Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 11.7.19

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 
                  Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain
  • Are we heading for yet another general election later this year? Well, not me. I only pay taxes to the government but am not allowed to vote for or against it. EU democracy. People have revolted for less.
  • Talking of taxes . . . The Galician tax office (A Facenda) has announced a crackdown on restaurants and bars this summer. Which can mean only one thing - prices will rise.
  • When I first came to Pontvedra, I was told there were 5 or 6 brothels on the 'old road' between here and Vigo. Some of these have undoubtedly closed but, on the other hand, there's at least one new one, handily near the AP9 slip road. Tbis is the latest to close, a large one more or less opposite the new one. Same owner(s)??:-
  • One or two of those thoughtlessly parked cars :-



  • Talking of being considerate, I used to try to help any and all camino pilgrims who looked lost on the streets of Pontevedra. But that was before there were hundreds every day. I don't bother now.
The EU 
  • This is a truly frightening article on the scale of the American religious conservatives’ 'push into Europe'. These are a powerful, well-funded global alliance of ultra-conservatives and far-right political actors, many of whom unite around an economically libertarian but socially conservative worldview. And their political vision is to shift power away from women and LGBTQI people. It aims to promote the “life” of the unborn (while disregarding the risks of unsafe abortions and pregnancies to women’s lives); the “family,” by which it means a return to traditional gender roles, without any space for LGBTQI people, and putting women back in the home, seen as their “natural” place; and the “freedom” of markets and religious institutions, specifically Christian ones, above all other claims of rights or liberties. Here in Spain, its manifestation is the far-right Vox party - one of several such parties to receive significant campaign funds from the USA. On this: A recent openDemocracy investigation found that America’s Christian right spent at least $50 million of “dark money” to fund campaigns and advocacy in Europe over the past decade. 
The Way of the World/Social Media
  • We no longer talk to the people in our immediate community. My morning was a potent example. I got cash from an ATM; I didn’t talk to a bank teller. I scanned my groceries through the self-checkout line; I didn’t talk to a checker. Our library has automated checkout; I didn’t talk to the librarian. I mailed a package at the Automated Postal Center without talking to a clerk. I’d bypassed at least half a dozen of what, not so long ago, would have been opportunities to talk to people.
The USA/Nutters Corner  
  • Trump is threatening an additional $300 billion in sanctions on goods imported from China and it includes the paper used to produce tens of millions of Bibles that are printed there. Christian book publishers testified recently that the tariffs could lead to a shortage of Bibles in the United States because they can’t be printed here. Off the irony meter.
  • Fascinating. Fart v Fox. Could the US get any madder?
  • US diplomacy 1: A letter to the Times:- Sir, In evaluating the shameful treatment of Sir Kim Darroch in his pinpointedly accurate observations about the Trump administration, one should bear in mind that he was doing no more than American ambassadors do. The Wikileaked US diplomatic cables described a president of Afghanistan as paranoid, a prime minister of Australia as an abrasive, impulsive control freak, a president of Eritrea as an unhinged dictator, and a president of France as thin-skinned and an emperor with no clothes. David Hooper
  • US diplomacy 2:-

Spanish
English
  • Are you perhaps an ambivert? If so, you should, on the whole, tend to get along with everyone. I don't really know if I am one or not but I can say that I've been stressing for many years that I was aware I confused people by not being always in the same box. As if I have ever cared  . . . though it did make working for a large international organisation a tad fraught at times.
Finally . . .
  • I've been meaning to make a doctor's appointment for days. Nay, weeks. I finally called the clinic today, to find it's a bloody local holiday. San bloody Benito, whoever he was.

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