Hilary and McCain win New Hampshire

I would have liked to see the Democrats wrap the contest up quickly. I would have liked to see the Republicans spend the next month or two bloodying each other while whichever Democrat had won Iowa, NH, and Nevada sat pretty. And most of all, I would have liked Obama, who has the best chance of winning the general election, to have been that Democrat. (No, it´s not knee-jerk partisanship. The Democrats take global warming more seriously across-the-board than the Republicans. Of the Republican candidates, only John McCain, and, to a lesser extent, Mike Huckabee, speak about climate change with the urgency that it deserves. The Democrats are also the party in which every major candidate has put forward a universal healthcare plan to fulfill the government´s basic duty to help the helpless.)
Despite Obama´s loss, seeing Iowa´s choice rejected by New Hampshire was nice. Iowa´s caucuses are a joke, if what you´re looking for is democracy. And Iowa´s outsize influence in choosing winners and losers perverts policy in Iowa´s favor - "If they held the first caucuses in Idaho," someone once said, "we'd be subsidizing gasoline made out of potatoes." NH sends a valuable message that Iowa isn´t the decider.
And Hillary is not bad at all. Obama talks about change, but many of the most important changes from the George W Bush years would be returns to the Bill Clinton mode of operation: international cooperation in fighting wars, fewer unnecessary hot-button choices that hurt America´s image in other countries (I speak of keeping Guantanamo open), and spending that doesn´t sprint past the government´s ability to pay for it. Those changes, plus moving full-speed-ahead to limit CO2 emissions and working towards healthcare reform, will leave America much better off. And we could reasonably expect all of the above from Hillary. But only if she won the general election, a big enough "if" for me to throw my support behind Obama (on policy, very similar) instead.

McCain´s win in New Hampshire gives me mixed feelings. He used to be a force for campaign finance reform, although who knows whether that´s still true. Quite recently, he tried to pass immigration reform legislation, but failing might have left him once burned, twice shy, and unwilling to try again. He has been a vehement supporter of the Iraq war from the beginning; the initial support is worrying, but the continued support is obvious, as Iraq is not ready for us to leave. And then, of all the Republicans, he seems most serious about fighting climate change. I´m hesistantly hopeful he´ll be the Republican candidate; I´ll root against him but the prospect of him winning won´t be so bad.

Obama wins Iowa!

Walking along the Paseo de Prado, I thought of the nuances of Spanish culture, and how the discovery of America sparked a golden age but later hobbled Spain with crippling inflation. Christopher Col --
Just kidding. I´m way too obsessed with what´s going on back home to be thinking about anything else.
Obama won Iowa! This is huge!
Okay, it´s a win in a tiny state. With a victory based on a voting system in which two pillars of democracy, the secret ballot and one person one vote, are missing.
But even non-Obama supporters have to get excited about a half-black candidate´s ability to win a state that is 90% white. And for Obama supporters, winning the first contest takes some of the bite out of Hillary´s asburd claim that she´s more electable. And then there´s the strange but reliable tendency for voters in other states to imitate Iowa (Obama is suddenly up in NH by 12 points).
I´ve been a hesitant Obama supporter ever since I faced the music and admitted Bill Richardson wasn´t going anywhere.
For me, this election comes down to climate change. It is the single biggest threat to our national welfare, with the single greatest ability to lower the living standard of every American (and human being).
Across the board, the Democrats take climate change more seriously than the Republicans (for a good comparison of the candidates, click here). Combined with the Democrats´ big advantage on proposals for universal health care, I´m pretty partisan this election cycle: I want a Democrat in the White House in 2008.
And Barrack Obama, with his ability to cross party lines to pick up votes, with his ability to attract independents, with his impressive oratory skills, and with his early opposition to the Iraq war, is the most electable Democrat. (Early opposition to the war doesn´t help solve the mess, but this war is hugely unpopular, and I´m looking for a winning Democrat, and those against the war from the start have the best chance at winning.)
New Hampshire should be interesting. I predict and hope Obama keeps rolling.

Happy New Years!

My German friend Steffen and I decided to go to Lisbon the Wednesday before last weekend, Two days later, we were on a nightbus heading east.

