La Casa Blanca es un desastre!

Not quite la casa blanca I'm looking for.

The official website of the White House, henceforth known as la Casa Blanca on this humble page, has long allowed a translation from the English language into Spanish. This might be because over 41 million Americans are native Spanish speakers, with an additional 11.6 million native English speakers also fluent in the romance language.

The 52.6 million fluent speakers of Spanish in the United States is more than the number of people who live in Spain. Only Mexico has more.

Alas, in the last week, the official Casa Blanca website has stopped allowing a Spanish translation for no apparent reason other than it's not English. President Donald Trump even once said during a primary debate his preference. "This is a country where we speak English," Trump said. Except, you know, for where the country speaks Spanish. (Don't let anyone know highway signs in Vermont sometimes show kilometers! Quebec's influence has run amok!)

When initially asked about it, Casa Blanca spokesperson Sean Spicer said the website was in flux. "We are continuing to build out the website," Spicer said. "We've got the IT folks working overtime on that now." Naturally, a complete removal of Spanish makes sense. Those verbs are so complex!

A few days later, la  Casa Blanca claimed they were going to bring back a translation eventually. "We're just building up," said Helen Aguirre Ferre, director of media affairs, while still emphasizing the need to build an established website over two decades old. "It's just day two on the job," she said earlier in the week.

Now, as of day nine on the job, nothing still has changed.

Spanish is still banished at la Casa Blanca.

Spain sort of shoulder shrugged their way through Cervantes' own 400th anniversary.

Cervnates is so sad, even his
mustache and eyebrows are frowning.

Not only does Spain contrast with England in weather, food, and attractiveness of its citizenry, it also contrasts in how they venerate their nation's most famous writer.

This weekend England nearly ground to a collective halt in adoration of their dearly departed Shakespeare for the 400th anniversary of his death. The Royal Mint released a coin commemorating him, monarchy praised him, and every cultural and public institution seemingly held an event to honor him. Things were as Englishy as England gets outside of a Monty Python sketch in the rain.

But just south, in Spain, the nation had to be tapped on the shoulder to be reminded that the 400th anniversary of Cervantes' death was occurring, too.

How badly was Cervantes ignored? Arturo Pérez-Reverte, one of Spain’s best-selling novelists, wrote online that the Spanish government's response was "the international embarrassment of the year of Cervantes." No major celebrations, no cultural standstill. An annual book award in his name was given out, but that's done every year with a collective yawn from the populace.

Admittedly, Spain is in the fifth month without an elected government, but there is a government nonetheless. That government simply just didn't make much ado about anything. Proof in point: A little over a year ago, Cervantes' body was discovered in a convent. Yet, according to the historian who led the search, Fernando de Prado, Spain has done "absolutely nothing" to promote the burial site.

José María Lassalle, state secretary for culture, explained to the New York Times the laissez-faire attitude to the anniversary as an attempt "to break with the philosophy" of the 1980s and 1990s when socialist governments heavily subsidized celebrations and strictly directed them. In 2016, it was supposed to happen organically.

Lassalle forgot that even organic things sometimes never grow.

Randomness Corner: The scourge of illicit delectable meats and cheeses!

Grandma's ham cartel strikes again.

Over a nearly seven month period at Manchester Airport, the U.K.'s third largest, highly trained drug-sniffing dogs never found a single source of class-A drugs like cocaine and heroin, but they found a delightful array of artisanal meats and cheeses brought back by local Brits on holiday.

Does this mean an elderly British grandmother is a hardened criminal if she's hauling back some jamón ibérico in her carry-on from a week in the south of Spain? Fido seems to think so, and would like to take it off her hands.

The dogs cost the airport £1.25 million to train and house, but authorities claim the dogs also detected over 40,000 smuggled cigarettes.

Cheese. Meat. Cigarettes.

Add a full-bodied red wine and candles to this list and Fido will have created a sophisticated romantic evening.

Nobody knows for certain where Cervantes is buried?

Go figure. Miguel de Cervantes--Spain's answer to England's Shakespeare, and most famously the creator of Dox Quixote and the first modern novel--was apparently buried without anyone knowing exactly where.

