Here's an example of just how hard negotiations can be and how difficult it is to get both sides to comply with what they have agreed to. And we can't accuse anyone of being a bullheaded foreign intransigent or an crafty alien snake-oil salesman because, guess what, everyone involved in this mess was American! The question of what to do about captured prisoners-of-war was critical during the American Civil War (1861-65). Each side held tens of thousands of prisoners, and both sides treated their prisoners quite badly. The death rate in both Confederate and Union prisons was high--a distant relative of mine, a great-great-grandparent's brother, died in the Union prison at Elmira, New York--but Andersonville, Georgia, is the best-known and by far the most deadly of the prison-camp hellholes of the Civil War. When Andersonville opened in 1864 the Confederacy was already collapsing, on the defensive on all fronts and east cut off from west by the Union capture of Vicksburg, sealing off the Mississippi. Food was short for everyone and there was little to spare for prisoners, and men died by the thousands in Andersonville during the summer of 1864. They could have been saved through a prisoner exchange, but they were not, and the following passage by John McElroy, a journalist and Union soldier captured in Virginia and sent first to a Richmond prison and then to Andersonville, which he survived, explains why.

THE EXCHANGE AND THE CAUSE OF ITS INTERRUPTION--BRIEF RESUME OF THE
DIFFERENT CARTELS, AND THE DIFFICULTIES THAT LED TO THEIR SUSPENSION.

Few questions intimately connected with the actual operations of the
Rebellion have been enveloped with such a mass of conflicting statement
as the responsibility for the interruption of the exchange. Southern
writers and politicians, naturally anxious to diminish as much as
possible the great odium resting upon their section for the treatment of
prisoners of war during the last year and a half of the Confederacy's
existence, have vehemently charged that the Government of the United
States deliberately and pitilessly resigned to their fate such of its
soldiers as fell into the hands of the enemy, and repelled all advances
from the Rebel Government looking toward a resumption of exchange. It is
alleged on our side, on the other hand, that our Government did all that
was possible, consistent with National dignity and military prudence,
to secure a release of its unfortunate men in the power of the Rebels.

Over this vexed question there has been waged an acrimonious war of
words, which has apparently led to no decision, nor any convictions--the
disputants, one and all, remaining on the sides of the controversy
occupied by them when the debate began.

I may not be in possession of all the facts bearing upon the case, and
may be warped in judgment by prejudices in favor of my own Government's
wisdom and humanity, but, however this may be, the following is my firm
belief as to the controlling facts in this lamentable affair:

1. For some time after the beginning of hostilities our Government
refused to exchange prisoners with the Rebels, on the ground that this
might be held by the European powers who were seeking a pretext for
acknowledging the Confederacy, to be admission by us that the war was no
longer an insurrection but a revolution, which had resulted in the 'de
facto' establishment of a new nation. This difficulty was finally gotten
over by recognizing the Rebels as belligerents, which, while it placed
them on a somewhat different plane from mere insurgents, did not elevate
them to the position of soldiers of a foreign power.

2. Then the following cartel was agreed upon by Generals Dix on our side
and Hill on that of the Rebels:

HAXALL'S LANDING, ON JAMES RIVER, July 22, 1882.

The undersigned, having been commissioned by the authorities they
respectively represent to make arrangements for a general exchange of
prisoners of war, have agreed to the following articles:

ARTICLE I.--It is hereby agreed and stipulated, that all prisoners of
war, held by either party, including those taken on private armed
vessels, known as privateers, shall be exchanged upon the conditions and
terms following:

Prisoners to be exchanged man for man and officer for officer.
Privateers to be placed upon the footing of officers and men of the navy.

(additional verbiage deleted)

ARTICLE II.--Local, State, civil and militia rank held by persons not in
actual military service will not be recognized; the basis of exchange
being the grade actually held in the naval and military service of the
respective parties.

ARTICLE III.--If citizens held by either party on charges of disloyalty,
or any alleged civil offense, are exchanged, it shall only be for
citizens. Captured sutlers, teamsters, and all civilians in the actual
service of either party, to be exchanged for persons in similar
positions.

ARTICLE IV.--All prisoners of war to be discharged on parole in ten days
after their capture; and the prisoners now held, and those hereafter
taken, to be transported to the points mutually agreed upon, at the
expense of the capturing party. The surplus prisoners not exchanged
shall not be permitted to take up arms again, nor to serve as military
police or constabulary force in any fort, garrison or field-work, held by
either of the respective parties, nor as guards of prisoners, deposits or
stores, nor to discharge any duty usually performed by soldiers, until
exchanged under the provisions of this cartel. The exchange is not to be
considered complete until the officer or soldier exchanged for has been
actually restored to the lines to which he belongs.

ARTICLE V.--Each party upon the discharge of prisoners of the other party
is authorized to discharge an equal number of their own officers or men
from parole, furnishing, at the same time, to the other party a list of
their prisoners discharged, and of their own officers and men relieved
from parole; thus enabling each party to relieve from parole such of
their officers and men as the party may choose. The lists thus mutually
furnished, will keep both parties advised of the true condition of the
exchange of prisoners.

ARTICLE VI.--The stipulations and provisions above mentioned to be of
binding obligation during the continuance of the war, it matters not
which party may have the surplus of prisoners; the great principles
involved being, First, An equitable exchange of prisoners, man for man,
or officer for officer, or officers of higher grade exchanged for
officers of lower grade, or for privates, according to scale of
equivalents. Second, That privates and officers and men of different
services may be exchanged according to the same scale of equivalents.
Third, That all prisoners, of whatever arm of service, are to be
exchanged or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, if it be
practicable to transfer them to their own lines in that time; if not, so
soon thereafter as practicable. Fourth, That no officer, or soldier,
employed in the service of either party, is to be considered as exchanged
and absolved from his parole until his equivalent has actually reached
the lines of his friends. Fifth, That parole forbids the performance of
field, garrison, police, or guard or constabulary duty.

JOHN A. DIX, Major General.

D. H. HILL, Major General, C. S. A.

SUPPLEMENTARY ARTICLES.

ARTICLE VII.--All prisoners of war now held on either side, and all
prisoners hereafter taken, shall be sent with all reasonable dispatch to
A. M. Aiken's, below Dutch Gap, on the James River, in Virginia, or to
Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, in the State of Mississippi, and
there exchanged of paroled until such exchange can be effected, notice
being previously given by each party of the number of prisoners it will
send, and the time when they will be delivered at those points
respectively; and in case the vicissitudes of war shall change the
military relations of the places designated in this article to the
contending parties, so as to render the same inconvenient for the
delivery and exchange of prisoners, other places bearing as nearly as may
be the present local relations of said places to the lines of said
parties, shall be, by mutual agreement, substituted. But nothing in this
article contained shall prevent the commanders of the two opposing armies
from exchanging prisoners or releasing them on parole, at other points
mutually agreed on by said commanders.

ARTICLE VIII.--For the purpose of carrying into effect the foregoing
articles of agreement, each party will appoint two agents for the
exchange of prisoners of war, whose duty it shall be to communicate with
each other by correspondence and otherwise; to prepare the lists of
prisoners; to attend to the delivery of the prisoners at the places
agreed on, and to carry out promptly, effectually, and in good faith,
all the details and provisions of the said articles of agreement.

ARTICLE IX.--And, in case any misunderstanding shall arise in regard to
any clause or stipulation in the foregoing articles, it is mutually
agreed that such misunderstanding shall not affect the release of
prisoners on parole, as herein provided, but shall be made the subject of
friendly explanation, in order that the object of this agreement may
neither be defeated nor postponed.

JOHN A. DIX, Major General.
D. H. HILL, Major General. C. S. A.


This plan did not work well. Men on both sides, who wanted a little rest
from soldiering, could obtain it by so straggling in the vicinity of the
enemy. Their parole--following close upon their capture, frequently upon
the spot--allowed them to visit home, and sojourn awhile where were
pleasanter pastures than at the front. Then the Rebels grew into the
habit of paroling everybody that they could constrain into being a
prisoner of war. Peaceable, unwarlike and decrepit citizens of Kentucky,
East Tennessee, West Virginia, Missouri and Maryland were "captured" and
paroled, and setoff against regular Rebel soldiers taken by us.

3. After some months of trial of this scheme, a modification of the
cartel was agreed upon, the main feature of which was that all prisoners
must be reduced to possession, and delivered to the exchange officers
either at City Point, Va., or Vicksburg, Miss. This worked very well for
some months, until our Government began organizing negro troops. The
Rebels then issued an order that neither these troops nor their officers
should be held as amenable to the laws of war, but that, when captured,
the men should be returned to slavery, and the officers turned over to
the Governors of the States in which they were taken, to be dealt with
according to the stringent law punishing the incitement of servile
insurrection. Our Government could not permit this for a day. It was
bound by every consideration of National honor to protect those who wore
its uniform and bore its flag. The Rebel Government was promptly
informed that rebel officers and men would be held as hostages for the
proper treatment of such members of colored regiments as might be taken.

4. This discussion did not put a stop to the exchange, but while it was
going on Vicksburg was captured, and the battle of Gettysburg was fought.
The first placed one of the exchange points in our hands. At the opening
of the fight at Gettysburg Lee captured some six thousand Pennsylvania
militia. He sent to Meade to have these exchanged on the field of
battle. Meade declined to do so for two reasons: first, because it was
against the cartel, which prescribed that prisoners must be reduced to
possession; and second, because he was anxious to have Lee hampered with
such a body of prisoners, since it was very doubtful if he could get his
beaten army back across the Potomac, let alone his prisoners. Lee then
sent a communication to General Couch, commanding the Pennsylvania
militia, asking him to receive prisoners on parole, and Couch, not
knowing what Meade had done, acceded to the request. Our Government
disavowed Couch's action instantly, and ordered the paroles to be treated
as of no force, whereupon the Rebel Government ordered back into the
field twelve thousand of the prisoners captured by Grant's army at
Vicksburg.

5. The paroling now stopped abruptly, leaving in the hands of both sides
the prisoners captured at Gettysburg, except the militia above mentioned.
The Rebels added considerably to those in their hands by their captures
at Chickamauga, while we gained a great many at Mission Ridge, Cumberland
Gap and elsewhere, so that at the time we arrived in Richmond the Rebels
had about fifteen thousand prisoners in their hands and our Government
had about twenty-five thousand.

6. The rebels now began demanding that the prisoners on both sides be
exchanged--man for man--as far as they went, and the remainder paroled.
Our Government offered to exchange man for man, but declined--on account
of the previous bad faith of the Rebels--to release the balance on
parole. The Rebels also refused to make any concessions in regard to the
treatment of officers and men of colored regiments.

7. At this juncture General B. F. Butler was appointed to the command of
the Department of the Blackwater, which made him an ex-officio
Commissioner of Exchange. The Rebels instantly refused to treat with
him, on the ground that he was outlawed by the proclamation of Jefferson
Davis. General Butler very pertinently replied that this only placed him
nearer their level, as Jefferson Davis and all associated with him in the
Rebel Government had been outlawed by the proclamation of President
Lincoln. The Rebels scorned to notice this home thrust by the Union
General.

