<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Opinion]]> 10 <![CDATA[The last times]]> Save to the phone the conversation with Pilar. They are silly phrases, a selfie, a joke, four laughs. We always said goodnight to each other, but that time we didn't, and the communication is interrupted abruptly, without any goodbye, without any transcendental phrase, without any word of thanks for all that has been. It would surely have been different, if I had known that the next day she would die in a sudden and absurd way.How many things do we do for the last time without knowing it?Among other moments that I regret not having retained, there is, for example, this one: I cannot remember the last time my son nursed. What a pity not to have said goodbye to that chubby, laughing baby who would party every time he saw me unbutton my shirt. He has returned a man with a booming voice and assertive gestures, and it seems incredible that there was a time when all his happiness was having a full belly and a clean bottom. What a pity not to hold in my heart the last time I fed him with my body.Many times we live by closing our eyes to the evidence that we are losing things forever on a daily basis.Surely my grandmother did know, the day she left Mallorca for the last time. Years ago, my grandparents had moved to Barcelona to be with us, and every summer we all returned to La Ràpita, to that house they had bought in the 70s and which had gradually grown, as the family grew. Every year we visited all the relatives who were still alive, we went to Consolació, we made suckling pig for the Virgin of August, we roasted the fish my father caught. In the evening, the old people would sit in the corner of the terrace where there was a breeze and watch time go by.And so, between everyday gestures that we didn't give any importance to, the last summer they would come ended. Grandparents should be eternal, but they are not, and you understand it too late. I didn't know it yet, but I would say that grandmother was aware of it.I would portray her: small and nervous, with pale, thin skin, that dress with a print that is now back in fashion, and flat shoes. That day in early September she got into the car with her fan in hand, and when I had already started it and was adjusting the rearview mirror, she turned to look out the window at what they had built with so much effort, and said, so softly that she must have thought I wouldn't hear her: “Goodbye, little house”.He never returned again. And I always think of her when I lock up the house, her legacy, and I call her grandma, we still come, I still seem to see you in the corner of the terrace where the evening breeze offers a little respite.It's curious to have grown up in a house like this, because even though everything has changed so much, I can still see it as it was before.When I was little, all the backyards of the house in La Ràpita were garrigue. I had played there so much! I can still tell you the pine trees that were there, the stones, the prickly pear fig trees, the walls. My world, as a child, was made of concentric circles that grew wider and wider as I grew: first I only went swimming in the cove, then I could go to the caves, and little by little the reach widened more and more, and in adolescence we went swimming at the beach, and on the way back we cycled up the coast with that slightly rusty bicycle without gears that, I don't know why, we had left tied up at the entrance of the club, as if there were any danger that someone would want to take that wreck.Every year, when I returned and went out to play in the scrubland, I saw it a little changed. A new wall, a construction where there used to be pines, streets that led nowhere and absurdly crisscrossed the chaos.I remember a pine tree with great fondness. It didn't grow straight, it was perfect for climbing, the trunk was just like a little ramp that allowed me to reach the top, where I would turn into a princess, or a fairy, or an owl, or whatever we felt like playing that day.I don't remember the last time I climbed it and, in fact, I don't know if some summers passed waiting for me, while I had already grown up and wasn't playing by climbing trees. The truth is that that crooked and ugly pine no longer exists. Now there is the swimming pool of a French couple's house.It annoys me that they don't know what was there before them, about the huge house they have built. It could be that someone would say the same about our home, that it certainly also required cutting down pines and also must have changed the landscape that someone loved.Speaking of landscapes I love, I couldn't go to the demonstration in defense of El Trenc. I would have gone for sure.I don't know if it happens to you, but it does to me: every time I go to those beaches I'm afraid it will be the last time, that one day the greedy will achieve their evil plans and we will lose this magical space forever.May the greed of a few not harm the treasure of all.

]]> <![CDATA[FOMO, GOMO, ROMO and other summer neuroses]]>

I would love to be one of those visionary people who coin new words that become so popular that they even have their own verbal conjugations. I think about how many articles have been written about having FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) for its English acronym, or what amounts to the same thing, that fear of missing out on something – wanting to be in the thick of it? – and I think I need a new word to define how I feel this summer. According to the consulted sources, that is, the internet, the thing would be between GOMO (Greed Of Missing Out) and ROMO (Reluctance On Missing Out); on the one hand, wanting to be everywhere, but at the same time not worrying too much about missing things. A week ago I ran out of my mobile phone and for five days I didn't go on social media, nor did I send messages until I got home and sat in front of the computer, as if it were 1999 and I had left Messenger connected. Now that I've revealed my age and my inclination to use Anglicisms, I can also share that I wish I had got my phone back a week later, because then I wouldn't have seen what absolutely everyone – except me – seems to be at a festival, watching my favorite artists. Badly recorded videos with shaky zooms, photos with aesthetic aspirations of a dripping beer, hugs, bracelets, and the feeling again that everyone was there except me. Yes, I know that's not the case, but forty Instagram stories will make you believe it. I'm not there, because this is my second summer as a mother and, moreover, I'm expecting my second and walking two steps in this suffocating heat makes me more anxious than missing Florence + The Machine's set at MadCool. Now I've swapped my festival summers for afternoons by the village pool, bike rides at 7:00 AM, reading stories, and making homemade ice cream with watermelon, mango, and Greek yogurt. My Instagram is a combination of baby-led weaning recipes and people living in the Estrella Damm advertisement.And it's okay. Because I've also lived through all of this. In fact, I'm metaphorically crying in this first column now, because hormones have given me the superpower to be honest with all the strangers reading this column, but, in reality, this choice is mine and a couple of weeks ago I was at a concert and soon I'll be at a festival, even if it's a thousandth of what I used to do. Hence my need to create a new acronym that defines that I want to be in the broth and in the slices, but that I am also more comfortable than ever in my new skin, aware that this moment is my cardinal point where I had to be.This dichotomy not only applies to the fact that I'm not at festivals, but it goes a little further; the right balance to make me anxious from time to time. To this new identity, added to the many others I've built over thirty-something years, I now add that of being a mother. Furthermore, you want to be one of those present mothers, who makes healthy meals in all the colors of the Pantone palette, who has wooden Montessori toys, who plans weekends with activities that enrich the life of the child and the whole family, and one who doesn't lose her head when almost nothing she had planned goes as she thought. But you don't want this new identity to take up all the space of your being; as if Venom wanted to take absolute control over Eddie Brock. Curiously, this Marvel character is also a reporter, so all of a sudden I look at him as if he perfectly understood the fragility of this alien-person/child-mother symbiosis. Because, beyond concerts, there is something else that also beats in this invisible space, and that is time – and quality time – to dedicate to doing the things that define who you are. I am a journalist. And even though I write infinitely less than I would like, I will always introduce myself as such. Writing has been part of my identity for as long as I can remember. This is a double-edged sword, because at the same time it frustrates me when I see all the concerts I covered, the pace of interviews I did, and the three projects I used to juggle. Perhaps this summer — and surely the next and the next — I will attend far fewer festivals than I would like and, instead, I will have learned a handful of cool recipes made with broccoli and zucchini. And I am aware of it. Perhaps I will never write as much as I used to again. Or maybe I will. Sitting with my laptop on the sofa, taking advantage of the duration of a summer nap and before heading to the village pool, I seize this moment of honesty and vindication of all my personalities to introduce myself. Because, beyond all the women I am, I will always be a journalist.

