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Archive for the ‘Spain’ Category

And the World Cup Winner is……

6:36 am By Maegan La Mala · Spain|Sports · 5 Comments

12 Jul 2010

España

In what felt like the longest World Cup final match ever, Spain won the World Cup over Holland in overtime, 1-0.

In what felt like a a yellow card throwdown between the two teams, Spain dominated the Jabulani but still couldn’t get a goal in until the second 15 minute overtime set. I have to say , I was especially impressed with the Spanish goalkeeper Casillas, who was catching balls and flying through the air making sure that Holland didn’t get one in the net.

I know in downtown Manhattan, every Spaniard and wannabe Spaniard was in the streets celebrating so I can’t even imagine what the scene was like in Spain.

Pulpo Paul’s prediction was correct. La Madre Patria for the win.

Images y Video Via / Peace FM Online

Today’s World Cup Games : Colonizers vs Past Colonies

7:42 am By Maegan La Mala · Brazil|Chile|Spain|Sports · 1 Comment

25 Jun 2010

My political mind can’t help but look at some today’s World Cup matches and think how sports intersects with issues of nationalism.

At 9:30 am EST Portugal vs. Brasil and at 2:00 pm Spain vs. Chile.

F*$% You SIDA

9:56 pm By BiancaLaureano · GLBT|Health|Spain · 3 Comments

21 May 2010

I’m loving this award-winning HIV prevention ad created by a LGB non-profit in Spain. There are several components of what I had listed on my wish list for Latin@s during Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. Read more about this video from Blabbeando.

Video is NSFW as it uses profanity.

Do you think something like this could/would work in the US?

English Only Makes It’s Way to Spain Via Kohl’s

6:16 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Fashion|language|Shopping|Spain · 8 Comments

10 May 2010

VivirLatino reader, Gilbert Velasquez, went into his local Kohl’s when he came across a section with shirts that had the names of different countries across them. As he looked through them he saw a shirt for Spain that had the text “ESPANA” written across the front. They had incorrectly spelled “ESPANA” with an N.

Is this laziness on the part of the manufacturer? Did they think that people outside of Spain or that Spanish speakers wouldn’t notice? Could they not find the ñ?

What’s particularly funny to me is that it’s being marketed as a way to show pride- with a typo. On the Kohl’s website, where you can also buy the product (see here), in the product description it says:

“Espana” graphic offers national pride.

If there were such a country as “Espana”, maybe.

I reached out to Kohl’s customer service and Public Relations departments and will let you know what they say.

The difference between an n and an ñ is the difference between a year and an asshole (Spanish speakers/writers should figure that one out).

“Miss Spain” Moves to Mexico

6 Jul 2009

Times are tough for beauty pageants. With every year that passes they become more irrelevant and more of a joke than a competition to most. Perhaps that’s why Spain’s “Miss España” pageant is suffering so much that they need to take the show on the road: to Mexico. The organization’s president admits that the economic crisis is what lead Miss España to leave la madre patria and move to el nuevo mundo:

It is the first time in 49 years that the event will be celebrated outside of the country. “The world economic situation has forced us to open up borders,” said Andrés Cid. He also mentioned that the decision will “possibly open doors to future events in different places around the world…”

Why Mexico? Because the Mexican tourism industry is still suffering the effects of the swine flu and needs a platform from which they can talk the hundreds of thousands of Spanish tourists who visited the Riviera Maya each year into coming back.

So it works out like this: lack of interest on the part of the Spanish public and low ratings = the pageant needing money. Mexican tourism authorities buy something that won’t work for them, since no one is watching this in the first place. Nice little deal.

Via / 20 Minutos

Surreal Sports News: U.S. Soccer Crushes Spain, the World’s Greatest Team

5:14 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bizarro|Spain|Sports|Twitter · 4 Comments

24 Jun 2009

I’m not a huge sports fan, but I can get into futbol. One thing I always get from my soccer fan friends from Latin America and Spain is what a joke the U.S. team is. But what you expect from a country who thinks soccer is for sissies and only knows David Beckham for his modeling gigs. Sheesh.

So what was my surprise when I saw that the number one trending topic on Twitter was the word “Spain” and found that the world was tweeting this astonishing outcome in the FIFA Confederations Cup semifinals today: the U.S. mopped up the floor with Spain in a 2-0 win. For those of you who don’t know, Spain is the number one team in the world, and boasts some of the sport’s most talented athletes.

Spain went into this game with the confidence of the jock who always clobbers the wimpy kid and got clobbered themselves. But this isn’t just shocking to me; this is world soccer history: the U.S. today became the first team to beat Spain since 2006 and some experts are calling the victory the best performance since they defeated England 1-0 in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil.

Might this help get some momentum moving in making soccer a more popular sport in the U.S.? I doubt it. I mean, how many of you had ever heard of the Confederations Cup before this? How many even care to know what it is? Yeah, I thought so. But it would be nice though!

In the end, Spain loses more than just a game (and their chance at the finals for this tournament): they lose face. As you might expect, Spain is devastated and fans are blaming the loss on the cockiness and overconfidence of their (nearly) invincible team.

Via / Twitter

Undocumented Worker Loses Arm in Workplace Accident, Boss Throws Arm in Trash

5:40 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bolivia|Labor|society|Spain|World · Comments Off

11 Jun 2009

241016 Here at VL we’ve heard all sorts of stories about worker abuse from all over the world. Quite often, the victims in these cases are undocumented workers. This story from Spain just might be the worst I’ve seen yet. When a Bolivian immigrant worker in Valencia, Spain, lost his arm in an accident at the bread factory where he worked, his employer threw the arm in the garbage. Bolivia’s El Deber reports:

The accident occurred the 28th of May when the employee, Franns Rilles, a 33 year-old Bolivian, was working the night shift in an industrial bakery in Real de Gandia, in the Mediterranean region of Valencia.

