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ON MONDAY
ESL Podcast 970 – Having a Backup Plan
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “in this together” and “bound to be.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “The Terms ‘Foolproof’ and ‘Idiot Proof.'”
“A ‘fool’ is a person, usually a man, who has very poor ‘judgment’ (ability to make good decisions)…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
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ON WEDNESDAY
English Cafe 436
Topics: Ask an American – Crowdsourcing; inn versus motel versus resort; to captivate versus allure; to leave versus to go away versus to go out
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear).
In “What Insiders Know,” you will read about “Types of Crowdsourcing.”
“‘Crowdfunding’ (fundraising through crowdsourcing) may be one of the most common types of crowdsourcing…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
…
ON FRIDAY
ESL Podcast 971 – Getting in to See a Busy Doctor
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “opening” and “to flare up.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Ways to Receive Medical Care.”
“When Americans have ‘health insurance’ (an arrangement or contract with a company that helps to pay for medical expenses)…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
They would like to talk for ever, at least emiliano, but it was complicated for this couple.
After two months Cuca and Jose Luis take their seat at the first row of the class, why?.
No body knows, but emiliano are not behind them any more.
There are not more opportunities for Cuca and emiliano to talk one with the other when there is a short in the class.
Finally Emiliano take his seat at the end of the class room in the last row.
From this site he could watch everything round him and frequently his sight was fix on the back of Maria Jose.
He are thinking nothing, nothing at all as this girl has her boyfriend at her side and there some things it is not possible to change.
Not hoping anything he frequently thinks on her, he thinks that with this girl he could be happy, yes he could that was clear for him..
She is the one, the one he likes absolutely and it is out hand, or out his heart already as this by doesn´t like to suffer.
Why for suffering or thinking impossible goals?.
Litle by little things settle down, feelings start to be cold and every one of the boys attent their lessons of countability,
composition and commercial mathematics. It is necessary to do this if they want to pass the exams at the bank.
+++
There will be two exams at the Bank, the two will be written exams. Firts one of countability, language, mathematics with two or three problems, composition, and even some other tests of general culture.
Once the first exam will be pass for some of the students will be a second one about Bank´s Office themes, and this will be very difficult as it is necessary to learn lot of commercial terms of the own Bank.
First exam will be takeen on first days of June, and the other will be on October in other to give some time to study the Bank´s subjects.
All the candidates that approve the final exam of October will take a place in the Bank offices as first official inside the Bank organization.
That wlll attached a significative increase of the month salary but even a reward of money for the time this charge of official could be free without being covered.
It could be a lot of money by the difference between the salary of an auxiliar and the official´s salary obliged in that site since a long time.
Emiliano and every one of the candidates want a good exam result and consequenly a good number to take the older official sites, as much time without being covered the official place more money to earn.
So, it was not enough to pass the exam, Emiliano wants a good number to get a nice sum of money.
Why for Emiliano wants the money?, just to save it and get enough savings to go soon to Canada, that is his goal at the moment.
It could be twisted but he wants to be official not to work in the Bank in a better place, no, that was out the point.
He wants the money to be off from the Bank and from the country as soon as possible.
So, in a short period of time he was thinking all these subjects and fix his attention on the studies, just a good help to keep away his mind from the nice girl who has takeen his heart so strongly.
Where is Emiliano doing his militar service?, that´s good question an it is secret by those moments being a soldier,
he is in the Secrect Military State trying to be invisible over there, no uniforms at all, not salutes, and so forth.
He is happy not wearing the uniform, his hair short buy not as a soldier, and not having to sout “at you orders, sir” lifting his right hand till the right side of the head. Yes, he is happy over there that seems it is not a soldier going to his service, it is a person going to the office and typing on the writing machine some documents.
Emiliano is trying to be invisible all the time, not speaking too much about his ideas, his mouth closed as much as possible.
Invisible and without thought, just doing his duty that is tyiping secret documents with the tyipwriter. His mouth is shut, his eyes don´t see anything and his mind is empty.
Being inside a progresists of the left side it is funny that he is in the Secret State sharing secrets of the moment. Listening to the police radio station, taking notes about what is happening in the State, and afterward tyiping them to the colonel who is in charge of the secret Service.
