Just thought I'd provide a couple of local reactions from la Vangua's Letters to the Editor page so you'd know how local folks really think around here. In case you didn't know, el Dia de los Santos Inocentes (Day of the Innocent Saints) is celebrated here on December 28. There is a play on words involved; "inocente" in Spanish means both "not guilty", as in a court of law, and naive, in the sense of being the one who never gets the joke that is always played on him. It's the Spanish equivalent of April Fool's Day.

This one is called "Day of the Innocents".

To the detriment of English, Esperanto is taught in the schools and it spreads over the whole world as a universal language. All flags disappear and an improvement in society begins, making the differences between social classes smaller and smaller. The arms industries invest in irrigation in all the poor countries of the world and they distribute free vaccinations in those countries against the diseases that are now eradicated in the First World.

The ultranationalists, the religious fanatics, President Bush, and many others beat themselves over the head, damaging the part of their brains that makes them so pathetic, and they stop being tht way. Racist and xenophobic people, after a night of fever and convulsions. recover their memory and remember their origins and those of their ancestors, making them feel stupid and immediately stopping hate of foreigners and other races, and after that moment they will judge people on their behavior and not because of their physical characteristics.

Manu B. Rodriguez, Basauri, Vizcaya

I think it's interesting that the first thing Manu denounces is the use of English as the international language. The first thing you mention is normally the most important thing you have in mind, so Manu must be just pissed off as all hell at the facts that English is the language and America is the reason. He wants to replace it with Esperanto. Yeah, right. Manu is a naive idiot and guilty as charged of having written an extremely stupid attempt at satire and then having the utter nerve of forcing it upon the other residents of his community. I hereby sentence him to eight lashes with Ron Jeremy's wet noodle. Oh, yeah, what's this crappo about the arms manufacturers irrigating the world? My cat is smarter than that.

Here's another one titled "Disarmament for Everyone".

When will the US disarm itself? It is at the very least ridiculous that they demand that hundreds of countries disarm and they demand inspections to determine whether they possess arms of mass destruction. That is, by the way, something most of us do not know the meaning of. And the US? It has rarely used its power in a dissuasive way, but rather it has demonstrated an interest, almost surreal, in using its arsenal of weapons. And if it hasn't done it tiself, it has delegated to allied countries, without question, providing the weapons.

Now, with Japanese rearmament, advised by the US, we see monstrous reasoning: in order to defend ourselves form North Korea, the great military and economic power that is threatening the world?

Xavier Delgado, Sant Cugat del Valles, Barcelona

Yeah, right. Let's get India and Pakistan to fight so we can sell them arms. To the detriment of the 99.9% of our economy that has nothing to do with military weapons. In case anyone is interested, defense is 16% of the US federal budget and something around 3-4 percent in percentage of US GDP spent on defense. Spain, by the way, is pretty pathetic about defense spending, trusting the US and NATO so much that they cannot defend themselves against any significant threat.

By the way, the latter letter is so poorly written that I had to improve it so it would make sense, sort of.