According to the regional secretary of CCOO [Spain's most powerful workers Union], Josep Antoni Carrascosa, after the accident, the bakery’s owner drove the injured man towards a hospital in Gandia “but at about 2 km from the medical center he left him to his own devices”.

Shortly after, the owner “returned to the factory, cleaned up the blood and threw the arm into a trash bin,” according to the Union, which will sue the owner [on behalf of the victim].

Yet another story that tests our faith in humankind.

The victim had been working 12-hour shifts at the company for 2 years, where he earned the equivalent of $32 per day.

Via / El Deber

As Spain’s Economy Declines, Latinos Want to Go Back Home

8 Jun 2009

planretorno About a year ago, the Spanish government launched a campaign that was somewhat controversial among immigrant groups: el Plan Retorno (“Return Plan”), a program offering monetary assistance (basically early unemployment benefits and a paid ticket back home) to immigrants who are in Spain and want to go back to their home countries. When I first heard about this I thought to myself, “Why would anyone take a measly amount of money to go back after all they’ve gone through to get there?” What I wasn’t counting on was a real estate bubble — arguably the largest in all of Europe — bursting and leaving the construction industry in ruins. Construction was a prime industry for immigrants to Spain and suddenly tens of thousands were left jobless. The effects are being felt the hardest in Latino immigrant communities, and as a result thousands have already applied for benefits from the Plan Retorno. Argentina’s Clarín reports:

According to the latest data, 5088 foreigners living in Spain have asked to return to their countries with the help of the voluntary return program that started in 2008.

According to the Spanish Labor and Immigration Ministry, they have already processed 4,753 petitions, and 3,977 have been approved. Citizens of Latin American countries are the “primary applicants”, making up 91% of the petitions.

Applicants accepted into the program reportedly receive an average of 9000 euros (about 12,500 dollars).
Read more…

Almodovar to Make U.S. TV Series Based on “Women on the Verge”

2:05 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Culture|Movies|Spain|TV · 7 Comments

19 May 2009

Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is considered a comedic masterpiece and is a personal favorite of mine. One might think I’d be excited about the premise of bringing it to television, but more than enthusiastic, I am feeling a bit tortured. This will be either the best or worst show ever:

Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is venturing into television with a series adaptation of his first international hit, the Oscar-nominated 1988 feature “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

Fox TV Studios is developing the English-language hourlong project and has tapped Mimi Schmir to pen the pilot script. Almodovar and Schmir are exec producing [...]

The “Women” series “will be a suburban drama about a group of women who have known each other for a long time, perhaps from college, who are in the middle of their lives and looking at the second half of their lives,” Schmir said.

Like the movie, the series will feature a fair amount of humor. Schmir also is planning to pay homage to the movie by keeping some elements, like the film’s ongoing gag of unsuspecting visitors to the actress’ apartment being knocked out by sleeping pill-laden gazpacho she had intended for her philandering lover.

That sounds…boring. I am not going to judge too much before seeing it, but I think a lot about what makes Mujeres al borde special has to do with the when, where and who of the film. When? The 80s. Where? Downtown Madrid. Who? Some of the best comedic actors Spanish-speaking film as ever seen — and at their prime at that. How do you pull this off in a U.S. suburb? And furthermore, how do you make the premise worthy of an on-going series? I’m just not seeing it.

Have a look at the clip from the original classic and let us know if you think this show has any chance in hell of being good.

Via / The Hollywood Reporter

Arrests made: Basque/ETA

2:45 pm By la Macha · Controversia|Spain|Women · Comments Off

23 Apr 2009

I just got finished reading about how there has beenyet another arrest of an ETA top officials.

The serial arrests of ETA’s military chiefs may be even better news in the long term. The four captured over the past year apparently belonged to a hardline faction that pushed for an end to ETA’s ceasefire two years ago. Now there are signs that the peaceniks have regained control. Josu Urrutikoetxea, a veteran who took part in talks during the ceasefire, is said to be back near the top. Arnaldo Otegi, who has served time in jail for terrorist offences, has reappeared as a spokesman for ETA’s political arm. He is said to want a negotiated end to four decades of violence.

I honestly don’t know too much about the Basque/ETA conflict in the Spain region. I know through subcomandante Marcos that it is essentially a conflict over land–and that conflicts over land these days tend to wind up with “government” being “right” and those it’s stealing land from being “terrorists” (witness the recent Somalian “pirate” conflict). But I also know that far too often organizations engaged in violent resistance are beyond highly problematic for the women, disabled folks, queers and other marginalized people of the communities they are from.

So, I’ve been reading about the history of ETA–and as usual, when it comes to far too many factions and organizations that have a valid critique of the concept of the “nation/state”–it is a confusing, long, violent, and far too male centered history.

It reminded me a lot of FARC, an organization that may be rooted in ideals that I can support, but in practice, has become just as mercenary, if not more so, than the nation/state they hope to overthrow. I don’t know if ETA is totally mercenary (it seems like there is at least a faction of ETA that is trying to prioritize the needs of the community rather than the organization), but it sure does seem to have some big problems.

I’m interested in hearing from others who know more about this than I do. What do you know about ETA? Am I wrong in my conclusions? I don’t need a history lesson (unless you’re willing to offer one!) but I would really like to hear about these arrests from somebody who knows more about Basque/ETA than I do!

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