Christmas and Doña Manolita

AOG, Madrid

Christmas is coming and Spain is in full swing. From my office window in Gran Via, I see the shops with their lights blinking, the people to-ing and fro-ing getting gifts for loved ones and making strolling a bit of a hazard.

As in the UK, I see here and there homeless people who no one seems to care about. No time for them.

On Gran Via, at number 31 since 1931, there stands one of Spain’s institutions: Doña Manolita’s, a lottery vending shop famous for having been the source of many of the winning tickets for Spain’s Christmas lottery, the largest on Earth. The other being the shop known as La Bruixa d'Or, or the Golden Witch, located, mysteriously, in the town of Sort (which means luck in Catalan), in Catalonia. People from all over Spain travel to Sort to buy a lottery ticket.

These places mystify the Spanish imagination. Here is a country where everyone wants to be wealthier than what they are. I suppose like everywhere else, only here, it seems to be more institutionalised than in other places.

From my window, I can see the long lines of hopeful buyers which stretch around the corner. Dozens of people who want to buy a lottery ticket.

Aside from the people in line, there are musicians who make the long wait a bit more agreeable. Aside from them, there are also a few homeless people and beggars who most people seem to ignore. It is odd watching people from all walks of life, wearing anything from sporty clothing to fur coats, all lining up to increase their wealth, and ignoring their fellow human beings begging.

Having said this, I don’t want to accuse anyone of having a hard heart. It is perhaps that in Spain, scams are all too frequent, and most Spanish people see only people who are trying to scam them, and not a social necessity. It is also true than, in Spain, people expect their Government to deal with things like beggars on the street, and that it, somehow, has nothing to do with them.

It is also true that many people in Spain give generously to charities and NGOs.

Nonetheless, I see these people lining up in the cold Madrid mountain air, hoping they win a few thousand euros this Christmas, and wonder why they appear to ignore the beggars. The homeless.

The modern world strikes again

AOG, Madrid

I have just heard on Spanish radio the story of a woman in New Zealand who has died after her electricity company, Mercury Energy, turned off the power to her home because the light bill had not been paid.

The woman in question was connected to an electric oxygen pump to breathe, and although her family tried to stop the power being switched off, the engineer who had been called out only responded that he had to do his job.

It is reported that he even went inside the house to see the situation for himself. And that he switched the power off anyway. This strikes me as completely inhuman, though I don't have all the facts and, as they say, there are two sides to every story. Nonetheless, I can't help but wonder about what was going through that man's head when he carried out his orders.

Here is a link to the story as told in Australia. Not many European papers carry the story yet. It is only 13:12 right now. It may change.

According to her family, she owed Mercury Energy 168.40 New Zealand dollars (US$122).

Folole Muliaga, 44, a schoolteacher with four children aged 5 to 20, had been off work since February with an illness and fell behind in her payments to Mercury. Her husband had taken time off from work to care for her.

The company are said to be "devastated by the woman's death and was conducting its own investigation to determine what happened", according to Mercury Energy's general manager, James Moulder.

Well, what do they think happened?

And already, modernity has begun to exude impunity left, right and center:

Auckland University professor of law Bill Hodge said manslaughter charges could potentially could be filed, depending on what information Mercury Energy had and how it was expressed to them.

Well, how does Professor Hodge think Mercury Energy were informed? Smoke signals? And what information does he think the company will admit to having if this goes to court?

Unfortunately, by this weekend, this poor woman's death will be old news. Until the next time something like this happens.

Once again, a life has fallen by the wayside in humanity's attempt to reach complete modernity. What's a life when faced with corporate greed, inhuman call centers, robotic taped messages. In order to better the lives of our species, we have lost the human touch completely.

Once our species achieves modernity, will there be anyone of us left to see it?