We slept on the bus, came into the Portugese capital at 7am, and headed to the hostel to drop off our stuff. A young lady greeted us and sent us to the kitchen where we got a free breakfast of crepes.
From there, we took a trolly tour around Lisbon and saw what I think was the Lisbon Cathedral:

We visited the Muslim (and later Chriatian) castle:

Then, we went to Lisbon´s ancient district, Belém, and visited the Tower of Belém (the name could have used a little more originality). Of all the castles and palaces I´ve been to in Europe (and at this point I´m starting to take them for granted), this little fortress on the sea was the best thing I´ve seen. From the outside, it was intimidating, but on the inside it was breathtakingly beautiful.

In this picture, the tower in the front is the bronze model of the tower, and the real tower is in the background:

It had a dungeon downstairs. I´m crying because I´m a prsioner who got stuck trying to escape:

Lord of the Rings inspired interior decoration: A view from (near) the top of the ocean:

And looking in the other direction, the city of Lisbon:

I found zen in the meditation turret:

Tired from walking up all those steps, we took a short swimming break:

From the tower, we went to the largest stone statue of a ship I have ever seen and predict I will ever see again. Steffen, the red dot just a bit to the right of the white car, gives some perspective.

We took a trolly back to the hostel to shower and unwind before dinner. There, we met a Portugese guy named Marco who invited us to his birthday party, which he happened to be holding that night at a Fado club. Fado is Portugese folk music, invented, I was told, by melancholy Portugese sailors at sea. Here´s a sample.

We went with Marco and some Chinese and Brazilian people from the hostel. I had "bacalhau" -- salted cod, a Portugese speciality -- and Steffen had octopus, the other dish that you´re supposed to get when you go to Portugal. Both were ridiculously good.

As we ate, two guitarists tuned. Then, the lights dimmed, and the waitress herself sang, backed up by the guitarist. We literally had a private show; for reasons totally unknown, perhaps because of Marco´s birthday, we were the only group let into the restaurant. Soon, the waitress took a break, and the owner sang, and the owner´s wife sang, and the guitarist sang. Everyone pitched in to give us a shot of spectacle.

Here´s a picture of the guitarists. It´s bad quaility, but it gives a feel for how up-close we were. If the guitarist had scratched his neck, he would have knocked over the wine:

We finished dinner around 12:30 and had a drink in Lisbon´s nightlife area, el Barrio Alto. We headed back to the hostel, climbed into our beds, and were asleep in minutes.

The next day, we breakfasted on homemade eggs (this hostel was incredible). We rode the gondola near the Vasco de Gama tower:

After the expo, we saw the naval museum, which might have been more rewarding had I known anything about boats. We also stumbled upon a celebration of the newly signed Treaty of Lisbon:




Near dinnertime, we took a ferry to the other side of Lisbon, and saw the city at sunset. "If you were a girl," I told Steffen, "this ferry would be our first kiss."


Nicely sums up the trip:

We took a night bus back to Madrid on Sunday night, and I had my first Christmas. Two huge meals, one a dinner that lasted until 2am and another a lunch that started at five in the afternoon. (Quite Spanish.) I gave Hector and Dario a stegasauras and a something-else-sauras, respectively, my host parents Ozomatli and Yes CDs, and Margie (the babysitter and housekeeper) a stuffed animal dog for her daughter. My host parents gave me an awesome shirt and a striped sweater (which I´ve needed for teaching at risk of showing my students that I only have one nice outfit in my whole wardrobe).

Last night, I ticked down 2007 at Sol, Madrid´s version of Times Square, with Steffen, the friend with whom I´d gone to Lisbon. There had to tens of thousands of people. We met up with my friend Sophie, also from Germany (but whereas Steffen´s from the part near Austria, she´s from the part near France), and met two British girls who had come to Madrid for just one night (weirdos!). We went bar-hopping, then went back to Steffen´s apartment to unwind watching Scrubs. I left at 6am, and due to major horrible disasterous outrageous ridiculous public transportation woes, I got home a few minutes before 9am. I suddenly realized that everyone on the west coast was celebrating midnight, and I felt nostalgic for LA -- Happy New Years!. Seconds later, my head was on the pillow and I was asleep, a wonderful Christmas break behind me and thoughts of going to Sevilla soon swirling in my head.

