The question was posed by Josep Vallverdú in a poem, and it comes to me readily to answer with a list of responses full of gratitude to this Lleida gentleman: the good things in life are in his sustained work, in his prolific generosity with child and youth readers, in the intelligent good nature that followed him like a perfume, in the wisdom of a recent word, when he said that we must strive to have only "affections and hopes left in the closet", and that "the greater the affections, the closer hopes will be to becoming reality".

I am very surprised that in the great school debate we have open in the country, the main actors—with the exception of some particular voices—have ignored the decisive role that families play and that, as a consequence, they have also ignored the very serious behavioral problems in the classrooms of our schools and institutes. It seems that everything revolves around changing the Government's educational policies. But the truth is that some of the main difficulties, here and elsewhere, do not stem from the Government, but are related to parents' expectations and attitudes: their role in educational success or failure and, therefore, in students' attitudes in the classroom.

I always saw her sitting in a corner of the living room where the whole family gathered, dressed in white like the old women did, and with reddish henna braids emerging on either side of the scarf that covered the top of her head, just the top, like pirates. Her demeanor always serious, hieratic, with her back straight and her hands one over the other, an expression of severity that seemed to hide a lifetime of suffering and sacrifice. Even if I had asked, they wouldn't have told me how old she was; my ancestors didn't worry much about such unimportant things as birth dates. But she had to be very old, if she was my mother's father's mother, and when my grandfather spoke to her, he immediately turned into a small, frightened child, attentive and helpful, shrinking before the venerable lady.

After the World Cup hangover, can we, Catalans, draw any useful lessons from this happy outcome in the most important sporting competition on the planet?Spain's victory has pleased me. Nine Catalan players and eight from Barça would be reason enough to support the national team. But the main reason is another: a way of understanding competition has prevailed that also applies to politics.It has been said that the red team won because it was, above all, a team. Faced with teams full of stars – Brazil, England, Portugal or France – Spain did not depend on a single name. Its strength has not been isolated talent, but cohesion. The whole has weighed more than the sum of its parts.It is true. But it is not enough to be a pineapple. It is not enough to have a locker room, nor to invoke great words, nor to confuse intensity with intelligence.Besides a team, to win you need something more prosaic and more decisive: a plan.

We read an article in ARA about the new regulation that prohibits smoking on bar terraces, university campuses, and music festivals. The large photo illustrating the article, by Júlia González Grego, shows us three beings sitting on a terrace smoking. These three beings, who are hinted to be members of the discriminated-against, the guirior collective, are not the worst thing they do. One of them has taken off his socks (his feet must be sweating). By this I mean that if the waiter comes to the sock-wearer and tells him not to smoke, he won't care, if you'll allow the summery pun. On campuses and at music festivals, things will be even worse. Who will tell students (and professors) not to smoke on the grass? Who will administer justice? Some bikers in black jackets that say “Vaping Angels”?

The Town Hall of L'Alcúdia de Crespins, in the Valencian region of La Costera, has decided to remove the name of the writer Isabel-Clara Simó, who died in 2020, from the local secondary school. According to the mayor, from the PP, such an illustrious, relevant, recognized, applauded, read, and beloved author "does not represent the neighbors" because, according to him, "her idea of the Catalan Countries divides." He also says that "she was not a resident of the town," because Simó, in fact, was from Alcoi. Let's be precise, master. It is true that Isabel-Clara Simó was a citizen of the Catalan Countries and a convinced independentist, but even this mayor should understand that she would also have "divided" if she had been a strong supporter of the unity of Spain, because all positions and opinions "divide." But, lo and behold, if she had been a Spanish nationalist, she would no longer have "divided." Even being born in Alcoi surely would not have been a demerit either.The mayor and his government team are falling into a true classic of municipal policy by the Popular Party, which is to try to erase the names of Catalan writers in municipalities where they govern. Joan Fuster, Vicent Andrés Estellés, Blai Bonet, Josep M. Llompart, Miquel Àngel Riera, Damià Huguet, and even Ramon Llull, to mention just a few, are authors whose names, at one time or another, have been attempted to be erased from a school, an institute, a library. Or a bust, a memorial, whatever, has been vandalized. On another level, the current Valencian Generalitat, presided over by Mazón's successor, Pérez Llorca, decided, during this past academic year, to exclude Catalan and Balearic authors from the baccalaureate curriculum, with the utterly stupid argument that "they are not Valencian" and "they do not write in Valencian." All of this is always about the same thing: denying any form of recognition or visibility to writers who are part of their blacklists, and – even more seriously – promoting misinformation and ignorance of Catalan literature among public school students (in private and subsidized schools, they already ensure that "what is appropriate" is taught). It is part of the same offensive against the Catalan language and public education that occurs with PP and Vox governments, both in the Valencian Country and in the Balearic Islands. Isabel-Clara Simó was a successful writer and a particularly distinguished figure of her generation, as well as a tireless defender of the language, culture, and independence of the Catalan Countries. Also a feminist writer, left-wing ("fiery red") and environmentalist, who always spoke out in favor of diversity and minorities. The decision to remove her name from an institute has nothing to do with the excuses given by this insignificant mayor, but is political and ideological. I had the honor of being a friend of Isabel-Clara Simó, and I dare to say how she would react to news like this: she would laugh, let out a curse or two, and remember that if they are like this, it means we are doing well. She worked, she never cried.

