Religion As a Societal Illness
Archbishop of Toledo, Antonio Cañizares, said that removing crucifixes from a public school in Valladolid, “Shows a Christian-o-phobia that, ultimately, is self-hatred. Our society is very ill.” Whatever you say, church boy. I'm sure the archbishop would like to return to the good old days of Franco when the Catholic Church enjoyed a favored place along side the fascists in power. Back when priests were actually paid by the state, back when pederasty was in full bloom in the sacristies of Spanish churches and denied by church officials. Now that was a sick society. I have heard many Christian leaders declare that our modern times are decadent and lacking in morals. I couldn't disagree more.
We have a long way to go but we have made significant strides to include all citizens into the framework of modern society. Most of this has been done without the aid of organized religion and many gains made by certain sectors of the population have come about while incurring direct opposition from religious groups. The Catholic Church still wants to deny homosexuals certain rights. It's not like Catholics have ever been on the vanguard in any of the epic struggles to free the oppressed. The Church has always been content with incurring the favor of whatever party is in power, no matter how despicable these leaders may be. In Spain, the Catholic hierarchy just can't get over the fact that Spain is now a secular state.
If church leaders had their way Spain would go back to criminalizing abortions as is the case in every Latin American country. This doesn't eliminate abortion, it just threatens the lives of thousands of poor women annually who seek to end their unwanted pregnancies. Up to 5,000 women die each year from abortions in Latin America, and hundreds of thousands more are hospitalized. Latin American women also have more abortion, on average, than women who live in countries where abortion is legal. Of course, the Catholic Church is also violently opposed to birth control and has been successful in keeping it largely unavailable in the desperately poor nations of Latin America. Of course, wealthy women in Latin America can find birth control and can obtain safe abortions, just like any other place where these things are illegal so the Catholic stance against birth control and abortion only hurts the poor.
Religion also doesn't care about the economic well-being of anyone other than themselves. I find Catholics who supported McCain in the past election to be incredibly inconsistent in their thinking. Many Catholics seem to be one issue voters with the one issue being a return to the criminalization of abortion. This give-birth-at any-cost stance prompted Pope Benedict XVI to label as blackmail the economic aid packages developed countries give to poor nations with stipulations that the undeveloped countries will work to reduce population growth. When I came across the headline for this article in Le Figaro “Pope Accuses Rich Countries of Blackmailing Poor Countries” I first thought to myself that perhaps for once the pontiff had taken a stand against income inequality. Nope, he just wants poor nations to continue pumping out as many little undernourished and desperately poor people as they possibly can. His contention that population growth is a great resource and not a contributing factor in poverty is completely contrary to any sane economic theory. Forget about economic theory, it violates common sense: If you have more babies it will be harder to feed them.
Of course, the pope doesn't care about ending poverty. That has never been a big concern of the Catholic Church. Much more important to the Church than spiritual matters, be they individual or for all mankind, is simply perpetuating their own bloated and decadent empire. This is why they take such offense—as did the Archbishop Cañizares—to the further erosion of Catholic power in secular countries like Spain, a country that for centuries was under direct control of the Church. For the first time in the recorded history of mankind, the power of religion is fading in many parts of the world. For the average person, life in these secular areas of the globe is better than it has ever been. There is more democracy; health care is available to everyone; there is greater equality as far as race, gender, sexual orientation; and we enjoy greater freedoms of thought and speech. All of this has been accomplished without religion and much of it in spite of the actions of one church or another. These societies are healthier than they have ever been.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Stereotyping For Dummies
Stereotyping For Dummies
Over dinner last week we were trying to define what constitutes the essence of the cooking of various nations. I said that, for me, Mexican cooking is cilantro and lime. Mediterranean cooking is olive oil, onion, garlic, and tomato. One of my friends mentioned that, because it has so many regional cuisines, Spain does not really have any one thing that defines its national cooking. He read somewhere that patatas bravas, roughly-cut fried potatoes, are the national dish because they are the one thing that you find everywhere in Spain. The next day another friend told me that they don't eat patatas bravas in Murcia. So much for that discussion.
