Word: spaining
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Miro, in Spanish, means ''he saw'' -- an absurdly good name for a painter. Joan Miro died 10 years ago, and 1993 marks the centenary of his birth. It has been celebrated by a number of exhibitions in Spain, where the centerpiece was a large retrospective in Barcelona. This week an even bigger Miro show goes on public view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City: 291 paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramics, put together by art historian Carolyn Lanchner. Miro got his first retrospective, at MOMA, more than half a century ago, and now he is getting...
...everyone has been thrilled to see that barrier broken. News of the resolution has prompted nervous commentary around the world about the blurring of the once-solid line that divided humans from other animals. In Spain, the conservative Popular Party has decried the project as a poor use of the parliament's time and energy as Spain's once-booming economy starts to decline. And the Catholic Church has spoken out against the Project for eroding the Biblical hierarchy that gives humans dominion over the earth. "This is either a ridiculous society or a dislocated one," said the Archbishop...
...Spain be so progressive in its treatment of one animal species, and so ... traditional in its treatment of another? In part, the answer lies with the Project's own rationale for singling out great apes. "They are animals with highly developed intelligence and emotional capacity," says Marta Tafalla, a law professor who specializes in animal rights at Barcelona's Autonomous University. "They have curiosity, they feel affection and jealousy, they lie, and they suffer horribly when they are deprived of their freedom." The same argument is harder to make when it comes to bulls...
...more to the point, the difference in treatment underlines the contradictions laid bare by Spain's recent and frenzied catapult into modernity. The resolution is one more way - along with gay marriage, secularization, and gender parity - for the Spanish government to demonstrate its newfound progressiveness. That progressiveness is not, by and large, imposed - the majority of Spaniards support all those measures. But the majority also still get married in church, have Sunday lunch with their parents, baptize their children, and spend a summer week in the pueblo from which their family came. Tradition, in other words, still matters...
...that the Great Ape resolution is a step in that direction. "I completely agree that apes should be protected against enslavement and abuse," says Corrales. "But when you start equating animals with humans, it's a slippery slope." One that he worries could eventually lead to quieter deaths for Spain's noble bulls...