Typing the documents every morning, give them to the official in charge and he doesn´t think any more.
He is just awaiting to next December to be off from the army for ever.
Nothing to be with this people as in fact they are nice and good educated.
Not any problem disturb him in the office, so days pass fluently and happy thoughts were always in his mind.
Meanwhile what is doing Cuca?. Well, she is working in the head office of the Bank and doing some rehabilitation to her leg. Never she talk about this question with Emiliano the same as he neither talk of his morning work to her or to anybody, it is just secret inside his mind and he likes not to remember anything once he is out the Office.
Difficult to tell what you do´t remember, that is Emiliano´s actitude.
+++++
to be continued…
Time is passing on and everything reminds the same in the life of this two young people.
Both of them were studing, working in the mornings and going to the academy at evenings.
They don´t speak to much now, being separate in class it is difficult to talk, beside inside
Emiliano´s mind there is something similar as being on guard against his inner feelings about the girl.
He likes her a lot, but better not to think too much just the same as he does with his morning work.
He types thinking another subjects and he is at the class room looking at her thinking on his future projects.
Lessons are very easy for him so it not requires a big effort to get everything in his mind.
Emiliano had been a student till the age of 21 years old, he is desighner, and before getting his work at Bank he was studing to be an enginer, so this kind of Bank´s studies are really easy for him.
Not and extra effort is necessary to him so his mind is free to be thinking in his future far away from Spain with his eyes looking to that girl who is seating at the first row of the class room.
Withouth knowing what he does he looks at the girl with pleasure and he is alert to all her movements.
Day after day the class room is full of young people that wanted the same goal that our friends, Cuca, Emiliano, Jose Luis and Jesus.
Nothing remains calm for long and this situation is going to break quite soon.
++++
Spring has came, Emilano´s blood is hotter in this beautiful season in Madrid city.
Something good is going to happens that could change the life of these young persons.
Cuca and Emiliano are not aware of what destinity has reserved them, may be “God ways are inscrutable” and it was not said the last word about the relationship of them.
A day of April the girl has came alone to the class room and she is waiting the teacher siting on her desk in the firs row as always, even Emiliano is sitting on his desk looking at her.
When she looks to him it was like a flash, Emiliano gets up and goes
ahead to where she is alone, and greets her friendly.
How are you Cuca?
Well, I am very well.
Are you alone?
Yes, Jose Luis can´t today and I have came alone.
Great, it is good not to lost a single lesson.
Yes, I think the same.
They start to talk about the lessons and how the weather was, it is always easy to talk about the weather when it is a long time without having a conversation.
Nevertheless they soon started to have their friendly talk of ever but this time more frankly.
The teacher is delayed and they take their sit one in front the other close enough to talk
low, only for them, as a point they forget where they were and everything disappear round them.
For him there is only her and for the girl there is only him, so calm, so easy to talk with
that she started to tell him her story.
She tell Emiliano her fall on the snow, how bad it was as to break her hip, the long time she has been without moving, and all the subjects about her life that Emiliano doesn´t know.
The air is magic for them, spring is outdoors and the time pass without being perceived by these girl and boy.
Nearly an hour and half they were talking without any hurry, and the teacher doesn´t appear.
They were nearly alone as lot of other young has leaving already.
Finally another teacher appears and say to the few people who still were in the class that
the professor couldn´t come so they could left and go out if they want.
So Cuca and Emiliano, goes to take their things and left the class room with great pain. It has last so brief than now they are in the street again and Emiliano said good by to Cuca as they are taken different ways.
Something has been removed inside them, in their souls, but it has been like a flash and it is finished again.
What incredible nice girl thinks Emiliano when he is going home by the underground, she is
so beautiful and our conversation is quiete, soft, amusing, we laugh as we know each other for a long time.
It seem we are very good friends after all and we feel very confortable together, it seems for me she is the in the same form like me, thinks the boy but could he be sure about this?. Why is dating this incredible girl with that boy?.
It has been great tha he hasn´t came today, thinks
Emiliano, reviving their conversation once and again.
++++
But Cuca, what about her? What is in Cuca´s mind when she is going home?.