From this failed attempt to define the cuisine of the countries of the world, I have been thinking about what constitutes the character or a nation. Some people would probably call this national stereotyping of generalizing. This is probably true but only if you apply it on a person-to-person basis.
Before the football match (Valencia-Brugge) last week I was sitting at a table with a group of Belgians. They were all speaking Spanish. Some of them were Flemish and a couple others were of the French-speaking variety of Belgian so I suppose Spanish was the best lingua franca since neither side had to give in and speak the other Belgian language. It certainly was the best language for me because Flemish sounds to me like English spoken backwards. I actually used that joke at the table and it got a big laugh—although maybe only with the French Belgians. In Belgium, The Netherlands, and Scandinavia it seems part of the national character is to be conversant in several languages. Even if this thing about learning languages is almost a requirement, it's very admirable.
I think that native English (and Spanish) speakers are at a sharp disadvantage when learning another language because so much of the world's business is conducted in English (and Spanish). I am not making any excuses. I will put my Spanish up against anyone who has spent a similar amount of time in a Spanish-speaking country. This doesn't include other Romance language speakers as they are at a huge advantage. I watched a movie in Italian the other day and I understood at least about 30%, if not more. My French is quite a bit better these days even though I haven't done anything much to improve it other than learn Spanish. I notice than Belgians, Dutch, and Scandinavians who move to Spain all speak Spanish rather well. What other choice do they have? No one here speaks Dutch or Flemish so if that's all you speak you've got a tough row to hoe, as we say in English.
I'll move on to sum up the Spanish character. I have talked before about the Spanish penchant for only speaking their own language, so I don't need to cover that here. Along with the other Mediterranean countries, I would say that the Spanish are defined by their food and their almost neurotic obsession with cooking, eating, and buying food. I would guess than when you get arrested in Spain you have the right to remain silent, and the right to a sandwich with a beer or a glass of wine. Just about any activity you can think of has some association with food in Spain. They have even had to amend the warning not to go swimming for 20 minutes after eating to ten minutes—they can't go 20 minutes without eating something. I would lump Italians, Greeks, and the French into this stereotype.
I think that Australians, Americans, Irish, and Brits are much more alike than we are different. We are much more homogeneous than the people who make up the 22 some countries of the Spanish world. If I had to name one thing that we all have in common it would be a tendency to drink too much. I went to a party this past weekend that had quite a few native English speakers in attendance. It was at a rather expensive place which may have stifled the usual amount of beer consumption of this crowd, but another common trait reared up. When you get a bunch of English speakers together—drunk or otherwise but mostly on the drunk side—chances are rock music will break out. This particular party had a musical theme, mind you, with instruments, amplifiers, and microphones. It's just that rock music has made up such a huge part of our shared culture that it is never very far beneath the surface in almost any situation.
After a few beers it didn't take much encouraging to get the entire bar to break out with a rendition of Wonderwall by Oasis. This was followed by songs from The Beatles, The Clash, The Stranglers, and others. Just about all the Spanish people in attendance were singing along as well. Come to think of it, I have never been to a party at a Spanish home that didn't have some sort of live music. I also have lots of non-Belgian friends who speak other languages. I certainly like food as much as any person native to the Mediterranean. It looks like I have deconstructed my own little theory on nationalities in a matter of a few paragraphs.
I will stand behind my earlier statement that native English speakers drink too much.
Over dinner last week we were trying to define what constitutes the essence of the cooking of various nations. I said that, for me, Mexican cooking is cilantro and lime. Mediterranean cooking is olive oil, onion, garlic, and tomato. One of my friends mentioned that, because it has so many regional cuisines, Spain does not really have any one thing that defines its national cooking. He read somewhere that patatas bravas, roughly-cut fried potatoes, are the national dish because they are the one thing that you find everywhere in Spain. The next day another friend told me that they don't eat patatas bravas in Murcia. So much for that discussion.
