Las Vegas (II)

When I went to Vegas and I was sitting on the 22nd floor of the MCM Grand hotel, my memories brought me back to my childhood. I remember when, as a child, we went through the dessert-like landscape in Los Monegros, a county in Saragossa (Aragon) that resembles a lot the surrounding areas of Vegas.
I thought that it would be great that Catalonia starts to invest in Los Monegros and creates a "Las Vegas" type of set up with nice hotels, celebrity shows and "bullfight arenas".
You know that I am totally for banning bullfighting in Catalonia as soon as possible for two main reasons: first, it has nothing to do with our culture (we only have it now to satisfy the appetite of misguided tourists), second, because I think Catalans should not support an activity where people get excited watching an animal suffer. For those reasons I am hoping that the Catalan parliament will pass a law forbidding bulfighting in the Catalan territories (I assume this will happen soon after the new Catalan Estatut is approved. Doing it before that happens,would endanger the objective to have the Estatut passed in the Spanish parliament).
In the picture you can see a protest from the anti-bullfighting party (PACMA) staged in front of the seat of the Catalan government and the Barcelona Town Hall. Surprisingly, this is the same location where the Nativity scene was located. Remember that the "caganer" was banned from that display, what I interpret as: "you can pull down your pants, as long as you keep control of your sphincters".

So why would I like to have bullfighting in Los Monegros? I like Aragon and the people there. Setting up something like a "Las Vegas" there would create employment, would develop the area and would add some additional attractions to the vicinity of Catalonia without having to develop the oversaturated space in the Principality. We could have one or two days tours originating in Barcelona to attend a bullfighting show, a David Copperfield magician-like show and gambling for a while in Los Monegros. I would encourage Catalan businessman to invest heavily in Los Monegros, but do it low key. They should avoid the boycott (or boyCATt) prone hotel names as the Maragall Grand or the Carod-Rovira Imperial Palace. Just invest in hotels and give them standard names (I would even consider Melià Sol as provoking), theaters and other touristic attractions, link them with stays in Catalonia and we are all set.
Some of you maybe asking why do I support bullfighting in Los Monegros and not in Catalonia. Frankly speaking, I think that if bullfighting bulls were asked, they would prefer to continue to die in the arena, rather than being forced fed in overcrowded farms and killed slowly but surely hanging from a conveyor hook in a modern slaughterhouse. Therefore I leave it up to the Spaniards what to do with it, I just want it out of Catalonia. If one day, farm bulls and cows are roaming freely on the prairies for a few years and after that driven in stretched limos to the slaughterhouses, where they are killed through lethal injection after being sedated by an anesthesiologist, I may change my mind and campaign for a ban also in the rest of Spain. In the meantime, let's invest in Los Monegros (Saragossa).

Las Vegas (I)

We spent the Christmas holiday in Vegas, ideal location if you are traveling, as I did, with a 7 year old and a 1 year old. Las Vegas is far from Boston, almost 6 hours by plane, more or less like London, but with those little kids, it felt to me like New Zealand.
Despite the tiring trip, we had a great time. Weather was good, temperature around 65F degrees, mostly sunny, great. Our hotel was fantastic, the MGM Grand, and our room had a great view to the northern part of the Strip, we could even see the water show at the Bellagio from our room. Most of the foreign visitors were Chinese, some Europeans and people from South America, but the vast majority was Chinese. I only saw one Spanish couple.
I also saw a guy wearing the Madrid track jacket with the Barcelona soccer club logo on. I tried to take a picture, but the result was not so good. You can hardly see the jacket, but you will recognize it if you click here. I was going to delete the picture, but I thought it may become useful if he decides to go to Spain in his next trip instead of going back to Vegas. The plastic surgeon may need it to reconstruct his face.
We also went to see David Copperfield’s magician show in shifts (someone had to stay back to look after the 1 year old). It was a good show but I was somewhat disappointed. The tricks are OK, but I think I can guess the kind of technology behind and I am afraid that half of the volunteers are part of the show. In addition to it, the guy is so presumptuous. He spends 45 minutes of the show either talking about himself or showing video clips of people who praise him, but we had fun at $97 a pop.
In the wine shops I was not able to find any of the Toledo, Logroño or Murcia cava bottles that seem to be hot in the "rest of Spain" boycotting market. There was plenty of Catalan cava (Freixenet) at $14.99. What a price!!! I buy it at Costco at $6.99 and you can buy it in BCN for less that $4.00, so I decided to celebrate the new year with Bacardí;, the founder of which was born in Sitges (Barcelona) and together with some coke it lasted me for a few days, that's the cocktail we call Cuba Libre (free Cuba = Bacardí-Coke).
Another remarkable thing is that while Freixenet sales have dropped 4% in Spain as a consequence of the boycott, all the advertisement made by Freixenet in USA is Spanish stereotype centric (something that really kills me). If you go to Gloria Ferrer's website (a Freixenet group company), you will see that they advertise the Catalan Festival with Flamenco dancers (put your cursor on the picture and you will be able to read "Catalonian dancers") and a Valencian paella (I do not have a big problem with the paella, but I do not want to debate this time the Països Catalans issue).
I cannot accept that the Spanish government portrays all Spaniards in their promotion campaigns as bullfighters or flamingo dancers, but I find it even more intolerable that a Catalan company bastardizes our culture for one point of market share. Why not using the “calçotada” (grilled spring onions more or less), the “castellers” (human towers) and the “sardana” (Catalan traditional collective dance) instead?. And I have already drunk by myself two cases of Freixenet this Xmas to counter the boycott. My goodness!!!
Changing subject, in part two I will explain why I think we should create a Las Vegas in Los Monegros (Zaragoza).