]]> <![CDATA[British stamp on the castle]]>

Fourth and final concert of the Bellver Festival with the Orquestra Simfònica Illes Balears as the protagonist of this now consolidated event. Like an encore of the season, even though it is a different audience, this circumstance arises depending on where the activities take place. In any case, the four concerts by the ensemble at the emblematic castle are already a tradition and the venue is filled day after day. The last one was no exception and, while soloists had been the protagonists until now, for this occasion it was the British conductor Michael Francis who was in charge of putting his stamp on the concert. A British stamp, as was that of the program, made up of three composers of the same nationality and almost the same generation, such as Edward Elgar, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The chosen pieces were performed in chronological order, so that one could discern a small evolution of classical music in the former empire in a short period of time.

]]> <![CDATA[The psychonautic journeys of Escohotado in Ibiza]]>

The philosopher Antonio Escohotado is a psychonaut, a traveler of the mind, a rational explorer of consciousness stimulated by drugs, marked by the Ibizan experience. Escohotado arrived in Ibiza, "the adopted homeland", on December 31, 1970 with his eight-year-old eldest son, attracted by the desire for adventure and experimentation with drugs, the sexual revolution of free love, the counterculture of peace and non-violence, musical psychedelia (a more appropriate term than 'psychodelia' which avoids linking music with the illness of psychosis, and associates it with the psyche and psychism), the simplicity of rural life, naturism, and the fraternity of community life. From 1970 onwards, Escohotado was part of the tribe of the long-haired, the hippie "moral and political protesters", the children of the flowers who stayed to live on the Island to enjoy the individual freedom offered by that communal and virgin psychedelic paradise.

]]> <![CDATA[Shit crossing the sea]]> The Popular Party continues to be convinced – and often states it in the declarations of its leaders – that environmental policies are a brake on the economy. In terms of climate emergency, contrary to all the evidence we are already suffering, they remain at the point where sports commentator M. Rajoy left it when he spoke to us about his denialist cousin. It happens that this has direct consequences on citizens and the places where we live. For example, the cuts and oversights in environmental safety have caused deaths and disappearances in the flood in the Valencian Country and, recently, in the fires in Almeria. Climate change and its consequences is or should be one of the top priorities of governments, whether state, autonomous or municipal. Our right prefers to relativize it, and often, in relation to environmental policies, they come out with frivolities and jokes.A frivolity is that the Consell d'Eivissa, in a year like 2026, has not even begun to prepare a waste plan that can be called as such and that is in line with the European Union's directives in this matter, based on the precepts of the circular economy. Quite the contrary, Ibiza (due to the neglect of its rulers) separates less and recycles fewer waste. To make matters worse, the Ca na Putxa landfill is now ending its useful life cycle, which means an accumulation of waste and refuse that the oversaturated island of Ibiza cannot cope with. Solution from our authorities: we will take all this material to Mallorca and burn it there. We will transport it by boat and, once in Mallorca, in trucks that will circulate at night, "so as not to disturb traffic". Apparently, our rulers must not travel much at night, in the summer, on the Mallorcan roads. It is a magnificent idea: we will take the shit – we are talking about it – from a overflowing island to the neighboring island, also overflowing, but larger. As denounced by the platform against the transfer of waste from Ibiza (formed by 17 neighborhood and environmental organizations, established at the Son Sardina neighborhood center), the effects of this maneuver could be disastrous at all levels. We are talking about 80,000 (eighty thousand) tons of waste per year to be incinerated, in addition to the problems that Mallorca already has in managing its own waste: besides pollution and bad smells, public health problems can arise. The first transfer has already been made, not without last-minute setbacks.A bit of a joke, when the current government of the Consell de Mallorca was formed, was to appoint an environmental denier like Pedro Bestard, from Vox, as Minister of the Environment. Like when Mazón appointed a Francoist bullfighter as Minister of Culture of the Valencian Generalitat. These are things that amuse our right-wing leaders, but they are no longer so funny when they are applied to real management. Apart from his problems with official cars, Bestard is a person whose capacity to assume public responsibilities is reasonably questionable. Leaving a strategic social policy like the Environment under the supervision of someone like him, and such a delicate job as the transport of 80,000 tons of waste annually from Ibiza to Mallorca, is worse than recklessness. It is a demonstration of ineptitude that could have undesirable consequences, precisely for the environment and for people. And naturally, transparency in these waste transports is essential: exactly who is paid what amounts, when, how, and for what. We know ourselves.

