Happy Halloween!

Toledo Cathedral. Toledo was the capital of Spain on more than one occasion, but finally handed power over to Madrid for good in 1561. It's subsequent slowing economy has resulted mercifully in the preservation of a beautiful higgledy piggledy city littered with buildings and monuments of all cultures and eras.

Essay of little or no significance #2: what follows from what?

"What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" is a short essay by Lewis Caroll, published in 1895. It playfully explores one of the most fundamental questions of reasoning: what follows from what? Certainly the philosopher in me is always very interested in what a statement implies.

I recently learnt the phrases “Voy a clase” (“I’m going to class”) and “Me voy de clase” (“I’m leaving class”). The information that those statements provide is quite clear, but there is more to them than meets the eye. The first, for example, tells you not only that I am going to class but also that I am not currently at class; the second tells you not only that I am leaving class but also that I am currently in class. So far so trivial, perhaps, but it reminds me of another much more powerful example.

Suppose Epimenides, a Cretan philosopher, once said "Cretans never tell the truth." Was his statement true or false? It would seem his statement cannot be true, because if Epimenides was telling the truth then that itself would make his statement false. So Epimenides’ statement must be false. But here’s the interesting part (no, really): for his statement to be false there must have existed at least one Cretan (including himself) who once said something true. And if it’s not fascinating that such an innocuous looking statement can guarantee the existence of truth-telling Cretans, I don’t know what is.

Flickr

I've just realised that photos uploaded to the blog and Facebook lose some of their quality. I've now also uploaded all the photos to Flickr and changed the "Blog Photos" link to my Flickr album, where the quality is preserved. You can also now click on any photo to be taken straight to the Flickr version. Currently, even 'Flickr quality' photos are still 'blog size', but I'll look at that shortly in case you want to see the superbig originals.

Flyby during the Fiesta Nacional de España, the national day of Spain. The fiesta commemorates the day that Christopher Columbus (an anglicized version of Cristoforo Colombo, though after being adopted by Spain from Italy he called himself Cristóbal Colón anyway) landed in the Americas.

Columbus celebrations are held for the same purpose across the Americas, though they are not always whole-heartedly supported. Indigenous people in particular are likely to feel a little irritated by the suggestion that their land was "discovered".

In Madrid, the King of Spain and Presidente oversee a military parade that lasts around two hours. Go and see it if you like tanks.

This was the moment...

...that Madrid didn’t win the 2016 Olympic Games. I suspect my counterpart in Brazil got a better shot. [Note: my photo was lost anyway when Picasa was upgraded.]

Congratulations, then, to Rio de Janeiro. Rio’s victory ruined what would have been a great photo for me, but I was also genuinely disappointed because I felt that Madrid was the most deserving city. The disappointment in the crowd with me at Plaza de Oriente was palpable, and I wondered how many had gone through similar heartbreak in 2005. Of course, votes for Madrid needn’t (and shouldn’t) have been out of sympathy for its 2005 defeat. Votes for any candidate city should have been on the basis that the city had the best bid. I’m not sure that sentiment is what led to Rio’s election.

Rio de Janeiro may be developing at an admirable rate, but it remains notorious for inequality, poverty and violence. Journalists commented in the run up to the announcement that only a minority will feel the benefit of the Olympic carnival. One community leader stated that the Olympics are not what Rio should be spending its money on, given the state of its schools and hospitals. But then someone could be found in any candidate city to express such cynicism, while arguably the Olympics could be the perfect remedy to some of Rio’s social problems. Why, then, didn’t the media or the IOC tout this? Rio’s problems were barely discussed, and Friday’s coverage of the decision focussed on how a South American country deserved a first Olympics (or worse, that Europe didn’t deserve another).

But a vote for a city because it is not in Europe or because it has never hosted the Olympics is not necessarily a vote for the city with the best bid.