Gandhi, Larsson and nuclear waste

Today is the 70th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's death and around here they celebrate the "Student's day of non-violence and peace" and the 20th anniversary of the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child. In Germany they remember Hitler's rise to power in 1933...
Finally, I got to read Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy (I am still at vol. 3). It is quite good, though it has its faults: the main characters are too good to be true and the heroine has got illimitated financial means. And the histories are not for those with weak nerves. But it is one of the few series that kept me awake reading until 2:30 a.m.
As to nuclear waste, a village about 50km away from here that already has two nuclear reactors (Ascó) wants to host a nuclear waste storage center for all of Spain. Not a very appealing perspective, having trucks and trains loaded with nuclear waste coming to the region. The central government will have to decide in five month or so where to build this storage place - and there are seven other villages that want to have it, because there comes a lot of money attached to the project...

My Sant Jordi 2009

At 10:30 a.m. the Ramblas in Barcelona were already full of people. Normally, it is still rather quiet at this hour as most of the shops don't open before 10 or 11 a.m. One could buy roses from a wide variety of sellers: kids trying to make money for their graduation journey, others selling roses for some charity, others trying to earn some extra euro with their small unemployment allowance, ... I would call it a sign of the current economic crisis that one could buy soft-cover books and not only expensive hard-cover editions (though in Spain you find few really "hard" covers). Apart from the rose and book sellers there were stalls by political parties, the Red Cross, Intermon Oxfam, etc. There were a lot of beggars trying to sell paper handkerchiefs by the single packet - and probably a lot of pickpockets.
The bestsellers of this year's Sant Jordi were the first two volumes of Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy - the Spanish and Catalan editions' third volume will be published in June. I found it a comforting thought that a lot of people bought books written by "serious" authors - and not those published by football players, former fashion models, TV presenters, actors, chefs, etc. that steal a lot of attention that better went to real literature.
This year's Sant Jordi also saw the official beginning of "bookcrossing" in Catalonia. A BMW dealership sponsored a few hundred copies, the Miró museum placed books on art at various locations in Barcelona, etc. Hopefully, this will lead the Catalans to become not just leading entrepreneurs in the Spanish and Catalan language publishing world (that they already are) but also serious readers.