8. On February 12, 1864, General Butler addressed a letter to the Rebel
Commissioner Ould, in which be asked, for the sake of humanity, that the
questions interrupting the exchange be left temporarily in abeyance while
an informal exchange was put in operation. He would send five hundred
prisoners to City Point; let them be met by a similar number of Union
prisoners. This could go on from day to day until all in each other's
hands should be transferred to their respective flags.

The five hundred sent with the General's letter were received, and five
hundred Union prisoners returned for them. Another five hundred, sent
the next day, were refused, and so this reasonable and humane proposition
ended in nothing.

This was the condition of affairs in February, 1864, when the Rebel
authorities concluded to send us to Andersonville. If the reader will
fix these facts in his minds I will explain other phases as they develop.

I had an idea earlier this weekend; I've been rather social lately, since a couple of days ago we went out for dinner with Remei's friend Nati and her boyfriend, and then last night my pals Clark the Virginian and Murph the London Irishman came over. We listened to this bluegrass CD my sister sent me from Nashville and, uh, indulged in vice. Anyway, Murph and I did; Clark left to go see his girlfriend and Murph, somewhat the worse for wear, wound up spending the night. While indulging in vice with Murph, though, I had a thought: I've got to start making a little money off this. So I had this idea.

Blogger had the gall to have a redesign contest. Normally, in the business world, things work like this: you need, say, advertising, you go to several agencies, you choose whichever company you like the best (whether because you like their past work they showed you, because they offer a great price, because their young art director seems to have a lot of fresh ideas, whatever), you hire them and give them your guidelines and you agree on a budget, and they go to work and do the job. Well, Blogger did it the other way around. They said, "Hey, guys, all of you out there, let's see a finished job for a site redesign. All of you who want to enter our contest do the whole redesign job, and we'll pick the one we like the best. The rest of you, you've wasted your effort as far as we're concerned."

So I figured, "Hey, why can't I do that if Blogger did? No one can criticize me for following this now seemingly accepted business practice." Therefore, we're announcing the official Design a Logo for Us Contest. If you know your way around HTML code and want to come up with a design for a logo for Iberian Notes, you're free to enter. I was thinking of something like a map of Spain in red with Catalonia in yellow and Barcelona marked with a dot on the map, and Inside Europe: Iberian Notes in navy blue across that. But you can probably think of something better. Anyway, I'll go to that company that makes T-shirts and coffee cups and the like and get some made with YOUR logo on them! Then I can sell them and make like two bucks off every fourteen-dollar T-shirt or whatever the deal is. You get a free T-shirt out of it.

Just in case you're interested, we've been averaging 150-250 hits a day lately, more if other blogs link to us in their texts; for example, Pejman linked to us a couple of days ago and sent 75 hits over here in a day. Jessica from Chloe and Pete linked over here earlier this week and sent about 25 people over. Other hit sources: by far the most importantly, both to us personally and as a percentage of total hits, about 200 regular readers have us bookmarked and visit at least once a week or so; about a hundred come each day. Twenty-five people come over every day from the InstaPundit blogroll, five or ten a day from Samizdata, and a total of about 25 a day from like-minded smaller blogs like ours (Mount Beacon, Atlético Rules, Buscaraons, Dissident Frogman, Cinderella Bloggerfeller, No Replacement for Displacement, Sasha Castel and Co., Nordic Musings, Rainy Day, and the Belligerent Bunny). We also get about ten Google hits a day. That adds up to a minimum of 165 a day; in reality we range from rather less than 165 (on Sundays) to a good bit more, since we get a couple of text links a week from other blogs. Any text link is worth at least ten hits that day, and anyone whose blogroll we're on will send over at least occasional hits, no matter how small or new the blog. The only time we actually broke a story that got round the Web was back in June, when we noticed that on the Harvard-MIT anti-Israel petition there were eighteen signers from Chomsky's department, and on the pro-Israel petition that came out in response, there were no signers from MIT Linguistics. We figured this conformity and lack of dissent was worth writing about and InstaPundit picked it up; we got 1100 visitors the first day and 600 the day after. Those numbers are extremely rare for us. Anyway, we got more than 5000 hits last month and we're at 2600 so far this month; we had a total of 31,000 on the old site, which we started in February but which nobody read until about April except for Patrick Crozier and Tom from Tom's Desk and a couple of the guys down at the clinic, those who can focus their eyesight enough to read and have attention spans long enough to boot up a computer and aren't heavily sedated most of the time, which makes a total of about three, including the staff. Grand total: about 38,600. This is considerably better than fanzines and underground newspapers used to do in the old days.

David Frum has something intelligent to say in NRO:

The Lesson of the Scuds

To me, one of the most interesting facts about that Yemeni Scud story was that the intercepting ship was Spanish. It’s a reminder of two things – that America is not waging this war in the unilateralist way the president’s critics complain – but second, that our allies receive too little attention and too little credit for their contributions.

My American Enterprise Institute colleague Radek Sikorski, the ultra-robust director of the New Atlantic Initiative, likes to remind Euro-skeptic conservatives that most of the troops now present in Afghanistan come from Europe, not the United States.

But if the forging of an effective coalition to fight the war on terror is an American success story, the larger relationship between the U.S. and its allies is not – and that failure is not entirely the allies’ fault. The U.S. has made a major commitment to anti-terrorist public diplomacy – but so far, almost all the effort has been dedicated to the Arab and Islamic world, and virtually none to the allied countries of Europe, Australia, and Canada. Americans did not make this mistake in the Cold War.

The U.S. has been dismantling its public diplomacy structure for more than two decades now. It needs to be rebuilt – and fast – as a global project, not just a unique appeal to one uniquely hostile region of the world.

Here in Catalonia creches--you know, representations of the stable where Jesus was born with the figures of the shepherds and Joseph and Mary and the like--are very popular. Down at the Plaza de la Catedral they're holding the Fira de Santa Llucía, St. Lucy's Fair, where stands that sell figurines and such are set up, and in the Plaza Sant Jaume they put up a large-scale Belén (Bethlehem, as they call it). Some places even have Belenes vivientes in which people represent the creche figures. By the way, this column in Spanish by Quim Monzó from the Vangua a couple of days ago is well worth reading. I'll translate the first paragraph. (I recommend Monzó for people who read Spanish or Catalan pretty well. The guy's written some good stuff, especially in the short story, essay, and newspaper column departments. And he's no idiotarian, though he's not especially conservative. Just Google his name and you should get plenty of links.)

Last week Barcelona Parks and Gardens posted on their website that the creche they set up every year in the Plaza Sant Jaume will this time serve as a political protest against "the serious situation that thousands of people are suffering in the Near East and the need for dialogue for peace". The creche will be "inspired by the Palestinian countryside" and there will be dunes, palms, olive trees, bushes...I reread the text without managing to understand what the political protest content was. Will they put figures of Israeli soldiers and tanks between the chestnut tree and the aluminum foil river? Will there be Palestinians holed up in a miniature reproduction of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem? Will the caganer have the head and body of Ariel Sharon? Maybe even, infiltrated among the little shepherds, they'll put a figure of a Hamas militant about to blow himself up with a belt of explosives.

Says Robert Hughes in his must-read-for-anyone-who-wants-to-come-here, Barcelona :

If you find yourself in Barcelona just before Christmas, go to the Cathedral and browse the stalls that have been set up in front of its façade, where figures for the creche are sold. They are what you expect; the shepherds, the Magi, Mary, Baby Jesus, the sheep, the oxen. But there is one who is a complete anomaly, met with nowhere else in the iconography of Christendom. A red Catalan cap, or barretina, flopping over his head, the fellow squats, breeches down, with a small brown cone of excrement connecting his bare buttocks to the earth. He is the immemorial fecundator, whom nature calls even as the Messiah arrives. Nothing can distract him from the archetypical task of giving back to the soil the nourishment that it supplied to him. He is known as the caganer, the "shitter", and he exists in scores of versions: some pop-eyed with effort, others rapt in calm meditation, but most with no expression at all; big papier-mache ones three feet tall, minuscule terra-cotta ones with caca pyramids no bigger than mouse turds, and all sizes in between. During Christmas 1989, the Museum of Figueres held an exhibition of some five hundred caganers, borrowed from private collections all over Catalonia. (There are, of course, collectors who specialize in them.) It was solemnly and equably reviewed in the Barcelona papers, with close-up photos of one or two of the figures, just as one might wish to reproduce a David Smith totem or a nude by Josep Llimona. The origins of the caganer are veiled in antiquity and await the attention of scholarship. Sixteenth-century sculptures of him exist, but he seems to be curiously absent from medieval painting. He is, essentially, a folk-art personage rather than a high-art one. His place is outside the manger, not inside the altarpiece. Yet he makes an unkistakable entrance into twentieth-century art in the work of that great and shit-obsessed son of Catalonia, Joan Miró. If you look closely at The Farm, Montroig, you will see a pale infant squatting in front of the cistern where his mother is doing the washing. This boy is none other than the caganer of Miró's childhood Christmases; it may also be Miró himself, the future painter of Man and Women in Front of a Pile of Excrement. Nor can it be an accident that the other scatologist of modern painting, Salvador Dalí, was a Catalan.

Hughes goes on to have a little fun with the Catalans. Everything he says is, of all things, true.

The Catalan preoccupation with shit would make Sigmund Freud proud; no society offers more frequent and shining confirmations of his theories of anal retention. In this respect, the Catalans resemble other highly mercantile people such as the Japanese and the Germans.

The pleasures of a good crap are considered in Catalonia on a level with those of a good meal. Menjar bé i cagar fort / I no tingués por de la mort, goes the folk saying: "Eat well, shit strongly, and you will have no fear of death."

The image of shit has a festive quality unknown in the rest of Europe. On the Feast of the Kings, January 6, children who have been good the previous year are given pretty sweetmeats; the bad ones get caca i carbó, "shit and coal", emblems of the hell that awaits them if they do not mend their childish ways. These days the coal is left out (not true: you see sugar-candy colored black in the shape of lumps of coal) and the gift consists of brown-marzipan turds made by confectioners, some elaborately embellished with spun-sugar flies. Then there is the tío, or "uncle", a cross between the French bûche de Noël and the Mexican piñata. This artificial log, filled with candy and trinkets, is produced amid great excitement at Christmas; the children whack it with sticks, exclaiming "Caga, tiet, caga!" ("Shit, Uncle, shit!") until it breaks and disgorges its treasures.

Hughes then goes on to explain that Remei's village's hero, Vicens García, the famous Rector of Vallfogona, Catalonia's greatest (and only) Baroque poet in the early 17th century, wrote On a Delicate Matter, "which roundly asserts that no person, however low, not even a Portuguese, could have anything bad to say about shit."

