A LONG-LIVED FASCINATION WITH MEXICO (CONTINUED)

I.  THE TRIP:  TEXAS

It was the day after Christmas. Presents had been opened, wrapping paper disposed of, and the house had been straightened up.  Some days earlier, my father had serviced his trusty Buick Roadmaster sedan.  By 6:00 AM, we had loaded our luggage, locked up and were on Highway 67 South, heading toward Little Rock and points south.

I was no stranger to long-distance travel, having accompanied my father on trips throughout the U.S. and even into French Canada.  My father was a widower who tried to make up for my being motherless by providing me with exposure to as many learning experiences as possible.  His efforts to compensate for the loss of my mother were compounded by the fact that I had witnessed her death in a tragic car crash two years earlier. He was also possessed of abundant wanderlust, and this meant that I naturally assumed that life was one exciting trip after another.  And, as a seasoned traveler and a bookworm, I made certain to carry along plenty of books and snacks. Although several weeks had transpired since the radio history contest, my cranium was still crammed, thanks to Mrs. Corbett, with such a staggering load of historical trivia that - had I known of her at the time - would surely have qualified me as a dedicated servant of Clio, the muse of history.

I recall that our first night's stop was at Eldorado, Arkansas.  I also remember that there was nothing in Eldorado that stirred my imagination.  It was Texas, that land of awe-inspiring history and heroes of epic proportions that I wanted to experience.

Our second day on the road saw us finally entering Texas.  I had no idea of the distances involved in traveling from one Texas town to another.  However, Texas did not disappoint me, largely I think, because my father had planned most capably, with well thought-out stops at Austin and San Antonio.

One entire afternoon was spent inside and on the grounds of the Texas state capitol.  As I wandered the premises, history literally walloped me at every turn.  Not only was the capitol building larger than its national counterpart, there were monuments galore, each one of which eulogized Texas martyrs, revolutionaries, rangers and assorted icons from the 19th and 20th centuries.

After a night in a downtown Austin hotel and breakfast in a restaurant on Congress Avenue, Dad headed the car south.  In no time at all, we had cleared the Austin city limits and were moving on toward San Antonio and the Alamo.  Austin in 1954, although impressive because of its history and monuments, was nothing like the burgeoning  metropolis of 2014, which is rapidly filling up with economic refugees from California and the Rust Belt, resulting in some of the worst traffic jams in the country.

Keeping my eyes focused on the landscape slipping by as our southern progress continued, my imagination turned to what it must have been like in February of 1836, as Santa Anna and his forces marched northward through similar terrain on their way to a dusty little outpost  called San Antonio and the Alamo.

Arriving in San Antonio around noon, I was so excited that I could barely get through my lunch, anticipating what lay ahead in the afternoon at the Alamo.  By early afternoon, we were finally inside the Alamo.  Very quickly,  I found a solitary corner in the vicinity of the Long Barracks and allowed my imagination to run wild.  In my reverie, it was if I were witnessing the final Mexican assault in the early morning hours of March 6, 1836.  Travis, Bowie, Crockett and the martyrs were gallantly facing overwhelming odds, as the sights and sounds of battle filled my head.  Two hours later, my father cut short my daydream, informing me that it was time to move on.

Before leaving San Antonio, however, I was able to view the martyrs' monument in Monument Square.  I distinctly recall the Spanish surname of "Guerrero" somehow standing out among the long list of the fallen.  Implausibly, that would be the family name of the woman I was destined to marry some decades later.  It also made me aware that an independent Texas was not brought into being as a purely Anglo undertaking.  Eventually, I would learn that names such as Ruiz, Navarro and Zavala would  be numbered among the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Republic of Texas.

Not far south of San Antonio, we crossed a bridge over a trickle of water that somehow had been dubbed the "Medina River."   Fom behind the steering wheel, my father remarked that such a "river" would not even qualify for gully status back home.  Nevertheless, I dimly recalled that I had come across a reference to the Medina River in the Encyclopedia, during the many hours I had been segregated by Mrs. Corbett in the library of Kinyon Elementary School.