Well, the girl thinks about the different talk she has with that boy Emiliano than with Jose Luis, her fiance, it is different.
With the boy who has been in the class room till now she could talk about everything, even she has told him her life along the last two years and he seems really interested.
Little by little the old idea she has that her situation is not good with Jose Luis take shape in her mind, she can´t talk with her boyfriend the same way she talks with Emiliano, is it natural?, no it is not a good life for future, just to be the wife of a man that she can´t talk with.
She has not confidence to speak with him the way she has done with Emiliano and this is absolutely fundamental to Cuca.
To have confidence with your couple is essential to her, talk with him, relax on him, stand by him too, and nothing of these are happening now. Even a boy that she doesn´t know well awake inside her a nice unknown feeling of pleasure and friendship.
This is unusual she was thinking, what I know about Emiliano?. Where is he going now?, may be, is he going to see his girlfriend?, Who knows?. He is always in a hurry, as he has to go another place after here, beside it is a nice looking boy and sure he is dating already. But, what I am thinking, I don´t care about his life, what I care is that I can talk with him too much better than with Jose Luis, even I have been telling him lot of things that usually
I didn´t like to say any body, but with Emiliano it seems so easy to say him what happened to me in Navacerrada mountains, my year being at home without moving and so may things, it is absolutely surprising to me this incredible behaviour with a boy so serious like Emiliano.
But he is soft for me, I think we could talk for hours without being tired of this long talk, eve he is so attentive to my story.
Every moment I am thinking that was a mistake to say Jose Luis I was going to be his girl friend, he is nice and a good boy, his behaviour with me was really good when I need friendship but I can´t be married only because I am so grateful with him, I think it is necesary to feel he is my boy for ever, the one with I like to be everymoment, who listen to me the way this other boy, Emiliano, has been.
I think it is not Jose Luis, he is good, it is me that I am not so confident to talk with him, I really can´t it is a feeling that he doesn´t understand me at all.
Maria Jose´s mind was full of ideas about her boy friend, herself, their relation, and even about the boy she has been talking so well, creating round them an atmosphere so nice, pleasant, soft, so much confidence and the feeling of been understood for Emiliano was present for her, now and then, in fact always they have been talking.
Coming home she stopped her thoughts, but they are going to remind for long, it has been like this night being along with that boy a veil had fallen from her eyes and mind for ever, and the ideas she was thinking months before now there were more clear.
At last she said for herself, this relation has little future, it is better to cut it as soon as possible without hurting Jose Luis that has been so good friend to me.
to be continued…..
Well, as you can see it is a long long story, not to tell in one or two post but I understand it could be tiresome
and of course it is not well written at all.
But it is the first time I am writing and telling a story, personal of course, everything is truth, as I am remembering
that incredible year of 1968, every thing was changing in the world and inside Spain it was changing too.
Students were at the university with the police that take care they could not manifestate as they wanted to
do.
All the students were singing “We shall over come some day” like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, all they sits on the
floor and the police start to hit them furiously.
Every day was happening the same, and me was listening everything as it was one part of my service in the
army, it was really incredible.
Listening everything and afterward writing and informing to the officials. At evenings to the class to get a better
site at the Bank, seing Cuca, my girl, with another boy just sitting together in front of me, first row.
Yes, my thoughts are very clear about all this year, about May of 1968 in Prague, Paris, Madrid, Mexico, and so
foth, and just what happened afterward in the seventies with all the dictatoship in Chile, Argentina, Greek, and
lot of nations.
It could be a good story if I could write better, but my English is not good enough and Cuca doesn´t like that
I write it in Spanish, so as all this was because Parviz asked me for how was the chance I met my wife, the
story was going bigger, bigger, till I don´t know how much it is going.
May be five or six episodes more. Here I have written two or three previously written alread.
Thanks and sorry if it is some how boring for you already.
Sorry also for the mistakes, I have not time to save them, that´s will be later when the story will be finish
and I have time to polish it.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH JEFF, LUCY, AND JESSICA, YOU HAVE LET ME TAKE THE SITE AS IT COULD BE MINE.
Thank you so much dear ESL staff.
emiliano
Hi,
Thank you for Podcast 969 Using Electronics on Airplanes. hahahaha a Flying leap
That was the right thing to say to that Knucklehead. He was getting on my nerves too.
