Sick cuts

One of the many reasons to live in this part of the world is Catalunya’s very good public health system. Sadly though, it seems that is all about to change for the worse.

“Between the sky and the earth”

The stunning photography of Cristina Garcia Rodero...

"I tried to photograph the mysterious, true and magical soul of popular Spain in all its passion, love, humor, tenderness, rage, pain, in all its truth; and the fullest and most intense moments in the lives of these characters as simple as they are irresistible…”

Wise words on Spain and Israel

"I am not referring...to legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. But the talk one hears in Spain often crosses the line of legitimate criticism. In this newspaper one commentator, who shall remain nameless, said that the creation of the state of Israel was a mistake, and that it would be better if it disappeared. In a recent opinion survey, 10 percent responded that the disappearance of Israel would be the preferred solution to the Middle East conflict. Israel is now the only country that is the object of such remarks."

Raphael Schutz, the Israeli ambassador to Spain writing in El Pais.

"Francoism isn't over in Spain"

91 year-old Galician man who as a youth lost both parents to the extremes of the era asks "...What can you expect from a country that does not even dare say that Franco was a dictator?"

He is here refering to the recent controversy over a biographical dictionary published by the Royal Academy of History that only mentions Franco as "head of state."

Spain's "whistling island"

"On the small mountainous island of La Gomera, one of the Canaries, the children speak to each other from miles apart using one of the most unusual languages in the world. Known as Silbo, the whistling language of Gomera Island has a vocabulary of over 4,000 words, and is used by "Silbadors" to send messages across the island's high peaks and deep valleys."

Read more here.

Barcelona professor supports warnings on seafoods

Joan Llobet, a pharmacy professor at Barcelona University, is backing the call by the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN) on its stricter recommendations about the consumption of certain seafood.

In an El Pais article, he described the recommendations as "reasonable" even if they create "social alarm" and are "economically dangerous."

Read more here.

Video: An inside look at FC Barcelona

La Masia is a training school for future Barcelona stars.

This video gives you an inside look into the training school, which is based on the three pillars of athletics, values and academics. Only one of every 10 graduates typically makes it to the Barcelona senior team. Current squad members who are also alumni include Xavi, Messi, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol.

La Masia is a place where art and science are fused together to create the finished product you see on the pitch each week during the season...It's a pretty guarded place when it comes to media intrusion, and you won't get too much detail out of the school's coaches about their training techniques (they guard it like Coca-Cola protects its secret recipe). But it's interesting to see Xavi and Lionel Messi talk about their experiences at the academy -- how they played all day, every day, learning the Barca way...

"Singular" - A Poem for Barcelona

fold tomorrows rain

and under the loose world night

play blind on young ground

............


one earth full of single stars

blown here by unrelenting years

those seas of sorrows know

written in liars lines

saying

come and become the past

full like her darkest pity

to show

such thought is mine

……….


might I tonight

pocket a kinder hour and

look long into todays spare quiet



(B.Hetherington, 2011.)

Barcelona neo-Nazi's go free

In a disturbing decision this week, Spain’s high court has overturned the conviction of four men involved in circulating Nazi propaganda from a Barcelona bookshop.

(Pedro Varela, the owner of the now-closed bookshop is already well-known for being the first person to be jailed for similar crimes in Spain following the reform of the Penal Code in 1996. On that occasion, he received a five-year sentence, reduced to six months on appeal to the Supreme Court.)

Along with the three others, including a publisher from Molins de Rei, Varela was acquitted on Monday of fostering xenophobia and anti-Semitism through the selling of literature.

In 2009, the four men were each sentenced to 3 1/2 years in jail after being found guilty of selling publications that justified the Holocaust and praised the Nazi regime.

In the Supreme Court's ruling, Justice Miguel Colmenero wrote that the selling of Nazi propaganda that promotes genocide is only a crime when there exists a danger that it could create a climate of hostility that would incite violence.

"Jews in Spain view with extreme concern the fact that the Spanish judiciary, so sensitive in certain situations, does not consider as criminal conduct the sale of books denying the Holocaust and promoting racism, in spite of standing criminal legislation to the contrary," the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain said in a statement.

Before the court's decision this week a prominent Israeli Rabbi had praised Spain's progress with Jewish relations while touring the city as the first Jewish religious leader to visit Granada since Jews were expelled from Spain over five centuries ago.

Leonard Cohen wins Prince of Asturias award

"Veteran songwriter and musician Leonard Cohen has won a top Spanish literature award for a body of work which has influenced three generations around the world" it was reported today.