From this failed attempt to define the cuisine of the countries of the world, I have been thinking about what constitutes the character or a nation. Some people would probably call this national stereotyping of generalizing. This is probably true but only if you apply it on a person-to-person basis.
Before the football match (Valencia-Brugge) last week I was sitting at a table with a group of Belgians. They were all speaking Spanish. Some of them were Flemish and a couple others were of the French-speaking variety of Belgian so I suppose Spanish was the best lingua franca since neither side had to give in and speak the other Belgian language. It certainly was the best language for me because Flemish sounds to me like English spoken backwards. I actually used that joke at the table and it got a big laugh—although maybe only with the French Belgians. In Belgium, The Netherlands, and Scandinavia it seems part of the national character is to be conversant in several languages. Even if this thing about learning languages is almost a requirement, it's very admirable.
I think that native English (and Spanish) speakers are at a sharp disadvantage when learning another language because so much of the world's business is conducted in English (and Spanish). I am not making any excuses. I will put my Spanish up against anyone who has spent a similar amount of time in a Spanish-speaking country. This doesn't include other Romance language speakers as they are at a huge advantage. I watched a movie in Italian the other day and I understood at least about 30%, if not more. My French is quite a bit better these days even though I haven't done anything much to improve it other than learn Spanish. I notice than Belgians, Dutch, and Scandinavians who move to Spain all speak Spanish rather well. What other choice do they have? No one here speaks Dutch or Flemish so if that's all you speak you've got a tough row to hoe, as we say in English.
I'll move on to sum up the Spanish character. I have talked before about the Spanish penchant for only speaking their own language, so I don't need to cover that here. Along with the other Mediterranean countries, I would say that the Spanish are defined by their food and their almost neurotic obsession with cooking, eating, and buying food. I would guess than when you get arrested in Spain you have the right to remain silent, and the right to a sandwich with a beer or a glass of wine. Just about any activity you can think of has some association with food in Spain. They have even had to amend the warning not to go swimming for 20 minutes after eating to ten minutes—they can't go 20 minutes without eating something. I would lump Italians, Greeks, and the French into this stereotype.
I think that Australians, Americans, Irish, and Brits are much more alike than we are different. We are much more homogeneous than the people who make up the 22 some countries of the Spanish world. If I had to name one thing that we all have in common it would be a tendency to drink too much. I went to a party this past weekend that had quite a few native English speakers in attendance. It was at a rather expensive place which may have stifled the usual amount of beer consumption of this crowd, but another common trait reared up. When you get a bunch of English speakers together—drunk or otherwise but mostly on the drunk side—chances are rock music will break out. This particular party had a musical theme, mind you, with instruments, amplifiers, and microphones. It's just that rock music has made up such a huge part of our shared culture that it is never very far beneath the surface in almost any situation.
After a few beers it didn't take much encouraging to get the entire bar to break out with a rendition of Wonderwall by Oasis. This was followed by songs from The Beatles, The Clash, The Stranglers, and others. Just about all the Spanish people in attendance were singing along as well. Come to think of it, I have never been to a party at a Spanish home that didn't have some sort of live music. I also have lots of non-Belgian friends who speak other languages. I certainly like food as much as any person native to the Mediterranean. It looks like I have deconstructed my own little theory on nationalities in a matter of a few paragraphs.
I will stand behind my earlier statement that native English speakers drink too much.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Bailing Out 30 Years of Right Wing Theory
Bailing Out 30 Years of Right Wing Theory
Petroleum prices seem to be lowering in an almost miraculous fashion. It's funny that so few people questioned why crude oil spiked at over $150 a few months back. No one seems to be bothered that our petroleum masters can simply yank the chain of oil prices at their whim and we are powerless to do anything but bend over and flush our checkbooks into the sewer. Then we are supposed to be thankful when OPEC has finished bleeding us (at least for now) and prices settle down again. I read yesterday that gas prices in the USA may possibly return to $1 a gallon. Energy crisis? What energy crisis? Don't sell off that V10 SUV just yet folks, happy days may soon be here again.