Here's a Vanguardia article from last Christmas season; seems that somebody made the mistake of letting members of the Great Unwashed, the Teeming Millions, the Booboisie, or whatever you prefer to call them, know that caganers existed.

The caganer war has broken out. A controversial display by the Catalan artist Antoni Miralda in the Copia Museum in the town of Napa, California, has awakened the protest of the inflential Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, which has 350,000 members, and which is demanding the removal of some of the figurines on display. Contacted by telephone by this newspaper in his studio in Miami, Miralda said he was "very worried" and "enormously surprised" by the situation, since "we're dealing with a work that does not have the slightest intention of causing offense." He added, "The problem is that these people haven't understood anything at all."

Although, in Catalonia, the appearance of a celebrity as a caganer means nothing more than his consagration in the world of fame, on the other side of the Atlantic, Miralda wakes up every day these days with aggressive cover stories from local newspapers where, next to photos of his figurines, the question "Is this culture?" is asked, and the letters to the editor even talk about "pornography". William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said yesterday, "I don't understand what motive he has to show the Pope and some nuns defecating to show his appreciation for Mother Nature."

"I've already spoken with the management of the museum," says Miralda, "and they're very worried. They're going to talk to the Catholic League and explain to them what a caganer is and I hope they'll retract. I've already told them that, in my country, these objects are bought in front of the Cathedral as part of the holidays." Though he doesn't know how everything is going to turn out, he says, respectfully, that whether or not to remove his figurines or not "is the director of the museum's decision." But the director, Peggy Loar, will not give in, she said yesterday.

...Miralda isn't sure why this has happened to him when "there are so many publications and exhibitions with caganers--even the Metropolitan has them in its collection of creches!" Nevertheless, to the Catholic League, the exhibition is "insulting, gratuitous, and unnecessary," and Donohue states that he will fight against it because "it is financed with taxpayers' money". The Copia Museum is one of Robert Mondavi's projects--he is one of Napa's most important winemakers; he contributed $20 million. The museum, which has received very good reviews, ended up costing $74 million. the difference was paid for by the state of California. Its annual budget is covered by private donations.


Just a couple of comments: 1) I don't buy that "no desire to offend." This guy must know that there are conservative religious groups in the US, since it's part of the stereotype that Americans are religious nuts. He's an artist, so he must have heard of the Andrés Serrano Piss Christ hoo-haw and that other one, I think at the Brooklyn Museum, where they had the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung or something. If he'd just exhibited plain old regular caganers, probably no one would have said anything, but the Catholic League (didn't they use to be the Catholic League of Decency or something like that, or was that another organization?) disapproves of depicting the pope and nuns taking a dump. If Muslims objected to depictions of Mohammed taking a dump, I think their disapproval would be taken into account. Remember, the Catholic League wasn't angry about the caganers in themselves, it was angry that the leader of their religion was depicted in such a disrespectful way. 2) This is why I am against spending ANY GOVERNMENT MONEY AT ALL on arts and culture and the like. If people want museums, ballet, drama, and the like, let them pay for it themselves. I am willing to make an exception for the Smithsonian and for other such national museums, the British Museum and National Gallery, for instance, or the Louvre or Prado. Don't tell me that museum couldn't have been done for half the price with generous contributions from Robert Mondavi's wine-growing pals. It's not like Ernie and Julie Gallo are running short of cash.

By the way, here's today's editiorial cartoon from the Vanguardia. Check it out.

Today's top headline in La Vanguardia:

Bush returns the missiles confiscated by Spain to Yemen

US releases cargo ship with 15 North Korean Scuds after confirming destination

Washington praises Spanish Navy assault in Indian (Ocean)

Here's a list of current, up-to-date Spanish colloquialisms to spice up your vocabulary. I got them all out of Sin control; they're all used frequently by ordinary people. You might call them examples of respectable slang.

gorrear (v.)--to bum, to scam, to invite yourself to something. Me gorreó un cigarro--he bummed a cigarette off me.

a saco (adv.)--very hard, very fast, to the max. Trabajamos a saco--we worked our butts off.

ir / estar de juerga (v.)--to party, to go partying. Estábamos de juerga hasta las 6--we were partying till six.

ser pan comido (v. phr.)--to be easy, to be a snap. El exámen fue pan comido.--the exam was a snap.

un rollo (n.)--a drag, a bummer. La fiesta fue un rollo--the party was a drag.

tropecientos (mil) (n.)--a lot. Te lo he dicho tropecientas (mil) veces--I told you a thousand times.

fatal (adj. / adv.)--terrible. He dormido fatal--I slept badly.

genial (adj. / adv.)--wonderful. La película es genial--it's a great movie.

Feminine Language: I'm not being sexist, this is a concept in linguistics and philology. There are words and expressions that are used mostly or only by women; if men use them, it sounds juvenile or effeminate. Women who want to be perceived as no-nonsense or businesslike also avoid feminine language. Examples in American English are "precious", "sweet", and "cute". I can imagine some women saying "itty bitty", but not a man. This seems to be true in all languages. Here are some examples from Betty's Spanish.

chiflarle, molarle--function like gustarle and mean the same thing. ¡Me chiflan las fiestas!--I love the holidays!

mono--cute. Tu hermanito es muy mono--your little brother is really cute.

-ito--diminutive suffix. Me he comprado unos zapatitos y una faldita--I bought some (little) shoes and a (little) skirt.

-ísimo--augmentative suffix. Este niño es monísimo--this child is so cute.

Here's the list of the Hollywood 100 from MSNBC so that ninety-nine percent of us can boycott anything these people have anything to do with. Fortunately, it is absolutely impossible to consume any Hollywood product without encountering one of these people in it. Therefore, we will simply have to stop watching TV--exceptions made for music, news and sports, Clint Eastwood movies, and stuff like the History Channel--and going to mass-market movies, which will be healthy for all of us. That will give us more time to be with our families and friends, read books and blogs, translate porn for Frenchy the porno purveyor, and the like.

(Thanks to Rumination, a cool blog that you guys ought to check out.)

Here's the list and our comments.

Gillian Anderson--Too bad, she's hot.
Edward Asner--Are you surprised? I would like to tie this guy up in one of those caves where millions of rabid bats live and watch them devour him.
René Auberjonois--Wasn't he the gay guy on Benson?
Amy Aquino--Who dat?
Jordan Baker--Who dat?
David Bale--Who dat?
Kim Basinger--Not surprising, Kim suffers from "lights on but nobody home" syndrome.
Ed Begley, Jr.--Wasn't he the goofy guy on some Eighties doctor show?
Theo Bikel--Who dat?
Barbara Bosson--Wasn't she Dick Van Dyke's wife or something? Or was it some other Dick?
Jackson Browne--How's Daryl, Jackson? Slapped her around lately? Is that restraining order on you still in force?
Peter Buck (REM)--Like their music, don't like this guy.
Diahann Carroll--Between making psychic TV friends late-night infomercials, had time to sign. Or is that Dionne Warwick?
Eugene J. Carroll, Jr. (Rear Adm. U.S. Navy (Ret.)--Good thing he's Ret., I'd hate to have wimps like him in charge of anything important. Notice that he's a REAR admiral, with all that implies.
Kathleen Chalfant--who dat?
Don Cheadle--too bad, I liked him in "Traffic".
Jill Clayburgh--I thought she was dead. Didn't she get killed in Looking for Mr. Goodbar?
David Clennon--who dat?
Jack Coleman--who dat?
Peter Coyote--Yeah, right, if Peter Coyote knows anything about anything but snorting coke I'm Jodie Foster's girlfriend.
Peter Crombie--who dat?
Lindsay Crouse--who dat?
Suzanne Cryer--who dat?
Matt Damon--are you surprised after the ignorant political speeches they put in his mouth in that dumb movie those guys claimed they wrote?
Dana Daurey--who dat?
Ambassador Jonathan Dean (U.S. Rep. to NATO-Warsaw Pact)--Probably during the Carter administration.
Vincent D’Onofrio--who dat?
David Duchovny--I never liked the X-Files, I can't stand that UFO BS.
Olympia Dukakis--are you surprised? I am. I figured nobody on the left would ever want to be associated with anyone named Dukakis again.
Charles S. Dutton--who dat?
Hector Elizondo--who dat?
Cary Elwes--who dat?
Shelley Fabares--who dat?
Mike Farrell--I would love to watch this guy get squeezed to death by a boa constrictor.
Mia Farrow--This woman is completely insane. Does everyone realize this? She needs to be committed, not be asked for her opinion about current events.
Laurence Fishburne--Too bad. I liked him.
Sean Patrick Flanery--Who dat?
Bonnie Franklin--Thought she was dead. She looked like she was in her fifties back in the Seventies.
John Fugelsang--Who dat?
Janeane Garofalo--The absolute dumbest thing I ever heard a Hollywood star say was several years ago after O.J. was acquitted, on Politically Incorrect. She said that the fact that OJ got off was due to the patriarchal society that didn't care whether men killed women. Uh, Janeene or however you spell your name, remember that there were TWO victims, one of whom was a MAN. Also, O.J. obviously got off largely because no black jury would convict him after the pre-trial circus. Duh.
Larry Gelbart--The evil genius behind the subversive TV program MASH.
Melissa Gilbert--Laura Ingalls is a Commie rat fifth columnist tool of Satan?
Danny Glover--Gotten any good roles lately, Danny?
Elliott Gould--I can't believe this guy is still alive, either. He sure looks like he ought to be dead.
Samaria Graham--Who dat?
Robert Greenwald--Who dat?
Robert Guillaume--When was Benson on, like in 1979?
Paul Haggis--Eat him. Whoever he is.
Robert David Hall--Who dat?
Ethan Hawke--Oh, yeah, here's Hollywood's other resident intellectual.
Marg Helgenberger--Who dat?
Ken Howard--When was the White Shadow on, 1977?
Helen Hunt--Rumor has it she is the biggest bitch diva pain in the ass in Hollywood.
Anjelica Huston--Too bad. I liked her. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that her political ideas are wacky.
LaTanya Richardson Jackson--They let a member of the Jackson family sign this thing and they want it to have credibility?!?
Samuel L. Jackson--Too bad. He was great in Pulp Fiction.
Jane Kaczmarek--Who dat?
Melina Kanakaredes--Who dat?
Casey Kasem--Oh, shut up, Casey, your program was the lamest thing ever on the radio. Is it still on?
Mimi Kennedy--Who dat?
Kevin Kilner--Who dat?
Jessica Lange--Not surprising, she was already on our boycott list.
Téa Leoni--Too bad, she's hot.
Donald Logue--Who dat?
Wendie Malick--Who dat?
Camryn Manheim--Who dat?
Marsha Mason--I read this as Marsha "Manson" and wondered fleetingly if either Marilyn or Charles had a sister.
Richard Masur--Who dat?
Dave Mathews--The musician? Yeah, like he has time to think about global issues between bong hits.
Kent McCord--Who dat?
Mary McDonnell--Who dat?
Robert Duncan McNeill--Who dis pretentious three-named Wasp guy?
Mike Mills (REM)--Like the music, don't like this guy.
Janel Moloney--Who dat?
Esai Morales--I think he's the guy who played the Hispanic gang dude on Hill Street Blues and like eight other cop shows.
Ed O’Neill--Yeah, getting this top intellect to sign adds a lot of prestige to the signers' list.
Chris Noth--Who dat?
Peter Onorati--Who dat?
Alexandra Paul--Who dat?
Ambassador Edward Peck (former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq)--Probably during the Truman Administration.
Seth Peterson--Who dat?
CCH Pounder--Who dat?
David Rabe--Who dat?
Alan Rachins--Who dat?
Bonnie Raitt--Can tolerate the music, don't like her.
Carl Reiner--Too bad. I liked him. What about Rob? Didn't have the guts?
Tim Robbins--Not surprising. I would like to see him being devoured by piranhas.
Eric Roberts--Julia's brother? Why didn't Julia sign? Didn't have the guts?
Steve Robinson, Sgt., U.S. Army (Ret.) (National. Gulf War Resource Center)--Good thing this guy was a sergeant, because if he had been an officer I would have made sport of him.
Mitch Ryan--Who dat?
Susan Sarandon--Not surprising. I would like to see her slowly strangled with the last extant copy of Thelma and Louise.
Tony Shalhoub--Who dat?
Jack Shanahan, Vice Adm. U.S.N. (Ret.)--Good thing this wuss is Ret. We don't need weenies like this ordering our guys around. Note that he's a VICE admiral, which fits in well with that other guy, the REAR admiral.
William Schallert--Who dat?
Martin Sheen--Not surprising. I would like to see the whole Sheen family buried up to their necks and then pour honey in every visible orifice.
Armin Shimerman--Who dat?
Gloria Steinem--I thought everyone had already forgotten about her. Playboy bunny days are long gone, huh, Gloria?
Marcia Strassman--Wasn't she Gabe Kaplan's wife? Or was that on TV?
Michael Stipe (REM)--Like the music, absolutely hate this guy.
Susan Sullivan--Who dat?
Loretta Swit--Another nitwit associated with the evil Communist TV program MASH.
Studs Terkel--Has it ever been cleared up whether this guy holds a Party card? I'm serious.
Lily Tomlin--Is exceedingly ugly, so ugly I shouldn't mention it out of common decency.
Blair Underwood--Who dat?
Dennis Weaver--Didn't he shoot his wife? Or was that Baretta?
Bradley Whitford--Who dat?
James Whitmore
James Whitmore, Jr.--Who dey?
Alfre Woodard--Isn't she one of those serious black actresses? You know, the ones who always play the kind, gentle, wise schoolteacher?
Noah Wyle--Who dat?
Peter Yarrow--I really did think this guy was dead. If he isn't, he ought to be. I suggest that action be taken post haste. And why didn't Paul and Mary sign? Are they dead, too? Is Peter really alive or is this some kind of cryogenic time warp?
Howard Zinn--What the hell is this Communist, and he really is, doing as a signer? I'll hold judgement on most of the rest--probably a lot of these people are so dumb that they're not sure what they signed but like, dude, think that peace is cool--but this guy is clearly a non-patriot, and it's ridiculous that any document that claims to be signed by American patriots should include the name of this human cesspool of intellectual offal.