Amongst many others, his inspirational classic 'Who By Fire' has stood the test of time.

Who is in Plaça Catalunya...(and who is not.)

An inspiring short video that seems to beautifully capture the atmosphere of the huge (prohibited) protest camps in Barcelona’s Plaça Catalunya.

"“There is no ‘we are.’ There is a ‘doing’ or a verb....What we have here: It’s not that they are students. I am not a student. It's not workers, it's not revolutionaries. It is something; it's debate, it's [social] movements and in that way it's interesting. But it's a verb. An action." (Alberto Villaneuva, an activist at the site.)

Spanish photographer freed after 6 weeks detention in Libya

Manu Brabo, a Spanish photographer who had been detained with several GlobalPost journalists, was released by Libyan authorities and crossed the border into Tunisia with Spanish officials earlier today.

Forces loyal to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi first captured Brabo and three others on April 5.

Brabo had languished in a series of detention centers in Tripoli for weeks, during which time the Libyan government allowed them little to no communication with the outside.

Covering the Libyan conflict has proved dangerous for journalists.

A number of Libyan journalists are missing and several other foreign journalists remain in custody, Human Rights Watch said.

Several journalists have also been killed while covering the fighting, including British photojournalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington [no relation] and American photographer Chris Hondros. The two were killed in April during clashes between rebels and government forces in the Libyan city of Misurata.

In Majorca, Atoning for the Sins of 1691

"They gathered Thursday for a memorial, the first by a local regional government in Spain, to confront a dark legacy of buried memories. Jews, who secretly practiced their forbidden religion during the Inquisition, were burned here in Gomila Plaza in a “bonfire of the Jews” in May 1691, and the descendants of Jews who converted were subject to discrimination that flourished even into the 20th century."

Read more of this fascinating New York Times article here.

A Catalan eye

It was announced today that Manresa photographer Jordi Cohen Colldeforns has won an award for Travel Photographer of the Year in the category of Best Single Image in a Portfolio - World in Motion (above) which is now being shown at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Audio slideshow here.

How good is it to be a mother in Spain?

Mothers in Spain have some more good reasons to celebrate Mother’s Day this year.

A report published this week puts this country in 12th position out of 43 “more developed” countries when it comes to the best places in the world to be a mother and a woman.

While Spain lags just behind other fellow western European neighbours, it also appears that it can learn quite a bit from the highest placed Scandinavians nations (and even Australia, who surprisingly to me came in at number 2 in the ranking, though their conditions for children were as low as number 30.)

The report criticizes the United States for placing lower than 30th for both categories relating to mothers and children.

Researchers from the Save the Children organization used indexes on criteria such as percentage of women using contraception, female life expectancy, maternity leave benefits and educational opportunities in assessing women’s status across the globe.

The science of success in Barcelona

[The following blog was also published as a short article in the new Monocle Guide to Barcelona.]

Reimund Fickert, project director at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), points to a plethora of businesses and projects that make Barcelona a European hotspot for biotechnology.

“Almost 50 new firms have set up here in the past decade and we now have six independent research centres with close to 1,400 people from 52 different countries working on the site.”

He puts PRBB’s success down to a change in clinical research methods across the pharmaceutical and medical industries that now emphasise biotech, and heavy local government investment in facilities and infrastructure since the 1990s.

“We have some of the most sophisticated imaging technology in Europe so when the King of Spain got sick last year he came to Barcelona for specialist treatment,” he says.

Occupying rare ground

This week in Barcelona (and it is good to be back here again) the British writer Sarah Waters did something almost “un-British”. She has written about social class.

In her new novel “The Occupant”, according to Spanish media, she has dealt with the conflict between classes and reflected the moment of tensions over social change that was affecting England at the end of the 19th century.

"Granddaughter of illiterate servants, Waters has criticized the enthusiasm of the English for an out of date system of social classes."

No new posts here for the next month...

Because of a family illness I'll be away in Australia until late April. Best wishes until then to you, my valued readers.

A pluralist Spain...?

This guy talks a lot of sense in an area where common sense is rare...

"...the pluralist fervor that was alive in Spain during the final years of the dictatorship, when young people from Granada would sing Lluís Llach [a Catalan song-writer] as if he were one of their own, half understanding the lyrics of his songs."

New listing...

This blog (described as "a sharp look at the often baffling world of politics and social issues in Catalonia and Spain...) is now linked to the Barcelona Blogosphere page on BarcelonaLife.com - a good quality site with plenty of strong info on the city and the region.