By the way, I have noticed that Jeff is good at playing the Jerk, if I am allowed to refer to Jeff that way. 🙂
Speaking of airplanes, today I am jet lagged as it happens every couple of weeks.
My mom came to visit but I was like ” yes, nope, do not know” we do not talk that much, you know.
Well, that’s it! bye!
Thanks
Thank you Emiliano.
Can’t wait to see the rest, and do not worry for the mistakes it is all well understandable.
Bye
Hi dear Emiliano
Thanks a lot. I like your story and the way you narrate it.again thank you for your posts.
Sincerely. Lilian
I have to say you Lilian and Dan thank you to you for reading
the story.
As I have more episodes I am going to post them, these are
with less mistakes I hope.
emiliano
MAY OF 1968
Emiliano is coming home like in a cloud, he was happy, he was thinking in Cuca all the way back, how nice girl she was, how much has she suffering with her broken hip, how good conversation they had, it is such a pity she is dating already.
Why when he find a girl like Cuca, so unique, she is dating already?. Are he going to do anything?, well it is not my style, if she is dating it has to be because she likes Jose Luis, it can not be other reason and he, Emiliano, am not going to do anything.
She has all my respect he was thinking, there is no way to do nothing different with this girl, she is fair and good, she is not going to change one boy for other, it is clear for Emiliano, beside why do you think Emiliano, she could like you?.
Awake boy, don´t dream any more, Cuca is engaged already, she is not for you boy.
Despite this alert Emiliano was happy, he has been so delighted with her that nothing matter, he has to live the moment and don´t think in future.
Once he is at home, he likes to tell his sister Esther something about the girl and her story, but even he is talking with his mother about the nice girl who fall in Guadarrama mountains and has to be in bed nearly a year. Yes, that girl of the bank that we listened about her accident, don´t you remember mom?, yes said his father, yes said his other sister Paquita, I remember her very well, it was commented for weeks among the friends in the Bank.
It is funny that Emiliano´s father and his older sister Paquita are working in Banco Hispano Americano too, the same like him. May be is it a family tradition to work in the same Bank?.
Something was in the air that propitiate lot of changes, young’s at the universities were all days in strike, they were against the dictator shipment, against the lack of liberty, they all want a new society to express themselves with more freedom.
Vietnam´s war was a let motive to be against all kind of weapons, all kind of wars, to against the army of all countries, against the society of that time that was so constricted to the old rules.
After more than twenty years since the end of the second war the new generation want to change everything. Spain was one of the countries were the protests were increasing day after day. In EE.UU., happens the same, in West Germany and all west European countries were happening the same. The world have been at the edge of be destroyed by the missiles crisis in Cuba. A red telephone was created between Moscow and Washington to elude another crisis like that. Even Hollywood has made a film by Stanley Kubrick where this nuclear crisis was parodied in one of his great movies. The world has taken off its breath waiting for the bombs, but thanks God nothing happened in this called:
The Cuban missile crisis—known as the October crisis or The Missile Scare (Spanish: Crisis de October) in Cuba and the Caribbean crisis was a confrontation in October 1962 between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other side. The crisis is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict and is also the first documented instance of mutual assured destruction being discussed as a determining factor in a major international arms agreement.
To avoid another similar situation the two presidents, Khrushchev and Kennedy, created “the red telephone” between its nations, as I said above, doing so it seems we were more secured.
Even the Kubrick´s movie was like a nuclear joke destruction of the world, but it was very realist after all.
Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”
An insane general triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically try to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers:Stanley Kubrick (screenplay), Terry Southern (screenplay), 2 more credits »
Stars:Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden
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After some years Kennedy was assassinated, and Khrushchev on October 14, 1964, the Presidium and the Central Committee each voted to accept Khrushchev’s “voluntary” retirement from his offices for reasons of “advanced age and ill health.”
Even so the world is more or less the same, the Vietnam´s war follows and young people are really tired of their Governments.
On first and second of May 1968 all this anger explodes on the streets of Parish. May of 1968 has been initiated and things are going to change for long.
Strikes, barricades, coctails Molotov, soldiers, fights, were again on Paris and millions of workers and students started to move all over France and its cities.
