Spanish views from a small town

Yesterday, a little boy was rescued from a narrow well he had fallen into thirteen days earlier. Unfortunately, the height he had fallen from (he was found at close to a hundred meters underground), had caused his death in the first hours after the incident. It happened in Totalén, Málaga. A family had gone to a patch of land owned by a family member to make a paella in the open air and have a general picnic. The boy, around two years old, wandered off, and either discovered the open hole, or uncovered it. Cats and toddlers are both known for their curiosity, and that, unfortunately, led him to look in the hole, and he fell into it. It wasn't very wide, but two-year olds can fit almost anywhere. The accident reminded me of Jessica McClure back in 1987. Jessica was a year and a half when she fell into a well shaft in Midland, Texas. But her fall was only about six meters. She was singing and crying while rescuers had to mine a parallel hole and a mine shaft to connect it to the we...

A wall. The word conjures up images of a red, unresponsive, solid red brick. If I continue with the image in my head, memories of childhood stories of the Berlin Wall appear. Desperate people who would risk death to reach the other side. Bricks, cement, and barbed wire that became the shame of Europe. Glory, amazement, and bewilderment at a new future when it finally came down. History has shown that walls may hinder for a while, but eventually, human ingenuity and desperateness will find a way around them. The Great Wall of China might have kept out invaders, but only for a while. Hadrian's Wall couldn't keep out the wild Scots from the Roman settlements. The Israeli wall of shame can't keep out the angry Palestinian missiles. Why should a wall all along the southern border of the United States keep out desperate people in search of a peaceful, normal life? Just this past week I was involved in a discussion on Facebook about the proposed wall. The President is throwing...

Once upon a time, internet challenges didn't exist. Each idiot did things within his small circle, and the damages were generally reduced to one or two intellectually challenged individuals in the same neighborhood. Now, however, whether benign or species-threatening, strange behaviors are being practiced wherever internet reaches, which is pretty much everywhere. Most of us remember the Blue Whale challenge, which consisted of following certain steps, which would end in suicide. The Momo challenge was something similar. The teenager that will maim themselves and then take their own life, just to win a challenge is one that needs help. These challenges, and their existence, should have had parents taking a better look at their offspring. In some cases, it did. Others were lost. Those were a couple of the darker "challenges." The lightest one was the ice bucket challenge. It originated in summer, and was for a worthy cause; raising money for ALS investigation. Everyone...

Christmas is gone, let it go. There have been good moments, bad moments, regular moments, and moments when I just wanted to fast forward six months. The pressure and the excess came to a head on the Saturday before New Year's Eve, as I was doing my weekly food shopping. I was contemplating vegetables for the big dinner on the Eve, and the big lunch on the next day, trying to decide which I would cook. I just felt something rip inside and said to myself, "I don't care!" and went to the checkout. We had just had tons of food on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, were going to have tons more on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, and then repeat on Epiphany, which is definitely celebrated here. Too much! To top it off, the cold is back. The days are sunny, with the warm sun beckoning us outside, but the nights are down to freezing, and my favorite spot at night is standing in front of the wood stove. My little laptop has some problems; my open tabs crash without w...