While many Americans are trying to find ways to pay their mortgages and buy groceries, the oil producers and their scummy middlemen are trying to find ways to spend the enormous piles of euros and dollars that are piled on top of them. It's not like oil is ever a bad business but when the price of a barrel of crude shoots artificially through the roof—even for a month or two—it's like a payday before payday for the petro-chemical terrorists of the world. But “terrorist” is really too kind a word to use to describe our oil masters. A terrorist is generally someone on the fringes of society with not enough power to wield directly and must therefore resort to underhanded tactics to achieve their means. OPEC is more like a dictatorship that rules completely and without opposition.
For a few minutes in America, during the hysteria of $4 a gallon gasoline, there was actually a faint murmur, a distant whisper or two of how we should possibly change our ways concerning fuel consumption. It sort of reminded me of those historic five or ten minutes after the fall of the Berlin Wall when people talked about the “peace dividend,” the huge money America could now save because we no longer needed to spend a truly ridiculous amount of our GNP on defense. Of course, talk of reducing defense spending lasted only as long as it took us to invent a new enemy for America. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Gulf War I, the best friend a defense contractor ever had. We went from the imagined enemy of the Soviet Union—a third world shithole of a country we we lead to fear—to the absurd half-assed dictator we all but invented in the first place, Saddam Hussein. Do you remember how happy we were supposed to be as Americans when we used those horrifically expensive Patriot missiles against the the bottle rockets Iraq fired at Israel? CNN thought that we should all be brimming with pride because of our smart bombs and stupid military agenda. Imagine if we had spent every penny on that first Iraq war to free us from oil dependence. The radical Islamist countries of world would go back to being putrid backwaters hardly worth considering on an international scale. Instead, our lust for their oil and the collusion of the petroleum companies have made them world's bankers. What do you expect when the U.S. President (Bush Senior) is an oil man?
$1 a gallon gasoline prices will once again induce amnesia in the minds of every pick-up truck owner in America. They will forget that the recent spike in oil prices brought the entire industrialized world to its knees where we are today. Whether we roll over on our backs or gradually pick ourselves up again is still open for discussion. We have already forgotten that OPEC now owns huge swaths of Manhattan and every other city worth living in. How do you spend all of the money in the world? Talk of reducing our dependency on foreign oil has all but subsided. Promises to focus on public transportation have already been broken.
The thing is, we have already run out of chances to make things right. Maybe if we plowed full-steam ahead with measures to correct a half a century of irresponsible energy consumption, maybe then, after 20 years of so, we may reach something bordering on a sustainable society. So what the fuck are we waiting for? One of my favorite quotes from this post-Obama high I have been on is a quote I can't attribute to any one individual. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me who said that “this is not the time to be cautious.” We need to rethink, remake, and redefine so much of what we see as the American dream. I firmly believe that what we have been taught to believe is the American dream is quickly killing our society. The myth of the rugged individualist needs to step aside to make way for the new American archetype. Just what qualities this new and improved American will possess is open for discussion. The old archetype, the cowboy, will certainly be easy to improve upon. For one, the cowboy as our national emblem is almost entirely fictitious, beside the fact that at the core it represents an uneducated and violent transient farm worker—hardly a symbol of manhood appropriate for the modern era. We replaced the horse with the automobile and we call it freedom. Freedom? Hardly. The automobile represents yet another myth. For the most part it doesn't provide us with freedom. We are free to sit in traffic, free to transfer our national treasury to the countries of OPEC, free to watch as other nations modernize their transportation infrastructures to include high speed rail and other forms of mass transit. I couldn't even guess the number of Americans who really can't afford the car they drive when you factor in payments, gas, insurance, repairs, etc. I'd have to say the percentage is pretty high. I think the percentage of people who can't even imagine living without a car is even higher.
