93 Ancient Aliens in Times of Coronavirus

I do not watch a great deal of television, but I have a few favorite programs. For example, reruns of “The Mentalist” are an ideal context for correcting papers, revising texts, or doing the first version of translations. However, because I turn on the television ahead of time, I sometimes end up inadvertently viewing stuff that I would not otherwise watch.  

On Sunday afternoon, the program preceding “The Mentalist” is a documentary series titled “Ancient Aliens”. As reflected in its name, the program presents highly speculative hypotheses of extraterrestrial astronauts. It proposes that our historical texts, archaeology, and legends contain evidence of human-extraterrestrial contact that occurred in the distant past.

Over the years I have been informed that, among other things, ghosts and angels are actually extraterrestrial visitors from distant planets, the work of Leonardo da Vinci was inspired by alien technology, and that George Washington had an alien visitation at Valley Forge. 

The series has taught me a great deal about how fascinated people are by the possibility of extraterrestrial life. However, until recently, the show was only a tiny footnote in my life. The only time that I have ever pleaded to be kidnapped by aliens and spirited away to another planet was when I had four small children ill with chickenpox.

Nevertheless, facts about Ancient Aliens suddenly became relevant when Dr. Stella Immanuel MD, alumna of the University of Calabar in Nigeria, appeared on the political scene as an “important voice” in America.  Dr. Immanuel is affiliated with America’s Frontline Doctors, a coronavirus-skeptic group of medical professionals, who are against masks and social distancing. Instead, they advertise hydroxychloroquine, Zitromax, and zinc as the best way to treat Covid-19 and combat the pandemic. President Trump describes this group as “very respected” and Dr. Immanuel as “impressive”.

Some years ago, Dr. Immanuel immigrated to America from Cameroon and now works in a private clinic in Houston. Evidently, her overriding virtue in the eyes of the president is that she is one of the few medical professionals in the world, who agrees with him. So, it is only natural that he should admire and applaud her perception and intellectual acuteness.

When asked directly about Dr. Immanuel, President Trump responded, “I thought she was very impressive, in the sense that, from where she came — I don’t know what country she comes from — but she said that she’s had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients. I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her.”

Unfortunately, the president was too occupied with other matters to check out her stance on other issues. He forgot (if ever he knew) that one of the Ten Commandments of Research Methodology 101 is “Know thy sources”.

And it was at that moment when my knowledge of “Ancient Aliens”, peacefully drowsing in long-term memory, was suddenly activated. Thanks to my osmotic relation with this series, I have absorbed various tales of gods, monsters and strange beings of all types interacting with humans. 

When these galactic invaders are not busy imparting wisdom and technology, they spend their free time impregnating women to create demigods, who are supposedly the result of human-alien unions. These offspring are invariably smarter than we are (though this is hardly a difficult feat). Their presence explains the occasional oases of intelligence in the immense desert of human stupidity.

An often cited text in this regard is “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, an ancient Sumerian poem written 4000 years ago. One of its myths is the possibility of a demon (incubus) appearing in the night to disturb and seduce women in their sleep, sometimes producing a child in the process.

 Over the centuries, this myth has persisted as a trending topic, and was avidly discussed by St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and King James. Certain sources even indicate that an incubus can be identified by its unnaturally large or cold penis. (Don’t forget this, girls. The information might come in handy one day.)

Like the ancient Sumerians, Dr. Immanuel also believes in “astral sex” with witches and demons. Indeed, this practice is the source of endometriosis, infertility, miscarriages and STDs, which are “evil deposits from the spirit husband.”  As a survivor of two miscarriages and thus presumably the recipient of more than a few evil deposits, I can only agree with her that spirit husbands are bad news and should be avoided at all costs.

Dr. Immanuel has also expressed a belief in the involvement of space aliens and Illuminati in the manipulation of the government. The “Ancient Aliens” series also conjectures that extraterrestrials have been among us for decades, centuries or millennia. However, the government has shielded the public from the knowledge of this secret alien invasion.

These infiltrators have even shapeshifted into human form and move freely through society. They now fill key government positions (hopefully, they have not been fired) and are in the final stages of their plan to take over the world. Given the current state of affairs, this cannot happen too soon.

In the opinion of Dr. Immanuel, alien DNA are now being used in medical treatments, and scientists are plotting to develop a vaccine to make it impossible to become religious. However, given the current mindset of the religious right in the USA, this might not be an entirely bad thing.

Though Dr. Immanuel has not expressed this view, ‘Ancient Aliens” also hypothesizes that some plagues and diseases, such as the Justinian Plague, Black Death, and Spanish Influenza, were presumably brought on by pathogens of extraterrestrial origin. All of these pandemics have been accompanied by reports of unusual celestial phenomena, the appearance of strange creatures and objects in the sky, and ancient carvings of figures dressed in hazmat suits.

