Spanish views from a small town

July 4th was the celebration of Independence Day in the United States. It was a day to celebrate the founding of a nation based on certain basic freedoms. People usually have barbecues, watch fireworks, go to parades, and shoot at other people. It is so ironic that one of the amendments on the Constitution that helped to create that country, made sure that mass death could happen on the anniversary of its founding. Fireworks, parades, and guns. So American.  America as a free country is dead. I'm sorry if I anger some people, but that is my opinion, and that of many. Growing up, I had heard comments about how long strong countries, empires really, could last. Two hundred years, more or less, was the answer, at least as a world power. In name, they can last longer, but be a mere paper tiger. The United States was founded in 1776, almost two hundred fifty years ago. It is now headed to its death. Economically, militarily, it is still strong. But, morally, it is deader than a doornail...

Today is that glorious Fourth, the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, in protest against a King that claimed his Divine Right still existed, over a century after King Charles I had been executed for that reason, among others.  Despite having lived more in Spain than in the United States, at this point, Yankee Doodle still sings itself in my head today. If today hadn't been a Sunday, it would have been a normal day, here. Other years, I did try to grill some lunch, much like we used to do at the beach in days gone by. This year, it's too chilly and damp to try to light the fire. I remember Fourths in my childhood in which we would go to City Point beach out by Castle Island, in South Boston. We would take a hibachi in those years, with steaks in a cooler to plop over the coals. My mother, who did not want anyone to go hungry, would also have made complete meals during the morning, and packed the pots with them into bags. My parents didn't care much about the Fo...

Instead of writing every day, it seems I'm slowing down and writing every two days. It's just another measure of how inured we have become to the pandemic, I think. It's become just another part of life. The national state of alarm ended this past Sunday. No more curfews, and no regions closed off, to our disgrace. Why? Because in many cities and large towns, it was as if people equaled the end of the state of alarm with the end of the pandemic. Crowds, and crowds, and crowds of young people, in general, out on the streets, all jumbled together, singing, laughing, shouting, drinking, and dancing. Scenes from Madrid, Barcelona, and even Salamanca looked like it was the local saint's day and a festivity. Fifth wave, here we come. Ayuso, who spoke so much of liberty, and keeping Madrid open, has turned her back on all the doctors, nurses, and health care workers who worked to extenuation to save every Covid patient that came (and still come) before them. Liberty to die fro...

John Peter Zenger. How many Americans remember that name? I suppose it depends on whether they liked history class or not. Or, even, if they had a competent history teacher.  Zenger was a New York publisher back in 1734, who published the newspaper, The New York Weekly Journal . In the journal, he included various opinion pieces against William Cosby, the royal governor of New York Colony at that time. The governor was accused in those pieces of having rigged the election, aided the French (the enemy at that time), various other crimes of abuse of power, and called him an idiot (remind you of anyone?). Zenger was put in prision on a charge of libel (at that time it meant simply expressing an opinion against someone in power). He was defended at his trial by Andrew Hamilton, who argued that, while it was true he had published those pieces, he dared that anyone in the court would not be able to declare them untrue. He defended Zenger's criticism of Cosby's abuse of power, and...

So, last month I turned fifty, and this month I did something that had been hovering in my head for the last year. My daughter gave me the money for it as a birthday present, and this week I decided to go ahead and do it. I got a tattoo. To some, it may not seem a big deal, but to me it is. It's a marking on my body that will last the rest of my life. That requires it to be something of great importance to me that will not change as I change. Something that is a part of my belief system that will remain constant throughout the rest of my life. At this point, I won't change in the basics from now until thirty or forty years from now. I will not begin to venerate a swastika in ten years, nor will I change as much as a young person changes at the beginning of their life, when they are yet finding their way and themselves.  I tattooed the outline of a bird on my wrist. To me it symbolizes freedom. Freedom has always been important to me, and it becomes more important every year...

We drove our daughter to her student apartment this afternoon, like every Sunday. Just outside Santiago, on the road to Noia, there was a young woman with a sign that said "Noia". Every time a car went by she held up the sign, looking for a charitable soul. After we had dropped off our daughter we went back along the same road, and she was still there, only a little further on towards her destination. We decided to be the charitable souls and go out of our way home. We stopped for her and put her backpack, tent, and sleeping bag in the trunk. She was young, in her twenties and very pretty. Her final destination was Finisterre, and if she couldn't hitchhike all the way, she would walk. She had already walked the Way of Santiago three times from France. Once, she had continued the Way to Finisterre, where the pilgrims originally used to end their pilgrimage by the lighthouse. That time, the last time, she had remained three months in the town, working at a café to earn so...