Reader Kathleen was kind enough to leave me the link to this article where Mikhail Gorbachev expresses a harsh criticism of Putin’s recent wave of repressions against the peaceful political protesters in Russia.

It is really tragic that Gorbachev, who did so much to bring down the Iron Curtain and demolish totalitarianism in the USSR, never had the approval ratings of Putin, the former KGB agent who steadily deprives the people of Russia of all the rights they gained thanks to Gorbachev’s courage. Gorbachev was always disliked in Russia. Today he is either hated or despised in the country. Putin, in the meanwhile, enjoys sky-high approval ratings.

As Joseph-Marie de Maistre said after working at the court of the Russian tsar Alexander I, “Every nation has the government it deserves.”

This stupid jerkwad who thought it was a good idea to dress her 3-year-old son in a shirt saying “I’m a bomb! Born during the jihad of September 11” should be brought up on charges of child abuse instead of on charges of promoting terrorism. The child should immediately be removed from the custody of this unhinged freakazoid. If she thinks it’s OK to do this to a small kid, just imagine the other inventive uses she will find for him.

Thank you, Kathleen, for leaving here this link. What would I do without my readers?

My sister and I are celebrating. I hope you are, too!

Yesterday, we visited Malasaña, the neighborhood in Madrid where the cultural movement of the 1980s called La Movida was born, lived, and died. La Movida reflected the Spaniards’ joy caused by the end of the fascist Catholic dictatorship of Franco. Finally, Spain could begin to live like any normal, developed country. People now had a chance to live the way they wanted, without having the priests and the military control their every move. They could practice their sexuality freely, wear whatever they wanted, listen to any music they liked, read and publish good books without fear, and enjoy existence.

 

I’m working on an article about a novel whose protagonist was part of La Movida, so it was very cool to see all the places that he frequented in the novel.

 

“La vía láctea” and “La vaca austera” are two of the bars where members of La Movida spent a lot of time. We walked around Malasaña during the day, which is why the bars are still closed in the photos. For the members of La Movida, the most important activity soon became hanging out in bars.

 

La Movida came to a bad end when the experimentation with the new-found freedom led most of its members to a heroin addiction at worst or alcoholism at best.

Today, Malasaña has been yuppified and has very little in common with what it used to be in the times of La Movida:

 

I don’t like the kinds  of movements like La Movida, so I prefer Malasaña to look like this:

I love looking at Madrid balconies. They are always so cozy and original. Here is one that features a pink flamingo:

 

Just imagine the happy, peaceful sort of person who wakes up one day and decides that life would be much more beautiful with a pink  flamingo  on the balcony.

And here is a balcony that has been turned into a veritable garden:

 

And here is another great balcony:

 

The most enjoyable part of any travel experience is to walk around, observing people and buildings. And in Madrid there is a lot to observe.

Today we went to the Thyssen Museum to see an exhibition of the Impressionist art of the plein air.  Here is the museum:

 

The selection of paintings was great but they were arranged in a very strange way. There was a room called “Rocks,” another one called “Clouds,” yet another one called “Trees,” etc. As a result, paintings were jumbled together irrespective of their chronology or the movement they represented. This made the exhibition more difficult to enjoy because many paintings really jarred by each other’s side.

I wondered why such an excessively formal approach was used to place the paintings. However, when we entered the museum’s souvenir store, my sister (who has an education as a marketing specialist) immediately understood what was going on. The store was filled with items that featured clouds, rocks, and trees. This way of arranging the paintings was simply an opportunity to sell items that would otherwise not have a chance of moving at a museum store.

The Royal Palace in Madrid is very beautiful:

 

The current King of Spain is currently in the hospital, recovering from an operation. Unlike the British monarch, Spain’s Juan Carlos I actually has a not-entirely-insignificant political role (other than distracting the general public from the problems the country faces with the endless family melodrama, which is obviously the only function of the British royal family.)

The King doesn’t live in this palace, though. Nowadays, it is a museum.

I don’t like this King because he had been a total suck-up to the fascist dictator Franco for decades and then had the gall to say that he had simply been pretending to support the dictatorship in order to maintain alive the hope of reestablishing the monarchy. As an important Spanish historian said, “We seem to have had franquismo without any actual franquistas.”

It is very heartening to see that the Jewish people are willing to give Spain another chance. Here is what we found on our walk around the old center of Madrid:

For now, the House of Sepharad offers a cultural center and a small museum open to the public.

 

After visiting the House of Sepharad, we walked over to the imposing Royal Palace (“Ah, at least all the killings and plunder served some purpose,” my Peruvian brother-in-law commented when he heard about the visit.) In front of the palace of the Spanish Kings a Latin American gentleman was playing “Hava Nagila” on an accordion.

 

There is a great lesson of history here: you can oppress and persecute all you want but eventually you will end up on the trash heap of history while the oppressed will sing and dance on your grave.

 

For the first time ever, I have eaten a paella in Spain. My sister is here, and she is feeding me really well.

This is a very nice restaurant called “Le pain quotidien” that serves very good (albeit expensive) food but they have come up with a very weird substitute for menu holders. In the midst of a harsh economic crisis, this looks quite inconsiderate.