Spanish TV meets Spanish Politics: A recent
letter to El País:- "Watching a televised debate on
German TV between the two candidates for the European Commission, I
thought about how far we are in Spain from offering candidates
politely explaining their proposals without shouting, with time
control, and responding to questions from citizens. In other words, a normal
debate. I think Jose Ignacio Torreblanca is right when he says it
would be desirable for such a debate to be shown in Spain. Until then
"the sorry state of the quality of our democracy"- to quote
Torreblanca - is well reflected in the cardboard debates in which
each speaker merely tries to destroy the credibility of the other in
the insufferably loud tone of a rabble-rouser."
Truth to tell, it isn't only political candidates who 'debate' like
this on Spanish TV; it's just about everybody. Including the pundits.
And personal abuse - as you can see from any a blog thread - is never
far from the surface.
It was fascinating - well, interesting - to see
how the Russian news channel, RT, dealt with the shooting down of the
Malaysian airliner. Apparently, it was everyone's fault except
Russia's and Mr Putin is disgusted at the blame game that's been
initiated in the West. He's calling for an international inquiry but
fears it will be politicised. I'll bet he does. Though I think we're
supposed to believe by the West and the Ukrainian government, not by
Russia and the Ukrainian rebels. No mention of the latter having a
BUK surface-air-missile weapon. Only 'many ex-Soviet countries'.
Later yesterday, RT came up two theories we're
expected to believe:- 1. The Malaysian plane was being tailed by 2
Ukrainian jets, who shot it down, and 2. It was downed by the Ukrainians, who mistook it for President Putin's plane, which was flying back
from Brazil in a similar plane. Having had enough of this mis-information, the
channel's London correspondent resigned in disgust.
Spanish media yesterday carried pictures of our
new queen, the lovely Letizia, selling cigarettes when she was a
Masters student in Mexico. They look genuine to me but they do come
from the Daily Mail. So,
maybe not.
Finally . . . Did you know the Dutch are the
tallest nation in the world? I certainly didn't. Believe it or believe it not, the USA is only 9th.
No comments:
Post a Comment