I just read this article about a terrorist attack in Yemen near Sanaa where five Spanish tourists were killed. I arrived at the article through a blog debate (where I left my unsolicited comments) regarding why fundamentalist terrorist groups target certain nations, nationalities and locations. Not to plagiarize myself, but I think that there is something very ironic about terrorism. Continue reading
Filed under Essays
Incoming!!! It could be any day now, inshallah. Call him (or her) what you like — Chiquito, el Gran Hujaito, or Alfonsito (Zinedine is already reserved) — but the resemblance is uncanny!
Filed under Friends / Family
En este nuevo episodio de Galicia Vice, titulado Operación Chueca, Berga (Tubbs) e Hysidro se infiltran en una banda de segovianos durante la celebración del EuroPride en el barrio madrileño de Chueca. Continue reading
Filed under Friends / Family, Living la vida española
“Forget it, Juan, I’m not going to fall for that one again.”
“Kiss my nose”.
Gracias, Hysidro!
Filed under Digressions
This week EuroPride is being celebrated in Madrid, and even FON is involved having created ChuecaWiFi, a project to FON enable the entire Madrid neigbhorhood of Chueca. This morning on the news (on Spain’s state-owned TV1), the news anchor was reporting on the wonderful level of tolerance in Madrid’s gay community. Likewise, last night I also saw a similar report on TeleMadrid about how happy Chueca’s elderly residents were with their gay neighbors. This got me to thinking about whether a U.S. news channel would also air similar views and reports, or whether the U.S. media is simply too puritanical to portray homosexuality as being integrated into mainstream society.
Then this morning I saw this article in The Economist on how gay couples are becoming more suburban and less concentrated into closed urban circles. Continue reading
Filed under Essays, FON, Living la vida española
Now this is just a thought, and I haven’t fully developed it or decided exactly where I stand. But, I think that the common sayings about the importance of history – “we must remember”, “we must never forget”, “people must know where they come from to know where they are going”, or as Marcus Garvey said, “a people without a knowledge of their past and culture is like a tree without roots” – is actually overstated, possibly even misguided, and ultimately destructive.
I have always had the suspicion that our traditions and cultures are only one or two generation’s old, even if they are links in an ongoing chain of traditions a thousand years old. History is more part of our collective imagination than it is an intrinsic reality. Thus, when we think we act or behave in a certain way, it is not because we belong to a culture that has been acting this way for centuries, but because we have been trained to do so by our present surroundings. But this is probably something for a different post.
What I am actually trying to ask is whether the need to “remember” history does not in fact simply renew old hatreds, bind us to the legacy of something that we in fact did not cause or establish, and thus limit our abilities to be unique and autonomous. Just as sons should not be forced to pay for the sins of their fathers, what is the real benefit in knowing history? To avoid the pitfalls of the past, or to force us to relive them generation after generation? We are born clean slates, so why shouldn’t we be allowed to live in a clean, new world. It seems to me that the baggage of history too often predetermines our fate. So, if I didn’t know where I came from, I would be truly free to decide where I wanted to go. Maybe I don’t want to remember the Alamo.
Filed under Digressions
I have gotten myself into a bit of a bind. On Friday night, I started to read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and continued reading most of Saturday. The novel is set in 1960s Nigeria and during and in the period leading up to the Biafran War, something that I knew almost nothing about.
On Sunday, though, I woke up a little later than normal and was frustrated to find out that my TV (which I almost never watch) was not working. This was due to the fact that I am much less of a geek than one would think from my New Set Up, and I had inadvertently unplugged my TV set and DVD player. So what did I do? I dug up the first season of Lost that my brother had given me months ago and decided to watch one episode (on my laptop), and the next thing I knew, I had a major problem on my hands. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Literature
As I have eluded to in the past, the problem with people talking, or conversation in general, is that it can be very distracting and get in the way of my own thoughts.
Filed under Digressions
Alright, so I don’t have the best interior design skills, but it was time to make a change, aesthetics aside. I spend way too much time and money on music to be listening to all my favorite songs on my computer’s speakers. Still, I don’t want to make the investment right now into an expensive Hi-Fi system. So here is what I did. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions
I just finished one of the most engaging novels that I have read all year, called Tuareg by Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa. Nevertheless, I fell into an error that I have recently been committing quite often. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Literature
Grave Error 