]]> <![CDATA[Against the long and dark night of Francoism]]> You don't need to be a firefly to realize that the pendulum of History is once again swinging towards a repugnant rise of the right and far-right, a real shame that confirms that human beings are an idiotic animal that stumbles many times on the same stone. Faced with this, and even though it sometimes seems that Catalan literature tends to forget particular and collective realities, there are snipers who refuse to succumb to general inertia and misery. This is the happy case of a writer by birth who, in fact, does not conceive of life without writing: Joan Cavallé. The prolific and respected author from Tarragona publishes a new, magnificent and necessary novel, "La nit" (Angle Editorial). Full of symbols, metaphors, documentation, and winks at great works of universal culture, "La nit" consciously invites us to delve into the long and dark night of Francoism and the horror of a cruel and murderous dictatorship dominated by His Excellency, the oldest tyrant in Europe, as wisely called by Joan Brossa, so skillful that, despite passing away, he did it well enough to weave the vile business in such a way that everything remained tied up and well-tied. Thus begins Cavallé's journey: after a verse by Raimon that gives the volume its title, we penetrate the orbits of a young student who participates in a clandestine network and has a mission to carry out in stages, he is our Virgil in a social hell founded on fear.In addition to the courage to break silences, traumas, and mutisms, and to tell truths like temples related to the terrible present, La nit by Joan Cavallé demonstrates other high values: the ability to trace a psychogeographic map of a resistant Tarragona; the gift of dialoguing with an eternally revisited classic like James Joyce's Ulysses; the superb control of tempos and narratological rhythms when combining external landscape with internal introspection; the firm and perfect mastery of each sentence; expressiveness… Each page is marked with a high capacity to generate interest, suspense, exhilarating intensity. For all these reasons, La nit is a great novel and an unexpected surprise of this season that I will never tire of recommending.Joan Cavallé, fortunately, is not alone: there are other literary samurai such as Eduard Márquez, who did a radiography of this era with the colossal volume 1969 from L’Altra Editorial; or Julià de Jòdar, who with La casa tapiada from Comanegra continued to uncover the Great Betrayal that was the supposed Transition to democracy… These three recent and powerful proposals could be studied as one of the most important political trilogies of recent decades. In summary, La nit by Joan Cavallé is a masterful novel. 

]]> <![CDATA[Hello, president]]> Perhaps only ETA and Catalans could compete with one of the common talking points in the discourse of the Spanish right and far-right: Venezuela. The land of Simón Bolívar is a cliché whenever the time approaches for the increasingly prolonged electoral campaigns, and it is easy for a PP or VOX politician, when at a loss for words, to resort to the disaster that Chavismo has entailed in that country. It is curious, however, to see that when it suits them, they also know how to take advantage of the resources of this banana republic regime, and a few days ago, the citizens of the Balearic Islands had a magnificent and very graphic example of this.Friday, July 3rd in the evening. Sílvia Pol, director of news at IB3, interviews the president of the Government of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens. And we must call it an interview because that's how the program was announced, but in reality, it seemed more like a 'Balearic style' adaptation of the famous and populist Aló Presidente, the program that Hugo Chávez hosted for more than a decade on Venezuelan state radio and television channels. Here, however, decorum prevails, and the president was kind enough to have an assistant in her conduction, who was responsible for passing the cards of the various topics and electoral proposals with a smile between admiration and understanding, all interspersed with effective and almost imperceptible dialectical massages.During the conversation, without any questioning from Pol, Prohens was able to unfold the arguments that the PP has repeated for years; that of "keeping their word" and "being the party that most resembles the citizens of these Islands". In fact, she felt so comfortable that she took a step further, in a gesture that shows how much her party takes for granted that they will continue in the Executive for at least four more years: she declared, without batting an eyelid, that she also believes that "El Trenc must not be touched", that they have advocated for the Decree of minimums and the Law of linguistic normalization "and that this annoys the left, because the PP is doing it". She even suggested, in response to a question from Pol, which was more like a pass to score a goal than a question, that the tourist overcrowding that our Islands are suffering from was the fault of Armengol and the Pact of progress that she led, that perhaps they did not do enough. She also stated that her Government has agreed on laws with all parties in the parliamentary arc, which is true, but it was a pity to see how Pol did not ask her about her main partner when it came to repealing the Law of historical memory, segregating children in schools for language reasons, and making the LGBTIQ+ collective invisible in the institutional sphere.They say that if it doesn't bother, it's not journalism, but advertising. And I think we have to take our hats off: on July 3rd, the citizens of the Balearic Islands were able to admire, paid for with public money, the first big campaign advertisement for the 'comandanta' Prohens.