To add to all of this, we now have the government's massive bailout of GM because what is good for GM is good for America. Of course that is just another of those right-wing mantras which presume that if you say something often enough it makes it true, like how private industry is so efficient compared to the government. Unfortunately for all taxpayers, what's good for GM's top brass isn't good for GM or the country. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner's salary and other compensation rose 64 percent in 2007 to about $15.7 million. What's bad for GM is great for the CEO in these unstable times.
GM has been working against the best interests of this nation as they fought, tooth and nail, every fuel efficiency standard that the federal government tried to impose. Not only did they work against the interests of the country, GM's top brass also worked against the interests of their own customers. Americans are just like consumers everywhere: they will buy what they are told to buy, and they were told to buy stupid-assed trucks and SUVs because this was a niche GM felt comfortable filling. Instead of building these leviathans and buying up the Hummer company, GM should have been looking a few years down the road by making lighter, more energy efficient cars. Instead of responding to responding to the needs of the country and consumers, American car manufacturers lobbied for loopholes in the tax laws so people wouldn't have to pay a penalty for driving a V10 with worse fuel economy than the space shuttle.
Now GM has a line of vehicles that are woefully out-of-step with the times—not that GM has been in tune with societal needs for the past generation. It's almost as if GM had followed the wishes of the government—to make more fuel efficient cars—they wouldn't be so deep in shit right now. Instead they are closing down SUV assembly lines faster than you can send your lobbyists to beg for a bailout. Of course, the right-wingers have been trying to pin all of the blame in GM's demise on the workers, saying that they are overpaid and over-privileged. It's the same when the rightie nutties tried to blame the entire financial crisis on a few poor people missing a couple house payments. It's simply bullshit.
The American government seems to be much more in tune with what sort of cars Detroit should be making than the geniuses who have run GM into a ditch. Any child has the sense to realize that we should be stretching fuel efficiency to the outer limits and then steering American consumers into these vehicles. Now that GM's management has completely failed—like every other aspect of right-wing theory—they should step aside and allow younger, more innovative directors to design a new American car. It should be fuel efficient, very inexpensive, safe, reliable, and fuck all of the other nonsense we have been taught to believe about the auto industry. If we built an American car that made sense, people would buy it. It's very simple.
Petroleum prices seem to be lowering in an almost miraculous fashion. It's funny that so few people questioned why crude oil spiked at over $150 a few months back. No one seems to be bothered that our petroleum masters can simply yank the chain of oil prices at their whim and we are powerless to do anything but bend over and flush our checkbooks into the sewer. Then we are supposed to be thankful when OPEC has finished bleeding us (at least for now) and prices settle down again. I read yesterday that gas prices in the USA may possibly return to $1 a gallon. Energy crisis? What energy crisis? Don't sell off that V10 SUV just yet folks, happy days may soon be here again.
While many Americans are trying to find ways to pay their mortgages and buy groceries, the oil producers and their scummy middlemen are trying to find ways to spend the enormous piles of euros and dollars that are piled on top of them. It's not like oil is ever a bad business but when the price of a barrel of crude shoots artificially through the roof—even for a month or two—it's like a payday before payday for the petro-chemical terrorists of the world. But “terrorist” is really too kind a word to use to describe our oil masters. A terrorist is generally someone on the fringes of society with not enough power to wield directly and must therefore resort to underhanded tactics to achieve their means. OPEC is more like a dictatorship that rules completely and without opposition.
For a few minutes in America, during the hysteria of $4 a gallon gasoline, there was actually a faint murmur, a distant whisper or two of how we should possibly change our ways concerning fuel consumption. It sort of reminded me of those historic five or ten minutes after the fall of the Berlin Wall when people talked about the “peace dividend,” the huge money America could now save because we no longer needed to spend a truly ridiculous amount of our GNP on defense. Of course, talk of reducing defense spending lasted only as long as it took us to invent a new enemy for America. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Gulf War I, the best friend a defense contractor ever had. We went from the imagined enemy of the Soviet Union—a third world shithole of a country we we lead to fear—to the absurd half-assed dictator we all but invented in the first place, Saddam Hussein. Do you remember how happy we were supposed to be as Americans when we used those horrifically expensive Patriot missiles against the the bottle rockets Iraq fired at Israel? CNN thought that we should all be brimming with pride because of our smart bombs and stupid military agenda. Imagine if we had spent every penny on that first Iraq war to free us from oil dependence. The radical Islamist countries of world would go back to being putrid backwaters hardly worth considering on an international scale. Instead, our lust for their oil and the collusion of the petroleum companies have made them world's bankers. What do you expect when the U.S. President (Bush Senior) is an oil man?
