Category Archives: South of the Border

Remember Goliad!

Posted on September 5, 2010 | Comments Off on Remember Goliad!

FanninThe 1936 memorial to Texas militia Colonel James Fannin and his 400 men, massacred by the Mexican army in 1836, thanks in large part to their feckless commander. Nevertheless. The memorial is said to be on the site where their bodies were heaped and burned. Best version of massacre here. Worth reading.

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Posted in Library, South of the Border, Texana

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Thousand-squid packs ravage Mexicans

Posted on August 30, 2010 | Comments Off on Thousand-squid packs ravage Mexicans

Times are getting tougher down on the west coast of Mexico where “killer giant squid are not only devouring vast amounts of fish they have even started attacking humans.”

And two Mexican fishermen recently paid the price “dragged from their boats and chewed so badly that their bodies could not be identified even by their own families.”

All in all, I greatly prefer visions of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a tortilla. Lots more peaceful.

Via Instapundit.

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Posted in South of the Border

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The San Patricio Battalion

Posted on August 23, 2010 | Comments Off on The San Patricio Battalion

On this day in 1847, the first of several courts martial for desertion and treason commenced in Tacubaya, Mexico. On trial were Irish Catholic deserters from the U.S. Army whom Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had formed the year before as the San Patricio Battalion.

All but two of the seventy-two deserters were sentenced to die on the gallows. But after a trial review, only fifty wound up dancing on the rope. There’s a good book on the battalion, its fighting during the U.S.-Mexican War and its fate. And how after the war was over, its ranks swelled with new deserters whose politics eventually became too much for the Mexicans to bear.

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Posted in Library, South of the Border, Texana

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USS Olympia to be closed

Posted on August 23, 2010 | Comments Off on USS Olympia to be closed

Speaking of plastic (see below), I once built a really pretty plastic model (probably fifty years ago) of Olympia, a Spanish-American War battleship. I had no idea the real thing was in the Delaware River docked at Philadelphia.

And now that I know, I learn it’s to be closed in November. No more visits. Maybe even scrapped or sunk for an artificial reef. Lordy. Fortunately, Craig Swain has a photo tour for you right here. Maybe Corpus Christi should buy it. It’s smaller than the Lex. Or Galveston. It’s as shapely as the Elissa. As if they need more antique ships. Still…

UPDATE:  Seems, according to this link supplied by Craig, that the Olympia was done in by some criminality among its Philadelphia management.

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Posted in Blogosphere, South of the Border, Texana

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Nine flags over Precidio La Bahia

Posted on August 21, 2010 | Comments Off on Nine flags over Precidio La Bahia

DSCN0331On our route to and from Port Aransas every summer, we pass the forbidding walls of the old precidio. With its chapel in the background. As for those flags, let’s see now:  Spain, France, First (1812) Republic of Texas, Mexico, Second (1821) Republic of Texas, Dimmitt’s (1835) Goliad Flag, Third (1836) Republic of Texas, Confederate States of America, United States of American. Whew.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, South of the Border, Texana

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Mr. B.’s crowded classroom

Posted on August 19, 2010 | Comments Off on Mr. B.’s crowded classroom

His fifth grade class, which meets for the first time on Monday, will have thirty pupils. That’s eight more than his fourth grade class had. Seems the public school system has no maximum size requirements for fifth grade. Getting them ready for the crowded classrooms of middle school, I’d bet.

The school principal says she’s working on reducing the fifth grade class sizes, but is promising nothing. Figures. I bet there are two things at work here: the teachers’ unions keeping pay high so more teachers can’t be hired, and the swarm of illegal immigrants flowing across our Southern border.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Obamalot, Scribbles, South of the Border, Texana

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The National Council of Das Volk

Posted on July 31, 2010 | Comments Off on The National Council of Das Volk

An activist group for German-Americans, eerily reminiscent of Aryan Nazi racism. How about an Armenian Studies Program at a major university? Or a “wise Pakistani” on the Supreme Court?

Yet few seem to question The National Council of La Raza, the Chicano Studies Program, or the “wise Latina” —all eligible for Affirmative Action originally intended to redress only African-American slavery and segregation. VDH, as usual,  hits the contradictory nails.

Meanwhile, amid all the illegal-immigrant celebration of the recent court decision against Arizona’s anti-illegals (almost entirely from Mexico) law, there is the solace (buried in the news stories) that it is merely a temporary restraining order. Which is being appealed. After all, as VDH says:

“If the Border Patrol can question those on the American side of the fence on reasonable grounds, then why cannot the policeman do so too a few miles distant?”

The great game is no longer only in Central Asia. It’s also on the U.S.-Mexico border where, aided by corrupt politicians on both sides, it goes on and on, keeping the racist Mexican oligarchy in power and changing our country and our culture as if that was the most natural thing to be doing.

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Posted in Obamalot, South of the Border, Texana

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