Rubalcaba, ni firme ni inteligente, solo comadreja

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Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba quizás no admitirá jamás haber cometido graves errores en el caso De Juana Chaos. Pero no hace falta que lo haga, sus palabras anteriores las conocemos todos. A ver si el gran comadreja del PSOE, artífice de las negociaciones de “paz”, será suficiente listillo esta vez. Seguro que sí. Ya está montando la ofensiva al PP por su propio fracaso y por haberse quedado en ridículo ante los terroristas totalitarios.

A ver si entendemos mejor la lógica del señor Rubalcaba quien en marzo reconoció haber tomado la decisión “personalmente” “tras una larga reflexión” de dejarle a De Juana Chaos fuera de la carcel porque “a diferencia de los terroristas, a nosotros sí nos importa la vida, es nuestra mayor legitimidad moral“. “El Estado debe aplicar la ley, ser humanitario, firme e inteligente“.

Sin embargo, ahora a Rubalcaba le dan igual los motivos humanitarios (porque nunca los hubo), “De Juana no será trasladado a su domicilio cualquiera que sea el dictamen médico que nos proporcionen, quiero que quede absolutamente claro.” Entonces ¿a qué se basa para tomar decisiones firmes e inteligentes? Continue reading

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¿East Side?

Muchos estarán preguntando por qué se van paseando algunos de la tercera planta tocándose el corazón con un solo dedo y cruzándolo con los dos dedos de la otra mano mientras digan en voz baja, “East Side“. No, no estamos locos. El barbudo canadiense me mostró este video, “White Chicks, Gang Signs” que pregunta con curiosidad por qué tantas mujeres blancas en EEUU hacen señas (tipo Latin Kings) cada vez que les vayan a sacar una foto. Pues, sí, es curioso.

De la misma forma nuestro soldado de las trincheras, Hysidro del Hyst Side, también ha creado la seña que nos define y nos identifica con la F de FON y con el East Side (Alcobendas está en el noreste de Madrid, y claro nadie jamás ha dicho que es del “North Side”). Si lo pueden hacer las blancas en EEUU, también podemos los del East Side. Peace out!

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Not Books Again

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Not another post about books! At least it’s not another one about the rain (everyone loves the sushine). I am finally trying to be a little bit more “reasonable” about my purchases, but I just saw that Haruki Murakami’s most recent novel, After Dark, has finally come out in English. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but I already have a pretty long line of books on deck to finish before going on another book buying rampage. But, it’s Murakami, probably my favorite writer. So, I decided to order the book anyways, and because I hate to waste the effort on Amazon with only one purchase, I added Paul Bowles’ Let it Come Down to the list. Continue reading

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East Side

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La F al revés de los del East Side.

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Vote for Victor and Albert

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Victor and Albert from FON Labs in Barcelona have just been nominated by Business Week for its Europe’s Young Entrepreneurs award for entrepreneurs under the age of 25 for their Web 2.0 start-up called Moneytrackin. The winner will be decided by user votes, so please cast your vote for them here.

Here is Business Week’s description of their nomination (which I prepared for the brothers). Continue reading

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El Inicio del Comienzo del Fin de los Principios

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Si hace más o menos un año y pico Zapatero declaró que España estaba ante el incio del principio del fin del terrorismo de ETA y si ahora hemos llegado al fin de la tregua, tengo una pregunta: ¿cúando fue el inicio del principio del fin del Alto el Fuego? ¿Fue en la Terminal 4? ¿O nunca se inició el comienzo del prinicipio del fin?

¿Dónde estuvo el sentido común todo este tiempo? ¿Cuándo fue el inicio del comienzo del fin de los principios?

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The False Love of the Poets

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For the past year of so, I have been playing with a certain notion. I had almost forgotten about it until I had read the following passage from Streetwise, the second part in Mohamed Choukri’s autobiography. Streetwise is, by the way, horribly translated from Arabic to English in the edition I am reading, not that I am one to judge — I can only count from wahid to tissa wa tissaoune.

Café Central: 25.9.1961

The woman that I choose to live with for life will only be the right woman for me if she can keep me from going with other women. She must be all women to me. No other woman will have what she has. I’ll be able to pick her out in dark. When the candles go out, each of us will light the other. Even if they cover us with a veil of darkness, I shall see her and she will see me. I have still not found the ideal woman, for she will be a woman of extraordinary light, a woman of transparency.

Poets like to talk and write about love, but if my suspensions are correct, they actually fail miserably or, at best, are incredibly limited in their ability to love. When it comes to love, they are a superficial, shallow lot. Continue reading

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El País Cambiante

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I just discovered that a friend of mine in Argentina has a pretty cool blog. Although the photo here is not of Argentina, I think it goes well with the blog’s title, El País Cambiante – the Changing Country. Check it out.

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4-20-10: When Counting is Life or Death

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Sometimes I feel like my ignorance knows no limites. Besides not speaking French, I am more than clumsy with numbers. Actually, I am a mathematic imbecile and suffer from math-phobia. My ignorance and idiocy were even further apparent when I just recently learned that the French don’t literally say “eighty” or “ninety” but rather “four, twenty” for 80 and “four twenty ten” for ninety.

My initial reaction upon learning this snippet of “culture” was one of utter ethnocentrism. In other words, I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. It was inefficient, pompous, antiquated, backwards, and alienating (it prejudices against the mathematically-challenged). Then I decided to be less harsh. I consulted with a few French speaking friends. I even brought up the matter with colleagues and discovered that the same numerical construct existed in Euskera as well. So after more calm and collected deliberation and an attempt at being more open minded and tolerant, I began to slowly accept the Francophones’ inalienable right to self expression.

Now I have accepted it, but that doesn’t mean that I am totally comfortable with it all. The reason why? It is a dangerous world, and besides being ignorant and mathematically challenged, I am also naive. Allow me to explain. Continue reading

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Softly as in a Morning Sunrise

Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” is one of my most recent favorite Jazz standards. Here I have taken pieces from five separate versions and put them together. This is a nice way to see how different musicians approach and interpret the piece differently. Each version coincides with the photo from the album from which the version comes, as listed here:

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