Two Weeks at a Time: or, Death By Revision

Either way, it's going to be worth your time just to have a look. Or it may not. Remember how my last entry described our experiences in and of Barcelona? Right, in very cursory fashion. Well, I plan to expand upon that entry by highlighting some of the key events of the following days. Mostly, I'll be talking about our trip through the rest of Spain in as few days and words as possible. We didn't really see or visit the rest of Spain, but we caught some of the high points of Andalucía, which is probably my favorite part of Spain. This is where the Moors set up a rival caliphate to that in Damascus during the middle ages, and single-handedly dragged southern Europe through the dark ages and into the pre-Renaissance. Without these happy Arabs and Berbers, the rest of Europe would have been hopelessly mired in stupidity and ignorance, in part forced on them by a greedy and power-hungry class of ecclesiastical and civic leaders, well into the modern era. Of course, the Moors probably weren't the nicest people to have around in every situation, particularly when it came to religious or cultural differences with their subjects--I wasn't there, so I can't really say what the daily effect on people's life was. I can, however, say that there are no records or historical accounts of the Moors doing anything like what the Spanish did during the Inquisition, and in fact most of the ancient and medieval sources paint a Moorish government that represented almost the exact opposite of the powers behind the Inquisition (despite what the good people responsible for that little publication on the "Cathedral of Cordoba" would have you believe).

So, Moorish Spain. Al-Andalus. We all know that the Inquisition was so successful and so thorough that no Moors, Gipsies, or Jews remained in Spain after the early sixteenth century, right? Anyhow, that's what they say here in Extremadura, so it must be true. I'm pretty sure the Jews, Moors, and Gipsies who converted to Christianity were probably allowed to stay in Spain, but of course their conversion will have changed their blood-line, thereby allowing Spain to maintain its purity. Ok, enough about that, but it's kind of ironic that people still believe this trash, isn't it?

Moorish Spain is magnificent. The Alhambra is nice and everything, but to me, the coolest thing about Moorish Spain is the indoor gardens, patios, courtyards, small town plazas, and parks, all of which, barring perhaps the last two, are really just survivals from the Roman period in Spain. None of these features is entirely typical of the northern half of Spain, where the dark castles and fortified houses of the upper classes offer a stark contrast to the open, gardened, atrium-style house-and-bath complexes of their southern neighbors. Apparently the northerners were forced to adopt a darker and more dismal view on life upon the realization that the weather in the northern half of Spain is substantially harsher and less enjoyable than that in Al-Andalus.

Ok, so the Alhambra is all windows and gardens and decorative plasters, a castle-palace reserved for the head-honchos of the Moorish elite, to be mimicked by anyone who could afford it, but never really satisfactorily copied. The palace in Sintra, Portugal, originally had some pretty impressive imitations of one section of the Alhambra, but after western Iberia was recaptured in the 12th and 13th centuries, most of those rooms were gradually adjusted to fit into a more "modern" style. If you can get to the Alhambra someday, you should check it out. Just don't accept any of the rosemary kindly offered by the nice ladies outside--you can pick your own for free if you really want to, but who wants rosemary, anyway?

Maybe I'm giving the Moors more credit than they deserve. I have this theory that the cities that are really "Moorish" today in Spain were still pretty much Roman cities when the Moors arrived in the early 8th century--cities like Córdoba, Sevilla, Cádiz, and maybe Cartagena and Toledo. If that theory is true (and it must be, since it's my theory), much of what I love about those cities is really just the survival of Roman traditions and ideals. It's probably safe to say that the Moors preserved what would otherwise have been lost forever, at the hands of the Visigoths or whatever the Christians in the northeast of Spain should be called, and I'll even allow for the possibility, at least, that the Moors actually improved on some of what the Romans left behind. Incidentally, I'm not sure what that "left behind" is supposed to mean: surely the Hispano-Romano-Visigoths mostly stuck around when the Moors arrived, eventually mixing with the newcomers to provide a relatively homogeneous group that we refer to today as Spaniards. One of the great things about Spain today is the vast variety the country offers in terms of virtually everything. And that must be due at least in part to the fact that this was a crossroads of cultures throughout its history.

Well, I haven't said much about our trip, and maybe I won't today. It seems that I'm less interested in what we did than in what happened before we got there. I guess that's why I'm an archaeologist and not a sociologist or something like that.

But, speaking of sociology, and more generally of current events, what's the deal with this "swine flu" business? Is it just me, or should we all be mounting class-action lawsuits against the news media? Today's stories on the BBC and CNN illustrate just how far we've come in the 10 or 14 days since this thing hit the fan: we're now referring to this potential pandemic as little different from the standard seasonal flu outbreak. For example, here's what the BBC says in this story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8030365.stm), "Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova [of Mexico] told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu." Really? I'm supposed to be panicking, or so it seemed three days ago. In fact, some mucky-muck at the WHO told us the most troubling thing about this flu is that it's infecting otherwise healthy young people in Mexico (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu/index.html). Yet, for all the hype, according to all the stories coming out today, the death toll is much lower than initially projected, and as tragic as it still is, is largely limited to people who already had serious underlying health conditions (including the unfortunate case of a toddler brought to the US from Mexico for treatment, the only confirmed death in the US attributed to this flu outbreak). I'm not saying this isn't a serious concern, but I do think that the media have done such a thorough job over-reporting a flu outbreak with fewer than 1000 victims worldwide (and just over 20 deaths confirmed!) that now we're all behaving like the poor souls in that movie Outbreak from the 1990s. I'm pretty sure that the annual flu outbreak in the US, and around the world, claims far more victims than this one ever could, and also receives FAR less attention than this one is receiving. If we panic every time a new strain of the flu hits major cities, we're going to have to just get used to panicking, because the flu mutates so fast it seems there's a new strain popping up every day. Why else are we getting new shots every year, and how is it that those shots are largely ineffective on so many strains of the virus? The flu is a major concern, and we should all avoid putting our fingers in our mouths and coughing in each others' faces. But shouldn't we all be taking those simple precautions anyway? It's gross, isn't it? I mean, I've had this cold or cough or something for a good two weeks now, but you don't see me coughing in people's faces, wiping my phlegm all over doorknobs and the like. I'm pretty sure I don't have the new flu, but if I did have it, I don't see how panicking and going on a world-wide crackdown would really help. More realistically, I should probably drink loads of water, get lots of rest, seek medical advice, and follow through on a full antiviral regimen, as prescribed by a qualified medical professional. I'm prepared to panic over all this if it's still in the news in a week, though....