Comments on: I was trying to think of how to make…

By: michel

michel — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 11:46:21 +0000

Franco, if your best point is that I read today’s post, and that “your comments speaks for itself” (it’s actuallt spelt “your comments speak for themselves”, honey) it’s obvious who’s on teh right side.

And for those who are not Franco, his only argumentation is that he did translate it properly. I encourage you to ask ANY spanish person you know how that sentence is translated. And then, judge him yourselves.

And then, maybe you should wonder what impulsed Franco to spread this stupid advert over the foreign net, with the effort of (mis)translating it… And you’ll come to my conclussion: he doesn’t find support here, because thankfully we have more important things to worry about, so he searches for it elsewhere. Pretty sad, if you ask me. And I bet you all have more important things to worry about.

That said, for those of you who think that El Pais has apologized because the whole country is scared that we won’t sell more wine (lol) to the US, or that no more US citizens come to sightseeing… PLEEZE!! Wake up! They apologized because the ad was tactless. Kudos for them. Stop thinking you’re the center of the universe. That can’t be good for anyone’s mental health.

By: Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain)

Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain) — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:16:50 +0000

Michel,

Fortunately, your comments speaks for itself. And before writing this, I’d advise you to read roger’s post today.

You were too quick, eh?

By: michel

michel — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:34:51 +0000

For all of you thinking about Franco Aleman as a wonderful person, I feel the need to warn you: he’s only manipulating you. Yeah, it’s true that was a real advertisement in El Pais. It was an ad sent by EMAIL, not even in the media. Obviously, they made a mistake by letting it go through, and being sent. But El Pais has already apologized. Oh, Franco didn’t say that here, did he?

Franco Aleman has mistranslated the message ON PURPOSE. “Un dÌa da para mucho” does NOT mean “You can do a lot in one day”. It means that a lot can happen in one day. THAT’S ALL. Anything else, is Franco’s personal and rightish interpretation.

And it’s true. A lot changed on 11S. Yeah, it is be insensitive to use those images, but it’s not a joke, and it’s not about being happy that it happened. It’s all about information, which is what El Pais has been offering for decades. In fact, it was the first democratic newspaper in Spain.

So, dear Franco, please, don’t insult our intelligence by saying that you are sad about releasing this, but it was what you have to do. You’re not a hero, you’re a manipulator. But I guess that since most people in Spain don’t make a big deal abut this, you had to search for support abroad. Oh, well, I find it pretty sad, but it’s your life. Just try to not to say lies, it’s not nice.

Oh, and people here DON’T feel bad about El Pais, mostly because we’re intelligent enough to see the difference between the person that makes an advert and sends it via email, and a whole newspaper, the biggest and most important in a Country.

And of course, I do think you’re all making a huge deal out of nothing. For God’s shake, it’s a stupid advert in an email!! If it had been 11M instead 11S, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. If you’re really cancelling a vacation because of it, considering you live in a country where children can own guns, maybe you need consider your priorities…

By: Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain)

Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain) — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 16:08:21 +0000

It certainly doesn’t look like it’s a hoax, something that even El Pais is not saying anymore; they did early this morning, but I wrote this new entry showing that it is not. Now El Pais are saying that they will release a statement, and that they don’t “confirm nor deny”

How sweet, they sound like CBS!

So, as we say in Spanish, that commenter of yours, Solomon, is “m√°s papista que el Papa”.

By: Solomon

Solomon — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 13:13:36 +0000

This person left the following comment on my blog:

That's simply not true. A hoax. A fake. Name it the way you want, but, please, rectify your post. You can confirm this contacting the newspaper "El PaÔøΩs" at +34 91 353 7900. Thank you.

Can anyone confirm that this is really from the paper, and not just an email hoax? I'll email Franco as well, of course.

By: Ray

Ray — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 22:44:25 +0000

As a foreigner living in the States, I see people falling into an inconsistency:

1) People outside the US judge the US and it’s people by what they see in the US media (as reported in their own media).

2) A lot of people (myself included) in the US spend a lot of time being annoyed by the stupidity, bias, and shallowness of their media. They realise that the media are not at all representative of America.

3) Those same people (myself included) then judge Europeans by their media.

4) Even with the above points, it is important to realise that people’s opinions are heavily affected by the media.

So I guess the main point is that the media suck, no matter your continent. They are unrepresentative and generally awful. It’s generally a mistake judging other countries’ inhabitants by their media, regardless of where you are.

By: Jim in Texas

Jim in Texas — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 22:10:36 +0000

Sandy,

Yeah, I knew that. I lived in the UK and Scotland and can always find an “American Tourist” friendly place there, it’s just sad that I have to look for one. I hadn’t heard that about Ireland, but I’m not surprised.

