Just Stuff

General elections this Sunday in Spain. Decisive. Wishing soo hard.. so important to get rid of the the new low that is our president right now, not by the Spanish people's choice but by dirty tricks and a total lack of scruples.
For that he plotted with every pro independence party in Spain (including Bildu, the new name for Batasuna, former ETA terrorists' advocates) and the far-left Venezuela style party, all in small minority, leaving outside all the moderate (and most voted) parties.
His excuse: the party in power (PP, most voted) was guilty of too many corruption scandals (not the actual people governing at the moment, but other individuals belonging to that party in the past, the last case for illegal financing). This ultra cynical individual forgets that his own party has had far more corruption cases and is in fact currently being tried for the biggest corruption scandal in our history: the "EREs case". I wanted to add a link but the first results in English are all conveniently from El Pais - waay biased, won't bother-, or others pretty unkwnown which would be dismissed. So, basically in Andalucia, where socialists governed for almost 40 years -sistematically achieving the worst employment and education numbers in all of Spain- millions and millions (around 700 of them) disappeared from the money destined to the unemployed: it was spent by socialist administrators on friends' companies, ilegal pre retirements, nights out with plenty of drugs and hookers... I'd say that beats illegal financing). Should he resign for it then, applying his own rule?. Spoiler alert: apparently not.
A few days after his coup, this guy was already hard at work. In the main issues?. No: redecorating the Moncloa (where the president lives), using the official airplane to fly to an in law's wedding an hour away by car, then to go to see the Killers at a music festival with his wife. An airplane that costs a ton per flight, and had up to that point been very scarcely used (we're getting out of a crisis here). A weeek later, his wife got a fantastic position (created from scratch just for her) in a company that receives grants from the government. WOW. In a few months he's managed the worst employment numbers in the last 6 years, turning the tide from sistematically being reduced to a fast rise in the negative. All that having brought taxes to a new high and public expenditure way beyond budget. Crime, insecurity, are worse than ever. He's also risen the social tension in Spain to red levels, allowing the most virulent independentists their every whim and leaving the rest (the vast majority) defenceless (and we don't only have independentists in Catalonia, oh no). Meanwhile he's been practically absent, travelling around the world with his wife for free, avoiding facing the congress or the press to the point of ridicule. After all, it's been scandal after scandal with his government ministers.
He's been proven a pathological liar who's done all he said he wouldn't do.There's youtube to prove it.
Read, for instance, about how he tormented a former politician for irregularities in a master's degree in her cv, obviously asking for her resignation, and then read about his own doctorate, the strange tribunal, his plagiarized thesis (more than half of it!). Since his case was eon light years worse, should he have resigned?. You guessed right. Cynism beyond belief.
But he has tv and most of the press on his side...

We're all supposed to vote for him because otherwise the "republican"/conservatives/right wing parties may pact with the terrible far right -new party in town (VOX)- and all sorts of nightmares will happen.
How easy it is to trick some... To me HE is the worst nightmare.
He goes hand in hand with the far left, but apparently those are swell.
What can I say, I hate far anything. Wouldn't want to choose between far right and far left, and I refuse to agree to the far left suddenly being cool and fine and normal. Not to me. At all. Specially after Venezuela. Terrible pictures posted today on twitter. Who wants that for their country?.

To clarify: those parties Sanchez &co refer to as "right wing" are:
1. Ciudadanos: nothing right wing about them ever. If anything they're more left leaning than right, their intention is to be the middle ground. Center. But since they have publicly said they wouldn't agree to a pact with him anymore, given his not defending our Constitution, he just conveniently relocated them to that category.
2. PP: Moderate right wing.
3. VOX: actually, hate to disappoint but nothing "far" about them. Right wing period. But they erupted with such force that putting that label on them was super handy. Suddenly with that word they were the pest and nobody messes with the definition or they may get infected. Nobody say they're not radical because you may then be accused of being one of them yourself. Well, I call things by their name. Their biggest crime is displaying the Spanish flag a lot, which here because of our past (Franco) is not seen with simpathy by many who associate it with him. Their mistake, because this is our flag, no ideology attached, and about time we stop giving it the wrong connotations. I don't agree with certain things, but not xenophobes or homophobes or "facha". So beat them with fair play, oppose them on things they say, don't just be lazy demagogues. Too many of those already.

We do have "far" parties. Bu the only ones that get a considerable amount of votes are far left (though they're never called that in the press): Podemos, whose leader Iglesias rose to stardom fighting for the workers rights against the "casta". Casta is the idea of the stablished political parties full of people who have always been politicians, who've lost contact with reality and use politics to enrich themselves. Fantastic idea, I fully support it.
BUT the only thing this guy has done, aside from being a paid adviser to Maduro (hello, they were justifying him until a couple of months ago!), is very undemocratic "escraches" (public targeted harassing to democratic parties, like Rosa Díez who used to be a socialist and is now in UPD, again, center, not even right wing, and who by the way is a most corageous woman who spent a long time being a target for terrorists ETA. She put her life on the line for democracy. Shameful), saying publically he would beat a certain famous female journalist until she bled (but he's king of feminists) and switching a modest flat in Madrid for a most expensive huge house with a pool and maids in the outskirts. Yeah.. He doesn't wear suits though and he's kinda hippy, so it does the trick for many. His right hand man, one more who now lives in the poshest, most expensive neighbourhood in Madrid, recently lost a lawsuit: his aide (who cleaned for him etc and who he directly hired) had no employment contract and was being paid less than the minimum wage they angrily demand....How there can still be a single idiot out there who votes or believes these fakes beats me. They're even worse than the casta.