]]> <![CDATA[The grammar of bodies]]> Today's tribune is born from the experience with val flores –an Argentine writer, teacher, and activist linked to feminisms and sexual dissidences–, who recently visited us, through the Mallorcan artistic and pedagogical association La Lioparda, with the workshop Leer es un verbo del cuerpo. From my experiment with her performative practice, I approach two verbs of the body: 'to read' and 'to write'.‘To read’, ‘to write’: two verbs that are the same water, made of syntactic orders woven by invisible threads, slippery, unpredictable. Torrents that calm, momentarily, the languages of the butterflies of thought. Because thoughts are, perhaps, the murmur of the flight of the butterflies that we capture with writing.This space is too brief to explain the corporal anatomy of writing, the syntactic organization of moving bodies —remembering Socrates—, and we already know that both thought –poetic– and the expression of bodies are dissident, if we are willing to risk the self and remove it from the middle or, at least, displace it, transfigure it, as Clarice Lispector would prefer. Personally, I haven't achieved it yet; I only make humble attempts and collect the best failures from them.When we approach the body – the text is also that – from heretical affections, normative semantics crack and reveal latent syntaxes. Body syntax – the relationships between movements, emotions, thoughts, and perceptions that create meanings – investigates new links, but, to do so, it must start from familiar patterns. The body cannot throw itself into the abyss of creation without some point of support. That would be chaos, and creation demands decisions. Not necessarily control, but risk: risk of clumsiness, of losing thresholds. I improvise the grammar of my body by making decisions. There is no improvisation without this risk.In the same way, I try to order this text according to the laws of normative grammar, the point of support. The polemic or I leave it be with its doubts, routes, failures, intuitions. Why do we prevent the text —and the body— from being disorder? And if we let it remain in the background? This is the place where the seed of the creative act remains: on our back, in what we cannot look at directly without losing. Perhaps that is why I am an orphic poem.Bodies, in motion or at rest, have their own rhythm, punctuation, and internal relationships. The poem, for example, is a body that reads whoever approaches it. We should approach it with respect for its timings and for whatever it wishes to show us of its intimacy and vulnerability – logocentric norms should only be sources of consultation, never an unquestionable discourse. We should allow it to transform us: we are not the same when the poem has read us. It does so with a body of eyes that dips us into the milk of our mother, the mystery of the unformed. The body-text perceives with patience the rhythm and fluctuations of the white feather. Hélène Cixous and Clarice Lispector already knew this: their experience of feminine writing is testament to it.Reading and writing distort time, as there is also a strange form of reading-writing: the déjà-vu of everything you haven't yet read and written. When it is finally revealed —like a mystical algorithm—, you recognize yourself in the writing, because writing is always rewriting. And the act of reading is its blessing.Whether the self is capable or not of getting out of the way is not a matter of rational will. There is only one beacon, one purpose: the strangeness of moving through places that one has crossed hundreds of times and, despite the present uncertainty, rewriting in aeternum a certainty: the void. One must eat this void. Oh, what an absolute and marvelous failure the body made of the fear of the void. I must stop for a moment here: the last words have revealed déjà-vu. Will I be able to be present when something happens, here and now?It is from this void that we approach the body of our neighbor. We do so with the desire to understand the principles that govern the use of our own grammar, with the aim of converging in communication. My experience is that this approach is a performative gesture carried out from the fantasy of entering into communion with each person's wound. We seek a syntax that gives meaning to the gift that each wound hides. This syntax is presyllabic, written with mother's milk, as I said before.You, dear reader, do not read this text: you inscribe yourself in it as you move with it. The paradox is that I still do not know how to write —I doubt if I really know how to read—, because every time I move between these two verbs I do so with unease and discomfort. Cultivating patience and curiosity, but also frustration and the joy of discovery, is the only way I have found to continue experimenting. If in one of these silent movements of the pen we are moved together, we will have tricked time for an instant. Perhaps this was val flores's invitation: to read from the body to rewrite it.

]]> <![CDATA[Zero kilometer energy]]> Some people, when they look at the countryside, see only plots of land —Guillem Frontera dixit. And some people, when they look at wind turbines and solar panels, see a tap that pours money. The concern for climate change of large companies that are getting rich with large renewable parks is far below their interest in the profit and loss account, as demonstrated by their strategic actions (are we talking about Venezuelan oil?) no matter how much green propaganda they bombard us with to make us believe the opposite.The delay of the Spanish state in the energy transition compared to other European states is explained precisely by the pressure of the large energy corporations of the Ibex-35. The famous “Sun Tax” of the government of Ema Punt Rajoy, which fiscally penalized self-consumption and batteries for storing surplus energy, was the scandalous toll we all paid so that these companies had time to give themselves an environmentalist facelift and get ready to lead the new clean energy business. When the Sun Tax was repealed in 2018, they had already done their work: they had achieved a dominant position in the green energy market.Energy companies, like all companies, seek maximum performance: minimum expenses, maximum profit. That's why they prefer places where it's easy and cheap to build large renewable parks, and rural land is the prime candidate. In places where there is no adequate public land-use planning, the result is the industrialization of the countryside: land previously dedicated to cultivation and pasture is occupied, forests are destroyed, and areas of high environmental value are colonized.This has not been the case for Menorca. The public debate a decade ago generated broad citizen consensus on the desirability of having zero-kilometer energy, but not just anywhere or in any way. The Menorca 2030 Strategy was the culmination of this debate, in which the main objective was established as the reduction of fossil fuels consumed on the island. The work of environmental and cultural heritage defense organizations was effective. Combining pressure and the ability to reach agreements, they fostered a model that many other territories would want to have. On the one hand, the establishment of very strict and mandatory conditions for any energy facility installed on rural land: the prohibition of soil alteration, respect for the dry stone wall network, the maintenance and restoration of ethnological assets by the developers, the prohibition of asphalt paving of service roads, etc. On the other hand, zoning: the PTI of 2023 determines the areas suitable for renewable energies, which prevents them from being installed everywhere.But let's not be complacent, because the work is never finished. The power of large companies, with the invaluable participation of the state-owned public company in charge of energy planning, is like an octopus that always finds cracks to insert its tentacles. Now the danger is that, in addition to producing zero-kilometer energy for its own consumption, Menorca becomes an energy exporting territory.Next to the Mercadal electrical substation, in the center of the island, Red Eléctrica is building a huge high-capacity battery plant. The aim is that, if a blackout like the one on October 28, 2018, which left the island without power for several days, were to happen again, Menorca would have its own emergency resource. But common sense says that these batteries should also be used to store the excess energy from solar parks: the energy produced during the sunniest hours could be stored here, and evacuated at night. This would avoid having to start up the highly polluting Maó thermal power plant, which is the primary objective of the Menorca 2030 Strategy.So, no. Red Eléctrica does not foresee this use of the Mercadal batteries. They say that to channel the surplus solar generation energy, there will already be the second submarine cable that will link Menorca with Mallorca from 2030. Well, there is no doubt that this second cable is very much needed, but it was supposed to guarantee that Menorca does not remain energetically isolated, not to sell energy with Menorca origin denomination abroad.The zoning of the PTI was conceived to determine where solar panels could be placed and where not. But the planning of the state-owned public company will facilitate that large investors, who always sniff out business, place panels everywhere it is permitted to place them. Who will place these photovoltaic parks? To whom will they give benefit? Who will receive the profits from the clean energy that Menorca will export through the second cable?We are not doing well. If Menorca's photovoltaic plants, with the new electric transport networks and battery equipment, do not serve to reduce the island's pollutant emission levels, but rather to turn us into an electric factory that will bring benefits to the owners at the cost of occupying everyone's territory, we will have made the na Peix Frit deal.

