Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts
the stars to flight.

And, lo, the hunter of the east has caught the sultan’s turret in a noose of light.

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable – Christopher Howse: ‘A Pilgrim in Spain.

Cosas de España

Lenox Napier recalls an airport run, a few years back.

And here Lenox writes about the Murcian town that banned Muslim prayers on public properties, giving us a spectrum of media comments.

Declining Brits.

Many homeowners in Spain stand to be hit by an EU directive.

Property expert Mark Stücklin writes again on rent controls and their consequences . . .Rent controls are politically tempting but economically corrosive. . . . They might sound like a clever way to keep housing affordable, but when put into practice, they often achieve the opposite. Good political theatre but really an attempt to micromanage an entire market with blunt instruments and bad data.

A good question from a Spanish journalist: Spaniards know deadly heatwaves are now an annual event. So why are our politicians in denial? . . . Within Spain, the climate crisis too often becomes an excuse for superficial, party-political feuds. [But, then, just about everything does.]

Cousas de Galiza

Some Galician stats:-

• Since Covid, ‘tourism’ prices here have risen by 31%, the highest on the mainland and 2nd only to the Balearics. All that media attention on PV city, perhaps. Oh, and the heat further South.
• Pv city now has 85,000 residents, 10% more than early in this century. But this is only half the national growth rate.
• Pv province hopes to raise €23m via the daily tourist levy.
• So far, this has been the hottest August on record and, as in 2006, the coincidence of factors makes for dreadful forest fires, even if we ignore the imbeciles who start them deliberately.

Reader David in La Coruña follows up on yesterday’s moan of mine . . . The joys of driving. Most of the year it is lunatics doing food take-out deliveries. But summer! Along come the tourists, who desperately try to understand La Coruña’s road signage, different speeds for different lanes, and 4,000 traffic lights on every roundabout. Such fun.

THE USA and THE MAGA REALITY TV SHOW

The rest of the world is totally mystified by the US approach to firearms. These 2 podcasts – here and here – continue the astonishing explanation of how this came about. Essentially, since 1977, the NRA has committed a massive, multi-pronged and murderous fraud on US citizens. See the note below on the seminal 1977 event which changed everything from what had gone before for more than 200 years.

The NRA gave Trump 75m dollars legally and another 25m dollars illegally, to finance his election..

An awful stat: Since 2020, there have been 29 ‘mass shootings’ in the USA.

Trumpisms

• Putin will face very severe consequences, if no Ukraine truce is agreed. [Will he go as far as to accuse Putin of being nasty?]
• They begged me to become host of theannual Kennedy Center awards ceremony [for excellence in the performing arts.] I repeatedly said No but then changed my mind because it will increase ratings. And maybe I will give myself an honour at the next ceremony. [More confabulation or just lies?]
• I won the Michigan Man of the Year Award. [It doesn’t exist]
• My call with Putin was very good. I rate it 10 out of 10. [Yes, but for whom? ]
• We win EVERYTHING.

Trump is said here to have smashed Washington’s economy. “I will make our capital great again!” Trump declared. But away from the drama of this announcement, the city is teetering on the edge of a recession triggered by his crackdown.

Trump alone in a room with Putin is a recipe for disaster – just look to their last meeting.

Canada hits back. Creating agricultural disasters south of the border.

Russia v Ukraine

• Putin has good reasons to be hopeful re Friday. Unlike Moscow, Trump is desperate for a peace deal. And there are no Russia experts in Trump’s corner to stop him from falling for Putin’s notoriously sly talk. Negotiations with Moscow have been led by real estate developer and foreign policy newbie Steve Witkoff.
• The Russian view: The Europeans support the diplomatic efforts of Washington and Moscow to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, but in reality the European Union is sabotaging them. Translation: They are trying to stop Trump making unilateral concessions of Ukrainian territory to a murderous invader.

Did you know?

• A new human species – now extinct, of course, – is said to have been discovered in Ethiopia. But the jury might still be out on this, pending more bone findings.
• There is a shark swimming around in waters off Greenland which is more than 400 years old. If she could talk . . .

Finally . . .

Good question . . . Should Adam and Eve really be portrayed as having navels, as they usually are?

The 1977 NRA meeting in Cincinnati,

This is famously known as the “Revolt at Cincinnati”.Itwas a pivotal event that marked a significant shift in the National Rifle Association’s leadership and mission. At this annual convention, a grassroots movement led by former NRA president Harlon Carter [a convicted murderer] and gun rights activist Neal Knox effectively overthrew the existing “Old Guard” leadership of the NRA.

• The revolt brought in new leadership focused more aggressively on defending Second Amendment gun rights.
• The revolt shifted the NRA’s mission from one centered on hunting and marksmanship to prioritizing the defense of the right to keep and bear arms as a political cause.
• The revamped NRA leadership increased funding for lobbying through the Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and embraced a much more politically active stance.
• After the revolt, the executive VP position became member-elected, and the NRA became more of a political force defending gun ownership rights fiercely. [And utterly dishonestly]

Overall, this event marks the transformation of the NRA into a hardline political advocacy group, moving away from its traditional sportsmen’s organization roots toward a staunch defender of gun rights in American politics.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

The Usual Links . . .

You can get my posts by email as soon as they’re published. With the added bonus that they’ll contain the typos I’ll discover later. I believe there’s a box for this at the bottom of each post. If you do this but don’t read the posts, I will delete your subscription. So perhaps don’t bother if you have other reasons for subscribing . . .

I can also be read on Facebook.

For new readers: If you’ve landed here looking for info on Galicia or Pontevedra, try here. If you’re passing through Pontevedra on the Camino, you’ll find a guide to the city.

If you´re thinking of moving to Spain, this link should be useful to you.