Small Steps And Acts

I have time for another political rant.

Some days ago I read in a newspaper that the main "left" party in Spain (well, for the past few years they have acted like a right-wing party mostly), called PSOE, had a big meeting to refund themselves with new ideas and objectives. And the list of ideas is quite impressive. For example, they are proposing to made a law regarding salaries, so the highest salary in a company is not more than 12 times the lowest salary of that same company. This is not the only proposal, and in general they sound better than what they've been doing till now.

The problem is credibility: First, while ruling in the past, they betrayed the socialist principles quite often. They've also had several important corruption cases, and when European government demanded some actions from them, they easily followed whatever they were told even when clearly their voters would be against it. Second, even right now they have all these nice ideas...while keeping the same people in positions of power, and maintaining the idea that no one inside their party can go against whatever has been decided in the party. Basically, the party works like a small dictatorship, and you should follow orders from above.

The other main party, PP, has the same dictatorial behaviour plus they're directly heirs of the Spanish fascism. Compare Spain with other European countries, and the extreme-right parties are non-important. That's why because the supposedly "moderate right" party of the country is actually this extreme right, fascism reborn with the same people or their relatives.

Both main parties have lied, favoured their rich friends, accepted bribes and corruption, and did other things thinking only about themselves. That's why when they propose changes, it's rather unimpressive: Not following their own electoral program is the norm. Particularly with PP, if you want to know what's going to happen next or what's really going on, just assume the exact opposite of whatever they say. As per PSOE, if they really apply these changes, it would be great, but right now before we believe them they need to prove themselves, and that's achievable by not having people there that don't even have studies, they're just relatives of members in power or they've been working their way up the party all their life without any proof that they're even competent at government or able to do anything whatsoever apart from licking asses.

Apart from that....PP lately has approved some terrible laws, against protests and against abortion, similar to Franco's laws.

However, there's not much more to say...while these people are in power, and the same people decide their successors, these parties will not change, and we should not be surprised with a fascist country (version 2.0). If they were truly refunded, by kicking out anybody with some power inside the party, maybe something would improve, but as it is, it's not believable that anything will change.

So, what can we do?

Well, the problem of writing rants, or making websites and posts to warn and criticise some parties is that people with the same ideas are the ones that will read those rants and articles and websites. No matter how angry we are, how much proof do we have of the wrongdoings of some parties, the people that may actually change their minds will never read those. Internet works that way, you're more likely to form communities and follow news about people that match your opinions, so you can all agree while being angry at those other idiots that don't know what they're doing....which is a problem that closes your mentality to new ideas, of course....

We have a problem with advertising. In order to change mentalities, we should try ways to make these messages arrive to the people that will never check this blog, for example.

I believe we should print papers with single simple messages. If there's walls of text, nobody is going to read them. With simple message stating simple truths, maybe some change is possible.

For example, a simple message would be "If you don't vote or vote null or with a white paper, PP and PSOE (or the big parties in general) get more members of parliament". This is a simple message, easy to read, that is also true. Another example: "The current voting laws favour the big parties. PP is ruling the country with 53% of parliament having only 30% of voters' support". Even another: "With the money the government gave to the banks, public healthcare and education would not need cuts". And so on.

Then, we distribute the papers. Put them in walls, give them to people, even just leave them on the street. Yes, not very eco-friendly, but well, it's less echo-friendly to have our current politicians...

And, here's the key point: These papers needs to be distributed in towns (cities as well, but towns should be the main focus). The current electoral law is rigged so areas with small population represent a big chunk of the parliament. The theory is that this way no area is left without representation. The practice is that these areas are designed to maximize member of parliaments form the big parties.

Well, let's hit them where it hurts. Let's distribute these papers in small towns and populations. You visit grandparents in some small nice town in the mountains? You bring papers. You go on vacations through the Santiago way? You bring papers. You need to travel across Spain for work? You distribute papers along the way.

I'm not sure about the legality of this, but I believe it may be possible as long as all messages are true and simple. You don't write "all politics from PSOE and PP are corrupt", since that's not true and can be considered defamation...you write "PP and PSOE have X members of their parties accused of corruption", which is true, and does not declare if they're guilty or not, just shows that's it's a problem affecting lots of them.

Maybe I'm idealistic, but I believe that by putting a lot of focus in towns, something may change. Even if little by little...

Spain's problem is misinformation, false advertisement and lack of evident choices. This is a strategy from the big parties. Well, we should counter-act it. If we start now, maybe next elections we manage to kick some people out of their permanent seats...

Castle And Good Stories

We're reaching the last stages of the project, and soon enough we'll be very busy at work. At home, we're taking care of Elay, and enjoying his first reactions to us (smiles, laughs, sounds, and the funniest of them all: raising arms and legs and rolling to one side when very happy).

With all this, we still have enough free time and we do stuff that we like. Recently we finished watching some series, and since there were no new chapters of any of the series that we still follow, we decided to start something new. We decided to give "Castle" a try, since I had heard it was decent enough.

I enjoy browsing this website called TV Tropes. IT's an informal wiki that compiles Tropes. Tropes are tricks and patterns used in all kinds of fiction, or even in real life. For example, the "Evil Genius" Trope is the one where we have some kind of inventor that has some secret lab and performs experiments that will enable them to rule the world or achieve some other selfish objective. It's an easily recognizable pattern, a building block for stories. Using tropes is inevitable, even when you're subverting them by showing how ridiculous they are.  You may use new ones or more obscure ones, but still any story can be analysed in some way using Tropes. And using Tropes is not bad, or it does not make a story bad.

With that in mind, Castle sounds like this: A famous and rich male writer that lives with his mother and his daughter writes about murders and has similarities with Stephen King partners with a female police detective  thanks to his friendship with powerful people, and together they solve murder investigations with the help of other detectives and forensics.

This is a truthful explanation of the series, and it sounds unoriginal and repetitive, like a detective novel mixed with CSI.

However, this show is awesome. We're completely addicted to it.

The trick here is that the premise is rather cliché, but its all in the execution, and in the characters. The characters are alive. They are funny, they are likeable, they have flaws and qualities...they're very human, and they feel very realistic, they seem real. You can imagine people reacting in the way they do.

The show also tries to be realistic in how to investigate crimes, with a few exceptions or pokes to "super agencies" shows where they have computers that do everything. Mixed in all this are lots of jokes, an incredible amount of pokes and funny references to other shows (since the main actor was in Firefly, there's looots of pokes about this) and pop culture (like the x-files special episode about aliens with Bishop) , and in general a very funny feeling, even if there are dramatic moments too.

This shows that good stories do not need to be original, and they don't need to avoid common Tropes. Good stories take these Tropes and use them wisely for the best effect. When it's done correctly the story will be awesome, even when everybody knows what's going to happen.

For example, one of the last chapters that we have seen was not as good. The reasons for that was that it didn't make much sense, characters didn't behave as normal , and the bad guy had all his plans too perfect while nobody figured his intentions, while they're usually smart in other episodes.

This episode was an exception in this show, and we still think most of the rest is awesome and totally worth watching, but it servers to proof that it doesn't matter how typical a show may seem, it's all in how its done...

With a few exceptions, Castle is very well done.