<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Nanda Ramon]]> 10 <![CDATA[The countdown begins]]> One year exactly until the end of the term. At the end of March next year, Parliament will be dissolved and elections will be called, and the PProhens-Vox pact will have completed its (first?) cycle.Despite the usual excuses – the fateful previous eight years, the unsupportive state government, the very lengthy preliminary studies...– it is starting to be time to assess the rupture, in case one absurdity has been burying the previous one and now, in Trumpian style, we can only recall the latest massacre.The general stench of the legislature is exasperating. The 2025 budget pact, for example, included the refusal to host immigrant minors from other territories or opposition to the European Green Deal. “Two issues that at no time have been an obstacle to negotiation,” Prohens enthusiastically stressed.The legislature has not been very democratic – neither in dialogue nor social dialogue – nor very scrupulous with procedures, with the abuse of opaque processing, such as amendments to the law on strategic projects, which aim to modify up to 50 laws through the back door. The body of parliamentary lawyers has already unanimously warned about this repeated modus operandi and its possible unconstitutionality.Another attribute of the mandate is the dissonance between the music – freedom, efficiency, streamlining...– and the lyrics: urbanistic amnesty, construction on rustic land, increase in urbanistic development rights, construction in flood-prone areas, privatization of public space...Or between what is said – promoting access to housing, fighting against tourist saturation...– and what is done: failure of secure rental programs and the Anti-squatting Office, refusal to limit rental cars and to increase the eco-tax, permissiveness with illegal tourist rentals...It has also been the legislature of euphemisms. See the emergency glossary: ‘freeing up land’, ‘paving the outskirts’; ‘boosting the economy’, ‘benefiting speculators’; ‘freedom’, ‘privileges of the elites’; ‘simplifying’, ‘eliminating controls and guarantees’; ‘accelerating procedures’, ‘outsourcing the Administration’...The educational legislature has been marked by the fiasco of the pilot plan – a stratagem to inject 21 million euros annually into 19 subsidized centers in exchange for violating the spirit of the linguistic regulations – and by the contradiction between what is said – the improbable creation of 77 new educational centers and an aerostatic ‘City of Arts’ is announced – and what is done – dismantling of IES Politècnic and CEIP Felip Bauçà, 3rd line in CEIP de Pràctiques...The Conselleria has clearly opted for educational privatization: private vocational training, subsidized 0-3 year olds and baccalaureate programs, diversion of students to subsidized schools, new private universities, complicity with employers... And for school segregation with the introduction of a single school zone and points per former student, which secures family privileges, blurs the neighborhood school, attacks equity, and makes equal opportunities impossible.Above all, it will have been a legislature daily enlivened by spectacular – and ghostly – projects: a train to Llucmajor that goes underground through Palma, a train to Alcúdia that pierces two entire mountains, various underground works (Gesa, Plaza Mayor, Paseo Marítimo...), exhibition centers, botanical gardens...Just now a metro line has been announced that will start... in 2029! and that (they say) will cost 230 million euros. Does anyone keep track of so many unrealistic projects? It would be advisable, because it is not until this year that we will have finished paying for the Palma Arena (90 million euros) and the Ibiza highways (2003) will not be fully paid off until 2035!The render is smoking, yes. Reality, however, follows a different pace: maximum tension in the old prison; the Catalina Valls theater closed since 2022; none of the 26 announced parking lots in Palma will begin construction this term; paralysis at the s’Aigo Dolça swimming pools (under construction since 2022), at the Son Forteza bridge, at El Tirador...; two years without collecting the fee from the bars in Parque de la Mar, inability to close the two illegal gas stations in Palma...The situation is getting complicated: 90,000 people on the waiting list in public healthcare, loss of 180 hectares of rustic land annually, project to destroy the west flank of the port of Palma: large repair area, Ibiza waste treatment plant, 10 hectares of new concrete docks...And few qualms in ideological matters: dental tests for immigrant minors, repeal of the memory law, hearing in parliament of ‘National Uprising’ and ‘Crusade of Liberation’, abandonment of people in situations of social emergency, obsession against Catalan (discounts, regressions, bites, exceptions...), 895 healthcare professionals without knowledge of Catalan...I'm starting to feel like moving a bit. Aren't you?

]]> <![CDATA['A real loser, Mr. Trump']]>

A projective test is a psychological assessment tool that detects emotional or personality-related aspects. The projective technique is based on the ability to elicit unconscious reactions in the subject through ambiguous stimuli, reactions that, in some way, reveal aspects of their personality: likes and dislikes, values, priorities, and so on.

]]> <![CDATA[Freedom in Mallorca]]> Parliament has just debated a proposal to restrict home purchases to non-residents. This initiative was particularly relevant given the dramatic housing crisis, and also somewhat unusual because, in times of chronic culture war, useful and concrete issues tend not to garner much interest. Political debate has long since detached itself from people's concerns and daily lives, preferring to roam comfortably in the dialectical stratosphere, which is more polished and requires little rigor or time.

]]> <![CDATA[Networks and freedom]]> In the midst of the debate about freedom, it's tempting to revisit the 5th century BC, during the great democratic revolution. War has empowered the demos And dialogue is a new strategy for reaching agreements. Power can no longer be limited to imposing reality. More equitable understandings are needed. Power is redistributed, society is rebalanced. Thus begins the great Sophist debate: the preeminence of Physis (natural law) or the Nomos (human law).

