We did and we will exploit you in your homeland, but we won't do it here

An OVERVIEW: In the last 1.8 million years, Africans emigrated to the rest of the world. In the next 500 years Europeans did the same, but this time they slaughtered, enslaved and "syphilized*" the natives. In the last 50 years people from all over the world has come to Europe and America, and this time they haven't slaughtered, enslaved or given the natives STDs (actually, it has been the other way around AGAIN).

Why immigration is STRATEGICALLY RIGHT: The western world (especially Europe) faces a demographic crisis, resulting from its low birth rate and its high life expectancy. Unless we want to increase taxes 50%, make having at least three kids mandatory and/or kill all people over 70, we must allow a million (young and fertile) immigrants into our country each year. Also, and contrary to popular myth, immigrants (as machines) do not increase unemployment, but decrease it by taking jobs that are not taken by natives at far lower wages thus increasing the economy's overall performance and creating skilled labor for the natives.

Why immigration is MORALLY RIGHT: Isn't it arbitrary that if (for example) a Moroccan commits robbery one kilometer from Ceuta s/he goes to prison, but if s/he does it on Ceuta itself, he is just sent one kilometer away? Isn't it absurd that you can work here if you're born in Šalčininkai (Lithuania - 2350Km from here), but you can't if you're born in Benghazi (Libya - 2275Km)? Isn't it completely unfair and preposterous that a group of people born in a geographical area BY CHANCE claim that area (which is arbitrarily decided, by the way) as theirs and can prohibit people from living there?



*FYI: That’s my first word play ever in English.

Back to Mr. X

Almost a year after our last encounter, I met again with Mr. X.

He's a short man with short black hair, 17 years old and with an average complexion. That surprised me, for the last time I saw him, he was quite overweight. He had lost 25 kilos, an accomplishment he seemed pretty proud of. However, he still disliked shaving lotion, what made his cheeks, specially the left one, seem as if they were now losing their skin after having been burned some time ago. He still retained his most peculiar physical characteristic, his long and thin ponytail, but other than that, he had a rather common appearance. I mean, his eyes were brown and such.

His physical appearance might now be pretty inconspicuous, but his personality was still quite peculiar. Although his behavior was now closer to what we deem socially acceptable, and could now trust and make deeper bonds with his friends, he still spent more time with books and computers than with people, and could more easily, not to mention more comfortably, explain why time goes faster as you approach the speed of light than why the hell did he had that expression in his face, or had reacted that way to that question.

Also, he was terribly absentminded, being easily capable of spending an entire class with his eyesight focused in an undefined point whilst he thought about who knows what, and he had those varyingly annoying nervous ticks. And, in this time where boomers like to relax by fear mongering about how ignorant the new generation is, the number of books in his bedroom was quite impressive, as was the amount of data in his brain, however useless it might be. And he had the strangest repertoire of music imaginable. And he liked politics and science. And he had no girlfriend, nor had he ever had any.

Still, he seemed happier now, and he was obviously leading a healthier lifestyle. A longer and happier life. Neat.

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried*

In next year's spring I'll turn 18, and if the calendar supports me (it won't, as always), I'll be able to vote. In other countries you can vote at 16, but not in this one. But in other countries you vote and you still work 14 hours a day to earn a dollar, or you don't vote, or you starve whilst the "dear leader" spends millions on his new nooyukular toy, so I'm not complaining.

Am I excited about voting? Well, I'm part of the most prepared generation ever, and therefore disenchanted with democracy even before I vote, so excited is maybe too strong a word, but I do feel slightly motivated, and I do think my vote makes a difference.

Sure, it's just a 0.01% difference in the municipal level, a 0.0001% one in the autonomic one, a 0.000005% one in the Spanish and a 0.00000025% in the European, but unlike in other places, our governments somewhat carry out the mandate people place on them more than the one the markets, the churches or the military do, and it is my desire, no, my duty, not only to keep this so, but to improve it. And one of the ways to do that is to vote.

Finally, I believe that it is an indescribably hedonistic act of contempt to all the people who died to give us this right and to all the people who will inherit this planet from us not to vote.

So, to sum up, I’ll vote. You betcha.

For whom? That’s a secret.



*Quote stolen from Winston Churchill.

