"HORSES"

Since I was a little girl, I have been in love with horses. The first picture you see (to the left) when me when I was just 10 years old.

All of this started 6 years ago on my birthday. I was in the town Ezcaray where my mom’s family lives. Instead of spending the day at home, my parents brought me to ride horse, but it was a surprised. 

I could not believe it; I was so excited! Ever since then, I have not stopped riding horses.

I remember my first class, it was amazing, I learned the basic things but I really enjoy it. Then I learned more and more every day. . We all share the same passion: horseback riding.  

My teacher Ricardo, who is like a second father to me, taught me everything I know. He did not just teach me how to ride a horse; he also taught me how to prepare, care, and teach others about horses. I really enjoy teaching others how to ride.

I do a lot of things with the horses. I ride without a saddle, as well as stand on, jump with, and dress a horse.

I do not just ride horses. In Ezcaray, I have a lot of friends, and I meet with them on weekends when I go to the town. It is fun to mix with people from ages ranging from 14 years old to 26 years old.

My best friend is Ivan, and I met him through riding horses. We ride horses together often. Ricardo trusts us and lets us go with his horses out in the mountains; I have so much fun! We can be riding horse 2-3 hours without stop. I cannot explain how I feel when I ride horse.

In the summer, all kinds of people come from all over Spain to Ezcaray. On the weekends, sometimes we stay the night together and go with the horses to the mountains where we play games. We also barbecue and have several people join us. I remember one day there were over 40 people!

In the summer, my friends and I almost spend the all day in there. My parents always complain about I am never at home. But it is summer, so I summer it is an obligation spend the whole day with your friends and have fun.

 

"I do not know what I would be without riding horse. That is part of my personality, that defines who I am."

 

"TORTURES"

This article explains how the U.S government gave 80 million dollars to two military psychologies for research of new tortures.

This happened in 2002, two men, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, became the masterminds of the CIA’s torture program. The program was supposed to invent new methods of tortures. Like that they could use it to interrogate suspicious terrorists. But instead of inventing new methods, they were using techniques from Wikipedia and from an old handbook of Joseph Stalin. Do they need 80 million dollars for that? No, I do not think so.

But, the question is: “Is it human torture persons?”

In my opinion is, NO. I do not think persons have to be tortured, as I said before, that is inhuman. It is a right that all the people should have. As the “Article 5” of the Human Right says:

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

 I also know that if they are terrorists or murders they should do everything to discover it. But for instance, in this program, they tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times, and with a technique that was used in 14^th century.

This other article shows how CIA has been treating to the terrorist prisoners. 

For example, Ridha Najjar, a suspected former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, he was often left in the shadows, under a barrage of shrieking music, cold, shackled and hooded, his dark figure handcuffed to an overhead bar for 22 hours a day.

I’m really surprised, I did not know that they still doing that kind things. I think that they should have the minimum thing to live, 3 meals, enough hours to sleep, a good place… etc. But as I can see, some of the prisoners do not have good conditions to live.  

So my conclusion is every human being should have the right to live at least good and without being torture.

"BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE"

This last week in U.S. History class, we watched Bowling for Columbine documentary directed and produced by Michael Moore. This documentary wants to discover the reasons for the shooting in Columbine High School, Colorado and talks about other types of violence with guns.

On April 20, 1999, the day when Adolf Hitler was born, two teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot students in their school, Columbine High School. At 11:19 A.M., they started shooting in the cafeteria killing 2 students before moving into the library killing 10 students and 1 teacher. It became the worst shooting in U.S. history. What were the shooters’ reasons? Where does gun control stand with the U.S. citizens? Why are there so many deaths by guns in United States? How does social media affect U.S. citizens?

Moore speaks about social media that U.S transmits. The U.S. government blamed Marilyn Manson for his music and the aggressive violence in his video clips. Both teenagers who shot and killed the other students in Columbine listened to Marilyn Manson, so the government thinks that Marilyn Manson is not a good influence on the citizens of the United States. Also, they blamed Bill Clinton who launched bombing attacks on several countries around that time.

Moore’s documentary starts with him going to a bank. If you made a deposit of a certain quantity into a deposit account, the bank would give a gun to their customers.  He also speaks about the fear that the citizens have. People have feared that somebody can kill them, so that is why they own guns.

The 2^nd amendment of the United States allows its citizens to keep and bear arms to defend themselves. But is the law the reason so many people die because of guns? In my opinion, the 2^ndamendment is one of the main reasons for so many deaths by guns. Why? First, I am going to compare Spain, where I lived, and United States, as the documentary does with Canada. In Spain, generally we do not have as much violence as the United States. The law in the Europe Union states:“Gun owners must be licensed and undergo strict medical and psychological tests; no one is permitted to own more than six hunting rifles and one handgun; firearms must be registered and inspected annually; and machine guns and submachine guns are banned, as are imitation pistols”.

I also think the beliefs of Spain and the United States are really different. In Spain, it is almost impossible to have a gun, and you do not think about owning a gun.   