There are words that everyone knows will make headlines, and for that very reason they are spoken. This is the case of the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, with the phrase "We don't want this riffraff in our city", referring to organized gangs using firearms to kill each other. Folk sounds energetic. It is a quintessential example of the end of politically correct language and is the type of expression that the far-right has plundered on the streets to convey a firmness close to the death penalty and to empathize with frightened voters. It is the language that a part of the left has been adopting so as not to be left behind when it began to admit, too late, that public security policies were left-wing, because the rich right could always afford private security.

We read in ARA that the spokesperson for Vox in the Parliament, Joan Garriga, and the spokesperson for the PP, Lorena Roldán, "have asked this Tuesday that the chamber officially receive the Spanish national football team and honor the World Cup champions", considering that it is a "shared joy" for all citizens. How lucky we are in life to have these two political heroes, who, unintentionally, agree for the common good, without thinking about partisanship.

It is more than likely that, due to one problem or another, the reader has been forced to contact a service provider, for example, and that after unsuccessful attempts through telephone robots that do not understand you, applications that describe circles that lead nowhere, etc., has given up on speaking directly with the person responsible for the matter. This is not mere discourtesy, but an increasingly frequent violation of rights. The idea that communicative power has mutated into structural and premeditated, highly calculated, incommunication is one of the most significant paradoxes of our time. For much of the 20th century, it was believed that whoever controlled the transmission channels – the press, radio, television – possessed almost omnipotent power: they could shape public opinion and, indirectly, even set the agenda for politicians. In fact, they could determine who or what was visible, and who or what remained in the shadows. The undeniable strength of communication lay in the ability to reach everyone. Today, however, the panorama is radically different: power is demonstrated by covertly blocking the interlocutor, that is, by preventing, or greatly hindering, communication from being reciprocal.Large corporations – banks, operators, and increasingly, outsourced public services – have perfected a perverse architecture of non-communication that functions as an invisible wall. When there is a problem, we enter a loop of phone menus, dead-end forms, or emails that receive no response (and which actually end up serving to receive spam advertising once we have provided our email). The effect is twofold: on the one hand, the more than understandable feeling of powerlessness; on the other, the realization that communication is no longer a right or a service, but an administrative resource to abuse the user, with or without a contract. Power today lies not so much in speaking as in not listening, and non-communication thus becomes a form of authority: those who do not respond dominate with impunity and without complexes, with total normality.

The football obsession and the brain drain that we all have at this point in a summer that is already in full climate change have made the scandalous reaction of the Spanish judicial leadership, and of the ultra-nationalist right, to the CJEU ruling on the amnesty pass unnoticed. The summary is as follows. Constitutional Court: will look at it upon returning from vacation. Supreme Court: maintains the arrest warrant for Puigdemont and the embezzlement charge, and keeps the ace up its sleeve of raising new preliminary questions, which would further delay the process by a few more months. The PP: in the words of Secretary General Miguel Tellado, the CJEU ruling does not enter "into the substance of the matter". The substance of the matter is to get rid of Pedro Sánchez and his government, so evil that, according to the PP, it doesn't even support the national team.On the part of the socialists and the partners in Sánchez's investiture, and on the part of those directly affected – the independence leaders now amnestied by the European court – caution, prudence, calculation, and tense calm have predominated. Óscar Puente, the hooligan minister, broke the violin string, who overstepped by inviting Puigdemont to “show up in Spain”. This – since we mention football – is because Puente, like so many others, has for years applied to the certainly serious events that have occurred in the last ten years in the conflict between Catalonia and Spain the clumsy, emotional, and childish logic typical of football. They truly believe that “Puigdemont fled Spain inside the trunk of a car” and, from here, they are easy prey for the narrative they themselves have been building. An uninformed and misinforming, Manichean narrative, which quickly reduces reality to its caricature level. “Is there a favorable ruling from the ECJ? Then let him show up here”. If a minister's analytical capacity is this, the flood has arrived this far.However, what is truly alarming is the attitude of the Spanish courts towards their European counterparts. The fact that a state is a member of the EU means that European law and jurisprudence are incorporated into the legal corpus in force in that state and acquire a higher rank of relevance than "national" law and jurisprudence. The rulings of the European courts are not "foreign" rulings or intolerable interferences. European rulings cannot be postponed, neglected, evaded, or ignored. On the contrary, Spanish courts must respect them, apply them, and enforce them with the same zeal and diligence as if they were "own" rulings. However, this one from the CJEU on the amnesty is particularly difficult for them. And it is understandable, because it highlights the dirty game that Spanish justice and politics (in particular, the Supreme Court and the PP) have played and continue to play, naturally to defend the unity of Spain. The CJEU does not agree with them on anything and, without saying it, says what they are: politicians who act outside of democracy, and corrupt judges.

