Mount Orégano

(In case you’re not on the Christmas card list for me and my husband Jerry, here's our Christmas newsletter.)

We traveled to the United States twice this year to spend time with family. First we celebrated Jerry's mother's 80th birthday in Milwaukee in June, and then Fourth of July at Sue's brother Lou's home in Houston. In November we crossed the Big Pond again to go to Houston for a Burke family Thanksgiving.

Jerry is still working for IBM and this year traveled to Finland, where he ate reindeer, which is why Santa's sleigh (and UPS) arrived a bit slower. He's still studying Portuguese and is reading a lot.

Sue is no longer teaching English to Spanish teenagers. She earned a Masters-level diploma in Spanish-to-English translation and is now working as a writer and translator. She has already been assigned a novel by a US publisher. In addition, she got her Spanish driver's license, which is a lot more difficult than getting a US license and took months of study.

We ended the year with a trip in December to Valencia for Spain's science fiction convention (and took the photo of the Christmas display in the City Hall Square). We’re spending quiet year-end holidays here in Madrid.

Best wishes for 2014!

— Sue Burke and Jerry Finn

At one time, my alarm clock and my telephone (a fixed line — this was a long time ago) sat next to each other on the headboard of my bed.

One night I was awoken out of a deep sleep by the alarm clock (or so I thought). To switch it off (I was very groggy), I picked up the telephone handset. My alarm clock began telling me that it had left its sunglasses and softball with me. It wanted them back.

I know I said something in response, and in fact my alarm clock and I had a short conversation, but I don’t remember anything I said. I was too busy trying to figure out how an alarm clock could play softball. As an electric clock, it didn’t even have hands. It also didn’t have eyes, so why would it need sunglasses?

Could there be clock softball leagues? And who knew my alarm clock had a female voice?

The other party ended the conversation, and as I began to hang up the handset, I slowly understood what had happened. I had recently had a party. Someone had forgotten her sunglasses and a softball. My guest had called to recover them.

I had not talked to the alarm clock.

I asked around, and I waited for her to call back, but she never did. (What had I said?) After a year, I began to wear the sunglasses (hoping someone would recognize them), and eventually I gave the softball to the neighbor boys.

Inanimate objects rarely converse with us. One of my treasured memories, besides the time when the sun set in the east, is the time when I really thought I was talking to an alarm clock.

— Sue Burke

The real celebration of Christmas in Spain starts on Saturday, December 22, with the drawing of the El Gordo lottery. Lottery tickets cost €200 (about US$260), and are sold in one-tenth shares. Like many people, I bought my décimo share through work so that my coworkers and I can share the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. If I believed in lotteries more, I could also buy tickets through places like my newspaper kiosk or my supermarket and share their luck, or buy tickets directly from a lottery shop.

Luck is what matters. Spaniards believe in luck.

Here in Madrid, the number 17912 sold out fast because on 17 September 2012, the politician who headed Madrid Province resigned. Love her or hate her (few people are neutral), her resignation made for a big day. Moreover, her first name is Esperanza or “Hope.”

At work, we sent the receptionist to the lottery shop around the corner to buy a number at random, which she did: 29168. Is 29 January 68 lucky? Nothing significant seems to have happened on that date in any year ending in 68. I don’t know if this is good or bad.

The El Gordo jackpot is huge, €2,500,000,000 (over US$3 billion), but it gets split into 15,304 prizes ranging from €400,000 (about US$.5 million) for a first-prize décimo to 20€. I’ve never won anything yet, and I’d be happy to merely get my money back. My chances of winning something are 15.3%, so I’m not very hopeful.