Presenting the best present until the present.

The best present I ever received was life. Nah, just kidding. The best (material) present for me is, has (almost) always been and will (probably) ever be books. Nobody saw that coming, right?
Most of the times that a book is gifted to me it is because I have already asked for it, and I buy most of the books I read by myself, but I still consider them (one of) the best present I have ever received from my parents, family, friends, people I admire, humanity and the universe itself (probably an exaggeration, taking into account existence, life, consciousness, science, human rights and the like, but that is so that you get the idea).
But what is so special about those amounts of energy turned into fundamental particles that form atoms of hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen that combined into glucose molecules that in turn coalesced to form cellulose that was compressed to form sheets in an industrial process that employs tens of thousands of people just in the Basque Country, sheets which would be filled with glyphs representing sounds representing ideas by the heirs of the machine that was to play a fundamental role in the most magnificent, honorable, decent, inspiring, uplifting and glorious human achievements?
Well, I think that turned out to be a pretty rhetorical question, and my space is up, so I’ll just say that if you are going to gift something this coming solstice’s festivities (Christmas), please let it be a book (recycled, chlorine free, non-religious, as little boring as it strictly needs to be and fabricated by unionized labor, if possible).

In varietate concordia (For now)

If you ask anybody "Does a people have the right to do what it decides without other countries having a say in it?" s/he would most surely answer yes. If you asked why, the answer would probably be something like "Because my government should defend my interests" or "Because that's what democracy is, having a say about your goverments policies". Well, first of all, that's not democracy, that's sovereignity (North Korea is a sovereign country, by the way). And second of all, the root of that belief is "People whose only relation whith me is paying taxes to, living under the rule of and living in the territory controled by the same organization and/or having a similar culture, by which I mean speaking the same language, eating the same type of food or having the same religion, are inmediatly more important than any other human being, and the organization we fund has the right to deny acces to the land it controls to anybody that has not been born inside it, polute all the people's atmosphere without all the people having a say and kill people that is not part of "us" as long as "we" decide it's okay"
So I find it pretty amazing that 27 countries that had just sixty years ago finished waging two world wars and a thousand religious and territorial wars managed to give up at least a bit of their sovereignity and agreed to erase their borders, have a single currency, and among other things, a single albeit weak parliament. Yes, the journey will be hard, and we will always have people like the majority of Britons, hanging to their imaginary empire, or Angela Merkel, refusing to help Greeks even if it results in the medium-run destruction of the German banks, or eastern europeans, fearing a new soviet union, or speculators but, eventually, reason will prevail (Because if it doesn't, we'll be more worried about finding non-radioactive water than about Europe's fate).
Spanish fascists said that they prefered "A red Spain to a broken Spain". I prefer a conservative Europe to a broken Europe, mainly because a broken Europe is a puppet of Chinese & American interests, and even worse, a puppet of the market, and therefore far worse than anything the European right is.

Death. I can't make a joke out of that.

"If the light of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.... I am become death, the shatterer of worlds."
-J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita, after the detonation of the first atomic bomb

Here I am, back in front of the computer, writting about death. Now really, what was Ernesto thinking? I can't writte about death. No teenager nor the majority of humans can.It's like love, no matter how hard artists, philosophers and scientists try, we'll never really understand it in it's totality beyond it's physiological aspects. But anyway, let's move on.
We learned in philosophy class that, according to a lot of philosophers, you become an adult when you realize that you are going to die, and that the intelligence of a man is measured by how well he has accepted that he is going to die. Then, according to a lot of philosophers, I'm a complete idiot. I've never accepted death. To me, the termination of existence is an unfair, dreadful and even presposterous thing, and it scares me to death (Geddit?).
To avoid being permanently scared, I have always hided in the belief that technological progress wil make me inmortal (If hydras and jellyfishes can, why can't I?). And to avoid thinking to much about the real possibilities of that happening, I try to keep myself occupied ALL THE TIME, with more than one thing at the same time if possible. So thank you, Ernie, when the demons of the defunct future haunt me tonight rendering me as helpless as that little boy that cried to his parents that he didn't want to die ten years ago, I shall remember you. Or, more precisely, I shall remember your mother.