$1 a gallon gasoline prices will once again induce amnesia in the minds of every pick-up truck owner in America. They will forget that the recent spike in oil prices brought the entire industrialized world to its knees where we are today. Whether we roll over on our backs or gradually pick ourselves up again is still open for discussion. We have already forgotten that OPEC now owns huge swaths of Manhattan and every other city worth living in. How do you spend all of the money in the world? Talk of reducing our dependency on foreign oil has all but subsided. Promises to focus on public transportation have already been broken.
The thing is, we have already run out of chances to make things right. Maybe if we plowed full-steam ahead with measures to correct a half a century of irresponsible energy consumption, maybe then, after 20 years of so, we may reach something bordering on a sustainable society. So what the fuck are we waiting for? One of my favorite quotes from this post-Obama high I have been on is a quote I can't attribute to any one individual. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me who said that “this is not the time to be cautious.” We need to rethink, remake, and redefine so much of what we see as the American dream. I firmly believe that what we have been taught to believe is the American dream is quickly killing our society. The myth of the rugged individualist needs to step aside to make way for the new American archetype. Just what qualities this new and improved American will possess is open for discussion. The old archetype, the cowboy, will certainly be easy to improve upon. For one, the cowboy as our national emblem is almost entirely fictitious, beside the fact that at the core it represents an uneducated and violent transient farm worker—hardly a symbol of manhood appropriate for the modern era. We replaced the horse with the automobile and we call it freedom. Freedom? Hardly. The automobile represents yet another myth. For the most part it doesn't provide us with freedom. We are free to sit in traffic, free to transfer our national treasury to the countries of OPEC, free to watch as other nations modernize their transportation infrastructures to include high speed rail and other forms of mass transit. I couldn't even guess the number of Americans who really can't afford the car they drive when you factor in payments, gas, insurance, repairs, etc. I'd have to say the percentage is pretty high. I think the percentage of people who can't even imagine living without a car is even higher.
To add to all of this, we now have the government's massive bailout of GM because what is good for GM is good for America. Of course that is just another of those right-wing mantras which presume that if you say something often enough it makes it true, like how private industry is so efficient compared to the government. Unfortunately for all taxpayers, what's good for GM's top brass isn't good for GM or the country. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner's salary and other compensation rose 64 percent in 2007 to about $15.7 million. What's bad for GM is great for the CEO in these unstable times.
GM has been working against the best interests of this nation as they fought, tooth and nail, every fuel efficiency standard that the federal government tried to impose. Not only did they work against the interests of the country, GM's top brass also worked against the interests of their own customers. Americans are just like consumers everywhere: they will buy what they are told to buy, and they were told to buy stupid-assed trucks and SUVs because this was a niche GM felt comfortable filling. Instead of building these leviathans and buying up the Hummer company, GM should have been looking a few years down the road by making lighter, more energy efficient cars. Instead of responding to responding to the needs of the country and consumers, American car manufacturers lobbied for loopholes in the tax laws so people wouldn't have to pay a penalty for driving a V10 with worse fuel economy than the space shuttle.
Now GM has a line of vehicles that are woefully out-of-step with the times—not that GM has been in tune with societal needs for the past generation. It's almost as if GM had followed the wishes of the government—to make more fuel efficient cars—they wouldn't be so deep in shit right now. Instead they are closing down SUV assembly lines faster than you can send your lobbyists to beg for a bailout. Of course, the right-wingers have been trying to pin all of the blame in GM's demise on the workers, saying that they are overpaid and over-privileged. It's the same when the rightie nutties tried to blame the entire financial crisis on a few poor people missing a couple house payments. It's simply bullshit.