Further reflection led to my concluding that we were near where the bloodiest day  in the history of Texas had taken place in 1813, when forces led by Bernardo Gutierrez, the self-proclaimed president of the "Republica del Norte" and the leader of a movement which had sought independence for Texas, had been crushed by a crack Spanish army.  During that battle, fully 1,800 Texas partisans - a motley bunch of American frontiersmen, descendants of Tejanos and Indians - fell near the Medina River.  A member of the Spanish officer corps at the battle was a nineteen-year-old lieutenant named Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.  The military engagement came to be known as the Battle of the Medina and represented a temporary setback in the inevitable advance toward independence, which would be realized twenty-three years later, in 1836.

After an uneventful overnight stop in Corpus Christi, we continued southward toward our next destination, Brownsville.  What made an impression was  the temperature hovering around 80. Once again, my mind wandered, this time to March of 1846, when General Zachary "Old Rough and Ready" Taylor, following the orders of President James K. Polk, crossed the Nueces River and made for the Rio Grande to press for that River being the southern boundary of Texas, which had finally been admitted to the Union in 1845.  Thus was the conflict known as the Mexican-American War initiated; however, I was more engrossed in pondering how American forces, clothed in heavy woolen uniforms, would have held up over a march of 160 miles to the Rio Grande in humid, 80-degree weather.

The long stretch of highway south of Sarita must have lulled me into an extended nap, as I have no memory at all of our having passed through the inhospitable surroundings that typify that great expanse of south Texas known as the King Ranch.  The next thing I knew my father was driving into Brownsville.  

Brownsville in 1954 was a far different place than it has become sixty years later.  At that time, it stood out as a pleasant town of 35,000, with wide, palm-shaded streets and graceful old homes.  I definitely recall that the town had an aura of spotlessness, in direct contrast to the refuse and littler that one encounters on its streets today.  The downtown was a lively place, with attractive shops, movie theatres and elegant hotels.  In any case, Brownsville made a decided impression on me, and that decision figured prominently in my decision, some thirty years later, to make the city my home.

For the next two days, my father and his twelve-year-old son took special delight in the sub-tropical, early January weather.  A drive to Port Isabel on a day marked by blue skies and pleasant breezes was unforgettable.  And we also had a look at South Padre Island.  Definitely, one of my fondest experiences was being able to spend a couple of hours in a motel swimming pool, thinking that my friends back home would be truly envious.

After two days in Brownsville and with Monterrey beckoning as our next destination, we moved on to McAllen, from which we would proceed to Reynosa and the Republic of Mexico.  As we neared the bridge and the crossing point into Mexico, I felt a surge of excitement, something quite unknown from anything I had previously experienced.  Somehow I must have known that Mexico would enthrall me.  And, despite travels which have taken me throughout the world since that time in 1954, the fascination has persisted and, with it, a long-running attempt to comprehend the vast cultural differences that have marked the often trouble history between the United States and Mexico.

A LONG-LIVED FASCINATION WITH MEXICO: A MEMOIR

PREFACE

It was the year in which I was rapidly moving from eleven to twelve years of age. Mrs.Corbett, my sixth-grade teacher, was astonished when I emerged victorious in our elementary school's sixth-grade history bee.  My success meant that I was eligible to compete in a city-wide radio history contest, which would pit me against the sixth-grade winners from five other elementary schools.  The prospect of being on Poplar Bluff's only radio station at the time made for even more anticipation on my part.

Mrs. Corbett was eager for a win for Kinyon Elementary School.  Her enthusiasm, in fact, exceeded my own; and, consequently, she sequestered me for the next several weeks to pour over history books in Kinyon's small library, while my classmates continued to labor on in math, science and English.  As I much preferred history to other subjects, my isolation in the library was not an unwelcome development.

Finally, the day of reckoning arrived.  I nervously presented myself, along with five other sixth-grade winners, in the studios of radio station KWOC.  To my history-saturated mind, the preliminary questions fired at us by announcer and moderator Jerry Higley seemed fairly undemanding, and my nerves quickly settled down.

Midway in the hour-long contest, however, the complexity of the questions began to increase.  My heart sank when I saw a girl from Mark Twain Elementary, whom I thought was one of the brightest contestants, bow out on a question concerning John Quincy Adams' drafting of the Monroe Doctrine.  Immediately following her departure, I was queried about President Theodore Roosevelt's role in the building of the Panama Canal and somehow uttered the correct answer.  At that point, I began to sense the possibility of going the distance.

At the five-minute mark, it had come down to the representative of the sixth-graders of Williamson-Kennedy Elementary School and myself.  Finally, as onlookers and the radio audience were caught up in the tenseness of the moment, the entire contest hinged on the person of John Rolfe and the cultivation of tobacco.  My adversary drew a blank.  There it was.  The championship was mine for the taking.