Hitchhiking

This past week and a half started off with good luck and continued rolling. Late for my first day of classes in my new (and way improved) Spanish school, I fidgeted with my pen at the bus stop. A lady pulled up.
"¿Anyone going to Moncloa?" she asked in Spanish. I was. So was another guy. She needed to pick up at least one person to be able to use the carpool lane. I got a free quick ride, arrived early to Sol (where my school is), ate a nice second breakfast, came to class a few minutes early, and got the best seat in the class (second row, far left).
Later on that week, I went to Alberto´s mom Eloisa´s house. For the first time, I really followed the conversation through and through. Before, I had made sure to have a prominent role in any conversation so that, if I needed someone to define or repeat words, I wouldn´t be interrupting. This time, I sat back and listened, to see if I could. The conversation centered around the question of whether women´s equality, while just, had made family interactions more complicated. I caught the drift, I caught the nuances, and I caught the details, almost as if I were listening to a dinner conversation back in Santa Monica.

Lately, I´ve been going out a lot more frequently to the Madrid bars during weekdays, but last weekend, after months of clubbing and bar-hopping, I had my first stay-at-home movie night. My Venezuelan friends live in Spain, and I came over to their house with a few others to play basketball and watch Jarhead. (Speaking of which...kind of a mediocre movie.)
It was a journey to get there, though. Their house is even more in the suburbs than my host family´s. I overshot, and ended up hitchhiking a ride with José, a shy Spanish guy who wore braces and, as if inspired by the improvements made to his own mouth by the orthodontic correction, was studying to be an orthodontist!
The Monday after the weekend, I had an interview for a teaching job at an English school called Tutordidact. Victoria, the friend who had recommended I apply for a job at Tutordidact, was coincidentally at the school before my interview.
"Nervous?" she asked.
"Cold as ice," I said.
Yeah right. But I got the job! The school provides the clients and the resources -- the books, photo-copiers, and folders -- but from there basically gives teachers full independence. It´s what I need right now: the full reign and responsibility that will make me get good at teaching quickly backed up by resources and experienced teachers with good advice. My first permanent client is the director of a company that owns multiple golf courses. (And if that weren´t intimidating enough...he´s a beginner, in my opinion the hardest type of student to teach.) And I´m substitute teaching Victoria´s classes (she´s in Canada for Christmas) -- two groups at a renewable energy company.

This weekend, Victoria, Steffen, Erika, Victor, Cesar, and I went to Ávila. We had been to Segovia about a month before, and Segovia had been beautiful and incredible, with an intact Roman aqueduct, a castle that looked straight out of Disneyland, and a gorgeous Cathedral. We expected Ávila to be similar, and it was nice, but basically all it has is a very old city wall.

Through all this, I´m still giving lessons to Oscar, the coolest Madrileño I´ve ever met. At this point, we split our time between paid classes, conducted mostly in English, and chilling, conducted mostly in Spanish. At first, this arrangement was a little awkward. Friendship and business don´t naturally mix. But I now just stop counting hours when the lessons seem to have ended and the chilling sessions seem to have begun. And the truth is, I´ve probably learned as much Spanish culture and slang from him as he´s learned English from me.

Borders

This post would not be complete if I didn´t say something about my new life long love, so I´ll start with her. She´s got curves, and she´s beautiful. I ride her nearly daily, sometimes nightly, and always ever so rightly. (She´s usually on bottom). She likes to go fast, which is good, because I do too.
I bought her second-hand at Dak-Tak, perhaps the only skateboard shop in Madrid. The best €70 I ever spent - riding that board through the streets of Madrid fulfills fantasies.

Britney, a good friend here, left for Canada. It was a sad night, though we made it a good one (we being Britney, her Swedish friend named Daniel, and me). We went to my favorite bar, a cidrería called "El Tigre" in Chueca, the gay neighborhood, where giant tapas (free food that comes when you buy drinks) nicely set off good cider and dead moose on the walls. From there, we went to another gay bar, and after that a jamming jazz club.