Spain Goes to War: Spanish Navy Boards North Korean Ship Carrying Scuds

On Monday, off the southern tip of India, the Spanish frigate Navarra and its accompanying ship Patiño, on patrol in the Indian Ocean as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, were informed by the American navy that a North Korean ship, flying no flag, was approaching. The Navarra ordered the North Korean cargo ship, which claimed to be carrying cement, to stop. It refused and the Navarra sent its speedboats out to prepare a boarding. The North Korean ship again refused to stop and the Navarra fired warning shots. Then the cargo ship stopped and was boarded. According to Defense Minister Federico Trillo, the ship contained fifteen Scud missiles with fifteen high-explosive warheads and various chemicals, which have apparently not been analyzed yet. The ship was bound for Yemen, whose government has alleged that it was buying the missiles legally. Yeah, right. As Trillo said, "We've caught them red-handed." (con las manos en la masa, literally "with their hands in the (bread) dough".) The crew and officers were arrested and turned over to the Americans. I guess we get to keep the cargo ship as a prize of war, or have I been reading too many eighteenth-century British Navy novels?

I highly recommend that President Bush make a big deal out of this. One of the main causes of European resentment against the US is that America is arrogant and prepotent. What that really means, of course, is that they feel ignored, disrespected, and underappreciated and this turns them against the folks who they think aren't appreciating them enough. That's perfectly reasonable. Remember that happiness is caused by others giving you your props, shame is caused by not being able to live up to the props that you know you're going to stop getting pretty soon if you don't shape up, and anger is caused by not getting the props you think you feel you deserve. When the Europeans think about America they feel both shame and anger, shame at the fact that they've lost the importance they had only twenty years ago and the props that go with it, and anger because they still feel they deserve the props they've lost. This is not infantile behavior, it's natural human behavior.

Well, one way to improve the situation is by giving the Spaniards some props for this one. They did their job well and made an important contribution. American appreciation for this show of military solidarity would decrease some of the shame and anger felt around here with regard to America.

Here's how important American approval is to the Spaniards. The Vanguardia is a conservative newspaper, which doesn't prevent it from printing a good bit of Marxist crap, but it's socially very conservative, very pro-monarchy and pro-Church. It's owned by this nobility dude named the Count of Godó, and the Count of Godó has set up this thing called the Count of Barcelona Foundation in honor of the father of the current king of Spain, Don Juan de Borbón, one of whose titles was Count of Barcelona. I suppose that King Juan Carlos now holds the title. Anyway, the Count of Barcelona Foundation has set up this award called the Count of Barcelona International Prize, and the very first one was given to...get this...drumroll...the New York Times! At the very moment when the Times is at the darkest moment of its history, when Howell Raines's editorship has made the paper nothing more than an American Guardian!

The specific excuse adduced was the exemplariness of the Times's reporting after 9-11. Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. showed in person to collect the prize, which consists of a small, ugly bronze statue and a hundred thousand euros. The Vangua devotes FIVE full pages to this, including a front-page color photo of Sulzberger, his wife, the Count of Godó himself (squeezing into the photo, which is focused on him), the Queen, the King, and Princess Cristina and her husband Iñaki Urdangarín. They also put out a special TWENTY-EIGHT page Culture supplement on the relationship between Barcelona and New York, which I wasn't actually aware existed, but if they say there's one, all right, I'll go along. Most of the supplement consists of five New Yorkers kissing up to (haciendo la pelota a) Barcelona opinion and a bunch of Catalans kissing up to New York opinion. This whole episode, a piece of manufactured news if there ever was one, is something that is very important to them. It means respect, it means attention, it means that Barcelona and Catalonia and Spain are significant.

Note: Juan Carlos officially calls himself Juan Carlos I. Somebody needs to tell him that you don't get to be a I until there's a II. That's why, in, say, English history, King John is just King John and King Stephen is just King Stephen because there was never a second king with one of those names, and why Elizabeth I was never I until the current Elizabeth II inherited the throne. This drives me right straight up the wall.

Here's a blog in Spanish by a young woman named Betty (Elisabeth, probably, not an uncommon name here) called Sin control. She lives in Barcelona, she's pregnant, and she seems very nice if a little flighty. She avoids politics and the like and talks about more down-to-earth stuff; don't underestimate her intelligence, she writes beautiful colloquial Spanish. Check it out if you can read Spanish.

Here are some excerpts from a letter to La Vanguardia by a fellow living in Charlotte, North Carolina, named Juan Mullerat. He says:

How can a country which considers itself the main world power leave its people without electricity?...Thousands of businesses are still without electricity in the middle of chaos, they say worse than Hurricane Hugo which happened a few years ago. Almost 1.6 million homes are without heating...shopping centers looked like ghost towns last night...A technologically advanced country, the majority of whose people think they live in Utopia, is now living in the 19th century or worse, because "we weren't ready". A representative of Duke Power said yesterday that all repairs would not be finished for 12 days! Obviously I live in a "ghost country", in the two meanings of the term. (The word ghost, or fantasma, in Spain means someone who talks big but does little.)

Juan, let me explain something to you. You have been in a FREAKIN' ICE STORM. Ice storms are unusual but happen every few years, and I can tell you that it gets scary when the lights go off and they cut off the gas and the trees and power lines start crashing. It's even scarier if you're racing one driving up through Oklahoma and it catches you at about Lamar, Missouri. Trust me. Good thing my sister was driving because I'd have slid us off the road and we'd have had to wait for the snowplow and tow truck guys, who might not have gotten to us for a good few hours. What you do if you live in America is be prepared for freaks of nature like tornadoes and hurricanes and blizzards and have a few cans of food, a lighter, a flashlight, a few candles, a battery radio, spare batteries, and a couple of bottles of water on hand. There's nothing you can do to stop an ice storm, and there's nothing you can do to alleviate its effects. The trees and power lines are going to come down and people are going to get killed. The best way to avoid getting killed is to just stay home until everything's pretty much over, which shouldn't take more than a couple of days. Then there is all kinds of junk all over the streets that has to be cleared up, and that's hard and dangerous work because of the power lines, which in their turn have to be put back up and reconnected. There's no way to speed up the needed work, and thank God those guys know what they're doing, because I sure wouldn't know what to do and would get myself electrocuted or crushed by a falling branch.

Juan, I guess what I'm trying to say is take a little responsibility for yourself. Be prepared for nasty acts of Nature, because Charlotte gets plenty of them though it has the sort of climate most Americans like best--four seasons, mild winters, a little snow but usually not much, not horrifically hot summers, and enough rain to keep the forests, fields, and yards green but not so much that you don't see the sun three days out of four.

Here is a fairly random sample of recent weather disasters in the US, from the World Almanac.

2001--Tropical Storm Allison, $5 billion damage, 41 dead.
2000--Drought / Heat Wave, $4 billion, 140 dead.
2000--Western Fire Season, $2 billion, 0 dead.
1999--Hurricane Floyd, $6 billion, 77 dead.
1999--Oklahoma-Kansas Tornadoes, $1.1 billion, 55 dead.
1998--Texas Flood, $1 billion, 31 dead.
1998--Northeast Ice Storm, $1.4 billion, 16 dead.
1997--Mississippi-Ohio Valleys Tornadoes and Flood, $1 billion, 67 dead.
1997--West Coast Flood, $3 billion, 36 dead.
1996--Hurricane Fran, $5 billion, 37 dead.
1996--Blizzard of ´96 and Flood, $3 billion, 187 dead.
1995--Hurricane Opal, $3.3 billion, 27 dead.
1995--Southern Storms and Flood, $6.6 billion, 32 dead.
1994--Western Fire Season, $1.1 billion, ? dead.
1994--Southeast Ice Storm, $3.3 billion, 9 dead.