In conclusion, the United States government should not allow citizens to keep and bear guns without a license. This could reduce the deaths by guns; however, this would be quite difficult since almost everybody has guns here in the United States.

"TAKING CHANCE"

WHEN ONE FALLS, ANOTHER BRINGS HIM HOME

Lately in U.S History class we watched “Taking Chance” movie. This movie toughed my heart in many ways. “Taking Chance” is based on a true story.

When you see the title, and see that is about military, the first thing you think is that it must be an action movie. It is not like that at all.

But then when you read the subtitle When somebody falls, another brings him home; you realize that the movie is it going to be about the honor and the respect of a military.And that is exactly what it is about; the plot of the movie is that one volunteer military, Lt. Michael Strobl, accompanies the body of a 19 years old man, Marine Chance Phelps, to his hometown. Chance Phelps was killed in Iraq, while he was trying to save his friends. 

 The movie shows the parts of the protocol the military have to follow, when somebody dies. I learned a lot of thing from this movie.

It shows the all process that they have to follow. I did not know until know, and now I realize that they do it with all the respect, and honor that they deserve. They deserve all the honor and respect, because they gave the freedom, peace and liberty we have.

The respect that the people show along the trip to Chance hometown, it is emotional too. It shows us, how thankful the people are of their soldiers. One time in the movie, when Strobl was waiting for Marine Chance Phelps body, after the plane arrived to Minneapolis airport, the passengers were passing and the saw the Chance body; they stopped and stood up, showing respect to the fallen body and to all the military.

(The picture below you can see the passengers standing up showing respect to Chance Phelps).

It is amazing how the people even if they do not know the person feel the loss of the military soldiers. And they always demonstrate respect for them.

The courage the soldiers have is enormous. They go to the war, to fight, and to protect us. This movie shows us, the Marine Chance Phelps story, that it is one of thousands stories. A lot of soldiers go without knowing if they will come back or not. I can’t imagine how many families many people they are serving right now, there are thousands people, any type of person, women or men and young or old. They are in the Army to serve.

The lesson of this movie is to value the huge effort that the soldiers make, and to value the little things of the life, and the whole life in general. 

This movie made me think about a lot of things of the life. How easy and fast can go. We complain about silly things in our life, and we do not give attention to important things.

There is a phrase that Lt. Michael Strobl said that got my attention:

"I didn't know Chance Phelps before he died, but today, I miss him." 

It makes me think how the human being it is. We feel the loss of somebody even if we do not know it. How wonderful and painful is that.

I think this movie should be watched it everybody (not little kids, because they would not understand, not in that age). The reason that I think they should watch it, is because everybody should know the effort, and how brave the soldiers are. How they give up all their families and they go to serve.

"STOLEN BABIES"

Now day, in Spain, there is none that does not know about the stolen babies. There are appearing a lot of cases about stolen babies. All of this started with a nun, Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena, she was charged by the illegally market of babies. But this happened 30-50 years ago.

Many couples who wanted to adopt came to Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena derived from the Spanish Agency for the Protection of Adoption, founded in 1969 by the prosecutor of the Supreme Gregorio Guijarro, who is an adoptive father of twins. In 1980, when there was talk of an illegal market for babies, Pebble declared in El Pais (famous newspaper of Spain): "Today, the fastest way to get a child for adoption system is gaining the sympathy of the people directly related to the theme: social workers , nuns ... within adopters, a good file is in the hands of Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena ".

"MY DAD CONFESSED TO ME THAT HE BOUGHT ME"

This story is about, two men, Juan Luis Morenom, and Antonio Barroso, have led parallel lives. Children of married friends, grew up together and they were also really close friends, but three years ago they discovered something that would change their life forever.

The paternal confession: "I bought you for 150,000 pesetas*1." And two lives crumble. The revelation was made by the father of Juan Luis. "I guess you already know you're not my son, but now I confirm it. We went to buy you to Zaragoza, for 150.00 pesetas, and Antonio's parent did the same," he said, lying in a hospital bed, days before his death. He continued his story: The year was 1969, the parents of Antonio an elderly couple unable to have children, contacted some people who told them that the Health Residence José Antonio de Miguel Zaragoza -now Servet- could get one baby. They had no relationship with the city, but there collected a child that took Barcelona with a birth certificate identifying him as their own.

"This happened in April and two months later, following his advice, my father traveled to Zaragoza to meet with a priest who worked with the peperwork. He told me,that the prist had given to choose between a boy or a girl and had assured him that in a few months he would have a baby. A change they had to pay 150,000 pesetas for the costs of delivery and documentation. The prist never told them who would be the mother or why she gave up for adoption"said Juan Luis. So his father returned to Barcelona, waited for the call and on the date indicated -in Figure birth 26 November 1969 picked up the baby.

This is one of thousands stories that now day you can find in the Spanish media.
*1 It is a old type of money of Spain, they changed to Euros € in 2002.

The story of Juan Luis and Antonio:
http://www.elmundo.es/especiales/2010/09/espana/ninos_robados/juanluis_antonio.html
News of the stolen babies:
http://elpais.com/tag/ninos_robados/a/