The fun night was interrupted by a reality check. While in the second bar of the night, I decided to get a breath of fresh air outside. On the plaza, shady-looking group asked me if I had a light. I didn´t, but they started chatting with me. I take any chance I can to talk in Spanish, so I chatted back. One guy asked me where I was from.
"California," I said.
"¡California!" he said. "¡Fútbol, sí!"
"That doesn´t really make sense," I remember thinking. "Sí," I said, non-commital.
He started demonstrating a football tackle on me. "I guess he meant American football," I thought, but still, I was a little weirded out. Plus, his friends were muttering, "No, Pedro, no hagas..."
Then he reached into my back pocket. Thankfully, my valuables were in my front pockets, and all I had in my back pocket was a "Calvin and Hobbes" cutout from a newspaper I´d been reading (actually, pretty valuable).
"¿Que haces, cabrón?" I yelled. (What are you doing, motherfucker?). I tore the newspaper from his hands.
"Broma, broma, broma," they said. (Jokes.)
I looked at them. Bewilderment mixed with growing anger as I realized what had happened. I went back into the bar, and we split. I was still fuming until we got to the jazz club.
At the metro, Britney and I parted ways. It was really a sad moment. She was the first good friend in Spain to leave.

Members of the Basque separatist terrorist group ETA shot down two Civil Guards members. One died immediately, and the severely wounded one died days later never having left his coma.
The two major parties united to demonstrate against terrorism, although the public split into pro-Zapatero and anti-Zapatero divisiveness (Zapatero is Spain´s President). There were smaller daily reminders, too; I was on the subway when it stopped for five minutes to honor the men killed.
Watching the TV reports the next day, my host dad Alberto saw Ibarretxe, the President of el País Vasco (the Basque Country), at the demonstration honoring the policeman who died.
"That´s good of him," he said in Spanish.
"Because even if he is a Basque nationalist, he still is against terrorism?" I asked.
"Yes," Alberto said.
Ibarretxe is trying to hold an independence referendum in 2008. Alberto and I began talking about the referendum.
"It would be unfair to have an election now, when ETA makes it dangerous to campaign against independence, but if there were no violence, wouldn´t it be better to hold the referendum?" I asked. "In Canada, Quebec holds referendums on independence, and I think there´s a lot less strife partly because Quebec´s citizens have the power to choose their autonomy."
Firstly, he answered, the referendum would probably fail right now, but Basque students read history books with blatant separatist bias, so sooner or later a majority in the Basque country will want to separate. The area has been part of Spain for centuries, and before Ferdinand the Catholic married Isabella of Castile, it was part of Aragon, but the textbooks stress the separate race and language. So eventually, a referendum would be more than an exercise of the power to choose -- it would make separation a reality.
"Okay," he continued in Spanish. "Besides the fact that it´s unconstitutional, that it´s illegal -- so, above the law, in high moral thinking -- is the referendum a good idea? Well, where does the Basque Country start and end? There are three parts -- Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia and Araba. And one is more Basque than others. And who should vote? How about the people who have fled because of ETA? Should they be left out?"
In talking about nationalism, I hadn´t really considered how important that point was. Borders are arbitrary, and that means self-determination is messy. Borders rarely capture the whole situation.

I wrote about my pride for the US in the last blog post, but there´s some contradiction feeling pride for a country that only has to do with me by chance -- born by chance within arbitrary borders.
Really, my pride for America is irrational, an emotional pull from wherever I come from. It´s similar to my love for California, for Los Angeles, for Santa Monica, even for Harvard-Westlake, recognizing its many flaws. And I think that irrational love is good, a force that gives cultures power to stick around, stay signifcant, and keep their variety.
It´s good only to a point, though. Eventually, love for the place you come from can separate you from where you didn´t, and at that point it´s good to remember that where you come from is a made up name with made up borders. Until then, it´s good to celebrate.

