Spanish views from a small town

Spain has finally passed a law governing euthanasia. It has passed the lower chambers, and now moves on to the Senate, which will, most likely ratify it. Sometime in the first quarter of the next year, it should come into effect. The new law states that a person who desires it must be an adult, and conscious of his actions. If he is unconscious, or otherwise impeded, he must have left some kind of legal testament with his desires known. Being conscious, he must submit in writing his desire. Upon accepting it, the doctor must discuss the matter fully with the patient, disclosing all possible information on palliative care and diagnosis. If the patient continues with his desire, the doctor meets with the patient again, and brings in another doctor. Then, it goes to a committee, which will give the final assessment. After that, it goes back to the doctor, who meets with the patient, who will make his final decision, whether to go ahead, or not. Finally, euthanasia is applied.  Most of...

Today, a law has been drafted to replace the Law of Historical Memory passed in 2007. This new law would go much farther than that other one. Whether or not it will be watered down, or even pass a parliament with a vocal extreme right wing, is another thing. But the draft sounds like something that should have been approved at least thirty years ago. It starts by having the State pay for the exhumations of every mass grave created during and after the Civil War (and there are many - after Cambodia, Spain has the largest amount of  mass graves in the world). A national DNA bank would be set up, to be able to identify as many remains as possible, and return them to their families. A record would be created with the names of all those killed and persecuted during and after the Civil War. It continues with making all court sentences based on political ideologies legally void. All records of those condemned to jail or death would be cleaned, because there would be no base in legality fo...

A new education law promoted by the conservative Partido Popular (PP) has been gradually going into effect. It's another intent by the conservatives to educate non-thinking workers. There's a lot of incorporation of new technologies, etc, but also the disappearance of a humanities point of view. Rather than educate the citizen, they now want to educate the worker. One of the ways is by making philosophy an optional subject rather than the obligatory one it had been until now.  Granted that in most schools it was probably poorly taught, concentrating on memorizing names, dates, schools of thought, and little else. I doubt many classes were actually debating ideas. Still, it was an exposure to different ways of thinking and looking at the world. It was a way of trying to get bored adolescents to at least recognize that their questions have been asked before. But since it doesn't interest those in power to create thinking citizens, it was scrapped. Probably because the one s...

Once upon a time everyone smoked in Spain. Even babies ended up smoking. Everywhere you went there would be people with cigarettes in their hands, mostly men. I remember the worst-smelling tobacco was the brand Ducados; unfiltered and black, with an acrid smell that was like sandpaper sliding into your throat. That was the brand my father would smoke here on vacation once he had finished the box of Camels he had brought with him.  It didn't matter where you went, you would always find people smoking. Even on the bus. The back of the bus was for smokers, the front for non-smokers, but it didn't matter. There was no ventilation system to keep the smoke in one area, just windows you could open and close back then. On a rainy day, after a one-hour trip, you would tumble out of the bus feeling more cured than a ham hung five days in a smoke house.  In the 1980's more spots were set aside for non-smokers, generally the worst tables at an airport restaurant, or the dark corner...

Every new government has tweaked the education system in some way, mostly to reflect their ideological convictions. Because, none of the tweaks have actually done much to improve education in this country. Today, in Galicia, university students and secondary school students have been called to strike, protesting against the law and against the cutbacks which are condemning a generation of young people to a mediocre education. This coming month one of the aspects of the new law will come into effect. Sixth and third graders will have to take a nation-wide exam. It's not meant to affect their grades or promotion to the next grade. The promotors of the law intend those exams to show how well the students are doing for their age and grade, and which schools do the best jobs. The better schools will get more funding, and the slower schools will be admonished.  I always thought a primary school teacher was the best-placed professional to know how a child is doing in school. Are they ...

This week Denmark has approved a law that permit s refugees' belongings to be searched at the border and any assets or valuable objects over €1340 in value seized, "to be used toward the accommodation of the refugees." Other countries already have such a policy in place. Switzerland has had such a law for twenty years, in that any money or valuables worth over €900 can be confiscated from anyone seeking refuge. In Germany, two Lands are implementing such laws. Bavaria, that will take anything worth more than €750, and Baden-Wuerttemberg, which will allow refugees to remain destitute with only €350 to their name. In the Netherlands, the government is slightly more generous. It allows families to keep up to €11,790. Though, when they are permitted to work, they have to pay from their earnings a levy for being allowed to remain in the country.  All these new laws (and Switzerland's old one) have mostly been voted into place by national and regional governments to det...

Spaniards are at heart anarchists. They don't trust government or government officials, even those they've voted into office. I suppose it's because of history.  Those who have fashioned the laws throughout the years have always had their own interests at heart, not the common people's. History has made people leery of new proposals set out by the government. If they're handed something they take it suspiciously, waiting for it to blow up in their faces. They're right, sometimes. For example, to buy a new car there are incentives from the government. I think the latest was fifteen hundred euros if you also turn in a car twelve years or older. But at the end of the year, you have to declare those fifteen hundred euros as income and pay taxes on it. The bomb had an egg in it. Since so many incentives from the government come with hidden bombs, the carrot has never quite taken in Spain. The stick is better understood. And in the understanding, side paths are take...