I'm like Hitchcock (fat)

http://www.zimmertwins.com/node/937671

I had a lot of limitations to do the clip (after all, you've only got a boy, a girl and a cat), but I think I came out with a pretty "intersting" clip. I hoped that the video would make accurate criticism of politics in general, american one in particular. But it enede up being some kind of absurd humour. I had to censor black out of "do you know how many black people will you have to execute to get back bible belt vote" and change sex for gender in "I'll go through a sex change operation" to avoid the closing of Lizardi's account (What are they, the MPAA?). Well, enjoy!

C2H5OH or "The tale of two livers"

I'm not the best person to talk about alcohol, for my experience with it has never been a personal one, and I am strongly biased against it, but I have to, and I will. The reason for alcohol's popularity is that it's easy to produce in any part of the world, but the reason for it's prevalence and status (Can anybody imagine a university degree in "tabacology" or "cocainology" in wich teachers explain and study the drugs only to explain wich one "tastes better" and describe them as "a valuable part of our culture to be promoted"?) are that it creates "only" moderate adicction, it produces no significant long-term damage below a Threshold, and it's consumers (except the very frequent ones) are not subjected to (almost any) discrimination or criticism. It's effects are akin to other depressant drugs, diminishing the brain's capabilities. In short, it makes you think less. I'm not going to enter into the discussion of whether people has the right to do whatever they want with their boddies, including making themselves more stupid, but I think it is obvious that we teenagers don't. I have to accept, no matter how hard it is to me, that moderate use of alcohol by responsible adults has no harmful effects (My head is gonna explode!). But even if that doesn't mean that all adults are responsible, as the state of Massachusetts proved yesterday (They were all drunk, ¿Right?), I accept "dry law" is not the solution. My plan to engage alcoholism is to long for this blog, and involves things that make the public opinion rather "jumpy", like chemicals in the watter supply or compulsory breathalyzers, so I will just ignore it. I think a good way to combat juvenile alcoholism is to make alcoholic beverages more expensive by taxing them (Limbaugh is right: Leftist think taxing is the solution to everything), specially if they are spirits, and giving the authority to policemen to confiscate any alcohol in the hands of people under 18. Also, those medieval fines on drunkenness should be reenacted, and the money could be used to fund AA-like associations, the rest being pocketed by the state. After all, we are still in a recession.

P.D. Really, how drunk do you have to be to break a filibuster-proof democrat congress that can (However mildly) bring change? Don't you have enough with Joe "Even I don't know how I managed to go with Gore back in 2000" Lieberman? Is either a drug or Pat Robertson is contagious.

Fashion

What's in and what's out? Well, that's relative, but That's next to saying nothing, as everything is. But to drill down that vacuous explanation, I might indicate that there are plenteous in & outs for different geographical, social and historic contexts (Witch burning was "in" in the pre-democratical american colonies, whilst democracy is "out" among the ruling class of corporatist China and Quantum Physics is "in" among MIT students). But asuming Ernesto wants me to write about in & out in my social, geographical(This is a good way to bat away saying Spain/Euskadi, huh?) and historic context, I might have a chance to do a meticulous yet relatively small post (That's just naïve, accounting for how pedantic and pernickety I am, but you can chalk it up to my juvenility*)

There are things that are preposterously in, as Belen Esteban(Anybody else wishes witch burning was in again?) or that infectious and most profusely used adjective "mitico". Others are in without popular consent, like being "made redundant", but most of things in are moderately so for a reason, however absurd this might be(Except those who are because of marketing, be it temporarily (The lattest genocided people, soon to be forgotten) or continuously(Clothing with corporate logos wich is astronomically more expensive than it's ad-free counterparts)). These would be Ipods, distilled beverages heretically mixed with sugared beverages, Vomitive TV shows, (Why doesn't anybody watch "How I met your mother" or "The big bang theory"?) music I try to ignore or vulgar, mindless, asyntactic, vocabularyless (Made those two up, but you can guess what they mean) talk wich is transforming our languages in "Permanent bushisms"(Bravo fellas, bravo).

I would write about what's out, but my bile is overflowing my circulatory system and I have to go to the hospital. Mind you, madman's bile is pretty corrosive, so try not to think about all this.


*There you have, Ernie, plenty of debonair(There I go again!) Phrasal verbs and "awesome" adjectives.