The strikes were incessant, all has been stopped, no body works and the French society is astonished. Rest of Europe and USA were looking these young’s and workers, this French society that was moving.
Like on the French Revolution of July 1789 people were again on the streets, and as they can´t take off the head of the King they propitiate the fall of the President Charles de Gaulle, and everything started to change in France and the rest of the Europe and inside the mentality of the new generations.
Charles de Gaulle resigned the presidency at noon, 28 April 1969, following the rejection of his proposed reform of the Senate and local governments in a nationwide referendum. De Gaulle vowed that if the referendum failed, he would resign his office. Despite an eight-minute-long speech by de Gaulle, the referendum failed and he duly resigned. Two months later Georges Pompidou was elected as his successor.
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Changes will be seen quite soon in Spain too, and the two boys could see the changes of their life with the seventy years coming to enlighten a new decade. Their life will turn a way that they can´t imagine on May of 1968.
PARIS /MADRID MAY 1968
MAY 1968
What these young people, Cuca and Emiliano, were doing on May 1968 while Paris streets were burning?
Nothing similar to that, Spain was out of that movements because the dictatorship was absolutely strong an police were in the Complutense University were the students were the only democratic force at the moment.
Cuca have taken her holidays at the work and she has gone to a city in the Malaga´s coast, Torreblanca it is the name of the beach little city and Cuca is in a little hotel with her mother for the first fifteen days of May.
She wants to relax from everything, and the best form of be relaxed it is to go to the beach.
Cuca talked with Emiliano some other days after their talk in April, and she is feeling that with this boy she is pleased, she likes to be with him and touch different subjects that with her boyfriend it is not possible.
A nice conversation is one of the things in life she likes more, and being with this boy it is easy, he is a good listener and carry the conversation the way she likes.
Cuca has been thinking a lot after the day both of them were alone in the class room. She thinks Emiliano has a girlfriend waiting for him when he is coming home just because he seems to be in a hurry when they go out from the Institute. Now the four young are not going walking to her house any more, Emiliano says till tomorrow and disappear immediately from the class room.
Now that she is going to the beach, emiliano has said to her that is not a prudent attitude to go to the beach now if she wants to pass her exam in the bank.
But she needs the beach, so here is she with her mother going to take Sun´s baths every day close near the sea side.
While she is in Torreblanca, the world out Spain seems to burst, in France and other countries of Europe strikes and students fights were the rule day after day, France was stopped by so many strikes and the police hits thousand o people that was in the streets of Paris and other France big cities, but these news does not come where Cuca is resting.
By the contrary Emiliano is up to all these news, working as a soldier who has to write events of this nature, he has a lot of work. News come to Spain every moment and the dictatorship was alert, Secret Service where there was the soldier Emiliano was taking notes of everything, listening to the police radio stations (this was another work to the soldier Emiliano) and having all the police agents inside the universities of Madrid and other Spanish capitals.
In the Spanish country it seems that nothing was happening, dictatorship try to no inform about these events, and the Spanish life was going on waiting for summer, holidays, beaches, swimming pools and easy life, nevertheless the world was changing very fast outside the border of this country.
At the end the De Gaulle have to convocate elections in France that he lost, and things in France for its people start to be different.
In Spain there are persons that wants a change, but nothing happens and life seems to be the same as before May 1968.
Cuca has returned from her holidays and the exams in the Bank were ahead to be done in June.
The lessons in the Jorge Juan Institute were finishing and the girl and the boy Emiliano said each other “be lucky” I hope to see you after the exams having good news at that moment.
Emiliano is alone again, without talking with this girl he likes so much but his head is thinking in Canada, where soon he thinks could be working after less than two years. His future life was ahead in this cold country where he wants to go, out his country, out from the dictatorship he dislike so much, out some other rules in the Spanish society of that time he also dislike.
Cuca is with Jose Luis, not very sure about her future and what is she going to do with the problem she had. She didn´t love this boy but it is difficult to say him go, I don´t like you any more, what to do?. Just wait some time to no hurt him?. In fact she doesn´t think in Emiliano as for her this boy has to be dating another girl as he never has told her loving words or he hadn´t do nothing in the way of dating her. For her Emiliano is a very nice young boy, serious and very good talking and listener, she felt at his side incredible good but what can she do about the subject?, nothing.
