Spanish views from a small town

I don't usually read book reviews because likes are very subjective. What I like someone else might hate, and vice versa. Rave reviews on book covers don't influence me; reading the plot summary usually does. Even then, sometimes the idea in the plot sounds interesting, but the writer hashes it completely. One such book that comes to mind is The Last Mohican . I tried to read it ages ago, but I concur with Mark Twain's opinion of Cooper's poor writing skills. The movie with Daniel Day Lewis, however, was wonderful. If only Cooper had had half the writing skills of some modern day screenwriters! Yet, despite not paying attention to reviews, I am now going to review a book that left me very cold in its perception of modern day Spain. When The Da Vinci Code came out, everyone was talking about what a great book it was. I succumbed and bought it, and liked it pretty much. Angels and Demons , however, wasn't as convincing. After that I didn't read any more of Dan ...

We continue with the exaltation and veneration of a figure in our country's history we would do well to put in his actual place, as a loathsome parentheses that held off the dragging of Spain into the modern world. Franco should be understood as a power hungry thief spawned by a civil war. Instead, his descendants were allowed to keep their ill-begotten riches, and are still mentioned with reverence, such as when his only daughter, Carmen Franco y Polo, died at the end of last year. Her passing should not have been news, simply a note in encyclopedias.  Her passing means her children are now settling the, lengthy, inheritance. Among some of the riches is the Pazo de Meirás, in Sada. I wrote about how Franco really stole it from the original owner's daughters, Emilia Pardo Bazán, for their intention had been to donate it to a Jesuit community, in  In Perpetuity . Now, Franco's grandchildren apparently want to put the property up for sale, rather than give it back to the co...

What do Spain, Kosovo, San Marino, and Bosnia-Herzegovina have in common? At first look, nothing, except that they're all in Europe. If you are into trivia, however, you'll know that their national anthems have no lyrics. There are no words to sing to, just hold your hand over your heart, and go, "lo, lo, lo, lo, lo-lo-lo." It's been that way in Spain ever since the military march, Marcha Granadera , later become the Marcha Real , has been played at official acts involving the monarchy first, and later, the government. In 1870 there was an attempt to change it, and to adopt an anthem with some words to lift up the national heart. There were no suggestions, and things stayed pretty much the same until the Second Republic in 1931, when the anthem was changed for one with lyrics.  Of course, Franco was not in agreement, and when he won the Civil War, he put things back in their place. He tried to get into use lyrics written in the 1920's that called for the g...

Things in Catalunya haven't turned out like the conservative government in Madrid would have liked. After the declaration of independence in October, the central government declared the Catalan govern null and void, and sent out an arrest warrant for its president, Carles Puigdemont, accusing him of rebellion and sedition. Puigdemont, however, found refuge in Belgium. In the meantime, Madrid ordered new regional elections, which turned out more or less like the previous, with the majority of votes going to the independence parties. A new govern has been set up, with the exception of the president, who is again Puigdemont, except if he comes to Spain to be sworn into office, he goes to jail. While things are still in the air, Madrid rules the roost in Barcelona. Madrid is angry at the results of the elections. Madrid is trying to exact its pound of flesh in the meantime by making changes to the educational system in Catalunya. Upon dissolving the Catalan govern , and taking char...

It turns out my aversion to housework will help me in the long run. A study run over twenty years by the University of Bergen in Norway shows that inhaling regular cleaning products, like degreasing sprays, window cleaners, and other substances, can reduce lung capacity to the same extent as smoking twenty cigarettes a day.  Though, thanks to my father's smoking habit in my infancy, I already have asthma, now I am vindicated in not having a spic and span house. I never did like the smell of most cleaning products, however brightly and attractively they did smell. My refusal to use bleach now has a good reason behind it. Despite the Spanish love of bleach to disinfect and leave everything bone white, my gut was telling me it was not a good idea.  So you can smell the last meal we cooked when you walk into my house? At least it smells more natural than canned roses or plastic pine needles. It also damages the lungs less. And there are more germs and bacteria around. Which is...

The mother sent her child off to school with misgivings. There had been gunfire in the night. The sound told her it was not in their neighborhood, patrolled with diligence, but across the river, where it was dangerous to go. The school was also patrolled, but no one knew when someone might take the battle out of its usual zone. No one was safe these days. This is not a scene from Syria. It can easily be a scene from any American city. Yesterday it was a scene from one of the country's safest towns. There is a sickness in the country, an illness that is become terminal, gnawing at the insides. A country once proud of being resilient and tolerant, is becoming a paradise for dealers of death. Where better to mow down people than in a school, where the sitting students are become sitting ducks? It's a shooter's wet dream. Psychologically, all of the eighteen school shootings that have happened this just-begun year, can be explained. Eight of those shootings have resulted in...

When it is called an offense to photoshop a picture of your face over the face of a figure of Christ, and you are punished with an almost five hundred euro fine, you know a thin red line has been crossed somewhere. The figure of Christ belonged to a Brotherhood, one of many that carry their figures on Holy Week. When one of its members saw the photoshopped face on Instagram, he asked the person who had done it to take it down. The person ignored the petition; he wasn't intending to harm anyone, just having some fun. The Brotherhood then went to court. The photoshopper was found guilty of offending religious sentiment, and fined €480. The guy, a victim of the new economy, worked at temporary, low paying jobs, and didn't have the money. A crowd funding on internet raised the money for him. The news created an outpouring of photoshopped Christs on social sites. That there is a law against offending religious sentiment is as medieval as a law can get. How does it fit in with an e...

The Spanish have an obsession with learning English. English is seen as the language everyone needs to get ahead, to get a better job, to get a better education, the one thing that will bring someone a better life. As if reading Shakespeare in the original will make one a genius here, when even native English speakers don't understand the Bard or are unable to read those atemporal plays without a translation.  Part of that obsession stems from a decidedly ineffectual education. Even though English is now taught to three year olds when they start school, it's treated as simply another subject, like learning the colors or the numbers. Small kids tend to have only an hour of English every week, in blocks of fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes immersion four days a week will not an English speaker make. It also doesn't help that everything on television is dubbed because Franco was scared someone might understand a subversive message in the heavily censored films way back when. ...

Does anyone remember Aylan Kurdi? Though his first name might ring a bell, I'm pretty sure no one remembers who he was or why his name became so well-known in Europe. His name has been washed away by the tide, much like the tide that washed up his three year old body onto the beach at Bodrum, in Turkey. The picture of that little boy lying at the waters' edge, in a red t-shirt and navy blue shorts prompted a shudder in most of the world. That little boy and his family, paradoxically dead because they tried to escape death in their home town in Syria, made Europe open its eyes for a short while. Quotas were set up; each European member country was to receive a certain amount of refugees according to its wealth and possibilities. In the aftermath of Aylan's death, with his picture still circulating everywhere, everyone agreed. But they were only awaiting the moment that collective amnesia would fall upon a fast-forgetting public, awash in a daily bombardment of sights and s...