]]> <![CDATA[The boomerang]]> In this world, more than 7,000 languages are spoken. Unfortunately, however, more than 3,000 are threatened with extinction. And I'm not talking about our Catalan language, which no matter how much it suffers attacks every day, is still far from suffering the circumstances that languages will face in a few months that no one will speak. Because we are letting languages die at a furious pace: every two weeks a language disappears in this world. This, in the 21st century, when it seems that AI performs miracles, and that the moralization of society had reached higher levels than in any other period of history. Because the vast majority of people on this planet speak languages that are demographically large, a few hundred languages spoken by 90% of the global population.

]]> <![CDATA[Thirty years of Dolly]]> Three decades after her birth on July 5, 1996, history's most famous sheep, Dolly, lies dissected slowly within a display case at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Her "creation" proved that an adult cell can be reprogrammed to embryonic states, with all developmental potential ahead.

]]> <![CDATA[Climate, life, politics]]> The exact number of people who have lost their lives due to extreme temperatures in Europe during the recent heatwave that has particularly affected the center of the Old Continent is unknown. Estimates suggest, now that we are beginning a new wave, more than 2,000 people in France, more than 1,200 in Belgium, and more than a thousand in Spain. Millions of animals intended for human consumption have also died. And shortly after the most intense days, thousands of hectares of forest are burning, because the high temperatures have turned forest masses into fuel.As happens with the Danes, a phenomenon somewhat more Mediterranean, we can act as if it had nothing to do with us, and deny, as the far-right does, that any of this has to do with climate change and global warming caused by human action. Politicians like Trump promise more oil than ever and cheaper; billionaires like Elon Musk pollute as never seen before with their continuous launches of satellites into Earth's orbit and their rockets to Mars; and genocides like Netanyahu drop tons and tons of explosives on Palestine and Lebanon which, in addition to annihilating human beings, have environmental effects that will last for generations.The denialist far-right conditions and shapes PP governments in various communities – the latest being Andalusia, the most populous in the country –, questions the work of the scientific community, and criminalizes environmentalism and the defense of life. Politics, in general, is not up to the magnitude of environmental and climate problems, which put the life and well-being of future generations at risk, as a then-adolescent Greta Thunberg, promoter of the "climate strike" that mobilized thousands of young people around the planet, and who today is considered a dangerous communist, already denounced a few years ago.The truly dangerous thing is to do nothing, or to do more of the same. It is also a waste of time getting bogged down, as they have done these days in France, in absurd debates about whether it is ethical to have air conditioning at home with temperatures above 40 degrees. This does not mean that, on an individual level, everyone should not do their part, but I can assure you that I have nothing to do with the more than 20 million tourists who will visit us this year, nor with the half dozen cruise ships that a few days ago unloaded more than 15,000 people at the port of Palma and emitted tons of polluting gases. Nor with the record number of private jets owned by billionaires (some from the area, like Miquel Fluxà) that generate as much CO2 as you and I do in a lifetime. Instead, most schools do not have air conditioning and no one demands accountability for it.We must be able to have air conditioning, and it is clear that we must use it responsibly, as we do with water. But if those who pollute the most and can do the most to prevent it do nothing, and no one forces them either, our contribution will be a grain of sand, but only a grain of sand. It is the politicians who must set rules that guarantee not only social justice, but also climate justice, which implies taking concrete measures that ensure the well-being of present and future generations.This legislature, which is already heading downhill towards the elections, began with a sensible acknowledgement from the President of the Government, who said that limits needed to be placed on our main economic activity, tourism. The figures today point in the opposite direction: we think that the increase in tourist spending and luxury tourism will redeem us, when in reality what they do is raise the prices of the most basic things for residents, starting with housing and continuing with food.Not only have the homework not been done, but in Mallorca we will continue to feed the largest incinerator in the Mediterranean with the waste from the tourists of Ibiza and we will fill the roads with trucks that will transport pre-treated shit so that it does not smell, while we hope that one day there will be real restrictions on car circulation, which makes life impossible for so many Majorcans. Spaces like Es Trenc are unprotected, and others that are, like a good part of the waters of the Balearic Islands, will experience the summer with more aggressions to Posidonia than in centuries, at the hands of ships of all kinds that have already planned to go see the eclipse from the sea next August.We will be very overshadowed. For a long time now, all of this has been unsustainable and words can hold up almost everything, except for the patience of the residents. Because, increasingly, the only ones who will be able to enjoy the island will be those who look at it from their luxury urbanization or from their yacht, while the rest of us resign ourselves to another summer without leaving our home cave. And no complaints, because at least we have a home.