It will take three and a half hours on Saturday morning to draw the winners and announce the prizes. The lottery began in 1812, and the winning numbers and prizes are sung by students of San Idelfonso School of Madrid. Yes, sung. You can watch a segment of the 2011 drawing here:
http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/loteria-de-navidad/especial-informativo-sorteo-loteria-navidad-2011-tercera-hora/1279229/

I think this year’s television advertisement is a creepy. There’s no real dialogue, so you can understand it (to the extent that it is understandable) without knowing Spanish:
http://youtu.be/QOqCsQ5cFzY
http://www.suenaconlaloteriadenavidad.es/web/el_anuncio.php

If you want to buy lottery tickets and you don’t live in Spain, they are for sale over the Internet. Most but not all of the vendors are legitimate. I can vouch for La Bruixa d’Or (the Golden Witch) in Sort, a town in Catalonia. In Spain, witches are lucky and the name of the town, Sort, means “luck” in Catalan:
http://www.labruixador.es/BruixaWeb/index.xhtml

— Sue Burke

Time zones yawn wide. Florida is six hours behind Madrid, so the election night party in Madrid started when the party in Florida would have ended if Florida knew how to count votes — that is, a little before midnight on November 6, 2012.

Four years ago, Democrats Abroad Madrid, the local chapter of the overseas branch of the Democratic Party, had organized an election night party at the Circulo de Bellas Artes, a big, venerable cultural center. This year we went for Sala Galileo Galilei, an old theater recreated as a popular live music venue.

The 2008 election had generated extraordinary enthusiasm. In Spain, the vote had been simplified to one question: Would the United States, with its racist past, elect a black man as president? Americans and Spaniards wanted to witness history, so although we had hoped for 2,000 people at the party, more than twice that number wanted to attend. And the night had been magic.

Now, the stakes seemed less historic, although American passions ran high among both long-term residents and students who had come to study abroad. Economic troubles in Spain and the US meant that Spaniards were following the election with a more personal interest this time, since a strong US economy could help pull Spain from its recession. Romney tended to remind them of Merkel.

This year, we chose a more modest site for the party, which turned out to be ideal for a party of 500. At 11:30 p.m. a volunteer crew arrived for tasks like decorating and setting up food sales. I was helping with the media. We expected about 40 journalists, and some were already waiting for me, looking for people to interview and hoping they could circulate freely through the crowd. “Of course,” I said. “Make yourself at home and talk to anyone you want.” They did, to the entertainment of party-goers.

Journalists found plenty of local color in the people wearing campaign tee-shirts and hats. One man even wore an Obama campaign tie. A volunteer painted faces. I led a cameraman to one woman who had come with tiny flags painted on her nails, and she was happy to display them. Best of all, we had life-sized cardboard cutout of President Obama so we could pose for photos with it. One television reporter did her standup with her arm around its shoulders.

Mostly, we waited. And waited, watching CNN projected on a screen on the stage. At 1:10 a.m., Florida was reported to be leaning Obama, and we screamed even though the vote tallies were coming in slowly. An hour later, I was getting the Obama sunrise logo painted on my cheek, but we paused when singer Liza Tredway took the stage to lead us in the national anthem.

Then it was back to waiting, watching CNN’s dogged reporting, cheering or booing results and projections until we were hoarse, checking the Internet for news, sharing gossip and nervousness, buying a snack and a drink, and waiting...

At 4 a.m., the news looked very good, but too many states — especially Florida, whose count in key areas was far from certain — were still too close to call. At 5:15, we knew the final outcome was near. The cardboard Obama moved across the room to witness the results more closely.

Then, at 5:20, CNN called the election. We cheered, we hugged, we kissed. Cardboard Obama went bodysurfing through the crowd.

Only one thing remained: the victory speech. The crowd thinned. Someone had apparently kidnaped Cardboard Obama because it couldn't be found. But we kept waiting to see the final act of this long night.

It didn’t come. Romney wouldn’t concede, even though Fox News had declared Obama the winner. Finally, the hall had to close. A friend and I shared a cab home in the cold, dark morning, and when I got to bed at 6:40, Romney still hadn’t conceded.

