with the past and we shall try to lead it quickly to the present and the future.   Shortly after the technical end of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 -  1917, there was a  victory by the Constitutionalists of Venustiano Carranza's revolutionary element over the Conventionalists (an aggrupation of leftists and conservative federalist - State's Rights poo-bahs, including Pancho Villa, disciples of Emiliano Zapata, etc. in Guadalajara).

      This victory by a decidedly pro-Bolshevik / Marxist / Fabian socialist Conventionalist group in Queretaro - was totally controlled by "General" Venustiano Carranza who wrote the entire Mexican Constitution of 1917, personally, and some say without pausing to sleep, and that is still with us.....although heavily amended.   Of course, it also facilitated the Heroic Congress of Mexico to readily ratify Venustiano Carranza as the presidente ex-tempore et permanente of the Republic of the United States of Mexico.

     And, of course, this heroic, leftist figure managed to maintain himself in office for almost two whole years.   He, as did Madero before him, managed to kick down the barn door, release the cows, horses, oxen, and mules and then declare himself the Saviour of Humanity and a brother in the march to establish a democratic socialist, one-class society with "certain elites" empowered to secure comfort for the common people.  He was a profound admirer of Marx and Lenin.

       He was driven from office and, like Francisco I. Madero (a native of Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila, famous for wine, what was once the largest Levi factory in the World),  before him...another atheist, elitist, super-wealthy dreamer who unseated Porfirio Diaz - Presidente de Mexico for 30 years - with nothing.....or dwaddle.....or dwibble,  or incredibly....the Ouija Board to guide him (literally).   Madero, upon ascending to the Throne of the Presidency, as one of his first acts, was to order a telephonic connection back to his home, the  hacienda in Parras de la Fuente, so that he could talk to his father every night in order to find out what his next step should be in the serpents' den of the Mexican bi-cameral Congresso Nacional.

     He found himself to be totally incompetent as a governor of such a complex Nation.   The White north, and the Red South (an over-generalisaiton), the sophisticated capitals cities, and especially the city of Mexico, the industrial interests and the agricultural interests (in the days of the Porfiriato, Mexico produced about 8% of all the Earth's edible agricultural products).
    He was assassinated less than two years into his legitimately elected term, even before he had a chance to board the train that was to have taken both him and his vice-president Pino-Suarez, to exile.   (The girls need to know that Vice President Pino Suarez was known to be the most comely man in North America in those days...He was also one of the most studied...in industry, agriculture, education, and comparative religions).

Francisco I. Madero with his Vice-President, Jose Maria Pino-Suarez,
the immediate past governor of the State of Yucatan.   Both of these
photographs are drawn from the original and formal.

     The more we studied about Jose' Maria Pino-Suarez, the more we had to shake our heads about the validity of democratic process in the choosing of leaders.   Jose' Maria Pino-Suarez was far more competent and qualified to be President than Madero , but he felt, as a younger man, he had to go and help the older man.   In the Yucatan, he was revered by Maya and Caucasian and everything in between.   He paid for that decision, to yield to the older man, with his life.   More on such things later.

Some of the carnage left over from the assault
against Madero and Pino-Suarez in February
 of 1913.  This is about 20 minutes after the
"encounter of confusion".   The building in
back of this scene is the National Presidential
Palace, fronting on the famous Zocalo, aka
the Plaza de la Independencia in the very
centre of Mexico City.

     Madero, through a fair and legitimately administered election, won the Presidency of Mexico in 1912, after the forced departure and exile of Don Jose de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz Mori, and Madero's dithering led to his expulsion and the Decena Tragica (Tragic Ten Days).
   The departure of the Old Fool Who Overstayed His Usefulness (don Porfirio) was a sad thing.   The expedition of the younger fool (don Francisco I. Madero)was a horrid act of international and national murder, including as culpable agents, Col. House who was the prime aide of Woodrow Wilson, and various elements of the world.  Madero and his vice-president, who had nary a dirty fingernail, much less finger in the matter was another black star on the flag of Mexico.  There was no legitimate reason to have assassinated Madero or Pino-Suarez.

      We arrive now at the point where we have to designate a Chapter II.   All these names about the places were we are wind up being  meaningless unless someone has a remote notion about which they pertain, and to which they might have significance.


