(The) United States (of whatever)

Re a post by Amando de Miguel in his interesting, if fairly Pleistocene, language column for Libertad Digital, I’ve compiled a little table of hits over time from Mark Davies’ corpus for several Spanish versions of the Great Satan (no hits in there for el Gran Satanás unfortunately). I’ve omitted USA = América because I’m…

Cross-border hospital access

This would much better news if the Zapatero and Villepin, instead of merely consenting to allow citizens to use the nearest hospital, had agreed to enable them to choose the best. That would, however, means providing information to patients. Aragon is having a go at publishing waiting lists, Catalonia isn’t, and in France waiting lists…

Exhaust fan

Dani Pedrosa has won the world scooter championships, but has betrayed The Nation by doing so in the wrong language. (I’m singing in a couple of weeks at a do for a gentleman who depresses accelerator pedals for a well-known Italian brand. His site is available in Catalan; the prizes will doubtless follow.)

Coroner plays St James’ Infirmary

Following the news about a Galician politician-trombonist, here’s a Louisianan trumpet-playing coroner: The first time Dr. Minyard ran, in 1969, he lost to the incumbent. But four years later, he and a slate of other candidates viewed as reformers – including Harry Connick Sr., the “Singing D.A.” – were swept into office. Another of those…