Catalonia Bans Bullfighting

This week, on wednesday 28, the Catalan Parliament approved a measure that will make bullfighting illegal throughout our country, with 68 votes in favor and 55 against. The vote was the result of a popular initiative, launched by an association called Prou! (Catalan for Enough!), and reflects a 2006 survey which showed that 71% of Catalans — me included — were opposed to bullfighting.

The Spanish government has only said that respects but not shares the ban. Barely a month after the Constitutional Court rejected some points in our Statute of Autonomy, such as identifying Catalonia as a nation, the conservative party announced that they will also take this result to the Court. J. Montilla, Catalan president, said that this decision reflects the standardized social habits of the Catalans and therefore also the unstoppable culture in favor of animal rights before any legal imposition. 

1. A bullring in Seville. 2. Parliament of Catalonia.

I'm very happy with this decision, needless to say. However, bullfights would have slowly disappeared anyway due to the indifference of the Catalan citizenry towards the Fiesta. Beyond tradition and plasticity, a living being is killed on the bullring and very few like to see such cruelty.

Bullfighting was first banned in the Canary Islands in the mid-1990s.

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Former Headers On This Blog

Visit more Wordless Wednesdays participants.

Also visit Vladstudio, the website where I take the images from which I make almost all my headers.

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Soothing Summer Music

"Si véns" ("If you come") is one of the most well known songs by Ja t'ho diré, a pop-rock band from Menorca singing in Catalan. The song was released in 1995 and the band split in 2003, but fortunately Youtube is fully operational :) I hope you like it.

Si véns / If You Come

Petjades damunt s'arena. / Footprints on the sand.
Si véns em trobaràs / If you come, you will find me
ballant de puntes / dancing on tiptoes
damunt d'aquesta roca / upon this rock
i tu per jo et tornaràs loca / and I'll drive you mad.

Viatjarem en un cavall alat, / We'll travel on a winged horse,
aquest vespre silenciós / this silent night
cap a racons inexplicables, / to unexplained corners,
deserts salvatges. / wild deserts.
Esperarem sa nit. / We'll wait for the night.

(...)

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Life's Journey, by Carmen Henesy

Poetry should be anything but boring. There is no better way to communicate to others the most difficult things, things we never say, than poetry, but poets must be also seductive, learn to attract readers and entertain them, while trying to widen their universes. Carmen is well aware of this. 

Carmen published a few months ago an entertaining, cheerful, enjoyable set of poems. An important part of her book is devoted to the chronicles of travel, headed by the exotic Balinese dancer on the cover, written in an agile and lively style. She takes you to visit her favourite places and it's just like what she says about other authors' works: "a literary journey for the senses". It's such a rewarding journey for any reader.

But if there is something that interests her is the people she meets in her trips. We have the opportunity to know Carmen thanks to the book: as a former user of typewriters, as a new user of cell phones, as an eternal scholar, as a forensic nurse, showing us all the canals of Venice within someone's eyes, speaking with the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho... And she has great facility with words, embedded with a young, playful spirit.

As if all this were not enough, she kindly sent me the autograph and the postcard you can see on this post thanking me for buying the book.

You can find most of these poems in her blog, Carmen's Chronicles, along with many stories, photos, musings, recipes... so why not to take a look there?

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Are You In Facebook?

Believe it or not, due to my recent posts on politics my blog has got a lot of visits, more than ever before. I know almost all these new visits came from Facebook, although I can't check it because I don't have a Facebook account. What is sure is that Facebook can expand everywhere on the net, it came here, with its customs and its way to develop a discussion. At first, I felt like these visitors entered this blog as if they were some characters in a Bruce Lee movie. But then I thought it was fine, because I like to know people's thoughts. And, after all, anyone can comment here.

I haven't time for Facebook; two blogs and a Twitter account are enough. I was wondering, though, if any of you are in Facebook and if you would recommend it. Maybe I'm missing something great!

Do have a nice start to the week. I'll be working and counting the days until the holidays. Cheers!

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A Motion Of Support

Hywel Williams, MP, member of the Welsh party Plaid Cymru, presented to the House of Commons at Westminster a motion of support to Catalonia in the defense of national rights. The motion expresses their support and solidarity with us and concern for the democratic will of the members of Catalonia has been overwhelmed by a court of Madrid.

The text calls for respecting Catalans' right to democratically decide their future. It also asks the statute of Catalonia to develop "in the way they voted", and shows the fear that "future Catalan constitutional developments that have been supported by the government and the people may be judicially reviewed by organisms that are not neutral or independent."

Although the British government has a centralist tradition and has never respected enough small nations like Wales, Williams acknowledges that neither the British government or any institution in London have never questioned the idea of Wales as a nation.

It sounds refreshing from this lunatic asylum we're living in.