Happily, from a trip into Arkansas, I recalled one of my father's employees there pulling from his shirt pocket a pack of cigarettes which carried the John Rolfe label.  And that was all I needed to come up with the prize-winning answer.  I had won and, in doing so, had fulfilled Mrs. Corbett's hope for a victory for good old Kinyon Elementary School!

With no little parental pride, my father came to the conclusion that I should be rewarded with a family trip that would expose me to various and sundry historical sites.  Since our family's American origins lay in Virginia, he suggested a trek to the East Coast, with stopovers at Williamsburg and Richmond, as well as visits to battlefields which had been frequented by our Confederate ancestors.  However, because during the previous summer a good friend's cousin from Texas had been visiting Poplar Bluff and could not desist from constantly extolling the praises of Travis, Bowie, Crockett, the Alamo and innumerable Texas Rangers, I interjected that perhaps we should travel instead to Texas and also see a bit of Mexico.  My father acquiesced, and we began making plans to make tracks for the Lone Star State and the Republic of Mexico during my next Christmas vacation.  Little did I know then that our trip would permanently alter my view of the world and of history in general.

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS SUCH A THING AS SHARIAH LAW!

The Johnnies-come-lately in Hollywood have apparently just recently come to the realization that there is something called Shariah law;  hence, their attention grabbing demonstrations against the Sultan of Brunei and his comfy little hotel in California.

Certainly, attention directed against the ruling family in oil-rich Brunei is fully warranted, for the group of hypocritical  libertines who rule there is known for personally contravening  many of the rigid Islamic strictures prescribed by Shariah Law for the Muslim faithful, while forcing its authoritarianism on the common folk.  But, hey, let's don't stop with the playboy sultan and his Hollywood hostelry!  There are much bigger fish to fry, and many of them have dug deep burrows in the American economy.

Prince Waleed bin-Talal from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example, is a high-roller of some renown, and his stakes in the United States are worth billions.  Yet, he represents a nation where the Koran is the constitution and Shariah is the code of law.  Maybe Prince Wally is worth a demonstration or two as well.

Having lived under Shariah law in Saudi Arabia for more than six years, I am more than a little familiar with its provisions.  Those of what formerly would have been considered of unorthodox sexual proclivities are officially subject to the death penalty.  Adultery is punishable by death, and apostates under Shariah may also experience the ultimate punishment.  Blaspheming Islam may result in severe lashing, as may indulging in the consumption of alcoholic beverages. For those Americans still believing in the pablum that Islam is just another "religion of peace," I dare them to try to find a church or synagogue functioning in a country with a Shariah-based law code.

Unfortunately, too many Americans have been nurtured with myths about Islam.  And many are so intellectually lazy that most knowledge outside their popular-culture-drenched lives totally escapes them.  Incredibly, too many souls still believe that Ben-Ghazi is a mafioso.

At last count, there were about 9 million Muslims residing in the United States.  I often ask myself how many of those when they first reached the shores of America kissed the ground and shouted,"Thank Allah, we have finally arrived in the land of separation of powers and the First Amendment!"  Not many, I would presume.  No, their numbers indubitably include excessive numbers who dream of a Shariah paradise and who have no appreciation for our Constitution.

When living in Saudi Arabia, I had no idea of asserting my own American values emphasizing freedom of expression and religion.  I tried to be a model expatriate, respecting as best I could the prevailing culture. As a Christian, I worshiped secretly with others so as not to openly offend Islam By the same token, as an American, I expect those coming to my country to honor its founding principles. 

Hopefully, those Hollywood hustlers who have finally discovered something called Shariah will continue to let the word go out that Shariah law is violently opposed to American values!  Don't you think it's about time?

Deo Vindice!

God bless America and Texas!

SOUTH TEXAS POVERTY & SOUTH TEXAS POLITICS: A SORDID STORY OF DECEPTION & ABUSE

The town where I live seems to take pride in billing itself as America's poorest city.  Indeed, if one is looking for poverty, it is here.  With 45% of the population living under the poverty line and more than 46% of children reckoned to be poverty stricken, this is a very poor place.

Government programs are big business here.  More than 36% of residents are recipients of food stamps and Medicaid.  The average income for a man runs around $21,000 per annum, while females do somewhat worse at $17,000.

