Spanish views from a small town

People do not stop astounding. There are those who do not believe a scientist, yet will believe a YouTuber, and affirm that the pandemic is a hoax. There are those that truly believe aliens were captured at Roswell. And then, there are the flat-earthers that beat the rest, hands down, for lack of brain cell usage. After six centuries, or more, because the Romans always thought so, it should be apparent that the Earth is round. Logic is all it takes to understand this. A flight on an airplane is more than enough to know that Columbus was right.   It came to light these days, that a couple from Venice, set out to prove the Earth was flat by attempting to reach its southern edge. Last April, they flouted lockdown, and drove all the way to close to Palermo, in Sicily. There, they sold their car, and bought a boat with the money they got for the car. With that boat, they wanted to set sail to Lampedusa, and from there, to the edge of the Earth. Where, on their map, they believe Afr...

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...

Yesterday m y daughter mentioned to me the concept of a philosophical coach. Apparently, the job description of a philosophical coach is someone who offers coaching to clients looking to understand their lives, problems, and relationships, in a philosophical manner. In other words, trying to find the "why" to life and its problems that mankind has been searching for since he could think. The job description in the Wikipedia explains that a philosophical counselor or coach, "offer their philosophical counseling or consultation services to clients who look for a philosophical understanding of their lives, social problems, or even mental problems." There are different counselors listed on the internet, and they describe their purpose in more or less the same words. They offer people a way to understand and overcome their problems and questions in order to lead a more fulfilling life.  It seems to have begun in the early 1980's in Germany, as a part of an anti-p...

My daughter was waiting for me to pick her up at the beach. Next to her were a couple of girls whom she didn't know, also waiting. They were about a couple of years younger than her and talking about subjects they would have to study next year in school. One of them was philosophy. One of the girls asked the other, "What do you study in philosophy?" "What they said years ago, the philosophers and stuff they thought about. And I don't know why, because it just doesn't interest me at all." My daughter, who is studying philosophy at college, was doing a jaw-drop in her mind. That's the way it generally is. Teenagers usually develop an allergy to thinking about anything other than the here and now. Most kids have never been taught that today is a step to tomorrow, not just a day to lie about, do nothing, and get drunk as a skunk. While that has happened in every generation, it seems to be reaching epidemic proportions now. Where does the fault lie? ...