II.
     THE REALITY AND THE PEOPLE AND THE OWNING OF PROPERTY BY A FOREIGNER IN MEXICO AND THE GENERAL SOCIOLOGY:

     This whole matter was a mistake.  We dumped much of our entire fortune into the matter.    Under my guidance and full control, we bought a piece of property that had been "liberated" by the Zedillo Ponce de Leon government, by authorisation of the Heroic Congress of the United Mexican States.   It was about three acres in English measurement, down by a scenic river (Rio Corona), lined by huge Montezuma cypress trees and involved with a little "ejido" community to our "upper side" and a small, privately owned, hacienda to our "up-river" side.
      We had to pay a permit to the Mexican Secretario de Gobierno, in the amount of the equivalent of 400 American dollars, to designate that we had agreed not to invoke the American military in order to defend the title of purchase.  We bought the total property in two stages, because we decided that we did not want someone to set up a "Deposito" (Beer dispensary) between us and the Rio Corona....some 300 feet away from our nearest wall to said Rio.  The payment, by law, goes to a bank...and the receipt goes to the Notario Publico (an attorney of record who is entitled to officiate over the transfer of real property or wills and testaments), and that results, after payment to the previous land-holders....in a flurry of documents with all nature of stamps, seals, and officiations.
     We paid for all the land we bought in cash.  The period of Seven Years has long passed.  There is no legal zone for reclamation after seven years....the deal is done, down, and dead.  The Boss and I pay each year the abusive sum of seven or eight dollars in ad valorem taxes.  (but please remember that we are paying 16% sales tax on anything bought in Tamaulipas / Mexico and almost 4.00 dollars per gallon for automobile gasoline)' half of which is a congressionally approved tax upon the businesses and the automobile owning /  driving class).

     The people who owned the property had "urbanised" and were living in Cd. Victoria, in spite of the fact that they had roots in the rural areas just to the north of that nice city.   When the Congress essentially privatised the lands of the ejidos, many people took advantage of the fact and sold their properties, especially if their land was not tillable.   But, after approval by the Secretario de Gobierno, the Secretario de Relaciones Exteriores, and a Notario Publico and the State Congress of Tamaulipas, we had to also have the approval of the Commission of the Ejido....a group of 8 men and a "Comisario" (chairman).    Everything was approved.

    We began the construction "de inmediato" (immediately).   The problem?  The younger men (ages 20 -  50) had never constructed anything like an entirely adobe building.  There were many in the area, including the Ejido de F. I. Madero and places adjacent, but they had all been built by their grandfathers and great-uncles.   Almost all said,"Despues del enjarre, nadien va a saber la diferencia".....(After we seal everything with plaster, no one will know the difference.)

El Rio Corona at Flood, about 3 years ago.

     We persisted, and finally a 'maestro' (true master of blue collar expertise) said that he would "try" to do an adobe structure.   As heavy as concrete blocks are, the adobe bricks are 42 pounds each, and our little mud hut finally wound up taking 10, 900 such "bricks" of adobe.   These adobes are about 4 times the size of a concrete construction block and about 20 times the size of a standard brick.
      Other "maestros" came and understood that we wanted the electrical interior wires to be exposed....not only to have greater access when repairs might be necessary, but to give the impression that our place was something of the past, but they were not thrilled with the idea.   Finally they acquiesced.  The same occurred with our roof.  We wanted the ancient split-tile, red roofs that so define Spain, Mexico, Italy, and other such places.  The men wanted to use the cheaper "sheets" of plastic "just like split tile" disgusting modernity that we were trying to avoid.  We won.

     Our little mud hut has piers and beams of concrete, excavated to 2 metres (6.5 feet), filled with small boulders, and saturated with concrete....until we had not only the piers and beams, but a foundation of 18 inches of concrete.   We have a totally approved septic discharged system, without paying any "mordida" (little bite or bribe) to the State Environmental Defense group.  We add left-over beer and other yeast bearing matter to our system every day.   We have 16 years without a back-up of our home system.....toilets, showers, lavatories.   There is no "peculiar black ring" around our septic tanque. 


