Chapter Thirty-Four: LA MALINCHE
Here at long last is the final chapter of The Jade Steps. I could not understand why I just couldn't seem to finish it - until I realized that I didn't want to let Malinali - known to history as La Malinche (lah-mah-lin-chay) - and her incredible story go. Now I have. Her saga is one of the more extraordinary in all history. Now it is complete - save for an Epilogue, which explains why it is so critically important for the truth of her story be known. So it's worth re-emphasizing again that The Jade Steps is a true story. Every principal event described actually happened, every named person really lived and had that name. It all happened almost 500 years ago, but it still remains the cause of the civil war within Mexico's soul. Mexico will never rise out of the Third World and overcome its inferiority complex towards America until this spiritual wound is healed. That is the purpose of this book.] The Jade Steps Chapter Thirty-Four: La Malinche Malinali sat on the roof of her home, serenely looking out upon the sunlit waters of Lake Texcoco. Cortez had the home built for her, here in Coyoacan, next to the palace of the former King of Coyoacan that he was using as his headquarters to manage the growing empire of New Spain. It was cool here, with the breeze coming off the lake, and the shade of the awnings and all the plants Cortez had brought up to the roof to make it a garden. It was peaceful and quiet - which is what she appreciated the most. Almost a year had passed since the fall of Tenochtitlan, the capture of Cuauhtémoc, and the death of the Aztec Empire. As she looked back upon all that had happened since, that day of what the Spaniards called August 13 [1521. It is now mid-June, 1522.] It seemed like just a day before yet so long ago.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/28/09
We are told that we must say something good about the recently dead. OK, here goes. Ted Kennedy is dead. Good. When his terminal brain cancer was announced in May 2008, the HFR commented thusly, for it is worth repeating now:
The HFR's goblet is raised this week in sympathy to this young lady and not to her murderer. She is Mary Jo Kopechne. Her death at the hands of a drunk Ted Kennedy served one purpose for which America must be forever grateful: it prevented his ever being elected President of the United States... The HFR goblet contains no mawkish, treacly, fawning oleaginous encomiums to a man who has done more objective damage to his country than any American alive today.The HFR does not gloat upon the pain and suffering of any fellow human being - but nonetheless raises a full glass of gratitude that he will soon no longer be in the Senate and in a position to do further damage to America.Of course, the Zerocrats are now using his death to exactly that: further damage to America. That the Democrat Party could lionize this evil anti-American, so personally revolting the London Daily Mail's obituary of him is entitled "The Senator of Sleaze," explains the pit of irretrievable immorality into which it has sunk.
THE CENTRAL INCOMPETENCE AGENCY
A bloated corpse remains, but life and spirit have left the CIA. A troubled agency, which can ill afford it, has had a very bad week. The CIA's terrible week illustrates that CIA Director Leon Panetta has as little clout with the president as he has respect from his subordinates. Mr. Panetta lost the respect of most of his troops when he told the House Intelligence Committee in June the CIA had concealed from it a secret program to assassinate al Qaeda terrorists. T This wasn't true, as Mr. Panetta learned when he belatedly talked to his predecessors. Congress was never briefed on the plan because it was never implemented. There's speculation Mr. Panetta will resign in protest, or be fired. It may not matter very much. The CIA has not been central to intelligence for quite some while.
RECONQUISTA
Santiago de Compostela. If you want to feel Christianity, feel it in your bones, feel it resonate with history, feel its promise for the future, here is where you come. Sant Iago - St. James - is the patron saint of Spain, and here is where the faithful believe he is buried. For over a thousand years, peregriños, pilgrims, have followed the Way of St. James from all corners of Europe, over the Pyrenees, and across northern Spain to its northwestern corner in a region called Galicia. Their goal is the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, which houses the tomb of Christ's Disciple. As it has been for centuries, so it is now. Every day sees swarms of peregriños arrive, having completed their pilgrimage, flooding streets of the ancient city, filling up the cathedral to worship and pray. Close to 200,000 Christians of all ages will walk to Santiago de Compostela this year, and more are expected next year. They come to pay homage to the saint known as Santiago Matamoros - St. James the Moor-Killer - whose images of killing Moslems are here for all to see. St. James is the savior of Spain from Islam. He is the patron saint of the Reconquista.
