Crazy week

Really, is this the next President of the USA?

It started out when the Catalan “parlament” voted for a “democratic separation” from Spain. The motion was able to be carried because, although the pro-independence parties do not represent a majority of voters, they do have a majority of seats in the parliament (thanks to the same crazy non-proportional representation system of election as is used in the UK).
So now, at a time when Europe needs to think seriously about becoming more unified and less nationalistic, Artur Mas and his cronies have to go and stir things up, knowing full well that their posturing will very likely lead to similar demands, not only in other parts of Spain, but in other regions of Europe, too.

Then there was David Cameron’s diatribe against the European Union. Another Wally who really should know better, but is instead kowtowing to nationalistic tendencies within the UK and, more specifically, England. The really sad thing is that, if the UK government actually do decide to pull out of the EU, it will be a decision made by the UK parliament, a parliament dominated by members from England (there are 650 seats, 533 of which are for English constituencies and only 117 for the other three countries of the UK). In other words, the opinions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would count for nothing.

Cameron, if you’re in a club, you follow the rules of the club. Don’t mamby-pamby about old-fashioned nonsense like sovereignty and “our way of doing things.” The UK is pretty irrelevant on the world stage, so stop listening to your aristocracy, whose heads are stuck where the sun doesn’t shine, and get on with reality. This week you sounded like a little schoolboy who couldn’t get his own way and was running a tantrum because of it. Grow up.

Thank goodness that at least a few Americans seem to have come to their senses and booed that modern mountebank Donald Trump at a meeting towards the end of last week. Can you explain how a fool such as Trump can be considered as a potential candidate to lead a nation as powerful as the USA? To be the person to decide whether or not to press the button? Okay, the Americans have made some extremely strange choices in recent history, George W. Bush perhaps being the prime example, but Trump even trumps him!

Yesterday saw the terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in Paris. Responsibility for the attacks has been claimed by Islamic State. Now, no doubt, Marine Le Pen and her Front National will be spouting out about how Moslems should be deported, immigrants returned to their countries of origin, and refugees held back at the borders. All this along with strengthening of France’s own borders and stuff the rest of Europe. Nope, that’s not the way to do it, even though such scaremongering will bring in the votes of the masses. What is now required is more tolerance, better controls at the external borders of the EU (for one thing that’s a lot cheaper than having each country control its own borders), more cooperation between the security forces of EU countries and preferably an EU-wide security force. Islamic State has little or nothing to do with true Moslems; IS is just a band of terrorist thugs that has been allowed to develop since the downfall of Hussein’s Iraq regime (thanks, USA, for leaving the vacuum that was gradually filled by the fundamentalists). I might be naive, but I just do not understand how so-called powerful countries, such as the USA and its allies, are unable to simply wipe out IS.

Crazy.

Bullfighting

The nine days of the San Fermin festivals in Pamplona have just come to an end. Basically, a long week of drunkenness, using an ancient "tradition" to justify such boorishness and the peculiar cruelty to bulls for which Spain should be ashamed.

Each day, six bulls are forced to run a course through the narrow streets between their corral and the town's bull-ring. Men, usually quite young and many the worse for drink, run in front of, at the side of, and behind the bulls, in an attempt to prove how brave they are, the bravest staying just ahead of the bulls, of course. The bulls are poked, prodded, and struck in an effort to make them run as quickly as possible. Not infrequently, this results in one or more of the bulls slipping, falling, and sliding upon the hard paved surface of the road. The unfortunate bull is then encouraged to get up as quickly as possible to continue its ridiculous journey, something that can only be lamented. The fact that the men might also slip and fall, with resulting injury, is to be applauded, rather than lamented, for these idiots have chosen to take part in this exercise of goading a creature that knows no better.

Later in the day, a "real" bull-fight takes place in the bull-ring. This is also touted as being "traditional". But no recourse to tradition, no fancy costumes, no pasa-doble-playing bands, and no quantity of "Olés" can hid the fact that this is cruelty at its most cruel, plain and simple: the bull is forced to undergo all manner of torture to cause it to lose blood, weakening it to such an extent that a matador can prance and strut before it, performing "artistic" passes, before attempting to kill the animal with a sword in the hope of being awarded one or more ears (I kid you not). Thank goodness in the past week or so, the bulls have had a bit of their own back by goring several of these fools.

Come off it. This is the twenty-first century and it really is time to reject such barbaric past-times. We have largely eliminated most other cruel sports from Europe: bear-baiting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting, badger baiting, fox-hunting… so it really is time to also accept that bull-fighting is not an artistic tradition. Instead, it is a pathetically cruel act of cowardice, quite inappropriate for a civilised society.

Soon, the Catalonian regional parliament will vote on whether to ban bullfighting (the Canary Islands banned it in 1991). The Partido Popular (a dangerous right-wing group of Franco-lovers) is, of course, pro-bullfighting (hey, there's a lot of money involved in it). Let us hope that the more sensible members of the parliament will vote sensibly on 28 July and at least one part of mainland Spain will be free from this shame the besmirches the image of the country throughout the world.