She is a serious girl that have already a boyfriend and being dating with him it is in imaginable to date another boy, Emiliano or whichever one who wanted to date her, that´s certain in her mid while she is with Jose Luis. She has felt herself very comfortable talking with the boy, Emiliano, that she is not going to see more as they never has done anything inappropriate. Good for him and for her, their friendship has been clear and absolutely fair, that´s good and gives her a nice feeling to think about it.
to be continued…
Emiliano, if this stuff comes out from your mind, congratulations!
What a memory do you posses? do you remember all that? unbelievable!
Thanks
Thank you Dan, it is so, everything is inside my mind and I coud remember
even the images, the site, the place we were seated in the class room and
of course the time we were living in Madrid, how the society was here
or even some of the conversations we had as I have written, but to me it is the
natural, all my life I could remember lot of subjects if they are of my
interest, and this one is clear as it could happened last year.
Thank you dear, I hope you like the story. emiliano
Dear Emiliano and Tania
Thank you for your kind wishes for Chinese New Year for me and many more people in the world.
Yes, this year is the year of the Horse in the Chinese Lunar Calendar.
With the help of the wikipedia, you will be able to find out more about the Chinese Zodiac.
It says:
“The Sh?ngxiào (Chinese literally means “birth likeness”), also known in English as the Chinese zodiac (“zodiac” derives from the similar concept in Western Astrology and means “circle of animals”), is a scheme and systematic plan of future action, that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to a 12-year cycle. It remains popular in several East Asian countries, such as China, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.”
“www.travelchinaguide.com” also says:
“The Chinese Zodiac, known as Sheng Xiao, is based on a twelve year cycle, each year in that cycle related to an animal sign. These animal signs are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. It is calculated according to Chinese lunar calendar.”
Sorry, no cats in the Chinese Zodiac.
Traditional stories say that the cat was very angry that the rat didn’t wake him up and so he missed the chance of being included in the Chinese Zodiac.
That’s why now cats must catches rats as a revenge.
Jeff must be happy now.
A happy and healthy new year for everyone in the world!
Betty 🙂
Thank you Dear Dan for your kind and encouraging words.
I have been helped by so many people in the past that I was very honoured to be given a chance to help anyone in any circumstances, let alone it is someone so important to me in my life.
I would like to thank our Dear teacher Warren here again for his article “The Tire Iron and the Tamale” posted in this blog on Thursday, March 31st, 2011.
Just one sentence ‘Today you, tomorrow me.’ makes people understand that there is no need to feel guilty to accept help. We all have chances to help people and be helped by people.
Thanks again Dan, you and Emiliano are so supportive and always write here without breaks.
Best Regards
Betty 🙂
Dear Emiliano
Like Dan, I am very surprised that you can remember so much of what happened in the past.
People may remember a lot of what happened, but not everyone can put them in writing like you do.
Please accept my sincere thanks again Emiliano. I have enjoyed reading every word in your story.
It is truly a great gift for us.
Look forward to more sequel to come soon.
Best Regards
Betty 🙂
All this that follows it is added to the story, I could remember something but not the dates or the numbers of people, have in mind I was in the army, secret service, doing my milatry service and have to listen the radio and take notes from the papers, so it was like studying all what was happening in the world.
I haver read in the wikipedia and add some details I have could find in the web, sorry about that, but I think it is important to know the contest of this year in which Cuca and Emiliano find out they like so much.
Thank you Betty, Llilian, Dan, every one of you dear friends of the ESL Blog.
You have gave me the spirit and force necessary to follow the story, to think about it at night, to speak with Cuca about the subjects she could remember also so well, and of course I have to aske her about her life too despite I know nearly everything because she has told me everything before.
So young people, read about this year 1968 and what happened on the sevenths when dictators took the power on some of the nations that
wanted more freedom. It was really a very complicated time.
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IT WAS THE YEAR 1968 ON THE WORLD(first. …)
On October 2, 1968, in Tlatelolco Plaza of the Three Cultures or are nearly 50,000 students gathered . But they did but they ambushed because of all the converging streets, army forces appeared, surrounding the square. A flare is fired … and the killing began.
