A picture (of banknotes) is worth a thousand words

The Osborne bull, the statuette of a Sevillian woman, the Naranjito, and the envelopes stuffed with banknotes for corruption. Spanish iconography typical I should already incorporate this image, because both are related by the practice popularly known as doing the Egyptian. The World and theAbc Today's front pages include large photographs of the envelopes that the UCO (Spanish National University) attributes to payments from the PSOE to Ábalos and Koldo. It's the typical case where a picture is worth a thousand words. For months, right-wing (and far-right) newspapers have been screaming headlines with details of the case only comprehensible to scholars, academics, and interpreters of the matter: formulations that included concupiscent relationships between such-and-such an advisor, his cousin, or Pasqual's lover. This is different. The photograph of the envelope of banknotes is meant to be the gavel that will sentence the PSOE in the public eye. The amount of money seen is nothing out of this world—just over 3,000 euros—and some coins can even be seen, but the fold is quite thick, thanks to the EU's 2009 decision to stop producing 500-euro banknotes (precisely because they ended up being used for illicit activities). The measure—oh, surprise!—hasn't put an end to corruption, but at least now the tainted politicians must gather and move a lot more paper.

From then on, the cavern begins to play the trombone that was kept muted under Bárcenas. The Country, on the other hand, sweated blood to minimize the matter, headlined: "The UCO confirms that Ábalos and Koldo had a secret secret fund for their personal expenses." They sold it as the private vice of two satraps, without explaining who was filling that pleasant little box. In the end, amidst these straws in other people's eyes and beams in their own, chorizo is consolidated as an intangible heritage of Spanish politics. Any day now, UNESCO will come and protect the envelopes.