The American government seems to be much more in tune with what sort of cars Detroit should be making than the geniuses who have run GM into a ditch. Any child has the sense to realize that we should be stretching fuel efficiency to the outer limits and then steering American consumers into these vehicles. Now that GM's management has completely failed—like every other aspect of right-wing theory—they should step aside and allow younger, more innovative directors to design a new American car. It should be fuel efficient, very inexpensive, safe, reliable, and fuck all of the other nonsense we have been taught to believe about the auto industry. If we built an American car that made sense, people would buy it. It's very simple.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Valencia CF 1-Brugge 1
Valencia 1, Brugge 1
Queue the Beach Boy music, dig out the surf trunks, find the Frisbee, it's summer again. At least it's not arctic cold as it has been for the past two weeks. I noticed that it started getting warmer on Thursday evening when I went to the Valencia CF-Brugge UEFA Cup match at Mestalla. I was wearing just about every bit of clothing that I own and felt like the Michelin Man. I was warm but I wouldn't say that I was over-dressed. It turned out to be a great game even though Valencia had many of their starters on the bench resting for Saturday's match with Barça. It was a good chance to take a look at some of the up-and-coming players. I was especially impressed with Pablo H who made a bunch of brilliant crosses from the right. Fans were a bit annoyed that their giant striker, Nicoli Zigic, wasn't able to put one of these gifts in the net for Valencia. Brugge scored first in the 18th minute but then Valencia did something that I have never seen them do before—ever. They scored a corner in the 60th minute thanks to Zigic. I have never seen the Spanish national team score a corner goal, either.
Valencia is in second place (5 points) in Group G behind St Etiene (7 points) who they will play in France on December 17 for the top spot. It looks good for Valencia because the winners, runners-up and third-placed team advance to the knockout phase, at which point they are joined by the eight clubs which finish in third place in each of the groups in the UEFA Champions League group stage.
Group stage 23 Oct - 18 Dec 2008
Round of 32 18 - 26 February 2009 (Two game [home-away] knock-out stage)
Round of 16 12 - 19 March 2009
Quarter-finals 09 - 16 April 2009
Semi-finals 30 Apr - 07 May 2009
Final 20 May 2009
I hope to see Valencia in the final.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
¡Qué frío!
¡Qué frío!
I just read in the paper yesterday that November here in Valencia was the third coldest month since 1977. I love being involved when records are broken. Just when we were at the coldest of this cold snap my central heating decided to stop working. It won't be fixed until Friday. A lot of good that does me now. I realize that temperatures around freezing are not really that cold for most people, most people with well-insulated homes and central heat. Try that kind of cold with marble floors, drafty windows, and no heat. I walk around the house wearing enough clothes for a polar exhibition and sleep under just about every blanket and sheet in the house. I am reminded of winters in Greece many years ago. About the only respite from the cold is going to the pub. There were some days when I didn't even have the energy to go to the pub. I still went, mind you, I just really wasn't in the mood for it.
Spanish people are almost comically cold-blooded and even slightly cold temperatures will force them into arctic gear and the only words you will hear throughout the day are ¡Qué frío! I usually make fun of my friends for bitching about the “cold” but I'm not laughing any more. Not only am I not laughing, I'm wearing a pair of running tights, sweat pants, a thermal top, and my polar bike jersey. I'd probably have gloves if I could type wearing them. The main thing I notice about this cold spell is that my metabolism...has...slowed...way...the...hell...down. I have missed a lot of bike rides which makes matters worse. I rode yesterday but it's not the same when you aren't able to work up a sweat because you are using too much energy shivering.
I go to the library because it is heated, just like the rest of the hobos. All that I want to eat when it is this cold is soup although with my almost complete lack of exercise I shouldn't eat anything. I should just burrow into my den and sleep off all of this fat and wake up when it is sunny and warm. According to my Google weather page this should be on Friday of this week when I hope that I can ride my bike again in shorts.
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