Rising Nucleotides

Once I was the King of Spain

Jose Maria Aznar, the President of Spain, was in New York on Tuesday on account of the UN General Assembly business. While he was there, he sat down for a conversation with Charlie Rose. I took notes. As best I can determine, no transcript is available, so most of the key phrases I wrote down are not exact quotes. Then again, he was speaking through a translator, so they wouldn't be exact quotes anyway...

Elected in 1996, and re-elected in 2000, Aznar has presided over excellent economic progress in Spain-- and he took over from a socialist, to boot. He claimed that Spain has the 'most growth' and highest employment in Europe (or possibly just among counties using the euro-- I wasn't clear on that), and even has a balanced budget.

Aznar said that he would like to see Europe be successful and powerful, but in cooperation with the US. His favorite phrase thoughout the interview was 'Atlantic relationship.' He said the same thing later in Florida, as evidenced here. "There is no serious alternative ... to the stability of a relationship between Europe and the United States," he said, adding that it was "compatible with the development of Europe." This stands in stark contrast to certain other European heads of state, who seem to think that Europe must oppose the US in order to be relevant in the world.

I don't believe that Aznar so much as mentioned another European nation or leader in a negative context, which speaks volumes about his character. He did note that it seems to be simpático in Europe to criticize the US, because 'people like to pick on the big guy.' He further explained that when Great Britain (or Spain) was the most powerful nation in the world, it was generally unpopular. Whoever has to be responsible for world stability, he said, must deal with not being popular. The President of Spain said that the United States is responsible for the stability of the world. Think about that.

Spain has been an unwavering ally in the war against global terrorism since before 9/11. Then again, they have had their own problems with Basque terrorism, so that attitude shouldn't come as a surprise. President Aznar took some flak for his support of the war in Iraq, but said that 'I have my convictions,' and 'sometimes political leadership requires you to go against the flow.' This echoes an earlier joint press conference with Tony Blair after the end of major hostilities. "A government may have to take difficult decisions, but they always have to think of everyone's security and safety. That is something that citizens, in the end, understand."

He defended the timing of the Iraq war, explaining that the 'last chance' means the last chance, not the second to last chance-- or the one before that. I couldn't resist printing that phrasology, but he probably said it better at a joint press conference with President Bush before the war. "What I want to say is that if Resolution 1441 states that it's Saddam's last opportunity, that means that time cannot be long, because the last opportunity has already been given to him. What we have to verify now is whether he has disarmed, or not. If we now said that time was infinite, it would be a laugh. It would be very difficult for anyone to take us seriously, beginning with the United Nations. That would be the worst possible message we could send for peace."

Aznar noted that certain world leaders had been known to complain that the US did not intervene in the middle East, only to complain again when it finally happened. Furthermore, he feels that Europe is more at risk from terrorism and instability in the region than the US-- being geographically closer, for one thing. What he didn't go out and say is that France really ought to be more agreeable to reforming the Arab world, because France is close to the action, and has a large and growing Muslim minority. Helping democracy and freedom become part of overall Islamic culture should be high on France's to-do list, if the country wishes to avoid a violent future.

What Aznar did say, though, is that 'you solve your problems when you look them in the eye.' He spoke of 'shouldering responsibility,' but I forget the exact context. On the subject of responsibility, Aznar declared before his re-election that he would not seek a third term. He said that some people were slow to believe it, because in the past they had been told things-- and then the reality was quite different. Bear in mind that he took office only two decades after Franco, and memories like that tend to stick with you for a while. Aznar said that he has no plans to seek election to anything when his term ends next year, and stuck to that no matter what Charlie suggested (the UN, some other international body). I forget what he said he wanted to do, but it's definitely not politics.

I was greatly impressed with this man. He refused to insult people who disagree with him, but articulated his own views well. He leads, as opposed to ruling or pandering. He wants the world to be a better place.

If only everyone was nearly as responsible.

Playing in Traffic

Way back on Saturday, I dispatched a rather harmless-looking e-mail to His Imperial Snappingturtleness, Emperor Misha I, of The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. I had spotted an interesting article in the Medina Journal-Register (which is the most local newspaper that money can usually cause delivery of), and it went a little something like this:

"Attempt to simplify citizenship oath thwarted by complaints"

My purpose today isn't to seriously analyse the proposed changes, but anyone who wishes to do so can find the current oath of citizenship on Mrs. du Toit's site. The short version is that I agree with some of the complaints. The current oath makes it clear that you swear to uphold the Constitution no matter what, and that's the way it should be.