For generations, this has been a one-party town, with the party of hand-outs dominating the courthouse and city/county politics.  How many times the word has gone out from the party bosses that voting the other way will mean drastic cuts in benefits is hard to say.  But, nevertheless, it is a time-proven and effective political strategy that works well with the under-educated and unsophisticated populace of south Texas.

During my almost a quarter century of having a home in south Texas, the same old political cabals have called for more and more public expenditures to mitigate the plight of the "pobrecitos." The predicament of the poor, however, seems never to be alleviated, while the advantage of what is in effect a veritable poverty industry, as always, goes to the established political machine and its various factions.

Meanwhile, the one-party conglomerate  continues to mire itself more deeply in corruption, and the list of indicted and convicted attorneys, judges, commissioners and politicos continues to grow.  The conviction and sentencing of the local district attorney for racketeering, for example,  is a blot which will take a time span of significant proportions to erase.

Local elections do well to attract 15% of registered voters, too many of whom are only too eager to sell their votes cheaply, in some instances for a platter of barbecued chicken and a beer.  Lately, federal law enforcement agents and Texas Rangers have been taking a closer look at the shenanigans at south Texas polling places.  Whether their efforts will appreciably change the regional  political complexion remains to be seen.

In many ways, the local culture is reminiscent of what one encounters south of the border, with the "ricos" doing quite well, while the "pobrecitos" amble along as they habitually have, with the difference being that the poor on this side of the river become more and more inured in a culture of welfare, victimhood and deprivation. In the interim, the politicians and decision-makers on local governing councils more often than not decide to swindle the taxpayers and treat themselves to the spoils of office.

The folly of one-party politics is plain to see. Not only does such a system bring bring on blight and the squandering of human resources, it invariably leads to the cheapening and debilitation of the wider body politic, which, in turn, is victimized by irresponsibility and spreading ignorance.  For certain, Detroit is not the sole example of governance by one party over generations, for that city's example is in the process of being replicated not only in south Texas but, I am sure, in too many other areas as well.

Deo Vindice!

May God bless Texas!

IS IT POSSIBLE FOR CONGRESS TO PLUNGE ANY LOWER?

In a time when the approval ratings for Congress have hit rock bottom and when the executive branch of government has presumed to take over the function of law-making, last night's Senate bull-session on global warming is the most extreme example of an ineffective institution fiddling while Rome burns.

Despite a still-floundering economy, an international crisis in the Ukraine, a Middle East policy in tatters, abundant evidence of nefarious deeds in the IRS to punish recalcitrant conservatives, an ill-conceived national health plan that promises to further bankrupt the country and former allies scampering to find security in new alliances, the U.S. Senate chose to devote an all-night session to prattle and blather about global warming.

To say that the ridiculous has met the vacuous and that they have combined to hold sway in the Senate is an understatement.  A cursory examination of global temperatures over the last 12 years reveals that they have held steady and even declined.  To maintain that global warming is a scientific concept immune to challenge is to beg the question, for in many respects the conclusion of the "warmers" appears to be more like a premise masquerading as a conclusion.  But, be that as it may, any effort to resurrect and pass Cap and Trade or any other such legislation would have little to no effect on CO2 and CFC emissions and the stratospheric ozone layer, as China, India and other emerging industrial powers will, come what may, continue to produce emissions of enormous proportions. This is not to say that Americans should not strive for a clean environment on the home front, but to harness our own economy to the doubtful dogma of global warming would be folly in the extreme.

And so the irresponsibility of Congress persists.  With a weak and toxic chief executive leading the charge, the ineffectual solons of the Senate choose to muddle along, further obscuring salient issues with more and more pablum for the masses.  May we soon awaken from this languishing nightmare of 5 years.

Deo Vindice!

May God bless Texas, and may the Lone Star State remain forever red!

THE UKRAINE: THE "B" TEAM AMATEURS ARE AT IT AGAIN

I once had a friend who was a journalist for Magyar TV (Hungarian TV) who was based in New York.  My friend was appalled by the amount of ignorance she encountered on the part of Americans concerning knowledge of the rest of the world.  To prove her point, she took to the streets of New York City with a camera man and interviewed passersby.  "Have you heard of Budapest?" she would ask.  Most had not.  In fact, most had not even heard of Hungary.

When citizens are uninformed, it is not surprising the type of leadership they place in power.  And, certainly, our present government must take the cake for boneheads and bloopers affecting foreign policy and how to proceed in a world in which challenges from egomaniacal power-seekers are commonplace.