WHERE WE LIVE AND AROUND WHOM:

     As a critical and judgemental, conservative sociologist it would be my judgement that there are many more females than males in the Ejido de Francisco I. Madero.  The last census shows, that in residence, the ratio of men to women is for the Delegacion de Santa Engracia (an area about 200 times the size of the County of Hidalgo   However, there is enough economic activity in our nook to justify the arrival of the gas delivery trucks two or three times per week.  Snackies and Bread deliveries to the 10 or so tiny "7 - 11 's" as the Boss and I call them come daily with all nature of very excellent junque food and other enticements for children, especially.   Some Lala milk trucks bring confections of high quality as well to the stores.  The milk is of high quality and well marked in terms of "sell-by" dates, etc. 
     The Corona beer people come once or twice a day, and feed two or three different "depositos", depending upon who is open.   There are no bars or saloons in the Ejido de Francisco I. Madero. The closest bar is at the Hacienda de Santa Engracia, and there a beer will run nearly 3 dollars in pesos.  A small Corona beer bought at a "deposito" (private beer dispensary) to be taken home (ostensibly) and consumed will run about 31 American cents.   In the very centre of the Delegacion  at the Estacion de Santa Engracia, (which used to be the heaviest rural

The lime plantation of the Hacienda de la Vega
is considered to be a little ahead of itself in
 terms of growth and adaptation.
   This picture is about two months out of date,
 and there is some thought that this "huerta"
might produce in the coming  "Primavera"
  (Spring). 

boarding and de-boarding rail stop for passengers before 1996 for the Monterrey -  Tampico trains) there is a homosexual bar and a regular bar.   Lamentably, the homosexual bar is the only one that handles Bohemia beer

     My best estimate of the adult males who are capacitated in blue collar skills, a least beyond apprentice level, would be 60 per cent (perhaps 100 adult males in this ejido).   Maestros (or masters of electricity, plumbing, masonry, etc.) would be perhaps 5 per cent, by American or urban Mexican standards.   Many of these, such as our own majordomo Alvaro, have certificates from recognised issuing agencies in Mexico.  The semi-skilled persons normally are known as "mil-usos"  (thousand uses) because they can do a better than mediocre job at orange (citrus) harvesting, pruning fruit trees, attending maestros in any discipline, guarding cattle or goats or sheep, painting, or supervised gardening.    For the least capacitated male, he might make 5 to 10 dollars per day, in cash (from a trusted 'patron') paid each "quincena" or fortnight.   The "dia laboral" is about 6 hours.....entering at 07:00 and leaving at 14:00 hours....which allows for a lengthy "almuerzo" (cross between breakfast and lunch) during the middle of the work session.  The work-week might or might not include a Saturday depending upon the urgency of the cropping situation  (irrigation, harvest, insecticide applications).

     There are "vulcanizadoras" who specialise in repairing and remounting tyres.  The places look like Hiroshima in early 1946.  But, the competence and compliance is 100%.  Simple flat tyre...well, how about 30 pesos?  That would be $1.50 American to take off the tyre / wheel, rim out the tyre after finding out where the leak is in the "baptismal font - a trough with strange looking water...usually changed once a week, whether necessary or not - and then patch the place from whence the nail or whatever was extracted, then remount the tyre on the rim and then onto the wheel.    A "good Gringo" will probably pay two 20 peso notes and leave with a sincere, "Gracias".  
About half of the Mexican upper-middle class and aristrocracy will do the same or, lamentably, try to bargain the price down.
      Allow me to quickly add that i have been there when the Gringo, also, has said..."We have a verbal contract.  I paid what he charged."

     The Hacienda de Santa Engracia, (left) in and of itself was once a great fountain of income for the labouring class....mainly, but not entirely, female.  It is an historical hacienda without a doubt (1720), and it is also a five-star guest-lodge, and at one time had an occupancy of 45% (32 rooms first-class or de luxe), year-around.    In these  days, however, due to the Cartel people and the news alerts and the general hysteria that surrounds their events, there remains essentially only a residual echo of what the business was in times past.