So, it is entirely possible that the coronavirus has been sparked by pathogens of extraterrestrial origin brought to Earth in the form of cometary dust. Hopefully, at some point, Dr. Immanuel, the new and important voice in American Medicine, will weigh in on this topic and enlighten us all.

92 The Pot and the Kettle in Times of Coronavirus

Lately in Spain, things have not been going so well. Even the government’s efforts to improve the numbers by not updating statistics on the weekends have not been able to hide the gloomy truth.

Given the Spanish cultural mindset of “carpe diem”, not to mention the nationwide adherence to the dictum, “eat, drink, and be merry”, this outcome was predictable. Nevertheless, it is still somewhat disappointing to observe the widespread temporal amnesia that currently afflicts much of the general population.

Spain is composed of 17 regions, three of which have their own language. To a greater or lesser extent, Cataluña, the Basque Country, and Galicia conspire and aspire to a state of independence in the not-so-distant future. However, this vision of independence is relative, such as when teenage offspring move out of the family home but expect their parents to pay their rent in exchange for the relief of not having them around.

As we all are aware, when the pandemic hit last March, the situation became so desperate that President Pedro Sanchez was obliged to declare a State of Alarm. This meant that regional governments had to take their orders from the central government. All regions in Spain were obliged to do the same thing and coordinate their actions with Madrid. After a somewhat dodgy start, this drastic measure eventually gave positive results.

Even those of us who criticize the government have to admit that it finally worked. For whatever reason, the president did not shrug off his obligations and suggest that the pandemic was a hoax or that it would simply disappear. Nor did he claim that it was not his responsibility, and whine that there was nothing that he could do about it.

He did not say that fighting Covid-19 was the individual responsibility of each region and go off to fry other fish that were more in line with his own political interests. If indeed he had allowed every region do its own thing, the situation would have degenerated into chaos because viruses do not respect borders.

Instead, all regions were obliged to impose the same restrictions despite gloomy mutterings from the Basque Country and Cataluña, who claimed that Spain had regressed into a dictatorship. Nevertheless, there were no protests in the streets. Too many people were dying for the population to get out their (figurative) guns. (Real guns in Spanish households are a rarity.)

The State of Alarm finally worked. The death rate dropped spectacularly. The stacks of coffins gradually began to disappear. In fact, the last 59 (unclaimed) bodies from that dark period have recently been put to rest in a small corner of the cemetery, courtesy of the Community of Madrid, who paid for each individual burial. There were no mass graves, as occurred in New York.

Eventually, the State of Alarm was lifted, and the regional governments regained the authority that they had temporarily lost. Now the responsibility of controlling new outbreaks has once again fallen on the shoulders of governors and mayors. Each region is doing its own thing, rather like the current strategy in the USA.

And so almost every region has thrown caution to the winds because the populace was suffering from confinement fatigue. Hotels, discotheques, bars, and restaurants wanted to get swinging again and try to recover their losses. Young people wished to party and to drink themselves into a stupor.

In Navarre, for the first time since the Spanish Civil War, there was no running of the bulls, but that did not matter. People decided to informally celebrate anyway. One of the uninvited guests was Covid-19, who crashed the party. Some flat encephalogram with a macabre sense of humor even thought it would be fun to have a soccer game between a team of coronavirus-infected players and another team of uninfected players.

After three months of isolation, families also wanted to forget confinement. They wished to reunite and celebrate. And everyone did. They forgot that the virus was still around. Each region thought that it could return to normal and carry on as usual. But they were wrong.

Outbreaks began popping up, one after another (360 as of this morning). Regional governments, many of whom do not have sufficient resources for contact tracing, are now engaged in playing Whack-a-Virus (“The Coronavirus Carnival”, www.timesofcoronavirus.com). Selective restrictions do not seem to be working because it is only possible to fight a pandemic if the country works together as one nation, not as a dystopian balkanized bedlam (i.e. the USA).

Despite the fact that everyone in Spain wears a mask (non-mask wearers are ridiculed), Covid-19 is rapidly advancing in the Basque Country, Aragon, and Cataluña, and slowly progressing elsewhere. Largely thanks to their geography, the places in Spain that are doing the best are the Baleares, Canary Islands, and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast. But hospitals are gradually filling up again. Unfortunately, people travel from one region to another, especially in the summer, and they carry their germs with them.

Even though new infections were below 300 early this month, in the last week, the daily average has topped 2000, and, as in many places, experts say the real figure is higher, with many cases going undetected.  It is not necessary to have a degree in Virology to see what is happening.

