Letters to the Director: Surrounded by books | Opinion

In the small office of my parents’ house my university brothers studied. The walls were lined with shelves filled with books of all kinds. In the morning I helped my mother with the chores around the house. With suede in hand I would go into the office and pretend to clean. I was looking for novel titles that might interest me. One particularly caught my attention, which my father used to comment on with my mother: Little things. My father said that at my age I would not understand. I asked him for advice on what books I could read. With a solemn attitude, I was looking for books on saints and he advised me on biographies of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Saint Genaro. Books and more books of saints. I picked up one of those books thoughtfully. I just started the book that I fell asleep. I mentioned it to a friend who was fond of reading and he said that I would like to Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Caligula. With a flashlight I read those books at night in my bed, without my father knowing. I went from the books of saints to the forbidden books. Thanks to those novels and others I found pleasure in reading.

Pilar Valero Chapel. Zaragoza

Young people: without work or training

Young Spaniards aged 16-25 have the highest rates of school dropout and unemployment in the European Union. The problem is not of today, it has been creeping year after year, as employment and training policies are not developed for young people who want to work and cannot find a job. Point out or marginalize them for finding themselves in this situation of lack of work and without studying, is a serious mistake and what must be done is to help them find their place.

Victorio Martínez Armero. Móstoles (Madrid)

For more open streets

As every year, this Wednesday, September 22, World Car Free Day is celebrated. For one day, they want to make citizens aware of the use of more ecological and healthy alternative means of transport. Pontevedra, a milestone in 21st century urban planning, is the mirror in which many Spanish and foreign cities look at themselves, aspiring to achieve a more humane urban model, with priority for pedestrians and bicycles. More life on foot and pedal. Logroño, with its Mayor Hermoso de Mendoza at the helm, also tries to emulate the example of the capital of Lleida. But there is never a lack of those who put sticks in the wheels of sustainable mobility. This confrontational dynamic is usually a constant in the recovery processes of urban centers for the pedestrian, but it is no less so than the pedestrianization and the bike lanes of the present become irreversible the next day, even for those who promoted the opposite.

Gonzalo by Miguel Renedo. Logroño

Elections in Russia

A few days ago, Vladimir Putin began the legislative elections of the Duma, in Russia, with a speech that ended by suggesting that citizens make their choice. And thus began once again the staging of a democracy that has never become one, while the Russian people struggles to break through the ballast and farce that their government represents. A scenario that we definitely don’t pay enough attention to. Generations lost to the abandonment of the rest of the world.

Iker Vancourt. Moraleja (Cáceres)

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