  At times there are still weddings and receptions.   And, during the Summer, there are week-ends full of squealing children in the swimming pool and on the old mares who like to carry light-weight children on "long rides" of thirty minutes.   It is, however, a profoundly pleasant place to have meetings, seminars, honeymoons, and such things.  It is a little less than a mile from the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre (our home, your home).   It also has a chapel, and for about 100 USD a Roman Catholic or Protestant minister will journey out and 'Join this couple in Holy Matrimony', especially if there is a nice reception afterwards.  It is very simple, pleasant, elegant, and memorable.
      There is the original old chapel where these events are held, once again very simple and elegant,  on the grounds where the Catholic Church's local diocesan bishop has said that non-Catholics can use the sanctified space for any holy purpose, Catholic or Protestant or Jew....or even old Episcopalians / Orthodox, or Masonics....but not atheists or non-religious weddings. 

    Let us estimate, reasonably, that tourism before the Cartel problems was 10% of the entire gross delegacion product....fish farms perhaps 2%.....citrus around 50%.....shopkeeping 5%....people working legally in the United States (North and South Carolina) 10%....education 5%....housekeeping and home-based businesses.  Now it would be about the same, but reducing tourism to 1%, and even that might be an over-estimate.

     Racially, the people are largely of the mestizo grouping, meaning people of historical indigenous and European ancestry, mixed.    This group constitutes about 60% of the local population, mainly derived from the areas near the Tropic of Cancer, and southward into Vera Cruz State of Mexico where French farmers arrived in the 1870s and Spanish settlers arrived in the 1600s....mixing with the Huasteca Nation and to a lesser extent the Totonacs further to the South and the disorganised Indian groupings to the north among the group generally styled as the "Chichimeca" (jibber-jabber people).

    Housing ranges from absolute hovels (15%), peasant-hovel-upwardly mobile lower-middle class with hygiene and well-kempt home and grounds...(50%), solidly middle-class / peasant-by-choice or higher with homes and perhaps maids....(30%), and then the Hacienda de Santa Engracia people and the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre people (left) and the Hacienda de la Vega of our neighbours, another 3%.

    To the left is the entrance to the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre and below that is a hint about the Hacienda de la Vega, aka Huerta de la Vega, and certain other folkloric and legal names that this honoured place in the locale and the State of Tamaulipas....all respectful and all pertinent to the history at that moment.    We vigorously urge, and almost require, that the reader visit this site, which is secure, to review photos and commentary about the Hacienda de la Vega, simply by clicking onto the image of our entry gate on the upper right corner of this page.

     We have quite a page there, so be sure to scroll way, way down.....4 seconds or so....and see the things that you remember and that you have forgotten if you have been here before.

     As professionals, we need to advise at every turn that this is the beginning of the Monarch Butterfly migration and this is the first time we have been really, really covered up with Monarchs...male and Queen....in the past five years.    You can link up with our place on the above linkage, obviously.  Scroll "way down" to find the article about the Hacienda de la Vega.

    We shall be more than willing to discuss anything about this submission to those who email us with their observations, comments, condemnations, or adorations. 

As always...we appreciate the time you have spent to read, and especially those who have  communicated with us.
El Gringo Viejo

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The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

     This is an ode to those who trod the Lying Lakes....hauling iron ore to the mills of Cleveland and such places to be converted to steel, while then taking the grains of the verdant fields of Illinois and Indiana to the mills of Minneapolis to be converted to flour.

    Without them and their ships....America would not have prospered as it did.   So, as a Confederate, I allow that these are the people who made America what it became.  The sinking of the good ship Edmund Fitzgerald was caused by an error of the crew, for having not sealed the upper closures of the ship.   It simply took on too much water....along with 26,000 tonnes of iron ore.

    We request of the Lord G0d Almighty to remember these souls.  My great-grandfather was one of those, who during an earlier period might have  been awaiting the return voyage, laden with grains to mash into liquor, beer, and other seeds to be sold for seed that would then be turned into  flour for bread.   

     This, had he lived, would have been his 167th year on this planet.  En Requiem - Peter Bonesteel Christian.........associate of the Washburn - Christian Mills, to-day known as GENERAL MILLS.

We thank everyone's patience and interest.   Please forward your inquiries in these times to privatouring@gmail.com

EL GRINGO VIEJO 

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Truly ancient Psalm and Prayer....