In that now occupies our attention, 1968, was celebrated the 1968 Mexico Olympics , but was growing international concern: is living the worst days of the Vietnam War , just months before the tragic Prague Spring had happened.
When Soviet tanks rolled into the Czech capital , in Paris, students had risen (the well-known French May 68), racism in South Africa reached its peak, and Mexico was a strong internal instability result of poor economic conditions spanning .
On August 27 of that year, more than 200,000 students marched through downtown Mexico City , and settled in the Zocalo, the central square of Mexico City. The next day, the police suppressed the revolt.
Mexico was the ideal city for its next staging of the Olympic Games and become a good advertising focus to show the disagreement not only with the internal policy of the federal government, but with the global instability. But Mexico and its government was not willing to become a focus of revolts precisely some special days.
The riots followed, and in September the government sent the army to occupy the Campus producing dozens of injuries among students. Now, in this repression, there was talk that there had been dozens of deaths, and that police had burned to hide the evidence to the world. Still, the protests continued at an increasing rate, while participants from all over the world were coming to the capital.
+ + + + + +
1968 PRAGUE
Prague Spring
in 1968 he was elected president of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Alexander Dubcek. This president took action as the proclamation of the freedom of the press and release of non-communist political organizations, revealing their intentions to democratize the regime. The new government line was enthusiastically welcomed by the Czech population. The winds of freedom favored criticism of Soviet control over the country, against the bureaucratic dictatorship and against Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe. What Dubcek was intended to give a new orientation communism, avoiding his radical and dictatorial ends?
It remains something of that year in which social and student movements seemed going to change the world?
Ideals were close to the surface, the movements pacifists were multitudinous, humanity looked like was going to change forever.
And then, what happened?
Pacifists, idealists, to intone where they hid, that positions occupied? Secretaries of state? Secretaries of NATO? Soldiers who mobilized other soldiers?
Did the Vietnam War was the last?
After forty-six years of those years 1968/1969 everything looks the same or worse. The path is bleak, new wars ravaged Europe and the rest of the world.
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Now and forever
Thousands of people were mobilized under the slogan “We’re going to find”; attentive to “actual” violations of human rights organizations.
When he was called concentration Rivera and Jackson, the rain stopped falling on Montevideo. Minutes after, and seventeenth time, thousands of people marched silently through July 18th Avenue to Plaza Libertad, on the date that the killings in Buenos Aires Zelmar Michelini, Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, Rosario Barredo and William remembered Whitelaw.
IT HAS BEEN THE YEAR 1968, AND WHAT FOLLOWED? TO THAT IN THE WORLD? (Second)
It seemed that the Western world was changing for the better this year, 1968, nothing was further from reality. The seventies were responsible with their terrifying facts back to the repressor actually less than ten years was a dream of freedom.
Military dictatorship in Argentina. From 1976 to 1983 Argentina seizes power in one Coup military junta which suppresses almost human rights consistently proceeding to physical elimination of all class opposition or criticism to their heinous acts. It is considered one of the bloodiest dictatorships in history
of Argentina.
Military dictatorship in Chile. Between 1973 and 1981 in Chile took power General Augusto Pinochet, establishing a similar process would be established in Argentina. disappear human rights, freedom of association, any opposition is removed and the begin years of so-called “disappeared” suspected opponents mercilessly out of a company governed and oppressed with the support and consent of other empires that consider themselves democratic.
And in Latin America military dictatorships arise as all the bad condition of :
Bolivia – Hugo Banzer 1971-1978
Uruguay – 1973/1984
Paraguay – Alfredo Stroessner 1954/1989
Peru – Juan Velasco Alvarado 1968/1975
addition to Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba and some Nations who joined more repression and annihilation of opponent.
Dictatorships in Africa continued as if nothing had happened, and the worst was that the former colonies run by European countries became dictatorships occidentals orchestrated by the same countries with economic and military interests in the region.
Asia was death camp systematic whole civilian populations swelled annals of genocide.
Nations in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian left by the death throes of the Vietnam War led to the establishment of dictatorships annihilating its population in nearly ten countries these latitudes. Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot and massacred half million countrymen. Suma y sigue, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia … and stop counting and then the list is endless.