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World Cup: Day After

Catalan soccer players Puyol and Xavi waving the Catalan flag after Spain's victory in the world cup. It's so nice of them. And, after all, seven Futbol Club Barcelona players were at the final last night. But...

At the same time, in Barcelona, a Spanish flag with the black eagle, the fascist symbol adopted by dictatorship Franco, taking again the streets, like in the Spanish Civil War. People screaming that Barcelona IS Spanish. If my grandphater were alive... I've never talked about him here. He was the most peaceful person I've ever met. And he was put in prison during that war by the Spanish. We received a compensatory payment for his arrestment after a long time, when he was already dead. This sort of things are revolving in our Catalan stomachs these days. Now we play soccer for them.

Barcelona, last night, again. 21 people arrested, 74 injured, 86 urban fires in containers, vehicles...

...and trees, in front of the MNAC, the Catalan Art National Museum in Barcelona. Very symbolic. Oh, OK, it's just the few unwanted persons we all know...

Madrid was a Fiesta last night, of course, and I'm glad for the Spaniards, it's their party... It wasn't a nice day here in Catalonia. It was tense. And I really need to stop talking about politics and soccer, or soon I'll know what's a peptic ulcer. How did those images take my blog? Where are my beloved books?

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July, 10, Barcelona

Today, 1.5 million people according the organizers and 1.1 million according to police, have collapsed Barcelona center to protest changes ordered by Spain’s highest court to Catalonia’s charter of self-autonomy, under the slogan “We [Catalonia] are one nation. We decide for ourselves.”

The new Catalan statute of autonomy was approved by the Spanish parliament and endorsed by Catalan voters in a 2006 referendum. Then, our statute was brought to court by the conservative party. After four years of waiting, last week it was challenged by the constitutional court. The members of that court, 8 judges, decided for us, 7 million people, that our nation, Catalonia, is not a nation, and that our regional parliament enhanced too much powers in taxation and judicial matters as well as too much control over airports, ports and immigration. Those 8 people also decided that our language, Catalan, can not be described as main language in our own country, Catalonia. 

I've joined many bloggers that today are also talking about this and sharing their photos. It's been the largest demonstration ever made in Catalonia and democracy. We are outraged by the humiliating treatment we receive from Spain. We want the right to decide for ourselves and we want to achieve this right in a democratic process.

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The Phone Drawings Project

... Do you draw while talking on the phone? I surely do!

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The Time of the Doves, by Mercè Rodoreda

Visat.com is a site by the Catalan Pen Club where you can find information of Catalan writers and some translations. The following words were written by the GREAT Mercè Rodoreda and translated by David H. Rosenthal.

The Time of the Doves — La Plaça del Diamant by MERCÈ RODOREDA [extract]

Julieta, who was wearing a canary-yellow dress with green embroidery on it, came up from I don’t know where and said, “Cover me. I’ve got to take off my shoes… I can’t stand it anymore." I told her I couldn’t move because a boy who was looking for his jacket and was determined to dance with me had told me to wait for him. And Julieta said, "Then dance, dance..." And it was hot. Kids were setting off firecrackers and rockets in the street. There were watermelon seeds and empty beer bottles and they were setting off rockets on the rooftops too and from balconies. I saw faces with handkerchiefs. The musicians happily playing away. Everything like a decoration. And the two-step. I found myself dancing back and forth and, like it was coming from far away though really it was up close, I heard his voice: "Well, so she does know how to dance!" And I smelled the strong swear and faded cologne. And those ears like little medallions. That rubber waistband digging into my waist and my dead mother couldn’t advise me, because I told him my fiancé was a cook at the Colón and he laughed and said he felt sorry for him because by New Year’s I’d be his wife and his queen and we’d be dancing in the Plaça del Diamant.

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Soccer Quotes And Sayings

(I am not guilty of having gathered the following quotes. Someone else did it in a funny site called CoolNSmart.com, and all of them are actual satements made by soccer players. I just arranged them as if they were part of an interview to a soccer team... Read on in case you are not enjoying the world cup:)

—Hi guys, good luck in tonight's match. Before it starts, could you please introduce our readers to soccer?

"The opening ceremony was good, although I missed it".

"I always used to put my right boot on first, and then obviously my right sock".

—That's fine, but could you give us some theory? What is soccer for you?

"Soccer is a simple game, it's the players that make it complicated".

"Sometimes in soccer you have to score goals".

"You can never lose a soccer game if you don’t let the other team score".

"If I play we win, if I don’t we lose".

—Good! [It's halftime now.] Do you have something to say about the first half of the match?

"I took a whack on my left ankle, but something told me it was my right".

"My legs sort of disappeared from nowhere".

"We were a little bit outnumbered there, it was two against two".

—I see. [The match ended.] Can you tell us your last words about tonight's match?

"If we played like that every week we wouldn’t be so inconsistent".

"We didn’t underestimate them. They were a lot better than we thought".

"We lost because we didn’t win".

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