The belief is that Cervantes is buried somewhere in the walls or foundation of the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians, where a dozen nuns ranging in age from 23 to 92 live. The next logical question is why would Cervantes be buried in a convent? Because those same nuns helped negotiate his freedom when Cervantes, as a member of the Spanish navy, was kidnapped by pirates and held captive for five years. On his death bed, Cervantes wish was to be buried with the Trinitarians.

Fast forward 400 years, and no one is exactly certain where in the convent Cervantes is buried--if at all.

The convent's secretary, Maria Jose, tells NPR, "For 400 years, we have kept Cervantes' last dying wish, to be buried here. We have passed down the memory of the documents that registered his burial here, even though the documents themselves have all since been lost."

"Memory of documents" isn't the most helpful arrangement, so now scientists are utilizing ground-penetrating radar to find the body, using Cervantes own detailed history of his physical ailments, gunshots, and general wounds to identify the body. (After all, Cervantes had a rough go of it in the navy. He was shot in the chest twice alone.) If found, an excavation might occur, although ultimately the plan is to keep his body with the Trinitarians.

For that, Cervantes' dying wish remains.

Three writers who were murdered, two who might have been, and one who just sounds like he was.

Some writers lead fast lives that lead to faster deaths. Addiction to drugs and alcohol is always a popular choice, as is suicide. Tuberculosis has its hand in many an untimely death, and heart attacks is always a consistent bystander.

But murder? Even though it sounds like the clichéd plot to some dime store crime thriller, some writers have met their ends through nefarious means. Here are three writers who were murdered, two who might have been, and one who just sounds like he was.


Three Who Were Murdered:

Sir Thomas More

England's King Henry VIII penchant for killing people close to him is well known. If killing a wife was okay, killing a friend was par for the course, too.

Enter Sir Thomas More, writer of Utopia, Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII, and a devout Roman Catholic follower. When the Protestant Reformation began, More sided with the Pope and Rome, believing any deviation from Catholicism to be an act of heresy.

In 1532, More refused to participate in an oath declaring King Henry the Supreme Head of the English Church, which was akin to telling a dictator to take a hike. A year later, More didn't attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as Queen of England--but offered his kind regards for a happy life for the king and queen. Polite "Sorry I can't make the wedding!" cards don't carry the cache you might imagine, so More was in Henry's crosshairs.

Fast-forward through a variety of trumped-up charges (bribery and treason, among others), and More found himself arrested and stuck in the Tower of London. Brought before a panel of judges that included members of Anne Boleyn's family, More still refused to cooperate. He was found guilty under the Treason Act of 1534 and ordered hanged, drawn, and quartered. King Henry reduced the execution sentence to a simple decapitation though, to make things easy on his old friend. Whattaguy!

More took his impending death rather casually, famously telling his executor, "I pray you, I pray you, Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down, I can shift for myself," and that he died as "the king's good servant, but God's first."

Christopher Marlowe

Marlowe always had his detractors. The poor man's Shakespeare--writer of The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus, among others--was a feisty playwright who always seemed to find himself in the middle of controversy.

This penchant for drama came to a head in 1593 when Marlowe was associated with libelous material about protestants. (Yeah, again with the whole Catholic vs. Protestant angle.) As a Catholic, this wasn't something you wanted to be associated with. He was ordered to appear before authorities regarding the libel claim, but the meetings were delayed.

While staying at a house of a Ms. Eleanor Bull (the equivalent of a modern day B&B), Marlowe allegedly got into an argument with another gentleman, Ingram Frizer, over the bill for staying at Bull's. According to the official report, Marlowe jumped Frizer and hit him on the head while making an attempt for Frizer's dagger. In the ensuing struggle, Frizer, the report claims, stabbed Marlowe above the right eye in self-defense, killing him.

Was it a simple brawl over a B&B bill that did Marlowe in? Scholars can't agree. Theories abound like an Agatha Christie novel that Marlowe was really assassinated on orders by Queen Elizabeth for his libelousness...or by Sir Walter Raleigh's henchmen...or by Sir Robert Cecil's guys because of Marlowe's Catholicism...or a variety of other reasons.

