If you have any interest in the US elections - and even if you don't - this should amuse.

As it's Sunday, it's obligatory for me to make a sceptical remark about responses to the Global Warming challenge. So here's an article which makes the point that "wind farms are failing to deliver value for money and distorting the development of other renewable energy sources". If that's not enough for you, here's one that claims that, in the UK at least, these are "one of the great deceptions of our time". But one which - today's papers remind us - has now been upgraded here at the expense of solar power. Raising the question of whether Spain really has more wind than sun. Economics aside.

Generally speaking, the Spanish appear to prefer their capitalism to be more regulated than in "savage" Anglo-Saxon countries. What this tends to result in is, for example, state-protected monopolistic phone companies and oligopolistic banks and petrol companies who can treat their customers more or less as they like. And with impunity. So, you pays your money and you takes your choice. But things can also get quite wild in regulated - or "orderly" - economies. For example, here in Galicia three mussel-rearing companies have just had their premises bombed because they didn't want to join a new central purchasing organisation. And I recall a Pontevedra driving school of a few years ago which tried to offer prices below those of the local cartel and whose premises soon went up in smoke. So, the major difference in the models appears to be that, in Anglo Saxon markets, the savagery is [allegedly] directed at the customers, whereas in Continental markets it's the cosseted providers who are at each other's throats. All very logical, I guess. Think of drug barons. And what's always called here "the settling of accounts". I guess one could look on the higher prices paid in an 'orderly' market as protection money. Except you don't hear of many customers in the USA or UK actually being shot.

In the grey but all-pervasive area of prostitution in Spain, everyone involved seems to have a trade union or association. So, the women have one and the Proprietors of Social/Singles Clubs [alternes] have one. Then there's the Association of Owners of Relaxation Flats. And, for all I know, there's an official Association of Pimps. The first two or three of these have been engaged in a long-running battle over the recognition of what takes place as normal labour, so that the women can demand contracts and receive social security benefits. Needless to say, the tax office is on the side of the women. But they seem to be having a lot of difficulty convincing Spain's judges. For Galicia's Supreme Court is the latest in a longish line of regional courts which have taken the view that prostitution is self-employment so there can't be a labour relationship between the prostitutes and the owners of the places which rent them the rooms and serve phenomenally expensive drinks to the customers. My guess is that said owners can afford better lawyers than the tax office. Which is a bit depressing. But, again, logical.

Galicia

There was a rather touching article in El Mundo last week. It was about a Galician chap who'd had a linguistic journey all too common here. After acquiring Gallego as his mother-tongue in his village, he attended school in the city of Ourense , where he was mocked for his 'peasant' language. Having acquired fluency in Spanish, he then went on to do whatever he did with his life and raised a family along the way. The language of his own home was Spanish but, when his own son got to go to school, its use was frowned on and all the subjects were taught in Gallego, at which his son is not very good. The end result, according to the father, is that his son is growing to hate the language. Which, incidentally, the father doesn't recognise as the Gallego he learned in his village, so modified has it been by the Galician Royal Academy and the local Establishment. And the rich irony in this tale is that one of the kids who mocked him at his school for his use of Gallego is now the President of the nationalist BNG party. Which is busy extending its use throughout Galicia at the expense of the Spanish which this particular father feels would be rather more useful to his child's future.

I can't, of course, vouch for the accuracy of the story and some will dismiss it as part of El Mundo's exaggerated/hysterical campaign to protect a Spanish language that's not really under serious threat. But I can say it fits with the angry comments I've frequently heard from Galician friends and acquaintances here. And it reminded me of this article, published in the Voz de Galicia a week or so ago:-

The Linguistic Problem - Pablo Mosquera

Making the impossible possible is, they say, the art of politics. To create a problem where none previously existed seems to be new ground for politics.

Languages are for communication between us, not for differentiating ourselves. No matter how few its speakers, every language is part of mankind’s heritage because of its social usefulness. Therefore, it’s a jewel which those in power should care for. To make language a political weapon is injurious and contributes to social-linguistic conflict, from which a language suffers when it ends up as an irritating thorn.

Turning to experience. En Euskadi [the Basque Country] – where there’s a linguistic conflict between those who make the language a symbol of identity – they impose Basque and dedicate to this resources which are unrelated to the effectiveness of the results achieved as regards its use. I would point out two facts: The curve of citizens with a qualification in the Basque language is unrelated to the curve of if its social use. What’s more, there’s a significant rejection of the methods used by the Secretary General of Linguistic Policy. As if this weren’t enough, those bodies representative of the public - such as the parliamentary assemblies and the town councils – don’t use Basque, except on rare occasions. Even the region's public TV recognises that the Basque-using ETB-1 channel is not profitable, even though many of the ads are in Spanish. In the state exams for public sector doctors, knowledge of Basque counts more than a doctorate or masters in your speciality.

In Cataluña, the controversy is served by attempts to achieve immersion in Catalán and the slow eradication of Spanish. In such a way is one language substituted by another, ignoring the universality of Spanish. Therefore, the purpose of language is not being achieved. Which is to be an instrument of communication. This is why English is imposed as the second language.

In Galicia, we didn’t use to have problems. We used Gallego freely. We learned it out of affection and because we’re proud to be Galicians, speaking Gallego. But when someone tries to impose it, to discriminate, to denounce, to eliminate spontaneity, this creates a problem where there never was one. And this, as on other issues, brings in the extremist politicians.

Let us defend the language without forcing anyone to use it.

Well, that's quite enough tendentious stuff for today . . .