earthfamilyalpha: December 2025

As the New Year headed our way, my little family made its way to Europe, specifically, the Iberian Peninsula. Over the years, we have spent the New Year all over the place. We have done the big cities, NYC, Mexico City, San Francisco, LA/Las Vegas, Austin, Buenos Aires, Paris, London, and now Madrid. And we have done the smallest hole in the walls from "Bernies" in Port Aransas, Texas to Real de Catorce, Mexico. In Catorce, we used to celebrate the New Year with 50 or 60 international friends from all over the Globe.

After dinner in El Real, we would go to the top of the Hotel and experience the greatest, most dangerous fireworks extravanganza at close range. The six inch firework mortars would suck the air from around you as everyone on that roof realized that this unregulated display was not only top notch, it was also a 7 or 8 on the Peligroso scale. The finale was a Gyro-Gearloose contraption made of bamboo by an aging Matehualan craftsman down in the valley. It would light up and spin and slowly but surely ignite all of its arms and appendages, spraying rivers of sparks in every direction, and then all of a sudden, the very top crown would ignite, start spinning at high speed, and then lift off into the heavens to the screams of delight from the equally lit crowd.

We would find it smoldering on someones concrete roof in due time.

But before we made it to Madrid, we spent 4 days in Lisbon. The last time I was in Lisbon, it seemed a little sleepy but well maintained. Perhaps the most picturesque city in Western Europe, it has grown to become a destination for tourists of all stripes. The restaurants are many, the Hotels are modernized, and with the shops and views from the hills of Barrio Alto and the history of the Castle of St George and Alfama on the opposing hill to the north, the historic old town is nicely knitted into the larger metro area.

Just south of Alfama is the back road up to the Castle. On the way up is a great Brunch place called Dear Breakfast. Up the hill a little further is the Cathedral of Lisbon and across the street is the Museum of Resistance and Freedom.

It was there that we were reminded of the recent history of Portugal during its fascist period beginning before World War II.

Portugal's history of repression, particularly under the

Estado Novo (New State) dictatorship (1933-1974) led by António de Oliveira Salazar, was characterized by strict censorship, pervasive secret police (PIDE/DGS) surveillance, torture, imprisonment of dissidents (like at Aljube prison), suppression of free speech, and control over media and political life to maintain colonial power and traditional values.

This authoritarian rule, a continuation of earlier military dictatorships, ended with the bloodless Carnation Revolution in 1974, which ushered in democracy.

The Museum WAS Aljube prison. And many of the inhuman cells were still intact. The place gave me the eeby-jeebies. The fact that it was just a few yards from the Cathedral of Lisbon was not just a brutal juxtaposition,

It is a metaphor of the unholy alliance of church and state.

The Portuguese people have a long history of courage and exploration. They were the first to navigate the seas beyond the safety of visual reference. Thus we have Brazil.

Portuguese maritime explorations resulted in numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese on journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European exploration, chronicling and mapping the coasts of Africa and Asia, then known as the East Indies, Canada and Brazil (the West Indies), in what became known as the Age of Discovery.

And their technology was advanced:

Portuguese nautical science evolved from the successive expeditions and experience of the Portuguese pilots. It led to a fairly rapid evolution, creating an elite of astronomers, navigators, mathematicians and cartographers. Among them stood Pedro Nunes with studies on how to determine latitude by the stars, and João de Castro, who made important observations of magnetic declination over the entire route around Africa.

Today Portugal and Lisbon specifically is a model of urban design and commitment to that 500 year history of exploration.

But like the US, Western Europe is facing the large movements of peoples as climate change and a new age of political repression collide. The Trump administration has claimed that around 140,000 people had been deported as of April 2025, and recent figures are closer to 600,000.

And, the number of people in immigration detention in the US has hit an all-time high according to data published by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The data, which comes out every two weeks, shows that as of December 2025, ICE held more than 68,400 people.

And as in the US, the flow of peoples across nation states is also moving those who are seeing their streets and towns change in complexion rightward.

And that explains Drumph.

I'm reading Bruno Latour's book, Down to Earth on climate and politics. In it, he says, "By pulling out of the Paris Accord, Drumph explicitly triggered, if not a world war, at least a war over what constitutes the theatre of operations.

We Americans don't belong to the same Earth as you.

Yours may be threatened; ours won't be"

We made our way to Madrid for our New Year's Eve celebration in a place called Ginger.

We all wore our funny hats and masks, and blew our little horns.

For a New Year.