And we have the separatists. And you can want idependence and fight for it. But you can't behave like a bully to all those who don't think like you. Or fill the streets with violence and antidemocratic behaviour denying even freedom of speech to those who don't think like them. But that's another story for another day.

Anyway. I'm tired of manipulation and I fear what's coming if the scruple-less useless Sanchez continues in power, specially needing the far left and independentists support as it seems will be the case.

Many people fool themselves that this guy is going to be some Robin Hood taking the rich guys' money through prohibitive taxes and giving it to them through benefits while they loiter around the house. And they will put on blinders 'cos that's convenient. To start with, that is not my idea of a good way to earn a living (I'd rather have a government that protects the conditions for me to have a proper job), but regardless: the ones bearing the taxes are not the rich. And the ones receiving the money are not the ones that need it most. It just doesn't work that way, just read some History or look at our situation after Sanchez's few months destroying. This only leads to a massive crisis. Again.

I hate when celebs and the like get political and tell me who to vote. I wouldn't want to do that. I just hope people choose between one of the parties (any of them) that will not treat us like we're dumb, will have some dignity, and will govern for all of us. And in the process won't make our country break and hurt.

Don't believe me, check my facts.

Tags: Pedro Sanchez, Pablo Iglesias, Pablo Casado, Albert Rivera, Santiago Abascal, PSOE, PP, Podemos, VOX, Ciudadanos, UPyD, Spanish elections, EREs, casta. Elecciones España. Google, index me dammit!

PS Uggghhh. At least I had hope for a few days. Now it's back to grim reality, where radios play yuck, people travel just to take selfies no one cares about, being informed is waching the news headlines on tv and entitlement without foundation is the norm. I felt bad for some party leaders I did not vote for but I respect, went to their twitter accounts to give some words of support and found all these lowlives hideously displaying all their hatred and aggression in the most vulgar terms. Who does that. Had Sanchez lost I would have never gone to his twitter to berate him. A lot of humanity sucks.
In the end Spain voted divided in 2 blocks practically equal in numbers ("center/right" and "left"), but because of our election law (D'hondt Method) and the fragmentation of votes in one of the blocks, not all votes are equal. Hence this arrangement. At least Iglesias has lost almost half his votes. Which is little solace: half of Spain is to me deeply stupid and quite mean. Which shouldn't come as a surprise, really. And there's no question: hello unemployment, hello crisis.
For some reason made me want to listen to Billie Eilish's Xanny.. a great song very on point. I've never taken one. Even though this is mighty depressing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/can-a-radical-new-treatment-save-children-with-severe-allergies.html?ref=magazine&_r=0

Thanks so much to the New York Times Magazine for choosing food allergies for its next Sunday's edition cover. A most important issue yet most incomprehensibly ignored by Health and Education institutions in most places, the media... and society. So people in general are clueless, or worse: full of mistaken ideas thinking they know when they don't.
This is specially sad here because that ignorance is these children's biggest danger. If people were aware of a few simple facts they would be so much safer. And they deserve to be.
Thankfully there are parents, doctors like Nadeau and organizations (FARE is one of the most active, its youtube channel here) fighting hard to raise awareness and make big advances. Pls get informed, chances are that sooner or later you'll interact with these parents and their children (after all it now affects 1 in 13 children, in different degrees from mild to severe). Pls take them seriously, and please bear in mind that unfortunately -and contrary to general judgement-, when talking precautions they (we) are not exaggerating.
While the NYTM piece mainly talks about a new trial, it still provides a very good insight into the world of children with severe food allergies.
Read the whole article, The allergy buster, here.
Regarding how serious it is, you can read this.
Update 2014:
This other article, "What parents of kids with food allergies want you to know", is also very informative. And for parents of children with allergies, this will ring a bell. Ugg.
If putting one more face to it helps, this is my (of course) music loving son years ago. At one and a half yrs old it had already been a year since he had suffered his first anaphilactic shock.

We've been very lucky and he's recently outgrown some of his allergies, this is him now at one of his now favourite places. He wasn't able to try a proper doughnut until he was 10 (I tried, but they're so hard to make at home and without some of the basic ingredients!!). We still need to be very careful every day though.

Everytime there's a food allergy story on the news, the comments section is atrocious. It's taken over by pettiness, selfishness, the most arrogant ignorance. I haven't seen this ruthlesness with any other illness (see an example here or here). No wonder the world is such a brutal place.

My son has no problems if someone eats nuts close to him, thank heavens (and still flying is such a daunting scary experience). I know that some children aren't that lucky, their parents are sadly not overreacting or exagerating (despite what total ignorants who have never read a single serious article about allergies or talked to a single allergist in their lives decide to judge so irresponsibly and hurtfully). Yet if I was asked to give up eating nuts, it's a no brainer, and I'd smile at that child and her mother, he needs to be so brave at such an early age, she's goine through so much. I want to think that if my son wasn't allergic I'd do exactly the same. I refuse to think that I could be such a monster.

Just for the record, if they are allowed to wipe their seats and no one eats peanuts/treenuts or whatever it is, they are safe. That is the only thing they ask for. Is that such a ridiculous demand?. The joke is, anyone can suddenly become severely allergic anytime. I have friends who never had food allergies suddenly in their 30s, their 40s become sensitized to apples, to shellfish, to treenuts...one bite sends them to the hospital. Anyone can be next, so if only out of selfishness, which is the only language some people speak, they might want to think twice.

This was recently on CBS here.

Please remember, one single person can make a huge difference either way.

*This post was first published on 03/09/13 but bumping it to raise awareness.