Politics »

Essay by Joseph Wilson on 31 October 2009
Corrupters and their noms de guerre

With corruption scandals erupting across Spain like a bad case of acne, angry taxpayers are all coming to the same conclusion; if in addition to walking and quacking like a sleazy conman, it also goes by the name of a sleazy conman, then in all likelihood you are dealing with a sleazy conman.
The biggest pimple to burst (and it is still oozing) is el caso Gürtel that has implicated major players in the Partido Popular from Valencia to Madrid in a web of shell companies and multimillion euro kickbacks (even …

Politics »

Report by Joseph Wilson on 31 October 2009
The byproducts of abortion politics

Abortion is synonymous with controversy all across the globe. Well, perhaps everywhere except in post-human France and in the social paradise called Scandinavia, but in Spain the debate has boiled up in recent weeks and brought out more than one episode of extreme behavior, suspicious dealings and even the downright oddball.

Before getting to the good stuff, it is worth setting the scene. The Spanish government has proposed to alter the standing abortion law to allow women to freely choose to abort in the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy, a time period that can be extended up to 22 weeks in the case of fetal deformity or risk to the mother’s health.

Culture »

Essay by Louis Hearn on 27 October 2009
Disney won’t show film in Spanish porno cinemas

Disney’s Buena Vista has decided not to release Saw VI in Spain after the Ministério de Cultura gave the film an X rating, effectively condemning it to a limited release in Spain’s porno movie theaters.
This brings up an important question facing Spanish society: do you not find it strange that in the age of Internet you still have porno movie theaters?
It also brings up another important question: do you really want to drive up the hype for this crapfest of a movie? Apart from the expected Internet indignation from genre …