American in Spain

Several months ago, I was informed that we were to stop recycling plastic bottle caps of all kinds in our household because my mother-in-law was collecting them to give to a charity to help a sick boy. Immediately, I was skeptical and full of questions. I feel unsettled when I hear of a scheme like this and I can’t understand the motivations of all the parties involved. When beer or soda companies offer to support a local sports team if residents collect bottle caps of their products, that’s one thing; that makes sense to me. But this indiscriminate collecting? What could possibly be the motivation?
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Yesterday I bought, downloaded, and read Sam Harris’ new e-book, Lying. (No, really, I did!) It was a quick read. Amazon lists its “print length” at 26 pages. While not as thought-provoking or groundbreaking as Harris’ full length books, it did make me consider how honesty and dishonesty affect my life. It was definitely worth my two dollars.

That’s right; it only costs $1.99, and it’s only available in e-book format.
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Yesterday, as I was packing to return from my weeklong vacation in Extremadura, I received an image on my mobile phone from my friend Andrés, back in Colindres. “You’re famous!” he said, and included a photo of an article in the regional newspaper for Cantabria, El Diario Montañes. I was so surprised! When I got back to Colindres the following day, I went around to various bars to see if they still had yesterday’s newspaper. I was surprised by how few of them had already thrown it away. I did find it telling, however, that the bars that still had the paper were establishments that I already considered less cleanly than the rest. I had to get two of them because the first one I got didn’t have the page with the article in it.
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I love it when current events cause a traffic spike on my blog. The big news in Spanish sports today is regarding a video clip where Sergio Busquets, a soccer player for Barcelona, covers his mouth, looks at Marcelo Vieira, who plays for Real Madrid, and says (no audio, just video) either “morro” or “mono”. Both require the tongue to hit the palate, and are more or less indistinguishable with video alone. The important facts of the case are that, Barcelona and Real Madrid are the principal archrivals in Spain’s favorite sport, and Busquets is a white guy from Barcelona, while Marcelo is a black guy from Brazil. Oh, and “mono” means “monkey”.
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One of my most profound epiphanies about politics occurred almost five years ago, when this blog was in its infancy. I realized that, merely by definition of the two political parties’ values, the only way for the Conservative party to gain power is to make a lot of noise and reduce voter turnout. This is because the vast majority of people are, by definition, going to support more socialist wealth-distributing economic policies. This is an absolute political truth that has always been true and will forever continue to be true. The way the Republican party in the US circumvents this is to side with Religion and the issues like abortion and gay marriage that fall out of strong Biblical religious conviction. These issues, of course, fall along the Authoritarian-Libertarian political spectrum, which is orthogonal to the Conservative-Liberal economic political spectrum. (more…)

We had a nice Christmas celebration. My Spanish family does a big Christmas celebration with aunts and uncles and cousins on odd numbered years, and the big get together on New Years Eve on even numbered years, so this year was a small Christmas celebration with just my wife’s parents, sister, and grandfather. As with most holidays, tradition rules, so the meals are pretty similar every year. Jumbo shrimp, stuffed eggs, paté, and gildas are the usual appetizers. We also had a fun time making a racket singing traditional Spanish Christmas carols.
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It’s that time of year again. Time to walk through the chilly air from bar to bar in Laredo, Spain, eating elaborate tapas, called pinchos, and imbibing fine wine. This is the third year, and it seems to be getting better every year. The Semana del Pincho is one Christmas tradition I could definitely get used to. Before we get to the mouthwatering photos, I’d like to quote myself from last year about why I like this event so much:
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Occasionally a set of photos that I really want to publish get lost in a sea of other interesting content. When my parents were visiting one year ago, we noticed a giant lemon in a local bar and asked if we could pose with it for a few silly photographs. The bartender, who got to know me during a USA v. Spain fútbol match a few years ago, was happy to oblige. So here’s a giant lemon…
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The other day I noticed an interesting article in Spain’s sports newspaper, MARCA. The article starts something like this like this:

Yeste walks towards the corner flag for a corner kick after two attacks on goal by Athletic Bilbao. He hasn’t yet set the ball down when a shout is heard from the far end of the bar: Gooooooal!!! Seconds afterwards, Yeste kicks the ball, which deflects off Lass in the first row, and Llorente scores the goal.

All the excitement of watching a soccer match has been ruined. What just happened?
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Today I stumbled on this awesome speech written and given by Michael Crichton back in 2002 about speculation, and how the media – which he defines as movies, television, internet, books, newspapers, and magazines – is, to a large extent, a gurgling blob of useless drivel. It’s a shame that he probably didn’t get to watch much of the farcical climax of vacuous speculation that was the 2008 US presidential election, as he died on the day Obama got elected. My favorite part of the article is how he talks about the fallacy that we all commit (a recent favorite topic of mine) when we read the newspaper, or receive information from any news source for that matter.
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