The latest case in point, obviously, is the Ukraine. Once again, those who make our foreign policy have demonstrated that they lack essential knowledge and the tools to anticipate and respond proactively. A cursory examination of a map of eastern Europe reveals the strategic value of the Ukraine for Russia.  Keep in mind, too, that the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin has embarked on a course of elevating itself by way of marketing its vast natural resources, including oil, natural gas and metals.  With western Europe showing itself to be more and more unable to do without Russian resources, the likelihood of any challenge from that quarter to Russian power moves would be unlikely. And, once again, the hapless folks who are charged with national security and foreign policy in Washington appear dismally unprepared for what is now taking place around the Ukraine and especially in the Crimean Peninsula.

 Russian territory between the Ukraine and central Asia is limited in size, and through this geography must pass major amounts of oil and gas.  Furthermore, the territory is key to Russian leverage in the Caucasus.  Looked at in this manner, that Russia would want to exercise influence in the Ukraine is nothing short of conspicuous.

Further strengthening Russian resolve  to act with authority and force in the region has been the American encouragement of former Soviet Union satellite nations to join NATO, thus depriving Russia of the buffer across the east European plain that these countries once provided. In addition, a recent American presence in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has no doubt reawakened old Russian fears of American meddling in its backyard.  Also, the 21st century invasions of Georgia were precipitated by fears that American advisers were facilitating the passage of arms into Chechnya, a region which is absolutely linked to Russian notions of security.

In 1994, the Ukraine, Russia, the United States and Britain signed an agreement guaranteeing the territorial integrity of the Ukraine. In return, the Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear weapons.  But, now, with a recent history of 20 years of tactical moves from the West in the region, Russia may well feel constrained to restrict its recognition of the validity of that agreement, hence the hard line on the Ukraine.

And now, with a timid and weak president whose advisers on geopolitical matters are severely lacking in knowledge and experience, we find the U.S. once again in a position which will cause its friends and allies to question its commitment and resolve.  Somehow, I cannot help but think that the crisis at hand could have been anticipated and even avoided by having the right people at the helm in Washington.

Deo Vindice!

May God bless Texas and may the Lone Star State remain forever red!

U.S. GOVERNMENT'S WAR ON CHRISTIANS PICKS UP STEAM WITH SUCCESSFUL DOJ EFFORTS AGAINST ROMEIKE FAMILY

THE ROMEIKE FAMILY

My earliest ancestor to set foot on the shores of North America found his way to Virginia, fleeing Puritan excesses in England.  Like many Americans whose families fled to America seeking religious freedom, I have never doubted that my country should be a beacon of hope for those whose religious beliefs have caused them to experience discrimination in their countries of origin. Now, though, it has become crystal clear that any assumptions of this sort are no longer appropriate.

Germany does not permit youngsters to be home-schooled by their families.  In fact, families in Germany home-schooling their children run the risk of having their children taken away by the state.  For a minority of Christian families tutoring their children at home, German law has been a type of state-sanctioned persecution.

In 2008, the Romeikes, a German Christian family seeking an environment in which they could teach their children at home, were admitted to the United States.  However, with the advent of a new administration in 2009, their immigration status underwent a dramatic change.  Henceforth, the Romeikes would be hounded by the now inappropriately called Department of Justice, which sought to revoke the Romeike family's refugee status and to eventually return them to Germany.  Unfortunately, the Romeikes recently lost their appeal against the DOJ's action, and now face deportation.

This is a story that you will likely not encounter in most major media outlets, which now are in lockstep with a pagan culture and a government bent on uprooting traditional American values. With Christians facing persecution on a broad front throughout the world, it is outlandish that the Romeike family will now be forced out of a country that had once welcomed the persecuted of many stripes and persuasions.

Even more bizarre is the fact that refugee status is badly abused under present immigration law.  No doubt, had the Romeikes been Muslims seeking to immigrate from the Southern Hemisphere, their fate would have been quite different.  

The Romeike story augurs declining respect for people of faith.  For many Christians, the future looks bleak.  Nevertheless, it should be remembered that Christianity has a history of thriving in cultures of persecution and discrimination in which those of great conviction have risked life, limb and personal liberty in rising to the challenge.

Deo Vindice!

God bless Texas, and may the Lone Star State remain forever red!