If you're going to die, might as well have at least a dozen people aiming for you.

Federico García Lorca

The Spanish playwright and poet had leftist sympathies, which was a problem when the Spanish Civil War broke out between the Republicans and Nationalists in 1936.

The Nationalists backed General Francisco Franco, a fascist who didn't take kindly to the Spanish republic or anyone of a liberal bent. Lorca was always outspoken about his politics in the years leading up to the war--and when Nationalists gained in popularity, Lorca feared he might be in danger.

On August 18, Lorca's brother-in-law (who was also the mayor of the major city of Granada) was murdered. A day later, August 19, Lorca himself disappeared, believed to be executed, yet no one knows. Much like with Christopher Marlowe, theories abound but facts are scarce. So scarce in Lorca's case, his body has never been found.

In 2009, excavators dug for Lorca's corpse at a spot where a man once claimed to have shoveled a ditch for Lorca after he was shot. No human remains or clues were found by investigators.




Two Who Might Have Been:

Albert Camus

Camus won 1957's Nobel Prize in Literature largely for his work in absurdism.

What isn't absurd? That Camus might have been murdered. (See what I did there? Absurdism/absurd? Ehh? Ehhh?)

The official story is that Camus died in early January 1960 from a car crash. Camus had spent the Christmas holiday in Provence with his wife and kids, but instead of taking the train back to Paris (for which he had already bought a ticket), Camus took his publisher up on the offer to ride with him in his car. They never made it. The publisher's car veered off the icy roads and wrapped itself around a tree. Camus died instantly. The publisher died a few days later.

In 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published a claim from Giovanni Catelli, an Italian academic and poet, who stated Camus was killed by KGB operatives who wanted him dead for his outspoken remarks against the Soviet Union and support of Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, a book which was banned by Joseph Stalin.

The proof, Catelli claims, comes from a diary passage from Czech poet and translator Jan Zábrana, who allegedly wrote about Camus's death in a book entitled Celý život, but that the passage was deleted in Italian translations of the text.

According to The Guardian:

In the missing paragraph, Zábrana writes: "I heard something very strange from the mouth of a man who knew lots of things and had very informed sources. According to him, the accident that had cost Albert Camus his life in 1960 was organised by Soviet spies. They damaged a tyre on the car using a sophisticated piece of equipment that cut or made a hole in the wheel at speed.

"The order was given personally by [Dmitri Trofimovic] Shepilov [the Soviet foreign minister] as a reaction to an article published in Franc-tireur [a French magazine] in March 1957, in which Camus attacked [Shepilov], naming him explicitly in the events in Hungary." In his piece, Camus had denounced the "Shepilov Massacres" – Moscow's decision to send troops to crush the Hungarian uprising of 1956.

So, a friend of a friend of a friend of a man who knows someone who knows something says Camus was assassinated three years after he insulted the Soviet foreign minister.

And you thought your mom held a grudge.

Pablo Neruda

Continuing with our theme of pissed off governments killing writers, please welcome to the stage Pablo Neruda!

Neruda involved himself in Chilean politics--even more so in Latin American politics as a whole, aligning himself with Marxist movements throughout the region.

By 1970, and riding a tide of popularity, Neruda garnered a nomination for the Chilean presidency. He eventually offered his support for the office to Salvador Allende, who would become the first democratically elected Marxist president in the world. By 1973, all of this would unravel.

Two years earlier, in 1971, Neruda won the Nobel Prize in Literature, bolstering his nation-wide popularity throughout Chile and becoming an international icon. Yet, whereas Neruda was at the height of his popularity, Chile's government was in the gutter. Political bickering was at a boil, leading to a 1973 coup d'état of Allende by fascist General Augusto Pinoche. Being a Marxist, Neruda's popularity didn't reach individuals like Pinochet.

Post-coup, Chilean military searched Neruda's house, but didn't arrest him. Days later, Neruda checked himself into the hospital for prostate cancer treatment. While there, he went into cardiac arrest and died.