]]> <![CDATA[El Trenc is not touched... by a 'like']]> Last Sunday, July 5, we lived another historic day. El Trenc must not be touched. Not before, not now, not ever. On the way there, past Son Catlar, a devastating string of chalets follows every two quarters, all cut from the same pattern. Already in La Ràpita, the terraced houses link up so cyclically that they seem infinite. Cranes are in operation. And in between, plots of land in a chapel waiting patiently for the arrival of developers while they see their immediate surroundings destroyed. But it seems even that is not enough.10,000 people joined hands on the beach of La Ràpita. And of course, when so many people gather, it's normal for many things to happen. The most striking, without a doubt, was the presence of Francisca Porquer, the mayor of Campos, who wanted to be physically present at the gathering. She could have chosen to blend in with the crowd, or to stand in the front row and listen carefully to the reading. But it seems the mayor is naturally meddlesome and wanted to place herself right next to Sebastià Alzamora and Tonina Siquier during the reading of the manifesto. We already knew that in Campos they are close-knit, but not that they had such an eager mayor. Like.The machine gun nests painted with verses that have served as a backdrop for thousands of ‘selfies’ in recent years, now appeared with graffiti in favor of the defense of this natural space as valuable as it is emblematic. It is already known that the PP and Vox are parties very sensitive to historical memory and their followers have raised hell over these acts which they have described as vandalism. In fact, our public television only found it pertinent to publish a short video with the graffiti, without mentioning that exactly 10,000 Majorcans had passed by there to form a human chain for nothing. Like.And even more things happened, such as the presence of Madò Farta, this Mallorcan peasant woman, with a skirt, bodice and overskirt and a plastic skull face that looks like it was bought at a Chinese bazaar, who walks in front of the Cathedral, sings La Balanguera and cleans the dirt from the Mallorcan beaches. The protesting bathers recognized her and petted her. Many knew her from the Instagram network, where with more than 5,000 followers she has become visible and viral. Like.But neither the Obregonian performance of Mayor Porquer, nor the graffiti on the bunkers that served as a finger to avoid looking at the moon, nor the originally rebellious Mallorca of Madò Farta managed to alleviate the most important absence of the day. We did not expect President Prohens, so sure of wanting to protect Trenc. Nor Councillor Simonet, who warned us with a funny cap from the water that the left is a manipulative and malevolent entity.The youth was missing. There were plenty of historic, endearing, gray-haired, hat-wearing, pot-bellied, and wrinkled people. More or less everyone greeted each other. It is a singular community, this one of counter-current Mallorca that feels so comfortable when it comes to firmly opposing the policies of the Mallorcan right. Gabriel Cañellas, Jaume Matas, José Ramón Bauzá, and now Marga Prohens, are people before whom it has always been good to stand up.But where were the young people? Not the forty-somethings (each time there are people who feel young at 40), nor the thirty-somethings. Where were the 20-year-olds who are supposed to change tomorrow's world? Where were the university and high school kids who are starting to walk within the world of militancy and revolution? It would be very easy for the writer to fall into the framework of customs and caricature. We could say ‘selfie’, ‘swimming pool’, ‘sailboat’, ‘bikini’, ‘Much’ and ‘wow’. We could also say ‘mediterraneously’, to encompass it all. Or ‘the island’, to deconstruct ourselves definitively. But we won't say it.The physiognomy of Mallorca has changed from green to blue. And so have the interests and idiosyncrasies of Majorcans. Beyond that, however, there is a tangible generational bias. 65% of young people in Mallorca are "little" or "not at all" interested in institutional politics. Only 10% of young islanders have participated in demonstrations and protest events in the last year. It is perceived that continuous militancy (periodic assemblies, maintenance of structures, organization of actions and events of various kinds, payment of fees...) is not used today. On the other hand, this protest is raised on social networks, either by publishing directly, or by republishing or liking. And if they have to participate in anything outside of virtuality, they do so punctually and always from outside any organizational structure.The delay we all have is whether this new form of militancy will be enough to confront the policies of the right in the country and the world, to position ourselves forcefully against actions that we may consider excessive, unjust, racist, destructive of the territory, anti-Mallorcan, and xenophobic. Or if we are facing another tool of the system to keep us fooled in front of screens and far from the reality that crushes us every day.

]]> <![CDATA[To have style (or not to have it)]]> President Prohens disavowed the behavior of the mayor of Campos, Francisca Porquer (who disrupted the human chain last Sunday, July 5, in defense of Es Trenc with an absurd intervention), saying it was not her style. “My style is respect,” she repeated a couple of times. These were statements with a very presidential tone, which might sound good in another context. Not in the one created by Prohens, her Government, and her fascist allies of Vox.

]]> <![CDATA[This is not about crowded beaches]]>

The Less Tourism, More Life action manual is a mistake. It shifts the focus. It has managed to get people talking about violence instead of housing; about hammers, instead of impossible rents, and about activists, instead of a government incapable of offering solutions. Furthermore, it is childish: if you intend to surprise someone, don't hand them the instruction manual beforehand.

]]> <![CDATA[It is not the manual of direct action: it is the violence that we have accepted for years without protesting]]>

The publication of the Manual of Action Against Touristification has, in recent days, provoked an avalanche of headlines, newspaper front pages, radio talk shows, and unprecedented reactions, condemnations, and warnings. There has been talk of radicalization, incitement to damage, vandalism, and even a threat to coexistence and security (we should ask ourselves, from whom). But very few voices have stopped to ask a preliminary question: what exactly do we mean by violence, and who has the power to exercise it, against what and against whom.

