On 1 December, as the season called Advent (Coming) covering the four weeks leading up to Christmas was about to commence in the Christian liturgical calendar, Leonardo Boff’s weekly column was entitled “Are we approaching the end of the human species?” Basically, it reproduces a text published in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. For years […]
In October 2022 the Organic Law guaranteeing sexual freedom, more widely known as the “Only yes means yes” law, came into force in Spain. It stipulates that any sexual act without consent is now regarded as a crime of sexual assault, and the concept of mere “abuse” has been eliminated. The law covers any kind […]
For the first time in the history of the Earth, written in fire, water and life, we Homo sapiens, a very recent species, have crossed the line of 8 billion inhabitants. I do not regard this as a glorious milestone, but rather as a worrying warning sign. We have nothing to celebrate, but much to […]
I read in EL PAÍS: “Men are going to have trouble being fertile in barely a decade, if they continue at this rate: the number of spermatozoa per ejaculation has not stopped falling for almost a century. Their concentration has also fallen to less than half of what it was 50 years ago, approaching the […]
Harmony comes from the Greek word harmodso, to join. There is harmony wherever there is equilibrium, proportion, conjunction of different elements, as it occurs in a proportionate building, well combined with itself and the environment. Or in music, a harmonic made of different but coordinated sounds. Dawn, greeted by a concert of blackbirds, thrushes, robins, […]
Still and quiet on the bare branch, a blackbird is watching the snow-covered landscape of Aizarna. Everything radiates quietness and harmony. Everything breathes in peace. But when I look at the first news item, the front page, or the first thought, the current and enormous uncertainties of the planet, the threats of this pandemia and […]
I am impressed by the advances in technology and the sciences that make it possible. It is an incredible collective success of sapiens, our species, to make life more comfortable and with less suffering. I would certainly not want to go back to the living conditions of just 200 years ago: no vaccines, antibiotics, anesthesia, […]
Over dinner a few days ago Malen treated us to the reading of one of those remarks that she loves so much: “Aliens exist. The proof is that they don’t show up.” We laughed and then I pointed out: “Of course there are aliens and the best thing for them would be not to show […]