]]> <![CDATA[The 'good' intentions of the deadliest generation in history]]>

A few weeks ago Alba Tarragó He brought a smile to our faces—a slightly sad one, yes—with a piece about our New Year's resolutions. In it, he analyzed the explicit resolutions for 2026 made by a majority of social media users who had decided to openly "put themselves first."

]]> <![CDATA[Helicopter parents and children without limits: the world of 'Planet Me']]>

Although it may seem like a pipe dream now, there was a time when humans shared consensus on many matters. Even on the now highly subjective field of child-rearing: "Children walk at one and talk at two" was the illuminating, unifying motto that served as an educational compass on the fascinating journey through this evolutionary period.

]]> <![CDATA[Palma, capital of smoke]]>

"What cannot be, cannot be, and furthermore, it is impossible."That's the happy expression with which the bullfighter Rafael Guerra went down in history Little War, although the pleonastic expression is also attributed to Rafael Gómez Ortega The RoosterGo find him... In any case, it's about –excuse the oxymoron– bullfighting wisdom.

]]> <![CDATA[10 rules for not being a digital cretin]]>

The internet is a blessing, a new Alexandria—affordable and global—within everyone's reach. One of humanity's greatest advances and an inexhaustible source of wisdom and functionality.

]]> <![CDATA[General incontinence]]>

The media is reporting on a major controversy. A great injustice perpetrated by the Palma City Council: the Christmas lights don't reach all corners of the city with equal abundance and intensity. Intolerable.

]]> <![CDATA[Apocalypse and banality]]> I'm writing this article in mid-November from 39°N 2°E. In Palma, of course. Today we reached 26°C and the low didn't drop below 20°C. Before this article is published, the high will fall nine degrees below today's low, and the snow level will be at 600 meters. By the end of the week, we'll see another rise above "normal" values. A sprawling summer and a rollercoaster of temperatures—a lethal combination for nature reserves, agriculture, and safety. From my window, I see Christmas decorations, churro stands, and chestnut vendors. People are strolling around in sandals, shorts, and tank tops. They don't seem worried.

]]> <![CDATA[Language and school: where are we now?]]> "Throughout the entire legislature, the only measure from Vox's program that has prospered in the Balearic Islands has been allowing minors to attend bullfights." Olé.

]]> <![CDATA[Pretty, pretty, isn't she?]]> A few weeks ago Ignasi Aragay published an unusual view of Catalonia in ARAIt was a description—partly concrete and partly paradigmatic—of the first hour of the train journey from Barcelona to Girona. The title practically makes reading the entire article unnecessary: The ugly CataloniaThe tone and content are easy to imagine, and yet it's not a skimpy read.

]]> <![CDATA[Regarding the saint's day]]> It's not that we don't like festivals. On the contrary. We're starting to feel a bit like Pep with all this celebrating. If before people were governed by the 'work' calendar—sowing, harvesting, tondre, grape harvest, slaughtering...—now we obey the 'festival' calendar—bonfires and demons, carnival, Easter, popular festivals, Christmas...—which is equally exhausting.

]]> <![CDATA[Bureaucracy 2.0]]> Virtually any term can have a direct or denotative use – aseptically collected by the dictionary – and an intentional or connotative use, which 'enriches' the word with all kinds of associated values, both positive and negative.

]]> <![CDATA[Digital streamlining]]> In Leaving the vampire's castle Mark Fisher had already warned of the toxic and destructive atmosphere that, alongside the expansion of social media, had poisoned the left. Fisher detected a dangerous tendency toward maximalism and culture war (above class warfare), the boasting of moral purity, finger-pointing, digital lynching, and a marked inclination toward overacting and spectacle.

]]> <![CDATA[Teachers who stick together]]>

I'm looking for the Roman theater of Pol·lèntia at sunset. Last night they performed The butchers, by Guillem Frontera, in the unique and vigorous playwright of Miquel Mas Fiol. I don't want to get lost. I get a little disoriented and, walking from the vacant lot where I'd left the car, I end up in a crowded litter. Some North African children are spinning tops in front of some isolated houses. I rush to them to see if they can help me.

]]> <![CDATA[Countries and airports]]>

One of the good news stories of the summer, and there is one, was that in just a couple of days, the GOB managed to raise more than enough money to cover the legal costs of the appeal it filed in 2020 against the expansion of the illustrious and never-beloved Son Sant Joan Airport.

]]> <![CDATA[What's at stake?]]> This July, we've experienced a considerable media offensive by the "tourism" industry, which was supposed to be "making a killing" at this point.

]]> <![CDATA[Educational freedom, a practical case]]> The official opening of the last school year was a declaration of intent. President Prohens chose a highly significant setting for the occasion: a visit to the La Salle Mahon State High School.

]]> <![CDATA[Spectacular advertisements]]> The imaginative President Prohens wanted to mark the summer solstice with a truly spectacular outpouring of projects and investments. Not surprisingly, as everyone knows, Midsummer Night is a magical night, and this year there was no need to wait for the Three Kings to spread "dreams."

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