So this weekend, without previous warning, the British government abruptly imposed a quarantine on anyone arriving from Spain (with the exception of the Real Madrid soccer team). This was quite a blow to tourism in Spain since a very high percentage of tourists here are from the United Kingdom, and they spend a lot of money when they are on vacation (143 euros per diem). Since the quarantine happened from one day to the next, it came as a surprise to many Britons peacefully getting a suntan on the beach in Mallorca or Lanzarote.

Those interviewed claim that they feel safer in Spain than they do in the UK since everyone here wears a mask, and all establishments are obliged to disinfect premises between clients. However, an important charter airline has canceled all flights to peninsular Spain. This has left many disgruntled Britons without beach, sun, and sangria. 

British tourists who are already here are calling their employers to tell them that they will be unable to go to work after returning because they must spend 14 days at home. Most will not be paid during the obligatory quarantine.  (“The Daily Mirror” has had a field day with all of this.)

This is not to say that the quarantine is not justified. Indeed, it would be coherent if it were also accompanied by other measures that were geared to improve the situation in the UK from within. Paradoxically, despite the spike in cases, many areas of Spain are still in better shape than the British Isles.

However, the British government also has economic worries, and Boris Johnson would prefer for people to vacation in the UK. England also has a certain history of blaming many of its ills on foreigners and immigrants, when Britons (like Spaniards and Americans) are quite capable of singlehandedly making a mess of their country with little or no help from the outside. 

England’s coronavirus infection and death rates seem to indicate that it has a long way to go before it can do a victory dance. So, once again, it is a question of the pot and the kettle, and of determining shades of blackness.

91 Having a "Querida" in Times of Coronavirus

With all that has happened lately in Times of Coronavirus, it has been a while since I have written about the Neanderthals, who live in the apartment across the hall for me. Worthy of an anthropological study, they are an endearing couple, who are a monument to past times. Their pristine mindset has been preserved in formaldehyde and still remains as it was in the 1960s.

Over fifty years ago, after seven years of chaste engagement, they married on 8 December, the Day of the Immaculate Conception, which Mrs. Neanderthal regarded as the most suitable day to solemnly surrender her virginity to her newly wedded husband. Since then, they have walked in lockstep through the complicated labyrinth of marital life. 

Their three children are living testimony that they finally managed to overcome obstacles such as anatomical fumbling, puritanical modesty, and an embroidered flannel nightgown (as white and voluminous as Moby Dick) to come together in blissful conjugal union, reproduce, and multiply.

 The last time I mentioned the Neanderthals was in ‘The Best Laid Plans’ (www.timesofcoronavirus.com). Unfortunately, just after confinement had ended and despite successfully escaping infection, Mrs. Neanderthal fell and broke her hip as she was on her way to visit one of her sons. For many reasons, this was an unmitigated disaster for her and for all of the family.

She was taken to the hospital and given a hip replacement. The operation was a success, and after ten days, she was sent home to convalesce. The doctors affirmed that with a bit of physical therapy, perseverance, and will power on her part, she should eventually be able to stand up and move around with the help of a walker. But this has not as yet happened.  

Mrs. Neanderthal, whose pain threshold is so low that a beetle could skateboard over it, claimed that her leg hurt too much and flatly refused to get out of her bed. Her refusal was accompanied by an impressive number of moans, groans, and lamentations interspersed with various theatrical sighs. 

This meant that Mr. Neanderthal, who is a retired electrician, was obliged to confront one of the greatest challenges of his life, namely, changing his wife’s diapers. Since he had never changed a diaper in his life, not even those of his own children, this became an insurmountable obstacle.

In fact when our children were babies at both ends of the hallway, Mr. Neanderthal was loath to believe that my husband uncomplainingly changed diapers. Since both men belonged to the same (unevolved) generation of Spanish males, he asked me what I had done to transform my husband into a shamefully diluted version of Celtiberian manhood. I told them that reformatting his hard disk had not been an easy task, but I had managed, thanks to a few devices on display at the Inquisition Torture Exposition in the Palacio de las Gabias.

In a doomed effort to help her parents, the Neanderthal daughter came to visit for a week to give her father a crash course on diaper-changing, but he had little motivation, not to mention a slow learning curve. When I went to visit the Neanderthals, their daughter was at her wits’ end. I took a look at Mrs. Neanderthal lying on the bed in her best imitation of a beached whale, and told them that in my opinion, if they could afford it, the only answer was a nursing home.

My suggestion sent Mrs. Neanderthal into a fit of hysterics for various reasons: (1) Her daughter was abandoning her; (2) She would be sent off in exile to some unknown and strange venue in the middle of nowhere; (3) Her husband would assuredly die of starvation without her to cook for him.

However, my suggestion was the only viable solution, and Mrs. Neanderthal finally went to live in a private nursing home a little outside of town. Since then, I have not been able to see or talk with her because in Times of Coronavirus, nursing homes have become sanitized parallel universes. 