King James I (authorised)

King James Version (KJV)

1)     James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting:

2)    My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

3)    Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

4)    But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

5)     If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6)    But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

7)    For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

8)    A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

9)    Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

10)    But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

11)    For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

12)    Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

13)    Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

14)    But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

15)    Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

16)    Do not err, my beloved brethren.

17)    Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

18)    Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

19)     Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

20)    For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

21)     Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

22)     But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

23)     For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

24)     For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

25)     But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

26)    If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

27)    Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

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King James Version (KJV)

Public Domain

     The past never leaves the future  with pause, nor totally in peace.   Be they Draculas or the Truth of the Everlasting Word.....the past never retires from the future.  Were the Southerners guilty without redemption because of the Institution of Slavery and the Northerner innocent of the 30,000 Irish children who were thrown to the streets because they were down to the "Sixth Finger"?

    Let us build our monuments of either these foes carefully,  lest we reap as we have sewn.   Let us not weep about the past, but let us restore the righteousness of the American Experience, giving reverence to the past and reverence to our learning from the Word of the Creator of our Universe.   

El Gringo Viejo

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Admonitions, Confessions, and the ordering of Catholic ritual and treatment of others

________________________

    This, (that which is posted to the lower extremities of this submission), is how things sounded to the Old Gringo several hundred years ago...back in the 1950s and 1960s, when El Gringo Viejo was an acolyte at Saint John's Church, Episcopal in McAllen, Texas.   The three Newton brothers put in (combined) over 30 years trying to be loyal and faithful servants.  Only one made the measure, the eldest....born on a Saturday...while the two younger ones served well, tried to be "of the order born", but as I judge myself, and my judges will say, "extremely mediocre at best"

     We put the Admonitions of the Vieux Anglaise which had been tediously reduced into the Olde English.....not from the Roman Catholic Bible, Liturgy, and Litany, but from the forms of Greek, from the Hebrew, the Aramaic Hebrew, the Latin, and other linguistic influences.....and from the pens of the Monks of Ireland and over a score of the finest linquists of the period....those who were constructing a Bible in a "....tongue accustomed to those who worship in their own language."

Sir Isaac Newton

     The task was actually ordered by King James Ist, and the scores of interpreters, the greatest European linguists, many of whom were agnostics, or Jew, or Irish Catholic, theist, or English Catholic (as opposed to papal catholics), and Roman Church linguists.....and they came up with the best interpretation of the (Roman) Catholic Bible in Latin into what was then "modern English".....and a publication of a simple, Common Catholic Bible for an Orthodox (and Catholic) English-speaking Church that was not under the whims and Inquisitions of the Bishop of Rome. 

 The interpretations became cumbersome to be sure, but it also became much of the most quoted, most moving, most beautiful verbiage ever read and/or uttered by the mind and tongue of Mankind.   "Almighty Father, We who have erred and strayed like lost sheep...and followed too much in the devices and desires of our own hearts....." sounds a lot better than....'God don't make no s###' of the new Anglican approach to "relevance", and "inclusion", and "reason" and "tolerance" and "progressivism".   The Roman Catholics of to-day do little better.  Perhaps the Greek Orthodox might still have some semblance of Tradition.    This Anglican Catholic stuff was not something made up at the spur of the moment.   The translations were the work of the greatest linguistic and historian intellectuals of the day.  The translations had the approval of such personalities as Sir Isaac Newton...to this day regarded by many as the most intelligent man who ever lived.

     Oddly enough, the portrait of Sir Isaac Newton is a true portrait, but it depicts a person who is actually the "spittin' image" of El Zorro....our closest chum and friend from the extreme northern edge of the Republic of Texas.   It is an oddity...but please understand....one who says that he is a "direct descendant" from Sir Isaac....is floating balogna.   I can be a nephew of descent and El Zorro can be a nephew by descent....but Sir Isaac Newton never had issue of progeny.   His brother, yes....but Sir Isaac, no.

WE LEAVE THIS SUBMISSION BY QUOTING FROM THE KING JAMES BIBLE (UNABRIDGED)  concerning the point that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above....''

Thanks for your continued patronage.  To-morrow, more studies from reality.

El Gringo Viejo

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