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I can’t think long about U.S. policy toward Israel without remembering the political mastermind who destroyed his career by suggesting this photo to a reporter. I’ll get to him soon. When I do, you’ll know why. Some facts of the Israel-Hamas war that strike me as key: (♦) Hamas is a militant, adamantly anti-Israel movement that…
(Nota: Casi todos los enlaces están en inglés.) No puedo pensar mucho en la política estadounidense hacia Israel sin recordar al cerebro político que destruyó su carrera al sugerir esta foto a un periodista. Llegaré a él pronto. Cuando lo haga, sabrás por qué. Algunos hechos de la guerra entre Israel y Hamas que me…
The block universe theory holds that our human perception of time misleads us, that past, present and future are equally real. Or that’s how I understand it, at least, as a lay person. I sit at my Madrid computer, blink at the display as I type these words; a doctor tugs my wailing, bloody newborn…
(Nota: Todos los enlaces están en inglés. Lo siento.) La teoría del universo de bloque sostiene que nuestra percepción humana del tiempo nos engaña, que el pasado, el presente y el futuro son igualmente reales. O al menos así lo entiendo yo como profano. Me siento frente a mi ordenador de Madrid, parpadeo ante la…
Internauts visiting this page only yesterday saw a pop-up in the lower right corner, modified to look like: The pop-up was furnished by Complianz, a WordPress plug-in for webmasters who want to comply with European Union data protection laws. Transitophile made cookies! I didn’t know how or why, had tried to be rid of them…
5,300 years ago, this doomed man ate a last meal on the mountain glaciers of today’s Northern Italy. He may have struggled to grasp food. He was right-handed, ate despite a fresh, deep gash that reached to the bone of that hand, perhaps sustained in a brawl in the valley. He might have climbed the…
7/9/2019: This post is out-of-date. Please see the 2019 update. * * * * * Please note cagey blog title wording. A title like Spain Visa Renewal Steps or How to Renew Your Spain Visa would suggest an offering of authoritative advice on how to renew your Spain student visa, or au pair visa, or…
… or ‘Spain Impressions’ this time around, and you just might see a “Round Twenty-Five” post in the years to come. So much here is new to me. I grew up and grew gray in California, feel entitled to judge U.S. life from the inside out. In Spain, I grasp at threads of a plot…
Traffic. Fifth worst urban traffic on Planet Earth, according to the TomTom global traffic index. Visit and you’ll learn why. Picture Venice Boulevard in L.A., or maybe Wilshire. Grant yourself godlike powers. Add a couple of lanes, dirty it up, kill most of the median landscaping. Plug in guaranteed-to-gridlock traffic circles, antiquated signaling. Hoist this…
Europeans often recognize Yankee tourists for a trait that we Yanks often don’t know we possess: our American accents. I have one. Nearly everyone I knew in the U.S. — in high school, kollidge, beyond — had one. But, many Americans don’t know they’ve got ’em. Regional accents exist, sure: Southern, New England, New York…