In 2013, Neruda's former chauffeur came forward claiming assassins acting on behalf of Pinochet killed the poet while he was receiving treatment in the hospital. Another theory is that former CIA operative Michael Townley killed Neruda, again on orders of Pinochet.

In other words, Pinochet wasn't a fan of Neruda's poetry.



One Who Just Sounds Like He Was:

Dan Andersson

Even if you're an English major, you might not know Dan Andersson. He was a Swedish author and poet who apparently moonlighted as a creepy poser in old photography.

Andersson was visiting Stockholm in 1920 to look into a job at the newspaper Social-Demokraten when he grabbed a room at the Hotel Hellman for his stay while in town.

At the same time, the Hotel Hellman was dutifully killing bedbugs in the hotel with hydrogen cyanide. Because nothing says classy hotel like a joint overrun with a parasitic infestation.

In a surprise to no one, hydrogen cyanide is dangerous, and Andersson's room was doused with it--yet the hotel staff forgot to quarantine the room until the poison dissipated. They sent Andersson up to his room to enjoy his stay, and Andersson's stay was quite brief. By 3pm that day, he was dead from poison.

But, hey, it was bedbug free after all.

The Top Ten Most Educated Countries in the World...

...are kind of what you expect. Except for New Zealand. No disrespect for New Zealand or anything, but I think most Americans would've assumed France, Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, Spain, etc., would round out the top ten.

After all, there's a 50/50 chance most Americans think New Zealand is inhabited by Hobbits.

Meanwhile, the UK and Ireland are painted in a delightfully miserable Seattle Rainy Gray.

Strange Maps recently had a variety of maps submitted showing the number of tweets...per country...per language...per specific location within that country, all shown in one of those lovely lit-up nighttime maps.

In essence, the brighter a country (or grayer in some cases), the more it tweets--and each color represents a different language.

In other words, Europe looks like this:

Russia is the surface of the moon, and Moscow is Tranquility Base. Germany, meanwhile, in a time-honored tradition, is invading other countries again, this time with its language. In a surprising turn of events, France and its language haven't receded, as it, too, is equally imperialistic.

What's somewhat curious (to a dweeb like me) is the little yellowing sweat stain on Spain's armpit. That's not a new country between France and Spain--that's just the Catalans in Spain speaking their own language, shunning the national Spanish.

Not shown on these maps? My apathy toward Twitter.



Map: Strange Maps

Students at College of William & Mary are studious and/or bored.

Depending on the quality of student, finals week means...

1.) Lots of studying.

2.) Lots of holiday shopping.

3.) Figuring out ways to burn some time until you can go home for winter break.

At The College of William and Mary*, students enjoy blending all three, by reenacting Black Friday hoard-crushing shenanigans with all the nobleness of pretending they want to study--all in an attempt to kill a few hours because they're lonely. (It's William and Mary, you know?)

According to Gawker, apparently students mass by the hundreds (thousands?) outside their main library waiting for the doors to be unlocked so they can stampede Pamplona bull style--crushing smaller, weaker students into a bloody pulp of lower intellect, all for the sake of getting primo study seats inside the library.

I can only assume the alternative for students was to sit in a dorm room with the freaky roommate that smells of methane and has an unhealthy addiction to Japanese anime.



*Really, who named this school? Yoda? Why is it backwards? Maybe--MAYBE--I'd give a pass to such a name if the school was Oxford or Harvard based on pretentiousness alone. But whosa whatsa William and Mary? What if we changed the names to College of Bubba and Shirley? Sounds classy to me.

Sign language? That's mano a mano.

Often I'm accused of not knowing half of the things coming out of my mouth when I talk. Not so. I'm just naturally this lovable.

But Reader's Digest is pretty certain all of us are pretty lost on everyday speech. They have a list (never shall an arbitrary list pass my judgment unseen on here) of 24 Things You Might Be Saying Wrong. The fact they say "you might" suggests they're not even sure themselves.


Some of the 24 things:


1.) Saying Could care less
     When you mean Couldn't care less.

Well, maybe I could care less. Do I care that there is another Twilight movie coming out eventually? No. But could I care less? Maybe. Give me a second to think about it.

...

