Spanish views from a small town

Just when we thought the circus surrounding Trump couldn't get any more world-class comedy acts, we see Rudy Giuliani give another press conference. It was so much out of the Twilight Zone, that even the Spanish news carried it. It looked like his brain was melting. Honestly, who is running that show? First, we see him standing in front of an entrance to a garage of sorts at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, emphatically bellowing that there was fraud in the Pennsylvania vote count. It turns out someone made a boo-boo, and scheduled the press conference at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping, next to a sex shop and a crematorium, rather fittingly. Looks like someone wasn't wearing their glasses when they looked up a phone number. Now, at a more common spot for giving a press conference, he stands bellowing that, it doesn't matter if there's evidence or not of fraud, they are going to impugn every single vote that went against Trump. And, while he bellows, rivulets of bro...

I have a song that's rolling through my head. It's a  song that talks of how we view money, of hope, and of awaiting the end of all this so we can use that money for the simple things that help make life fun. Of course, it's a jingle, and of course, it's from a commerical for a bank.  The singer, Elena Iturrieta, artistically known as ELE, has just two albums. I've been listening to some of her songs on YouTube, and she's good. She's a singer, songwriter, and pianist, and sings both in English and Spanish. I like it when publicity leads you to discover new things, and to feel curious about something that has nothing to do with what is being publicized. Like the Damm beer commercial last year, highlighting the plight of the Mediterranean Sea. Those commercials don't lead me to buy what is being publicized (the bank in the commercial is just another bank and won't care about your problems), but I admire the creativity employed.  In general, the po...

If any one person embodies the spirit of get-rich-quick Spain that was the essence of this country in the 1980's, that person is Mario Conde. He is the son of a Customs officer who has become a lawyer, economist, and one-time politician. He went from having a brilliant record at the Universidad de Deusto, to becoming the youngest president of the disappeared bank, Banesto, to being arrested and condemned for fraud and misappropriation. This week he has just been arrested for money laundering. His problems began while he was the president of Banesto. The bank began failing, and government inspectors wanted to know why. When they found out money was missing, they discovered that Mr. Conde had helped it to disappear. In various trials, between 1994 and 2002, he was condemned to different prison terms that amounted in all to twenty-six years, of which he spent in prison only five and a half. The money that had disappeared (a hefty amount of various millions of euros) remained missing...

People in Spain are wondering just what so many Americans see in the bombastic Donald Trump. On the news some nights we are shown how the candidate spews hatred toward just about everyone. We've seen the disturbances that broke out in Chicago, Kansas City, and the cancellation of the rally in Cincinatti. We've heard about how Trump promised there might be riots if he's not the Republican candidate. We've heard the ex-president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, say Mexico will not pay for Trump's "estúpido muro" (stupid wall). And yet people still vote for him.  We have our own strange president in Mariano Rajoy. He's not as racist or as angry with the world as Donald Trump, but some of the things he's done and promises to do in the future make me also wonder just why so many Spaniards have voted for his political party. Personally, he doesn't do much to drum up confidence among the population. Some of the things he has said over the years make many...