Given the extremely high death rate during the first wave of the virus, all personnel now wear protection equipment. PCR tests and masks are obligatory. The premises are periodically disinfected. Visits are restricted to one family member once or twice a week, and when there is an outbreak nearby, sometimes not even that.  

For the last few weeks, I had not seen Mr. Neanderthal around the neighborhood either. So, yesterday I knocked on his door to ask how things were going. By his face, I could see that he was not happy. He admitted that at first, his wife’s departure had been a relief because he was finally able to sleep at night without being periodically awakened by her moans and groans. Furthermore, he did not have to worry about changing her diapers and cleaning her.

As expected, at first she had not taken well to her new life. However, now the problem was exactly the opposite. After decades of culinary and domestic servitude to her parents, in-laws, husband, and children, Mrs. Neanderthal has now discovered how delightful it is to be catered to. She does not have to cook or clean. Her meals are served to her, and she has even made a few friends at the nursing home. She feels that at long last, she is receiving the consideration that she so richly deserves.

She is also benefiting from some ‘feel-good’ physiotherapy that does not make her suffer, but which will never make her walk. Evidently, the English expression “no pain, no gain” has not caught on here in Spain. “Sin dolor, no hay beneficio” loses a lot in the translation and does not even rhyme. She enjoys being pushed around in her wheelchair. In short, she has discovered that there is life without Mr. Neanderthal and does not want to return.

So, Mr. Neanderthal is seriously displeased because he is obliged to live on his own, not to mention the added expense of a nursing home. He now must forage for his food in small restaurants though his daughters-in-law occasionally send him pots of stew and soup. But that is hardly the same since Mrs. Neanderthal is an incredibly good cook and could have worked as a chef in a three-star Michelin restaurant.

Again, my advice was requested, and I was asked what he could do to lure her back home. I told him that for every problem there is always a solution, and suggested that he tell her that if she did not return, he would be forced to look for a “querida” to fulfill his “manly needs.”

In Spanish, "querida" is the feminine participle of the verb "querer", which means "to want" (in the sense of desiring). In the bad old days when there was no divorce in Spain, many married men had a “querida”, a light-skirted mistress who would satisfy their sexual cravings since it was impossible for a “good” woman to actually crave, much less enjoy, sex.  

In this binary world with no shades of gray, any female who delighted in fornication was not a good woman, but rather a bad one. (Mrs. Neanderthal once proudly informed me that at no time had Mr. Neanderthal ever perceived enjoyment on her part when they were engaged in carnal union.)

Mr. Neanderthal’s eyes lit up when I mentioned a “querida” because as he informed me, he might be old but he certainly is not dead. However, he said that he didn’t have sufficient funds to rent an apartment for a paramour. I told him that I didn’t mean for him to actually go through with the plan. It was only necessary to subtly inform Mrs. Neanderthal (who is a very jealous wife) that she can no longer linger in the nursing home or he might fall prey to temptations of the flesh.

Stay tuned for the next episode.

90 A Gothic Tale in Times of Coronavirus

As we all learned from Vincent Price, if not from our high school English teacher, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer of fiction, who was and still is famous for his dark poems and short stories. He is best known for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. 

Like most, I had read Poe. However, I had little idea of the international scope of his work, until I studied at the Sorbonne in the early 1980s. Much to my surprise, I discovered that Poe was even more revered in France than in the USA. This was largely due to Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), the great French poet, whose masterful translations of Poe’s work enshrined Poe in French literature.

Baudelaire was so impressed by Poe’s aesthetic use of language that he even learned English in order to translate him. (This was like my son in Texas who so wanted to marry a Russian girl that he learned Russian for that purpose.) Both in his poetry and prose, Poe focused on producing a single effect in order to reveal some important truth. The goal of Poe’s poetry was to create beauty for the sake of beauty. However, in many of his short stories, his objective was different. It was focused on creating a single unified effect of horror.

This is exactly what Poe did in one of his most famous Gothic tales, “The Masque of the Red Death”. The tale, which is about a deathly illness that attends a masquerade as an unexpected guest, has no real characters or precise location, and is meant to be an allegory. However, now in Times of Coronavirus, this tale has become eerily relevant. The story begins with the description of a scene that by now, we have become quite familiar with.

 “The Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.”  Like Covid-19, the Red Death is also a disease of the blood. “Blood was its Avatar and its seal – the redness and the horror of blood.” Once infected, victims succumb very quickly and many die. “And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.”

Paradoxically, the country of the Red Death is ruled by Prince Prospero, whose name is indicative of a healthy and booming economy. Despite being “happy and dauntless and sagacious”, the prince does not seem to care that his subjects are dying in great numbers. 

