Seeking shelter from the economic storm

The current plight of Spain’s immigrants is now being recognised in the international media.

Andrea Comas reports in Time magazine that “Over a million migrants have lost their jobs, homes and small businesses in a boom-to-bust cycle not seen since the Great Depression…And unemployment isn't the only issue. The rate of mortgage delinquency among foreigners in Spain is 10 times higher than among native Spaniards. Tax revenue and social security contributions, along with consumer spending, are also falling within the immigrant community, making it all the more difficult for Spain — with one of the highest deficits in the OECD at 11% — to stimulate its economy.”

Josep Oliver, an applied economics professor in the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and one of the lead authors of Yearbook of Immigration in Spain 2009 is quoted saying: “The Spanish case is a lesson. If a country's economy is based on low-skilled labor, like construction, and there is a crisis, the blow can be traumatic."

“Most immigrants…will weather the storm because they have little to look forward to back home.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2013057,00.html#ixzz0xjbldcR0

A prince of reason

“Nationalism was a reaction to the forces of globalization and modernization in the 19th century, a reaction to "population explosion, rapid urbanisation [and] labour migration."

Ernest Gellner writing in 1983 but is this sentence still relevant to Catalan nationalism today?

An interview with Salvador Dalí

"I adore three things, weakness, old age and luxury."

He was a public supporter of Franco but apart from that Salvador Dalí had an interesting and highly original mind, and it can be appreciated with him speaking his own style of English in this video link here.

Amongst other things (and despite the patronising interruptions of the interviewer) he talks about his genius, the subconscious, weakness, old age and luxury, death, religion, and dreams.