We are not used to the deployment of citizens in red shirts and Spanish flags in the streets of Barcelona with the relevant ritual chants. And it is shocking when you find yourself in it, even if it is perfectly predictable: it is the afternoon and evening when Spain wins its second Football World Cup. Sporting hegemonies play an important role in the economy of collective passions and often generate clichés that hide social complexity. The absence of a Catalan national team in international competitions has been capitalized by Barça, attributing to itself the role of the national team of Catalonia. With this logic of good and bad guys, the 'culer' religion has taken hold in such a way that it seems that the city (and the country) is its territory. But here it is that one day the Spanish team is proclaimed world champion and you go out into the street and you find groups of citizens with rojigualda flags and cries of patriotic enthusiasm, and your face shows that you don't know where you are. What is happening? Well, simply that societies – and people – are more complex than we think, that economies of desire are convoluted, volatile, and that just as they lead to confrontation, they can also lead to unexpected complicities.

Elections are vulnerable because chaos has become the perfect means to erode trust, evidence, and democratic systems. Vulnerabilities are not just theoretical nor are they interested exaggerations; they have been exploited worldwide, from South Africa to Ukraine, Bulgaria, and the Philippines. Hacking voting machines remains too easy. But it is even easier to build narratives of distrust and emotionality. Playing with minds and fragmenting realities to erode democratic processes.

The Constitutional Court will begin to reconsider the amnesty in two months, on September 22, because really, what are sixty days in the life of a person who has been waiting for justice, exiled or disqualified, for almost nine years? It won't matter anymore.

We want a Catalan sports team, of course, like the Scots, because it's logical and because everyone aspires to a bit of banal nationalism. But we don't want politicians from one side to ask for it, because they put a flock of sheep to sleep, and the victimist tone and false "we demand" are much hotter. Nor do we want those from the other side to talk about Spanish uninhibitedness, because there can be no Spanish uninhibitedness with Franco's heir, "Felipe VI" (such was the name he wore on the shirt with which he watched the semi-final, so sadly) on the throne. Uninhibitedness means the usual, whether we're talking about football, trains, or the Mediterranean diet. Some have to put in the effort and others receive the Michelin star. I would like the teams to be requested by the clubs, the players, the members of those clubs. Those who would sing Els segadors with fervor, because it has lyrics, unlike the Spanish anthem. And it doesn't have them for one reason: it "used to" have them. In Spain, everything comes from before.

Power outagesI cannot understand the countless power outages that are occurring. Day in, day out.

We have all thought, at some point, "there are people who are unlucky." Sometimes it's true: there are very dramatic lives, people who have suffered major setbacks. But there are also those people who are simply convinced they are very unlucky. They tell you that everything has gone wrong for them, that they don't get along with their family, that their friends have disappointed them, that society doesn't value them.

The publication in the Official State Gazette of the declaration of Via Laietana, 43 as a Place of Democratic Memory represents a significant event. For the first time, the State officially recognizes that this building was one of the main centers of political repression of Francoism in Catalonia. It is a step that victims and the memorialist movement have been demanding for decades.