Yup, I could care less. I realized there was a smidge inside me that cared. In a few minutes I'll have cared less.

2.) Saying  mano a mano
     When you mean man-to-man

Apparently adding vowels to English words doesn't make them suddenly turn Spanish. This is a huge blow to your drunken Uncle Frank and his yearly stereotyping of Spaniards at Christmas dinner.

Mano means "hand" in Spanish. You've been telling people you want to talk hand-to-hand, kind of like in a Bruce Lee movie, minus the bloodshed and karate chops to the neck.

Now, granted, you might be suggesting to someone you want to reenact scenes from Enter the Dragon. But there's just a good chance they want to talk though.

3.) Saying Try and
     When you mean Try to

The issue? This is wrong:
"Uncle Frank is going to try and make rude jokes."

What's correct?
"Uncle Frank is going to try to make rude jokes."

But what Reader's Digest doesn't realize is that maybe Uncle Frank wants to accomplish two things. Maybe he wants "to try" rude jokes as well as "make" rude jokes. In which case, not only is Uncle Frank very stubborn, but he's single-handedly shaming the English language in a wide variety of ways.

4.) Saying Supposably
     When you mean Supposedly.

Reader's Digest says:
Supposably is, in fact, a word—it means "conceivably"—but not the one you want if you're trying to say "it's assumed," and certainly not the one you want if you're on a first date with an English major or a job interview with an English speaker.

As an English major myself, I've savagely mocked my first dates for the most imperceptible of differences in words.

You say you have a lisp, eh?

5.) Saying Beg the question
     When you mean Raise the question

Now this is just English acting snooty. It's stuff like this that makes math people hate us.

Oh, yeah? Well, I once met the president of FSC!

A Spanish woman who described herself as the world's oldest blogger died recently at the age of 97. (Story: here.) According to Maria Amelia Lopez's side of the story, her grandson is stingy and built a blog as a birthday gift for her 95th birthday. Personally, I think the guy was just hedging his bets at that point. Buying granny anything costing more than $20 at her age is asking for trouble.

Apparently her blog was hosted by blogger/blogspot, as we are. It's as if our own grandma has died, except there's no uncomfortable wake or funeral we have to attend. So that's a plus. Her blog is a good read if you can read Spanish, or if you're just looking to get in touch with your Spanish side and have a little blogging siesta. She even puts a picture of herself up on her main page, showing her in a snazzy periwinkle blue scarf. I think that's the key to a successful blog: stylish photos of its writers wearing dashing scarves. (I'm working on getting Marcy and McCarthy to wear some scarves, just so you readers can feel like we're equally debonair in our neckwear.)

As an added bonus, she also often went on her webcam to give her views on issues of the day. From the looks of them, she did these videos late at night by the glow of a desk lamp, as if she has a secret she wants to tell you, or to show you how the Unabomber worked successfully for so long. (Side note: in these videos she wears a satin pink scarf. Again with the rakish neckwear.) I'll attach a video, though I haven't a clue what she's talking about. My Spanish skills are weaker than the coffee you get at McDonalds. But I'm wagering that since she was about 97 years old when she posted this that she wasn't dropping F-bombs or threatening Fitchburg State College. Just a wild hunch.



Ms. Lopez also met Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero once, who visited her at her home. Clearly, this was a power grab by the Prime Minister. We all know the elderly vote in higher numbers than college kids. An elderly grandma who has a grasp of the internet? That's dangerous to any politician. But, hey, we bloggers really know how to woo the powerful men in the world. I once met the president of FSC before. Pres. Antonucci even replied to a few of my emails. I'm not saying I have the cache of Ms. Lopez. All I'm saying is that I'm 70 years younger than her and I'm already meeting people in positions of power, so she's behind the curve a little here. Though I'll admit I can't hold a candle to her on my scarf-wearing abilities.

Still, there's something endearing about Maria Amelia Lopez. Getting in touch with so many people revitalized her. It made her happy to wake up every morning. Although, according to Ms. Lopez, running the blog "took 20 years off my life." Tell me about it, sister. The Toolbox will make a martyr of me by the time I'm 40.