In fact, he does not think that the disease or the deaths caused are important at all. (‘It is what it is.’) As long as the prince and his cronies are safe, that is all that matters. And so he devised a plan.

“When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.”

This castellated abbey (the White House) has strong, lofty walls and "gates of iron." Prince Prospero has very carefully provided entertainment of all types (possibly a golf game or two), for his guests. Meanwhile, outside the sealed abbey, the Red Death is rampaging.

“The abbey was amply provisioned” (perhaps with Big Macs). “With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself […]. All these and security were within. Without was the Red Death.”

After five months of merry seclusion, Prince Prospero decides to entertain his guests with a masked ball “of unusual magnificence” (Republican National Convention). This masquerade will be held in an imperial suite of seven circular rooms, each decorated in a different color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black.

This is a bit difficult to reproduce in real life. Nevertheless, the state floor of the White House has a Red Room, a Blue Room, and Green Room whereas the Jacksonville Convention Hall has six large exhibition halls (no colors mentioned though the walls could be chromatically decorated as appropriate).

Of these rooms in the castellated abbey, the most important is the seventh and last one, which is "shrouded in black velvet," with scarlet windowpanes. "The effect of the firelight upon the blood tinted panes is ghastly in the extreme". This frightening room also has a gigantic ebony clock, which represents the passing of time (perhaps until the elections).

The masquerade (Republican National Convention), however, is “a gay and magnificent revel” on a grand scale. Prince Prospero has a fine eye for color and effects. “His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not.”

It is the prince’s taste that has guided the costumes of the masqueraders. “There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.”

However, at some point during the masquerade, the revelers (7000 delegates at the scaled-back convention) gradually become aware of a tall and gaunt masked figure, “shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave”. His mask is that of a corpse that died from the Red Death and his entire outfit is sprinkled with blood. "All the features of the face were besprinkled with the scarlet horror."

Prince Prospero also notices him. He calls him “blasphemous” (nut job, dummy, dope, clown, etc.) and orders him to be unmasked (fired and sent home). However, when the revelers try to seize the intruder, who stands “erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock”, they find that his shroud and mask are “untenanted by any tangible form”, like the coronavirus.

The Red Death, which could not be tweeted away, had come like “a thief in the night”. One by one, the revelers, as well as Prince Prospero, then drop to the floor beside the ebony clock of the great black hall with scarlet windowpanes, inevitably vanquished by the mysterious guest that unexpectedly appeared at the masquerade.

“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

In his poems and stories, Poe’s strived to create a single, unified effect of unmitigated horror. Even now 200 years later, his stories are still able to strike a chord. This is the hallmark of a great writer when his literary production is timeless. And Poe’s gothic stories have never been so timeless (or timely) as now in Times of Coronavirus.

89 The Faces of Bélmez in Times of Coronavirus

In 1971, a few months before my wedding, the town of Bélmez de la Moraleda (2000 inhabitants) in the region of Jaen became big news. Mysterious faces suddenly began to appear on the kitchen floor of one of the houses there. When the first face emerged, the lady of the household (In the time-honored tradition of Spanish housewivery) tried to scrub it away with bleach. 

When this did not work, her husband and son, who favored more rough-and-ready methods, proceeded to obliterate it with a pickaxe and then lay new concrete. However, the persistent face resurfaced a week later. The family was on the verge of attacking it again when the mayor intervened and ordered them not to because the floor was to be excavated.

At a depth of about nine feet, two headless skeletons and a jumbled mass of other human bones were found. As it turned out, the site of their kitchen had been a Roman, then Arab, and then Catholic graveyard for over a thousand years before the house had been built. The remains were thus carted away and given a more satisfactory burial. The assumption was that this action would appease the restless spirits.

However, contrary to all reasonable expectation, the removal of the skeletons only intensified the facial apparitions. This time the faces appeared and disappeared quickly, sometimes within a time span of a couple of hours.

This allegedly paranormal phenomenon became an important tourist attraction, and people travelled to Bélmez from all over Spain to see the faces. Since Jaén is not far from Granada, my husband and I took a day trip there and paid a small fee to go in and look at the rooms where the faces intermittently appeared.

 When I entered the house, the paranormal activity was unfortunately experiencing a certain lull. There was only one face on the kitchen wall, but it was in the process of fading though no one quite knew why. Apparently, this strange activity had its ups and downs, and it was impossible to predict when a face would surface. Faces could be of either gender, and those that consistently reappeared were even given names such as  pava [silly woman], fraile [monk], pelao [bald man], etc.

This phenomenon was the focus of a great deal of research. Ghostbusters even came from other countries, such as Germany, to study it. Some people wondered if the faces were a hoax whereas others believed that they represented people that were trying to send a message from beyond the grave.