Identity by contrast

I was getting some copas (drinks) with my German friend Steffen and his Canadian friend Danielle. Never having met her before, I asked her where she was from.
"New Brunswick," she said.
"Oh, is that right above Maine?" (I took a lucky stab, knowing that at least some of Canada has gotta be above Maine.)
"Yeah!" she said. "Do you know Canadian geography?"
"Not really," I answered. She pulled out a map that she had drawn for someone else. "Wait, let me try to draw what I do know," I said. I knew Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.
"We´re you neighbor!" she said disapprovingly. "How do you know only four provinces?" She gave me the others.
"Well, do you know every state in America?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Wow."
"We had to learn the states and capitals in school," she said. "Americans don´t take the trouble to learn because they´re too egotistical. No offense."
"Maybe it´s because America is a bigger player on the world stage," I said. "Do you know every province in France'" I asked Steffen. "And do you know every province in Russia?" I asked Danielle.
"Russia isn´t our neighbor."
"They´re your neighbor to the west."
"There´s an ocean separating us."
I didn´t press the point.
"Do you know who our Prime Minister is?" she asked.
I tried to think. "I know he´s conservative," I said, cringing. That´s one I should have known.
"Steven Harper," she said smugly. "He´s the reason we´re in Afghanistan."
"Oh," I said. "So, do you, um, support that decision?" It was pretty clear she didn´t.
"No, I don´t. Canada´s role has always been as peacekeeper. We shouldn´t be fighting."
I asked her why there was a difference between fighting for peace and handing out food for peace (or whatever it is she meant by "peacekeeping" -- some people mean fighting). If both create peace...
She buckled a little there. "The point is, we shouldn´t be fighting the US´s wars," she said. "Especially one as pointless as Afghanistan." I raised an eyebrow or two. I´ll be the first to say that the poppy, heroine, warlord, and violence ridden country is in trouble, but I think we had a good purpose.
"America just wants the oil," she said. That´s a line I hear a lot.
-- Except -- alarm bells were going off in my head -- it didn´t make sense in a conversation about Afghanistan. I had caught her in an outright falsity.
Usually, I try to respond reasonably to this kind of rhetoric and explain that, while neither war has been what I would consider a net good for the world, America, or the countries themselves, America did not intend the chaos and bloodbath. Except -- here I could be a bit more pithy.
"Afghanistan doesn´t have oil," I said.
She paused. Even she recognized that she´d made a mistake. "Well, America just wants to control the Middle East situation," she said.
"Let´s not conflate Iraq and Afghanistan," I said, not letting go of the huge error.
"The problem is that we don´t know why we´re in there," she said. "It was never clear."
I flipped a little.
"A terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda killed 3000 people," I said. "Afghanistan´s government, the Taliban, was protecting them. The US went in with a UN resolution to take out a government that was protecting a group that killed 3000 of our citizens. What´s unclear about that?"
My voice was level, but I stared at her like she was crazy.
She offered this pitiful explanation:
"Well, unless you´re super-political, it´s hard to know what´s going on." (That´s the way the brain works, I almost said; you need to expend effort to learn. But I kept quiet.) "We just get the news that yet another Canadian has died."
"Well, you want peace," I said. "A lot of Afghanistanis have died. But most didn´t die during the invasion. Most died after, in the chaos, and this is even more true for Iraq. The chaos might be our fault, but taking Canada -- or Germany, for that matter -- out of Afghanistan will just create more chaos and bloodbath."

Later, after she had caught the metro back to her house, Steven and I had another copa.
"I got really angry," I said. "It´s been a while since I got that angry in a discussion about politics."
"Yeah," he said. "Everyone´s entitled to their own opinion."
Had I been unfair? I wondered. Had I not given her opinion a fair hearing?
No. I had been TOTALLY fair.
"Sure, of course. But her story was wrong," I said. "She says oil, and that positively can´t be the reason. What happened on September 11 is pretty clearly the reason. So to try to make it seem like it was something else -- it´s a little disrespectful to the 3000 people who died."
"Yeah, and also, the fact that the US went in the a UN resolution is very important," he said.
"That´s true too," I said. "Here´s the thing. I think it would have been better if I had stayed calm. But I also think I was totally justified to be angry."

