SPAIN 2010 - Algo pequeñito

Oh, how I wish I could say that I don't like this song. Why? Scroll down, or just keep reading ...

I wish I could say that, but I can't. I dig this song. I love the melody, I love the whole style of it. The singer's voice isn't very good, but he makes up for that with a lot of charm, alas. Major kudos for singing in Spanish, I like that a lot. This is a great song ... I'm sad to say it's better than what I generally expect from Spain, these days. I hope they'll do well ... I think. Maybe not, right now. >:-(

This is an entry that may look like more fun than it really is, because of all the people on stage, happily dancing in the background and what not. In the final, the rules allow only six people on stage per entry. So this will have to be changed. I hope they will change the costumes too ... if they keep the circus type backing performers, then the singer should be dressed like a circus director, I think. :-D

A fun and charming entry, though, regardless. Damnit.

This is Daniel Diges performing Algo pequeñito by Jesús Cañadilla, who will be competing for Spain on Saturday, May 29th. Spain is one of the Big Four - ie one of the four biggest contributors to the EBU coffers - and one of the things this buys them is a guaranteed place in the ESC finals. Not necessarily a good thing, but, well, it is what it is.



Lyrics here.

The reason I picked the Spanish entry for this post was to use the occasion to draw your attention to this great news from Mexico yesterday. One of Spain's biggest bullfighting stars got a little too close to his victim and was brutally gored in the groin. Wahey!! There is some justice in the world after all. >:-) The bull's horn penetrated both a vein and an artery and the guy's now unconscious in hospital in critical condition. Whee. I love happy news stories like this.

I've got to say this for Spain. There aren't a lot of nations in the world that are so emotionally stunted that cruelty to animals is their national sport. I just hate that argument that OK, bullfighting isn't very nice, but it's their culture, so we shouldn't say anything against it. WTF? Female genital mutilation is part of the culture too in a number of countries, does that mean we shouldn't say anything against that? Or do we only care about suffering when it's members of our own species who are in pain? >:-(

Of course that leads into another argument the apologists like to use - that the bulls destined for the arena lead much better lives than those cattle that are raised for food. But, first of all, the fact that the latter group often suffer tremendously is no reason to make the former suffer as well. We should fight against both forms of abuse, equally. Second, raising cattle for beef at least serves a useful purpose. We need to eat. Raising bulls for the arena serves no purpose except to create vicarious thrills for a group of bloodthirsty degenerates.

But third, and this is perhaps the worst part ... the apologists seem to think that arena bulls are well treated because they deserve a good life before their gruesome deaths. Hah, if only!! These animals are allowed to live peaceful quiet lives, away from humans, so that the shock of the arena will be as great as possible ... as disorienting and frightening as possible ... so that the bulls will be the less able to fight back. Do you think that if these big strong animals were allowed to observe us closely every day of their lives for what, 4-5 years, and then forced to fight us to the death ... do you really think that if that was the practice, one of these cowardly bullfighters gored half to death would be a rare enough occurrence to be front page news?

Not on your life. And certainly not on theirs. >:-(