So, dude, like, stop complaining and find out how to volunteer for the cleanup. I'm sure they could use people, at least to serve coffee and donuts.

Here's the Washington Times story on the situation in North Carolina from two days ago. This clearly counts as a major disaster, with more than 27 dead and billions of dollars in damage. Meanwhile, here in Barcelona, the traffic lights still short out every time it rains (rained today; bingo, the light at Balmes and Plaza Molina went out and things snarled up badly before they got a cop to the corner to direct traffic), and the government is being accused of "not being ready" for the oil spill.

Seems that a bunch of Hollywood lefties want us all to know about their opinions on foreign policy. Great. As soon as I find the complete list, I'll link to it so we can all boycott movies and TV shows in which they appear. Meanwhile, this link lets us know in advance who some of them are. National Review provides this parody.

Here's the good sports news. The Chiefs are waking up. Joe Posnanski, who is a very good sports columnist, devotes his column to the Chiefs' awesome offensive line, who blast open huge holes for magnificent running back Priest Holmes, who is arguably the best player in the NFL right now, and give quarterback Trent Green, who is a competent pro and who wears a Super Bowl ring, plenty of time to run an effective passing game just like back in the Seventies, when teams would pass only fifteen or twenty times a game but those would be real passes, not little dinks. With three competent wide receivers, brilliant tight end Tony Gonzalez, and top return man Dante Hall, the Chiefs can light up almost any defense. The problem is the defense, which for most of the season has been just as bad as the offense is good. In the last two games, though, the Chiefs have shut down admittedly pathetic Arizona and the unpredictable Rams to a total of only ten points. Now they finish the season against the Broncos, Chargers, and Raiders. They're 7-6. 10-6 is possible. The Chiefs offense can do the job, and if your defense can shut down Priest Holmes you deserve to win anyway--the Chiefs have no right to complain if the other guys play well enough to hold their offense to 17 or 24 points. The question is whether the Chiefs defense can hold the other guys to, say, 27 or 30 points. If they can do that Holmes and the offensive line just might put them in the playoffs. I predict that these next three games will be some pretty exciting football.

Here's the bad news. Barcelona choked again, this time 1-0 in Madrid against a bad team, Rayo Vallecano. There's no excuse for this. We don't expect Barça to win every game, but it is fair to demand that with all the money they spend on players--and a lot of that money comes from the 104,000 season-ticket holders and from the six million Catalan households who sit through the advertisements that TV stations pay millions of euros for--they put together a team that is competitive. This team is not functioning. Saviola is a good little player but he's not the top goal-scorer they need. Neither is Riquelme. They wasted the money they got from the sale of Figo on Petit, Overmars, Geovanni, and Rochemback, none of whom have had any effect. Rochemback is not a bad midfielder, but he's not worth nearly what they paid for him. Mendieta is playing poorly, which really is a surprise. Meanwhile, Couto, Nadal, and Pellegrino, all of them sold off years ago, are having good seasons yet again, just when Barça could use a couple of defensemen, and Simao, who was supposed to replace Figo but never really got a chance, is tearing up the Portuguese league. Sonny Anderson is tearing up the French league. Rivaldo is playing well at Milan. And Barça can't beat Rayo Vallecano, which is like being so bad you can't even beat the Royals.

Barcelona plays Newcastle this week at home in the Champions' League, where they are 7-0-0 but have beaten only one good team, AS Roma. Newcastle, coached by Sir Bobby Robson, Barça's ex-coach, whom they never should have got rid of and especially not for Van Gaal, is a good team. If Barça beats them there are grounds for limited optimism. If they tie, it's not good. If they lose, it will be just about the last straw, and if they lose again, Van Gaal will be fired, assuming he hadn't already been. Joan Gaspart, Barça's elected club president, is on the verge of being forced to resign. Good. Everybody hates him. Earlier this season some guys made a banner with a picture of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons and labeled it "Gaspart". Cracked everybody up because Gaspart really does look like Mr. Burns, but nobody had made the connection before. The TV cameras picked it up and now they run the shot of the banner as part of the highlights every time Barça loses. See, whenever Barça loses, which is a lot these days, they also run long stories on how the Barça has really been losing a lot lately. Gee, this wouldn't be a campaign by Convergence and Union, the Catalan nationalist party, who control local television, to put their own man in charge of the Barça in the place of the PP sympathizers, especially Gaspart, running the board of directors, would it? Of course it would. A big deal a few weeks ago was made when Sixte Cambra of Convergence joined the board in an attempt by Gaspart to reach out to the powerful CiU faction within the club. Cambra will stab Gaspart in the back as soon as he gets a chance. I normally sympathize with the PP, but the fact that I respect and approve of Prime Minister Aznar doesn't mean I want that prick Gaspart to run the soccer team into the ground.

Here's what they need to do. Fire Van Gaal. Give me the job as coach. I'll run a lineup of Bonano in goal, Puyol, Cocu, Gabri, and Navarro as defensemen, Xavi and Rochemback in midfield, Riquelme as the "quarterback", and Overmars, Kluivert, and Saviola at forward. This lineup will give up goals. It had damn well better score a few. And we'll put Luis Enrique anywhere we can shoehorn him in when he comes back.

In the Spanish first division Real Sociedad, Valencia, Celta, Betis, Mallorca, and Real Madrid are at the top. At the bottom are Rayo, Sevilla, Español, and Recreativo. In the English league it's Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U and Liverpool at the top and Bolton, Sunderland, and West Ham at the bottom. In Germany it's Bayern Munich way out front and then Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen; at the bottom are Kaiserslautern and Cottbus. In Italy AC Milan, Lazio, Inter Milan, and Juventus are at the top and Atalanta, Reggina, Torino, and Como at the bottom.

As I've said, I have five cats. The youngest, Oscar, is long, slim, sleek, and all-black. Bart is about three and is a stocky, muscular, red-tabby and white little cat who is not too smart but who is very affectionate. Lisa is a dark gray tabby with a white front and a high, squeaky voice. We found all three of them as kittens. Chang and Eng, the Siamese twins, found us; they lived on top of a roof below our back window in the last place we lived, and they sort of invited themselves in back in '96. They were already adults; the way to tell them apart is that Chang only has one-third of a tail and has crossed eyes. He also drools. A couple of minutes ago I walked into the kitchen, where Chang was sitting at my head level on top of the microwave, which is on top of the fridge. I went over to him and he proceeded to happily bump and rub his head against mine; this behavior is cat language for "I am content and I like you. Pet me." Then--and I saw it coming--he shook his head fast like a wet dog does. Cat drool all over my face. Yecch.

Hitchens does it again, this time skewering anti-Americanism in Slate. He's dead on-target, making many of the same points we've made here (and that Paul Hollander also makes) very eloquently. I love his line about America's being the source of libertinism and vice and sedition and that we should be proud of that. Jonah Goldberg from NRO also says several things we've been saying. My, aren't we all clever? I hope this guy from Opinion Journal is telling the truth about his attempted attendance at an antiwar protest.

Today's back-page interview in La Vanguardia is with Michel Girin, who is the top EU oceanographer; he was the guy in charge of the Erika cleanup in 1999. It seems to me that most of what he's got to say is pretty reasonable.

-What can we do now?
–Grit our teeth, work hard, and not lose hope.

–Everything looks terrible here.
–I understand. It's an ecological, economic, and human tragedy, but we can fight against it. Look: I went swimming at the beaches affected by the shipwreck of the Aegean Sea in summer 1993, seven months after the accident, and in France the waters where the Erika sank in December 1999 were already clean in summer.

--That fast?
– If it's cleaned up correctly, yes. The first thing is to collect all the fuel possible, and then Nature can regenerate itself. I'm not saying there isn't ecological damage, besides the economic damage, but it's not eternal. After two years a recovery is visible and it is completed in ten years

–Ten years! That's a long time for people live near the sea or from it
–I know. But there are no immediate or perfect solutions. Everybody needs to understand that.

–Too many mistakes have been made.
–I'm trying to be cold and unemotional. Don't expect any easy criticisms from me because I've been in charge during several crises like the Erika and I can assure you I made the decisions that my intelligence, the circumstances, and the pressures that I received permitted me. Later it was very easy to contemplate these done deeds from the comfort of an office, and with all the facts in hand, say that I had made errors

–Did you make errors?
–When you make a decision, you don't know what the weather will be like in five days or whether the ship will break in half and sink.

–You could tow it to a port.
–No port will accept a damaged ship. Would any port have accepted the Prestige?

–?
–There are politicians who say that ports should be obligated to give refuge, but when I hear this, I think, "Great, so if there's no danger let's send the dangerous boat to Paris or Madrid." Maybe one day we can begin discussing the creation of a network of ports of refuge, compensating local people for the risk.

–What has the Prestige taught us?
–For those of us who make a career out of combatting these catastrophes, it's a special case. It's a historical example for the world.

–Why?
–The Prestige is the first case in the history of shipping in which the option of a hurried distancing (of the ship) from the coast toward the high seas and then sinking it has been used.

–So?
–Until now all these accidents happened with the ship sinking near the coast. The fact that the sinking was so far out has positive aspects. It gives us time to fight spilled oil on the high seas with pumping boats like the 11, from 7 different countries, that have already pumped out 10,000 tons of fuel from the Prestige. This is good for everyone.

–So what's the bad part?
–The bad part for a lot of people is that the spilled oil is going to float along hundreds of miles of coast in the form of small oilslicks. The not-so-bad part for Galicia is that all the oilslicks that go somewhere else won't wash up on their beaches.

–“Nunca máis”, (Never again), the Galicians say. Will there be “máis”?
Yes. That is the sad truth.

–Why?
–Day before yesterday there was a collision between an oil tanker like the Prestige and another ship off the coast of Singapore that caused a spill of 400 tons of oil into the sea. Every week there's a spill of a hundred or more tons and every year there's one of more than a thousand tons. It's like car accidents.

–But that happens far away from us.
–Yes, but sometimes it happens here, too. It's also true that the Prestige has marked a tipping point. The European condemnation has never been so loud and I think this will force the EU to take very serious measures; there are demands from all over Europe for more protection for the coastlines.

–What will happen?
–Measures will be taken. I'll leave it for the politicians to decide which ones, but I know what they are.

–Tell us.
–There are many, and on many fronts: improve the ships, improve the training of the captains, improve work schedules, improve the ports, improve the laws.

–What for, since nobody obeys them?
–Force them to be obeyed making the companies responsible for the economic damage, and the ecological damage too. Prohibit them from using our ports if they don't offer guarantees. These days the shipowners declare bankruptcy or hide behind an insurance policy that insures nothing. It's complicated, but we must make progress, and anyway the laws we have are obsolete.

–Why?
–The laws of the sea have become obsolete because they provide an unlimited guarantee of the right of ships to circulate freely through the English Channel and the other main sea passageways...