]]> <![CDATA[Against violence]]> These days the basic idea that violence cannot be answered with violence is going around in my head. It is a simple principle that can always be applied, but which has become present after the collective Menys Turisme, Més Vida circulated a manual with recommendations that include sabotage actions against tourist infrastructures. A cause as legitimate as the one being defended does not need this. Even more so, it cannot afford it.

]]> <![CDATA[Battleships]]> Lately I have returned to Friedrich Nietzsche and his powerful Ecce homo with a translation by the missed J. M. Terricabras from the defunct Accent Editorial. In one of the most vibrant passages, the German philosopher who used a hammer to think and write recalls a peak of personal decadence – shortly before setting out to write Human, All Too Human as an antidote – when he dedicated himself to ancient metrics with meticulous precision and ailing eyes. How tiresome. I agree with him: indeed, wasting time and effort on ancient metrics and stagnant little rhymes, a cultural reactionism that coincides with current political reactionism, is synonymous with decadence, and such agony, in recent times, seems to be gaining momentum and traction around us, especially among the younger generations, who seem to have hatched old. To combat such foolishness, such shortsightedness, it is advisable to read works that awaken new senses, that are created from the most radical independence and an expressiveness rich in resources and nuances, books with originality as an absolute foundation and imbued with the stubbornness to write against everything, despite everything. Few works align more with these principles than that of Lluís Maicas, one of the most prolific, genuine, and unique writers in Catalan literature spanning the 20th and 21st centuries.Responsible for more than a hundred titles of poetry, narrative, diary writing, and artistic works, Lluís Maicas returns to the commercial market – and I say this because many of his titles, which he calls "illegally distributed," can only be found at the Inca Library, the March Library, and the Library of Catalonia – with a precious volume: Claper de pedres fogueres in the Versos collection of the Aula de Poesia Jordi Jové of the Publications Service of the University of Lleida. I can add little to what Joan Pomar Mir explains in the magnificent prologue about the meaning of the claper, the main wall that supports the architecture of the collection, but I can say that it seems that both the author and the companion have fully absorbed the telluric, demiurgic sense of Damià Huguet, a craftsman of words with calluses up to his elbows from dedicating himself so much to a rampant, independent, fascinating creation.Each poem – which functions with its own entity but at the same time knows how to adhere to a larger unitary composition – is born from a tiny anecdote that becomes large, expansive, and explores personal and collective territories to make them wide, developing different writing techniques, from repetition to the Russian nesting doll game, and ends up building solemn monuments that do not renounce tenderness or irony, the provocative jab, the reconsecrated host, the end as a sublime punch. With Claper de pedres fogueres, Lluís Maicas gives us a masterpiece, another one. And there are already quite a few.

