Bullfighting: tradition or torture?

When many people think of Spain they think in flamenco and bullfighting. During the Franco’s dictatorship this idea was promoted abroad and still persists. Today what I am going to talk is about bullfighting. There has always been debate about whether it Spain should abolish bullfighting, but since Catalonia decided to do so in 2010, the debate has intensified. The picture that is given to us about bullfighting is a picture of an idealized bullfighter who is making art, dancing with the bull. However, the harsh reality is that these animals suffer greatly at the hands of these bullfighters. The main argument of the more conservative people is that bullfighting is a tradition that can’t be missed because it is part of the Spanish culture. They also claim that, since these bulls are bred only for the purpose of bullfighting, if bullfighting were banned and these bulls maiden free its species would become extinct. Moreover, we find the anti-bullfighting associations that carry out peaceful protests to end with the torture suffered by these animals. I think it's pretty clear what my answer to the question in the title would be: TORTURE. I think that an advanced society should treat animals properly, they are living beings that share habitat with us. However, bullfighting is still deeply rooted mainly in the deep Castile and Andalusia and only the Canary Islands (1991) and Catalonia (2010) have dared to ban it as we see in the following map:

Below you can also see in which territories of the world bullfighting is still legal (in green) and in which ones was legal but now is banned (in red):

Language diversity

It seems that lately only a few languages have relevance, and above all, English is by far the most studied language in the world. Today I was thinking about what to talk and repently an idea came to my mind: Why not to talk about language diversity? It is an issue that we discussed in class referring to Gaeilge and the country I come from has a great linguistic diversity...

In Spain 8 different laguages are spoken: Spanish, Catalan (in Catalonia, the Valencian Country, eastern Aragon and the Balearic Islands), Basque (in northern Navarra and the Basque Country), Galician (in Galicia), Astur-Leonese (in Asturias and western Castilla-León), Aragonese (in northern Aragon), Occitan (in the Vall d’Aràn) and Portuguese (in some areas near to Portugal).

However, according to the Spanish constitution, only 4 languages are considered co-official languages in its respective autonomous regions (since Spanish is the official language throughout Spain): Catalan, Galician, Basque and... Valencian. Yes, the "Valencian language" is considered a co-official language in Spain. This is because the regional government of the Valencian Community has never recognized that Valencian is a dialect of Catalan laguage, although any linguist would affirm that without hesitation.

Maybe another day I will explain why the government of Valencia doesn't recognize Valencian as a dialect of Catalan, but it has to do with the constant attacks that the Spanish centralist governments hold against the endangered languages of the country.