–Like the Strait of Gibraltar.
–Yes, when those international laws were passed, they were fair and necessary for world trade because then cargoes were not dangerous for the people and the environment. But today 50,000 tons of oil or chemical products in a ship are an enormous danger for everyone. They have no right to travel by sea without controls.

I disagree with Girin about towing the ship to port. It seems to me that the Prime Minister could have decided, "Look, let's get this ship somewhere it won't do too much damage," and have towed the ship into the port of El Ferrol, which is an ugly dump and anyway was Franco's hometown. Damage outside the port of Ferrol would have been insignificant, a few hundred tons of oilslicks, and as for damage inside the port, who cares? Evacuate the population and bomb the place flat and burn up not only the nasty oil but also the ugly town. Well, OK, that might be a little excessive, but the idea would be to concentrate the damage in the least bad place. That's called cost-benefit analysis and is not a really hard thing to do if you are cool and unemotional.

Note that Girin's automatic reaction, when asked how to alleviate the problem, is to demnd new laws and law enforcement. I actually agree with him; just like there's an international standard for aircraft and an international network of air-traffic control, I don't see why we can't have a system of ship-traffic control which would supervise dangerous cargoes and set standards that ships transporting this hazardous stuff would have to meet. I mean, traffic by truck is controlled and supervised, and so is every other form of transport I can think of. You're not allowed to drive gasoline tanker trucks through downtown Barcelona for obvious reasons. Why can't we do something like that with ships?

I also disagree with Girin about the utility of insurance policies. The American system of oil tanker control requires that tankers docking in a US port have an effective insurance policy; therefore, it's something that can be done, as we proved when we tightened our rules after the Exxon Valdez in 1989 and haven't had an important spill since. You get those insurance company inspectors and actuaries looking over your oil tanker and, believe me, if there's something wrong with it you're going to find out when they invalidate your policy as fast as you can say "Rustbucket". It shouldn't be too hard to regulate oil tankers, since almost by definition oil tankers sail between oil-producing countries and oil-using countries. If the big oil-using countries slap high standards on tankers, and pressure the big oil-producers to do the same thing, that ought to take care of the problem without creating some new international body. If you combine real insurance policies, tough port standards, and a ship-traffic control like air-traffic control, that ought to do it, I say as we sit in my comfortable office far away from the problem.

Did you notice that the Spanish interviewer's first reaction when the French scientist proposed tougher laws was to cynically say, "Why bother, nobody obeys the law anyway?" The problem with this attitude is that it makes it very easy to justify, say, cheating on your taxes, or evading solid currency overseas, which is why there's no money in Argentina--it's all in Argentines' bank accounts in Miami, and not just the rich people, either, but the whole damn Argentine middle class. This negative attitude is common to all Spanish-speaking countries; Spain, for example, never had a decent government until democracy arrived in the late Seventies. No wonder people don't trust the government, but you have to learn to do so as a society in order to have an effective fiscal policy. This is what they call an asignatura pendiente in Spanish; in school, that means a required course you haven't passed yet.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that Girona, north of Barcelona, is the unfriendliest place I've ever been. Toledo is full of Fascists, who are assholes by definition. Chicago, outside the singles-bar district at Rush and Division, where everybody is so drunk that they're tolerably nice, ranks right up there. There are a lot of nasty people in Houston, though my opinion may be tainted because my grandmother lived in a lousy neighborhood there, near Hardy Road and Crosstimbers just north of 610, until the late '80s. No problem with the Mexicans--they were cool, just regular hardworking folks trying to move their families up in the world. Yeah, they'd drink some beers and turn up the gadinga-dinga music on Saturday nights, but that doesn't hurt any, and they'd invite you if you were around. When I was about 16 I made friends with the girl next door, Cristina, whose family was from Reynosa down on the border and who was in and out of my grandma's house--Granny was the kind of old lady who'd talk about niggers and Meskins, just as a matter of course, but her behavior didn't have anything to do with her language, if you see what I mean. I think if I were, say, black, I'd rather deal with a white person who is a straight-shooter although somewhat racist, but not in a hateful way, than with some liberal who is always tiptoeing around on eggshells trying not to offend. No, the problem around there were the white people, who were about as rednecky as I've ever seen, and I don't mean picturesque farmers up in some Appalachian holler, but people who owned lots of guns and mean dogs and worked as repo men and bounty hunters. I ran distance in high school and worked out every day, even when visiting the folks, and I carried a two-foot-long iron bar when I went running in that neighborhood, ostensibly for the mean dogs, but really for the mean people. I can't believe they never held a cross-burning. Had they, I imagine there'd have been a pretty good turnout, and everybody would have brought his own sheet and pint of Evan Williams. By the way, the absolute biggest redneck I know is my dad's cousin Larry, who lives in Lufkin, Texas. Hi, Larry! Since you can't read this, I don't know why I bothered to say that. I remember the last time we went to visit them, twenty years ago, and Larry talked about niggers the whole time in a hateful way, his kid Kenneth tried to pick a fight with me (Larry said it was fine, that Kenneth liked to fight and that he would only mind if Kenneth ever ran away from a fight), and his other kid whose name escapes me cut her foot on a piece of broken glass while running around the front yard barefoot and it was gushing blood. We left and in the car my mom, who is very diplomatic, said, "You know, I believe I would have taken that girl to the emergency room," and my dad kind of snorted and said, "I have never been so appalled in my life," which is strong language coming from him. We haven't seen them since. They didn't get invited to my sister's wedding, I know that.

As for friendly places, all of California is right up there except for San Francisco leftists, Berkeley students, and rich folks in LA. People in Kansas City are really very nice. New Orleans earns a high ranking. My sister says Nashville people are super-friendly. You won't believe this, but every time I've been in London, the only place I've really been in England, everyone was great except for the bums hanging around Euston Station. Narbonne and Nîmes are particularly friendly places in France, Soria, Santander, Zaragoza, Córdoba, Navarra in general, and Barcelona (if you stay away from the Cataloonies--hint: run should you learn that an Elèctrica Dharma concert is imminent. Also flee the mere appearance of sardana bands and sardana dancers) are congenial cities in Spain. Oporto in Portugal is full of nice people.

I listen on Internet-streaming radio to bluegrasscountry.org. Now that I have a decent computer and an ADSL line it's easy to get and sounds good. I imagine that if you have an old puter and a dial-up line it might be hard to get. (By the way, there's another good Internet-only country station, KWCA. I don't know any more info than that, but if you google something like "KWCA country" you'll get it.) Anyway, bluegrasscountry.org picks up this Australian bluegrass show from Sydney, and the DJ just a couple of minutes ago was reading off some of the e-mails they'd gotten. One was from these quarry workers in Virginia who said that they were thrilled to be able to listen to this Internet "station" because they couldn't find a radio station near there that played bluegrass, honky-tonk, and classic country in general. The DJ said, "Good on ya, mate, you know you can always count on us Ozzies." Damn straight. The Ozzies, Kiwis, Canucks, and Brits can be counted on, and Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and Norway, as well as Italy, and the Pro-American Three, Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary, are showing lots of backbone. Romania and Bulgaria fall in there, too, two countries making great strides and earning themselves a place in the West. And, of course, stalwart Israel.

Cool Stuff Machiavelli Said:

For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.

Hence it comes that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

It should be borne in mind that the temper of the multitude is fickle, and that while it is easy to persuade them of a thing, it is hard to fix them in that persuasion.

He deceives himself who believes that with the great, recent benefits cause old wrongs to be forgotten.

Still, to slaughter fellow-citizens, to betray friends, to be devoid of honour, pity, and religion, cannot be counted as merits, for these are means which may lead to power, but which confer no glory.

Those cruelties we may say are well employed, if it be permitted to speak well of things evil, which are done once for all under the necessity of self-preservation, and are not afterwards persisted in, but so far as possible modified to the advantage of the governed. Ill-employed cruelties, on the other hand, are those which from small beginnings increase rather than diminish with time.

...The aim of the people being more honourable than that of the nobles, the latter seeking to oppress, the former not to be oppressed.

Another post from the old site, on minority languages, which we can never stop talking about in Barcelona. It is the number one issue in many people's minds here. Tonight in prime-time TV3, Catalan government TV, run by the Catalan nationalist Convergence and Union party, is running what they call a "documentary"--I'd call it a "partisan propaganda film"--on those goddamn files in the Civil War Archive in Salamanca that the Catalan nationalists want returned to Catalonia. Let me make something clear. ABSOLUTELY NOBODY GIVES A RAT'S PATOOT ABOUT THOSE GODDAMN FILES. Except for a bunch of idjits who have their heads so far up their own rectums that the most important thing in the world to them is the slight done to Catalan honor by the presence of these sixty-five-year-old papers in Castilian Salamanca. I am not exaggerating. War, poverty, economic disasters, terrorism, yeah, they'll pay lip service in the name of solidarity, but the only thing really important to them is the question of Catalan national prestige. These are the people I call Cataloonies, and about 20% of the people in Catalonia (the sum of all those who vote for the Republican Left and 1/3 of those who vote for Convergence and Union, plus a Trotskyist or two; the Stalinists and anarchists, all seventeen of them not living in squats, tend to be anti-Catalanist on the grounds that any form of nationalism is bad) fall into the category.

(Oct. 23, 2002): A reader from Belgium reminded us that not all of Belgium is French-speaking; of course, it isn't.
Wallonia, in southern and eastern Belgium, is French-speaking. Although Brussels is within Flanders, it is Flemish-French bilingual. Flanders, in northern and western Belgium, is Flemish-speaking (Flemish is a variety of Dutch). We were in Brussels once and I lost my passport under very strange circumstances at the airport. I had to talk to a lot of people, singly and in groups, at the Brussels airport, in English, of course. They all seemed to use Flemish and French more or less interchangeably with one another at work, in much the same way that both Catalan and Spanish are used in Barcelona. Another thing I noticed is that when I knew the context--the context of the conversations centered on passports and this American guy, me, who didn't have one--I could understand what they were talking about. Not every word, but the gist and some details. When I didn't know the context, I didn't understand a thing.


Belgium is one of the many places in Europe where the users of different languages have to make accommodation with one another in the same place. Remember that true bilinguals, people who speak two languages naturally, are fairly unusual and are most common in places where one language is used at home and the other by the State. We'd say that there are three possible scenarios:


1) Two strong languages coexist in the same place. That would include Belgium, with French and Flemish/Dutch, and Switzerland, with French, Italian, and German. Always, in these cases, one region of the country speaks language A and the other one speaks language B. Educated people in these places tend to speak both local languages as well as English, in which they can communicate even if one of them is really bolshy about not speaking the other local language. Though most people in these places are not too bolshy, they tend to be native speakers of only one language and to speak the other one as a "foreign" language. Next time you meet a smart Belgian or Swiss, ask him about this. Odds are he'll say something like, "Well, I'm from Antwerp, so my first language is Flemish, but I can speak French, too, about as well as or maybe a little better than I can speak English, which is pretty well but not perfectly." Some Flemish people, believing that Flemish should receive extra government protection, consider Flemish to be a weak language and that Belgium really falls into Group 2. We don't buy it.