This had been a heated election, but Obama wasn’t as historic as he had been in 2008. Instead, he was a sitting president with a record of successes and disappointments seeking re-election. The magic had dissipated, but another process had begun that would be analyzed and overanalyzed for days and weeks to come. His victory would change America. I knew I could see his speech on the Internet when I woke up. And maybe Florida’s votes would have been counted, too. (No, they weren’t.)

— Sue Burke

[This is an encore post from 2009.]

Every Spanish town or city has its patron Virgin, and in a big city like Madrid, even neighborhoods have their own. Ours is Our Lady of Atocha. On the first Sunday of October — that is, today — she is taken out of the Royal Basilica of Atocha and carried in procession through the streets while neighbors applaud and cheer.

Tradition says that the statue was made by the disciples of Saint Peter while the Virgin was still alive. It's actually late Byzantine, although the veneration goes back centuries earlier. Saint Ildefonso, Archbishop of Toledo, wrote in 665 or 666 A.D. that an image of the Virgin was being worshiped in a small chapel near the banks of the Manzanares River.

Every local Virgin has her legends and miracles, and this is just one of Atocha's:

In the year 720, the mayor of Madrid, the knight Gracián Ramírez, often went to the chapel near the Manzanares to pray, but he went in secret because the area had fallen under the control of the invading Moors. One day the statue was missing, and as he searched for it, he pledged that if he found it, he would build a new chapel at that spot. He found it in a field of esparto grass, which is known as "atocha" in this part of Spain — thus, it seems, her name.

He gathered some men and construction began (at more or less the site of the current basilica), but as it neared completion, the Moors suspected that he was building a fort and amassed to attack. They badly outnumbered the Christians, and despite his prayers, Gracián feared defeat. To prevent his wife and two daughters from falling into the hands of the Moors, he brought them to the altar, drew his sword, and chopped off their heads. He left their corpses in the chapel and went out to fight to his death.

But at that moment, great flashes of lightning and deafening thunder blinded the Moors and terrified them. They trampled each other as they tried to run away, giving the Christians an easy victory. After the battle, they hurried back to the chapel to give their thanks. But when they arrived, Garcián discovered his wife and daughters on their knees praying before the altar — alive and well, but with a red line around their neck where he had severed their heads to remind him of his lack of faith.

(Astute readers will see a few historical problems with this story. Well, yes, such as the fact that the town of Madrid did not exist, and it so it had no mayor. It's a traditional story, and "tradition" in Spain means that you should take it for its dramatic, folkloric, or didactic value, not as fact.)

Over the years, the chapel became a church, and more miracles occurred. Eventually, the kings of Spain became regular worshipers, and Our Lady of Atocha became the patroness of the royal house. The church was rebuilt several times and eventually designated as a basilica. It was damaged during the French occupation in 1808 and burned down during the Civil War in 1936. The current building was inaugurated on Christmas Day, 1951.

But over the centuries, the statue, with its gentle, happy eyes, was always protected and saved.

Our Lady of Atocha is made of dark wood, 60 centimeters high from head to foot, seated on a throne with a crown on her head. She holds an apple in her right hand. The Christ Child sits on her lap, holding a book and raising two fingers in benediction.

The queens of Spain donate their wedding dresses to the Virgin, and when she goes out on procession, she wears splendid clothing made from them — as you can see in the photo.

She's one of the "black Madonnas" that became popular in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. Why were they black? No one is quite sure, but recent investigations have shown that they didn't turn dark through age. They were deliberately dark.

Today, she will be carried out of the church on a float decorated with flowers and candles. If it's like previous processions, as she emerges, the police band will play the Spanish national anthem, a royal march. Hundreds of people will greet her with applause and shouts of "Viva la Virgen!"

I hope to be there. I'm not Catholic, but Atocha is my neighborhood, and she's been here a lot longer than anyone.