Although no one really knew why this was happening, there were a lot of crazy theories. It was sort of like when Covid-19 first appeared on the scene. Everyone had his/her own explanation and cure. Like the Faces of Bélmez, Covid-19 also materialized as mysteriously as an unpleasant face on the wall. Many people also thought that it was a hoax and tried to strenuously bleach it away (both externally and internally). They also tried to destroy it by chiselling it out and isolating it. However, like the Faces of Bélmez, the virus has stubbornly kept returning though in different guises.

The first face of Bélmez surfaced on the kitchen floor, followed by a second face on the kitchen wall. In Spain, the first wave of the coronavirus surfaced in Madrid in March.  Recently, it has been followed by a second appearance (possibly a wave) in the region of Catalonia, where infections have suddenly quadrupled.

Just as no Bélmez face is exactly the same, there is now a slightly different version of the virus. In this second wave, fewer people are dying though this is perhaps because the most vulnerable have already been creamed off. Even though younger patients have a higher survival rate, in Lerida (which is part of Catalonia), the hospital system is beginning to crash and patients must now be sent elsewhere.

The Spanish government does not know quite what to do because it had erroneously relegated the coronavirus to the category of issues that had been satisfactorily dealt with. Spain now has other fish to fry. President Pedro Sánchez is currently attending an important EU reunion in an effort to obtain unlimited (no-strings-attached) funding for economic recovery. Quite understandably, more frugal countries such as Denmark, Austria, and Holland don’t think that this is such a good idea.

That is at least one of the reasons why President Sanchez does not want to hear about disagreeable topics such as the infection or mortality rate. There are already too many dead, both counted and uncounted. He does not want any uncomfortable resurrections now that all of the coffins in the skating rinks and subterranean parking lots have been buried and put to rest.

However, sometimes the dead begin to talk. Apparently, they did in Bélmez. At least two famous Spanish parapsychologists hooked up hyper-sensitive microphones to pick up electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) from under the famous kitchen floor. The microphones detected an array of mysterious voices. Although many of the sounds were inarticulate cries, groans and whispers, some very clear phrases were picked up, such as the following:

§   I am still buried.  [An evident observation.]

§   She carries on with all the men.  [Is there sex after death?]

§   Hell begins here.   [Proof that someone did not lead a saintly life.]

§   Bitch!   [Death clearly does not improve one’s mood or language.]

§   Fuck yourself!  [ An anatomical impossibility, which indicates a need for post mortem anger management.]

If it were possible to use EVP to recover the words of the 28,500 (really 45,000) Covid-19 victims in Spain, It would be interesting to hear what they had to say. Most of them died alone in hospitals and nursing homes. Would their phrases convey the same level of anger and despair as those of the anonymous skeletons buried under the kitchen floor in Bélmez?

If life were indeed fair (which it is is not), the faces of the coronavirus dead would intermittently materialize on the walls and floors of government buildings, offices, and agencies. They would appear at judicious intervals to haunt our leaders. At the very least, the faces would be a permanent reminder of their lack of foresight, callousness, and ignorance.

88 Galileo in Times of Coronavirus

Galileo (1564-1642) was an Italian astronomer, mathematician, physicist, philosopher and professor. Now regarded as the Father of Modern Physics, he was one of the great scientific experts of his day. Even though he was a college dropout (due to lack of money for tuition), he was still given a post at the University of Padua, where his classes attracted hundreds of followers, who drank in his every word.

In a famous experiment, he dropped two spheres of different weight from the Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that the time of descent was independent of their mass. Though a contradiction of Aristotle, this did not create much controversy because the ruling factions in Italy really did not care much about the laws of motion.

Galileo’s problems began when he constructed his own telescope, pointed it towards the skies, and found proof that the Earth moved around the Sun. His observations were powerful evidence in favor of a sun-centered solar system.

Unfortunately, his heliocentric claims contradicted the Bible (“God fixed the Earth upon its foundation, not to be moved forever"). At the time, the Catholic Church was firmly entrenched in the belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth, a truth as creditworthy as the annihilation of the coronavirus by the Wind of God.

However, back then, the Church was the ultimate authority on just about everything. If Pope Urban VIII said that the Earth was stuck on a stick like a lollipop, then it was. This was an indisputable fact because Urban was the Pope, not to mention the most powerful man in Italy. Case closed.

However, Galileo would not keep quiet. He kept on defending the uncomfortable truth, a truth that was in direct opposition to the theories defended by the powers that be. An increasing number of people began to listen to what Galileo said, and Urban VIII became upset at Galileo’s growing popularity and prestige. The most powerful institution in the world (in the 1600s) felt threatened by a truth defended by one scientist. Drastic measures had to be taken.

