Friday, March 12th "The day after"

Everyone knows by now the events in Madrid with hundreds killed and at least a thousand are injured. I will not try to go into this too much, I feel part of it yet also separated from the events. I live in Sevilla and I am an American. I can understand somewhat after the events on September 11th, yet I also don't understand all of the complexities of ETA, terrorism and regionalism in Spain. I have Spanish friends and family and I understand how they feel, and I feel the same way in many respects, but do not understand it all like they do. It is simply a very sad and unfortunate event and has made the last two days kind of a blur. People are ok but there is less life in the streets - not because of fear of an attack in Sevilla - rather they are going about their business, a bit more quietly than usual and a bit disoriented and connected from the every day things. Everyone looks to Madrid with sadness and anger. Yesterday in front of the Ayuntamiento in Sevilla there were demonstrations, first with the local politicians and then just about anyone wandered up and joined the group. Some speculate connections with Al Qaeda (the methods and devices don't seem to be that of ETA).   The crowds have had no mercy in their chants and anger directed towards ETA - it is not a separatist group as most all of the news agencies call it in the U.S. - it is a terrorist group. They are not terrorists from the separatist group ETA, they are members of the terrorist group ETA. There are more demonstrations planned for today with probably hundreds of thousands of people in Sevilla alone will come out to show their support for Madrid. The television stations have turned into 24 hour coverage of the events and it is simply a sad, sad day. We'll know soon enough who is responsible...

On another topic and a correction in my last update - for the NCAA tournament access online - it has been switched to CBSsportsline.com after being offered last year through Yahoo!. Access is $9.95 for up to 37 games, but unfortuantely they have blacked out games in your local area . This may mean if you have a U.S. billing address with a local zip code close to the team you root for, they will black out those games thinking you get a local broadcast, even if you live in another country. The way around it woudl be to use a card with a different billing address. I'm trying to verify this. Anyhow, here is the link to sign-up.