Some guidance on Language

Before I elaborate on why I think that Catalans should start investing in Los Monegros (Saragossa = Zaragoza) and develop a Las Vegas type of environment, I will touch on the language issue for a little while.
I get mad when I read the ABC newspaper. It is strictly an anti-Catalan forum. They only publish articles and letters that denigrate Catalonia and the Catalans, and at a lesser extent, the Basques. It is no secret that this is where they got its name (Anti Basque and Catalan) or maybe I made it up?
However I have to admit that Catalan politicians are clearly misguided. They show daily their provincialism and lack of global approach.
First a couple of facts:

• The traditional language in Catalonia is Catalan and it has been Catalan for the last 1000 years. Before that, Latin was the language that the previous invaders, the Romans, imposed on the Iberian peninsula. As far as I know, no one in Catalonia is mad at the Romans or their direct heirs, the Italians.
• When Catalonia lost the Succession War in another tragic September 11th, Philip V's decree of new foundation (January 1716) was the start of the penetration of Castilian (=Spanish) in the Catalan territories, especially Barcelona.

But, by now, all this is history and we need to be pragmatic and smart. Spanish started as an imposition, but in the course of the centuries, it has become an asset. That's why Barcelona is the city where, most probably, more books in Spanish are published every year.

So Mr Maragall, Mr Carod-Rovira, Mr Mas and company. Here a piece of advice:

• Invest all the additional money you can get as a result of the new "Estatut" in education. Make sure that every single resident in Catalonia is fluent in Catalan, Spanish and ENGLISH. Do it quietly, it will take 15 years to get the next generation up and running, but DO it.
• Make sure that all students get at least 40% of their education in either Spanish or Catalan, not a Catalan only education with one hour a week of Spanish.
• At the University, all studies should be offered in Catalan and Spanish. Students should make the decision. This way we would be able to attract talent from other parts of the world, what would generate more income to be reinvested in our education system and hopefully some of the students would settle in Catalonia increasing our brain power. I would also suggest some of the curricula be taught in English to increase the cross-fertilization even further
• We should recognize that Catalan outside Catalonia, the Balearic islands and Valencia is useless. It is a beautiful language that I love with all my heart, but is certainly useless outside the territories where it is spoken
• We should not try to impose it outside those territories. It will cause not only rejection, but it will be detrimental for our economy. Sending invoices or other paperwork in Catalan to non Catalan speaking customers outside the areas I mentioned before is not only disrespectful but also the fastest way to commit economic harakiri. Customer should always be first and if they want the invoices in Swahili, we should provide them
• We should not campaign to get Catalan in the European institutions. We should lobby to remove all languages but English from the European institutions as a way to get a lean European public sector. Only English should be spoken there, all master documents should be English, all public servants and bureaucrats should master English, otherwise they should lose their European job (we can give them some transition time to adapt, like a month or two). Who can get a job in a multinational if he or she does not speak English fluently? Translation to local languages should be undertaken by the respective countries and regions. So the Catalan government could run the Catalan EU website with all translations in Catalan, the same as the Spanish government, the French, the Danish or the Maltese (obviously UK and also Ireland should contribute with some cash, otherwise it would be a free ride for them)
• In Catalonia, Catalan should be used as a way to promote the economy. Everything should be customer driven. If customers demand Catalan, localization in Catalan should be required. If you come to invest or you are a tourist or visitor, you can speak in whatever language you want or use smoke signals, that we will understand you.

So please, politicians, get me the money, do not squander it (you know, the 3% commissions and things like that), start spending heavily in education and shut up for 2 or 3 or 15 years. Once you deliver, you can open your mouth again.