A few nights later, I was out again with Steffen, this time at O´Neils, an Irish bar in Sol. We met a German girl and a girl from Northern Ireland.
The anti-American attacks came again, hot and heavy.
There are 3 types of anti-America attacks.
1. The US has done bad stuff in the past.
2. The US is doing bad stuff now.
3. The US treats their own poor badly.
This lovely bar conversation saw all three.
The first US beef came up in the form of past US support for Saddaam and the Taliban. I explained that, while the support was probably a bad idea, looking back now with 20-20 hindsight is unfair when the USSR seemed so mighty and dangerous back then. (And moreover, if we go back far enough, every group has a legitimate complaint about another group. Germany doesn´t have such a clean record from the ´40s. England, France, Spain and Italy were careless colonizers. I could go on.)
Obviously, the second US beef came up. It always does, when we´re fighting two wars, one without a UN resolution. Both wars had good intentions, I said, as I usually do. I also honestly said that I was part of the Iraq protests.
The third came up in the form of our healthcare system, our welfare system. our slums, and our response to Katrina. I agreed that changes needed to be made to the healthcare system. I tentatively agreed that our welfare system could be more comprehensive, but I cautioned against welfare systems that were so "comprehensive" that they took away the incentive to work. By the time we (they) got to slums and Katrina, I was spent.

I used to say that I wasn´t patriotic. The heavy symbolism put me off -- the flag-waving, the group expressions of allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands, "One Nation, under God" -- and that kind of patriotism still makes uncomfortable.
But while I continue to push against the group shows of loyalty through symbols, by the most basic definition of patriotism, I am patriotic. I am proud of my country.
As far as I can tell, we are the oldest continuous democracy still in existence. We have a free press, we have freedom of religion, and we are largely free to speak our minds. We are go-getters and innovators. Slums be damned: of the countries our population size or larger (there are only two others), we have the highest standard of living and the most equality of wealth. We are still the land of opportunity, with the most immigrants in the world. We have absorbed more than 20 million legal immigrants over the past quarter-century.
America has caused a lot of bad, and we still do. But I think that, all in all, America is a force for good. And I am proud to be part of that force.

Back "home"

Stepping back onto the Madrid Metro, I felt a strange mix of familiarity and homesickness. I had been on these metro lines almost every day for two months, I knew this city far better than any that I had visited back in the US, I was excited to sleep in my "own" bed for the first time in two weeks, and I couldn´t wait to see my "family" again.
But the two week visit was one of the best of my life. Every city brought me to people I loved, most of whom I hadn´t seen since the end of June and all whom I hadn´t seen since the end of July.
On the metro, I took the 8 from the airport, transferring at Nuevos Ministerios onto the 6, running on auto-pilot through stations I know well. It was a stark contrast to the New York and Boston subway systems, where, no matter how simple my route, I asked for directions every time. I love knowing that I´ve mastered Madrid to the point that it´s my city away from LA, but I already miss the people waiting to meet me at the end of those unfamiliar United States underground rides.

Seeing my host family -- Eva, Alberto, Margie, Hector, and Dario -- was wonderful. We got right back into the swing of things.
I gave English lessons to Dario and Hector, and Alberto and Eva gave me a Spanish politics lesson. They have given me a first-rate education on Spanish current events (and American cinema, too -- they know more about movies than their Los Angeles host son -- it´s a little embarrassing), and the night I came back they updated me on the latest. The biggest news, and the most bizzarre, was an incident at an Iberoamerican conference (Spanish and Latin American leaders summit). Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was giving a speech, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez began interrupting him to call former Spanish President José María Aznar a Fascist. After multiple interruptions, the King of Spain asked, "¿Por qué no te callas?" In English: Why don´t you shut up? Usually, the King is supposed to sit above it all, the perfect diplomat...This time, he lost his temper.
It seems as though Chavez was looking for a fight, because tensions have exploded way out of control considering how small the incident was. Chavez wants Spain to apologize for crimes it committed when it had colonies in Latin America. And he and the South American leaders who are his allies have threatened to penalize Spanish companies.
Gifts that I´d brought from the states went over well. A Red Sox hat for Alberto (after I pretty much exhausted him day after day during the playoffs with Red Sox status updates), a scarf for Eva, a stuffed Schnauzer for Margie (well, for her daughter), and baseball gloves for Hector and Dario (the next night, Dario -- just 3 years old -- and I played catch!).

I got in Thursday. Friday and Saturday night, I went to a jazz club with a friend from Germany and my Venezuelan friends. The music really caught the best of this gap year so far -- the freedom, the unpredictablility, and the roaring ´20s night-lifestyle all rolled into one.