— Sue Burke

After a slight delay (blame the day job), here are some photos from my vacation August 24 to September 9 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Chicago, Illinois. Above, the view from my hotel room in Chicago at Chicon 7 in the Hyatt Regency. More photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151090701588611.444578.537088610&type=1

— Sue Burke

My university major was political science, so of course I had to read Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes. In this book, written in 1651, Hobbes attempted to formulate a theory of a nation-state, and he did so wracked, as he admits, by fear. In 1640, in fear of his life, he had fled his home in Great Britain to Paris and then Holland during the English Civil War.

His book angered many people for its ideas about how states are formed by social contracts and about how states can only rule if they hold sufficient power by consent of the governed — among other radical ideas for his time and ours. Leviathan is still admired as one of the most well-reasoned philosophic inquiries into politics.

You can hear a discussion about it at A Partially Examined Life: a philosophy broadcast and blog: http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2009/06/07/episode-3-hobbess-leviathan-the-social-contract/

Chapter 13 (read it here) has earned the most fame, and I think it has some bearing on the situation in the United States and the use of firearms:

Hobbes begins the chapter by pointing out that all people are equal because they can all kill each other — and while he envisioned that someone physically weak might need to do it “by secret machination or by confederacy of others,” now firearms make each of us indisputably able anyone to kill at will.

He then says that since, inevitably, we will all sooner or later want something that someone else has or disagree with each other, we will be distrustful of each other because none of us can be safe from anyone else unless there is a powerful institution larger than ourselves, a common power which we all fear that can enforce peace. Without it, we cannot trust each other.

Without it, we will inevitably fight: to take each others’ possessions, to defend our possessions, or over differing opinions, such as religion or politics. So, without that common power forcing us to behave peacefully, we are in a constant state of war with one another. In a total war of all against all, we can have no industry since we cannot be sure we can reap its profits, no business because we cannot trust each other, no arts, no society, but only “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

And yet, he said, people want peace so they can have comfortable lives and the industry and business to create comfort. From this desire, people can be drawn into agreement to create a social contract for a peaceful civil society.

So much for Hobbes. And where is the US in this theory of government? Behind right-to-carry and “stand your ground” laws and increased arms sales, I see the perception that there is, here and now, a war of all against all — perhaps low-level, but very real. There is a perceived need to have a gun to be safe, even in a restaurant or movie theater, and certainly at home against intruders. The government is not perceived to be sufficiently powerful or competent to keep us safe, which Hobbes would consider a failed government.

Fear, and danger of violent death as a constant. No trust. And lives made smaller and poorer. Fights among citizens keep growing more vicious not just over possessions, but over opinions.

And yet, the vast majority of gunholders want peace and see no other way to secure it than by increasing their ability to kill at will, but I think this is a social contract in favor of greater war, not in favor of peace.

If Hobbes is right, this war does not need to continue. To stop it would take a willingness to create a social contract that involves everyone agreeing to give up some freedom to own and use lethal power at will — perhaps limiting the firepower of guns, perhaps requiring specific safety training for all gun owners, perhaps limiting the types of permissible munition, perhaps requiring insurance for gun owners the same way that cars must be insured. There are many other ideas that might begin to ratchet down the level of warfare.

These can be a hard concessions to make, which is one reason why Leviathan is a long book: what to give up, when, how, and the “unalienable rights” (in Hobbes’ words; the Founding Fathers had read him carefully) that cannot be agreed away.

Are we Americans willing to begin that long, hard process of negotiation to move away from a state of war and toward peace?

— Sue Burke

Beautiful: My husband and I spent yesterday hiking in Peñalara Park in the peaks of the Guadarrama Mountains near Madrid.

You can get there in a two-hour ride by commuter train, changing trains in the mountain town of Cercedilla to a narrow-guage line that snakes up the sides of the mountains to the park. More than 150,000 people visit each year — even a few foreign tourists who discover that Madrid exists beyond the Prado Museum and tapas bars.

A few more photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150977508858611.428818.537088610&type=1

The park’s website, in Spanish:
http://www.parquenaturalpenalara.org/

— Sue Burke