Trump attended the heaviest final in history, not so much to act as host as to make some memes with his friend Infantino. He went with two hot potatoes in his pockets: his war in Iran (which he's losing) and the midterm elections next November (which he might also lose). Both potatoes, of course, are strongly connected: naturally, the disastrous management of the Gulf crisis and its consequences worsen Trump's expectations before the elections, in which the majority in Congress is at stake.In Iran, Trump continues to cling to what the journalist from the New Yorker Robin Wright has defined as "ad-lib strategy", i.e., a strategy that is no strategy at all. A course of action based on sudden turns, caprice, volatility, and changes of direction, in which massive bombings are ordered one moment and supposed diplomatic successes are announced the next, which are always successes in the style of Vance, Hegseth, or Rubio: ideas that must have seemed good in the meetings of the hard core of the Trump administration but which fail on contact with reality. Having resumed the armed conflict after signing, even if only by teleconference, a peace agreement – now frozen from Tehran, while Trump went off to football – can only be described as a demonstration of ineptitude and weakness. It is clear that Trump and his collaborators underestimated the resistance capacity of the Ayatollah regime, which has even overcome the beheading of its leadership and renewed it without too many problems, at least in appearance. It has not been a walk in the park like staging a coup in Caracas, kidnapping Maduro, installing a puppet government in the country, and stealing its oil. Trump's pirate ship has run aground in the Gulf, and besides the thousands of human lives already consumed by the conflict, the orange pachyderm risks the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed. The consequent rise in fuel prices, and prices in general, is an extremely unpopular effect among the American electorate. This is one of the factors that explain the very low popularity ratings that Trump has been dragging for some time, and the poor expectations that polls give him for the "mid-termelections of November.This is why Trump has for days been resorting to the fascist resistance manual (they have one too) and appeared last Friday on Fox – no other channel wanted to broadcast it – with a statement warning of a possible electoral fraud like the one, according to him, that already occurred in the 2020 elections, a lie based on misrepresentations about immigration, demographics, and the census. Does that sound familiar? It's the same song that the far-right here repeats day and night, both the Spanish and the Catalan, starting with the pathetic Feijóo. It wasn't what Trump wanted, but remembering the American elections of 2020 was a way to also remind us that he was the instigator of the assault on the Capitol on Three Kings' Day in 2021. And that, consequently, he should not be in the presidency, but in prison.

There is a test that can be done any evening of theater, concert, or dance festival in Catalonia: look at the audience. In many cases, almost all faces are of native people, from a recognizable middle class, even when they are children's shows. Then, we go out into the street, take the subway, and return to the plural reality of a country in which, in Barcelona or Girona, between 20% and 25% of the population has migratory origins. The question is inevitable: where have they stayed?

Last week, the Guardia Civil arrested, handcuffed as if they were dangerous criminals, two young women from the Mallorcan town of Santa Maria del Camí for having made graffiti against tourist saturation and speculation on the facade of the office of a German real estate agency. For the arrest, several media outlets were notified, who disseminated the image of the two young women being led away with handcuffs on. Images illegally recorded with security cameras from the same real estate agency were also disseminated, in which they are seen making the graffiti. The next day, the Guardia Civil accused them of belonging to a "criminal organization". Both the Guardia Civil and the National Police also made a threat public: "Whoever commits crimes against tourist interests in Mallorca will be arrested".The disproportion is so exaggerated that it has caused indignation. As has been noted on social media, no one has ever been arrested in Mallorca for making fascist graffiti, such as that which regularly —for example— defaces the bust of Aurora Picornell. In any case, graffiti is an anecdotal event on an island where attacks, destruction, and assaults against the environment, urban spaces, and people's homes occur every day, and in abundance. And not at the hands of activists who question the system, certainly, but of mass tourism taken to the extreme, which has as a direct consequence the strongest demographic pressure and housing crisis in all of Spain. The island of Mallorca is being crushed and, at the same time, marketed without control or measure. On the contrary, the current government of PP and Vox has pushed through an omnibus law and an amendment to the agrarian law to unprotected rural land and natural spaces on the island. They have created a tailor-made legal framework so that any speculative abuse on an already saturated and fragile island is not only possible, but perfectly legal.That the authors of a protest graffiti are treated as dangerous criminals is another abuse, in this case a police one, for which the government delegate in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez Badal, and Minister Marlaska must answer. The context is easy to understand: for the next Sunday the 26th, a large demonstration is called in Palma against tourist saturation, and the political and economic powers that consider themselves owners of the island are trying to criminalize the protest and generate fear, in order to suffocate and dilute the call. There is an immediate precedent: the large human chain on July 5th, in protest against the lack of protection of the Es Trenc Natural Park: they thought it would be a small thing and found themselves with a significant citizen mobilization, which bothered them and which they have tried—also—to criminalize by saying... that graffiti had been made there. Predictably, they will use the old dirty tricks, starting with the infiltration of provocateurs within the demonstration. It is absolutely necessary that next Sunday's be the largest protest ever seen in the Balearic Islands.