This blog, for anyone who stops by to look, has been kind of inactive the last two weeks. I am sick of politics, have been reading Rumsfeld’s book and, in general, am a bit depressed about the future. I fear stupidity may be winning in Wisconsin.
This blog, for anyone who stops by to look, has been kind of inactive the last two weeks. I am sick of politics, have been reading Rumsfeld’s book and, in general, am a bit depressed about the future. I fear stupidity may be winning in Wisconsin.
Write about any other, non-political issues. But write.
Regards from Spain,
Félix.
You have a sane and rational reaction to the world around you.
Politics: important but depressing.
Felix, my daughter spent a year in Cordoba while her husband attended college there. That was about three years ago. While there, they sublet a bedroom to a student from Portugal who paid part of his rent by teaching her Portuguese.
Last May I took her to Madrid so she could attend a conference on Arabic manuscripts that is held only every ten years. She has now won a five year fellowship to get her PhD in History (A subject she last took in community college) as part of her plan to go back to Spain to study manuscripts from the Andalusia period. She also reads and speaks Arabic.
She is just now finishing a masters degree in LIbrary Science at UCLA and works at two rare book libraries.
She is also beautiful and 6 feet tall.
You can tell I am not very proud of her.
I see, Michael, I see! (And I see you have the best reasons to be so proud of her!)
I read your post about Madrid at the time. I remember perfectly this line: “This is a lovely city. I hope the coming financial troubles do not harm it.” Then I thought I should write a reply thanking your kind and noble words about the capital of the kingdom, but I guessed it was going to sound too harsh if I wrote all what I wanted to say.
My point is Spain deserves all the pain it’s suffering right now (and believe me, the things are TERRIBLY bad here). Let’s call it a presaged disaster… democratically chosen. We can’t blame anyone else (but we do it everyday, so we’ll repeat consistently all our errors once and again).
By the way, I’m Andaluz (from Andalucía). I live in Cádiz, near Córdoba. (But to be honest I’ve been to Córdoba only once… for a party!) And let me assume your daughter has said to you how we call Córdoba: “the frying pan of Spain.” (Because of the hot summers.)
I believe I made an error in mentioning where she and her husband stayed. It was Grenada, not Cordoba, although I will have to check with her. My oldest son and his (now) wife visited them at the time. I have some photos which I will try to post. My daughter has some fascinating photos of the Easter pageant which involves ancient clans and beautiful floats carried on the men’s shoulders. Something similar can be seen in Godfather II when Vito stalks the black hand.