My recent April trip back to Devon and Cornwall was good, but there were some “embarrassed silence” moments.

I just like (want?) to believe that the United Kingdom’s and Ireland’s U.S. roots are so strong and pervasive that they’ll get over the current snit; I never plan to visit mainland Europe again other than for business.

Cain,

Two points.

“Travel abroad (excluding Canada and Mexico) is prohibitively expensive for many Americans.”

Did you just make that up or decided that this sounded good or do you have some reason to say that?

I can travel to London, England round trip from Dallas, TX for less than $700 while a Dallas to Newark, NJ ticket just set me back 1,015.

“In the past three years, [1999, 2000, 2001] approximately 39.9 million Americans (19.3% of U.S. adults) traveled outside the continental United States for pleasure on trips lasting five or more nights. We refer to these travelers as outbound pleasure travelers (or as outbound travelers for short). In our 1999 TravelStyles survey, the number of outbound pleasure travelers was approximately 37.4 million persons (18.5% of U.S. adults). This difference represents an increase of 6.7% in the number of outbound pleasure travelers”

“Although comparatively few Americans travel internationally for pleasure, those who do tend to travel frequently. The majority of American outbound travelers (54.0%) took two or more international pleasure trips in the past three years; 31.7% took three or more trips, and 18.0% took four or more (trips)”

http://www.etc-corporate.org/resources/uploads/MENLO_ETC%20Member%20Report.pdf

Those numbers are from November 2001 and I suspect the numbers are down some, but as the report illustrates the U.S. citizens who travel, tend to be well educated, older and, supposedly, less likely to poorly represent the U.S.

If you have any numbers that would indicate that the “prohibitively expense” is keep those citizens from travelling?

“Anyway, the point is, Euros don’t hold the monopoly on ignorance. Just as immigrants and visitors to the US have had to overcome our stereotypes, we ought to go overseas and show that Americans aren’t all arrogant, ill-informed hicks.”

1. Why is it the responsibility of the citizens of the United States (God forbid I use the inaccurate phrase “Americans”) to educate or illuminate anyone anywhere about anything?

And,

2. I doubt anything we would do would change anyone’s opinion.

I’ve spent most of my life outside the U.S. and found that no one is really very interested in the “truths” about the U.S. since it would conflict with their cherished common skewed viewpoints.

Viewpoints, I hasten to add, whose roots can be traced back to what Europeans were saying about the U.S. during our Civil War.

So the bottom line is, most Europeans don’t like the U.S., but don’t despair, this isn’t new, they haven’t liked us for over a century, we just never cared or paid attention before.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:57:09 +0000

Cain,

I only meant ìignorant about the USî.

I know for a fact ñ as I grew up there ñ the vast discrepancies between reality of life in the US and how it is perceived in Europe.

Of course, you are also correct in pointing out that Americans are quite ignorant about Europe, but I found that while for the most part the Americans are prepared to listen to Europeans explain their ways, Europeans love to lecture Americans about our political/economical/social inferiority and get huffy when one points out the error. I encountered enough of this BS on my travels and suffer it from my own family. What I found troubling is that very few Europeans even bother to stop and consider that their ìknowledgeî about the US may be outdated or plain wrong.

One more point: on what philosophy is socialism based if not on Marxism?

By: Fausta

Fausta — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:37:02 +0000

Cain, I sympathize with your opinions, but the fact that El Pais is using two photos as one day/next day is immoral. Notice how in the “nextday” picture even the clouds are gone from the pristine-blue sky. And, for the “most well-informed” paper, it sure doesn’t show the smoke from the WTC fire, which burned for two months, and was certainly noticible on Sept. 12 2001.

Sandy, I agree with you re: North Sea oil.

By: Sandy P

Sandy P — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:02:09 +0000

Jim, Ireland is very anti-American.

As to Scotland, start reading freedomandwhisky.

Cain–

Have you perused that monstrocity called their Constitution? — but I don’t think anyone is worried about the elimination of free enterprise overseas.–

http://european-convention.eu.int/

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

http://www.eursoc.com/

And this charming comment from freedomandwhisky 10/02:

We are the masters now

It looks as though EU plans could result in the Scottish fishing industry being wiped out at a cost of 20,000 jobs. In an earlier report in Tuesday’s Daily Mail, I read that EU proposals for deep-sea fishing off our North-West coast would give France 80% of the quota, another 18% split between Ireland and Spain leaving 2% for Scottish fishermen. And Scottish taxpayers would have to fund the policing of this arrangement which covers areas that are entirely within UK territorial waters. Will our politicians do anything about this? Of course not.

Mark my words. It’s only a matter of time before the EU lays claim to North Sea oil.