Revisionist History? Or honoring a dictator?

Imperial Spain, which financed Christopher Columbus' trip to the new world, and eventually settled predominant stretches of the region began to fall in the 17th century, and fell further still to Bourbon France.

Spanish loyalists set out on a path not unlike our own revolutionaries. They vowed not to respect the rule of France, developed a forward thinking constitution in 1812, and developed an insurgent movent to offer a grass-roots fight against the organized Bourbon forces. France was defeated the following year and King Ferdinand was restored to his throne.

Many Spaniards embraced the liberal changes to their restored country. Ferdinand and his loyalists did not, and the country descended in to civil war. The war ended in an atmosphere not of calm, but of tension. Queen Isabella eventually lost control of her nation, with the liberal revolutionaries establishing a Republic in the 1870s.

The monarchy fought back, selling or ceding its foreign territories developing insurgent movements of their own, bankrupting the country. The following decades brought movements toward a liberal Republic, that was often met by bloodshed of conservative loyalists. The liberals pressed forward against the bankrupt dictatorship. The monarchy fled the country. The liberals established another Republic in the 1930s that greater autonomy for the Basque and the Catalonians, the right to vote for for women, and democratic elections.

The move angered the conservative Nationalists, fearing that the democratic liberals would exacerbate Spain's decline both as a culture and as a world power. The country fell in to a civil war yet again in the 1930s. The elected liberal rulers were attacked by conservatives, anarchists, coalitions of staunch Roman Catholics. The liberal Republicans fought back fiercely, establishing democratic strongholds in key cities, receiving help from the USSR and from international brigades.

The success was short lived, as the nationalists commandeered support from the fascist regimes in Portugal, Italy, and Nazi Germany and pressed onward under the command of General Francisco Franco.

Hundreds of thousand lives later, the Republic fell, and the dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco began.

Franco issued strict conservative mores, establishing the Roman Catholic Church as par the government and requiring workers to obtain a priest's bill of good character before being able to work. Roles and behaviours were defined along societal bounds, including gender. Politics became starkly isolationist and tyrannical. Mass media was developed for the purposes of state propaganda Democracy abhored, opposition was exterminated, culture stood at a standstill....for 40 years. Yet he levvied his control to push the Spanish economy further from bankruptcy and more in line with his European neighbors.

When Franco's health went in to decline, democratic uprisers and national loyalists organized yet again, each prepared to jockey once again for the power of Spain. Progressive ideas seeped in to government cracking at Spain's isolation and tyrrany, leading to tensions yet again paralyzing the country. When Franco passed away, a parliamentary monarchy took hold, re-establishing a democratic process and writing a constitution. Spain had, finally, joined the modern world.

Franco's critics decried his oppression and human rights abuses. Yet many of his supporters praised how he brought Spain out of bankruptcy and more in line, economically with his European neighbors. Others praised championing of traditional values.

Now, Generalissimo Franciso Franco...is still dead.

Many want his statues to be next. Others, who have a prouder memory of Franco dercy the act as revisionist history.

Is it revisionist history? Or is it moving on from a dark, painful past?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123594813501604681.html

Stevie Ray and Jeff Healey...together!

3/3

Rememberance

Within the past several weeks I received word that a woman that I knew passed away. Her death was a surprise, but not entirely unexpected. I was saddened by this, even though I did not know her very well. I don't even know if she had extended family. But now that I've had some time to reflect on her loss, I've found that her passing moved me in ways that I wasn't expecting.

She was someone that I respected, for several reasons. While she wasn't a close friend of mine, she was near enough to be someone that made a positive difference in my life. When I felt that I was stuck at a crossroads, she helped me find my way. When I found my way, she helped me stay steadfast.

Her wisdom stuck with me. Upon reflection, I am realizing that I put her insight to good use perhaps more than I realized. And now, it is too late to thank her, to reach out to her again, or to try to get to know her better. This disheartens me a bit, although it is not something that leaves me devastated, either. Instead, it leaves me with a curious sense of inspiration.

Why did I not reach out to her more before? Unfortunately I'm not that good at telling people how I feel, and I am not that good at reaching to people to let them know that they are important to me. Hell...I'm not even good at keeping in touch with people...people that want to be in touch with me, people that want to be my friend.

Perhaps her departing gift to me to remind me of something lacking in myself...

Rest in peace, M. Thank you for everything.

Chemistry

Yes, I'm still mad that Rush did not play at the Olympics.

Probably my favorite Rush song, for many reasons.

What those reasons are...I'm not sure if I'll share online. ;)



Signals transmitted
Message received
Reaction making impact --
Invisibly

Elemental telepathy
Exchange of energy
Reaction making contact --
Mysteriously

Eye to I
Reaction burning hotter
Two to one
Reflection on the water
H to O
No flow without the other
Oh but how
Do they make contact
With one another?

Electricity? Biology?
Seems to me it's Chemistry

Emotion transmitted
Emotion received
Music in the abstract --
Positively

Elemental empathy
A change of synergy
Music making contact --
Naturally

One, two, three --
Add without subtraction
Sound on sound
Multiplied reaction
H to O
No flow without the other
Oh but how
Do we make contact
With one another?

And now that the winter olympics have come to a close...

I'm feeling a bit down, as I always do when these games come to a close...although the throat infection doesn't help...LOL.

Random thoughts:

NBC's coverage sucked, but they should be drawn and quartered for cutting off the closing ceremonies!!

I reaaaaalllly wish I had a recording of the closing ceremonies. The Moscow Chamber Chorus singing the National Anthem of the Russian Federation in the thundering acoustics of that stadium was...fierce. That captured the power, finesse, darkness, and mystery of Russian classicism like nothing else I've heard.

Someone somewhere on line referred to a broadcaster that I have never liked as "bewildered news anchor Tom Brokaw". I thought that was a fitting description, although I have to bregrudgingly give him props for his Gander story.

Canada is just damn cool.

The games were AMAZING.

THE BEST HOCKEY GAME EVER PLAYED, BAR NONE.

Oh yeah, there was other stuff too.

The Chinese pair that won gold after skating together for...18 years, or something like that? Bode Miller actually grew up. Lindsey Jacobellis f---ed up her snowboarding again. Ski cross and snowboard cross are insane. Julia Mancuso still wears a tiara. We actually beat a Russian in figure skating (how did that happen?). Shawn White's snowboard tricks...lemme just say I hope that guy doesn't end up with a broken neck! Apolo Ohno has gotten even easier on the eyes. A blind U.S. bobsleigh driver can see again. A Czech skier falls off an embankment, breaks ribs, messes up a lung.....and somehow wins bronze..give her a special award for that! A Polish skier wins her country their first Winter Olympic gold in a very long time.

But the question weighing on my mind....

WHY WASN'T RUSH IN THE OPENING OR CLOSING CEREMONIES????????

Sigh...only the best band ever...and they happen to be Canadian...




A certain measure of innocence
Willing to appear naive
A certain degree of imagination
A measure of make-believe

A certain degree of surrender
To the forces of light and heat
A shot of satisfaction
In a willingness to risk defeat

Celebrate the moment
As it turns into one more
Another chance at victory
Another chance to score

The measure of the moment
In a difference of degree
Just one little victory
A spirit breaking free
One little victory
The greatest act can be
One little victory

A certain measure of righteousness
A certain amount of force
A certain degree of determination
Daring on a different course

A certain amount of resistance
To the forces of the light and love
A certain measure of tolerance
A willingness to rise above