]]> <![CDATA[Three years governing for the people from here]]> Citizens and citizens of the Balearic Islands, this week marks three years since my investiture and taking of office as president of this Autonomous Community, of this immense honor that I have thanks to the trust of a broad majority of citizens, who three years ago called for a change in policies and in the way of doing politics in these Islands. A change from centrality, from moderation, from good sense and for the people from here.After three intense years and a lot – a lot – of work, I am aware that there is still a lot to do, I am aware of the challenges ahead of us, and I am aware of the concerns of the families of these Islands, and I will not fall into conformity, self-satisfaction, or indifference. Because we cannot afford it, and, therefore, my commitment is to give it my all.With these lines I want to share with all of you my balance of these three years of work, of these three years of legislature, which I believe can be summarized mainly in three evidences.The first, what has been my obsession since day one: the fulfillment of the given word. Because that's how they taught me at home, the value of the given word, to fulfill what is promised. The first commitment fulfilled was to form a government on my own. A promise that no one believed in, that some saw as impossible and even mocked. But I said that if I had a sufficient majority of citizens, I would do so. The citizens responded, and I delivered. And, obviously, governing in a minority has not been easy, but this has allowed us to set the tone and pace, and to prevent the instability that has been experienced in Parliament from ever being transferred to the Government.From that moment on, we have not only not crossed any of our red lines, but we have fulfilled and launched 95% of our government program. 10 days later we began to lower taxes with the elimination of the inheritance tax —which has already benefited more than 35,000 families— and with the elimination or bonus of the tax for the purchase of the first home, which has benefited more than 5,000 young people. 50 days later we fulfilled by making the free education for the entire stage from 0 to 3 years a reality, which today benefits more than 15,000 families. 100 days later we approved the Royal Decree-Law on residential emergency, as a first package of measures to address the housing challenge. And so we have been fulfilling our program for three years, with the zero quota for the self-employed, the recovery of numerical grades, more hours of mathematics and languages, the plan to attract health professionals, the Work-Life Balance Law, the Simplification Law, the Coastal Law, as well as so many and so many measures that we included in our program and that today are a reality.Secondly, the fact that the script predicted by the left-wing parties has not been fulfilled, that the discourse of fear of cuts in public services, cuts in rights, and social tension has not been fulfilled. On the contrary, for three years we have allocated more resources than ever to our public services; we have improved the conditions of our healthcare professionals, our teachers, and all our public employees; we have advanced in new rights, such as aid for ALS patients, 24-hour care for pediatric palliative care, free adapted leisure for children with disabilities, the price limit for school canteens and psychologists in classrooms and health centers, among other advances.Everyone, through dialogue and agreement. Because we are a government of pacts and understanding, as demonstrated by the achievement of such important agreements as the Pact for Sustainability, the Pact for Health, as well as the Pact for the Legislature with the public service board, the agreement for the recovery of the healthcare professional career, and the Pact for Marine Conservation.And, finally, an evidence of which, as I began by saying, I am fully aware: that there is a lot of work to be done. We were faced with a poisoned inheritance, with soaring housing prices, with the Islands at their limit, the result of 115,000 tourist places authorized in eight years, and with public services strained by a population growth pattern that is today absolutely unsustainable. During these three years we have laid the foundations to change course, changing laws, planning and allocating resources, because there are no magic solutions and the situation does not change in a day, but thanks to our different laws we have more than 10,000 affordable homes in process; affordable homes and for the local people, among which there are more than 1,000 of public promotion, the works of which will begin this legislature. And, of course, we are talking about housing at affordable prices, with prices between 30% and 50% below market price and for the local people, with at least 5 years of residence. Because it is about housing for those who already live in the Balearic Islands.Although there is still a long way to go for it to reach citizens, we are beginning to see signs of a change in trend with the reactivation of multi-family housing development, with a 60% increase in one year, and which for two years now has again surpassed single-family homes, that is, more apartments than houses, according to the latest data from the College of Technical Architects and Surveyors. Also with a 33% decrease in housing purchases by foreign citizens, according to data from the College of Notaries. Because now, housing development is once again oriented towards affordable housing and for local people.And we are working to transform our economy and move from growth in volume to growth in value, a model that bets on the diversification of our economy towards innovation and knowledge, as we have done with the ParcBit boost plan and the Law for the acceleration of strategic projects, and with a clear strategy of tourism containment, which sets zero growth for new tourist places, prohibits new tourist apartments, and agrees to reduce the number of cruise passengers, the purchase of public land to protect our natural spaces. And we will end the legislature with the entry of rental tourist vehicles and cars limited to the four islands. Because yes, we have reached the limit.We must move towards a model that does not require the continuous recruitment of workers from outside, because we have to change the pattern of population growth. As we also need to put a stop to the continuous arrival of irregular immigration to our Islands. Because we have always been a land of welcome, but we need immigration not only linked to a work contract, but one that also takes into account the integration capacity of our land, always demanding respect for our laws and values. Otherwise, the result is that we see how the physiognomy of our towns and neighborhoods is becoming blurred. No, not everyone fits here.We are the Government that most resembles the people of this land, a Government that makes decisions with common sense and tranquility, that does not hide problems in drawers. We have come to roll up our sleeves to solve the structural problems of these Islands.From here on, some policies need a final push and others need to consolidate over time to bear fruit. And with this objective we will work this coming year, working hard to respond to the main concerns of citizens, to broaden their trust and to achieve a majority of stability that allows us to continue with the change from centrality, from moderation, from common sense and governing thinking only of the people here.

]]> <![CDATA['Mondo' Crocs]]> There are invisible lines that, once crossed, you cannot uncross. Simply put, there is no turning back. Sometimes they are small gestures. Other times, big ones, like voting for Vox, going to the office in sweatpants, or buying yourself Crocs. In no case do I mean that all three share moral ground, although for many people I know, they do share the same aesthetic basement.It's not my case. Because, as everyone knows, I live devoted to degradation. Not to the point of voting for Vox, although given my history of negligence and lack of dignity I would never rule it out, but I do have Crocs (two pairs, in fact) and the call of the tracksuit as legitimate daily wear is getting stronger and stronger. It's a matter of time. They will bury me disguised as a junkie, that much is clear to me.Crocs are always a source of controversy. Which surprises me, because if there's one item I'm particularly fussy about in terms of clothing, it's footwear, and if I've chosen Crocs, it's for a series of unbeatable reasons that you all should recognize and, therefore, wipe that look of surprise off your faces. If I wear Crocs, you should all assume that Crocs are cool and bow your heads —to weep at the sight of the sloppiness you've decided to put on your feet this summer.Because there is nothing else that reveals more about a person than the shoes they wear. It's a fact. That's why I always look at your feet. It's like Russian salad in neighborhood bars: if it's good, all other options on the menu will also be good; if you suspect you're putting your life in danger, even sparkling water might give you salmonellosis. In the same way, footwear betrays sloppiness or a minimal attitude when it comes to dressing. And it's not that I want to be a dandy, but in this life you have to be cool. At least, a little bit.The question here is whether you can look cool in Crocs and the answer, despite the American clog brand's extensive brand revitalization, is that, frankly, no, not at all; however, any alternative, except for closed shoes, is even worse. Flip-flops don't hurt the eyes, but they are very uncomfortable, especially if you have to walk more than seven meters; I refrain from commenting on regional versions of summer shoes, because I have no desire for you to burn me alive, but loafers make me want to sink your boat, spill your gin and tonic, or set your villa on fire. Then there are sandals, which personally have always seemed to me like something very Greco-Roman: the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian of footwear, a bit like going to a wedding all year round.It is, however, in the sandal world that we find the nemesis of Crocs, Birkenstocks, but this is where I bring out my two final arguments.The capacity of Crocs to shock is unbeatable: you feel like you are riding a sacrilege when you wear them, as if you had entered a police station with your ACAB t-shirt. Is there anything more harmless-looking than someone with Birkenstock clogs? On the other hand, I can easily imagine someone with Crocs —or any of their imitations— armed.In fact, here's my final argument: the long history of Crocs in the healthcare field has made one of their great advantages clear: it's easy to clean blood off them. Have you ever tried to remove blood from suede? You might say, "And why on earth do you need to remove blood from your shoes, Joan? Whose blood?". My answer is simple, because, one, you never know; and two, be careful what you ask for, lest the next time you clean them it's your DNA that's embedded in them.

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