Trump...eting away

The election of Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States has been viewed as a catastrophe. Pundits, newsreels, journals, especially in Europe are rubbing their eyes in incredulity after seeing the US constituency award such a person with the highest official post in the country and, just as well, the world.
I may or may not see it coming but I was not entirely surprised. I could not see Hillary as the lesser of two evils. They were both quite undesirable, which seems what made a fair size of the American electorate to rather stay home. It's just another way of understanding democracy. That, plus the convoluted system of the electoral votes, so close to gerrymandering. Looks like at the end of the recount Hillary got more than 2 million votes over Trump. So there.

I read a recent article claiming the US contains eleven different cultures (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7) that may help non-Americans to understand why things are as they are.

I am not in a particularly optimistic mood, but I had the feeling Donald Trump cannot be worse than Ronald Reagan or GW Bush. He seems smarter than any of them... At the end, you have to judge the man not for what he says but for what he does, and that's to be seen.

So cheer up and enjoy the beginning of the season: Happy Thanksgiving!!

Surfing the web with the word "trump" I cliqued on "trumpet" and I stumbled on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa2vzx-aNrw

May this be my little gift.


..

From Thanksgiving to Aid al-adhaa

Here in Spain we do not celebrate (as yet) the Thanksgiving holiday. Some years ago I was asked by an American friend if we did celebrate Thanksgiving in Spain. My answer, straight, simple, was that we did not have many things to give thanks for. Alas! Those were the grey years of the “Dictadura”, Franco’s totalitarian state.
This year we did not celebrate, this past Thursday, Thanksgiving either. But some people in Spain were getting ready for celebrations just next day. Today is Aid el kebir, in Arabic العيد الكبير, the Big Feast, the Aid al-adhaa عيد الأضحى‎, approximately 70 days after the end of the month of Ramadan.
Some 45.000 sheep have been slaughtered according the ritual but, under the orders of the Generalitat exclusively in certified slaughterhouses all over Catalonia. A few less than last years because the economic crisis hits everybody and Muslims, immigrant o long time residents, have not been spared.
I have no Muslim neighbors—nor Americans for that matter—so around here there are no signs of festivities but, from whatever distance, I just want to wish them all a very happy celebration, roasted turkey or lamb equally enjoyable, my “besugo a la vizcaina” and nougat still one month away.