2) A strong language and a weak language coexist in the same place. This is the situation of Irish Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, Galician, Basque, Catalan, Frisian, and company. Normally in these places there is a local language used by a significant number of natives of the area with their families and neighbors and in local economic activity, and a State language used in education, the bureaucracy, the media, larger-scale economic activity, and high culture. (Intellectuals call this diglossia.) Of these languages listed, Catalan is the strongest and has the most significant cultural history, but when Catalan culture went into decline in the eighteenth century--the causes are debatable--and Spanish was the language of the centralized State, it replaced Catalan as the State language inside Catalonia. Since Catalanists are people who think Catalan rather than Spanish should be the State language again, part of their program is to replace Spanish with Catalan in the abovementioned areas; this is what they call "linguistic normalization". Catalan has replaced Spanish as the language of regional and municipal government and their respective bureaucracies, and as the primary language used in education--public schools teach all subjects in Catalan except Spanish language and literature. Catalan has been fairly successful in such high-cultural fields as literature, theater, and the like, but by no means has it displaced Spanish. It's been fairly successful in the media, too, though it certainly hasn't displaced Spanish, either. TV and radio in Catalan are both widely popular, though we believe that all the broadcast media outlets in Catalonia that use Catalan are government-subsidized or -owned, and Spanish is a good bit more common than Catalan on the airwaves. The Catalan daily newspapers like Avui, El Periódico's Catalan edition, and El Punt lose tons of money and are only kept afloat by government subsidies, though; Catalan has also failed completely in larger-scale economic activity, as virtually no non-Catalans want to learn Catalan. It's also failed in popular culture; Catalan movies and popular music are generally dreadfully bad, though we genuinely like the singer Joan Manuel Serrat--who sings in both Catalan and Spanish and is popular in the rest of Spain and in Latin America. You could argue, though, that Serrat, like, say, Bob Dylan, could count as high culture--the lyrics are an important part of his songs and he does things like set well-known poems by Spanish authors to music. Some Catalanists, concerned about Catalan's prestige, would say that Catalan is a strong language and Catalonia really belongs in group 1; we don't buy it.


3) A strong language exists in urban islands, surrounded by another language. This is particularly common in wealthy areas with large numbers of immigrants. Thus there are islands of Turkish-speakers, who speak enough German to get by, in German cites and islands of Arabic-speakers, who speak enough French to get by, in France. A historical example is that of the Austrian Empire cities of Prague (Prag), Bratislava (Pressburg). Ljubljana (Leibach), and Budapest. Robert McNeill explains in Plagues and Peoples that in the pre-modern-medicine days, cities had considerably higher death rates than birth rates and thus relied upon in-migration from the surrounding countryside for growth--or just to keep the population stable. Since these cities were government, economic, educational, and cultural centers, and the State language of the Hapsburg Empire was German, the language used in these fields in those cities was German. The local bourgeois adopted German as their home language, often because they intermarried with the German-speakers from other areas who moved in as teachers, civil servants, business people, and the like. The urban lower classes and the rural peasantry that both surrounded the cities and flocked to them as in-migrants continued to speak Czech or Hungarian or whatever, but they were the most ravaged by the urban epidemics and died wholesale. When modern medicine put an end to epidemic disease in Europe between, say, 1850 and 1920, the Czech and Hungarian and whatever population of these cities, which until then had been fairly small places, began to grow hugely as more and more peasants moved in--and stayed alive. Nationalism, an urban phenomenon linked to ancestral feelings for the land and the traditional rural way of life left behind in the countryside, grew up. The Czechs and Hungarians and whatever seized power after World War I (OK, Hungary in 1867) and made their tongues the State language, replacing German. Similarly, Barcelona is a Spanish-speaking island surrounded by Catalan-speakers; the difference is that the peasantry drawn to Barcelona after 1914 was mostly from Spanish-speaking parts of Spain, who have mostly continued using Spanish and who have displaced or absorbed the old Catalan-speaking Barcelona working class. Thus, Spanish is both a State language and a people's language in Barcelona; the Catalan-speakers in Barcelona are middle-class folk, who are more nationalist than most Catalans outside Barcelona and run the regional and municipal bureaucracies and control local economic activity. This is why the Catalan economy is disproportionally endogamic (a lot of its commerce takes place within itself). It's locally successful on a small-to-medium scale, but it doesn't compete too well outside Catalonia; this is why Barcelona is prosperous and happy and not too internationally important or cosmopolitan. (Ooh, the Barcelonese are going to hate that last comment, but we think it's true; hey, I'm from Kansas City and we, too, are provincial rubes who don't like to be reminded of it. It's also true that both Kansas City and Barcelona are surprisingly nice places to live, much better than, say, Oklahoma City or Valencia, and right up there with better-known places like Madrid, St. Louis, or Dallas. However, both Kansas Citians and Barcelonese want to compete with New York and Paris and London, and they're--well, we're--not even in the same league.)

Here's another from the old site that we thought new readers might be interested in.

Oct. 3, 2002: One of the five articles listed by Steven Den Beste in his Recommended Reading names seven factors that contribute to a state's lack of success. As you can see, Saddam's Iraq pretty much has all of these characteristics. What about Spain?

Restrictions on the free flow of information. Not true in Spain, though the leftism of the media is rather more monolithic than in the US and the central government owns its own TV channel, as do several autonomous regional governments including Catalonia.

Subjugation of women. Not true in Spain, though there is rather more societal sexism here than in the US. Still, women have it pretty good in Spain compared to a lot of other places. We certainly wouldn't call them "subjugated".

Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure. This exists in Spain to a certain degree. Spaniards talk about the individual, left at the mercies of rampant capitalism, forced to compete or fail on capitalism's terms. This is certainly an excuse for individual failure. As for collective failure, Spaniards and especially Latin Americans often blame others--especially punching-bag America--for the fix they got themselves into. An example from here in Spain is that "You Americans imposed Franco on us." Completely false. America remained neutral in the Spanish Civil War, which Franco won largely because his side was united and the other side spent more time squabbling among themselves. (Yes, we know this is an oversimplification. Please don't write us about it.) Franco maintained power, even though the Americans were boycotting Spain, through the Forties and into the Fifties. Then Eisenhower decided that, though we still didn't like Franco, he would be a useful anti-Soviet ally, and so gave American recognition and military aid to the Franco regime because we figured that bad as it was it was better than a communist regime--only fourteen years after Franco seized power. The Spaniards manifestly failed to get rid of their own dictator, but they refuse to accept that responsibility. A lot of over-55 loudmouths in the Spanish press today kept nice and quiet thirty years ago or so.

Extended family or clan as basis for social organization. Used to be more acute in Spain than now. People still tend to trust Cousin Luis more than somebody they're not related to, though. It's still nowhere near as bad as Somalia.

Domination by a restrictive religion. Not true at all in Spain today. Spain de-Catholicized pretty rapidly in the Seventies; society was already clearly mellowing in the Sixties. In the first, say, twenty years of the Franco dictatorship, though, Spain was in the puritan grip of the Church. What happened was that, as society became more liberal, so did the Church. The Church's influence is often positive today, though it is still pretty antiquated on divorce, birth control, and abortion, especially on divorce, which is still difficult to obtain. The Church was never anywhere near as repressive as, say, the mullahs in Iran, though, and today it is a surprisingly liberal organization.

Low valoration of education. Very much not true in Spain.

Low prestige assigned to work. Not exactly true in Spain, though in the South there are still a good few "agricultural day-laborers" who work a couple of months a year and get paid off in government subsidies. Perhaps one difference is that the American dream is a family, a house, and a good job in a career you like at good pay. If you've achieved that, you've "made good". The Spanish dream, however, is winning the lottery and cashing in big so that you don't ever have to work again. Low regard for work seems to be much more true in Latin America than Spain.

We think that Spain is pretty healthy and doing pretty well, based on these seven factors. It's not a perfect country, but then what is?

Here's one we posted back on the old site. Note the dead-on election prediction.

Oct. 2, 2002: According to an article from National Review Online by Byron York from a couple of days ago, a very recent Gallup Poll taken by telephone of 2500 Americans showed the following results, which might be of interest to certain folks who tend to underestimate Americans' general intelligence. The question was, simply, whether the respondent had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the person in question.


Person Favorable% Unfavorable% No opinion% Never heard of%


G. W. Bush 70 28 2 --
Cheney 65 24 7 4
Powell 88 6 3 3
Rumsfeld 61 19 10 10


The American people know who their president and the other main members of the Administration are. Everyone in the country knows who the President is and 90% of them know who the Secretary of Defense is. We bet that fewer than 90% of Spaniards know who their own Minister of Defense is. Also, Americans clearly have a very positive view of both President Bush and the three Administration leaders named. Colin Powell is the most popular, of course, because he is approved of by all Republicans and also by many Democrats sympathetic to people of his ethnic background. In addition, Democrats probably approve of Powell's publicly-taken positions (whether he really believes them or whether he's playing a preassigned role), which are perceived as more dovish than those of the rest of the Administration.


Gore 46 47 7 --
Daschle 39 26 16 16
Gephardt 40 23 19 20
H. Clinton 47 44 9 --
B. Clinton 47 49 4 --


All Americans know who the ex-president, his wife, now Senator, and the ex-vice president and presidential candidate are. We bet more than 7% of Spaniards don't remember who the Socialist candidate who was most recently thrashed by Aznar was. More than 80% of Americans have heard of the two opposition leaders in the Congress. Also, Americans have a lot of questions and doubts about the Democratic leadership. Both Clintons' and Gore's negatives are very high, and Daschle and Gephardt have lower negative scores but also low positive scores. On the basis of these poll returns, we predict a win for the Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. Not necessarily a huge one, but a pretty good-sized win. You have to figure that swing districts will lean Republican because of people's sympathy for President Bush and their much greater negative feelings toward the Democrats. And "Wag the Dog" scenarios are BS; Bush doesn't need to attack Iraq in order to bring up his approval rating. The Democrats are the group with the low approval ratings.


Blair 69 8 9 14


More than 85% of Americans know who Tony Blair is, and their opinion of him is extremely favorable. Shows that Americans are at least somewhat informed about important international affairs and that they are appreciative when foreign leaders show their friendship with the United States.

Now this is the kind of policy I can support. This Victor Davis Hanson piece from NRO is right on target; I may translate it and send it to Baltasar Porcel and Eulàlia Solé. For a summary of American attitudes toward other countries in the world, check this out.

