Sunday, November 11, 2007

Here's the video of King Juan Carlos telling Chavez to shut up. And here's commentary from Barcepundit.

This was the main discussion topic at the cafe this morning; general feeling is very pro-King, seen as standing up against bigoted anti-Spanish rhetoric. Even the moderate Catalanists approved.

ETA planted two small bombs, one with five kilos of cloratite and the other with three, outside the courthouse in the Vizcayan town of Guecho this morning; the cops dismantled them.

One person was killed in a knife fight this afternoon between squatters (called "anti-fascists" in Spain) and skinheads on the Madrid subway. Eight more were injured, one very seriously, and a cop got hit in the head with a flying bottle. The skinheads involved were this bunch of dirtbags, who had put on an anti-immigrant demonstration. Now they're saying that the killer is one of the eight injured, that the squatters picked the fight by trying to break up the fascist demo, and that several people were tear-gassed. The paramedics had to set up a field hospital.

Meanwhile, here in Barcelona, they arrested six Latin immigrants for starting a knife fight last week outside a disco at the corner of Balmes and Diputacion, only two blocks from Murph's house. Three people, also Latins, were seriously wounded; they had to remove a kidney from one of them. The cops say the rumble wasn't gang-related.

As everyone knows, the percentage of immigrants in Barcelona is more than 15%, and we are beginning to see the backlash. Dark-skinned Latin immigrants, especially Dominicans and Ecuadorians, are not popular among a lot of people (light-skinned Argentinians, and all Brazilians, are OK). The Latins, fairly or not, are associated with gang violence; the Moroccans are even less popular, associated with street crime and drug dealing. There isn't much prejudice against black Africans, east Asians, or Pakistanis, who are seen as being here to work; in fact, the only complaint I've heard about the Chinese is that they've taken over the area near Arco de Triunfo with their textile import-export houses.

Sports update: Kansas beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater and is now 10-0, for the first time since 1899. KU is now the only unbeaten major-conference team left. Yeah, the truth is that they've slaughtered five really bad teams at home, and they laid a historic whupping on a not-very-good Nebraska. But they have beaten four pretty good teams on the road, Colorado, Kansas State, Texas A&M, and now Okie State. Next they play Iowa State, another bad team whom they should beat, and then comes the showdown with their first real challenge of the year against Missouri at Arrowhead in Kansas City. If they beat Missouri they win the Big 12 North for the first time ever, and they play Oklahoma for the Big 12 championship.

Barça lost in Getafe, 2-0. They were solidly outplayed. If they're going to compete for the title, which they should be able to do, they're going to have to start winning some games away.

No comments: