Spanish views from a small town

This morning I went for my walk. I've not been walking of late, and I really need to do so, so I'm trying to get back into the habit. It's not exactly easy, since the colder and later sunrises make it difficult to start out early. Which means that I either run errands, or I go walking.  Some mornings, when I scroll the different news agencies I usually check, I feel like starting to walk and not stopping until I drop, leaving all this behind. There is a quiet air of exhaustion this fall. Everything has been hitting extremes, and one can only have their nerves strung out like violin strings for so long. From politics, to Covid, passing through the usual idiocies, it's too much to keep taking in. I noticed an article today that mentions that Christmas might be a solitary affair. In Spain, Christmas is much like Thanskgiving in the United States; everyone goes home for the holiday. Households of two people become households of twenty, as children, in-laws, and grandchildre...

Fake news. Biased news. It's what we hear about whenever we pick up or enter a newspaper or watch a news program. It's supposed to be news with such a bias that it makes you believe the opposite of what is true, or what is convenient for a certain group. We hear that Russia has meddled in our newsfeeds, creating news stories that aren't true, or extremely biased, picking over facts which help further a cause they support, such as the election of Trump in the U.S., Brexit in Europe, and the Catalan fiasco in Spain, all in the name of creating instability.  There's nothing new under the sun, as mentioned in a wise book, "The thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (For those of you who have a current copy, I prefer the King James version; the language is much more beautiful.) The only new thing about fake news is its title. Biased news has existed since the firs...