Today is a national holiday in Spain; it's Constitution Day! Absolutely nobody seems to give a, uh, hoot. It's just a day off work. So Remei went over to her mom's house across town this morning; I managed to avoid accompanying her and spent the morning with a cup of coffee and the newspaper down at the bar in the plaza. Now, I'm generally a well-behaved, fairly polite fellow, in public at least. It just seems natural to me to say, "A café con leche, please," when I order, and "Thanks," when I get it. People in Spain don't usually do that. They leave out the "please" and the "thank you". They're not ruder than we are, it's just that saying that kind of thing when it's obviously the guy's job to do it isn't part of their customs. Spaniards do have a reputation as rude in the rest of Europe because they don't say those polite formulae. If you feel like having fun with a Spaniard, point this out to him. He'll probably respond that Spaniards aren't rude, they're just not hypocritical, and they don't say things they don't really mean. It's true; if you do a Spaniard a real favor he'll almost fall down on his knees and thank you. It's not that they have no sense of gratitude, it's just that they only express it when they really feel it. That's the system here in Spain.

This, however, is not the way to act if you're a Spaniard when abroad. I suggest to Spaniards the British formula, in which you say "Please" when you ask for something and "Cheers" on all other possible occasions. It's very easy to remember and pretty soon you get in the habit. As for us Anglo-Americans in Spain, I figure it's better to be too polite than not polite enough, so I use "por favor" and "gracias" whenever I would back in Kansas. Remei says that it seems phony and kind of brownnosing to her, but I maintain that's not my intention, and anyway nobody ever gets mad at you for saying "Thanks."

A nation that has an unfair reputation for being rude is France. I've been to France many times and have met no more rude people there than anywhere else. (The absolute biggest all-around hundred-percent asshole I've ever come across as a service person is one particular Barcelona taxi driver and the second is one particular Barcelona restaurant owner. That and everybody in the city of Girona, where the locals are so unfriendly they even hate Catalans from Barcelona, not to mention you, wherever that's not Girona you're from. The only nice people in Girona are the Spanish-speakers.) The deal is that they have an even higher standard of politeness than we do. If you want something, you say "Pardon, Monsieur, si'l vous plait", when you get it you say "Merci", and if you get completely confused say "Si'l vous plait, je ne parle pas bien le français" and that's the magic English switch. You don't use "tu", you use "vous". If you follow the correct standard of behavior you get treated just like an ordinary French person. In small towns outside tourist areas, where they really may not speak English, high-school French will get you honored guest status. Just be nice to them, follow their rules as you would expect them to follow your rules if they went to your country, and they're like people everywhere else: 85% are pretty reasonable and 15% are unmitigated jerks.

(Note: The above paragraph is not in any way, shape, or form to be considered as an endorsement of French foreign policy.)

Anyway, Remei's mom made a dish of callos especially for her, which she brought home and began eating. I therefore retreated in here, with the bathroom and kitchen between me and her callos. I'm a vegetarian and am rather squeamish, and callos are known in English as tripe. They are immensely gross. I instructed her not to kiss me with tripe on her breath and she replied, "I'm Celtiberian. We're tough. We eat intestines. Take it or leave it."

The Vangua has a story by Rafael Poch, who's normally their Moscow correspondent and is quite obviously in the pocket of the Russian government (whether from misuse of his own free will, because they slip him a few lechugas, or because they have photos of him with a handsome sailor in St. Petersburg, I don't know). Anyway, he went off to China for some Sino-Russian summit meeting, which received absolutely no coverage in the rest of the world because any joint declaration between Vladimir Putin and whoever is running China--or not, as the case may be--is worth less than the Internet bandwidth it takes up. Mr. Poch reports over and over about how the Russians and the Chinese are going to get together with India and Indonesia and, like, Iran or Vietnam or somebody and set up an alliance that will be a counterweight to Washington. This is extreme wishful thinking on the part of Mr. Poch and his editors. Instead of advocating something that might be a little painful to increase Europe's relative power compared to the United States (by, say, increasing defense spending, or cutting social spending and reducing intrusive regulation, things which would be good for all concerned in every way), Mr. Poch would prefer to have somebody else provide that power counterweight. Why he seems to favor that counterweight being still-Communist and undoubtedly despotic China and unstable, mafia-ridden Russia is beyond me, but seems like the height of irresponsibility.

By the way, a very dumb notion that is being peddled around here is that the United States is applying pressure on the EU to admit Turkey in order to dilute the naturaleza of Europe. The Vangua's editors and especially the Catholic bigot and anti-Semite Xavier Bru de Sala are pushing this line. See, Europe's nature is Christian, and if they have to let Islamic Turkey in, it will somehow dilute Europe's natural essences and bodily fluids and therefore weaken the EU, leaving Washington paramount and without challengers. This is completely nuts, of course. An EU including Turkey would suddenly have a much more kick-ass army than it does now. Turkey, if given a deadline by the EU for admission, would have to take those steps necessary that still remain between where it is now and real democracy. And, of course, EU entry for Turkey would nail down that large, populous, strategically important country as both an ally and market and prove that Islamic societies can follow the guidelines of democratic capitalism. Perhaps American pressure is having some effect; Schröder and Chirac proposed the opening of negotiations with Ankara in July 2005 if Turkey fulfills the Copenhagen criteria for admission, which apply to all new candidates. Sounds fair enough to me.

Anyway, a few days ago in the Vanguardia there was a story about what representatives of the various political parties thought about putting a plank on how Christianity is one of the pillars on which the EU is based in the European constitution. The Communist, Socialist, Republican Left, and, guess what, the conservative People's Party were all against it. The only ones in favor were the Catalan Nationalists, demonstrating, first, how strong the connections between Catalan nationalism and the Catalan Church are and second, that Catalan nationalism, while not racist in nature, is not precisely real open to folks who aren't Catalan nationalists, with all that implies.

Getting back to Mr. Poch, today's big story is that he's in Chungking, that the place is an absolute hellhole, but it's the biggest city in the world with 34 million inhabitants. I said, "Hmmm, who knows, might be true, there is huge urban growth in China," and proceeded to read farther. Then Mr. Poch lets slip that the Chungking city limits include 80,000 square kilometers, which would be 200 kilometers X 400 kilometers, 120 by 240 miles, or a good bit more than half of Kansas. I bet if you counted everything between Wilmington and New Haven as one city it'd top Chungking. Or what if we counted southern Holland, northern Belgium, and the Ruhr as one city? That'd probably top Chungking, too. And neither of those places are hellholes.

I got a Google hit for "Bayern Mencken football team". Uh, that's Bayern München, or as we call it Bayern Munich. H.L. Mencken was an early 20th century American essayist and critic. Important to distinguish between the two.

OK. This is it. James Taranto's column includes this testimony:

"Saddam was something of a loner, famous for carrying an iron bar wherever he went that he would heat until it was white hot and then use to impale unwary animals--dogs, cats, whatever made the mistake of coming within his reach."

Saddam impaled kitty cats and puppy dogs with a white-hot poker. I have five cats, and I am now even more in favor of getting rid of Saddam than before. How can anyone, especially the liberal cat-lovers who listen to NPR, be against overthrowing a kitty-cat torturer?

The news from the Galicia oil spell is bad. Spilled fuel has reached the middle Galician coast in quantity between Corrubedo on the south and Cedeiro to the north. Fishing and shellfish gathering are banned in that area, which includes the major ports of La Coruña and El Ferrol. There are several different smaller pools of fuel moving into the three Rías Baixas, the three southernmost fjordlike inlets in Galicia closest to the Portuguese frontier. This is said to be the richest area in either Europe or the world for shellfish gathering. Other pools are making their way north of Galicia into the Bay of Biscay; fuel in amounts so far insignificant is washing up on the shores of Asturias and Cantabria, but it's moving toward the Basque Country and France. There are five suction boats working to prevent the fuel from moving north and six trying to keep it out of the Rías Baixas. One new Italian suction boat arrived yesterday and another is arriving today. Thousands of recipients and containers of various sizes have been set up at the Galician ports to hold the fuel being brought out by the suction boats, who are working heroically. Thousands of volunteers, cleaning fuel up with shovels and buckets, are already working, and more thousands are expected to arrive this weekend. There may be so many that they get in the way. If you're thinking of traveling to Galicia to help, you might help more if you stayed home. If you want to do something ecological, clean up a vacant lot in your neighborhood and plant some flowers or something there.

Meanwhile, estimates of the amount of fuel leaked range from an almost certainly too low government figure of under 11,000 tons, while the wildest high estimate is 55,000 tons. The Portuguese are claiming that more fuel is leaking from the sunken wreck of the ship, which the Spanish deny; they claim that the bathyscape inspections that a French ship and crew made prove that no fuel is leaking out.

Remember, this situation is not the Spaniards' fault. The boat was perfectly legally passing by the Spanish coast on the way from one place to another, neither of which is in Spain. It just happened to get in trouble near Spain. Now, you can argue that the Spanish government should have reacted more quickly and done more earlier, but you can't blame them for the situation's having happened in the first place. This situation is a farily serious political blow to the conservative PP governments in power in both Madrid and in the Galicia autonomous region. Most Spaniards think they've bungled the job so far, and Prime Minister Aznar hasn't visited the affected area yet. Remei said cynically, "He's supposed to pay attention to his constituents. Well, he stayed at the NATO meeting instead of going to Galicia. That's because he wants to be President of the European Union next. All those government leaders and foreign ministers were there, and they're the people he wants votes from now. They're his new constituents."

I was looking through Paul Johnson's Modern Times as long as I'd gotten it down from the bookshelf, and I came across the conflict between Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. It reminded me of those "Ginger or Mary Ann?" ads that used to be on TV and were based on the mid-90s parlor game in which the questioner gave a choice between two pop culture icons; the choice the answerer made was supposed to tell you something about the answerer's personality, you know, like "Lennon or McCartney?" So I made up a list. Feel free to put down your answers in the Commernts section, in which case I will psychoanalyze you, or to add more questions.

Sartre or Camus?
Carlos Fuentes or Octavio Paz?
Burke or Paine?
Whitman or Dickinson?
Harold Lloyd or Charlie Chaplin?
Jefferson or Hamilton?
Eisenstein or Riefenstahl?
Tom Wolfe or Hunter Thompson?
Byron or Keats?
Wellington or Marlborough?
Ingres or Delacroix?
Lee or Grant?
P.D. James or Dorothy Sayers?
John Ford or Howard Hawks?
JFK or RFK?
Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde?
Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra?
George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde?
García Lorca or Machado?
Velázquez or Goya?

There's twenty, that's plenty.

Chomsky-bashing is kind of like masturbation in the sense that you always know you'll want to do it again. Here are a few smacks upside Noam's head from Front Page.

From Right Wing News:

14) Goatse.cx: I don't know who popularized this incredibly disgusting web page with a picture of some guy's naked ass and horribly deformed anus, but they should be beaten with a nine iron until they talk in an Al Gore style monotone for the rest of their lives. I could provide a link to this page or worse yet, trick you into going there like many people do on forums and other websites, but that would be unconscionable. Take my word for it -- trust me -- you don't want to see this website.

You heard John. Not me, the other John. Pay heed. Do not go to this site. Whatever you do.