TREASON AND TED KENNEDY
In honor of the Mary Jo Kopechne Memorial Brain Tumor completing its task, here is Herb Rommerstein's exposé of Ted Kennedy's traitorous collaboration with the Soviet KGB, originally published in Human Events in December 2003. Following Mr. Romerstein's article is the full text of the letter he references from KGB head Viktor Chebrikov to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov regarding Mr. Kennedy's collaboration with the KGB. Regarding his recent hysterical attack on President Bush, it is not unusual for Sen. Kennedy to attack an American president and give aid and comfort to our country's enemies. There are some important reports found in Soviet archives, after the collapse of the communist dictatorship, that provide an interesting insight into the character of the senior Senator from Massachusetts.
FLUSHING SUPERCOOKIES
Just when you think you have seen it all, or most of it, here comes another warning. So you think you have protected yourself by intelligently managing web browser cookies? How about the latest cookie generation known as SuperCookies, which, according to a recent article in the New York Times, have enabled data mining companies like Acxiom to accumulate an average of 1,500 pieces of information on every single American, all 320 million of us? Well, now you can check for Adobe Flash cookies or Local Shared Objects (LSO). I did a check on my computer and found 131 of the little devils. Yes a lot of the web is developed in Adobe Flash these days. Web sites are using LSO to track wherever you go. It gets worse. Flash can also be used to reinstall the regular web cookies that you had previously deleted! Here's how to fix this.
IS FRANCE DOING BETTER THAN US?
Marseille, France. Why does it appear France is bouncing back more quickly from the recession than the United States? France has long been known for having an economy that suffered from too much government interference, too-high taxes and destructive union activity. Yet it grew 1.4 percent in the second quarter of 2009, while the U.S. economy continued to decline. The United States and Britain have had the largest "stimulus" programs of the major economies (as measured by increases in government spending and deficits relative to gross domestic product) and yet they are not moving toward recovery as rapidly as France and most other countries that had far smaller stimulus programs or none.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF A HUG-AND-APPEASEMENT FOREIGN POLICY
In Iraq on Monday (8/24), Islamist terrorists staged massive suicide bombings in Baghdad. Over a hundred Iraqis died, with more than a thousand wounded. The foreign and finance ministries lie in rubble. The Iraqi government is reeling. Our president went to the beach. In Afghanistan, the Taliban crippled the national elections so severely that the eventual "winner" won't have much of a mandate. Despite madcap ballot-box stuffing, the final tally will probably show that less than half of the eligible population voted -- fewer than one in five in the crucial south. On Sunday (8/23), Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, admitted that the Afghan situation is "serious and deteriorating." That's what happens when, instead of killing our enemies, we try hugs.
HOW EVIL IS IRAN? HOW EVIL IS IT TO IGNORE THE EVIL?
By now, most people know that the Iranian regime treats its dissidents with unrestrained barbarity. Even the leading dead tree media have reported anecdotally on the torture of prisoners and the bashing, beating, axing and stabbing of protestors in the streets of the major cities. The rape of prisoners, for example, is a longstanding practice in the Islamic Republic, of women, men, and boys. The rape of virgin women is justified by a deranged appeal to sharia law, according to which virgins will go to heaven. Ergo, according to the warped logic of the torturers, it is necessary to ensure that women guilty of capital offenses not be virgins, so that they will go elsewhere in the afterlife. The Western world, in the face of these outrages, maintains near-total silence. Well, except when they choose to pretend that things are not what they clearly are. Such as our Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/21/09
There's something in Guinness that enables the Irish to be preternaturally perceptive. That's why I turned to the HFR's resident Irishman, Buck O'Fama from County Cork, for an answer to a weird mystery. "Hey, Buck!" I asked. "What the heck does ‘all wee-weed up' mean?" After a long contemplative sip of Guinness, Buck observed, "Well, we know the lad's a stoner, right? A midnight toker. It's South Chicago street slang for being ‘all f#&!d up' or sky-high on weed. But the President can't publicly say: ‘There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all f#&!d up...' so he substitutes ‘all wee-weed up' trying to be so cute-clever-cool funny." Buck had another sip. "Yep, this one's a classic. Everyone is going to be saying his presidency is what's wee-weed up. For the truth is, he's really wee-weed himself."