sqeeezy
Well travelled
- Location
- Southern Spain
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Now, I don't mean to be picky, but I don't find this self-evident. I'm a liberal and a libertarian, but I count myself simply lucky to be alive, relatively free and still able and allowed to chase happiness. I just don't get the concept of a Human Right. We're a successful ape species; do the other apes have Rights too?
So when people protest at the covid restrictions, that their Right to Liberty is being curtailed, I don't empathize. It's vital, as the Founding Fathers stated, to keep the Feds in check, for sure, and in Spain the government has had no problem issuing over-draconian decrees. This irks me, lets fight it, yeah, but cut the Rights crap, we only get what we fight for and this has been true like, since forever, so wise up, chill out, and remember we are all of us on the same small, precious, delicate, beautiful, blue planet.
In Spain the numbers are getting bigger again and the poor overworked healthcare professionals are risking their lives, so the politicoes have decreed we mustn't go out at night, and until Nov9 we must stay within out own municipality.... what?!?! ....My municipality, Carataunas is small; it's got a pharmacy, a town hall and no shops.
Liberty is a relative thing; before, I was forbidden to ride out for fun, now they forbid me to leave my 'hood. Even birds are chained to the sky, grasshopper...
So rain is forecast tomorrow so lets see what an end to end tour of my municipality is like, doing it CW like a blind man in a maze.
down the Cerro Negro track, mostly dirt, but they've concreted some of the steep bits.
built to commemorate the miraculous vision of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal, nice place, once a year they have a fiesta with beer, fireworks and awful music
up to the top of Cerro Negro to the Civil War bunker; i'm thinking they might be bullet marks on the entrance wall, a similar number of deaths to the American Civil War and many atrocities. There was a front line around here.
a local kid used to steal bits of mopeds and stashed them here, he left some graffiti and splots of paint
the shopping town, valley full of olives and oranges and the sea air coming up the valleys from twenty miles away
my pueblo, Carataunas, repopulated after the Moors were expelled, and a bit of local bother with the people that were left, with folk from the far north of Spain, like deporting all of Dixie to Brazil and repopulating with Bostonians
The Rio Chco bridges, new and old, just in case, the western end of my municipio. I must turn round here.
España, where there is a fiesta somewhere every day, well, used to be....
this is quite nicely done, but it's just the first taste of an awful kitsch Disneyfication thing where they've made a phoney witch's cave, to give tourists something to take photos of
I was allowed up to the grotty grotto, on the Soportújar town limit, then turned round
oops ten files, that's my lot...
Went back up the main road towards Pampaneira, just over the limit, took a photo of an incredible acequia (water canal), now in disuse, hewn out of a sheer rock face on the eastern side of the valley, where if you slip, you fall, and if you fall you die. I tried walking along ot once and didn't get very far. I don't know anyone who's ever done it. Turned round and back home. Picked a panful of chestnuts from outside my house to roast and ate some cheese with some delicious carne de membrillo, quince conserve with apple and almonds that a neighbour dropped off yesterday. So that was 19 more km on the clock, and a little bit of Liberty, and it was sweet.
Now, I don't mean to be picky, but I don't find this self-evident. I'm a liberal and a libertarian, but I count myself simply lucky to be alive, relatively free and still able and allowed to chase happiness. I just don't get the concept of a Human Right. We're a successful ape species; do the other apes have Rights too?So when people protest at the covid restrictions, that their Right to Liberty is being curtailed, I don't empathize. It's vital, as the Founding Fathers stated, to keep the Feds in check, for sure, and in Spain the government has had no problem issuing over-draconian decrees. This irks me, lets fight it, yeah, but cut the Rights crap, we only get what we fight for and this has been true like, since forever, so wise up, chill out, and remember we are all of us on the same small, precious, delicate, beautiful, blue planet.
In Spain the numbers are getting bigger again and the poor overworked healthcare professionals are risking their lives, so the politicoes have decreed we mustn't go out at night, and until Nov9 we must stay within out own municipality.... what?!?! ....My municipality, Carataunas is small; it's got a pharmacy, a town hall and no shops.
Liberty is a relative thing; before, I was forbidden to ride out for fun, now they forbid me to leave my 'hood. Even birds are chained to the sky, grasshopper...
So rain is forecast tomorrow so lets see what an end to end tour of my municipality is like, doing it CW like a blind man in a maze.
down the Cerro Negro track, mostly dirt, but they've concreted some of the steep bits.
built to commemorate the miraculous vision of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal, nice place, once a year they have a fiesta with beer, fireworks and awful music
up to the top of Cerro Negro to the Civil War bunker; i'm thinking they might be bullet marks on the entrance wall, a similar number of deaths to the American Civil War and many atrocities. There was a front line around here.
a local kid used to steal bits of mopeds and stashed them here, he left some graffiti and splots of paint
the shopping town, valley full of olives and oranges and the sea air coming up the valleys from twenty miles away
my pueblo, Carataunas, repopulated after the Moors were expelled, and a bit of local bother with the people that were left, with folk from the far north of Spain, like deporting all of Dixie to Brazil and repopulating with Bostonians
The Rio Chco bridges, new and old, just in case, the western end of my municipio. I must turn round here.
España, where there is a fiesta somewhere every day, well, used to be....
this is quite nicely done, but it's just the first taste of an awful kitsch Disneyfication thing where they've made a phoney witch's cave, to give tourists something to take photos of
I was allowed up to the grotty grotto, on the Soportújar town limit, then turned round
oops ten files, that's my lot...
Went back up the main road towards Pampaneira, just over the limit, took a photo of an incredible acequia (water canal), now in disuse, hewn out of a sheer rock face on the eastern side of the valley, where if you slip, you fall, and if you fall you die. I tried walking along ot once and didn't get very far. I don't know anyone who's ever done it. Turned round and back home. Picked a panful of chestnuts from outside my house to roast and ate some cheese with some delicious carne de membrillo, quince conserve with apple and almonds that a neighbour dropped off yesterday. So that was 19 more km on the clock, and a little bit of Liberty, and it was sweet.