As a naturalized citizen himself, it seemed logical that Misha would be interested in any proposed changes-- especially ones which watered down verbiage with regard to the Constitution. While I was correct about that, it seems that he was not only already aware of the changes, but also informed me that the proposal had been defeated. Well, good.

My e-mail had not been informative in the way I had originally intended. What it did do, though, was bring my humble blog to his imperial attention. This resulted in the first plug posting that I have received from a fellow blogger, but the associated increase in site traffic didn't hit until the next day. It seems that Saturdays have exceedingly low blog traffic.

The 21st featured a record 207 hits-- more than twice that of any previous day this month. The statistics for today are so low because the stats page was automatically generated at 6:25 AM. As of that time, I had received a total of 76 referrals from the Rottweiler in the four days since this began-- more than twice as many as the number two referrer for the entire month (which is Google).

In the face of all of this exposure for my site, I had just been saying "Yay for me!" and waving a little pennant. Then John from Opinionination suggested that I ought to post again soon if I wanted my new readers to keep visiting. Oh. Right. Good idea! Glad someone thought of it.

Avast, Ye Scurvy Landlubbers!

It bein' Talk Like a Pirate Day, and all, I figured to scour me blogospheric links for the occasion. I found two sites that would be fittin', but I hain't visited either o' them lately... verily, um, 'oops.'

Yarr!

Anyway, first up is Corsair the Rational Pirate, who weighed in yesterday with a piece which properly displays his practiced disdain for irrational morons. Aye, and if only we could get 'im to abandon the good ship Blogspot...

Scott, over at Pirates! Man Your Women! talks of preparin' for hurricane Isabel, which seems right timely to me at the moment. There's something of a blow goin' on out there, even though the closest body o' water suitable for piracy be Lake Ontario. I suppose the Erie Canal might do in a pinch... Yes, that's it-- "I'll send ye to DeWitt Clinton's locker! Arrr!"

As it happens, Talk Like a Pirate Day is my kind of holiday. I rather like speaking in an odd manner, and have a thing for Renaissance Festivals to boot. O' course, bein' encouraged to talk like a pirate by a bonny lass hasn't dampened my enthusiam in the least, but that wasn't necessary. It just helped. Yarr!

If you find that actually talking like a pirate is too much work, and you know what a stereotypical Canadian accent sounds like, then I have discovered a way to cheat. Affect the accent, and then say "arr" whenever you would normally use "eh." As in "This grog is pretty good, arr?" or "Tune it to TVO, arr?" I mean, really-- there were probably some Canadian pirates at some point. If I have any readers North of the border, I hope they'll take that in good fun.

Weigh anchor! We sail fer Lockport, me hearties, n' I figure we can make this a toll canal by nightfall!

We Remember

They say that you remember what you were doing when you heard the news of the most tragic of events. The classic example of this was the assassination of John Kennedy.

In November 1963, my father was a freshman at Morrisville (New York) State College, in the Animal Husbandry program. It seems that the curriculum included having to milk cows for a week or two at the college's farm. So, my father was milking cows when he received the news. That's all I know, really.

My mother was credit manager in the rather tiny credit office of the Grant's department store in Cortland at the time. She saw the television coverage on account of the fact that Grant's sold televisions. I cannot recall for certain if I had previously known, but I just asked her about it for this article.

Though I am only 26 years old, I have two such moments.

In 1986, I was young-- and so was the utilization of Earth orbit. Shuttle launches were a big deal for elementary school students, and we frequently watched them live. As it happens, I was not watching that particular launch. My third-grade class was at lunch when the Challenger exploded-- but we were not told. When we filed back into the classroom, though, the radio was on, and that was when I learned of the disaster.

On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, I had been in microbiology lab at RIT* since 8 o'clock. When Dr. Lodge told us that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I pictured a Cessna-- much like the plane on the White House lawn. Further news revealed that nothing could be farther from the truth. After class, I went to RIT's heavily TV-laden Crossroads Cafe, and stayed there for a good long while. As the President was moved around the country. I saw the footage of the towers collapsing. And like most Americans, I was glued to the news coverage for quite some time afterward.

And that's what I was doing, two years ago, today.

* Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology

Update: John links with 'Where was I?'