In 1616, Galileo was ordered not to hold, teach or defend his ideas. However, Galileo still kept on teaching and writing.  Accused of heresy and threatened with torture by the Inquisition, Galileo was forced to publicly recant his claims. Because of his age, he was permitted to remain in house arrest until his death.

This was neither the first nor the last historical context in which government and science have been at odds. It is quite frequent for all-powerful rulers to believe that they are also all-knowing, even in areas where their expertise is questionable. In Times of Coronavirus, a repetition of this scenario is now occurring in the United States of America.

President Trump is currently trying to sideline and even discredit Dr. Fauci, who has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. It is fortunate that there is no Inquisition in the USA or Dr. Fauci would be in deep trouble. He would doubtlessly be accused of heresy.

Paradoxically, the White House is now criticizing Dr, Fauci for statements that he made in January and February. These same statements were based on the best available data at the time and were widely echoed by President Trump, other members of the task force, and senior White House officials.

Now, four months later, given the available data, Dr. Fauci has had the audacity to contradict the president's claims that the coronavirus pandemic is improving. An even greater sin is the fact that his popularity rating is higher than the president’s. In a recent poll by the University of Siena, 76% of the respondents said that they trusted Dr. Fauci for accurate information, compared with 26%, who said that they trusted President Trump.

Back in the 1600s, there were no surveys, of course. However, if there had been polls, Galileo’s believability rating would probably have been higher than that of Pope Urban VIII. This is not surprising because the expertise of Pope Urban VIII in physics and astronomy is comparable to that of President Trump in public health and virology.

Just as the Pope firmly believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, the president recommended killing the virus by ingesting bleach and internally applying ultraviolet light. In evident contradiction to data published by John Hopkins University, his most recent claims include the following:

(1)      17 June: The pandemic is fading away. It’s going to fade away. [Daily cases were at 20,000, and a second spike was beginning.]

(2)      2 July: The pandemic is getting under control. [Daily cases had doubled to 50,000, a higher daily case count than at the beginning of the pandemic.]

(3)      4 July: 99% of Covid-10 cases are totally harmless. [Evidence shows that 15% of Covid-19 cases are severe with 5% being critical.]

(4)      6 July: The USA now has the lowest mortality rate in the world. [As of 13 July, the ratio of deaths per confirmed COVID-19 cases was 4.1 percent, which means that the USA has the world’s ninth-worst mortality rate, with 41.33 deaths per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University.]

Since the President’s capacity of self-criticism is microscopic at best, no mention is made of his own recent false statements. Given this track record, it is logical that more people have more faith in Dr. Fauci. The fact is that like Pope Urban VIII, President Trump is entrenched in his particular theory of the universe, which is neither geocentric nor heliocentric, but rather Trumpcentric. President Trump’s world revolves around him and his re-election prospects. In his view, the virus is an enemy, not because it is making thousands of people seriously ill. It is an enemy because it is making him look bad. Nothing else matters.

And so President Trump and Pope Urban VIII have turned out to be unlikely birds of a feather. Both of them gave lip service to science until science clashed with their own beliefs. Both men became upset when a scientist pointed out uncomfortable facts that disagreed with their vision of how things should be in the universe.

But, as one discovered (and the other is still in the process), no amount of power or bluster can change the truth of scientific fact, however disagreeable or uncomfortable that truth may be.

In the case of Galileo, the Catholic Church formally apologized for their error in 1992.  It is impossible to know whether this mattered to Galileo who had been dead for 350 years. Ironically, Galileo’s third finger is currently displayed in the Galileo Museum in Florence, where it is kept in a shrine as though it were a saintly relic. Could this be a sign?

87 Schadenfreude in Times of Coronavirus

One of the trending topics in the world of Translation is the question of untranslatable words. Such words designate a parcel of reality so important that the speakers of that language have given it a name. They have encapsulated this salient aspect of their culture in a single word. Since such terms may have no direct equivalent in the target language, the only way to translate them is to gloss their meaning. Examples include the following:

• ‘sobremesa’ [Spanish]: the moment after eating a meal when the food is gone but the conversation is still flowing at the table.

• ‘gökotta’ [Swedish]:  to wake up early in the morning with the purpose of going outside to hear the first birds sing.

•  ‘arigata-meiwaku’ [Japanese]:  an act that someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do. However, they went ahead anyway because they wanted to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble; yet in the end, social conventions required you to express gratitude.

All of these activities can and do occur throughout the world but other languages have no specific term to designate them. This is what makes them so difficult to translate. However, sometimes, one of these words can catch on in another culture. It then may become a candidate for adoption.

This is the case of the German, ‘Schadenfreude’, which means pleasure derived from another’s misfortune. Most of us, regardless of our culture or language, have experienced this feeling at some time in our lives. In fact, ‘schadenfreude’ is probably an excellent candidate for an emotional universal because it has been documented throughout the world, in exotic cultures in the present as well as in ancient cultures of the past.