A libertarian movement Europe and America led to suffering and destruction to millions of human beings in later years.
The generation that lived through those years, among whom I count myself, was quite disappointed with any similar movement of a kind or another whether he was not accompanied by a economic stability that guarantees work, health and freedom.
Crisis that began in 1973, called 1973 oil began in August of that year and affected countries of Western Europe and the United States who were punished by OPEC for their support to Israel in their war of Yom Kippur, then extending to virtually the entire planet.
Rising prices coupled with the heavy dependence had the industrialized world oil caused a strong inflationary effect and a reduction in economic activity globally?
Liberation movements of the late sixties frustrated aspirations to one crisis to the seventies, and repression worldwide was the point and followed daily. freedom and economic crisis are not usually accompanied, see the present time, so there would to wait until the late eighties when other levels of political and economic expediency in different stratum of power, the Berlin Wall was torn down, but these events were another History.
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These are the years we lived immediately of being married and have our children, there was also a big crisis of everything and here in Spain the dictator was
dead on 1975, we were afraid thinking about the possibility of a new civil confrontation when Franco died, but fortunately it wasn´t Thanks God.
To give you good vibrations here is one of the songs Cuca and Emiliano love so much when they were dating on the year of 1969
Those were the days…….Mary Hopkin
Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
And dreamed of all the great things we would do
Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la…
Then the busy years went rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If by chance I’d see you in the tavern
We’d smile at one another and we’d say
Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
La la la la…
Just tonight I stood before the tavern
Nothing seemed the way it used to be
In the glass I saw a strange reflection
Was that lonely woman really me
Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
La la la la…
Through the door there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh my friend we’re older but no wiser
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same
Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
La la la la…
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Another one very soon. Thank You. emiliano
My today´s reward has been your message Betty, thank you so much
dear friend.
emiliano
This is another of the songs Cuca and me listened so much on the year 1969.
Even now we dreams in a romantic way when the song sounds and we are
alone, but the singer, Matt Monrow, has to sing the song in Spanish with that
such incredible good voice and his English accent.
In Spanish the song is called “Alguien Cantó” but in English is “The Music Played”
it is high romantic song to dance very close with your boy or your girl, just the
one you are in love, take note guys.
Matt Monro
An angry silence lay where love had been
And in your eyes a look I’d never seen
If I had found the words you might have stayed
But as I turned to speak, the music played
As lovers danced their way around the floor
I sat and watched you walk towards the door
I heard a friend of yours suggest you stayed
And as you took his hand, the music played
Across the darkened room the fatal signs I saw
You’d been something more than friends before
While I was hurting you by clinging to my pride,
He had been waiting and I drove him to your side
I couldn’t say the things I should have said
Refused to let my heart control my head
But I was made to see the price I paid
And as he held you close, the music played
And as I lost your love, the music played.
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But now in Spanish, the way Cuca and emiliano likes the song
and danced with her….
Matt Monrow…/with his incredible English voice and accent singing in Spanish/
Quizás no supe hablar cuando debí
hay algo en tu mirar que nunca vi,
silencio sin piedad en vez de amor,
mas cuando quise hablar alguien cantó.
Juntos bailando van alrededor,
mientras mirando yo frente a los dos,
sentí que alguien habló y era tu voz
cuando te acarició alguien cantó.
Y en la oscuridad de pronto comprendí,
que mi orgullo fue el que te hirió.
Ya ves que sin querer yo mismo te guié
junto a su lado como antes ya pasó.
Tomado de AlbumCancionYLetra.com
Quizá no pude hablar cuando debí,
mi mente controló mi corazón,
el precio que pagué fue verte así,
y cuando te abrazó, alguien cantó.
Cuando perdí tu amor, alguien cantó
By the way you have the song in youtube, in English and in Spanish, by Matt Monrow.
It has to be him, not other, so take it and dance with you lover one.
It is a good advise for the young and not so young Blog followers.
Sorry Dan, you may dance with your Pricess, you loving Cat, as I do now
with Gatufo while Cuca watch us and laugh aloud, the Cat dance with
emiliano quite well.
emiliano