For instance, for Melanesians in Papua New Guinea, ‘schadenfreude’ is known as ‘banbanam’. It involves gloating at rival villagers when their feast day is rained on because the spells of their Weather Magician failed. It also involves laughing at a cheating husband, whose wife grabs him by the testicles as she ignores his pleas for mercy. Even the ancient Romans harbored this feeling, which was known as ‘malevolentia’.

Nevertheless, for whatever reason, English never got around to creating a word for this ubiquitous concept. There was a failed attempt in the 1500s when someone tried to introduce ‘epicaricacy’, a term derived from the ancient Greek. However, ‘epicaricacy’ never became popular and was eventually buried in the cemetery of forgotten words.

Finally, in 1853, a writer in the Victorian era decided that this lexical gap should be filled and borrowed ‘schadenfreude’ from German. In contrast, its less popular antonym, ‘Glückschmerz’ (sorrow and discomfort felt at the good fortune of others) was totally ignored.

Though not on the most frequent word list, ‘schadenfreude’ has since been incorporated into the English language and can be found in most dictionaries. It is even the topic of a book, “Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another's Misfortune” by T. W. Smith.  

‘Schadenfreude’, however, comes at a price. In certain contexts, experiencing it may make us feel guilty and a little ashamed of ourselves. In our heart of hearts, we acknowledge that ‘schadenfreude’ is a negative feeling. However, all of this changes when we think that the other person’s suffering is deserved. Gloating is justified, when the misfortune is construed as a comeuppance.

For example, in 2015, U.S. pastor Tony Perkins proclaimed that the floods in the Bahamas triggered by Hurricane Joaquin were sent by God to punish abortion and gay marriage. However, a year later in 2016, a flood of biblical proportions inundated his own house, and he was forced to escape in a canoe. If such floods are indeed sent by God, one can only wonder what the pastor was being punished for. In such circumstances, one feels entitled to a bit of schadenfreude.

Now, in Times of Coronavirus, guilt-free schadenfreude has once again become a reality. As you may recall (www.timesofcoronavirus.com), one of the most prominent members of the Ostrich Alliance is President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

Back in April, he stated that Brazilians would not be affected by the coronavirus. He said that they were probably already immune to it because there were Brazilians that went diving in the sewers, and nothing happened to them. Like a few other important world leaders, he claimed that Covid-19 would simply disappear. However, now in July, his perceptions have been proven erroneous.

Largely thanks to Bolsonaro, the current infection rate in Brazil is now over 40,000 cases per day, and the death count exceeds 1000 per day. Against all scientific evidence, President Bolsonaro has stated that the reason for such high numbers is because people are afraid of the virus, which is no worse than the flu.

Oddly enough, throughout the world, there are a number people that actually believe this, and even affirm that 99% of all coronavirus cases are totally harmless. Unfortunately, there is no possibility of intelligent discussion with these Covid flat-Earthers, who have lost touch with reality and are utterly convinced that they have a monopoly on the truth. It is easier to argue with a brick wall.

Bolsonaro is not in favor of wearing masks and only does so because the judicial system in Brazil has obliged him to. Even so, he takes his mask off whenever possible and encourages large gatherings. By not setting an example for his followers, who lack a brain of their own and strive to emulate their ‘dear leader’, he has caused the death rate to soar even higher than it would have. His empathy for those who have suffered from the virus or for those who have lost loved ones would not fill a thimble. He is only interested in getting re-elected.

Three days ago, President Bolsonaro (65) tested positive for coronavirus. He started feeling weak on Sunday. On Monday, the situation worsened. He experienced tiredness, muscle pain, and a fever of 38ºC. He is currently being treated with the controversial antimalarial drug chloroquine, which he believes is the ultimate cure for Covid-19.

Since Bolsonaro has an aversion to science, he may well have prescribed it for himself. Recently, two health ministers, both of them trained doctors, were fired in rapid succession simply because they did not agree with him. Their replacement was an active-duty army general, who is currently dealing with the health crisis in Brazil. With 1.6 million confirmed cases and at least 70,000 deaths, Brazil’s death toll trails only that of the United States. 

I asked my eldest son, the doctor, if he had experienced ‘schadenfreude’ when he heard the news of Bolsonaro’s diagnosis. He nodded his head, but he mitigated his affirmation by saying, “Even though I think that he deserves the disease, I have no wish for him to die. Better that he should suffer some of the side effects of the coronavirus, effects that can take years to recover from. These include lung scarring, myocarditis, chronic fatigue, blood clots, kidney failure, and neurocognitive disorders. After all of the suffering that his ignorance has caused, that would be a more fitting punishment.”